Welcome back! You have now had a week to play with the development of your raw files.  I hope you have a few ready to now jazz up in Photoshop (or other image editing software).  Today's blog is going to deal mostly with Nik filters.  If you have not yet downloaded and installed them on your system please do so.  You can get a trial version here: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

          The first thing I do with my images in Photoshop is to blow them up to 100% view.  I then go over every part of the image to remove dust spots, discolored pixels, and other distractions like very bright pebbles, sun spots glaring through leaves, bright reflections, etc.  I want to get the image free from these things before I start working with the image.  If there are any spots that are too bright I darken those spots (sometimes these spots can be quite large; part of clouds where the sun shines through, etc.) Next I start working the image with the Nik filters.

          The first Nik filter in my workflow is Dfine 2.  I want a clean image before I start working on anything else.  The nice thing about Nik filters is that they do not touch your original file; instead they create a new layer for you.  Once Define 2 has done its job and created your new layer I do two things.  Firstly, I delete Define's work using a layer mask on areas where I do not want the effect (anything where I want much detail).  In other words, I want Define only to effect water, sky, blurred areas, and so forth.  I then play with the Define's layer's opacity to weaken Define's effect to how I like it.  Define removes noise at the cost of sharpness and detail.  By changing the opacity I get to set it just right to get rid of the noise without cutting too much into the sharpness and losing detail.  This is also the reason why I want Define's effect mostly on water, sky, blurred areas, and so forth; there are not much detail there anyways.

          Next it is Color Efex Pro 4's turn.  This filter has so many sub-filters that it is not feasible to discuss them all.  I do not use all of them.  Neither do I use all of my favorites on every image; it all depends on the image.  Here are my favorites:

• Brilliance / warmth - I mostly use the "warm colors" preset if I am dealing with a dead and gray image;
• Contrast color range - I mostly use the "yellow / green" preset for landscape work (presuming the image has yellow and green colors);
• Foliage - If the image has lots of foliage;
• Graduated neutral density - For some images I darken the bright top part and for others I may lighten the foreground;
• Levels and curves - Here I typically use the "subtle S-curve" preset.  Here is a trick that is worth gold - at times these effects are just too strong for me so you can click on the little arrow to the left of "control points" which gives you access to an opacity slider. Now you can set the strength of each filter independently to your taste (I find this necessary with the Brilliance, and levels sections);
• Pro Contrast - I use the "dynamic contrast" preset.  Once again you may want to tone this effect back a bit with the opacity slider.
• Darken / lighten center - I use this to create a subtle vignetting effect.

          Now it is time for Viveza 2.  Viveza is used to make local adjustments (you can also use any of the other filters mentioned above to do localized adjustments using the "paint" button at the bottom right of the window).  I use Viveza to dodge and burn.  I typically add a bit of texture to the clouds (not too much).  I also use it to lift or darken shadows.  Some places may be in need of a bit more warmth. On rare occasions I may add a bit of saturation to only a few selective spots.

          Lastly I use Sharpener Pro 3.  I do not mess with it.  Once it is done I remove it's effect on water, sky, blurred areas and so forth using a layer mask.  Then I also bring its effect way down using the opacity slider.  That is it.  I now meta tag the file (search terms) and save it.  I save a 16 bit Tiff file and an 8 bit JPG (for uploading to the web and stock agencies).  Every file is duplicated on three hard drives for safety.

          Make your images shine,

Pierre