Comments on: Photoshop tips – making your images pop (1)

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:49:17 +0000

Just tried this on a bride with her flowers. Nice color pop.

thanks for the tip

Should review my blending mode training

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:02:55 +0000

I’m a GIMP user. Similar effect achieved by duplicating the layer, blurring the top layer (play around with how much), and changing the top layer mode to Overlay. Adjust opacity as you like just like Neil did.

By: Tyrone

Tyrone — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:19:14 +0000

Can you explain the procedure used for the eraser tool.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:32:59 +0000

Kevin,
Unfortunately, as Neil said, Lightroom doesn’t use layers nor does it have a soft light blending mode. I can only get something similar (not equivalent) to this through using the Lightroom Adjustment Brush to “dodge and burn” select areas of the image. For example, you can use the Adjustment Brush to sharpen and brighten the eyes of the model in the images above. But, then you have to worry about the contrast of the face around the eyes since you only made a local adjustment for the eyes, not the entire image. There is probably a set of steps in Lightroom that can get you an image that is close to the one that Neil produce in Photoshop. However, from my working with Lightroom a bit (I’m no expert), I think this effect will be a bit more difficult to achieve in Lightroom.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:53:31 +0000

Kevin, you can’t do this in Lightroom. It’s a Photoshop technique since you need the layers to be blended in that way.

Neil vN

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:51:18 +0000

Hi Neil, excellent blog. Can’t get enough. Would you (or anyone) be willing to show/describe how to do this in Lightroom? As lightroom doesn’t have layers, is this type of thing still possible? Thanks!

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:52:41 +0000

For those avoiding Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom (or Apple Aperture) should offer similar capabilities at half the cost of the Photoshop. You’ll have to use the Adjustment Brush of Lightroom to get a similar effect.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:38:40 +0000

Hi Neil,
Thanks for a great yet simple tip. I have just come back to phtography after 10 years away and BOY! have things moved on! It is great to learn simple tweaks that working photographers use on a regular basis.

Keep em coming!
Thanks,
Geoff

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:31:05 +0000

Jeffrey … for clients’ proofing, I try not to touch Photoshop at all, but deliver images (via proofs / gallery) that have only been adjusted for color balance, saturation and contrast. Simple adjustments. These I make in ACR (hosted in Bridge), but Lightroom would’ve been similar.

It is just too time-intensive to do this on a large scale.

However, for the posts on my blog where I show the latest work as a wedding photographer here in New Jersey, I do punch up the images a bit. This is one of the most often used methods since I can easily drag the layer over to many other images for the same adjustment.

Alternately, you can just as easily create an action for this simple adjustment.

I do use other methods to give more pop to the images I post there .. and this is something I’ll cover in subsequent posts as well.

Neil vN

By: Jeffrey Steel

Jeffrey Steel — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:21:54 +0000

Thanks again Neil for the great simple tutorial.

I can do all sorts of fancy tricks in photoshop but this simple technique is spectacular and easy. I even made an action for it with a couple variations.
This should add a lot to those images that need a little more umph that get the regular color and exposure adjustments I deliver.

Do you do this on most of your images?