Introduction

Different photographers go from the plain, straight photograph as captured at exposure time to the print that hangs on the wall in different ways.

I thought it might be interesting to pick a single image and show the steps I've gone through to get the photograph the way I want it.  The photo I picked is the one shown above - an exposure I made in January, 2005.  The original exposure was made using a Linhof Technikardan 45s, on 4x5 Tmax-100 film.  The lens was a Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S 135mm f/5.6.  Sorry, I didn't record exposure details.  At exposure time, I had planned on cropping the negative down to the 2:1 aspect ratio you see here.

The photo as it is shown above is the final version.  Below, I'll start with the adjusted scan from the negative and describe how I got to that final version.

The Steps

Shown directly above is the raw scan, with the levels adjusted.  That is, I've added a 'levels' layer in Photoshop, and adjusted the sliders for the black point and white point so that the print has about the right shadow and highlight levels. 

Looking at this, I decided that I didn't care for the way the trees on the right looked - they were a little too blocked up.  To fix this, I added a curve layer, increasing the contrast in the low tones and decreasing it in the high tones.

This is the result of that curve adjustment.  You can see the effect of what I've done by moving your mouse cursor over the photo - when the mouse cursor is over the image, you're seeing the 'before', and when you move the mouse cursor off the image, you're seeing the 'after' version

Note that I've got a lot more separation in those trees, now.  That's good.  I've also introduced some problems - the sky is a bit compressed and light, and the grass in the foreground is now pretty bland.  That's ok, I'll fix those as I go along.  The first thing to fix is the grass

Now I've added another curves layer.  Again, mousing over the photo shows the 'before', mousing off shows the 'after'.  This layer has a mask, limiting the action of the layer to just the foreground grass. The curve layer is very s-shaped - compressing the highlights and shadows and introducing lots of contrast in the mid-tones.  It's surprisingly hard to see the effect in these small jpgs, but the overall effect is that the grass now has more texture.

I still need to fix the compressed sky, and I do that next.

Here's the fixed sky.  Again, I've added a curve layer, this time greatly increasing the contrast in the sky.  And, once again, the curve layer has a mask which limits the effect to just the sky.  In fact, this layer was created by creating a new curve layer, adjusting the curve until the sky looked right, selecting the layer in the layers palette, then using the paint bucket tool to pour black into the layer mask.  That gives me a layer with the curve shape I want, but a mask that excludes it from affecting the entire image.  I then make the foreground color pure white, select the brush tool, set the flow rate to about 25%, and paint onto the curves layer mask, so that I'm sort of 'painting' the curve onto the areas of the sky I want. 

Looking at this, I still don't like the trees, which are a still a little lacking in zip, especially the two dark Douglas Fir trees all the way to the right in the frame.

To fix this, I added yet another curve layer.  This time, I create a curve which ramps sharply up from the shadows, and slopes off gently into the highlights - I'm trading away highlight contrast for shadow contrast, and you can see that there's more separation in the dark fir trees.  There are no real highlights in that area, so the fact that I've compressed the highlights doesn't really show.  Again, a mask has been used to limit the effect just to the problem trees.

Looking at this, I decided that the foreground just didn't have enough snap.

Here, I've added a curve layer with a big S shape, trading a bunch of shadow contrast and highlight contrast to really open up the midtones.  Again, I've masked this layer to include just the foreground.  While creating the mask, I experimented with including the trees and excluding them.  In the end, I decided to include them, deciding that I wanted them about the way they appear here.  Note that this is not what I was headed for when I started!  Until I got the foreground about this way, I wanted the trees lighter.  It's ok to change your mind.

Next up - the foreground right at the edge of the frame is still too light.  I want it to ramp off a bit, so that the tonal gradient will give the photo a greater sense of depth.

Here, I've 'burned' down the bottom edge.  To do this, I've added a soft light layer, filled it with neutral grey, then selected neutral grey as the foreground color, black as the background color, and then used the gradient tool to paint a gradient right at the bottom.

I'm left with one last problem - the sky is not quite the way I want it.  It's just a little too smooth and featureless in the middle.

Another soft light layer filled with neutral grey, and then I picked black as the foreground color, picked a big brush radius and 100 feathering on the brush, set the flow rate to 4%, and painted on the sky, going over the dark bits to darken them more, then switching the foreground color the white and painting the lighter bits to lighten them.  It's pretty subtle, especially in the little jpg here.  In a big print, it makes quite a bit of difference.

Finally, it's time to add toning to the image. 

Here, I've switched to RGB mode, and applied a curve to make the image have a very pronounced warm tone.  Mousing over the image shows the effect before toning, mousing off shows the toned version again.

The Bottom Line

And now, just to give the complete effect, below we have the first version (raw scan with levels adjusted) and the final version (toned).  Mousing over gives the raw scan, mousing off shows the final version.

Are there other ways to get to this point?  Sure - and how you go about it is as personal as the process that led to the original exposure in the first place.