Today begins my journey to try to teach people how I edit my photos.
I figured I’d start with something very simple and easy to do. So continue reading and I will show you how I achieved the effect above.
I started with this image:
The first thing I do with any image is to crop it, but this photo looked fine to me straight out of camera, so that will be a topic for another day.
So the next step is contrast and brightness correction. In this case, the photo is a little bright, so we’ll turn that down a bit.
I’ll also up the contrast a bit so the difference between the hands and jacket pops a bit.
It will also fix the colors in the background from standing out too much and competing with the foreground.
It’s already looking a bit better, but now to give it that dramatic feel.
There are many ways to add depth to a photo; I myself am a huge fan of using color to do so. That being said, Photoshop curves are a huge part of my editing process, and I have amassed a large collection of them.
The one I used on this particular photograph is called “Blood Orange” by Julia Trotti. You can find it for free download here on her blog. She also has directions on how to install them into Photoshop.
And here’s the result:
Usually this curve looks better on harshly lit photos taken in the direct sunlight, but it will also work for overcast days since it adds nice yellow and purple hues.
If this is how you’re feeling at this point, don’t fret.
I’ll be going into more detail and I’ll start explaining some of these concepts better as we go on.
Next week I’ll tackle how to make someone’s face smoother with Photoshop.
It’s an incredibly easy fix to a problem we all face at one point or another.
No pun intended.
alyxeris 