Winter is probably my overall favorite month for photography, but it certainly comes with a unique set of challenges during post-processing and while on location. It becomes difficult to see minor changes that you’re making to an edit after you’ve been staring at it for a while, especially winter photos. I recommend this with any image, but taking a break from your edit and allowing your eyes to reset is certainly time well spent.

This should be the easiest step in the process, but it’s often the most difficult to accomplish. There are many different ways to get creative with colors within Lightroom, but I find that adding a subtle green or blue tone to the shadows using split toning produces a great look. When I think of a creative edit I immediately think of colors. I prefer this approach as it will typically result in a smoother less contrasty look, again creating a softer feeling image. Next time you edit a winter image try removing global contrast using the contrast slider, then add contrast back in using the tone curve. I like the softening effect this creates in the photo – sometimes I’ll even dial in a bit of negative Clarity to exaggerate the ethereal look. With a snowy scene I’ll pull up the white point as far as I can before clipping the highlights, but rather than bringing the black point down I’ll bring that up as well. I often try to fill out the histogram by setting an absolute white and black point, but I approach winter photos in a slightly different manner. I do this to determine how far I can push the image from an exposure perspective and then I back it off until I find an exposure level that looks good. I’ll usually hold down the Option key(Mac) and drag the exposure slider to the right until I see pixels beginning to bleed through. Many of my winter photos usually require a bit of positive exposure in Lightroom since most camera’s metering systems like to underexpose snow.

Editing car photos in lightroom