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i can take some pretty good shots but they have no chance on a.net since i suck at PS.. what are some tips you guys can give, or even better can any of uz give me a rough step by step... i keep hearing about using layers and such but u have no clue as to what they are
Well I'll give you some of the tips that Phil shared with me which were simply fantastic.
1. After I download the pictures from my camera I keep them in their respected folders for viewing. Then I create a sub folder in each of the folders called "edit". The photos I upload go in the edit folder. I edit and upload one picture at a time vs editing a bunch of photos and then doing a mass upload. I've found doing it this way I spend more time per photo resulting in greater quality editing.
2. As I go through a sequence of pictures I take the picture I like and drop it in the edit folder.
3. From there I load the photo into PS and perform the following basic editing functions.
A. Apply Auto levels.
B. Then fade Auto levels on average by 50%.
C. Manually add or reduce contrast, generally I add.
D. Add saturation, no more the 14
E. Reduce the image size to 1024
F. Sharpen the picture using USM by 500%, I'm at work so I don't know my other USM settings, but I'll edit this when I get home.
G. Sharpen again using USM by 138% If needed.
Generally this works well when you take a standard shot in good light. Other pictures require more editing and other advanced PS features but these basic adjustments helped me out a ton.
After getting home, I dump all my photos into a "YYYY-MM-DD Airport" folder, and begin sifting through the day's work.
I use a great, small, quick program to view photos called IrFanView (link). A quick hit of Shift+E brings a shot i like up in PS.
1. Level and crop. Use the measure tool to draw along a known horizontal or vertical line, then select "Arbitrary" from Image>Rotate. I crop by layiing the box across image and dragging in the corners while holding shift, as this preserves the aspect ratio.
Resize to 1024 pixels wide (for an automatic 683 +/- pixels high)
2. Levels, etc. I've found that all cameras, Canon and Nikon, appear to have a slight green tint in the originals (you don't usually notice it until you fix it). This makes me nauseous, so I have to fix it. I plug in Ctrl+L for levels and adjust the individual RGB values by dragging the markers on the left to the beginning of each color graph. If a shot was taken in good light, this usually makes the whites whiter, blues bluer, etc.
Curves sometimes follows with Ctrl+M, where I darken the image for a saturation-like effect. Actual saturation comes with Ctrl+U, where I plug in a value of 14.
The Shadow/Highlight tool sees a value of 10 to bring out the dark areas under the wing and fuselage.
3. Sharpening. I apply two hits of USM at 300, 0.2, 0 to most photos.
4. CLEANING DUST SPOTS. Oh joy. Email me, and this goes for everyone, if you want a PS action that sets everything up for you to clean your shots. I just hit F2 (customized) and PS duplicates the layer, equalizes it, brings up the Healing Brush at 40 and selects the background layer...this lets you see the spots on the equalized layer but clean them off the actual photo. Works like a charm.
Now it's ready to be signed, sealed, and delivered. I save it to, like Tommy, an "Edits" folder with the following file name: File####_AirlineAircraft_Registration_AirportActio n_Initials (ie: 8439_Qantas744_VH-OEB_JFK13Larr_BF).
Good luck!
Brian
thanks guys good stuff. ill hit u up brain to get that custumization on the dust spots... i hate PS because u never know if its done it may look good to me but others are always saying theres other stuff to be done.. cant please everyone at once
Who's brain? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeisbeast