Maintain your professional standards

In discussions about the importance of monitor calibration, it's common to see this argument:

"My clients don't have calibrated screens. If I calibrate mine, my photos won't look the same to them."

This is absurd for two reasons.  Firstly, uncalibrated screens are like human beings - no two look the same, anywhere, ever.  So to suggest that leaving one screen uncalibrated will ensure it matches another uncalibrated screen is complete nonsense.

Secondly, consider this ...

We just had our bathroom renovated. We chose a good builder, and paid him top dollar, and he did an excellent job. He built us a perfect bathroom.

Trouble is, I'm a lazy housekeeper, and I tend to let it get a bit grubby, you know? I don't clean it as often or as thoroughly as I should. If you were to visit right now, the bathroom wouldn't look as good as it did the day the builder finished.

So, does that mean it would have been ok if the builder had done a shabby job? Hell no. We paid him for a perfect bathroom, and that's what we got.

Should your clients be happy to pay you for less than perfect photos? Of course not. Your job is to "build a perfect bathroom", so to speak. To provide wonderful photos, and monitor calibration is a vital part of that.

If your client then views your photos on their awful screen, or hangs them in a room with awful light, so they look less than their best, is that on you? Of course not.  What your clients do is irrelevant. The onus is on you, the professional, to be correct.

How to properly re-install Spyder software (Windows)

The Spyder range of calibrators are very good (well, not the Express, it's kinda rubbish, but the Pro and Elite are great) but they have one very annoying quirk.  Once you've calibrated once, they stubbornly hold on to the settings you chose, and it's damned hard to change them.

So, in desperation, many of us completely uninstall and reinstall the software, if we want to start afresh.  Fortunately this doesn't take very long.  BUT ... what the heck??  The settings are still there!  Well, they were still there on my PC, anyway.

This drove me crazy until I figured out the solution.  It's not enough to uninstall the software in the usual way, through the Programs control panel.  After you've done that, you have to go to your AppData folder ...

C:\Users\[your computer name]\AppData\Local\

... and completely delete the Datacolor folder.

Then you can re-install the software, and it'll be back to the program default settings.  You can happily commence calibrating, per my instructions here.

Replacing a raw edit in a PSD

Even though we try to remember everything when we're editing our raw files, we all slip up occasionally, at least. I'm as guilty as anyone.  Many times I've been happily editing a photo in Photoshop, then zoomed in and said "D'oh!!" when I saw the noise, and realised that I'd forgotten to do my noise removal in raw.

The noise removal feature inside Photoshop is a poor substitute, so it's always preferable to go back to the raw file and do it there.  This article explains how to bring the newly-fixed file into your existing layered file, with minimum time wasted.  This works for both Photoshop and Elements.

First, make sure you've saved the file as a PSD (or Tiff, if that's your preference).  Here's the example edit I've created for this tutorial.  The "Background" layer is the photo, of course.  "Layer 1" is a duplicate of the Background layer which I've used to do some cloning and healing.  Then above that are all the adjustment layers for my colour correction work.

Once I make sure my PSD file is safely saved, I re-open the raw file, and make the necessary adjustments to the noise sliders.  While I'm doing this, I give myself a stern lecture about getting it right the first time, dammit!

Then I open the new version into Photoshop:

I press Ctrl A (or Cmd A for Mac) to select the whole photo:

Then I press Ctrl C to copy it.  This can also be done via the Edit menu, of course.

I return to the PSD file, and I highlight the Background layer:

Then I press Ctrl V to paste the new version into the PSD:

IMPORTANT:  If my PSD involved no pixel editing (cloning, healing, etc), then my job is done.  I can Ctrl E to merge the new image down onto the old image if desired, and save the PSD again, and everything is dandy.  My carelessness only cost me a few extra seconds.

BUT: If, as in this case, there was some pixel editing, I have to re-do it.  Why?  Because the edited pixels were the noisy ones, of course.  So I have to delete the pixel editing layer:

Then duplicate the new image layer (or add a blank layer, if that's your preference), and do the cloning and healing etc all over again:

While I'm doing this, I'm giving myself an even sterner lecture about getting my raw editing right the first time, because now I'm wasting serious time.  I find cloning tedious in any circumstance ... but to be doing it twice on the same photo?  That irritates me like crazy.  And I'm sure you don't enjoy it either.

I hope you never have to use this tutorial, but if you do, I hope the process goes as smoothly as possible for you.

Some notes about this article:

Note 1.  None of this is a better solution that getting it right the first time.  Take care with your raw edits, and don't proceed to Photoshop until you're damn sure it's correct.

Note 2. Obviously noise isn't the only thing you can get wrong in a raw edit.  You might mess up the white balance, or contrast, or whatever.  But those things are MUCH more serious, because they impact the adjustment layers in your PSD as well.

The reason I wrote about noise on this page is that noise is really the only thing that can be fixed this easily.  If you go back to your raw file to make another sort of change, you'll need to carefully check every adjustment layer in your PSD, to make sure it's still doing what you want it to.

Please don't be casual about this.  I can't stress it enough.  Even a small change in the white balance, for example, can mean that an adjustment layer which wasn't causing red channel clipping before, now is causing it.

See Note 1.

Note 3.  Plenty of people will bleat about opening your raw file as a smart object into Photoshop.  In my opinion, this is a pile of bunkum, and I discussed it thoroughly in this thread.

See Note 1.

Note 4.  If you did SO much pixel editing in Photoshop before you discovered your mistake, and you can't stomach the thought of doing it all over again, well, so be it.  Do your noise removal as best you can in Photoshop, and vow it won't happen again.

See Note 1.

Grabbing a 700x700px 100% crop

This tutorial explains how to take a 100% crop of your image at the exact size of 700x700 pixels.  The illustrations here were taken in Photoshop CS5, but this method applies to all recent versions of Photoshop and Elements.

Often I'll ask you for a 700x700px 100% crop if we're discussing noise or focus or any small-detail problems in my Facebook group.

Of course, you can adapt these instructions for other sizes as well.

It's very simple.  When you're ready to take the screenshot, simply press M to choose your Marquee Tool:

(If the rectangle Marquee isn't selected by default, click and hold on the tool to get the little flyout menu, and choose it there.)

In the Options Bar, change the Style to "Fixed Size":

IMPORTANT: Make sure the "Feather" is 0 px.

Then enter "700px" in both the Width and Height fields:

(It's always a good idea to type the "px" part. If you don't, it might default to inches or something else.)

Single-click on your photo and the 700x700 marching ants box will appear. Then click in the middle of it to drag it to exactly where you want it:

Go to the Image menu and choose "Crop":

And there it is - your 700x700 piece of image:

Now save it as a jpeg, ready to upload to Facebook for me to see.

Batch editing in Photoshop - a flawed premise?

One of Photoshop's capabilities is batch-editing ... that is, running an action on a lot of photos at once.  You can record your action, then use the Batch function to apply it to a whole set of files very quickly.

At face value, this seems like an efficient thing to do, right?  Adding speedy automation has to be great for your workflow ... doesn't it?

Unfortunately, in most cases, no.  In fact, this approach might reveal serious problems with your workflow.  Let me explain ...

The ideal workflow goes like this:

1. Make "global" adjustments to the photo in Raw.  This may or may not include white balance, exposure, etc, etc, to the whole photo.
2. Make various "local" adjustments in Photoshop.  This might include cloning and other pixel modifications, and/or tonal and colour adjustments to various parts of the photo using layers and masks.  At the end of this process, the result is a nice clean-processed image.
3. Finally, add artistic effects to the photo, if desired (at the time of writing this post, the "matte look" is popular, for example.)

Steps 1 and 3 are where batch processing can be performed.  No matter which raw software you use, it has excellent functions for applying your adjustments to whole sets of images, very quickly, where the lighting was the same.  If you're not harnessing the power of batch-processing in raw, I urge you to embrace it right away.

And at the end of the workflow, you can definitely set up a batch process in Photoshop to apply your artistic actions to multiple photos at once.  Again, it's a very good idea to do so, if you can.

