|
Image Preparation: The Key to Success.
By
Gary W. Stanley
This new eBook and my
teaching seminars are a direct result of meeting and seeing so many
folks who do not want to spend all their time editing an image, but
would much rather spend their time out in the field taking great
photographs.
Here are a just a few tips from the new eBook.
-
Get it right in the camera first: The better
job you do in-camera, the less you’ll have to do after the fact.
Remember: “We make adjustments in Photoshop, not repairs!”
*Note: Prior to any adjustment, it makes
sense to create either an adjustment layer, or a copy so as not to work
on your original. Now, look at the entire image analyzing what
adjustments the image may need, i.e., exposure, sharpness, color,
cropping, etc.
-
Adjust Exposure, Shadow and
Brightness: If you are using Camera Raw in Photoshop CS or CS2,
you can make these adjustments in Adobe Raw. If you’re shooting in
JPEG, the new Exposure menu item in Photoshop CS2, allows you easily
adjust your exposure before making other adjustments.
-
Check or adjust Levels:
Levels (especially if shooting JPEG) is a very good place to start
your image adjustment. The idea is to move your shadow and
highlight slider bars to a point where you can now capture all the
shadow and highlight detail that was in the original image. If
you’re shooting RAW and using step #2, step #3 can generally be
bypassed.
-
Adjust Shadow and Highlight:
This adjustment tool makes you forget all of the torture that you
went through trying to understand Curves, and the reason I rarely use
layers. *Note: Yes there are many valid reasons for using layers,
but given the huge increase in file size and limited storage space
and the difficulty in distinguishing the difference between my way
and their way, I have trouble justifying its use.
-
Adjust Noise Level: Once
again if you’ve taken care to get an accurate exposure, I find the
need to adjust the noise or grain level in your image to be
minimal. This is one area where I recommend exercising great care,
as it will directly affect the sharpness and detail of your image if
not done properly.
-
Adjust Saturation and a Touch
of Contrast: Proper use of these tools will add punch and
luminosity to your image giving your image that exciting look of a
projected transparency. If you have used step#2 you’ll be surprised
to find that you will need very little Saturation adjustment (max 10
points). Contrast can be set between 5 and 9 depending on your
subject or image.
-
Add Filtration: Did you
forget to use a warming filter, a polarizer, or a Grad ND filter?
Photoshop or plug-in filter software such as Nik Software, are an
easy way to adjust and add filtration to your image. Before or
after is now up to you!
-
Remember the
On & Off
method: Those slider bars and check boxes are there for a
reason! Magnify your image when making critical adjustments. Then
use the on/off check box in the Preview widow or the
slider bars when using a particular adjustment tool, to
carefully examine your images before and after changes. *Note:
You can also use the History Palette to see before and after
results before you save anything.
-
Crop or Size Your Image:
For various reasons, you’re not always able to crop your image in
the field the way you would like. Once the image is in your
computer, it’s easy to do some cropping! You can also size your
image here for your intended usage, i.e. print, projection, e-mail
etc. and to file the image in your appropriate folders. I use
Cropping as a great compositional teaching tool. Make sure above
all that the image is sharp, then, see how many different
compositions you can find from a single image. When I shoot song
birds, I go for great subject, great light, and sharpness first,
then crop and compose later. I don’t know about you, but I don’t
own a $8,000 600mm f/4 lens, so this is the next best thing!
-
Sharpening: The
general rule-of-thumb is to sharpen last.
My favorite way
to sharpen is called Lab Sharpen. It is actually quite easy to do
and unlike the other sharpening methods that you may have heard of,
it won’t create the color halo around objects the way other forms of
sharpening can.
Ready?
Select Image>Mode>Lab Color (instead of RGB). Then go to
Windows>Channels>click on Lightness. This will change the image to
Black and White (you now won’t be sharpening color). I then go to
Sharpen>Unsharp Mask (yes, you probably could use Smart Sharpen but
Unsharp Mask works very well for this method) and sharpen the image
with a starting point of Amount 200%, Radius .06 or .08, and
Threshold 0. When you are done, return to Image>Mode and re-select
RGB.
If needed, I go back into Filter > Sharpen > Un-Sharp Mask (yes, you
heard right!) and set my Amount to 16, my Radius to 30, and
Threshold to 0. This works like a contrast tool, or a UV haze
filter, to increase clarity. This will increase the apparent
sharpness and luminosity of the image, without over sharpening.
Remember again 16-30-0 is a suggested setting. I sometimes will go
as high as 20-50-0 (Amount, Radius, Threshold) depending on my
subject. Adjusting the Threshold from 1-3 will lesson the affect as
well.
Well, there you go! While there is a lot of important information
here, once you go through these steps a few times the process will
become quite simple and automatic. Using these steps I can go from
my RAW image to Print ready, or Show ready, using the above steps in
less than 2 minutes. Why? Because I’m getting it right in the
camera first! If you do that, I’m sure you’ll agree that “Image
Preparation is the key to success!”
My new book; “Image Preparation: The Key to Success” covers this
subject in greater detail and with helpful illustrations. I share
editing techniques for Photoshop Elements 5.0, CS2, the new CS3 and
Photoshop Lightroom.
Be sure to check out Gary's New eBook: "Image Preparation: The Key to
Success." This
new PDF downloadable eBook is based on my popular seminar and soft cover
book of the same name.
The eBook is available on the
USPhotoGroup website through PayPal, for $16.95 plus shipping.
www.usphotogroup.com
Gary
W. Stanley |
