"Ask and ye shall receive...

It's not often I get asked HOW I do something.  Usually the question revolves more around WHY I do something.  And it comes from my familial unit in the form of "WHY did you do THAT?!?!?" #momproblems #Icantwin #wtf (as in...What the Frick!).  Sooooo, when I've been asked by a few people "HOW do you process your photos, they look so crisp and clean", well....ask and ye shall receive (within reason).  I hope you believe that more than my Thing #3!

So THIS is how I process my photos to get this end result...

"Christmas Market at the Frauenkirche"
Dresden, Germany

1.  SOOC (Straight out of camera)

This photo is 'okay'.  But could use a little tweaking.  It was a dark and dreary day.  The lighting conditions were doing me no favor.  You'll find that my editing process is pretty basic, I think!

2.  I ALWAYS:  upload photo to Photoshop and adjust levels, sharpen and crop (I do not re-size for web).  I will admit, OR the Better Half will be glad to tell ya....I tend to get a little OCD about these simple decisions.  "Just give me 5 minutes!" often morphs into...just a wee bit longer.

Kinda subtle.  FYI, an attribute I'm not normally known for.  The crowds in the street are a bit lighter now, the shadows aren't quite as dark.  Not much cropping is needed as the SOOC was pretty well framed.  I TRY to compose my photos as much as possible when I take the shot, so I have less editing to do afterwards.  I crop my photos to a standard 4 x 6, or 5 x 8 dimension.

3.  I OFTEN like to:  use a pre-set action on the photograph.  My "go to" action the past couple of years (yes, I'm a creature of habit) is Florabella's "subtle color".  I have found that this action comes as close to accomplishing what "I" would choose to do, but much quicker.  It is part of Florabella's "Colorplay" actions set.  I do not purchase very many preset actions, but this is one I use frequently in quantity, but sparingly in application.  I very rarely use overlays and/or textures.  Less is more, in my opinion (yet another attribute I'm not normally known for).

(This is a smaller version of the photo at the top of the page.  Not bad for dreary December day in Dresden...and yes, I kinda love alliteration too)

4.  SOMETIMES I will adjust the "contrast" at this stage, if I feel it is needed.  This photo, I didn't.  I'm sure there is a LOT more I could do when it comes to editing.  But like I said, I'm a creature of habit.

And finally...

5.   For quite awhile I was not liking how the photos were appearing on my blog.  They were not as bright and colorful as they were when I was finished editing them in Photoshop.  After some trial and error I went to my Google settings.  Under the "Photos and Videos" section there is an "Auto Enhance" option (which I was previously unaware of).  The choices are:  off, normal, high.  My account was apparently preset to "normal".  I tried it on "high" and saw no difference.  But when I turned it "off"...the quality of appearance improved for me.  

Voila'!  It all boils down to K.I.S.S. (yep, not known elsewhere for THAT either!).  But, thanks for asking!

P.S.  Now I have a question for YOU!  Can you tell me if you see one of those "I am not a Robot" captcha's in my comment box?  If you have one on your blog, did you add that yourself?  Or did it just appear one day thru the magic of Google/Blogger?  Not that this is unheard of...shoe's just magically appear in my closet all the time.

Here's where I "link up" today.

(click on image for description of Song-ography)

Next Tuesday's Song-ography title suggestion is "Imagine" by John Lennon.
Come back and link up!