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Snail Shells 2 - After
Color boosted in Photoshop
© Richard Lynch
All Rights Reserved
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When you first open up an image in Photoshop, it may seem like nothing special. But almost always there is something more in my captures than what initially pops up in Photoshop. As Jim Miotke said in his introduction to his interview with me on BetterPhoto Radio, you can often have a lot of interpretive and creative control with your images and find something quite different than what you originally see using the digital darkroom (Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or other image editing software).While I enjoy photography, what makes the journey really complete for me is exploring what I can do with what I have captured during image editing to make the most out of the results.
Snail Shells 1 - Before
Original image with muted colors
© Richard Lynch
All Rights Reserved
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For example, on a recent trip to Nantucket, I had combed some lightly tread beaches in my early morning walks along the shoreline, and found some fairly sun-bleached snail shells that were large and whole. After returning home with them, and later that evening, I tried arranging them and shooting a bunch of exposures just toying with shape, shadow, depth-of-field and various lenses on an old picnic table.When the trip was over and I reviewed the images, none seemed terribly special immediately. I could make out muted colors that would probably have been more brilliant had I used a spray bottle to mist the shells. But even so, I selected a few images out of the bunch to play with - like the original (Before) image shown here. I knew I could punch up muted color, enhance the dynamics range of the images, fiddle with effects for local and global contrast, enhance sharpening and softness, and push the limits of what the images kept hidden in the captures. Using techniques that I teach in all of my BetterPhoto courses (Photoshop 101, Color Management for Digital Photographers, Correct and Enhance Your Images, and Leveraging Layers), I did just that and started to see results. I ended up finding several images that were keepers in the bunch.
Once you know how to explore an image to redefine the color, tone and dynamics, you can make even flat images spring to life. It requires a little effort to learn the modern, digital darkroom, but the creative levels that it unleashes are well worth the effort. As my skills continue to grow in image editing (even after 15+ years of full-time use), editing and adjusting captured images has become as much an exploration and adventure as the capturing. I unravel and adorn each image as a unique object, exploring its intricacies in post-processing to create a finished piece.
More about Richard Lynch...
Richard teaches many excellent online courses here at BetterPhoto, including:Note: This article was adapted from one of Richard's Instructor Insights blogs.
About Author / Instructor / Photographer, Richard Lynch
 After years of pushing pixels for fun, and with a long history of amateur photography and darkroom experience that stretched back to grade school, Richard Lynch began his professional image editing career as the editor of a photography book publisher in 1991. Starting in the late 90s, he began writing and publishing books on digital image editing with Photoshop. His books teach intermediate and advanced image editing techniques to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements users, also providing custom-made tools for Elements and Photoshop users that simplify difficult image editing processes. Richard has been a columnist for Digital Photography Techniques, and has written for Popular Photography, PCPhoto, Photo Techniques, Advanced Photoshop and many other design and photography magazines. He teaches digital imaging and design at Daemen College in New York. His newest book, The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book, is a great companion to his Leveraging Layers course here on betterphoto.com. Richard's photography tends toward the abstract, often using extreme editing processes and unusual equipment. His Sigma SD14 sports a range of common Sigma EX lenses, but can be fitted with an old bellows, extension tubes and an assortment of vintage M42 lenses from 10mm to 2300mm. See more about Richard's books and tools on his Web site for Photoshop Elements users: http://hiddenelements.com and Photoshop: http://photoshopcs.com. Richard’s four courses on betterphoto.com serve as a series:
- Photoshop 101: A beginner-level introduction to Photoshop.
- Correct and Enhance Your Images: An intermediate-level course dedicated to core imaging correction techniques
- From Monitor to Print: An intermediate-level course for mastering Photoshop / Photoshop Elements color management
- Leveraging Layers: Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool: An advanced-level, specialized focus on using layers
Though it is suggested they be taken as a series, you can start anywhere depending on your level of expertise, or follow it from beginning to end as designed! Contact Richard if you have any questions.Richard has a free Newsletter/Blog to all who are interested in bettering their skills with Photoshop. Listen to Richard talk with Jim Miotke in a two-part interview covering his perspective on image editing: Part 1, Part 2
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