Image Manipulation & Previsualization

Note: I have written about this a lot lately. I have always done work on my prints in the darkroom in years past, and today, with the switch to digital imagery, that hasn’t changed. As a matter of fact, I tend to spend much more time with post-production processing these days. One reason is that I can sit in front of the computer and with a large screen monitor, really examine every inch of an image that I am processing. I then make a print using my Epson XP15000 printer which does a fantastic job. I have found with experimentation, that I have to increase the brightness of my screen images by about 40% before sending the files to the printer but that could be a function of monitor settings. You can play  around with this until you achieve the desired qualities in your print. But everyone should make prints of images they really like in order to examine them carefully. Sometimes a screen image just doesn’t do it. Also, there is probably always something you can do to improve an image.

Image Manipulation & Previsualization

By William Lulow

Well, Adobe Photoshop has been around now for approximately 35 or 40 years and continues to be updated with improvements on a regular basis. I remember being on several panels in the late 1980s that answered questions about the kind of features we, as working photographers, might like to see in a software package. One thing that was always high on the list was contrast as well as exposure controls. Those things were built into the first edition. But the amount of redundancy, different ways of achieving the same effects, have come a long way since the first iteration of the software. Not only that, but the speed with which it works is also become a major improvement along with machines capable of much more memory. Today, it is really a smooth transition to be able to move between most of Adobe’s software applications. This makes for substantial improvement in workflow.

Workflow:

In a previous article published here a week or so ago, I noted that Photoshop is capable of creating whole new pieces of artwork besides simply retouching or enhancing photographs. Composites that are really well done, broaden the boundaries of photography. There is no question that they consist of photographs, but when joined together, they make completely different forms of artwork. They are not photographs of anything that exists in nature but can stand on their own.

Types of Manipulation:

Again, as I mentioned in the earlier article, practitioners of the chemical process of “traditional” photography knew how to extract the very most in terms of detail and tonal quality from their prints. These days, some photographers are content not to make prints at all. Seeing their work on the screen is enough. I disagree with this. Not only are photographs meant to be seen on a wall in an exhibition, they are meant to be scrutinized and viewed carefully as to how all the photographic elements were made to create a work of art. If the photographer is able to add a completely different sky to an image, say, that’s one thing and it creates a composite image. On the other hand, if a photographer knows how to use various masking, highlighting and enhancing tools available in Photoshop, that is only bringing out the best in an image that was already made of a subject that existed in nature. Both can be considered “art,” but the latter here is making certain elements in the photograph more visible, whereas the former is changing the image entirely. The two are very different.

Some conclusions:

With all this being said, most working, studio photographers use the software just to make their existing subjects look a bit better. Facial retouching has been practiced for decades with continuous tone images as well as digital ones. I use it all the time to remove certain wrinkles and other facial defects in portraits. It’s almost like applying makeup and hair styling to a model to enhance his or her “look.” This is something we have always done. I have never seen these embellishments as altering the image enough to make it a completely different one, though. It has always been used to make the existing image better. So, now my technique is to bring all my images into Photoshop and treat them as CAMERA RAW images. This doesn’t mean I have captured them as RAW files in the camera. It just means that when I download them from my camera’s SDHC or COMPACT FLASH CARD, I can make adjustments, however subtle, to them before I work on them in Photoshop. This has been a good way to produce real quality images because they are adjustable prior to any retouching being done.

But quality images are most often produced by knowing one’s lighting. Faulty lighting can never really be compensated for easily with digital manipulations. Here’s one of my examples. The first image was probably done by a photographer who didn’t know his/her lighting. The second is my updated image:

Here’s another example:

And a third:

Most of the improvements to these images have come from better lighting, better focus, better equipment and much more professional techniques. The amount of digital manipulations in these examples really only amounted to smoothing wrinkles and adding some sharpness to the pictures. .

These two images were made with exactly the same lighting. The only difference was the addition of makeup & hair and minimal retouching:

The light was exactly the same and of course, the model was the same.  But notice how the right-hand image just shines whereas the left-hand one doesn’t.

What I am getting at here is that this kind of “manipulation,” if you would call it that, is basically done in the camera as well as with some software additions like getting rid of blemishes, etc. It’s bringing out the best in the subject so that the photograph looks better and says what I want it to say about the subject. And, if you would permit the analogy, Ansel Adams was adding his own “styling” to his landscape images by enhancing them in the darkroom. He didn’t fundamentally change anything. He just let what was already there be more visible to the human eye. The model in the above example is already “beautiful.” She just needed the proper styling and lighting to allow the beauty to shine through. One might even conceive of this as something like “real life manipulation,” as opposed to just working on the image.

When you are making photographs it serves to keep these things in mind. Sometimes composite photographs do the trick and sometimes simple enhancements achieve the intended result as well. Here is an image that I worked on a fair amount to adjust the tone of the sky as well as the adobe brick to bring out the greatest detail:

It is really all about making whatever refinements necessary to make the image really great!

Previsualization & Manipulation:

“Previsualization” refers to being able to see the finished image even before you capture it in the camera. On occasion, a photographer can “see” an image even when it doesn’t yet exist as such. This picture is such an example:

This scene was heavily backlit but it presented an opportunity to manipulate it in Adobe Photoshop. When I first came upon this scene I knew I could never obtain the result I wanted by changing the camera position or adjusting the exposure itself. And because it was broad daylight, I knew I couldn’t otherwise change the lighting. But knowing enough about what was possible with digital manipulations in general, I had a vision of what this could look like anyway because the lighting kind of jumped out at me. I knew I would be doing some heavy manipulations,. so, I made several exposures of various intensities. When I got home, I set to work on the post production part of it. This was the final image:

It still amazes me that this kind of result could be obtained from that original. It required several levels of brightness & contrast as well as the addition of the vibrance and saturation filters. Again, this was a picture I saw in my mind’s eye and was able to bring about by the application of several tools in Photoshop. So, even though it didn’t exist in nature quite the way I originally saw it, I knew there were enough elements present when I shot it, to make a great image.

So previsualization needs to be practiced whenever you are out in the world making photographs. Someone once asked the famous film director Alfred Hitchcock if he screened his movies after they were finished. His reply: not really! I’ve seen them already! Maybe you can understand just what he meant!