Archives For Camera Raw

The Devil

Photoshop Blending Modes: Lighten

Varina Patel —  December 13, 2012

This is a composite shot I took several years ago in Death Valley National Park. I took the first shot with a wide angle lens. Then, I switched to a long lens and photographed the full moon as it rose over the horizon. With a film camera, it could have been done as a double exposure – but with digital, I had to combine the two images in Photoshop.

Here’s how I did it.

Have you ever photographed a landscape with a beautiful full moon? The result is usually pretty disappointing. You might get something like this…

If you choose your exposure for the foreground, the moon will be an over exposed spot in the sky. If you expose properly for the moon, the foreground will be way to dark. Why not combine the two? I took the shot above with a wide angle lens set at 24mm (30 seconds at f/13). Then, I changed lenses and took a second shot with a 75-300mm lens at 300mm (1/160 of a second at f/8).

When I returned home, I opened both files in Adobe Camera RAW and adjusted the white balance and contrast. Then, I used the spot removal tool to remove the bright spot of the moon in the original wide-angle image. You could use the clone tool, the healing brush, or content aware to accomplish the same thing. Whatever makes you happy.

Next, I opened both photographs in Photoshop. I selected the moon from the long lens photo using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Then, I copied and pasted it…

…onto the wide-angle lens file. Here, you can see that the moon appears in the layers palette on top of the original “background” layer.

Next, I used the Transform tool to adjust the size of the moon and to place it where I wanted it in the sky.

I chose to reduce the size of the moon by about a third. It’s really big – but this is art, and I get to do whatever I want! :) Besides, on that particular night, the moon appeared to be much larger and more golden than usual. It’s an optical illusion that you just can’t capture on film… here in the Midwest, we call it a “Harvest Moon.” I chose to move the moon slightly to the right for a more pleasing composition as well. I should mention that I’m using a Wacom Intuos graphics tablet to make all these changes and adjustments. The stylus is much easier to use than a standard mouse, and it means I can work more quickly and much more efficiently.

Then, all I had to do was to get rid of that black square around the moon. I could have used the color selection tool to select the black area and then mask it out – but that’s too much trouble. Instead, I just chose Lighten from the Blending Mode options in the Layers palette.

And voila! The black square was gone and the moon was happily settled in the sky, right where I wanted it. The Lighten blending mode option is pretty cool. It compares each pixel on the selected layer to the corresponding pixel on the layer below. The brighter of the two pixels will be visible, and the darker one will be hidden. In this case, the pixels in the moon are brighter than the blue layer below, so they are visible in the finished image… but the black pixels on the top layer were darker than those on the blue layer, so the blue sky shows through. Pretty cool!

And that’s it! Now, I just flatten and save my finished photo!

To learn more about photography and and processing check out our eBooks and Webinars:

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Transient Light, Glacier National Park, MT

How much time do you spend in Photoshop?

Jay Patel —  November 12, 2012

For us, the answer is different for every photograph. Some photos require just a moment or two in Photoshop, while others requires more than 30 minutes. On average, I spend between 5 and 15 minutes per image in Photoshop. Here is a typical Photoshop workflow for me.

This is an image from Glacier National Park in Montana. It’s one of my early photographs produced using a GND filter and my old Canon D30 (Canon’s first 3mp DSLR). I always do what I can to get it right in-camera, but the dynamic range of the scene was too great for my camera to handle.

This image showcases two types of light. On the right side of the image, you can see predawn magenta light. This is the subtle reflected light that touches the mountains before the sun comes over the horizon. The light falling on the clouds in the upper left is direct light from the sun, which is very low on the horizon. This light is far more intense than the soft, predawn light on the right side. So even with my GND filter, the top left of the image was over exposed.

To process this image, I started with the Basic tab in Adobe Camera RAW (as shown above – click for a larger view). I chose white balance and exposure settings that produced the most accurate colors for the predawn light. (2 minutes)  As expected, the area that was lit by direct sunlight (the area marked in red) was too bright. I felt that most of the image was correctly processed with just a few simple adjustments to white balance, exposure, and contrast. In almost all my images, I use a colors saturation of 10% or less.

