Disclaimer
Michael Soo is a friend. I hang out in his forums all the time. Having said that, I paid full price for this photoshop action ($10) more than four and a half years ago – and this is one of the few photoshop actions I use regularly. So my friendship bias has been tempered by many years of using this action.
As you might have noticed in my blog, I shoot a lot of landscapes and often at the wrong parts of the day. One of things that saves my photos is some kind of color push, it used to be Fred Miranda’s Velvia plugin and of late, for simplified workflow, the vibrance feature of Adobe Lightroom. But the software that gives me the best results with subtle color push that enhances the warmth of the photograph without being garish is Mike Soo’s Digital Velvia photoshop action.
Those of us who read Dan Margulis Photoshop LAB color book know what LAB color can do to images. The digital velvia action uses LAB color to push colors and does it very effectively.
I happened to be shooting at Zabriske point 45 minutes before sunset. On most days, I would have stayed put to watch sunset here, but I had to rush to Badwater to shoot sunset there, so I had to make do with the light I had.
With basic curves
As you can see, the light is a bit blah. I run this image through the digital velvia action. The action duplicates the layer, does its thing and sets the default opacity to 50%. You can adjust opacity to your taste. Here are two results with 50% and 100% opacity.
msoo velvia 50% opacity
msoo velvia 100% opacity
Another scene from the same set.
With basic curves
msoo velvia 50% opacity
msoo velvia 100% opacity
As you see, you can go nuts when you push colors to 100% opacity – and this is without any other layer manipulations.
When used with good light, I use it very lightly to just nudge the colors a tad bit extra.
with basic curves
msoo velvia 50% opacity
msoo velvia 100% opacity
The last two images at 100% opacity are good examples of how not to use the action 
, but usually the default 50% opacity works out very well for me. Trained photoshop hands can layer this multiple times and mask for much better results.
At $10, I think it is a great deal. If you use Photoshop and want a good velvia action, give it a try. You can buy it from the software page at his website.
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