We all have times when getting out to shoot seems just impossible. It seems like months since you have been out when it really has only been weeks. You search all of your favorite websites for the newest photo’s your contacts are putting out and you feel your creativity slipping away. Knowing you won’t be able to go out and shoot for another couple of weeks at minimum you go to your newest best friend…archives!
Yes the archives, all the photos you passed by but yet you kept because you felt they had potential. These are the ones that didn’t jump out at you, seemed to complicated to process or you just weren’t feeling but now with nothing in the can or new to work on you have gone to what could be called “the almost dead file”. These are my newest best friend, the old go to, the faithful, the ones that are sitting there waiting for you no matter how many times you passed them up for something new and what you considered to be better. These are the reason you don’t delete all of your photo’s, these are the reason you save the one’s that have potential.
So when you are going through photo’s that you just shot, don’t delete all the photo’s…there are the ones that you feel are instant classics and you can’t wait to work but then there are the ones that you feel have potential. Someday you will need them and they will be there waiting with no regret or remorse and just happy to see you. Your new best friend!
Post Processing technique:
>Shot in Raw and brought into Camera Raw for processing and saving as a TIFF File
>Open in photoshop
>Use silver efex pro 2 to make 3 copies (Neutral, under exposed and over exposed)
>Open Neutral black and white in PS, make selections and save selections
Examples of Selections
-All Buildings
-Sky
-Buildings starting with Wells Fargo Building 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (From left to right) all separate selections
-Art structure upside down V to left
-All sides of building 2 (Bottom left, Top Left, Bottom right, top right)
-Use light direction as luminosity and shading of buildings
>Keep Neutral open with all selections and open under or overexposed depending on the area you want to work on
>Use masks and gradients to illuminate structures to vision
>1st area I work on is the sky darkening and lighting to taste
>Next each individual building
>Rework sky selection with curves and levels
>Rework building selections with curves and levels
>As each selection is worked, merge and save before going on to the next structure, selection or phase
(REMEMBER DO NOT RUSH TO FINISH)
>Open latest saved file in photoshop
>Open into Silver Efex Pro 2, check histogram for 0-10 zones representation.
All zones should be represented, Zones 0 and 10 need to be represented at least a little in all black and whites
>Use favorite sharpening technique-selectively apply to buildings or objects not to blurry or motion sky
>remove halos around building (This is hugely important to show attention to detail and professional finish)
>Reopen in Silver Efex Pro and use Grain/noise to remove banding in sky
>Selectively apply grain/noise to sky
>Save final uncropped version
>Compose, crop to taste and ratio
Your New Best Friend
We all have times when getting out to shoot seems just impossible. It seems like months since you have been out when it really has only been weeks. You search all of your favorite websites for the newest photo’s your contacts are putting out and you feel your creativity slipping away. Knowing you won’t be able to go out and shoot for another couple of weeks at minimum you go to your newest best friend…archives!
Yes the archives, all the photos you passed by but yet you kept because you felt they had potential. These are the ones that didn’t jump out at you, seemed to complicated to process or you just weren’t feeling but now with nothing in the can or new to work on you have gone to what could be called “the almost dead file”. These are my newest best friend, the old go to, the faithful, the ones that are sitting there waiting for you no matter how many times you passed them up for something new and what you considered to be better. These are the reason you don’t delete all of your photo’s, these are the reason you save the one’s that have potential.
So when you are going through photo’s that you just shot, don’t delete all the photo’s…there are the ones that you feel are instant classics and you can’t wait to work but then there are the ones that you feel have potential. Someday you will need them and they will be there waiting with no regret or remorse and just happy to see you. Your new best friend!
Post Processing technique:
>Shot in Raw and brought into Camera Raw for processing and saving as a TIFF File
>Open in photoshop
>Use silver efex pro 2 to make 3 copies (Neutral, under exposed and over exposed)
>Open Neutral black and white in PS, make selections and save selections
Examples of Selections
-All Buildings
-Sky
-Buildings starting with Wells Fargo Building 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (From left to right) all separate selections
-Art structure upside down V to left
-All sides of building 2 (Bottom left, Top Left, Bottom right, top right)
-Use light direction as luminosity and shading of buildings
>Keep Neutral open with all selections and open under or overexposed depending on the area you want to work on
>Use masks and gradients to illuminate structures to vision
>1st area I work on is the sky darkening and lighting to taste
>Next each individual building
>Rework sky selection with curves and levels
>Rework building selections with curves and levels
>As each selection is worked, merge and save before going on to the next structure, selection or phase
(REMEMBER DO NOT RUSH TO FINISH)
>Open latest saved file in photoshop
>Open into Silver Efex Pro 2, check histogram for 0-10 zones representation.
All zones should be represented, Zones 0 and 10 need to be represented at least a little in all black and whites
>Use favorite sharpening technique-selectively apply to buildings or objects not to blurry or motion sky
>remove halos around building (This is hugely important to show attention to detail and professional finish)
>Reopen in Silver Efex Pro and use Grain/noise to remove banding in sky
>Selectively apply grain/noise to sky
>Save final uncropped version
>Compose, crop to taste and ratio
I understand your process perfectly and it all makes sense. However, I wonder why you save and merge and working on eqch selection.
Does that not eliminate the advantage of layers, in allowing further adjustments.
If you used Adjustment layers, could you not just keep working on the same photo, allowing for final adjustments the various selections as the processing proceded?
Bruce, thank you for the comment.
I have seen the piling on of adjustment layers on top of adjustment layers.
I have used multiple adjustment layers but I have found that I would rather save from layer to layer because I have also had my computer go down in the middle of adjustments and I have lost everything. Flattening and then saving, saves me the heartache.
When I have the multiple adjustment layers open, before I merge or flatten I make sure I like what has been done. If I am still up in the air because it is late at night or I am just tired. I will save with all layers until the next time I open and give it a better assessment.
But once I like the step of process I have completed I flatten and save and move on to a new section.
Hey Tony … Great advice about revisiting past shoots. I have done the exact same thing during “dry spells” of not being able to get out and shoot, but still wanting to work on an image. Many times it is just exercise because my culls are culls for a reason, but several times it has turned into a double rescue: saved an image from extinction, and saved my sanity by giving me something to do photographically. Nice post. I read your workflow and I wish i could say I followed it all, but I am still learning PS and some of the techniques you mentioned are beyond me at the moment. Thanks for sharing!