and help to keep the site free for all
Best photoshop book for a intermediate
- Thread starter NeilA1975
- Start date
- Messages
- 7,701
- Edit My Images
- No
When I bought a prehistoric version of Photoshop back in the Dark Ages, Martin Evening's book was a great help. It seems recent versions are still very well regarded:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Photographers-Version/dp/1138690244
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Photographers-Version/dp/1138690244
- Messages
- 4,517
- Name
- droj
- Edit My Images
- No
Back in the day, the Real World series PS books by Blatner / Fraser were dense with material that was all both solid, grounded and intelligible - they were a hell of a team! There were editions into the CS era but I don't know up to what version. But in many aspects apart from the latest bells and whistles PS is much the same, so a book for an older version is still pretty valid.
I think that it's personal to a large extent which authors' modes of explanation you chime with. There's only one way to find out which ...
I think that it's personal to a large extent which authors' modes of explanation you chime with. There's only one way to find out which ...
Last edited:
- Messages
- 2,214
- Name
- Craig
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Processing a photo is broken down into 2 main channels for me.
Artistic vision, meaning a clear direction in where you want to take it and how you want to express yourself in the way the photo ends up. This is started in camera through composition, focus and exposure settings. But well processed you can accentuate the story you were trying to tell with your camera settings.
The second key element in processing a photo is in having the right skill set and knowledge of the software to realise the direction you want to take the photo in. A tool kit of abilities really. A bit like to take a good photo in the first place you also need the technical understanding of how to adjust settings, achieve critical focus and sharpness (or not).
The best photographers can clearly see photos within a scene that engage the viewer, and have the technical skills to capture the shot in a way that conveys what they want, to a high standard of photography.
Post processing is the same, the very best not only have the skills to manipulate and extract the best from the shot, they also know what direction to go in to get the best out of it.
Knowing ways of making mid tone selection masks to increase contrast selectively is a technique. Knowing if you should increase that contrast and by how much is art.
I would say that your photos convey a strong theme, with a distinctive style. Whatever you are doing now works, both from a photography point of view through a processing one to achieve this signature look.
The only thing I think you could learn from photoshop is advanced masks and selective editing. For example, one of your recent, effective southwold pier shots was a blue hour one. For me, whilst the cool feel to it was intentional and worked, in making the scene blue the whites of the pier were also kind of blue/cyan. Wrongly or rightly I would have selectively desaturated the blue from the white buildings in the pier, which would give you more colour separation so it stood out more and the eye would recognise it as believable, in turn accepting the other tones within the image.
That is what photoshop skills could give you, the option to take parts of the photo and work on them separately from others, this applies to colour correction, sharpening, luminosity and contrast etc.
Do you do much selective editing st the moment? Do you want to learn how/can you see where it might benefit?
Artistic vision, meaning a clear direction in where you want to take it and how you want to express yourself in the way the photo ends up. This is started in camera through composition, focus and exposure settings. But well processed you can accentuate the story you were trying to tell with your camera settings.
The second key element in processing a photo is in having the right skill set and knowledge of the software to realise the direction you want to take the photo in. A tool kit of abilities really. A bit like to take a good photo in the first place you also need the technical understanding of how to adjust settings, achieve critical focus and sharpness (or not).
The best photographers can clearly see photos within a scene that engage the viewer, and have the technical skills to capture the shot in a way that conveys what they want, to a high standard of photography.
Post processing is the same, the very best not only have the skills to manipulate and extract the best from the shot, they also know what direction to go in to get the best out of it.
Knowing ways of making mid tone selection masks to increase contrast selectively is a technique. Knowing if you should increase that contrast and by how much is art.
I would say that your photos convey a strong theme, with a distinctive style. Whatever you are doing now works, both from a photography point of view through a processing one to achieve this signature look.
The only thing I think you could learn from photoshop is advanced masks and selective editing. For example, one of your recent, effective southwold pier shots was a blue hour one. For me, whilst the cool feel to it was intentional and worked, in making the scene blue the whites of the pier were also kind of blue/cyan. Wrongly or rightly I would have selectively desaturated the blue from the white buildings in the pier, which would give you more colour separation so it stood out more and the eye would recognise it as believable, in turn accepting the other tones within the image.
That is what photoshop skills could give you, the option to take parts of the photo and work on them separately from others, this applies to colour correction, sharpening, luminosity and contrast etc.
Do you do much selective editing st the moment? Do you want to learn how/can you see where it might benefit?
OP
- Messages
- 4,999
- Name
- Neil
- Edit My Images
- No
Apologies for the late responses, but thank you for your input and in particular Craig for his well thought out and lengthy response.
In answer to your question Craig, I do a little bit of selective editing but not too much as usually I get a bit too carried away.
Could you explain what you mean by mid tone selection masks to increase contrast selectively?
Thanks again and a happy new year!
In answer to your question Craig, I do a little bit of selective editing but not too much as usually I get a bit too carried away.
Could you explain what you mean by mid tone selection masks to increase contrast selectively?
Thanks again and a happy new year!
- Messages
- 2,214
- Name
- Craig
- Edit My Images
- Yes
It was just an example of something you can do more effectively in PS than LR.
When dark shadows and bright highlights are already positioned correctly, possibly close to the edges of the histogram it is a way of increasing contrast whilst protecting these areas. I also use mid tone masks to increase saturation, when doing it globally would soon blow a colour channel out of gamut.
In the layers palette with a flattened image, or a base layer highlighted (not an adjustment layer) switch across to the channels tab.
Press cmd + click on the rgb channel. You have just selected the highlights.
Use the create alpha channel icon st the bottom (rectangle with a circle in it). A new channel is created, duplicate this process so you have 2 new channels the same.
Select the bottom one normally with a mouse click on the channel. Then press cmd + I. You have just inverted the highlight mask creating a shadow mask.
To select the mid tones we need to subtract the highlights from the shadows. This is achieved by ensuring the shadows channel is highlighted normally, then pressing cmd + a to select it all, then cmd + alt (should bring up a minus sign) + click on the fully selected shadows followed immediately without releasing the keys by moving up to the highlights and cmd + alt + click on the highlight channel.
When you release the keys PS will warn you about the small selection. Ignore it. As an exercise you can press the create alpha channel icon again to place that mask in the channels panel for future use, of you can just tab back to layers and click on curves adjustment layer. You will notice that it will load with the mid tone mask applied. Thus any adjustments you make are applied only to the mid tones with a perfectly feathered mask.
Advanced versions include intersecting the highlight and/or shadow masks to extend the midtone mask. Even the basic mask gives great flexibility within photoshop, because you can fade he opacity of the mask. Or instead if adding just a curved layer, once you have loaded the mid tones you can apply it to a group (which I think if as a folder) and put other adjustment layers within it, all with their own masks, gradients or colour channels etc.
This has taken ages I type on my phone but I can literally create and load a mid tones curve adjustment layer within seconds on a computer. Some people may ask why you don't just load curves and lock certain points off at the bottom and top, but I'm not sure it feathers the transitions the same, and is slightly slower, but has different advantages like eye dropping the points you wish to protect...