Despite the cold weather, 16 people attended the post-processing workshop on January 2, 2018. We briefly reviewed the submissions in two categories: Digital Nature and Digital Black and White (Submissions to the other categories were not yet available).

Photographer and club member José García shared some of his Photoshop techniques on a portrait and a couple of landscape images. Some of us brought laptops, were given the image files, and tried to keep up. Jose uses Adobe Camera Raw, Raya Pro, and Nik, in addition to extensive manipulation in Photoshop.

“The key to editing is to make it natural,” he said. “We want to enhance the picture.” On portraits, he uses a variety of techniques, including masking, filters, blend modes, and the spot healing brush when needed.

“Black conceals; white reveals,” suggested Ron, about masking in Photoshop. When you’re editing an image, you have to start with a vision of what you want.

Then José combined two identical winter landscape photos. One shot was exposed for the highlights; the other for the dark tones. “It’s very important to align, because even when you are using a tripod, sometimes you can move a little bit.” He used channel masking to combine the two versions.

To shoot stunning landscapes like this, José uses a gradient filter over the camera lens. The darker color at the top of the filter makes a more dramatic sky. He also uses a polarizer to photograph reflections in water.

We have a number of excellent photographers in the club, so the audience commentary was also insighful.

For instance, General Bob pointed out that many of the tasks that were being demonstrated can be done more quickly in Lightroom.

Andreas said he prefers to work with Smart Objects in Photoshop: “When it is nondestructive, I can go back and change what I don’t like.” There have been improvements in the rendering engine, so it no longer will balloon the file size.

Ron pointed out that the Photoshop file export process has also improved: “They keep getting better and better at sampling the image and recreating data from nowhere.”

The consensus was that everybody needs to download the Nik Collection while it is still free. This software suite has just been purchased from Google by DxO.

The final recommendation of the evening’s workshop involves using RAW files. Several of the photographers in the room are fully convinced that this is important, particularly when your goal is to create beautiful prints. After all, file backups and storage have become less expensive. “If you use a compressed file, a JPG, there are many things you cannot do,” said Jose.

Thank you to José for sharing his image editing expertise!

Are you looking for a contest to enter? The National Audubon Society is accepting submissions for their annual photography contest. The quality of photography entered is very high. Here’s more information.

Spring Planting in Dubuque County, Iowa. This photo by Gen. Bob Felderman was awarded third place in the 2017 Keep Iowa Beautiful photo contest.