Tutorial: Bring out Shadows and Highlights in Photoshop

This tutorial is for Photoshop but probably works in a similar way in other programmes.

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After


Before

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1. Open the photograph you want to improve in Photoshop
   
2. Duplicate the background layer
   
3. Filter > Other > High Pass
   
4. Set the radius to 8 pixels
   
5. Click OK
   
6. Set the Layer Mode to Hard Light
   
7. Right click on the top layer and choose 'Merge Down'
   
8. Save as... and you're done.

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After



Before

Season's Greetings!

I'm rather pleased with this image I created this afternoon. It started off as a photo of a wall display in a garden centre, then I cloned out the poster, price tag and marks on the wall, increased the contrast using levels and curves, then created a red fill layer and played around with the blending mode and opacity. Finally, I created an outline, using a colour from the red branches.

So, I hope this time of year isn't too stressful and is instead filled with cute red robins and nice lovey world peace stuff.

Rainbow Swirl

In my post, Popular Funk, I showed how I had made a funky abstract rainbow image out of a shot of a bag.

Using the same starting image I also created a fun, dizzying swirl. I like how you can still see the texture of the bag on the outside edges of the image.

Enjoy!

Crookes Valley Park - Orton Effect

Taken in Crookes Valley Park in Sheffield, and edited using the Orton Effect technique in Photoshop.

Bradfield Manipulated.

Abandoned Shopping Trolley

This is not how I planned it, but for reasons I can't explain, I like the purple hue.


NaBloPoMo

World Mental Health Day

October 10th is World Mental Health Day and this year I was the photographer for the events in Sheffield city centre on that day.



As a mental health service user myself it felt like a good cause to volunteer my skills for, and I figured it would be helpful experience for me, and worthwhile.



It was actually a great day - lots of informative stalls, a surprising amount of public interest (surprising given the nature of the stigma attached to mental health issues), good weather, and some fantastic performances from a local school's drama group, and musicians. And there was fantastic creativity from some of the stalls, and tasty healthy ideas for food and drinks too.



Being there as the photographer for Sheffield Care Trust added extra elements to how I took the photographs, and what photographs I took. I was surprised by how much pressure I felt, as the photos weren't just for me, and as well as taking the photos I wanted, I had to bear in mind the photos that the Trust would want as well.



It wasn't just added stress, though. On a more positive note, taking photos for the Trust gave me more confidence to approach people to photograph them and their stalls, and a way to photograph the school children acting and singing, without being seen as suspicious, as is unfortunately increasingly the case for photographers in public.



The thing that surprised me most was the huge amount of digital darkroom work which was required on the photographs. As I was taking the photographs for other people as well as myself, I felt more obliged to make sure each image was as good as it could be. But even more than that, the weather conditions on the day meant that the vast majority of the photos needed work.



It was a bright, sunny day, which is always a bonus, but it caused some difficulties. The sky was bright enough to require stopping down to avoid (or, more likely, reduce) overexposure in the sky. This caused a further problem, mainly that a lot of the photos I took were of the information stalls and the people staffing them. Having the camera somewhat stopped down to avoid too many blown out skies, meant that the people, posters, information and everything else underneath canvas on the stalls were very frequently underexposed.



It felt a bit like I couldn't win. If I'd upped the aperture size or the shutter speed, to perfectly expose for the stalls and tent, the skies and anything white or reflective would have been totally blown out. If I'd reduced them, the stalls and the people under them would have been even more shadowy and dull. I guess filters could have been useful but I don't have any graduated ones and, given the requirements of the day they would probably not have been so practical.



So, instead, it was post-shutter that I needed to fix the exposure issues. Several weeks and 417 photos later I can attest that my Photoshop skills are certainly well practised! For each image I picked from a toolbox of curves, levels, dodging and burning, hue / saturation, brightness / contrast, and many of the other techniques that programme has to offer.



I grew to learn which of the tools was best for each problem, and how different methods can approach problems in different ways. It was really good experience for me, and I also did some good black and white conversions, and occasionally, to break the monotony, went a bit further with the image manipulation than was typical for this particular project!





I am really glad I took on this assignment. Taking photographs to document such days is, in my opinion, vital, and it is obviously a subject close to my heart. I learned a lot about taking pictures for someone other than yourself, and I learned to never underestimate how much work will need to be done long after the camera is put away.



You can see all my World Mental Health Day photos here, and my next, and final, stage of this particular job is to email all interested parties with a link to the photos of them from the day. I will then be glad to close that particular folder, for now at least!




