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Arizona Highways Photography Guide:
How & Where To Make Great Photographs

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Photoshop Techniques

Photo illustration
© by Edward McCain

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The Right Touch
Photoshop has become a household word. At this magazine, however, it’s something we use sparingly. This month, we used it on the cover. Here’s why.

by Peter Ensenberger, Arizona Highways Director of Photography

By now you’ve probably noticed the striking photograph on the cover of this issue, and you might be wondering why Arizona Highways has never featured this place before — a place with a quaint little diner standing like a neon mirage in the middle of nowhere.

The answer is simple. It doesn’t exist. Oh, the diner’s real. Dot’s serves up some of the best home-style cooking you’ll find. That’s why it’s featured on our list of the state’s best restaurants. To highlight this iconic eatery, we lifted it from its earthly setting in Bisbee and set it down in front of a mythical backdrop. If the cover of this issue caught your attention, mission accomplished.

What we did is called photo illustration — digitally melding disparate elements into one believable fantasy. This isn’t the first manipulated photo Arizona Highways has ever published, but it breaks new ground in our use of digital technology to create a cover from multiple photographs.

The idea of doing a photo illustration came about when we decided to feature one of the top restaurants on the magazine’s cover. The challenge was finding a restaurant or diner that would be visually appealing. As you know, many of the best restaurants are known for their food and service, not necessarily the beauty of their architecture and surroundings.

Creative minds went to work on the project. The concept progressed rapidly during the thinking-out-loud phase as we brainstormed ways to treat the cover. Once the base elements for a strong image were decided, execution and refinement got under way.

At that point, photographer and Photoshop wizard Edward McCain was brought into the loop. Edward, who is a longtime contributor to Arizona Highways, first photographed Dot’s Diner in Bisbee, and then, on his computer, experimented by blending different backgrounds with the classic diner. As the cover evolved, several mockups were e-mailed back and forth between McCain’s studio in Tucson and the magazine’s office in Phoenix.

“For this photo illustration, I wanted the image to be somewhat believable,” McCain says. “Even the sky, which is a Photoshop-generated gradient. When I’m working in Photoshop, I give an image certain visual rules and then work within those rules to create the strongest expression I can. Tools for this include composition, lighting, perspective, color, shape, form, content, and anything else I can bring to the image.”

After 16 hours of computer time, McCain’s final image was approved and put into production. From our perspective, it was time well spent — it’s important that we stay on the cutting edge and explore the digital technology available in modern publishing. For us, however, it’s the kind of thing we’ll do only with a very specific purpose in mind.

“By removing the diner from its natural environment and placing it on a desert playa at sunset, I believe we created a very striking image that’ll make people do a double take,” McCain says. “I think that’s part of the function of a successful cover image. As long as the image is clearly identified as a photo illustration, I don’t have a problem with it. I do have a problem with photographers retouching images to ‘improve’ them without letting the reader know. One of the great assets of photography is that of believability. In my role as a photojournalist, I never want to lose that credibility.”

It’s the same for Arizona Highways. We don’t want to lose your trust in the beautiful photography published in our magazines, calendars and books, so we’ll never abuse the technology at our disposal. Our litmus test is very narrow and stringent when making the decision to modify an editorial photograph, and we’ll always let you know if we do it.

Photo Tip:

Because of the mechanics of sensor design, digital images always look a little softer than they really are. Almost all digital photographs can be improved with some sharpening. When software sharpens an image, it looks for an edge and then bumps up the contrast along that edge. So it doesn’t have much effect on a clear blue sky, but dramatic effect on something with a lot of texture, like a brick wall. Over-sharpening can wreck a photograph. The resultant halos make edges look artificial and magnify the noise. Sharpening can always be added to a photograph, but once applied, it can’t be undone. So don’t go crazy.

>> Find out more about Arizona Highways Photography Guide.