The next step was to open the image in Photoshop and to restore the highlights, bring out the shadow details, and make few minor targeted adjustments. To restores the highlight, I processed this RAW image again, and manually blended the two versions using our iHDR workflow. (6 minutes)  Then, I used layers and masks in Photoshop to make targeted adjustments. I used a Wacom Intuos tablet for drawing selections for masks – the stylus lets me be incredibly precise so I can create perfect masks really quickly. (5 minutes) My total time spend in Photoshop (including Adobe Camera RAW) for this particular image was about 13 minutes.

How much time do you spend in Photoshop? Feel free to share your workflow.

To learn more about photography check our webinars and eBooks below:

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NFRCC-Logo-200h

Varina and Jay at the NFRCC Annual Fall Seminar

Varina Patel —  October 18, 2012

This year, Jay and I will be teaching the NFRCC Fall Seminar in Hamburg, NY. We hope to see many of you there! We will be teaching all day, so the $45 fee is an incredible value. And lunch is included! Awesome! :) We hope many of you will come out and join us!

Date: Saturday, November 10, 2012

Price: $45.00 US/CDN (Lunch Included)

Here’s what we’ll be teaching…

Morning Sessions

Composition & Mood: While the basic rules of composition are easy to understand, it is much more difficult to learn how to create impact with your imagery. How can composition and color impact the mood of the viewer?

Perception: The gestalt theories of perception provide insight into the way our brains process what we see. How can a basic understanding of how our brains work help us share our own vision with our viewers?

Hyperfocal Distance: Understanding hyperfocal distance allows us to ensure that every element in a wide-angle photo is in focus – from the pebbles just in front of the lens to the distant mountains. We’ll simplify this confusing concept and discuss the reasons for using it, the problems with calculating it, and the benefits of getting it right.

Afternoon Sessions

Histograms: Histograms are an incredibly useful tool – but most photographers aren’t using them to their full potential. We’ll talk about how we use histograms in-camera and in post processing?

From the Field to the Finished Product (This section will be broken into two parts.)

On Location: We will start by discussing the research we do before we travel and some of the decisions we make in the field. We will show some of our unprocessed images, and discuss the basic thought process that went into building them in the field. We will use the same images to continue into the next section…
Post-Processing: The sheer number of processing tools and software products available today can be overwhelming. We will show an overview of our workflow from start to finish. This section will focus on the tools we use ourselves – including Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera RAW, and Adobe Photoshop. We will discuss the various stages we work through as we organize our workflow, process an image, and prepare it for print or web. (We will not go into detail about the specific processing techniques we use. Instead, this section is meant to help students learn to organize their work and develop a workflow.)

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Prelude to the Light, Glacier National Park, WY

Is it “Photoshopped”?

Jay Patel —  September 3, 2012

Sometimes when people look at our photographs, they ask if the colors are manipulated. Have people told you your photos look “fake”, “too HDRish”, or that you used too much “photoshop magic”? One of our personal favorites is the assertion that “Photoshop ruined photography.”

Believe me, we’ve heard it all. So, what’s our answer to all this? When someone asks if we photoshop our photos, we simply say “Yes”. The fact is, we use Photoshop for every single image we take because we shoot only in RAW. We need to choose the proper settings in Adobe’s RAW converter.

But how much manipulation are we really using? Each image is different, but here’s a typical photograph – and the settings we used in Adobe Camera RAW. (Click on the image to see it at a larger size.)

The most important setting is color balance. The wrong color balance will make the whole image look weird. Jay chose a setting that showed the colors as he remembered them. He also bumped up the color saturation by about 4%. (Varina often leaves this setting at zero.) Straight-out-of-the-camera images shot with Velvia film will have far more saturated colors.

In many cases, we’ll use manual blending to bring out details in over or under exposed areas. And we may use targeted adjustments – similar to the way Varina used to use burning and dodging in the darkroom. We use Photoshop to help us bring out details in areas that the camera can not handle properly because the range of light in the image.

So, what’s the secret to getting those brilliant colors? Look for conditions that produce intense colors (like sunrise and sunset), get your settings right in-camera, and follow up with subtle processing. You can find more about capturing brilliant colors in these eBooks.

