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Post Processing – Methods to Improve your Photos

Posted by Joe on Monday, September 21st, 2009

I thought I’d share with you today a few post processing techniques I use when importing photos. It’s possible to make some subtle and in some cases not so subtle enhancements to your image to really make them stand out.  A potential danger of post processing is to go too far in making alterations which can make the photo look false and unrealistic (if that’s not what you’re aiming for), so it’s important to bear that in mind.

I thought I’d share with you today a few post processing techniques I use when importing photos.  It’s possible to make some subtle and in some cases not so subtle enhancements to your image to really make them stand out.  A potential danger of post processing is to go too far in making alterations which can make the photo look false and unrealistic (if that’s not what you’re aiming for), so it’s important to bear that in mind.

You might have already come across the tips I’m going to list below but if you have a great post procesing technique that I haven’t mentioned, please post a response at the bottom of this post.

Take RAW Photos

One of the most versatile ways to alter your photos is to take pohtos in RAW format.  I use a Canon EOS 20D and I’m sure it’s similar with many cameras but you have the ability to take photos in RAW & Jpeg mode at the same time.  This takes up more space on your card naturally but it means you have a jpeg image for immediate use and then a RAW photo for making alterations at a later date.

If you open a RAW image in photoshop, an editor window will appear (as shown below).

From this window you can change virtually all characteristics of the image ranging from brightness/contrast & colour alterations to vignetting and sharpness. Once you are happy with your settings, you can then save your settings and/or open up the image in Photoshop and then make further alterations if you so wish.

Sharpen using the High Pass filter

This can be found in the menu Filter > Other > High Pass

To use this filter, open up an image that you wish to sharpen. In the example below the butterfly is slightly blurry.

If you duplicate this layer(control/cmd +j) and then run the high pass filter (filters > other > high pass), a box will appear with a radius slider. The image will be mostly gray.  To achieve the optimum sharpness, move the slider so that the edges of the image are starting to come through the gray, in this case 1% seems to work well.

Hit “OK” and then set the layer mode to overlay.  This enhances the edges of the image and makes the photo look sharper.  If you want the image to be sharper still, simply duplicate the high pass layer.  If that makes the image too sharp, then simply reduce the layer’s opacity.  The finished effect is shown below

Remove Artifacts using the clone stamp tool

The clone stamp tool is useful to remove unwanted elements in a photo.  This could be anything from facial blemishes in a portrait photo, to unwanted elements in a landscape scene.

Clone stamp copies an area which is artifact free and pastes it on top of the unwanted element in the photo.

In this example, I want to remove the leaves on the ground.

Simply select the clone stamp tool (s), adjust the brush head ( using [ or ] ) to get the right size and then hold down the alt key and click near to the area you wish to hide. Release the alt key and then proceed to brush over the unwanted element. The result is shown below

Soften a photo’s background using gaussian blur.

This is useful when you wish to improve the blurred background of the image.  It’s often the case that noise will creep in when taking photos at a high ISO level and that is particularly noticeable if it is noise within a blurry background. I’ve found this also useful when taking photos in a zoo, when you dont want the blurry cage in the image. Below is such an example.

So here, I want to blur out the cage. In order to do this, duplicate the layer (ctrl / cmd + j) and select filter > blur > gaussian blur.  Next, add a layer mask to this blurred layer and then proceed to hide the blurred layer where the owl is in focus. Use a brush with 100% opacity for the centre of the owl and then use a lower opacity for the extremes where the owl and the background meet.

The end result will look like something like this