Outdoor Photography How To

Here's a common scenario that many of us have faced on occasion: You travel to a distant location that you'll likely never visit again and get totally skunked by the weather despite the numerous opportunities that abound. We not talking about rain or storms, but rather boring blue skies every single day.

Fortunately, there's a straightforward post processing trick that will enable Lightroom users of all skill levels to transform these ho-hum images into attention-grabbing winners with the WOW factor. And that's what instructor Nickolas Warner explains how to do in the next 10 minutes.

Warner is a globe-trotting pro who specializes in landscape and travel photography. He's also a respected educator whose YouTube channel is designed to help others up their game in the field and behind the computer by gaining insight into how he shoots and processes his images in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Today's example is a well-composed image captured at Sapat Beach in faraway Pakistan on one of those days that everyone loves—except for photographers, i.e. there's nary a cloud in sight. He jumps into Lightroom's Develop module by pressing the keyboard shortcut "D." He next walks you through several preliminary adjustments that will help retrieve a bit of dynamic range.

Warner chooses the Adobe Neutral profile that he says is a good choice for images shot against the sun. Then he increases overall exposure, opens the shadows and blacks, and takes down those highlights. He also modifies contrast and brings up vibrance to recapture some of the color that was muted due to the Neutral profile in use.

At this point his base image is ready to go as soon as he eliminates a few distracting dust spots. Now it's time for the meat of the tutorial—namely dealing with the bland sky—and Warner devotes the remainder of the video to demonstrating the simple step-by-step process. Compare his before/after images and you'll be very impressed.

When the video concludes head over to Warner's popular YouTube channel where there are many more interesting photo adventures and how-to videos to be found.

We also encourage you to watch the tutorial we featured with an accomplished Australian pro who reveals five essential post-processing tips that he says every landscape photographer should learn immediately.