Quick Fix: With The End Result In Mind

Thanks to digital, I have total control over my images—and so do you. If I couldn’t see the effect of exposure settings on the LCD and make adjustments on the spot, I’d have a lower percentage of keepers. What’s more, I couldn’t make enhancements—creative decisions would be left to a photo lab, as it was when I first got into photography. And don’t forget the power of a RAW file, from which you can recover up to one stop of an overexposed area! Here, I’ll share a few enhancements made using Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Here’s my straight-out-of-the-camera shot of a marine iguana in the Galapagos (left). I used a full-frame 15mm lens set at ƒ/8 on my Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II. The ultra-wide lens got the animal, which was only a few inches from my lens, in focus, as well as the background.

Step One
Cropping the photo is always the first step in my image-enhancement process.



Step Two
Here, I used Shadow/Highlight to tone down the sky and the other bright areas of the scene.



Step Three
To warm up the picture (color temperature), I created a Saturation layer, rather than working on the background layer. Creating an adjustment layer is easy. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer and select the desired adjustment layer, Hue/Saturation in this case. The Hue/Saturation dialog box opened and I increased the saturation by moving the Saturation slider to the right.