Hey, you don't have to be smarter than Photoshop. You don't have to be smarter than your camera either as long as you aren't shooting into the sun. :-)
I always start out with the simplest adjustments. Automatic fixes for color, tone and contrast are great starting points. There are thousands of individual adjustments you can make besides those
simple ones, but you will be surprised by how those initial adjustments become a baseline for your restoration direction. Remember to save a copy of the original, unenhanced version and make copies of your "working" versions along the way too. Just in case you find out that you got way too tricky with your mad Photoshop skills and you took so many wrinkles out of your mother's picture that it scared your husband to look at it. Seriously, it can happen.
Like the French say in dressing up, you should always be able to take one accessory off and still get that gorgeous look you want. Basic is best like the little black dress. The same is true for photo restoration. (Did I lose all the men out there?)
Take a serious look at what you have done. Make sure your printer is set right for the paper you are using and the subject. Get to know the limitations of your printer. Get to know how different paper can affect the image (more about that later) and be prepared to back up a step or two if you have created a "monster". Calibrating your monitor to your printer is another tack we could take but I am going to steer clear of that now. You can do research on that and get software and the device that suction cups to your monitor to check your colors. There are a number of brands on the market. I DO NOT recommend EYEONE because they only let you use the software you buy from them for 2 years. Not cool. I am using their Passport at the moment but am not sure at this writing how long it will work on my computer.
OK...enough of the nastiness and on to scanners, where I have found that some are just a little better than others...but not much. See you next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment