Some Photoshop CC Post-processing Notes - Part 2

This is a continuation of my prior post: Some Photoshop CC Post-processing Notes - Part 1

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Once I got the jesses removed I turned my attention to trying to make the owl stand out a bit more.

I started with a crop - using the "rule of thirds" guidelines in the Photoshop crop tool I reduced the image so that the owl's body was on the left 1/3 line. I decided to keep the entire stump in the image but cropped out some of the background on the right side of the image. By doing the crop I also reduced the amount of sky in the image. I left a bit more room above the owl's head than I did below his feet, in the hope of preventing the image from looking like he was being crowded on top.

Add a bit of Blur

Since a viewers eye tends to go to the brightest and sharpest objects in an image, I decided to blur out the portion of the stump on the right. It was apparently in the same focal plane as the owl's eyes because it was pretty sharp.

The way I blurred out the stump was to make another copy of the "Merge & Cleanup" layer and place it above that layer. An easy way to do that is select the desired layer and press [CTRL] [J]. This will create a copy and paste it in to a new layer above the one selected. I labelled this layer "Blur". 

With the "Blur" layer selected I clicked on the "Filter" menu, hovered over "Blur" and selected "Gaussian Blur...". Using the dialog I chose to blur the image quite a bit but left it to where there was some detail remaining in the target stump area. 

Mask

Then I added a black layer mask by holding down the [ALT] key while clicking on the mask icon.That will create a fully black layer mask, hiding the "Blur" layer. Next I used a regular brush with white selected as the foreground and about a 10% opacity to paint over the offending portion of the stump. This allows the blurred version of the stump to show through and give the overall effect of blurring out that area of the image. It's quicker than working with the original layer and trying to mask and blur that area.

Dodge and Burn

Following the blurring, I turned my attention to some lighting control. I'd already applied some lighting changes with Nik Color Efex Pro 4, but I thought I'd do a bit more. 

I decided to try to darken the sides a bit, but I wanted more darkening on the right side than the left since the owl was closer to the left side. I wanted to just add a "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer and use a mask so first I clicked on the "Blur" layer to select it to ensure that my adjustment layer would be added at the top of the layer stack and then clicked on the "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer icon.

I dragged the brightness down until I liked it on the edges. I also reduced the contrast just to kind of make the area less attractive to the eye although there wasn't much in this particular image that was affected. I added a mask to the layer. Then I selected a black foreground and used the gradient fill and the "Reflected Gradient" setting and dragged horizontally across the image to create a mask over the top of the owl, hiding the brightness reduction from that area. It did take some number of attempts to get the mask in the right position. I found I liked it best when the center of the mask was on the owl's beak.

Also, I had to go back and forth with the mask colors. If you end up getting a full black mask with a white area over the subject you can click on the mask in the layers and then press [CTRL] [I] to invert the mask.

I decided to try a bit more additional dodging and burning. In Photoshop I tend to follow similar steps as I just outlined. Create a "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer and bump up the brightness for a "Dodge" layer and decrease the brightness for a "Burn" layer. When adjusting the brightness sliders I look at the object I want to change and then adjust the slider more than necessary. Then you can add a full black layer mask and paint over the desired object with a white brush to add either the dodge or burn amounts. It's a little different than Lightroom where you can just adjust what you want the brush to do and then brush over the image.

I labelled my "Burn" and "Dodge" layers appropriately. I only ended up with a bit of a burning on that right portion of the stump to further get out out of the attention of my eye, and did a bit of a dodge on the owl's wings to bring them up a bit more. This could also have been done by going back to the camera raw object but since I'd made a copy of that and worked on cloning out the jesses, I'd have had to redo that step again if I wanted to adjust in ACR. This is a good pointer to try to make sure that you get the lighting right in ACR if possible.

Finally I grouped the three lighting layers into a layer group and labelled it "Dodge & Burn". I'm not sure you can see a lot of difference in these screen shots but here's where were at now:

Dodging and Burning layers applied

Note that the bottom Smart Object layer can be turned off if desired; the layers on top completely mask it. I don't think it matters one way or the other if it's on or not.

Some more Pop Please

I decided to try to add a bit more to try to make the image stand out.

First I added some more contrast using a "Curves" adjustment layer with a full black mask. I clicked on the little finger with arrow icon, clicked on various areas of the owl, and then raised or lowered the values to try to bring out additional contrast in those colors. I renamed the layer to "Contrast".

Next I added an overall Warming Filter layer by clicking on the "Photo Filter" adjustment layer and selecting the "Warming Filter (85)". I liked it but dropped the layer opacity to 85% to reduce the effect and make it a bit more subtle. I renamed the layer to "Warming Filter".

Note that the "Layer 1" in my Photoshop project is not used nor does it do anything. It's just there to make you wonder what magic I did in that layer. Did it work?

I liked the image at this point but decided to add a bit more vignette so I applied another "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer. I dropped the brightness again then added a fully white mask. I used another gradient fill but this time selected the "Radial Gradient" option, dragged a line to cause the center of the gradient to be centered on the front of the owl's face until I liked it, then adjusted the opacity to add a bit more of a natural "lens" type vignette although it wasn't exactly centered on the image. I just wanted to try to make the eye naturally look first at the owl's head.

After I did that I felt the image was a bit too dark over all so I did basically the opposite, adding another "Brightness / Contrast" adjustment layer but increased the brightness following up with another layer mask to not wipe out the vignette I just added. At that point I felt I was done! Here's the final image again in Photoshop:

Photoshop with all edits

Final Output

The last step is to output the results for whatever purpose desired. I like the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener. It offers a lot of control although it does require playing around with it to get it the way you want. Again, the plugin allows you to fine tune areas that you want sharpened and to avoid adding sharpening to areas you don't. After blurring the stump on the right why would I want to sharpen it now?

As mentioned earlier, the plugins work on TIF files. The process I'm using right now (I'm sure I'll learn a better way in the future) is to export my edited image from Photoshop as a TIF copy (as opposed to saving with layers). I export at the full size of the image.

Next I open the TIF file in another Photoshop tab. I convert the image layer to a Smart Object so that I can re-edit the settings I'm about to apply if I want to.

Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener

I open the image with the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 Output Sharpener. Then I zoomed in to 100 % on the owl's eye. That's the part I want to have sharp but not too sharp. I have some presets I've saved, the main one I start with is where I've set the "Adaptive Sharpening" slider to 20%, the "Output Sharpening Strength" I left at 100%, and the "Structure", "Local Contrast", and "Focus" controls I have at 3% each. I find this is a decent starting point. 

Note that when you open Sharpener Pro 3 it will use the most recent settings. To reset everything you can click on a different preset and then re-click on the one you want to start with.

Sharpening is a matter of taste and experience using the tool. I sharpened this image for full size display purposes and saved it as a JPEG. I have found it best for met to then open that image in the Windows image previewer and look at it. Sometimes I need to make additional edits and save as JPEG again until I get a version that I like.

But that's not the end...

If you want a different size of the image it's best to apply the sharpening to that size of image rather than resizing an already sharpened image. That is why I do the intermediate step of saving the TIF. After exporting to the full size I save a copy of that Photoshop file (a PSD file). Then I resize the image to the size I want (generally one where the longest side is at 2048 pixels for the best uploading to Facebook). 

After you resize you need to re-apply the sharpening plugin. It's probably best to completely delete the original sharpener layer and start over with it just to ensure it's working with the new image size. Once you've sharpened the new image size and exported it as a new JPEG, you're done! Again, here is the final version:

Luna the male Barn Owl
Final version