One question to ask yourself before composing landscape photography is: what is the subject? Having a clear answer to that will help you create great photos. But there are situations where no matter how you position the camera, certain elements in the frame will distract from the main subject. In this article, I share editing techniques you can use to alleviate that problem.
Before we dive into those, I would like to emphasize three points that I made in the previous section. articles about retouch. Don’t default to fixing problems in photos through editing. First, put the work in the field and try to avoid such edits. If that’s not possible, make sure you do everything you can to make those edits easier, and while doing this, know your post-processing capabilities.
While visiting Kapas Biru waterfall in Indonesia, I spent a lot of time looking for the best angle to capture this magnificent waterfall. The topic was clear. But I don’t just want to show the waterfall. I also wanted to include the surroundings, which makes Kaps Biru so special.
After an hour in the area, I found a beautiful stretch of stream leading to a waterfall. I positioned myself in the center of it and took the photo above. The idea is for the river to draw the viewer towards the large waterfall in the background. But as soon as it’s out of the camera, it doesn’t work. Let me show you the picture I started with and show the problem I had to solve.
While in position, I couldn’t find a perspective where the rock in the foreground below the main waterfall didn’t look massive. Even on the small camera screen, it drew too much attention, and then when I viewed the file on my laptop, it distracted me even more.
Selective image conversion
When you apply selective image transitions, try to preserve the integrity of the subject and its surroundings. Don’t let those manipulations become a distraction and try to keep it realistic.
With Kapas Biru’s photo, I had to apply more serious transformations than I usually do. The foreground rock has too much weight in the composition. So instead of working with the commonly used vertical tool, I used the Liquify filter. It’s great to reduce the size of an object anywhere in the frame. A prerequisite for Liquify to work is that the element you transform does not contain lines or has a definite shape. This will allow the manipulation to go.
However, randomly shaped rocks work very well. In Photoshop, create a flat copy of your current edit or convert it to a “Smart Object”, the latter of which will allow you to apply the filter non-destructively. Then go to “Filters – Liquify”, which will open a new panel. Ignore the settings on the right side. The tool of choice for resizing elements in a landscape image is the “Distort Tool” on the left. Among them, you will find the “Pucker”, “Bloat” and “Push” tools to be the most useful for landscape photos. You can combine them with the “Freeze Mask” tool, which allows you to retain certain areas.
To reduce the size of an object, start with the “Pucker” tool and set its size close to the size of the element you want to transform. Then click your target a few times to shrink it while moving the bush around. You can then switch to the “Bloat” or “Push” tool and expand the element’s surroundings. But beware: such distortions will affect detail and sharpness. Always check the results at 100% to make sure no errors were introduced.
Dodge and burn
I feel like dodging and burning appear in every other article I write for Fstoppers, but rightly so, because it’s an invaluable technique. You can use it to darken areas of an image that contain distracting elements and brighten areas that you want to capture the viewer’s attention.
Create an empty layer on top of the layer stack and set its blend mode to “Soft Light”. Then use a soft, black brush to paint over the areas you want to darken and a soft, white brush to lighten important elements. In the Kapas Biru shot, I darkened the rock to bring its timbre closer to the smaller rocks next to it. This way it doesn’t stand out anymore. I intentionally brightened the waterfall to draw the viewer’s eye through the rocks.
When you work with dodge and burn to create a visual flow in the image, it helps to darken areas farther from the subject and brighten areas closer to the subject. Try to create a gradient from dark to light. However, it is not always possible to make the main subject the brightest element in the image, as it will look odd for some scenes. But you can still change the relationship between dark and light elements to direct the viewer’s gaze.
micro contrast
The third tool I want to share with you affects micro contrast. The eye doesn’t just focus on the brighter areas of the image. It is also drawn in a contrasting direction. Thus, selectively increasing and decreasing the micro contrast helps guide the viewer in a manner similar to dodging and burning.
There are different ways to change the micro contrast. I like to use the Camera Raw Filter. With the Texture and Clarity sliders, I was able to emphasize and tone down details by adding and reducing micro-contrast. In Kapas Biru’s photo, I added both texture and transparency to the cliffs around the falls using a mask.
When working with micro contrast, those are not drastic changes. Do not push the slider too far left or right. You will only achieve an unnatural look that way. Know that only small changes are needed to capture the viewer’s attention.
Inference
In this article, I’ve shown you three tools that you can use to reduce distractions in your images without having to eliminate them altogether. For minor distractions, using a copy tool might be the best solution. But once the distracting elements are too large, removing them is not a viable solution, not only from a technical perspective but also because you will compromise the integrity of the scene. While the techniques above also warp reality to some extent, I find they still allow us to retain results close enough to reality to still be considered photography.
Finally, I would like to point out that the techniques in this article work very well with the techniques I shared in the article about How to add mood to your landscape photos. If you haven’t read this, check it out.