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New Price: iHDR Webinar Series

Varina Patel —  September 29, 2011

Today, we want to announce a brand new, lower price for our iHDR Webinar Recordings! It’s still the same series – we haven’t changed the content at all. You’ll still get the sample images, videos, and notes that come with each session. You’ll still get the original detailed explanations, carefully though-out presentations, and clear examples. You’ll still get about 2 hours of recorded class time for each session – more than eight hours in all! The only difference is the price. In the past, the recordings were available for $39 per sessions. Now, we’re offering them for just $25 per session – so, if you buy all four sessions, you save $56!

Intelligent High Dynamic Range (iHDR) is a technique Jay and I have been working on for years. It’s a series of basic steps for blending images in Photoshop. We use layers, and carefully refined masks to produce results that closely represent the reality of the original scene.

Why “Intelligent” HDR? Because this technique is about doing it yourself. There’s no special HDR software making decisions for you. The problem with most HDR software is that it doesn’t give you as much control as you need to produce finished images that feel natural. HDR software generally applies blending indiscriminately across the entire image – even in areas that really don’t need to be blended. The resulting image lacks contrast and feels very flat and unnatural. Our iHDR process gives the control back to the photographer… and lets you make decisions about your image every step of the way.

For more information on individual sessions – or to purchase recorded webinar sessions click below:

Purchase RECORDINGS
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Nature Photography and iHDR Workflow Recordings

RAW Image Processing: Basic Tab

Jay Patel —  August 24, 2011

Sol Duc, Olympic National Park, Washington (WA), USA

Jay took this photo in Olympic National Park on an overcast day. The light in the forest was so soft and beautiful, and the fresh greens seemed almost golden in the scattered light.

When Jay opened this file in Adobe Camera RAW, it didn’t look like this. We’ve created a short video to show how he processed this image. It’s easier than you might expect!

Our goal is usually to create an image that feels natural to the viewer. Keep in mind that this is just one way to do it – you may choose a different process or a different program. There’s no single “right” way.

To learn more about RAW processing check out our Session 2 our Nature Photography and iHDR Workflow Recording: Histogram and RAW Processing

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Seasons

Are your Colors Manipulated?

Jay Patel —  June 13, 2011

We have heard it a thousand times… “Those colors must be Photoshopped.” Just recently, we received yet another similar comment on one of our posts – the color looks “over-cooked” in Photoshop. I’m willing to bet that most of you have heard the same thing. We’re used to the question, so it doesn’t bother us much – but it’s a worthwhile point for discussion.

Now, before we get into this – we don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking artistic liberties with your colors. This is art, and the artist makes the rules. But – it seems that sometimes people fail to realize that nature itself can “over-cook” the colors… in a good way, of course. The key is to realize that brilliant colors occur under certain condition. When you learn to take advantage of those conditions, you won’t need help from Photoshop. Let nature do it for you!

Take a look at the two photos below:

Click to Enlarge

The colors are quite different, right? So, what’s going on here? Both these photos are from the same location. Jay used a circular polarizer for both images – and processed them with the same RAW parameters. He even used the same version of Adobe Camera RAW. You can take a look at the settings he used below…

So, if all the parameters are equal – why do the two images look so different? In this case, it comes down to two major factors – seasons and light conditions.

The photo on the left was taken in mid-summer. On that day, the skies were bright blue. Strong directional light from the upper right overexposed the greens on the left – and the shady right side ended up underexposed. The dry weather also meant that the moss had died out for the season, so the rocks are brown. Deep green, summer foliage surrounds the waterfall.

The photo on the right was taken in Spring. Jay took the shot in between rain showers, when everything was wet. Overcast skies meant filtered, non-directional light – so the whole scene is bathed in very soft light… and the diffused light makes everything seem to glow just slightly. At this time of year, the waterfall is at it’s peak – and the moss and spring foliage has a fresh golden color. A bit of morning mist adds a moody effect.

In this case – and for most of our images – vibrant colors come from nature itself.

If you are interested in learning more about capturing vibrant colors, check out our eBook – “A Field Guide for Capturing Vibrant Colors“.

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Webinar Recordings: Nature Photography & iHDR Workflow

Jay Patel —  April 11, 2011

iHDRrecordingsFormat: Streaming Recorded Session using Cisco’s Webex Format, Available for at least 30 days after purchase

Price: $25 Per Session

Fundamentals & Equipment:
Add to Cart
Histogram & Raw Processing:
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Layers & Masks:
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iHDR Workflow:
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