Post Processing Blues in my Yosemite Photographs

Removing a Blue Cast

Half Dome from Olmsted Point

When I was in Yosemite in early September, 2016 for my first visit, the skies were almost completely clear of clouds the entire time - the few clouds that were in the sky were small and almost singular. That meant my photographs had a lot of blue in them if I included the sky, but it also resulted in the granite reflecting a lot of blue.

I processed and posted a few of my shots to share them with others. After I saw them again a couple of days later, especially in the smaller thumbnails, it bothered me how blue the mountains like Half Dome looked. The entire images had blue casts to them and that wasn't how I remembered them looking when I was there.

I can't say for sure that they didn't appear to have blue cast in person, but I don't remember it. I think that as a human my brain probably understood that the granite wasn't actually blue.

I went back into Adobe Lightroom to alter the images. I just did a selection of the peaks or domes using a brush in Lightroom and changed the Temperature (White Balance) of the selected area to a warmer setting in order to make the domes look more like I imagine that I remember them. Note that the granite in the foreground does not appear blue and I did not touch it up.

Adding Blue to the Sky in Post Processing

This image of Half Dome still has some blue in the darker areas but the lighter areas are warmed up. The strange thing is that the sky isn't terribly blue either. I brought out the blue in the top of the image using a graduated filter in Lightroom in this shot. The original is more white, like the lower half of the sky.

I didn't use a graduated neutral density filter when I shot this and I'm not sure how well it would have worked. The problem with this shot is that I'd like the sky to be darkened but Half Dome sticks up into the sky where you want the darkening. Half Dome would get darkened as well. Perhaps that could be overcome in Lightroom but then I'd just be doing a different set of adjustments.

Dehaze added more Blue Cast

Half Dome from Big Oak Flat Road

The images where there was some distance to the peaks often had a "haze" in them which should be a perfect time to use the Lightroom Dehaze control. I also noticed that increasing the Dehaze also increased the blue cast as shown in the shot to the left.

Again, I went back to adjust the color cast using a brush and changing the temperature of the selection. In this shot I did more temperature adjustment of Half Dome than of the other middle hill on the right. It was closer and didn't turn as blue.

I didn't adjust the sky as much in this shot; it was blue from the top down.

Kudos

Processing these photographs has been more of a challenge than I expected. I have tried rendering some of them in black and white but I haven't been much happier with the way they look in black and white, mainly, I think, because of the boring sky. What I have gained is an appreciation for the amazing captures of the Yosemite scenery by others. The scenery is very beautiful and impressive but to get an image that stands out you really need the sky to match the landscape with interesting clouds and you need to try different things with the capture to control light. I want to go try again!