5 tips for bright summer colours

dcworld | Photography Tutorials | 10/07/2009 14:27pm

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Follow these tips for high impact summertime shots

There are some key ingredients to take high impact shots on bright summer days. Our guide to summer photography will take you through all aspects of shooting outside in bright light by using RAW format and saturating colours for a bit of contrast. Read on to find out how you can come up with some outstanding pics.

The white stuff

Colours are saturated and really punchy when next to an expanse of white. Seek out some white surfaces and team them up with subjects that feature primary colours.

Reduce the amount of colours in the shot to create the most impact.

Polarise

To increase contrast and to make skies really blue, fit a polarising filter to your lens. Experiment and you’ll see a huge leap in the colour reproduction in your shots.

A polariser is also great for shooting water and will give you much punchier lakes and seas.

Shoot RAW

Although noon summer sun is as neutral a colour temperature as you‘re likely to get, shoot RAW so you can tweak the white balance and you‘ll be certain of maximum saturation.

If you can‘t shoot RAW then take a custom white balance reading for JPEG images.

Check the ‘gram

Clear skies lead to scenes with wide dynamic ranges, so meter very carefully and check your histogram. Spot meter if you have to and consider bracketing shots. Blend images afterwards.

Saturate

Adjust the Levels on all your shots using your image-editing software. Curves also add impact. Try saturating a single colour to create contrast in the shot.

However, be careful of chroma noise appearing by cranking up the saturation levels a bit too high.

Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm under Photography Tutorials.