Good to Wow [Green Edits]

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time to link-up my “green” edits at Ashley's Ramblings and Photos. I opted to just share three of the five shots from my original post on Monday since I tend to go through the same basic editing steps on all of my photos. Since I’m still relatively new to the photography world I’m admittedly still trying to find my groove. After much trial and error with my editing, I’ve learned to adopt the less is more philosophy. When I first started editing pictures I know there were many times when I way over did it, so my goal now is to just try to enhance. And of course there are those times when it’s fun to get really creative with actions and other editing techniques. For the following, however, I tried to keep it pretty simple.

I shoot in Manual Mode and RAW probably 99% of the time. I love the flexibility and extra control it gives me when I go to edit. And if I make a mistake with White Balance or exposure, I can usually correct the problem later.

I started in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) with all of the shots below. Although I did write down my specific changes, I think I’ll just say that the settings I typically like to tweak are: Exposure (to lighten or darken), Recovery (to recover some lost detail), Blacks (to give a little richness and depth), Contrast (to intensify the difference in lights and darks) and Clarity (to add crispness). I usually don’t adjust by much – just enough to add a little pizzazz! I think the amount by which you adjust the settings depend on the picture itself.

Once I’m done playing in ACR, I edit in Photoshop Elements 9. Someday maybe I’ll take the plunge into the world of the more powerful “real” Photoshop, but for now I’m perfectly content with what I can do in Elements.

In PSE 9, I almost always run a few adjustment layers first: Levels (move the outside sliders in towards the middle or towards the outer edges of the histogram mountain) and Brightness/Contrast in Soft Blending Mode (to give a little color pop) at a low-medium opacity. Occasionally I’ll also do a cooling/warming filter layer or a hue/saturation layer if need be. I tend to take the “try it and see” approach. If I don’t like the result, I can always undo it.

My final step, before trying anything creative like textures or actions, is to run a High Pass Filter for sharpening then do a “save as” and rename the file “clean.” From there I can decide whether I want to do anything else to it like add texture and play with the various actions that I have. The shots below were all left as “clean” edits. Since I love playing with textures on my photos, I may go back and try some at a later time. But for now, here are my before and afters:

Before (SOOC):

After: (Note: I did add a brown gradient map layer in soft light blending mode at 38% opacity as well)

Before on the left and after on the right:

Before on the left and after on the right: (I actually did very little to this one. I just liked it so much SOOC)

So that’s it! I’m certainly not an expert, but it’s been fun to share what I know and how I edit. Thanks for stopping by!