My Photoshop routine

Recently I've developed a routine (action :D) in Photoshop to post-process my pictures. Nothing really fancy, but it gives me the results I want :)

The whole thing is based on layers (what a suprise) and the Overlay blending mode.

This is the image 'straight out of camera', which -in this case- was a Nikon D5000, with the kitlens.

The photo itself is good, nicely rendered colors and contrast... so all in all the D5000 is not a bad camera :)

But it's just too raw...

So I run my Lightroom template "_t_PSPreFlat" which makes the picture look very flat.

This way the picture looks rubbish. No contrast, no colors...

But this is exactly what I need :)

So I open the picture in Photoshop as a Smart Object.

To do so: Right click the image -> Edit in -> Open as Smart Object in Photoshop

And then comes the Post Process.

First of all I make 3 copies of the layer, but not just normal layer copy. I use 'New Smart Object via Copy' 2 times, so I have 3 separate Smart Objects and not just 1 but 3 times. The reason why I need it like this, because with normal Layer duplication you will have the same Smart Object on the 2 (or more) layers and once you edit the object on one the changes will take effect on all copied layers, while if we have 3 separate Smart Objects the changes will only apply for the actual layer (and it's duplicates).

My first layer (the bottom one) sets the very basics for the picture. It can be a little bit oversaturated.

What I usually do on this layer is setting the Vibrance to +75 to +100 and the Saturation somewhere between -75 and 0. This will set the 'extra' color on the picture by 'oversaturating' the parts I want to be very colorful.

As of brightness and contrast I keep the contrast -50 but adjust the brightness to have the desired 'exposure'. If needed the Recovery and/or the Fill Light can be used to get a bit more flat picture. Same applies for Clarity, if I want a bit more 'creamy' picture then -75 to -100, if I want more contrasty picture then +50 to +100.

The next one (middle) is a grayscale layer to set the contrast of the image.

First of all I convert the picture Grayscale on the 4th tab of ACR (remember it's still a Smart Object!). Then I set the White Balance to something totally crazy: +50000 / -150.

This will set a bit flat but still contrasty image I can finetune for the contrast I want. Usually I don't touch the contrast slider, but play with the Blacks and sometimes Recovery and Fill Light as well. Clarity can go from min to max depending on the picture's need, but usually goes +50 to +100.

Depending on the picture I add some 'sharpening' or 'detail enhancing' layers. This is basically 2 High Pass layers created from the Grayscale Contrast picture. It's important to set the Clarity 0 for this or else the High Pass layers will go crazy :)

I use a High Pass (5) layer to enhance the fine details of the picture or just parts of it. To strengthen this I use a Levels layer together with the High Pass layer making it very contrasty.

On this picture I wanted the eyes, the hair and mouth to be sharp, so used layer mask to achieve this. The transparent part is what's green on the picture on the left.

The other High Pass layer is a bit stronger, I set the High Pass value to 25 on this one. It can come handy when I want to make the picture very strong in hard details and I don't have too much bokeh, just like I had it with my picture of the old homeless woman: Juli neni

On this picture I only wanted to use it for the eyes and the mouth and some parts of the hair as well.

Of course to strengthen the effect I use Levels on this layer as well.

The last one from the 3 Smart Object layer is the one on the top which sets the overall color tones for the picture.

The first thing I do is setting the Clarity to -100. This will already make the picture a bit creamy... For the colors I set the Saturation high (+75 to +100) and to control extreme oversaturation or just want a bit 'washed' picture I use Vibrance to control the overall saturation of the picture (-75 to 0).

