John West---how I usually (not always) work on a digital negative
1. The unaltered original is burned to a CD or DVD right out of the camera.
2. Open a COPY of the picture on desktop.
3. Size up the picture...wait a second...
brightness/contrast
overall impression
1st...ADJUSTMENT LAYER Levels
FIRST
find highlight........find deepest shadow
SECOND
correctly set range for each: red.....green.....blue
this helps on printing eventually
2nd Adjustment Layer....CURVES
A. SET WHITE POINT
B. SET DEEPEST SHADOW
OPTIONAL
C. NEW CURVES ADJUSTMENT LAYER-SET NEUTRAL TONES
3RD Adjustment Layer....set the CONTRAST LEVEL
4th: OPTIONAL: Selective Color (Increased the Blacks 5-10 points in Neutral)
6th: Gray 50 % OVERLAY layer: Painted in Shadows/Highlights
7th: For PRINTING Curves EITHER Screen or Multiply layer
-----------------------------------------
Macbeth Color Checker TIFF 1.76MB
(control click and save as)
Color calibration of your monitor is very important. You can open this file up and see how close the colors are using the
infomation inspector in photoshop
This is the final fixed portrait
Portrait with adjustment layers 96MB
(Control click and save as)
This is the photoshop file with all the adjustment layers so you can see how it was fixed.
Go to the layers panel, and uncheck all the eyeballs, start from the bottom and click on each eye to see the different adjustments.
If you check out the layers, there are several adjustment layers
The background layer is the original picture
Hold down the option key when sliding the sliders in the Levels tool
The 59% grey overlay can be had by making a new adjustment layer and
-edit
---fill
Then change the mode to overlay in the 59% grey
Use a black or white brush with a low opacity to lighten and darken the areas you want.
Go to the layers panel, and uncheck all the eyeballs, start from the bottom and click on each eye to see the different adjustments.
In this picture the only thing that was done was to go to the curves control panel and click on the middle eye-dropper and click around the Doe's neck until the color is just right.
For a nifty internet speed test check out http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/