Tutorials and Lessons Learned!

Contents.

1) My Digital Workflow
2) How to Create a Custom Brush to Add a Signature in Photoshop 
3) Sharpening Using a High Pass Filter 
4) Blank
5) Blank
6) Blank



Digital Workflow


Unlike most serious photographers I do not use Adobe Creative Suite or any of the other, more expensive, editing systems for my workflow. Most of my editing starts when I compose an image. If I can get it right 'in camera' then I find it much more satisfying than if I have to heavily edit an image when I get home. That being said, there is a stuctured approach I follow when preparing an image for the blog or for posting to a forum for critique. I shoot in Nikon's RAW mode (NEF) and I use Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 and Adobe Elements 7 for any image enhancement.


Adobe Camera Raw 5.6:


Open the image in Photoshop Elements 7. If the image has been shot as a RAW file then Camera Raw (ACR) will open automatically. Most of my processing takes place in ACR with Elements only being used for rotation, cropping and signature addition.


1) The first step I take is to adjust the White Balance slider - I usually make the white balance temperature about 5500.
2) Next I make any adjustments necessary to the exposure - I normally only need to adjust in the range -1 to +1.
3) The recovery slider is next, I normally aim to adjust this value to 50.
4) The black adjuster is next, but be careful with this as a very slight adjustment is all that is needed.
5) The Brightness/Contrast controls are adjusted to the desired effect.
6) The Clarify slider can be used with generosity, but be careful with the Vibrance slider as colours can be over-saturated very easily.


Next I click on the sharpening tab - this brings up the next menu.
When sharpening I tend to use the same values - I think that I get good results with this:
Amount - 0 - 60
Radius - 0 - 1.0
Detail - 0 - 50


The trick with sharpening is to enhance detail without making the image look as though it has been painted. Halos around the subject is also a good indication that sharpening is excessive.


I rarely use the Noise Reduction sliders, so cannot give a range recommendation for these.


Adobe Elements 7


I like the rotation tool in Elements 7 (PSE), so this is the first adjustment I make.
Once that is done I crop the picture. I usually do this with a crop factor of 6x4. This is simply so that my blog retains some uniformity with image size.
Lastly, I add my signature to the corner of the image.


When saving my images I have a method that works for me:
Firstly, I save every image that I take in a designated folder that contains the location and the date (eg. "Riparian Preserve 6.28.10). Every RAW file is stored here.
Next, within that file I create a subfolder called "Keepers". Any photographs that I am ultimately happy with I store here is JPEG form at the highest resolution possible. I create a progressive image description for each image, so if I added 'Great Blue Heron 16.jpg' from my last outing then the image stored this time is 'Great Blue Heron 17.jpg' so that no image name is ever duplicated.
On my desktop I have a folder named 'Web Ready' - this contains smaller copies of the 'Keepers' and are created by 'Saving for web' in PSE. I normally aim for an image size of 200kb to keep download/upload speeds to a minimum. These are the images I post to my blog and online forums.



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How to Create a Custom Brush to Add a Signature in Photoshop


Firstly, in Photoshop go to 'File' and click 'New' from the drop down menu. Create a 2500x2000 px canvas.


Add a signature by typing in your preferred font, or by using a freehand pen tool, or by scanning a handwritten signature. If you are typing then use the largest font possible, but do not exceed 2500 px wide.


Next use the 'Rectangular Marquee' tool to outline the signature.


Go to 'Edit' in the menu and select  'Define Brush Preset' - name the preset as you wish and select 'OK'.


Your custom signature should now be found at the very end of the brush selection menu.



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Sharpening Using a High Pass Filter

Once I am happy that I have made all the major changes I need to make to an image I make a final crop and critically analyse the sharpness of focus in the final image. If I feel that I need to make some sharpening I can do it very easily using layers and a high pass filter.

1) Open a new layer in elements by pressing Ctrl + J. This should bring up a duplicate layer in the layer panel.
2) Go to Filters > Other > High Pass. This should change the duplicate layer to a solid grey.
3) Adjust the slider so that you can just see faint outlines to the image. Somewhere between 0 and 1.8 should be sufficient.
4) In the layer panel, change the condition from 'Normal' to 'Hard light'. This should restore the grey image to a duplicate of the original, but with the sharpened effect needed.

If further sharpening is needed simply repeat steps 1 to 4 again.



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