Sunset edits in Luminar Neo

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Ah, sunset - that lovely time of day when soft light and warm colors come together to create a little magic in the air. I just love photographing sunset, don’t you? 📸

However, I think you have to be careful with the colors, because if you “over-edit”, the intensity can overwhelm the rest of the scene. Here’s a couple of ideas:

  • First, do all the light adjustments you want to do (I always start with Develop Raw and then use Supercontrast second).

  • Do minimal color adjustments in Develop Raw (that is, be careful with Temperature, Tint, Saturation and Vibrance).

  • Although it is tempting to jump straight to the Golden Hour tool inside of Landscape (in the Essentials section), I recommend using it later/last. It can really bump up those warm tones and overwhelm the edit.

  • Try Toning. I generally leave the Hue pretty far to the left and just move up the Saturation slider until I like the look. This is just in the Highlights section. I rarely do much in the Shadows section.

  • Try Color Harmony. Brilliance/Warmth as well as Split Color Warmth are excellent, but my favorite is Color Balance. Again, in that tool I stay mostly in the Highlights section, where I experiment with the Cyan-Red (towards Red) and Magenta-Green (towards Magenta) sliders. Sometimes I will also go into the Shadows and test out the Yellow-Blue (towards Blue).

  • Don’t use too many color tools. Sunset shots often just need a little bump, so if you use several tools to enhance color, it can get out of control quickly.

Here’s an example photo. I started with Develop Raw and then Supercontrast. Then, I used only Color Harmony to get the colors looking how I wanted them to look (I used Brilliance/Warmth, Split Color Warmth, and Color Balance too - all in just slight amounts). It’s beautiful and colorful, without being overwhelming (at least to my eyes). If I added Golden Hour to the image, it would be oversaturated.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

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