What goes into making a great print? How do you work on a file in Photoshop to make it communicate what you want?
The best way I can teach how to make a beautiful print is by showing you. With this in mind, I’ve embarked on making a set of YouTube videos entitled EXAMPLES – The Making of a Photograph that go through the adjustments I made to an actual photograph, step by step.
This time we’ll go through my photograph “Cottonwoods, Autumn, June Lake Loop, California” as it fits the seasonal mood I’m in, with colors all around me as the season changes.
Watch the video (click HD viewing for extra clarity and size), and feel free to use the comment section here at Crafting Photographs to ask questions and further the dialog on how and why I made the adjustments I did.
If you want some explanation on the individual techniques used, like layer masks, watch the video tips from West Coast Imaging.
And don’t forget to get out and make some autumn images! It’s too fleeting to miss!
This is really great to see how you correct scanned images that have a blue cast… I’ve found this very common too with some of my older images (before digital and before I knew about warming filters). Thanks!
This tutorial is succinct and clear!
The workflow is similar to what I’ve adopted. One difference however is that I use a Curves layer for color balance instead of the Color Balance sliders. By adjusting an individual color’s curve end-points, the color balance is adjusted linearly across the whole luminance range (not just lows or mids or highs). In this example, one may have been able to thus omit the 2 additional layers used to warm the darker areas (trunks, red dogwood leaves). Of course there are many ways to achieve the same thing in Photoshop.
Thanks Rich for the tutorial and the WCI Tango drum scans.
Glad you liked it Doug!
I’m not a big fan of using curves for color adjustments. I don’t recommend it, and I don’t use it myself. I’ve found that for most photographers, it’s too easy to get into trouble and make weird results.
First of all, it’s a very coarse adjustment. Color Balance allows much finer control with less effort. (i.e. not having to click on the correct point without moving it, then using the arrows to move the point on the curve in small ammounts.) I did a quick test, and a 5 point correction in Color Balance was only a 1 point move in the X and a 1 point move in the Y axis of Curves. It’s like only being able to add or subtract tablespoons of color instead of teaspoons of color. When I’m making color adjustments in the Color Balance tool, I’m taking it to the point of 1 point differences, and often wishing it allowed half point moves. Adjusting color on curves doesn’t let me do that.
Second, adjusting the end points can change the density and color of the highlights and shadows. If I’ve set my highlights and shadows where I want them, I don’t want a curve on a color channel counteracting that. Also, shadows and highlights usually don’t need much color correction, so the color that can be added by moving curve endpoints is not desirable to me. It’s much more difficult to create these “problems” with Color Balance.
Third, Color Balance has always been able to do what I’ve wanted for global corrections.
This is not to criticize your workflow. Use the ingredients that make things taste the way you want it to taste, and the tools that you like to use. But part of doing these videos is to explain both what I do, and what I don’t do, so that is why I offer my thoughts on this.
Great job Rich. You make learning easy with your clear step by step approach. Thanks for making this video. I would love to see more. Very helpful.
Thank you, great work.
Nice post. I enjoyed it.
I agree 95% with what you say.
Well done.
I just wish the photos were a little larger when clicked on.
Nice photos.
Come visit anytime,
Troy and Martha
We just did a hover fly on a yellow flower,
Click here.
Tuning up for Autumn…Yellows and Reds and Oranges. WOW>
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Nicely done Rich! Clearly explained and demonstrated, and the techniques are solid. Of course I agree with Doug about using Curves instead of Color Balance. We’ll have to talk about that some time!
Thanks Michael! RE: Curves for color balance. Whatever spice makes it taste the way you like, but I would be interested to see how you use that tool.
Hi Rich, great video on simple editing. I also like that you try not to be “too scientific” but just go on how it looks. Nice presentation. As for curves, I mostly use curves, but once in a while I use the color balance – I think it just depends on how one is seeing things at the time. They are both good tools.
@Laurent, what is this “too scientific” you speak of? Have have they started passing out colorimeters at art museums? Or PH meters at wine tastings? Or a thermometers at 5 start restaurants?
Rich,
Thanks for the great tutorial. I do most of everything the same, but I have one question. I am unsure how you created the selective color mask for everything that is blue in the last step. How would you select everything that is blue and work on it?
Thank You,
Stephen rash