Advanced Post Processing - such as what?

[GrahamH]

Hi all,
So I seem to have got myself into an interesting situation.
Using Elements (currently PSE 7), what do people consider advanced PP? (I know it's going to vary quite a lot).
Local camera club was going to do a presentation on Advanced Photoshop skills. Unfortunately the presenter is not able to do it and I have been asked, at short notice (next week) to do a post processing presentation on landscapes. (I just did one on basic retouching for portraits).

Basic stuff (for me) would be replacing skies, adjusting exposure/colour, layer masks, dodging and burning for local effects (such as leading lines).

Thanks in advance.
Graham

[FrankMi]

Hi Graham, photographers are at all different levels of knowledge and experience. Some are experts in some areas of PP and novices in others. You'll need to assess the perceived skill levels of the folks you'll be teaching to answer that question. I'd call a few friends in the club and find out what PP software they are using and what they generally do with it. A lot of folks start out doing cropping and global changes for brightness, contrast, saturation, vibrance, etc. and never get to working on specific areas of an image with layers and masks.

If the majority of those you talk with don't use layers and masks you could use a landscape or seascape do demonstrate how to adjust the foreground, subject, background, and sky as four layers and do simple adjustments like contrast and brightness individually on each layer. If the lesson needs to be simpler, just do foreground and background. If you can, choose an image where the layers are easily selectable, such as a beach and sky scene.

Let me know if you need to get more advanced than layers and masks, but I think you'll find that this is the dividing point between beginners and advanced for most folks that do non-professional post processing.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Graham,

I'd agree with Frank (I usually do).

I'd also suggest demo'ing good cloning techniques; say removing power lines in a landscape context.
The easy stuff is just against the sky, but the use of varying zoom and brush sizes, resampling often and working 'in line' with things that the power line crosses in front or behind (so that you maintain the edge) after the clone, is all stuff that's difficult to describe in words, but once seen, is easy to do again.

Cheers,

[GrahamH]

Pretty much what I thought. Thanks.

I've since suggested that if they had someone (or a few) who had experience with various plugins, then that would satisfy the more advanced/experienced members and my input would be a foundation for the less experienced.
Graham
(know he has limits)

[Viana]

Most people do exposure correction at the minimum in basic PSP. To me “advanced” PSP is all about digital colouring, element replacement, Out of Bounds effects, smart filters, brushes, retouching, background fixes, vector effects, digital painting, special effects: fire, smoke; etc.


Most advanced classes expect the participants to have a certain level of knowledge and skills. Since you are not the regular instructor, I would first ask what your students know and then go from there.

[GrahamH]

Viana, it's more in the form of a presentation rather than a formal 'class'. So I was aiming more at letting people know what is capable (with examples, some worked through, others just a screen shot plus a talk through).

The one I did on portrait retouching was quite easy in that there is SO much one CAN do, it was a simple matter of choosing the mainstream goals and showing a couple of techniques to get to that aim (e.g. skin softening, belmish removal, moving body parts (fat rolls, slimming) etc).
With landscape retouching there are fewer goals and consequently fewer techniques.

Situation is now a little easier, others are getting involved with plugins. Possibly also show some table top photography with the aim to blend into another picture (I'm starting another thread on inspirational shots, more there).

Graham