How do you get the most out of your images? I mean the catch-your-eye-not-too-saturated-but-bright-punchy-beautiful-photos...[see example]

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Do you use purchased presets of actions?

Or do you just work with-in photoshop? If so what are your steps...?

Everone I speak to seemes to have a different set of things they do, or a different order of actions they make...what are yours?

Mags

Hey Mags...nice to see you on here! I love kubota's multi-vitamin...and I always deepen my shadows with curves.

Being an actions creator, I use my own Photoshop Actions in my post processing. I think the MOST important things to do if you are using actions (Photoshop) or presets (lightroom or ACR) is to really get to know them and what they can do. And to make sure they are flexible and adjustable since every photo is different.

If I shot RAW, I use LR to adjust WB or exposure if needed. Those are the only two things I usually do in RAW. Then I export and open in PS. I actually often string together my actions for my workflow.

The main action sets I use are the "Quickie Collections," the "Eye Doctor", and "Magic Skin" sets. If I am using the Quickie Collection, I usually run "Crackle" first. If there are any color issues, I use "Color Fixer" or I adjust manually using CMYK values for skin through Curves. Then I adjust exposure using one of the exposure actions in the set if needed (such as extreme fill flash or underexposure fixer), and then run one of the color or black and white actions.

I make snapshots as I go so that as I build, if I go in a direction that I am not happy with, I do not lose the rest of my work.

I simply click on a past snapshot that I want to go back to. Once I tweak any layers to taste, I use the "Eye Doctor" and "Magic Powder" or "Magic Skin" and then I use a sharpening action - then save - resize action with frame and save again for my blog. Then I am done. So that is my process. Hope that helps you in some way.

Jodi

"defog" which is just an USM, and then I do an s-curves and adjust until I like it. That's it. and i web sharpen for web viewing, but I sharpen less than it seems a lot of people do. Just enough to make sure it's clear. I don't run many actions, unless it's self created ones. I feel that an s-curve in curves is enough to add pop but keep it realistic.

Curves and Levels in PS are usually the main foundation in getting pop on an image. Before PS using light to get the subjects isloated and separated from the background is always a good idea also

You can also duplicate the layer to soft light and adjust to opacity and levels and add a curve layer to taste... Yummy!

Spot color.







Just kidding!

Actually, everyone is right about curves giving the most pop. I do pretty much everything in Lightroom that I can, and only take an image into PS for retouching and other localized work - like adding a custom vignette or lightening one area.

I have my main preset in Lightroom set up to set the exposure controls on auto (I never would have thought of using auto, as it doesn't seem to work in any other program for me, but I learned from DJ here to try it, and it works for me - gets the image in the ballpark in the highlights and shadows) and then I use a couple other settings in the preset:

Clarity bumped up to taste, a teeny bit of saturation, some vibrance. Curves is set to medium contrast, and a moderate vignette is added. A little bit of sharpening is added, and some color noise reduction.

After this preset (which I apply on import) I can adjust contrast to taste - if an image needs more pop, I just use the sliders to add some.

The amount of pop an image needs can depend on how it was shot. Raw files start out flat - they have no extra contrast, sharpening, or saturation added to the image. Jpegs have whatever you had your camera set at "baked" into the file. You can back off the contrast and sharpening, and have something similar to a raw file (it'll have a bit more contrast, and it's still not as flexible) or you can add contrast and have something closer to a finished file straight out of camera, but you'll blow highlight and shadow detail in contrasty situations (or if you over- or under-expose).

I hope that helps!

Edited to add: Something that helps the two examples you posted "pop" is the shallow dof.

Maybe I should start a thread I have been meaning to start for a while now, but I really want to know the science behind dodging and burning in order to get the subjects isolated and separated from the background...

I regularly dodge and burn my images and am always trying to make the subject pop....but I have no "method" to it. I just kind of play and experiment with what I think looks good. What I want to know is if there is an actual method or science to this. I want to know what I am overlooking---What are the "rules" for this that one should normally follow?

In my opinion, the TRA "oh snap" is always way to harsh on all my images. And these are RAW's just imported to Photoshop from LR. They have basic exposure, WB and shadow corrections, and I still find oh snap way too much. I know you can peel it back with the opacity of the layer....just adding my 2 cents!

I find Kubota's Daily MultiVitamin just the perfect amount of 'punch' needed at the beginning!

Hey Aaron,

Would you mind sending a copy of the lightroom preset please, this one sounds cool.

Thanks, Carl

Yeah, sure! It's nothing special, though - just settings I've learned from others here, then tweaked to my own liking. The basic idea came from a video DJ shared here awhile ago, then I've added and tweaked things over the last year or so.

It doesn't seem to work as well on Jpegs for me - I think that's the auto settings just not working that well on Jpegs - but I haven't tried it on one since Lightroom 1.1 so YMMV. The auto settings don't work that well on backlit images, either, so I usually have to go back and zero out the exposure, and set the brightness and contrast to 50 and 25. You can create a preset that does that to make it quicker.

I'll try linking to the preset here, and see if that works.

Raw Punchy Color

Here's another cool one.

Okay - it looks like it works. Just right click on the link and select save link as. This won't work for the second link, btw.

Let me know if it works, and what you think!

Take it on a case by case basis. But if you really want to make something pop... get it right in-camera first. If you have a properly exposed image, it makes it much easier to get what you want in post production.