wine on the keyboard

post processing

Quick Photo Post Processing Tips

by Kay~Kacey on 3/7/2008

A Photoshop Elements Tutorial

These are some adjustments I usually do to every photo I take. I’m using Photoshop Elements here, but you should be able to do similar with Photoshop. (which is on my PC, so therefore isn’t getting used these days)

So if you can’t afford the $$ for Photoshop, you can find Photoshop Elements for under $100. For Windows: Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 or for the Mac-Verison 6 coming April 1 Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac) You can get it for less if you have a student in the family and get the student version. It’s a great way to get your feet wet on editing photos, without the outlay of cash for the full version of Photoshop.

Okay, on to the tutorial. First, here is my deer. Straight out of the camera.
deer straight out of the camera

I then do layer, new adjustment layer, levels. You get this:

levels adjustment

Now here is how to set up your adjustments the first time. Once you get them set up, it will ask you if you want to save them. Say yes, and you won’t have to set up these adjustments again. Double Click on the left eyedropper. It will bring up this ColorPicker:

colorpicker

Fill in 10 for R G and B. Click ok.

Now double click on the middle eyedropper. Fill in 128 for R, and G, and B. Click ok.

Double click on the right eyedropper. Fill in 240 for R, and G, and B. Click ok. (it might ask you to save settings here. Say yes. If it asks you to save settings later, make sure to say yes so you don’t have to go through these steps again.)

Okay, so much for the one time set up. Now click on the left eyedropper and go to the blackest/darkest spot on your photo. Click on that spot on the photo. This is what it did to my deer.
deer with some correction

Click on the right eyedropper and go to the lightest spot on your photo. Click on that spot. This is what it did to my deer photo.
deer with more adjustments

For the more difficult photos:

But what if you can’t find the darkest spot or the lightest spot? Well, I can help you with that too. Do a layer, adjustment layer, threshold. Move the slider at the bottom of the threshold all the way to the left. The picture turns white. Slowly move the slider to the right until the first black appears. Remember this spot. You might have to slide it a bit more to the right to figure out where you are on your photo.
working with threshold
Now slide the slider all the way to the right. The photo turns black. Slide the slider a bit to the left until see the lightest spot. Remember this spot.

Now you can delete the threshold layer and proceed to clicking on the left eyedropper and clicking on the darkest spot on your photo, then click on the right eyedropper and click on the lightest spot on your photo.

The middle eyedropper is for the neutral grey tones. But that’s a topic for another post!

Now I fiddle with other adjustments. Hues, sharpening, cropping, etc. But this is what I usually do to each photo to start my post processing of the photo. Have fun! (I think I’m a little off on where I clicked on the lightest spot on my photo. It was hard to distinguish the spot with all the snow. I would probably go back and fiddle with this some more, but as it is, it’s taken me hours to write up this tutorial. So I’m sticking with what I’ve got here.) :mrgreen:

Straight out of Camera:
deer straight out of the camera
After Quick Adjustments:
deer straight out of the camera

Here is another set. The one on the left is straight out of the camera. Subtle changes to the one on the right, but it does improve the shot.
deer out of cameradeer after adjustments

Now I fiddle with other adjustments. Hues, sharpening, cropping, etc. But this is what I usually do to each photo to start my post processing of the photo. It worked great on my flower pics from Palm Desert. Have fun!

For more photo processing fun, see this post on Country Girl’s blog.