Review Digital Camera World 10-29-2013

Digital Camera World

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Professional photo editing tricks: how to get perfect skies in ALL your raw images Oct 29th 2013, 00:01, by jmeyer Tired of bleached and boring skies? With a basic knowledge of Layers and a few other Photoshop effects you can use these professional photo editing tricks to ensure bold and dramatic skies in all of your raw images. Here’s how… We've all been there: you lug your kit to a beautiful spot or come across one while on your travels, only for the sky to look lacklustre and dull. Unless you can devote all your time to landscape photography, you'll often have to settle for a less than perfect scene. If you don't want to settle for a less-than-perfect sky, or if you're being paid to produce an image that could benefit from some smart editing, Photoshop proper gives you the option to drop in a better sky. Some may say this is cheating (and it goes without saying that you're better off perfecting the image in-camera if you can), but if you really don't have the opportunity to return to the scene at a later date, it's an option that can potentially result in a stronger, more dramatic image. What's more, the Photoshop skills you'll pick up can prove useful for all kinds of other image-editing tasks. As we saw in the previous tutorial, learning how to replace a sky in Photoshop Elements is a good way to get to grips with the basics of Layers, but for a more sophisticated looking image we'd recommend working in Photoshop CS and Adobe Camera Raw. You'll end with more professional-looking results, and as mentioned, it's a great way to sharpen your advanced Photoshop skills. The key is to get a good, clean cut-out of the original sky so that the new one fits perfectly. We'll show you how to achieve this in our walkthrough by making quick, precise selections with channels, then we'll reveal some useful tricks for removing large distracting objects. Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 1-3 01 Basic tonal tweaks First, open this tutorial's raw image into Camera Raw: navigate to the file in Bridge, then right-click it and choose Open in Camera Raw. Begin by making tonal adjustments in the Basic Panel. Set Contrast to +10, Highlights to -20, Shadows to +26, Clarity to +23 and Vibrance to +41.   02 Check the Channels Click the Open Image button at the bottom right in order to transfer the image into Photoshop. Go to the Channels panel (Window>Channels), then click on each of the Red, Green and Blue channels to see which one gives you the best contrast between land and sky.   03 Copy the Blue channel The Blue channel looks like it's going to be the best choice here (this is usually the case when selecting skies), so drag it onto the Create New Channel icon located at the bottom of the panel to make a blue copy. Double-click the channel name and call it 'Sky'. PAGE 1 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 1-3 PAGE 2 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 4-6 PAGE 3 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 7-9 PAGE 4 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 10-12 PAGE 5 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 13-15 PAGE 6 – Professional photo editing techniques for getting perfect skies: steps 16-18 READ MORE Sky photography: how to take pictures of the sky that dramatically fill your frame Best photo editing tips for beginners: 18 quick fixes to common image problems 34 Photoshop effects every photographer must try once Photoshop reflection effect: how to add water to your landscapes Image Sharpening: how to bring out more detail in your favourite photos Montage photography: how to make dramatic landscape composites Oct 28th 2013, 10:23, by jmeyer In this tutorial we show you how to move mountains and transform your landscape images using a few simple Photoshop effects and montage photography techniques. No landscape photograph can convey the drama and atmosphere the photographer felt at the time of capture. You can get close, but more often than not, the images from a landscape shoot will seem mystifyingly average when you see them for the first time on your computer at home. The secret to making more of these initially disappointing photos is to infuse them with the lost emotional impact at the editing stage. This infusion could be subtle, such as a new sky, a mist effect, or it could be something more radical, such as a montage photography technique, which is arguably much more evocative than any of our start images. In the tutorial below we reveal how to blend together a series of images using a variety of layer masking and opacity techniques to recreate depth and mood in a landscape. As with any blending technique, the quality of our cut-outs is crucial in order to create a seamless image that looks believable and masks the joins. To do this we'll take a look at using refined selections that can be quickly converted to Layer Masks. Another important factor for this montage photography project is creating a sense of depth, and here we're going to look at placing mist in between the rock layers, which will help to add depth and interest to the shot. Montage photography for landscapes 01  Open your start images Select File>Scripts>Load Files into Stack, then click Browse and select your start images. Click OK. Switch off the visibility of the top three layers and then use Free Transform to adjust the scale of the cloud layer to fit the width of the entire document.   02 Tonal impact in the sky Create a Curves Adjustment Layer and drag down a point in the centre of the curve to darken the tone of the sky. Switch on the visibility of the first rocks layer and use Free Transform to enlarge the layer so that the cut-off point of the rock on the right is off screen.   03 Invert the selection With the Quick Selection tool, select the sky and invert the selection using Cmd/Ctrl+I. Choose Refine Edge and adjust settings including the Shift Edge slider to -15. Click the Add Layer Mask icon. Switch on the next rock layer and add a white Color Fill Adjustment Layer.   04 The mist rolls in Set Opacity of layer to 10%. Create a new blank layer and, with the Gradient tool selected, choose White as foreground colour. In the Gradient Editor, select Foreground to Transparent and Reflected Gradient from the options. Draw a gradient across top of the rocks.   05 Getting mistier Switch on the next rock layer and use Free Transform again to resize and position. Mask out the sky then add a white Color Fill layer with Opacity set to 10%, followed by another mist layer. Once done, repeat for the final rock layer. Hold down Cmd/Ctrl+Shift and click into each of the rock masks.   06 Adding a vignette Invert the selection and add a mask to each of the color fill layers, clicking the mask each time to remake the selection. Add a black Color Fill layer and use a radial gradient in the mask to create a vignette. For extra impact, add a Curves Adjustment Layer and a coloured Photo Filter layer to finish. READ MORE 34 Photoshop effects every photographer must try once 14 photo editing tips and tricks every landscape photographer must know 13 ways famous landscape photographers make money from photography 10 quick landscape photography tips

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