Photoshop’s Most Challenging Edits Made Easy (VIDEO)
We’re wrapping up the week with a rant by Australian landscape photographer Steve Arnold who laments the fact that, in his mind, Photoshop’s best editing techniques are the most difficult to use. As he says, “Adobe keeps adding new features that nobody really needs, while folk ignore beneficial tools because they’re not easy enough to use.”
Arnold came up with a straightforward hack that solves his frustration, and you’ll be encouraged to employ Photoshop’s keynote features with confidence by following his succinct advice. He describes several of Photoshop’s most challenging techniques, identifies the type of photos for which they work best, and reveals his hack for making these enhancements with ease.
One of the big benefits of Photoshop is that you can gradually build up a sequence of small adjustments to achieve more precision and control while creating subtle and natural-looking edits. Unfortunately, this flexible and gradual approach also “opens you up to a massive image-killing mistake” that can be easily solved by employing Arnold first tip.
Arnold then demonstrates several quick tricks for super-accurate enhancements by modifying Luminosity selections in small increments from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights. You’ll also learn how to selectively increase saturation within a specific tonal range without affecting other areas within the frame.
At this point the video has only reached the midpoint, and there many more timesaving tricks to learn as the lesson proceeds. Much of what you’ll learn is made possible (even for beginners) thanks to Arnold’s free Luminosity Masking plug-in that you can download with a link beneath the video. There’s another a free editing guide available as well.
And don’t pass up a visit to Arnold’s instructional YouTube channel where there are many more helpful post-processing videos.
We also recommend watching the earlier tutorial we featured with another popular image-editing instructor who reveals nine Lightroom tips and techniques for embellishing flower photographs by perfecting color, tonal balance, contrast, background blur and other key attributes.
