Hi everybody, welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV.
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As photographers, sometimes we need to edit
photos that are used as featured images
on blogs, or thumbnails for YouTube, or
Vimeo, or maybe images that are used for
social media. Those images have to
have a clearly defined subject and so we
can do that by changing the luminosity
in different areas of our subject. So we
have one very focal point, we can take
the attention of the viewer and point
them to one specific place to say, "Hey,
this article is about this. This video is
about this specifically." So, for example,
if I was going to make a thumbnail about
Doug McKinlay, I can take an image that
looks sort of like this, sort of drab,
there's not really any focal point. I could
change a few things and make it look
like this.
We do that by adjusting the
contrast, the luminosity of different areas.
I like to call this Luminosity Focusing.
It's really just a different
take on burning and dodging. So let me
show you how this works.
There are Five
Steps to this technique. Number one: Make
your global tonal adjustments.
Number two: Set focus using a radial filter.
Number three: Fine-tune using adjustment brushes.
Number four: Add a vignette and
number five: Add your finishing touches.
Let me give you some real life examples
of what this technique looks like.
We'll start here with an image that I
used as a thumbnail,
a featured image on
an article I wrote about Matt Granger
and I. We were doing a TOG Life and you
can see the before image here, it's
just a little lifeless. We have some nice
side light but by adding these
techniques, these five Steps, I was able
to really highlight Matt. This next image
here, we can see that we have some lions
in a field. They look pretty good right
now but before they were sort of
lifeless. So by adding some
Luminosity Focus I was able to make them sort of
glow in that green grass. Here's another
image of my motorcycle and this one is
pretty subtle so I'm going to show the
side by side here. You can see on the
after image, on the right hand side that
the luminosity of the motorcycle is the
same as before but the
surrounding areas have become a little
bit darker and that really helps us to
isolate the motorcycle. So here is before,
here is after. It's a very subtle change
but it really helps us to look and see
exactly what the subject of that picture is.
Here is a really nice example of how
we're going to apply this. So I've broken
these down into all five steps for this
image of my friend Damien. Again, this was
a featured image, thumbnail image, for my
blog and I wanted to really focus this
on Damien and so here is what we started
with. This image is just not very
exciting, there's all kinds of issues
with it. We have the wrong color, we've
got bottles, we've got a logo that needs
to go away. There are all kinds of things
that need to be fixed with this. It's not
a really great image but I needed to
make it work. So the first thing I did
was, I went in and I made my global
adjustments. So I set my White Balance, my
black points, my shadows, highlights, all
those things that you would normally do.
I fixed the color and tonality. Then I
needed to set the focus, the focal point,
and I did that using a Radial Filter. So
I'll go to the next step here and I'll
go over here to the Radial Filter, click
it, and show you exactly how I added that.
You can see we have this Radial Filter
right on Damien's face and what I've
done here is, I've taken the exposure
down on everything outside of Damien's
face. So you can see that everything is
bright, now everything is dark except for
his face. Almost like I used a little
soft box on his face. We did that in
post-production, once I have the Radial
Filter, I really needed to go in and
fine-tune all of these other things.
We've got bottles and logos etc. So I
was able to do that using adjustment
brushes. So I'll turn those on and you
can see that we've cleaned up things
quite a bit. Let me go in and show you
how many adjustment brushes. Every single
one of these dots is a different
adjustment brush. In this one right here I
took the highlights down all around
Damien. This one right here I changed the
highlights on his face. I changed his
eyes. I changed his arm. So I was able to
go in and do some really specific
fine-tuning on this image. Once that
was done, I went to Step 4. I added a
vignette. Nothing super heavy but just
something to bring the focus again.
Then finally, step five, I added the
finishing touches which was a bit of
clarity, quite a bit of clarity, and again
you can see here is the before image, then
here's the after image. That's something
that we can actually use. All right,
now that we've seen some before and
after images, let's actually process an
image start to finish. We're going to
start with an easy image. This is
something I shot during my episode on
the fake golden hour. This looks pretty
good as is, but what we need to do is
walk through each of these steps. Now
I've already finished step one, my global
tonal adjustments. I've already set the
White Balance. I've already set my black
point, my whites, all that stuff. So
everything is there as I would normally
have it. Now I want to really set the
focus using my Radial Filters and my
adjustment brushes. So we're going to do
this in a very quick and easy way.
The first thing I'm going to do is, go
over here and click on my Radial Filter
and then I'm going to double-click on
Effect, that actual word that resets
everything. So I know I'm starting from
scratch. Then what I'll normally do
with this technique is, I'll take my
exposure down by about one stop so
that's -1. It doesn't have to be
exact, so -1.09, that's fine.
Then I'm going to click and drag out
radial brush around the place that I want
to be my focus. I want our model to be
the focus, so I'm going to drag this,
click the center and put it right about
where I want this to be to highlight
the focal point. Once that's done you can
always grab these handles here and make
this slimmer or longer. You can rotate
this so you can get it into the exact
position that you want. The other thing
that you have to watch out for with the
radial mask is that, you make sure that
the feather setting is correct. So if you
have a zero feather, you can see there's
no transition between our effect in the
outside world and if I have too much,
well the effect almost totally goes away.
So you have to sort of pick a nice
medium. I'm going to pick about 40 and
that looks pretty good. Again, you can
always come in here and make adjustments
later on, so it doesn't have to be exact.
You can tweek these as you go.
Alright, I'm going to close that.
