Adding Aerial Perspective

What is aerial perspective? 

If you have ever seen Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, you might notice the impressive sense of drama and authenticity. He noticed the peculiar nature of human eye, how, in a way  it “sees” air mass. Objects which are closer seem brighter and warmer, and those which are are far away appear colder and duller, due to the intervening air mass between them and the eye.

Aerial perspective is related to this tone variation which is based on distance relative to the viewer, the gradual change of the tones, so it could actually be called a tonal perspective.

‘Colors become weaker — Leonardo Da Vinci wrote — in the proportion to their distance  from the person who is looking at them.’

This technique of aerial perspective creates the pure effect of depth and gives a picture a wonderfully moody atmosphere. It may seem like something which is useful mainly as a trick for an illustrator to convey depth through colours, but this might actually also be one of the best ways to achieve the haze effect on your photos (or you can achieve a reverse using dehaze tool). In a nutshell, you can make your photograph look like a Da Vinci painting.

When done right, the results are amazing.You can give each photo a unique feel instantly, as easy as 1-2-3!

Choosing the photo 

Okay, I know it’s really obvious, but please don’t laugh... the first and foremost thing is to….(drum roll) choose your photo!

— which one do you want to give a bit of beauty splash & unicorn magic?

Perfecting your photos

This next step lets you do a preliminary adjust of all your colors, blacks and whites, highlights and shadows, at once. Take the photo you’ve selected and go to Lightroom. Then, export the photo to Photolemur ligtroom plugin and let it do its thing.

After a bit of photo editing magic...

Now, when the photo has been successfully preceded, you can keep on editing in Lightroom.

Warming up the close-up area

To create a mild sense of the aerial perspective, you should choose the graduated filter.

Since the objects in the foreground need to have a warmer look, we need to   add some yellow colour,   move the slider in  the Temp  up to 70 —  and then move the slider in the Tint up to 66.

Blueing the background

To convey depth of space in the picture, add a bluish tinge to the objects in the background of the scene and those which appear in the farther distance.

See? The transformation is proceeding like magic. You’re almost Da Vinci!

The finishing touch: play a bit with the Exposure slider. Also, the photo takes a better look if to decrease Clarity and Sharpness.

Et... voilà!

Your photo has undergone an incredible journey of artistic enhancement. Congratulations on your new masterpiece!