IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Hi! I'm Taz Tally and I want to welcome
you to Photoshop CS4 Color Correction.
| | 00:12 | In this course, I'm going to help you
learn all of the fundamentals of Digital
| | 00:15 | Color and how to color correct
and creatively adjust your images.
| | 00:19 | I will show you how to set up Photoshop
and how to choose and use the best tools,
| | 00:23 | methods in color
correction and creative adjustments.
| | 00:27 | And you'll see how to prepare your
images for output on various devices.
| | 00:32 | In a production environment, speed as
well as accuracy is the goal, and that's
| | 00:35 | why this course teaches knowledge
and techniques to evaluate your image's
| | 00:39 | needs and make fast accurate
corrections or creative adjustments in your
| | 00:43 | production environment.
| | 00:44 | So now, let's get started with
Photoshop CS4 Color Correction.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | Hello! This is your color
correction instructor, Taz Tally.
| | 00:03 | Welcome to lynda.com.
| | 00:05 | I just wanted to tell you a few
things about your exercise files.
| | 00:08 | If you are a Premium member of the lynda.
com Online Training Library, or if you are
| | 00:13 | watching this tutorial on a disc, you
have access to the exercise files used
| | 00:16 | throughout this title.
| | 00:18 | The exercise files are in the Exercise_Files
folder, which here I have placed on the desktop.
| | 00:23 | You can store it at wherever you like.
| | 00:24 | There are files from most movies.
| | 00:26 | They reside in the sub-folders
named according to the chapters.
| | 00:29 | And here you can just open the
chapter and you will see the files inside.
| | 00:33 | It is not necessary for you to use these files.
| | 00:36 | You can use files of your
own and replace them if you want.
| | 00:39 | If you are a monthly or annual
subscriber to lynda.com, you don't have access to
| | 00:43 | these exercise files, but you can
follow along with your own work.
| | 00:47 | So what do you say? Let's get started.
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|
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1. Setting Up Photoshop for Color CorrectionSetting color workflow preferences| 00:00 | Welcome back to Color Correction.
| | 00:02 | In this chapter, we are going to talk
about setting up Preferences in Photoshop
| | 00:06 | and Photoshop's tools and menus and
panels, and get them working real slick,
| | 00:11 | so you can work quickly and
accurately inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:14 | To get started we are going to go to
Bridge and we are going to open up our
| | 00:16 | images through Bridge.
| | 00:17 | We've got a whole section to talk
about Bridge later on in more detail, but
| | 00:21 | suffice it to say that Bridge is a
digital asset management application as part
| | 00:24 | of the Creative Suite that we use
for accessing and managing our images.
| | 00:28 | So let's just double-click on this image and
it opens up inside of Photoshop as you see here.
| | 00:33 | And one of the first things we are
going to start setting up Photoshop is
| | 00:36 | look at our Preferences.
| | 00:37 | If you are working on a Macintosh,
you access your Preferences by going
| | 00:40 | underneath the application menu here,
Photoshop, and choosing Preferences and then General.
| | 00:45 | If you are working on Windows, you
generally go to Edit menu and go to
| | 00:48 | Preferences and then General.
| | 00:50 | And you'll notice in either case
that the keyboard shortcut is the same.
| | 00:53 | It's Command+K on the Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows.
| | 00:57 | This is a good preference to remember
because Command or Ctrl+K works throughout
| | 01:01 | the Creative Suite on both Mac and
Windows for accessing Preferences.
| | 01:04 | All right, so let's choose that and
bring up our first set of preferences
| | 01:07 | here underneath General.
| | 01:08 | First thing we are going to look at is
Image Interpolation and if you haven't
| | 01:12 | look to this in couple of versions of
Photoshop you'll notice that there are
| | 01:15 | couple of new ones up here.
| | 01:16 | Bicubic Smoother and Bicubic Sharper,
if you're doing a lot of enlargement
| | 01:21 | or a lot of reduction.
| | 01:22 | But for general settings purposes go
ahead and just use it on general Bicubic.
| | 01:25 | But for working with high-quality color
images you want to ignore the first two.
| | 01:29 | All right, so we'll start with that and
typically that's the default preference
| | 01:33 | anyway, but just give it a check to make sure.
| | 01:35 | All right, what you see here on the left
-hand side is there are a couple of key
| | 01:39 | preferences to take a look at.
| | 01:41 | The Auto-Update Documents should be turned
on by default, but just make sure that it is.
| | 01:45 | Two of the preferences, you want to
make sure you turn off or the Export
| | 01:48 | Clipboard and the Use Shift Key for Tool Switch.
| | 01:51 | The reason why you want to turn off
the Export for Clipboard is if you are
| | 01:54 | working in Photoshop and you want to
move to another application, that can be a
| | 01:58 | very slow process as you have been
copying and pasting objects inside of
| | 02:02 | Photoshop like in the Layers
panel from one layer to another one.
| | 02:05 | When you switch to another application,
all that data that you've been copying
| | 02:08 | and pasting has to be moved to the next
application and typically we don't copy
| | 02:13 | out of Photoshop to other
applications, but we may copy into Photoshop.
| | 02:17 | So you're pretty safe turning that
off unless you do need to copy out.
| | 02:21 | Now this Use Shift Key for Tool
Switch, really important one to turn off.
| | 02:24 | Let me show you why.
| | 02:25 | This is going to help speed you up.
| | 02:26 | Let's bring up our Tool panel that
we have here in Photoshop and by
| | 02:31 | clicking off that particular preference,
I can access any tool here with just an alpha key.
| | 02:37 | For instance, if I want to go to the
Lasso tool, L, and notice the keyboard
| | 02:40 | shortcut for that when you click
and hold is right there in the menu.
| | 02:43 | If I want to go to another tool such
as the Crop tool, which you see right there,
| | 02:47 | just hit C for Crop tool,
or M for Marquee and so forth.
| | 02:51 | By not having to hold down that Shift
key you can just use the single alpha key
| | 02:55 | keyboard shortcut to access your tools.
| | 02:57 | Resize Image During Paste/Place, yes,
leave that turned on. That's a default.
| | 03:01 | Over on the right-hand side
we have some new things in CS4.
| | 03:05 | Animated Zoom, you want to turn
that on, and also Zoom Resizes Window.
| | 03:10 | Watch what happens when that is not turned on.
| | 03:12 | If I go Command+Minus, Minus, see how the
window goes down but the frame doesn't, whereas
| | 03:17 | if we turn that on, Zoom Resizes Window,
and then we go Command+Minus, Minus, or Plus, Plus,
| | 03:23 | notice how the frame
goes along with the window.
| | 03:25 | It's a nice one to have on.
| | 03:26 | Zoom with Scroll Wheel. Well, if you
want to use the scroll wheel for zoom,
| | 03:30 | turn that on. Same thing for Zooming with
Click Pointed to Center, you can click on
| | 03:34 | an image and then zoom in or
zoom out on what you click on.
| | 03:37 | Those are both new in CS4.
| | 03:39 | I don't use them and I'll show you why
a little bit later. I use something that
| | 03:42 | I think is much faster.
| | 03:44 | But if you like that feature
you can go ahead and turn it on.
| | 03:47 | Enable Flick Panning, that's pretty slick.
| | 03:49 | Let's see what that does.
| | 03:50 | Let's take this up and then just hold
down the Spacebar to zoom around and
| | 03:53 | notice I just move around with my hand,
but I can also just kind of flick it
| | 03:56 | with my wrist and notice the
image keeps moving when I do that.
| | 04:00 | That's the Flick Pan, which is kind of nice.
| | 04:02 | So you can turn that on and leave that on.
| | 04:04 | So the key things here, turn off the
Export Clipboard, turn off the Shift key,
| | 04:08 | make sure that you turned
on the Zoom Resizes Window.
| | 04:11 | And those all are going to
help you work faster and easier.
| | 04:14 | Now let's go to the second
preference here which is the Interface.
| | 04:17 | Lots of new stuff in CS4.
| | 04:19 | First in terms of your general screen modes,
and there are three basic screen modes.
| | 04:24 | This is Standard one, which is what we
are in now, this is a Full Screen with Menus,
| | 04:27 | and then a Full Screen.
| | 04:29 | And those we have colors set here.
| | 04:31 | Gray, there is a custom color which I
would come to in just a second and then black.
| | 04:34 | Let's click OK and we can access these
here underneath the frame inside of CS4.
| | 04:40 | Notice when you look at this menu,
this is the Standard Screen Mode.
| | 04:43 | The Full Screen Mode with the Menu
Bar and then just the Full Screen Mode.
| | 04:46 | Okay, the Screen Mode without
anything is just the image and then all the
| | 04:50 | panels and tools show up.
| | 04:52 | And then you can go to the Full Screen,
which everything still shows up,
| | 04:55 | but there is a background, or if you
just want to go to Full Screen Mode where
| | 04:59 | you just see the image.
| | 05:01 | And by the way you can access all those
very quickly and easily by just toggling
| | 05:04 | on the F key as I'm doing here.
| | 05:06 | But what you want to pay attention
to is what that interface looks like.
| | 05:09 | In here, we have gray for the first one,
we have black and here we have a
| | 05:13 | custom gray, which we access by
choosing Select Custom Color, and then you can
| | 05:18 | choose any color in this
Color panel that you see here.
| | 05:20 | My suggestion is keep it neutral.
| | 05:22 | You don't want to have any colors on
your background because the human eye
| | 05:25 | perception of color is controlled
or affected by surrounding colors.
| | 05:29 | So adjust the grayscale there if you
want to make it lighter or darker, that's fine,
| | 05:33 | and then click OK, and then you
can turn this off, and then you'll have
| | 05:36 | exactly the neutral background that
you like for looking at your images.
| | 05:39 | So that's nice to be able to
control that quickly and easily through
| | 05:42 | new Interface section.
| | 05:43 | Couple of other important ones here.
Show Channels in Color, leave that
| | 05:47 | turned off because that's a lie. There
is no such thing as working actually in
| | 05:51 | color in Photoshop as
we'll see. Show Tool Tips.
| | 05:54 | It's nice when you first get started
in Photoshop where you are kind of looking
| | 05:57 | around, but otherwise I'd like to turn that off.
| | 05:59 | Down here Open Documents as Tabs and
Enable Floating Document Window Docking.
| | 06:04 | That's part of the new Tabs features
inside of Photoshop, which we'll come to in
| | 06:08 | a little bit later section of this chapter.
| | 06:10 | My suggestion is to turn those on.
| | 06:12 | It can give yourself
flexibility of using them or not.
| | 06:15 | The other thing I recommend
is Remember Panel Locations.
| | 06:18 | At the end of this chapter, we are
going to be talking about setting up your
| | 06:20 | whole color correction workspace,
and that's going to be a nice important
| | 06:24 | part of that so your panels are always using
the same place when you go to do color correction.
| | 06:29 | Okay, so there we go. There is kind of
the first two sets of preferences there
| | 06:32 | are key for working in Photoshop
quickly and accurately and getting Photoshop
| | 06:35 | to be consistent in the way you want it to look.
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| Managing your memory for optimization| 00:00 | In this section we are going to
continue with setting preferences and setting up
| | 00:04 | Photoshop, so you can get Photoshop to
perform quickly and accurately in the
| | 00:08 | same way all the time.
| | 00:10 | We are going to go right
to Photoshop Preferences.
| | 00:13 | Remember the keyboard shortcut for
Photoshop Preferences or any Creative Suite
| | 00:16 | Preferences, Command+K on the
Macintosh, or Ctrl+K on Windows.
| | 00:20 | And of course, you remember the
character K because of the character K in
| | 00:24 | the word Preference.
| | 00:25 | Yeah, don't ask me why they used K
instead of something else. I don't know.
| | 00:31 | But if you spell preference with a K
then you'll remember it. That's what I do.
| | 00:34 | All right, in the previous section
we ended up here talking about these
| | 00:38 | particular preferences.
| | 00:40 | And I mentioned the Enable Floating
Document Window Docking and Tabs.
| | 00:44 | Let me just show you what that is.
| | 00:45 | We are going to click OK here, we are
going to move over to the Window menu and
| | 00:50 | come down here and choose Application Frame.
| | 00:52 | When we turn that on, notice you get this frame
that goes in the background. This is so nice.
| | 00:58 | Now if you are a Windows user you
are used to seeing this because Windows
| | 01:01 | applications automatically
have frames in the background.
| | 01:04 | This is kind of new for Macintosh users,
but if you are working like we are with
| | 01:09 | Bridge in the background,
it's a fairly complex background.
| | 01:12 | It's nice to be able to have that
frame around your image all the time.
| | 01:15 | It kind of cleans up the screen for you.
| | 01:17 | So that's pretty nice.
| | 01:18 | So you can turn on that frame, and
then in that Preferences on the Interface
| | 01:23 | where it says Open Documents as Tabs
and Enable Document Floating Window,
| | 01:27 | whenever you open up another document,
for instance, let's go into Bridge and
| | 01:32 | open up the second one.
| | 01:33 | Notice it will open up and you'll be in
Tabs if you want it to be, and then if
| | 01:38 | you want to, you can pull them off and
have them in individual windows as well.
| | 01:42 | So you can turn that on or off
depending upon your particular preference.
| | 01:46 | I'd like to have the choice
of those two most of the time.
| | 01:49 | Sometimes I turn it off.
| | 01:50 | All right, in this next section I'm
going to talk about File Handling and
| | 01:54 | basically this is controlling how we
handle our files particularly as how we
| | 01:58 | save them out and move them around.
| | 02:00 | My suggestion here is to choose
Always Save and then Icon, Macintosh,
| | 02:04 | and Windows Thumbnails.
| | 02:06 | If you are working in print
predominantly or you are working in lots of
| | 02:09 | different media, it's
nice to have Image Previews.
| | 02:12 | If you're just working for the web,
however, what you might want to do is turn
| | 02:16 | that off and never save with previews.
| | 02:19 | If you are working back and forth between
print and web then you can do an ask when saving.
| | 02:23 | The reason why you don't want
thumbnails for web-based images is that browsers
| | 02:26 | don't use thumbnails.
| | 02:27 | They just use the whole image.
| | 02:30 | But if you are working in mixed media,
it's nice to be able to have the thumbnails.
| | 02:33 | What do you do want to turn for
sure is the always append the three
| | 02:37 | character extension.
| | 02:38 | Might as well let Photoshop do the heavy
-lifting here with this nuts and bolts
| | 02:42 | stuff of adding the .TIFF or .PSD,
whatever the three character extension is,
| | 02:47 | because it automatically then makes
your document or image cross platform and
| | 02:51 | allows your operating systems to
easily recognize what the file format is and
| | 02:55 | therefore which application, in this case
Photoshop, will be used to open those images.
| | 03:00 | Down here near the bottom Ask Before Saving
Layered TIFF Files, really, really good idea.
| | 03:05 | A little bit later on we are going to
talk about when to use TIFF, when to use
| | 03:08 | JPEG and when to use .PSD files.
| | 03:11 | As a general rule, we are going to want
to use or I'm going to recommend that
| | 03:14 | you use TIFF for flattened and
simplified files that you use for print.
| | 03:19 | Which means that you typically
don't want to save layered TIFF files.
| | 03:22 | On my recommendations it's going to be
if you've got layers or alpha channels
| | 03:26 | or mask or vector mask or editable
type, you want to save those in .PSD file
| | 03:30 | rather than a TIFF.
| | 03:31 | So go ahead and check that on so that
if you ever go to save a TIFF and you've
| | 03:35 | got some complexity in there,
Photoshop will let you know.
| | 03:37 | The other thing I recommend here is
Maximize .PSD and .PSB and for those of
| | 03:43 | you who are not familiar with .PSB,
that's the large document file format that
| | 03:47 | now Photoshop supports.
| | 03:49 | When you want to go up to over 35,000
pixels, when you print in very large
| | 03:53 | dimensions, wide format
printing devices for instance.
| | 03:56 | My suggestion is to always save this.
| | 03:58 | It's a minimal increase in the
file size and guarantees more forward
| | 04:02 | and backward compatibility as you move into
the future with new versions of Photoshop.
| | 04:06 | So that's how I set up this particular
dialog box and then finally here the
| | 04:10 | main preference to pay attention to
is Performance and there are a couple of
| | 04:14 | things you want to pay attention to here.
| | 04:16 | One, if you are working on a newer
computer, over here you will see a GPU Setting.
| | 04:20 | Make sure that Enable OpenGL
Drawing, all those zooming flick pan
| | 04:25 | things that we have in Photoshop CS4 are
enabled by this little checkbox right here.
| | 04:31 | This is not available in some of
the older versions of Macs and PCs.
| | 04:35 | But it is just checkable,
go ahead and turn it on.
| | 04:37 | The other thing I want to pay
attention to here is how much RAM you're going
| | 04:40 | to allow to Photoshop.
| | 04:41 | My first recommendation is you want
at least 2 gigabytes of RAM and four,
| | 04:45 | if you can afford it, and then the default
here is to let Photoshop use 70% of that.
| | 04:50 | I think that's a good choice.
| | 04:51 | Typically don't go above that because your
operating system needs plenty of RAM to work with.
| | 04:56 | So go about 70%. I like that.
| | 04:58 | But do pay attention to this down here.
| | 04:59 | If you've got two different hard
drives that you can access, take your boot
| | 05:03 | drive and put it second, and you move
these by clicking here and then,
| | 05:06 | there is the Macintosh Boot Drive and I'm going
to move the Data Drive up here, make it first.
| | 05:10 | So that's going to be the first drive
that Photoshop will use for swapping data
| | 05:13 | back and forth through Virtual Memory,
and that way your operating system is
| | 05:17 | going to use the Boot Drive, in
Photoshop we'll use this other drive, so they
| | 05:20 | won't run into each other and conflict.
| | 05:22 | All right, so there we go, there is
setting of File Handling and Performance,
| | 05:26 | and those are two important parts
of the preferences to take a look at.
| | 05:29 | Cursors, let me just zip through here a
couple of these and show you what I do.
| | 05:32 | I'd like to use a full brush size so
I can see both the 100% as well as the
| | 05:37 | outside of the brush and I'd like
to see a crosshair and that crosshair
| | 05:40 | shows you exactly where the middle of
the brush is, which is nice when you are
| | 05:43 | using large brushes.
| | 05:44 | Transparency & Gamut, leave that the
way it is. Same thing with Units & Rulers.
| | 05:47 | I like the defaults.
| | 05:49 | Grids, Guides and Slices really
don't have much of an impact on us.
| | 05:52 | Keep them the way they are,
set up with nice colors.
| | 05:55 | Plug-ins, just the way they were as a default.
| | 05:58 | The only thing you might want to do here
if you are setting type in your images,
| | 06:01 | set your Font Preview Size, and
this is of course is age-based.
| | 06:04 | This is if you are under 16, 16-21, 21-35,
35-50, and if you are ancient, we'll go Huge.
| | 06:11 | Okay, so set this up however you
like to view your menus and particularly
| | 06:15 | your type in your menus.
| | 06:17 | Do you want to use Smart Quotes? Yes or no.
| | 06:20 | It's just a preference for you.
I typically turn mine off and I use my
| | 06:22 | keyboard shortcut, use my open and
closed double and single curly quotes,
| | 06:27 | so I can have access to my inch
and feet marks from my keyboard.
| | 06:31 | All right, so there is the preferences
for setting up Photoshop and also for
| | 06:34 | accessing one of the new features
in CS4, the application frame.
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| Assigning color settings| 00:00 | In this section on setting up Photoshop,
we are going to cover setting up Color
| | 00:04 | Settings inside of Photoshop, and in fact,
this is something you really ought to
| | 00:08 | do before you even open up an image.
| | 00:09 | We have kind of put the cart before
the horse here, because setting up your
| | 00:13 | Color Settings is something you do want to
do before you even start inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:18 | So where do we get to our Color Settings?
| | 00:21 | To come down underneath the Edit menu
and choose Color Settings, and for those
| | 00:26 | of you who like keyboard shortcuts, if
you remember the keyboard shortcuts for
| | 00:30 | accessing Preferences, it's Command+K or
Ctrl+K on the Mac and Windows, just add
| | 00:34 | a Shift key to that.
| | 00:36 | Command+Shift+K or Ctrl+Shift+K.
It brings up Color Settings.
| | 00:40 | So when you are setting up
Photoshop it's all about the Ks.
| | 00:43 | The Command+K and the Command+
Shift+K for setting up Photoshop.
| | 00:46 | Now, if you have ever seen this dialog
box before and ever looked at it, and
| | 00:50 | went holy smokes, close
that before I hurt myself.
| | 00:54 | It's a pretty complicated looking dialog box.
| | 00:56 | Well, the first thing that you can
do is just click on Fewer Options.
| | 00:59 | There, see that's better already.
| | 01:01 | There is only two important
things that you want to set up here.
| | 01:05 | We could spend all sorts of time
talking about how to set up all the details of
| | 01:08 | this entire dialog box, but for our
purposes, for working inside of Photoshop,
| | 01:13 | for color correction, the two things you
really want to pay attention to are the
| | 01:16 | RGB and the CMYK Working Spaces.
| | 01:20 | This first setting here, the RGB
Working Space, this is what you will choose
| | 01:24 | to determine which color space into which
you will open an image inside of Photoshop.
| | 01:29 | And notice that there is several
default color spaces built in here.
| | 01:33 | Now, before we choose one, let me just
go back over to More Options here for a
| | 01:37 | second, and turn that on, and
show you what happens to this menu.
| | 01:40 | Oh my gosh, look at how many
different settings you have got here.
| | 01:44 | Most of those you won't need, which
is another reason why you could just
| | 01:46 | turn-off the More Settings
and go to Fewer Settings.
| | 01:49 | Now, if you are one of the lucky ones
who are actually working in a fully color
| | 01:53 | managed workflow, you will probably
have your own custom color profile, but if
| | 01:58 | you are like most people and you don't
have your own custom color profile, you
| | 02:01 | are going to choose from one of these here.
| | 02:03 | When we're working in color there are
three things that we want to really think
| | 02:07 | about, the three core topics or items
to think about in your head are, what
| | 02:11 | color space are you working in, what's
the gamut of that color space, and then
| | 02:16 | what color profile am I using for
opening or saving or working on my images.
| | 02:20 | Well, in this one menu here, we see RGB
color spaces, and that's typically the
| | 02:25 | color space into which we
capture and open and edit images.
| | 02:29 | The color space is determined by the
colorants, in this case red, green,
| | 02:32 | and blue colorants.
| | 02:33 | Then the gamut refers to
range of reproducible colors.
| | 02:37 | Profile, the third term in concept, are
the files that we use for describing the
| | 02:41 | color space and the color gamut.
| | 02:43 | Well, these are all general
or generic color profiles.
| | 02:47 | Notice that the default inside of
Photoshop is SRGB, which is fine if you are
| | 02:51 | a web maven and you focus on
creating web images, but if you are creating
| | 02:55 | images for the web and for commercial
printing and for expanded gamut printing
| | 02:59 | on an inkjet printer, you are really
going to be better off choosing one of
| | 03:02 | the other color spaces.
| | 03:04 | My general recommendation is
to choose Adobe RGB (1998).
| | 03:08 | If you are a professional photographer
and you are using a high-end camera that
| | 03:11 | allows you to capture and edit in the
ProPhoto RGB, go ahead and choose that.
| | 03:16 | But for everybody else, if you don't
have a ProPhoto option, go ahead and choose
| | 03:20 | Adobe RGB (1998), and then whenever
you open up an image inside of Photoshop,
| | 03:24 | that's going to be the preferred color space.
| | 03:26 | By the way, if you are a photographer,
you should set this color space on
| | 03:30 | your camera as well.
| | 03:31 | Most digital cameras have SRGB, which is
the web color space, which is a smaller
| | 03:37 | color space than the Adobe RGB (1998).
| | 03:40 | So be sure to set this on your digital
camera as well as here in Photoshop. Okay.
| | 03:44 | Then what we want to choose here on
the CMYK is what's going to happen to our
| | 03:48 | RGB color space files when we
convert them into CMYK, specifically for
| | 03:53 | commercial printing.
| | 03:54 | Now, again, if you are a professional
photographer and/or your final output
| | 03:59 | device is a wide gamut inkjet printer,
which is printing with cyan, magenta,
| | 04:03 | yellow, and black, plus maybe light
cyan and light magenta inks, you are not
| | 04:07 | going to convert it to CMYK.
| | 04:09 | That's going to occur on the
fly during the printing process.
| | 04:12 | But if you are sending your files for
commercial print, then you probably are
| | 04:15 | going to convert to CMYK in Photoshop.
| | 04:17 | What you want to do here is
choose one of these color profiles.
| | 04:21 | Remember a color profile is the
description of the color gamut and the
| | 04:24 | color space of the device that you
are going to be outputting to, in this
| | 04:27 | case a printing device.
| | 04:29 | Choose the kind of press and the general kind
of paper in which you are going to be printing.
| | 04:33 | So if you are going to send your files,
or you would tend to send your files to
| | 04:36 | a commercial printing press, that's
going to be printed on coated stock, then
| | 04:39 | you might choose U.S. Sheetfed Coated.
| | 04:43 | If you are going to uncoated stock,
then you might choose U.S. Sheetfed
| | 04:45 | Uncoated, or if you are going to a
SWOP v2, this is U.S. Web Coated, if it's
| | 04:51 | going on web based press, and
there is a web based uncoated.
| | 04:55 | Now, some printing companies now are
supporting the new standards called the
| | 04:58 | GRACoL standard, which is generally on
a sheetfed press, on coated stock, and
| | 05:03 | it's just a refinement really
of the earlier SWOP standards.
| | 05:06 | And this is if you are printing in the
U.S. Of course if you are printing in
| | 05:09 | Japan, then they have got Japanese colors here.
| | 05:12 | Choose the one that matches the country,
the printing press, and the paper in
| | 05:16 | which you are going to be printing.
| | 05:17 | We are going to go with the standard U.
S. Sheetfed Coated here, and basically
| | 05:21 | this doesn't do anything to our
image until we convert it into CMYK.
| | 05:25 | Although when we get to talking about
the Info panel, the CMYK values that you
| | 05:30 | see in your Info panel will be controlled
by whichever color profile you choose here.
| | 05:34 | Well, there we go.
| | 05:35 | There's setting up our working spaces,
Adobe RGB, unless you are a professional
| | 05:39 | photographer, then go to ProPhoto, and
then choose the printing press and the
| | 05:42 | general paper in which you are going to
be printing, and then click OK. Boom!
| | 05:47 | You are done setting up your color
spaces, and now you are consistently opening
| | 05:50 | and saving your images into the two
working color spaces of RGB and CMYK.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding color tools| 00:00 | In this section, I would like to
discuss all the various tools that you are
| | 00:04 | going to use for performing color
correction chores on your images, and getting
| | 00:08 | familiar with the tools is the first
step towards really mastering those tools.
| | 00:13 | Then as we go through on later sections,
we'll talk about quickly accessing and
| | 00:16 | organizing them, and then using them
in the proper order to develop a whole
| | 00:20 | color correction workflow.
| | 00:22 | So step one is the tools.
| | 00:23 | Some of these tools are interface tools
and notice we have, like we did before,
| | 00:28 | just the image up and if we have got the
Bridge in the background as we do here,
| | 00:32 | sometimes it looks a little bit too complicated.
| | 00:35 | So one of the things that we can do to
kind of clean up our window that we have
| | 00:39 | is bring up the Application Frame.
| | 00:42 | If you are a Windows user, you
already probably have one of these.
| | 00:45 | If you are a Mac user, you may be new
to the Application Frame, but one of the
| | 00:48 | nice things about it is it
provides you with a nice clear background
| | 00:51 | surrounding your image, and if you
remember in the discussion of our interface,
| | 00:56 | we set the percentage of gray or the
colors for our background, all those
| | 01:00 | colors should be neutral.
| | 01:02 | So having that frame up there is nice.
| | 01:05 | The other thing we would like to have is
the Options panel and the Options panel
| | 01:09 | is up here, and that should
be checked on, as we'll see.
| | 01:11 | We'll talk about accessing all these
with keyboard shortcuts in a later segment.
| | 01:15 | But when you select a tool over here,
such as one of the Magic Wand tools, the
| | 01:19 | options for those tools come up here.
| | 01:22 | So I suggest as a general rule having
your Options panel up and having your
| | 01:26 | Application Frame available as well.
| | 01:29 | Notice you can move your
Application Frame around if you like.
| | 01:31 | You can also resize that Application Frame.
| | 01:35 | Very handy, very nice, and boy, it's
great for having that nice clear background.
| | 01:40 | The next tool we'll bring up
is called the Layers panel.
| | 01:44 | What Layers allows us to do of
course is make copies of images.
| | 01:48 | Like here I have a duplicate copy
of the background we have, creating
| | 01:51 | a Sharpening layer.
| | 01:52 | You can make selections and
put them on individual layers.
| | 01:55 | We also have adjustment layers,
and that's what these are here.
| | 01:59 | These are nondestructive editing layers.
| | 02:01 | The two most common one we
use are Curves and Levels.
| | 02:05 | There is another tool that works hand
in hand with the Layers panel, and that's
| | 02:10 | the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:12 | This is new in CS4.
| | 02:14 | The Adjustments panel provides you with
access to all sorts of different kinds
| | 02:17 | of adjustments, as you see here.
| | 02:20 | Levels, Curves, Exposure, Hue/
Saturation, Black & White Presets.
| | 02:24 | You are probably thinking, hey,
those look pretty familiar names.
| | 02:27 | If you go up underneath the Image and
go to Adjustments, lo and behold, you see
| | 02:31 | a lot of the same things, the Levels,
the Curves, the Exposure, Hue/Saturation,
| | 02:35 | Color Balance, Black & White, and so forth.
| | 02:37 | So many of the image adjustments that
you have been used to getting from that
| | 02:41 | menu, you can now get
from the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:43 | So first of all, it's nice and fast to
be able to get to, and notice that you
| | 02:47 | have familiar icons for
the Curves and for Levels.
| | 02:51 | Notice as I'm clicking over here on my
Layers panel, they activate over here in
| | 02:55 | the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:57 | Not only does this give you quick and
easy access to these critical tools such
| | 03:01 | as Curves, and Curves as you will
see is going to be one of our real core
| | 03:04 | foundation tools for doing our
corrections in color, but also provides you
| | 03:09 | with the ability to keep working on your image
even though you have an active Curves dialog box.
| | 03:15 | So for instance, if I want to go
to a Magic Wand tool, I can do so.
| | 03:18 | I can come right over here and click
and Shift-click and just go about my
| | 03:21 | merry way, using my Magic Wand tool,
no problem at all, even though my Curves
| | 03:26 | dialog box is still open.
| | 03:27 | So quick and easy access, as well as the
ability to continue working and editing
| | 03:33 | your image while that Curves is up.
| | 03:35 | So that's a nice addition to CS4.
| | 03:38 | So there is the Layers and then the
Adjustments panel that work hand in hand.
| | 03:43 | Another really nice tool we are
going to use for evaluating our images is
| | 03:48 | called the Histogram.
| | 03:49 | You have probably seen
graphics that look like this before.
| | 03:52 | In fact, if we move right over here to
Levels, we see, oh, there is a histogram.
| | 03:56 | Or if we go to the Image menu and go
to Adjustments > Levels, we bring up the
| | 04:01 | Levels dialog box that
shows us Histograms as well.
| | 04:04 | But what the Histogram panel does for
us, it shows us all the data here up in
| | 04:08 | the master histogram, and then if we
choose, as we have done here, To View
| | 04:13 | All Channels, we can see the red, green,
and blue histogram data all at the same time.
| | 04:19 | We don't use this for correcting, but
we use this for viewing and evaluating.
| | 04:22 | Just a quick glance at looking at this
Histogram panel, you can tell a lot about
| | 04:26 | the distribution of data,
and we'll indeed do that.
| | 04:29 | We'll talk about what all this data
distribution means as we go along.
| | 04:32 | Now, the two tools underneath are Image
and Adjustments, or in our Adjustments
| | 04:39 | panel that we are going to use are
Levels and Curves, and indeed the foundation
| | 04:44 | for just about all the adjustments we
are going to make when we finally get down
| | 04:46 | to it is going to be the Curves dialog box.
| | 04:49 | Notice Image > Adjustment > Curves.
| | 04:53 | You can still bring up that separate
Curves dialog box and work in that if you
| | 04:58 | want to, and there will
be some cases when we do.
| | 05:00 | But typically, we are going to be
wanting to work on the same Curves tool,
| | 05:04 | but as an adjustment layer and access it
and control it through the Adjustments panel.
| | 05:11 | Now, notice that the new Curves tool,
which I call the super Curves tool,
| | 05:13 | because you can pretty much do
everything with it, you can see all the histogram
| | 05:17 | data just like you can in the Histogram
panel and in Levels, and you can see the
| | 05:21 | individual histograms for the
individual channels, plus you can do all the
| | 05:24 | editing that you want on both the
highlight and shadow ends, and anywhere in
| | 05:28 | between, on any portion of the tonal range.
| | 05:30 | So it's a very, very powerful tool indeed.
| | 05:33 | So the Layers, the Histogram, the
Levels, the Curves, and remember, these two
| | 05:37 | tools we are going to use together,
the Layers and the Adjustments.
| | 05:40 | There is another set of tools
we are going to use together.
| | 05:43 | These are just as important as the
last two, and this is the Info panel, and
| | 05:48 | then the tool that we are going to
use hand in hand with that is called the
| | 05:51 | Color Sampler tool, and that we have right here.
| | 05:53 | See, it's one of the
variations of the Eyedropper tool.
| | 05:56 | What the Color Sampler tool does,
and how it operates is just like the
| | 05:59 | Eyedropper tool, but it's a multiple
Eyedropper tool, and this allows us to set
| | 06:05 | and then record up to four points.
| | 06:06 | Notice in this image, we have 1, 2, 3,
4 Color Sampler value sets corresponding
| | 06:12 | to 1, 2, 3, 4 points that we have set here.
| | 06:15 | So the way we use this is we pick or
assign critical portions of our image, and
| | 06:19 | we set this Color Sampler points on them,
and then we can adjust them using say
| | 06:23 | a Curves dialog box.
| | 06:26 | Watch these values here.
| | 06:27 | Notice they are the same on both sides,
231/231, 147/147, 100/100, because no
| | 06:33 | adjustments have been made.
| | 06:34 | Now, if we just click on the middle of
the master histogram curve and pull it
| | 06:38 | down, see how all the values
change in all four of those points.
| | 06:41 | So you can measure and monitor
any adjustments you make on the fly.
| | 06:46 | It's a huge time saver and allows
you to be very accurate very quickly.
| | 06:50 | So these two tools work hand in hand.
| | 06:52 | The Info panel and then the Color
Sampler points work hand in hand, and the
| | 06:56 | Layers and the Adjustment
panel work hand in hand.
| | 07:00 | Then finally, the last primary or
major tool that we are going to use is
| | 07:04 | the Channels panel.
| | 07:07 | What the Channels panel gives us is
first of all, access to the fundamental
| | 07:11 | building blocks of our image, such as
the red, the green, and the blue building
| | 07:15 | block channels, which we'll talk in
good deal about a little bit later.
| | 07:18 | But it also provides us with alpha channels,
which are storage places for selections.
| | 07:24 | What this allows us to do is store and then
recall selections such as we have done here.
| | 07:28 | As you can see, we have the sky
selection, or we can store and recall the
| | 07:33 | mountain selection, and then we can edit
those portions of the image separately.
| | 07:37 | So making and storing and then
recalling selections allows us to do Color
| | 07:40 | Corrections on separate portions of our image.
| | 07:44 | So there is all the main tools.
| | 07:46 | Some of which you are probably
already familiar with, others may be less
| | 07:49 | familiar, and some may be brand new to you.
| | 07:51 | But as we go forward you are going to
learn to become expert in the use of all
| | 07:54 | these tools, and learn how to use them,
and what order in which to use them to
| | 07:58 | give you the best, and most accurate,
and quickest adjustment of your color.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Accessing color correction tools with the keyboard| 00:00 | In this section I'd like to talk about
how to quickly and easily access all the
| | 00:05 | various tools you and I
need to correct color images.
| | 00:08 | Through our previous section we
talked about using the standard Photoshop
| | 00:11 | Tool panel and then the Options panel, which
allows us to modify and format those tools.
| | 00:18 | The Info panel, which worked hand in
hand with the Color Sampler Points that
| | 00:23 | we can place on images, and then the
Adjustments and the Layers panel which work hand in hand.
| | 00:28 | The Channels and then the Histogram.
| | 00:31 | The things that really make it easy for
us to access this is keyboard shortcuts.
| | 00:35 | First, let's review the keyboard
shortcut for just accessing these normal tools.
| | 00:40 | Let's go to the Preference panel.
| | 00:41 | Do you remember the keyboard shortcut for that?
| | 00:44 | It's Command+K on the Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows.
| | 00:48 | Remember that works
throughout the Creative Suite.
| | 00:50 | The important selection here is to turn
off the Use Shift Key for Tool Switch.
| | 00:56 | When we set that, that allows us to
access any of these keys with the single
| | 01:01 | alpha key keyboard shortcuts, like L for Lasso.
| | 01:04 | So, we when go L for Lasso
it goes to the Lasso tool.
| | 01:07 | When we go V to the Move tool, it goes
to the Move. It's how I remember it. Moo-va.
| | 01:13 | C for the Crop tool, T for the
Type tool, B for the Brush tool.
| | 01:18 | And remember, if you see a little tick
box to lower right-hand corner it means
| | 01:21 | there's multiple tools.
| | 01:23 | And you can access these multiple
tools, like here's the Lasso tool.
| | 01:27 | That has multiple Lasso tools, the
Lasso, the Polygonal, and the Magnetic.
| | 01:31 | Watch what happens when I just toggle,
I keep hitting the L key, L, L, L,
| | 01:35 | see how it goes through, and toggles
through all the various Lasso tools.
| | 01:39 | You don't have to hold down the Shift key.
| | 01:41 | So, that's the first
keyboard shortcut to remember.
| | 01:43 | The next one is, remember when we
talked about just all the basic tools, and
| | 01:48 | we were talking about the Options panel,
and the Options panel is right here and
| | 01:52 | that allows you too configure
whatever tool you have selected here.
| | 01:56 | If you select a tool like the Magic
Wand tool, W, and there's no Options panel here,
| | 02:01 | don't worry about coming up
underneath Window and going Options.
| | 02:04 | All you have to do
is hit the Enter key, boom!
| | 02:07 | And it automatically
brings up the Options panel.
| | 02:10 | Of course, when you change tools,
like M for Marquee, V for Move tool, B for
| | 02:14 | Brush tool, it changes what you have
up here in terms of your option controls.
| | 02:19 | Let's go back to Lasso and notice many
of these option panels have data fields
| | 02:25 | in them, which you can configure too,
like Feather is a very common one.
| | 02:29 | Instead, if you're getting the
mouse up here to click on that, just hit
| | 02:31 | the Enter key, boom!
| | 02:32 | If I want to go from a two pixel feather
to a one, I just type in from my keypad 1,
| | 02:36 | and then just hit the Enter
key again, boom, and it applies it.
| | 02:40 | So Enter, 2, and Enter to apply.
| | 02:45 | Works just like a champ.
| | 02:46 | So you always hit the Enter key to
either bring up the Options panel, or access
| | 02:50 | the very first data field that you have there.
| | 02:53 | And if you have multiple data fields,
then you can just Tab from one field to
| | 02:57 | the other and it works just like
any other Tab sequence of dialog boxes.
| | 03:02 | Okay, so there's accessing the
tools and the options for those tools.
| | 03:05 | Let's talk about accessing the Frame
panel, because that's one you would like to
| | 03:09 | be able to turn off and on.
| | 03:11 | And we'll look down here underneath Window.
| | 03:12 | Notice that it says Application Frame.
| | 03:15 | So what I can do is I'll just go Tab
here to hide all of my panels, not turn
| | 03:19 | them off, but hide them.
| | 03:21 | I can turn that Background Frame
off and on very quickly and easily.
| | 03:25 | And there are times when I want to have it
on and times when I want to have it off.
| | 03:29 | But I'm less likely to use it if I
have to come down here all the time.
| | 03:33 | So, how did I assign that
keyboard shortcut? It's easy.
| | 03:36 | Go underneath the Edit menu. I'm
going down here to Keyboard Shortcuts.
| | 03:40 | Once again, it's one of those K settings.
| | 03:42 | We have Command+K for preferences,
all right, for just basis preferences,
| | 03:46 | Command+K. And then the Command+
Shift+K or Ctrl+Shift+K for Color Settings.
| | 03:51 | And then Trashcan K here
for going to Keyboard Shortcuts.
| | 03:55 | Command+Option+Shift+K, Ctrl+Alt+Shift
+K. And then you can choose to apply
| | 03:59 | keyboard shortcuts to either menu items,
and now you can do panel menus and of
| | 04:03 | course individual tools.
| | 04:05 | Here, we're going to go to application
menus and we'll come down here to the
| | 04:08 | Window menu and then you just scroll
down until you find the application frame
| | 04:14 | and just click here to activate that
and just look underneath Shortcut and then
| | 04:19 | Command+Option+Shift+F. If you were
to assign a keyboard shortcut such as
| | 04:23 | Command+Shift+F or Ctrl+Shift+F, and
it's already in use, it will tell you it's
| | 04:28 | already in use and this will be
removed from the Edit > Fade if it's accepted.
| | 04:32 | So you could just keep trying other
keyboard shortcuts that you like or what
| | 04:35 | you think you can remember, until you
get one that does not conflict with one
| | 04:39 | that already exists and you just click Accept.
| | 04:42 | So you can go to any menu item that you
want to and underneath the Window menu,
| | 04:47 | note if I've got all sorts of
keyboard shortcuts assigned.
| | 04:50 | Now, F7 for Layers and F8 for the
Info panel, those are assigned actually in
| | 04:55 | Photoshop. In fact, those are common
throughout the Creative Suite. F6 as well.
| | 05:00 | That brings up the Color panel.
| | 05:01 | F6, F7, F8 so don't
reassign those to anything else.
| | 05:05 | But F11 for the Histogram,
that's one that I've assigned.
| | 05:09 | F9 for Channels, that's
one I've assigned as well.
| | 05:12 | And for the Adjustments panel, Option+F7.
| | 05:16 | Now, let me just explain a little
bit of my method to my madness here.
| | 05:19 | Option+F7. Remember I mentioned that
the Adjustments and Layers work together?
| | 05:24 | I've F7 applied to Layers, well
Photoshop does, so I just went Option+F7 for
| | 05:29 | Adjustments, so it's easy for me
to remember those two together.
| | 05:32 | So I've come in here and I've
assigned keyboard shortcuts to those things
| | 05:36 | that I use all the time.
| | 05:38 | And let's just take a look.
| | 05:40 | F8 will show and hide my Info panel,
and then F7 with my Layers, and then
| | 05:46 | Options+F7 for my Adjustments, and
then I have F9 for my Channels, and I have
| | 05:53 | F11 for my Histogram.
| | 05:56 | So all of these together could be
brought up and either hidden or shown as
| | 06:00 | result of keyboard shortcuts assigned to them.
| | 06:02 | Remember that the Enter key will
allow you to access the very first field
| | 06:06 | of your Options panel.
| | 06:08 | By using some of the built-in
keyboard shortcuts that exist throughout the
| | 06:11 | Creative Suite, such as F7 for Layers,
F8 for Info panel, or some new ones that
| | 06:17 | you will create, such as mine that I use
Option, and then F7 for the Adjustments panel,
| | 06:22 | or F11 that I've assigned to
my Histogram, I can access any of these panels
| | 06:28 | and use them at anytime
that I want to, quickly and easily.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing the color workspace| 00:00 | Well, so far we've learned how to
setup preferences in Photoshop, and we've
| | 00:04 | taken a look at the tools, and we've
talked about how to access those tools
| | 00:07 | with keyboard shortcuts.
| | 00:09 | Now, I'd like to finish up this
segment about setting up Photoshop and
| | 00:12 | arranging all these tools.
| | 00:14 | I'm talking of setting up a workspace
in Photoshop, and it's a really nifty
| | 00:17 | tools and capabilities that
Photoshop provides for us.
| | 00:21 | Here the first one I want to talk about is
linking tool panels together called docking.
| | 00:25 | You can dock one panel into another one,
which is really fun, and it's really great.
| | 00:30 | Watch this.
| | 00:31 | I'm going to start with the Layers
panel, and because remember, I like to use
| | 00:35 | the Layers panel together
with the Adjustments panel.
| | 00:38 | So what we're going to do is we're
going to take the Adjustments panel, we're
| | 00:40 | just going to sneak it
right up underneath the bottom.
| | 00:42 | If you look carefully, there's a little blue
line that appears just as you start to approach.
| | 00:47 | That's the docking signal.
| | 00:50 | As soon as you get that blue line, you can
just release it, and it just snaps right to it.
| | 00:54 | Then the cool thing is not only can
you move them together, but if you access
| | 00:59 | either one of them from either
keyboard shortcut, and do you remember that
| | 01:03 | Layers is one of the built-in keyboard
shortcuts for Photoshop, remember what
| | 01:07 | that keyboard shortcut is? That's right.
| | 01:09 | It's F7 and remember Option+F7 is
the one that I applied to bring up
| | 01:14 | the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:15 | Either one, here I'm pressing the
Option+F7 or just the F7, and it brings up
| | 01:20 | both of them together.
| | 01:21 | So that halves the amount of time and
effort that you have you use to actually
| | 01:25 | access those two particular panels together.
| | 01:27 | So you can have the Histogram by
itself if you want to, and then you can have
| | 01:30 | Layers and Adjustments panel by itself.
| | 01:34 | What's nice is you can just move that
out of the way like this and then you can
| | 01:38 | just scoot the whole thing right back up
so it makes hiding them, or put in kind
| | 01:41 | of around the edges if you
want to, a little bit easier.
| | 01:44 | Then you can put your Info and
your Channels together if you want to.
| | 01:48 | You snap those right too, there you go.
| | 01:50 | So that's nice, so that's an easy way
to combine your panels together, you
| | 01:56 | can snap them together.
| | 01:58 | Remember the keyboard
shortcut for the frame that we have.
| | 02:02 | If you remember the one I applied to the
Command+Option+Shift+F, that allows you
| | 02:05 | to quickly and easily invoke or hide that frame.
| | 02:09 | So remember that one, and just take
a quick remember back to the General
| | 02:13 | Preferences, we start out in the
General Preferences and then went to the
| | 02:16 | Interface, and we talked about just
briefly is Remember Panel Locations.
| | 02:22 | So, when you stop working, and then you
quit Photoshop, if you have that turned
| | 02:27 | on, it will remember where you put your panels.
| | 02:29 | The other one that we discussed
briefly was Open Documents as Tabs, and then
| | 02:34 | Enable Floating Document Windows.
| | 02:37 | Just kind of quick review on that.
| | 02:38 | Let's go open up another image.
| | 02:40 | I go back to Bridge.
| | 02:41 | Then we can just select one of those
images and hit the Enter key, and notice
| | 02:46 | we've got two images up now, and I can
either drag that outside to have that
| | 02:51 | just in a separate window, or since the
docking is turned on, you get that same
| | 02:55 | blue snap too, the docking blue I call it.
| | 02:59 | Then you can go back and forth in one
image to the other, and to navigate from
| | 03:04 | one image to another, use the Command+Tilde key.
| | 03:08 | That's in the upper left-
hand corner of your keyboard.
| | 03:10 | It allows you to go back and forth.
| | 03:13 | So you can either choose to dock, or not to
dock, depending upon how you want to work.
| | 03:18 | All of that is controlled in the
Interface panel of your Preferences.
| | 03:22 | Now if just don't like to use tabs, or
you don't want your documents to open in
| | 03:26 | tabs, you can come in here
and just turn it right off.
| | 03:29 | And there are some times when I do that.
| | 03:31 | All right, so there's working
with your panels, linking the panels
| | 03:35 | together, controlling tabs,
accessing of images in multiple tabs, and
| | 03:40 | setting up your preferences to
control your tabs, and also to remember
| | 03:44 | where you left your panels.
| | 03:45 | Then really the kind of the final thing
here about all these panels is, once you
| | 03:49 | get things setup the way you like them,
and let's say that we work with an image
| | 03:54 | that's like this, and let's
turn our frame off for a second.
| | 03:58 | I'm going to move my Layers up here like
this and my Info panel up there like that.
| | 04:05 | So let's say that this might be a nice
position that you and I might like to
| | 04:09 | work in, and this setup here works well
for me, particularly is a good starting set.
| | 04:14 | What I can do is I can come underneath
Window, and go to Workspace, and then
| | 04:19 | do a Save Workspace.
| | 04:20 | Notice that I've got lots of different
built-in workspaces, and I've got one
| | 04:24 | called Taz Color Correction.
| | 04:26 | When I go to Taz Color Correction, it
mounts all of these different panels
| | 04:29 | that we have up here.
| | 04:30 | Well, if we come here and use Save
Workspace, and then you can call this Color
| | 04:38 | Correction Workspace.
| | 04:42 | Then here you can say hey, I want
to remember the panel locations.
| | 04:46 | If you want to have a different
set of keyboard shortcuts for various
| | 04:49 | workspaces, you can do that.
| | 04:51 | I don't, because I can't remember all that.
| | 04:53 | One set of keyboard
shortcuts is about enough for me.
| | 04:56 | So, I typically will manage panel locations.
| | 04:59 | So then you can click Save.
| | 05:01 | Then no matter what you're doing, or
where you are, or what you have up on
| | 05:04 | screen, next time you come up here,
you come underneath Workspace, and you
| | 05:07 | can choose Taz Color.
| | 05:13 | Then it will just bring you right back
to whatever you had previously when you
| | 05:16 | saved your workspace.
| | 05:18 | So that's a terrific way to always
start your workflows, or work day looking at
| | 05:24 | the same panels, and just
having those panels open.
| | 05:26 | In that way you can keep all the rest
of them that you may or may not want to
| | 05:29 | have opened, for just doing, in this
case color correction, so they don't
| | 05:32 | clutter up your screen.
| | 05:34 | One final thing, as far as controlling
what your image looks like, and we even
| | 05:37 | discussed this a little bit earlier,
how do we control the various View modes,
| | 05:42 | remember we did this with the mouse,
but the keyboard shortcut for doing that,
| | 05:45 | if your remember it's the F key.
| | 05:48 | That allows you to move from
one to the other. There we go.
| | 05:50 | The F will allow you to just toggle
through those three different frames.
| | 05:55 | So that set up keyboard shortcuts, and
then your workspace, and then controlling
| | 05:59 | your Frame Mode View where you can
have complete access and control of your
| | 06:03 | tools really quickly and easily.
| | 06:05 | All right, and then one of the final
things we need to address in terms of the
| | 06:08 | fundamental tools for working in
Photoshop and doing color correction is
| | 06:12 | navigating around our images, and how
we want to manage our images, and those
| | 06:17 | are the final two things
we'll do in this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mastering rules of engagement and keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 | So, far we've talked a good deal
about setting up Photoshop, and setting
| | 00:04 | Preferences and panels and accessing
tools and organizing our color space.
| | 00:09 | Let's start talking a little bit about workflow.
| | 00:11 | And I mentioned workflow and workflow is
the order in which you do things in Photoshop.
| | 00:16 | One of the first things that you want
to think about, you really want to pay
| | 00:20 | attention to in any workflow when you
are working in Photoshop, but particularly
| | 00:23 | color management is really observing
one of two rules, and I hate rules.
| | 00:29 | And I live in Alaska. I moved
to Alaska to get away from rules.
| | 00:33 | But I've got two rules in Photoshop, only two.
| | 00:36 | And the first one is never
ever work on your original image.
| | 00:40 | I always, always work on a
duplicate copy of that image.
| | 00:44 | Now there is multiple ways
of accomplishing this task.
| | 00:47 | When I'm working with
Photoshop this is what I do.
| | 00:50 | When I open up an image, and let's
just go back here, let's just back out of
| | 00:54 | this image here, and let's go back
to Bridge and let's just go ahead and
| | 00:57 | lock this image from Bridge and the image
to be comes up in the upper left-hand corner.
