Fine Art Photography - Editing Photos

When I took my photos, I decided to edit them in Photoshop. I decided I wanted to edit them rather than keep them as they were because adding colour onto photographs that already contain colour wouldn't give me the contrast I wanted in my photographs. I also wanted my pieces to focus on only one colour that would represent the emotion associated with the music that it gives to the subject when they listen to it. The colour would also represent the emotion that they feel if the song reminds them of a certain memory. 

To begin, I wanted to change the saturation of the photograph by -100, making it transform from colour to grey scale. I feel adding the grey scale will allow my piece to be in the background and not focused on when I add the colour onto the piece. It also increases the contrast and allows the person to focus on the particular colour, meaning that the connotation surrounding that colour would be obvious to the person viewing the piece. 

While looking back at the now grey scale image, I felt like the difference between the subject and the background does not stand out as much as it could, making the image seem quite flat. I also decreased the lightness of the image by -30 to make a lot of the highlights in the piece seem less white, further allowing more contrast when applying bright colours onto the photograph.  I feel like this doesn't give as much tone as I wanted in the photo, as I want a clear distinction of form from the subject to the lines and shapes in the background, while still keeping the image black and white. 

To combat this, I used the contrast filter in the image and turned it up to 100. 

I decided to turn the contrast up by 100 to have the tone, shape and form more clearly shown in the piece. It also makes the photograph less flat as the subject and background are more distinguishable in the piece. However, I feel that it still lacks some harsh tones such as highlights and shadows in some areas that can further increase the depth in the photograph. To change this, I will add more tone manually using the brush tool. 

With the brush tool, I created another layer and placed a big brush to make a big white circle in the area I wish to add highlights. I have chose to add just one big circle rather than drag the brush where I wanted the highlights so the blend of the brush remains. This is so when I add layering effects with the brush, there will be no line of the brush that will be seen, so it seems more like a natural light. 

I decreased the opacity to 65% so the light seems the most natural and subtle, but still creates a good contrast between the tones in the photograph. When the opacity was 100%, the light seemed unnaturally bright in the photograph as it created too much of a contrast. However below 65% I felt like it didn't create enough of a contrast with the tones in the piece. Now I have created a contrast with the highlights, to move forward I will create a shadow to create a contrast with the darker tones as well.  

Next, I used the same brush but I used black instead of white. I have used black in the photograph so it creates a darker shadow around the edges of the piece. I felt like the black around the edges makes the photograph have more depth and contrast, which stops the photographs looking flat in the background of my piece. 

I decreased the opacity to 53% so the shadows would be natural but also keeps the contrast in the piece. 

I feel like this photograph, compared to how it was has now improved for what I intend to do with them. 

The grey scale photographs will represent the memories of the subject, as many grey scale photographs are from years ago, so it gives the connotation that the memory is old (similar to a childhood memory, etc). The techniques I will place onto the photograph will represent the sensory triggers (hear, see) of that memory of the subject. With these techniques, I can show the emotions and the song of which creates that emotion for the subject. To move forward, I will find out what techniques I can use on the photographs to effectively convey my meaning as I continue to develop my work towards a final piece.