Photography News

Photoshop Tips

June 20, 2013 by Bob Simpson

One of the great things about digital photography is that it gives the average photographer the ability to see an image through from its initial conception to its final display with a minimum of fuss and with a great degree of control. It is easy to take this for granted, but older photographers will still remember the long hours spent bent over trays of smelly chemicals in a tiny darkroom, or the long days or even weeks spent waiting for a roll of film to be processed by someone else before you could view the final image. And even then, if there was something awry with the colour temperature, contrast, or any other aspect of the image, the capacity to fix it was very limited.

The development of photo-editing software like Photoshop has played a huge part in granting photographers great freedom to take full control of their images. Of course, Photoshop has received plenty of bad press for the degree of manipulation of images it allows, but I don’t think anyone could deny that it has also unlocked creative potentials that were previously unavailable to most photographers. And despite the perceived drawbacks, that seems to me a great thing for the future of photography as an art form.

Photoshop and other software are fundamental tools in most photographers’ workflow. None of my images exist without RAW conversion and subsequent processing, and these stages of the photographic process are inexorably linked with the earlier stages like conception of a photographic idea, and the technical and compositional considerations that led to capture of the image. Each stage of the photographic process can inform each other part – things we have learnt through processing an image feed back into how we compose and capture an image, and vice versa.

Like any tool, it takes some time to become comfortable with Photoshop and learn how to make it do what we want it to do. And to confuse the situation, there are nearly always several different ways to achieve a particular end result – for example, contrast can be adjusted using a curves-layer, a levels-layer, a contrast/brightness-layer, or by selecting different layer-blend modes, like soft light, overlay or multiply. Just about everyone who spends any time using Photoshop or other photo-editing software eventually develops their own little shortcuts, tricks and ways of going about editing an image.

I plan to concentrate on specific features of Photoshop in future articles, but in this one I thought I’d just share two of the little ‘tricks’ I’ve learnt that can give your images a boost with a minimum of effort. I don’t remember exactly where these processing manoeuvres came from – most likely from the many hours I’ve spent scouring photographic websites over the years for new ideas and approaches to processing. I often use either or both of them to ‘finish off’ my processing of an image and give it that extra bit of oomph that is easily lost in the translation of a vibrant natural scene to a two-dimensional representation.

First up is Luminosity Punch. This one relies on making a Channels selection, so unfortunately isn’t directly available to people who use Photoshop Elements. It will increase contrast and colour, with greater effect in the brighter parts of the image.

1. Open the image in Photoshop

2. Left-click the Channels tab (you will see four channels: RGB, Red, Green and Blue)

3. Make a selection of the RGB channel by holding down CTRL and left-clicking the RGB thumbnail (you will see marching ants indicating that a selection has been made)

4. Left-click the Layers tab

5. Create a new layer from your selection: CTRL-J

6. Set the blending mode of the new layer to soft light (you can also try overlay)

7. If the effect is too strong (it often is), reduce the opacity of the new layer until you’re happy.

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Next is Contrast Glow – this will also increase contrast and colour of your image, but in addition it creates an appealing soft glow that can enhance any image when used sparingly. There are lots of different versions of this, but the simplest one I know goes like this:

1. Open the image in Photoshop

2. Duplicate the image: CTRL-J

3. Blur the new layer: Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur – set radius to 250 pixels

4. Set the blending mode of the new layer to soft light (you can also try overlay)

5. If the effect is too strong (it often is), reduce the opacity of the new layer until you’re happy.

photoshop_tips_1

Before (left) and after (right) applying contrast glow to an image. The result can be quite subtle, as in this case, or you can apply it several times for a much stronger effect. (Gheerulla Creek Falls, Mapleton National Park, Queensland)

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In my opinion, subtlety is the key to good Photoshop processing and I’ll often reduce the layer opacity in both of these procedures to 20% or less, if I use them at all. But that is personal preference – you’re free to go as wild as you like, and even repeat the steps several times to multiply the effect. You can also use a layer mask to restrict the effects to certain parts of the image.

If you like these effects, you can turn them into Photoshop actions so they can be applied to your images with a single keyboard stroke. They won’t turn a bad image into a good one, but they can be useful means of giving a slightly flat image a little lift.

Happy Photoshopping!

has been a photographer for nearly 40 years, and specialises in landscape photography. Whilst not out shooting, Bob can be found writing for various blogs, websites and newsletters.

4 Responses to “Photoshop Tips”

  1. Scott says:

    Great Tip, Thanks

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