The Photo Shop: Post-Production Editing Techniques

By Bob Manteiga

As cameras get more sophisticated, so do the editing tools that we use to enhance our photo images. Today, with Artificial Intelligence taking over our world, images can now be created, transformed, and erased at the click of a button right on our desk top computer screen.

Earlier this year we published a column on pre- and post-production editing, so I won’t bore you by repeating what I said before. Instead, I decided to select four photographs by four different Landings photographers and let them explain the post-production editing techniques that went into the creation of their images.

The photo of Tshombe Selby and his mother was taken by Ann Parsons. Tshombe is a tenor, currently engaged in the ensemble of the Metropolitan Opera Co. in New York City. Here is what Ann has to say about how she went about creating this stunning image:

“In Post-Production I take the image (I only shoot in RAW) into Lightroom where I check the White Balance, adjust Exposure, Contrast, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, and ofttimes Texture, Clarity, and Color Grading. I then have a solid foundation with which to work.

The image is then transferred to Adobe Photoshop. It’s important to have it in 16bit. I remove any lint, dust, and do a healing clean up of the image and background. Next is skin – smooth skin tones, sculpt using frequency separation, clean eye whites, brighten iris, darken lash line. Hair – heal flyaways, smudge hair strands. Clothing, shoes etc. –smooth fabric, clean shoes. To finish, I pull out detail, smart liquefy all layers, save file as PSD or TIFF. Then the image returns to Lightroom and, in Profile, I decide which texture to use. I then export as a .jpg.”

The photo of Kevin Lechlitner, playing tennis on Narragansett Beach, was taken by Bob Manteiga in 2008 and 2015. How can a photograph be taken twice and seven years apart? If you haven’t already guessed, the image is a composite of two different photographs, both taken with the same camera, but different lenses. I shoot all my photos in both .jpg and RAW. The first photo of Narragansett Beach was taken with a Canon 15-85 lens. The RAW image is opened initially in Adobe Camera Raw or Capture 1, then transferred to Photoshop where it undergoes many of the same processes as Ann describes in her narrative. The only difference is that, after transferring the image to Photoshop, I add a gradient, selecting the colors I wish to use from the color selection chart. The second image is a photo of Kevin playing tennis here at The Landings, taken with a Canon 75-200 zoom lens. Using a variety of masking and layering techniques (a selection of hard and soft brushes), I remove the background, isolating two separate images…the image of Kevin and his shadow, and the image of the tennis ball. I then place both images on my new background. Using the tools available to me in Photoshop, I adjust the light to make the image look like it belongs there.

The photo of the flowers was taken by Norm Olshansky with an I Phone 13. Using the editing functions available to him on his phone, he enhanced the original image by adjusting Exposure, Brilliance, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Brightness, Black Point, Saturation, Tint, Sharpness, and Definition. The newer I Phones and Androids, like the I Phone 13 and 14 and Samsung 22 and 23, have fairly sophisticated editing tools, allowing you to do post-production editing right on your phone.

The before-and-after photos of the two women were taken by Rick Waller. Picture 1 is straight out of the camera. Picture 2 was enhanced using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to glamorize the women as is often done in magazine shots. Faces are sculpted, pores reduced, skin glow added, eyes and teeth brightened, and a “bloodless” face lift performed.

The Photo Shop is closing its doors for the season. We hope to see you back in the Fall, either through this venue or a similar format through which we can highlight the work of our many talented Landings photographers.