| | 01:01 | One of the first things that I do is I'm
going to reduce the size of this image,
| | 01:06 | and to do this I come underneath my
View menu, and I just go Command or Ctrl on
| | 01:12 | Windows and then Minus, Minus and that
allows me to reduce the dimensions in my
| | 01:17 | image as you see here.
| | 01:18 | And that's put the image up
on the upper left-hand corner.
| | 01:21 | Now why are you thinking am I going
to do that, because my next step is to
| | 01:25 | come underneath Image, and go to
Duplicate, all the way down here about
| | 01:30 | two-thirds away, three-quarters away
down the Image menu, you've got this
| | 01:33 | Duplicate function.
| | 01:34 | And notice I've assigned a
keyboard shortcut of F10.
| | 01:37 | And we did that the same way we talked
about assigning keyboard shortcuts to panels.
| | 01:42 | And then as you go into Edit > Keyboard
Shortcut, you find the Image menu, all
| | 01:47 | right, you display the contents of
that and then you just keep zooming down
| | 01:52 | here, until you find Duplicate and you
click there, I use F10, you know, I don't
| | 01:57 | even know why I start using it so long ago.
| | 02:00 | I've just been using it for
decade, so I continue to use it.
| | 02:03 | You can come up with your own.
| | 02:05 | My only suggestion is don't use the
built-in, once you've come with Photoshop.
| | 02:08 | The F6, the F7, the F8, leave those as
they are, are for accessing the color and
| | 02:14 | then layers, and the Info panel,
because they work not only in Photoshop but
| | 02:18 | throughout the Creative Suite.
| | 02:19 | So you click F10, you click Accept, you
click OK and then all you have to do is
| | 02:25 | just hit the F10 key, and it
brings up the Duplicate dialog box.
| | 02:29 | It allows you to then rename your image.
| | 02:31 | And what I almost always do is I end up
making a working copy, now this one that
| | 02:36 | I just opened up is already a working,
so we'll just call this Working2, all
| | 02:40 | right and then I click OK.
| | 02:42 | But here is a little secret
about naming things in Photoshop.
| | 02:45 | Well, in this particular dialog box,
when this dialog box comes up, notice the
| | 02:50 | whole name is selected.
| | 02:52 | Don't retype the whole name if you
don't have to, just hit the Right Arrow it
| | 02:56 | will put the cursor at the end of that
line, then you can backup just as much as
| | 03:00 | you need, and then put the
underscore 2 or whatever it is.
| | 03:04 | The word Working is not there, add the
word Working to it, and then click the
| | 03:09 | Enter key to apply to OK.
| | 03:11 | In Photoshop, anytime you have this OK
button that's lit up like this, you don't
| | 03:15 | have to point click with your mouse.
| | 03:17 | Just click Enter like this and notice
that puts a new image up on screen and it
| | 03:23 | leaves the original image
right up on screen as well.
| | 03:27 | Now let's just go back for a second to our
preferences that we talked about earlier.
| | 03:32 | In cases like this, sometimes I
don't want my documents to open in tabs.
| | 03:37 | So, if I turn this off, and I click OK, and
let's just go through that sequence again.
| | 03:43 | Let's go back to Bridge, open this
image Command+Minus, Minus, and then I go
| | 03:49 | F10 to duplicate, and just underscore 2,
and then notice that since we are not
| | 03:58 | working in tabs, my new image is opened
at 100%, and then this image is up here
| | 04:04 | in the upper left-hand corner, and you
see what I've done is that by putting
| | 04:08 | this image in the upper left-hand corner with
a Command+Minus, Minus, it's out of the way.
| | 04:12 | So, I don't click on it by
mistake and then start editing it.
| | 04:16 | And let's bring up our
Layers panel for a second.
| | 04:18 | Remember the keyboard shortcut for
layers that's universal throughout
| | 04:22 | the Creative Suite? That's right, F7.
| | 04:25 | And we'll bring up our Layers panel.
| | 04:27 | We have already added an adjustment layer here.
| | 04:29 | So, let's just double-click on that.
| | 04:31 | It brings up our Adjustment panel, which
we've already docked to the bottom of this, right.
| | 04:36 | See how all those are coming in handy now.
| | 04:39 | And then let's just pull this down to
overall darken and then maybe do a little
| | 04:42 | bit of an S-shape curve here to give
this a little bit more contrast, and you
| | 04:46 | see by having this image up on screen,
and this one, we can do a C and C,
| | 04:51 | Compare and Contrast.
| | 04:52 | So, by keeping the original image up
on screen and making it small, I don't
| | 04:56 | click and edit it by mistake, and then
I'm working on this image and I can go
| | 04:59 | back and forth and compare
the two of them very easily.
| | 05:02 | Notice that I'm not doing any
editing to the original image.
| | 05:06 | So that's what I like to do.
| | 05:07 | I like to do the duplicate function,
and notice how fast that image was
| | 05:11 | duplicated, because it's all working
in RAM, nothing is saved to the hard
| | 05:16 | drive at this point.
| | 05:17 | So, I can open up an image,
duplicate, boom, do all sorts of stuff.
| | 05:20 | I don't like it, I just throw it away,
or if I like what I have done, I can go
| | 05:23 | ahead and hit the Command+S
or Ctrl+S key and do a Save.
| | 05:27 | That's just a really good workflow for
doing color correction, particularly if
| | 05:32 | you want to compare your original, with
what the new version is and protect the
| | 05:37 | original this duplicate function,
Command+Minus, Minus and keep your documents,
| | 05:41 | in this case out of tabs.
| | 05:43 | So you can see the original at the same
time that you are working with the new
| | 05:46 | version of the image.
| | 05:48 | So, that's what I recommend, before as
far as basic image workflow for opening
| | 05:52 | up an image, and working on it in Photoshop
when you are doing editing and color correction.
| | 05:56 | Protects the original image, and allows
you to see your current working version
| | 05:59 | and compare them back and forth.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating around images| 00:00 | In this section, I'd like to talk
about the fast way to navigate around
| | 00:03 | a Photoshop image, because part of
working quickly inside of Photoshop
| | 00:07 | is navigating rapidly.
| | 00:09 | By the way, I move to Homer, Alaska because
I like the hike and bike and kayak and ski.
| | 00:15 | So, I got a lot of that stuff to do.
| | 00:17 | So I only like to work about two days a week.
| | 00:20 | So, all of these keyboard shortcuts
are designed to keep me working about two
| | 00:23 | days a week and somebody
has to do all that stuff.
| | 00:27 | So that will be me.
| | 00:27 | So this is one of the
things that I do to work quickly.
| | 00:30 | Again, let's start in the Bridge
interface and let's open up an image, and this
| | 00:34 | is another image, we've
seen a little bit of this one.
| | 00:37 | This is view from my front porch in Homer,
sunrise and then early fall mornings.
| | 00:42 | So there is snow in the mountains, and
that's the glacier across Kachemak Bay.
| | 00:46 | It's about 10 miles away.
| | 00:48 | This beautiful morning is there.
| | 00:50 | And remember, what we do, when we
first open up an image inside of Photoshop,
| | 00:54 | you go Command+Minus, Minus and then
we are going to duplicate before we do
| | 00:58 | anything else, and we'll call this one
the Working copy, there we go, then hit OK.
| | 01:05 | So the first navigation is concerned.
| | 01:08 | There are tools that you can go ahead
and select, like you can select the Move
| | 01:12 | tool if you want to, and you can select
the Hand tool, if you want to from the
| | 01:17 | palette, but there is really no need to
do that, because all of this can be done
| | 01:20 | from the keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:22 | Every single one of this can be done.
| | 01:24 | Now before we move any further, let's
go back to our Preferences, and just
| | 01:28 | make darn sure, we've got the Zoom
Resizes Window turned on, so that the frame
| | 01:33 | as well as the image will expand and contract,
as we zoom in and zoom out on our window.
| | 01:38 | And the keyboard shortcut for
preference remember is, that's right,
| | 01:42 | Command+K, all right.
| | 01:44 | So how do we navigate around this image?
| | 01:46 | What's the fast way to do this?
| | 01:48 | Well, we can use these two keyboard
shortcuts to zoom in and zoom out on a Window.
| | 01:53 | Let's try that. We'll go Command and then Minus,
Command+Minus, Minus and Command+Plus, Plus.
| | 02:00 | And by the way you want to use always
two hands to do this, where one hand
| | 02:05 | is going to be on the Command, the
Option, the Ctrl, the Alt, the Shift, in
| | 02:08 | this case the left-hand and then the
right-hand is going to be navigating
| | 02:12 | the Plus and Minus keys.
| | 02:14 | And that's going to be the fastest
and the easiest and most ergonomically
| | 02:17 | sensible way to go ahead and
apply this keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:20 | Command+Plus and Minus.
| | 02:21 | All right so that's an easy way to do that.
| | 02:25 | There is a couple of other
keyboard shortcuts under here.
| | 02:27 | These two in particular, to Fit on
Screen and then the Actual Pixels, this one
| | 02:32 | is really useful, this is Command+0 or
Ctrl+0, and if you just make a like a
| | 02:36 | zero with your arms, holding up above
your head, imagine that you are fitting
| | 02:40 | the whole image in there.
| | 02:42 | That's how I remember it, as
Command+0 is the whole image.
| | 02:45 | So, if we have zoomed way out like this
let's say and I just want to look at the
| | 02:49 | whole image and just go Command+0.
| | 02:52 | Again left-hand for the Command or Ctrl
key and then right hand on the zero and
| | 02:56 | I like to use the keypad which works
just fine in Photoshop for doing that.
| | 03:00 | So no matter where you are in an image,
when you go Command+0, you get to see
| | 03:05 | the whole image up on screen.
| | 03:07 | Command+0, if you are zoomed
down like this, go Command+0.
| | 03:10 | It'd bring the whole image up on
screen, give you full screen preview.
| | 03:14 | Notice in this particular image, on
this particular monitor we are at the 133%.
| | 03:20 | The other one that I like to use, the
Command+1 or Ctrl+1 that takes me to 100%,
| | 03:25 | and that's one you want to use, for you
want to get the best particular preview,
| | 03:29 | a specific preview of what an image looks like.
| | 03:32 | And when you're applying a filter like a
Sharpen Filter, a Smart Sharpen Filter,
| | 03:35 | and you want to get the best possible
representation on screen of what that
| | 03:39 | sharpening looks like, you always
wanted to be at 100% view, because if you are
| | 03:43 | any other magnification it's
all interpolation on screen.
| | 03:47 | If you want to see what it is, Command
+1 is 100% and that's kind of easy to
| | 03:51 | remember, Command+1 or Ctrl+1 for 100,
and what is it if you want to see the
| | 03:55 | whole screen as big as
you can? That's right zero.
| | 03:58 | So you can see the whole screen in
those arms, and then Command+Minus, and
| | 04:02 | Command+Plus, navigate the image.
| | 04:06 | Now we are not quite done yet.
| | 04:08 | I mentioned earlier that there is some
new navigation tools in Photoshop and
| | 04:13 | let's take a look at Preferences.
| | 04:14 | Remember, the keyboard shortcut is
Command+K, we look on the right-side of this
| | 04:18 | window, when we've already check this
one on, Zoom Resizes Windows, but there is
| | 04:22 | Animated Zoom, Zoom with the Scroll
Wheel, Zoom Clicked Point to Center, and
| | 04:28 | Enable Flick Panning.
| | 04:29 | All right, those are the new ones and
remember, in order for those to work, you
| | 04:33 | have to have that Detected Video Card.
| | 04:34 | The GPU Settings with more advanced
computers with the advanced graphics video card.
| | 04:40 | But if you have those turned on, and
you have the capabilities, with your
| | 04:44 | Zoom key, if you click on something and
then just hold, it will zoom right in on that.
| | 04:49 | And then if you have the Zoom Out key,
you can zoom right out like this.
| | 04:54 | Now how do you activate those zoom keys?
| | 04:57 | Notice that I'm in the Move tool, I
could be in the Brush tool, and I can still
| | 05:01 | activate the Zoom tool, how do we do that?
| | 05:03 | It's simple, no matter what tool you are in.
| | 05:06 | If you hold down the Spacebar, and
typically I'll do that with my thumb, that
| | 05:10 | brings up the page grabber hand, so
you never ever have to actually select
| | 05:14 | the page grabber hand.
| | 05:15 | If you add the Command key to that, Ctrl on
Windows, it brings up the magnifying glass.
| | 05:20 | If you then add the Option key,
Alt in Windows, it brings up the
| | 05:24 | demagnifying glass.
| | 05:27 | So, let's go Command+0 to go all the
way up, and then Space > Command, and then
| | 05:32 | you can just click Zoom, it will zoom in
right on that particular point, add the
| | 05:37 | Option key it will zoom out
from that particular point.
| | 05:41 | So that's pretty nice.
| | 05:43 | To be honest with you, I don't
use it very much. And here is why?
| | 05:47 | I still use the same keyboard
shortcuts to access the Zoom tool,
| | 05:50 | Space+Command or Space+Ctrl but then
this is what I do when I want to zoom in
| | 05:55 | on the particular area.
| | 05:56 | I just click and drag and it zooms right there.
| | 06:00 | See how fast that is?
| | 06:02 | Click and drag and the smaller the area
that I select, the more the zoom percentage.
| | 06:08 | I select the larger area, very
little zoom, smaller area lots of zoom.
| | 06:13 | Then I just go Command+0 to go back out.
| | 06:15 | So, this is how I typically move
around my images. Give it a try.
| | 06:19 | See if you like it.
| | 06:21 | Still it is doing that zoom in which
take some time, Space > Command, just zoom
| | 06:25 | right in, and then Command+0.
| | 06:28 | Space > Command, now if I want to move
around a little bit, right, just hold
| | 06:30 | down the Spacebar, and I can still do
the local navigation by holding down
| | 06:34 | my Spacebar, and of course, I'm using
one hand on my mouse and one hand on
| | 06:38 | the keyboard shortcuts.
| | 06:39 | Then Command+0 to zoom back out, and
that Flick pan, when you zoom in and you
| | 06:44 | Spacebar, to bring up the page grabber
hand and then you move it quickly, you
| | 06:49 | can keep the image moving, all right.
| | 06:50 | That just kind of Flick
pans around. It's kind of fun.
| | 06:55 | Command+0, Space+Command, Zoom In, Command+
0, you can move quickly around your image.
| | 07:00 | Anywhere you want to go very, very
rapidly by doing those keyboard shortcuts.
| | 07:04 | So I don't tend to use these new
capabilities because I found that in the old
| | 07:10 | tried and true method of click and
drag, and then Command+0 is about the
| | 07:14 | fastest way to move around.
| | 07:16 | So quick review, Command+Minus, Minus,
Command+Plus, Plus, make sure you get
| | 07:21 | the Preference turned on, Zoom
Resizes Window, Command+0 to full screen,
| | 07:26 | Command+1 to 100%, Spacebar brings up the hand,
Command or Ctrl, Zoom In, back to Command+0.
| | 07:33 | You do that, you adding half-a-day of
kayaking by the time, Thursday rolls around.
| | 07:38 | Oh, yeah!
| | 07:39 | There is navigating
through an image in Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving time with keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 | I am going to be teaching you
a lot of skills in Photoshop.
| | 00:03 | One of those skill sets I'd really like you
to learn is how to work fast. Watch this.
| | 00:34 | So, how did you like that?
| | 00:35 | Would you like to be able to work that fast?
| | 00:37 | Well if you would, first of all, you
are going to have to quit mousing around
| | 00:41 | and you are going to have to
start working from your keyboard.
| | 00:43 | Come on, look over my shoulder and I'll
show you how I work fast from the keyboard.
| | 00:47 | Notice that my hands are
starting on the keyboard.
| | 00:50 | Not with one hand on the mouse and one
hand on the keyboard. That's the starting
| | 00:54 | position for most people.
| | 00:55 | So I really want you to reach this step.
When you start to stand at your keyboard
| | 00:59 | from now on, put both hands right here
on the bottom of your keyboard in the
| | 01:02 | middle of your alpha keys.
| | 01:03 | All right, so that's the step up of how we
want to position our hands on our keyboard.
| | 01:09 | Now let's talk about, let me give
you Taz's four main tips for actually
| | 01:13 | manipulating the keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:15 | The first one is you are always going
to use two hands and it's the right hand,
| | 01:20 | if you are right hander, or left hand, if you're
a left hander, is going to stay away from that mouse.
| | 01:24 | You are always going to be using two
hands, they are always going to be active,
| | 01:27 | not just one but both of them.
| | 01:29 | Then tip number two is I want you to make
an imaginary dividing line on the middle
| | 01:33 | of your keyboard, so that the left
hand will be never cross over that and
| | 01:36 | the right hand will never cross over that.
| | 01:39 | So I never want to see you working
over like this or over like this.
| | 01:41 | It takes time for that hand to
cross over and you'd be surprised.
| | 01:45 | You add up thousands of those and that's
50 or 60 kayaking strokes and I'll wait for
| | 01:50 | you a little while out in
the fjord, but not for long.
| | 01:52 | All right, third tip is the action keys.
| | 01:56 | Is one hand is going to be on the action
keys and the other is on the alpha numeric.
| | 02:00 | This is probably the most difficult
habit to break because so many people are
| | 02:04 | used to going Command+Z, Command+X
or Command+Option+Shift and then A or
| | 02:08 | something like that and then look at
the position that your hands gets in.
| | 02:11 | You get crippled by the end of the day,
never mind by the end of the year, and
| | 02:15 | again it's very exhausting.
| | 02:16 | Doing this Command+Z might be real
fast for that one keyboard shortcut but
| | 02:20 | overall, it's going to be much faster
if you Command+Z, Command+X and then if
| | 02:24 | the other alpha key is on this side,
you just do a quick shift, Command+P,
| | 02:29 | Command+O, Command+L, Command+K, like that.
| | 02:31 | So your hands are making small shifts
back and forth depending from whether they
| | 02:35 | are working on the action
keys or the alphanumeric keys.
| | 02:39 | So one hand is on the action keys,
and the other is doing alphanumeric.
| | 02:43 | It's going to be a little slow at
first until you get used to it but hang in there
| | 02:48 | because once your hands get the
hang of it, they will just fly around
| | 02:51 | those keys. And then finally the fourth
of Taz's tips is that you always want to try
| | 02:57 | to assign your fingers to individual keys.
| | 03:00 | So for instance, thumb typically goes on
the Spacebar and that's for most people.
| | 03:05 | I'll talk about a
variation to that in just one second.
| | 03:08 | So the thumb will always be here and
then the index fingers will go to the
| | 03:11 | Command keys, which are the Alt keys
on the Windows keyboard, and then the
| | 03:14 | middle finger will go to the Option,
which is the Ctrl keys on the Windows
| | 03:18 | keyboard, and then the ring
fingers will go to the Shift key.
| | 03:21 | Most peoples' pinkies, unless you are
really good typist and if you are a touch
| | 03:24 | typist, don't work all that great.
| | 03:27 | But one variation of this is some
people who have big hands or kind of
| | 03:30 | stubby fingers and they don't real fit
real well doing this when you have to do
| | 03:35 | Command+Option+Shift or Ctrl+Alt+Shift
is you can do a starting position where
| | 03:39 | index finger goes on the Spacebar,
middle finger Command, or Alt on Windows,
| | 03:45 | ring finger on the Option or Ctrl in
Windows and then you can move the pinky on
| | 03:50 | to the Shift key so that you are like
this. But whichever one works for you,
| | 03:54 | start with it and then stick with it.
| | 03:56 | I like to use my thumbs on my Spacebar
and then use Command, Option, and then
| | 04:01 | Shift and then my
pinkies are kind of free.
| | 04:05 | So that's the positions and that's Taz's
four main tips for positioning and then
| | 04:10 | navigating and coordinating on your keyboard.
| | 04:14 | So that's how I work fast on the
keyboard and I would like to encourage you
| | 04:18 | to do the same thing.
| | 04:19 | Even during your training, I'd like
you to start thinking about adopting that
| | 04:22 | hand position, not crossing
over your hands, using both hands.
| | 04:25 | It will be little slow and cumbersome
at first because you are not used to it,
| | 04:28 | but in no time at all, you will be working faster
and faster, faster than you have ever worked before.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Managing Images with BridgeUnderstanding the Bridge interface| 00:02 | In this section, I would like to chat
about a companion tool to Photoshop that
| | 00:05 | will help you in your color
correction workflow and this companion tool is
| | 00:09 | called Adobe Bridge.
| | 00:11 | You may or may not be using Bridge at
this point, you may or may not be familiar
| | 00:14 | with it, but I thought I at least show
you some general guides to the interface
| | 00:17 | and how you can use Bridge to help
you with your color correction workflow.
| | 00:20 | First of all understand that Bridge
is indeed a standalone application and
| | 00:24 | Bridge is a digital asset management
program which means it allows us to
| | 00:28 | management our digital assets such as
documents and in this case, Photoshop images.
| | 00:33 | So we have launched Bridge and we are
accessing Bridge and in the base root of
| | 00:39 | where we control our computer, we can
see our three drives that we have up here.
| | 00:43 | These are internal drives, these are
internal drives, this is an external drive.
| | 00:46 | So anything that you can see or
locate or any file or folder, and including
| | 00:51 | volumes, you can access through Bridge.
Just like in any other interface such
| | 00:56 | as Mac or Windows operating system
interface, you can go to the Desktop and any
| | 01:00 | of folders or files we have there
you can access through Bridge.
| | 01:03 | In this case, we have two folders,
one called Exercise_Files and one folder
| | 01:07 | called Taz Stuff, and we'll go into Taz
Stuff and notice if you click on it,
| | 01:11 | it selects it and if you double-
click on it, it will open it.
| | 01:14 | Then it will show you what's inside there.
| | 01:17 | In inside here we have three folders,
Client Images, Taz GS images and then Taz
| | 01:22 | Color.Correct_images, and note that
these images are not available on the CD.
| | 01:26 | These are just images that
I'm currently working on.
| | 01:28 | Although you may see some of these
images in the training, you will have your
| | 01:32 | own folders and access your
own folders in your own way.
| | 01:35 | So these are just demos.
| | 01:37 | So this is one way that you
can navigate through Bridge.
| | 01:39 | The other is if you look over here on
the left hand side, you see a little
| | 01:43 | tab called Folders.
| | 01:45 | When you click on folders, this gives
you a hierarchical view of everything that
| | 01:50 | you can have access to on
this particular computer.
| | 01:53 | If you are on a network and you have
multiple computers and multiple volumes
| | 01:56 | available, they'll all be available here
as well and here are those three drives
| | 02:00 | that we just looked at a few minutes ago.
| | 02:02 | There is the data drive, right, there
is the external drive, and then there is
| | 02:06 | the Macintosh hard drive, which is the
boot drive, and then you can come down to
| | 02:10 | Users and find your Desktop but the
easy way to do that of course is just do as
| | 02:15 | we have done here, just click on the
Desktop and access your folders there.
| | 02:19 | So there is kind of multiple ways
that you can navigate. You can either use
| | 02:22 | Folders, or you can just navigate
through the Content window over here.
| | 02:27 | And anything that you click and select over
here, you will also get a preview of over here.
| | 02:33 | For instance, let's go into the Taz
Color.Correct_Images folder and see that
| | 02:37 | here we actually get into files.
| | 02:38 | When you click on an image over here, you
actually see the preview of the image here.
| | 02:43 | And this is not the only way you can
setup the Bridge interface. The Bridge
| | 02:47 | interface could be controlled by
resizing any of the panels that you see here,
| | 02:54 | like this, like this, any of these panels
can be completely resized any time you want to.
| | 03:01 | There is also some built-in
interface setup that you see here.
| | 03:05 | Right up at the top you will see
Essentials, which is the default one which
| | 03:08 | comes up automatically.
| | 03:10 | Then there is one called Film
Strip, which I particularly like.
| | 03:13 | When you click on Film Strip, all of
the content gets really small and then
| | 03:16 | you see nice beautiful high resolution,
high-bit depth previews of your images
| | 03:21 | or whatever you have selected here
and then right down here at the bottom,
| | 03:25 | you'll see you can control the dimensions of
your preview and the content right on the fly.
| | 03:32 | Then there is another built-in one
called Output which we use for outputting to
| | 03:35 | PDFs, or Web Galleries and you can
switch from one to the other very quickly and
| | 03:39 | easily and you have four or
five built-in ones here as you see.
| | 03:44 | The other thing you can do is if you set
something up and you say, well, this is
| | 03:48 | really how I want to look at things.
| | 03:49 | I don't really care about looking at
the Filters too much but I want to have a
| | 03:52 | nice long folder over here and I want
to have a nice preview and have some
| | 03:55 | meta-data down here.
| | 03:56 | Then you can come up here and you
can just create your own workspace.
| | 03:59 | So you can choose New Workspace, name
it and that will be become part of this
| | 04:03 | list that you see right here.
| | 04:05 | So it's completely customizable in
terms of how you want to view and preview
| | 04:10 | and setup the previews of your images in
your documents and folders inside of Bridge.
| | 04:15 | The other thing that you can do is,
which is very, very nice and very handy, is
| | 04:18 | you can work with multiple windows.
| | 04:20 | Notice this is one window that we have
inside of Bridge and underneath the File
| | 04:24 | menu, when you choose New, it gives you
a new Bridge window and what this allows
| | 04:28 | you to do is go back and
you can choose another window.
| | 04:33 | So here I can look at Taz GS Images in
this particular view and you have exactly
| | 04:38 | the same kind of a controls here that
you have in any other Bridge window and
| | 04:42 | then you can go up underneath the
Windows menu here and choose New Window,
| | 04:47 | go back and forth and one to the other.
| | 04:49 | I don't know if you remember the
keyboard shortcut we spoke about earlier,
| | 04:53 | how to change Windows with inside of
Photoshop, but it's Command+Tilde on the Mac.
| | 04:58 | It will allow you to quickly go back and I'm
just holding the Command key with my right hand
| | 05:01 | and then I'm clicking on
the Tilde key with my left hand.
| | 05:05 | That allows me to go back and
forth in one window to the other.
| | 05:08 | So it's very, very handy way to work in
two folders at the same time and go back
| | 05:12 | and forth in one set of content to the other.
| | 05:15 | By the way, when you want to launch
a document or in this case, an image,
| | 05:18 | all you need to do is just double-
click on it and when you double-click on
| | 05:21 | that particular image, in this case, it will
launch Photoshop and bring that up in Photoshop.
| | 05:26 | If Photoshop is not currently launched,
it will automatically launch that for you.
| | 05:30 | And finally one other thing to
mention up here and you can kind of explore
| | 05:33 | this on your own if you haven't been throug
the various menus up here, but I thought
| | 05:37 | I'd mention in particular the Tools menu,
which you go under Tools and you can
| | 05:41 | go down underneath Photoshop and there is
a wide variety of tools that you can access.
| | 05:46 | The Image Processor is one of my favorites.
| | 05:49 | That links Photoshop directly to Bridge.
| | 05:52 | So there is a quick overview of the
interface for Bridge and as we move forward,
| | 05:56 | we'll talk about a couple of other
specific things you can do that will help you
| | 06:00 | with your color correction workflow,
but basically just to review is when you
| | 06:04 | are trying to choose which images to
look at, which images you want to open for
| | 06:08 | color correction, Bridge is a terrific
way to do this because you notice you can
| | 06:11 | get some very, very high quality previews of your
images without ever actually having to open them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using batch rename| 00:00 | In this section, I'd like to continue
talking little bit more about Bridge.
| | 00:04 | Bridge has so many capabilities.
| | 00:06 | In fact, whole course is
attached just on Bridge.
| | 00:09 | But I want to emphasize a few of the
tools and features and capabilities that
| | 00:12 | Bridge has that will help you
with your color correction workflow.
| | 00:15 | One of those capabilities
is the Batch Rename function.
| | 00:18 | I use this all the time.
| | 00:21 | When I have done some shots, and I
may have 500 shots to come off my
| | 00:24 | computer, but I navigate through, and
I maybe choose four or five images that
| | 00:27 | I really want to work on.
| | 00:28 | And it's nice to be able to just rename
those quickly and move them somewhere else.
| | 00:32 | And it's so easy to do in Bridge.
| | 00:35 | Notice some of the normal procedures
for selecting files on Mac and Windows
| | 00:39 | apply here in Bridge.
| | 00:40 | For instance, if I want these first
three images, and then the fifth and
| | 00:45 | the sixth image, you can Shift-click on
the third one, and that selects all of those.
| | 00:49 | And then move to the Command or Ctrl in Windows.
| | 00:52 | And you can click additional
windows, so you can do sequential and
| | 00:55 | non-sequential selections.
| | 00:57 | From that point, if you want to take
those files and create new names for those,
| | 01:02 | but make copies of them,
which is what you'll sometimes do.
| | 01:05 | Sometimes you'll just rename the images,
sometimes you'll make copies of them
| | 01:08 | and rename them, depending upon
what you're trying to accomplish.
| | 01:12 | But in CS4 Bridge, you just click on
this little icon up here, and notice that
| | 01:17 | there is this function called Batch Rename.
| | 01:19 | After you've done this a couple of
times, you'll learn the keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:23 | It's Command on Mac or Ctrl on Windows, and
then Shift+R, and it's pretty easy to remember.
| | 01:28 | So Batch Rename is Command or Ctrl+
Shift+R and this dialog box comes up, and
| | 01:33 | it's really pretty easy and it's very powerful.
| | 01:36 | Notice in the upper left hand
corner, the options that we have here.
| | 01:39 | Rename in the same folder, and very
often I'll do that when I've got a
| | 01:43 | whole shoot of 500 or 1000 images or
whatever, and I just want to give them
| | 01:47 | all a location name.
| | 01:49 | On the other hand, if I want to make
copies and rename just a few images, and
| | 01:53 | maybe put them somewhere
else, we can do that as well.
| | 01:57 | And notice I can Copy to other
folder or Move to another folder.
| | 02:02 | I more often then not copying to another folder.
| | 02:05 | If you do that, and we'll go ahead and do that.
| | 02:07 | We'll just click Browse here, and
we'll click on the Desktop, and let's just
| | 02:12 | create a New Folder called Rename.
| | 02:14 | So we can find it easily, and
then click Create, and then Choose.
| | 02:19 | Now we have informed Bridge where we want to
place these files that we're going to rename.
| | 02:23 | And then we can name these and we'll
call these color correct and that will the
| | 02:30 | first part of the name, and then
we can choose whatever we want.
| | 02:33 | Current Filename, Preserved Filename,
Sequence Number, Date, whatever you want.
| | 02:37 | We'll go with the Sequence Number here,
and we'll start with the sequence of 1,
| | 02:42 | and we'll say there is about
Two Digits in that sequence.
| | 02:45 | And notice down here, it gives you an
example of what that New filename looks
| | 02:48 | like, and you can go, oh, I would like
to have an underscore at the end of that.
| | 02:51 | So you just come back up here and
choose underscore, so yup. That looks good.
| | 02:55 | That looks just like I'd like.
| | 02:56 | And if you set this up in such a way,
so you have to use this over and over
| | 03:01 | again, you can Save presets for the
batch renaming anytime that you want to, and
| | 03:06 | then you can Load that preset,
anytime you want to in the future as well.
| | 03:09 | So let's go ahead and click on Rename
and this is going to copy those to the
| | 03:13 | Rename folder that we talked about.
| | 03:14 | And then let's go to the Desktop, and
then there is that Rename folder, and
| | 03:18 | notice that quickly and easily just
renamed all those folders in a sequential set.
| | 03:23 | So this is very often how I'll choose
from a whole raft of images that I want to
| | 03:27 | work on, moves into a new folder,
and then start working on them.
| | 03:30 | And as I mentioned, my preference
would be to copy them leaving the original
| | 03:35 | files unfaded or untouched.
| | 03:37 | And just once again these are all my
images, and how I mange my images, you can
| | 03:41 | perform exactly the same
thing on your own images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding copyrights and other metadata | 00:00 | Let's continue in Bridge now, and talk
about another very important function and
| | 00:05 | featuring capability of Bridge and
that is working with Metadata and
| | 00:10 | particularly working with Metadata
on multiple images. What is metadata?
| | 00:14 | Well, let's take a look at
this image that we just renamed.
| | 00:16 | If we click on the image, and then go
underneath File Info, which is all the way
| | 00:20 | down here at the bottom.
| | 00:21 | And believe me, I don't like to be mousing
around here, so I'm just showing you where it is.
| | 00:25 | If you are here on in, you can
use the keyboard shortcut, which is
| | 00:29 | Command+Option+Shift, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I,
will bring up the File Info for the document.
| | 00:34 | And the File Info is
basically the Metadata dialog box.
| | 00:38 | And what you can put in a
metadata dialog box is just, it's
| | 00:41 | incredibly extensive.
| | 00:43 | One of the nice things about taking
digital photographs is that this kind of
| | 00:46 | data like the Camera Data is
automatically recorded in the image.
| | 00:50 | But you and I want to focus on this, so
if we're color correcting our images and
| | 00:53 | then we're sending those images around,
we want to make sure that our metadata,
| | 00:57 | our personal metadata about who we are,
who took the picture and what kind of
| | 01:00 | copyright notice we want to have on the image.
| | 01:03 | Now of course, you could type this in
on everything single image, but hold it,
| | 01:06 | folks, we don't want to do that.
| | 01:07 | We want to cancel out it here.
| | 01:09 | And I want to go over to the next image,
and do that keyboard shortcut to bring
| | 01:13 | it up, and just to save a little bit of time.
| | 01:15 | I've already filled in a bunch of metadata here.
| | 01:17 | Most importantly, I want to direct
your attention to this Copyright Status
| | 01:20 | versus Copyrighted, and then the
Copyright Notice and then I've got my email
| | 01:24 | address, and then Copyright information for URL.
| | 01:28 | And this one opens up your image and
goes to this metadata, you can click there
| | 01:32 | it'll take right to your
website. So you see here.
| | 01:35 | So once you get this setup in just
one of these images, you want to make a
| | 01:38 | template out of this.
| | 01:39 | But make sure if you don't include
something like a Document Title in a template
| | 01:43 | for your metadata, just think that you
want to go on every single image, such as
| | 01:47 | your Author, the Photographer,
Description Writer, and particularly your
| | 01:51 | copyrighting information.
| | 01:53 | Then once you get this setup, you can
come right down here to his menu and
| | 01:56 | just click right here, and you'll get this
little pop-up dialog box that says Import or Export.
| | 02:01 | What we're going to do is
we're going to choose Export.
| | 02:03 | All right, and then you
can name this with your name.
| | 02:09 | I typically, I like to put the
year on there, because I've changed my
| | 02:13 | copyright notice from one year to
another, and it just reminds when I made the
| | 02:16 | last copyright notice.
| | 02:18 | So we'll call it Taz Tally Photography_
2009, and then click Save, and then that
| | 02:23 | becomes a template that we can apply to
any number of images, and here it's how?
| | 02:26 | Go ahead and click OK, and
then select all of these images.
| | 02:30 | One of the nice things about Bridge is
if you don't select any images, Bridge
| | 02:34 | assumes that you want to
apply whatever you're about to do.
| | 02:36 | In this case, apply Metadata
Template to all of the images.
| | 02:40 | We'll go ahead and select these, and
there's kind of two ways that you can go
| | 02:43 | about applying a metadata template.
| | 02:45 | One is you can select multiple images,
then just do the Trash Can eye, going
| | 02:50 | underneath the File menu and choosing
Info, and then when you click down here
| | 02:55 | on the right side, you'll see any metadata
template that you've already created today.
| | 03:00 | And here is the Taz Tally Photography_2009.
| | 03:02 | So I can just click right there, choose
that, and then it gives you the option.
| | 03:07 | You can Clear in an existing ones,
Keep original data, but replace
| | 03:11 | matching properties in the template
or Keep original metadata, but append
| | 03:16 | matching properties.
| | 03:17 | What we're going to do here is Keep
the original metadata, but we're going to
| | 03:20 | replace anything such as any copyright
notices, and then we'll just click OK.
| | 03:25 | There we go and notice that that first
image that we selected that didn't have
| | 03:29 | any of that copyright information,
nor has all that metadata applied to it.
| | 03:33 | The other way you can do this by the
way is you can select whatever images you
| | 03:36 | want to, and then if your Metadata
panel is up here, and you can always access
| | 03:42 | your Matadata panel by coming up
underneath here and choosing Metadata.
| | 03:45 | Once you use this a little bit, you'll
learn the keyboard shortcut for that.
| | 03:48 | So you can make sure that if you're
just in Metadata mode or you can come
| | 03:53 | underneath Window, and just make
sure that Metadata panel is up there.
| | 03:56 | And that's where this panel is right
there, and notice the check box next to it.
| | 04:00 | So with multiple images, then you can
just click on the Metadata menu on the
| | 04:04 | upper right hand corner, and then
just choose either Replace or Append the
| | 04:07 | Metadata Template, and apply it that way.
| | 04:09 | So it works either way.
| | 04:11 | And this is very important thing to do.
| | 04:12 | You want to it early on in your process,
and you may want to do this to every
| | 04:16 | single image that you bring off your camera,
so that you don't forget to do it later.
| | 04:20 | So that's how you can use Bridge to
help, really streamline and speed up that
| | 04:24 | portion of your color correction workflow,
making sure all your metadata gets in
| | 04:28 | on the images that you want to be
correcting, and then sending out.
| | 04:31 | And once again I'm applying this
to my images, you would do the same
| | 04:35 | application, or creation, and
application of metadata to your own images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding shortcuts to Bridge favorites| 00:00 | In this section I would like to address
yet another Bridge capability, which I use
| | 00:05 | day in and day out, to help me
streamline my workflow in color correction.
| | 00:10 | And this is the use of
Favorites inside of Bridge.
| | 00:13 | And here we have two of my image folders, and
you'll have your own image folders of course.
| | 00:17 | But if these are two project folders
that I have got say my grayscales images
| | 00:20 | and some color images that I want to
work on and I may use these all of the
| | 00:24 | time or that I may just want to
use them for the next week, whatever.
| | 00:28 | I can create favorites out of these,
and put these over in my Favorites tab.
| | 00:32 | We talked about folders earlier, and use
folders to access any file, any folder,
| | 00:37 | any application, anything you
have stored in your hard drives.
| | 00:40 | But what Favorites allows you to do
is create special shortcut links to
| | 00:45 | particular folders or images.
| | 00:47 | And there are several ways to do this.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to show you the two fastest ways.
| | 00:50 | One way to create a favorites is to
take the particular item in this case the
| | 00:54 | Taz Images folder, and just drag it
right over to here, and you can put it
| | 00:57 | wherever you want to.
| | 00:58 | The advantage of doing it this way
is you can actually place it in the
| | 01:01 | list where you want to.
| | 01:03 | If you put it on top of another folder,
you'll get the double bar, the thinner bars.
| | 01:07 | You'll note it will go between and
have it's own place in the Folder menu, by
| | 01:11 | the thick bar that goes in between the two.
| | 01:13 | The other way you can do this is you can
select the object, and then right-click
| | 01:18 | and choose Add to Favorites.
| | 01:20 | If you do it this way, it adds to the
bottom of your list, and then appears like this.
| | 01:25 | Notice that -- now I just did folders,
but you can also do individual objects.
| | 01:30 | For instance, here is my current sea
bird's image that I'm working on for sea
| | 01:34 | bird festival up in Homer Alaska.
| | 01:36 | Let's say that I want to access
that quickly, so it's a file that I'm
| | 01:39 | currently working on.
| | 01:40 | I can right-click on that and just add
that to my Favorites menu, and then once
| | 01:45 | it's there, I can click on it, and
very quickly and easily bring it up on
| | 01:49 | screen, as you see here.
| | 01:51 | So notice you can put a document on there,
even if Photoshop is not currently open.
| | 01:55 | So you need to just click on that, then
it automatically goes to Photoshop and
| | 01:59 | then launches that image.
| | 02:00 | It's a real fast and easy way to access
any particular image that you might want
| | 02:04 | to access, and then you can go through
some of the isolation tools that we have
| | 02:07 | talked about earlier, as far as
viewing your images and then editing it.
| | 02:10 | So it's a nice kind of partnership
between Bridge and Photoshop for accessing
| | 02:15 | folders and images that you
currently want to work on.
| | 02:18 | So there's using Bridge Favorites to
make your life a little bit faster and
| | 02:22 | easier, and give you a few
more strokes of that kayak pedal.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing Bridge preferences| 00:00 | In this section I would like talk
a little about this fine-tuning how
| | 00:05 | Bridge responds to you.
| | 00:06 | How you can get Bridge to act just the
way you want it to act, particularly when
| | 00:10 | it comes to launching
applications for specific files.
| | 00:13 | If you have ever double-clicked on a PDF
file and had an application you had no
| | 00:17 | intention of looking at your PDF in
launch, you know what I'm talking about.
| | 00:21 | All right, so let's say that you
want to work in a particular version of
| | 00:24 | Photoshop, either CS3 or CS4, or you
always want to open up your JPEG files, or
| | 00:29 | PDF files in one way or another.
| | 00:32 | You want to customize a
little bit about how Bridge looks.
| | 00:34 | Notice I have got a nice black
background, a dark gray background here.
| | 00:38 | All of this is completely configurable
by going into Bridge Preferences, and if
| | 00:42 | you recall the keyboard shortcut for
accessing Preferences throughout the
| | 00:46 | Creative Suite, if you remember what that is.
| | 00:48 | That's right, Command+K or Ctrl+K
if you working on Windows, brings up
| | 00:53 | Preferences in all the
Creative Suite applications.
| | 00:56 | The first one I want to take you to,
and it may seem strange to start here.
| | 01:00 | Go to the Advanced function and
check this little checkbox that says
| | 01:03 | Start Bridge At Login.
| | 01:04 | And the reason is that once you get
used to working in Bridge and particularly
| | 01:08 | accessing Photoshop type images,
you're really going to want to use Bridge
| | 01:12 | instead of your standard operating system.
| | 01:14 | Because you can do just about
everything you can through operating system
| | 01:18 | through Bridge, but you can do it
faster, and you can do it visually.
| | 01:21 | You can look at your files and never
even have to open them, as we have seem,
| | 01:24 | plus do a wide variety of other
normal operating system type functions.
| | 01:27 | So it's nice to have Bridge always open.
| | 01:29 | So as soon as your computer launches,
you can get it always launch Bridge and
| | 01:33 | this is the place to do it.
| | 01:34 | So go to Advanced and check
that Start Bridge At Login.
| | 01:38 | And then, and we are not going to go
through all these, just three particular
| | 01:41 | preferences that are really
helpful to our color correction workflow.
| | 01:44 | The first one is just having access to Bridge.
| | 01:46 | Then the other one is I would like to
come underneath my General and Appearance,
| | 01:50 | and this is just my preference.
| | 01:52 | I would like to have my interface,
both the background up here and behind my
| | 01:56 | images, be completely black.
| | 01:58 | That's just my preference.
| | 01:59 | You can set it up anyway that you want to.
| | 02:01 | And I like to just have that nice dark
neutral background, seemed to be easier
| | 02:05 | on my eyes for some reason, and it
allows me to see the color a little bit
| | 02:09 | clearer and in better contrast.
| | 02:12 | And particularly when I'm selecting an image,
and it comes up in the Preview over here.
| | 02:15 | I'd like to have that nice black
background all the way around it.
| | 02:19 | You can see some of the other things here.
| | 02:20 | You can navigate around and look through
some of these other Bridge Preferences.
| | 02:24 | But the one I want to focus on is the
File Type Associations, and what's nice
| | 02:29 | about the File Type Associations is if
we come down here, and you can come down
| | 02:33 | and choose the .psd format or .psb.
| | 02:36 | The .psb is the large file format for many,
many thousand pixels working in images.
| | 02:43 | The .psd format, you can select which
application or version of application you
| | 02:47 | would like that open it.
| | 02:49 | Because notice I have CS4 and CS3 installed.
| | 02:52 | So if you wanted to always open it in
one version or another, you can do that.
| | 02:56 | That's very handy for PDF, for
specifying which version of PDF.
| | 02:59 | So you can go to the PDF file format here.
| | 03:02 | And choose what you would like to use
for opening PDF files, if you save them up.
| | 03:07 | So you can assign that and then finally
notice that can be always overwritten.
| | 03:12 | If you click here, on this particular
file, and then you right-click on it.
| | 03:16 | You can choose the Open With, and then
you can choose whatever version you want.
| | 03:19 | Notice we have CS4 set as the default, which
it should be, since for working in Bridge CS4.
| | 03:25 | So there is a little bit of what you
can do to kind of fine-tune the interface,
| | 03:29 | how it appears to you, how you look
at your images, and controlling your
| | 03:32 | background is very important when
you are of course working in color.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating files and accessing metadata| 00:00 | In this section, as we continue to talk
about Bridge and how we can get Bridge
| | 00:04 | to act the way we want it to bend
it to our will, so we can work faster,
| | 00:08 | I'm going to talk a little bit about
navigating and particularly using the keyboard.
| | 00:12 | When you are setting up Bridge, one of
the nice things to pay attention to is this
| | 00:16 | line right here, which is called the Path Bar.
| | 00:19 | And I always like to have that up.
| | 00:21 | If you have it checked off you don't see it.
| | 00:23 | So if you don't see it go
down here and choose Path Bar.
| | 00:26 | In fact when you make your own new
workspaces in Bridge, make sure that the Path
| | 00:31 | Bar is turned on, because it gives you
a complete path to where your files are
| | 00:35 | currently located, and that's
nice to be able to see that.
| | 00:38 | And when you are navigating you can
of course click up here, if you want to
| | 00:42 | navigate, or you can also just go
Command or Ctrl on Windows and Up Arrow to
| | 00:48 | take you to the next level.
| | 00:49 | And then just hit your Enter key once you
navigate to a folder that you want to get to.
| | 00:53 | So Command+ or Ctrl+Up Arrow, then I
can use my left and right arrows to move
| | 00:57 | back and forth from one folder to another.
| | 01:00 | Command+Up Arrow, Right Arrow, Enter key,
and then once I'm in the folder, I can
| | 01:05 | use my right and left
arrows to move left and right.
| | 01:08 | But one of the nice things about
Bridge for accessing image is using the Down
| | 01:11 | Arrow, as well as the left and right.
| | 01:13 | You don't have to move in a linear fashion.
| | 01:15 | So navigating as quick and easy
working through Bridge, and it can all be
| | 01:19 | done from the keyboard.
| | 01:21 | And of course using both hands, your
one hand on the Command or Ctrl key, which
| | 01:25 | in this case would be your left hand.
| | 01:27 | And then your right hand is navigating
through the arrows, the up and down and
| | 01:30 | left and right arrows.
| | 01:32 | One of the other nice functions in
Bridge is if you are working with multiple
| | 01:35 | images, it's nice to be able to kind of
pick up on the Metadata of those images
| | 01:39 | to tell one from another
without actually having to open them.
| | 01:42 | And there are several ways
to access Metadata quickly.
| | 01:45 | One is having the
Metadata panel, as we see here.
| | 01:48 | And have that checked up there,
and you can have that in its Window.
| | 01:52 | And as we talked about before you
can expand those panels, and look at
| | 01:55 | the Metadata, this way.
| | 01:56 | So you can quickly go back and forth
from one image to another, and see what the
| | 02:00 | difference is in the Metadata.
| | 02:02 | In this case, the main difference if we
are going from a Photoshop document to a
| | 02:06 | TIFF file, and there is a little
bit of difference in file size.
| | 02:08 | You can control what is displayed
here by going to Preferences, and do you
| | 02:13 | remember the keyboard shortcut for
Preferences throughout the Creative Suite?
| | 02:16 | Command+K or Ctrl+K. That's right.
| | 02:19 | And you go to Metadata and then you
can check on what you want to be shown
| | 02:23 | in the Metadata panel.
| | 02:24 | There is something else that's interesting too.
| | 02:27 | If you have certain kinds of things,
you could change from one file to
| | 02:30 | another, notice underneath Thumbnails,
you can turn on and Show Date Created,
| | 02:35 | and then Size of the file.
| | 02:37 | If you want Dimensions you
can turn on that or any Keyword.
| | 02:40 | I'm just going to turn on these
three and click OK, and then notice that
| | 02:44 | Metadata will show right
here underneath the file.
| | 02:47 | So you can show specific data if
you want to here, and then you can see
| | 02:51 | other data over here.
| | 02:52 | You'll notice though that if you have
a lot of information showing up in your
| | 02:56 | Metadata it gets little crowded in your screen.
| | 02:59 | So you might want to just show the
stuff that's most important to you, maybe
| | 03:03 | just dimensions of your images.
| | 03:05 | That's typically what I'd like to see
is I want to know the dimensions, because
| | 03:08 | very often I've got 100 pixel print
image, which may only be like 700x900.
| | 03:12 | And the other ones are the Full
Dimension image that are up in the thousands, so
| | 03:17 | it makes easy for me to quickly see
the difference between several images.
| | 03:21 | So that's navigating around Bridge and also
various ways you can access your Metadata.
| | 03:25 | Oh, one final thing to mention to you,
there is a built-in Metadata Workspace
| | 03:31 | here, which you can just click there on
Metadata, and then depending upon what
| | 03:34 | you have turned on in Metadata have
a very small thumbnail and lots of
| | 03:38 | Metadata to look at here.
| | 03:39 | So if you have like five or six
different copies of an image, and various
| | 03:43 | differences between them you can use the
Metadata View to help sort those images out.
| | 03:49 | I don't tend to have that many images,
with that much different Metadata.
| | 03:52 | So I don't use that very much, but you
may indeed have an occasion to do that.
| | 03:56 | So there is navigating and
accessing Metadata through Bridge.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sorting and labeling images| 00:00 | One final feature and capability of
Bridge I'd like to show you that I
| | 00:04 | find handy and use almost on a
daily basis is the Sorting and Labeling
| | 00:09 | function inside of Bridge.
| | 00:11 | And once again I'm working with my
images and you can apply these same tips and
| | 00:14 | techniques to working with your images.
| | 00:16 | There is a very powerful, but very easy
to use Label and Sort function in Bridge.
| | 00:21 | We can start by going to the Label menu
here and in the Label menu you'll see
| | 00:25 | there are basically two
different labeling mechanisms.
| | 00:28 | There is the Star Labeling System, and
then there is the Color Labeling System.
| | 00:32 | And notice there are some
preset names to these here.
| | 00:36 | If you want to use the colors as well
as the stars, you can go to Preferences.
| | 00:40 | Remember the keyboard shortcut for
Preferences is Command+K and then you can go
| | 00:44 | to Labels and you can put
your own names on there.
| | 00:46 | Honestly, I don't use the colors
that much, so I haven't used it.
| | 00:49 | But if you need to have a two-part system of
stars and labels, it's built in there for you.
| | 00:55 | And notice that you can go Command on Mac,
Ctrl on Windows, one through five for
| | 01:00 | applying stars, and then you
can sort by the number of stars.
| | 01:03 | Then there are Command or Ctrl+0 for
No Rating, and then you can Increase
| | 01:07 | and Decrease rating.
| | 01:08 | So I don't use that very much, but I do
use the actual application of the stars.
| | 01:13 | So how might this work?
| | 01:14 | Well, we'll do a Command or Ctrl-click to do a
couple of different images, these three here.
| | 01:19 | Then using the keyboard shortcut,
going Command+1, I can apply a single star
| | 01:24 | rating to those three.
| | 01:25 | Then I can just navigate through and
just go Command+1 to every image that I
| | 01:30 | would like to include in
assort that I'm about to perform.
| | 01:34 | And once again being able to quickly
navigate using the keyboard to these
| | 01:37 | various images is really pretty nice, and
we'll just find one more here. There we go.
| | 01:43 | We'll do the green glacier, which is
out in front of my house. There we go.
| | 01:46 | So, and you maybe work
through couple of hundred images.
| | 01:49 | Just selecting -- in this
case just the single star images.
