Article by Christopher Foltz
Welcome to the last part of our Cityscape Guide. Today we will be looking at post-processing. This will include suggestions and some techniques I use on my photographs. This not an all-in how-to tutorial, just one way to do this and only one way I process. Before we start, this is the software and hardware I will be using. For software I will be using: Adobe Lightroom 4 and Adobe Photoshop CS5 (yes I am still on the old version). No HDR this time, with Lightroom 4 I only use it once in a while and I feel I get similar results with the 32 bit plugin from Photomatix now anyways, so a lot of the times I forego it and just go straight Lightroom. Photoshop is needed since we will be layering exposures and playing with levels some to get the correct look we are going for. Hardware wise I am using a Wacom Tablet. You do not need one, a mouse work fine, but I find when using layer masks, the tablet is amazing for control. If you are thinking of getting one I would suggest it, but once again it is not necessary. So let’s get started! The photo I am using is below. In this article, I am using a single image, taken hand-held to show my process. If you took multiple exposures then you can skip the steps where I create several exposures. The reason this was handheld was to get over the ledge and looking down to compose the shot I wanted. The photo was taken with the D800 with the settings as follows: f/2.8, ISO 3200, 1/20 sec @ 17mm.
The first step in the process is to look at our white balance. Here you can do some minor changes or major to the image. Some people like to create unique colors here, I like to try to keep it to what I saw. So I adjust accordingly, sometimes I use the eyedropper to pick a white point, but here I really just adjusted the temp slightly. I used the auto select from the drop-down then adjusted the slider slightly to get the photograph to look how I remember it. Now I have layered white balances before due to the wonderful Chicago orange glow not creating the right looking sky. This time I am clear, but you may have to do this with some shots. From here I adjusted the highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks accordingly trying to bring back some shadows and keep the sky from blowing out. I also added a little vibrance and used the clarity to create that HDR look slightly while keeping it realistic. The result is below:
Here is the part you can skip if you took multiple exposures, just sync the settings from this shot to the others and transfer them into Photoshop (left click, edit in, edit in Adobe Photoshop). So what I do here is my little quick trick (not really a trick, I am sure you can guess what I did), but all I do is create copies of the image with a different exposure level. For this one I went with exposures -.5, 0, +.5, and +1.0 to make sure I got versions with enough shadows and highlights. My +1.0 version:
I then take these four images into Photoshop. I then stack them and how I do it is stack them from darkest to lightest. I then go to the original exposure, turn off the highlight versions and create a mask as seen below:
This is where the magic happens. Grab a brush, I use a soft edge brush, and try to stay with a low flow and opacity and start painting in the shadows that I feel should be there. On this image, for me, the outlying parts of the city behind the tall buildings are too light in the original exposure, so I want to “paint” then back in. For this I am using both flow and opacity at 25%. I also slightly darkened the Lake and some of the clouds. I then clean up the horizon with a hard white brush that is small.
From here, on the top two masks I create a hide all layer mask (alt +add layer mask). My highlights layers will be focused on the buildings and bringing out details in their shadows. This can be a time consuming process. It will get quicker as you do this and always use your shortcuts, this saves so much time, especially brush size (ctrl [/] ) and back and forth between black and white (x). Here is after and before side by side. note: After I merge them to a new layer (ctrl+alt+shift+e), you can see this in the layers palette. Sorry I am a PC user, MAC users can look here for their shortcuts: http://phlearn.com/photoshop-keyboard-shortcuts.
From here I create a levels layer (I use both curves and levels though lately been using levels a lot). I use this to bring contrast back into the image. You can do this in Lightroom with the contrast slider but I like to wait until the layers are merged to do this. You can see below I brought the shadows up the edge of the start of the histogram and the highlights in just past the edge. This is what I use as a starting point and play around a little to get the right look. The with the mids, I usually darken it a little to create that contrast.
From here I add a vibrance layer and usually just go a little bit on them. I do this both in Lightroom and Photoshop a little to make the shot pop.
From here the image is pretty much done. Just some clean up, on this image I will have to do some noise clean-up since I shot at ISO 3200, if you shot at a normal ISO on a tripod you will not have to do this. I use Noiseware from Imagenomic, you can use whatever program you have. I love this tool cause it works simply, easily and doesn’t ruin the look of the image. My settings if you are using this are Luminance +20%, Color +20% on the level settings, and Luminance 80%, Color 90% on the Noise Suppression Channels. Now if you are using this on the web, I always do an extra sharpen. You can do this in Lightroom when you process it or now. For web I do it in Photoshop since I use their save for web function for internet photos. For my high res, after processing in Photoshop I send it back to Lightroom and sharpen it there and then export it as a jpeg. For the web, I create a merged layer (ctrl+alt+shift+e) and then go filter->sharpen->smart sharpen. You can see my settings below, these change on almost every image I use.
I then create a layer mask with this layer and paint out the sky since sharpening the sky creates noise which we do not want. From here like I said above, for the web I will resize it, I usually set the long side for 2000px, you can do whatever works for you. I know this is bigger than a lot of people do, but it is what works for me. I then use the file-> save for web & devices. Here are my settings:
There it is. There are lots of ways to process and it depends on the look you are going for. This is just one way that I work a photograph and uses the basics I try to use with my cityscapes. What do you guys like to use? Let me know what questions you might have. Is there something else you would like to know? I hope you enjoyed this series!
Here is the final result:
Part 2: Location, Location, Location
Part 4: The Post-Processing Blues
