Polarizing filters are awesome for cutting down glare and making colors pop, but what happens if you didn’t have one on hand during a shoot? Can you recreate the polarizer effect in Lightroom? Well, while it’s true that certain effects—like reducing reflections—are tough to mimic in post, Lightroom gives you the tools to get pretty close. Let’s walk through how you can edit your photos to recreate that vibrant, dramatic polarizer look right in Lightroom.
What Can You Recreate?
A polarizing filter helps reduce glare from shiny surfaces like water or glass. That’s something you can’t fully recreate in post-processing. If you’re shooting through a window or in bright conditions, it’s still best to use the actual filter on the spot.
But when it comes to boosting colors—especially making skies look deeper and richer—you’re in luck. Lightroom has plenty of features to give your photos that punchy, vibrant look similar to what a polarizer does. So, if you missed the filter in the field, don’t worry, you can still work some magic in Lightroom.
Step-by-Step Editing Process
Photographer Christian Möhrle shares a great tutorial on how to mimic the polarizer effect in Lightroom. Here’s a breakdown of the key steps, so you can try it out on your own shots.
Basic Adjustments to Get Started
Before diving into the polarizer effect, start with some basic tweaks to get your photo looking sharp:
- Profile: Switch the profile from “Adobe Color” to “Adobe Standard” to get more control over the colors in your image.
- White Balance: Increase the warmth of the image by sliding the temperature up a bit. This gives the photo a nice, inviting glow.
- Exposure: Adjust the exposure just enough to brighten the image without overdoing it.
- Whites: Boost the whites significantly to give the image more punch and push the histogram to the right.
- Highlights: Pull down the highlights to bring out more details in bright areas, especially the clouds—this helps create that polarized look.
- Texture: Add a little texture to sharpen up the finer details in your image.
- Dehaze: Dial down the dehaze slightly to enhance clarity without making the photo look too harsh.
- Vibrance: Finally, increase the vibrance to make the colors pop without oversaturating them.
Creating the Polarizer Effect
Now that you’ve got the basics covered, it’s time to mimic the polarizer effect. This is where we darken the skies and make the colors really stand out.
- Masking: In Lightroom, use color range masks to target specific areas of the blue sky. This will help isolate the areas you want to darken.
- Exposure and Blacks: Decrease the exposure and blacks in the selected areas to give the sky that deep, rich tone you’d get with a polarizing filter.
- Stacking Masks: Layer multiple color range masks to create a smooth, natural gradient across the sky.
- Linear Gradient: Apply a linear gradient to the sky to enhance contrast and definition, making the clouds pop even more.
Color Grading for Extra Impact
For that final touch, you’ll want to do some color grading to make the scene even more dynamic:
- Color Mixer: Boost the saturation for oranges, yellows, and greens to enhance the foliage or other elements in your shot.
- Luminance: Lower the blue luminance to further darken the sky, and increase the luminance of yellows and greens to brighten the landscape.
- Calibration: Make final tweaks to the green hue and blue saturation for the perfect color balance.
Sharpening the Image
To finish things off, head to the Details tab for some sharpening:
- Detail and Radius: Increase the detail while reducing the radius to sharpen the fine lines and edges in your image.
- Masking: Apply a mask to focus the sharpening on your main subject, leaving the background smooth.
While this tutorial focuses on Lightroom, Christian wraps up his editing process in Photoshop, where he removes any distracting elements in the scene. Depending on your photo, you may not need to do this, but it’s a good tip if you want a clean, polished look.
Practice Makes Perfect
If you want to give this process a try, Christian provides a raw file in his video that you can download and practice with. Start there, and once you’re comfortable, apply the steps to your own images and see how close you can get to that polarizer effect—without the filter!
Of course, if you’re shooting in conditions where glare and reflections are a problem, it’s still best to use an actual polarizing filter. But for boosting colors and contrast in post, Lightroom can be a fantastic tool.