When I returned home and started looking at what we saw out there I began playing with the different treatments photographers can do to images.
First I ingested the files using a program called
Lightroom, an Adobe product. I like to use Lightroom because it allows me to put keywords and other Metadata attached to the files as they are being uploaded to my hard drive. Once all the exposures have been copied off the card from the camera I rate the images using the star style rating Lightroom supplies. Once that is complete it is much easier to find those photos worth spending more time with. In the development mode I made adjustments to exposure, color temperature, clarity, vibrance, saturation and some selected colors using the luminance sliders. All this took very little time. Then I exported the images to a file where they appeared with all the development instructions I had assigned using Lightroom.
At this point I was already happy with how the pictures looked but thought there could be some improvement or at least some difference seen if I opened them using
Photoshop, another Adobe product, and made further adjustments.
These are four different exposures of the same subject, taken one right after another. These were done using a hand held Canon 5d, so there are slight differences in the cropping of the frame, but they are basically the same.
This is how the image looked as instructed by Lightroom.
Then I added a curves layer to adjust the contrast.
On top of that I added a layer of selective color. In there I adjusted the the black color layer adding more black essentially making the darks even darker. And then the white layer taking away black making the whites even lighter. The end result is an image with more apparent contrast.
At this point I thought what else can I do with this shot. So, I added another layer called Hue/Saturation. Dialing down the saturation of the yellow layer until the sand dunes looked almost sepia. Here though the selective color needed to be dialed back a little and I lessoned some of the black and white layers.
All this was done just through playing around and seeing what happens when choices are made and pushing sliders around. The best way to learn how to use these layers and sliders is just that, to play with them. I have always said the most important part of work is play. You can see more of my playing in my web site.
