Blue skies aren’t at all times excellent news for panorama photographers – however I’ve bought this basic fast repair

When we’re not getting a lot sunshine right now of 12 months, it might appear ridiculous to say blue skies on sunny days are an issue for panorama pictures. Sometimes, nonetheless, these scenes with clear blue skies can look a bit bland and wish a lift.

I’d used a polarizing filter for these pictures of Red Rock Canyon close to Las Vegas, so the skies grew to become this unbelievable deep blue. While I’m pleased with vibrant outcomes, and the Red Rock mountains have a richer high quality in shot, these kinds of coloration landscapes are additionally good for a black-and-white conversion. 

Skies grow to be darkish black and imposing, and the contrasting mountain textures bounce out of the picture. Now, with all coloration eliminated, the attention is drawn to essentially the most attention-grabbing elements, and the shapes and sharp areas of a scene. For occasion, on this Red Rock Canyon shot, the attention is not distracted by the inexperienced shrubbery within the desert or the flashes of coloration from the vehicles on the street.

With a couple of clicks when modifying your images, you may create black-and-white pictures with a way more timeless really feel. Ansel Adams, eat your coronary heart out!

When creating black-and-white photos, I always shoot in RAW and full colour. That way you have the color image if you want it, and can make a high-quality mono image from it on your computer.

It’s always best to make your black-and-white conversions in your RAW editing software to retain detail and avoid nasty pixelation – otherwise you can rapidly lose image quality if you make a strong black-and-white conversion of your color JPG in the Photoshop workspace.

A classic amateur error is to use the High Contrast Red Filter in the Black and White adjustment box in Photoshop – unnaturally dark skies can quickly become blocky and patchy!

I use Adobe Camera RAW and once I’ve made general edits to exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows (and added a gradient to the sky to darken it), I find that the mono preset profiles are a great place to get inspiration and work from.

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