Learn With Betsy » Programs + Materials for Professional Photographers

Nondestructive Digital Retouching

Earlier this week, I went to  my local PPA affiliate’s (DPPA) monthly evening program.  Jeffrey McIntyre talked about digital retouching — using nondestructive methods (mainly adjustment layers in Photoshop).  Jeffrey has put together a pretty efficient little pack of actions for his typical retouch workflow (learn more at  Digital Expressions ), and while I was already familiar with a number of techniques that Jeffrey demonstrated, I did learn something. If you’re interested in learning a little more about nondestructive editing in Photoshop, check out some of the resources listed below:

Nondestructive Editing
A 3 part tutorial covering multiple adjustments: noise, sharpening, dodge/burn, etc.  Pretty basic, but if you’re in the dark about nondestructive retouching, then this might be a good starting point.

Photoshop Adjustment Layers
A tutorial that shows the effects of destructively adjusting levels; and also how to create a levels adjustment layer.

Nondestructive Dodge + Burn
Another simple tutorial, pretty nifty (and easy) method for nondestructive dodge/burn.

Get Smart About Smart Objects
A basic article that discusses ways to use smart objects in Photoshop for nondestructive adjustments.

Nondestructive cropping in CS4
A short tutorial on how to crop without the parts of the image you crop out.  Just in case you don’t know how to do this… I thought this would be a good link to share too.

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[...] a great write up about these actions and non-destructive editing on her website which can be found here Share and [...]

[...] may remember I mentioned attending a program by Jeffrey McIntyre the other day (non-destructive retouching). Well, I talked with Jeffrey a little more about his actions, and I got to test them [...]