How to work with photos?

Hi,

today I'm going to show you how to work with a photo, from opening it for the first time in Photoshop to exporting it.I have planed to do this in several blogs. I've been doing Photoshop for a while now, like 10 years now and it has shaped my life like nothing else has. If anyone else shares this passion be sure to follow up because I have more coming up.

The photo we are going to work with is this beautiful picture I took. ( https://imgur.com/00NvZns )

So,  when opening a photo the first impressions we get are important. It gives us the first idea of what the end result will look like. 

What I like to do first is make the photo black and white. By doing so I get a good understanding of the black and white levels. An easy way to do this is to:

• Create a New Layer (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N)
• Fill it with white
• Set the layer blending mode to Color 

We get something like this: ( https://imgur.com/CvqwwDg ) 

As we can see the photo is under contrasted, the sharpness overall is fine but we will have to do some fine tuning later. 

It is important that we see the whole picture, so I like to zoom out and on a New Layer circle or write what catches my attention. I start it out big and work my way in to details.

Checking the symmetry of the image is the next step. This is quite easy to do:

• Free Transform (Ctrl+T)
• Right click and then choose Flip horizontally. ( https://imgur.com/g3uzW11 )

I was careful when taking the picture and used the guiding lines in my camera. I have them set to the rule of thirds. We will talk about this in a later blog.

Now we have to find the focal point of the image. If you don't know what focal point is basically speaking is where your camera lens is focused to. If you would like to know more ask in the comment section about what you would like to learn. Since this photo is anatomically okay the focus of it is quite all right and doesn't need future tuning. 

Now comes the part where it really gets complicated. This is the part where art comes in.Selecting what mood you want to get across...

I would like to pause and ask myself the question of what I want other people to feel when they see my art. I see the photo as a blank paper for me to write a story in it.Before you start think about why are you even doing this shot. And go in with clear intentions,not confused. Naturally the story must have a subject where in our example is this beautiful lion-looking feline. To draw attention to the cat there are several methods:

• Tone
• Saturation 
• Sharpness
• And composition

I will explain them all individually and in the end I will show my finished photo.

Tone

The first big thing is tone: the difference between light and dark. A difference in light levels draws out the eye of the public. For example, if we have an image that is dark around the corners and has a white spot in the middle our eyes automatically focus the white dot.

Saturation 

Saturation is the difference in color; similar to the tone. Human eye reads color as a wavelength, which means that it will direct our attention to a spot that has a more noticeable different in wavelength.

Looking back to the mood, saturation is a really good technique to master simple because the colors itself are emotions...

An image with a lot of reds gives the feeling of passion and strong emotions like love. I plan to do a more in-depth blog about this.

Sharpness

A sharp highlight and a dark shadow, this is how Sharpness work. This is useful in project where we want attention to be directed the details in the picture.

Composition

Composition is hard, but it can lead to photos that please way more. This can be achieved by photographers that have a good understanding of how photography works; this is why not many people use it. Different ways to do this are as follows:

• Rule of thirds
• Golden Ratio
• Space
• S-Curves
• C-Curves

Now some tips and tricks I use when I work:

• Focus on what you want to do not what you can do.
• Don't put yourself in a time crunch.
• Take breaks and when you come back you'll see the photo with new eyes.
• Keep notes on what works and what does not work.
• Play around to find other ways to get things done.
• When you have to chose you photos for editing just scroll through them quickly and stop at the photos you like.
• Simplify as much as possible.
• Everything that doesn't add to your photo takes away from your photo.
• Try something crazy.
• Get inspiration from other editors. (We all got to learn from somewhere...)

Knowing when you are done...

So, this is something I found useful in all my years of experience:

• Get it to about great in black and white and then work in your colors.

What I mean by this is to correct all the flaws in your photo while working on black and white. After the photo looks pleasing to the eye you can worry about the colors.

• Take breaks and when you come back you'll see the photo with new eyes.

Don't work yourself up. Take a break, do something easing for your eyes, take a walk around, eat something and I promise you will feel better when you return to your computer.

And what I think holds a really big part in our live and carrier as an artist in the first place and as a photographer is to:

Force yourself to live with your photo.

The point is: If you are proud of your product, if you like it, you have to be able to accept and protect it no matter what people say, no matter how controversial it is. It should become a second nature to always be proud of your work.

All that matters is that you satisfy yourself as an artist.

And also, if you have stayed around this far to the end of the first blog be sure to write suggestions and tips for blogging, as this is my first time trying this and I would like to know who did I do. Also feel free to ask and I'll respond to everyone of you individually.

For everyone that's curious to see how it ended up...

https://imgur.com/bio9gGB