Erin Cobb's Clean Color ~ a review

Erin Cobb is a great photographer who is not paying me to do this post; I'm doing a review on Clean Color because it changed my life in the last two weeks (kind of), and when I find a good thing, I like to share it! =)

If you are like me - shoot terrible photos, still clueless about how most of your DSLR works, want a great way to edit your photos without wasting too much time - then Clean Color is for you. Throughout this post, I will be sharing photos I've taken, before and after clean color.



See what I mean? this is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad photo.



Just tweaking it in Photoshop Elements using the Clean Color workflow makes it so much better. I actually feel kind of pleased about how it looks now... (at least the people look like ~people~ instead of blue-faced aliens).

Photos are from a cute triple-wedding photoshoot at the park three weeks ago --- I love these adorable people =)
  



Eeek, I can't even really believe that the final product looks that great. It says nothing of my skill though. Everything good about it comes from Clean Color.

Definitely, I would encourage you to learn to take great photos from the starting point - when the camera is in your hands. It makes the editing process much easier. That said, I am kind of too lazy to refine my technique and I don't have many opportunities to shoot real live subjects, so for now, I will stick with Erin Cobb's workflow and editing process!

Here are some images that will prove to you it works on photos of your projects too!
These are some altered art wall hangings I created for a customer about a year ago (if I remember correctly, these were taken with a point-and-shoot camera, so let's see how that turned out)...





Not incredibly classy, but coming from a point-and-shoot, I think it's okay.



A close-up of the ruffled tissue flower.
It's been so long since I made something like that. Sigh.



I got to know about Clean Color through another great photographer - Karen Russell. Recently she shared a $50 sale on Clean Color, and I just made the deadline by an hour or so! The $50 sale is no longer on, but even for the regular price, I'd say it's a great, great video tool that you probably won't regret investing in.

What's covered in the program:
    - color editing
    - light adjustment
    - underexposure and overexposure correction
    - skin tone
    - other great stuff I can't remember right now
and the one I loved best?    - image and web-sharpening

Web-sharpening makes the photos absolutely pop. At first I didn't savor the almost "crunchy" look it gave, but after twiddling with the opacity and erasing sections, the end product is SO MUCH BETTER than the original look, and in Erin's words, "makes you want to reach out and touch the subject."

What you will need before you get clean color will be your camera (to take pictures), and photoshop / photoshop elements (to process the photos). On your initial run through the video, you're going to think THAT IS GOING TO TAKE TOO MUCH TIME TO DO ON EVERY PHOTO! (which is exactly what I thought), but after three or four pictures, you'll be doing a virtual sprint on every image, and will actually LOVE the editing process!

One more. This one is really not good, but it survived.



The two custom cards were made long long ago for another special customer, and I don't think I ever got around to sharing it here. The blue one was styled after this one, but made for a man. Don't know what he thought of the ribbons and lace and pearls and crystals, though ;) ...



Just barely salvaged. The color could do with some help! I tried. =(

And now I will jump off my Clean Color soapbox and wish you the BEST if you decide to take the plunge.
I hope the old projects kind of made up for the lack of scrappy stuff here lately.....

Lastly, my grubby toes say goodnight to you all.