The Simple Lightroom Steps That Make a Subject Pop

Lightroom can make a flat landscape feel like it has a clear subject, but only if you control where the light goes. This video shows how simple masks can push attention without turning the edit into a fake-looking mess.

Coming to you from Christian Möhrle, this practical video walks through a full edit built around masking instead of brute-force global sliders. He starts by getting the file under control with basic tonal moves, then stops short of “finishing” the brightness there. You’ll see exposure and highlights pulled down to recover the sky, then shadows and blacks lifted carefully to keep the darkest areas from collapsing. He also nudges white balance warmer to reduce a cold blue cast while still keeping the scene’s winter mood. The point is restraint early, then precision later, which keeps you from chasing your tail when you start masking.

The masking section is where the workflow gets interesting, and it’s also where most people introduce ugly edges without noticing. Möhrle uses linear gradients to darken the top and sides of the frame, but he doesn’t let those gradients wash over the subject. Instead, he subtracts using Lightroom’s landscape masks, leaning on categories like architecture, mountains, and snow to keep the church clean while the sky shifts. He keeps checking the overlay and isn’t shy about fixing misses with a soft brush, including a small but telling correction around the cross on top of the building. If you’ve ever had a mask “outline” something the moment you add contrast or dehaze, this is the part that will feel uncomfortably familiar.

After the edges get darker, the video moves into shaping direction, not just darkness. Radial gradients get angled so they act like subtle leading lines, and he places their centers outside the frame to avoid the obvious “spotlight” look. He also shows the opposite move: adding light behind the subject with a long, thin radial shape, then lifting exposure and whites while watching for clipping. There’s a nice tradeoff here that’s easy to miss if you rush it: brightening the sky for separation can turn harsh fast, so he softens the bright spot by lowering contrast instead of backing off the exposure. Later, he gives the church more bite with local contrast and clarity, then pulls saturation down to keep the scene close to black and white without making it lifeless.

You also get a glimpse of a glow trick that can look cheesy unless it’s done with control. He builds it with another radial gradient and pushes blacks upward, then uses negative dehaze to bloom the light in a tight area between structural elements. It’s quick, but it raises a useful question you can test on your own files: how far can you push negative dehaze before the glow turns into fog. From there, the edit keeps evolving with targeted work on the mountains, including contrast and exposure changes that immediately spike blue saturation, followed by a deliberate pullback. The later steps move into color work and finishing, including cleaning up unwanted purple tones and dialing in a colder, more cyan-leaning palette, plus sharpening choices that avoid crunching smooth areas. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”