Photo Tips For Capturing The Colors Of Fall

As the warm evenings of summer fade into cozy nights in, watermelons are traded for pumpkins and the infamous Pumpkin Spice Latte is back on every street corner in America…. it’s pretty clear: fall is upon us!

Summer to fall is one of the most gorgeous seasonal transitions, which makes it the perfect opportunity to dust off your camera and capture the vivid colors of this cozy season. Here are some tips to create jaw-dropping photos this fall:

Color Contrast

You can really have fun playing around with the vibrant reds, yellows and oranges of fall by emphasizing the color contrast in the Photo Editor. Shoot some colorful leaves against a neutral background, then hop into the editor and have some fun…

First, we're going to bring down the saturation of the entire photo, and up the contrast level to add depth. 

Then we'll re-paint in the saturation, but only on the leaves!

Voila!

Another example of using color contrast is this shot of bright orange pumpkins against a blue and grey porch:

Get Up Close and Personal

You don't need to shoot landscapes to create gorgeous fall photos. It's often the most seemingly simple of objects that produce the most stunning effects. 

In this close-up photo of a red leaf in green grass, I’m going to also bring in the technique we used above. I’ve gone into “Color” and reduced the Saturation levels, then gone in to Paint the color back in. 

I then went into "Effects" and chose the Lomo Art effect to bring a fun look into this photo.

Capture Movement

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about fall? If you didn’t say “jumping like an ecstatic child in a pile of leaves” then your task right now is to go outside and do that!!!

All out of breath? Great, time for photos! When you’re capturing the movement of falling leaves, don’t worry about sharpness in the photo. The blur of movement is what gives this photo its dreamy, artsy appeal.

Going into the Photo Editor and boosting the saturation and adding an oh-so-subtle Impressionist filter brought this photo from “okay” to “vibrant!”

Create Dimension

You can use the Photo Editor to create extra dimension and artistic effects in your fall photos. In this photo of autumn leaves, we’ll first use the “Beautify” tool to bring out the natural highlights, then boost the saturation so the color is really vibrant.

Then, we’ll go into “Effects” and choose “HDR.” I’m going to bring it up to about 75, and then go into “Adjust” and Paint the effect on over the leaves in the foreground. This filter gives them a really unique and sharp, high-def effect!

Then we’ll just go in and add some blur to the background to really emphasize the 3-D effect, and use the Paint tool to reduce the saturation of the background just a tab. And there we go! An autumn tree that’s absolutely popping off the page.

Focus on One Color

While color contrast can be a really effective tool for emphasis, it can be just as stunning to go with a mono (single) color scheme in your photo.

Here, we’ve chosen this gorgeous leaf-strewn woodland pathway, all in tones of red and brown.

After subtly enhancing the saturation, we’re going to gently soften this photo to give a cozy, romantic glow.

I’ve just adjusted these slightly so the effect won’t be tremendous, but just enough to achieve that vibrant look that really highlights the red tones.

So now that you're armed with some tips on how to bring the fall colors to life, get out there and jump in some leaves take some pics!! How will you bring pizazz to your fall photos?

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