Today I'm going to show you my photographic process. Basically, after I have taken a photo and uploaded it to my computer. I check them over for color, sharpness and composition in Photoshop.
Here are the step by step process I use.
First I open up Adobe Photoshop. You should see this after it starts.
The photo I chose to edit is this one.
This photo is SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera). Though normally, this would be acceptable. I wasn't too happy with it. As you can see, the contrast isn't that good and the colors doesn't pop. The problem stems from the fact that it was cloudy that day and I had white balance set to Auto. If I set it to cloudy, the colors would look more yellow.
I was also wearing sunglasses since it was still bright even though it was cloudy. So I couldn't really see the colors properly and I thought I had it right on my camera. Also, looking closely, the photo isn't really really sharp. The softness wasn't from camera shake, it was more of the thin haze from the weather since I was up in the mountains.
So I do a little sharpening by using the Unsharp Mask. You go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask.
I know it's a little confusing on why Adobe used the term Unsharp Mask to sharpen something. From my understanding it is to mask the "unsharp" pixels.
This is the settings I usually use. I normally set the Amount to between 55% to 60% and the Radius to 1.7. The bigger the radius, the bigger the pixels being sharpened. The higher the amount, the more sharp it is.
Basically, you have to experiment with this and these are the amounts I'm normally happy with. You don't want to over sharpen because your photo will look ugly as it will introduce white pixels in between. The best way to explain this is to see what happens when you move the sliders to their maximum levels.
Another reason I don't over sharpen is I'm only trying to help a camera a bit. Not completely edit my photo. My goal is always to enhance the photo, not to manipulate the image. I try my best to maintain the integrity of the original photograph. Much like when someone develops film by using different chemicals or exposures during the development.
Once I'm happy with the results, I move on to the next step which is fixing the colors.
I'll post the details on my next entry.
Here are the step by step process I use.
First I open up Adobe Photoshop. You should see this after it starts.
The photo I chose to edit is this one.
This photo is SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera). Though normally, this would be acceptable. I wasn't too happy with it. As you can see, the contrast isn't that good and the colors doesn't pop. The problem stems from the fact that it was cloudy that day and I had white balance set to Auto. If I set it to cloudy, the colors would look more yellow.I was also wearing sunglasses since it was still bright even though it was cloudy. So I couldn't really see the colors properly and I thought I had it right on my camera. Also, looking closely, the photo isn't really really sharp. The softness wasn't from camera shake, it was more of the thin haze from the weather since I was up in the mountains.
So I do a little sharpening by using the Unsharp Mask. You go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask.
I know it's a little confusing on why Adobe used the term Unsharp Mask to sharpen something. From my understanding it is to mask the "unsharp" pixels.This is the settings I usually use. I normally set the Amount to between 55% to 60% and the Radius to 1.7. The bigger the radius, the bigger the pixels being sharpened. The higher the amount, the more sharp it is.
Basically, you have to experiment with this and these are the amounts I'm normally happy with. You don't want to over sharpen because your photo will look ugly as it will introduce white pixels in between. The best way to explain this is to see what happens when you move the sliders to their maximum levels.
Another reason I don't over sharpen is I'm only trying to help a camera a bit. Not completely edit my photo. My goal is always to enhance the photo, not to manipulate the image. I try my best to maintain the integrity of the original photograph. Much like when someone develops film by using different chemicals or exposures during the development.Once I'm happy with the results, I move on to the next step which is fixing the colors.
I'll post the details on my next entry.
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