Making lists seems to be a popular way of blogging. (Maybe we are getting too much David Letterman.) Anyway, at least for this post, I’ve decided to follow the heard. Photoshop CS 5 (and Lightroom 3) have been out for a while and I’ve had a chance to revamp how I work on images because of the new features in them. In order to make the list the feature must have a significant impact on how I work on images. Here are my top five new features in Photoshop CS5.
- Updated Refine Edge
- ACR’s Process 2010
- ACR’s updated Lens Correction
- Enhanced Noise Reduction in ACR
- Content Aware Read the rest of this entry »
There are two types of contrast that can be used to make images more interesting: color contrast and tonal contrast. But for now I only want to talk about is tonal contrast. And specifically the two types of tonal contrast: overall contrast and midtone contrast, and how they can be modified during post processing. Read the rest of this entry »
For those readers that are “local” to the West Chester PA area, I’ve published the classes and workshops I’m offering this Fall and Winter. I have them listed on two interlinked web sites:
There are a couple of new entries: Advanced Raw Workflow with Lightroom and/or Adobe Camera Raw Workshop and a Digital Black and White class for the Chester County Night School. Both of these are relatively short, at three sessions.
And if you are not local. can’t fit a class or workshop in your schedule, or prefer learning on your own you can visit this blog’s Resource Page for book recommendations. If you buy a book , or anything for that matter, after clicking through to Amazon I get a few pennies and you get a warm felling all over because you helped keep this site going. Thanks!
In my post on how to Double Process a Single Raw File I showed the two different ways of creating a copy of a Smart Object (SO) layer. To summarize, if you simply duplicate the layer both SO layers are “linked” back to the same version of the raw file. And any changes you make to one will be reflected in the other. But if you choose New Smart Object via Copy then you create a second independent SO. The resulting 2 SO layers can be modified independently from one another.
On his Adobe Photoshop Killer Tips site Matt Kloskowski has a short video that shows the differences in these two ways of making a copy of a SO layer. If my explanation leaves you scratching your head, check out his 2 minute video.
Since I’m on a B&W kick I thought I would post another monochrome image. This is another shot processed with Silver Effects Pro.
This was shot last week at Fort Delaware, which is on Pea Patch Island in the middle of the Delaware River off of Delaware City. It was originally built to protect the entrance to Philadelphia. As evidenced by the number of large gun emplacements. Even though the fort was used to house POWs in WW II it is most noted for it’s use to house POWs during the Civil War. This scene is a recreation of a union solder’s coat and a woman’s coat (his wife?) hagging next to the door. The scene is lit with available light through the open door.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not big on Photoshop plug-ins. Most of the time they “simplify” things you can already do in Photoshop but at the expense of control.
When I work on an image I start by evaluating the image and deciding where it is I want to take it; that is, what do I want to “say” with the image. After I figure out where I want to take the image then I think about how best to accomplish that in Photoshop. So I’m not big on opening up a filter or a plug-in and then clicking around to see what happens. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I never click and/or drag on a setting to see what will happen–especially when learning to use a new tool. Read the rest of this entry »
This image is a composite of two different interpretations of the same raw file. One with a cool White Balance to enhance the blues and greens in the sky and foreground grass. The other version is a warm White Balance to enhance the coat of the horse. I outlined the technique for Double Processing a Single Raw File in yesterdays post.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes processing raw files is a compromise. For example when adjusting the exposure to make the sky look its best results in the foreground being too dark. There are things that can be done during capture to mitigate the problem. Use of a Graduated Neutral Density filter will darken a sky relative to the foreground exposure. Or taking an exposure bracket sequence and process as an Exposure Blend or as a HDR. But what if we didn’t do these things and the dynamic range is just to too great to have detail in both the highlights and the shadows from a single file? One solution is to take advantage of the “hidden” dynamic range of a raw file and to process that raw capture twice, once for the highlights and again for the shadows, and to then blend the resulting files in Photoshop.
As with most things in Photoshop there are a number of ways to accomplish this. Here is one way that is efficient, relatively quick, and straight froward. Smart Objects are at the heart of this technique. Yesterday I did a post on Smart Objects. So if you haven’t read it, now might be a good time to take a look at it.
Read the rest of this entry »
