terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

I have been concentrating recently on trying to improve my color processing workflow. I shoot only in raw so that I can extract the maximum amount of detail, color, and tone from the image, and I begin editing in Adobe RGB and 16-bit color.

While I am familiar to a good extent with Photoshop's tools, I haven't always had great workflow, that is, taking steps in a particular order to achieve a desired look. With that in mind, I recently bought an online course in color by Blake Rudis. This is the first time I have ever bought an online course, and it was an introductory offer at 40% or something off, or I probably would have passed on it.

Simply called "The Color Course," Blake goes into great detail with the steps he takes to isolate and enhance individual hues and treat each one separately, from initial, basic, color correction in Camera Raw to what he calls "color separation" (having nothing to do with the printing term) and then to color grading, all done in Photoshop.

Using this guidance, I have been revisiting some older images to see if I can make any improvements. In this image from about seven years ago on our last ever trip home to the Twin Cities, I made this rather average-looking shot of the tip of the skyline above Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis.

I began in Camera Raw with the Auto button and then refined the shadows and highlights. Then I selected the sky, and inverted and duplicated that selection so that I could work on the sky and foreground separately, after which I went directly to the Point Color where I attempted to separate the individual yellow, red, and green hues to make the range of colors stand apart more. I had been using this tool since it first appeared, but it wasn't until I got this instruction that I realized I wasn't getting all I could from it. When it looked good to me, I went into Photoshop.

In Photoshop I used all the usual tools like the Hue-Sat, Curves, Vibrance, etc. to just keep trying different approaches to blend it all together. This is the result.

I don't pretend to be an expert, nor do I pretend that this is some brilliant example of editing magnificence. I'm just trying to get better, looking forward to the day that I finally create that masterpiece that has been eluding me all my life...

Nikon Z50, Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm @ 50mm,1/500 sec @ f/10, Shutter priority

(Download)

PNG from Original raw file

(Download)

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Post a larger PNG of the original or if the original is less than 20MB, post it. It will appear as a link instead of an image.

In both images (PNG), you have lost tons of details.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Hi Terry. I think you've achieved your objective of getting good colour separation and the result is better than you could have achieved using just contrast, saturation and the HSL tool.

I also think that you might have ended up suffering from editor fatigue. The final result is brighter and less contrasty than it could have been, and there is possibly an overemphasis on the yellow-green content of the vegetation. But to my eye it looks like there's nothing that minor tweaks can't fix.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

Sorry, I don't understand this. The original is 118MB. I reduce to about 2000px to post here. Where/how does it appear as a link?

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

Thank you for your observations, R.G.

A lot of this is, of course, how we all see color differently and what we as individuals prefer. I usually try to keep contrast from getting too high as I prefer a less contrasty look. "Less contrasty" is also very subjective, I suspect.

Brightness is probably related to saturation—more saturation makes the luminance go up. I could have used a blend mode to help with that, but as I get this new-to-me workflow down I will continue to refine the steps.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Your raw file is 100MB? What camera are you using?

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

Sorry, I was reading the Photoshop document size. The original is 20.6MB. I have never really paid attention to the size of the files I post, I always thought that 2000 px or so was about right. Learned something new...

(Download)

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Post the raw file, not the PNG. It will be accepted and will show as a link.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

When I try that it says the file is too big and has to be reduced. How do I post a raw file?

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Then you cannot... Damn.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Nothing is easier than Adobe Lightroom Classic for RAW edits. The software defaults to ProPhotoRGB, changing this colorspace only when outputting the edited file via the Export process.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

There is no reason to edit anything in ProPhoto RGB since no human eye or machine can see the colors it is purported to contain. At least not yet...

Camera Raw/Lightroom is easy because it was made that way—to make basic batch raw development go quickly. The Point Color thing surprised a lot of people, considering the precision it imparts to color correction in Camera Raw, rather than the global adjustment sliders that have been the mainstay. But since it is readily available as a Photoshop filter, it is easy to incorporate into any workflow at any point.

For finished artwork though, it is still Photoshop for the long haul.

NikonGal Loc: Central Oregon

I have followed Blake Rudis for a couple years now and also bought The Color Course. As a result, my workflow has change for me and as I rework some older images, I'm very happy with the results. I like your processed image and hope you post more.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

I wasn't sure that he could show me anything really new, so I emailed him and he said he was confident that I would get something from the course because he was teaching things that no one else was teaching. He was right and showed me different ways to use tools that I thought I knew. Now it's just a matter of practicing and experimenting until I feel comfortable in getting repeatable results.

Thanks for your nice comment.