Reyns Wim Photography Articles

Photoshop Actions inside Lightroom

Reyns Wim

 

PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS INSIDE LIGHTROOM

	In this rather short article i'm going to show you how to use Photoshop
Actions together with Lightroom.
 As it stands now (LR 1.3) you can't play actions inside of Lightroom but you
can play it when exporting photographs,
 this can be very handy when exporting large volumes of photo's for lets say
printing or web usage. 

 So to use this function we need to make our actions into droplets, 
 we do this by going to FILE > AUTOMATE > CREATE DROPLET
 In the create droplet dialogue box you will need to select the required set
and action you want to use.
 In this case i'm using an action to prepare my files for printing on a inkjet
printer at 300ppi. 

 The Create Droplet dialogue box. 

	You want to save the droplet in: 
 Windows XP: C:DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS"USERNAME"APPLICATION
DATAADOBELIGHTROOMEXPORT ACTIONS
 Windows Vista: USERS_USERNAME_APPDATAROAMINGADOBELIGHTROOMEXPORT ACTIONS
 Mac: /LIBRARY/APPLICATION SUPPORT/ADOBE/LIGHTROOM/EXPORT ACTIONS/ 

	That's really all there is to it, now all you have to do is go to Lightroom,
select a couple of photographs,
 export them and in the export dialogue select the droplet you just made under
the POST-PROCESSING > AFTER EXPORT dropdown 

 Lightroom Export. 

 Then hit the export button, and after Lightroom finishes exporting, 
 Photoshop will execute the droplet and voilla, youre file's are ready to go.
 A real time saver !

Sharpening strategy for web

Reyns Wim

 

SHARPENING STRATEGY FOR WEB

	As you probably know most (if not all) digital images can benefit from a good
bit of sharpening,
 now there are several ways that you can accomplish this by using the
sharpening tools in photoshop.
 However I'm only going to show you my favorite way to sharpen an image for web
purposes.
 This is a fairly easy and straight forward approach but it grants very good
results!
 Do keep in mind that sharpening should be your final step _before_ saving the
image and _after_ all color 
 and contrast adjustments have been made!

 First thing you'll have to do is to figure out at what size you want your
final image, 
 then add 25% of the size of the longest side to that number. 
 So for example if I wanted my final image to be 1000px on the longest side,
 then I would add 25% which is 250, this would then give me 1250px.

 Now we'll resize (found under IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE)our image to the size that
was calculated, 
 just make sure that you leave the Constrain Proportions checkbox on so that
you only have to 
 type in the longest side. 

 The Image Size window and the image after it has been resized 

	Then we will sharpen the image with Unsharp Mask (found under FILTER > SHARPEN
> UNSHARP MASK) 
 using these settings:
 - Amount: 300%
 - Radius: 0,5
 - Threshold: 0
 And then a second round of sharpening with Unsharp Mask using these settings:
 - Amount: 200%
 - Radius: 0,6
 - Threshold: 0
 After this you will end up with a oversharpend/unnatural looking image, don't
worry though this will be fixed next. 

 The Unsharp Mask windows

 The image after the sharpening was applied 

 Then you will want to fade this last Unsharp Mask filter by 50% in Luminosity
mode. 
 (found under EDIT > FADE UNSHARP MASK ) 

 The Fade window 

 Now it is time for the final resizing to the size you had originally in mind,
in my case this was 1000px.
 You will end up with an image that is sharp, crisp, has no haloes and is ready
to use for web purposes. 

   [1]
 The Image Resize window and the final image (rollover to see a before) 

	If you regularly resize and sharpen images for web then i have made this
action set [2] for you, it includes resizing and sharpening images to 1000px,
750px, 500px, 250px and it also contains a generic action where you can dial in
the numbers yourself. Download here! [3] 

  

Links:
------
[1] http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/#
[2]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../downloads/web_sharpen.zip
[3]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../downloads/web_sharpen.zip

Digital cross-processing C-41 as E-6

Reyns Wim

  

DIGITAL CROSS-PROCESSING C-41 AS E-6

	Cross-processing is developing color print or slide film in the wrong
chemicals for example, 
 color negative film in slide chemicals ("C-41 as E-6") or slide film by the
color negative process ("E-6 as C-41"). 
 It is no surprise that this causes wild color and contrast shifts and this is
usually a process of extensive trial and error.
 With so many possible permutations of film and processing techniques, 
 there is no right or wrong for that matter cross-processed appearance. 
 The most common combination is C-41 as E-6 and luckily for us, there is a
quick and easy way 
 to replicate this effect in Photoshop. 

