Creating the Dynamic Image
Photoshop - Secrets From the Trenches:
Essential Steps to Efficient Digital Workflow

Our studio has been around for about twenty five years, and it is busy, so creating a digital workflow that made sense was essential to not only our sanity, but our bottom line as well. After all, we're in business to turn a profit, and time is money. There are more technical and highly advanced ways of getting these steps done, but frankly, in the end, you won't see the difference.

Here is a "snapshot" overview of our digital workflow. You should know that all the strategies we've created in our studio are not new.

Here are the seven steps to digital photography workflow:

1-Good Capture: Good photography and fast, painless workflow starts with good exposure and good white balance.How can you check this? Shoot a grey card, and check your histogram of that grey card image in Photoshop. You should then create a custom white balance for each lighting situation whether in your studio or on location. Master this and you are 90% of the way to success.

2-Adjust Contrast: For many images we hardly do much contrast adjusting. Sometimes we slightly "tweak" the file in levels. In Photoshop go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp mask. Apply the following settings: Amount 60 Radius 20 Threshold 0. See how it removes the haze! And it just beefs the image up a bit. Now this filter is also used to sharpen an image, but this step is not a sharpening step. We call it the de-fog step.

3-Enhance the Skin Tones: In Photoshop go to Image/Adjustments/Selective Color. You will notice that the red channel is the default channel. This is the one we want so don't switch. Pull the top slider, Cyan, over to the left, and watch the colors, especially in the skin, warm up. Adjust it to your taste. We find that most images are within the -20 to- 40 range. That's it! Assuming you have a good exposure and good white balance, this is the only color "enhancing" you will need to do.

4-Adjust the Saturation: When I shoot, I turn the cameras' sharpening, contrast and saturation features off. I don't want the camera doing any of these important steps for me, since every image requires a different amount in order for it to be optimum. The images that come off the camera tend to look a little flat, dull and sometimes not sharp. But that's good! I get to
adjust these myself.

In Photoshop go to Image/Adjustments / Hue Saturation and pull the middle saturation slider over to the right. It helps if you enlarge your image so you can really see this effect and not over do it. This works very well on scenics and underwater images as well. But be careful not to over process. Remember, less is more.

5-Burning and Dodging: It takes some time to learn this skill but it’s worth mastering. Here's how: On the toolbar in Photoshop, click on the dodge/burn tool. When you select burn, the control bar across the top will allow you to set the brush options. These settings are vital to your success. First, select a soft brush. The size will depend on the area you are burning. When I am burning all around an image, I generally choose a larger than the image area size.

Next, choose Highlights in the range options. Next, bring your exposure down, way down to about 20. Now you are ready to do the first step. Burn all around a few times, and stop after you notice a very slight darkening.

Next, switch the Range to mid-tones. The first step, in highlight mode in the Range bar, gives your image some teeth for the next step. Now burn around again, careful not to over do it. The success of proper burning will depend on how well you can achieve an almost imperceptable dark vignette look to the image. If it's too obvious, then you've over done it. I should point out that this is not recommended for white or very light images.

6-Sizing: We size two ways. For prints smaller than 11"x14", we use the crop tool and simply crop and save as required. For larger prints we use a technique that will magically increase your images to just about any size without any virtual deterioration. Here's how. In Photoshop go to Image/Image Size. In Document Size, switch the option in the drop down menu from inches to percentage. Only do this on the top "width" option: replace 100% with 110% and click okay. Make sure Constrain Proportions and Resample Image options on the lower left are clicked on. The image will increase in size by 10%. Do this until you have reached the size you want. It's amazing! Virtually no deterioration at sizes up to and beyond 40 inches.

7-Sharpening: I was able to get tack sharp images from file sizes as small as 3.4 MP. Here's how: Go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp and start with these settings: Amount 500%, Radius .2, and Threshold 0. Click on preview. Highlight the Radius number and start to increase that number (I use the "up" arrow on my keyboard) one step at a time until the image slightly "pops". That's when it's done. If it pops too much, bring it back one number in the radius. I don't even touch the other two settings. The final step for all images is by to Filter/Noise/Add Noise, and set the amount at 1. Why do I do this? It gives the image a slight texture, a little bit of "love".

That’s it in a nutshell, from the trenches.

Sunday, August 20,2006 through
Thursday, August 24, 2006

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Join Rob and eleven (11) other instructors at their 5-day, hands-on workshops in August at the Niagara School of Imaging from Sunday August 20 to Thursday August 24, 2006 at Brock University in Niagara Falls, Canada.

www.niagaraschool.com