AMP Shop » Juicy Actions and Presets for Photographers

so i thought since it’s been a while since my last tweaker- i should share one.

i wanted to use a plain image to illustrate just a good basic clean.

my image was ok sooc (straight out of the camera) but very cool and blah.

i really just wanted to clean it up a little.

my white balance was great after warming it up in lightroom. so no further tweaks were required in photoshop- but this is not always the case.

in a future tweaker i will be sure to show some tweakers where i have to fiddle with skin tones or color casts.

in lightroom i played the preset {delight} from the squeaky clean set. now i have to note here- that you will likely need to try a couple on a new image to see which best fits the  image.

lighting, colors, white balance- so many things can affect how a preset will look. many of the presets will look great on sooc cool images as they tend to warm them up inside the preset.

there are a few that are a tad bit ‘not clean’ and just a little sweet on color and tone. and they can work on the right image. for example- {rose water} is a perfectly lovely preset but it is really best played on backlit images where some natural sun haze comes into play. it adds just a pinch of sweet pinkness.

but always never forget- you must adjust presets and actions. playing any action or preset and expecting it to magically transform your image from meh to ah-mazing is really a beginning editor’s ‘mistake’.

although i ran the {delight} preset i still needed to adjust the lights (too bright), added some fill light (pulls shadows out for harsh lighting. got unpleasant shadows in the eyes and face- fill light is yo friend!) and a tad bit of recovery because i could see my highlights were still pushing ‘too bright’ status on this particular image.

ah-mazing are the results of almost always tweaking sliders (lightroom/acr) and masking layers and adjust layer opacities in photoshop. tweak tweak tweak!

if you do not know what a mask is or know how to mask (for photoshop/elements users)- that is something you definitely want to educate yourself on. your life in elements and photoshop will absolutely transcend what you thought your images could look like.

although lightroom is my main program- i never ever EVER use photoshop without doing some masking.

masking is like putting on makeup. you don’t put a thick gob of mascara on your lashes and leave it all goopy. NO! we comb through those lashes and get the clumps out. we don’t just put an inch of eyeshadow on our eyes- no way! we use several colors and we use a brush to blend blend blend and remove where some color might have shifted to (like a cheek) and we don’t want it there right?

and dudes…think of it like detailing a car. you have all these tiny little tools to help you go in after a big paint job to make sure that are no air bubbles, creases, cracks, globs, smudges, fingerprints…masking allows you to place effects EXACTLY where you want it. anything you do in photoshop- pretty much- can be masked.

so here we go. we take the lightroom image from above that we played {delight} preset on and then tweaked and now we run it through photoshop.

now you might have noticed i did not cover ALL the layers that you get in in the squeaky clean CLEAN action. there are several. these are the ones i usually hit on a basic clean edit.

there are layers to help strip color casts. it’s called Stain Lifters. it’s a very simple action that helps you lift  ’stains’. open up that layer and use a soft WHITE brush on the black layer mask. i like to start at about 40% opacity on the brush and swipe on the color casted areas. i swipe again if needed. i hit X if i need to erase (X changes my brush back to the opposite color and in this case since we started with a white brush- it will change it black. now i can erase the effects off areas i may not want it to go. i often use the red and/or orange layers for reddened eye rims, pimples, scratches. the green and yellow layers are good for the darn little casts you sometimes get from grass reflecting on your subject. remember that it’s purpose is to minimize not be a magic wand.

there is also a toothbrush in the action- but there are no teeth showing here. there are also level layers, curve layers and color balance layers for fixing exposure/tone and white balance and skin tones. these layers DO require user input. you can’t play the action and expect it to automatically scrub the image. starting from the bottom layer and working your way to the top most layer is usually the most effective and efficient way to use this action.  you do NOT need to shoot raw to have the squeaky clean action set. it works really great on sooc jpgs. and often you will not have to reduce opacity of the More Color layer. some jpg shooters even select this layer and tap CTRL J and duplicate the layer for extra color- some masking may be required on the yellows/greens as they can get a tad nuclear if pushed too far. the layer itself is generally pretty kind to skin tones however.

ok so let’s recap! another before and after and after.

now see the final image? it’s just…nice. colorful but not too much. it’s just clean.

your images may require more or less. it depends on lighting, your shooting style, equipment used (flash/studio often requires less ‘cleaning’)…so please always look at each image as a new dish.

it might require a different amount of spices than a previous image or a new spice altogether.

so get tweaking!