A Scenic World

There are Photoshop actions that will do the Dragan method for you. If, however, you want to customize it, this is the way to do it.

First, open your image.

Next, go to “Image” on the top menu and choose “Mode.” Select “Grayscale.”

Next go back to “Image,” “Mode,” and now choose “Duotone.”

Change the “Type” of Duotone to “Quadtone.”

You’ll have to choose the colors you want to use by clicking on each ink color and manually choosing it from the color-picker. For mine, I used the following:

Ink 1: R:95 G:64 B: 50
Ink 2: R:47 G:62 B:70
Ink 3: R:228 G:190 B:127
Ink 4: R:239 G:254 B:253

Important: You will have to name your inks before saving. Be creative! Don’t feel tied down to the Crayola crayon names.

Next, save your Quadtone ink mix.

Click “Ok” and go back to the “Image” menu at the top. Go to “Mode” and change the image back to “RGB.”

Because the image is probably going to be pretty dark, you’ll probably need to add a Curves adjustment. Go to “Layer” on the top menu, choose “New Adjustment Layer” and then choose “Curves.”

Click on the middle of the curves line and adjust accordingly.

Click “Ok.”

Now, for the tricky part. In the “History” window above the “Layers” screen, you should be able to scroll through the adjustments you’ve made. If you scroll to the top, you’ll see your original image. Click on the image and then drag it to the first icon below the list of adjustments. This should give you the original image in a new window called “Duplicate State.” If you don’t see your history, you may need to go to the “Window” menu at the top and check “History.”

Go back to the photo you were working on before (the one that’s in Duotone). Scroll back through the History of this image and click on the last thing you did (should be the Curves layer). Make sure you do this or you’ll lose everything you’ve already done!

Now go back to the original, color image. Choose the “Move” tool in the upper left hand menu and drag the color image on top of the Duotone image. You might have to adjust it so that they overlap exactly. If you’re having trouble doing this, try changing the opacity of the color image so you can see the Duotone beneath to line up exactly.

Go ahead and duplicate the color image by dragging its layer to the “Duplicate”icon at the bottom of the “Layers” menu.

Choose the top-most layer and change the blending mode (the drop-down menu in the “Layers” menu) to “Hard Light.”

Change the Fill % of the “Hard Light” layer to 25%. Just click on the arrow next to “Fill” located below “Opacity” in the Layers menu. A scale will appear allowing you to change the percentage.

Choose the next layer down (the original color image) and, using the blending mode drop-down menu, change it to “Soft Light.”

Change the fill % of the “Soft Light” layer to 80% using the same method above.

Right-click on any of the layers in the “Layers” menu and choose “Flatten Image” from the menu that appears.

Go ahead and duplicate the image again by dragging the layer to the Duplicate icon.

To sharpen this image, we’re going to use the High Pass filter method. There are MANY ways to sharpen; this is only one, but one that I find quite effective. Go to “Filter” on the top menu, choose “Other” from the drop-down list, and then choose “High Pass.”

There’s no hard and fast rule about what number to use. Just make sure that your primary items are outlined well in the preview. I used 5 for this photo.

After clicking “ok,” make sure that your High Pass filter layer is highlighted in the Layers menu. Then change the blending mode of that layer to “Overlay.”

Right-click in the layers again and flatten image one last time.

You should end up with a draganized version of your original photo.

The most important element here is black and white conversion. Digital, for the most part, just doesn’t do black and white as well as film. My friend Caerphoto does some excellent conversions with his secret way, but since I don’t quite have access to his software, I do everything in Photoshop.

Warning: this is a step-by-step, rather tedious tutorial. Feel free to jump to the summary if you want :)

Step #1: Open the picture you want to convert.

Step #2: Add a new adjustment layer - choose Hue/Saturation

Step #3: Pull the saturation to -100. Voila! Just kidding :)

Step #4: Change the blending mode of your Hue/Saturation layer to “Overlay.”

(Note: Sometimes I stop here if I want a dramatic color image. I’ve seen this called the “bleach bypass” method).

Step #5: Add a new adjustment layer; choose Channel Mixer this time.

Step #6: FIRST, check the box that says “Monochrome.” The default +100 Red, 0 Green, 0 Blue is terrible. CHANGE THIS IMMEDIATELY. Just play around until it looks good. Conventional wisdom says that your values should add to 100 (so -50 Red, 50 Green, and 100 Blue is feasible) but we shun conventional wisdom here at ascenicworld. Just do whatever you like.

