In this follow-up event, I’ll do a live deep-dive focused on your questions about the Channels course. I pulled responses to a pre-event survey question, looked for patterns, and built new examples that should help you understand how to read channels even better. I finished off the event with some Q&A from the individuals present.
*** When image opens in browser, right click and select “save image as ***
Blake, you sound very different than usual… are you okay?
Regards, Ineke
I’m good, never been better actually 🙂 What do I sound like?
Using Channels as opposed to Camera Raw with Raw images then using Smart Layers in Photoshop with Luminosity Layer adjustments, what is the impact on QUALITY of the image? I’m aware the size of the file is much smaller using Channels. I’m asking about the QUALITY, specially tones and color transitions.
You’ve addressed it in the initial presentation as a (non-issue, using my word) yet left me wondering if that’s true, or a sacrifice of quality is the result of a smaller file size.
I would not recommend that. RAW editors have a very strong place in the workflow. I would recommend channels after your raw workflow as you’ll have better data going into the edit in PS if you have alreayd pre-edited it. Now one thing to consider is that once an image goes from ACR to PS then you aren’t editing RAW data, you are editing basically a 16 Bit or 32 bit tif depending on your workflow.
You also gain no benefit from the smart object use, IMO, because you cannot see your Channel edits when you go back into ACR as a Smart Object. I think this workflow would be more confusing than helpful, but you can experiment.
Understand, thanks for responding.
Thank you for the follow up video. It answered my questions about where in the workflow to use channels.
Some had mentioned about the notes as they need more lines in the Q/A. I have taken the notes into OneNote and I am able to type my thoughts of what I have heard into each section of the notes. This saves me from printing them out, and it is a lot faster to me to find my OneNote document. I use OneNote for so many things / subjects and has become a lifesaver to find information when I needed to review/re-visit a subject.
Hope this helps.
You’ve added the perspective I needed on where and how to use channels…thanks for a great course and for the follow up. I’ll be looking forward to your image analysis tool in April.
My pleasure! I’m sure you’ll enjoy it 🙂
Thanks to your course. The penny has dropped for channels AND calculations which is quite a revelation. Since finishing the course, I’ve been using what I’ve learned for portraits, wildlife, macro, and astro photography. Not “everything” needs these skills but it’s been a great way to reenforce what you have been teaching.
SWEET!!! You are on point, they aren’t going to be for everything 🙂
Thank you for the replay and thank you George and Adriaan for the supplemental handout. I am working on my new tool ‘channels’ and when to use it is taking practice. When I’m not getting to see the channel I want to make a correction with I’ve had to go to the base image, lighten it and then select the channel to get my aspen tree trunks. Once the selection is made then I’ve returned the base layer to its proper exposure and use the channel to increase the trees so they stand out in the image. When you demonstrated the ‘tree trunk’ technique awhile ago it seemed so easy, however, on several of my images none of the channels would highlight the trunks enough to select. Using channels are getting a level of adjustment that I could not obtain in the past and explaining the inverse of a channel selected is another wonderful ‘aha’ learning moment. This ‘inversing’ a selection has not really surfaced in many of the trainings I’ve taken. Thank you.
Blake, thank you for this follow-up to the challenging Channels course. I have been experimenting with using channels and find that how and when to use channels for a particular photo requires some trial and error and most importantly, a detailed and subtle analysis of the desired outcome. You stated as much in the course, but I didn’t realize right away, the extend to which one must have a full vision for the outcome in order to decide what edits (including the use of channels) are necessary to achieve that vision. Moreover, I think I have learned that a “cookie-cutter” approach to using channels is a dead-end. There is subtlety involved in the decisions that lead to using that particular editing tool. This follow-up course has helped me make more effective decisions regarding the use of channels. You have given us a powerful tool to help us achieve our vision. As a powerful tool, the use of channels requires a bit of discernment, driven by experimentation, to apply them appropriately to a photo. I am grateful for the tool and the challenge.
The notion of burning the ships struck me – I have a plethora of tools and find new things additive to my tool box and rarely subtractive of a prior tool in the tool kit. Some images, I still use something from Palette Effects, and/or something from visionary panel, and maybe also make use of Blend-If for example.
Perhaps a great follow-up video would be for you to take 3-4 images where your post processing runs the gamut and you show us how you still apply previous tools combined with newer tools on these images. Each image may use different things to get to the final product. This will illustrate how people can combine things they’ve learned before with new things they learn and put it all together to make the best decisions for a given image.
Just a thought…….