But batch-processing is impossible at Step 2.  The whole point of Step 2 is that it is unique for every photo.  No two layer masks will ever be the same from photo to photo.  No pimple is ever going to be in the same place for you to batch-clone it out.  Step 2 is entirely manual.

What if there are any global adjustments that you consistently make in Photoshop?  Eg ...

• "I always brighten my photos a bit with Curves"
• "I always run a defog action"
• etc

... then slap yourself upside the head.  HARD.  There are no global functions that should habitually performed in Photoshop as part of the clean editing workflow.  ALL of the global functions can and must be done in raw.  Photoshop is for local work, period.

So I need you to take a good hard look at your raw processing.  That's where you can save yourself time and effort by working smarter, not in Photoshop.

Increasing Bit Depth in Photoshop - Myths and Truths

It is widely accepted that there are benefits to working in 16-bit rather than 8-bit mode for some - repeat some - editing tasks.  Inevitably, there are some incurable nerds who say it's important to work in 16-bit mode for everything, but of course that's not true.  8-bit is perfectly fine for most people, most of the time.

If you're not familiar with bit depth, read this article.

Two scenarios come to mind where 16-bit mode is helpful.  First, those times when you unavoidably need to make aggressive adjustments to your photo in Photoshop, rather than in raw.  And second, when there is risk of banding in your photo (eg a smooth backdrop, or a blue sky).  If you'd like to know more about these scenarios, please visit me in my Facebook group.

In this article I wish to discuss the concept of converting 8-bit data up to 16-bit for editing.  I'm sorry to say there's almost no benefit to this.  Yes, Photoshop does allow you to convert your 8-bit file to 16-bit, but it doesn't truly turn it into 16-bit data.  It just puts the 8-bit data into a 16-bit wrapper, if you know what I mean.

Diagnosing Facebook colour problems

I often notice people complaining that Facebook is changing the colour of their images.  I can assure you this is not true - in fact, Facebook handles colour better than quite a few other sites.

If your Facebook photos don't look the same as when you edited them, something must be wrong somewhere.

So I've designed a page to help you find the problem.

Troubleshooter: When your Facebook photos don't match Photoshop

It's as comprehensive as I can possibly make it.  If it doesn't resolve your issue, you must have a VERY obscure issue :)

Using a Photo Filter layer to fix casts

There are lots of ways to fix colour casts using Photoshop.  Filters are only one.  If you have another method which works for you (eg Curves, Color Balance, Selective Color), this tutorial doesn't intend to sway your opinion.  Stick with what you know.

But this works for me, so it's time I shared it.

At the outset, I must remind you NOT to attempt to fix casts by adjusting white balance.  Raw edits such as white balance are for the whole photo ... the "greater good", if you like.  Try to turn a blind eye to areas of cast while you're choosing the correct white balance for the overall photo.  (I know, I know, it can be hard.)  The truth is, sometimes choosing the correct white balance will make casts look even worse, and this will scare you.  Stay strong, friend.  Photoshop is the place to worry about casts, not your raw program.

This tutorial is demonstrated in Photoshop CS2, but the method works just the same in all recent versions of Photoshop and Elements.  It assumes a basic knowledge of adjustment layers and masks, which are the beating heart of Photoshop - if you can not easily follow these instructions, I urge you to consider my little Layers and Masks Class.

The other thing you need is familiarity with "colour pairs".  Every colour has its opposite colour on the colour wheel:

Resizing photos in templates (PS & PSE)

If you've ever had trouble resizing a photo in a template without stretching it out of shape and making it look all wonky; don't worry, you're not alone. It's easy to get confused, because for some reason Photoshop and Elements have opposite default settings. So if you have Elements and have been trying to follow Photoshop instructions, or vice versa, it might have gone badly for you.

So I've created two videos - one for Elements, and one for Photoshop.  I hope they help clarify things.

These videos specifically discuss the resizing step of the template workflow. They don't explain setting up the clipping masks, or placing the images, or anything like that. If you need assistance with those broader issues, I've written tutorials here and here (plus some more here, here and here).

Here's the Elements video:

Here's the Photoshop video: