A Lesson in {Digital Processing}

  One of the greatest advantages of using a digital camera is the ability to enhance and manipulate your images with your computer.  With digital, what is often referred to as the “digital light room” you have the excitement of seeing a fairly good print become something phenomenal.

  The method for editing varies from software to software but there are similarities among all of them.  This post isn’t about “how” to edit your photos, but simply a taste of what is possible.

  Once you start manipulating images you’ll be using lots of memory.  Image files take up an enormous amount of hard drive space.  Consider saving your originals to disc or usb drive, as well as an external hard drive, should your computer decide to crash and burn.

  Many photographers also use and “couldn’t live without” a graphic tablet (Wacom).  This is an electro-magnetic flat surface on which you draw or mark with a cordless stylus pen.  This offers a much more natural way to work as you get much more control with the pen.

  The software that comes with your camera is good for basic tasks, but to enjoy the full potential of digital photography you should consider upgrading to a fuller-featured image editing software such as Photoshop.  One of it’s major advantages is a feature called “Layers”.  Layers are like sheets of paper, each placed on top of the other to produce a combined image.  You can manipulate each layer separately.  If you make a change on the layer instead of the background image and decide you don’t like it, you can discard that layer without affecting the original image.  Layers also allows you to make composites of many images.  If you apply a layer mask when you make a correction or enhancement on the layer, you can remove some of your alteration if it covered to large of an area, and, then, if you removed too much…you can add it back. 

  If there are spots, facial blemishes, telephone wires, etc. that you want to eliminate, you could do it with the spot healing brush, or the clone stamp.  You can lighten or darken specific areas of the picture without affecting the overall exposure using the “shadow / highlight” control.  You can sharpen slightly fuzzy images or add blur to mimic selective focus…there are endless possibilities.  If Photoshop is out of your budget, I highly recommend Photoshop Elements.  It’s a stripped down version, but still an amazing and much much cheaper alternative with a smaller learning curve.

  When you start editing your photos, you will want to develop a workflow.  A basic workflow would go something like this:

1. Import images to computer.
2. Save backup to disc or usb.
3. Open image to editing program.
4. Save image as something such as “psd” file.  If you edit in jpeg the image will deteriorate each time you hit save. (and you should save OFTEN as you edit)
5. Straighten image if needed.
6. Crop image to get rid of unwanted areas.
7. Duplicate background layer to preserve original image making it easier to undo unwanted changes.
8. Adjust exposure / tonal levels.
9. Adjust color casts / white balance.
10. Adjust color saturation / contrast.
11. Make desired enhancements, corrections, and retouching.
12. Resize if necessary.
13. SAVE, save, save, and save again…having your computer or photo editing program crash mid-edit when you haven’t saved is sooo super frustrating!  Trust me…I know!
14. Sharpen if needed

This is not a specific guideline, do what works for you.  But remember to always save sharpening for last!

 

Learning to See

  In order to be a great photographer, we must learn to see the world differently.  Being a digital photographer puts an even greater responsibility on the artist.  The digital photographer must also be the “digital lab”. 

A few things to consider

1. Highlight/Shadow Detail.  A good print should have adequate detail in the highlight and shadow areas.
2. Color Cast.  Sometimes an overall cast will affect the entire print.  Learning to see color is one of the most difficult aspects of color correction.  That’s because red sometimes looks like magenta, and blue sometimes looks cyan.  Make the wrong correction and you could get a color cast worse than what you started with.  Only experience will teach you to see colors accurately.  But then there is the joy of the digital darkroom!!  We have the luxury of testing corrections without having to commit to them.
3. Cropping.  Make sure you haven’t inadvertently cropped any important part of your image.

 

 

This is only a very very brief overview of digital processing.  Something we will delve much deeper into as we get further along!  I hope you enjoyed!  And as always please feel free to contact me with suggestions, or ideas!!