Post your Photoshop Actions / Work Flow!

[GTaudiophile]

Please share some of your custom actions and work flow strategies in Photoshop!

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Please share some of your custom actions and work flow strategies in Photoshop!

I use this. Was happy with freebie's until I got ran into Kubota.
Kubota

I use some from here, like Aly's Vintage.
ATN Central

 

[Anubis]

the only action i use is a "loseless" intorplation action. ive found it much easier to just do things manually, its slower but i found that actions dindnt always work and i ended up doing it all manually anyways

 

[ThePresence]

I usually do it manually.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: ThePresence
I usually do it manually.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Well, those who do it manually, what is it that you're doing?

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Well, those who do it manually, what is it that you're doing?

DISCLAIMER: After typing all of the following, I realized you were looking for Photoshop workflow! . Instead of wasting this, I'm leaving it in, dammit!

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My workflow consists of throwing all my RAW files from the day into it's own specific folder. Everything is seperated by date. I do absolutely no renaming to the files.

I'll sort through everything within the browser in Capture NX. Anything that looks good, I'll open in the main window to get a larger view at it. Any of them that's a keeper gets minimized to the bottom of the screen. RAM isn't an issue here, since I never have many that are keepers .

I'll open them up one at a time, and the first thing I'll do is adjust my exposure and use the black/white points in the program. I absolutely love these points, and it's the most important tool in my PP workflow to make my pictures look great. I'll check the double threshold box, which basically makes the entire picture turn either grey, black, or white. I'll adjust the sliders on the histogram to define the boundries of the highlights and the shadows in the picture, set a black and white point, respectively, on the spots in the picture, then voila, my brightness, contrast, and whatever else is set perfectly. It really cleans up the picture in regards to contrast and color. You can also use a neutral grey point, but I'm not that advanced into it yet.

I'll then crop/straighten the picture. Next up is to adjust white balance to my liking, adjust color mode, saturation, etc....typical RAW adjustments. I just go down through the list and adjust anything that the picture is calling out for.

Up next, if applicable, is to place color control points anywhere where I want to make slight adjustments to only parts of the picture. One recent example is a picture I took of my wife this past weekend. The picture was a quick snap, and turned out fantastic. I placed some control points on the skin of her face, and added some saturation and color to bring out some better flesh tones....all without touching anything else (gotta love those control points).

Last is some USM. Then the final result will be saved as a JPG within the Capture program, and then I go into Photoshop to add my trademark border, shadow, and signature.

Sometimes I'll see a picture that doesn't quite work as a typical photo, so I'll stick it into Photoshop and work with the Nik photo plugin that I have. I love the B&W options that plug-in has, as it's vastly superior to the plain B&W conversions of other programs. I may decide to dress up a photo with a high-pass filter also, to add some pizzazz.

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One of my favorite Photoshop tricks was learned from Daniel Diaz over at dpreview.com. Create a new layer on top, and apply a high-pass filter. Adjust the slider to create a nice contrast between the blacks and whites in the preview screen, but don't overdo it so as to have easily discernable halos around edges.

Go into adjustments, and turn your saturation all the way down to prevent artifacts in your high-pass layer. Then go into selective color, and set your black, white and neutral gray to where they are well defined (with black, move the bottom slider to the right, with white, move the bottom slider to the left). Then, make the high-pass layer an overlay, and the result should look pretty decent. Once I can get home and find that process (I'm at work right now), I'll update this with better specifics.

 

[rudder]

Manually becaue I do not know enough about photoshop. But lukcily my photography and been getting better and I find myself doing less PP.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Well, those who do it manually, what is it that you're doing?

highly dependent on the shots but heres the rundown

i import all my files into a folder labled by date, i dont use any programs to do this,
i normally view photos in Thumbs+ because i liek it and its a great previewing program and i can drag right from there into PS, Hurray dual mon

i then basicially preview all the Jpegs ( normally shoot jpeg+raw) and mark what ones i want to keep, i then go through the keppers, useing ACR to open them in PS,

in ACR i dont normally change much, a lil sharpening and some chanels adjustments
after i bring in into PS i normally go about getting teh color/tone right with curves, i do everyting in adjustment layers, sharpening, color, contrast,.... things like that

posting exactly what i do is impossiable because i pretty much never do the same thing

 

[montanafan]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Well, those who do it manually, what is it that you're doing?

Depends on the photo, but it usually goes like this - I copy them from the reader into a folder by year-subject-date onto the desktop. I have PS 2.0 and 5.0, but I use 2.0 most of the time for sports, which is what I shoot most often. I open each one, crop, run them through NeatImage if I was using ISO 800 or 1600. I try Auto Levels and if I don't like the results, I adjust levels manually and then the contrast if necessary. Then USM using Quick Fix if necessary, and if it's still not sharp enough I'll add 0.2 at 500% or adjust til it's right. I add an a to the number and save it as a max quality jpeg. Eventually I save the folders to a CD-R and then move them to an external hard drive.

 

[virtuamike]

My actions (CS2)

Duotone sepia *
- changes to monochrome via channel mixer, applies different color balance layers to highs & mids vs shadows

Desat baby cross *
- desaturates, adds yellow to the highs & mids and green to the shadows

Contrast overlay *
- contrast curve applied as an overlay, slight desaturation to balance

Grey overlay
- for non-destructive dodge & burn

sRGB convert
- convert to sRGB profile (for web display)

USM web
- 2 pass USM for web resolution

USM print
- 2 pass USM for print resolution (3000x2000 on up)

Flatten & 8 bit
- flatten image, convert to 8 bit, for saving as jpeg

* adjust opacity of group to taste for effect

As far as workflow goes, I work as much as possible in Capture NX before sending to CS2 (WB, exposure, basic curves, chroma settings, shadows & highlights, etc). In CS2, I apply toning if needed, dodge & burn, do cleanup, resize, convert, sharpen, and save. Nothing too fancy.

 

[ProviaFan]

I copy raw files using Explorer (or the Finder, depending on which OS is used) from CF cards into a "Photos\YYYY\MM\YYYY.MM.DD - subject" folder structure. Then I open Bridge and apply a metadata template to the entire folder, which automatically creates XMP files. I also rename all of the files a la The DAM Book to username_YYYYMMDD_NNNN.NEF, where NNNN comes from the original DSC_NNNN.NEF filename.

Everything gets imported into LR after this, and I proceed to make rejects using the grid, loupe, and comparison views. The rejects are removed from the list automatically, and I go back to consider the rest of the photos so I can make picks and work on them in the Develop module. After this, picks are exported as JPEGs constrained to ~800 px on the long side for web and email. If something is to be printed large, I'll export it as a PSD into Photoshop for further tweaking, typically loads of masked adjustment layers, all added manually, before sending a photo off to be printed.

 

[Rottie]

I use ZoomBrowser EX to transfer all pictures from camera to picture folder
I don't make any changes or rename filename.

Then on Photoshop everything is on default setting I usually do touch up, make some changes on background, channer mixer, clone stamp, spot healing some filters.

When it is done I use Easy-PhotePrint to make a final printout

Put some pictures of me on the wall.