How to process a photo: step-by-step instructions with a description, tips and secrets

In the articles on how to process a photo in Photoshop it is beautiful, some authors complicate the process so much that beginners do not take up working with the program. But if the user is looking for exactly the difficult lessons, then it is worth paying attention to the outstanding photographer Dan Margulis. He describes absolutely all the subtleties of working with change programs. But actually processing a photo as a professional is very easy. Some skills and constant practice are needed. Beginners are better off paying attention to these recommendations.

How to process a photo in Lightroom?

Processed photo




It is best to take pictures in the RAV format, it allows you to pull out even the failed light sections. But since it is impossible to process a photo in Photoshop without an additional program, color processing must be done in Lightroom. First of all, the white balance and black-and-white pattern are adjusted. BB is how the camera reproduced colors based on a white hue.

In total, 2 pairs of colors are distinguished: green and pink, blue and yellow. You can adjust them either with the help of sliders or with the help of a pipette. Choose a gray or white color in the photo and take it as an example, the program will do the rest. In the same first window, you can adjust the juiciness and colorfulness of the picture, there is also a slider for sharpness. The next step is the curves, in three primary colors: red, blue and green. And also there is a setting for all colors, the addition of vignettes, graininess, lens correction and so on. In addition to the basic functions, you can process the photo in Lightroom, as well as in another editor, that is, remove skin imperfections, improve individually different areas and crop the picture. All this will help you learn how to properly process photos, like any professional.





Program "Photoshop" for processing photos

There are absolutely any possibilities, from ordinary color grading to plastic surgery and background replacement. To process a photo beautifully, it is not necessary to perform many different steps. After the processing of the photo was incorporated in the Lightroom, it is necessary to switch to Photoshop itself. This article will describe the basic details for creating an excellent picture. There will be no complicated and abstruse steps.

Lighten or darken

Clarifier tool




If the user has English "Photoshop", then this parameter sounds like the Dodge Tool / Burn Tool. In general, this function was created in order to draw light and shadow on the photo. This feature looks especially good when portrait shooting. This is how to do contouring, but after taking the picture. To do this, a separate layer is created above the picture, after which the Soft Light mode is set. Next, you need to take a brush and draw white where the light is needed, and black where the shadows are. Completes all the slider "Opacity", it is set so that everything looks as natural as possible.

Here are two important settings for the Lighten / Darken function.





Application selection

This tool is used in both dark and light areas of the photo. So, you can use one brush and add depth to the picture or lighten too dark a fragment. It should be understood that it will not work to make darker absolutely white pixels. In English, the function sounds like Range. Shadows - dark, Highlights - light.

light drawing in the photo




Pressure force

This slider allows you to adjust the brush so that the changes look natural. Do not make the power of use more than 10%. Otherwise, you may get black and white areas that will clearly ruin the photo.

There is one more way: to do this, make a copy of the desired photo over the original, process it with two brushes and move the entire image with the help of the Transparency slider.

For starters, it’s best to follow the exact instructions, but after just a few works, your hand will get full enough and you can improvise.

Examples of using

1. Eye highlight.

With 2 brushes you can improve the iris. To do this, take a light tool and process the entire iris. After that, we reduce the brush and darken out the fringing of the iris and the pupil. It is always better to do this on a separate layer, so that in case of failure, try to correct the opacity or delete and do it all over again. Thanks to this focus, the viewer will first of all pay attention to the model’s eyes.

Male Contouring




2. Giving masculinity to the face.

Sometimes you want to make the man seem even more serious. To do this, you just need to make the shadows deeper. The effect looks very advantageous in black and white shots. To make a man look more rigid and strong-willed, you need to take a dark brush and walk along the following lines: cheekbones, side of the chin and its bottom, nose wings, eyebrows and side parts of the forehead. It is also necessary to do all the steps on a separate layer, in case of failure, increase transparency or erase excess lines.

A little tip. Some lines look too dark, while others look natural. To do this, you need to take an eraser and reduce its opacity to 10%, and then go over the shortcomings as much as necessary.

The same focus can be applied to a female portrait, additionally using a light brush in the following areas: in the middle of the forehead, under the eyebrows, in the middle of the nose, the fringing of the cheekbones, the line under the lower lip.

Stamp

Stamp tool




In the English version, this instrument sounds like Clone Stamp. The stamp allows you to copy one section from a photograph to another. In other words, its main function is to take in one place and copy to another. Thanks to such simple manipulations, you can get rid of defects on the skin or flaws on the road, as well as remove excess parts. In general, a stamp is an absolutely universal tool. And with him, processing a photo as a professional is very easy.

Brief instructions: to use the brush, you need to press the Alt button and select the area that will be inserted in the right place, which needs to be fixed. And after that we edit the skin, the road, etc.

Consider two parameters that are very important.

Female processing




Modes

There are several options that affect the photo in different ways. Darken mode only changes areas that are lighter than the selected area. In general, this mode allows you to darken white areas in the image.

Clone Stamp is a cloning mode, with the help of it you can retouch various objects and skin, destroy excess objects and so on. There are many more modes, but they are not so important for beginners, so you should not focus on them. You can experiment with each of them.

Opacity

It has already been written above that the lower the percentage of opacity, the more inconspicuous will be all the changes. At 100%, the stamp will completely replace the area, and at 15-30% it will be ideal to retouch so that no traces of Photoshop are noticeable.

Where is the tool used?

Stamp photo processing




First of all, a stamp for a photographer is an opportunity to carry out a quick retouch without additional steps. First you need to remove excess wrinkles, pimples, bruises around the eyes, redness on the eyes and other imperfections on the face. If there is an unnecessary object or person in the photo, it can also disappear in the image after the brush. But do not get rid of large objects like that. And of course, the stamp helps to remove all overexposures. For example, on the tip of the nose of the model. To do this, use the "Darker" parameter on a transparency of about 25%. And in a couple of clicks we fix the defect.

The question of where to process the photos is now open, but it’s worthwhile to understand that all this can be done in other editors.




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