Suggestions for basic sunset / sunrise / beach enhancing & popping tutorials for CS 4

WinsomeWorks

Like most photogs, I have lots of photos involving early morning or evening light, & many include ocean or other water. I'd like to use some of these to learn some CS 4 processes that I've barely touched upon. Can anyone point me to some good tutorials that would help? Many of my seascapes or other sunrises and sunsets, etc. need some basic enhancements, color popping, and levels/curves/tonal adjustments that you'll readily see as I do. My problem is that I've only used certain tools in CS 4 that have been simple for me to teach myself, and I haven't found a good tutorial to help me step-by-step with screenshots (which I need) to try and master the more serious work these photos need. In the past, I've used such CS4 tools as: exposure, selective color, color balance, contrast, hue, shadow/highlight, photo filters, etc. I'm not quick at learning programs & will have to practice over & over before I get it.

I'm having lots of trouble truly understanding curves, levels, and layers or layer masks. Yes, I've seen Andy's tutorial on sweet light. It looks great, sounds simple, & I know I'll be able to use it someday. But right now it's above my head & experience level with those particular tools. :cry Here's a link to a gallery with a number of my images that I'm not happy with & I know could be greatly improved. Most are nearly or entirely straight from the camera: http://www.winsomeworks.com/Nature/Seascape-Favorites/10007730_M6obD#959480731_r7r87 The photos w/ boulders in the middle of the first page, and those at the bottom w/ bikers and kids on the beach at sunrise could clearly use some work. The two very blue Thailand images are scans from my old Kodachrome slides. They've had more tweaks than most of the others & are already on some stock sites. Ok, here's the rules I need to stick to in the workflow:

1. Most of my originals are jpgs. I always convert to PSD to work on them, then save final versions as PSD + jpg. I know many will tell me I should shoot RAW. I know!! Let's save that conversation, because I plan to when I'm able. Can't do that right now. For now, the above is how it is, and much of my work from the past 3 yrs. is jpgs. I don't save/re-save them.

2. I will be using any finished images for microstock that I possibly can. This means the following rules are very important:
a. I must keep artifacting & noise to a minimum. Any work that introduces noticeable artifacts and noise (in the shadows esp.) to the file is unacceptable. Many files were shot at 100 or 125 ISO, because that's what stock companies want.
b. It has to look good at 100% when finished, and I only do minimal sharpening at the end, in areas, and save an unsharpened file.

3. I've got to be able to do all work in CS 4 - Photoshop, because that's all I have now, and all I will have for the foreseeable future. (it's a work copy) Yes, I want LR 3. Can't do it yet.

4. I really need screen-shots and/or each step clearly explained. We're talking basic here-- for this kind of work!!! (yes, I have lots of experience w/ CS 2, and a couple months with CS 4, but as I explained, it's been narrowly defined and focused on certain tasks). With these other tasks listed below, I'm unfortunately a beginner :
a. levels
b. curves
c. adjustment layers
d. masks
e. eyedropper
f. histograms

5. I'm not looking for big dramatic and unnatural-looking adjustments or HDR, etc. at this point. I may try that sometime. But on the shots with boulders, etc, yes, I'd love to see more detail in the boulders while seeing more drama in the skies. Just don't want to over-do it! :wink Remember, no noise. They will reject files immediately for noise; believe me!

Thanks for any suggestions-- either online, here, etc... gotta be free or cheap though!

bgarland

Check out Scott Kelby's Adobe Phtoshop books for digital photographers. I have not read any the CS4 related books but I have his book for Lightroom 3 and it's excellent with lots of step by step tutorials. I am guessing his Photoshop books would of similar quality.

pathfinder

Layers and Masks really are the key to getting your money's worth out of Photoshop.

I wrote a thread about swapping backgrounds in CS4 here - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=116223

I think it is pretty straight forward step by step instruction, and will help you get started with layers and masks.

Levels are just simple versions of Curves, neither of which require a layer, although I usually do them on a layer so that I can finally adjust the final edit via the Opacity slider. Levels are used to set black and white points, but this is usually done now in Adobe Raw converter or Lightroom 3's develop panel, for me, so I rarely ever use the Levels command. I do use the Curves often, even several times in a single image via Selections. Learn to swap backgrounds like in my tute, and new opportunities will open up in your editing. Layers and Masks will help reduce noise, not increase it, if done properly. Most of my skies are run through Noiseware as a selection, avoiding areas where detail must be preserved - even images shot at ISO 100.

WinsomeWorks

Thanks to both of you. I do have one of Scott Kelby's books, but need the CS 4 one. Before that, I had CS 2. Pathfinder, I looked at that tutorial, and while it's way above & beyond anything I've ever tried in Photoshop, I do think I may be able to follow it. It does look very thorough. Thank you. One thing that will be tricky is that I hardly ever use keyboard commands-- I just use the icons & tools. Yes, maybe that tutorial isn't for the precise thing that my beach shots need, but like you said, it could halp me grasp layers/ masks better. This method may work for those shots I linked with the big dark boulders in the foreground. If I can select them and put the rest on a different layer, I could improve the both parts separately. I'm assuming I could put the whole sea & sky on a layer and do some curves, etc. on them. Even what I already know how to do with color & saturation would improve that. Then for the boulders I could put them on a layer & at least adjust the exposure... this would be a start, right?

pathfinder

Yes, the real trick is to be able to select the sky, the main subject, and the rocks in the foreground and edit each of them separately with curves, saturation, sharpening etc, each on their own layer.

I know it seems like a lot to learn but the keyboard commands are part of the secret power of Photoshop as well - if you watch anyone who is real skilled at Photoshop, they rarely use the drop down menus - they are just too slow. Keyboard commands are really worthwhile making a part of oneself

You do not need to know all of those, but a few ones like ctrl-j are just so handy. Learn them one at a time, and you will find you do not use the drop down menus near as often.

Learning Photoshop is not something one does in an afternoon, but one learns over the course of a few years of active use, and then continues to expand their repertoire over time. One did not learn all the needed darkroom skills in an afternoon either. Good Photoshop use will make really good images great, but will not make poor images much better.

WinsomeWorks

pathfinder wrote: »

Yes, the real trick is to be able to select the sky, the main subject, and the rocks in the foreground and edit each of them separately with curves, saturation, sharpening etc, each on their own layer.

I know it seems like a lot to learn but the keyboard commands are part of the secret power of Photoshop as well - if you watch anyone who is real skilled at Photoshop, they rarely use the drop down menus - they are just too slow. Keyboard commands are really worthwhile making a part of oneself

You do not need to know all of those.... will not make poor images much better.....

I agree with all you said. Yes, you're exactly right about darkroom and PS learning. The things I do well in PS, I do well because I've done them over and over, and needed to learn certain things to get certain photos accepted... that goal sure helped. I've left some of the tougher things un-mastered. But I gotta just start taking one of them at a time & get it down. One thing I wondered in your tutorial-- when you mentioned an "alpha channel"-- does that mean a new channel, or is that something different? Also, when you "paint" over the branch, you're talking about with the regular paintbrush, right? (and thanks for the keyboard strokes link; I'm gonna print that out).