 These images usually have high contrast and blown out highlights, 
 and because of that we are going to use Curves as our primary tool here.
 We will make a new Curves adjustment layer ( LAYER > NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER >
CURVES ) 
 and select the red channel in the dropdown box of the Curves dialog box.
 On the red channel we move the upper right point (the red highlights) a little
to the left,
 we are also going to create a bit of an S-curve on the red channel.
 By doing this we have darkened the red shadows and pushed the red highlights
towards being blown out 
 (which is image dependent really).

 After the red Curves channel it is time for the green. Here we are simply
going to make a slight S-curve 
 and that is all we are going to do here.

 The red and green channels in the curves dialog box 

 Next we have our final channel, blue. 
 On the blue channel we are going to push the lower left point (blue shadows)
up 
 and the upper right point (blue highlights) down, 
 in effect lowering the contrast of the blue channel. 

 The blue channel in the curves dialog box 

 After this you could make a decision (this will be on a image to image basis)
to create a second Curves adjustment layer to push the global contrast of the
image even further,
 however this layer should be set to _Luminosity _blend mode, otherwise it will
cause a unwanted color shift. 

 The second Curves adjustment layer

  [1]
 The final image, rollover to see a before and after 

  

Links:
------
[1] http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/#

Create a soft focus effect using the High Pass filter

Reyns Wim

 

SOFT FOCUS USING HIGH PASS

	In this short article i'm going to show you how to create a soft focus effect
using the High Pass filter found in photoshop (under FILTER > OTHER > HIGH
PASS). 

	First we are going to open up the image that we want the effect applied to,
Then we'll duplicate the image using command (or control on a pc) + J . Then we
are going to invert the new layer using command (or control on a pc) + I 

 The inverted image and the image after setting the blend mode to soft light 

	After this set the blend mode of the inverted layer to "soft light" this will
make your image look washed out (dont worry this will be fixed in the next
step).
 Next we are going to apply the high pass filter to the image, I strongly
suggest that you experiment with the radius setting, between 10 pixels and 60
pixels are useally good starting points. 

 The high pass filter and the image after the filter was applied 

	I found that 30 pixels gave me the "soft focus" look that i was after, you
could stop here but i found that this image needed a little bit of sharpness
back in the center. To do so i'm going to use a layer mask and mask out the
parts that i dont want the effect. To get a layer mask you can go to LAYER >
LAYER MASK > REVEAL ALL or you could click on the "washing machine" icon on the
bottom of the layer's pallete 

 The layer mask button on the layers pallete 

	All that's left to do now is to make sure that the layer mask is selected and
then paint out the area's of our picture that we dont want the effect applied to
with black. 

 The painted layer mask looks like this 

	And here we have our final image:

70 Photoshop Actions

Reyns Wim

 

70 FREE PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS TO ENHANCE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

	I've written a Photoshop Actions pack for you to use on your photographs.
 The pack contains 70 free actions in several categories and sub categories.

 - Presharpening (contains sharpening actions to take on a photograph that just
came out of the camera )
 - Noise Reduction ( contains actions to reduce noise in your photographs )
 - Color Correction ( contains actions to counteract a color cast )
 - Midtone Contrast ( contains actions to enhance/increase midtone contrast in
photographs )
 - Creative Sharpening ( contains actions which will give you creative/local
sharpening possibilities )
 - Neutral Density ( contains actions which will mimic the effect of a local ND
filter )
 - Effects ( contains actions for several effects; soft focus, painterly
effects, glow effects )
 - Cross Processing ( contains actions which will mimic the old film cross
processing techniques )
 - Output Sharpening ( contains actions which will prepare your photographs for
your desired output )

 A preview of what all actions do is available by starting the preview actions
app [1], there 
 is also more specific information about each action when you click on them,
and there is a 
 readme.txt file included with the download which contains the same info.
 Please note that you will need Javascript for the Actions Preview App to
function properly,
 there will also be quite a bit of preloading so it might take a few seconds
before the application launches. 

 For information about how to install these actions in Photoshop please click
here. [2] 

	start the preview app [3] / Download the Actions Pack [4]

  

Links:
------
[1]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../extra/70_Photoshop_Actions_loader.php
[2]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../extra/install_actions.html
[3]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../extra/70_Photoshop_Actions_loader.php
[4]
http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/html/../downloads/70_Photoshop_Actions.zip