Photoshop Techniques for Wedding Photography
Photoshop provides an intense variety of editing options to enhance your wedding photography. From corrective skin toning for portrait work to special color enhancements for images, Photoshop brings the power of professional editing into your work. Understanding the basics of the program is necessary to work efficiently and tastefully in Photoshop, as poorly implemented editing can easily ruin the look and feel of an image. For the best wedding images possible, rely on the camera and your photographic skills to take stunning images and merely refine and enhance them in Photoshop.
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Portrait Techniques
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Applying special Photoshop actions and techniques to portraits will enhance those special posed images from the wedding. Skin enhancement, such as smoothing, adding warmth to skin tones and removing blemishes, adds a polish to the portrait image. A softening effect to the highlights of an image, when done in moderation, also adds emotion to the photo. Sharpening the eye colors can help a portrait pop by adding a subtle contrast and drawing attention to the eyes of the subject. Understand the Healing, Cloning and Lasso tools to properly apply skin enhancements. Color Saturation, Curves, Levels and special color settings can help with contrast and toning of the image. Special Photoshop Actions can also be purchased to automatically apply a series of actions to an image when activated through the Actions window in Photoshop. An Action is a series of recorded edits to an image that creates a desired effect and can be recorded by the editor or purchased. Once recorded or uploaded, simply hit the "Play" button in the Actions window to apply the special effect.
Vignetting and Background Effects
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Adding black to the edges of a photograph, also referred to as vignetting, adds contrast to a photo and draws the eyes to the center of the image. The Burning tool in Photoshop allows you to create this effect. This effect also gives an antique feel to black-and-white or sepia images. Sepia refers to a special effect that takes a black-and-white image and adds a brown tint. Blurring backgrounds of images is also a special effect that allows the subject to stand out. The blurred background can also be accomplished in-camera by focusing on the depth of field using aperture settings. Photoshop can mimic this effect, but applying it in-camera gives the best outcome.
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Toning and Color Enhancements
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Adding a special toning effect to an image helps alter the coloring of the photo in a subtle yet artistic manner. Using color saturation and contrast effects in Photoshop can take a flat or dull image and make it shine. The fashion industry uses toning effects for photographs and referring to fashion magazines will give you some creative inspiration. Adding a yellow or blue tone to an image will give the picture a new emotional tone, so experiment with certain images and color palettes. Adding contrast, using the Levels or Curves tools in Photoshop adds drama to certain images as does increasing the black points in an image. Purchased or downloaded Actions also help to apply image toning in a fast and effective manner.
Black-and-White Conversions
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Converting an image to black and white is a vital editing tool for the wedding photographer. Photoshop provides a multitude of conversion options, from in-depth tools such as Lab Colors and Channels to using a simpler method with the Color Saturation tool. Be sure to increase the black points with Levels or Curves when making a conversion or the image may seem washed out and very flat or gray. Understand the complexities of black-and-white conversion using Photoshop and you'll achieve a professional and artistic outcome not possible with other programs.
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