I went camping for the full weekend and hardly touched the camera at all, so nothing new and exciting to share. Time for a useful Photoshop tip then.
Most, if not all, images that have been taken in RAW benefit from a boost of the midtone contrast during postprocessing. The files out of the camera are flat and dull, especially those taken under overcast weather conditions such as this recent image of a Little Owl. There are various ways in which a midtone contrast boost can be achieved. The best known method is probably a tweak of the curves in either Lightroom or Photoshop.
There is, however, an even simpeler approach that I personally prefer.
In Photoshop, duplicate your image layer and set the blending mode of the duplicate layer to ‘soft light’. If it looks awful, don’t worry. Just reduce the opacity of the duplicate layer to somewhere between 10-20% for a moderate result. By switching the layer on and off, you can see the difference. Subtle, but certainly an improvement. As with all layers, you could apply the effect on only part of your image by adding a layer mask and painting with black and white.
Give it a go and see of you like it. If not, just use the plain old curves!
Little Owl; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS and 2x; 1/125s at F11 and ISO 200; Beanbag from vehicle
