San Diego portrait photographer | Sylvia Borgo {BLOG}

How about some basic BW processing for today?  Yeah!

Honestly, my fave way to process an image into a BW is in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).  It is super simple and incredible effective and accurate.

Here is a pic taken at the end of June of J (seriously, a cutie!).  I just saw J., his older brother N. and their mom and dad on Saturday, so I pulled up this pic to show you how to do a quick BW conversion.

• First, I adjust the WB while the image is still in color.  If you have too much red or blue in the image, it will affect the shadow-y areas of your image and make the final conversion kind of “blegh.”
• Then I drag the “Saturation” slider all the way to the left to -100.
• I drag the “Exposure” slider to the right just before I get the red “warning/blown areas” marks.
• I drag the “Blacks” slider to the right just before I get the blue “warning/clipped areas” marks
• Then I drag the “Contrast” and “Clarity” sliders to the right until I get the look I want.  I usually like a high contrast BW so for this image above my “Contrast” slider was at +70 and my “Clarity” slider was at +20.

And that’s it!  Now, this isn’t my good ol’ Lemon-y BW conversion – I’ll show you how to process for a warmer more yellowy tone in the next installment of “So, What Exactly Do I Do To Your Pictures.”  Hope this was helpful!  Feel free to leave me a comment and let me know if there is a specific post processing tutorial you would like to see on my blog.

Hello!  I have another tutorial for you today – a fun one!  How to turn an SOOC RAW shot and process it in a vintage-y style.  There are many ways to do this, and there are many ways to process in a vintage-y style.  One of my fave looks is a soft magenta tint that I add to some photos just when I want to play around and have some fun.

You’ll see more from this session next week, when I bring you some more super cute and energetic images of cutie-patootie A.

Here is the Before and After:

So, we need to process this bland RAW file (more on what is RAW and why the image on the left looks the way it does by clicking HERE

• First, I cropped the image in for a tighter look.  I wanted to make sure cutie-pie A. was the focus!
• Secondly, I used a “Gradient Map” layer in Photoshop.  When the Gradient Map window pops up, I double click on the spectrum and it brings up a dialogue box.  At the bottom of this box, the spectrum is visible again and I’m going to set my colors.  I click on the left arrow with the little square underneath and choose BLACK.  Then I click on the right arrow with the square underneath it and choose a nice PEACHY color.    Then click OK to set.
• I reduce the opacity of this Gradient Map layer to about 30% and set it to “Soft Light.”
• Next step – I add a “Solid Color” layer on top and choose a MAUVE color.  I reduce the opacity to about 30% and again set it on “Soft Light.”
• Finally, I add a “Curves” layer to soften up the blacks/contrast.  When working in the cures layer, I drag up the bottom, left corner of the diagonal line until the output reads 25 or 30.

And that’s it!!  I hope this was helpful!!!  The key is to have FUN and play around with Photoshop – you’ll discover lots of ways to process an image to give it a certain mood and a certain look!

Hello!  Sorry for the late, late, late post today.  I was having trouble logging on to my server earlier.  *sad face*

Today, I have combo post – another short tutorial on my post-processing workflow AND one sneak peak photo of a family session I had a couple of weeks ago.  By the way, you can easily find more of these short tutorials by going to the orange menu bar at the top of the BLOG page and searching for “Post Processing” under the categories tab.

Meet K.  Ohhhh, my goodness.  She was a STAR in front of the camera.  Only 3 years old, but so, so, so cooperative and full of energy and personality. Here is today’s before and after.

GAH!  Isn’t she incredibly adorable???

So, how did I take this bland RAW file (more on what is RAW and why the image on the left looks the way it does by clicking HERE) and turn into a bright, colorful image?  Well, this image was a little tricky, it was a backlit image and the sun was still quite high up in the sky.  I wasn’t planning on taking K.’s portrait in this exact spot, I was going to move her back a little bit so that the sun wouldn’t hit the left side of her head/hair so harshly.  But K.’s enthusiasm and joy was just perfect at this moment, so I took the shot because, in my opinion, a child’s energy and expressions totally trump photographic technicalities ANY day!

• I brightened up her skin and clothes by boosting the midtones.
• I defogged the overall image
• I saturated the overall color – especially her cool purple shoes and the red ladder.
• And one last almost unimportant step – I took out a blue hue in the white wall.  On the picture on the left, you can see a trace of blueish-gray on what should be a white wall.  When I saturate color, this obviously becomes much more noticeable, so I desaturated the blue using a “hue/saturation” layer.

VOILA!

Come back tomorrow for more pics of K. and the rest of her lovey-dovey family – I will highlight their San Diego photo session.