Saturation – The Essential Key To Color Palettes

One of the most distinctive features of a visual artist’s use of color is their use of saturation. Many photographers are often asked, “Are you a black and white or color photographer?” (Curiously other visual artists are rarely asked this question.) While many people who...

12 Photographs Celebrated By Sean Kernan

Sean Kernan’s The Secret Books Sean Kernan makes insightful comments on twelve photographs. “At this point I most respond to things that stir me to a kind of seeing that I didn’t think I could do. They make me want to try, even though I have...

Smooth Moves With Photoshop’s Gradient Masks

Image adjusted selectively with a gradient Warm exposure Cool exposure Two exposures blended with a gradient mask Smooth transitions. They’re the essence of continuous tone images. In most cases, you want to preserve them. On occasion, you want to modify them. Sometimes, you want to...

Photoshop’s Contrast Masks Help You Isolate Highlights Or Shadows

RGB image Red Channel Green channel Blue channel The relationship between highlights and shadows is a critical aspect of any image. Photographers have been trained to become highly sensitized to these relationships. Today, photographers have more control and greater precision than ever before over these...

3 Things Creative Sharpening Can Do For Your Images

Of the three stages in a sound sharpening workflow – capture sharpening, creative sharpening, and output sharpening – creative sharpening is the stage that has the most impact. The goal of creative sharpening is to give an image a specific look and feel. There are...

Creative Image Sharpening – Double Pass Versus Hybrid

Before sharpening Unsharp Mask only Unsharp Mask and High Pass filters combined Different sharpening techniques make the world look different. A world of difference can be seen between the thin hard line of Unsharp Mask and the broad feathered line of High Pass Sharpening. Can...

How To Avoid 3 Types & 2 Kinds Of Noise

high noise / low noise column and row noise / severe under-exposure hot pixel noise / very long exposure or very hot conditions Bayer pattern noise / substantial under-exposure random noise / high ISO While it’s best to eliminate noise in images at the point...

Resurrecting Detail In Challenging Images With Photoshop

Before channel blending After channel blending Big problems call for big solutions. Blending channels is a powerful color adjustment strategy that can handle even the biggest challenges. Color adjustment occurs by modifying the tonal structure of individual grayscale channels. Typically, the information within them is...

Using Color Management For Color Adjustment – Synthetic Profiles

       Synthetic Profiles – Big Change Small Price How can you change the appearance of a digital image without changing the numbers that assign the colors in it? Change what those numbers mean, by changing image’s ICC profile. Using abstract or synthetic profiles, you...

Photoshop’s Color Lookup Makes Complex Color Effects Easy

  Original Image The Color Lookup Pastel8Hues creates very strong color effects. Any Color Lookup adjustment layer can be modified with Blend Modes.  The Color Lookup Adjustment Originally designed for color grading film and video, Photoshop’s Color Lookup feature offers novel ways to adjust color...