The Zapless Pic

Dear Debbie,

Hope you can answer my question, because I can't get anyone else to! I have a Canon Digital SLR, and my pics look good, but they don't have that clear, almost perfect "zap." What is that zap, and how do I achieve it? Can I get it with Photoshop?

Thanks so much,
Zapless Photos

***

Dear Zapless,

The first thing I'm wondering is: How's your lens? Because the better quality lens you use, the more likely your pictures will be sharp and beautiful.

But I suspect you can do something in Photoshop to get that zappy look you crave. The more contrast, saturation, and sharpness your pictures have, the more punch they'll probably pack. Take a look at these before & afters:

                                         I shot this in RAW, and processed the above picture with the As Shot settings, doing no tweaking at all. It looks good, but it sure ain't zappy.

                                       In this version, I bumped up the contrast big time, and added a bit of brightness and saturation. Then, in Photoshop, I used Smart Sharpen to add some sharpness.

Is that the kind of Zap you were after?

All my best, and good luck,
Debbie

Comments

[stephen rudolph]

The very first thing i do is the LEVELs thing... ensuring that the left and right sliders are touching the outside points of that big black mountain of a curve... THEN i will play with the rest.. and sometimes,just a levels tweak will do !

[Gus Hallgren]

Debbie,

Great job, I look forward every month to your column in Pop Photo ~
They need an issue "Debbie's Tips."and you need a book on Photoshop. I would buy either one in a heart beat ~ especially in the $30+ range.

Love your tips

Uncle Gus
82 going on 18

[LB]

Debbie, I save all my issues just so I can refer back to all your hints with Photoshop. My biggest frustration comes with eliminating backgrounds. I typically mask and remove, but this is time consuming and the edges are sometimes rough. There must be a better way! Any suggesions?
Thanks,
LB

[Bill Gillies]

Debbie, how do you reconcile your advice on this photo to your advice some weeks ago? Specifically:

"Dear Dumbfounded,

The Brightness and Contrast sliders may be slightly less work, but they sure are sloppy. Yeah, Brightness brightens, but it casts an ugly fog over your images. Try to correct it with Contrast, and you’ll soon lose shadow and highlight detail. Try it yourself, and compare your results to changes you make with Curves or Levels. I suspect you'll abandon those seemingly-slick sliders in no time."

Keen to read your comments.

Best,

Bill

[Mike Jackson]

Bill, don't be too harsh. I too read Zapless' post as someone fairly new to imaging. With that being the case, I have to agree that Debbie shows Zapless how to walk before running.

[zyxwvutsr]

"My biggest frustration comes with eliminating backgrounds"

Try shooting at night, LB. With a flash. (And now slow-speed sync, either.)

Or maybe pose your subject on the edge of a cliff, and shoot from a low angle.

[JDR3]

Bill -
I think the advice for Dumbfounded was for the sliders in PS, while she only SmartSharpens in PS for 'Zapless'. The other tweaks for Zapless were done against the RAW file - presumably in Adobe Bridge.

[Luciano]

My humble opinion: brightness and contrast sliders can help some very bad pictures, but most of times you will benefit more using the curves tool, specially if you fine tune the curve for every picture - usually they come with very low contrast from the camera.
About bad lenses: I have sharp, fixed lenght and fast lenses, and also camera-kit for every situation zoom lenses. I use them both. Although they obviously have different results in sharpness and "zapfulness", nothing beats the use of a perfect light, during the right time of the day, or even using your speedlight properly.

[Adrian Malloch]

Hey,
Read Debbie's post again. She uses the Brightness and Contrast in Adobe Raw Converter, not Photoshop.
In the raw converter, using those adjustments keeps the changes within photographic parameters. You definitely cannot say that about Brightness/Contrast in Photoshop. It's there for graphic requirements, not photographic.
A word of caution re: Debbies advice to increase zap is all good but probably the most common digital photography mistake is to super-saturate and hyper-contrast photographs. Destroy tone and detail at your peril!

[ghw3]

FOR ZAP
1) Levels: drag black point to edge of histogram; exit
2) Unsharp Mask: amount 25%, radius of (pick one to taste) 7.5,15,30,60, threshold of 0; exit
3) Reopen levels: drag white point toward histogram, to taste, but be careful not to blow anything out (red chennel is the one that always gets me in trouble)

[George Lovelace]

Images I print are darker than what I see on my monitor. What can I do to correct this? Monitor specifications-Contrast ratio-1000:1;Brightness-300 cd/m2;Resolution 1600x1200; Video input-DVI. I am using PhotoShop CS2.

Thanks for taking the time.
"Still learning"

[George Lovelace]

Debbie, I was trying to use your "The Ultimaste Test Strip" discussed Volume 70, NO. 5; May 2006, page38.I was doing great until step 6. It said to "click and drag your Adjustment Layer onto your original". I dragged the layer over the original image I wanted to print and it showed the "stop icon(circle with a diagonal line). nothing happened. What did I miss? Please help. Thanks for your time.
"Still Learning"

[Afshin]

LB,
She never said she used Contrast/Brightness tool. You can add contrast/brightness by Levels or Curves. I'm sure she was talking about those.

Regards

[Afshin]

George Lovelace,
I didn't steal your name! Debbie did!! I posted the above comment but it appears to be posted under George's name!!!!