This photo was taken last March in Tarlac, around noon & that explains why the sky was not that blue. A Circular Polarizing Filter (CPL) could have done the job for me but unfortunately I don’t have one. Although I believe that having taken this the right way (with the CPL attached to my lens) is the best way to do it, it’s good to know that this can be corrected using Photoshop. I found this tutorial from Ken Rockwell about Polarizer & tried it. It’s really simple.

1. Open the photo that you want to edit
2. Create a new layer (Layer –> New –> Layer), Name it as GRAD & set mode as Soft Light
3. Select the GRADIENT TOOL from the tools palette (or just hit ‘G’), make sure of the following:
   • Be sure you have the default foreground and background colors, black and white, if you are not sure, press ‘D’ to set the colors to default.
   • Make sure that the “Linear” option is selected.
   • That the “background to transparent” grad is selected.
4. Click, hold & drag until you reach the horizon
5. Select the background layer (where the photo is)
6. Click on the black & white button on the lower part of the Layers Palette & select the “Selective Color” option on the drop-down list
7. Change the colors option to Cyans: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
8. Now, change the color option to Blues: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
9. Click OK.

That’s it! You can play along with the selective color to fit yout taste, by doing that, I was able to achieve a bluer sky.

Like what I said before (and earlier) capturing it the right way is still the best option, photoshop is available just to enhance what is already a beautiful photo.

For my post-processing style, I don’t just use the black & white conversion feature of the Photoshop, I put extra effort (& labor) to fit my own taste & this is what I’m sharing right now.

I make sure that I start with a good photograph, right composition & proper exposure is the key. I picked this photo of a smiling kid & will try to convert it into black & white.

The first thing that I did is to convert the picture into monochrome using Channel Mixer [Image --> Adjustments --> Channel Mixer], then I clicked on the Monochrome box located on the lower left portion of the pop-up window. Then, I adjusted the Red, Blue & Green channels to fit my taste [For this project Red = +20, Blue = +60 & Green = +20), once satisfied, just click OK for the changes to take effect.

The next step is to duplicate the layer [Layer --> Duplicate Layer], once the layer has been duplicated, change the Blending Mode to Overlay, notice that the photo will lighten a little bit. It’s now time to apply some filter.

On the menu, click on Filter –> Blur –> Gaussian Blur, I normally apply a filter radius ranging from 10 to 20 pixels, on this project, I opted to have it at 15 pixels.

Next on the filters list is the Noise [Filter --> Noise --> Add Noise] for the grainy effect on the finished product. I don’t want the noise to be overpowering so I just set it at 7.

After that, I just merged the layers [ctrl+Shift+E], resized the photo & that’s basically it.

Just remember that while photoshop is there to help us enhance our photos, what really matters is how we take the pictures, our skill is still the most important thing to develop.