| | 01:53 | And then you can just come down here
and notice over on the Filter section, and
| | 01:58 | if you don't have the Filter section,
you come up underneath Window and make
| | 02:01 | sure the Filter panel is open.
| | 02:03 | Notice there are 97 images with No Rating
and 9 images with just the single star rating.
| | 02:08 | You can either do it manually by just
clicking here, or if you want to use the
| | 02:12 | keyboard shortcut, which I
typically do, you just add the Option to the
| | 02:16 | Command+1 or Ctrl+1.
| | 02:17 | So Command+Option+1 or Ctrl+Alt+1,
we'll just click there, and then you've
| | 02:22 | got all nine images.
| | 02:24 | Now, you haven't moved anything,
changed anything, you are just sorting.
| | 02:27 | All the other images are there.
| | 02:28 | You can access them all, by going right
back here and just clicking on the 97.
| | 02:32 | Notice you get to check marks next to it and you
can just get rid of those 97 by clicking again.
| | 02:36 | So it's very quirk and easy to do.
| | 02:38 | So this is a wonderful way to do an
initial sort for just the images that you
| | 02:43 | want to see for that moment, and then
typically what I'll often do is I'll do in
| | 02:47 | a quick sort like this into the
ESSENTIALS mode, and then I'll move to the
| | 02:50 | FILMSTRIP, which gives me much better
fuller resolution, fuller bit-depth view
| | 02:55 | of the images that I might want
to do some color correction on.
| | 02:58 | And then if I want to move these to
another folder, I can do the Shift-click and
| | 03:02 | then the right-click on it, and then I
can Copy or Move To any other folder, I
| | 03:07 | can choose another folder that I want to.
| | 03:09 | We'll notice that any other
Bridge Windows that are currently open.
| | 03:12 | I could copy those to that as well.
| | 03:14 | So there is how I use the Label and Sort
function, when I dump a bunch of images
| | 03:19 | off of a digital camera, do an initial
sort, then it gets in Image Previews and
| | 03:23 | if I want to take the current version
and say hey, this one, that one, and this
| | 03:28 | one, I want to look at some more and
we'll put a two-star rating on those, and
| | 03:31 | then I just want to look at the two-
star images and not the one-star images.
| | 03:35 | So you see it's very, very easy to do that.
| | 03:37 | You want to look at them all, go to the
No Rating and the one-star and you can
| | 03:40 | bring them all up, right like that,
and go back to the ESSENTIALS view if you
| | 03:43 | want to see all your images.
| | 03:45 | So there is a quick and dirty overview
of sorting and labeling inside of Bridge,
| | 03:49 | using my images and you can do
exactly the same thing with yours.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Color Image FundamentalsUnderstanding pixel brick building blocks| 00:00 | In Chapter 3 on Color Image
Fundamentals I'm going to take you all the way down
| | 00:05 | to the very basic building blocks of the
color image and we're going to explore
| | 00:08 | exactly how are color images constructed.
| | 00:11 | How it works, and what all the
numbers and all the building blocks mean.
| | 00:15 | So by the time we actually start
correcting our color images, you'll know what's
| | 00:19 | going on at the pixel level, at the
building block level of your image.
| | 00:22 | And the real value of this is that
instead of just learning techniques,
| | 00:27 | you'll actually be understanding what
you're doing in each step along the way.
| | 00:30 | And when you run into an image, and
you run into lots of them, where this
| | 00:34 | step-by-step that you learn doesn't
quite work for one reason or another,
| | 00:37 | because you understand the fundamentals,
you are going to be able to sort out
| | 00:40 | what you need to do.
| | 00:42 | So let's dive right in.
| | 00:43 | In this first section we're going
to be talking about pixel bricks.
| | 00:45 | That is the basic building blocks of images.
| | 00:48 | So here we're starting out in Bridge
and we're going to go to this beautiful
| | 00:52 | image, and this is the Northern Kenai mountains
in the Kenai Peninsula, where I live in Alaska.
| | 00:57 | This one I'd like to call Winter
meets Fall, and this is a shot in late
| | 01:01 | September, which is one of the
most beautiful times in Alaska.
| | 01:04 | Where you've got that what
we call Termination Dust.
| | 01:06 | Termination Dust is when, all the lower
48er starts scurrying for the lower 48
| | 01:11 | because now the snow is coming.
| | 01:12 | You can see that on the high elevations,
and we've got the beautiful fall colors
| | 01:16 | in the lower elevations.
| | 01:17 | It's my favorite time to
hike and do photography.
| | 01:20 | Right, so let's dig into this
image and see what it's made out of.
| | 01:24 | But before we do that, remember what we do.
| | 01:26 | We talked about earlier on is,
always make a copy of that image.
| | 01:30 | Do that Command+Minus, Minus, right,
and then we're going to do a duplicate
| | 01:33 | copy of this image.
| | 01:37 | So we never ever make a mistake of
active working on, or potentially damaging
| | 01:42 | the original version of our image.
| | 01:44 | And let's go ahead and go underneath
Window and bring up our Application frame.
| | 01:49 | So it's easy for us to kind of look at
our image, without all that confusing
| | 01:54 | stuff around the outside.
| | 01:55 | All right, so what is this image made up of?
| | 01:59 | When you look at it, it looks like a
continuous tone image, and that's what it's
| | 02:03 | supposed to look like.
| | 02:05 | And when we look at this at 100%, do you
remember the keyboard shortcut for 100%?
| | 02:09 | Remember it's underneath the View menu.
| | 02:11 | If you forget, the actual pixels,
Command or Ctrl+1, like the 1 is for 100.
| | 02:16 | Always remember that one.
| | 02:17 | You always get the best preview of
whatever you have just done to an image.
| | 02:21 | What it's actually going to look like,
when you output it to video or to print.
| | 02:24 | And when you look at it 100%
, you get the actual view.
| | 02:27 | Even when you kind of zoom right in
with your eyes and look at the monitor, it
| | 02:30 | looks like a continuous tone
image and it's supposed to.
| | 02:33 | But you won't understand what's going on,
when you're going to correct an image,
| | 02:37 | we need to zoom in, and
we need to zoom in close.
| | 02:39 | What I'm going to do is going to go to
a High Contrast, Color, and the smaller
| | 02:43 | we click, hold, and zoom and I'm
holding down the Spacebar and the Command key
| | 02:47 | or Ctrl on Windows to bring up that
magnifying glass and then we'll zoom way in.
| | 02:52 | Notice we're all the way up at 3200%,
which allows us to see the individual
| | 02:56 | building blocks of our image.
| | 02:58 | And what we see here is what is the
building block of the image, and there are
| | 03:02 | the square building blocks that we call pixels.
| | 03:04 | And I'd like to think these as pixel bricks.
| | 03:07 | Unlike most modern brick walls that
have mortar between them, think of these as
| | 03:11 | Mayan temple bricks.
| | 03:13 | They are so tightly packed
together, you don't need any mortar.
| | 03:16 | They are just snug right up against each other.
| | 03:19 | And there are rows and columns in these,
and that's how your image is actually
| | 03:21 | constructed out of these pixel bricks.
| | 03:24 | Now, in this case, you'll notice
that the pixel bricks are indeed square.
| | 03:27 | You do have the ability, when we go
into Photoshop and we choose Command+N, go
| | 03:33 | to New and we go to Film & Video which
is new in CS4, you have the ability to
| | 03:38 | change the Aspect Ratio of your pixel
from Square Pixels to another ratio.
| | 03:43 | Such as 1 to 1.21, or 1 to 1.33.
| | 03:46 | But in most images that you'll be
working with, coming off of a digital camera,
| | 03:50 | or scanner, if you're not working in
video, you'll be working with square pixels
| | 03:54 | or square pixel bricks.
| | 03:55 | So that's really the foundation of
your image, and whenever we are changing
| | 03:59 | something in our image, we are
changing the value of these pixels, and we'll
| | 04:03 | come to what those values actually are.
| | 04:06 | Now, to think about your pixels in
terms of the total dimension of the image,
| | 04:10 | one of the dialog boxes we'll be working with
in this course is the Image Size dialog box.
| | 04:15 | And let's go ahead and bring that
going by Image > Image Size or keyboard
| | 04:19 | shortcut Command+Option, Ctrl+Alt+I,
I for Image Size, and this is one of
| | 04:24 | those dialog boxes.
| | 04:25 | You know this has got all these numbers in it.
| | 04:27 | We want to go, oh no, close
that before I hurt myself again.
| | 04:31 | Way too many numbers.
| | 04:32 | Well, we're going to break this down
over the next couple of chapters, but right
| | 04:36 | here I just want to focus on
these two numbers right here.
| | 04:39 | This is what's called pixel dimensions.
| | 04:40 | Just ignore all this stuff down here for
right now, just focus on this part, and
| | 04:45 | by the time we get done dissecting
this Image Size dialog box, you'll be very
| | 04:48 | comfortable with it.
| | 04:49 | What this shows us here is the
dimension of the image in terms of pixels.
| | 04:54 | See there are lots of ways for us to
discuss Resolution, and it's one of the
| | 04:57 | most confusing topics
that is in Digital Imaging.
| | 05:00 | And you've probably heard all the terms,
DPI, PPI, LPI, Res, Line Screen, Screen
| | 05:05 | Frequency, all these different ways
that we can talk about Resolution.
| | 05:09 | And they are all fine, but it's nice
to know what you're actually discussing.
| | 05:12 | And here we're talking
about Dimensional Resolution.
| | 05:15 | That is the dimension of your image in
terms of pixels, and here we have 700 pixels.
| | 05:23 | What that means is if you were to zoom
all the way down on this image and count
| | 05:27 | all the pixels across width
wise, they would be 700 pixels.
| | 05:31 | And all the pixels vertically,
they would be 525 pixels.
| | 05:35 | So that's what this image is constructed
out of, when we look on this particular
| | 05:39 | level, 700 pixels wide x 525 pixels tall.
| | 05:43 | If we get out of this dialog box and we
zoom all the way out, now 700x525 pixels.
| | 05:49 | And let's zoom in here again on the
edge, and you start to see your pixels.
| | 05:54 | If you really took the time to just
count all these pixels across, what you
| | 05:57 | would find is 700 pixels.
| | 05:59 | If you took the time to count all the
way top to bottom, you'd find 525 pixels.
| | 06:04 | So now you're getting a sense for
what the building blocks of this
| | 06:07 | image actually are.
| | 06:08 | As you'll see, there are actually kind
of multiple channels of these pixels, but
| | 06:12 | that's a good starting place.
| | 06:14 | In the Dimensional Resolution of this
file, its 700x525 pixels and they are all
| | 06:20 | so tight next to each other,
they don't require any mortar.
| | 06:23 | They just lie right next to each other,
and that's how we construct the image.
| | 06:26 | All right, in the next section, what
we're going to do is start taking to look
| | 06:29 | at the fundamental characteristics of
our images, starting from pixels and then
| | 06:33 | building from there.
| | 06:34 | And what we want to talk about next
is where does this color come from that
| | 06:38 | we see in this image?
| | 06:40 | And it's not probably where you think.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| No such thing as color| 00:00 | All right, we are back talking about
the basic building blocks of color images.
| | 00:04 | Just to review the first section,
remember the first part of our color images
| | 00:08 | that we discussed is that our images
are constructed out of these pixel bricks
| | 00:12 | that are all lined up perfectly next to
each other, without any mortar, and for
| | 00:16 | most of our color images you and I
work with, they are square pixel bricks.
| | 00:20 | Now we need to move on to the next
section, and that is talking about, hey,
| | 00:25 | where does all this color
come from in our images?
| | 00:27 | So raise your hand if you work with a
color digital camera or a color computer.
| | 00:32 | All right, put your hand down. That's right.
| | 00:35 | You don't. Nobody does.
| | 00:38 | There is no such thing as color.
| | 00:40 | I know you are objecting right now, you
are looking at the image and going, Taz,
| | 00:43 | hello, I see color, and yes, you do, but
you didn't capture that and you are not
| | 00:48 | going to be editing color.
| | 00:50 | So before you just quit the training,
pay attention for just a second, just hang
| | 00:54 | with me, let me prove to you that
there is no actual color in this image.
| | 00:58 | To do this, we are going to go to
one of our panels called Channels.
| | 01:03 | Earlier we assigned a keyboard
shortcut to this, for F9 to bring up Channels.
| | 01:10 | What Channels shows us is
something very important.
| | 01:13 | It shows us the building blocks of our image.
| | 01:16 | When we look at our Channels panel, we
see one, two, three, four here, but in
| | 01:21 | fact, we have a Composite RGB Channel,
which is what we are looking at, but the
| | 01:25 | basic building blocks of our image are these
three here, the red, the green, and the blue.
| | 01:31 | Now, of course as always, we want to
move as fast as we can, so notice these
| | 01:34 | keyboard shortcuts here.
| | 01:36 | Command+3, Command+4 and Command+5
will allow you to quickly negotiate
| | 01:41 | those three channels, and then Command
+2 or Ctrl+2 in Windows to go back to
| | 01:46 | the composite view.
| | 01:48 | When you snap a picture with your
digital camera, this is what the camera
| | 01:52 | actually captures, three independent
grayscale channels, each of which is its
| | 01:56 | own grayscale image as it
turns out. You can see that.
| | 01:58 | But that's what the
digital camera actually captures.
| | 02:02 | When you open up your image in Photoshop,
that's what you are actually editing,
| | 02:06 | those are the building blocks of your image.
| | 02:08 | When you think about it, it makes sense,
because a digital camera and a digital
| | 02:12 | computer, they are both digital devices.
| | 02:14 | What does digital mean?
| | 02:16 | It only understands two values, 0 and 1.
| | 02:18 | Those are the basic bits, the basic
alphabets of the digital language, and those
| | 02:23 | 0s and 1s correspond to black and white.
| | 02:27 | That's all you can capture.
| | 02:28 | So where the heck does this
color come from you are asking?
| | 02:30 | Well, here is the fundamental truth, and that
is that all color is created by output devices.
| | 02:37 | When I first realized this, it was one of
those aha moments where you go, now I get it.
| | 02:44 | One of the things that I got immediately was
that desktop publishers lament. What is that?
| | 02:49 | The desktop publishers lament is oh, my
print doesn't look just like my monitor,
| | 02:54 | and in fact, it gets worse.
| | 02:55 | You move your image from one monitor to
another, generally it doesn't even match.
| | 02:59 | That will kind of make sense, because if
the image is grayscale, if the building
| | 03:04 | blocks is grayscale and the color is
created by output devices, each device is
| | 03:10 | going to color the image a little bit
differently, and that's exactly true.
| | 03:13 | When we are working with an RGB image,
which we typically do when we capture and
| | 03:17 | edit an image, the color is applied by a
monitor, and you can imaging if you are
| | 03:22 | working on an old CRT, a Cathode Ray
Tube monitor, those big puppies that weigh
| | 03:26 | 00 pounds, where you are working with
phosphorous on the screen, as opposed to
| | 03:31 | an LCD RGB device, like a
projector or a flat panel display.
| | 03:35 | They all create color or pink
color a little bit differently.
| | 03:39 | Never mind when you go into CMYK for
output, where you are painting basically
| | 03:44 | with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow,
and Black translucent inks.
| | 03:47 | So it makes sense that they would look
different on different output devices.
| | 03:51 | For our purposes, our goal here in color
correction is to understand and realize
| | 03:55 | that what we capture and what we edit
is grayscale, so the best that we can do
| | 04:00 | is work with the grayscale, and then
those grayscale values will be painted when
| | 04:04 | they go to output devices.
| | 04:05 | If we get the grayscale right, the
color is going to be correct as well.
| | 04:10 | So there we have the foundations of
your color image in terms of how those
| | 04:14 | pixels are arranged in three different channels.
| | 04:17 | We zoom in on anyone of these channels
and we see the same pixels, don't we,
| | 04:21 | they just have different grayscale values.
| | 04:23 | So no such thing as color when
you capture or on your computer.
| | 04:29 | Where is all color created?
| | 04:32 | That's right, on output devices, and each
one will paint it a little bit differently.
| | 04:35 | All right. So there is
the basic building blocks.
| | 04:39 | So far we have got pixels
and we have got channels.
| | 04:41 | There is one other piece to this digital
puzzle, and that is something called bit depth.
| | 04:45 | That bit depth is going to be one of
the important key features in determining
| | 04:49 | what kind of image we have, and that's
what we are going to cover in the next
| | 04:53 | couple of sections here is we are going
to work to bit depth and talk about how
| | 04:57 | that affects what kind of image we have
in addition to the number of channels.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building block channels| 00:00 | All right, well let's continue on
talking about the building blocks of our color
| | 00:04 | images and so far, just a quick review,
we have talked about the fact that we
| | 00:08 | have got pixel bricks.
| | 00:10 | Square pixel bricks are perfectly touching.
| | 00:12 | Those are the basic building blocks of our
images and then they are really not color at all.
| | 00:18 | It's all about the grayscale,
is that our images are captured as
| | 00:22 | grayscale images. And where does
the color come from? That's right.
| | 00:27 | On output. All output devices create color.
| | 00:30 | That's the only place that we can
actually create color because these are
| | 00:33 | in fact digital images.
| | 00:34 | To just kind of drive that point home
about this building block, channels,
| | 00:38 | what I would like to do is I would like
to take this image and I would like to
| | 00:42 | take through its paces a little bit
with some color mode conversions and
| | 00:47 | you probably already know this, but I'll
mention it just in case that we capture and
| | 00:50 | edit in RGB and there are some good
reason for that and then when we output,
| | 00:55 | like to print we output in CMYK, if we output
to a monitor or to a webpage where it's
| | 01:00 | going to viewed on monitors, we keep it in RGB.
| | 01:03 | But if we are going to go to like a
commercial print device we convert it to CMYK.
| | 01:07 | If we are going to convert it or
print it on a wide format wide gamut
| | 01:12 | inkjet device, which is Cyan, Magenta,
Yellow and Black and maybe light Cyan and
| | 01:17 | light Magenta, they may need to covert
it to those ink colors and that can be
| | 01:21 | done in various places.
| | 01:22 | But regardless of which color mode you
are in, for instance let's that this RGB
| | 01:27 | image and to underneath Image > Mode and
go to CMYK Color Mode. Now watch what
| | 01:32 | happens to the channels when we do this.
| | 01:34 | It goes right to CMYK and what to
we end up with four channels: Cyan,
| | 01:43 | Magenta, Yellow and Black.
| | 01:45 | Notice once again even though this is
going to be printed in color, what are
| | 01:49 | the building blocks? Cyan, Magenta, Yellow
and Black. They are all nothing but grayscale.
| | 01:54 | All right, well there is the CMYK
version. Let's go back to the original image,
| | 01:59 | make another copy and let's
go to our different color mode.
| | 02:05 | One called Lab mode. You may have heard
about this before. We are going to use this a
| | 02:10 | little bit later on in the course.
| | 02:11 | Image > Mode and go to Lab Color, see
everything is called color, and it coverts it
| | 02:17 | to three channels then there is the
Lightness and then A/B Composite channels.
| | 02:24 | Don't worry too much about what all this
means right now, but I'm just trying to
| | 02:26 | drive the point home that regardless
of which color mode in which your image exists
| | 02:31 | it's nothing but grayscale.
| | 02:33 | Now typically we capture our images in
RGB and then we'll typically convert them
| | 02:38 | to CMYK later on the process, but no
matter which color mode you are working in
| | 02:42 | you are really working in grayscale.
| | 02:45 | So, if get the grayscale right,
the color is going to be right and remember that
| | 02:49 | all color is created by output devices
so it's no surprise that the color is
| | 02:53 | going to look differently on different
output devices and when you try to match
| | 02:57 | color on various output devices that is
the purpose of color management, but
| | 03:01 | we are much further back in the workflow
process. Our goal is to color correct
| | 03:06 | these images properly.
| | 03:08 | So to put it another way, our goal is to
get the grayscale correct because then the
| | 03:13 | color would be correct.
| | 03:14 | All right off to bit depth and the final
little piece of the "Color" image mystery.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding bit depth and grayscale| 00:00 | Well we are back and still talking
about the basic building blocks of color
| | 00:04 | images and now we are going to get to
the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey
| | 00:08 | used to say. And just a quick review so
far, what do we have? We have got pixel
| | 00:13 | building blocks and each of those
pixel building block exist on a grayscale
| | 00:18 | channel which when sent to an output
device will be painted with some color
| | 00:22 | either RGB or CMYK depending upon the type
of output device that we are working with.
| | 00:27 | But now let's explore a little bit about
the different kinds of images we might output.
| | 00:32 | Now here we have an RGB image, but
what's the fundamental difference
| | 00:36 | between this RGB image, which we
know is made up of grayscale, and just a
| | 00:40 | regular grayscale image? Let's see.
| | 00:42 | Let's make a duplicate of this and just
make a grayscale version of the image.
| | 00:47 | So we'll just do our F10 to duplicate,
so all that occurs in random, we'll call
| | 00:52 | this grayscale and what I want to do
is watch what happens to these three channels.
| | 00:57 | As we go Image > Mode and
then go to Grayscale, watch those three
| | 01:02 | channels, boom! Notice it goes down
the one channel. We started with three
| | 01:07 | grayscale channels with a RGB composite on
output and then down to one grayscale channel.
| | 01:13 | This is the fundamental difference
between in RGB "color image" and a
| | 01:19 | multi-tone grayscale image.
| | 01:21 | Now I'm using the word multi-tone
very specifically here, not just to use a
| | 01:24 | fancy word, but you will see why
because it's an important difference from
| | 01:28 | another kind of grayscale,
which we are about to look at.
| | 01:30 | When we zoom in on that same high
contrast edge again we see grayscale pixels,
| | 01:35 | but in this case there is just one channel.
| | 01:38 | So that's the fundamental
difference RGB and grayscale images.
| | 01:42 | This has three grayscale
channels, which are painted on output.
| | 01:45 | This is one grayscale, which
remains grayscale on output.
| | 01:49 | Okay, so those were the two of the three
fundamental types of images that we work with.
| | 01:53 | RGB color, three channels.
| | 01:56 | Grayscale, one channel.
| | 01:57 | The third kind of image that we work
with is a black and white, a true black and
| | 02:04 | white image which is only black and white.
| | 02:06 | Now many people you will hear refer to
a grayscale images black and white and
| | 02:10 | it's part of the terminology problem
that we have in our industry is that the
| | 02:14 | same word means different things coming
out of different mouths but in this case
| | 02:18 | for our purposes we are going to call
this one a multi-tone grayscale image and
| | 02:22 | then this one we are going to initially
call a black and white image and we'll
| | 02:25 | have another word for it in just one moment.
| | 02:27 | But to create a true just straight
black and white image we go Image > Mode and
| | 02:33 | then go to what Photoshop
calls Bitmap. I hate this word.
| | 02:36 | I really don't like it, because
it doesn't really fit with the other
| | 02:39 | terminology. CMYK color, RGB
Color, Grayscale, and then Bitmap?
| | 02:43 | I mean no, this is black and white
mode and we are going to choose 50%
| | 02:49 | Threshold, so that any pixel that's
more than 50% gray goes black and any one
| | 02:54 | that's less than 50% gray goes white
and we do that and we get a true black and
| | 02:59 | white image with nothing
but black and white pixels.
| | 03:02 | Now, notice that the number of
channels hasn't changed, but in the black and white,
| | 03:06 | the "Bitmap" image, again I hate
the term, there is still one channel,
| | 03:10 | but obviously there is a significant
difference between these two images.
| | 03:14 | So something fundamental has changed and
that's the third and final piece to our
| | 03:19 | pixel puzzle here is something we call
bit depth and to understand bit depth and
| | 03:24 | what impact it has and why we need to
understand all is let's zoom in and look
| | 03:28 | at our individual pixels.
| | 03:30 | Then we are going to use two new
tools and that is the Eyedropper tool and
| | 03:36 | then we are going to using the Info
tool, keyboard shortcut F8 and that's
| | 03:42 | built into Photoshop.
| | 03:45 | Eyedropper and the Info tool, these
work hand in hand and we'll come up here
| | 03:48 | and do the Eyedropper Options and
choose Point Sample. Typically when we are
| | 03:53 | doing an image correction either in
grayscale, multi-tone grayscale or in RGB color
| | 03:57 | we'll do a 3x3 average. We want
to get an average percents or values of
| | 04:02 | the pixels, not just one pixel, but for
our demonstration purposes here I want to
| | 04:06 | measure one pixel at a time.
| | 04:08 | So, I'm going to take my
Eyedropper and let's zoom in even more.
| | 04:11 | There we go and I'm going to measure
the grayscale value of this pixel and this
| | 04:15 | is when we move to the Info panel and we
have multiple ways to measure grayscale values.
| | 04:21 | One is K which is percent K and
this is 100% K and then we move over to
| | 04:26 | this pixel over here and its 0% K.
K stands for black and we get K because it's
| | 04:33 | the key ink that's used in the printing
process and besides we can't call it B
| | 04:38 | because B is already taken by blue in RGB.
I guess RGB got in line first when we
| | 04:43 | were handing out the shortcuts. I don't know.
| | 04:46 | But the other way that we measure
grayscale value is RGB Color because you and I
| | 04:51 | now know that there is no such thing
as RGB color in a digital image;
| | 04:54 | we are measuring grayscale values
and I want to compare these two scales.
| | 04:59 | Notice that when we measure a black
pixel the K value, and let's just move this
| | 05:03 | right up next to it so you can see it
quite easily, the K value is 100% and
| | 05:07 | what's the RGB? It's 0, 0, 0.
When we move to the white pixel right next door,
| | 05:13 | the K value is 0 and the RGB value is 255.
You see the two scales are inverted.
| | 05:18 | Now when we are working in our color
images we are going to use and we are
| | 05:22 | measure grayscale values with the RGB scale.
| | 05:25 | So that's the one we really want to
get used to here, but I want to point this out,
| | 05:29 | comparing percent gray with 0 to
255, and the reason why we use 0 to 255 is
| | 05:35 | the minimum number of grayscale
values that we want to have in an image for
| | 05:38 | outputting to high quality print
devices like postscript printing devices is
| | 05:42 | 256 shades of gray.
| | 05:45 | We can go well above that but
we want at least 256 shades of gray.
| | 05:49 | So in this case we have 0
and 255. Black and white.
| | 05:55 | Now is this a grayscale image. Well,
you will probably thinking no, but in fact,
| | 06:00 | it is a grayscale image.
| | 06:01 | We have been taught from birth and
hear everybody talk about it, oh!
| | 06:05 | this is a grayscale image and
that's a black and white image.
| | 06:08 | Yes this is a black and white image
but it's also a grayscale image and
| | 06:11 | it's important to think of it this way.
| | 06:13 | Now listen. I'll grant you this is a
grayscale challenged image, right, because
| | 06:17 | its only two shades of gray,
but we even have a name for this.
| | 06:21 | This is called the bi tonal image, two
tones, and now you see why I referred to
| | 06:26 | this as a multi tonal image.
| | 06:29 | This one here is multi tonal because
there are multiple shades of gray when
| | 06:32 | we zoom in on an image like this,
we see all this various shades of gray in here.
| | 06:36 | Whereas this one has just two tones,
black and white. It is indeed a grayscale image.
| | 06:41 | In fact everything in Photoshop
is confirmed by shades of gray.
| | 06:45 | So this is about the simplest kind of image
that we work with is this black and white image.
| | 06:50 | Now thinking back to the concept of
digital remember that digital means two values right
| | 06:56 | and that's all we have 0 and 1 and
how many shades of gray do we have in this image?
| | 07:01 | Two shades of gray.
Guess what, we have a match.
| | 07:04 | In order to create this image all we
have to do is assign one of our bit values
| | 07:08 | to black like 1 and the other one to white,
0, and that's how we construct this image.
| | 07:14 | 10010011110001100, we assign one bit
of information either 0 or 1 to each of
| | 07:24 | those pixels, which makes this a one
bit black and white image and this is
| | 07:29 | the simplest kind of image that we work with.
| | 07:32 | So a simple black and white bi tonal
image is constructed out of one channel
| | 07:37 | with nothing but just black and white
pixel that have 0 or 1 applied to it.
| | 07:41 | That's known as a bit depth or
the color depth or the bit density.
| | 07:46 | All those words refer to the same thing.
| | 07:48 | Now, let's move back to our
grayscale image and talk about that.
| | 07:52 | On a computer that only understands 0
and 1, black and white, how do we then
| | 07:57 | capture, edit and store 0 to 255 shades
of gray? As I move my Eyedropper around
| | 08:04 | I have everything from 0 all the way up to 255.
| | 08:07 | How do we do that? How to we find,
capture, edit and store 256 shades of gray?
| | 08:11 | Okay what you want to do is hold your
hand up in front on you and just point to
| | 08:15 | your thumb and call that 2 and then just
start moving across in multiplying by 2
| | 08:19 | as you go through your fingers, 2
times 2 is 4, times 2 is 8, times 2 is 16,
| | 08:24 | times 2 is 32. That is your fifth finger.
Go to your other hand, times 2 is 64,
| | 08:30 | times 2 is 128, times 2 is 256.
| | 08:33 | Now you have got 8 fingers in front of
you and that's 256 of gray. Guess what?
| | 08:38 | That's 8 bits per pixel, so the
difference between a one bit bi tonal black and
| | 08:42 | white image is this is one bit black and
white with one channel whereas this one
| | 08:47 | still is one channel but it's 8 bits
per pixel and that gives us 256 different
| | 08:52 | variations of 0 and 1 black and white
and if you compare the file size, look down
| | 08:57 | to the lower left hand corner, 45K
versus 358K. That is exactly 8 times as much
| | 09:04 | information so the file size
is 8 times the file size.
| | 09:08 | So that is how we create
shades of gray in a digital image.
| | 09:12 | In the next section now that you know
all the basic blocks of digital images,
| | 09:17 | pixels, channels and bit depth, we are
going to come back and we are going to
| | 09:21 | apply those concepts to the color image
and see how grayscale and bit depth works
| | 09:26 | to create color in RGB image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding bit depth and color| 00:00 | Well, we are back talking about the
fundamental building blocks and how color
| | 00:04 | images work and so far we have
understood that we have got basic pixels,
| | 00:09 | these buildings blocks and those pixels are
nothing but grayscale, even in color images.
| | 00:15 | The difference is in a RGB color image,
we say we have three grayscale channels
| | 00:20 | and in a multi-tone
grayscale image, how many do we have?
| | 00:23 | One channel, that's right, and in a
bi-tonal black and white image, that
| | 00:28 | also has one channel.
| | 00:29 | What's the difference between the black
and white bi-tonal and the multi-tonal?
| | 00:33 | That's right the bit depth and bit
depth for the black and white image is 1
| | 00:37 | bit per pixel which gives us two shades of
gray, either 0 or 1, pure black pure white.
| | 00:43 | 0 or 255, remember that's the scale we
are going to be working on, where 255 is
| | 00:48 | pure white and 0 is black.
| | 00:51 | Again 255 is pure white and 0 is black.
| | 00:54 | Then we have the multi-tonal image, which
has 0 to 255, which is 256 shades of gray.
| | 01:00 | Now, you are dying to find out how
does all this really make the color work?
| | 01:04 | Well, let's go take a look and
let's bring back our RGB color image.
| | 01:11 | I'm not sure if I mentioned this before,
but when we are working in RGB, there
| | 01:18 | are 16.7 million colors that we can work with.
| | 01:22 | That's a pretty daunting number, isn't it?
| | 01:23 | 16.7 million colors.
| | 01:24 | In fact when I first heard that, I
remember reading it in MacUser magazine.
| | 01:30 | When we went from grayscale, which was
256, that was difficult enough moving
| | 01:34 | from a one bit black and white.
| | 01:36 | But then when I remember reading about hey,
there is 16.7 million colors, I said, wow!
| | 01:41 | That's just too complicated for me
to kind of understand and deal with.
| | 01:44 | But then I broke it down into these
pieces and now we are at the last step.
| | 01:49 | How do we get color out of this grayscale?
| | 01:51 | How do we do this numerically?
| | 01:53 | Well, let's just zoom in on an edge,
let's zoom in on this yellow and green edge
| | 01:58 | and take a look at some of these pixels.
| | 02:00 | Notice that in this image, remember it
is red, green and blue and then in an
| | 02:06 | output becomes RGB and let's look at
the RGB values of that pixel right there.
| | 02:12 | Let's move our Info panel up over here
and then our Channels here and remember
| | 02:17 | we can cycle through our channels using keyboard
shortcuts Command+ 3, 4 and 5. All right, cool.
| | 02:23 | So, notice the numbers now, 216, 179 and 51.
| | 02:28 | That's red is 216, green is 179 and blue is 51.
| | 02:32 | That's these numbers right here and
what do those numbers actually mean?
| | 02:37 | Well, now you know because we are
measuring on a scale of 0 to 255.
| | 02:42 | So, if we cycle through the 3 channels
and go to the red channel, remember those
| | 02:46 | three numbers 216, 179 and 51, when we
go to the red channel, Command+3, notice
| | 02:53 | there is only one pixel there,
right on that channel, it's 216.
| | 02:57 | When we go to the green channel, Command
+4, its 179 and we go the blue channel,
| | 03:02 | that's right you guessed it, it's 51.
| | 03:05 | Notice that the darker colors are lower
values and the lighter colors are higher
| | 03:11 | values because 255 remember is the white end.
| | 03:14 | So, when we look at an RGB color image
and we look at these values, 216, 179 and
| | 03:21 | 51, what we are really measuring is the
grayscale values of each of those pixels
| | 03:26 | in each of the three channels.
| | 03:27 | So, that's how we actually get color
to work in an RGB "Image", it is really
| | 03:34 | the grayscale values.
| | 03:36 | So, when we evaluate and then edit
our image, we are going to be looking at
| | 03:39 | these grayscale values and then
changing them to color correct our images and
| | 03:45 | we'll get to and talk what kind of
values we are going to be looking for in
| | 03:48 | various kinds of images.
| | 03:49 | All right, so that's it.
| | 03:51 | Now, in the one bit black and white
image, it was one bit per pixel and in the
| | 03:59 | multi-tone grayscale, it was 8 bits
per pixels with 256 shades of gray.
| | 04:03 | Now, to really test ourselves to see if we
understand how all this works in our color image.
| | 04:09 | The true test is if you can apply your
recently gained knowledge to at least
| | 04:13 | semi-new circumstance.
| | 04:15 | Let's select a red channel.
| | 04:17 | From what you have learned so far, can you
tell me what is the bit depth of the red channel?
| | 04:22 | Remembering that the multi-tone
grayscale image has 8 bits per pixels, which
| | 04:28 | gives us 256 shades of gray, right.
| | 04:30 | So, what's the bit depth of the
red channel? 8, exactly right.
| | 04:34 | So, how many shades of red
would that give us in the image?
| | 04:38 | If we have 8 bits of grayscale over
here with 256 shades of gray and we have
| | 04:44 | an 8 bit grayscale channel on the red
channel that should give us -- that's
| | 04:48 | right, 256 shades of red.
| | 04:51 | Now, let's move down to the next channel.
| | 04:53 | What's the bit depth of the green channel?
| | 04:56 | Well, the answer you
should be getting easier, right.
| | 04:58 | Same as the blue channel, 8 and that's
going to give us 256 shades of green and
| | 05:03 | then the blue, you guessed it, 8
bits per pixel, 256 shades of blue.
| | 05:08 | Now, once you do a quick math problem
in your head -- I know you love math.
| | 05:12 | Of course you hate math.
| | 05:13 | That's why you went into graphics cards, but
I'm going to show you how good you are anyway.
| | 05:17 | Take 256 shades of red, times 256 of
green times 256 shades of blue. You got it.
| | 05:26 | That's the 16.7 million colors.
| | 05:29 | That's where they come from and when
you break it down you understand that it's
| | 05:32 | just 8 bits of 256 shades of gray on
each of the three channels it makes a whole
| | 05:38 | lot easier to understand and control.
| | 05:40 | What's the total bit depth of this RGB image?
| | 05:43 | If each channel is 8 bits and there is
three channels, 3 times 8, that's 24 bit image.
| | 05:49 | That's where we get the whole
concept of a 24 bit color image.
| | 05:54 | Then as we did before, of course if we
make a copy of this image and we convert
| | 06:00 | this into CMYK, as we would to take it
to print, Image > Mode and go to CMYK,
| | 06:06 | like we did before and we still have our
grayscale channels, but there's four of them here.
| | 06:11 | Whets the total bit depth of this image?
| | 06:13 | 8, 3, 2, and 4 times 8, 32 bit CMYK Image.
| | 06:19 | So, that's how we do color.
| | 06:20 | That's how we create color on a
digital black and white computer.
| | 06:23 | We capture grayscale pixels, we put 8
bits per pixels per channel and then on
| | 06:28 | output we apply color to those
grayscale values and our job is going to be to
| | 06:33 | control the grayscale values.
| | 06:35 | Well, now you understand the
fundamental building blocks of how digital images
| | 06:38 | work and now we are going to apply
all these fundamentals to actually doing
| | 06:42 | color correction in manipulating
and adjusting images in Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Measuring RGB| 00:00 | Now, that we have learned the
fundamental of digital color images, and we now
| | 00:05 | understand that in fact our images
are constructed out of pixels, which are
| | 00:09 | really grayscale pixels on individual
channels and when we are capturing or
| | 00:14 | editing we are really working with grayscale.
| | 00:17 | It is worthwhile to stop here for a
minute and just get used to working in that
| | 00:21 | 0-255 scale and thinking about colors.
| | 00:24 | And this is actually a great image in
which to do that because there is nice
| | 00:28 | greens and yellows and reds and blues
and there is even some neutrals in here up
| | 00:33 | in the white highlight and snow.
| | 00:35 | So, let's take a few minutes to get
familiar with our Info panel and looking at
| | 00:39 | those numbers and seeing what they need.
| | 00:41 | And we have got a nice tool that can
help aid us here, and it is the Color
| | 00:45 | Picker inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:46 | Now, normally whenever you choose a color,
like here, I'll go ahead and click on
| | 00:50 | one of these yellows for instance.
| | 00:52 | And that when you click on a color
in Photoshop, it comes up in that
| | 00:54 | Foreground Color swatch.
| | 00:56 | When you double-click on that, the
Color Picker comes up and you can see
| | 01:00 | where that color exists.
| | 01:01 | This is the Adobe Color Picker, which
is very useful, but it is not quite as
| | 01:06 | instructive in terms of seeing
how these colors are generated.
| | 01:09 | So, what we are going to do, and
you can do this as well is just to the
| | 01:14 | Preferences in Photoshop.
| | 01:15 | Remember the keyboard shortcut for
that, Command+K or Ctrl+K and go up to
| | 01:20 | the Color Picker here and choose Apple for
the Apple Color Picker, and then click OK.
| | 01:25 | Now double-click on that yellow color
and you get an entirely different Color
| | 01:29 | Picker and a color scale.
| | 01:31 | And I like this one because it gives
us the circle of color here going from
| | 01:35 | red to green to blue.
| | 01:37 | And this is indeed how we construct
our colors in an RGB image, combining
| | 01:40 | various portions of red,
green and blue together.
| | 01:44 | So, this is the Hue of the color
coming around here, you have heard of
| | 01:47 | Hue/Saturation in value.
| | 01:48 | So, Hue works all the way around here.
| | 01:51 | If you are more oriented towards
physique, you would think of this as frequency
| | 01:54 | or wavelength of light, where these are
the shorter wavelengths down here, right
| | 01:59 | in the purples and blues and they get
longer and longer as you move into the
| | 02:01 | long wavelengths of light.
| | 02:03 | Then Saturation is how pure the
color is, as you move away from the edge
| | 02:08 | perpendicular to the edge it gets
less and less saturated until you get
| | 02:12 | pure white or neutral.
| | 02:13 | And then we have value which is Tonal
value which is on this scale here, where
| | 02:18 | you have 100% tone and then lack of tone here.
| | 02:22 | So, you can think of this as a
cylinder and this is just a slice of this
| | 02:26 | cylinder and the rest of the cylinder
goes in and out of the monitor and that's
| | 02:31 | the Tonal Range that we see here.
| | 02:33 | Notice if we put our Color Picker
right in the middle, it is all a grayscale.
| | 02:37 | So, on any given color that we select,
we'll move up and down through that
| | 02:41 | cylinder getting darker and lighter.
| | 02:43 | Remember Hue/Saturation and then
value up and down through the cylinder.
| | 02:49 | Okay, so let's again zoom in and
click on a yellow portion of this image
| | 02:53 | like right over here.
| | 02:54 | And let's bring up our Color Picker
and see what value we have got here.
| | 03:01 | We clicked over here and notice we are
in kind of an orange or yellow, and let's
| | 03:06 | look at our values and look at the
RGB values here when I'm in the orange
| | 03:10 | portion, this speck from here.
| | 03:11 | It is red 180, green 137, and blue 38.
| | 03:16 | So, it is highest in the red, and the next
in the green and then lowest in the blue.
| | 03:20 | Well, take a look at our color sampler
point here, notice it is closest to the
| | 03:25 | red and then its next closest is
green and then farthest away from blue.
| | 03:29 | So, anytime we are in the Oranges, we
are going to have high reds, intermediate
| | 03:33 | greens, and very low blue.
| | 03:36 | And if you ever get confused about
colors, just bring up this Color Picker and
| | 03:39 | it is really helpful and instructive.
| | 03:41 | Yellow is always a combination of red
and green, and remember we are working in
| | 03:44 | red, green and blue.
| | 03:46 | So, if you are thinking,
how do I make the yellows now?
| | 03:48 | Just open up this chart and you can
see, oh, there is the red, there is the
| | 03:52 | green, so we combine those
together to make yellows.
| | 03:55 | So, once again just to review, high reds,
intermediate greens and then very low
| | 04:00 | blues will give us yellows.
| | 04:01 | Let's back out again, and let's go take a
look at a red in here. Look at the red.
| | 04:09 | Its 196, the green is 42, and the blue is 21.
| | 04:13 | So, we know this is going to be pretty
close to the red on that Color Picker, isn't it?
| | 04:17 | Sure enough, it is right smack
down in the middle of the red.
| | 04:20 | All right, it is not completely
saturated so it has a little bit of green and
| | 04:24 | little bit of blue in it.
| | 04:25 | But it pretty darn high in red and
very, very little green and blue.
| | 04:30 | So, 187, 43, 24, look at that, very nice.
| | 04:35 | It is easier to kind of understand
where the colors come from and it is
| | 04:39 | the grayscale values.
| | 04:40 | We are getting a high grayscale value.
| | 04:41 | It is very close to 255 because it is
very close to the edge of the red circle.
| | 04:45 | Let's now go take a look at
a blue portion of the sky.
| | 04:49 | And in this case we would expect the
blue to be the highest and indeed it is.
| | 04:53 | Let's capture that blue, and then double-
click on the blue to bring up our Color
| | 04:59 | Picker and look where it's
positioned on this circle.
| | 05:01 | It is not 100% on the blue.
| | 05:03 | There is a little bit of red and green in there.
| | 05:05 | So, it is not completely blue, but a blue
sky has an enormous amount of blue in it.
| | 05:09 | Now, one thing that is interesting
working with a lot of natural colors because
| | 05:14 | I do a lot of natural landscape photography.
| | 05:15 | Let's click on a green tree here
and let's look at the RGB values.
| | 05:20 | Look at that, the red and
the green are almost identical.
| | 05:23 | The red is 100, the green in 105,
and of course the blue is very low.
| | 05:27 | And when you bring that up in our Color Picker,
sure enough we see that we are way over here.
| | 05:33 | green is about halfway
between the actual green and red.
| | 05:36 | There is an enormous amount of yellow in
most greens that exist in nature. 91, 92, 50.
| | 05:43 | Down in here 45, 48, 24, and of course
where we have got light greens, right,
| | 05:49 | we'll have higher red and
green values and lower blue values.
| | 05:53 | So, now you get a sense for what these
grayscale values mean in reds, greens and
| | 05:58 | blues and yellows in an image.
| | 06:00 | And final one, let's take a look at
something that should be not of great deal
| | 06:04 | of color in it whatsoever and that
would be up here in the white snow what we
| | 06:08 | consider highlight area.
| | 06:10 | And notice that all three
values are equal, 246, 246, 246.
| | 06:15 | That's almost all the way up to 255, not
quite, so we still have some detail in there.
| | 06:20 | And if we click on there and
then double-click, look at it.
| | 06:24 | Its right smacked up in the middle.
| | 06:25 | So, when we look for neutral areas
on our image such as a neutral white
| | 06:29 | highlight, all those values should be equal.
| | 06:31 | Whereas in the other color areas, you
will have dispersed amounts of red, green
| | 06:36 | and blue and that's what creates the colors.
| | 06:39 | So, there we go, there you certainly
get a hang of what those grayscale values
| | 06:43 | mean when we are measuring "RGB".
| | 06:46 | And if you have got high amount of red,
moderate green and little blue you have got yellows.
| | 06:51 | In the reds you are going to have high
reds and low greens and blues, and in
| | 06:54 | greens you are going to
have high reds and greens.
| | 06:56 | And the more you use this, the more you
will get a sense for and get comfortable
| | 07:00 | with what those grayscale values
are and various kinds of color.
| | 07:03 | And just to review, just go ahead
and choose that Apple Color Picker and
| | 07:08 | then any color that you click on,
you can just bring it up in the Color
| | 07:11 | Picker and see where it is.
| | 07:12 | There was a dark green, let's bring up a
lighter green and then let's bring up a yellow.
| | 07:20 | You can see exactly where it is on that circle.
| | 07:22 | All right, so that's measuring RGB in
terms of grayscale value and what it means
| | 07:26 | on each of those individual channels.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Measuring CMYK| 00:00 | Well, in the last section we talked
about measuring RGB values and what RGB
| | 00:05 | values look like on various colors
such as reds, greens, blues, yellows.
| | 00:09 | Now, I would like to talk a little
bit about CMYK because if you are a CMYK
| | 00:13 | person, like you are a print production
person and you really kind of think in CMYK,
| | 00:18 | I'm going to make two suggestions here.
One is that you are going to start to
| | 00:22 | get used to the RGB world because it
really is a better way to capture and edit
| | 00:26 | color and I'll talk about that a
little bit more in just a little bit.
| | 00:30 | But for now I would like to show you how
you can setup Photoshop so you can work
| | 00:34 | in both RGB and CMYK kind of at the
same time, while staying in an RGB image.
| | 00:39 | And at the same time I would like to
start this discussion about why it is
| | 00:43 | better to work in RGB than in CMYK.
| | 00:46 | First, let's review the color settings
that we talked about a little bit earlier.
| | 00:51 | If we go underneath the Edit menu
and go down to Color Settings, keyboard
| | 00:55 | shortcut Command+Shift+K or Ctrl+Shift+K.
