Advanced processing techniques

Advanced editing techniques

The camera is in automatic mode and produces JPEG images - this is how you can get started with the most beautiful hobby in the world, photography. Gradually you will become more confident, and with each image you will expand your knowledge and skills. Switching from JPEG to RAW format also requires image processing. And there are also image editing techniques for more experienced users. In the previous chapter, we described the basics that turn an image file into a print-ready photo. Now we will delve deeper into this topic and look at advanced image editing techniques.

Given the variety of tools available, it is almost impossible to cover all image editing methods. Here we will look at the typical and common editing techniques that are available in almost all image editing programs. Of course, names and terminology may vary from program to program, but essentially the techniques work in the same or similar ways. Creative compositions and digital art will be dealt with separately.

Important: Find out how your software works. If the changes are non-destructive, you can undo all corrections. If the changes are transferred directly to the file, the original image will be lost. In this case, you should make a copy before editing to be on the safe side.

Advanced editing techniques for exposure

By adjusting the light controls, you have already corrected the contrast and tonal values in your image. There are subjects, especially in the low-light range, where you need to pay more attention to highlights and shadows.

Dodging and post-exposure

These two terms have been left over from the days of the darkroom. A piece of toning paper was used to regulate the exposure at certain points on the image to be developed. The advantage of this is that you can lighten or darken individual areas in a targeted and precise manner. These local adjustments help to emphasize motifs, for example.

After selecting the tool, adjust the size according to the details and, if necessary, the intensity. A value between five and 20 percent is recommended. When dodging, the "Highlights" and "Midtones" are addressed, when re-exposing the "Midtones" and "Shadows".

Alternatively, you can create a "gray level". If your program has this option, you can simply paint over the areas you want to change with the brush in black or white.

The "all-in-one" solution is, for example, the correction brush in Camera Raw, Photoshop's raw editing program. This tool definitely counts as "advanced image editing". It works directly on the RAW file. Although this reduces the risk of image distortion a little, it does change the original. It can be used to refine contrast, sharpness and color.

The following applies to dodging and post-exposure: you can get more detail and a more vivid image from both shadows and bright areas. The only important thing is that you proceed precisely and selectively and prefer to make progress in small steps.

The artificial intelligence of the editing programs improves with every update. Use the option to make a precise selection and to reliably mark the areas you want to change.

Saturation, color mixer and hues

Often the colors in photos no longer appear as intense, almost dull. The wrong white balance or a lighting situation that changed at the last moment can be the reason for this. By editing your RAW file, you can not only restore colors, but also change and improve them.

Using tools such as "Hue", "Dynamics" and "Saturation", you can give the entire image or specific areas of the image more variety and vibrancy.

The "hand tool" is the best method in Photoshop for making precise changes. You simply select a color with the tool and your changes only apply to this tone. Individual gradations or special highlights can be emphasized or reduced in this way. The "target correction" in the "color mixer" works in a similar way in Lightroom.

The color ranges are divided according to the basic tones. Red, yellow, blue. There are also the mixed colors cyan, magenta and green. To change entire color spectrums, drag the sliders of the desired palette into the negative or positive range. This editing affects the entire image. A practical application example for color correction is burnt-out leaves that have been exposed to the bright sun. They can be recolored to a darker, more authentic green using these tools. We recommend taking the middle way: coordinate color adjustment and exposure changes so as not to work against each other.

Of course, creative changes are also possible. You can change the color of hair or an entire car or desaturate all but one color to leave a green tree in the middle of a black and white backdrop. This technique is also called Colorkey.

If you set the color mixer in Adobe Lightroom to "Luminance", you can emphasize or reduce the illumination of individual color tones.

Gradation curve and color grading

These two tools provide "spot-on" image editing. The gradation curve shows a histogram in a grid and a diagonal line, sorted by color channel or as an overall result. Working with this requires a great deal of sensitivity, but is worthwhile. The diagonal divides the image into highs and lows, i.e. light and dark areas. If you now grab the graph at any point and move it, you change the entire light structure of the image.

The changes per graph are a simultaneous adjustment of all light controls. You can raise the depths, lower the highlights, bring out crisp colors and increase the contrast - but you can just as easily make the image appear colorless and dull or completely dark.

Work with multiple points to achieve a good result. Each point you set on the diagonal fixes the graph. This allows you to make precise changes to key points in the histogram in greater detail. The graph usually ends up looking like an evenly curved S-line. This technique is particularly suitable for backlit shots or sunsets. Individual color channels can also be addressed with the tool.

With color grading, you generally have one color slice each for shadows, midtones and highlights, as well as a global color slice. Here you can intensify and shift the color channels. The most common application is to create a theme or look. For example, to give an image the blue-yellow toning of modern cinema films or the look of an old analog film.

Practice and experimentation are the key to these tools.

