Embrace moodiness in your shots
Add drama to your landscape shots with gritty Photoshop techniques that celebrate darkness
One of the great things about photography is that it can make the monotonous, the mundane and even the miserable look amazing, and the weather is certainly no exception. While on a personal level we all love bright sunny days that are perfect for a day on the beach or in the park, for photography an ominous sky is preferable to clear and cloudless blue. Not only can you shoot throughout the day when it’s overcast, but you can also have a lot of fun with editing styles.
When you apply moody editing techniques, you’ll always get the best results when they’re added to a shot that’s already moody. You can get great results adding them to any images, of course, but since they accentuate existing moodiness, this is where they come into their own. So, here are four ways to turn the mood in your landscapes up to 11!
1 Create a diffuse glow
This simple technique is a great way to add drama. Select the Background Layer by clicking on it, then press Ctrl+J (Cmd+J in macOS). Next, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 30 Pixels before clicking OK. You now need to desaturate the layer, so hold down Ctrl/ Cmd+Shift+U; once this layer is black and white, change the Blending Mode from Normal to Soft Light to add transparency.
2 Mimic dusk
If you’re out shooting at dusk, you won’t need this technique, but otherwise it’s an effective method for mimicking the onset of blue hour. Click the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Levels. Close the dialog box and set the Blending Mode to Multiply before reducing Opacity to 65%. Now create a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer and select Deep Blue with Density at 25%.
3 Desaturation effect
Reducing saturation, darkening the image and boosting contrast is a sure-fire way to make scenes look even moodier, and this is exactly what we’re going to do here. Create a Black & White Adjustment Layer and change the Preset from Default to Darker. Close the dialog box and set the Blending Mode to Multiply. Press Ctrl/ Cmd+J to duplicate the Black & White layer and set the Blending Mode of this copy to Screen.
4 High-contrast darken
Paradoxically, contrast can enhance mood when it’s both increased and a decreased – but we’re going with a huge increase here. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer, then set the black point to 25, the white point to 230 and the mid-point to 0.85. This will increase contrast massively. A side effect is that saturation will increase too: to combat this and maintain natural colour, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Luminosity.