Post Processing…
I’ve never done a typed out tutorial before… I’m not sure how good I’ll be at this… honestly folks, I just google something if I want to know how to do it- that, combined with countless hours just trial and error in Photoshop is how I do it… but I’ll try to show how I do a few things… I get a lot of questions about how I do the “light circles”… or, ‘light bokeh’ as us photographers like to call it (I don’t even know how to pronounce that correctly, but I know how to spell it!) so, what I thought I would do is walk you thru processing a photo step-by-step. Sound good?
First… let me tell you, when I first started shooting with my DSLR, I was a fan of aperture priority mode… loved it. Then one of the photographers I follow online mentioned how they only shoot in manual, and they only work with other photographers who shoot in manual, and I freaked out. MANUAL?! Too hard! I took one photography class and had a hard time with all the manual settings… but I was bound and determined to nail it… and I’m pleased to say I am a 100% manual shooter now. Getting your exposure correct in camera will do amazing things for your photos….
- steps off of her soap box-
onward!
I edit all my photos with Adobe Photoshop CS3. Just so you know. I also own several sets of Totally Rad Actions. ‘Pool Party’ in some form or another is one of my staple actions. If you’re just playing around with photos, The Pioneer Woman has basically the same actions (created with the help of some of the Totally Rad people) HERE, for FREE.
SOOC image: (straight out of camera)
I over-exposed this on purpose, as I wanted the window in the back to be blown out, and the rest of the photo to have a soft glow.
Next, I usually tweak the color balance a bit… but I won’t show that since its a minor change. When I add a texture, ‘light bokeh’ or lens flare to a photo, I usually try and remember to do that next, before I do any other post processing. For this photo, I’m going to layer on a light bokeh I took of some Christmas lights:
(just a hint kids- to get these? Just take an out of focus photo of lights. Christmas lights, city lights, ect… turn your lens off of ‘auto-focus’ and shoot! Super out of focus will make the light circles large, closer to focused will give you smaller circles.)
So, I have both this, and the other photo opened in PS. Hit your ‘V’ key, and that should give you your dragging tool. Drag your light photo over to your original photo. So you should have your first photo with the lights photo layered on top.
I’m not going into layers here… if you’re wondering about that please Google them and read some of the really good info out there. If you use Photoshop, you need to learn about layers!
Next step…. go to your menu on the side… your layers palatte… and see where it says ‘Normal’ and has a drop down menu?
Hit that drop down menu and you can choose from a myriad of different options for layering your top layer over your second layer. For this particular photo, I’m choosing “screen’ mode. Its soft and light, which is the feel I’m going for with this series.
Now, this one turned out pretty good, sometimes I tweak the opacity of the ‘lights’ layer, or the color balance, or stretch it/shrink it to look how I want, but this worked perfect at 100% opacity, in the location it was originally placed.
Next, flatten the image.
Then, I’ll use my ‘Pool Party’ action, or, if you have The Pioneer Woman actions, ’70’s’. I’m pulling it down to about 60% opacity:
Flatten the image again.
Then, open the ‘brightness and contrast’ menu, and I’m setting the brightness at -41, and the contrast at +31. No particular reason, those settings are just what my eyes like. I’m then opening up the color balance menu again. My settings for this particular photo are; Cyan@ -22, magenta@ -12, yellow@+22:
I decided it was too dark for what I was going for, so I opened curves, and in the first menu tweaked it a bit:
And then…. I guess I’m done with it… here’s the original and the finished product, side by side:
so… sorry if it was hard to follow? I hope this made someone happy, or answered a few questions? I don’t think I’m very good at this tutorial thing….