On Friday, I shared this photo of a bug I found in my mother/father-in-law’s yard. I was really impressed with my focus, but I’ll be honest with you…post-processing can make a world of difference. I decided to share my before and after for this week’s edition of Touch-Up Tuesday. This version of the edit is not exactly like the original, but I have a really hard time completely replicating my processing steps (I believe Karli has said the same thing with regard to her work). Nonetheless, I hope you find my steps helpful.
SOOC = ISO 100, 105 mm (macro), f/16, 1/320 sec.
As you can tell in my SOOC shot, I did not establish a custom white balance. I also needed to brighten and crop this bug just a bit. Therefore, I started my processing by opening the photo in Adobe Camera Raw (remember, even if you don’t shoot in RAW, you can open your jpg files in ACR – just go to open as in PSE or PS, select your image and choose open as camera raw).
I auto adjusted my white balance and exposure settings then made minor tweaks before opening the file in Photoshop Elements 7. From there, I ran through the following steps:
- Adjusted the curves (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a strong possibility that you don’t have curves as an option…yet. Go to my Getting Started tutorial for more on basic processing).
- Ran Amy McMaster’s Squeaky Clean action (it’s linked up in the above tutorial) – I did not add any saturation, but did adjust my levels. Honestly, I probably don’t need an action, but it’s become habit.
- I flattened my layers (coming soon – another tutorial on using layers).
- Created a duplicate layer (ctrl J). On that layer, I selected filter, other, high pass filter…and then I set the blending mode to soft light. I think I lowered the opacity to 50%. I then used a layer mask (again, there’s a layer mask in the above tutorial), filled it black and used a white brush to PAINT ON the effect over the bug. This adds extra depth to the bug.
- I flattened those layers.
- Then, I applied Amy McMaster’s Berries N’ Cream action and adjusted the layers to my taste.
- I finalized the photo but resizing and sharpening.
So that’s how I did it – any questions? For more touch-up Tuesday photos, go to:
PS: Karli…are you proud of me for entering my photo in the early part of the day?
