I get asked questions from time-to-time about how I might do some of my editing. I do have a handful of actions, but I’m not going to refer you to those. Because, let’s face it, I don’t over-action or over-preset my images. It’s just not the style I’ve developed for myself. The actions I do have are either my own, or some that I have purchased to my the flow I’ve developed go a little faster. I might use a few cross-process actions from a few developers when I feel the need. But, for the most part, what you see in my processing is just a style that I love. It’s always to just enhance the image.
I am a HUGE fan of an image that feels warmer. Some photographers prefer a more cool feel to an image, but not me. I love warmer, sun-glowing images. It’s why I prefer to shoot during the magic hours just before sunset. I love what the glow of the sun does for me. I do use Lightroom to sort my images and correct any exposure and white balance issues. But, that’s it. I sometimes will boost the “vibrance” bar to give me more pop to some colors as well.
Because I prefer natural light when shooting outdoors, I will also use the brush tool in Lightroom to help increase the exposure and brightness in faces. Giving it the feel of fill flash. I do shoot wide open most of the time, and because of this, I don’t have to put any “vignettes” on my images. I am loving my 50 mm f/1.4 again and when shooting wide, I naturally get that beautiful blur and appearance of a vignette – not over done.
Here’s an image of one of my seniors.
The left is my original, after I may make any white balance or exposure corrections. For this image, I got lucky and liked it as is. I brought a bit of fill light in her face with the brush tool in Lightroom. But, in all my desires, it has to be warmer. I do use Photoshop in conjunction with Lightroom. Some people don’t even use Photoshop anymore, but I just have always since being introduced to Lightroom. It’s what works for me. There are a million ways to get to an end result, so pick your poison!
For FYI: image shot with Canon 5D Mark II using a 50 mm f/1.4 lens at f/2 and 1/300 second at 100 ISO.
I’m going to tell you how I warm up an image to give me the result on the left side. I’ve made myself an action in Photoshop so I don’t have to go through these steps every time, and you can do just the same!
With your image open in Photoshop, you’ll want to create a new adjustment layer for Curves. If you aren’t familiar with adjustment layers, read this.
With the Curves dialog box open, choose the “RED” channel and move the middle curve point up slightly.
Next, choose the “BLUE” channel and move the middle curve point down slightly.
Now, you have a nice, warm image. Create an action from these steps and you’ll save yourself tons of time! I personally just love the warmth I can get from my images in Photoshop vs. Lightroom. Maybe you have better luck in LR and can skip this step!
Related posts:
by Holly
2 comments
link to this post email a friend