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Adobe Launches 'One Tool, Three Ways' Series
18 July 2018
Adobe has launched One Tool, Three Ways, a new campaign aimed at professional photographers featuring "practical takeaways and insights on what it takes to succeed."
In the first blog post in the series, Practical Takeaways and Insights on What It Takes to Succeed by Lex van den Berghe, Jonpaul Douglass, Maddie McGarvey and Kevin Wong share how each of them uses the HSL Panel to create their own unique style of work.
Van den Berge notes:
Every genre of photography calls for its own perspective -- a unique set of skills and vision. But whether you need to add that spark of humanity, amplify the grandeur of your view or coax your colors into something more, the HSL panel is your humble tool for elevated style.
Adobe said new posts would be released each month through September.
Update (20 July): Adobe has released a Q&A with McGarvey, Wong and Douglass, which follows:
One Tool, Three Ways Q&A:
HSL Panel in Lightroom Classic CC (July)Can you tell us a little about yourself? Who is the person behind the camera?
My name is Maddie McGarvey and I'm a photojournalist based in Columbus, OH. I cover the Midwest and beyond for publications like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and TIME Magazine. I love working on stories in my own backyard, from social issues to politics. I pour everything I have into the stories I tell, spending months or years on a project, to try to get to the core of the story or person and document them with an empathetic and understanding eye. I truly believe I have the best job in the world and am constantly inspired by the people I'm able to meet with my camera.
How long have you been working within your particular genre of photography?
I've been working as a documentary photographer for about 10 years. I studied photojournalism in college and have worked both on staff at newspapers and as a freelance photographer since I graduated.
What's your history with Adobe Lightroom and other Adobe applications?
I have used the Adobe suite since I started photography 10 years ago. It's the only software I ever use to process my photography. Whether I'm on a tight deadline on a breaking news assignment for a major newspaper or diligently processing photos from a long-term documentary project, I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to ensure the highest quality image.
How does the HSL panel help you reach your intended vision? Could you describe what the HSL panel helps unlock in your photography?
The HSL panel helps perfect all of my images. As a photojournalist, I don't do many edits that would change the genuine nature of my photographs, but getting the colors right is an essential step in my workflow. Even the smallest changes in the hues and saturation can make the photo pop.
What unorthodox ways do you use the HSL panel? Can you give any examples?
I often have to work with light that isn't the most ideal. If I had my choice, I'd always be shooting in golden hour when the sun is setting or rising. But a lot of times I have to photograph in fluorescent or tungsten-lit rooms or in very low light. Being able to remove some of the harsh hues from those photos really allows the viewer to focus on the important moments in the photographs instead of the overbearing green or orange colors. The luminance tool also helps me remove some of the distracting noise in the photographs when I have to shoot with high ISO to capture moments in dark situations.
How does the control offered by the HSL panel influence your style?
Lightroom allows me to make subtle changes in the colors that can make all the difference in the final product of the image. Removing slight reds and orange can make skin tones shine. Adding some blue to the background can make the whole photo pop. I love that I can choose how much or little of a specific color I can add to photographs without losing highlights or shadow details. The hue, saturation and luminance panel allow me to get the exact result I'm looking for in each of my images.
Are there any shortcuts you've found when working with the HSL panel?
I always look at an image and can tell if certain colors are overpowering the picture or not shining through enough. After identifying those colors, I gently remove or add them back in. These small changes make the biggest difference in the final product.
How does the HSL panel help optimize your workflow?
After making some basic changes with the brightness and contrast, making sure the hues, saturation and luminance all look right is my next step. Lightroom makes it simple to look at any photo and play with the panel to achieve the perfect color blend. I always want the people I photograph to shine through with their emotion and personality in my photographs and the color mix allows for me to showcase their most genuine self.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? Who is the person behind the camera?
I am a 23-year-old architectural designer and professional photographer originally from Hong Kong and currently based in New York City. Photography is a way for me to explore and navigate my immediate surroundings, as well as to stay aware and appreciative of the present moment.
How long have you been working within your particular genre of photography?
For six years and counting and my passion for architectural photography continues to trickle into other disciplines, like portrait photography, street photography and even videography.
What's your history with Adobe Lightroom and other Adobe applications?
The time I moved to New York City at age 18 was also the time I bought my first digital camera. The switch from analog to digital photography unlocked a myriad of possibilities to capture the reality around me. Adobe Lightroom, in particular, has been a tool for me to focus on the basics as well as the details of a photograph, allowing me to further enhance the story, the emotion and the memory of the image.
Other applications that I use are Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro CC.
How does the HSL panel help you reach your intended vision? Could you describe what the HSL panel helps unlock in your photography?
For me, the HSL panel lends flexibility to either intensify or mute selected colors; I can minimize distracting colors or strengthen important colors in images. Therefore, I am able to distill a Raw photograph into a more refined and powerful storytelling tool.
