Each Thursday, I will take my SOOC shot and provide a simple/basic or advanced Photoshop/Photoshop Elements or Lightroom tutorial. You can then try my tutorial on your own photos and link up here – linky will now open EARLY on Thursdays and 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, Adobe Camera Raw and now Lightroom…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.
Today’s “lesson” is less about processing (because you guys are doing an incredible job with your post-processing), and more about presentation…specifically on your blog. Here’s my SOOC again:
Much like last week, I started in Lightroom (I seriously love this program). I continue to find more and more free presets (in addition to the favorites that my friends are sharing with me). You can certainly process your photos manually, but I find that presets really simply the process. This week, I used SEIM Super Hero 2 (part of the SEIM Power Workflow set) followed by Blue/Red Cross which is part of the SM Classic Collection (I don’t have a link for this one). Here’s the before and after:
My screenshots in Lightroom always seem a bit fuzzy, so here’s my Lightroom edit again (below) – nice and clean. I then brought the photo over to Photoshop and made a couple of mild adjustments: levels, brightness/contrast and applying my favorite high pass filter. 
A couple of weeks ago, “Bright” was one of my Scavenger Hunt Sunday prompts. You may or may not recall, that I used a colorbar color palette technique (designed by the Coffeeshop Blog) to present my image. While you can certainly build your own template, it’s much easier to use the one designed by Rita – click HERE.
Once you open the .psd file (either horizontal or vertical) copy and paste your image into the largest clipping mask. You’ll then click on each of the other layers (you’ll see a color space) and use the eye dropper tool to select a color in your image.You’ll select a new color for each clipping mask. When you’re done, you may find that you love the color combination so much that you design your blog around those colors…or maybe that you’d like to design a room in your house around those colors…the possibilities are endless. Or, you just resize, sharpen and post to your blog.
Another option for presentation is to take a vertical shot and add a color block to the right or left of the image as you see below. If you like an action, the Coffeeshop Blog has one called Web Color Block It. I actually prefer to create mine manually. Here’s a couple of approaches:
- Be sure you’ve flattened your image. Go to Image>Canvas Size>Click the LEFT or RIGHT arrow so that your image moves to one side or another, and add additional width.
- Or you can use the lazy approach…pull up a horizontal image. Create a color fill layer on top of the horizontal image – fill with white, for now. Copy and paste your vertical shot on top of the color fill layer (you’re just using the pre-determined size). Use your eye dropper to select a color from your shot. Fill the color fill layer with that color.
Did that make any sense at all? Either way, here’s what that looks like (below)…a little more simple than the previous approach.
So, to recap our lesson, today we discussed a couple ways to present your images. Here’s a final look at my SOOC shots (top layer), Lightroom edits (middle layer) and final Photoshop edit (bottom layer).
For your edit, I would love to see you continuing using the lessons we’ve covered in the past 31 weeks as well as apply today’s lesson or share something you’ve learned recently. I hope you all have a great Thursday and I look forward to seeing your edits. Next week’s theme is “Shadows” Have a great Thursday!
By the way, don’t forget to add your edited photo to our good to WOW {EDIT} Flickr Group (for those of you that prefer to upload and visit that way). When adding your photos to the group pool, be sure to include the Week #, the Theme and EDIT in the description section. You may upload one photo per week. I also want to point out that we are all here to improve our editing skills. When offering constructive criticism (either on Flickr or within blog comment sections), be sure to point out at least one thing you really like about the edit before offering any advice for improvement.