And if you remember we talked about
| | 01:00 | the two key settings here is
setting up your working space and we said that
| | 01:05 | using either Adobe or ProPhoto RGB
depending upon what you could get in your
| | 01:09 | camera and we'll setup Adobe RGB and
then you assign the press and the paper in
| | 01:15 | which you would generally be working
such as U.S. Sheetfed Coated, U.S. Web
| | 01:18 | Coated, or whatever you will be printing on.
| | 01:21 | So, you setup your Color Settings to match
whatever your working environment is going to be.
| | 01:26 | If you are someone who works
primarily on the web, then setting up an SRGB,
| | 01:30 | which is the default in Photoshop,
you will find RGB color space to work in.
| | 01:34 | Otherwise if you are multi-purposing
your images for web and for print and for
| | 01:38 | wide gamut printing, at least go to
Adobe RGB 1998. Professional photographers
| | 01:43 | will work in ProPhoto RGB.
| | 01:45 | All right, so we set that up and
then we click OK and by doing that if we
| | 01:50 | convert our image, Image > Mode and go to CMYK,
then Photoshop is going to use this CMYK
| | 02:00 | color profile to accomplish that conversion.
| | 02:02 | And we'll talk more about going to
CMYK much later on in the course.
| | 02:07 | But for now what you can do is you can
take advantage of assigning this CMYK
| | 02:12 | profile to work in the Color Info panel
because whatever RGB and CMYK profiles
| | 02:19 | you assign there, that will control
the RGB and the CMYK values you see here.
| | 02:25 | And notice you have two
parts to this Info panel.
| | 02:28 | You can setup CMYK on one side and
RGB on the other, so that as you move
| | 02:33 | around and you are measuring your RGB
values you can also be measuring the
| | 02:38 | CMYK values as well.
| | 02:40 | So, here in this yellow we see
the RGB is 103, 79, 44, right.
| | 02:43 | And the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow,
and Black is 43, 59, 94, and 28.
| | 02:50 | So, if you are used to working in CMYK
you can set Photoshop up so it gives you
| | 02:55 | your standard and comfortable values on
the right and you can start getting used
| | 02:59 | to working in the RGB values on the left.
| | 03:02 | Let's zoom in on a neutral portion of
this image, say up here where there is
| | 03:06 | still snow in this ridgeline.
| | 03:08 | And let's look at the RGB and the CMYK values.
| | 03:12 | Notice it is 235, 235, 236. That's
just about a neutral gray, which is great,
| | 03:17 | which is what we are looking for,
something that's pretty close to neutral.
| | 03:19 | That's within four-tenth of a
percent of being absolutely neutral.
| | 03:23 | On the RGB side notice that the RGB
values are pretty much equal when you have
| | 03:28 | got a neutral gray portion of your image.
| | 03:30 | But look at the CMY. The CMY is 5,
4, 4 with the Cyan is up above the
| | 03:36 | Magenta and Yellow.
| | 03:37 | And if we move this around a little bit
in the various portions, this is mostly
| | 03:41 | neutral around here,
it moves around a little bit.
| | 03:44 | But notice how the Cyan stays up above
the Magenta and Yellow, 8, 6, 6, 8, 6, 5,
| | 03:51 | 8, 5, 5 where the RGB values stay
pretty close to each other, 218, 218, 222.
| | 03:58 | And look at the Cyan. It's
significantly higher than Magenta and Yellow.
| | 04:02 | And this is common in commercial
printing because the Cyan tends to be a
| | 04:05 | contaminated ink, so it has to be bumped
up in relationship to Magenta and Yellow.
| | 04:09 | And this is one of the reasons why it
is better to capture and edit in RGB is
| | 04:14 | that neutral is truly a neutral
in RGB where it is not in CMYK.
| | 04:19 | But suffice it to say you can setup
your Info panel controlled by the color
| | 04:23 | profiles that you set here and then
you can measure both RGB and CMYK values.
| | 04:29 | Let's zoom all the way in again and let's
just take a look at individual pixels here.
| | 04:34 | And let's get us a good neutral gray pixel.
| | 04:36 | Well, we are pretty darn close to being neutral.
| | 04:39 | 227, 225, 227, pretty darn good on that
one and 8, 6, 5, notice how the Cyan is
| | 04:49 | above it and then I just want to
cycle through the three channels here,
| | 04:52 | all right, the red,
the green, and the blue channel.
| | 04:54 | And 227, 225, 227 on the red channel.
| | 04:59 | 225 on the green channel
and 227 on the blue channel.
| | 05:04 | Notice that there is not a whole lot
of difference in that one pixels in
| | 05:07 | those three channels.
| | 05:09 | Whereas, if we move to a different
portion of the image such as this bright
| | 05:14 | green area here on this tree and
we cycle through those three channels, the red,
| | 05:19 | the green, and the blue.
| | 05:20 | There we go, 123, 126, and 50, the
three channels will look pretty different on
| | 05:25 | that individual pixel.
| | 05:27 | And notice that 123, 126 they are
pretty close to each other, aren't they?
| | 05:30 | Almost the same on the
red and the green channels.
| | 05:33 | And what would you predict, will
those be lighter or darker than the blue?
| | 05:37 | Remember 255 is pure white.
| | 05:40 | Let's take a look, the red,
the green, and the blue.
| | 05:43 | Do you see how much darker the blue is
because of those low values? 123, 126, boom!
| | 05:49 | That's a much darker pixel on the 50.
| | 05:52 | So, you get used to thinking about
grayscale values in terms of lightness and
| | 05:55 | darkness and how they fit on that 0-255 scale.
| | 05:59 | So, there. If you are a CMYK person,
then you can setup your Info palette
| | 06:04 | even though you are working in RGB
to measure both RGB and CMYK values.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring LAB | 00:00 | Well, so far we've had a good
introduction to pixels and channels and the RGB
| | 00:06 | Color mode and CMYK Color mode.
| | 00:07 | And of course, now color is always in
parenthesis right or quotation marks
| | 00:12 | meaning that it's not really color at
all because we all know now that we are
| | 00:16 | working in grayscale.
| | 00:18 | But there is one other mode that we're going
to use from time to time in color correction.
| | 00:21 | And in fact, in some color correction
circumstances people use this mode all the
| | 00:25 | time and its called Lab mode.
| | 00:27 | And while we were here talking about
channels, I though it would be a good
| | 00:30 | time to introduce it.
| | 00:31 | We're going to be using it for
doing sharpening a little bit later on.
| | 00:34 | So let's go to Lab, and
just talk about what Lab is.
| | 00:38 | The way you get to Lab is you go to
Image > Mode, and go to Lab Color.
| | 00:41 | But of course, we've got our RGB image, so
we're just going to make a copy of this one.
| | 00:45 | We'll make our duplicate copy,
and we'll label this Lab.
| | 00:51 | And watch the channels over here,
Image > Mode, and go to Lab Color.
| | 00:57 | And when we're in Lab, once
again its three channels like RGB.
| | 01:01 | But it just means that the color values
and tonal values are distributed a bit
| | 01:05 | differently in this image.
| | 01:07 | In an RGB image, the red, green, and
blue values are the color, but there is
| | 01:12 | also the tone distributed equally
across all three channels or at least
| | 01:16 | distributed across all the three channels.
| | 01:19 | In an Lab image, the a and the b
channels are combination of color channels
| | 01:24 | that's why they look kind of odd, they
almost like negatives because they're
| | 01:28 | combinations of color channels.
| | 01:30 | Whereas the Lightness channel, all the tonal
values are taken out and put on one channel.
| | 01:35 | And this is very handy and very useful
for all sorts of circumstances when you
| | 01:39 | want to make neutral density
adjustments only such as brightness, contrast,
| | 01:43 | blurring, sharpening.
| | 01:45 | This is a great mode to work in because you
don't affect any of the color in the image.
| | 01:49 | But notice just like any of the other
color modes, it's nothing but grayscale.
| | 01:53 | But in this one channel, the
Lightness, it truly is nothing but grayscale
| | 01:57 | because it's all the tonal values of the image.
| | 02:00 | And as I mentioned we'll come back and
take a look at the Lab values a little
| | 02:04 | bit later and work in the Lightness Mode
under Lab channel for doing some of our
| | 02:08 | neutral only adjustments such as
brightness, contrast, sharpening and blurring.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| RGB vs. CMYK corrections| 00:00 | All right, well now we pretty much
understand the fundamental building blocks of
| | 00:03 | Photoshop images, or digital images in
Photoshop, and digital images in general.
| | 00:08 | And we have talked a little bit about the
two fundamental modes in which we worked.
| | 00:12 | The RGB for image capture and editing.
| | 00:15 | And then the CMYK, which is for output.
| | 00:18 | So, I think it's time to go ahead and
address the issue, and some of you may
| | 00:21 | be wondering in your own mind, well why can't we
do color correction in CMYK, why do it in RGB?
| | 00:27 | Or when do we move CMYK?
| | 00:29 | And there are some real good
reasons for working in RGB.
| | 00:32 | Way back in the beginning of desktop
publishing, we used to go right to CMYK,
| | 00:36 | right off the scanner.
| | 00:37 | In our service bureau, we'd scan right to CMYK.
| | 00:40 | Although, in reality, the capture was
still done in RGB, by the scanner.
| | 00:44 | It's just there were built-in color lookup
tables that converted to CMYK on the fly.
| | 00:48 | But that conversion is moved way,
way down the workflow line, because
| | 00:52 | it used to be we just captured color, did it
exactly right off the scanner, and then printed it.
| | 00:56 | Well, we don't do that anymore.
| | 00:58 | We do a lot of manipulation,
a lot of editing in Photoshop.
| | 01:01 | And in fact, when we take a look at
the difference between an RGB and a CMYK
| | 01:05 | file, we see some pretty
significant differences between them.
| | 01:08 | For instance, first thing is an
RGB file, as we see here, has three
| | 01:12 | channels instead of four.
| | 01:14 | So, this RGB image is red, green, and blue and
the CMYK as Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.
| | 01:20 | And that makes it more complicated right
from the get go, three channels versus four.
| | 01:24 | So, in an RGB image you only
have three channels to worry about.
| | 01:28 | Secondly, that CMYK file
is going to be 33% larger.
| | 01:32 | Look the difference between these
two files, here is the RGB version at 1
| | 01:35 | Megabyte, and the CMYK version is 1.4 Megabytes.
| | 01:39 | You have got a fourth 8-bit
grayscale channel in there.
| | 01:42 | So, everything is going
to go a little bit slower.
| | 01:44 | So, it's not only more complicated
with that fourth channel, but it's larger.
| | 01:48 | Third good reason is RGB has a larger gamut.
| | 01:51 | If you remember back to our earlier
discussion of the word gamut, it means range
| | 01:55 | of reproducible color.
| | 01:57 | CMYK tends to be a more device-
specific and restricted color space.
| | 02:02 | If we go back and revisit our Color
Settings file, Command+Shift+K, remember
| | 02:07 | that we talked about Adobe RGB color
profiles as being very generic and large
| | 02:12 | and open such Adobe RGB (1998) or ProPhoto RGB.
| | 02:16 | The only one that was really very
specific was the sRGB, which is for the
| | 02:20 | internet or web colors.
| | 02:22 | But both Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB are
really not device-specific color spaces.
| | 02:27 | Whereas Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black,
the CMYK color profile were specifying
| | 02:32 | both the type of device like a sheet-
fed printing press and what kind of paper,
| | 02:36 | coated stock on which it's going to be printed.
| | 02:38 | So, CMYK profiles tend to be pretty
definite, what we call device-specific.
| | 02:44 | So, RGB tends to be a larger, more
flexible color space than CMYK, whereas as
| | 02:49 | the CMYK is much more device-specific.
| | 02:51 | And understand that RGB is really
the preferred color space in Photoshop.
| | 02:56 | Photoshop is really an RGB painting program.
| | 03:00 | Yes, there is many, many things
you can do in CMYK, and at its filter
| | 03:03 | capabilities, but at its
core that's what Photoshop is.
| | 03:07 | It's an RGB painting program.
| | 03:09 | And there are some things
you still can't do in CMYK.
| | 03:12 | Try applying a Lighting Effect Filter.
| | 03:14 | Photoshop will just laugh at you
and smoke will pour out the back.
| | 03:17 | So, it's a larger, more flexible
color space than CMYK, which tends to be
| | 03:22 | more device-specific.
| | 03:24 | And typically, we want to wait until
we know exactly the output device we are
| | 03:27 | going to, before we convert it to CMYK.
| | 03:30 | And in fact, in the case of
expanded gamut CMY plus light cyan, light
| | 03:35 | magenta, and black, inkjet printers,
we don't even do the conversion until we
| | 03:38 | actually print the file.
| | 03:40 | And that conversion takes place
either at a rip or by a printer driver.
| | 03:44 | So, that conversion has moved all the way
down to the final output of our workflow.
| | 03:49 | And fourth, and perhaps most important
and most significant for us, is that RGB
| | 03:54 | is a much easier color
space to do corrections in.
| | 03:57 | First of all, remember that we would
only have three colors instead of four.
| | 04:01 | And in Neutral, in RGB,
actually does have a neutral value.
| | 04:05 | All right, when we zoom in to one of
these neutral areas on an RGB image.
| | 04:09 | Let's go ahead and bring up our Info panel.
| | 04:12 | And in all cases the RGB values are
going to right around neutral 246, 246, 245,
| | 04:18 | on the neutral areas, whereas, remember
the Cyan tends to be larger in that RGB
| | 04:23 | file than the Magenta and the Yellow.
| | 04:25 | And third and finally these
there is no K to contend with.
| | 04:28 | With a CMYK file you always have to ask
yourself, how do we generate the black,
| | 04:34 | and there is lots of ways
to generate black in CMYK.
| | 04:37 | So, just to review, RGB only has
three channels instead of four.
| | 04:41 | CMYK file is 33% larger.
| | 04:43 | RGB is a larger and more flexible color space.
| | 04:46 | And color correction is much easier in RGB.
| | 04:49 | You only have three colors to worry
about and the neutral, truly is a neutral.
| | 04:53 | 5% wide highlight is 242, 242, 242,
which is 5% on the scale of 0 to 255, or 555
| | 05:01 | if we are thinking about
it in terms of percentages.
| | 05:03 | Whereas, the Cyan, Magenta, and
Yellow, the Cyan is always a little bit
| | 05:06 | higher, like a 755 or a 644, because
that Cyan is contaminated, as we saw a
| | 05:12 | little bit earlier.
| | 05:13 | So, that's why we want to work
mostly in RGB and wait until we actually
| | 05:17 | are ready to output.
| | 05:18 | And then some cases are actually truly
outputting such as to a wide gamut inkjet
| | 05:22 | before we do the conversion.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Histogram's display of color| 00:00 | Well, in the last couple of sections we
have been working a lot with our Info
| | 00:04 | panel and looking at RGB and even some
CMYK values and really starting to get
| | 00:08 | a sense for what those values mean,
such as when we were in the yellows,
| | 00:12 | we are going to have high reds and high greens,
because red plus green is equal to yellow.
| | 00:15 | And I think we are starting to get more
comfortable with the fact that the real
| | 00:19 | bright areas of an image are going to
be high values, and the dark area of the
| | 00:23 | image is going to be low values.
| | 00:25 | And although that's the
reverse of the percent K scale,
| | 00:28 | it's actually pretty easy to get used to.
Just think high and light and low and dark.
| | 00:34 | What I thought we would add to this mix
now because it's an important tool and
| | 00:37 | interesting and valuable tool to
start to work with is I would like to take
| | 00:41 | another look at our Histograms, and
start talking about evaluating Histograms.
| | 00:45 | In a sense, we are getting
pretty familiar with this image.
| | 00:48 | This one would be a good one to get
that re-acquainted with our Histogram.
| | 00:51 | So let's bring up our Histogram panel,
F11 is the keyboard shortcut we assigned
| | 00:56 | to that, and notice that you can
control what's displayed here.
| | 01:01 | You can just do the Compact View to
just look at one portion of it, or you can
| | 01:05 | do the Expanded View which makes it
just a little bit bigger or what I like to
| | 01:09 | use and most valuable is the All
Channels, which shows you the composite RGB as
| | 01:14 | well as the three individual channels.
| | 01:16 | And remember this is the same kind
of look we get when you go Image >
| | 01:20 | Adjustments and go to Levels,
Command+L or Ctrl+L and there is the
| | 01:25 | Master channel, boom!
| | 01:26 | Master, and then the individual
channels, the red, the green, see they are
| | 01:32 | identical, and the blue.
| | 01:34 | And the advantage here is that it's an
editable Histogram and the one we'll end
| | 01:40 | up using the most is the Curves.
| | 01:43 | This is just straight Curves.
| | 01:44 | We'll be using an adjustment layer.
| | 01:46 | But what I want to talk about here
is the fact that you have the same
| | 01:49 | Histograms. There is the master Histogram.
| | 01:52 | Notice that the vertical scale is a
little bit different, but one, two, three peaks,
| | 01:56 | one, two, three peaks.
| | 01:58 | All right, and then there is the
red, one, two peaks, one, two peaks.
| | 02:03 | It's just more vertically exaggerated,
and then there is the green channel
| | 02:07 | with the one and the two peaks, and then
finally the blue channel, the one and the two peaks.
| | 02:12 | Again this is even more editable than
Levels, which is why we are going to end
| | 02:15 | up using Curves quite a bit.
| | 02:17 | But what's so valuable about just
the straight Histogram, although there is
| | 02:20 | no editing to be done, it's big, it's
bold and allows us to really look at the
| | 02:24 | data, quickly and easily all at a glance.
| | 02:27 | And you can make it your decision as to
whether you want to look at the master
| | 02:31 | in terms of all of the data in Black
or if you'd like to look at it in colors
| | 02:36 | which shows you red, green and blue as
well as cyan, magenta and yellow if you
| | 02:40 | want to and it shows you the
distribution of tonal ranges as well.
| | 02:44 | So, however you want to. Honestly,
| | 02:46 | I'll look briefly at this just to see
what the overall tonal distribution is.
| | 02:50 | So I often look at it like this, just
so I can see all right, well we have got
| | 02:54 | data all the way from high 240s, all
the way down to solid black, but I really
| | 03:00 | focus on the individual channels,
because there is so much information.
| | 03:03 | And at first when you look at this,
it's just kind of jumbled data and I realize that,
| | 03:07 | but let's just take a kind of
a quick tour to see what we can see.
| | 03:11 | Now let's start with the red
Histogram itself and notice this.
| | 03:15 | When we move our Eyedropper all over our
image, notice that we have got high red
| | 03:20 | values up here, 130s, and I should
mention that always keep in mind midtone,
| | 03:25 | because Midtone 0-255 is 128.
| | 03:29 | So anything around 128 is a midtone.
| | 03:31 | Notice we have got red and green here
at 132, 120 for red and green, and the blue is
| | 03:36 | very low at 90, because that's
the yellowish area of our image.
| | 03:40 | 173, 137, blue as low as 36, but all over
this image, we have got fairly high red values,
| | 03:46 | distributed all over
the lower portion of this image.
| | 03:49 | Whereas up here in the sky of
course, we have very little.
| | 03:53 | But throughout most of the tonal range,
we have got some pretty good red values,
| | 03:56 | which is why the red Histogram shows
pretty good distribution particularly from
| | 04:01 | the midtone, all the way
down to the shadow areas.
| | 04:04 | See that little spike right there.
| | 04:06 | That little spike, if we go over and
take a look at this portion of the image,
| | 04:10 | let's just move this over here, so
we can continue to take a look at our
| | 04:16 | Histogram, and we measure the red values.
| | 04:21 | Notice the red values, all the way up
there at 238, all right. 200 and 238, 220,
| | 04:28 | 225, we have got some high
red values, right up in here.
| | 04:32 | So, we have got high to mid 220s.
| | 04:34 | That's that little spike right there.
| | 04:36 | There is not a lot of it, but there are
some high red values in there and that's
| | 04:40 | what these little spikes
mean when they are very narrow.
| | 04:42 | So, we have got some high red
values and that's in the red colors.
| | 04:46 | And we'll find the same thing of
course in the green when we look in the
| | 04:51 | yellows, and remember the yellows have
both red and green in them and the green
| | 04:56 | have a great deal of red
as well as green in them.
| | 04:59 | So, we'll find some spikes and that's
why we get a little bit of spike in the
| | 05:02 | green channel as you see here.
| | 05:05 | Let's take a look at and discuss
the green channel a little bit now.
| | 05:08 | Notice there is kind of two humps in here.
| | 05:09 | There's not a lot in the
highlight to quarter tone.
| | 05:12 | This is the highlight in, this is
the shadow in, this is midtone, this is
| | 05:16 | quarter tone, this is three-quarter tone.
| | 05:18 | We are getting some big humps around
here, around the midtone and around the
| | 05:22 | three-quarter tone for the green and
obviously this whole dark area of the green here,
| | 05:26 | look at the RGB values.
| | 05:28 | They are all down in the 30s and 20s
which is around the three-quarter tone.
| | 05:32 | Both the red and the green but in the
green in specifically here, we have got a
| | 05:36 | hump right around there.
| | 05:37 | Remember that for the blue as well.
In this area up here, we have got some
| | 05:41 | green, 167 that's just passed 130, 103,
this is all centered at 157, 131.
| | 05:49 | This is all centered around the midtone.
That's where we are getting that midtone hump
| | 05:54 | in the green here in the yellows, and
then we get this lower broader hump here,
| | 05:58 | in the dark foreground area
in the green spruce trees.
| | 06:02 | In the blue, notice there is two very
definitive peaks here. One right at the
| | 06:06 | quarter tone, when we put
our Eyedropper up in the sky.
| | 06:10 | Notice we are at 43.
| | 06:11 | That's obviously towards the dark end
of the scale for the red and the green,
| | 06:15 | but look at the blue, all the way up
there at 163, 158. 163, that's right around
| | 06:20 | the quarter tone. That's that
big hump that we see right there.
| | 06:23 | Whereas when we look down in this
portion of the image, notice we are getting
| | 06:27 | lots of blues in the three-quarter tones.
| | 06:29 | So, there's not a lot of blue compared
to the other colors but that's why we're
| | 06:33 | getting lots, into 30s, 40s, and 50s.
| | 06:36 | That's why we are getting that big hump in
the three-quarter tone to shadow in the blue.
| | 06:40 | So, we begin to look at Histograms
and be able to figure out where various
| | 06:44 | portions of the image are in the
Histogram and using Histogram along with our
| | 06:48 | Info palette we'll be using to help
evaluate and then correct our images.
| | 06:53 | And just to mention once more we are
going to be working mostly in the Curves tool,
| | 06:57 | which gives us complete
correction capabilities across the entire tonal
| | 07:01 | range and allows us to look at
all the Histograms at the same time.
| | 07:04 | That's why I call it the super
Curves tool. Because he can do just
| | 07:07 | about everything here.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding neutralization| 00:00 | You now understand how digital images are
constructed and how they basically work.
| | 00:05 | We have talked about pixels and
channels and bit depth and you understand
| | 00:08 | that everything really truly is based upon
the grayscale values on those three channels.
| | 00:13 | And here, we have an image,
which has an obvious colorcast to it.
| | 00:17 | We are going to do our very fist
correction and in the process of doing this,
| | 00:20 | I'm going to really drive home that
point that all color is controlled by grayscale.
| | 00:25 | Here we have three of the books that
I have written at various times and notice
| | 00:29 | that there is some white areas in
this image such as the white cover of the
| | 00:33 | SilverFast, the white in the Scanning
book, the white in the Adobe PDF and this
| | 00:37 | background here, this quilted
background is white, but there is something else
| | 00:41 | that's supposed to be white in
this image and that's this target.
| | 00:44 | This is a 10 step grayscale target.
| | 00:47 | This is actually a target that I have
invented and that I created myself for doing
| | 00:52 | color corrections, specifically for
the purpose of what we are using it here.
| | 00:56 | Even just visually, even without
measuring a thing, we can see that there is a
| | 00:59 | colorcast in this image.
| | 01:00 | But we are going to do something a little bit
more quantitative rather than just qualitative.
| | 01:05 | A semi-quantitative analysis of this image,
we can see right here in this histogram.
| | 01:10 | When we look at this histogram, here
is the composite, which shows you hey!
| | 01:13 | We have got pretty good data all the
way from the quarter-tone to the three
| | 01:15 | quarter-tone, we are missing a little
bit here in the highlight end but the real
| | 01:18 | meat, the real guts of this
histogram evaluation we see on the individual
| | 01:23 | channels and I mentioned this a little
bit earlier that the three individual
| | 01:27 | channels are where we really get the
meat of doing a quick evaluation and notice
| | 01:32 | that the red, the green and the blue
channels are offset from each other
| | 01:36 | significantly and
particularly at the highlight end.
| | 01:39 | This is one of the most common
harbingers and evidences of colorcast, because if
| | 01:44 | you have got all this red up here and
no green and no blue then, if this is
| | 01:49 | supposed to be a neutral white area
of the image, it certainly is not.
| | 01:53 | Let's come over to our image and
let's zoom in on this grayscale target and
| | 01:58 | notice this grayscale's target has
swatches that get darker and darker as we
| | 02:02 | move down the tonal range.
| | 02:04 | You also notice that there are RGB
values here and I have created this target
| | 02:08 | swatch with these specific RGB values and
this had been optimized for Adobe RGB 1998.
| | 02:13 | That color profile space we talked about
earlier that I recommended that you use
| | 02:19 | for most purposes in Photoshop.
| | 02:20 | So, this is supposed to be set at 242.
| | 02:23 | That's what it's supposed to measure.
| | 02:24 | Now, let's bring up our Info
panel and take a look here.
| | 02:28 | Look at those three values, 212, 158
and 89, and then look at the histogram,
| | 02:34 | notice how high the red is, the green
is next and then the blue is the lowest,
| | 02:39 | and we see that coincides perfectly
with what we actually measure in the image.
| | 02:43 | So, do you see how the histogram gives
us a semi-quantitative or qualitative
| | 02:47 | view of the actual numbers that
we can measure in the Info panel?
| | 02:51 | So, the point is that without even
looking at the Info panel, I can look at the
| | 02:55 | histogram and go wow!
| | 02:57 | This image has got a big colorcast in it,
because of the offset of those histograms.
| | 03:01 | When we look down here around the midtone,
at 128, at the one, two, three, four,
| | 03:06 | five, sixth swatch down, look at the RGB
values in the Info panel. 100, 71, 33.
| | 03:12 | Again, we see the red is much greater
than green, is much greater than the blue.
| | 03:17 | Now, if this is supposed to be a
neutral gray, which are the RGB values of
| | 03:21 | each of the swatches be?
| | 03:23 | They should be equal.
| | 03:24 | Neutral gray means the absence of the
preference for one color over another one.
| | 03:29 | So, all of these should be reading 242.
| | 03:31 | All of the midtones should be
reading 128 and they are not.
| | 03:35 | So, what I want to do is I want to
really, really impress upon you, how
| | 03:39 | important correcting grayscale is and
how it can really work in correcting an
| | 03:43 | image and we are going to do just a
quick and dirty correction of this image and
| | 03:47 | we are going to bring up our Layers
and our Adjustment panel here and we are
| | 03:52 | going to move our Info panel
down here, we can still see it.
| | 03:56 | We move our channels off a little bit
here, there we go and we are going to do a
| | 04:02 | quick Levels adjustment using Eyedroppers.
| | 04:06 | So, this would be our very
first correction that we have here.
| | 04:09 | Here, we go, we pull this up a little
bit and we are going to create our first
| | 04:16 | adjustment layer and if you are
Photoshop 3 user, we used to do this like this.
| | 04:21 | Come down here and click
and go to Levels or Curves.
| | 04:24 | We are going to use Levels for our
first correction just because it's a
| | 04:26 | little bit easier to see.
| | 04:28 | But in CS4, we don't have to that anymore.
| | 04:31 | Remember we link the Layers and the
Adjustment panels together, then we can just
| | 04:35 | click up here and go oh, let's make
me a Levels adjustment layer and it
| | 04:39 | automatically shows up there and you
will get the display shown right here.
| | 04:43 | And once again, you can see the offset
histograms all right, red, green and blue
| | 04:48 | and notice the keyboard shortcuts
they are, instead of being Command+2,
| | 04:51 | Command+3, Command+4, they are Option+2,
Option+3, Option+4 or Alt+2, Alt+3,
| | 04:54 | Alt+4, so you just have to kind
of get use to that working in CS4.
| | 04:58 | So it's Option+3, Option+4 and Option+5
for the individual channels and Option+2
| | 05:03 | to display the master channel.
| | 05:06 | What we are going to do to make our
correction and to make the point about, hey!
| | 05:09 | If you get the grayscale right, the
color is right in the rest of the image.
| | 05:13 | So, we have placed this target in
our image when this was shot, so the
| | 05:17 | target has the same colorcast as the
rest of the image and I'm just going to
| | 05:20 | correct the target.
| | 05:21 | To do this, we are going to double-
click on that highlight and we are going to
| | 05:25 | set this at 242, which is remember
what that top swatch was supposed to be.
| | 05:30 | 242, so we'll come in here, 242, 242,
242, 242 and then click OK and then we'll
| | 05:39 | say Yes, we can make that the new
default target values and then double-click
| | 05:43 | on the midtone that's already at 128 and we
are just going to do a simple correction here.
| | 05:49 | And once you set these target values,
you can use these Eyedroppers to actually
| | 05:53 | change the values in an image and
we'll click on that Eyedropper that is set,
| | 05:58 | remember at 242, all the way across
and then move over to our image and just
| | 06:03 | click on that first swatch and notice
how the image automatically color corrects
| | 06:07 | and all we have done is
color correct the highlight.
| | 06:09 | And notice the values now.
| | 06:11 | When we look down here on the Info panel,
the starting value is 212, 158, 91 and
| | 06:16 | now they are at 244, 246
and 250. Is it perfect?
| | 06:20 | No, because it's just a real simple
correction using the Eyedropper tool but
| | 06:24 | it's a lot better, isn't it?
| | 06:26 | Now let's move down, one, two, three,
four, five, six swatches and look at the
| | 06:31 | values, 117, 114, 96.
| | 06:34 | See by correcting the highlight, we
have corrected across the entire image.
| | 06:37 | It's not quite as good as the
highlight, but it's pretty darn good.
| | 06:40 | But we can do even better.
| | 06:41 | Let's go to the midtone, but remember
we set at 128 for all three of them.
| | 06:46 | So select the midtone and move down one,
two, three, four, five, six and click
| | 06:52 | on that midtone and notice how we
corrected even a little bit more, so the
| | 06:56 | target even looks more gray and
look at the Info panel. It says 104.
| | 07:00 | It's not taking it exactly to 128, but
notice how they are all equal now and
| | 07:06 | notice how the white in the books on
the white Scanning text and the white
| | 07:10 | SilverFast background and white quilt back here.
| | 07:13 | Let's look at that RGB value on the quilt.
| | 07:15 | It started out as 196, 144 and 77.
| | 07:19 | Just look right here.
| | 07:20 | Compare at the starting values and
the ending values and whenever you are
| | 07:23 | looking at a Info panel like this
and you would see two values, the left
| | 07:27 | values are the starting values and the right
ones, over on this side are the current values.
| | 07:32 | So, we started out at 198, 145,
79, now we are at 224, 224, 223.
| | 07:37 | That's pretty neutral, isn't it?
| | 07:39 | We look at the cover of the book.
| | 07:40 | Now notice the cover of the book has
been blown up because it was lighter than
| | 07:44 | the actual swatch value that we had up here.
| | 07:46 | We look at the white inside the
Scanning, 246, 247, 241, pretty darn neutral.
| | 07:53 | Not bad for what I call a Taz's
country western two-step correction.
| | 07:57 | If we just use the two highlight and
midtone Eyedroppers set at neutral values
| | 08:02 | and clicked on our image and notice
we can do a quick before and after.
| | 08:06 | There is before and then there is after.
| | 08:09 | And what we did was, remember, I didn't
touch any portion of this image except
| | 08:12 | for the grayscale target.
| | 08:14 | We corrected the grayscale.
| | 08:15 | The rest of the image was corrected for us.
| | 08:18 | We are going to use this exact same
concept when we start evaluating and
| | 08:22 | then adjusting images.
| | 08:23 | We are going to look for things that
are neutral portions of the image like
| | 08:26 | the grayscale target but that exist in
nature, in the natural world and we'll
| | 08:30 | use those as our neutral gray targets to
neutralize them and correct the color on our image.
| | 08:35 | Later on in the course, we are going to
come back and do some other target-based
| | 08:38 | corrections, being a little bit more
exact thing about our corrections and show
| | 08:43 | you the step-by-step on how
to do that. So there we go.
| | 08:45 | Hope that convinces you that
grayscale is everything when it comes to
| | 08:48 | doing color correction.
| | 08:49 | You get the grayscale right,
the color is going to be correct.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. The Evaluation Process: Physical, Visual, Graphics, Numeric Making visual evaluations and judgments| 00:00 | In this section of the course what I would
like to do is focus in on image evaluation.
| | 00:05 | We are not going to do any corrections.
| | 00:06 | We are just going to do image evaluation.
| | 00:09 | We are really going to take a
look at four kinds of evaluation.
| | 00:11 | First, we are going to do a basic
visual and physical evaluation of our image,
| | 00:15 | in which we look at the physical
characteristics of our image, such as the
| | 00:18 | dimension and linear resolution, and
what file format it's in, color space that
| | 00:23 | the image is in, and then we'll do a
visual evaluation of the brightness and
| | 00:27 | contrast and color, just visually.
| | 00:29 | Then we are going to kind of ask
ourselves at that point, is this an image
| | 00:33 | correction or an image adjustment?
| | 00:34 | There's a difference between
those two, which we'll talk about.
| | 00:37 | Then we'll do a little
bit more detailed analysis.
| | 00:39 | We'll look at the histograms of the image.
| | 00:41 | Our final or fourth evaluation is we'll
look at some of the numeric adjustments
| | 00:45 | or characteristics of our
image that we want to make.
| | 00:48 | So let's start with this image of
my photographer friend Kevin Ames.
| | 00:52 | When we look at this image and we do
an image evaluation, one of the first
| | 00:55 | things I want to look at is okay,
what is the dimension and the linear
| | 00:59 | resolution of this file?
| | 01:01 | To do this, we can come underneath
Image and go to Image Size, and we can look
| | 01:06 | at the pixel dimensions of the image,
which we have looked at a little bit
| | 01:09 | before, and you can see this is a pretty
good size image, with 3000x4000 pixels.
| | 01:14 | But the other thing we want to look at
in this case is Document Size as well.
| | 01:18 | Notice that this image is 46 inches x
61 inches, and you may want to print it
| | 01:24 | that big or you may not want to.
| | 01:26 | The other thing that we want to look at
and it's hand and glove here, these two
| | 01:29 | work together, is what is the
linear resolution of this file.
| | 01:32 | Very often images that come off
of digital cameras look like this.
| | 01:36 | They have huge dimensions in terms
of output dimensions, but their linear
| | 01:40 | resolution is often small, like 72 pixels/inch.
| | 01:43 | More often than not, you really
don't want to print this size and you
| | 01:46 | typically need a larger linear resolution, in
particular if you are going to print the image.
| | 01:51 | So this is something we
would certainly want to adjust.
| | 01:53 | Again, in this section of the course we
are not making any adjustments, we are
| | 01:56 | just doing an image evaluation.
| | 01:57 | We'll come back a little bit later
and actually do all these corrections.
| | 02:01 | So that's something to look for on
images that come off of digital cameras is
| | 02:05 | really having dimensions that are way
too big for what you want to print, but
| | 02:08 | not enough linear resolution
to actually print your file.
| | 02:11 | The other thing we want to of course
look at is what is the color mode of this
| | 02:14 | particular image, and to do that we
want to take a look at our channels, and
| | 02:19 | notice this is indeed an RGB image.
| | 02:22 | In Photoshop you can tell real quickly
whether it's an RGB image or not by just
| | 02:26 | looking right up here, where it
says RGB on the top of the file.
| | 02:30 | The other thing that you can do, if you
want to do a really quick evaluation of
| | 02:33 | all these things, down here at the
lower portion of the image, there's a little
| | 02:36 | menu that comes up, and you can click on
this image, and you can tell it what to show.
| | 02:41 | You can see Document Sizes.
| | 02:42 | You can look at Document
Dimensions if you want to.
| | 02:45 | So all of these things can be
viewed right here if you want to.
| | 02:48 | You can just click right here and look
at any of those things that you want.
| | 02:52 | I typically have my Channels up
when I look at an image anyway.
| | 02:56 | In fact, you will see as we go along we
are going to have more panels open up.
| | 02:59 | We'll just do this one step at a time though.
| | 03:01 | Another thing I want to do when I
evaluate this particular image and say well,
| | 03:05 | what kind of adjustments do I have here?
| | 03:07 | You have the linear
resolution and the dimension is wrong.
| | 03:10 | But notice that overall this image
has kind of a low contrast to it.
| | 03:13 | I'm not quite sure about the
color as well on this image.
| | 03:17 | So I'll probably going to want to do
both a brightness and contrast adjustment,
| | 03:21 | and we are going to probably want
to do a color adjustment as well.
| | 03:25 | So this is going to be a color
correction rather just an image adjustment.
| | 03:29 | The difference between those two is
that a color correction means that there's
| | 03:32 | something actually wrong with the image,
and in this case, to me this image has
| | 03:36 | a very, very low contrast.
| | 03:38 | So that's something wrong with this image.
| | 03:40 | If the color is off, then I really want
to do a color correction on this image.
| | 03:45 | Some images, there's
really nothing wrong with them.
| | 03:47 | We just want to change them.
| | 03:48 | But this image really does have some
low contrast in this, so that's something
| | 03:51 | that I'm going to want to fix. All right.
| | 03:53 | Let's go take a look at a couple
of other images and do some visual
| | 03:56 | evaluation of these images.
| | 03:59 | Once again, we can start with Image
Size to look at the Dimensions and
| | 04:02 | the Linear Resolutions.
| | 04:04 | This is a 5x4, 240 pixels/inch.
| | 04:07 | That's certainly printable.
| | 04:08 | I don't know if that's
the right image dimension.
| | 04:10 | It depends upon how we want to print it.
| | 04:12 | But when we look at this images,
there's something kind of specifically
| | 04:15 | wrong with this image in terms of
the physical characteristics of it, and
| | 04:18 | it's the horizon line.
| | 04:19 | In this case, it's the land and water line.
| | 04:21 | Notice that it's sloping.
| | 04:23 | That occurs quite commonly when you
are taking landscape pictures, and
| | 04:27 | particularly if you are taking an off angle
picture with your camera held high or low.
| | 04:31 | But that's something that is
visually kind of disturbing that we would
| | 04:34 | certainly want to fix.
| | 04:35 | Also, when I look at this picture, I ask
myself, well, what's this like in terms
| | 04:39 | of brightness and contrast?
| | 04:40 | Now, this is an example of an image
that really there's nothing wrong with it,
| | 04:45 | but we may want to change it from the way it is.
| | 04:47 | This is obviously taken near sunset,
because we have low angle light, and the
| | 04:51 | question becomes, do we want the
brightness and contrast the way it was shot, or
| | 04:54 | do we want to change it?
| | 04:56 | So we have something we actually want
to correct, which is going to be, we are
| | 04:59 | going to want to rotate that horizon.
| | 05:00 | But we can make a judgment whether we
want to adjust this image or leave it as is.
| | 05:05 | So there's nothing particularly
wrong with the exposure, if we want to
| | 05:08 | actually capture the low angle
sunlight just before it sets and actually
| | 05:13 | render the picture that way. All right.
| | 05:14 | Let's take a look at this next picture.
| | 05:17 | Can you tell what's wrong
with this right off the bat?
| | 05:20 | You betcha, yeah, this is another horizon
problem here, where the horizon line, in
| | 05:24 | this case it's the land skyline, where
it's tilted from right to left, we would
| | 05:28 | certainly want to fix that.
| | 05:30 | Also part of the visual evaluation of
this image, notice that the snow looks a
| | 05:33 | little bit dark, and this is probably
something we are going to want to correct,
| | 05:37 | at least the brightness
and contrast to this image.
| | 05:40 | I'm not quite sure about the colorcast.
| | 05:41 | We'll have to do a little bit
more evaluation of that image.
| | 05:44 | So we'll certainly want to correct the
horizon line on this and probably want to
| | 05:47 | adjust the brightness and contrast as well.
| | 05:49 | Now, here's a rainbow picture, and this
is one of those photos that it is what
| | 05:54 | it is and we can change it if we want to.
| | 05:57 | The horizon is fine on this image.
| | 05:58 | We can take a look at the overall Image
Size and Dimension, we can see we have a
| | 06:02 | low Linear Resolution, 100
pixels/inch, it's 6x4 inches.
| | 06:07 | That's not going to be enough to print.
| | 06:08 | We are going to have to raise the
Linear Resolution of this file if we want to
| | 06:11 | print it, but it would be okay for a web page.
| | 06:14 | When you overall look at the color of
this image, we see it has a blue cast to it.
| | 06:18 | If we wanted to change this image, this
would be an image adjustment rather than
| | 06:21 | an image correction, because there's
nothing wrong with this image, but we might
| | 06:25 | not want all that blue in there.
| | 06:27 | So it's a judgment call. All right.
| | 06:28 | I love this image, this is-- I
call this the PolyChrome Alpineglow.
| | 06:33 | I took this image and I violated
one of the fundamental rules of taking
| | 06:37 | pictures, and that is I put the
horizon right in the middle on this
| | 06:40 | particular picture.
| | 06:41 | I did it because it was such a
beautiful symmetrical reflection of the sky in
| | 06:45 | the water, but after I take the picture
and I look at it in Photoshop, I might
| | 06:49 | decide well, maybe I don't want the
horizon right in the middle, maybe I want to
| | 06:53 | change the crop on this.
| | 06:55 | But by taking the picture the way I
did, we have the option in Photoshop of
| | 06:59 | changing the crop if we want to.
| | 07:00 | But there's something else we want to
pay attention to in this image, and that
| | 07:04 | is when we look and zoom in on this image,
we see some noise pattern in the back there.
| | 07:09 | We'll come back to this image in just a
few minutes and take another look at that.
| | 07:11 | All right.
| | 07:13 | In this particular image, a picture
of clouds, if you look a little bit
| | 07:18 | carefully you can see we have got a
physical problem here as we have got some
| | 07:20 | scan lines in this image up here.
| | 07:23 | These are the kinds of lines that you
get sometimes when you are scanning film,
| | 07:26 | if it has scratches on it, but these
are so perfect that they are probably not
| | 07:30 | scratches, they are probably something
wrong with the CCD on the scanner, so
| | 07:33 | that you are getting some scan lines.
| | 07:35 | Those we would want to of
course fix in our image.
| | 07:38 | That's an actual
physical problem with the image.
| | 07:41 | In our next image, we open this image up
and we see just visually, right off the
| | 07:46 | bat that this image has a colorcast to
it, and it's a pretty strong colorcast.
| | 07:50 | In an image like this, unless for
some reason you really wanted a strong
| | 07:54 | colorcast, this is going
to be an image correction.
| | 07:58 | When we evaluate this image, we are
obviously going to be looking at skin tones,
| | 08:02 | which at least in this view, without
any numeric analysis, appear to be a bit
| | 08:06 | too red, like the rest of the image.
| | 08:08 | By the way, that's not uncommon
for images that are shot indoors,
| | 08:12 | underneath incandescent light.
| | 08:13 | Very often photographers forget to
change the color balance and take out some of
| | 08:18 | that red light in there.
| | 08:19 | So we'll be looking at this
image and correcting this as well.
| | 08:22 | The next image that we'll
look at is an underwater image.
| | 08:26 | Here's an underwater photograph.
| | 08:29 | This is a very common problem that we
see in underwater photography is we have a
| | 08:33 | very strong green, blue colorcast on
this image, and it doesn't represent what
| | 08:38 | the image actually looks like if
you had regular lighting on it.
| | 08:42 | Now, when you are looking at this image
underwater, when you are scuba diving,
| | 08:45 | it kind of looks like this.
| | 08:47 | But the photograph is not
really pleasant to look at.
| | 08:49 | So it's a combination of a correction,
to correct the color balance of the
| | 08:54 | image, and we can adjust it to make it
look anyway that we want to in the final
| | 08:58 | analysis, but something other than that
green, blue colorcast is probably going
| | 09:02 | to be better for us.
| | 09:04 | In this particular image, we clearly
see we have a brightness and contrast
| | 09:08 | problem, and also we suspect that we
have a color saturation problem as well.
| | 09:12 | We zoom in on this image we see that
there's not a lot of sharpness on this image.
| | 09:17 | Then finally, we'll bring up an abstract image.
| | 09:22 | There's absolutely
nothing wrong with this image.
| | 09:25 | In fact, it is not
supposed to be one way or another.
| | 09:27 | This is a very clear example of where
we do an image adjustment, where we are
| | 09:31 | looking for a specific creative effect,
there's no right way or wrong way to
| | 09:34 | adjust this image, we are going to adjust
it however we see fit creatively. All right.
| | 09:39 | So this is kind of our first round,
and some of the things I look at just
| | 09:45 | physically and visually when I open up
and look at an image, starting with the
| | 09:48 | linear resolution and dimensions of
an image, and making sure we are in the
| | 09:52 | proper color space, and just looking for
real obvious or clear things we want to
| | 09:56 | pay attention to when we go about
correcting or adjusting our image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding histograms| 00:00 | Well, after I have completed my
initial physical and visual evaluation of the
| | 00:05 | images, then I like to move to
Histograms because Histograms could be so
| | 00:09 | valuable in helping us decide what's
really going on in the image, we look at
| | 00:13 | the distribution of data and it can
really save us enormous amount of time,
| | 00:17 | if we allow our Histogram to
guide us through our images.
| | 00:19 | Let me show you a series of
images and show you what I mean.
| | 00:22 | Let's open up this image here and
this is a picture of my photographer pal,
| | 00:27 | Kevin Ames who is on Turnagain Arm.
| | 00:29 | And I look at this image and as we
talked about before we can see it's a little
| | 00:32 | bit of low contrast and that, but when
we go to the Histogram, it really tells
| | 00:36 | us exactly very quickly visually
what's happening inside the image.
| | 00:41 | When we look here, we first see that
this big blank area is on the highlight to
| | 00:45 | midtone end and that tells us right
off the bat that, oh, well we have got
| | 00:49 | problems in the highlight to
midtone and there is no data there.
| | 00:52 | And that corresponds to
what we see in the image.
| | 00:53 | That's why the image is such low contrast.
| | 00:55 | But the other thing that's a little
more subtle, but just as important is
| | 00:58 | notice that the highlights, the
beginning of where the highlight data is, are
| | 01:02 | all lined up just about right together
which means there is not a huge color
| | 01:06 | cast in this image.
| | 01:07 | And I'm thinking already what kind of
correction I'm going to be doing on this image.
| | 01:11 | I'm thinking, well, I want to
basically be doing a highlight correction at
| | 01:14 | least right off the bat.
| | 01:15 | So I'm already steering towards what
kind of adjustment I'm going to be making
| | 01:18 | on this image or what kind of correction.
| | 01:20 | All right, let's take a
look at a few more images.
| | 01:24 | Take a look at this series of clouds here.
| | 01:26 | Notice that this Histogram is almost
the opposite of the last one in terms of
| | 01:29 | the distribution of data.
| | 01:31 | Here we have got plenty of data from
close to the highlight certainly in the
| | 01:34 | quarter tone all the way down to the
three-quarter tone and we are missing data
| | 01:38 | from the three-quarter tone to the shadow.
| | 01:40 | And that doesn't make this
image wrong or improperly exposed.
| | 01:44 | I mean super well
exposed images in bright light.
| | 01:47 | Yes, you will have histogram data
all the way from highlight to shadow
| | 01:51 | across all three channels.
| | 01:52 | But there are some images like this
picture of fair weather clouds that just
| | 01:56 | don't have three-quarter tone to shadow data.
| | 01:58 | That's the way they are supposed to look.
| | 02:00 | And notice that if we make an
adjustment where we move that shadow data up
| | 02:04 | towards the three-quarter tone, notice
it changes the whole impact of the sky
| | 02:08 | completely, becomes a different image.
| | 02:10 | Here it's a fair weather sky, we're
out throwing Frisbee, and here we are
| | 02:13 | threatening with tornadoes
and hurricanes and so forth.
| | 02:16 | So not all data is supposed to be
distributed across the entire tonal range,
| | 02:20 | but you can see very quickly by looking at
this Histogram where the data is in the image.
| | 02:24 | All right, let's take a look at this
cloud cover image, and we would see of
| | 02:29 | course again that this is an image that
has very low contrast in it and we see
| | 02:33 | again why, much like the Kevin image is
we are missing highlight to midtone data
| | 02:38 | and almost all the data is from the
midtone down to the three-quarter tone.
| | 02:42 | And sure we can adjust this
image and we may decide to do that.
| | 02:45 | Again, it changes what the image looks
like in the whole aspect of the image.
| | 02:49 | But very quickly and easily we can see.
| | 02:51 | Now let's compare that one with this one
here, look how the distribution of data
| | 02:56 | in this image is somewhat different.
| | 02:58 | In fact, let's go back and just take a
look at that image, we'll put them aside
| | 03:01 | by each and look at the
differences in the Histogram.
| | 03:04 | And notice that these two images are
similar to each other, but look how this
| | 03:09 | data is shifted from three-quarter
tone up towards the quarter tone in this
| | 03:13 | image whereas in this one, most of the
data is three-quarter tone to shadow,
| | 03:16 | and see it's darker and little bit
flatter and this one has it a little more
| | 03:20 | quarter tone data in it.
| | 03:21 | So you and I can visually, clearly see
the difference between these two, but we
| | 03:25 | can semi-quantitatively understand what's
happening and where the data is in the image.
| | 03:30 | And again, if we want to change the way
this image looks which is an adjustment
| | 03:33 | not necessarily a correction, we know
where we are going to be working in the
| | 03:36 | particular portion of the tonal range.
| | 03:38 | In this image we would be making
adjustments from highlight to midtone.
| | 03:42 | In this one, we might work from
highlight to close to the midtone, but we also
| | 03:45 | may want to do something in
the shadow portion of the image.
| | 03:49 | So on this image, notice that sure we
can do this adjustment here from highlight
| | 03:53 | to close to the midtone, but notice
there is shadow adjustments to be made as
| | 03:58 | well here because of the lack of shadow data.
| | 04:00 | And notice the increase of both
brightness and contrast by making that kind of
| | 04:04 | an adjustment, and we'll come back and
talk in more detail about how to make
| | 04:07 | these adjustments in just a few minutes.
| | 04:10 | Right now, we are just kind of talking
about the evaluation of the image and how
| | 04:14 | the Histogram can help steer us around.
| | 04:15 | Now let's look at this one, again low
contrast and because of the lower angle
| | 04:20 | lighting at the end of the day.
| | 04:21 | And when we look at the Histograms,
we very clearly see where the data is.
| | 04:25 | I mean there is little bit more
subtle information in this one.
| | 04:28 | Notice the offset of the red here,
all right, the highlight data in the red
| | 04:31 | starts well before the green and the
blue, as it should be in this image if we
| | 04:35 | want to capture that late afternoon
sunlight, there is nothing wrong with this.
| | 04:39 | But if we wanted to take that out, we
certainly can, we can certainly go to the
| | 04:43 | red channel of this image, all right
and if we want to adjust just the red
| | 04:46 | channel to put more red or less red
in there, we can certainly do that.
| | 04:51 | If we want to increase that whole
feeling of having a little bit more late
| | 04:54 | afternoon sunlight and the Histogram
steers us to that, just by looking at the
| | 04:59 | distribution of that data.
| | 05:00 | Let's look at this snow image with these
ski poles in the snow and again kind of
| | 05:05 | a low contrast image and of course we
need to correct the horizon line there.
| | 05:09 | But we see where we have got lots of
missing data in this image and that's on
| | 05:13 | the three-quarter tone to our shadow or
midtone to shadow portion of the image.
| | 05:18 | Then here is a book image, this is
the book image we did our quick two step
| | 05:22 | target based correction a little bit
earlier and we'll return to this image and
| | 05:26 | do a little bit more detail correction later on.
| | 05:28 | But when we look at this, obviously
there is a colorcast in this image when
| | 05:31 | we look at it and we suspect that this book
cover right there is supposed to be white.
| | 05:35 | And of course this is supposed to
be a grayscale target, and it's not.
| | 05:38 | But when we look at the Histogram, we
get quickly oriented towards where this
| | 05:42 | colorcast is coming from.
| | 05:44 | Look at the enormous offset of the red
channel from the green channel and then
| | 05:48 | the green channel from the blue channel.
| | 05:50 | So whenever you see that kind of
offset in Histograms, it just clues you in
| | 05:53 | immediately to a big colorcast in the image.
| | 05:56 | Sometimes it's very visually obvious
as it is here, and other times it's more
| | 06:00 | subtle, in things that your eye can't pick
up you can see in the Histogram very clearly.
| | 06:05 | So again, very helpful, very useful
in orienting us towards your images.
| | 06:09 | Let's look at our friendly whitetip
reef shark here, and we have the standard
| | 06:13 | blue-green colors that we
often get when we are diving.
| | 06:16 | And we look at the Histogram, we see,
look at the offset of the Histograms here.
| | 06:20 | Here the blue and the green are offset
from the red which is the opposite of
| | 06:24 | the colorcast that we saw in the
books image and we have got missing data
| | 06:28 | particularly in the three-quarter tone to
shadow in all three of these Histograms.
| | 06:31 | We got a lot more of it missing in the blue.
| | 06:33 | So when you are trying to make a
correction on this kind of an image, the
| | 06:35 | Histogram can guide you very easily to
show you where you need to do your work.
| | 06:40 | And then finally, this image here which
is a picture of some wild roses that I
| | 06:44 | took, and obviously the contrast is low.
| | 06:47 | And when we look we see, oh yeah, more
highlight to midtone data or highlight to
| | 06:51 | quarter tone anyway.
| | 06:52 | And the other thing that this tells us
is that notice that the highlight data
| | 06:56 | started just about the same place on
all three channels indicating, in this
| | 07:00 | case, no colorcast.
| | 07:01 | So if we wanted to make an adjustment
here, we know that we have got a master
| | 07:05 | channel only type of adjustment, we'll
just have to take care of and make sure
| | 07:07 | we don't blow out the highlights
and we'll discuss how to do that.
| | 07:10 | So this can save us an enormous
amount of time, instead of fumbling around
| | 07:13 | trying to figure out, if there is a
colorcast or a big one, we can clearly see
| | 07:17 | that there is not one in this case.
| | 07:18 | And we are going to be able to do a
master channel type of adjustment, which
| | 07:21 | saves us a lot of time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Going into details with histograms| 00:00 | While we're on the subject of
histograms and using histograms to help us
| | 00:05 | evaluate images, I just thought I'd take
a few minutes and talk about some of the
| | 00:08 | details of the Histogram panel and
how you can set it up and use it.
| | 00:12 | First of all, over in the right side of
the Histogram panel, like most panels in
| | 00:16 | Photoshop, there is a menu, and this
doesn't have a lot in it, but this is where
| | 00:19 | you'll start your controlling the
view of what's in your histogram.
| | 00:22 | First of all notice there is a Compact
View, and that may be the way it works
| | 00:26 | when you first bring it up inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:28 | That just shows you the master histogram
with all, in this case, three channels on it.
| | 00:33 | You could then go to an Expanded
View, which just gives you more
| | 00:36 | information depending on what you
have selected underneath your Options to
| | 00:40 | show in your histogram.
| | 00:42 | Notice we've got Show Statistics, where
you can turn it off or turn on the Show
| | 00:46 | Statistics inside of your image.
| | 00:47 | We'll come back and take a look at
those in just a moment and then you can
| | 00:50 | also view all channels.
| | 00:53 | That allows you to look at all three
channels that you see here, both the red,
| | 00:57 | the green and the blue and the
master histogram channel as you see.
| | 01:01 | And this is how I like to look at it.
| | 01:03 | I encourage you to focus on the three
individual channels, because that's where
| | 01:06 | you can really see the distribution of the data.
| | 01:09 | Then if you want to, you can also look
at the individual channels up top, which,
| | 01:14 | if you've have got the extended
histogram doesn't make too much sense to do, but
| | 01:17 | notice you can also just look at
Luminosity if you want to, distribution of
| | 01:22 | grayscale in the image.
| | 01:24 | If you want to look at all of the
colors displayed together in your master
| | 01:27 | histogram, you can display it that way.
| | 01:29 | Typically, I do this, where I look at my
master histogram in black and then look
| | 01:33 | at my three channels that
we see here individually.
| | 01:37 | See this Show Channels in Colo, you can either
show the individual channels and color or not.
| | 01:44 | I was probably better to show them in
color, we started off just looking at
| | 01:47 | them in this course just as black
and white in grayscale just to get you
| | 01:50 | thinking about the fact that we're not really
looking at colors, we're looking at grayscale.
| | 01:54 | But it is kind of handy to actually see
the red, the green and the blue, because
| | 01:58 | sometimes it's confusing as to which
channel that you're looking at and the
| | 02:00 | color leaves no doubt.
| | 02:02 | It's completely unambitious.
| | 02:04 | Just remember that you're always
looking at the grayscale values in the three
| | 02:07 | individual channels.
