Photoshop Fix – With Florabella Actions

Hello Photobugs!

We are all moved into our new place and getting settled in.  I have been posting a lot of photos of our new town and of Sonoma County on my food blog Shoots and Roots.  Be sure to head on over and check that out.

For Christmas I bought myself a couple sets of Florabella Actions for Photoshop CS5 and I have been thrilled with them.  These actions have streamlined my editing process considerably.  If you are just starting out with actions or with Photoshop I would recommend getting her Classic Workflow actions and learning those before buying any more sets.

Here is a quick Photoshop Fix with the Classic Workflow set.

To start, I shot this in RAW.  ISO 400, F/6.3, 1/320 sec with a 50mm prime lens.  It was a cloudless day in the late afternoon with the sun about 2 hours from setting.  I asked my daughter to stand out in the vineyard with her arms out looking at the sky like she was going to give it a hug.  This was the only shot I was able to get before she decided it was too cold to be out there and ran back.

The white sky is terrible, I know.  That was my fault in camera, so first I cropped out some sky and corrected the blown out parts with the Recovery slider.  Next I brightened the exposure a bit, darkened the blacks a little and increased contrast.  Editing a RAW image is very easy.  You basically edit the image to make it look the way you envision.  There is no right or wrong way to go about it.  Just keep a sharp eye on your histogram and make sure you aren’t blowing out anything you don’t want to.

After the basic RAW edits were finished I brought it into Photoshop.  From there I ran Florabella’s Classic Film action and decreased the opacity of that layer down to about 25%.  Then flatten.

After playing with the actions I settled on Deep Azure at 14%, Sweet Tea at 10% and Soft Warmth at 14% to get the color cast I wanted.  Flatten, sharpen and we’re done!

Best Wishes until next time!