Using Photoshop to Enhance Your Picture

So I thought it would be fun to start doing a series of “how to’s” for beginners of Photoshop.  Most photographers use Photoshop and most use the tool in such a way that it doesn’t look “photoshopped” (the right way!)  Clearly, many of the shots I post here on my blog are photoshopped.  I sometimes do things way over the top, making a photo vintage or adding texture.  This tutorial is slightly advanced and requires a working knowledge of photoshop.

Most of my pictures may not look photoshopped, but they are.  Every digital photo needs work- it doesn’t come out of the camera with the work done for you.  I look at the digital negative as I would a film negative- it needs processing in the darkroom.

*Getting the picture correct SOOC (straight out of the camera) is essential to a good portrait.  But Photoshop is essential for polishing it!*

I have a small group of girls that I mentor.  Melanie Swanson, of Melanie Swanson Photography, posted this picture for review the other day:

It’s a great shot!  Melanie got some feedback that it was “too contrasty” and “the blacks were up too high”.  Her white balance was also a bit off and it was slightly underexposed.  Melanie had pushed the processing just a little too far.  Let me now share the SOOC for comparison.

The SOOC is a OK.  There aren’t any “blown” spots (pure white or pure black areas).  It’s pretty underexposed.  The white balance is very off - Note how the skin is bluish gray.  That is indicative of a “cool” white balance.  The shot needs to be warmed up.  I will provide a step by step screen shot to take this SOOC from OK to Amazing.

First, I opened up my histogram to be sure that yes, indeed, it is underexposed.

(Melanie did not shoot in RAW so therefore, I will have to eyeball the exposure and WB!  Yes, she got a hand slap for that :P )

A simple curves boost:

The exposure is looking much better.  Second, the white balance needs to be fixed.  This can also be done using curves.  The child is looking a little cyan and a little blue.  So we need to add their opposites.  To do that, we think back to our preschool days of learning the color wheel.  The opposite of blue issssss!  YELLOW!  The opposite of cyan is…. RED!  The way you can remember it is RGB (red, green blue) corresponds with CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black… ignore the black :) ) 

R  ed                          C  yan

G  reen                      M  agenta

B  lue                         Y  ellow

So R (red) is opposite of C (cyan).  G (green) is opposite of M (Magenta), etc etc.  So here is my first curve to correct the cyan… using red.

Just drop down the channel and choose red, then lift the middle just slightly.  The beautiful thing about a curves level is that if it looks TOO red after the fact, just go to your layer and lower the opacity until its an equal balance of red and cyan.  Next I added Yellow (opposite of blue.)

Note that the curve drops DOWN this time because I am removing blue, adding yellow.  Above, I was removing cyan, adding red.  If it sounds confusing, just take heart that it gets easier as you do it more!  Again, if you think there is too much yellow, go ahead and reduce the opacity of the layer.

So now, we don’t have a blueberry child anymore.  Quite the opposite, she is looking warm and healthy!

Some housekeeping here, I straightened the horizon in the background.  This is such a simple step, and I see it often overlooked.  Having a straight horizon makes you a photographer that pays attention to detail!

As noted above, just use your ruler tool, found at the bottom of your tool box with the eyedropper tool, and trace over the line that is uneven.  After that, just choose rotate canvas>arbitrary and PS will tell you what the angle is to adjust for!  So all you have to do is click OK :)  It is perfect to stop here for a clean edit.  If you want to push the processing a bit more, read on!

Next, I felt the image needed a little pop.  She still looks a little dark to me.  So I duped my background layer (Control J) and changed the blending mode to “Screen”. 

Note- I reduced the opacity to about 49%.  She needs some contrast, too… but with that, I like to do a softness so I again, duped the BG layer (Control J), chose “Soft light” for my blending mode (Soft light is a contrast boosting blending mode), and then from my filters, I chose “Gaussian Blur” at 20 pixels.

This is clearly too harsh overall, and too blurry :)  I then changed the opacity to around 30%.  You can also mask back the skin if you think the contrast is too harsh on the skin!

And lastly, one of my most favorite things that I do to pictures, especially outdoor ones that have a lot of green in them… I add a solid color fill layer.  To do this go to Layer > New Fill Layer> Solid Color.  You can play around a lot here!  I like to choose a dark to middle tone blue.  After you choose your color, go to your blending mode and choose either “Lighten” or “Screen”.  (You can also play around there too!)  This step is really to taste… I like a vintage feel to my photo’s… so take it or leave it!

 

You can play with the soft light opacity.  My final edit was at 50%.  SOOC/Final.

 

Thank you Melanie for your picture to play with!  Please, leave me a comment if you have any questions about any of the step’s.  I’m happy to answer any questions.  I’d like to continue to do these tutorials… so if you have a picture that you’d like to see me transform, leave a comment or email me.  The picture should have the basics down-  even, controlled lighting (no flash, no full sun in the face, no dappled lighting), and exposure that is pretty close to correct.  If you have the RAW file, even better!  If you are not a photographer, and still want to see me transform your picture, shoot me an email!  I’ll let you know if the picture can be enhanced.  Just keep in mind that Photoshop polishes a picture that is already good.   A pro once told me “you can’t polish a turd” so don’t bother trying :D