by Michael Frye | Jun 24, 2010 | Advanced Techniques, Digital Darkroom, Video Tutorials
I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: post a video tutorial on YouTube. It’s called The Power of Curves, and it’s about, well, curves in Photoshop. This is one of those things that’s just easier to show than explain, so it’s a perfect subject for video.
I think Curves are the single most powerful tool in the digital darkroom; if you learn to master Curves, you’re well on your way to mastering image-processing. Curves tend to intimidate some people, as they seem foreign if you haven’t used them before. But Curves are really quite simple, and I hope this video helps clarify how to use this amazing tool. I had to break this into two parts; here are the links:
The Power of Curves Part 1
The Power of Curves Part 2
Originally I had wanted to talk about the new Point Curve feature in Lightroom 3, but then realized that I needed to explain some basics about Curves first, and that Photoshop was a better tool for that. But I’ll post another video in about two weeks about using Curves in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, and about dealing with their strange default settings.
So I hope you enjoy these—let me know what you think! To see everything clearly you need to view in high resolution—click on where it says 240p or 360p in the lower-right corner and choose 480p. Also, if you click on the little double-sided arrow you’ll see the video larger.
by Michael Frye | May 27, 2010 | Digital Darkroom
This photograph of Mono Lake, processed entirely in Lightroom, shows the power of modern applications that work directly with Raw images.
There are probably as many workflows as there are photographers. There’s nothing wrong with that: everyone’s different, and a good workflow for one person can seem awkward to another. But sometimes I look at people’s workflows and think the pieces have been gathered from random tips found on the internet, assembled in no particular order, and held together with duct tape and chewing gum.
Just because you’ve always done it one way doesn’t mean that’s the best way. It’s worth periodically examining your practices to see if they still serve you. I do this all the time: I question each step, and ask if there’s a better way to do it. I look at new tools and techniques and see if they could add efficiency, power, or flexibility. I’m constantly refining and improving my workflow, and in the long run this saves me hours of valuable time.
What is a workflow?
Simply put, it’s all the steps you take to process images, including downloading, editing, keywording, developing, and output (printing or uploading images to the web). While you don’t always have to perform each task in the same order every time, it’s helpful to develop a routine so you don’t forget important steps, and don’t need to invent new procedures for each photograph. In this post I’m going to concentrate on the developing part—the operations you perform to optimize an image and make it look its best.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 14, 2009 | Digital Darkroom, Photography Tips
Back in the dark ages of film, I carried several graduated neutral-density filters. They were both hard to pronounce and hard to use. First I had to decide which one to pull out—one, two, or three stops? Hard edge or soft? Then, after mounting one on the lens, I struggled to adjust it. The transition—the “graduated” part of the filter—could be almost impossible to see through the viewfinder. The light often vanished while I was still fiddling.
With my first digital camera I realized that graduated filters were no longer necessary. I could recreate the same effect in Photoshop, with more ease and control. And now the latest versions of Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw even have built-in graduated filter tools. The photographs above show a before-and-after version done with Lightroom—original on the left, digital graduated filter applied on the right to lighten the foreground.
My latest article in the December issue of Digital Photo magazine (formerly PC Photo), titled Digital Graduated Filters, describes how to use the Graduated Filter tools in Lightroom and Camera Raw, plus how to achieve the same effect with Photoshop. The article isn’t on the their web site, but you can find the magazine at newsstands now. I have a related article on my site with some, but not all, of the same material.
