Sometimes little things count

I rarely throw away images, even from years ago unless there is a pretty significant problem such as poor focus or studio lighting was radically wrong. The image on the left was from about 10 years ago looking down a heavily forested mountainside. As you can see the trees are very dark. I remember that trees being a very saturated green color growing along the mountainside. 

Obviously there are a few things that one could do but I wanted to be subtle and not blast the image exposure and have to go back again and tone down the guys tee shirt and probably the rock face. I also wanted to maintain the texture on the rockface without necessarily going back into photoshop.

So I made some very gradual changes to:

• shadows
• contrast
• vibrance
• saturation
• Black/white points

Each change brought be just a little closer to what I remembered, but I wanted to try just one more slider.

I moved the color grading shadows wheel slightly toward the green side. The combination of these gradual changes gave the trees back the full saturated look that I remembered. I could of course go back into the image in photoshop and tone down the tee shirt, since that could be still a little bright.

These gradual changes directly translate to other time saving steps in editing or during the actual photoshoot.  In the studio, gradually adjusting lighting, even one light at a time, can save you effort in having to make multiple camera adjustments or lighting changes mid shoot.  In editing portraits, a little editing is often enough unless you are trying for a very special high glam look (in which case a model choice is also important).  When using Lightroom presets, some are now adjustable much like the opacity slider found on the adjustment panel in Photoshop.

Sometimes "A little is a lot" and can save time both during the photoshoot and during post processing!