Category: Digital Darkroom

The tools of the trade. Everything that I use to realy bring the image to life.

How a Non-Destructive Workflow Can Lead to a Happy Client

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

A long time ago I adopted the policy of making all my edits in Photoshop non-destructive fo rthe simple reason that I could easily go back and change something if I needed to. This slowed me down at first but as I became more adept at wielding a stylus and graphics tablet, and through the benefit of actions, experience and perseverance it is no longer true. Using the right tool for the job is also a huge help and my workflow consists of a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop.

Earlier today I embarked on a retouch session. Nothing spectacular about that as it happens all the while. What mad this one all the more important though was that my client was off on holiday this afternoon and needed the images before she went. Continue reading How a Non-Destructive Workflow Can Lead to a Happy Client »

Tutorial – A Light Retouch

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Techniques, Tips, Workflow
Lightroom Retouch Tutorial, Before and After
Lightroom Retouch, Before and After

Here is a “before” and “after” look of a beauty shot I did last week. The “before” shot on the left being straight off the camera and the “after” shot post retouch. The interesting thing about this image is that all the retouch was done in LightRoom 3 and so is entirely non-destructive. Yes, I could have done this in PhotoShop too, but on this occasion I chose LightRoom.

Step-by-step tutorial after the jump…

Turning to the dark side…

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Journey, Lightroom, Musings, Photoshop, Techniques

Had a major problem last month. I turned the laptop on and it came up “Internal had disk failure” and wouldn’t boot 🙁 I am soooo glad I had all my work backed up. The laptop did eventually start but after a heart sopping failure like that I lost all confidence in it and was loathe to put any revenue work on it just in case. Continue reading Turning to the dark side… »

The Lady and the Tramp

 Gavin   Behind the scenes, Digital Darkroom, Fashion, Photoshoot, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow
Lady and the Tramp
Lady and the Tramp

The Lady and the Tramp was a really fun project to do. I can’t claim credit for the idea though, that must go to the lovely Leanna, the model in this image. The brief was to shoot two images, one with her dressed as a Lady and the other with her as a Tramp, then merge the two together in PhotoShop.

With a little thought, preparation and patience it’s actually very easy to achieve although we weren’t without our difficulties on the day. Most of them environmental funnily enough. Continue reading The Lady and the Tramp »

Do it right, do it quick

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Lightroom, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

One of the things I’ve found with digital photography is that I can spend a lot of time post processing my images if I’m not careful. Retouching is a bit like writing software for a living – no matter what one does there will always be something else that can be done to improve it. I used to believe that this was because it was easy to make a change but having read Pressfield’s book entitled “The War of Art” I’m wondering if sometimes this is also an excuse to never finish an image. Read the book and you’ll understand why I made that statement.

Getting back on topic, I find that sitting at my PC and retouching an image can be quite fun so I’m not complaining but when faced with a deadline and the necessity of getting a body of work out the door to please a client and the fun element can very soon evaporate. This is further exacerbated if there is a large number of images to sort through

So, what canbe done to speed up the workflow?

Continue reading Do it right, do it quick »