Welcome to the 12th week of Shoot and Edit: Part 2. Click HERE for all the details and upcoming prompts/themes.
This week’s theme or prompt was to show us one “green” SOOC shot (this was just a suggestion, you can show us any SOOC shot). Hopefully you linked up with Jill’s blog earlier this week.
Each Thursday, I will take my SOOC shot and provide some basic editing tips (I will try to keep it basic and work my way up). You can then try these tips on your own photos and link up here – linky will now be open THROUGH SUNDAY. If you’d prefer, can simply share your own edit and show us what you did to achieve the look. We want this challenge to be a learning experience, so feel free to teach us something new too! Also, it does not matter what editing program you use. Although I tend to work within Adobe CS5 (Photoshop), Photoshop Elements and Adobe Camera Raw…it does not mean that you have to use the exact same program. I hope you’ll be able to take the concepts and apply them in the program you feel most comfortable using.
Once again, here is my SOOC shot:
Building on what we’ve learned in the past eleven weeks (Week 1: Edit, Week 2: Edit, Week 3A, Week 3B, Week 4: Edit, Week 5: Edit, Week 6: Edit, Week 7: Edit, Week 8: Edit, Week 9: Edit, Week 10: Edit and Week 11: Edit), I started this edit in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR):
As I’ve said before, my hope is that at this point in our lessons, you have gotten really comfortable with clean processing in whatever editing program you use (Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Picnik, Picassa, etc). As your SOOC shots continue to improve, you’ll need to do less and less processing (unless you enjoy creative editing – I won’t remove that from you because I enjoy editing way too much).
I’ve also heard a few of you saying that you’re starting to appreciate a simplistic style of editing – I want to encourage you to embrace that style even as you experiment with other forms of editing. Whether you’re a busy mom or squeezing in photography after a long day at the office, we all need to find a process that works for us.
The main thing I wanted to address this week was using your hue/saturation and/or color balance sliders to adjust the color of your grass…in this case, going from DEAD to green (I can imagine I’m not the only one with this problem). Take a look at this quick video:
I followed the video’s steps in my edit. The one thing I failed to capture in this screen shot is that you’ll want to be sure to check COLORIZED. You may want to go back later and increase your greens or yellows (even your blues) to get that color just right using hue/saturation alone. Be sure to use a layer mask (fill it with your paint bucket BLACK) and paint on the effect using a soft white brush so you’ll only affect the grass in the image.
Color Balance will only be available to those of you using the full version of Photoshop (it’s one of your adjustment layers…I apologize to Photoshop Elements users). With Color Balance, you can fine tune that color…it’s a nice to have but not a must have since hue/saturation is the main culprit. Again, you’ll want to use a layer mask to paint on the effect.
For what it’s worth, there was no rhyme or reason to where I stopped on the sliders – I just adjusted by eye so it’s not necessary that you follow my exact numbers. I will point out that for a more true “green” don’t focus 100% of your effort on the green sliders. Be sure to add a bit of blue, yellow, red…even magenta for just the right tone. Here is the result of adjusting hue/saturation and color balance:
For a final touch, I did not think it was necessary to add the high pass filter to this image, but it did need a pop. You can always duplicate your background and add a Soft Light blending mode to make all of your colors pop. Quick and easy!
So, to recap our lesson, we used the hue/saturation and color balance adjustment layers to turn dead grass into green grass. For your edit, I would love to see you continuing using the lessons we’ve covered in the past eleven weeks as well as apply today’s lesson. If you missed last week’s edit, you can download “Nice & Easy,” (my new workflow action) by clicking HERE!
With that said, here’s a final look at my SOOC and Final image. I hope you found today’s lesson useful. If you have any questions or need more explanation, don’t hesitate to contact me.
I hope you all have a great Thursday and I look forward to seeing your edits!
