All images need a little something to help re-create or re-imagine what you think a particular image should look like. Whether it is adding a digital gradient to a sky to help saturate and deepen the colours of a sunrise or dodging a shadowy area to reveal some subtle details or changing an image completely so that it bears little resemblance to the original. For this challenge, I will show a few techniques that you can try that are favourites of mine. This is meant as a jumping off point for you; an opportunity to see how much fun and how easy it is to enhance your images that I hope you will find a few other techniques on your own. Dodging and Burning with a Grey Layer Dodging and burning are terms inherited from darkroom techniques. If you wanted some areas of the photo to be darker or lighter than what the negative indicated, while the enlarger light was on, you could cover some areas (dodging) and allow others more light (burning) to make subtle adjustments in the overall look of an image. The master of in-camera exposure and this kind of darkroom editing was Ansel Adams. It s much easier these days... Consider the following image: Post-Processing and Editing Part 1 Post-Processing/Editing Page 1
The overall exposure isn t too bad. There is detail in both the highlights and shadows. But half of his face is in shadow and some areas of his coat are a bit light. This image could benefit from a bit of selective burning in the dark patches of his coat and some dodging in his face and eye as well as lightening some of the white fur. There are dodging and burning tools in Photoshop but I prefer to use a layer above the image for my adjustments. This allows for subtle changes and the opportunity to make changes if you need to correct or re-do your adjustments. Post-Processing/Editing Page 2
Click on Layer then New. A New Layer dialogue box will appear. Change the Mode to Overlay and check off the box to fill the layer with 50% gray. You ll see a new layer filled with grey appear in the Layers panel. Since it is in Overlay mode, the dog layer below it is still visible. However, if we add black or white brush strokes to this layer, it will affect the dog layer by, respectively, darkening and lightening the image. Brush Tool Adjust Brush Size Adjust Opacity of Brush Brush Colour of Black and White By adjusting the opacity of the brush to about 8 to 10 percent and using a soft brush, the darkening and lightening of the image is subtle. You can go over the same spot a few times which allows for targeted and minute adjustments. Also, if you make a mistake or want to start over, you can delete the grey layer or paint over the adjustment with the same grey colour. There s no right or wrong way to do this. You can adjust the light areas and then the dark areas and then more light areas. It all just builds up on the grey layer and produces the effect of dodging and burning in a non-destructive manner. Post-Processing/Editing Page 3
As sometimes happens, when you dodge in the shadows, you lose a bit of colour and detail. I didn t like how the eye in the shadow looked. I used a bit of cloning, contrast and saturation to improve it. I also added more subtle highlights than what were there. More work needs to be done before the image is done but the overall image is now ready for that with a bit more contrast and lightening in the shadows. Post-Processing/Editing Page 4
The top image is the before shot and the bottom image is after the adjustments. This technique is more like using a cotton ball and less like a sledgehammer. The purpose of postprocessing is to enhance the image you are editing. Subtle is not a bad thing... Post-Processing/Editing Page 5
NIK Software A few years ago, NIK Software was bought by Google and made available for free. This was an amazing offer that many took advantage of. Google has decided to not support the software going forward but, with older and current Photoshop and Lightroom versions, the program works and is worth downloading. Just Google Nik software and you will find the link to download it if you like. I introduced NIK in a previous technical challenge but will go into a little more detail for this one. What I really like about NIK is the variety of editing options - HDR, Black and White, Colour and Sharpening. For now, I will only concentrate on Colour Efex Pro. Once you download NIK, it should show up as it s own dialogue box. If it doesn t, you can find it in Filter where you will see Nik Collection. Click on that and your dialogue box will open. NIK is a non-destructive technique. A new layer is produced after you do your edits so, if you don t like it, you can delete it. Or, if you want to try a few different variations, you can keep going in to NIK and new layers will be produced. We are going to continue doing work on the dog and concentrate on enhancing colours and sharpness and bringing out his personality. As mentioned in earlier technical challenges, I tend to have a lot of layers. To start this off, I copied the grey layer and dog layer and then merged them. Post-Processing/Editing Page 6
When you open Colour Efex Pro, a new dialogue box opens with the editing options on the left and your image loaded. On the right, this is where your editing choices will be displayed. The fun part of NIK is that you can have many different filters applied to one image. Think of them like layers in Photoshop. You can adjust how much of one effect you want using opacity, you can turn one off and another on to see how that affects the image. Really, the options are endless. I tend to only use a few different options but that s my preference. Post-Processing/Editing Page 7
One of my favourite effects is Pro Contrast and I always start with this one. There are a number of sliders that you can adjust to your taste. It s always different because it depends on the image. If you click on the little box next to Pro Contrast such that the checkmark disappears, you ll notice that the effect also goes away. I like doing that to see what the difference is between the before and after. The effect is still there, just hidden. Post-Processing/Editing Page 8
Add another effect Another favourite effect is Darken/Lighten Center. This allows me to lighten one area while applying a darkening vignette. The amount of lightening and vignetting is controlled by sliders to suit the image. This is a nice subtle effect to draw the viewer s attention to where you want them to look. In this case, I want the dog s face to be the focus. To add another effect, you have to add another filter. If you just click on another effect without adding a filter, it replaces the one you have. Post-Processing/Editing Page 9
