Taking Perfect Sunrise and Sunset Photos
They must be two of the most photographed things. Sunrise and Sunset. Probably more so sunset because let’s face it, who wants to get up so early in the morning before the sun rises? And I’m sure that on more than one occasion you have pointed your camera or phone at a sunset and taken a pretty good photo that loads of your friends on Facebook have liked. But my aim here is to help you stop taking GOOD sunset and sunrise photos and start taking GREAT ones.
We are going to to this by using ENHANCEMENTS. I’m not going to tell you how to hold the camera or where to point it. That much is obvious, point it at the sunset!
In a lot of cases an average photo can be enhanced to turn it into a spectacular photo. A lot of people go overboard with effects and enhancements. This ends up in cheesy results. Usually when I am tweaking with enhancements I get to a point where I am completely happy with the photo. At that point I like to take 10 or 20% off the effects. This usually eliminates the cheese factor.
So how do I enhance my photos? Two ways. One is Photoshop. I plug in my digital SLR camera to my computer and transfer the photos. I then use my 15 years experience using Photoshop to enhance the photos. But these days, I rarely use this method. It’s fiddley and time consuming. What I have been doing more recently is taking photos on my phone and using an app called SNAPSPEED to enhance photos.
While out traveling or camping, it’s so easy to quickly grab my phone and snap away. I have an iPhone 5, which is a couple of years old now and still takes fantastic quality photos. Plus they are already conveniently located right there on my phone ready to email, share on Facebook etc straight away within seconds of taking the photo.
So let me tell you a little more about Snapseed. It’s one of dozens of good photo editing and enhancing apps that are available to install on your phone, iPad or tablet. It’s the one I find easiest to use and gives me the best results.
Here is the before shot of a sunset photo I took recently on a camping trip somewhere in Australia. The photo is pretty good, but we can make it better. It was taken on my phone and all I did was point and click.
BEFORE PHOTO
After you open Snapseed, you will see heaps of different options for effects you can apply to your photo. Have a play around with them, but I reckon one of the only effects worth using is the Tune Image option (icon pictured above).
AMBIANCE
Using your finger to swipe vertically, you will find the selection of effects you can use within the tune image section. First, you are going to choose ambiance, then swipe sideways to increase it. This will make the colours pop. You can see I have increased the ambiance by 35, which is quite a lot.
WARMTH
After we we have finished with ambiance, we can move down to warmth. The warmth quite literally makes the photo look warmer. It enhances all of the warm colours that make sunrises and sunsets beautiful.
CROP
Next we are going to crop the image to the perfect size (icon pictured below). In this case I want to take out some of the ground at the bottom of the photo. Use your fingers to reshape the box to show which section of the photo you want to keep.
After that we are finished.
FINISHED PHOTO
Do yourself a favour and go get Snapseed on your phone or iPad. It’s not only perfect for enhancing your sunrise and sunset photos, but all photos. And while traveling, camping or enjoying the outdoors it is just so convenient to grab your phone and start snapping rather than searching for your camera.
BEFORE & AFTER
