October 24, 2009Editing Dull, Flat Photo of Deer
Camera Settings for this photo: Shot at: This original photo was dull and flat, and had a lot of unnecessary space around the deer. I wanted to make the image "pop" more and to put the focus on the deer. The original image was a RAW file, so it opened in Camera Raw. However, I wanted to do all the steps in the Photoshop workflow, so I simply opened the image without making any changes in Camera Raw. I could, however, have made most of the changes right in the Camera Raw window, and put the finishing touches on in the Photoshop workflow. I duplicated the image (CTRL-J), then opened a Levels Adjustment layer (Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at bottom of Layers Palette). I adjusted the Levels by bringing the black and white arrows in to the appropriate levels to adjust the darks and lights. I then cropped the image to eliminate some of the unnecessary background. I cropped to a standard 8 x 10 size. I noticed that the actual point of focus was actually slightly in front of the deer. To adjust for this, I sharpened the deer, then duplicated the layer, and put a Gaussian Blur (Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur) of 5 on this layer - I'm going to go back and slightly blur the trees that are in focus in order to move the point of focus to the deer. I put a mask (Click on Add Vector Mask icon at bottom of Layers Palette) on the blur layer, filled it with black (be sure color palette is set to Black as Foreground color) by choosing the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and clicking inside the image. I chose the Brush Tool (B), changed the Foreground color to White, and painted back the blur on the trees. I added a new layer (Create New Layer icon at bottom of Layers Palette), changed the Blend Mode (top of Layers Palette) to Soft Light, and using the Brush Tool (B), set to 30%, brushed over the catchlights in the mother deer's eye to brighten it. I merged all the layers into a layer at the top of the stack (Shift->Ctrl->Alt->E), then duplicated this layer. I went to Filter->Distort->Lens Correction. When the dialog box opens, I go to Vignette and slide both sliders all the way to the left (darken) (Amount -100, Midpoint 0), then click OK. This puts a dark vignette around the entire image. I want to use the dark edges of the vignette to draw the eye to the deer. I put a mask on the Vignetted layer, and made sure it was filled with WHITE. I want to be able to see the vignette, but mask the center of the image back to the image in the layer below. I chose the Brush Tool (B) with a large soft brush, and painted with BLACK on the White mask to reveal the layer below, creating dark edges on the image that draw the eye to the center, and to the deer. I was satisfied with this image, and saved it as a jpeg.
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