You’re almost there! You really could stop here if, like us, you’re lazy. But adding that little extra can make the difference between a ho-hum photo and a ho-hum photo with pizzazz.

Step #7: Add the vignette. Do this by making an entirely new, blank layer.

Step #8: Choose the rectangle Select tool in the toolbar. Go ahead and draw a rectangle around the entire picture.

Step #9: Now go to the “Select” menu at the top and choose “Modify > Border.” You can set your border parameters at whatever you like - it depends on how large you want your border, how large your photo is, etc. This photo, slightly cropped, was 2415 pixels wide x 1666 pixels high. I chose a border that was 125 pixels big.

Step #10: Feather your border. Go to the “Select” menu at the top again, and chose “Feather.” This will make your border look less like a hard box with edges and more like a gentle gradient. I chose 100 - choose whatever you think is best.

Step #11: Choose the brush from the side menu, make sure it’s set to Normal and opacity 100 (and black), and paint all over your border.

Step #12: Let’s go ahead and flatten the image. Just right click somewhere in the layers and choose “Flatten Image.”

Step #13: Sharpening. This is a HOTLY debated topic on the dpreview forums I visit, but I’m going to show the simple way of Unsharp Mask today. I don’t always use this way, but I find it’s my most consistently used method. FIRST, make a copy of your flattened image. Just go to “Layer,” then “Duplicate Layer.” Make sure your top layer (the duplicate) is the one selected before proceeding. Then go to “Filter,” and choose “Unsharp Mask.”

Step #14: Choose your parameters. I’ve seem all kinds of numbers thrown out there for people to use. My advice: just use the preview window and choose what looks best. I went kind of crazy with this one since I wanted the rough edges of the beveled beads to pop.

Step #15: Add a layer mask to your duplicate, sharpened layer. In the Layers menu (bottom right hand side), it’s the third icon from the left on the bottom (the rectangle with a circle in it).

Step #16: Choose your brush again. You’re going to paint the layer mask. Painting black reveals the layer underneath (the un-sharpened one, in this case). Painting white puts the sharpened image back on top. We don’t want the ENTIRE image sharpened all crazy, just the beads, so I’m going to paint in black over all my skin, my sweater, my hand, my neck, etc. If something isn’t working right here, make sure you have the layer mask (the big white rectangle next to your sharpened image) selected rather than the sharpened image itself.

Step #17: Here you can see what my layer mask looks like. At this point, just right click in the Layers menu one last time, flatten image, and save.

Voila! Seriously this time!

Summary: Open.Hue/Saturation.Overlay.Channel Mixer.Vignette.Sharpen. Flatten.

 

I got a new haircut a couple of days ago, and I’ve really wanted to do a 365 photo with it, but due to my pathological need to stand in the rain, it really wasn’t happening until today. I figured that just kind of spinning in place with the camera pointed toward me was the way to go - 300 shots later, I’m not convinced that was the best method, but I couldn’t come up with anything else.

This was the best picture. It definitely needed some help though. So first I opened it in Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

The next step is to run an action I found when looking for a Holga simulator called “Old Toy Camera.” It’s made by flickr’s own Dave Ward and you can get it from his photostream here.

 

I added my own action that modifies Dave’s, which takes away the “Greyscale” and “Grain” layers (I was shooting at ISO 800, so I didn’t really need any more grain) and changes a few of the layers. Specifically, it changes the blending mode of the “Lighten Center” layer to “Hue,” tweaks the “Hue/Saturation” and “Levels” layers, and adds a “Color Fill” layer on top. The “Color Fill” layer’s blending mode is set to “Color.” (I would add a link to this action if I could figure out where to find it on my computer).

I didn’t like the color I’d originally used in my action for the “Color Fill” layer, so I changed it to something a lot softer by double-clicking on the original green color in the layer. Even though I changed it to a teal color, it doesn’t really make the entire picture teal because of the blending mode used. For these changes, it’s vital to be able to see the photo while you’re adjusting it.

I wanted the picture to be a lot more dramatic and lyrical, so I decided to add a “Color Balance” layer on top of everything else. You just have to go to “Layers,” “New Adjustment Layer,” and “OK.” First I chose “Highlights,” and used to sliders to add a lot more yellow and a bit more red. The for the “Midtones,” I moved the sliders slightly to yellow, toward magenta, and then very far over toward red. I left the shadows alone.

This left me with what I wanted. I right-clicked in the layers menu and chose “Flatten Image” to give me just one layer with the look that I had been going for. And all of this gave me this: