Previsualization versus Presets
Sunrise over Mono Lake as Seen from Conway Summit, 6:53 A.M., Tuesday, 18 October 2022. Canon EOS R6, RF 24-240mm IS USM at 62mm, wide-open at f/5 at 1/50 at Auto ISO 100, (LV 10¼). More tech details. bigger or fit-to-screen.
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I've used Photoshop every day since about 1995.
In Photoshop we go in knowing what we want to do, and just do it and keep doing it until our image looks as we intended — as we previsualized it before we pressed the shutter. Art isn't an accident; it's a very deliberate process of imagining something and making it so, just like all of Man's other creations from telephones to skyscrapers and automobiles.
As an artist I already know how I am going to make the picture turn out. I snap a photo, do whatever I need in software (if anything), and when what's on my screen matches what was in my imagination in the first place, I'm done. Everything I do (if anything) on a computer is to bring the image closer and closer to my original vision. I never follow the same path; it's always addressing the biggest variances first and fine tuning later as I get closer and closer to my original vision.
Newer software like Perfectly Clear, Radiant Photo and Skylum Luminar Neo seem to be all excited about presets, which they all seem to sell, along with presets and "packs" and libraries and actions sold by others.
I've never used canned presets and never quite understood their allure, and then it hit me: I know what I want, and do what I need to get my look with whatever software it takes, while more casual users may prefer to click at various presets until they get something cool purely by chance.
There's nothing wrong with trying a bunch of presets and seeing if they do something cool (in art there is only one rule: that there are no rules), but the point of this article is to point out that canned presets aren't likely to get exactly what you want and you shouldn't depend on or expect them to work wonders and make your pictures great all by themselves. It's unreasonable to expect canned presets to make magic out of most of our images; we can't just buy a Portrait or Landscape preset and expect it to create art for you.
I use the default settings in the programs above and tweak from there. If there's a preset you love by all means go for it, just don't stop there because every image needs something a little different from others.
I love Perfectly Clear, Radiant Photo and Skylum Luminar Neo for their core abilities to help me get my look faster, but I don't get excited by their (or any other) preset offerings.
Presets rarely will get you just what you're imagining. When I work an image, every image needs subtly different actions depending on how far apart are the look of the image I've got and the look I'm going to achieve. Presets won't get you all the way there, although if they have variable sliders they can help.
100 different canned presets will give you 100 different looks, but it's unlikely any of those 100 will be exactly what's needed for any particular image. The final work will need you to move sliders to get to the exact look you want. Most presets have sliders inside them, and that's good, but there are so many ways to manipulate an image that I prefer the direct approach rather than trying my luck starting with anything but the most general presets.
People who choose among presets until they like it are completely different from people who already see in their mind's eye what they want to create. It's all about imagination.
Creators create, while followers like or click what looks cool. It's all good; every gallery opening needs both artists and patrons. Every market needs both creators and consumers.
Artists create in our imaginations. Art comes from our imagination; we form it out of nothing, or close to it. Crazy ideas pop into my head, and I do what I have to to render those visions into tangible form. That's why it's called creation: it comes out of nothing.
Not that either kind of person is better or worse, but now I recognize the fundamental difference in the paradigms each sort of software model is embracing. If you're a creator like me then I wouldn't get excited about other people's presets, although most people do like them. I'll also save my own Photoshop Actions to complete repetitive tasks the same way each time, like resizing an image to a standard size and adding © KenRockwell.com with exactly the typography I want, or split-toning for a certain look. When I use my own split-toning Photoshop action (preset), I always tweak a curves adjustment layer differently for each image.
If you're still learning as we all are, before expecting canned presets to work magic, I'd suggest putting more faith in your own creative ability to imagine how each photo should look before you start, and then asking someone experienced how you can get that look with traditional tools like Photoshop (or Snapseed on your phone).
Yes, I love tools like Radiant Photo and Skylum Luminar Neo which help me get better pictures faster, but I'm running them in their usual modes and only use them on certain images when and because experience has shown me that they get me to my look faster than other more manual methods.
If you watched me work some images on my Mac, it's like a different piece of performance art for each image. I never do the same thing; every image needs different things and therefore I don't find canned presets very helpful except for my own for commonly done technical things, like resizing to common image sizes.
All I usually want are a masked curves adjustment layer or two, a slider for saturation, a vignette tool and one thing I've not found yet, which is a tool that selects shadow and highlight regions by magic and then gives me only two big sliders to adjust the level (tone or brightness) of each. Usually I use curves adjustment layers and masks since I have yet to find software smart enough to select these regions by itself and then have smart manipulation that lets me lighten or darken each area in a way that looks natural, with magic and intuitive detail recovery as HDR Merge (in Neo) can do with blown highlights or clipped shadows, all with only two sliders.
Selective burning and dodging (darkening and lightening) are critical to a photograph's message. We highlight (lighten) what's important, like a face or point of interest, and darken the background to make the subject pop and the image stronger and clearer. I don't know of any software that can do this by itself, although some software will find and lighten faces, and other software like Radiant is smart enough to lighten eyes and teeth by magic. For me, I use curves adjustment layers and very manually selected masks for selective adjustments, and many other programs makes this easier to do, but you're still on your own for selecting what to lighten and darken and by how much for everything other than faces.
I've been getting great images faster with Perfectly Clear, Radiant Photo and Skylum Luminar Neo lately, but always the final images are simply what was in my imagination all along. Better software just helps get me there faster.
Have fun!
This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use any of those or these links to approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.
Thanks for helping me help you!
Ken.
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