Price: $6.00
Format: eBook, PDF format, 29 pages
Size: 16.4 MB
Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater
Archives For photo processing
Long Shutter Speed creates surreal effect, and a color enhancement in Photoshop mimics Velvia film.
In the days of film photography, photographers manipulated their images in the darkroom. Ansel Adams himself was very accomplished in the darkroom – and he wasn’t afraid to stretch the boundaries of possibility. I think we take ourselves entirely too seriously if we aren’t willing to let photography be the art form that it is. Of course, there are limits to what I believe is acceptable. First and foremost – I believe in honesty. If I adjusted an image in Photoshop, I believe it’s important to be honest about the changes I’ve made. And if I am presenting an image for documentary purposes – newspapers etc – then I need to make sure my photograph is true to the reality of the original scene. That said, as far as I’m concerned… there are no limits to what is acceptable when it comes to your art work.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that a JPG image directly from your camera is also a manipulation… it’s just manipulated according to the settings you select in-camera, and the algorithms that the software developers choose.
Film was very different… there were no built-in, digital algorithms. No JPG or RAW or PSD… and yet, photographers used colored filters to produce effects that are similar to what we can achieve in PS. They dodged and burned and cropped and rotated. They chose Velvia film to produce saturated colors. They used circular polarizers to enhance colors and reduce reflections.
A circular polarizer filter helped remove distracting reflections from the wet surface of the rock. A wide-angle lens makes the rock appear large and adds depth to the image.
They used kaleidoscopic lenses to create bizarre manipulations, and fish-eye lenses to create extreme distortion, and wide-angle lenses to mess with perspective, and long lenses to get close to faraway objects, and macro lenses to make little things look big. They created double exposures.
Double Exposure created in Photoshop from two images taken within minutes of one another.
They used soft focus, or a long exposure, or a narrow depth of field to change the look of the scene they were photographing.
A narrow depth of field eliminates distracting details from the background.
And they even used masks – carefully cut from dark paper, or even created with the help of a microscope – to build images that were not so different from what we can do with Photoshop today. If photography is art – then who decides what is right or wrong? The artist, of course!
To learn more about processing and capturing photographs check out our ebooks below:
‘Why should I learn to use Layers and Masks? Can’t HDR software do all that for me?”
Well… if somebody will hand me my soapbox, I’ll go ahead and answer that…
Here we are in the digital age. It’s an era of high-speed internet, smart phones, and instant gratification. It’s tough to remember that sometimes you have to slow down and think about the details. We want quick solutions. Click-of-a-button answers. But photo processing isn’t always that easy.
More and more photographers are abandoning the art of Photo Processing and going directly to the plugins or specialized programs that process images with the click of a button. Just pick your preset and whamo. It’s all done for you. Cool stuff! Varina and I even use some of it! But what if you want to create something specific? What if your artistic vision falls outside the scope of the software’s ability to create a finished product for you?
When you get to the point where presets aren’t enough, you need to chose a program and learn to use it. Take the time to really learn how to use the software – we use Adobe Photoshop – and you’ll find that you are no longer limited.
Consider the High Dynamic Range (HDR) software that’s available today. It’s incredibly easy to blend images into a single finished image with a broad dynamic range. The photographer doesn’t have to do a lot of thinking. You play with the sliders until you are happy with the result. Easy enough, right?
But what if you want to blend images where half the scene was in shade and the other half in the sun? Now you are dealing with different white balance settings on top of dynamic range problems. What if you want to blend a polarized lake with an unpolarized sky? In the image above, I used layers and masks in Photoshop to blend two images. Take a look at the original shots…
I took the first image (below) without a polarizer. Notice the clear reflection in the water. I took the second with a circular polarizer. Notice the rich tones in the rocks and trees behind the pool. To get to the final image, I selectively blended the two images below using photoshop layers and masks.
With a working knowledge of layers and masks, I can blend dynamic range like most HDR programs do, but I can also do so much more. I can blend image with different color balances. I can work with polarized and non-polarized images. I can target adjustments to specific areas so that my adjustments only effect the areas where they are needed.
To learn more about photography check our our eBooks and webinars below:
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.
Price: $21.00 (10% Discount)
Format: eBooks, PDF format
Collection: Waterfalls, Coastlines, Mountains, Details & Macro
Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater
Price: $27.00 (includes a 10% Discount)
Format: eBooks, PDF format
Collection: Learning to See, Vibrant Colors, What the Heck is a Histogram?
Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater
Price: $70 (A $79 value!)
Format: eBooks, PDF format including some Flash videos
Collection: Every eBook in our Collection
Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater
Here is a photo of St. Mary falls in Glacier National Park. You can see exquisite details and vibrant colors in every part of the image. But did the image come out looking like this, or did we have to make adjustments to the original? Most landscape photographs require some amount of post-processing for a natural look, and this photo was no exception. I made selected adjustment to the image using layers and masks in the photograph. The video below explains the adjustments I made and why I felt they were necessary.
Layers and Mask are valuable tools that have the potential to dramatically improve your photography. To learn more about Layers and Mask check out our webinar below:
We are often asked why we need to understand Layers & Masks in Photoshop? After all, we can always blend or adjust images using HDR software, right? Here’s a quick explanation.
Overexposed Highlights
After iHDR Blend
Take a look at the two images above. Notice that the highlights in the image on the left are overexposed. You can’t see any detail in the white areas in the water. In the second image, I corrected the overexposure with our iHDR workflow. I can create a similar blend using an automated HDR tool. But this is not a finished image. I want to take it further. I think the image needs some corrections to improve the contrast in the rocks, and to help focus the viewers attention on the water itself. To accomplish this, I used different layers and masks to limit each adjustments to a specific region. The image below show all the layers and masks I used, and the areas I targeted with each adjustment.
Adjustment Layers and Masks
It is true that I can accomplish the same adjustment without layers and masks in Photoshop, but adjustment layers combined with masks allow me a lot more freedom. I can fine-tune the adjustments I made on each layer without destroying the other layers. I can make adjustments to a single layer without having to retrace my steps. I can turn layers on and off to see what effect they have on one another. And I can add to or subtract from each mask to refine it at any time during the workflow.
I often save the image as a PSD file – with all those layers and masks intact – and return to it a few days later. In this way, I can keep track of all the adjustments I’ve made.
So, layers and masks let me take my blended image to the next level, and they allow me to preserve the processing steps I used to create the image. As my workflow gets more complex, layers and masks allow me to keep track of each adjustment, and gives me much greater control.
To learn more about Layers and Masks, check out Session 2 of our Nature Photography and iHDR Workflow Recording: Histograms and RAW Processing
Price: $10.00
Format: eBook, PDF format, 37 pages
Size: 21.9 MB
Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater
