My Theory Using DSLR's And Photoshop

[3n-Out]

My Theory on DSLR's and Photoshop

Karen and whoever else asked me this question.

I'm going to attempt to share with you my technique for post processing my photography. As you well know I shot using a Canon 30D, and Primarly shot in JPEG format.

Here is a simple picture I took with my 70-200L 2.8 lens on a cloudy day. This is straight out of my camera.

This photo is resized to 600X400

[3n-Out]

The very first thing I do to a pic that I like is crop it! I always crop to 8X10 printable size, most everyone I know that buy my photo's including myself don't normally buy prints larger then 8X10. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I can always resize if I need to upon request anyway.

So I find my sweet spot on the pic and crop.

Original Crop was 3000x2400, this is resized to 600x480

See Below:

Note: Notice how I tilted the pic in post processing. You can most certainly do this during capture but man it is way more easier to do it at this stage.

[3n-Out]

The next step is I add some shadows and highlights... Notice the Greenery it has way more definition.

The settings that looked good to me are:

Shadows - 13
Highlights - 73

[3n-Out]

The next thing I do is adjust my Brightness and Contrast.

These are what seemed most pleasing to me:

Brightness: -5
Contrast: +11

This is personal preference, It just looked pleasing to me - I wanted that orange/red of the flower to really grab ya.

[3n-Out]

Well, I'm pretty satisfied with this - but I can add a little more POP by turning the Saturation up a weeeeeeeeeeeeee bit...

So I hit is with these settings....

On the Master Channel:

Hue: -1
Saturation: +7
Lightness: -6

It looked pleasing: No rocket science here for me - I don't want to drive myself to drink messing with this all night.

[3n-Out]

Time to Sharpen it up - I use the USM (Unsharpen Mask) for this task. Funny thing is this does the exact oposite of what it says. Maybe that is why most people don't get it.

Here are the settings I choose:

Amount: 100
Radius: 2.3
Threshold: 0

[3n-Out]

Then I hit it with a Sharpen Edges and I call it complete.

Nothing Spectacular here but is gets the point across.

I really don't do much more then that. Sure if I have a photo I really like I will spend more time on it, and try and get it just right to my eye. But that will cause you to drink! then when that happens you can be sure you'll hose the image up for sure.

Thanks!

3n-out.....

[mobilezen]

cool little writeup. Thanks!

[johnastovall]

Rather a waste to do all that to a JPEG, I would say....

[Daniel Bates]

Whyever not? I shoot JPEG, and it's fine for my needs...


You can do a lot to a good JPEG file, if you know how.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

But if you do it to RAW and then do the conversion to TIFF you will get a lot better final output from the printer.

This is kind of like putting lipstick on a pig.

[Jake]

WTF??
Someone take the time to post a very well written thread about their workflow and people talk trash about the way he does it?

Give me a break, don't turn this into some RAW vs. JPG thread.

[johnastovall]

Ok, but it's in the wrong section. It belongs in Post Processing. Not in San Antonio Area Photo Locales.

[Michael Lyons]

this thread needs cliff notes

[Craig]

Pic looks way too overprocessed for me. Just my opinion.