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I DID NOT TAKE THIS PHOTO.
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Mike took this picture. It was his Picture of The Day Yesterday...but he was not totally satisfied with the end results. Mike hosted the RAW file on this blog and asked people to edit it so he could get an idea of what other people might do. This was done rather quickly and slapdash before class...
But here's the gist:
Opening in Lightroom, I checked the histogram. I saw there was still a little bit of latitude in the image so I brought the exposure up slightly, then added some of the recovery to it, merely for their faces.
Curves adjusted slightly. Highlights, Lights, Dark, all up a tad bit. Shadows down.
I then exported for edits in Photoshop CS3.
3 duplicate layers made of the original exported file. The top most layer was set for a blend mode of SCREEN. This was done to bring out most of the light areas of the photo. Top most layer then merged down with the middle layer, resulting in two layers. Top most layer duplicated...so now there were 3 again. Top 2 are identical, bottom layer is the same originally exported photo from Lightroom.
Top most layer given a Gaussian blur effect of around 12%. Top most layer then given a blend mode of MULTIPLY. This was done to saturate the colors and give the photo a soft focus.
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From there all layers got small Curves adjustments, and some sharpening. (a mix of HIGH PASS FILTER AND SMART SHARPEN)
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Small dodging and burning here and there with a blank layer set to soft light with a 50% grey fill light on the layer.
saved as 16bit TIFF. in sRGB color space.
1 comment:
Mark, thank you so much for actually taking me up on my offer.
I would have never ever ever thought to do half of those things. I don't really understand what a lot of features in photoshop do - such as the several dozen blending modes - even if I've found them and used them before. I just scroll through them and find which looks best, which probably isn't the most effective way to edit photos.
When I first set out to edit a picture, I can only I foresee making adjustments that I understand how to use, such as curves and hue/saturation, which narrows my editing capabilities considerably. Occasionally, using those same ol' tools can't quite get the photo to look like it does in my head, and that's when I get really stuck. It's particularly frustrating when I'm not willing to just give up like I usually do, but actually spend a lot of time working on it. Unfortunately, spending a long time on the pictures doesn't magically expand my repertoire of photo-editing weapons.
For example, I've recently been very conscious of Scott's photos, especially his colors and the soft focus he puts on his portraits. His pictures often turn out kind of surreal and...well, I don't know what. Different, unique. I've tried to duplicate this look - not just to steal it, but rather to learn from it - and I have no idea what he does, I can't figure it out.
Again, thank you so much. I think it really helps to know what other people's workflows are. And man, all of this before school? Impressive.
Have a good first week of classes.
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