| | 02:09 | Something else that you can do is
that notice we have Entire Image and
| | 02:13 | then Selected Layer.
| | 02:14 | So, for instance, I may
have this Kayak layer here.
| | 02:17 | I can just look at the data on
that Selected Layer if I want to.
| | 02:20 | That's very handy and very useful,
because just the Kayak, our portion of the
| | 02:25 | image, obviously has a lot more
restricted data and you can see that there is
| | 02:29 | almost no highlight to midtone
data on that particular layer.
| | 02:32 | The other thing that you can do if
you're working with adjustment layers is you
| | 02:35 | can click on the adjustment layer,
and this applies to the Kayak layer
| | 02:38 | underneath it, and just
choose Adjustment Composite.
| | 02:42 | That allows you to view only the data
on the layers that are being affected by
| | 02:46 | the adjustment layer.
| | 02:48 | Notice here because it's just a straight
adjustment layer, everything underneath
| | 02:51 | it except for it's being
controlled by this layer mask here.
| | 02:55 | If you turn on and make the Adjustment
layer a clipping group, as you see here,
| | 02:59 | it changes the data.
| | 03:00 | You just see a slight change in the data.
| | 03:02 | It's not going to be very much,
because you're just looking at the difference
| | 03:05 | between the Kayak on this layer and the
Kayak on the two layers underneath it,
| | 03:08 | just kind of add it together a little bit.
| | 03:10 | But the fact that there is a layer
mask here, you're already restricting the
| | 03:13 | data pretty much this as layer underneath it.
| | 03:15 | But you can completely control which
layers, which sets of layers that you're
| | 03:19 | actually viewing the data.
| | 03:21 | So it's very handy and very useful.
| | 03:23 | Just a few words about the statistics
here, notice we get Mean and Standard
| | 03:27 | Deviation and Median, and this is the average
of all the pixels and that's the middle pixel.
| | 03:32 | It tells you how many pixels you've got in here.
| | 03:34 | This Cache Level that you have here,
sometimes you'll get a little triangle up here.
| | 03:40 | It's kind of a warning triangle.
| | 03:41 | What it's telling you is that you're
generating a histogram display based upon
| | 03:44 | some averages of pixels.
| | 03:46 | Anything with a Cache Level of greater
than one, it goes up in groups of four pixels.
| | 03:50 | You can always just click on that or
click on the Refresh to get an accurate
| | 03:54 | view of the histogram so you're down to level 1.
| | 03:56 | Also notice that you can move your
cursor through your histogram data and you
| | 04:01 | can see exactly where you are, for
instance, here I'm right at 125, 127, 128,
| | 04:04 | I'm right in the midtone there.
| | 04:07 | Then how many pixels we
have to one side or the other.
| | 04:10 | As we move this way, you can see how many
pixels you have on the individual levels.
| | 04:16 | So notice we have 3300 pixels right here
on the three-quarter tone, whereas here
| | 04:20 | we only have about 450 pixels.
| | 04:23 | Then it's in the percentage, as you can
see how much of the image is below the
| | 04:27 | midtone and how much is above it.
| | 04:28 | You can get into as much detail as you want to.
| | 04:31 | I typically use this primarily as a
visual tool, but I do like to be able to go
| | 04:35 | into my individual layers and just
look at the distribution of data on the
| | 04:38 | layers and/or the
adjustment layer control layers.
| | 04:42 | Very handy, very useful, very
sophisticated, and this is how I generally suggest
| | 04:45 | that you display your histogram.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using numeric evaluation for highlights and neutrals| 00:00 | Okay, onward and upward we go with our
evaluation of our images, and so far
| | 00:05 | we have done a real nice look at the
physical and visual evaluation of an image.
| | 00:10 | We have talked about in some detail,
having our histograms help us to evaluate
| | 00:15 | and steer us in the right direction.
| | 00:16 | And then really the final step is
moving into the numbers, the numeric
| | 00:20 | evaluation of the image. And listen.
| | 00:22 | I promise you this is not
going to be higher math.
| | 00:24 | If this were difficult I wouldn't be doing it.
| | 00:27 | So just relax, drop your shoulders, exhale.
| | 00:30 | And now let's take a
look at some of the numbers.
| | 00:32 | In fact, we are actually going to be
combining all of these tools together.
| | 00:35 | And coming up on screen is kind of an
evaluation list of the thought process
| | 00:40 | that I go through when I evaluate an image.
| | 00:42 | And I do it with every single image that
comes up, one of the first things I do,
| | 00:46 | and we are going to look at these two
images together and compare them and talk
| | 00:49 | about highlights and shadows and so forth.
| | 00:51 | As I first look and say what's the most
important portion of these images, and
| | 00:55 | is there a portion of this image
that's a sacrifice, or one that's less
| | 00:58 | important than another one.
| | 00:59 | Well, on this top image, kind of the
whole image is important, there is not
| | 01:03 | anything that's a sacrifice area, let's say.
| | 01:06 | Is there some area that's
more important than the other?
| | 01:08 | You betcha. In any image, one of the
critical portions of the image is
| | 01:11 | the highlight area.
| | 01:12 | So I'm certainly going to focus my
attention on the highlight, and the highlight
| | 01:16 | is the lighter portion of the image.
| | 01:17 | And the reason why the highlights is so
important is the human eye is far more
| | 01:21 | sensitive to color and colorcast, in
the highlight to quarter tone portion of
| | 01:26 | the image, than it is in the
three-quarter tone to shadow.
| | 01:29 | So if the color is off a little bit
down here, that's not so critical.
| | 01:32 | But if it's up here, the
human eye is going to see it.
| | 01:34 | So this is going to be the critical
portion of the image where if we have got a
| | 01:38 | limited amount of time to work on an
image like on a pre-press production
| | 01:41 | environment, I'm focusing on the highlights.
| | 01:44 | Now in this image is there a sacrifice
area, an area that's much more important?
| | 01:48 | Sure, the focus here is on the car, isn't it?
| | 01:50 | The sacrifice area and areas less
important is certainly the background
| | 01:53 | portion of this image.
| | 01:55 | So that's the first step.
| | 01:56 | Then I focus in on highlights,
for the reason that I just said.
| | 01:59 | They are so critical in terms of human vision.
| | 02:01 | Now there are two kinds of highlights
in an image, the specular highlights, and
| | 02:05 | there are diffused highlights.
| | 02:07 | The one we care about is the diffused
highlight, because the diffused highlight
| | 02:11 | is the lightest portion of
the image that still has detail.
| | 02:14 | The specular, blown out, pure white, no detail.
| | 02:17 | All right, so let's look at these two
images evaluating them in terms of highlights.
| | 02:21 | Does this image have a highlight area
in it, an area that's supposed to be
| | 02:24 | light and have detail?
| | 02:25 | Sure, up in the sky.
| | 02:27 | No question about it in the clouds.
| | 02:29 | But when we look at this images
visually on screen, here nice composition,
| | 02:33 | interesting image, pretty picture of
Canyonlands National Park, but it's a
| | 02:37 | little bit low contrast.
| | 02:38 | And when we move over to our ever so
helpful histogram, we see why the image
| | 02:42 | is a little bit flat looking, look there
is no data in the highlight to quarter tone.
| | 02:45 | So we have a portion of this image that
should be a highlight, but indeed it's
| | 02:49 | probably not in the highlight area,
because we haven't adjusted it yet.
| | 02:53 | In fact, when we look around the clouds,
we see things are in the 160s and 170s,
| | 02:55 | and they should be up in the low 200s anyway.
| | 02:59 | All right, so we have got
diffused highlights here.
| | 03:01 | Let's look at this image here.
| | 03:03 | Any specular highlights?
| | 03:04 | Well, we suspect that there might be,
but when we look over at the histogram, we
| | 03:08 | see indeed there are some blown out areas.
| | 03:10 | We can tell because see that spike
right there, in all three channels,
| | 03:14 | including the master channel?
| | 03:15 | That tells you 255 stuff blown out.
| | 03:18 | Now the question is, is it
supposed to be a specular?
| | 03:21 | Is this supposed to be blown
out in pure white with no detail?
| | 03:23 | Well, when we look at this portion of
the image here and we zoom in on this, we
| | 03:27 | look at this portion here,
look at the RGB values, all 254.
| | 03:31 | And in fact, when we move the
eyedropper around, the values don't change.
| | 03:36 | That's an area that should
not be blown out, but it is.
| | 03:39 | Luckily for us it's in the sacrifice
area of the image, so we are not going to
| | 03:42 | worry too much about it.
| | 03:43 | Are there any other true specular
areas that are supposed to be specular?
| | 03:47 | Yeah, look at this on the chrome.
| | 03:49 | Chrome reflections off a bumper,
reflections off of glass, they are supposed to
| | 03:53 | be blown out, they are
supposed to be pure white.
| | 03:55 | And this area clearly is and
it's supposed to be. So that's 254.
| | 03:59 | So both of those areas are part of
the spike that you see here, this area
| | 04:03 | that's a sacrifice area.
| | 04:04 | That's not supposed to be, but this one is here.
| | 04:06 | So when we find speculars, it's nice to
identify them, but then we don't focus
| | 04:10 | on those, we don't do our color
correction based upon the speculars.
| | 04:13 | We look for the diffused white highlight.
| | 04:15 | When I look at this image here, I look for
a light area that's supposed to have detail.
| | 04:19 | Well, I'm going to look for a critical
white area, and right down here in the
| | 04:22 | tire, I suspect we might be able to
find a white highlight. That's important.
| | 04:26 | So we have got diffused
white highlights in both images.
| | 04:29 | Now how do we identify what's the
lightest area that still has detail?
| | 04:32 | Well, we use our minds, our eyes, and
our brain to say that's an area we are
| | 04:36 | not going to worry about, but this one might be,
and then, let me show you this little trick.
| | 04:40 | This worked in Curves, we bring up the
Curves dialog box, which is Command+M or
| | 04:44 | Ctrl+M, and then we can do this.
| | 04:47 | We can turn on the Show Clipping, and
when you select the highlight point right
| | 04:51 | here and you start moving the
highlight slider across, the areas of the image
| | 04:55 | that are the lightest will blow out
first, and notice that that sacrifice area
| | 04:59 | in the back that it's already blown out.
| | 05:01 | We just moved that just a
little bit, boom, it's gone.
| | 05:04 | Remember it was 254, 255 is pure blown out.
| | 05:07 | Also notice though see how
the chrome here is blown out.
| | 05:11 | All right, and that's fine.
| | 05:12 | That's the diffuse.
| | 05:13 | What we are looking for is a light
portion of the image that has detail in it.
| | 05:17 | And as I pull my slider over to the left,
notice that the light portion of the
| | 05:22 | tire starts to come out.
| | 05:24 | So there is a diffused highlight
area in this image, right here.
| | 05:27 | That's part of the hubcap, and then this
area is starting to blow out here as we
| | 05:31 | move the slider over.
| | 05:32 | So there is the white
highlight area in, were on the tire.
| | 05:36 | Also notice we have got some white
highlight areas back here on the white roof,
| | 05:40 | and in fact, that blows out a
little bit sooner than the tire does.
| | 05:44 | So we are going to take that into
account, we come back and actually
| | 05:47 | correct this image.
| | 05:48 | So that's how we can
identify that highlight area.
| | 05:51 | Let's take a look at this image, and
again, let's bring up our Curves tool, and
| | 05:53 | let's go to clipping, and
let's turn on that highlight end.
| | 05:56 | And when we drag this over to here,
from right to left, we see the areas, the
| | 06:01 | portions of the clouds that
are starting to blow out first.
| | 06:05 | And that's what we are going to use
to actually do our correction of our
| | 06:08 | highlights right there.
| | 06:09 | By the way you can also do the shadow,
you just activate the shadow point, and
| | 06:13 | then start dragging this over with
Clipping turned on, and the darkest portion
| | 06:17 | of the images we'll fill out first, and
that's where we'll focus our attention
| | 06:20 | when we actually do our correction.
| | 06:22 | So that's how you can identify
highlights in shadow areas, and one final thing
| | 06:26 | just as far as our numeric analysis.
| | 06:28 | Notice that we expect these clouds to
be white or certainly in this case of the
| | 06:33 | tires, we look at the RGB value of the tires.
| | 06:36 | Let's zoom in here on the light area.
| | 06:38 | Let's look at those numbers, 212, 225, 231.
| | 06:42 | Notice that the blue is significantly
higher than the green, which is also
| | 06:46 | significantly higher than the red, indicating
that we have got a colorcast in this image.
| | 06:51 | Because that's supposed to be a neutral gray.
| | 06:53 | And again, when we use our histogram,
notice that the blue, there's more blue
| | 06:56 | data in the highlight than
there is in the green and the red.
| | 07:00 | So that the histograms give us a hint
of what we should be looking for in terms
| | 07:03 | of the numeric values there in the image.
| | 07:06 | All right, so there is the highlight
data, and then there is the shadow areas,
| | 07:09 | we are really focused on those
highlights, and we are looking for neutrals.
| | 07:12 | Remember we are looking for neutral
highlight areas, any portions of these
| | 07:16 | images that may be neutral, and if we
can find neutral white highlights, boy,
| | 07:20 | so much the better.
| | 07:21 | Because then we can set those at the
values that we want, we can neutralize them
| | 07:24 | and then that's going to correct our color.
| | 07:27 | And in the next section what we are
going to talk about is the next portion
| | 07:30 | of numeric evaluation.
| | 07:31 | That is looking for memory
colors in complex images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using numeric evaluation for skin tones and complex images| 00:00 | Okay, in the second portion of our
numeric evaluation of our images in
| | 00:04 | Photoshop, I want to continue with
what we started in the first portion.
| | 00:09 | And we don't leave that behind, we are
still going to start with out neutrals,
| | 00:13 | but we are going to add
some other things to that.
| | 00:14 | I not only look for neutrals, and
particularly what's the most important kind of
| | 00:18 | neutral to look for?
| | 00:19 | That's right, a neutral white highlight.
| | 00:22 | Because if you get a neutral white
highlight then you know exactly where to set that.
| | 00:25 | And by the way, our target value for
neutral white highlights is going to be
| | 00:28 | about 5% gray, which is 242
on the scale of 0 to 255. Why?
| | 00:33 | Because when we print these images, you
want to make sure that all of the data
| | 00:37 | in your image can actually print, and not
all printing devices can hold 1, 2 or 3% dots.
| | 00:43 | You set your white highlights to 5%,
and you know you are going to be good.
| | 00:46 | Okay, so let's take a look at these
two images, and what we are discussing
| | 00:50 | here is two things.
| | 00:51 | One, what we call memory colors or
key colors and also complex images.
| | 00:55 | In this top one, do we have any neutral
white highlights in here? You betcha.
| | 01:00 | We have got a bunch of
different neutrals, don't we?
| | 01:01 | We have got the white shoes, we have got the
white coffee cup, the white fur on Zip's head.
| | 01:06 | Are there any other neutrals?
| | 01:07 | Sure, perhaps the white background
of the house here, which is in shadow.
| | 01:10 | So it's going to be a little bit
darker, more towards the midtone.
| | 01:13 | And let's just take a quick peekaboo over
here at our histogram and see what we have got.
| | 01:18 | And notice we got a pretty good tonal
range here, little bit of data missing in
| | 01:22 | the highlight, and the red, and
the green, pretty full on the blue.
| | 01:24 | See, when looking at the
histogram, what do we suspect now?
| | 01:28 | Potentially a blue colorcast in here.
| | 01:30 | Yeah, exactly right.
| | 01:32 | So is there any of a key part
of this image? Yes, indeed.
| | 01:36 | And it's a very critical memory
color, and as we call a skin tone.
| | 01:39 | And the human eye knows when the
skin tones don't look quite right.
| | 01:42 | And this image is a little bit flat, but
did you notice how the skin tones don't
| | 01:46 | look all that healthy and there
is a really good reason for that.
| | 01:49 | But before we hit the skin tones,
let's just do a quick review of where
| | 01:52 | our highlights are.
| | 01:54 | So Show Clipping, and let's go to
our Highlight value here, and drag this
| | 01:57 | across, and see where the
lightest portions of our image are.
| | 02:01 | Look at that, right on Zip's forehead.
| | 02:02 | That's where we are going to do
our critical highlight evaluation.
| | 02:05 | No question about it. How about shadow?
| | 02:07 | Turn on Show Clipping, see if
there is any critical shadow areas.
| | 02:11 | Oops, right down here, look at that.
| | 02:13 | If we want to maintain shadow, we want to pay
attention down in that portion of the image.
| | 02:17 | And yes indeed, when we move our
eyedropper in there, notice the RGB values,
| | 02:21 | always watch the RGB values.
| | 02:22 | They are changing as we move that
around, so we know the shadow detail in
| | 02:25 | there to be protected.
| | 02:27 | The other critical portion of this
image versus the skin tone, so we have got
| | 02:30 | lots of skin showing here.
| | 02:32 | And what we want to look for
typically is well lit areas of the image.
| | 02:36 | Whenever possible, we'll want to
use well lit areas of the image.
| | 02:39 | In this case, right up in here in the skin tone.
| | 02:41 | Let's take a look at what that skin tone is.
| | 02:43 | Look at the values, 185, 167, 163.
| | 02:47 | Well, skin tones are not neutrals.
| | 02:49 | What's the skin tone supposed to be?
| | 02:51 | There's whole seminars that have been
written, whole books have been written on
| | 02:54 | nothing but skin tones.
| | 02:55 | I'm going to give you the Tazmanian
simple version, and if you can remember
| | 02:59 | RGB, like your RGB monitor, then you can get,
and remember what skin tones are supposed to be.
| | 03:04 | If you just remember that order, red is
greater than green, is greater than blue, RGB.
| | 03:09 | And in most skin tones, and there is a
wide variety of skin tones, but in most
| | 03:13 | skin tones the separation between red-
green and green-blue is going to be a
| | 03:17 | little bit more between the red
and green and the green and the blue.
| | 03:19 | But heck, if you just remember RGB,
you are going to be good to go.
| | 03:23 | Look at these values, 185, 167, 163.
| | 03:27 | Is the red greater than green? Yes.
| | 03:29 | Is the green greater than blue? Not by much.
| | 03:32 | And as we move this around to get an
overall sense, we see that indeed the blue
| | 03:36 | is almost equal, in fact, is
equal to the green in some places.
| | 03:39 | And what does that confirm?
| | 03:40 | That confirms what we
suspected over here in our histogram.
| | 03:44 | That there was indeed
going to be a blue colorcast.
| | 03:46 | Let's take a look at the white highlight.
| | 03:48 | We know that's the critical area.
| | 03:49 | We look at Zip's forehead,
and 241, 247, 250, right?
| | 03:54 | Again, we have got a blue colorcast in
this image that needs to be corrected.
| | 03:58 | So we look at the critical skin tones,
we look at neutrals in this image.
| | 04:02 | That's what we are going to correct.
| | 04:03 | All right, how about this image down here?
| | 04:06 | This is an image that I call a
complex image, because this image has two
| | 04:09 | different areas in it that
need to be corrected separately.
| | 04:12 | I call this image within an image.
| | 04:14 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 04:15 | I'm going to bring up my Magic Wand
tool, and I'm just going to make a quick
| | 04:18 | selection of the sky here, and I want
you to look at the histogram distribution
| | 04:22 | of the image in the sky.
| | 04:24 | Now I'm just going to inverse that
selection and watch what happens to the histograms.
| | 04:27 | Do you see how there is a completely
different set of data between the highlight
| | 04:30 | data in the sky, and the highlight
data in the snow in the foreground?
| | 04:35 | If we just set an overall highlight on
this entire image, where is it going to be?
| | 04:39 | Well, according to the histogram it's
going to up here in the sky, which would
| | 04:42 | leave the snow a little bit
darker than we might like it.
| | 04:45 | So on images like this still look for
neutral highlights, but I might select
| | 04:49 | these two portions of this image
separately and edit them, and set highlights on
| | 04:54 | both of the sky in this
case, and on the foreground.
| | 04:57 | And that is indeed what I would want to do.
| | 04:59 | And just a quick
evaluation of these histograms here.
| | 05:02 | Notice this image is indeed pretty flat, right?
| | 05:05 | And that's because we got these blank
areas on both the three-quarter tone to
| | 05:08 | shadow, and on the
highlight to quarter tone areas.
| | 05:10 | And we can also see how the blue
histogram is offset a little bit to the right
| | 05:14 | of the red and the green.
| | 05:15 | Well, let's take a look.
| | 05:17 | When we look at our RGB values, let's bring
this puppy up here, 167, 173, 187 in the snow.
| | 05:24 | We go up to the sky, 218,
222, 218. Look at that.
| | 05:30 | Isn't that interesting?
| | 05:32 | Not only do we have different
highlight positions, but we have slightly
| | 05:35 | different color balance on both of them,
which makes an enormous amount of sense
| | 05:39 | actually, because the sky is well lit,
and the snow is actually in a cast shadow
| | 05:43 | underneath the cloud.
| | 05:44 | You very often have what we call
color crossover, where the color balance
| | 05:48 | changes from one portion
of an image to another one.
| | 05:50 | Clearly a strong blue colorcast here
in the foreground, whereas in the sky
| | 05:55 | there is not too much of a difference in
the white highlight areas between the values.
| | 05:59 | So once again, this is why
this makes a complex image.
| | 06:02 | We have different corrections both in
terms of highlight values and in terms of
| | 06:06 | the actual colorcast correction.
| | 06:08 | All right, so that's complex images.
| | 06:11 | I'm always looking for
that when I look at my images.
| | 06:13 | The other three images that we have
looked at so far, we are correcting the
| | 06:16 | whole image, but on this one, I
would probably correct them separately.
| | 06:20 | And what do these images look like
when we throw some corrections at them?
| | 06:23 | Well, there is the corrected version
of friends, and here is the corrected
| | 06:27 | version of the sky and snow.
| | 06:30 | Well, there we go, there is the numeric
analysis of our image, and I just showed
| | 06:34 | you some final results.
| | 06:35 | And now we are going to go in
and start correcting images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Evaluating and Fixing Physical CharacteristicsAdjusting dimensions, resolution, and modes| 00:00 | Well, you are now ready to move
on and actually start adjusting and
| | 00:04 | correcting pictures.
| | 00:05 | You've learned all the fundamental skills
that you need, so let's go put them to good use.
| | 00:09 | Let's start this section by talking
about Adjusting Dimensional and Linear
| | 00:13 | Resolution and assigning file
formats for your color correction files.
| | 00:17 | Let's begin this session by opening
up the Turnagain Photographer with my
| | 00:20 | good friend Kevin Ames, and what's the first
thing we always do when we open up an image?
| | 00:24 | Always make a duplicate copy of it.
| | 00:26 | Remember go Command+Minus, Minus, Ctrl+
Minus, Minus, to take that image down,
| | 00:30 | and then we would go Image and then
Duplicate, or use that keyboard shortcut,
| | 00:34 | whatever one you've assigned to it.
| | 00:36 | Right, and it's Image > Duplicate.
I have assigned F10 to mine, so I have
| | 00:40 | always been using that.
| | 00:41 | And then whenever I'm working on a file,
I actually call it a working file and
| | 00:45 | I'm going to assign a .psd file format to that.
| | 00:48 | Either I'm adding layers or alpha
channels or adjustment layers, it's always .psd,
| | 00:53 | if we are actually
doing that to the particular file.
| | 00:56 | All right, so here we go.
| | 00:58 | What are the dimensions of this file?
| | 00:59 | What's the linear resolution?
| | 01:01 | What's the dimensional resolution?
| | 01:03 | Well, we find all that out real
directly by going under this Image, going Image Size.
| | 01:08 | Notice the keyboard shortcut to that.
| | 01:10 | Command+Option or Ctrl+Alt+I for Image Size.
| | 01:13 | And this is one of those dialog boxes
just filled with numbers that you would
| | 01:16 | rather not spend any time and
just click OK and hope for the best.
| | 01:20 | Well, it really is a good idea to
understand this and it's not nearly as
| | 01:23 | difficult as it seems.
| | 01:24 | In fact, we have already
addressed the top part of this dialog box.
| | 01:29 | We just need to discuss the bottom on
how these two were connected, and trust me.
| | 01:32 | It's easier than you think it is.
| | 01:34 | Okay, first, just a quick
review over this top one.
| | 01:36 | There are two kinds of dimensions that
are really addressed here and there's
| | 01:39 | pixel dimension and then linear dimension.
| | 01:42 | This as it says is pixel dimension and
these numbers up here, they are 3312 X 4416.
| | 01:50 | That means that this is 3312 pixels
wide and 4416 pixels down. So far so good.
| | 01:57 | And this gives us the document size,
in terms of file size. 41.8 megabytes.
| | 02:01 | All right, so we are good with that.
| | 02:03 | Now, down here is document size
and notice the default is in inches.
| | 02:07 | You can change any of these.
| | 02:09 | You can change these from Pixels
to Percent, or this from Inches to
| | 02:12 | Centimeters, Millimeters, if you prefer
that, but we'll just leave everything in
| | 02:16 | Pixels and Inches for now.
| | 02:18 | Notice this is a very large document
size and this is very common to have
| | 02:21 | this on images come off of digital
cameras. They are very often delivered to
| | 02:25 | us in 72-pixels per inch, which is the
liner resolution. More on that in just a moment.
| | 02:31 | But look at the large output dimensions.
| | 02:33 | Notice I'm using the word
pixel in that output dimension.
| | 02:36 | You want to clear about resolution.
| | 02:38 | In your mind, separate
input from output resolution.
| | 02:41 | For instance, we capture and edit
pixels, therefore input resolution
| | 02:45 | up here 3000x4000 pixels.
| | 02:47 | When we output, we output to a
particular document size, in this case inches.
| | 02:51 | So what is the relationship between these two?
| | 02:53 | The relationship between these two
is right here, in liner resolution.
| | 02:57 | Linear resolution means pixels per inch.
| | 03:00 | Notice that says 72, right?
| | 03:02 | Let's just turn that off for a second.
| | 03:04 | Let's turn on our ruler, Command+R
or Ctrl+R, and when we zoom in on an
| | 03:08 | image like here, and we go from one
inch to another, and notice that we have
| | 03:12 | got our pixels here.
| | 03:13 | One, two, three, four, five, if we go
from one inch to another, and here is 24 inches,
| | 03:18 | and we count all the way over
to 25 inches, we'll count 72 pixels in
| | 03:22 | every inch horizontally, and 72
pixels in every inch vertically.
| | 03:27 | That's what that means.
| | 03:28 | So the pixels are 1/72nd
of an inch on a side.
| | 03:32 | So how is this related to this?
| | 03:34 | Well, if we take width, which is in
pixels, and look at this number down here,
| | 03:37 | the dimensional resolution is Pixels
Per Inch, if we take 72 pixels and divide
| | 03:42 | it into 3312 pixels, we get,
you guessed it, 46 inches. Same thing here.
| | 03:48 | We take 72 pixels per inch and divide
it into 4416 pixels, we get 61 inches.
| | 03:54 | The reason why this is important is
you want to be very sure about what's
| | 03:58 | changing and what's not when
you adjust this dialog box.
| | 04:01 | Now the critical check box here, well
there's two, but there is one that's
| | 04:04 | really important, most important is
this Resample check box right here.
| | 04:08 | Notice what happens when
I uncheck that Resample.
| | 04:11 | It freezes the number of pixels,
the pixel dimension of the image.
| | 04:14 | Then all you can change is the width
and height output dimension, versus
| | 04:18 | the liner resolution.
| | 04:20 | What you don't want to do when you
come into an image like this is say,
| | 04:23 | oh, I want to print this and it needs
to be 300 pixels per inch and come in
| | 04:27 | here and just start assigning 300 for
the final print size, because if you do
| | 04:30 | that with Resample Image turned on, you are
going to making up a whole bunch of pixels.
| | 04:34 | Notice that we now have 13000x18000
pixels, instead of 3000x4000, and look what
| | 04:39 | happened to file size.
| | 04:40 | It goes from 42 megabytes to
726, almost a gigabyte. Yikes!
| | 04:45 | Don't panic though.
| | 04:46 | Hold down your Option key, Alt on
Windows, and the Cancel button becomes Reset,
| | 04:50 | and then check off Resample.
| | 04:52 | Now you can put in your 300 and watch.
The number of pixels doesn't change;
| | 04:56 | what changes is the output dimension.
| | 04:58 | And it went from 46x61 at 72,
to 11x14, at 300.
| | 05:04 | Now, what do you think is
going to happen when we click OK?
| | 05:06 | Remember the number of pixels in our
image has not changed. So what happens over
| | 05:10 | here when we click OK? Not a darn thing.
| | 05:13 | Why? Because we haven't changed
the number of pixels in our image.
| | 05:16 | Now, if you didn't want an 11x14 image, you
wanted something like 5x7, okay. Well, that's fine.
| | 05:22 | At this point you can come in here and
we'll turn on Resample, we'll put our
| | 05:26 | width and height at something like 5x7.
| | 05:28 | It is 5x6, so we can Tab and put
an actual seven down there, if it's the
| | 05:32 | maximum dimensional resolution you
want, and then just before we click OK,
| | 05:35 | notice a couple of things.
| | 05:36 | First of all, the number of pixels in
our image has changed dramatically from
| | 05:40 | 3000x4000 approximately to 1500x2100.
| | 05:43 | We're interpolating our image.
| | 05:45 | We are decreasing the number of pixels
and we are averaging together to create
| | 05:49 | new pixels and much fewer of them.
| | 05:50 | Look our file size drops
from 42 megabytes to 9.5 about.
| | 05:54 | So we are interpolating our image, and
the result of that is some softening to
| | 05:58 | the image, which is why we always
want to follow this up somewhere in our workflow,
| | 06:01 | usually at the end, with some
sharpening, which we'll talk about later.
| | 06:05 | Last thing to pay attention to here is
down here, underneath the Resample image,
| | 06:10 | you can choose what kind of resampling
algorithm you are going to use, and if
| | 06:13 | you are reducing the dimensions of
your image, which we are, choose Bicubic
| | 06:17 | Sharper (best for reduction) so
you get less softening of the image.
| | 06:21 | If you are going up in dimensional
resolution or up in number of pixels, which
| | 06:25 | is pretty dangerous, because it can
really soften your image, and there is
| | 06:27 | better tools for that.
| | 06:28 | Genuine Fractals being the
best tool that I know of.
| | 06:31 | You can choose Bicubic Smoother, but we
are going down and typically we'll be
| | 06:35 | doing that for a lot of our digital photography.
| | 06:37 | So you choose that and then
click OK and then you are done.
| | 06:41 | We've accomplished that.
| | 06:42 | Now, notice that instead of helping to
go right to your Image Size dialog box,
| | 06:47 | if your image on screen is big enough,
let me draw your attention down here to
| | 06:51 | the lower left-hand corner,
underneath the Show portion.
| | 06:54 | If you have this setup to show document
dimensions, when you open up your images,
| | 06:58 | it will automatically
show you, hey, it's 46x61 at 72.
| | 07:02 | Now finally, when you get done doing
an alteration like this on a copy of the image,
| | 07:06 | you want to save this file.
| | 07:08 | Well, by default Photoshop is going to
bring up underneath your Format menu,
| | 07:13 | the same format in which your
image is currently saved.
| | 07:16 | Well, if your image starts out as a
JPEG, you don't want to resave it as a JPEG,
| | 07:20 | particularly if you
intend to work with the file.
| | 07:22 | You want to save it as
either a TIFF or .PSD file.
| | 07:25 | Or if you intend to add layers and
alpha channels and so forth and go ahead and
| | 07:29 | go to Photoshop, or we can come down here
and go to TIFF, and let's just do TIFF for now.
| | 07:34 | The reason why you want to go one of
those two is there is no resampling that's
| | 07:38 | occurring and no
compression that's going to occur.
| | 07:40 | You go back to JPEG,
| | 07:41 | you are going to be getting some compression.
| | 07:42 | So, let's choose TIFF in this case
and then we'll choose Save and my
| | 07:46 | suggestion for setting up this dialog
box is no compression, default pixel order,
| | 07:50 | and then IBM PC Byte Order.
| | 07:53 | The reason is that Mac will read either
one, but a Windows machine prefers the
| | 07:56 | IBM PC Byte Order, and there you go.
| | 07:58 | You have resized, resampled
your image how you wanted.
| | 08:01 | Your original image is left alone the way
it is and then you've saved it as a TIFF.
| | 08:05 | Now, I know what you are thinking. Oh my Gosh!
| | 08:06 | I don't want to go through that with every
single image that I've got. Fair enough.
| | 08:10 | So here's how you do it quickly.
| | 08:12 | And let's just go into this JPEG folder
here and let me show you we have got
| | 08:16 | these five images here and I'm not
going to choose any of them, because I'm
| | 08:19 | going to show you something slick about
Bridge that will speed up handling your images.
| | 08:22 | Let's say you have 500 images in this folder.
| | 08:24 | Go to Tools, in the Bridge menu, and
go to Photoshop, and go to this tool
| | 08:28 | called Image Processor.
| | 08:30 | In this case all I'm going to do is
just convert everything to a TIFF.
| | 08:34 | You can resize them if you want to,
click Resize here, then you can put your
| | 08:38 | maximum pixel dimensions here.
| | 08:39 | But I'm just going to convert everything
into a TIFF, but you can do it either way.
| | 08:43 | Just convert them TIFFs
or resize them on the Fly.
| | 08:46 | Put in your copyright information here.
| | 08:48 | Click TIFF, save in the same
location, and then just click Run.
| | 08:51 | And while you're you are having a couple
of sips of coffee, Photoshop and Bridge
| | 08:56 | are doing all the heavy lifting here.
| | 08:58 | And notice it just creates a new
folder called TIFF and there are all those
| | 09:02 | images saved out as TIFFs and remember
you can resize using Tools > Photoshop
| | 09:06 | and Image Processor.
| | 09:07 | It's a great tool,
saves you all sorts of time.
| | 09:10 | Well, there we go, dimensional resolution,
liner resolution, interpolation, and
| | 09:14 | saving out in one of the two proper
file formats, .PSD for working, or .TIFF to
| | 09:18 | just simplify the file
format with no compression.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Straightening your image| 00:00 | Okay, now that we have covered the
Dimensional Resolution, Linear Resolution,
| | 00:05 | Interpolation, and then saving out in
proper file format, either TIFF or .PSD.
| | 00:09 | If we are going to be working on the
file more, let's address that whole issue
| | 00:12 | of straightening up your horizons.
| | 00:15 | So let's go ahead and open up this
Homer Beach image, which is a nice
| | 00:18 | composition but boy, that horizon line,
in this case it's the water/land horizon.
| | 00:23 | Because the top of the land/air
horizon is not as obviously off, because
| | 00:28 | the topography itself is so irregular.
But clearly the water land horizon is off.
| | 00:33 | So once again as always, we'll make a
duplicate copy, and in this case we'll
| | 00:38 | just call this the Rotated Version.
| | 00:41 | Rotating on a horizon is easy.
| | 00:44 | In Photoshop CS4 there is
actually a Rotation tool.
| | 00:46 | Just go R for Rotate and then you can
nondestructively rotate your image to say
| | 00:51 | hey, what does that look like?
| | 00:53 | But you can actually take a look at how
you want your horizon to go and you can
| | 00:56 | watch your rotation angle right up here as well.
| | 00:59 | The other thing you can do is get the
little scrubby tools, that you can just
| | 01:03 | rotate it like this, if you prefer to
do it that way, and then you can just
| | 01:06 | reset the view so it goes back to the original.
| | 01:09 | To make your correction what we are
going to do is actually go to our Info tool,
| | 01:12 | and we are going to go to the
Ruler portion of this Info tool.
| | 01:16 | Remember, when there are multiple tools
here, you can just keep toggling on the
| | 01:19 | Eye tool until you get to the tool that
you want, in this case the Ruler tool.
| | 01:23 | This really is simple.
| | 01:24 | You just click on one end of the
horizon, and while you hold, don't click and
| | 01:28 | then let go, just click and drag and
just move down to the other side, and you
| | 01:32 | will notice up top here, just
watch the angle number right there.
| | 01:36 | Just be careful, don't over do it here.
| | 01:38 | Notice it's about -1.8?, and then release.
| | 01:42 | Then before you do anything else, come
up on the image, and go underneath Image
| | 01:46 | Rotation and choose Arbitrary, and a
more accurate version, 1.77, what it
| | 01:51 | actually was, will come up
and then you just click OK.
| | 01:54 | Now, notice when you do this, pixels
are added in various places, because
| | 01:58 | in Photoshop you can only work
with Square Dimensional Images, or
| | 02:01 | Rectangular Dimensional Images.
| | 02:03 | So now you have to move to your Crop
tool, C, and you have to pull this down
| | 02:08 | here, make sure that you don't get any
of the outside white pixels, or you have
| | 02:12 | to do this again, and then click Enter.
| | 02:15 | Once you have accomplished that, then you
can see that your horizon is nice and straight.
| | 02:18 | If you need to go back to the original
image at any point, you can, because you
| | 02:23 | have done this on a copy of the image.
| | 02:25 | So it works just like a
champion, it's really easily done.
| | 02:27 | Let's just do another one quickly
just to show you how fast it can go.
| | 02:30 | You just take your Eyedropper tool,
drag this along the horizon, come
| | 02:34 | underneath the image.
| | 02:35 | If you have to do this very much, of
course you can just assign a keyboard
| | 02:38 | shortcut to that Image Rotation and then
Arbitrary, and then just go right to the Crop tool.
| | 02:43 | C for the Crop tool, this is where
being able to swap tools quickly and easily
| | 02:47 | really comes in handy.
| | 02:49 | Then just hit Enter, therefore your
horizon line is nice and straight.
| | 02:53 | All right, so that's it.
| | 02:54 | That's rotating images using the
freehand rotation, just so you can preview, and
| | 02:58 | then the Info tool, the Rotation tool
to help you get a good accurate rotation.
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| Cropping your image| 00:00 | One of the mechanical adjustments that
you want to make sure that you make prior
| | 00:04 | to doing your final
color correction is cropping.
| | 00:07 | The reason why you want to do your
cropping before you do your final color
| | 00:10 | correction is that you may be cropping
out a critical portion of an image, such
| | 00:14 | as a diffused white highlight or a
critical shadow area that you use to do the
| | 00:18 | overall color correction on the original image.
| | 00:20 | So my suggestion is if you intend to crop,
do the crop first and then color correct.
| | 00:25 | If you want to use the image both ways,
then you can always correct it twice if
| | 00:29 | you want to be absolutely sure that
your correction is correct. All right.
| | 00:32 | So as always, we are going
to make a duplicate copy.
| | 00:35 | I actually label my images like this
so that I know that that's a cropped
| | 00:39 | version of another file, just in case they
become separated from the original version.
| | 00:43 | It's two different ways I'm going to
show you for cropping inside of Photoshop,
| | 00:47 | and they are both relatively easy.
| | 00:49 | Depending upon what your intentions are
with the crop and where you want to go
| | 00:52 | with the image, you can use one or the other.
| | 00:54 | Just go see for the Crop tool.
| | 00:56 | The reason why we might want to crop
this image, and this is a nice picture of
| | 00:59 | the reflected Alpine glow
in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.
| | 01:03 | This is a symmetrical picture, and
typically we want to have our horizon line
| | 01:06 | something other than in the middle of the image.
| | 01:08 | It was just such a beautiful
reflection picture, I just put it in the middle,
| | 01:12 | knowing darn well we could crop it
out and change it later in Photoshop
| | 01:15 | however we wanted to.
| | 01:16 | So you can just go right to the Crop
tool, and you can say well, let's take a
| | 01:20 | look at it that way.
| | 01:22 | What's nice in Photoshop is you can
adjust the Opacity and the Color of the crop
| | 01:26 | by clicking here on the Shield.
| | 01:27 | So you can turn on the Shield if you
want to, or turn if off, and then you can
| | 01:31 | adjust the color of that any way that you like.
| | 01:33 | I like the basic dark shield that they
have here, and you can set the Opacity
| | 01:37 | for whatever opacity you would like.
| | 01:40 | Then you can move that and you can
actually move it with your arrow keys, up
| | 01:44 | and down, left and right, or you can
manually move it using the Move tool if you want to.
| | 01:49 | Then when you get the crop the way you want it,
just hit the Enter key, and then you are done.
| | 01:53 | The other way that you can accomplish a
crop, and we'll call this one Crop, and
| | 01:58 | we'll call this 5X7, because
it's going to go right to 5X7.
| | 02:00 | Let's do a Command+Option+I, Ctrl+Alt+
I and bring up the Image Size, and see
| | 02:06 | that our resolution of
this image is 100 pixels/inch.
| | 02:09 | You want to check this before you do
this numeric way of accomplishing a crop,
| | 02:13 | because once you activate the Crop tool,
you can actually come right up here to
| | 02:16 | your Width and Height, and remember, if
you just go straight to your Crop tool,
| | 02:20 | you can just hit the Enter
key to access that first field.
| | 02:23 | In this case, we'll go a Width
of 7, and then Tab, and then go 5.
| | 02:27 | Then we are going to put in a
resolution of 100, because that is indeed the
| | 02:32 | linear resolution of the current file.
| | 02:34 | If we put in something like 200 or 300,
Photoshop will take care of that for
| | 02:38 | you, but it's going to
interpolate your image a good deal.
| | 02:41 | There's nothing wrong with doing that.
| | 02:42 | Just understand that your image is
probably going to be a good deal softer.
| | 02:46 | My point here is that you can
designate a specific width and height at a
| | 02:49 | specific linear resolution.
| | 02:51 | Then when you apply the Crop tool.
| | 02:53 | It will give you a proportional
area that stays at that 7X5 dimension.
| | 02:58 | Then you can choose any portion of
that image that you would like to, and
| | 03:01 | reposition it in any way that you want
to, and then it will give you an image
| | 03:04 | that is that dimension, 7X5 at 100 pixels/inch.
| | 03:05 | Let me go back to the Image Size
dialog box, perfect, 7X5 at 100.
| | 03:12 | That's a very handy tool for if you
have got an image that is close and you
| | 03:16 | want to get it exactly at 7X5, because
that's a dimension of your page layout,
| | 03:20 | where you can get it perfectly the way
you want it, and having the Crop tool
| | 03:23 | and be able to move that area around
and preview it is just like working in a
| | 03:27 | page layout program.
| | 03:28 | They are the two ways you can crop an
image depending upon your intentions, and
| | 03:32 | then your image is now going
to be ready for correction.
| | 03:35 | You will know that all the areas
that you used for correction will end up
| | 03:37 | in your final image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding and evaluating patterns: noise, posterization, and screens| 00:00 | All right, once we've addressed image
dimension and linear resolution and file
| | 00:04 | format and we straightened and
cropped our image, one of more piece of file
| | 00:08 | keeping taken care of here is looking
for unwanted patterns in our images.
| | 00:13 | There's lots of ways that we can get
patterns and images. Some of it is due to
| | 00:16 | JPEG compressions, some of it may be
noise from too high in ISO, any number of
| | 00:20 | things can create patterns.
| | 00:22 | But I always like to take a look at
the image and try to remove my patterns
| | 00:25 | before I go any further.
| | 00:27 | So, what we're going to do here is
we'll just call this one Removal, which
| | 00:32 | reminds me that I've made a copy where
I've removed some sort of a pattern from
| | 00:36 | the image, and then this
becomes my starting image.
| | 00:38 | We'll zoom in here and we'll see,
even in the composite mode, you see that
| | 00:42 | there's lots of kind of background pattern
in here that robs the image of its detail.
| | 00:47 | Luckily, in this image detail is not
the key issue, but it would still be nice
| | 00:50 | to get rid of some of that
pattern before we've output the image.
| | 00:54 | So, how do we go about doing this?
| | 00:55 | Well, one of the first things I do is
I like the cycle through the individual
| | 00:59 | channels, and just take a look.
| | 01:01 | Let's look at the red, the
green, and the blue channels.
| | 01:05 | Typically, if it's just straight ISO
noise, very often the blue channel is the worst,
| | 01:09 | and this one is pretty bad, but
the red, and the green, the blue,
| | 01:13 | all have a fair amount of noise on them.
| | 01:14 | The reason why we look through the
three channels is that if one channel is
| | 01:18 | significantly worse than the others,
then we can just focus on removing the
| | 01:21 | pattern from that channel and
then we won't as much image softening.
| | 01:25 | Because any sort of pattern removal
typically involves image softening.
| | 01:30 | So, that's why I like to look
through those three channels.
| | 01:33 | In this case, pretty much all
of the channels have got a fair
| | 01:35 | amount of noise on them;
| | 01:36 | however, the red and the blue
seem to have about the most.
| | 01:40 | If you've got time, you could just work
more on the red and the blue, or we're
| | 01:42 | just going to do a master
channel pattern removal here.
| | 01:46 | We used to go through and use the
Despeckle and Dust & Scratches and Median, and
| | 01:52 | those are all still very good tools,
but CS4 has got a really nice tool called
| | 01:55 | reduce Noise, which you can use
on a variety of different patterns.
| | 01:58 | This is what the tool looks like and notice
there's two modes. There's the Basic and Advanced.
| | 02:03 | Today we're just going just to stick with
Basic, but let me just show you the Advanced.
| | 02:06 | What the Advanced allows you to do
is to remove and sharpen based upon
| | 02:10 | individual channels.
| | 02:11 | So if we wanted to come and work on the
red and the blue channel separately from
| | 02:14 | green, we could certainly do that.
| | 02:16 | But we're going to apply basically the
same rationale and approach that we do
| | 02:19 | underneath the Basics.
| | 02:20 | So, I'll just show you the Basic, and
then you can experiment a little bit
| | 02:24 | with the Advanced mode.
| | 02:25 | Okay, so how do we get started here?
Because we've got four different variables
| | 02:29 | and you could chase your tail all day.
| | 02:30 | I'll be showing you my approach.
| | 02:32 | Everybody probably has their own.
| | 02:34 | I like to come in here and just remove
everything, and then I like to zoom a
| | 02:38 | little bit so I can actually see the pattern.
| | 02:40 | When you check on the preview, what the
preview does is it allows it to show up here.
| | 02:44 | So, what I like to do is on my image,
I like to have my image maybe around 100%,
| | 02:50 | then I'll zoom in over here, so I can
watch the image in two different scales,
| | 02:55 | so I can see the impact of that noise.
| | 02:57 | So 100% in the background, which is
going to give you the most accurate view,
| | 03:00 | and then you can zoom in here and
see what's going on at the pixel level.
| | 03:03 | This is the one you're really going
to primarily use to determine what
| | 03:07 | values you use over here.
| | 03:08 | Okay, so to get started, we'll Tab
down to Strength and you can use your
| | 03:12 | cursor to drag like this. If you do
that very much, you're going to get real
| | 03:15 | sick and tired of it.
| | 03:16 | So my suggestion is use the up and down
arrows here and once again, I'm going
| | 03:21 | to start here at 0 on the Preserve Details.
| | 03:24 | When you put in a Strength,
it automatically puts in a Preserve Detail, but just
| | 03:27 | Tab down and go to 0, and then Shift+Tab back.
| | 03:30 | Then what I do is I just go up arrow, and
this a 1 to 10 scale, where 10 is the most.
| | 03:35 | Notice that's very, very soft.
You don't typically need that much.
| | 03:39 | But I'll start all the way down to one
when using my up arrow with my middle
| | 03:42 | finger and then I'll
watch my pattern disappear.
| | 03:45 | As I go to Strength 2, and 3, and 4,
and as soon as that pattern disappears,
| | 03:50 | I'm want to just go one more up and
one more down. Just watch and see here.
| | 03:54 | I'm going to start with 5 here.
| | 03:56 | Then I'm going to Tab down.
| | 03:57 | Now notice, watch my Preserve Detail area here.
| | 04:00 | When I go with my up arrow,
it goes one at a time.
| | 04:03 | Boy, that goes all the way to 100%.
| | 04:04 | That would take you a while.
| | 04:06 | Luckily, keyboard shortcut. Hold down
your Shift key, and then when you go up arrow,
| | 04:10 | it goes 10 at a time,
which is really what you want.
| | 04:13 | Notice that we are retrieving
sharpening and just going from 0 to 10 adds a
| | 04:18 | significant amount of sharpening, so
you can overdo it pretty easily here.
| | 04:22 | Remember we have our preview turned on
so we can just snap some views over
| | 04:25 | here to see what our image looks like at 100%.
| | 04:28 | This is basically what I do and I'll
keep pushing that sharpness up until
| | 04:32 | I think I've got enough.
| | 04:33 | Sometimes that sharpening will return a
little bit of that original pattern, so
| | 04:36 | I'll go Shift+Tab and
maybe I'll go up one more level.
| | 04:40 | And I'll just go back and forth a few
times, until I'm happy with what I have here.
| | 04:43 | Well, I think I've got most of the
patterns removed and this is a non-color
| | 04:48 | specific noise reduction.
| | 04:50 | Then I'll Tab down here to reduce
color noise and again Shift+Up arrow.
| | 04:55 | I'll just go up a couple
and see if it has any impact.
| | 04:58 | If there's not impact here, I just leave
it at 0, because there's a lot of noise
| | 05:02 | which is really not color based at all.
| | 05:04 | It's just luminance based.
| | 05:05 | But if it's color based, you'll see it
in a real hurry, because you'll start to
| | 05:08 | see some impacts on the
actual image when you enlarge.
| | 05:12 | On this image, I'm just going to leave
that on a Strength of 6 and a Preserve
| | 05:14 | Detail of 20 and then I'm going to click OK.
| | 05:17 | Notice that a good deal of that
pattern has been removed from our image and
| | 05:21 | it looks a lot a smoother, but we still
have a nice pretty good looking sharp image.
| | 05:24 | Now we're ready to go and do some
color correction on this particular image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Evaluating and Correcting "Color"Using master channel histograms| 00:00 | All right, in this section we want to
start correcting and adjusting our images,
| | 00:04 | and we're going to start with the
simpler images and simpler adjustments, and
| | 00:07 | move into more complex ones.
| | 00:10 | Now some images are relatively easy to
correct, even though they may not look
| | 00:13 | all that great at the beginning.
| | 00:14 | You think, oh, I got a lot of work to
do here, but it's not necessarily true.
| | 00:18 | Let's take a look at this Kevin image,
and this is one we've looked at before,
| | 00:23 | and as always, we're going to make a
duplicate and we'll call this working and
| | 00:29 | we're going to start our
evaluation by looking on our histogram.
| | 00:31 | We've looked at this one a little bit
before, but now we're actually going to do
| | 00:34 | a correction with this.
| | 00:35 | And we see that it's low contrast from
our evaluation before. We know that we've
| | 00:39 | got blank data in the Highlight to Midtones.
| | 00:42 | So this is what I call a
Master Histogram only Adjustment.
| | 00:45 | We can dramatically improve this image
by just adjusting the master histogram.
| | 00:50 | Now we could go right to Levels and
work in Levels, or we can go right to
| | 00:54 | Curves and work in Curves.
| | 00:55 | But what we really want to do whenever
we're making adjustments is instead work
| | 01:00 | in adjustment layers, which are
the same tools, but they are applied
| | 01:04 | nondestructively in what's
called an adjustment layer.
| | 01:07 | We can create adjustment layers
right from the Layers panel here.
| | 01:10 | If you go to Levels or Curves, and
we're going to be working in Curves most of
| | 01:15 | the time, rather than Levels.
| | 01:17 | The reason is, notice what we have
in Curves, is we have the tonal range
| | 01:21 | adjustment, where we can have up to 14
points along this curve that we can correct.
| | 01:25 | Whereas if we create a levels adjustment,
we have Highlight, Shadow and Midtone,
| | 01:30 | and that's really the only
corrections that we have.
| | 01:32 | So we're going to work in Curves.
| | 01:35 | You can make Levels adjustment layers,
and every once in a while I use them, but
| | 01:38 | I pretty much use Curves.
| | 01:40 | And of course, the fast and easiest way
in CS4 to create the adjustment layer is
| | 01:44 | using the Adjustment panel, which is
why I always have Levels and Adjustment
| | 01:48 | panels attached to each other.
| | 01:50 | So I can just come up here and
click and make -- in this case a Curves
| | 01:53 | adjustment layer, and what's nice
about what I call the Super Curves tool is
| | 01:57 | that yes, we have all this tonal range
control and correction, but we can see
| | 02:01 | the histogram as well,
just like we can in Levels.
| | 02:04 | We can control what's displayed in
the Curves dialog box by just going
| | 02:08 | underneath Curves, Display Options,
and you can show Channel Overlays, which
| | 02:13 | we get to see individual channels
when we made corrections on them in this
| | 02:16 | Master Channel view.
| | 02:18 | See the histogram, yes.
| | 02:20 | Do we want to see a Baseline, and do
you want to see Intersection Lines?
| | 02:23 | Just turn all those on so
that you can see everything.
| | 02:26 | And you can also have a finer grid, if you
want to work with a finer grid, which is fine.
| | 02:30 | And let's click OK.
| | 02:31 | By the way, if you just click in the
background with the Option key or Alt, you
| | 02:35 | can change the grid from coarse to fine as well.
| | 02:38 | And it's nice being able to have
those crosshairs, that's what the
| | 02:41 | intersection lines are, as you can
see exactly where the input/output lines
| | 02:45 | are, if you have those turned on.
| | 02:47 | So basically turn on everything,
and then you can see everything.
| | 02:49 | If that little grid line, if the fine
grid line, it's a bit too much confusion
| | 02:53 | for you, you can turn it off. It's up to you.
| | 02:54 | It just a personal preference basically.
| | 02:57 | So in this case, we're going to do
a series of quick and easy histogram
| | 03:00 | adjustment, Master Histogram only, in
which we see this big blank area, and we
| | 03:04 | can just come in here
and pull this up like this.
| | 03:06 | Now why is it going blank?
| | 03:08 | Because in the Curves adjustment, and
all the adjustment layers, unlike what
| | 03:12 | we looked at earlier, we are just in
the Curves Adjustment tool, or we can
| | 03:15 | turn on Show Clipping here.
| | 03:17 | Turn off and on Show Clipping.
| | 03:19 | Here we do it with the Show Clipping for
Black/White Point to turn it on this way.
| | 03:23 | And then you can just see the
adjustment on the image by turning this on.
| | 03:27 | It's nice to be able to turn on that
Show Clipping for Black/White Points,
| | 03:30 | because that can help you decide
how far to move that highlight point.
| | 03:34 | Because sometimes you have these little tails,
and you are not quite sure where to stop.
| | 03:38 | Well, notice as you pull this until just
part of the images like the red and the
| | 03:41 | blue channels, and those two areas
begin to show up and to blow out, then just
| | 03:45 | back it off a little bit, and that
will allow you to control how far you are
| | 03:50 | adjusting the highlight without
blowing out any of the detail.
| | 03:53 | And then using this little symbol right
here, you can turn on the Preview, and
| | 03:57 | see what the image look like originally.
| | 03:58 | But of course, in our workflow,
we've always had an original copy here.
| | 04:02 | So we don't really have to do that.
| | 04:03 | We can do a compare and contrast just like that.
| | 04:06 | So there is one version.
| | 04:07 | There is one adjustment.
| | 04:09 | Let's take a look at just a couple
more so you kind of get the hang of this.
| | 04:12 | And it's not the only adjustment you
can do in those images by any means, but
| | 04:16 | these are kind of quick and dirty
corrections and adjustments, and that last
| | 04:20 | one, I really consider that to be a correction.
| | 04:22 | Unless you want that low contrast look,
which in some cases you might, but in
| | 04:26 | terms of just overall image evaluation
and correction or adjustment, that really
| | 04:30 | represents a correction.
| | 04:31 | Now this image on the other hand,
we've taken on a cloudy day and it's moody,
| | 04:36 | and -- well, maybe that's the
way we want it, or maybe we don't.
| | 04:39 | Once again, when we look at the
histogram, we see this missing data.
| | 04:42 | In both of the Kevin case, and in this case,
we don't have big color shifts down here.
| | 04:47 | We're going to get out our Info Palette,
we're going to play a little bit more
| | 04:49 | with that, but right now, we're just
doing histogram only based adjustments.
| | 04:53 | So here again, we can just take that
highlight and pull it in, and just stop
| | 04:58 | wherever we see the data beginning to
blow out, so that we don't get any loss of
| | 05:01 | image data, and we get a
completely different looking image.
| | 05:05 | Now of course, before we would actually
make any correction like that as before,
| | 05:09 | we would always want to make
a duplicate copy of our image.
| | 05:17 | And once you know whereabouts you want
to drag that, you can turn off that Show
| | 05:21 | Clipping, and you can decide anywhere
along that path that you want to do.
| | 05:24 | Maybe that's too bright and cheery for you.
| | 05:27 | Maybe you want something in between.
| | 05:28 | You don't want total doom and gloom,
but maybe somewhere in between.
| | 05:31 | Little bit atmosphere, but not too much.
| | 05:33 | You've the ability to control exactly how
much of an adjustment you make by moving that.
| | 05:38 | Let's just do two more quickly.
| | 05:41 | Remember this one we looked at early,
we just did an evaluation on this.
| | 05:44 | And you were doing in the actual adjustment.
| | 05:46 | We were doing just based upon the histogram.
| | 05:48 | Here we can pull the highlight down, but
we can also pull the shadow up, because
| | 05:51 | there's missing data there.
| | 05:53 | Just using the histogram nothing more,
and notice there's dramatic increase in
| | 05:57 | brightness and contrast that
we're able to effect by using that.
| | 06:00 | Once again, of course, we'll make a copy of
our image, and make the adjustments there.
| | 06:08 | Before and after, and I
like that. That's a good one.
| | 06:10 | All right, then one more, and I think
you get the hang of what we're doing here.
| | 06:16 | And let's do a duplicate.
| | 06:17 | And we're going to do just a basic
master histogram adjustment on this one, and
| | 06:23 | then in the next section, we're going
to come back and we're going to work on
| | 06:26 | this one individual channel, and
see the variations that we can create.
| | 06:30 | If you are not quite sure, and
particularly in areas with lots of highlight
| | 06:33 | data in there, you might want to come
here and show on the, Show Clipping Black
| | 06:36 | Points or White Points, to make sure that
you don't blow out too much of that data.
| | 06:40 | If you just see the red there, I mean
just the red is blown out, if you keep
| | 06:44 | pulling it, then the yellow, the
second color, the green, and then finally
| | 06:48 | the blue will blow out.
| | 06:49 | So as long as you have at least two
colors in there, generally you are okay.
| | 06:52 | So if you want to give it a little bit
more brightness, it's okay to do, as long
| | 06:55 | as you've got some dots in there
that will show up in your print.
| | 06:58 | So there's our brightening of our image
just using the histogram, and we can see
| | 07:03 | there's is no sense kind of messing
with the shadow, because we've got data all
| | 07:06 | the way down into that shadow.
| | 07:07 | And we'll fine-tune these kinds of
adjustments and corrections, when we get
| | 07:11 | into things numerically.
| | 07:12 | But I wanted to show you what you can do
with just looking at the histogram, and
| | 07:15 | using the histogram as your guide.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using individual channel histograms| 00:00 | In the last section, we worked on using
master histograms. In this section
| | 00:06 | I'd like to take the next step in terms
of increased sophistication and move on to
| | 00:10 | working on individual channels.
| | 00:11 | Now, here's the two images that we
worked with on the Homer Beach image, where
| | 00:15 | there was the original image, and
then here's the master adjustment image.
| | 00:19 | Notice the increase in brightness and
contrast by just moving the master histogram.
| | 00:23 | What I'd like to do now is
just make an additional copy.
| | 00:27 | Okay, we'll call this
Individual, all right, there we go.
| | 00:30 | Individual Histograms and in this case,
once again, we're just going to use
| | 00:34 | the histogram as our guides for
adjusting these images and we'll go into
| | 00:37 | create a Curves base adjustment layer,
and we're going to go to the individual
| | 00:42 | channels to work on them.
| | 00:43 | Notice the keyboard shortcuts we have
here, which is Option or Alt, 3, 4, and 5,
| | 00:48 | as opposed to Command or Ctrl 3, 4
and 5 for accessing the individual
| | 00:52 | channels when we are on the Channels panel.
| | 00:54 | It's a little bit complicated, but
you get used to it after a while.
| | 00:58 | In this case, what we're going to do is
we're just going to go to the red, green
| | 01:01 | and blue channels, and just drag them
until we get to the start of what's called
| | 01:04 | the significant data.
| | 01:05 | Now once again, you can use your clip
black and white points to help you make
| | 01:09 | sure that you don't go too far.
| | 01:11 | But in this case, where you got that
really clear-cut beginning and ending of
| | 01:14 | the data, typically it's not quite as
necessary to go to that Clip Black and
| | 01:19 | White point, just to make sure you
don't go too far, and obviously you don't
| | 01:21 | want to come all the way in here.
| | 01:22 | But we're just going to go to the
start of the significant data in the image,
| | 01:26 | there we go, and notice how
different this image looks.
| | 01:30 | We've taken out that yellow-ish color
cast and let's just by way of evaluating
| | 01:34 | the adjustment that we've just done,
| | 01:36 | let's look at the snow in this image, and
notice the red, green and blue is 191, 167, and 154.
| | 01:42 | red+green is giving us the yellow, so
you have a distinctly yellow colorcast.
| | 01:46 | Whereas on this image,
things are much closer to neutral.
| | 01:50 | Now look how close we came,
238, 237, 236.
| | 01:55 | Now yeah, we're going to go in and
we're going to actually do this by the
| | 01:58 | numbers a little bit later and we'll
know it's perfect every single time.
| | 02:02 | But just using a histogram and you've
got a pretty clean image, not a lot of
| | 02:06 | noise in your image.
| | 02:07 | Where the histogram starts and stops at
distinct places. Look how close you can
| | 02:10 | get just doing it by eye
working with your histogram.
| | 02:12 | That's a pretty good neutralized
image with no colorcast to it whatsoever.
| | 02:17 | Notice the master histogram is brighter
with better contrast, but it still has
| | 02:22 | the red+green, the yellow colorcast.
| | 02:25 | Because all we did was adjust the
overall tonal compression; we didn't adjust
| | 02:29 | the individual channels.
| | 02:30 | Here on this image, we went in
and adjusted the individual channels
| | 02:33 | and neutralized it.
| | 02:34 | And of course, you could create
something in between this if you wanted to.
| | 02:38 | If you didn't want to get quite as much,
you won't have to adjust quite so neutral.
| | 02:42 | You can get anywhere in between and
you can judge visually as to how much you want,
| | 02:45 | then you can check it with
the actual RGB values. All right.
| | 02:50 | Now another image.
| | 02:51 | Let's take a look at this one.
| | 02:53 | Let's make a duplicate of this and
we'll just call this Channels and right off
| | 03:00 | the bat when we look at the Master
Histogram of this and we can see that we've
| | 03:04 | got data all the way from the
highlight, all the way to the shadow.
| | 03:07 | And if we just look at the Master
Histogram, we think, oh, there's not much
| | 03:10 | adjustment to make here.
| | 03:11 | But in fact, when we look at the
individual channels we see, oh sure, the red
| | 03:15 | goes from wall to wall, from highlight to
shadow, but look at the green and the blue.
| | 03:19 | So we've got some room to make some
adjustments here in the green and the blue.
| | 03:23 | So let's go and take a look at the
green and the blue channels and let's see
| | 03:27 | what happens to this image.
| | 03:28 | When we pull this down right to the beginning
of the significant data on the green channel.
| | 03:33 | Nothing says we have to pull it all
the way, but I just want to show you
| | 03:35 | something interesting, what
happens to this image. You see that?
| | 03:38 | It's a beautiful image.
| | 03:39 | It's just different than this one up here.
| | 03:42 | And we did it by more neutralizing.
We took and spread the green and the blue
| | 03:46 | channels out and look over here on
the Master Histogram. So you can now see
| | 03:50 | that the green and the blue pretty
much go wall to wall in terms of the tonal
| | 03:53 | range, just like the red
channel does. Before and after.
| | 03:57 | Before and after.
| | 03:59 | This does not represent a correction, does it?
| | 04:01 | It's an adjustment.
| | 04:03 | It's not that either one of
these images is right or wrong.
| | 04:05 | It just gives you a different look.
| | 04:07 | Here we have much bluer. We have
gotten rid of a lot of the red in the water,
| | 04:10 | because we've spread the green and the
blue tonal values out, across the entire
| | 04:15 | tonal range, pretty much
like we have from the red.
| | 04:17 | So there is an individual channel
based adjustment, so you can see you can
| | 04:21 | accomplish very creative things just
by working in individual channels,
| | 04:25 | and we're still working on Curves.
| | 04:26 | We really don't have to use any of the
tool, because we can see the individual
| | 04:29 | histograms in the Curves panel.
| | 04:31 | All right, so that gives you an idea of
how working with individual channels can
| | 04:35 | allow you to shift the color
dramatically within an image.
| | 04:39 | On that Homer Beach image, where we
did the Master Channel adjustment,
| | 04:43 | we increased the brightness and contrast,
but the color balance stayed about the same.
| | 04:46 | When we went into the individual
channels, then we were able to neutralize the
| | 04:50 | white and change the overall color
balance, neutralized the color balance of the image,
| | 04:55 | and take away that sunset yellow.
| | 04:57 | Neither is right or wrong.
| | 04:58 | They are just different.
| | 04:59 | The whole point is you have the control
and you can look at your histograms and
| | 05:02 | they can be your guide as to, ooo,
what kind of adjustments can I make here and
| | 05:06 | not blow out my highlights and shadows.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Highlights with info and color sampler| 00:00 | Okay, now that we've had some real good
practice, just working with histograms,
| | 00:04 | master histograms and individual
histograms, now I think we're ready to go ahead
| | 00:08 | and take the next step up in terms of
our level of sophistication and control of
| | 00:12 | our color and our images, by actually
starting to measure and adjust and monitor
| | 00:16 | RGB values within our image.
| | 00:18 | We're going to start with the all
important highlights in our image.
| | 00:22 | We'll start with this Juniper_Sky image.
| | 00:24 | That's the one I showed you a corrected
version of earlier and we'll call this
| | 00:29 | the working version.
| | 00:31 | What our goal here is first is to find
the all important white highlight point.
| | 00:37 | We know there are some diffused white
highlights in here, because there's going
| | 00:40 | to be some there in the sky.
| | 00:42 | Now, remember we talked a little bit
about this right here, going to the Curves
| | 00:46 | adjustment layer and going and turning
on Show Clipping for Black/White Points,
| | 00:50 | where you can show clipping and
then you can drag this over here.
| | 00:53 | That works just fine, but then it
doesn't hold that point open, unfortunately.
| | 00:58 | I wish it did, but it does not.
| | 01:00 | So, what I typically like to do is I
like to actually start with just going into
| | 01:05 | the Curves tool, there's just a
regular Curves tool, Command+M or Ctrl+M and
| | 01:10 | turn on the Show Clipping there and I
just use this for setting my points.
| | 01:14 | That's all, just for setting my points.
| | 01:16 | So, I'll pull this in like this and
what I like about this is that once I
| | 01:20 | can see my points, I can just release,
the Show Clipping stays on, and then
| | 01:24 | I can zoom in like this.
| | 01:26 | I'm going to place a color
sampler point in my image.
| | 01:30 | A color sampler point is an eyedropper
tool that we can use to create and set a
| | 01:36 | color sampler point.
| | 01:37 | Watch what I'm going to do here.
| | 01:39 | I'm going to just hold down my Shift
key and click on that point right there
| | 01:43 | and notice in my Info panel, I get this color
sampler point number 1 placed right down here.
| | 01:48 | It says 255 in there, because
we've pulled this all the way in.
| | 01:51 | But that's a color sampler point that we
can then use to monitor those values as
| | 01:56 | we make our corrections.
| | 01:58 | Now I'm going to return this
back to 0 and then click OK.
| | 02:01 | There is our color sampler point in the
sky and we know that that's the lightest
| | 02:05 | point in the sky and we can use
that to now correct our image.
| | 02:09 | Again, the color sampler point
is one of the eyedropper tools.
| | 02:12 | It works just like an eyedropper tool,
but it allows us to create and then
| | 02:16 | monitor eyedropper values in
four different places in our image.
| | 02:20 | We're placing it in the
highlight as you see here.
| | 02:22 | So let's take a look at what these
values are, on this highlight. 203, 204, 206.
| | 02:29 | If you remember a little bit earlier,
we looked at and made an adjustment on
| | 02:32 | this image using the master histogram,
and we look at the Histogram over here,
| | 02:37 | we see the red, green and blue values line up
pretty close to each other on the highlight.
| | 02:41 | So we suspect that there is not
much of a colorcast in this image.
| | 02:44 | Indeed, the values that we have just
set, 203, 204, 206 are really, really
| | 02:50 | close to each other.
| | 02:51 | They're less than 1%.
| | 02:52 | That's only 3 points, which is
less than 1% under the 0 to 255 scale.
| | 02:57 | So all we really need to do then is
adjust our highlight using a master
| | 03:01 | histogram type of adjustment,
just like we did before.
| | 03:04 | But in this case, we've added the
sophistication to actually being able
| | 03:07 | to monitor that point.
| | 03:09 | So let's go to our Curve tool and then
we'll just pull it in like this and if
| | 03:14 | it goes black like that, you can just
come here to turn off that Show Clipping
| | 03:17 | for Black/White Points.
| | 03:18 | Now you can use your mouse to mouse in
like that or as soon as you place that
| | 03:22 | point, if you select this point, see
how that point is dark right there.
| | 03:25 | If it's dark, it means it's selected.
| | 03:27 | You can just use your
left arrow to pull that in.
| | 03:30 | Then you can monitor these values right here.
| | 03:32 | What's the number that we're looking for?
| | 03:34 | Well, we want to make sure that the
lightest portion of our image, and we're
| | 03:37 | making the determination here, hey!
| | 03:39 | I would like the lightest portions
of the sky to be nice, bright white.
| | 03:42 | But I don't want them to be so
white that I lose detail on them.
| | 03:45 | What's our target value here?
| | 03:47 | It's 242, because 242 on a scale
of 0 to 255 is a 5% white highlight.
| | 03:54 | How did I figure that out?
| | 03:55 | Well, I just take .95, which is 95%,
times 255, and that's equal to 242.
| | 04:01 | Do you want to figure out what 10% is? It's .9.
| | 04:05 | The reason why we have to go .95 instead
of .05 is that the scales are inverted.
| | 04:10 | Remember, 0 was not 0, pure
white is 255 and black is 0.
| | 04:14 | So just remember that value, 242 and
anything close to that, 243, 244, 245,
| | 04:20 | anywhere in the mid to low,
240s will work just fine.
| | 04:23 | Now, notice what I've done here is
we've just moved that value over and I
| | 04:26 | just use the left arrow to pull that
over, and the red to 242, the green to
| | 04:31 | 243 and the blue to 245.
| | 04:32 | Like I said that's less than 1% difference.
| | 04:35 | Could we go in there and fine-tune that if
we needed to in the three channels? Sure.
| | 04:39 | But honestly we don't to be
that anal most of the time.
| | 04:42 | It's going to look just fine
and be corrected, just great.
| | 04:45 | There we can see the starting and the
ending portion of our image, and see how
| | 04:49 | much brighter and better contrast that image is.
| | 04:51 | That clouds pop and it
looks just great. All right.
| | 04:54 | So this is one version.
| | 04:55 | Let's take a look at another image and
do pretty much the same thing and see if
| | 05:00 | we get the same results or if we have
to do something a little bit different.
| | 05:03 | Let's call this Working, and here's
another image that we corrected by just
| | 05:07 | using the histograms before.
| | 05:09 | Let's do the same thing we just did.
| | 05:11 | Let's just go to our Curves, Command+M,
pull this up, activate the highlight
| | 05:15 | portion and then just drag this over
until we start to see the light portion
| | 05:19 | of the image open up.
| | 05:21 | The first thing to go white
and there we go right up here.
| | 05:25 | We can Shift-click to
place our color sampler point.
| | 05:28 | You can zoom right in there and then
make sure it goes right where you want.
| | 05:31 | You can move a color sampler point
by just holding down the Shift key and
| | 05:34 | clicking on it, becomes the move arrow.
| | 05:37 | Then we just back this off and get
out of that and there's our number one
| | 05:41 | color sampler point.
| | 05:42 | Let's take a look at that.
| | 05:43 | Let's take a look at the numbers here.
| | 05:45 | 144, 136, 144, not quite as
equal as the last one, is it?
| | 05:51 | So on this case, what we're going to do
is we're going to work on the individual
| | 05:54 | channels to correct this image.
| | 05:56 | Let's just back this down a little
bit so we can see what we're doing.
| | 06:00 | Let's go add an adjustment layer here,
an RGB adjustment layer and we're going
| | 06:05 | to go into the red channel.
| | 06:07 | What are we looking for you here?
| | 06:09 | This is pretty dark, isn't it?
| | 06:10 | We want each of these to
be right at 242, don't we?
| | 06:13 | So we're going to click on our
highlight point here and then we can either drag
| | 06:17 | it over all the way or when we get
drag it over partway and when we get close
| | 06:21 | and we're monitoring our RGB values here, right.
| | 06:25 | We're going to get it right to
right in the 242 to 245 range.
| | 06:29 | Then we're going to move to the green channel.
| | 06:32 | Start to use your keyboard
shortcuts as you get more comfortable.
| | 06:35 | You can use that Option+3, Option+4, Option+5
to move to the red, green and blue channels.
| | 06:40 | Notice as soon as you go to that channel,
the highlight is going to be selected here.
| | 06:43 | So I just keep moving that and I just
monitor the green value right there.
| | 06:47 | Notice there's two values, the left
value is a starting value, 136, and the
| | 06:51 | right value is the current value.
| | 06:54 | So we'll put that right at 243, 244, and
then Option, and then 5, and just start
| | 06:59 | hitting the left arrow to move it
over and we'll just monitor it as we go.
| | 07:03 | So those keyboard shortcuts can
really speed you right up that way.
| | 07:08 | There we have a nicely corrected image, and notice
that we have a nice neutral white highlight in there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Identifying and correcting shadows| 00:02 | Well, nice job setting the
highlights. The next step is to set the shadows.
| | 00:06 | The way we do that is we're going to go
ahead and look for the darkest portion
| | 00:10 | of the image that has detail in it.
| | 00:12 | Then set that at a tonal value that we
know was going to print on just about any
| | 00:16 | device that we might work with.
| | 00:18 | So, let's start with the Turnagain_
Photographer image and keep working with that.
| | 00:21 | Let's go to the Background and I'm going to
bring up the Curves tool as we did before
| | 00:26 | when we are going to Show Clipping,
but in this case, we're going to go to the
| | 00:30 | shadow point and I'm going to start
pulling in the shadow until I see the
| | 00:33 | shadow and then Shift-click. All right,
remember it's the Shift key that turns the
| | 00:39 | Eyedropper tool, which automatically
initiates when you open up the Curves panel,
| | 00:43 | and then just place it in position.
That Shift key allows you to create,
| | 00:47 | then move the position of that.
| | 00:49 | Then we'll back off
on that and click OK. Good!
| | 00:53 | Then we can go right back and notice
that's on Kevin's pant leg there and
| | 00:56 | we could look at that.
| | 00:57 | We evaluate that and say hey!
| | 00:58 | Is that supposed to be pure black?
| | 01:00 | No, if there's any detail there at all,
we'd like to go ahead and preserve that.
| | 01:04 | So let's go to our Curves tool here and
when we look at our curve, remember we
| | 01:09 | made our highlight adjustment here.
| | 01:11 | But the shadow, we had to make too
much of an adjustment at all and a little
| | 01:15 | bit of adjustment is made down the
shadow in because of the fairly large
| | 01:19 | adjustments we made up here.
| | 01:20 | So we started at 5 and went to 8 and 9.
| | 01:23 | Well, pretty much the minimum value
that we want to work with is around 12,
| | 01:27 | because that's about a 95% shadow dot.
| | 01:31 | So we would just click on this point to
activate it and then just use our arrow key.
| | 01:34 | You can pull it with your mouse, but it's
so much easier to just use your arrow key.
| | 01:38 | All right, and then just pop that up
until it's in the range of 12 to 15,
| | 01:41 | something like that in there.
| | 01:43 | Then that's the darkest point in the
image and in this particular image, that
| | 01:47 | shadow detail is not all that important.
| | 01:50 | There's no question about that.
| | 01:51 | So I'm just going to go
with that minimum value there.
| | 01:53 | I'm not going to worry too much about it.
| | 01:56 | But I don't want to fill in
and get super, super black.
| | 01:59 | So that's how you go
about setting a shadow point.
| | 02:01 | As you locate it just like we did the
highlight, make sure it's at least 12
| | 02:05 | points or above, now we get a
nice contrast range in the image.
| | 02:08 | Let's do the same thing, but in
this case, let's go back to our
| | 02:11 | Juniper_Working image.
| | 02:13 | Let's enlarge that.
| | 02:15 | Make sure you're on the Background and
we'll choose, again, our Shift key and
| | 02:20 | make sure that our shadow point is
selected here and then we just start
| | 02:23 | moving that shadow point in, drag that point
in until we see the dark part of the image.
| | 02:28 | Here, instead of going pure white,
the dark part of the image goes black.
| | 02:32 | That's going to be the portion of the
image that fills in first and we could put
| | 02:36 | a point up here, there's any number
places of we could put a point in here.
| | 02:40 | If you want to turn off the Show
Clipping to kind of see where you are and it
| | 02:43 | looks like there's some
shadow detail down in there.
| | 02:46 | We might be able to see and
preserve. Yeah, okay, good.
| | 02:49 | Show Clipping, we turn this to the
original, position where it was and then
| | 02:53 | again we just go back to our Curve tool
and we'll look at the value, 9, 8 and 2,
| | 02:58 | and we're just going to raise that
until those things are up around 12 to 15.
| | 03:03 | Now, are we worried that we've got red,
green and blue and they're not all equal here?
| | 03:07 | Yeah, we could go to the trouble of
neutralizing this if we thought that was
| | 03:11 | a pure black shadow.
| | 03:12 | But honestly, the human eye is not
going to be able to see that and so long as
| | 03:15 | the values are up around 12, and they're
most of them, they're 13 to 15, the red
| | 03:19 | and the green and it's
probably not neutral anyway.
| | 03:21 | So we're not going to worry too much about that.
| | 03:23 | We're just going to make sure that we see
some detail down in that portion of the shadow.
| | 03:27 | We just don't want that shadow
portion just to go blank and solid.
| | 03:30 | So, so long as I see some
detail in there, we've got a pretty
| | 03:34 | good-looking image.
| | 03:35 | So there we go, setting the shadow
points now, we've set the two most critical
| | 03:38 | portions of our image and we have
great confidence now that they're well set.
| | 03:42 | So we've got a nice neutral
white highlighted around 5%.
| | 03:45 | We've got a nice dense shadow, but it's
still going to print and show shadow detail,
| | 03:49 | made some nice improvements
in our images. Haven't we?
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding and using neutrals| 00:00 | Well, so far in this section,
we've successfully worked with setting
| | 00:04 | highlights and shadows.
| | 00:06 | Now in this particular section,
I would like to talk about looking for other
| | 00:09 | kinds of neutrals and it's surprising
how many times you can find neutrals
| | 00:13 | or what I refer to as near neutrals, when
you are shooting in various circumstances.
| | 00:18 | So we are going to start with this image
here, which is a picture of some kayaks
| | 00:22 | and some friends of mine up in Halibut Cove.
| | 00:24 | Very often you will find a blue type
of colorcast when you are working a
| | 00:27 | cloudy or a rainy day.
| | 00:29 | But let's go see and see what we find
here, and of course as always we'll start
| | 00:33 | with opening our image, and then doing a Command+
Minus, Minus, or Ctrl+Minus, Minus, and going to
| | 00:38 | Duplicate, using that keyboard
shortcut, and we'll call this Working.
| | 00:44 | All right, so let's look
for neutrals in this image.
| | 00:46 | Well this is an obvious one of
course and that's on the paddle, which we
| | 00:49 | see here, but let's go ahead and bring up our
Curves tool and just do a quick search here.
| | 00:54 | For neutrals, and we'll click on the
highlight end and just pull this over and
| | 00:58 | see where we get the lightest portion
of the image coming out. There is one
| | 01:01 | that's red coming out.
| | 01:03 | But see that white beat it to it there.
| | 01:05 | So we've got a highlight value right
there, so we can zoom in and we'll put our
| | 01:09 | first highlight point there, and I don't
know if you've noticed or not, but I'll
| | 01:12 | go ahead and state it explicitly.
| | 01:14 | When I'm setting color sampler points,
I always like to go in tonal range order.
| | 01:19 | So in every image that I've opened up
and perform color correction, I always set
| | 01:23 | the number one point on the diffuse
white highlight and that way anytime
| | 01:27 | I reopen an image, at anytime in the future,
I know darn well that that number one
| | 01:30 | color sampler point is
going to be the white highlight.
| | 01:33 | And then number two point is
maybe a quarter tone or midtone.
| | 01:36 | Number 3 is going to be three-quarter
tone, and then I'll do memory colors
| | 01:40 | like facial skin tones.
| | 01:42 | But I always do that.
| | 01:42 | I always put point number one that
removes confusion, and prevents confusion,
| | 01:46 | and actually allows me to
work and off a lot faster.
| | 01:49 | All right, so we have a nice white
highlight, anything else that we can set on
| | 01:52 | here that looks like it might
be a neutral or near neutral.
| | 01:56 | Well how about the boats, the
colors or the painting on these boats.
| | 02:00 | I'm guessing that this is going to be
a neutral gray, and that's a little bit
| | 02:03 | even darker neutral gray.
| | 02:05 | We always can use this back here and
then this little zodiac on top of there.
| | 02:09 | That's probably a neutral gray.
| | 02:10 | Do I know that it's perfectly neutral gray?
| | 02:13 | No, but you know we'll take what we can get.
| | 02:15 | So what we are going to do is in set
color sampler point number 2 which is on
| | 02:19 | the next darkest in terms of the
tonal range, and then color sampler point
| | 02:23 | number 3, and feel free to zoom in to
make sure that you are not getting it on a
| | 02:27 | reflection or some
particularly dark or light pixels.
| | 02:30 | So you want to get around a
representative sample and remember always set your
| | 02:33 | Sample Size on the 3 by 3 or
5 by 5 like we have done here.
| | 02:37 | All right, now let's go ahead
and take a look at our Info tool.
| | 02:40 | We are going to cancel out of this
Curves dialog because we really wanted to be
| | 02:43 | working on a Curves
adjustment layer, which is just great.
| | 02:46 | And let's look what we
have got for our values here.
| | 02:49 | Number one, always the diffuse highlight, right.
| | 02:51 | Remember speculars we don't care about,
because they will take care of themselves.
| | 02:55 | If we set the diffuse properly, the
specular will indeed blow out as it's supposed to.
| | 02:59 | And let's look at our RGB values, 241, 240, 246.
| | 03:01 | So in the highlight it's a little bit blue.
| | 03:06 | Over here 155, 159, 184, notice we are
getting some consistency here, where the
| | 03:14 | red and the green are fairly close to
each other and then the blue is high, and
| | 03:18 | let's just look down under
three-quarter tone, 85, 88, 119.
| | 03:23 | Sure enough, we are getting
consistency across the tonal range.
| | 03:26 | And when you're searching for and
using what we call potential neutrals.
| | 03:30 | That is, you think they are
neutral, but you are not quite sure.
| | 03:32 | I mean you know the paddle is neutral, right?
| | 03:34 | You know the grayscale target is neutral.
| | 03:36 | But if you're not quite sure, once you
set your color sampler points, you use
| | 03:39 | the coincidence of the three points of
the various ratios to kind of give you
| | 03:43 | some confidence and indeed, yeah those are
supposed to be neutral gray or darn close.
| | 03:47 | And I'd rather work with something
that's darn close than not use it at all.
| | 03:51 | So let's go ahead and do our color
correction on this thing, and notice that
| | 03:55 | the red and the green values in point
number one, they are almost right on the
| | 03:58 | money very close to 242.
| | 04:00 | So what we are going to do?
| | 04:01 | We are going to go right to our blue
channel of course, and I want to teach
| | 04:04 | you another keyboard shortcut and this is a
nifty one, when you are working with channels.
| | 04:08 | Notice that there is no point selected
here, and since we are working on the
| | 04:12 | highlight, I can come up here and
click on this point but that takes time.
| | 04:16 | If you just hit your plus or equal
sign a key on your keyboard, watch what
| | 04:20 | happens, watch that's now selected.
| | 04:22 | I'm going to keep pressing that
sign and it goes from one point to the
| | 04:26 | other, back and forth.
| | 04:28 | And if you got four points set on your
curve you can toggle from one point to
| | 04:32 | the next and then back again, just
using that plus or equal sign up there, it's
| | 04:35 | an enormous time saver.
| | 04:36 | All right, so I'm on the blue curve,
and then I'm just going to use my down
| | 04:40 | arrow, because once you select that
point in curve, then you can just go
| | 04:43 | right to that down arrow.
| | 04:44 | See you never have to touch your mouse.
| | 04:46 | You can do it all through the
keyboard shortcuts here, which is terrific.
| | 04:49 | All right, so we set our number one
point and looks like number two point 155,
| | 04:54 | 159, 159 is a little bit higher
than what we potentially like.
| | 05:00 | And I want to show you
another keyboard shortcut trick.
| | 05:03 | Let's look back at our composite RGB
and that's this from this menu here, and
| | 05:08 | I'm navigating using the Option or
Alt in windows 3, 4, 5 to get to my
| | 05:13 | individual channels, and then
Option+2 or Alt+2 to get to the RGB.
| | 05:17 | So we are on the RGB composite curve
and I Command-click on point number 2.
| | 05:23 | It automatically puts a control
point on that composite curve.
| | 05:27 | But notice if we go to the red channel,
there is no correction point there.
| | 05:32 | And by the way when a point is selected, you
can just hit your Delete key to get rid of it.
| | 05:35 | Now here is the other keyboard shortcut.
| | 05:37 | Command+Shift or Ctrl+Shift on
Windows and then when you click on color
| | 05:41 | sampler point number 2, and then,
watch as we go through the various channels
| | 05:45 | it automatically puts a control point at that
tonal point on every single one of those channels.
| | 05:50 | An enormous timesaver.
| | 05:52 | So if we want to go into our green
point let's say I'll just go Option+4 or
| | 05:56 | Alt+4 to get into green, and at first
you probably just come up here and choose
| | 06:00 | the various channels, but when you do
enough correction you want to use those
| | 06:03 | keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate quickly.
| | 06:06 | So by placing that point on the tonal
range, you know what you are adjusting the
| | 06:11 | color at that particular tonal range.
| | 06:13 | I mean you've selected that as
the neutral that you want to use.
| | 06:15 | So it's automatically selected,
see the solid point there.
| | 06:18 | And remember, just to review that of
keyboard shortcut, you hit the plus
| | 06:22 | or equal sign and then you can toggle from
one of those controls points to the other.
| | 06:26 | Then we just use the down arrow to
move that 159 down to about 155, and then
| | 06:31 | Option+5 to move over to the blue, and
then we are going to move that part of
| | 06:34 | the tonal range all the way down,
to the mid 150s. There we go.
| | 06:38 | Let's take a look at point number 3
now, which is a darker portion of the
| | 07:10 | midtone, (ph) and this is just south
of the true midtone, midtone is 128.
| | 07:11 | So we are in the 150s, so we are
kind of between the midtone and
| | 07:12 | the three-quarter tone.
| | 07:13 | And as you work more and more with
these numbers, you'll become familiar with
| | 07:14 | what you are looking at in terms of tonal range.
| | 07:15 | And then color sampler point number 3
which was in the darker portion of the
| | 07:16 | tonal range, down around the three-
quarter tone, notice that the corrections
| | 07:17 | we've already made a color sampler
point number 1 and 2 is already, almost
| | 07:19 | completely corrected color sampler
point number 3, and this is one of the
| | 07:20 | reasons why it's great to work
with Curves, because when you make a
| | 07:20 | correction up here.
| | 07:21 | It automatically starts correcting it
all the way down, which is really nice.
| | 07:22 | So again, if we Command-click on color
sampler point number 3, and then we can
| | 07:25 | just move that down a little bit, we
don't have to move it very much, there we
| | 07:28 | go, and now we've got, things are
pretty much neutral, all across our tonal
| | 07:33 | range, which is real nice.
| | 07:34 | Honestly, if you didn't do anything on
that third point, you'd probably be okay.
| | 07:37 | If you don't have time, just do the
highlight in the quarter tone highlight
| | 07:40 | midtone and generally your
correction will be nice and terrific.
| | 07:43 | So we just got a little bit
anal to get all three points.
| | 07:46 | But let's now take a look at
the impact of that correction.
| | 07:49 | There is our before, and there is our after.
| | 07:52 | If you thought the colors and those
kayaks were nice, when you first looked at
| | 07:54 | this image, when you really look at
this in terms of a color corrected image,
| | 07:58 | look how everything pops.
| | 07:59 | The reds and the greens are
popping, and look at the decking.
| | 08:02 | The decking all of a sudden comes
alive in this image, and of course, the
| | 08:06 | reason for that is, is that the
presence of that excess blue is desaturating
| | 08:11 | the reds and the greens.
| | 08:12 | So there is using neutrals or other
kinds of neutrals or potential neutrals to
| | 08:16 | help you correct your image.
| | 08:18 | But always start if you've got a
highlight, start with the highlight and then
| | 08:21 | move down on tonal range, and the
reason for that is not only consistency,
| | 08:25 | but the human eye is much more sensitive to
colorcast in the lighter ends of your tonal range.
| | 08:30 | So that's why you always start there,
and then if you don't have time to do the
| | 08:32 | other end, you've at least got most
of the color correction taken care of.
| | 08:36 | So there we go, looking for neutrals
and potential neutrals, finding them and
| | 08:39 | using them where you can.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Evaluating and correcting skin tones| 00:00 | Now, in this section we are going
to focus on correcting skin tones.
| | 00:04 | We have talked about highlights and
shadows and looking for neutrals and near
| | 00:07 | neutrals and using those to correct our images.
| | 00:10 | But there are some images where the
focus is not specifically neutrals, and an
| | 00:14 | image like this, which is a portrait,
really the focus is got to be on the most
| | 00:19 | important portion of the
image, which is skin tone.
| | 00:20 | Now, do we have a neutral in this
image that we could use to help us?
| | 00:24 | Sure, there is a neutral up here in the
upper left hand corner and let's just
| | 00:27 | take a look at that neutral
that's in the white area up there.
| | 00:30 | We could use that, but notice that
there is plenty of tonal values up in there,
| | 00:33 | and we are going to come back and look
at that neutral in just a minute, but
| | 00:36 | right now I want to focus on the skin
tone and what the values of the skin tones are,
| | 00:40 | and then we'll come back and chat
about the neutral as if we are starting over,
| | 00:44 | and there will be some
interesting conclusion to draw.
| | 00:47 | So skin tones, where do we start?
| | 00:49 | As always, with a duplicate copy.
| | 00:51 | Now, the image looks fine.
| | 00:52 | It's nice, but let's go see how
nice it is in terms of skin tones.
| | 00:56 | Let's have a quick discussion of
lighting and where we want to place
| | 00:59 | Color Sampler points.
| | 01:00 | Almost always, whenever possible, we
want to place Color Sampler points on the
| | 01:05 | well-lit portions of the image.
| | 01:07 | There are some exceptions when the main
portion of the image that we care about
| | 01:11 | is not well lit, but in this case we
have the choice of placing Color Sampler
| | 01:15 | points in our skin in the well-
lit area or in the shadow area.
| | 01:19 | As I'll show you in just a moment,
usually the color balance is different
| | 01:22 | between the well lit and the shadow.
| | 01:23 | Given that, let's assume that the color
balance is going to be a little different.
| | 01:27 | Which one do you think we should use?
| | 01:28 | Well, as we know, as we have talked about,
the lighter portions of the image are
| | 01:32 | where the human eye picks up colorcast the most.
| | 01:35 | So we are going to place Color Sampler
points in the well-lit portion of the image.
| | 01:38 | Let's zoom in just a little bit so we
can see exactly where we are putting them.
| | 01:42 | What you want to be careful of, you want
to make sure that you don't place Color
| | 01:45 | Sampler points on any reflections, and
very often in a well-lit portions of an
| | 01:49 | image, you can have reflections.
| | 01:51 | Let's just take two places, and it's
always a good idea to use at least two
| | 01:55 | places for skin tones so you can
compare them and just avoid the reflected
| | 01:59 | portions of an image.
| | 02:01 | Just for grins, we are going to go
ahead and place our Color Sampler point in
| | 02:04 | the number three spot here, and we are
not going to try to correct that, we are
| | 02:08 | just going to look at it when we
are kind of done. Well, there we go.
| | 02:11 | So there is two portions in the skin
and let's now look at the RGB values.
| | 02:16 | Color Sampler points
number 1 and 2, 202/187/187.
| | 02:18 | Color Sampler point number 2, 190/171/167.
| | 02:25 | Notice these two are pretty close to
each other, as are these, the green and
| | 02:29 | blue are pretty close to
each other, and the red is high.
| | 02:32 | Now, unlike neutrals, skin tones
are not supposed to be neutral.
| | 02:36 | The way we want to think about skin
tones, the simple formula is red is greater
| | 02:40 | than green, is greater
than blue, just remember, RGB.
| | 02:42 | Do we have that in this
case? Unfortunately not.
| | 02:46 | The red is greater that the green, okay.
| | 02:48 | But the blue is just about
equal to the green in both cases.
| | 02:52 | So notice we are getting some
consistency here in terms of the green and blue
| | 02:56 | values in relationship to the red.
| | 02:58 | So the red is good, but the blue
appears to be high in relationship to them.
| | 03:01 | So what we obviously need to do is
we need to bring down the blue to help
| | 03:05 | correct this image, and let's see
if that's going to improve this.
| | 03:08 | So let's just go over here to our
Adjustments panel, and we can take a quick
| | 03:12 | look of course over here at the
Histogram while we are evaluating and say hey,
| | 03:15 | we have got pretty good tonal range
distribution across the image, maybe a
| | 03:19 | little bit of work we
could do on the highlight end.
| | 03:21 | But we are not going to start there,
we are just going to work with the skin tones,
| | 03:24 | then we'll come back and
do the highlight in just a second.
| | 03:27 | So just focusing on the skin
tones here, where would we want to go?
| | 03:30 | Well, we are going to want to set Color Sampler
points on the blue channel, no doubt about it.
| | 03:35 | But just in case we want to come
back and maybe do something with the red
| | 03:37 | and the green, let's go ahead and Command+
Shift and Click on Color Sampler point number 1.
| | 03:43 | Remember that doesn't place the Color
Sampler point on the Master Curve, but it
| | 03:47 | places it on the individual channels,
on the red, the green, and the blue.
| | 03:51 | See it's on all three channels.
| | 03:53 | It's a great shortcut to know,
because you can put all three Sampler points
| | 03:56 | there all at one time.
| | 03:57 | It's just terrific.
| | 03:58 | So we are in the blue channel.
| | 03:59 | That's where we want to be.
| | 04:01 | So we are going to lower the blue
channel while we monitor the blue values here.
| | 04:04 | Now, what should the blue be?
| | 04:06 | Unlike a neutral, you know what
your target value is going to be.
| | 04:09 | Well, at the very least you want the
difference between red and green to at
| | 04:14 | least equal that between green and blue,
and typically on most people's faces,
| | 04:17 | particularly in well-lit circumstances,
the difference between red and green
| | 04:21 | should be greater than the
difference between green and blue.
| | 04:24 | So let's just do some quick math in our head.
| | 04:25 | Color Sampler point number 1 is between
187 and 202, let's just call that 190,
| | 04:31 | and then we have got 202 there.
| | 04:33 | So it's about 15 points difference right there.
| | 04:36 | Notice this one is about 20 points difference.
| | 04:38 | So we are between 15 and
20 points difference here.
| | 04:41 | So we want to be somewhere between
like 7 and 10 difference between the green
| | 04:45 | and blue, at the very least.
| | 04:46 | So let's just hit our down arrow and
move down here so we are at about 175 and
| | 04:52 | 153 here, so we are about 20 points
difference, 20 points difference there.
| | 04:56 | So we would at least want that
much difference between the two.
| | 05:00 | With just that little bit of adjustment
there, let's turn the Preview off and on
| | 05:04 | and look at the difference in that image.
| | 05:05 | Let's look at the whole image,
Command+0, and take it down, there we go.
| | 05:09 | With just that little bit of adjustment
right there, before and after, before and after.
| | 05:15 | Now, when you first looked at this image,
did you think there was a blue cast on that?
| | 05:19 | Probably not.
| | 05:20 | Because the human eye does not do a
good job of quantitatively assessing color.
| | 05:25 | But the human eye does a great job of
seeing slight variations in color if you
| | 05:29 | put them side by each, but if you just
look at one image, the human eye doesn't
| | 05:34 | do a good job of evaluating color.
| | 05:35 | That's one of the reasons, one of the
several reasons we want to do this by the numbers.
| | 05:40 | So let's turn that back on so we can see.
| | 05:42 | See, how much warmer the skin tone is.
| | 05:44 | Also, look at the hair.
| | 05:46 | Notice how the hair looks more natural.
| | 05:48 | It's a little bit more neutral as it should be.
| | 05:50 | She doesn't have quite as blue a hair now.
| | 05:53 | So it's a far superior image.
| | 05:55 | The other thing that you will see, as
we saw in the kayak shot, is watch the
| | 05:58 | colors here as we turn this off,
particularly the red or Orange sweater here.
| | 06:03 | Before and after, you see how
that saturation picks up. Cool!
| | 06:07 | Now, you might decide that, hey, I
want a little bit more separation.
| | 06:10 | I would like to have a little
bit more warmness in the image.
| | 06:13 | Well, you can just keep moving
that blue down if you want to.
| | 06:16 | But I suggest that you
keep track of those colors.
| | 06:18 | Don't just make a visual
assessment of the colors.
| | 06:21 | Make sure you don't get too much
separation between any of these colors.
| | 06:25 | In this case, if we keep moving the
blue down, we are going to have much more
| | 06:28 | separation between the green and blue,
as we do between the red and green.
| | 06:32 | So what I might do here instead of
just keep lowering the blue channel is I
| | 06:36 | might just skip over to the red
channel and see how that Color Sampler point
| | 06:41 | is already selected.
| | 06:42 | I would instead move the red up just a
little bit, rather than lowering the blue anymore.
| | 06:47 | Once I separate, get that decent separation.
| | 06:50 | And you want at least, as a bear
minimum, 10 points of separation between the
| | 06:53 | green and the blue, and then from there
on you can just up the red a little bit
| | 06:56 | to give you a little bit more warmness.
| | 06:58 | So part of this is science.
| | 07:00 | red is greater than green, greater
then blue, and the red, green separation
| | 07:03 | should be greater than
the green, blue separation.
| | 07:05 | Then from thereon it's art.
| | 07:07 | It's what you think the image
calls for, the face calls for.
| | 07:10 | I mean obviously if we have a
photograph of an Asian women in soft light, an
| | 07:14 | Asian skin tends to be a little bit
greener, then we are not going to get quite
| | 07:17 | as much red, green separation.
| | 07:19 | So it's a judgment call after a certain
point, but always start with red greater
| | 07:23 | than green, greater than blue, and the
red, green separation should be at least
| | 07:26 | a little bit more than
the green, blue separation.
| | 07:29 | You will end up with some good looking
skin, and that's kind of how I simplify
| | 07:31 | the whole correction of skin tone colors.
| | 07:34 | Now, before we leave this behind,
let's just take a look at those two images
| | 07:38 | now, side by each, and notice the
nice change in the color of that image.
| | 07:42 | The image you thought initially might have been
pretty good looking in terms of color balance.
| | 07:46 | This is a whole lot better.
| | 07:47 | Now, honestly, in an image like this I
don't worry too much about what's going
| | 07:51 | on in the background, I just don't worry.
| | 07:53 | But I'm just going to throw our Color
Sampler point up there just to show you
| | 07:56 | what happens, and we are also going to look
at that Color Sampler point number 3 as well.
| | 08:00 | Now, I'm going to violate my own rule.
| | 08:02 | The only reason I'm doing this is because
we are doing it at the end of this exercise.
| | 08:06 | Notice that the Color Sampler point
number 4 here, 191/214/232, went to
| | 08:12 | 195/214/226, so it
actually came a little bit closer.
| | 08:16 | I could neutralize that point if I
wanted to, but honestly, in an image like
| | 08:20 | this I just don't worry about it.
| | 08:22 | But let's do talk about
Color Sampler point number 3.
| | 08:25 | Notice this, 129/99/84, and look
at the starting values 124/99/101.
| | 08:33 | It's not quite the same color balance
as what we have on the lighted side here.
| | 08:37 | So that's where I don't really want to
use shadows unless I absolutely have to.
| | 08:41 | Its fine to put a point over there
and just check to make sure that red is
| | 08:44 | greater than green, is greater than
blue, but you are really going to want to
| | 08:47 | do your evaluation, your core evaluations and
your core adjustments in the well-lit portion.
| | 08:51 | Remember, the one exception to that is
if this is the key portion of the image
| | 08:54 | and it's all in shadow, then you are
going to be forced to work with that.
| | 08:57 | We'll see some examples of
that a little bit later on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling brightness, contrast, and saturation| 00:00 | So, here we are, finished off with
our color correction. A quick review of
| | 00:05 | what we've been through.
| | 00:07 | Been through a whole bunch of different
types of evaluation visually and with
| | 00:10 | histograms and with numbers.
| | 00:11 | We've evaluated and found correct and
critical diffused white highlights,
| | 00:15 | made sure our shadows are not too dark,
we've found neutrals and corrected those
| | 00:19 | and done skin tones.
| | 00:21 | Hey, and for a lot of images including
this one right here could be done ready
| | 00:24 | to just go finish it off with some
sharpening and send it for output.
| | 00:27 | But then there are some of those images,
not all but some, that we want to add a
| | 00:32 | little bit more punch to, a little bit
more contrast, a little bit more saturation
| | 00:35 | perhaps, and we could make this one
sing a little bit more. It looks great.
| | 00:40 | Color is good. A little bit more contrast,
a little bit more saturation. Shall we?
| | 00:42 | All right, and listen to this.
| | 00:45 | There's the right way and the wrong way to
deal with this, and the fast and the slow way.
| | 00:48 | We're going to do it the
right way and the fast way.
| | 00:49 | And of course, we're going to make a
variation of this and we'll just call this
| | 00:53 | Working_BCS, which is nothing to do
with football and everything do with
| | 00:58 | Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation.
| | 01:00 | So, where do we go?
| | 01:01 | What tool to be used?
| | 01:02 | Really good news about contrast is that,
brightness and contrast in fact,
| | 01:06 | we don't have to go anywhere else.
| | 01:07 | We can use the tool we've already been using.
| | 01:09 | All right, we can just go back to our
Adjustment Curve tool, and if we have
| | 01:13 | been working on individual channels,
doing color correction on the red,
| | 01:16 | the green, and the blue channel, whenever
you want to do a neutral only adjustment,
| | 01:20 | you don't have to create another curve or
even go to the Brightness and Contrast control.
| | 01:24 | In fact you don't want to go there.
| | 01:25 | Stay right here in the
curve and I'll show you why.
| | 01:27 | One, one less tool, less complication,
faster, but when you're just doing a
| | 01:33 | neutral only adjustment you work on
the master channel. That way you're
| | 01:36 | adjusting all the three curves equally.
| | 01:37 | So you don't make any changes in the color.
| | 01:39 | To do an overall brightness increase
on an image you just take the middle of
| | 01:44 | the curve, wherever the middle is, and
you just go up with your Up Arrow and that
| | 01:49 | overall brightens and also when
you move down, it overall darkens.
