Postproduction: narrating with Photoshop
Once we have our raw photographs, it is time to select those that best fit our idea. In addition, we will use post-production to enhance the narrative of our photographic series.
-
Selection of images
In a photo shoot we shoot infinite times; however, it is essential to know how to select our final images afterwards so that they all complement each other, have power and are not repetitive. In this lesson I will show you all the photographs I took during the photo session and I will choose the four that best represent what I wanted to tell about my series — absence and mourning.
-
Basic settings in Camera Raw
It is not essential to edit a photograph, but post-production tools allow us to go beyond the image we get from the camera. On the one hand, post-production allows us to continue working on the narrative of the image through color, texture, image manipulation, etc., and on the other, it allows images to be endowed with an aesthetic that connects them and allows them to let's relate them as a whole.
In this first post-production lesson we will see the basic settings in Camera Raw to give our photographs a first finish.
-
Edit with Photoshop 1
In this lesson I will show you my editing process, my personal stamp, and I will give you ideas so that you can develop your own post-production styles depending on what you want to tell about in your images.
-
Edit with Photoshop 2
We continue working on the post-production of our photos with Photoshop.
-
Narrative editing
In this lesson I will teach you how to modify the edition made to give a new meaning to our photographic narrative.
-
The after
A narrative series may consist of a few images taken in a single session, or it may span the length of the photographs and time, but once we have completed it, that big question comes: what now? In this last lesson of the course I will talk about some options so that our narrative series goes beyond us and can reach others through websites, networks and other surprises :)
Tasks
-
Select your photos Practice exercise 4.1
The time has come for you to feel, breathe and decide, from the hundreds of images you have captured, those that will be part of your series. I recommend that, even if you now make a first selection, do not discard the others.
Sometimes we do not get it right the first time and we discover the best photographs later when reviewing the series again. Other times, we rediscovered images that at first did not catch our attention. It has happened to me! In fact, in the resources I will leave you some photographs that at first I discarded and that over time have seduced me :)
-
Edit your photos in Photoshop or Lightroom Practice exercise 4.2
Editing an image is optional, but if you think your photo series will be enriched with post-processing, go ahead! If you still don't have a defined editing style, it is a good time for you to explore, looking for an aesthetic that contributes narrative to your image and that helps you reinforce those ideas that you want to transmit with your series. Do not hesitate to share your doubts and questions in the forum :)
Additional resources
-
And now that?
In the last lesson I told you, among other things, about photobooks and fanzines. I leave you the links to two digital booklets that I made in its day with two of my photographic series and the poetic work of a wonderful group of poets.
• The first, Dientes de leche , contains the photographs of my series Sleeping Beasts .
• The second one, / mis bones , contains the photographs of the series with the same name.As you can see, the narrative series can be twinned with other artistic disciplines, especially with literature —or even cinema, or collage—. You can create very powerful collaborative projects with other artists, or create hybrid works in which you can develop more than one artistic discipline. Both sharing our photographs on our website and in networks and developing projects that go beyond the series themselves - exhibitions, photobooks, paper or digital fanzines, collaborations with other artists ... - will help us to grow our photographs, go more beyond us and take us with them to wonderful places. Who knows, maybe it is you who will teach a Domestika course in the future thanks to sharing your narrative series on Instagram :)
Additional resources
-
MP4
Montage with Photoshop
Here I show you how to make the montage of the photograph in which I appear twice.
-
ZIP
Before and after
I share before and after processing in our photographs.
-
ZIP
Discards that were not discards
As I said in the first practice, sometimes there are photographs that escape our initial selection and we rediscover them after weeks, months or even years. Here I leave you three photographs that I discarded at the time and that, when I returned to them carefully, have caught me. Hopefully they catch you too!
-
PDF
What to do with our photographs
Artistic photography is born from the desire to create. It is not necessary to take our images beyond themselves; they exist because we need to express them and inhabit them beyond our minds. However, all photography grows when it is shared with the other. During the course I told you about the importance of social networks in giving visibility to our work, as well as the possibility of making photobooks or fanzines with our narrative series. In this resource I will delve into what is sometimes so scary: the after.