Strategy #3

You need to be able to take even the most complicated and cumbersome techniques, and run them through as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Otherwise you’ll spend longer than necessary processing each and every photo.

You need to be proficient and speedy when it comes to applying these advanced techniques that everyone else is using.

One way to do this is to become so well-practiced and fast at creating luminosity masks, that it becomes automatic and simple for you to perform these complicated processes, almost like muscle-memory.

You don’t have to think about how to make the precise selection you need, you just flip over to the channels panel and it instinctively just happens.

Alternatively, the act of simplifying might mean finding or creating your own set of Photoshop actions that take the steps you’re already doing in Photoshop, and making them happen in a couple of simple clicks.

Important: This does NOT mean use Automated Plugins to do your processing for you. They take away all control from your processing and generally provide “Pot Luck” results.

I’m talking about creating shortcuts for the things you already do (or are going to learn to do) in Photoshop.

Even advanced techniques like Luminosity Masking can be made easier and simpler without losing their effectiveness by consolidating many of the functions for selecting clean and accurate luminosity masks into a handful of actions or buttons.

Read more to find out exactly how...