What unorthodox ways do you use the HSL panel? Can you give any examples?
The HSL panel is a quite wonderful tool when it comes to photos taken at dawn and dusk. I love photos taken during sunrise and sunset, because the light is softer and there's more complexity to the depth of the image because of the spectrum of colors. With these photographs, I use the HSL panel to highlight the overall warmer tones of the clouds by making the reds and pinks even more pronounced. At the same time, I'm targeting the cooler underlying colors of the sky by also bringing out the blues and purples, but to a slightly lesser degree. With buildings in New York, they absorb and reflect too much warmth from the sunrise/sunset and thus appear orange, so I will often tone those down a notch to achieve some sort of balance between the sky and the city.
Finally, if there is any artificial lighting, like yellow lights emanating from windows, I like to make those more apparent too; it really makes the image feel alive.
How does the control offered by the HSL panel influence your style?
With all photographs, my primary aim with the HSL panel is to enhance the essence of a photograph whilst still maintaining the photograph's natural look. My biggest dislike is a photograph that looks overly processed.
How does the HSL panel help optimize your workflow?
The manner in which I use the HSL panel is dependent on the nature of the photograph. Whilst editing an image, my formula with the HSL panel is established based on hard or soft lighting, vibrant or neutral subjects and backgrounds, dark or light skin tone, etc. In order to optimize my workflow, I've saved various presets, with the HSL panel, that address specific situations. Once the initial preset is applied to the photograph, it usually takes the photograph in the general direction I want. I then return to both the basic and color mix sections to further polish the photograph until I'm happy with the final product.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? Who is the person behind the camera?
I'm a photographer and director living/working in the wonderful city of Los Angeles. I am happiest when creating things and feel very fortunate to have made a career of it.
I mostly have a DIY approach to my work, whether the project is large or small. I think this approach comes from my past life as a skateboarder where I learned to practice something over and over repeatedly, of course making mistakes and learning from my experience.
While I love projects where I can work in the studio in solitude, I also love collaborating with a crew of talented people and accomplishing feats that I could never do on my own.
I love the practice of photography and it's been an exciting creative journey since I discovered my passion for making images. Obviously, a big part of my process since the beginning was the post processing. At my start, I felt I had an edge because I spent lots of time tinkering inside of Photoshop years before I started shooting, then when I started using Lightroom I really started to develop a streamlined process for capturing and editing images.
How long have you been working within your particular genre of photography?
I've been working as a commercial/advertising photographer since 2006. I've been through many phases since then and I've enjoyed shooting across many genres. I am constantly evolving though and every phase I go through has me learning new techniques and taking advantage of the latest technology available for creating in this exciting digital space.
What's your history with Adobe Lightroom and other Adobe applications?
I was first introduced to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator when I was studying art and design in college. I quickly applied that knowledge to editing photographs when I started my commercial photography career in 2006. I immediately started using Lightroom that same year as an upgrade to Adobe Bridge. Since I started using Lightroom, I'd say I do probably 95 percent of my editing within the program, only pulling images into Photoshop when I have some form of compositing that needs to be done.
How does the HSL panel help you reach your intended vision? Could you describe what the HSL panel helps unlock in your photography?
The MAIN reason for shooting Raw is the ability to really push the color in post. I'm always teaching people about the power of shooting Raw in tandem with Lightroom CC for mobile. Of course, it takes up valuable storage space on a phone, but having that data to push those colors around really makes a huge difference. It unlocks the true capability of these remarkable devices we always carry.
While I don't always need to shift the colors around much, there are times where it will be the crucial change that makes an image great. Much of my work involves color blocking, so I'll often shift colors in a scene to either match or contrast to my taste.
What unorthodox ways do you use the HSL panel? Can you give any examples?
I get a little obsessed with the amount of warmth or coolness in my grays. Typically, I like to go a touch "cooler" with my temperature (white balance) and then pull the blue out of the image in color mix. This doesn't work in all images, but I do this trick a lot.
How does the control offered by the HSL panel influence your style?
I always think about what's possible in post-production when I'm shooting. If I'm forced to work with a certain color that may not be exactly what I want, I always feel confident that I'll be able to find that exact color I desire by utilizing the HSL panel. This allows me to be a bit looser when shooting and I can take the time to experiment more; this way, when I approach images in post, it's like another important part of the creative process. I experiment in post just like I do when I'm shooting.
How does the HSL panel help optimize your workflow?
I'm always learning new ways to optimize my process, but I'd say most recently I've been using the Lightroom app to make edits on my phone. I love how I can save develop settings from desktop and quickly try them out while shooting on my phone. All of these shortcuts make editing batches of photographs creative and fun, when I used to think of it as a chore.