INTERPRETATION AND REFINEMENT

RELEASING THE SHUTTER IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

I can’t verbalize the internal meaning of pictures whatsoever. Some of my friends can at very mystical levels, but I prefer to say that, if I feel something strongly, I would make a photograph, that would be the equivalent of what I saw and felt . . .

– ANSEL ADAMS

An integral part of making good images in these days of digital capture is the post-processing of your images after the exposure is made. In the “old” days of film, recording enough detail in highlights and shadows was a challenge. Now, digital processing software provides a vast array of tools we can use to interpret our experience and turn it into a work of art. DSLR cameras generally create images that hold a great deal more information in the high and low tones, but often appear too flat. Whether you’re using film or digital to capture the subject, the unaltered results are not “reality” or representative of the extreme range of tones the human eye can register. In addition, the unadjusted capture probably has little emotional connection to, as Ansel put it, what the photographer saw and felt about the scene.

The positive aspect of digital capture is that our images are likely to contain a wider range of detail, giving us more options creatively. The downside is that digital captures often require help to make them come to life, for the images to look like what we experienced.

First, it is important to use software that is sufficient to give you control over your images. Adobe Lightroom is an excellent management tool, and it is also full of powerful and easy-to-use features for processing your images. For many photographers, this program is sufficient for all their needs. I use a blend of Lightroom and Photoshop, depending what each photograph needs.

The lupine image shown on the previous spread was made in my backyard. It had rained the night before, and the sun was just coming up over the hillside. I used my 90mm tilt-shift lens, with the lens tilted forward to gain sharpness throughout the frame. I made layer adjustments using the Select > Color Range tool in Photoshop. The key effects of the layers used on this image are the separation of tones, especially in the shadows. The blacks were too light in the RAW file, so I darkened them while maintaining clear separation within the shadow values.

The feeling of light in the scene was that of glistening highlights off of the flowers and grasses. To maintain that effect, I pushed the highlights curve so that the whites were as bright as possible without losing separation of detail within those lightest tones. There is a delicate balance in high-contrast situations such as this where I wanted to convey the brightness of the sunlit flowers without deadening the shadows. My interpretation was to bring out the flowers in the shadows so that they were luminous like the backlit ones.

My interpretation of the pear tree in bloom on the opposite page was to process it in a high-key manner. In the RAW file, the tree trunk and branches are nearly silhouetted, but that was too dark for the mood I was after. In Lightroom, I opened up the shadows and made all of the tones lighter in general to give a stronger sense of the glowing light I experienced.

With all of the tools available today for postprocessing your images, there is little excuse for you to not dive into the digital darkroom. If you are using Photoshop and are not currently making master files of your favorite images, complete with individual layers containing each adjustment you make, then you are missing one of the greatest benefits of digital photography. Ansel often referred to his negatives as his musical score and his print as the performance. Your digital capture has all the notes for your image, and your digital darkroom is how you make those notes sing for a grand performance!

Pear Tree in Bloom | Fresno, California | 2018

Cypress Trees in Fog | Monterey, California | 2019