You ll notice that the new effect is now below Pro Contrast and didn t replace it. The two effects will occur at the same time as long as they are checked off. For the Darken/Lighten Center effect, click on the Place Center box and place the little plus over the part of the image you want lighter. In this case, I placed it betweent the dog s eyes. You can immediately see the face get lighter and the edges get darker. Again, you can adjust the sliders to suit your image. Post-Processing/Editing Page 10
I also like both Glamour Glow and Sunlight. These effects don t work for every image but I like how the image takes on a softer, dreamlike look. For this dog, it really punched up the warmth and contrast and softness of the fur. I don t often use both in the same image so I turned off Glamour Glow to see how Sunlight worked on its own. They both have potential so I ll decide after one more effect. Post-Processing/Editing Page 11
I m not a huge fan of Detail Enhancer as it seems a bit overdone on its own. However, it does help sharpen up some areas and brings out detail that is there but somewhat muted. As I was using Glamour Glow and Sunlight which soften the image, I thought that some Detail Enhancer might be beneficial. I went back and forth a bit between Glamour Glow and Sunlight, toggling them on and off, adjusting the sliders. I tried both at the same time and finally settled with this combination. Before you click OK, if you think the combination of effects is something you might use again, click on Save Recipe. You can give it a name and then next time, if you want to do something similar, you just apply the recipe and save yourself a lot of time. Once you click on OK, NIK will close down and you will be returned to Photoshop where you ll notice that a new layer has appeared with the name Color Efex Pro. This is your new layer that has the NIK adjustments applied. The layer below is the one that you started with in NIK, before the adjustments. I decided I liked the softness of the fur but wanted a bit more sharpening in the face. I turned off the NIK layer, duplicated the dog layer below and applied sharpening to it. The plan is to add a mask to the NIK layer and remove parts of that layer to reveal the layer below. This technique has been used in previous technical challenges. Post-Processing/Editing Page 12
On the top layer, apply a mask. Using the Brush tool, soft brush with the black colour chosen and 10-15 per cent opacity, start lightly brushing on the mask over areas you want a bit sharper. I don t want all the softness gone so this is done with a smaller brush and very selectively. You can see the mask has a few black strokes in it. That s where I have removed parts of the top layer and allowed parts of the lower layer to be revealed. Post-Processing/Editing Page 13
This shows the image prior to any adjustments. The image below shows the result of the dodging and burning, NIK effects and selective sharpening. I like how the final image is still very natural and not over-processed. It has nice colour, nice detail and the focus is on the dog s face. Post-Processing/Editing Page 14
Colour with Black and White Overlay Blending modes and layers are two of Photoshop s most powerful and enjoyable tools. An image can be transformed with just a couple of quick clicks, sometimes producing some happy and dramatic accidents. I ve tried this technique with almost every kind of image - portraiture, architecture, landscapes and still-lifes. I first saw this done as a technique to increase contrast and desaturate colours but, when I started experimenting with it, I had a few of my own happy accidents! I was at Heritage Park recently and took a picture of the blacksmith s hammer on an anvil. I thought it had potential but didn t like the blue in the background nor the busy background. I wanted something more than just black and white; I still wanted a bit of colour. I loved the warm glow of the light on the head of the hammer and decided to try and focus on that. This technique is very simple. Adjust your image in Colour Efex Pro. Make it a bit punchy with Pro Contrast then use Darken/Lighten Centre to create a vignette around the edges with a lightening of the hammer head. Then create a duplicate layer and turn it into a black and white image. Change the blend mode of the black and white image to Overlay and the image changes dramatically. You can leave it this way or try a few more adjustments to see if you produce something even better! Post-Processing/Editing Page 15
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In this case, when I clicked Overlay on the Black and White layer, the blue of the blacksmith s jeans was quite vibrant. And distracting. I used Image then Adjustments then Saturation to selectively decrease the blue. I used both Saturation and Lightness to get rid of the blue and to darken that area a bit more. I also adjusted the Opacity of the Black and White layer just a bit to allow the warm colour of the hammer to be a bit more vibrant. I used the same basic technique for this image of horseshoes with a few differences at the end. Post-Processing/Editing Page 17
This image really benefitted from Color Efex Pro to give some vibrance to the tones of the rust and to increase the contrast a bit. I wanted the centre of interestto be the horseshoe that was just a bit off centre. I used Darken/Lighten Centre to do that. I used NIK to create the Black and White. I tried to keep the contrast in the Black and White. When I clicked on Overlay, the image was much more saturated and bold than I wanted. Post-Processing/Editing Page 18
I liked the red tone and the contrast but, as they were old horseshoes, I wanted more of a vintage look. In the previous example, I adjusted the opacity of the top Overlay layer. In this case, I adjusted the opacity of the lower colour layer. This allowed the contrast of the black and white image to remain and to keep some of the subtle red tones. One futher adjustment you an try is to use a blend mode of Soft Light rather than Overlay. The effect is a bit more subtle and may produce a better edit depending on the subject of your image. Experiment! Post-Processing/Editing Page 19
Concluding Thoughts Photoshop is a program that has way more to it than most of us ever need. Learning just a fraction of Photoshop is sometimes all we really need to edit our images. Over the past few challenges, we ve learned about changing images to black and white, colour correcting our images, fixing images with the clone tool, making selections and getting comfortable with layers and masks. This technical challenge was an opportunity to get more comfortable with layers and blend modes and to practice some of the techniques we learned previously. Photoshop is difficult, if not impossible, to know completely. And quite dauning. But to learn enough of Photoshop to edit images competently, to use other programs like NIK to help with the process and to end up with images that match your vision of them just requires a bit of practice. Keep practicing and enjoy editing! Post-Processing/Editing Page 20