Ridgeway Baptist Church, Fannin County, Georgia. Built in 1865.
For 35 years most of my photographs were made with slide film. Shooting slides will teach you to get it right in the camera, because if you get it wrong, there isn't much you can do about it. One stop of underexposure can be corrected, but slides overexposed by a stop or more are usually a dead loss unless you're trying for some kind of ethereal effect. I work at metering accurately and getting the exposure right in the camera, because if I do that, there isn't much left to do in post-processing.
Digital files are different from film, of course, but even so, many of the same principles apply. My goal is always to do as little post-processing as possible. Here's how I work with digital files:
1. I have two major folders titled Professional Photography and Personal Photography. Under each major folder are many sub-folders titled by subject. I upload the files into my computer and into the major folders, creating new folders and sub-folders as necessary. Since I have my camera set to shoot both RAW and jpeg files simultaneously, each folder will contain both types of files. I edit the files and delete any I don't want to keep.
2. I then move the folder into a program called ACDSee and separate the RAW files from the jpegs by telling the program to sort the files by type. I move each type of file into sub-folders labeled, strangely enough, RAW and OoC (Out of Camera) Jpegs. I primarily work with jpegs, but keep the RAW files as backup. If a file is too poorly exposed or too off-color to be corrected as a jpeg, it can usually be corrected in the RAW conversion software (I use Capture One) and output as a jpeg, which goes into another sub-folder labeled Processed Jpegs.
3. If the jpeg files need any further work, I open them in Photoshop. I have a very old version (CS-2), but it does everything I need it to do.
My primary tool in Photoshop is Curves. With Curves, I can make small corrections in exposure and color balance. If a file needs more correction than I can make in Curves, I should have corrected it in the RAW conversion software before it got to this point.
Other tools I use frequently in Photoshop are the Brush tool and the Crop tool. The Brush tool enables me to darken or lighten specific areas of the picture, just like burning and dodging in the darkroom. The Crop tool, obviously, is used to crop the picture to best effect when I didn't (or couldn't) get it framed just right in the camera.
One other tool I use on most of my photographs is an Unsharp Masking enhancement that improves the internal contrast of a file without affecting the very lightest and darkest areas. To use it, open a file, click on Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask. Set the Amount to 20%, the Radius to 60 pixels, and the Threshold to 0. It adds a bit of sparkle, and I think you'll like the effect on most of your files. I have it set up as a preset so I can apply it easily and quickly when I want to.
So that's basically what I do. It isn't very complicated, and it gives me files I'm happy with. My guiding principal is to do only what could have been done in a darkroom. YMMV.
Ridgeway Baptist Church before post-processing.
Here's the way the church looked before processing in Photoshop. What did I do? First, the church was about a stop too light, so I darkened it using Curves. The gravel at the bottom, the left side, the roof, and the foliage in the upper left were still too bright, so I used the Brush tool set to 30% to burn them in and used the Unsharp Mask preset to add a bit of mid-tone contrast. Finally, I lightened the sign a bit with the Brush tool and used the Select tool to isolate the sign and applied the Unsharp Mask tool to just the sign to make it more readable. That's all. Most of what I did could have been done in a darkroom.
I bought my first digital camera, a Canon 10D, in 2003. At a price of $3,000, I had to sell some very good film cameras in order to buy it. And then, at the age of 63, I began teaching myself Photoshop. I didn't like it much then and I don't like it much now. And I am terminally sick of learning new software! That's why I don't upgrade software unless I have to. And since I can do what I want to do with what I have, why bother? (End of rant.)
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
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Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ Looking is free, and you might find something you like.
Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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