One Scene, Three Shots. And Action Recipes Too.

by Erin on August 14, 2010 · 2 comments

(Action lovers alert: See the end of this post for the action recipes I used to make these images pop!)

Photography as I know it just wouldn’t have been possible with film cameras. I tend to take lots of pictures of any one subject until I get it right. Developing every image I take would make an already expensive hobby absolutely impossible.

I learn by practice and repetition, so this process is good for me. Bless the hearts of my very patient teacher and classmates in my current photography workshop, who don’t mind waiting on me!

Taking multiple photos of the same subject does cause me some issues though, especially when deciding which is my favorite to present to the workshop for critiques.

Each of the 3 photos on this page were taken at exactly the same position but they are all so different.

The first really emphasizes the coolness of the cars and the occasion.

For the 2nd photo, with soft focus, I took the exact same shot except that I manually changed my focus. This photo, to me anyway, is more about the lights and colors than the cars. I think it might be my favorite of the 3.

And this last image caught people in it. Because the sun had set about 2 hours before I took these pictures, I was using a long shutter speed – 1/25 of a second in this photograph. That means that nothing that wasn’t perfectly stationary would be in sharp focus. The blur of the moving feet brings the photo to life for me.

Action Combinations:

I used the following actions on each of these images. Each action works in Photoshop Elements.

My Free Defog action for Photoshop Elements – these images were taken at an extremely high ISO, and defogging helped minimize the resulting noise. I used the Pea Soup setting on each photo.
MCP’s Complete Workflow for PSE- Color Burst on the first image, Darker and Richer on the other 2
MCP’s Finish It for PSE- Brand It Bottom (Framed) to size, sharpen, frame, watermark and add the caption block.

Wondering how I use actions to make my photos look their best? Take my Photoshop Elements Actions from A to Z class. The evening class is filling up quickly, so sign up now if you’re thinking about that one.