Pixel Training

Behind the Dark Knight Series

Recently I finished a retouching project called the Dark Knight with photographer Brian Bailey and I wanted to share a bit about the making of the series.

The theme for this endeavor was Parkour meets Gotham City. We wanted to showcase the fluid movement of Parkour with a backdrop of gothic cityscapes. Our goal was to transform common Denver landmarks into a dark and sinister world. I loved the idea of taking Denver and turning it into a dark cinematic backdrop for the renegade sport of Parkour so this was an exciting project.

New Lightroom 4 Features - RGB Tone Curve

One of the new features in Lightroom 4 (LR4) is the added control of the RGB channels in the Tone Curve panel giving you control of color like never before. Previously you could only adjust tone with the Tone Curve panel but now, hidden in the Point Curve, is the power to adjust each RGB channel individually just like in Photoshop. Before this added feature the only way to add color to your photo in Lightroom was with the Split Toning panel, which is a great way to add a unique look to your photo, but its no replacement to the power and control of the RGB curves.

Unique looking photos with Split Toning in Lightroom

As photographers were always trying to create unique looking images and a great way to add some flavor to your photo is with color. You can enhance the mood of a photo by warming or cooling it and the color is what gives a retro looking photo its nostalgic feel. An easy way to add flavor to your photos in Lightroom is by adding color with the Split Toning panel in the Develop module. You can use this heavily adding lots of color or just a hint to nudge the feeling a bit. This can also be done in Adobe Camera Raw with the Split Toning tab.

Using the Split Toning panel when developing your photographs will allow you to add your own unique look by adding color to the highlights or shadows or both. Below is a photo with no color added and the Saturation sliders are set at 0.

 

Tutorial: Using Curves to Warm a Photo

One of the fun things to do in Photoshop is to change the color of a photo to influence the mood and give it some flavor. Using the adjustments layers is one of the best ways to doing this and the Curves Adjustment is King when it comes to adjusting color in Photoshop.

Tutorial: Adjusting White Balance with Night Photography

This video tutorial is how to get rid of the orange sodium light color often found when photographing night city scenes using Adobe Camera Raw.

Color Cheat Sheets

When I started to adjust color in RGB many years ago I had a hard time understanding the color model and which color channels did what. I came from a print background where I did everything in CMYK and if I had to do color adjustments in an RGB file I would quickly convert it to CMYK just so I didn't have to wrestle with RGB. There were those who worked in RGB and those who worked in CMYK and they never mixed.

It wasn't until I had a RGB Color Cheat Sheet that I started to get a better understanding of color and faster at adjusting in RGB. I kept it next to my monitor and referred to it whenever I had to adjust color. It was a godsend. It allowed me to know which color channels I needed to move to get a certain color. I created an RGB Color Cheat Sheet to help you with your RGB color adjustments. Print it out and keep it handy for the next time your adjusting color. I've also added a Lab Color Cheat Sheet for those who are adventuring in to that color space too.

If you are from the print background and live in CMYK but would like to learn RGB its very simple. They actually work in opposites to RGB as you will see in the chart and if you were to write the letters down vertically you would have a simple color chart. Red is opposite to Cyan, Green opposite to Magenta and Blue opposite to Yellow. In the printing process they need to add Black (K) for contrast because of the impurities of the inks.

I have added the cheat sheets to the Downloads page. I hope you find it useful and a helpful tool.