Seven unforgivable Photoshop sins
Now before people start writing telling me I am not being fair to Photoshop, let me stop you right there. I LOVE Photoshop! Sadly there are people out there who are still doing things with their editing, that perhaps they shouldn't. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. So without naming and shaming...and I will use my own photos as reference, here are what I think are the most unforgivable sins in Photoshop. Are you making any of these mistakes?
Shadows and Highlights
Modern cameras can shoot in Raw and JPEG. Many photographers shoot in Raw, because of the massive differences in the amount of information recorded about a photo. I'm not going to go into all the pros and cons here. But when you shoot in Raw you have so much more available in shadows and highlights. And there are many reasons to tweak these sliders. But you want to be subtle. Adding or removing too much contrast, blowing out highlights and shadows or removing them altogether. Over tweaking sliders can lead to dull, flat images. Unless of course, that's what you are going for?
Saturation and Hue adjustments
Likewise with Saturation and Hue Adjustments, especially for sunrises and sunsets. I mean there is nothing wrong with a little tweaking, but you know when you have gone way too far when you get that banding across your photos from the colours being blown out. When something is oversaturated it pretty much just becomes a blob of colour. The other is weird colours in the skies. Sure there are times when you actually want to change the colour of something; lipstick, nail polish, clothes. Just be careful to keep things real.
Over sharpening
This really is a case of less is more. There is something to be said for sharpening, but when some photos are over-sharpened they can look hideous. Especially when using the High-Pass Filter set to overlay method, it really can leave awful halos and weird eyeballs and horrid skin tones. Use it sparingly and perhaps stick to a radius less than 4.0.
Halos left by brush marks on layer masks
Another pet hate is halos left by the brush used carelessly on layer masks. Yes, layer masks are brilliant and can do so much for an image when you only want to work on a selected area, but please be careful with your edges.
Weird halos
Bad liquifying
We've all seen those Photoshop fails where the girl's waist is made smaller and the surrounding wall is misshapen, right? Or the guy's biceps are huge but not in the mirror...shall I go on? Learn HOW to use the liquify tool, before you release your photos into the wild. If you have made something smaller or bigger, make sure there is a real need. Make sure EVERYTHING in the photo looks normal. The below photos is bad, but I've seen far worse.
Crooked horizons
OK...here I will make a confession. Even though my camera has a level and grid overlay, I still sometimes get a crooked horizon. However, it is so quick and easy to fix in Lightroom and Photoshop, why people don't is beyond me?
Crooked horizon line
But wait there's more
Look, I am only just scratching the surface here, want to see some more bad Photoshop fails? The internet is full of them. I still say just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Moderation is more often than not a good rule when it comes to playing in Photoshop. So please check out a few tutorials on Photofocus, learn Photoshop and avoid these unforgivable sins next time you are editing.
