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How to Turn an Ordinary Photo Into anExtraordinary Photo
10.31.2006 | Link to this blurb| 54 Comments| photography, tutorial | « » I’ve often been asked about my process for tweaking photos. I thought I’d use one of my favorite photos and show how I took it from initial capture to final public display. Ihad forgotten how far I had taken this image from its initial capture:(click image to see a larger version)As with all tools, there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. I found a set of techniques that work really well for taking a photo that doesn’t have the best light or isn’t shot at the perfect time of day and amping it up. You may have better or differenttechniques to accomplish similar things and I say to you things like, “Keep the hopealive.” And: “Awesome!”I generally don’t like writing tutorials, because my assumptions about everything areusually wrong. In this case, I wanted to write a fairly straightforward tutorial, but after showing a draft to Heather, decided to rework it substantially, with more screenshotsand better explanations of the steps. This is not a beginner tutorial for Photoshop. This isan advanced tutorial. I hope it doesn’t frustrate you or confuse you.
Some assumptions
 —You have access to Photoshop and know your way around some of the palettes. In particular, the Layer Palette. There are several buttons at the bottom of the Layer Palette. There are two that I’ll be making reference to; 1) The New Layer/DuplicateLayer and; 2) the Adjustment Layer button.
 
When I mention duplicating layers below, I mean you select the thumbnail/icon of thelayer you want to duplicate and drag it to the New Layer button (#1 in the aboveillustration). This duplicates the layer and positions it above the layer you clicked anddragged. —You have a photo that you’d like to tweak. —You aren’t afraid to play around with sliders and settings.
Taking the picture
I might muck about with some settings on the camera, but I want to capture the vision inmy head as close as I can while I’m in the moment. I might think about post-processing, but that’s pretty rare. I usually make a mental note of the kind of thing I want, click theshot and move on. This isn’t always the best way to work, but it’s how the image I’musing in this tutorial evolved.So here’s our starter image:(click image to see a larger version)
Photoshop time
I always keep a layer in Photoshop of my original file, untouched and at the bottom of the stack in the Layer Palette. So the first thing I do is select the background layer anddrag it to the New Layer button. This creates a layer of the same image that I can edit,calm in the assurance that if I do anything untoward, I can revert to my original without
 
too much pain. After doing this, the Layers Palette looks like this:The photo has pretty flat light and not a lot of mood. I love the low angle and of the sixshots I took of the building and hydrant, this image shows the most promise by far. That pesky tall grass really is distracting. In my first sharing of this photo, I left it inthroughout the processing. Big mistake. It’s out. I’m going to use the stamp tool and getrid of a few strands of tall grass. Since this is optional on whatever you might beworking on, I’ll skip all the technique and screenshots, as that would likely be enoughinformation to be its own tutorial. After several hours of painstaking use of the stamptool it’s time to perform an Unsharp Mask:This is an entirely subjective thing. Use the three sliders to make your image sharper,without making it look like it came out of a digital camera circa 1997. Which wouldlook like ass. Avoid looking like ass. I use the Amount and Radius settings to get what Iwant. There are times when the Threshold slider can help, but for speed, it’s all about a
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