The next thing I want to
do is make this look a little less
artificial. So I made it too dark over
here. The sun looks like something has
happened, that is not natural. So I'm
going to go and grab an adjustment brush.
Once again, double-click Effect to make
sure I start from scratch. Then I'm going
to take my exposure up by about half a stop.
Remember we took everything down
by one stop, so now I'm going to bring
that back up by half a stop. It'll still be
a little bit darker but it's going to be
a little bit more pleasing. Now this
brush, you can see that I can increase or
decrease the size over here with this
slider. Or if you have a mouse wheel, you
can just mouse wheel up and down to
change that. So I'm going to get a nice
big brush and go over here and I'm going
to lighten up these bushes just a little
bit and maybe these shadows right here.
I think that'll look a little bit more
natural. Alright, well, that step is done.
The next thing we need to do is, just go
in and add a vignette to this. So I'm
going to go down, let me close this, then
I'm going to go down here, just add a
slight vignette. Something about -15/14.
Something like that.
That looks
pretty good. Then the last thing I'm
going to do are my final touches, it
doesn't really need a lot, but I'm going
to add just a tiny bit of Clarity just
so we have all five steps. Okay that's
what we got, before and after. That looks
pretty good but let's do something
that's a little bit more complicated.
Here is a shot of Doug McKinlay. Now, this
is an image that I want to use as the
thumbnail for this video and so it needs
a lot of work. This is just not a very
interesting image and so let's take our
five steps, let's go through this one by
one. What I'm going to do here is, I'm
going to save us a little bit of time,
I've already done the tonal adjustments
so I've saved that as a snapshot. I'm
just going to click on this, I've already
made my tonal adjustments, I set my black
point, my white point, my shadows, my color
temperature and all of that. I did that
in the past and I saved that. I cheated just
so this video wouldn't run forever.
Okay, now that we have step one finished,
let's walk through our filters, the first
filter we want to work with is, again, a
Radial Filter. So I'm going to click on
that. Double click Effects so we're
starting from scratch. Then I'm going to
take my exposure down by about a stop.
It's a good starting point. Then I'm
going to click and drag again on the
thing that I want to be the focal point
of our image, which is Doug. I'm going to
put this right over his face, turn this a
little bit and so there we go. We have a
nice radial filter right on Doug's face.
That's going to really bring him, pull
him into focus, not focus from our lens,
but focus from the standpoint of the
thing that we want to look at in this
image. So I'm going to close that. I like
where we're headed with this. Next lets
fine tune some things using an
adjustment brush. One of the problems
with this image is the light's not great.
So his eyes are a little bit under
exposed. I'm going to make a really
small brush here, double-click Effect and
go in here and adjust my shadows. I'm
going to open this up to about half a
stop a bit more, so around the 50/60
range. I'm just going to click on each of
his eyes and that opens things up. Now I
can play with the slider after I've
applied those things to see exactly if I
need more or less. I can change how that
looks, so around 60, something like that.
Once I've done that I need to clean
up a few other things. So I'm going to
click New to get a new adjustment brush.
We're going to double-click Effect so it
resets all of my settings here. Then
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
take my highlights and my white, so I'll
take those down around to about
-50, something like that.
Remember, you can always change these
later. I'm going to get a really large
brush. By using my mouse wheel, just going
to paint down the left-hand side of this
image really quickly. Alright, so now
we're starting to bring some focus to
Doug. That looks pretty good. Well the
next thing I want to do is, I want to fix
the sky around Doug's head. So I'm going
to just make a smaller brush here and I
think the highlights and the whites are
probably at a good place. So I'm just
going to start painting this down and
that makes the sky
a little bit less stark. Then there's
a nice natural barrier here with this
wall, so I'm just going to paint right
there. Now, one of the things to look out
for is, if I just don't go far enough, I'm
going to get this weird look on Doug's
head. So I'm going to actually bring this
brush into his hair just a little bit.
If you go too far, you can always hit the
Option key and you'll be able to
subtract, you'll get the erase brush and you can
erase this away. So if I erase too much
then I get this weird outline around
Doug's head. I don't like that, so I'm
going to do the opposite. I'm just going
to, sort of, bring this in paint this in
so his hair comes a little bit more gray.
I'll play with that. Okay, that's
looking pretty darn good. Now, one of
the things I want to do, I'm going to get
a new brush. I think these windows over
here are still a little bit too much.
I'm going to have my highlights and my
whites about where they were again.
Then actually I'll take my highlights,
about 56. I think the whites will be
okay so I'm going to reset those. Then I'm
going to brush down this building over
here. I'm just taking that down a
little bit. You can see I'm just sort of
layering my changes over and over until I
get something I want. Now, we could keep
going on this for a long time but we're
going to stop there and go to our next
step, which is to add a vignette. So we're
going to come down here, we're going to
add a little vignette. Maybe about, I
don't know, 15/20 something like that. So
that's step four and then let's go on to
our last step, which is to do our
finishing touches. This, I think, just
needs a little bit of Clarity so we're
going to add about 19/20, something like
that. There you have it. There is
our before, there is our after image. Now
if I had some time I could tweak this a
little bit more and so what I did is I
did tweak this and I've saved it as a
snapshot. There is our final image. I
need to crop this because this is going
to be a YouTube thumbnail. So I'll crop
this to a 16x9. Put that about right
there, something like that.
Nice rule of thirds.
That looks pretty good.
Here we go, before,
after, that works just great.
Well thank you for joining me for this episode of
Exploring Photography.
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