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This Transcript Is Auto Generated.Hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and today we are going to look at how
you can give your images that dark moody
look in Lightroom let’s do it
[Music]
alright so starting with our raw image
right here we’re going to walk through
how you can get that dark moody image
how do we do it well first we’re gonna
start by making our basic adjustments to
the image as we would with any other
edit so we’re gonna start by just
adjusting our white balance a little bit
here a little bit of contrast everything
looks pretty good that’s a good starting
point now we’re gonna go down to where
the magic happens and that’s the tone
curve HSL calibration so starting with
the tone curve we’re going to go over to
our RGB and just do a basic s-curve this
is kind of a standard for almost every
image just a little bit of extra punch
now to get that dark moody faded kind of
a look we’re going to actually take our
shadows right here our blacks rather and
we’re gonna raise them up so you see how
that’s basically clipping any blacks
that fall below a certain darkness are
being turned to dark gray rather than
black so the more we do that the more
exaggerated and ridiculous it looks but
just by doing that a little bit we get a
nice subtle kind of faded look so here’s
the difference we’re already on our way
now I’m gonna flip over and I’m going to
go to the green Channel I’m gonna do
something kind of interesting here and
make another s-curve
emphasize the greens a little in the mid
take them out up here because I am
noticing that the sky might give us some
issues and then I’m going to fade up the
greens just a little bit in the shadows
as well so we’ve gone from there to
there that might be a little much for
you if you want so if you prefer you can
take that down just a little that’s fine
okay so moving on to our HSL this is
where the real magic happens with the
greens and the yellows in our image and
we can really creatively affect the
tones starting in our hue we’re going to
go to our yellows and our greens yellows
we’re going to take and we’re just gonna
warm them up damn just like that
our greens we’re gonna do something
similar
just not as aggressive and then
generally in Lightroom when I find it
mode justing the hue or the saturation
anything like that I like to be subtle
by if I effect the yellows for instance
I’m going to affect the oranges a little
bit too and the Greens regardless so we
have this kind of nice little curve
happening and it’s not just one color
all by itself I’m going to do the same
thing or something similar in the
saturation I’m going to hop on over and
take the yellow saturation down and then
I’m going to do the same thing with our
greens just like that so we’ve gone from
here to here big difference feeling a
lot more Moody already hey okay so let’s
move on over for now I think I’m happy
with that we could go into our split
toning and add a little bit of extra
mood if we wanted I don’t think that’s
necessary for this image we’re just
going to move on down to the camera
calibration these are the big changes
we’re making first and then we can kind
of finesse things from there so starting
with our shadows I’m actually going to
take these down towards green a little
bit and that’s just going to give us
more mood a little bit more of that kind
of cold feel
not much maybe one or two and then we’re
going to go to our Reds just sort of
play around
take those up a little bit
Green’s will leave alone and the blue is
one thing that highly affects the image
so you can see we pretty much make it
into this very orange and teal look just
by dragging that blue super simple
effective technique if you ever want to
look go for that look or the opposite we
can drag it towards green and that just
looks really nasty I’m gonna settle for
something kind of towards this side
however not all the way kind of around
there and then we’re going to take our
saturation in that area down adding that
mood that vibe that hipster dream so
okay so we’ll take that saturation down
and here’s the difference
and so these changes aren’t huge any one
at a time but when you add them up it
really goes from creating an image that
was a little bit blah a little bit gross
maybe and here’s our finished product
but easy and very very cool so that’s
how you can easily and quickly add mood
to your images in Lightroom if you want
you can just go up to your presets here
hit the little plus button and save it
as a new preset so we’ll call it Moody
forest and then we’ve got it for our
future images so this breeze that might
not work on everything however it will
work pretty well as a starting point to
get you there when save you some time in
the process hey I hope this tutorial was
helpful for you if it was please hit
that like button don’t forget to
subscribe for more great stuff and to
download this Dark Moody Lightroom preset for free check out
the link in the description below
alright take care
[Music]
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Applying a basic S Curve for contrast and then raising the blacks / lowering the whites will give your photo that faded, moody look. You can go as strong or subtle as you like. For this tutorial, we’re going for a dark and moody edit with a subtler fade. Make sure to check out this easy tone curve tutorial.

Adjust your color tone curves. Once you’ve adjusted the overall RGB curve of your image, you can further stylize and add that dark moody feel to your photos by adjusting the individual color tones. If you’re in the forest and want your photos to look dark and moody, adding greens to the shadows can be a great trick. But don’t stop there – Explore how raising and lowering different colors in the shadows, mids and highlights affects the mood and feel of your images. If you’re going for Dark Moody photo edits like Taylor Cut Films, greens are a great starting point. But blues can also be fantastic for a more cool moody feel, like instagrammer Dylan Furst. Check out @dylanfursty to see how he works almost entirely with a blue and orange color palette.

Next we head over to the HSL panel – Possibly the most underused tool in Lightroom for getting dark moody look to your photos! We started by warming up the yellows and greens in the image to give them a more organic feel. Play around with your image to see what works best.

What makes a photo look dark and moody? A lot of it is the color tones, and the saturation levels. Desaturation gives a more moody vibe to your image – Where adding saturation adds color, life and energy, taking saturation away gives photos more of a moody, raw feel to them.

Think of camera calibration like a more powerful HSL panel. Instead of adjusting the whole color range, you adjust only the primary colors and how lightroom interprets them. The biggest difference is often in the blues – Shifting the hue towards aqua and dropping the saturation adds some fantastic orange coloring to your photo and further enhances the dark and moody look!

And thats all there is to it! You now know how to make your photos more moody and dark. So if you’re wondering “how do I make my photos dark and moody?” – This is it. Go ahead and save your dark and moody image as a new preset.

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