how to use image editing tools

see also:

• image editing software
• RAW image processing workflow
• Adobe Lightroom techniques
• Adobe Photoshop® techniques 1
• digital photographic printing
• color calibration
• AI to create videos from stills
• AI in photography
• CGI in still photography

• most image editors have common editing tools and mastery of a tool in one editor is generally transferable to other image editors

• some editors allow you to directly open an image from the computer's folder system
• some, like Lightroom, require the image to be “imported” into the image editors database before it can be edited.
  • youtube tutorial: how to import photos into LR

• there are various controls which most editors provide to allow you to set the base image tonal and color adjustments which include:
  • “camera or picture profile”
    • these may be able to mimic the picture profiles of your camera
  • color balance - color temperature (blue - yellow) and tint (green-magenta)
  • exposure
  • contrast
  • highlights
  • whites
  • shadows
  • blacks
  • saturation
  • clarity
  • vibrance
  • lens correction tools:
    • chromatic aberration
    • distortion

• horizontal and/or vertical leveling
• rotation
• keystone correction
• cropping tool

• the tone curve is a very useful although a more difficult tool to use
• elevate the black point to create a “matte” look
• create a full height sine wave curve with 9 peaks to make it easier to detect sensor dust
• hertz-ladiges.com: using the Curves tool
• Tips for using the tone curve

• black and white conversion can be achieved by a number of techniques including:
  • setting saturation to zero
  • channel mixer which allows for a range of contrast options by applying a “color filter” effect to the conversion (eg. is you choose red filter as with a red filter on a film camera lens using a B&W film, red objects are made lighter and blue objects such as sky is made darker)
  • LUTS
• many prefer to use layers to provide finer control and set the blending mode of the desaturated “filter” layer to “Color”

• CLONE mode will just COPY a part of an image to another part of the image
• HEALING mode will attempt to apply the textures and colors of a part of an image to another part of the image
• you need to select:
  • size of the “brush”
  • amount of feathering
  • the area you want changed
  • the area to use as a source for the change

• https://youtu.be/UUAn9XBS7qQ
• https://youtu.be/q3Uk5UcIkOM

• this allows you to “paint in” an effect to wherever you wish on the image
• this allows the traditional film print process of dodging“ or “burning” to create contrast and emphasis in your image, which is particularly important with B&W imagery.
• depending upon your image editor, you will have various effects that can be applied in this manner and you can usually select a “brush” for a paint in style and a feather and intensity (opacity or transparency) as well as flow rate
• http://www.diyphotography.net/create-flawlessly-retouched-skin-dodge-burn/

• a mask allows you to select parts of an image where you will later apply an effect to (if it is a white or light grey mask) or not apply a global effect (if it is a black mask)
• the skill is in being able to select the regions accurately
• some software have AI tools to take some of this often time consuming selection process away

• this allows an effect to be applied to the image in a graded manner from zero to maximum effect
• you can change the position of the gradient, the rotation and narrow the gradient to create a more dramatic change in the effect (you may want the width to be zero if applying it to a straight horizon)
• this can be used to:
  • bring out over-exposed clouds
  • add a diffuse sun haze or fog effect
  • add a less obvious vignette effect by applying it to only select areas of the image

• these allow you to add a color tone to the highlights &/or shadow areas
• each area can have a different color tone and saturation
• where these merge in the tonal scale can be adjusted

• this may be applied to the original image or to the post-cropped image

• Sharpening resized images for the web
• Youtube - sharpening and noise reduction in LR
• three - pass sharpening toolkit and tutorial

• see Youtube tutorial

• adding film grain can be used to great effect to create a retro style or to disguise skin blemish issues

• lighten mode:
  • only adds in pixels from a 2nd image which are LIGHTER than in the 1st image
  • great for adding lights at night such as car trails, city lights to a sunset shot, creating star trails, etc.
  • NB. this can be done automatically in-camera using the unique Olympus Live Composite mode without resorting to Photoshop
• overlay and soft light modes:
  • can add imagery such as clouds or colour to a region
  • example, create a new layer and paint in some warm colours then blend this into your sunset image
• darken mode:
  • only adds in pixels from a 2nd image which are DARKER than in the 1st image
  • great for adding dark subjects such as black birds to the sky but may need to brighten the background of the 2nd image so it does not display
• difference mode:
  • mainly to assist in manually aligning layers of the same scene
• luminosity mode:
  • useful in changing contrast without altering colours

• this can be done to achieve:
  • panoramic stitches
  • HDR images from differently exposed images
  • adding a texture layer
  • creating composites - see composite photography and post-processing
    • eg. replacing the sky
    • adding in objects

• usually this step gives the option of selecting:
  • final sharpening (eg. sharpen for web or for print)
  • addition of a watermark
  • output image size
  • output image format (eg. jpeg with compression setting, TIFF for maximum quality but also largest size)
  • output destination