I attended a pre-con class with Judy Reinford at Texas School of Photography before I taught my week-long class there. It was amazing! Judy is an Equine and Pet Photographer, educator, and national speaker. Her class combined on site equine image capture and classroom instruction. Learn more about Judy’s classes here. This article shows is one of my images from the class at Bridlewood Training Center in Texas after an Adobe Photoshop transformation.
Original capture
Jackie Rollins, our host and owner of Bridlewood Training Center, worked Fife, a Gypsy Vanner breed horse, for the photo class. I can’t imagine the work that goes into maintaining the mane and tail to keep them free-flowing. Beauteous! See the image straight out of camera below.
Transformation
First stop is Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). These are essentially the same tools which you will find in Lightroom. An overall adjustment using the Auto button gives a nice start to the process. Additional tweaking of the highlights and shadows was needed along with some contrast adjustments. Before leaving ACR, I moved to the “Masks” tab and chose “Select Sky.” It was a flat overcast day. Adding a little blue using the color slider and lowering the exposure a bit kept the sky from being too flat. Then, it was off to Adobe Photoshop.
Then comes the removal of the lead and our owner through judicious use of the Stamp Tool along with the Patch Tool.
Blending options
That sky looks a bit anemic. I added a sky photographed by me from my archive files, using a tool that many are not aware. I selected Blending Options from the F menu at the bottom of the layers palette, a.k.a Layer Style menu. “Blend If” is the key along with a layer mask. I placed the sky above the main image, then “Blend If” using the Underlying Layer. Using the slider from the shadow side, I slide it to the right. To feather click on the triangle, hold down the Alt/Option key. The travel will split in two allowing for a smoother transition. Think of the split as a feather. For more info on Blending Options, check out this link.
“Blend If” is a very powerful tool. In searching for some extra links for you, I realized this has not been tackled and the power of it shared enough. I’ll be working on and article showing uses for Blend If in the not too distant future!
Final touches
A Soft Light dodge and burn layer added some depth and dimension. With a blank layer set to Soft Light, I used the Brush Tool with black and white with a low opacity to darken and lighten.
Last, I made a copy of the final file. Changing the Blend Mode of that layer to Soft Light adds overall contrast. At 100% the contrast is way too much. Lower the opacity to taste and it adds a soft contrast to finish off the photo.
Yours in Creative Photography,
Bob