Black and white images

The quickest way to get a black and white image is usually to set the B&W function in your camera. The advantage of this approach is that you can see how your image looks in monochrome directly in the camera. The disadvantage: Unfortunately, you lose some adjustment options if you want to use the image in color in the end. Use a (color) RAW image instead. This has all the color information in an image editing program and you can convert it into a monochrome image. Manual conversion allows you to focus on the most important aspect of such an image: the character.

In principle, a black and white image is a completely desaturated and therefore colorless image. Setting the saturation to zero and then adjusting the exposure, contrast and colors is a common approach. If your program has a special black and white adjustment, you should use this. An example of this: If you use the "B&W" button in Lightroom, the color mixer turns into the black and white mixer, which now allows you to adjust the individual color tones of the shot in grayscale. This program mode is perfect for working out interesting contrasts, depths and nuances.

Portraits with a strong character have more contrast and depth than architectural shots and a high-key composition is softer than street motifs. The more skillfully and precisely you influence and adjust the light and colour control, the more intense the feeling of your black and white shots will be.

Even if the image is "colorless", the "Light" and "Color" controls have a great influence. Sometimes hard edges are very exciting, other times it's the many shades of grey in an otherwise colorful subject. They can have a strong influence on the style and the message. Editing monochrome images is just as time-consuming as with color images and goes far beyond simple desaturation.

Gradients and vignettes

Modern cameras and programs have great functions for suppressing a lens-based vignette, the edges at the edge of the image. These dark edges come from a drop in brightness because less light reaches the corners than the center of the sensor. Manufacturers do everything they can to prevent this effect.

It is a great stylistic device for shots with a highlight in the center of the image. You can therefore either turn off the correction by the software in most image editing programs or even add an artificial vignette. Not only does this create a retro charm, it can also guide the viewer's gaze to the subject in a targeted but subtle way.

In addition to vignettes, there are other practical and digital tools for influencing images. Landscape photography has given rise to one of the most powerful accessories in the industry: filters. The ND filter (ND for neutral density), which allows longer exposures, the polarizing filter, which neutralizes reflections on water, and the graduated filter for bright landscapes at sunset. All of them are indispensable in their function - and what is most often forgotten at home.

This is why some image editing programs offer the option of applying radial or graduated filters retrospectively. With these tools, the exact position, the length of the gradient and the intensity can be precisely set. You can give your images a natural look by selectively brightening or darkening them. Radial or graduated filters are also perfect for local adjustments - for example, to slightly darken the sky up to the horizon.

HDR

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, i.e. an image with a high dynamic range. An HDR image is usually not just a single image, but several images that are combined into one. The original idea behind HDR is to get the best out of all the information in the image: All the details in the highlights, depths and shadows at once. But this is difficult to achieve in just one shot.

HDR images avoid the problem. For them, a scene is shot once with the correct exposure; a second shot is overexposed and a third underexposed. You have a reference and two images with all the color information. The lighting situation, bright areas and shadows are all well captured. These three (or even five or seven) images are now merged into one image using software.

A sunset over a picturesque landscape is the perfect example. The sun bathes the landscape in strong, warm light, but also creates harsh shadows and dark areas. HDR compensates for these differences and creates an image with incredible dynamics and crisp contrasts.

Many programs have an automatic function. It is often sufficient to mark the images. Most programs automatically compensate for small movements, such as flowers in the wind. The shorter the time between the shots, the easier it is to merge them, as the light has not changed and clouds, for example, have hardly moved.

HDR is best suited to landscapes, architecture and skylines. It often looks unnatural in portraits and it is very difficult to compensate for images with a lot of movement, which leads to "ghost effects" and therefore double exposures.

Sharpening

Nothing is worse than a perfect image that is only recognized as blurred on the computer during editing. No software is capable of completely sharpening a blurred image. But the modern methods of the programs are very convincing when it comes to sharpening and help to turn a good image into an outstanding one.

If you have no problems with sharpness, but lack a little more depth of field over your image, there are steps that go beyond the normal "sharpen" function: By increasing the contrast instead of re-sharpening details.

There are also targeted sharpening features that are suitable for specific applications. Portrait photographers, for example, like to work with the "Gaussian blur" in Photoshop, which, contrary to its name, is not only suitable for blurring and retouching, but also for sharpening. In addition to this filter, there are also five "sharpening filters" in Photoshop. The two filters "Unsharp Mask" and "Selective Sharpener" allow you to intervene in the process and are therefore suitable for anyone who wants to have more control over the effect. Photoshop also contains the "Sharpen", "Sharpen contours" and "Sharpen more" filters. However, these are automatic filters that cannot be adjusted.

There is also output sharpening during export. Sharpening can be applied there for the respective output and usage purposes. For example, Adobe Lightroom offers the options "Screen" for web images and "Matte paper" or "Glossy paper" for print images.