Photoshop opened up a whole world of possibilities for photographers and image editing experts by allowing them to develop automation within their work flow. No more so than in the areas of Portrait and Wedding Photography.
At the same time though, it created an unprecedented burden on many to learn this new technology and perform like a pro. The trouble has always been that Photoshop is vast in its possibilities, and the task of learning enough of its workings a huge undertaking. Often times, it has become too much for some, and they disappear back into their shells. At least for a while.
My personal experience of this, as a photographer is that I was young and excited and very determined, and years on, I am still learning. Through this I have learnt something about identifying the challenges of specific types of image production, and then how to discover satisfactory solutions to reproduce them easily.
When you look at a beautifully edited set of images from a professional photographer, you'll see that they have had a lot of image enhancements made to them. For most Photographers, this is the primary way to create a noticeable difference between what they offer clients and what the clients can do for themselves. It adds a distinctive value to their work that clients can appreciate and are happy to pay for.
This makes professional image enhancement a necessity for Photographers wanting a successful business rather than just a fanciful luxury.
The challenges with this for Photographers are manyfold. For example, using Photoshop for this process is a given fact. However learning Photoshop requires a long term commitment as it is such a vast piece of software. Once you have learnt the basics, how far should you go with your retouching? What level of editing do clients actually like the best? How much time should you spend on editing the images? How much should you charge? What extras should you charge for? What is now expected as a standard level? Just what are today's customers expectations?
Some of these questions you will be able to answer instinctively. Others will require time and the feedback of your paying clients.
For the majority of Photographers the toughest questions relate directly to the photo editing side of things. Fortunately we have Photoshop, and then perhaps even better, we have Photoshop Actions!
The development of time saving Actions in Photoshop opened up a new arena for photographers wishing to improve the look of their work and compete commercially. These Actions are incredibly useful in Wedding and Portrait Photography, where dozens of images need to be edited in a short amount of time.
Actions are small (usually) bits of software that tell Photoshop exactly what to do to an image. Each Action is named according to its function and they are activated by clicking an onscreen button. These actions and their buttons are listed in a palette (a movable panel) inside the Photoshop work area.
Actions are designed to perform repetitive tasks at the click of a button. The sort of tasks they cope with can be wide and varied. Typically though, they will do things like add soft focus to an image, sharpen an image, add warmth to the colours of an image, or perhaps even to resize an image.
To the portrait and wedding Photographer, this can be a godsend. For example, as a Wedding Photographer, you may have 150 images or more lined up, and they all need work doing to them. Lets say you want to sharpen these pictures, then increase the color saturation slightly and finally bring out detail in the midtones! Phew! Doing each one manually one after the other takes hours as anyone who has tried will tell you.
Photoshop Actions to the rescue! With these Actions, you open one image, press a 'Record Actions' button to then log the changes you are making. When you are happy with those changes, you then easily 'Batch Process' all the other images on Auto with those same changes while you go for a walk or have a cup of tea!
Naturally, there are many tips, tricks and techniques involved with all of this, but in reality, these Actions make it commercially viable to output superb images to all of your clients all of the time.
Unfortunately though, there is a problem with all of this. Regular Actions have their limitations. In spite of what I have said, to edit your images to a satisfactory standard can still take a huge amount of skill and time. Time is expensive, and when you have established the processes you like to use regularly for your own personal style, you will still (inevitably) end up bogged down in tedious repetitive tasks.
So what is the answer to all of this? It seems that a new developer has produced some highly sophisticated Photoshop Action sets that have just been made available. Thes go beyond our normal expectations of what Actions are capable of. Amongst other things, they can be adapted to your personal style of imagery. These Action sets can enhance your images almost on complete auto pilot and they work at blisteringly fast speeds too.
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