Today I was giving a presentation on digital darkroom techniques for dodging and burning an image. One of my favorite techniques is the screen and multiply method where you duplicate the image layers and change the blend mode to either brighten or darken the image proportionally based upon the original photograph.
With just three layers I was able to transform this cell phone image I made while visiting Red Mountain wineries with Sarah a few years ago. It was a stunningly beautiful scene for which I wish I had a better camera or the ability to make a good painting.
Oh well. The image served its purpose two-fold. I captured a memory and I made a good demonstration of an image editing technique.
In the process I was able to demonstrate that the camera can show us more than just the initial image. The final image does not have anything in it that wasn’t present at the time of exposure. The post-production work done in Photoshop is a process of interrogating the information contained within the image file to reveal the magic that originally moved my heart and caused me to reach for the camera in the first place.
I am reminded of a quote I read somewhere that states: Facts by themselves are inert. It is the interpretation of facts that creates meaning.
I think that is what photographers do with their images. We take the facts captured within the frame and then interpret them via composition and the manipulation of tonal values, hue, and saturation.
