Photo editing
38 The Professional Photoshop Book
- MAKE AND USE ACTIONS FOR
REPETITIVE PROCESSES - USE GRADIENT MAPS
Tom Anders Watkins (tomanders.com) has created a
range of photo-editing Actions for Photoshop, which
are sold in bundles in his Creative Market store
(www.creativemarket.com/tomanders). His Actions
have been one of the top-selling products for two years
running, so he’s well placed to explain why you should
use Actions: “Actions are brilliant; they’re like the
professional version of Instagram filters for your
photography. Whenever I’m editing photos, I will spend
time creating a specific look for one of the images,
recording the process so it becomes a Photoshop“There are quite a number of tools in Photoshop
that are important,” says Amar Kakad (www.
behance.net/amarkakad). “But, of late, I have
been using the Gradient Map tool
(Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map) a lot in my
line of work. It is quite a powerful tool and used
in the process of applying contrast to colours.
Essentially the Gradient Map tool converts the
image into Grayscale. I then change the blending
mode to Soft Light, which restores the colour
values. It effectively applies contrast in the black,
grey and white tones. You are offered various
presets – give it a try and you will see some
interesting results. You can use this either with
two colours or even multiple colours. It is
entirely up to you. Play with sliders, this will
allow you more control over how much contrast
you want to apply.”Action, which I can replicate super quickly for all my
images without having to re-create them one by one.
“If you find yourself repeating the same process
multiple times inside Photoshop... Look at creating an
Action; whether it’s as simple as cropping multiple
images and saving them, to complex effects or
photographic looks, they will save time. Alternatively, if
you struggle getting the look you want, like a genuine
HDR look or vintage feel, search for an Action that
replicates it. You can see another one of my photos
edited here with my Iceland Action.- APPLY PHOTO
SKILLS TO 3D
Many photo-editing skills can be applied to 3D
images, and 3D retouching skills translate to 2D as
well, as 3D artist Lorett Foth (www.lorettfoth.com)
explains: “The importance of lighting does not just
apply to 3D, but also to a 3D photomontage or any
other non-3D retouching job. Either the lighting in the
background of the image will need to be adjusted to
your element, or the lighting of the object will need to
be matched to your background. This can be achieved
by paying close attention to the type of light sources
that illuminate the image, and in which direction the
light follows. Another thing to consider and match is
the light colour. An image will not look quite right if an
object is illuminated by warm light and the rest of the
image has cold light. I think it’s good practice to look
at how photographers set up lighting, to get a better
understanding and to be able to guess how an image
is lit without seeing the light sources.”
© Tom Anders© Cream Studios© Photography by Makarand Baokar (www.makarandbaokar.com)030-039 Photo Editing Feature_PPB_07.indd 38 06/10/2015 16:05