The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

Photo editing

34 The Professional Photoshop Book

7. PLAN WITH
   YOUR CLIENT
   09. TRY ADVANCED SHARPENING TECHNIQUES

A good photo-editing project involves good

planning to be able to execute your, and your

client’s idea, perfectly. Photographer Derek

Johnston (www.derek-johnston.co.uk)

explains: “When a client comes to me with an

idea, I’ll first work out how realistic it would be

to execute. For the image of Elisa, she came to

me with the idea that she was creating her

glass-like magic between her hands. I’ll

usually draw up a rough sketch that I will take

to the client. The clearer you can be and get

your ideas across, then the smoother your

work will be. I’ll create lighting diagrams for

the client too, so they know what’s going to be

around them, then I’ll explain each step of the

shoot. As I mainly do composite work it can be

a tad strange for them to know why I’m

shooting certain things certain ways,

especially if they’ve got no photographic

knowledge. Communication is key. I want

them to understand every bit of the shoot so it

goes smoothly for me and makes a great

experience for them.”

The final step of any photo-editing project is often to

apply a degree of sharpening (it shouldn’t be done

before other image-editing tasks are completed, as it

can introduce a level of noise). If you have multiple

layers, then use Cmd/Ctrl+Opt/Alt+Shift+E, which will

create a new merged layer at the top of your Layers

stack. Photoshop CCs Smart Sharpen filter

(Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen) has evolved a great

deal over the last releases and what was once hidden

away in an advanced mode is now instantly available.

You can accurately target the shadows and highlights

individually, as well as make global adjustments. First,

increase the Amount of sharpening globally, and then

increase the Radius so that it is as high as possible

8. IMPROVE PHOTO COLOURS

Reduce shake:wearing crampons standing on I took this shot

a glacier. I wasn’t the sturdiest (putting it mildly), resulting in

this image being slightly shaken. But using Photoshop’s

Shake Reduction filter made it barely noticeable

Raw photo:a surprising amount of data, so Raw images capture

pushing the Cyan value in the Color Balance tool really allows

these parts of the image to come out and feel all icy

Noise : I wanted the Iceland image

series to have a somewhat personal feel, so adding noise

emulating a vintage camera gives all the images a unity, like they

were taken from the same camera

TOM ANDERS WATKINS (WWW.TOMANDERS.COM) TALKS US THROUGH THE

EDITING ON THIS IMAGE TO IMPROVE COLOURS AND GIVE A VINTAGE FEEL

without introducing halos. Reduce Noise helps to

sharpen the image, but without too much noise added.

Then you can work on the Shadows and Highlights,

reducing or increasing the global sharpening in these

areas and fading them as needed into the image.

© Derek Johnston Photography

© Tom Anders

Color Balance : Too much playing

with the Color Balance can ruin other parts of the image, such as

the red on this guy’s coat. With the Selective Color tool it’s easy to

re-correct any over-altered hues

Before

balanceColour

Levels:more of a matte feel, so pulling in I like to give my photographs

the white and black Levels nodes slightly will help blend some of the

darker details, and take away any stark white bits

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