Post Production - Make images pop (Patreon)

When editing images it's easy to miss one crucial step: 

Not utilizing the full contrast of the image. 

If your images are bound for print they will simply look like there is a matte film overlay. And online it'll just be a bit more flat, and less eye catching.

If you think about it the contrast we see on a phone or screen is much lower than what we see in real life - and we usually hold out phones, and thus compare with real-life contrast. I hope you understand what I mean. 

The cusp is even on a phone (or computer) the contrast of an image is lower than whatever you see around: black is not as black, and white is darker than available light. 

If at the same time you then fail to use the available contrast or to put it differently if your blacks and whites as not black and white, but dark grey and light grey you are seriously missing out.

Increasing the contrast to its full potential will mean your images will pop and get noticed more.

Sometimes it's straightforward and can easily be done in curves and levels, sometimes you need to be a bit more sneaky about it and use either Masks and/or the Blend If function in Photoshop.

This is explained in greater detail in my Post Production course but this can readily be used by anyone using Photoshop, and partly Lightroom.

You may ask why I don't do this step earlier in the process (like when developing or making a curve earlier in the process) which strictly speaking is the most efficient place?

The answer is when you retouch skin tone, and dodge and burn you slightly change the contrast in the image and by making the image generally beautiful, at the same time you diminish the contrast. At least it's something I've noticed happens to me time and time again.

Enjoy.