Digital Camera World (2019-06)

RAW WAR

84 DIGITAL CAMERA^ JUNE 2019

2

Crop to improve composition

With perspective corrections in place, the

next job is to crop the image to tidy up the

composition, removing distracting buildings from the

foreground, and the edge of a building on the right of the

frame. To do this I click on the Crop Tool icon, then drag

the cropping guide over the entire image. I then hold

down Shift to constrain proportions and drag one

of the corner control points before pressing Return

to crop out the unwanted parts of the image.

1

Correct perspective

The first thing that strikes

me about this image is the

perspective distortion that results from the

high viewpoint the shot was taken from, and

from the tall buildings from the front to the

back of the scene. This is a simple one-click

fix that will immediately make the image

look better. I click on the Transform icon on

the main toolbar, then select A for automatic.

Photoshop then works its magic and

straightens up the buildings, for

a more natural-looking scene.

N

ew York is undoubtedly one of the

most photogenic cities in the entire

world, and images of the famous

Manhattan skyline peppered with

skyscrapers taken from a high

viewpoint, like this one, never fail to impress.

The shot here looks like it was taken in bright and

hazy conditions, so the challenge for my image-editing

process will be to balance out the high contrast present

in the scene. Beyond basic considerations like fixing

the exposure and correcting the perspective, this

image looks like the perfect candidate for a warm

vintage-style colour grading, using the choice

of presets offered in Adobe Camera Raw.

Warrior 1

James

Abbott

Crop

Cr

o

p

Basic

adjustments

Pe rspe c t i ve

correc tion

Overall vin tage

colour and

sha dow lif t

Grad to ligh ten

JAMES’ PLAN FOR THE RAW IMAGE