As I want a bit more creamy effect on the picture this layer gets a Smart Filter as well with Gaussian Blur set to 25

As you can see the layers on their own look terrible but combined with Overlay can give me the final result I want. And yes, this is the steps I use with almost all of my pictures I post-process in Photoshop. I also have some Lightroom Templates... but that's an other post :)

Photos moved :)

From now on I will keep this blog for tips and tricks I use and the photos will be published at Posterous, as I find their engine better for photos :)

TIP: Clarity to support Noise Reduction in Lightroom

On Pentax Discuss Mailing List someone asked about the Noise Reduction of very high ISO pictures with Lightroom. As most people know there is a built in Noise Reduction tool in LR, but you can't install plug-ins like Noise Ninja or Neat Image. But if you want to batch process images or you only have Lightroom to work with then there is a little trick to get just a little more details from high ISO pictures where you need to apply very strong Luminance NR.

Putting Clarity to a high value (+100 for example) you can get a bit more details by increasing the "micro contrast" on the picture. I've made an example, the picture above was made with ISO12800 and very little light.

Luminance was set to +100 and Detail was set to +50 on both pictures, the only difference is Clarity (0 vs +100).

Noise Reduction test (click to open in better resolution):

Clarity is set to zero (left side) vs Clarity is set to Maximum (right side)

See the 'extra' detail on the forehead and on the hand. Also on the wall next to my head you can see that little spot on the picture on the right. As you can see with the clarity set high the picture does not looks that much washed up even with Luminance Noise Reduction set to it's maximum.

Welding Glass and White Balance.

Earlier I was posting about using a Welding Glass as "ND" filter. As the Welding Glasses usually have a green tint (you can get gold or black aka. neutral as well... but that's quite hard) the picture will have a very strong green tone.

Out of Camera: Heavy Green Color Cast

Obviously shooting in RAW can give you the possibility to modify White Balance in Raw Development Software, such as Lightroom for Windows. The problem is that the green tint is so strong that it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

White Balance 'corrected' in Lightroom: Slight Green Color Cast

But is it possible to push LR further than it's normal possibilities? Obviously the answer is yes. With a custom color profile you can extend the White Balance possibilities of Adobe's Camera Raw (used by both Photoshop and Lightroom). Doing so you can get rid of the green color cast entirely.

Custom Camera Profile Used: No more green color cast

Comparison: Without the Welding Glass Filter

So how can you create the Custom Camera Profile for the Welding Glass?

It's very easy, you only need a white led torch. Usually they're going for 1 GBP on Ebay. So first you have to create the custom white balance in-camera. As I have a Pentax K-r I will write down the steps for this camera but it should be very similar on any other camera.

Step 1: Create a custom White Balance with the Welding Glass on

• Put the camera on a tripod if you can as you will need long shutter speed. What I did I turned the camera upwards so the torch will be in balance on the top of the Welding Glass.
• Find the correct exposure, where the torch does not get overexposed too much and it gives you a nice green "halo effect"
• Go to White Balance settings and choose Custom White Balance and press the Shutter. It will take the same picture you did earlier to find the exposure. When the camera requests find a spot on the picture where it has the green halo and move the little green square there. Press OK to accept it and your picture should turn grey now.
• Set this as your new White Balance and take a picture of real world with correct exposure. The picture should look OK, no sign of green tint.
• Make sure the picture is saved in DNG format!
  For other camera formats you will need to convert it to DNG with Adobe's DNG Converter

Step 2: Create the Custom Camera Profile

• Import the DNG picture into Adobe's DNG Profile Editor
• Go to the tab: Color Matrices
• You can play a little with the values there, for example I raised the Saturation for Red +50 and for Blue +25 and played a little with the White Balance as well untill I've got the picture I want.
• Go to Options tab and give your Profile a Name.
• In the menu go File and Export your Profile (you can do this by pressing CTRL+E)
• Save it to the folder:
  C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles or ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles/

Step 3: Use the Custom Camera Profile.

• In Lightroom:
  On the Develop Tab scroll down to Camera Calibration and choose your new Profile.
• In Photoshop:
  When opening a Raw file Camera Calibration is the third to last tab. It has an icon of a camera.

By having this Custom Camera Calibration Profile you can shoot with any White Balance, though you won't be able to see the 'real' colors on your camera.