My signature style-Research task by Niamh Mccrossan

What is the technique?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-04 10:38:19 UTC

LUT is an acronym for Look Up Table.
This is computing term describing a table used to lookup a value and use the entry in the table to replace or modify it to a new value.
In image processing a LUT is used to lookup the colour (RGB) values of a pixel and change it to a new value.
When a LUT is applied to an image then its colour and tone can be changed.
These changes can be applied to different images by applying the LUT to them.

Where and when it can be used?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-04 10:38:34 UTC

Where? In editing software, camera monitors, or even mobile apps.
When? During post-processing for final looks, or during shooting for previews & consistency.
It is most commonly used in wedding, portrait, Fashion, Editorial and travel
Used as a type of preset.
Widely used in video and film making to achieve 'a look'.
Film simulations.

Brandon Woefel- Photographer 1

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-04 10:38:59 UTC

Brandon Woefel.
known for his dreamy and colourful images, he is know for using Luts to create beautiful images and sells them online as a preset, he uses it to enhance the colours within his images resulting in a more vibrant image as a whole, he uses this as a form of colour grading.

Ivan Weiss Photographer 2

markyboykerr — 2025-09-04 10:53:50 UTC

Ivan Weiss
a portrait photographer who uses the LUT'S to create stunning images and save them as pre sets and sells them on his website he uses it enhance the colours in an image whether be in cloud or black and white and the useful thing about using LUT'S is the fact you dont lose any data. He uses LUT'S as a form of colour grading when editing images.

Before and After

30511995 — 2025-09-04 11:05:06 UTC

Before and After Brandon Woefel

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-04 11:05:23 UTC

What is Compositing.

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 09:41:40 UTC

Compositing is when an image is made up by several elements of other images put together in a set of layers to make one complete image mostly of fantasy "as in' an image you wouldn't normally see in the "normal world".

What is Luminance Masking

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-18 09:45:14 UTC

You can apply a mask to a specific section of the image, such as the sky, the foreground, or any other general area that requires correction, using the majority of the other popular mask kinds (brush, radial gradient, and linear gradient). It's similar to selecting a specific geographic region of the image; everything within that region is covered by your mask. Because you are selecting the complete section, the chosen area may have a combination of Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows.

Allows for masks to be created on the brightness of pixels in an image. as well as this allows for change in exposure and recovering details both light and dark.

Phil Norton

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-18 09:47:48 UTC

Phil Norton is a photographer who focuses primarily on Landscape photography. Using the luminance masking skill in lightroom has allowed him to adjust the highlights midtones and shadows as well as the colours within his images by creating this mask. He has a blog explaining the steps he uses as well as videos on step by steps on how he undertakes his process on his images as well as offering masterclasses to students.

Karolin Linamaes

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-18 09:48:10 UTC

Once again Karolin is a photography who focuses on landscapes and uses luminance photography on landscapes as it increases dynamic range, dodge and burn and removes shadows and on black and white photography it allows for more control over tone and contrast.

Many photographers use luminance masking as it is subtle and a non destructive way to edit images in the way you desire. However the only down side is that there are a lot of layers and steps that are to be taken to undergo this skill.

What is it ?

30511995 — 2025-09-18 09:53:09 UTC

In image post production frequency separation is a technique where the information in the image is separated into two parts:

Details / Texture
Colour / Tone

These can be treated as separate layers and then blended separately.

The term 'frequency separation' is used because the detail and texture are considered to be high frequency and the colour tone changes in across the image are low frequency.

For skin retouching this classically allows skin texture to be maintained while coloured skin blemishes can be removed. The separate 'high frequency' detail layer allows the skin texture to be maintained avoiding the 'plastic skin' effect that can arise when other methods of removing blemishes may leave the shin looking unnaturally smooth.

What is focus stacking?

30500473 — 2025-09-18 09:57:57 UTC

Focus stacking is a technique that allows you to achieve a greater depth of field in an image by blending multiple images together. Once you combine the images at different focus points, You'll end up with a perfectly sharp, in-focus subject.

It's extremely easy to accomplish from photoshop. Simply select the File Menu, select Scripts, and choose Load Files Into Stack option. Once you've selected the images you want to stack, you'll click the OK box, prompting you that the software will be automatically aligning the given images. Once done select the Auto-Align Layers button in the Edit tab, putting them together perfectly. Following that, Select Auto-Blend Layers, just bellow Align. Adjustments can be done if required, selecting and moving the created layers.

compositing

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 10:00:19 UTC

Before and after compositing layers.

Compositing

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 10:00:49 UTC

Before and after.

Resulting Focus Stacked Image

30500473 — 2025-09-18 10:01:31 UTC

As shown, Using the combination of Auto-Align Layers & Auto-Blend Layers, the resulting image is extreamly sharp & well lit, with each individual component being clear.

Compositing

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 10:01:36 UTC

Composited image.

