Have you ever seen beautiful old photographs with a blue tone and wondered how you could create the same? A romantic cyanotype photo can look so stunning yet is so easy to do digitally. Let me take you through the process and have you creating an amazing cyanotype photo in minutes. It’s a bit messy but oh so worth it.

Traditionally, a cyanotype photo print is usually created using ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide chemicals. The original process was invented by an astronomer, Sir John Herschel, around 1839. Of course, this was and still is a very messy process requiring coating paper with chemicals. This paper is then allowed to dry and then contact-printed (using your negative) onto the paper using a UV lamp or sunlight. It is washed and then dried. Lots of trial and error and not to mention cost. I want to show you how to get the same result digitally. It would be a shame however not to get your hands a little dirty so the first part of the cyanotype photo in digital will still require a bit of mess.

Some totally useless geeky info

Copies of architectural plans were named ‘blueprints’ because they originally used the Cyanotype process resulting in blue prints – now you too can impress your friends…

The preparation process or, as I like to call it, “Woo-hoo – I’m 5 again”

Ink, heavy duty paper and a brush is all you really need. I poured some ink onto the paper and painted it, making sure not to be too neat with the edges. When it had dried, I scanned the painted page in at a high resolution. I use 600 ppi at A4 as this translates into 300 ppi at A3 size. You can always photograph the paper if you don’t have a scanner. (Just make sure the camera is parallel to the inked paper.)

Cyanotype photo process – preparing the paper

Let’s get toning

While traditionally a cyanotype is Prussian blue and white, you can also achieve a slight yellow in the highlights by bleaching and toning. This split tone look is the one I am going for here.

Open your chosen image in either Adobe Photoshop Raw, Lightroom or Affinity Photo. I will be demonstrating in Photoshop Raw.

Original Image

After you have got your settings for lightness, darkness and shadow detail correct, you will need to click on the black and white photo button. Of course you can then still lighten and darken certain areas with the Black and White control sliders.

Converted to Black and White

Next step is to choose the toning tab. I added a small amount of yellow in the highlights, and more blue in the shadows.

Split tone sliders in raw for cyanotype colour

With Cyanotype photo colour tone

Creating the digital painted frame look

Open up the scanned image in Adobe Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Bring in your toned image. Drag or copy/paste the scanned inked paper onto the toned image.

Paste Painted paper scan onto cyanotype photo

Now for the magic … set the paper layer mode to Screen. Ta-da. A beautiful cyanotype photo with a hand painted paper edge replicating hand-made sensitised paper.

Set layer to screen for Cyanotype photo emulsion look

Useful Geeky Info about Modes

Simply put, the Screen mode hides the black on the layer. It is the opposite of Multiply which hides the whites.

Cyanotype photo with emulsion paint effect

A Reversed Background

The reversed background is nothing like a Cyanotype photo but still quite cool. If you wished to have the image look like it was painted onto a black background you could invert the paper layer and then set the paper layer mode to Multiply.

Original paper layer as used in cyanotype print

Paper layer as used in cyanotype print inverted

Convert mode to multiply for cyanotype on black paper

Variations on the theme

This Cyanotype photo technique has so many variations when it is done digitally. Why not try painting on various surfaces to get interesting textures on you photographs. Create other interesting split tones or even use it on full colour images. As always remember. A Black and White toned image will not rescue a boring photograph but a good photograph can be made even better with sympathetic tones. Mostly, have fun.

The post Create a Digital Cyanotype photo without too much mess appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Photoshop shortcuts can really speed up your workflow, so we’re going to share our favourite top 10.

1. The Tab Key

The tab key will show and hide all of your panels and toolbar. This is one of those Photoshop shortcuts that if you don’t know about it and you hit by mistake, you will wonder where your tools have all disappeared to! Well tab again and to bring them back!

2. Shift and Tab

Shift tab is really cool because if you hold down the shift key and then press tab you can hide all of your panels but not the tools, so you can work away with your tools then just shift tab to bring back to panels. If you’re like me you’ve got panels all over the show and this is a really easy way of working.

3. F key

No Ctrl or Cmd. No Alt. No Shift. Just the letter F! What the F key does is, it changes your screen mode so you can go between standard screen, full screen and full screen without the menus or panels. Really useful!

4. The Square Brackets

Left [ = smaller brush
Right ] = larger brush
Just keep hitting either one and you will change your brush size appropriately.

5. Shift and the Square Brackets

Shift and [ = Makes your brush softer and
Shift and ] = Makes your brush harder
Just hold down Shift and keep pressing the left or the right square bracket to make your brush softer or harder.

6. Ctrl Alt click and drag (Mac) or Alt Right Click and drag (PC)

This sounds confusing but is a really handy shortcut for once again, making your brush larger or smaller, if you drag left and right, or softer and harder, if you drag up and down. Now you should see a red preview of the brush hardness and size but if you don’t, don’t worry about it, it’ll still work – (it’s to do with the graphics card on your machine as to whether you can see it or not).

7. D key

Now most people know that if you use Ctrl or Cmd D, it’s for deselect in Photoshop, but if you just press the D key by itself you will be changing your foreground and background colours to the default which is pure black and pure white this is very useful if you’re going to be working on layer masks and you need a pure white or black.

8. X key

Now of course if you are working on a layer mask you want to flick between black and white really quickly so that you can either show or hide the layer. Now what X does is it flicks your foreground and your background colours over really speeding up working and erasing and showing on masks.

9. Cmd + or – or 0 (Mac) / Ctrl + or – 0 (PC)

These are your zoom-in, zoom-out and fit to screen shortcuts for Mac or PC.

10. Spacebar

By holding down the spacebar you can change whatever tool you’re in, except for the Type tool into the hand tool so you can move around on your document. This is really good because those little buttons on the right hand side at the bottom for scrolling around are just so unbelievably annoying!

Although these are the Photoshop shortcuts, a lot of the Affinity Photo shortcuts are similar. See our blog post on Photoshop vs Affinity Photo.

For tons more tutorials on Photoshop and other Adobe graphics software, see Red Rocket Studio tutorials.

Go forth and give the software a thorough thrashing and don’t forget enjoy it!

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The problem with the Vatican Museum Staircase photography is people. From opening time until closure during the summer, there is a constant stream of tourists descending this beautiful architectural masterpiece. A plethora of photographers at the top are also trying to get the same image. So what do you do?

 Drag the centre slider to see Before and After.

Initial thoughts and photography

My initial thoughts when photographing the stairs was to have an empty graphical spiral however this has been done so many times I felt I would have just another tourist photograph. Still, I went ahead and made the images. I created several images from the same viewpoint as I knew I could ‘clone’ people out from one image onto the other. I hand held the camera – took a photograph and then waited until people moved before taking more. This I did a few times until I was sure I had all the staircase areas without people.

Whilst assessing the images on the computer later, I got a really, pleasant surprise. On one of the landscape format images, was a small child on her own with brightly coloured clothing that complemented the staircase so well. I hadn’t noticed her while watching the crowds on the stairs. I had to include her as I felt this would just lift my image away from the usual ones.

Doing the basic Raw

The first thing was to get all the images to be used into Raw. Once in you adjust the basic settings so the exposure, contrast and colour looked as I envisaged it, and all the images matched.

Before edit in Raw

After edit in Raw

There was a very strong light to one side. To fix this I used an adjustment gradient and changed the exposure until the area matched the rest of the image.

Here is the uneven lighting that needs work

Use the Adjustment gradient in Raw to even out the lighting

I went into the main image and adjusted the various areas with the adjustment brush to bring out more details in the shadow areas, and increase contrast and vibrancy on the ironwork. There is no magic-method that I use here. I just adjust areas as I feel, until it looks like I want it to look.

