Lightroom Presets

Lightroom Presets – Fall Foliage

Well, it’s that time of year where the trees start changing color. When I grew up, my dad was absolutely meticulous about our backyard, so the fall season only reminds me of many days of raking leaves after school 🙂

As an adult though, I can enjoy the season much more (since I live in Florida and don’t have to worry about leaves anymore). Last week I co-taught a landscape photography workshop in the Northeast. We had the chance to photograph places in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and saw some absolutely beautiful scenery and gorgeous fall color. I realized, as I was going through my photos, that I was making some of the same tweaks to many of “fall color” photos so I made a preset for it. Here’s a quick example of the kind of photo I found it works best on.

Before (click for larger image)

After (click for larger image)

For me, it tends to work great on photos without much sky but lots of trees and color. Also, I found it worked best on photos that were taken on semi-overcast or cloudy days. Believe it or not, overcast or cloudy skies are one of the best times to photograph fall foliage. Sunrise and sunset are great times as well if you have nice soft light. For me personally, I always find that overcast skies help make those colors and details in fall foliage stand out. And that’s where this preset really came in handy. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

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25 comments

  1. business daily 24 October, 2011 at 01:59 Reply

    Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these color casts thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions.. Custom white balance allows you to take a picture of a known gray reference under the same lighting and then set that as the white balance for future photos.

  2. Kristin 19 October, 2011 at 13:28 Reply

    Well, I have to love you for making this preset because I live in NH and take a lot of foliage shots, so these were tailor-made for me! I can’t wait to try — thanks! (Bummer you came this year, though — one of the worst for color due to a hurricane and constant other storms. I hope you get to visit again another year.) 🙂

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