Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Image Post Processing Techniques

 

Many beginner and intermediate-level photographers struggle to post-process their pictures, especially once they change from JPEG to RAW shooting. Initially, photos look bland, and they may start getting their "overdone" look once the experimentation process kicks in.


A skilled photographer can readily say if an image is not well post-processed and if any image processing can enhance it. That's because experienced photographers have done plenty to learn how to make pictures look good for the viewing enjoyment of both themselves and the public. You have to know the meaning of post-processing



In this article, I will share with our readers 5 simple post-processing techniques, which will hopefully make it easier to understand how to post-process images properly.


How to Use the Burn and Dodge Tool

Dodging and burning is a term carried over from the old days of the film that simply lightens and darkens parts of the picture. This is done with an adjustment brush in the lightroom, and with the sliders inside the Adjustment Brush panel, you can change the lightness (or darkness) values. It works well and for its super simple and straightforward operation, many prefer to use this form. In the adjustment brush, there is exposure, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, etc that can be changed.


There's a more advanced method of dodging and burning in Photoshop that allows you to change blend modes to get various looks from dodging and burning with a brush tool. The ability to adjust brush tips and tip angles is a feature not available in Lightroom in Photoshop. Here's how to build these 50 percent grey layers of dodge and burn. 


By hitting CMD/CTRL+SHIFT+N, build a New Layer 

Call this DODGE & BURN layer by name. 

For the blend mode, click "Overlay" and check the Fill with 50% Grey box.

post-processing method is here 

Luminosity Selection:




A lot of people studying Photoshop shy away from the Channels panel, and that's a mistake. It's a place where the full power and profit of Photoshop really lies. You may have used the phrase "Luminosity Masks" on your photographic journey. It is simply a selection based on the degree of luminosity in the channel panel and then added as a layer mask, typically by brushing the selection in a layer mask. They are used for an almost innumerable amount of ultra-powerful exposure mixing, skin retouching, dodging and burning, shadow and saturation, curves, etc. – and on. Post-processing has much importance for photos


Don't let yourself believe it's all for the Experienced USERS – it's not! Here's             how you can make choices dependent on the values of Luminosity


CMD/CTRL-click on the RGB channel in the Channels window. 


Go to the "Save Selection As Channel" icon and click!




Frequency Separation Retouching:


Frequency Separation in Photoshop is a super cool process used in the field of digital photography and retouching by many retouchers. It is well known for the ability to repair blotchy problems with the skin of an individual and even to eliminate wrinkles, fine lines, etc imperfections on the face of a person. With this technique, it is very simple to go too far, but by using this approach, you will get impressive results very quickly. In other forms of photography, such as landscape work, it may also be used. What it does is isolate the layer of texture from the layer of color and allows you to edit the colors and textures without affecting each other. That's really very helpful. Here's how it operates:


Create two copies of the base layer on which you work. 


Shut the top layer off and the middle layer is picked. 


Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur on this layer. Pick a blur that is appropriate to erase information from someone's face, but not to blur someone's face out entirely (Or the details in whatever image maybe). You're going to have to play with this but the setting of the Radius should not be too high. This depends on the resolution of your picture, so there's no fixed number. 

Now go to the top layer and go to IMAGE>Image Submit. 


Once here when we subtract the layer out, make sure to have the layer set to the COLOR layer. The blending mode should be on SUBTRACT in this Add Image Frame. You should set the scale to 2 and the offset to 128. Don't ask, this is just the way it is. Only hit OK.  


In the Layers panel, you can now change the Texture group to the Linear Light blend mode.


Overlay/spotlight painting selection:


We also use the black and white paintbrush to refine our choices while trying to get very nice masks/selections made. A perfect way to restrict the brush from influencing the opposite tone is to use the Brush tool in either overlay or Softlight BLEND mode (in the Brush tool menu). Only white areas will be swept with white brush and black will only affect black areas. This is great for making extremely precise selections while building alpha channels in the Channels panel.


The Orton Effect:


The Orton effect is overused and over-done in many situations, as in many post-processing techniques. Please don't let this stop you from trying this incredible process.


In the Layers panel, duplicate Context or Combined Copy. 

Go to Picture>Apply Image>Apply Image (use above settings). 

In the Layers panel, adjust the Blend Mode to "Screen". 

Navigate to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur.


After learning this you may need to know about the software for post-processing.

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