Preparing your Images for Print & Web

This class goes into great detail on the following topics.

1. Learn from my mistakes through a review of the top mistakes made in printed images.
2. Explore the color calibration process and see why it is so important.
3. Get an in depth look at cropping and what are the standard sizes you would consider for your prints.
4. Discover through an overview of the various print materials you might want to try and what types of images look the best on them. For example, if you are doing wood, what would you consider, or how about for an acrylic print?
5. Hear my past experiences from trying different print companies and who are the various print companies I would recommend and who would I not recommend.
6. Explore more about what color spaces should you be working in and what are ICC profiles, do I care?
7. Learn from my demonstrations of how to best sharpen and resize your images using the very best print preparation methods.
8. Receive step by step demonstration of how I prepare my images for print.

Over ½ of this tutorial you also be able to see me working directly on images that participants have brought to workshops.

These things we will review will help you to re-evaluate old images, see some simple ways to correct minor distractions in others and give you greater confidence to fix little things that bother you in others. 

SOME of the topics to covered:

1. Discovery of the best practices that should be used to maximize your chances for success when it comes to post processing.
2. Learning how to use the warp Tool for subtle changes.
3. Creating more space in your images by expanding the canvas. How we can give our image a little more “space” when we don’t get it right in camera.
4. Fixing things with content Aware Fill. How we can use this to quickly replace parts and pieces of our images or to fill in things that are missing. 
5. Recovering lost details in our images with the clone stamp. Selectively using this to clean up the imperfections of nature or correct the imperfections in our capturing like a blown out sky.
6. Expressing yourself in your images by Dodging / Burning and selectively lightening and darkening to direct the eye subtly.

This class is not about how to use some advanced AI program to change your skies, or one stop presets that make your images look like magic.  It is about two programs that I use that dramatically improve my processes, increase the sharpness of my images, and enable me to print with more detail. 

This class will cover how I use Topaz Labs and the Nik Collection.  I am not sponsored / incented and do not have any business relationships with either of these companies.  I just want to share how this has improved my work.  Both programs have specials through the end of the year, so if you have been thinking about using or trying one or both, now is the time. 

What is Topaz Labs?  

Topaz Labs is based out of Dallas and has consistently been implementing very targeted AI (Artificial Intelligence) not designed to replace parts of your image with scenes that did not exist rather to reduce noise, sharpen, and help you to scale your images to larger sizes.

They do this through 3 main offerings.  DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and GigaPixel AI. 

• DeNoise-Eliminate even the most severe noise and recover crisp detail in your images.
• Sharpen-Recover from missed focus, lens softness, and motion blur to achieve tack-sharp images.
• GigaPixel-Upscale and enhance any image by up to 600% while perfectly preserving image quality.

What is the NIK Collection?

The other plugin I want to demonstrate and answer questions on is the NIK Collection from DXO.  DXO has been at this for a long time, selling their company to Google and then eventually buying it back.  There plugin pack has 6 main plugins. 

• Nik Viveza – Adjust Colors and tonality
• Nik Color Efex – Color filters and creative effects
• Nik Silver Efex – Black & White Photography
• Nik HDR Efex – Tone mapping
• Nik Sharpener – Output sharpener
• Nik DFine – Noise Reduction

Part of the reason I like both programs, is they work in BOTH Lightroom and Photoshop as plugins, but they can ALSO be used as standalone programs.  Meaning that you can use them regardless of your workflow process unlike many others that only work as a standalone program or in one OR the other. 

In this class we will review the following items:

1. Enabling these programs within Lightroom and Photoshop.
2. Image demonstrations for each of these add ins showing what they do and how I use them in my workflow.
3. Image review of what I look for and when I might the choice to use a plugin vs the native features within Lightroom or Photoshop.
4. How to work on an image within Lightroom, Photoshop, or as a standalone image directly in the program.