December 3, 2015

Fences... and How I Process Images


Among my backlog of unpublished photos were these pictures that I took with Theresa's Good Fences linkup in mind. Here it is Thursday so I processed them to post today. Perhaps you don't process your files much but I have perfectionist tendencies so I can't help but do it!

I realize that my processing steps slow down my production but there's no way anyone would want to see all my pictures anyway. There are so many and quite a few are similar, because I usually take more than one frame when I see a good subject. If you are interested in what steps I take with each photo, here's a summary. (If you aren't interested, scroll on down.)
  1. Open in Camera Raw through Adobe Bridge, tweak contrast and brightness if needed.
  2. Open in Photoshop and save in this month's folder as a PSD. 
  3. Straighten and crop if needed. (My current camera is not an SLR so the image is often not framed the way I planned.)
  4. Run an Action (macro) that adds copyright info to the META file, and also makes a brighter layer and a slight vignette. If working on several images at a time, I run this as a batch. Adjust the transparency of those layers so that the picture does not look artificial. Flatten and save. (Sorry, these Actions did not come with Photoshop, but that's another story.)
  5. Run an Action to size the image(s) for printing (500 to 600K). Save to a folder that I created for pictures to be printed this month.
  6. Open a copyright+signature image that I created for this year. Select and copy into memory. Run an Action that adds this image to a corner of each picture that is open and also sizes them down for web use. (I post smaller images than I print.)
  7. Save as JPEG at medium quality for posting on the web.

Sometimes I color-correct or sharpen images if needed. Usually the colors are okay unless I took them with my [cheap Android] cell phone.

Does this sound crazy? Reading it over, I wonder if I should get an SLR to save a few steps.





12 comments:

  1. This is a great routine. I always add my logo manually, will have to search for an action to do this for me. Do you have any tips in that regard?

    Mersad
    Mersad Donko Photography

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    Replies
    1. I created one in Photoshop. Do you create Actions? It's like creating Macros used to be in Word and Wordperfect. Okay, I'm telling how old I am!

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  2. Your images are beautiful, I love the cute doggie. Happy Friday, enjoy your weekend!

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  3. Amazingly, i think I understood about half of what you're doing! Photos end up great in any case.

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  4. The results are great! That bridge is my favourite.

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  5. Very interesting Linda, and I do love your photos. The horses head next to the gate especially.

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  6. Well, you go through a lot of steps, but you have good results. I enjoyed your photos in this post.

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  7. Sounds a bit complex for me!

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  8. I have no rhyme nor reason with my pictures. I would drive you nuts

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  9. A nice selection of fences. Such a pretty fall scene in that first shot, a cute little dog and I like that last one with the spike like fence and the horse head decoration.

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