In this photography tip I am going to show you a little secret I use to get a little extra “punch” using the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer in Photoshop.
Time: 10 minutes
Steps: 7
Level: Everyone
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ABOUT THIS IMAGE
I have chosen an image of a Haitian girl praying. This was shot in an orphanage just outside of Port-Au-Prince a few weeks after the 2010 earthquake. I was shooting a mission group doing humanitarian work in the small orphanage. See the story – “Ten People Died Here”
Why I Using Photo Tips to Send a Message

LESSON

STEP 1 – Open Your Image in Photoshop
Here is the original image in Photoshop converted to BW. (See Convert to BW Tip)

STEP 2 – Map Out Areas of Contrast

Typically I subtract or decrease the contrast when working on an image. I map out areas of interest or greater contrast to areas of less interest or less contrast. Though I tend to map out the areas in my head I created a “contrast map” below to give you an idea of the process. The higher the percentage means higher contrast area. Because they are the main focus, the girls eyes are 100% and I work down from there. This means the eyes will have the greatest contrast in the image.

STEP 3 – Add Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer

-In your layers palette click on the Adjustment Layers circle.
-Now click on the Brightness/Contrast… menu item.
You now have an Adjustment/Layer on top of your original image. Remember any work you do on this layer will not effect your original image. If the layer is highlighted in blue then you are working on the correct layer.

STEP 4 – Adjust Your Contrast Level

-Make sure you have the Brightness/Contrast layer selected
-Select the ‘Use Legacy’ box
-Now slide the Contrast Level to the left. -35 or so should be fine.
NOTE: I prefer the Legacy setting just out of habit. You may choose not to select. For this tutorial though keep the box selected.

Your image has now lost much of it’s contrast. Don’t worry though. Since this is a layer, you are not hurting your original image.

STEP 5 – Magic Time…Start Painting

Now you are going to “paint” areas of contrast back into your image. Remember our main area of interest is the girl’s eyes. To start we are going to paint at 100% opacity over her eyes.

Select the “brush tool”
Size the brush smaller than her eyes. QUICK KEY (use [ or ] to resize brush)
Select “black” from your color selector
Make sure your brush is set to 100% Opacity. QUICK KEY (hit “0″ key to set opacity to 100%)

Now paint just the girls eyes. You should see her eyes just like the original image. When painting on the adjustment layer you are essentially erasing away the adjustment layer. So at 100% brush opacity you erase 100% of the layer away.

Next set your brush to 90% opacity. QUICK KEY (hit “9″). Paint over her face.
At 80% paint her hair, neck and upper body, and so on.
Look over the “map” we created and finishing painting the image.

STEP 6 – Finishing touches

The final step is to touch up any areas that may stand out. Try to get a good blend throughout your image. I try to keep the effect subtle but since you are working on an adjustment layer you can get as crazy as you like without hurting your original image.
Below is a Before and After image of the photo. I left the effect a little strong so you could see the difference. On the final image I would dial the contrast back a bit using the opacity of the Brightness/Contrast layer.

BEFORE

AFTER

STEP 7 – SUPPORT THIS SITE
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Learn more about “Why I Shoot Humanitarian Photography”

RESOURCES and TOOLS
Below are some of the tools used in the tutorial. You can use a mouse but a tablet helps you to be more precise in your work. I prefer a the WACOM tablets.

This is more of a survey rather than a Photo tip.

I guess most people will answer, “A camera!”. Well that’s a great answer but I am looking for items you might not expect to find in your typical camera bag. Yes, various lenses and batteries are also good answers but look in your bag and tell us what uncommon items you have and why you have them. By the way if you are a photographer shouldn’t your camera be out of the camera bag?

Unusual items in my camera bag:
2 trash bags – protection from the rain
ziploc bags – carry old batteries and weather protection
First Aid Kit – obvious
black and red electrical tape
Honey and Oat bars
Small HD video camcorder
towel or old shirt attached outside bag – hey it gets hot in the Philippines
pen,pencil,pad of paper
small led flashlight or two

What’s in your bag? Comment below.

There are many ways to convert your color images to Black and White in Photoshop. In this easy tutorial I will explain a wrong way and one of the many right ways to quickly convert your color image to a great black and white image. To capture the mood I convert many of my humanitarian photographs to black and white using the method in this tutorial.

Man in Street - Jamaica | Converted using the Channel Mixer in Photoshop

The Wrong Way

The wrong way to convert from color to black and white is to simply convert your color image to a grayscale image. This is done by clicking Image -> Mode then selecting Grayscale in Photoshop. While I am sure someone can argue that there is a reason you would go this route, I will say that 99% of the time you will get better results using other methods.

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A Better Way – The Channel Mixer

A better way to convert your color image to black and white is using Photoshop’s Channel Mixer. As I stated earlier, this is just one way of many, but I use it often. It is really easy to get great results by just adding the Channel Mixer as an Adjustment Layer. In your Layers Panel click on the small black and white circle at the bottom of the panel. This will open the Adjustment Layer menu. Select Channel Mixer.