NaBloPoMo

Same Photo, Different Treatments

I started with this image:

and followed two different tutorials on it, both already tried and tested on this blog.

Firstly, it got the lomo treatment, the second of the two I tried.



Then I gave it the Orton treatment, which is my favourite of the two experiments.



PS.

Fake Model Photography

Since I first saw it, I have wanted to try this technique, to make normal photographs look like they are photographs of a miniature model. There are some good examples here. This is also called Tilt-shift miniature faking.



Using this tutorial, I've made my first attempts. I'm not convinced by them, but I'm getting the idea, and will keep working on this. Enjoy my experiments, anyway.

Choosing the right photos to use can be tricky, too. Photographs taken from above will suit the method more, as that is how photographs of miniature models are usually taken. I think I need to find a high-up spot and take some images for this very purpose, cutting out sky and smoke and such things which detract from the fake-realistic possibilities.

More Orton Effect

I've been doing some more playing with the Orton Effect, and the picture above in particular has had some really good feedback. I like the effect and want to try it on different types of photos, as well as floral and pretty ones.

Photo to Drawing: Raspberries

Back to this tutorial, it's a bit tricky, but spending a little time can get really great results. I love it!

And the raspberries were tasty, too!

The Orton Effect

Orton imagery, also called an Orton slide sandwich, is a photography technique which blends two completely different photos of the same scene, resulting in a distinctive mix of high and low detail areas within the same photo. It was originated by photographer Michael Orton.



The original technique [...] was to overlay two or more images of an identical scene with very different exposures on slide film. One image is sharply focused and the others are very out of focus.

I followed this tutorial, with mixed results. The amount of gaussian blur really seems to make a difference and I haven't found any kind of formula, other than playing around, that gets the best results.



But when it's right, it's great. It's almost a watercolour or impressionist type effect, and I'll definitely experiment more with this one.

The tutorial is written for Elements 5, but it works fine on Photoshop CS3.

Other of my attempts are here and here.

Different Lomo Effect Tutorial

Following the success of yesterday's lomo effect tutorial, I decided to explore other digital lomography tutorials.



I chose this one from digital photography school and, again, produced great results.

In this one, the cross-processing effect of film lomography is more evident, and the fabulous vignetting and colour effects are present.

The tutorial was fairly easy to follow, so have a go!

The Lomo Effect

Lomography, an increasibly popular type of photography, is very much a back-to-basics approach. Cheap film cameras, often toy cameras, are used and there is a lomo aesthetic which is very appealing.

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, "happy accidents," and alternative film processing are often considered part of the "Lomographic Technique." (from wikipedia)

I play with a Holga and other toy cameras, all plastic, to varied effects. One of the joys of lomography is indeed its very complete unpredictability.

The Holga's cheap construction and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions. Ironically, the camera's quality problems became a virtue among some photographers, with Holga photos winning awards and competitions in art and news photography. (from wikipedia again!)

The most faithful of lomographers despise digital attempts to reproduce the lomo aesthetic, so I avoided it for a long time. However, the unique beauty of this effect has led me astray and I have, for the first time, followed a 'lomo effect' tutorial for Photoshop. And I don't regret it. The results, above, are just fantastic.

The tutorial I used is here. There are probably hundreds of them but I like this one. Simple and effective.

Lomo links:
lomography.com
Lomography UK
A Guide to Lomography

Classical Art Colour Match

This colour-match tutorial states,

Adjusting your photographs to get the color 'just right' can be a chore. Think about this: The Old Masters of painting spent years of their lives learning about color. Why let all their effort go to waste on the walls of some museum when it could be used to give you a hand with color correction?

I used 'Garrotte' by Santiago Bose to really alter, and improve, the colouring of this photograph of the church in Edale, Derbyshire.



With the tutorial and the Bose image, I created this:



I then used the same technique on this portrait:


and, using the colours from this floral painting, created this quite different mood.

Further Photo to Drawing: Sunflowers.

With further exploration of the Photo to Drawing technique, I edited this image:



and from it created this one:



With help also from here when trying to understand the gradient tool.

Photo To Drawing - Photoshop

Roughly based on this tutorial from Planet Photoshop, I turned this photo:


into this, where the image is the photograph on the left, graduating to a line drawing on the right.



The photograph is of a 'Nicaragua Must Survive' poster. The manipulation could certainly be improved, but am sharing my first attempt at a new technique.