Use adjustment brushes to lighten or darken various areas to taste

Into Photoshop for some copy and paste

Once the Raw work is done I opened all the images in Photoshop and copied the staircase areas from the donor images and pasted them to cover the tourists. I usually copy more than I need and add a layer mask to hide the excess.

You can see the girl on a separate layer with a layer mask

I then copied the girl from the landscape image and matched up the stairs. No easy feat as they were taken from different angles.

• A quick tip: When you are trying to transform layers to match others, set the mode of the top layer to difference. When the 2 layers are exactly aligned they will turn black.

Is it real?

I am so very pleased with the final image as it was slightly different to all the other images of the Vatican Museum Staircase that I have seen. Even though it was a composite image I don’t feel as though I have cheated, as photographing a tourist attraction during opening hours can be a nightmare. However, I am aware that many people will not see this as a real photograph.

At the end of the day you need to decide. Who am I photographing for? In my case all of this Vatican Museum staircase photography is for myself and so as long as I’m happy with it, that’s all that matters.

Do it for yourself and forget what everyone else thinks!!

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The Tombs of the kings before and after image is of a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 2 km from Paphos Harbour. Many of the tombs date back to the 4th century BC. It has nothing to do with kings! The name comes purely from the magnificence of the tombs.  There are a lot of ruins obviously, some more interesting than others. But if you go down underneath some of them there are some amazing images to be made. One in particular, with lots of pillars, with the golden light coming through was beautiful. We visited the site late in the day so the light was streaming in at an angle.

Drag the centre line to see the difference

The problem image

The problem with the scene is that I wanted a bit of detail in the bright sunlit areas as well as in the darker bits. Most cameras have a range of light that the sensors can record. This is known as the camera’s dynamic range. Using Raw you can access a greater range of light, than photographing as a jpg will give you. I exposed my image so I definitely had a bit of detail in the highlights and then ‘pulled back’ the details from the shadows in Adobe camera Raw. I used a manual setting on the camera so as not to overexpose the highlights as the camera can lie to you about exposure.

To create more atmosphere, we kicked up some of the dust so it was hanging in the air. Unfortunately this didn’t give us the ‘correct’ looking light streaming through the haze so we added it in later in Photoshop.

Let me show you the steps we took with this Tombs of the Kings before and after tutorial. It is done in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop but could easily have been done in Affinity Photo. Click the link to see our favourite Photoshop Shortcuts.

Into Camera Raw

Original out of camera image before adjustments

So straight into Adobe Camera Raw. (Quick tip: Instead of double clicking an image to open it in Raw try right-clicking it. This allows you to choose to open it in the Raw file converter without waiting or Photoshop to open first.)

Setting the base adjustment

Adjusting the exposure is not the way to get effective results

If you just adjust the exposure you will find that the highlights also get lighter. This is similar to what would happen if your camera was set to auto and the camera would try to lighten the large dark area.

Use the Highlights, Shadow, Clarity and Vibrancy sliders to set a base exposure

Instead of adjusting the exposure a lot, I pulled the Highlights slider down to darken the lighter areas, the Shadows slider up to lighten the darker areas, and the Clarity slider up to to get as much texture in the rock as possible. Finally I added lots of vibrance to bring out the colour of the rock.

Selective lightening with the adjustment brushes

Go to the adjustment brushes tab along the top of the screen (it’s a brush icon) and paint an area you wish to adjust. I painted a large area (where I put the green circle) and then changed the settings on the right until I liked what I saw. All the white dots you see are where I added a new brush adjustment. The red dot in the red circle is the active brush.

Adding your own lighting

I was still not happy with the light rays, so I decided to create my own. I will be dedicating a full tutorial to this technique but basically I made a selection where I wanted the rays to be, added a solid white adjustment layer and then feathered the mask. Finally I reduced the opacity of my new ‘ray’ so it’s barely visible.