Now you should see the new Channel Mixer adjustment layer in your Layers Panel. Using this layer you can adjust the Red, Green, and Blue Channels of your image. The great thing about adjustment layers is you are performing nondestructive editing. This means you are simply editing on a “layer” above the image without editing the original.

Now for the magic. There is a little check box called Monochrome in the Channel Mixer adjustments, select the box. Your image went to a shade of gray right? Now you can use the Red, Green, and Blue channels as different “mixers” for your new Black and White image. For images with people I will crank down the red to 60-70%, drop the green to 10%, and then do my final adjustments by cranking in the blue channel. The possibilities are limitless.

Once I get the Channel Mixer set to my liking I will then throw in the Brightness Contrast layer to fine tune the image. I will cover fine tuning in another post.

NOTE: Remember you are only working on an Adjustment Layer. Your original color image is still underneath the Channel Mixer Layer. Just turn off the Channel Mixer Layer and you will see your original color image.

I’m sure one can make an argument for simply converting your image to Grayscale but I have yet found a reason when a tool like Photoshop’s Channel Mixer offers so much flexibility.

Below are three images. The first is the original unprocessed image. The next two are a Grayscale conversion and a Channel Mixer conversion.

As always I would love comments or post your images using this Photoshop Tip.

Enjoy!

Original Image

Original Image

Standard Grayscale Conversion

Grayscale Version of Image

Using Channel Mixer plus Brightness Contrast Layer

Channel Mixer version

My Bag on the island of Jolo, Philippines.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to several different countries on humanitarian photography assignments. On long trips I bring a large camera backpack and a laptop backpack. On each trip I make little refinements to what I pack in each bag. I also take a smaller “on location” camera bag, but that gets packed in checked baggage. In this article I’ll tell you about my current configuration of my camera backpack I carry on the plane.

Choosing the right bag
Your ‘walking around’ or location camera bag, if you use one, may not be the best for travel on a plane. I have the largest bag or backpack possible that will fit under a seat. I say under the seat because many US domestic planes overhead bins are pretty small. International flights usually have larger overhead bins that will usually hold your ‘legal size’ camera backback. If you do have a domestic flight before an international, yes you may be cramped for an hour or two, but it’s better to cram as much of your gear into that bag rather than it disappear under the plane.

I use the Lowepro CompuTrekker Plus AW to carry my gear on the plane. I can fit a Nikon D700, Canon HD
video camera, shotgun mic, a smaller video camera, video and camera batteries, and a camera battery charger. I also carry memory cards and MiniDV tapes in the pouches. I use a pair of socks to carry the video batteries and protect the shotgun mic. I do not carry a video battery charger in this bag because I can charge straight from the camera.

Basically if my luggage is lost or late I can still shoot and have an extra pair of socks!

The CompuTrekker AW does not have wheels so it’s pretty heavy to carry through airports but I found the wheeled version is a bit larger and would be tough to fit under the seat.

Practice!
Guess what? At some point you will probably have to pull out all your gear at a security checkpoint so be ready. I pack my camera backpack the same way every time, and, make it easy to see items in my pack by just unzipping. Most of the time they leave the cameras alone and have a look at the video batteries in the sock. Anyway, the point I am stressing here is make sure you can pack and unpack quickly. Practice it a few times at home before leaving, you will thank yourself.

I mentioned that I also bring a laptop backpack on the plane as well which I will cover in the next article. I will point out though that I pack my camera backpack so that I do not have to get to it on the plane. I store it and leave it until the flight is over. You might ask why would you want to get in either bag. Well on a 14 hour flight I do cram a few things in my laptop bag to make the flight….uh…. manageable.

Get a system down and refine it on each trip. My system certainly changes. If you are serious about your photography when traveling make sure you have everything you need to shoot in your carry-on camera bag.

Feel free to leave any travel tips you’ve come up with in the comment section.

Happy travels.

In tight quarters hanging packs from the bed is the only choice!

Me and Michael's (my helper) gear for 3 days on a military base in the Philippines. All gear seen came with us as 'carry-on' on a helicopter to the island.

Lightning Photo Tip #1 – Don’t get struck!

Be sure to play it safe when shooting lightning pictures. I’ve had some close ones over the years and I quickly packed my bags and left. A good idea is to scout out places to take lightning or storm shots. Also note what’s around you so you can try to create a good composition for your photo. Remember it will be dark when you are shooting and the lightning will act like a flash for your image.

You should also note the directions you can shoot as in, North, South, East or West. With online mapping and weather radar you can easily track storms and predict your shooting location.

In the image below I went to one of my locations and knew the direction of the storm from radar. Though you never know when or where lightning will strike you can do some planning, guessing, and with a little luck get a great picture.

Lightning over Gulf of Mexico in Destin FL

More Lightning Images on Flickr

DISCLAIMER: Hey I gotta say this. Shooting lightning pictures is dangerous. Shoot at your own risk.