| | 01:52 | So if we just wanted to brighten just
a little bit, just a skosh there, then
| | 01:56 | we can just go up a little bit, and then
when we want to do contrast. We're going
| | 02:00 | to put control points at the quarter
tone and at the three-quarter tone.
| | 02:05 | And this enough is mousing around.
| | 02:06 | Right, because we can use that plus or
equal sign to navigate between all these
| | 02:11 | points that we're using.
| | 02:12 | So we'll navigate to the quarter tone
point and then we'll just use our Up
| | 02:16 | Arrow just to move that up a little bit
and then plus plus to the three-quarter
| | 02:21 | tone and move that down a little bit.
| | 02:23 | Doesn't take much, just a little bit, to
increase the contrast in our image. Don't overdo this.
| | 02:28 | It's easy to overdo it.
| | 02:30 | So just a little bit of
S-ing goes a long way here.
| | 02:32 | And notice critically, one of the
reasons I'd like to use a Curve tool for doing
| | 02:36 | contrast is what two critical points have
not been altered or removed? That's right.
| | 02:42 | That diffused highlight and the shadow
points. We were real careful to make sure
| | 02:45 | we had set it 5 and 95%.
| | 02:46 | No matter what we do down here, those
critical highlights and shadow points are
| | 02:51 | going to be maintained.
| | 02:52 | That's one of the reasons why it really
is a good idea to use Curves to do your
| | 02:56 | Brightness and Contrast adjustments,
because you know that the critical
| | 03:00 | highlights and shadow points that
you set will not be changed unless you
| | 03:03 | actually select them and
move them. So that's cool.
| | 03:06 | Now how about if we wanted to decrease
contrast. You say well the images are
| | 03:10 | little bit too contrast-y. Well, watch this.
| | 03:12 | We'll just take the three-quarter tone
and move it up and then just equal sign,
| | 03:15 | up to the quarter tone and we just move it down.
| | 03:17 | See how that flattens the color?
| | 03:19 | And sometimes that's the effect that you want.
| | 03:21 | And a lot of times that
I'm working with portraits,
| | 03:23 | I'll actually lower the
contrast on the portrait.
| | 03:26 | That tends to smooth out the tones in the
face and gives it a little bit smoother look.
| | 03:30 | But for a lot of my landscape images,
particularly as I'm looking to sell,
| | 03:34 | this is what I'm going to do.
| | 03:35 | I'm going to throw a little bit
of an S-shape curve at that puppy.
| | 03:37 | Now, what if we wanted to add a little bit of
saturation as well as contrast to this image?
| | 03:42 | Well, that's easy enough to do and
all we have to do is just click on this
| | 03:45 | arrow right down here to take us back
to the Adjustments panel which allows us
| | 03:50 | to select the various types of
adjustment layers we'd like to add.
| | 03:53 | And this is the Hue/Saturation.
| | 03:55 | If you forget what all these mean,
you can just move your hand along here and
| | 03:58 | the ID come up right there.
| | 04:00 | All right, so we're going
to go to Hue/Saturation.
| | 04:01 | We'll just click that and notice that
adds a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
| | 04:06 | And typically, when we're going after
saturation we'll just be working with
| | 04:11 | this middle slider here.
| | 04:13 | But the key is not to be working on the Master.
| | 04:15 | We just don't want to do overall saturation.
| | 04:17 | We want to pick and choose which
portions of our image in which we want to work.
| | 04:21 | So let's go after the sky first.
| | 04:23 | Now typically, we'll do blues in the
sky and blues will work pretty well.
| | 04:27 | But let me just point out to you,
notice when we measure the RGB values in the sky,
| | 04:31 | the blue is at 91, the green is at
55, and the red is at 42, so the blue is
| | 04:36 | significantly higher.
| | 04:38 | When noticed down here, however, in
the lighter portion of the sky there is a
| | 04:42 | little bit more green in there.
| | 04:43 | All right, so depending upon the sky, either
you'll work on the blue or the cyan or sometimes both.
| | 04:49 | In this because the blue is indeed so
much high, we'll just go ahead and choose blue,
| | 04:52 | but we could be doing cyan as well.
| | 04:55 | All right, and then what we're going to
do is come down here to the Saturation
| | 04:58 | and we can manipulate the
saturation any number of ways.
| | 05:01 | We can just come in here and just scoot
the Saturation left or right to increase
| | 05:06 | or decrease the saturation.
| | 05:08 | The other thing we can do is select this
and just go up and down with our arrow,
| | 05:11 | or what's real nice in CS4 is we
can turn on the little scrubby slider.
| | 05:15 | We'll see this little hand up there.
| | 05:17 | We'll just click on that and this works
in Curves as well as in Hue and Saturation.
| | 05:22 | You turn this on and then you can click
on the portion of the image in which you
| | 05:25 | would like to work or adjust and then
you can just drag it left and right.
| | 05:28 | And it's nice because you can kind
of watch the image as you increase or
| | 05:32 | decrease the saturation.
| | 05:34 | A little bit of word to the
wise here about the saturation.
| | 05:38 | It's very, very easy to the push the
saturation in your file past the ability of
| | 05:42 | your output device to
reproduce that saturation.
| | 05:45 | And if this image is intended to go to
commercial printing, I'm not doing any of
| | 05:49 | the saturation adjustment because I
know I can't reproduce it in most cases.
| | 05:52 | But if I'm going to a monitor or I'm
going to an expanded gamut inkjet device
| | 05:57 | then I can push the saturation a little bit.
| | 05:58 | All right, so we take this sky up and
I rarely if ever go above 30 and most of
| | 06:03 | the time I'm between 15
and 20 on these adjustments.
| | 06:06 | Then let's go for the reds and again
we'll use this Scrubby slider we can just
| | 06:10 | put it right inside of our red rocks here.
| | 06:12 | Notice you can go way, way too far.
| | 06:14 | And again, we're going to pump it up,
maybe around 15 to 20 range to increase.
| | 06:19 | And notice that just a little bit goes
a long way there, and then finally, maybe
| | 06:22 | we're going to pump up the greens a little bit.
| | 06:24 | Now this is the interesting thing about greens.
| | 06:27 | Again, let's take a look at the Info
panel here and I'm going to put it in the
| | 06:30 | bright green of the Juniper bush,
and look at the red/green.
| | 06:34 | In almost all the greens in nature,
red and green are actually equal.
| | 06:39 | So most greens in nature are actually yellows.
| | 06:41 | They are not greens at all.
| | 06:42 | I mean they are greens because
there is a lot of green in there.
| | 06:45 | But so often, when you measure
and then adjust greens in nature,
| | 06:48 | they're actually yellows.
| | 06:50 | This blue is very low.
| | 06:51 | So when I'm going after bumping up
the saturation, I typically will choose
| | 06:55 | yellows, all right.
| | 06:56 | And then I'll use my scrubby slider up
here and notice the greens not only here,
| | 07:01 | but throughout the scrubland here, and
again somewhere between 15 and 20 will
| | 07:07 | take it up quite nicely, thank you.
| | 07:09 | Now we've pushed it pretty hard
here, so you can really see it.
| | 07:12 | I've gone maybe a little bit too far on a
couple of them, but let's turn this off and on.
| | 07:15 | You can see the impact of that
increase in saturation on the image.
| | 07:19 | And once again, you won't do this to
all your files but those two tools are there,
| | 07:23 | the Contrast and then the Hue/Saturation.
| | 07:26 | And you might like to use those scrubby
sliders instead of just manipulating the
| | 07:29 | slider itself or doing it numerically.
| | 07:31 | All right, so there we go, there is
bumping up the brightness and contrast and
| | 07:35 | saturation on some of your images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Special TopicsPresetting white balance| 00:00 | Hi! It's Taz Tally and I'm in what could
be your studio and what I'd like to chat
| | 00:06 | about here is setting up a studio
shot and see what you can do to maybe
| | 00:11 | correcting some of your
color on the way into the camera.
| | 00:14 | Most of what we talked about in
this course is doing color correction
| | 00:16 | actually in Photoshop.
| | 00:17 | Since it's the name of the
course, that makes sense.
| | 00:19 | But sometimes it's nice to do a little
bit of that correction on the way in and
| | 00:22 | particularly if you are setting
something like a product shot like we have here
| | 00:25 | and I want to show you three different
methods in this chapter that you can use.
| | 00:29 | The first method uses a ten step grayscale
target with ten different control points.
| | 00:33 | That's going to be the very best method.
| | 00:36 | Second method is using maybe a single
or maybe two or three grayscale swatches
| | 00:41 | on a card that we put in front of the
camera and set what's called a custom
| | 00:44 | white balance and the then the third
method, if you don't have a ten step
| | 00:48 | target, or you don't even have a basic
grayscale target, is to use what's called
| | 00:51 | a scene based white balance, which you
just set that up inside of the camera
| | 00:56 | using one of the standard or common
scene modes such as tungsten or bright
| | 01:00 | sunlight or fluorescent light.
| | 01:02 | So we have three different methods,
the best, something that's good, and then
| | 01:06 | better than nothing, which is setting
the scene mode inside the actual camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing white balance| 00:00 | Hi! It's Taz Tally again back in your studio.
| | 00:03 | In this segment what we are going
to be talking about is using a simple
| | 00:07 | grayscale target with either one, two
or maybe three grayscale values like this
| | 00:10 | target to do a custom white balance.
| | 00:13 | This is if you don't have the ten
step grayscale target. You want to do
| | 00:16 | something that still allows
you to do custom white balance.
| | 00:18 | It's a little less
sophisticated, but still pretty darn good.
| | 00:20 | So this is the better version
instead of the best version.
| | 00:24 | The way this works is we are actually
going to take a photograph of this target
| | 00:29 | and how the setup works is and let's say
again we were going to shoot this scene here,
| | 00:32 | a product shot.
| | 00:34 | You would put the grayscale target in
a direct line from the camera to where
| | 00:38 | your product is so it captures exactly
the same lighting that your product would
| | 00:43 | have and then you adjust
the position of the target.
| | 00:45 | So it pretty much fills the frame of
the camera, the way you are going to shoot it,
| | 00:50 | and then in this particular case, on
this particular camera, we'll actually take
| | 00:53 | a photograph of the target and then
we're going to navigate through the
| | 00:58 | interface of the camera and load this
target in and the image of the target and
| | 01:02 | use that to create a custom white balance.
| | 01:04 | What the camera software will do is
look at this target or the photograph of
| | 01:08 | the target and neutralize it.
| | 01:09 | That is make it gray and create a
custom set of curves through the camera
| | 01:13 | software automatically and then that
custom white balance set of curves can be
| | 01:18 | used to shoot the product shot or any
other products that you would put in the
| | 01:22 | line of sight in this particular lighting.
| | 01:25 | So let's go ahead and take the
photograph of this target and create the custom
| | 01:30 | white balance so then we would be all
ready to shoot this scene or any others
| | 01:34 | under this particular lighting.
| | 01:36 | So here we've moved around to the back
of the camera and we've navigated to the
| | 01:39 | software interface inside the camera.
| | 01:41 | Typically, we would get here by
either pushing a menu button or a function
| | 01:44 | button and then we have to navigate
through the various functions, usually an Up
| | 01:49 | or Down arrow or some sort of a dial
and here we're using a dial on the back of
| | 01:52 | this camera and you navigate down to
where it says Custom WB, which stands for
| | 01:56 | Custom white balance. And then
typically the next move would be to click
| | 01:59 | the Select button, which very often is
the button at the middle of the dial that
| | 02:03 | you've been using, and in this camera
the last image that you shot, which in our
| | 02:08 | case was the grayscale target, loads
into the interface and that's what's going
| | 02:12 | to be used to create the custom White
balance. And then you click the Select
| | 02:15 | button again and then the software
automatically tells you, hey, I'm setting the
| | 02:19 | white balance to-- and then whatever
that image is-- then as soon as you are done,
| | 02:23 | you just click the menu button again
or the function button, whichever way you
| | 02:27 | are using to get into this, and then
you are ready to start shooting and that
| | 02:29 | custom white balance will be set until
you either assign another custom white
| | 02:33 | balance or you create new one.
| | 02:36 | Now, not all custom white balances are
as formalized as we just did with the
| | 02:39 | camera on the tripod.
| | 02:41 | In fact, a lot of cameras don't
work exactly the same way either.
| | 02:44 | A lot of cameras and other shooting
circumstances may just be handheld where
| | 02:49 | you may be outdoors shooting
in a particular direction.
| | 02:52 | You can still do a custom white balance,
in fact you can handhold the target,
| | 02:56 | as long as you are shooting the target in
the same direction in which you would be
| | 02:58 | shooting your image and you have
the same lighting circumstances.
| | 03:01 | The way you would do this with a
lot of cameras, instead of taking the
| | 03:04 | photograph and then processing the image,
you just navigate through the camera
| | 03:08 | software to the custom white balance
position and then you just put the target
| | 03:12 | right in line of the shot and then you
partially depress your shutter release
| | 03:17 | and then that tells the software that
you are about to take the custom white
| | 03:20 | balance and then boom!
| | 03:21 | You press it all the way and
that creates a custom white balance.
| | 03:25 | From there you just put the target
aside and then you can start shooting.
| | 03:28 | As long as you are in the same lighting
circumstance, then you have the custom White
| | 03:32 | Balance would be applied and in fact on
many cameras you can store one, two, or
| | 03:36 | sometimes even three custom white
balances and recall them and use them when you
| | 03:39 | are underneath the same lighting circumstances.
| | 03:41 | So there are two different ways
that you can do custom white balance.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Target-based correction| 00:00 | Hi! It's Taz Tally again and here I'm in
your studio or what could be your studio.
| | 00:07 | In this video I'd like to talk about
how you can set up a product shot or a
| | 00:11 | still life shot without having to get all the
gear and have all the lights and all the setup.
| | 00:16 | There are some things that you can do,
so you can get some pretty good shots and
| | 00:20 | then do your color
correction inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:23 | To this point, we've pretty much been
talking mostly about working in Photoshop,
| | 00:27 | but here I'd like to address some
things that you can do to maybe help yourself
| | 00:30 | out while you are taking the image.
| | 00:32 | So when you get in the Photoshop,
your life is going to be easier.
| | 00:35 | So basically a product shot is a still life.
| | 00:37 | So first thing you will want to do is
arrange the product or in this case the
| | 00:40 | flowers in the frisbee the way you
want it, with the perspective that you want
| | 00:44 | in front and back and then what of
course you will do is you will set up your
| | 00:48 | camera, so that your camera's view of
the product is exactly the way you want.
| | 00:52 | That will take some adjustment.
| | 00:54 | Then you move the camera up and down,
take a good look through the view finder
| | 00:58 | and get your perspective just the way
you want it and I don't know what kind of
| | 01:01 | lights that you have, but depending
upon what lights you have, you can set them
| | 01:04 | up around to get the lighting the way you want.
| | 01:07 | Now you don't have to worry about
the quality of the lighting, because
| | 01:10 | we are going to take care of that by
using our grayscale target and doing a
| | 01:13 | target based correction.
| | 01:16 | Once you have your products arranged
and then you have your camera set up, then
| | 01:19 | we are going to open up and
take out the grayscale target.
| | 01:22 | Now when you use a ten step target or
any kind of target, be careful how you are
| | 01:28 | handling it. Just keep
your fingers on the edges.
| | 01:30 | If you've got white cotton gloves, so
much the better, but who has those hanging
| | 01:33 | around all the time?
| | 01:35 | But in any case, grab it on the edges.
| | 01:37 | These swatches that you see
here are actually painted on.
| | 01:40 | They are not photographic emulsion or anything.
| | 01:42 | They're actually painted on.
| | 01:43 | So they are very easy to damage.
| | 01:45 | So make sure you don't touch those.
| | 01:46 | Remember, this is a grayscale target
and it has values that run along the top,
| | 01:52 | next to each of the swatches that are
values, RGB values, that are optimized
| | 01:56 | for Adobe RGB 1998.
| | 01:58 | So the objective of this exercise is
we're going to take a couple of shots with
| | 02:02 | the target in the image and then we're
going to take the target out of the image
| | 02:06 | and then shoot it and then we're
going to go back into Photoshop and we'll
| | 02:09 | create a set of color correction
curves based upon the target and then we can
| | 02:14 | apply those color correction curves to
anything, whether this setup or another
| | 02:18 | product that's under the same
lighting conditions. All right.
| | 02:21 | So we've set up our product, we've got our
camera setup at the right height and focus.
| | 02:26 | Then what we want to do is we want to
place the target somewhere in our image,
| | 02:29 | so that it's going to have exactly the
same lighting as what you are trying to shoot,
| | 02:32 | the product you are trying to
shoot, and you want to face the target
| | 02:36 | directly towards the camera.
| | 02:37 | So if you will draw a line from the
lens of the camera, the middle of the lens
| | 02:41 | of the camera, it's going to
be perpendicular to your target.
| | 02:44 | Make sure you don't have it tilted too
much one way or the other, because then
| | 02:47 | you will get different light readings,
you will get different reflectance.
| | 02:50 | Notice there is a little bit of
shadow here from the side light.
| | 02:53 | That's okay so long as you don't have
any shadow on the swatches themselves and
| | 02:57 | get this as perpendicular as you can.
| | 03:00 | It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect.
| | 03:01 | After you get this all setup, then we
are going to come over here and take the
| | 03:07 | picture with the camera.
| | 03:08 | My recommendation is to either use a
cable release or if you don't have the
| | 03:12 | cable release, then use a self timer
on the camera and you will want to use a
| | 03:17 | tripod however, because even with
fairly bright lights like we have setup here,
| | 03:21 | your exposure times are probably going
to be less than a quarter of a second and
| | 03:25 | maybe as much as a second sometimes.
| | 03:26 | So it will need a nice stable platform.
| | 03:28 | That's why you want to use the cable
release and/or the self-timer, so that you
| | 03:31 | are not actually touching the
camera when you take the shot.
| | 03:35 | So take a couple of shots, check the
view finder and make sure that everything
| | 03:38 | is in there, take a couple of shots
with the target and then we'll take the
| | 03:42 | target out and then you can take a
couple of more shots and if you want to take
| | 03:46 | some other products, that's fine.
| | 03:47 | You can move other products in, take
this one out, as long as it's shot under
| | 03:51 | the same lighting conditions, you will be fine.
| | 03:54 | Then we are going to take the image with
the target in it into Photoshop and
| | 03:58 | we are going to correct this target.
| | 03:59 | Remember that our color corrections are
based upon grayscale and since we have a
| | 04:02 | grayscale target, if we color correct
the targets of this neutral, all the rest
| | 04:06 | of the colors should be correct as well.
| | 04:09 | We'll see how that works when we
bring it into Photoshop. So there it is.
| | 04:11 | There is setting up your own kind of
product studio without having to spend lots
| | 04:16 | and lots of money, and we are going to
use our target to help us cheat and do
| | 04:20 | our color correction quickly and
accurately when we get into Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sharpening in RGB| 00:00 | Well, we have been through several
different images now, looking at and
| | 00:03 | correcting highlights and shadows and
neutrals and skin tones and now it's time
| | 00:08 | to talk about kind of the end
of the color correction process.
| | 00:11 | And the end of the color correction
process, just before you are ready go to output,
| | 00:15 | is Sharpening.
| | 00:17 | Now a couple of things about Sharpening.
| | 00:18 | First of all, the very active
capturing of picture softens the image.
| | 00:23 | I mean think about this for a second.
| | 00:24 | When you are looking at an image
like this and this was originally a
| | 00:27 | continuous tone image and a
continuous tone image has not quite infinite
| | 00:32 | resolution but very, very, very high
resolution and when you capture an image
| | 00:37 | and you convert it into pixels, there
is averaging that goes on from what the
| | 00:40 | original scene was.
| | 00:41 | And as a result of that, you
get some softening of your image.
| | 00:45 | And the result of editing an image, doing
color correction further softens an image.
| | 00:50 | So, typically what we want to do and
particularly with high contrast edges such
| | 00:54 | as in this picture, eyebrows or hair,
we want to bring back some of the
| | 00:58 | original sharpness of that original image and
the way that we do that is we apply sharpening.
| | 01:04 | So, what we are going to do is we are
going to take and we are going to apply
| | 01:07 | sharpening to this image and then
we'll do another image for comparison.
| | 01:11 | We'll do a landscape, because I take a
little bit different approach for those
| | 01:14 | two kinds of images.
| | 01:15 | I do people and landscapes
a little bit differently.
| | 01:18 | Now, here is our corrected image, our
.PSD file and what I'm going to do is
| | 01:23 | we are just going to make a copy of this
just so we have three different versions
| | 01:26 | of this image and we'll
call this the Sharpen version.
| | 01:33 | Now, typically what I'll do is I don't
usually just make a separate copy but I'm
| | 01:37 | just doing that for the purposes of
training, so we have three separate images.
| | 01:41 | What I like to do is I actually
like to make a duplicate copy of the
| | 01:45 | Background and I'm going to show you
why I'm going to do that, but let's go
| | 01:48 | ahead and do the duplicate.
| | 01:49 | And notice when you just choose
duplicate and I'm right-clicking on this
| | 01:53 | layer, and choosing Duplicate, it just
creates another layer called Duplicate,
| | 01:57 | as you can see here.
| | 01:59 | What I would like to do is I like to
label this Sharpen and then I actually put
| | 02:05 | in some of the values that I use for
sharpening, because there is really no way
| | 02:08 | to kind of easily record that, such as
in an adjustment layer we can go ahead
| | 02:12 | and take a look at your
channels and see what you have done.
| | 02:15 | When you apply sharpening, there is no
really easy way to record that and we
| | 02:18 | don't know we are going to do yet, so we'll
come back and relabel this in just a moment.
| | 02:22 | The reason why I like to make a
separate Sharpening layer is if I end up not
| | 02:26 | liking the sharpening, I can go back
to the unsharpened version, because
| | 02:29 | sharpening an image actually reduces the
overall tonal quality or range of the image.
| | 02:35 | Because what is sharpening, sharpening
is an edge contrast enhancement tool.
| | 02:39 | Let me prove it to you.
| | 02:41 | In fact, let's just take this image and
we are just going to go to a Grayscale
| | 02:44 | Background by just typing F, remember
that F key allows you to toggle through
| | 02:48 | all your various display modes or you
can come up here of course, and click
| | 02:52 | and go to one of the three modes and
we are just in the Full Screen with our
| | 02:55 | menus and our panels up.
| | 02:57 | And I'm going to zoom in here and we
are going to zoom in on a high contrast
| | 03:01 | edge, such as the hair and that's a
good way to demonstrate what sharpening is
| | 03:05 | and what sharpening does.
| | 03:06 | We will come underneath Filter and go
underneath to Sharpen and notice there is
| | 03:09 | one, two, three, four, five,
different sharpening tools.
| | 03:13 | For my money, there is really only three
and it's Smart Sharpen and Unsharp Mask
| | 03:17 | and I'll show you both.
| | 03:18 | The reason why I don't use or talk
about these first three tools is they
| | 03:22 | are either off or on.
| | 03:23 | Whereas with Smart Sharpen and Unsharp
Mask we actually get control over what
| | 03:28 | happens with our sharpening.
| | 03:29 | So, let's bring up the Unsharp Mask
dialog box and notice that there is three
| | 03:34 | different values here that we can
fill in and the Amount is in percentage.
| | 03:39 | What is this all about?
| | 03:40 | Well, I just mentioned that sharpening
is an edge contrast enhancement tool, in
| | 03:44 | a digital image that's how we create focus.
| | 03:48 | The word Unsharp Mask, by the way,
comes from the analog print days, when we
| | 03:52 | would have two pieces of film, one
super in focus, and one slightly out of
| | 03:56 | focus and the two pieces of film would
be adjusted one over the other to create
| | 04:01 | or control the sharpness in the image and that
top piece of film was called the Unsharp Mask.
| | 04:06 | So that's where the term comes from.
| | 04:08 | It really doesn't directly apply in
terms of the process by which it works in
| | 04:11 | digital imaging, but the name has made
the transition over to digital imaging.
| | 04:16 | So, the way I think about Unsharp Mask
is I think about this as I'm going to
| | 04:21 | control not only the sharpening, how
much edge contrast enhancement occurs, but
| | 04:25 | where it occurs in the image.
| | 04:26 | So I'm going to be able to mask out a
portion of the image and we are going to
| | 04:29 | do that down here with Threshold,
as we'll see in just a moment.
| | 04:33 | Okay first, let me just give you the
starting value that when you study Unsharp
| | 04:38 | Mask to begin with and you would just
want to apply some general sharpening to
| | 04:41 | an image, these are the values.
| | 04:43 | 100%, a Radius of 1 and a Threshold of 0.
| | 04:45 | Let's talk about what
these three values would be?
| | 04:48 | The first value is percent or
Amount in percent of sharpening.
| | 04:52 | Think of that as amount of
edge contrast enhancement.
| | 04:55 | Let me turn off the Preview for a second.
| | 04:57 | The Preview controls what you see here.
| | 05:00 | What you see here is controlled
strictly by these values here.
| | 05:03 | It's either off or on depending upon
the values you have, but you can zoom
| | 05:06 | in and take a look at what's actually
happening to your image by turning on your Preview.
| | 05:10 | I am going to turn the Preview off and on.
| | 05:12 | That's the starting and that's the sharpened.
| | 05:14 | See how more well defined they are
and notice that the contrast along these
| | 05:18 | edges of hair are dramatically
increasing when we apply the Amount.
| | 05:23 | So, it's the amount of
edge contrast enhancement.
| | 05:25 | A 100% Amount sharpening means that if
there is a 10% difference in grayscale
| | 05:30 | value between two adjacent pixels when
we start, and then we apply 100%,
| | 05:33 | there'll be a 10%
difference in the contrast amount.
| | 05:37 | That process of increasing contrast
actually decreases the overall number of
| | 05:41 | tonal values in your image because
you are forcing pixels to lighter and
| | 05:44 | darker pixels, which gives us focus,
but it means that it's slightly
| | 05:49 | destructive to your image and this is
one reason why we don't want to do this
| | 05:52 | until the very end.
| | 05:53 | The second reason why I like to make a
separate sharpening layer is so that I
| | 05:58 | can go back to the Unsharpen
background whenever I want to.
| | 06:01 | All right, so 100%, a
Radius of 1 -- what is Radius?
| | 06:04 | Radius is when you would set an Amount,
how many pixels on both sides of an edge
| | 06:09 | such as a hair edge will this be applied to.
| | 06:11 | Notice if I put in a radius of 2 and I
have the Preview turned on, notice how
| | 06:16 | the amount of sharpening increases.
| | 06:17 | We'll go back to 1, so
you can take a look at it.
| | 06:20 | 1, 2 and you will notice that it tends
to thicken the area and let's just look,
| | 06:27 | right, zoom right in here.
| | 06:29 | Watch the thickening that occurs on
the black and white darkening there.
| | 06:32 | We go from 1 and then 2.
| | 06:37 | Things tend to get a little
bit thicker along these edges.
| | 06:40 | So, to be honest with you, with images
that I'm actually applying sharpening
| | 06:44 | to, and I'm just trying to work on
focus, I typically don't apply much more
| | 06:48 | than a radius of 1.
| | 06:49 | For creative purposes, I may go in and
adjust radius but for just working on the
| | 06:53 | focus of an image, I
typically keep the Radius at 1.
| | 06:56 | 100% does a pretty good job of overall
sharpening and increasing contrast along
| | 07:01 | those edges, watch what happens
though when we go to something like 300%,
| | 07:04 | because I want to show you
what you don't want to do.
| | 07:07 | Do you see what happens, everything
just gets really popped out and notice that
| | 07:12 | you start to get halos along these edges
and pixels start getting pushed to pure
| | 07:15 | black and pure white.
| | 07:17 | And with portraits of people facial
features start to get really, really deep
| | 07:23 | and wrinkles start to really come out.
| | 07:25 | So on a portrait image you
want to be very, very careful.
| | 07:27 | I rarely go above a 100%
Unsharp Mask on someone's face.
| | 07:31 | And particularly, if they have more
facial features or wrinkles, you really
| | 07:35 | don't want to overdo that too much.
| | 07:37 | But there is something else we can do
to help protect portions of your image
| | 07:40 | that you want to keep soft and let's
zoom in on this portion of the face to
| | 07:44 | see how all this works.
| | 07:46 | Notice when we apply sharpening, not
only does the hair and the lips and the
| | 07:49 | eyebrows and so forth gets
sharper, but the skin does too.
| | 07:52 | And some of the maybe features you
don't want to pop up quite so much
| | 07:55 | start sharpening as well.
| | 07:57 | This is where the threshold comes in
and the Threshold value is okay, we are
| | 08:01 | going to apply 100% increase in
contrast along high contrast edges but when
| | 08:05 | we put a Threshold of 3 in here that
says but there needs to be at least
| | 08:09 | three levels of grayscale difference
between two adjacent pixels before we
| | 08:14 | are going to sharpen up.
| | 08:15 | And you see what that allows us to do?
| | 08:16 | As I'm going to go back and forth from
0 to 3, and let's turn the Preview on.
| | 08:21 | That would help Taz.
| | 08:22 | All right, so there is 0 and then there is 3.
| | 08:27 | Watch right in here how the
skin softens right in there, 0, 3.
| | 08:33 | So, what I'm doing is I'm protecting
these soft gradational areas of the skin
| | 08:37 | and let's go back up to the hair and
zoom in on the hair a little bit and go
| | 08:44 | from 0 to 3, before and after.
| | 08:49 | See we are still getting a nice
amount of sharpening on the hair.
| | 08:52 | So the very high contrast edges are
indeed sharpened, but the low contrast areas
| | 08:57 | such as skin are protected
from too much sharpening.
| | 09:00 | So, this would actually be a pretty
good sharpening for this particular
| | 09:03 | image, before and after. Before and after.
| | 09:07 | As I mentioned, it's always good to look
at these at 100% and there is the 100%,
| | 09:11 | Command+1 or Ctrl+1 will give you 100% and
then before and after. Before and after.
| | 09:18 | So the eyebrows and the teeth and the
hair are all popping up but we are not
| | 09:21 | getting a lot of darkening or
deepening of those wrinkles in the skin.
| | 09:25 | And of course, you can do retouching on this.
| | 09:26 | This is not a retouching class.
| | 09:28 | So a lot of those wrinkles could be
taken up beforehand, but if we don't have
| | 09:32 | those skills, you don't have time to
apply them, you can at least protect that
| | 09:34 | portion of your skin by applying a
little bit of Threshold, typically 1-3 will
| | 09:38 | protect skin tone pretty well.
| | 09:40 | So then, when I get done with that, I
come back in here, and I just, I'll go USM
| | 09:45 | and then 100.1.3 and that reminds me
that I applied 100% of Sharpening with a
| | 09:50 | Radius of 1 and a Threshold of 3.
| | 09:52 | And then, if for some reason, when I
print this image, I'm not happy whether
| | 09:56 | it's too sharp, not sharp enough,
whatever, I can come back in and go, oh!
| | 09:59 | I want to sharpen a little bit more, so
I'll go from 100 to 150, so I don't have
| | 10:02 | to start this process all over again.
| | 10:05 | So there is applying sharpening to an
image using Unsharp Mask, the other tool
| | 10:10 | we have available to us that we have
control over is this Smart Sharpen tool
| | 10:14 | and I like to use Smart Sharpen
particularly on some of my landscapes, but I
| | 10:19 | don't tend to use it quite as much here
in portraits because I don't have quite
| | 10:23 | as much control over the Threshold about
where that's going to be applied in an image.
| | 10:27 | And I should mention in passing, I won't
go into it here, but of course, you can
| | 10:30 | go selective sharpening.
| | 10:31 | I could just select the foreground of
this image, just the portrait portion
| | 10:35 | and just sharpen that.
| | 10:36 | The background of this image was
soft enough already that a little bit of
| | 10:39 | sharpening really didn't bring it out.
| | 10:40 | So, sometimes you can do selective
sharpening or sharpen one portion of an image
| | 10:44 | more than the other.
| | 10:45 | So there is sharpening applied to a
portrait image and that kind of puts the
| | 10:48 | finishing touches on it.
| | 10:49 | And let's just do one more image
quickly, just to show you the difference and
| | 10:53 | let's bring up that image that we
corrected earlier that Juniper Shadow image
| | 10:57 | and once again, let's come down
here, and let's go a Duplicate Layer.
| | 11:02 | I'm going to call this Smart Sharpen
and I'm going to go ahead and view this
| | 11:06 | at 100% right from the get go here and let's
just move over to this portion of the image here.
| | 11:11 | Then come underneath Filter and go to
Sharpen, and go to Smart Sharpen and
| | 11:17 | here we have an Amount here as well and a
Radius, we just don't have the Threshold value.
| | 11:21 | There is a Preview button
just like in Unsharp Mask.
| | 11:24 | So, you can see the impact of that and
for a lot of my landscapes, I push it
| | 11:29 | a little bit harder.
| | 11:30 | I might go up to 150 and there is before
and after, before and after and in most
| | 11:36 | of my landscapes I don't worry quite as
much about protecting the portion of the
| | 11:39 | image like I do on a skin tone,
before and after, before and after.
| | 11:45 | And notice how the image pops a
little bit, things are looking a little bit
| | 11:48 | more sharply focused.
| | 11:50 | So I'll go OK and then I'll come back in and
I'll rename this Smart Sharpen 150. There we go.
| | 11:56 | And one other thing just to mention to
you, in passing here that you can kind of
| | 12:00 | investigate yourself.
| | 12:01 | It's one of the nice things about Smart Sharpen.
| | 12:03 | It has an Advanced function that
allows you to work on Highlights and Shadows
| | 12:06 | separately which I often do, when I'm
working on my landscape photographs.
| | 12:11 | It allows you to fade the sharpening
near the edges, near the black and the
| | 12:14 | white edges, so that you
don't get halos in the images.
| | 12:17 | But that will have to be covered in
separate course that is more oriented
| | 12:20 | towards sharpening, but I want to at
least get you started and allow you to do
| | 12:24 | some finishing touches on your images
without getting into too much detail.
| | 12:27 | So, there is sharpening your images and
I really recommend making that separate
| | 12:31 | layer in sharpening because then you can get rid
of it and go back to the original and resharpen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sharpening in LAB| 00:00 | Now that we've successfully completed
a couple of nice sharpening projects
| | 00:04 | working on a portrait, and on a
landscape, I want to dig in just a little bit
| | 00:07 | and show you some of the problems or
challenges you can run it to, when you
| | 00:11 | sharpen an image, and give
you a couple of quick solutions.
| | 00:14 | So, here we have one of the images we've
already corrected I have made a copy of it.
| | 00:18 | And I have created a separate layer, so
we don't need to take time to do that.
| | 00:22 | And what I'm doing is I'm going to
zoom in on this portion of the image.
| | 00:26 | We are on our sharpening layer. I'm
going to come underneath our Filter and go
| | 00:30 | to Sharpen and Unsharp Mask.
| | 00:33 | On some of my landscapes, I think
I mentioned I like to push them
| | 00:36 | pretty hard sometimes and just to make
the point though, I probably wouldn't
| | 00:40 | sharpen this one all the way
to 200, and I take it to 150.
| | 00:43 | So I might do this, but
either way, you can see it.
| | 00:47 | When you look along this edge
between the kayak and deck here.
| | 00:50 | Let me turn off the Preview,
and then turn on the Preview.
| | 00:53 | Do you see the colorcast
that's created along there?
| | 00:55 | It's like a blue-green
colorcast in this image.
| | 00:58 | This happens because, and I'm just
going to back out here for a second and go
| | 01:02 | Command+0, take a look at the full image.
| | 01:05 | That happens because when we look to
the individual channels, red, green and
| | 01:10 | blue, there are different contrasts, right?
| | 01:13 | There is different pixel values
on each of those three channels.
| | 01:15 | And along any given high contrast edge,
let's look at this red, green and blue.
| | 01:22 | Notice the green and the blue have the
highest contrast edge, whereas the red
| | 01:26 | doesn't have much contrast on it, does it?
| | 01:28 | In fact, it's hard to even
distinguish between the deck and the boat.
| | 01:32 | Whereas in the blue and
green channels, it's very clear.
| | 01:35 | So what happens then is when we
apply Unsharp Mask to this image,
| | 01:40 | the red channel gets very
little sharpening applied to it.
| | 01:43 | Whereas the green and the blue get a
good deal of sharpening applied to it.
| | 01:48 | Because remember, sharpening
is edge contrast enhancement.
| | 01:51 | The result, the net of this, is that we
end up with more pixel value adjustment
| | 01:57 | occurring on the green and the blue
channel and on almost none on the red.
| | 02:01 | And as a consequence, when we apply
sharpening, we get the blue-green color
| | 02:06 | shift because that's where most of
the pixel value adjustment is occurring.
| | 02:11 | There are two ways to
mitigate and/or prevent this.
| | 02:14 | One is after you apply sharpening,
this occurs particularly when you have big
| | 02:18 | contrast between colors along edges.
| | 02:21 | In this case it's a red kayak next to a
deck that has a little bit of red in it.
| | 02:25 | So, there is not too much pixel
transition in terms of contrast along that edge,
| | 02:29 | and notice the blue-green edge.
| | 02:31 | Two things you can do.
| | 02:32 | One is you can come underneath Edit and
choose Fade Unsharp Mask and you keep
| | 02:37 | it at 100%, but you
choose Luminance or Luminosity.
| | 02:42 | And what that does is it takes
out the colorcast along that edge.
| | 02:46 | And it can be significant and
it can actually show up in prints.
| | 02:49 | So, there is something
that you should be aware of.
| | 02:51 | That's one method of adjusting that.
| | 02:54 | Let me show you another one.
| | 02:55 | And let's make a duplicate copy here.
| | 02:59 | We are going to call this one Lab_Sharpen.
| | 03:06 | I actually use this technique a fair amount.
| | 03:09 | And what I'll typically do is
I'll go ahead and flatten this image.
| | 03:13 | Because if you don't flatten it
when you convert to Lab, it's going to
| | 03:15 | flatten for you anyway.
| | 03:17 | So, I'll go ahead and go through the
flattening process and particularly,
| | 03:19 | if I have multiple channels, I want to make sure
that I apply everything that I want to apply.
| | 03:23 | So, I'll go ahead and flatten that.
| | 03:25 | And then let's watch the
Channels panel down here.
| | 03:27 | It's currently red, green and blue
and I'm going to go into Lab Color.
| | 03:31 | And what Lab Color does--
| | 03:32 | We looked at this just briefly
earlier in this course. I told we would be
| | 03:36 | back and here we are.
| | 03:37 | We are going to go the Lightness
channel and the advantage of working with the
| | 03:40 | Lightness channel is, unlike the RGB
in which luminance or neutral values
| | 03:45 | are scattered throughout the three
channels, the red, green and blue,
| | 03:49 | in Lab, all of the Luminance values, all
of the tonal values are put on one channel.
| | 03:54 | And that way, when we come in and we
apply Unsharp Mask, notice there is no
| | 03:59 | color contrast along that edge, because
it's just being applied to the Luminance
| | 04:03 | channel and that way, when we activate
all three channels to view them, there is
| | 04:07 | no colorcast along that edge.
| | 04:09 | So, when I'm working and sharpening my
images, I very often will convert them to Lab.
| | 04:14 | So, I actually have, rather than just
a separate layer, I'll have a separate
| | 04:17 | image that I have applied my sharpening to.
| | 04:20 | The other thing that's nice about
working with a Lightness channel is that if
| | 04:23 | you do want to apply a Curve layer to
something that you can just work on, just
| | 04:27 | the Lightness channel if you want to,
and you can apply brightness and contrast,
| | 04:32 | or blurring, as well as sharpening to
just the Lightness channel in an image.
| | 04:36 | And again, it prevents any color shifts
occurring across your entire tonal range.
| | 04:40 | So, I like to use Lab for any neutral-
only adjustments that I'm working on my image
| | 04:45 | and Unsharp Mask is one of the
most critical ones to use that with,
| | 04:48 | because you do tend to get those color
shifts along high contrast edges, where
| | 04:52 | you have much more contrast on one or
more channels that you do or some of the
| | 04:55 | other ones, as we demonstrated here.
| | 04:57 | So this is how you can work in Lab Mode to help
prevent those color shifts along high contrast edges.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding white balance| 00:00 | Okay, now that we've gone through
really pretty much all of the fundamental
| | 00:03 | steps and tools and techniques that we
need to use for correcting our images
| | 00:07 | in Photoshop, I thought we maybe take
a step back in time and talk about some
| | 00:11 | things you and I can do to really help
improve the quality of the color on the way in.
| | 00:15 | And that is when we are capturing the files.
| | 00:18 | Although this is not a course in
photography or scanning, so much of our work
| | 00:22 | we capture ourselves.
| | 00:24 | It's handy and helpful to know some
simple settings we can have on our cameras
| | 00:27 | that will allow us to improve the color
a little bit before we get to Photoshop.
| | 00:31 | And one of the things we would
like to talk about is white balance.
| | 00:34 | And for a lot of people
that's kind of that mystery term.
| | 00:37 | That you set white balance in
your camera and then hope it's okay.
| | 00:40 | What white balance addresses is the
temperature at which your image is taken.
| | 00:45 | And that's the way most
photographers think about white balance.
| | 00:48 | We are going to look at white
balance in a couple of different ways.
| | 00:50 | One, we are going to look at it in
terms of setting it like in a camera.
| | 00:53 | And also at the same time, adjusting it RAW.
| | 00:55 | And later on, we are going to talk about
white balance in terms of correction in
| | 00:58 | Photoshop using that 10 step grayscale target.
| | 01:01 | And of course, it's all related, isn't it?
| | 01:03 | It's all based upon grayscale and
so balancing your neutral grays.
| | 01:07 | Well, here is the image of Karin
that we did our color correction on.
| | 01:11 | And we have opened this up in RAW, and
I'm showing this to you in RAW, because
| | 01:14 | there is a nice menu here that
shows us various types of temperatures.
| | 01:19 | Notice that when you open up an image
in Photoshop, it pretty much starts it as
| | 01:24 | shot, and then it judges the
temperature at which the image was shot.
| | 01:29 | And here, notice the temperature
is 4800 degrees and that's a Kelvin
| | 01:33 | temperature, which starts
from absolute zero, and goes up.
| | 01:35 | Just to give you an idea of what
that is, 273 degrees Kelvin is the
| | 01:40 | freezing point of water.
| | 01:41 | So 4800 degrees is a lot higher than that.
| | 01:44 | And typically in the range of high
3000 into the 4000s is what we work with
| | 01:50 | in incandescent light.
| | 01:51 | And then 4000 to 5000 are
what some fluorescent lights are.
| | 01:55 | 5000 to 6500 or different types of
fluorescent lights and some reading lights
| | 02:00 | and as we go from a low temperature to a high
temperature, and you can watch my slider here.
| | 02:04 | So, as we go to low temperature to high
temperature, we are making corrections
| | 02:08 | for more and more blue as we go up, and
we are making corrections for more and
| | 02:11 | more warm colors as we go down.
| | 02:14 | When we talk about setting a White
Balance, we are really talking about making a
| | 02:19 | correction for particular lighting condition.
| | 02:21 | So, here we begin this As Shot.
| | 02:24 | And let's take a look at some of the
settings that we have here in the Camera RAW.
| | 02:29 | This would be very much like what you
would do, if you set a scene-based white
| | 02:34 | balance in your digital camera.
| | 02:36 | If you choose Daylight, Daylight makes
an adjustment, notice it goes to 5500, so
| | 02:42 | we were down here and then we are
moving up here to 5500 for the Daylight and
| | 02:47 | let's just run through a few
to give you a sense for it.
| | 02:50 | When we go to Cloudy, it goes to 6500, when we
go to Shade, 7500, when we go to Tungsten 2850.
| | 02:58 | Notice Tungsten is assuming a much, much
lower temperature 2850, and it's making
| | 03:04 | an adjustment for that.
| | 03:05 | That is, it's adding blue.
| | 03:07 | It's assuming, okay, we are shooting in
Tungsten light, which is an incandescent
| | 03:10 | light bulb, one of the
round ones that you screw in.
| | 03:12 | So it's assuming it's a very low
temperature and therefore it's adding blue.
| | 03:15 | Whereas for a Shade or a Cloudy day,
it's assuming a much cooler ambient
| | 03:20 | temperature, therefore it's adding more red.
| | 03:22 | And you saw that in one of the last images,
one of the kayak images that we worked on.
| | 03:26 | Remember all the blue cast to it?
| | 03:28 | That's a higher temperature.
| | 03:29 | The higher temperatures tend to be
blue and the lower temperatures tend to be
| | 03:32 | more reddish or yellow, so what we
are doing here in RAW is doing what we
| | 03:36 | typically do in a digital camera.
| | 03:39 | And when we set something at Daylight,
notice at 5500 it's going to assume an
| | 03:43 | intermediate temperature and that's
about the average or the median temperature
| | 03:48 | of sunlight by the way, which
is why it's called Daylight.
| | 03:51 | And notice that when we are on a Cloudy
day or in Shady conditions, the reds and
| | 03:55 | the yellows are absorbed by the
hydrogen bonds in the Clouds for instance, and
| | 03:58 | you get more blues and purple.
| | 04:01 | So, the adjustment is going to be to
add a little more red to your image.
| | 04:05 | So, depending upon the conditions in
which you are shooting, if you were going
| | 04:08 | to shoot in Shade then you would choose
Shade on your digital camera, and your
| | 04:11 | camera would
automatically add a little more red.
| | 04:14 | That is, lower the temperature to
accommodate for the extra blues.
| | 04:17 | Whereas, if you are shooting in
Tungsten light, it's going to add a lot more
| | 04:20 | blue to make up for that
very, very low temperature.
| | 04:22 | If you've ever seen tungsten lit images,
they tend to be very, very warm and red.
| | 04:26 | And in the practice sessions we'll have
in Chapter 9, we'll correcting a couple
| | 04:31 | of Tungsten lit images and you
will see how really warm those are.
| | 04:34 | So, this is what white balance is all about.
| | 04:36 | It's about correcting for
specific or known circumstances.
| | 04:40 | And these are all just general Daylight,
general Cloudy days, general Shade.
| | 04:44 | Then there is something called Auto
White Balance, in which it takes a look at
| | 04:47 | your image, in this case RAW does, and
it tries to balance up all the highlight
| | 04:51 | ends, and that's what you and I
have been doing throughout this course.
| | 04:53 | We have been noticing color shifts
in images, for instance, if we go to
| | 04:57 | Tungsten, we see a huge shift from the
red to the green to the blue and whenever
| | 05:01 | you have offset histograms you
can see the colorcast on screen.
| | 05:04 | So, when you choose Auto what
happens is, as in this case, RAW or your
| | 05:08 | camera, looks at your histogram and
then tries to match them up on both the
| | 05:12 | highlight and the shadow end,
thereby balancing the color in that way and
| | 05:16 | sometimes that works really well.
| | 05:17 | Then there is the option of shooting a custom.
| | 05:20 | There is creating a custom white balance.
| | 05:23 | And notice that we can use an Auto Scene
Capability or we can set a Custom White
| | 05:27 | Balance or do an Auto White Balance.
| | 05:29 | Remember, Auto White Balance, when we
do it with a camera, we can actually hold
| | 05:32 | a grayscale target up in front of our
image, and then when it does an Auto White
| | 05:36 | Balance, it does a pretty darn good job.
| | 05:38 | Or we can do a custom one, in which we
take a picture of the target and then we
| | 05:41 | create an actual custom
color profile based upon Curves.
| | 05:45 | In the next couple of sections of this
course, we are going to actually show you
| | 05:49 | how you would mechanically go about
doing a Scene White Balance, and a Custom
| | 05:53 | White Balance using your digital camera.
| | 05:55 | And then a little bit later on, we are
going to come back to our ten step target
| | 05:58 | and actually create a custom set
of white balance curves, in lighting
| | 06:02 | conditions, whatever they are, that we
can use to apply to any images that are
| | 06:06 | shot under the same lighting conditions.
| | 06:08 | So there we go, there is white balance
and how it works and feel free to replay
| | 06:12 | this movie a couple of times and kind
of think about, the fact that this is a
| | 06:15 | correction for particular lighting conditions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Putting It All TogetherWorking through color correction| 00:00 | Well, I think that you have graduated
to just going through the entire color
| | 00:04 | correction workflow all with one image.
| | 00:07 | So here is the image we are going to work on.
| | 00:09 | These are pictures of the three women who
run the Art Shop Gallery in Homer, Alaska.
| | 00:13 | Please remember all the way back when
we talked about setting up tools and
| | 00:16 | setting up Photoshop, one of the
first things we need to do was go into
| | 00:20 | those color settings and make sure we have got
the color settings setup the way we want them.
| | 00:24 | Adobe RGB 1998, and
that's the most critical one.
| | 00:28 | And if you are a pro photographer, you
might be choosing ProPhoto RGB but pretty
| | 00:31 | much get away from sRGB unless you are
just doing web work, and then if you want
| | 00:34 | to be working in CMYK, you will set
that up as well for the printing device and
| | 00:38 | the paper in which you are going to be printing.
| | 00:40 | Okay, cool, and then once you have done
that, then we are ready to open up our
| | 00:44 | first image into that RGB color space.
| | 00:47 | First, you want to setup the tools and
have the tools around your image as you
| | 00:50 | would want to use, the Histogram, the Layers,
the Adjustment panel, and the Info tool.
| | 00:56 | Those are the key tools you want.
| | 00:57 | Remember, you can save all that out as
your own custom workspace, like I have
| | 01:01 | got mine, Taz Color Correction
workspace, and if you are going to be doing
| | 01:04 | selections and saving selections, then you
can bring up your Channels panel as well.
| | 01:08 | We will do some more of that a little
bit later on after we have gone through
| | 01:11 | this whole basic color correction workflow.
| | 01:14 | So get your tools arranged, get your
palettes arranged, save the palettes in the
| | 01:17 | position you want to use them,
and then we are ready to go.
| | 01:20 | We have opened up our image and as
always the first thing we want to do is make
| | 01:24 | that duplicate copy.
| | 01:25 | So we'll call this one Working and here we go.
| | 01:30 | And let's do a quick visual eval, a histogram
eval of our image, and see what we see here.
| | 01:36 | And of course, one of the things we are
looking for is what are the key parts of
| | 01:39 | this image, what do we
really need to pay attention to.
| | 01:41 | Well, since this is kind of like a
product shot for a company, obviously, the
| | 01:45 | people, we want them to look good.
| | 01:47 | We want the building look good,
and we want that sign to look good.
| | 01:49 | We want that sign to pop.
| | 01:51 | Some of the things that are less
important of course is the snow down here and
| | 01:54 | the rock and that kind of stuff.
| | 01:56 | So really the two most important
portions of this image are the people and that
| | 01:59 | Alaskan Art sign, both of which
should look really, really good.
| | 02:03 | So we are going to focus on those in the image.
| | 02:05 | And overall, it's a pretty decent looking image.
| | 02:07 | It looks a little bit flat to me.
| | 02:09 | It's kind of hard to tell, but if
you are looking at any of these images
| | 02:12 | overall, you kind of get a sense for it.
| | 02:13 | Let's take a look at our Histogram
over here and take a look at the eval.
| | 02:16 | We have got tonal value.
| | 02:17 | This is good all the way
from one end to the other.
| | 02:20 | And notice we have got a little,
some spikes here in the highlight.
| | 02:22 | They are not quite all the way at the highlight.
| | 02:24 | Looks like we are blowing something out here.
| | 02:26 | When we look down here, we think that
that might be the snow, but that's not a
| | 02:30 | critical portion of the image.
| | 02:31 | All right, so we have got a good full
histogram, not sure if we have got much of
| | 02:35 | a colorcast in here, it's kind of hard to see.
| | 02:38 | We look in the highlight
area. It's not horrible.
| | 02:40 | If there is one, the
numbers will tell the truth.
| | 02:43 | So next, let's see if we can find
ourselves a diffused white highlight.
| | 02:46 | Well, we have already
identified that, haven't we?
| | 02:49 | We know for sure we want the
Alaskan Art sign to be looking good.