Compositing show me tell me

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 10:02:39 UTC

Compositing in action.

step by step tutorial

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-18 10:08:08 UTC

-Open image in Photoshop go to chanels panel
-CMD click on the RGB thumbnail
-Save this seclection as a new chanel- Brights 1 chanel
-Click the thumbnail of the brights 1 channel and hold cmd+shift to create a new selection again save as a new chanel- brights 2
-Repeat last step to create Brights 3 channel
-Create a 'Darks' selection by inverting the selection (cmd+shift+I) then save as darks channel
-Repeat above step again to create a Dark 3 channel
- Create midtones mask by selecting the entire image (cmd+A) then subrtacting the brights (cmd+ option) and then subtracting the darks (cmd+ option), Saving the results as a new channel
- Apply adjustments by creating a new adjustments layer ( Curves/Levels) and holding cmd and clicking on saved channels as masks to target specific areas of the image.

step by step video-Greg Benz

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-18 10:09:45 UTC

Compositing.

markyboykerr — 2025-09-18 10:09:46 UTC

Here is a tutorial on YouTube that shows and explains what and how the process is completed to make an image out of composite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7cdzMLxBnc .

David Clapp -

30500473 — 2025-09-18 10:10:26 UTC

David Clapp is one of the Uk's most successful landscape, travel and architectural photographers. With his main highlight being on his immense focus stacking skills, being clear from a variety of stunning landscapes.

Felix Inden -

30500473 — 2025-09-18 10:16:40 UTC

A German photographer specialising in stacked landscape photography. The majority of Felix's images are heavily edited, with stacks being clear, relating in brilliant images with considerable depth & colour range.

How to ?

30511995 — 2025-09-18 10:39:56 UTC

In photoshop a summary of how to use frequency separation to process skin can be summarised as follows:

Start by creating two duplicates of the background layer.

Rename the first (lower) layer 'Shadows & Colour'.
Rename the second (upper) layer as 'Skin Texture'.

The Skin Texture layer needs to be processed to create a greyscale detail for blending.

There are several approaches. One is to apply a high pass filter to the skin texture layer. In Photoshop use the menu sequence [ Filter | Other | High Pass ... ]. Ths changes the layer to a grey mask showing detail. The amount of detail can be controlled by the parameters (eg. radius) entered when applying the fllter.

The Skin Texture layer will appear as a greyscale impression of the image. Change the blending mode to 'Linear Light' and it will be combined with the 'Shadows and Colour'.

The Shadows and Colour layer can have a blur applied (typically Gaussian Blur). In Photoshop use the sequence [ Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur ... ]. The amount of blur can be set as a parameter. In this technique it can be set quite high because the detail lost in the blurred Shadows and Colour layer can be reapplied using the Skin Texture Layer.

The Opacity of the Skin Texture layer can be reduced to soften the blended image.

A mask can be applied to the Skin Texture layer to vary the detail being carried through.

More than one Skin Texture layer can be used with different masks on top of the Colour and Shadow layer to vary the way the frequency separation is applied.

https://proedu.com/blogs/photoshop-skills/how-to-smooth-skin-in-photoshop-expert-techniques-explained?srsltid=AfmBOorNAvA6QgH36ZUBxxOmqHj28K2MIjwcGLdiE101N8MyOasrj31z

Before

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:15:44 UTC

After

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:16:12 UTC

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:21:45 UTC

Start by creating two duplicates of the background layer.

Rename the first layer- skin tone
Rename the second layer as skin detail
The skin tone must be processed to create a greyscale detail for blending.
Apply a high pass filter to the skin detail layer in photoshop.
use the menu- filter-other-high pass. This changes the layer to a grey mask which shows the detail of the subject.
The skin detail layer will appear asa

After

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:22:39 UTC

Layers

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:50:11 UTC

start by creating a copy of the background.
go into channels click command then click RGB which will select the highlights of the image
go into adjustments and photo filter which will show a scroll of the warm filter and the density.creating. warmer image
go to layer 1- channel- command shift key then click RGB 4 times to select a wide variety of the image.
invert the selection- command I
go to layers- levels adjustment layer

Before

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:50:33 UTC

Reflect on how each technique influenced your creative expression.

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 10:57:30 UTC

This technique I will definitely be using in the future and will influence my work in the future due to the way it separates highlights, mid tones and shadows of an image, it allows you to edit each individual layer, which I think is very useful in landscape photography.

if you had used a different set of techniques, how might the viewers interpretation of your work have shifted?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 12:55:49 UTC

I used both luminance masking and frequency separation which resulted in differentiation in tones and erased imperfections of the face without being destructive. However, if I was to use for example the Luts technique it would create an image that had cinematic qualities and allowing for tones to be changed within the image, which would result in a different image the if I was using the frequency separation or luminance masking technique.

How did your choice of post-production techniques change the meaning or emotional tone of your image?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 12:55:57 UTC

So for example on my image for the luminance masking, I used a portrait and for one of the masks you add a photo filter mask which means you can add a filter of either warm tones or cooler tones, I selected warmer tones, which allowed the harness of my image to be brought out more, allowing for a more sunny and less gloomy feel to the image as a whole.

In what ways has experimenting with post-production allowed you to express ideas themes that weren't fully visible in your original capture?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 12:57:33 UTC

I felt as though experimenting with post production especially different photoshop technqiues allowed me to dive deeper into each image and realise that tweaks have to made to result in the best image and to draw out details/texture that may have been lost in the original capture.

How could you push these techniques further to develop your own unique visual style or creative "Voice"?

niamhmccrossan13 — 2025-09-25 13:04:58 UTC

I would like to further develop these techniques as I felt as though the slight tweaks improved my images.

I would like to push these techniques further in more of my portrait work as I felt as though the frequency separation allowed me to adjust the "blemishes" in the image without making the image appear to be fake or look unnatural, using frequency seperation slightly tweaked the image by blurring and defining techniques.