As much as we Photoshop geeks enjoy mucking around in Photoshop, the truth is, we don’t want to spend more time on any one image than is necessary: So many images, so little time!

So, the issue becomes, “How do I spend less time working on each image, while maintaining or improving the overall quality of my work?”

And the answer, fortunately, is pretty simple: Get it right in camera, first.

Ideally, we don’t spend any time in Photoshop fixing things that are wrong in the original image. Rather, we spend time enhancing an already-pretty-good image. There are few ways to ensure this is the case:

1. Avoid automatic white balance. Color correction is simpler and simpler with the tools Adobe offers, but why do it at all? Instead, take your camera out of AWB mode, and use the appropriate fixed mode… or better yet, use the custom white balance setting and a white or gray card to set balance for your shots. An Expodisc, while pricy, is a good alternative if you don’t want to carry a white/gray card in your bag or pocket. (Another good choice is the $20 DMKFoto 18% card, but if money is an object, you can’t beat the $6 Portabrace WBC card.)

Whatever your choice, getting balance right at the time you shoot saves time adjusting and tweaking on the back end.

By the way, I don’t want to say never use AWB. There are times when it is appropriate: Shooting “on the run,” vacation snaps, etc. But if you are planning a shoot in a controlled or semi-controlled environment, set your white balance manually.

2. Check the histogram. There is a lot of talk about proper use of histograms, and yet a lot of shooters still don’t bother checking them. (Perhaps they suffer from histogram fatigue, or just plain boredom.) A lot of the discussion is overly techie, dry, and just not exciting.

Others become “slaves to the curve,” obsessively chimping (checking the LCD display) not just every shot, but every histogram, after each click of the shutter.

Either extreme is avoidable.

Photography, along with music and a few other arts, is a joint left-brain/right-brain activity. You want the right brain (the creative side) to be engaged and enthused, but the left brain is needed to take care of things like shutter speed, aperture, focus and… histograms. When you chimp a histogram, or even an image, your left brain is taking over, and your right brain has a harder time being creative. You get technically perfect shots, that have no emotion in them.

So, the important thing is to understand what the histogram is trying to tell you. I think of the histogram as the hidden narrative for each photo. I also recommend you stop chimping — turn off your display if you can’t stop yourself — after three shots, and don’t chimp again unless you significantly change the lighting or composition. This will help your shooting become more right brained and intuitive as well. You will make mistakes, but that is part of the process of becoming a more intuitive shooter. You want your left brain functioning on auto-pilot, checking all the stuff to get your shots technically right, while your right brain goes wild.

Think of your left brain as a really, really good assistant.

But I digress. First, there is no such thing as a “perfect histogram.” That perfect curve — with a high point dead-center and low points at both left and right, just inside the minimum and maximum clipping zones — just doesn’t exist for any real image. Any image with drama is going to push the edge somewhere, and clipping at either end (loss of shadow detail, or blown-out highlights) can be part of a successful image, if it is desired, and controlled, by the photographer.

Put another way, every histogram is perfect, if it conveys the image the photographer intends for it. If it is important for the image to have shadow detail, you want to be sure the histogram isn’t pushed up on the lefts. If it important to have highlight detail, same for the right. If both are important to the success of the image, you want to make sure all data is nicely and wholly contained between the edges. If you can’t adjust the image to expose properly for all shadow and highlight data, then you are going to have to shoot two images and merge them, either manually or with HDR software.

Knowing that ahead of time will save you tons of time trying to save missing data in post.

3. Think about filters. Not Photoshop filters, but filters on your lenses. Although most of the typical compensating filter effects can be done easily in Photoshop, why not do it in camera and save the time? And there are some effects that Photoshop cannot do at all. For example, a polarizing filter heightens contrast and darkens sky — easily done in Photoshop, natch — but it also removes reflections. It will allow you to see through glare on waters and glass, to the detail on the other side. You can’t do that in Photoshop. Not easily and reliably, anyway.

Similarly, a strong neutral density (ND) filter lets you extend exposure time. The right filter can allow you to push even a daylight exposure into seconds… eliminating moving people from an architectural shot for example, or blurring moving water in a pleasant way. You could do it in Photoshop, but it could be time-consuming!

Same goes for a star filter… though a bit of a gimmick and certainly overused in 1970’s rock photography, I still like this filter for certain effects. What’s best is today, we can shoot a shot with the filter, and then take the same shot without it, and blend the two, allowing (for example) street lights to have stars, but not the headlights below them. Easy to do in Photoshop, while adding starsto every light in an image could be a pain.

***

That’s all for now. Those are just a few simple ways to spend time in Photoshop doing the fun stuff, instead of the tedious stuff. I’ll continue this series over time, so stay tuned.

David