In this new instalment of "How I created my own free postprocessing class", we are going to talk about a rather controversial part of landscape photography: "retouching". This is what is most commonly called "Photoshoping" an image, i.e. transforming drastically a scene so that it doesn't exactly look like what it did in reality by changing the sky, merging exposures taken several hours apart or removing objects that look "disturbing" or unpleasing to the eye.
There is a endless debate among photographers: is it still photography? is it cheating? This is probably a topic for another post (if you are interested in the ethical aspects of photography, check this excellent video by Nick Carver). Here my intent is simply to make some tools and techniques available; then it is up to you to use your creativity and critical thinking to decide whether you want to use them or not.
Let's start with some "creative compositing" techniques; here we will use some blending technique we have seen in chapter 2 to make more creative images.
Another powerful way to use Photoshop consists in deleting annoying elements of your image. If you want to get rid of this ugly powerline or make this unidentified hiker disappear from your beautiful mountain landscape, the following playlist is for you.
Related to creative compositing and removing objects, a key skill to master within Photoshop is the selection of complex objects. The following playlist gives you some tips to achieve cleaner selections and flawless integration or removal of objects in you image.
The next and final episode of this postprocessing series will deal with some more specific styles of photography and adapted techniques to edit them, such as panoramic photography and astrophotography as well as some extra final tips to make your photos more impactful.
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