I´ve decided to add this tutorial because it seems that you enjoy reading practical article the most and also because Dasha was intersted in editing this exact photo.
Let´s get started!
What You´ll Be Editing
There is the rollover showing what you will be editing during this tutorial. If you move your mouse over the image you´ll see how the original, unedited photo looks.
(It may take a second before the second photo loads so be patient please).
Quite a big difference, isn´t it? But the post processing is very easy and quick. In fact you need only these tools to get the final result:
- Levels,
- Hue/Saturation,
- Color Balance.
Resource File
You can download the picture below to complete this tutorial. It´s just for learning purposes of this tutorial so please don´t upload the final result anywhere. Thank you for your understanding!
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| Resource File |
As I said editing of this photo is quite easy but sometimes it´s all you need.
1. Increasing Contrast
Let´s start with increasing contrast because the original photo is desperately grey. If you look at the histogram you can see that there is no black (and dark grey) in the picture.
One quick andjustment and the photo looks much more viewable.
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| With Levels Adjustment Layer |
2. Richer Colors
To make the photo pop lets increase the saturation. To do that add new adjustment layer Hue/Saturation and set the value Saturation on +20.
3. Richest Colors
To make the photo really stand out lets add even more color. This time with adjustment layer Color Balance. To get the exact same colors as my photo set the Color Balance as shown below.
But I recommend you to try experiment and find your own color scheme which YOU like the most.
And here is how the photo looks after those three adjustments.
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| Final Result |
Conclusion
As you can see you don´t need some complicated processes to get nice images. Just experiment and see what you like and what don´t. The worst think which can happen to you is that you´ll need to start from the beginning.
This week article was bit more brief than usual posts. I´m really busy with all the boring economic exams. But still hope that it was useful for you! If you´re interested you can read more about enhancing colors in macro photos in article "Enhance Colors in Your Macro Photo"
Btw. the first one who guess corectly what is on the photo win one of the PS action from Pelleron Resources!
Have an amazing Monday
- Jarka
More of My Macro Photos