Final Image

Tombs of the Kings in Cyprus

So to sum up the edit of the Tombs of the Kings Before and After image.

• Photograph in manual
• Do your initial Raw edit with the whole image in mind
• Use adjustment brushes to ‘dodge’ and ‘burn’ areas until the image you envisaged appears.
• Possibly add extra lighting you were unable to capture in camera.

I was really happy with the final result as it was just how I had envisaged the final photograph.

The big question is! Is this a “cheating” image, as I added in the rays that were not visible? Well… I think that it reflects what I saw when I stood there but you might think differently.

The post Tombs of the Kings – Cyprus – Before and After Image appeared first on ImageExplorers.

When you are looking out for editing software the usual choice is Adobe Photoshop. The industry standard is everywhere and image manipulation is now even known as “Photoshopping”. But what are the cheaper options and are they any good?

I have put together this blog to give you some more insights on the main competition that photoshop has, namely Affinity Photo. In this Photoshop vs Affinity photo blog, I would like to show you the pros and cons of each so you can have a clearer idea of which to invest in.

Software Costs

You might have noticed I used the word invest in the previous paragraph rather than buy. The reason is that whatever software you buy, you still have to invest in other things. It could be training courses cost, new hardware to run the power hungry app or your time learning the software. The actual cost of the software is just one thing to consider.

Photoshop is by far the most expensive and has made a lot of people angry by going to a subscription model. This is when you pay monthly to ‘rent’ the software. If you don’t keep paying then your software will stop working.

• Adobe Photoshop is £9.98 per month – This will go up every year or so.
• Affinity Photo is £48.99 – forever including all updates.

Other things to consider in the Photoshop vs Affinity Photo debate

• There are far more training courses (paid as well as unpaid) available for Photoshop.
• Photoshop is the industry standard so if you are using it professionally you can work at most places. Most companies will have Photoshop as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite as they will also use Illustrator and InDesign or other video editing app like Premier pro or After effects. Far fewer companies use Affinity Photo. This however, will probably change over the next few years as Affinity introduce their version of InDesign. They already have a version of Illustrator called Designer.
• Photoshop is bundled with Lightroom and Bridge.

The software itself

Both programs will do the job and they both have similar functions for photographers. Raw file corrections, Layers, Cut outs, masking, selections…. it’s all there. If you are confident in one program you should be able to find your way around the other without too much of a problem. Adobe Photoshop has got some extra abilities like handling and editing video and 3D, but Affinity has a slightly easier-to-navigate interface.

Raw panel in Affinity photo

Raw file converter in Photoshop

Other Versions

• Adobe sell a cut down version of Photoshop called Elements. It’s a one-off payment of £86.56 but upgrades are charged for. Elements is like Photoshop but lacks CMYK support so if you’re doing anything for commercial printing then don’t even think about it.
• Affinity has Affinity Photo for the iPad. This is a very well thought-out app with everything you could wish for on your iPad including Raw support and CMYK. (I will be looking at this in a later post.)

iPad affinity photo screens showing full layers palette.

Final thoughts in the great Photoshop vs Affinity Photo debate

I have been a long time user of Adobe Photoshop and started when it was version 2.5 and layers didn’t exist. Also I am and Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor. An Adobe fanboy however I am not. I have seen it go from a small digital darkroom program to the monster it is today. I was horrified when Adobe announced their subscription model and even though I subscribe to it I would still rather buy it outright. The interface also seems very clunky compared to Affinity.

Adobe Photoshop is however, all things to all people, it is “Jack of all trades and master of all”. I still turn to it every time I need to edit or create a bitmap image. It really is a brilliant piece of software!

If I was starting out however and I didn’t have to work commercially with the software (only editing my own photos) I would probably go for Affinity Photo!

There you have it – The winner in the Great Photoshop vs Affinity Photo debate is………

Well it just depends…..

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