Thanks to the change to a subscription system that costs £8.57/$9.99 per month, more photographers than ever before have access to one of the most powerful image editing software packages available, Adobe Photoshop. However, all that power brings the ability to get things wrong.
Let’s take a look at 10 of the most common mistakes made by photographers when using Photoshop.
Photoshop Mistakes: 01 Dodgy composites
The results of this type of Photoshop mistake make popular viewing on the internet and there are some hilarious examples of glamorous models appearing to have an extra leg, a spare hand or the ability to contort into unnatural postures.
There are also more subtle composite mistakes where elements that have been photographed in different lighting are put together with highlights on opposite sides and confusing shadows.
The lesson we can learn from these extreme examples is to take a good look at your starting images and create natural compositions.
Before you cut a person out of an image, check that you can account for all of their body parts and make sure that when you combine elements the lighting, colour and white balance sit together naturally.
SEE MORE: How to cut out people like a professional using the Refine Edge tool
Photoshop Mistakes: 02 Excessive retouching
Often referred to as ‘airbrushing’, retouching of portraits requires a subtlety that is sometimes missing from glossy magazine spreads and posters.
While most portrait subjects appreciate a little retouching to reduce the impact of blemishes or wrinkles, they are likely to feel insulted by a heavy treatment.
It’s easy to get carried away as you work incrementally, gradually improving small skin flaws, so it’s a good idea to keep looking back at the original shot to check how far you’ve gone.
Also, look away from the image from time to time and look critically when you look back, checking to ensure the image still looks natural.
Excessive skin smoothing, or a strong reduction in Clarity is a common flaw that can make skin look plastic and lacking in texture.
It’s helpful to carry out your retouching on a separate layer that can have the opacity reduced to allow the original image and texture to show through. A layer mask will let you do this selectively.
SEE MORE: How to retouch photos like a professional – 9 ways to polish off your photos
Photoshop Mistakes: 03 Clipped highlights and/or shadows
Many images benefit from the white and black points being set post-capture, along with a tweak to the contrast.
When doing this it’s important to not loose a lot of detail in the highlights or shadows by setting the white and black points too near to the mid point.
When setting the white and black points using the Levels control, hold down the alt key to reveal any areas that will be clipped.
SEE MORE: How to recover clipped highlight detail in your over-exposed photos
Photoshop Mistakes: 04 Over manipulating curves
Photoshop’s Curves control is a very powerful tool that lets you adjust the brightness of particular tones by dragging the curve up (brightening) or down (darkening).
However, as you pull the curve around it’s easy to loose tonal gradation and create large uniform areas in the image. Keep an eye open for this in the image and beware of creating a curve with flat or nearly flat sections.
SEE MORE: Photoshop Curves tool – 6 techniques every photographer should know
Photoshop Mistakes: 05 Over-saturated colours
The saturation in this shot is largely manufactured. Shooting in raw enabled us to increase saturation levels without much image degradation (the greens in the foreground). A coloured graduated filter boosted the sky.
Some photographers have a tendency to push the saturation control a little too high when trying to give their images a bit more impact.
In some cases this may be because they want one to boost one particular colour and in this instance they may be better off using the Vibrance control because this only works on colours with low saturation.
Alternatively, the individual colours can be adjusted using the Hue/Saturation controls. Whichever method you use, beware of pushing things too far and occasionally look back at your original image to see how far the image has changed.
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