A few episodes ago I talked about masking in Lightroom, which is one of my favorite new features in the program. It wasn’t a deep dive into masking, but a demonstration of how I use masks in Lightroom to add depth to my concert photography using what I call “Dodge & Burn +”. It’s a technique that’s easy to do, and can be used on any genre of photography.

During that show I mentioned that, for most jobs, I can usually finish all of my edits in Lightroom now, but that on occasion I may still finish an image in Photoshop. There are a number of reasons I might still end up in Photoshop. I might have a shot I want in my portfolio, and I just want to add som POP to it. I may have a critical client image that needs more complex edits, frequency separation, advanced masking or layers, or I might need tools that are either better in Photoshop, or that only exist there.

With all of the options available in Photoshop, there are two specific techniques that, if I end up there, I will almost always try. These techniques don’t always work, and in fact there are times they make the image worse, but my success ratio with these techniques is so high that will always at least try them.

The steps I describe in this show will require Adobe’s Photoshop, which has a trial version available here, and the Nik Collection from DxO, which also has a trial version. From the Nik set of plugins I use Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro often. Silver Efex Pro is a great BW conversion tool, but today we will use it differently, and I have to thank the amazing Alan Hess for this technique.

Join me as I walk through how I use two of my favorite ways to finish an image in Photoshop, with the help of Nik’s Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro, on this Behind the Shot.

Portfolio: stevebrazill.com

Adobe Photoshop: Photoshop from Adobe