| | 02:52 | And since its part of an awning, we
do want to make sure that it's not just
| | 02:56 | blown out pure white, white.
| | 02:57 | Now, it wants to be some white with some
details, so it really looks like a sign.
| | 03:01 | So we are going to set that and that
looks like one of the lightest portions of
| | 03:04 | the image that indeed still has detail on it.
| | 03:07 | The snow is probably whiter but we are
not going to worry too much about that
| | 03:10 | because that's what we are going to focus.
| | 03:12 | How about the dimensions of the image?
| | 03:13 | Let's go in and take a look at that.
| | 03:15 | We will do our Image Size, Command+
Option+I, Ctrl+Alt+I. We have got a
| | 03:20 | Resolution of 100 and Width of 10/13.
| | 03:22 | What we really wanted was a 4/5 ad.
| | 03:25 | So let's go ahead and put in the
Width of 4 and remember they are all
| | 03:28 | important, turn off the Resample
Image because we don't want to change the
| | 03:32 | pixels if we don't have to.
| | 03:33 | So we'll go 4/5 and notice
the Resolution comes up as 256.
| | 03:37 | You know what, I'm going to be happy with that.
| | 03:39 | I would like to have it at 300, but
honest to good, it's anything between 2 and
| | 03:42 | 300 that's going to look
good on commercial printing.
| | 03:45 | And rather than turn-on Resample and
set that at 300, and soften the image, I
| | 03:49 | know that 256 is going to be just fine.
| | 03:51 | So we have resized our image but because
we haven't changed the pixels any, when
| | 03:55 | we click OK, nothing happens on screen.
| | 03:57 | But we have set that linear resolution up.
| | 03:59 | So we don't have to worry
about doing that later. Okay cool.
| | 04:03 | So how about the diffused white highlight?
| | 04:05 | Let's bring up the tool we'd like to use.
| | 04:07 | We are going to bring the Curves and
remember this is the separate Curves dialog
| | 04:10 | box that we just used for identifying
highlights and shadows, and we'll click
| | 04:14 | here and we'll just pull that over.
| | 04:15 | Indeed, the snow does blow out first,
and notice there is also a little pattern
| | 04:19 | there on the edge of this jersey.
| | 04:22 | Let's take a look at that and see
right along the edge there we do.
| | 04:26 | Let's zoom in and take a look.
| | 04:30 | Now here is a little something we haven't
seen before which is kind of interesting.
| | 04:33 | Notice that it's up in the high 250s and I
move it along, it doesn't move very much.
| | 04:37 | There is not an awful lot of detail in there.
| | 04:40 | It's all pretty flat. All right.
| | 04:43 | So we want to pay attention to
that as we pull our clipping in.
| | 04:46 | You know in each image that you work
on, has its own little surprises just
| | 04:50 | like this one does.
| | 04:51 | We keep pulling it and lo and behold, yup, we
get a little white area coming up over here.
| | 04:56 | What's that? Oh!
| | 04:57 | That's a flagpole holder.
| | 04:58 | We won't pay too much attention to that.
| | 05:00 | But we want to pay
attention to that Alaskan sign.
| | 05:02 | So I'm going to just decide, this
looks like this word is coming out soon.
| | 05:06 | So I'm going to put a color sampler point.
| | 05:08 | Remember the number one point always
goes on the critical diffuse highlight,
| | 05:11 | that area of the image that we
want to get just right. Okay.
| | 05:15 | Actually this one in the S
here is even better, isn't it?
| | 05:19 | Seems to come out even sooner.
| | 05:20 | All right, pretty darn good.
| | 05:23 | So we'll cancel this.
| | 05:26 | We've got our diffused
white highlight setup there.
| | 05:28 | We've got our first color sampler point.
| | 05:30 | Where else we would like to
put some color sampler points?
| | 05:32 | Well, remember, we said we
want to get the sign right.
| | 05:35 | We also wanted the people to be just right.
| | 05:37 | So obviously we'll want to get the skin tones.
| | 05:39 | So let's put a couple of skin tones in here.
| | 05:42 | One on her face, and let's put one here down
on Barb's lower neck, and one on Wendy's face.
| | 05:47 | Both of those are pretty accessible.
| | 05:48 | We'll leave Karin's face,
and she has got glasses on.
| | 05:51 | We could put one here but these two look like
pretty good representatives. And what else?
| | 05:56 | Well, to everything in the shadow.
| | 05:57 | Oh yeah, how about these pants here?
| | 05:59 | It would be nice if we can maintain
the detail of the shadow in the pants.
| | 06:03 | We could indeed just bring this back
up here, do the Show Clipping path.
| | 06:07 | See where the darkest points of those pants are.
| | 06:09 | Honestly, I'm not going
to be too anal about that.
| | 06:12 | I'm just going to put it in this well
lit area, notice the light is coming from
| | 06:15 | the left here because this is
a little bit of cast shadow.
| | 06:17 | We talked about cast shadows, not having
the same color balance as the well lit areas.
| | 06:21 | So I'm not going to worry about setting
that a specific value so long as all the
| | 06:25 | values are equal and they are well above 12.
| | 06:27 | That 95% black would be in good shape.
| | 06:29 | All right, so we have got out
three point set, looking good.
| | 06:35 | Let's start our correction then.
| | 06:36 | Let's do our eval, and our white
highlight point, that critical white highlight
| | 06:40 | 240, 245, 249, looks like the
blues are a little bit high.
| | 06:45 | Let's take a look at the shadow area,
the other neutral that we have got here,
| | 06:49 | 48, the blue is high here as well, isn't it?
| | 06:52 | It's higher than the red and green.
| | 06:54 | Let's also look at the skin tones and
see if we have got consistency here in
| | 06:57 | terms of our colorcast.
| | 06:59 | red should be greater than green
should be greater than blue in our number 2
| | 07:03 | and number 3 points.
| | 07:04 | red is greater than green here but the
green is certainly not greater than blue.
| | 07:07 | In fact, the blue is higher in both cases.
| | 07:09 | So both of our neutrals and our skin tones
tell us, yup, we have got a colorcast here.
| | 07:13 | So we are going to go about fixing that
and we are going to do that by going to
| | 07:18 | our Curves tool here and start
putting points on there and that keyboard
| | 07:21 | shortcut that we've worked on, when we
are working on our skin tones, we can
| | 07:24 | Command+Shift and click those points.
| | 07:26 | But first, let's get that highlight correct.
| | 07:28 | And remember that this highlight value
here was a little bit darker than these
| | 07:31 | down here, so that we don't
blow the snow out just completely.
| | 07:35 | Let's lower the blue and the
green down to where the red is.
| | 07:38 | All right, so it will be just
short of the 245 or the 242.
| | 07:42 | So we'll use our red as our target value there.
| | 07:45 | So let's go ahead over to our
green and our blue channels.
| | 07:48 | There is the red and then
there is the green channel.
| | 07:50 | We'll set this on, and then we'll
just hit that equal sign until that green
| | 07:54 | highlight point is selected.
| | 07:56 | And then we'll just lower that until
we get down to 239, 240, and then right
| | 08:00 | over to the blue channel, and that
highlight points are already selected, and we
| | 08:04 | are going to lower that down to around 240.
| | 08:06 | That way, we gain a little bit of
detail here and also on Barb's white sleeve
| | 08:10 | here which was little bit blown out,
probably because of the reflection of all
| | 08:13 | this light off the snow.
| | 08:15 | But we have got the critical part of
out image neutral, and notice it looks
| | 08:18 | just fine, it looks plenty bright white, and
we haven't sacrificed much detail down there.
| | 08:22 | Look at the values up here in the RGB.
| | 08:24 | See we have got 250 in there, but
we have got things down in the 240s.
| | 08:26 | We are not going to worry
if that's neutral or not.
| | 08:29 | That's what we want to make neutral.
| | 08:30 | Always identify those areas that are
most critical and make those right.
| | 08:33 | All right, how about the skin tones?
| | 08:34 | Well, let's go ahead and do
our Shift-click on the skin tone.
| | 08:38 | We'll do it on Wendy's face, and we
can see we need to do some work on those
| | 08:43 | blue values, there is no doubt about that.
| | 08:45 | So let's just scoot right over to the
blue value, and you can just Command-click
| | 08:49 | on it to create that point, and then
we'll just work the down arrow, all right,
| | 08:52 | to move that blue point down.
| | 08:55 | And how far down do we want to move it here?
| | 08:57 | Well, we have got 190 to 212, so that's 10, 20.
| | 09:01 | That's about 20 points there between
the 190 and the 212 there, a little
| | 09:06 | bit over 20 points.
| | 09:07 | So we would want at least 10 points,
maybe about 12 points of separation between
| | 09:11 | the green and the blue, and look at the
difference it has made already. Before and after.
| | 09:17 | Before and after.
| | 09:18 | And now, if we want to push that a
little bit more, we can lower that blue a
| | 09:22 | little bit more, no problem, and then
we'll just go right back to that red
| | 09:25 | channel, and maybe we'll just pop that
red channel up a little bit, and then
| | 09:29 | before and after, before and after.
| | 09:32 | So now we have got a nice
separation between the red and the green, and
| | 09:35 | the green and the blue.
| | 09:36 | If you want to do it absolutely by the
numbers, just leave that blue right where
| | 09:40 | we saw it the first time.
| | 09:41 | So we are right in the ballpark there
where we want those skin tone values to be.
| | 09:45 | Now let's finish up with the shadow
point here and see what we have got.
| | 09:49 | Well, with the adjustments that we
have made here, look at the shadow point.
| | 09:52 | It started out with a very high blue
value, but we are down to 27, 30, 33.
| | 09:57 | That's within 1% of each other.
| | 09:58 | I'm good to go, and let's take a
look when we turn this off and on.
| | 10:02 | Watch the black pants here.
| | 10:03 | See how they go from that kind
of a little bit of bluish black.
| | 10:06 | Now we are getting a nice
high contrast black on there.
| | 10:08 | Yeah, nice correction.
| | 10:10 | It didn't take us too long.
| | 10:11 | Let's do a quick eval.
| | 10:13 | Watch the green in the sign. Before, after.
| | 10:16 | Before, after.
| | 10:17 | Take on a beautiful forest green color.
| | 10:19 | Look at the skin tones.
| | 10:20 | They are kind of bluish when we
started, and now they get a nice reddish
| | 10:24 | color to them and look at the colors
in the jackets, particularly, the reds
| | 10:27 | and the yellows in here. Before and after.
| | 10:29 | All right, nice correction. Good job.
| | 10:34 | And what if we want to do a
little bit increase in contrast?
| | 10:37 | Well, remember, in order to do that,
we just go back to our master histogram,
| | 10:41 | and if we want to lighten a little bit,
we just put that control point in the
| | 10:44 | middle and lighten, and then just up a
little bit on the quarter tone, down a
| | 10:50 | little bit on three-quarter tone.
| | 10:52 | And if we wanted to increase saturation,
which we may or may not want to do in
| | 10:55 | this image, but if we did, we'll just
come over here, and we'll just click on
| | 10:59 | our Saturation tool, maybe we want
to bring that yellow up a little bit.
| | 11:02 | We could come in here and choose
yellows, turn-on our Scrubby tool, and just
| | 11:05 | drag it over here and just
pop the yellow up a little bit.
| | 11:08 | I'm going to make that yellow sing and
be eye-popping at you. Well, there we go.
| | 11:13 | Good, our correction is done, and now
if we are happy with that, then we'll
| | 11:17 | just come down here and we'll duplicate this
layer and we are going to called this Sharpen.
| | 11:21 | I'm not quite sure how we are going
to sharpen this yet, but we'll see.
| | 11:25 | We'll come underneath Filter and go to Sharpen.
| | 11:29 | And what do you want to use here?
| | 11:30 | Well, because we have got skin tones,
we are going to go to the Unsharp Mask.
| | 11:34 | And let's just zoom in here.
| | 11:37 | In fact, we'll just take it all the way
up to 100%, so we can see those faces.
| | 11:40 | See the 100 down there, and this is the
value we used on the other skin tone of Karin.
| | 11:45 | In fact this is Karin again, 100, a
Radius of 1, Threshold of 3 to protect those
| | 11:49 | skin tones, turn-off, turn-on,
turn-off, watch the hair.
| | 11:54 | The hair pops out pretty well here, and we might
even push this maybe up to 125. Before, after.
| | 12:00 | Before, after.
| | 12:01 | Also notice how the woodgrain comes out
a little bit which is nice. There we go.
| | 12:06 | One of the things that we should looked
at, and we'll just take a quick look at
| | 12:08 | it now is if we just look
through the channels in this image.
| | 12:12 | One of the reason why you can get by
on this particular image with pushing,
| | 12:15 | maybe 125 or 150 on that sharpening,
was when we look through the individual
| | 12:20 | channels, the red, the green, and the blue you
see there is almost no noise in those channels.
| | 12:25 | This is a nice clean image captured in Raw.
| | 12:28 | So in images like this, where we
don't have a lot of patterns in the
| | 12:31 | background, you can get by with a
little bit more sharpening, which is why I
| | 12:34 | pushed it up to 125 or 150. There we go.
| | 12:37 | And then the final thing of course
that we are going to do is we are going to
| | 12:41 | make a duplicate copy of this.
| | 12:43 | This is the first time we have done this,
but now it's the time to do it, since
| | 12:47 | we have gone through the whole workflow here.
| | 12:50 | And I'm going to take it, I'm going to
flatten this image and I'm going to just
| | 12:54 | apply all those channels to my image,
and then finally, I'm just going to save
| | 12:58 | this out as a TIFF files, so it's all
ready to go to either CMYK and send it to
| | 13:02 | a commercial printing press.
| | 13:03 | Or if I'm going to be sending to a wide
gamut inkjet printer, I'll leave it as
| | 13:06 | RGB, and just print it like that.
| | 13:08 | And then we'll just go ahead and click Save.
| | 13:11 | And no compression, default pixel order,
IBM PC, we are rocking and rolling and
| | 13:16 | we are looking good.
| | 13:17 | So there is our starting image, and
there is our finished, color corrected, and
| | 13:23 | ready to go to print image,
and there is the whole workflow.
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|
|
9. Target-Based CorrectionsIntroducing target-based corrections| 00:00 | Well, we've now completed really all
the fundamental training that you need in
| | 00:04 | order to do fast, accurate color correction.
| | 00:06 | We learned how to evaluate images,
both visually and with histograms and with
| | 00:10 | the Info tool and we learned to do
corrections with histograms and with Curves.
| | 00:16 | If you remember, back towards the
beginning of the course when we were talking
| | 00:19 | about grayscale values,
| | 00:21 | we looked at this image and we did a
quick and dirty correction to this image,
| | 00:24 | just to kind of make the point about
how grayscale works and that convince you
| | 00:27 | that indeed it does.
| | 00:28 | Well, now that we've had much more
training and a much better understanding
| | 00:32 | of how channels work and how grayscale
works and how grayscale controls color,
| | 00:35 | let's return back to this image again
and dig in a little bit deeper and just
| | 00:39 | really drive that concept home, and also,
teach you how to use this as an actual
| | 00:43 | technique for correcting images.
| | 00:45 | Now notice this image here, this is the
one we started with and you can see just
| | 00:49 | visually it's got a horrible colorcast to it.
| | 00:51 | This is the actual grayscale target right here.
| | 00:54 | When you look at this, the way it's supposed
to look, you can see everything is neutral gray.
| | 00:58 | In fact, I've placed four color sampler
points on swatch number one, two, three
| | 01:03 | and four here and notice the RGB values,
and this is all optimized for Adobe RGB 1998.
| | 01:07 | 242 on the first swatch, 5% white highlight
and now you know, really know what that means.
| | 01:14 | 219, which is get near the quarter tone,
196, which is moving little bit more
| | 01:19 | towards the halftone, 173, 150 and then
128. We've got these four color sampler
| | 01:25 | points on the first four
swatches. Here they are.
| | 01:28 | 241, 219, 195 and 173, just
about right on the money there.
| | 01:36 | Look in the Channels.
| | 01:37 | Notice that each channel, as we look in
each channel, every channel is identical.
| | 01:41 | You just can't see any difference between them.
| | 01:43 | When you look at the histograms, Boom! Boom!
| | 01:45 | Boom! All three channels identical.
| | 01:46 | And they're supposed to be.
| | 01:47 | That's the way things are supposed
to look when they're neutral gray.
| | 01:50 | Once again, now all this
probably makes much more sense to you.
| | 01:54 | The concept of using targets like this
to help you with your color correction is
| | 01:58 | that you can place the target like
this inside of a scene, no matter what the
| | 02:01 | color balance of that scene is.
| | 02:04 | Then you can shoot this scene with a
digital camera and then bring that into
| | 02:08 | Photoshop and then we could do the
correction, based upon the grayscale.
| | 02:11 | Now there may be some memory colors
and you'll like the white on the cover of
| | 02:15 | the book and this may be white back
here, but the target we know perfectly
| | 02:18 | well for sure and we've got neutral
gray in ten different places along the
| | 02:22 | entire tonal range.
| | 02:24 | That's why it's such a
great color correction tool.
| | 02:26 | No guessing here. You just go in and
correct the target and it corrects the image.
| | 02:30 | So, that's the concept that we're
going to use and then we're going to
| | 02:33 | re-correct this image in two ways,
using, as we did before, just the
| | 02:37 | Eyedropper tool to do our first
correction, then we're going to come back and
| | 02:39 | correct with Curves.
| | 02:40 | Then we're going to save those
correction curves out and apply those to another
| | 02:44 | image that's shot under the same
lighting condition and show you that indeed
| | 02:48 | you can just take the same curves that
you used to correct image 1 and used it
| | 02:52 | to correct image 2. All right.
| | 02:54 | So, that's what we're going to start
with in the next section, is doing an
| | 02:57 | Eyedropper-based correction to this image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying two-step target-based corrections| 00:00 | Okay, so let's dig in here a little bit,
and do some corrections on this image
| | 00:04 | with the horrible colorcast, and
as always, we are going to start by
| | 00:08 | duplicating our image.
| | 00:10 | And we'll just use our keyboard
shortcut, which is the one that I'm using.
| | 00:13 | You can make up your own however you
want to use it of course, whatever you want
| | 00:15 | to assign to it, and we'll call
this Working. OK, there we go.
| | 00:22 | And we are just going to
move the Channels down here.
| | 00:25 | Let's take the Info panel and move
it up top there, and you can keep the
| | 00:30 | Channels snug up right there, but we
don't need to look at the channels right now.
| | 00:33 | Just to review again, the huge offset
in the histograms that we see here and
| | 00:37 | compare that with what we
saw when we review this target.
| | 00:41 | How beautifully lined up the
histograms are here, and there is the 10
| | 00:44 | different peaks. That's what we really
want these histograms to look like when
| | 00:48 | we are finally done.
| | 00:49 | So if you remember last time, or the
very first time we did this, we went into
| | 00:53 | Levels and remember we double-clicked on
the Eyedropper tool and set 242 for the
| | 00:57 | highlight, because that is indeed the
highlight value of swatch number one.
| | 01:03 | Then we went down and set the midtone
value, which is at 128, and we are going
| | 01:07 | to do that again, but instead of using
Levels which we used last time, we are
| | 01:11 | going to use Curves this time.
| | 01:13 | So instead of going to Levels
adjustment layer, we are going to go ahead and
| | 01:17 | make a Curves adjustment layer.
| | 01:18 | All right, there we go.
| | 01:19 | We just start over, and click
there on the Curve tool, and we'll just
| | 01:23 | double-click on the Eyedropper tool.
Well it's already set at 242 and remember,
| | 01:28 | you were using 242. Why?
Because that's a 5% white highlight.
| | 01:32 | So then you can see it right here on the Color
diagram that is not all the way to pure white.
| | 01:36 | It's not all the way to 255. It's
242 is where it's at 5% white highlight.
| | 01:41 | Then we'll double-click on the Midtone
Eyedropper and set that to 128, which is
| | 01:45 | the same as Swatch number 6 here.
| | 01:47 | So now what we need to do, if you
remember, as we just take the Eyedropper tool
| | 01:51 | and we'll come over here and
click on eyedropper number one.
| | 01:53 | But before we do this,
let's look at these values.
| | 01:56 | Now let's just move that Info tool up
here a little bit. Look at the values 211,
| | 02:00 | 156, 89 huge red colorcast, right?
| | 02:04 | Big in the green, very small on the blue,
and watch what happens when I click on that.
| | 02:08 | Boom! It goes to 242, 243, 243, not bad.
| | 02:12 | Pretty easy color correction, isn't it?
| | 02:13 | All right, let's go for the midtone,
and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the 6th swatch down is
| | 02:21 | 128 and once again, let's look at the
starting color. That's the left-hand color
| | 02:26 | on this side, 101, 71, 39.
| | 02:31 | Now look at the current values, 116, 111,
and 89, and they are already partially
| | 02:36 | corrected, aren't they? Why?
| | 02:37 | Because we made a highlight correction.
Notice it's already done a pretty good
| | 02:41 | job on these curves.
| | 02:42 | We are just going to push them a
little bit harder, right here, so watch what
| | 02:46 | happens to those RGB values now. We
partially corrected this by going to
| | 02:50 | the highlight and then click, and
now everything is much more neutral.
| | 02:54 | And the curves have been
pushed even a little bit further.
| | 02:56 | Now notice this grayscale target is
looking an awful lot like this one here.
| | 03:01 | Much, much better, much more neutral.
| | 03:03 | When we return to the first
swatch here, we're at 242, 243, 246.
| | 03:08 | All right, we are not perfect, we are
not right on like right after we clicked it,
| | 03:11 | but it's not bad.
| | 03:13 | And the reason is because we are just
making a two spot adjustment with an
| | 03:16 | Eyedropper tool, so it's not super precise.
| | 03:19 | Down here on Swatch Number 6, 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, which is supposed to be at 128,
| | 03:25 | let's just zoom in there just to show you
it is supposed to be at 128. There we go, 128.
| | 03:32 | We'll look at that and it's 106, 105, 103.
Pretty neutral. Didn't quite get it to 128, did it?
| | 03:37 | And that's one of the slight
inaccuracies you would get when you just do the
| | 03:40 | quick and dirty method like
this, but it's not bad, is it?
| | 03:43 | It's pretty darn good.
| | 03:44 | It's a heck of a lot better than
the way it was and that target is
| | 03:47 | looking pretty neutral.
| | 03:48 | So when you do a two step
correction like this, it's not perfect,
| | 03:52 | but it's pretty darn good.
| | 03:53 | So this is the Taz's two step.
| | 03:55 | It's the country western
version of color correction.
| | 03:58 | So there we go and now when we take a
look at what happened in our channels,
| | 04:02 | let's look at the Channels
in a couple of different ways.
| | 04:04 | Let's go to the original image and
look at the three channels red, green, and
| | 04:10 | blue, and see how different they look over here.
| | 04:13 | red, green and blue, and of course,
they look very different over here as well.
| | 04:17 | But now on the new image, red, green,
and blue, they're looking a little different,
| | 04:22 | but not anywhere near as different
as they did before, and of course,
| | 04:25 | they should look a little different in
terms of the books, because there are
| | 04:28 | different colors in the actual books.
| | 04:30 | So it's much more neutral.
| | 04:31 | And see how the histograms are now
lining up, whereas before in the starting image,
| | 04:36 | they weren't lining up at all,
and that's of course, what neutralization
| | 04:38 | typically does is it lines up those
histograms so the highlights and the shadow
| | 04:42 | ends are pretty close to each other.
| | 04:43 | In this case, we are focusing on the
highlight and the midtone, and instead of the shadow.
| | 04:47 | Why? Because as we've discussed and
you've seen, the human eye is far more sensitive
| | 04:51 | to color in the highlight to midtone
area, and just from long experience of
| | 04:55 | doing this and experimenting
with various kinds of targets,
| | 04:58 | I know what I'm doing a semi-sloppy
correction with the Eyedropper tools.
| | 05:02 | If I perform a highlight and midtone
correction, and then perform a shadow
| | 05:06 | correction, it typically tends to make
the colors in the highlight and midtone
| | 05:10 | less accurate then they currently are,
and we don't care nearly as much about
| | 05:14 | the shadow as we do about
the highlight and the midtone.
| | 05:17 | So it's not just a matter of being
lazy that we didn't go for the third
| | 05:20 | Eyedropper tool. I just know from
experience that we actually end up with a
| | 05:23 | better correction just doing
the highlight and the midtone.
| | 05:26 | And listen for a lot of projects.
| | 05:27 | You are good to go.
| | 05:28 | That's all the correction that you need.
| | 05:30 | But what if you really do
want to get it just right?
| | 05:32 | We are doing a very important product
shot, and we can't have any colorcast
| | 05:36 | sneak in there at all. That's going
to be what we are going to do next.
| | 05:39 | We are going to come back to this image
and we are going to do a really much
| | 05:42 | more accurate and
precise Curves based correction.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying multi-step target-based corrections| 00:00 | Okay! Now, that we have done the quick and
dirty correction with our Eyedropper tool.
| | 00:04 | Let's come back in and do a real
detailed correction using Curves.
| | 00:08 | And what we'll do here of course,
as always, is we'll make a copy of our
| | 00:11 | original image and we are going to call
this one Books and then Curves. There we go.
| | 00:19 | And our objective now is to use a
Curves adjustment layer and it shows up here
| | 00:24 | as an adjustment layer and we are
going to go ahead and play some controls
| | 00:27 | points on our target.
| | 00:28 | Let's just zoom in on our target here
and we could do it for all ten Swatches
| | 00:33 | but it's not necessary.
| | 00:34 | We are going to do it on four different
Swatches and let's put one control point
| | 00:38 | on 242, we are going to go one
on 190, one on 150 and one on 105.
| | 00:44 | So, we just hold down our Shift key
and then click, click, click, click, so
| | 00:50 | we'll put our color sampler points
there and then notice when we go look at
| | 00:54 | our individual channels, red, green
and blue over here, there are no control
| | 00:59 | points there as you see.
| | 01:01 | And what we going to do is we are
going to do our little keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:04 | Command+Shift and then click on
each one of these points 4, 3 and 2.
| | 01:10 | Now, watch over here when I click point
number 2 you will see it flash up there
| | 01:13 | just real quickly and when we go to
look at the channels, you will see we have
| | 01:17 | got those three controls points on
each of those three channels now.
| | 01:20 | That's the shortcut that allows you
to place control points in all three
| | 01:23 | channels, all at one time,
so it's a nice shortcut.
| | 01:26 | You may be wondering why didn't I
click here and create a control point.
| | 01:30 | It's because we are going to go ahead
and use this sample point up here, that
| | 01:33 | preset one on the highlight, because
if you end up placing the sample point
| | 01:36 | pretty close here and then you pull it a
long ways, like we are going to have to
| | 01:40 | do, like look at the blue channel
that's so far over here that it makes the
| | 01:42 | curves go crazy, at least initially.
| | 01:44 | So, what we are going to do is we are
just going to haul our highlight point and
| | 01:48 | I'm going to show you
multiple ways to do this, right?
| | 01:50 | You can click on here and drag it over
like this and what we are going to do,
| | 01:54 | we'll correct each swatch.
| | 01:56 | We'll just work our way down, now on
swatch number one, we'll just go up here
| | 02:00 | and start at the red channel.
| | 02:02 | Notice that we are at 212 on the red channel.
| | 02:04 | So, we are just going to take this and
we can either pull it over like this with
| | 02:08 | the mouse or if you want to.
| | 02:10 | You can just use the left arrow once
that point is selected and the objective
| | 02:14 | here is we are going to watch our red
value in point number one and take that up
| | 02:17 | to 242 because that's the
value that we are shooting for.
| | 02:20 | 242, 196, 150 and 105, on point 1, 2, 3 and 4.
| | 02:25 | So, we are going to go to 242, get as
closes we can and notice when I just move
| | 02:29 | it a little bit, it goes between 240
and 244 and we are just going to 240 for
| | 02:33 | right now on that one.
| | 02:34 | Okay, so that's point number one.
| | 02:36 | We are going to set that to 240.
| | 02:38 | Now, how about we go to point number two
and go ahead and set point number two as well.
| | 02:44 | When we go to point number two and
we are looking at the red value, it's
| | 02:47 | currently at 175 and point
number two we wanted at 196.
| | 02:51 | Now, we can just hit that Equals key or
Plus key and watch right along this curve here.
| | 02:56 | I'm hitting the Equal/Plus key and
then we can go ahead and just select that
| | 03:01 | point and then use the Up arrow and we'll
watch that until it becomes 196. Do you see that?
| | 03:06 | It's at 196, a Down arrow, 195, Up arrow 197.
| | 03:09 | So, we are very close now and then
we'll Equal sign and go back to point
| | 03:15 | number three and those point number
three is supposed to be at 150, point
| | 03:18 | number three is at 122.
| | 03:19 | So, I'll just keep my cursor there,
so you can keep a track of it and we'd
| | 03:23 | just move that up until point number
three is at 150 and then Equal sign,
| | 03:27 | select point number four and what's that
supposed to be at 105, see there is the 105 number.
| | 03:33 | So, we have set each curve and we'll take
that all the way up to 105, there we go.
| | 03:38 | And then now let's move over to the
green Curve and once again, let's go back to
| | 03:43 | the first point here and
what's it supposed to be?
| | 03:46 | The green Curve right here, point number one,
it's supposed to be at 242 to 245, right?
| | 03:52 | So, we just pull that over like this
and we go and notice when we made our
| | 03:56 | corrections all across the red channel,
the highlight moved just a little bit,
| | 04:00 | we can fine-tune that if we want to.
| | 04:02 | And we'll set that to 241.
| | 04:03 | Now, let's move to point
number two on the green.
| | 04:06 | That's supposed to be at 196.
| | 04:07 | It's currently 127.
| | 04:09 | So, we'll navigate to that point and
then just hit our Up arrow like that until
| | 04:13 | we get it up to 196.
| | 04:15 | I'm going to move my cursor so you
can see the values there. There we go.
| | 04:20 | And then let's navigate to point
number three and there we go, point number
| | 04:24 | three, what's that supposed to be at?
| | 04:25 | 150, when you get a little bit of
practice of it, this moves very, very quickly.
| | 04:30 | But we are moving slowly so that we
make sure that we are all clear on what we
| | 04:33 | are doing here and then point number
four is supposed to be at 105, on the green
| | 04:37 | channel and we'll just navigate to
point number four with that Plus sign or
| | 04:41 | Equal sign and that's supposed to be at 105.
| | 04:44 | So, we'll just move that right up to 105,
because remember we are trying to get
| | 04:50 | each of these equal values here, all
three of these values is supposed to be
| | 04:54 | equal in each of the swatches.
| | 04:56 | Now, let's navigate to the blue channel,
navigate to that first point and then
| | 05:00 | just drag that over here and get close
and then we can just watch point number
| | 05:04 | one on the blue channel.
| | 05:06 | And that's right there, we'll look at
the cursor and we'll get that close and we
| | 05:12 | can always come back and fine-tune that
after we do couple of the other points.
| | 05:15 | Let's go to the point number two,
point number two on the blue channel is
| | 05:18 | supposed to be 196, and we just drag
that up and as we have seen before on the
| | 05:23 | Adjustments, if you turn on the little
hand pointer here we can just click on
| | 05:28 | this and we can just drag that puppy
up there to get up to 196 if we want to.
| | 05:32 | So, there are multiple ways to do this.
| | 05:34 | When you get close, you can just go
right to your arrow key if you want to.
| | 05:37 | All right, let's go to point number three now.
| | 05:40 | Point number three at 150, it's currently at 40.
| | 05:42 | So, we are going to move that right up
there, just hold down that up arrow to
| | 05:47 | move it to about 150, there we go.
| | 05:50 | And then finally, point number four, 105.
| | 05:54 | There we are, the last adjustment here.
| | 05:56 | We can just take that and we can use
these scrubby slider if we want to.
| | 05:59 | We'll get it up there close, oops!
| | 06:02 | Sometimes we are just good and we just
get it right on the money and then we
| | 06:06 | look at our values here and if there
is anything that we need to kind of fine
| | 06:09 | tune, like let's go to point number two,
right here and notice that we want it to be 196.
| | 06:15 | We kind of changed it a little bit.
| | 06:16 | So, we can just fine-tune these values as
we want to and look at point number one here.
| | 06:21 | Let's go back to point number one,
there was so much adjustment to be made on
| | 06:24 | that blue channel that we just
over did it just a little bit.
| | 06:28 | And let's go back to the green channel
and point number one, let's back off on
| | 06:31 | that a little bit and we can even go
back all the way to the red channel if you
| | 06:34 | want to and just fine-tune that.
| | 06:36 | Again, this goes very, very
quickly once you get the hang of it.
| | 06:39 | But you can see how this works and again,
we just fine-tune these on each one,
| | 06:44 | so we are really darn close here, mid 240's,
high 190's, 150's and 105 and there we go.
| | 06:51 | And let's just zoom out to take
a look at what we have done now.
| | 06:54 | And you can be as anal as you
absolutely want to be here and there we go.
| | 06:58 | Let's just move this out of the way,
over here and there is our initial
| | 07:03 | correction, there is our current correction
and they look pretty similar, don't they?
| | 07:07 | We know that this one is more accurate
because we've set it absolutely by the
| | 07:11 | numbers, we are less than 1% off all
the way around, in fact we are less about
| | 07:15 | 1.5% off at the very most on all those.
| | 07:17 | So, we know that super, super accurate.
| | 07:20 | So, when you setting up in any lighting
condition and you really want to get it
| | 07:24 | exactly right, this is what you can do.
| | 07:25 | You can do a Curves based
correction based upon the numbers.
| | 07:29 | Then when we get all done with this, we
can save the curve and then we can apply
| | 07:33 | those same curves to any numbers of images.
| | 07:35 | And I know you are probably
thinking, now that has took a long time.
| | 07:37 | Well, because it's the first time we did it.
| | 07:39 | After a while, you get really good at
doing it quickly and then here is the real
| | 07:43 | payoff and that's what
I'm going to show you next.
| | 07:45 | It's saving and then
applying the curves to other images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving Curves settings| 00:00 | Okay, so now that we have done a very
accurate Curves-based correction and
| | 00:05 | it took a few minutes to do that and
remember that it will go faster once you have
| | 00:08 | done it a few times, but why
go to all that trouble anyway?
| | 00:12 | Well, here is the big payoff.
| | 00:14 | It's that we shot the original image
and in fact, we didn't even have to have
| | 00:17 | anything in the image. We could have
just shot the target and very often that's
| | 00:21 | the easiest thing to do.
| | 00:21 | You just shoot the target underneath
the lighting conditions in which you are
| | 00:24 | going to be placing various products
or other objects and then once you have
| | 00:28 | created those curves, you can apply
them to other images shot under the same
| | 00:32 | lighting conditions.
| | 00:33 | So, for instance, here we have this
painting that we shot under about the same
| | 00:37 | lighting conditions as the first one and
as you can see I have purposefully done
| | 00:41 | this under just the roughest kind of
conditions, we have got a white quilt in
| | 00:44 | the background and we have got
a weird lighting circumstance.
| | 00:47 | Just to show you how powerful this
technique is and you can get some good
| | 00:51 | quality color, even when you've
got really bad lighting sometimes.
| | 00:55 | And the better your initial setup is, the
better your final color is going to be obviously.
| | 00:59 | But let's take a look at these two
images and let's take a look at the histogram
| | 01:02 | of these two images and there is the
books, the original one and notice the
| | 01:06 | offset histogram and let's go to the
Painting and notice that it has the same
| | 01:10 | kind of offset, a red to
green and green to blue.
| | 01:13 | And you know, if you would move the
lighting a little bit or the distance that
| | 01:16 | the camera isn't quite the same, then
the overall luminance may be a little bit
| | 01:20 | different, but the balance of the
color is going to be just about the same,
| | 01:24 | going from one to the other.
| | 01:25 | So, let's first of all, go back to our
Curves image and what we do now is we
| | 01:30 | save this curve, so we come up to the
menu underneath the Adjustments where we
| | 01:34 | went through and made four different
points, we could have done 10 points if we
| | 01:37 | wanted to, but you can see the trend.
| | 01:39 | And you could see that by the time it
got down to point number 4, much of the
| | 01:43 | correction was already done for us.
| | 01:43 | Well, you could do more points if
you wanted to, but four made the point.
| | 01:48 | Then after we have created our curve,
then go ahead and choose Save Curves
| | 01:52 | Preset and we are going to call this
one Book and this is a set of Photoshop
| | 01:58 | curves that we can then use to
load into and use another images.
| | 02:03 | Now, typically what I'll do is we
are just giving it a simple name here.
| | 02:07 | You might name it for your client or
for the lighting condition and put a date
| | 02:11 | on there, whatever you want in terms of
naming that particular correction curve
| | 02:15 | or you could do it by project, if you wanted to.
| | 02:17 | Anyway, we'll go ahead and click Save
and then we are going to activate our
| | 02:21 | painting image and of course, we are
going to make a copy and we'll call this
| | 02:27 | one the correct version, there we go.
| | 02:30 | And then all we need to do is come
into our Curves adjustment layer that will
| | 02:34 | add to this and we'll just choose our book.
| | 02:36 | As soon as you say that, it
automatically comes up here underneath this and
| | 02:39 | we'll just choose boom!
| | 02:40 | Book and it automatically
corrects the image. How about that?
| | 02:44 | Before and after, before and after.
| | 02:47 | So, you can imagine, you had 100 product shots.
| | 02:49 | Sure, it's worth taking maybe five or
ten minutes to create those correction
| | 02:53 | curves and all you have to do is just
go ahead and shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot,
| | 02:56 | and then you can apply the correction
curves in Photoshop, as long as you don't
| | 02:59 | change the lighting conditions, it
saves yourself an awful lot of time and it
| | 03:03 | all works and why, because
it's all based upon grayscale.
| | 03:07 | You just proved that to yourself
that it really, truly does work.
| | 03:10 | So, there you go, this creating a
detail set of color correction curves, saving
| | 03:14 | those curves and then opening up other
images shot under same lighting condition
| | 03:18 | and then just apply those curves to
the adjustment layer and you know if you
| | 03:22 | wanted to come back in for some
reason, your luminance was a little bit
| | 03:25 | different, well you can come in and
overall lighten and darken your image if you
| | 03:28 | want to, a little bit more contrast,
just like we did in all the other images,
| | 03:31 | do you want to improve that?
| | 03:32 | No problem, no problem at all.
| | 03:34 | So give that a try and have fun.
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|
|
10. Sample Color Correction ProjectsAdding keyboard shortcuts| 00:01 | In this section, I would like to go
through a series of color correction and
| | 00:05 | adjustment projects to apply all
the tools and tips and evaluations and
| | 00:09 | techniques that we have
learned in the course so far.
| | 00:13 | But before we get started to actually
working inside the images, I would like
| | 00:15 | to show you a couple more keyboard
shortcuts that I use to help me improve my speed.
| | 00:20 | So we are going to go underneath our
Edit and then go to Keyboard Shortcuts and
| | 00:25 | we are going to apply a couple of
keyboard shortcuts to things we use all the
| | 00:29 | time and we have been
using throughout this course.
| | 00:31 | For instance, creating Curves adjustment layers.
| | 00:35 | The other thing I use quite a bit is Hue
/Saturation. Those are two tools that
| | 00:38 | I like to use a lot and we do a lot
of duplication of backgrounds as well.
| | 00:43 | So let's go in and assign some keyboard
shortcuts to those particular functions
| | 00:48 | so we can work even faster.
| | 00:50 | So let's go underneath Edit and go to
Keyboard Shortcuts and the first thing
| | 00:54 | we'll do is go underneath our panel
menus which is great because now we can set
| | 00:59 | keyboard shortcuts on individual panel menus.
| | 01:02 | And I'll go into Adjustments and let's
go down and find our Curves adjustment
| | 01:07 | layers and we'll click here
and I'm going to go Command+F2.
| | 01:11 | That is just my choice for keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:13 | You can choose whichever one you want.
| | 01:15 | And notice it says this can be
overridden in action but is not currently used
| | 01:19 | and then we can accept that.
| | 01:21 | The other one I want to do here
is Command+F3 for Hue/Saturation.
| | 01:26 | Now these others that I use, for instance
I use the Black and White tool a lot
| | 01:30 | for converting images to black and white,
so you can assign keyboard shortcuts to
| | 01:34 | whichever one of these that you like.
| | 01:35 | I'm going to go ahead and accept that.
| | 01:38 | Staying in panel menus, let's go find
our Layers and go into Layers and choose
| | 01:44 | Duplicate Layer or Layer Group.
| | 01:47 | Now for duplicating our images when we
first get started, I use F10 so I'm just
| | 01:52 | going to use Command+F10.
| | 01:54 | Again, it says that this can be
overridden by actions but is not currently
| | 01:58 | assigned to something else.
| | 01:59 | Then we are going to choose Accept.
| | 02:01 | So that's an easy one for me to
remember because it's F10 for duplicating the
| | 02:04 | image and Command+F10 for duplicating
my layer or layer group. I'm going to
| | 02:08 | click Accept and click OK. So there we go.
| | 02:11 | Now we have assigned keyboard
shortcuts to help us create tools such as
| | 02:15 | Curves adjustment layers.
| | 02:16 | Let's go Command+F2 and then we can
either name that or just click OK and
| | 02:21 | Command+F3 for creating a Hue/
Saturation layer or if we want to just duplicate
| | 02:26 | our background layer, we'd just go
Command+F10 and that allows us to create
| | 02:31 | like a sharpening layer.
| | 02:32 | So we can move even faster now
in doing our color corrections and
| | 02:36 | image adjustments.
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| Histogram correction| 00:00 | All right, as we begin our series of
practice projects for color correction and
| | 00:04 | image adjustment, we'll start with
this image here and as always, we'll go
| | 00:08 | ahead and do a Command+Minus, Minus and
we'll duplicate this and we'll create working
| | 00:13 | version of this file.
| | 00:14 | Let's do a quick visual evaluation.
| | 00:16 | Clearly an important part of this image
is the daisies themselves and obviously,
| | 00:20 | we are going to have the nice
diffused white highlight here.
| | 00:22 | We see the image as a little bit flat, isn't it?
| | 00:24 | As we move our eyedropper around, we
are getting some pretty low numbers down
| | 00:27 | here, 192 and 140s and 70s and 60s.
| | 00:30 | When we look over here in the histogram,
the whole story is told right here,
| | 00:34 | quickly, visually, right off the bat.
| | 00:36 | As you noticed, we've got blank highlights
in here, which accounts for why this image
| | 00:39 | looks kind of flat because we
don't have any true white highlights.
| | 00:42 | In fact, nothing from the
highlight to the quarter tone.
| | 00:44 | Got a little bit of blankness in the
shadow. I'm looking at these histograms and
| | 00:47 | I'm seeing the red and green
are pretty close to each other.
| | 00:50 | The blues may be offset a little bit
on the highlight end. We're not going to worry
| | 00:53 | too much about getting it
neutral on the shadow end. Why?
| | 00:55 | Because we don't have any neutral shadow.
| | 00:57 | We certainly have a neutral white highlight.
| | 00:59 | All right, so we know
exactly where we are going.
| | 01:02 | Individual channel correction on the
highlight end and the master channel
| | 01:05 | correction on the shadow end.
| | 01:06 | So let's go right into our Curves
tool command and do the Show Clipping to
| | 01:10 | identify where the neutral white
highlight is in this image and Space command to
| | 01:14 | zoom in, Shift key to place the
color sampler point and then we'll just
| | 01:17 | Command+Period to cancel out of that.
| | 01:20 | Then using our new keyboard shortcut we just
create, Command+F2 to create a new Curves layer.
| | 01:24 | Command+0 and notice we placed
our white sampler point here.
| | 01:28 | Then we'll just use our keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:30 | Option+3 to go to the red channel and
hit the Plus with the Equal sign to select
| | 01:35 | our red channel highlight point and
just move that in and we are going to
| | 01:39 | monitor our red channel right here,
until we get right to 241, 242.
| | 01:44 | Then Option+4 to go to the green channel.
| | 01:46 | Notice the highlight point is already selected.
| | 01:49 | We just hit the Left arrow and take
that up right to 242 and then Option+5.
| | 01:54 | Again the blue channel.
| | 01:55 | We are just using our Left arrow to do
a quick correction here and just move
| | 01:58 | that right up to 241, 242.
| | 02:00 | And then we'll go Option+2 to take us
back to the composite master channel view
| | 02:05 | that we see here. Just hit the Equal
or Positive sign to select that shadow
| | 02:09 | point and then we'll just move that in.
| | 02:11 | We will just watch the histogram here
and we'll just watch the histogram until
| | 02:14 | we see the channels start to just
bump up against the shadow side.
| | 02:18 | Yes, we could come in here and set
the shadow point and if it were a critical
| | 02:21 | portion of the image, I would do that.
| | 02:22 | No doubt about it, but completely
unnecessary in this particular case with this image.
| | 02:27 | Notice before and after, before and after.
Big, big difference in terms of this correction.
| | 02:33 | Notice how quickly we are able to do
that correction and we focused on what was
| | 02:37 | important in this particular image
and that was the diffuse white highlight.
| | 02:42 | And you betcha, if we want to come in
and further adjust the brightness and contrast,
| | 02:45 | we just go to the midtone, we move
that up and want a little bit more contrast.
| | 02:49 | We come here at the
quarter tone, 3-quarter tone.
| | 02:52 | Notice now I'm working on the master
channel here, so that I don't get any color shifts.
| | 02:56 | I'm just working on adjusting the tones,
making the quarter tones a little bit
| | 03:00 | brighter and the 3-quarter
tones a little bit darker.
| | 03:02 | After I did an overall brightness of the image.
| | 03:04 | You always start in that order.
| | 03:06 | Start with the brightness by moving the
midtone up and then adjust the quarter
| | 03:09 | tone and the 3-quarter tone.
| | 03:11 | Notice all the time, the critical
highlights, in this case particularly the
| | 03:14 | critical highlights, and then any shadow
points that we have set are maintained
| | 03:18 | and they are unaffected.
| | 03:19 | So before and after, and then of
course what we would want to do is we are
| | 03:24 | going to go ahead and duplicate this
using a keyboard shortcut and we'll just
| | 03:27 | call this the sharpening (SH) and we are going
to come in here and we are going to hit F12.
| | 03:30 | That's the keyboard shortcut we have
assigned to Unsharp Mask and really nothing
| | 03:34 | to protecting this image.
| | 03:35 | We are going to go 200% Unsharp Mask
and we can do the preview of that image.
| | 03:40 | Turn that off and on.
| | 03:41 | We create our sharpening layer, beautiful.
| | 03:44 | All right, so didn't take us too long and
even though we talked our way through it,
| | 03:48 | we were able to do that in pretty short order.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Channel adjustments| 00:00 | All right, in this particular project,
we are going to start with this Gnarley
| | 00:04 | Reflections image and I have already
made a duplicate copy just to save a
| | 00:07 | couple of minutes here.
| | 00:08 | I thought we talk about adjustments
rather than corrections because here is an
| | 00:11 | image that's not right or wrong.
| | 00:13 | It just is and we can create many
varieties of this particular image.
| | 00:17 | We look over here at the histograms, we
can see, okay, first of all, we have got
| | 00:21 | lots of blank area from almost the
midtone all the way down to the shadow on all
| | 00:24 | three channels and notice there is a
little bit of an offset here right.
| | 00:27 | The blue is offset a little bit to the
right, compared to the red and green.
| | 00:30 | We look at the image, we see indeed
even visually, there is a blue cast and
| | 00:33 | it's not right or wrong. It just is.
| | 00:35 | We can choose to either keep that
or change it, however we want to.
| | 00:39 | So we are going to use our histograms
to help us and of course, we are going to
| | 00:42 | go back to our favorite tool, Command+
F2 to create a Curves layer and we are
| | 00:46 | going to call this the Master
adjustment because all we are going to do here
| | 00:50 | and I'm not going to make any adjustment really
on the highlight end and we are going to see why.
| | 00:54 | Let's zoom in here and see that there is a
sun just peeking through the clouds here.
| | 00:59 | So I'll put a control point in there
just where I can see what the values are.
| | 01:03 | Look at that. We are in the mid to high 240s,
so we are certainly not going to do too much
| | 01:07 | with that highlight point unless we
want to just change the overall view or
| | 01:10 | aspect of the image there, but we
certainly are not going to lighten up any.
| | 01:14 | So what are we going to do?
| | 01:16 | Well, let's just go in and make a master
channel adjustment by just pulling this in here.
| | 01:19 | Remember that we can use the scrubby
slider if we want to for adjusting
| | 01:23 | particular portions of the image.
| | 01:25 | In this case, all we are going to do is
just use the histogram to help us make
| | 01:28 | an adjustment. Just drag this in up to
about where the data starts in the image.
| | 01:33 | And look what happens to the image.
| | 01:35 | See, how the contrast really comes out the
image and in some ways becomes even spookier.
| | 01:39 | All right, so that's the master
channel adjustment and what that does is
| | 01:42 | maintain the overall colorcast of the image.
| | 01:45 | But we can make another type of
correction and by the way, here is another
| | 01:48 | keyboard shortcut for you, for when
you are working in your Layers panel,
| | 01:52 | for navigating back and forth from one
layer to another, instead of having to
| | 01:55 | click with your mouse.
| | 01:56 | Just hold down the Option key, Alt in
Windows, and then use your bracket keys
| | 01:59 | to move up and down.
| | 02:01 | Then Command+F2 to go
ahead and create a new one.
| | 02:04 | We are going to call this the
Channels and we are going to go ahead and
| | 02:07 | turn this layer off right there and
then we are going to make individual
| | 02:10 | channel adjustments.
| | 02:11 | So we'll click Option+3 to take us to
the red channel and then we are to hit
| | 02:15 | that Plus or Equal signs and we are
just going to move the red channel in until
| | 02:19 | the beginning of that data and then
we'll go Option+4 and since we just
| | 02:24 | selected that shadow point earlier, it's
automatically selected on every one on the channels.
| | 02:28 | And then we'll just use that right
arrow to bring the blue channel in and
| | 02:31 | you will notice what's happening is this
kind of neutralizing that image, taking out
| | 02:35 | some of that blue colorcast and we
end up with a more neutralized version of
| | 02:39 | the image as opposed to this one.
| | 02:41 | And you can choose anything in between.
| | 02:43 | That's the beauty of doing it this way.
| | 02:45 | So you can create as many layers as you
want to and compare versions if you want.
| | 02:49 | So there we go. There is Gnarley
Reflections and looking different ways.
| | 02:52 | By the way, this is my choice here.
| | 02:54 | That is I really like the
moodiness of that particular photograph.
| | 02:57 | Just to remind you, by the way, we put
our color sampler point there just to
| | 03:00 | make sure that we weren't going to
make any adjustments that would blow that
| | 03:03 | out because we really do want some
detail in there, so that the mist stays over
| | 03:07 | that highlight point.
| | 03:08 | So, there is making master channel and
individual channel adjustments on the
| | 03:12 | image to create whatever creative
variations you particularly like.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Skin tones: Black-and-white clipping points| 00:01 | Well, in this particular practice
project, let's take a look at skin tones and
| | 00:05 | apply some of our evaluation techniques
and our tools and also I'm going to show
| | 00:09 | you a little variation of the
black and white clipping point.
| | 00:12 | Most of the time, when we're doing
clipping points, we're actually placing color
| | 00:16 | sampler points in a highlight.
| | 00:18 | But in this particular image, we don't
really need to do that because there is
| | 00:21 | no really white highlight in this image.
| | 00:23 | But we can still use the black and
white clipping point to help us out but
| | 00:26 | we don't have to go to this Curve dialog box.
| | 00:29 | What we can do is use the black and
white clipping point in the adjustment layer.
| | 00:33 | Let's go ahead and make us a new Curves
adjustment layer and notice that we can
| | 00:38 | choose this Show Black and White
Clipping Points, turning it off and on.
| | 00:41 | But who wants to go to the
menu to do that all the time?
| | 00:44 | So, let's go ahead and make
us another keyboard shortcut.
| | 00:46 | Let's go down to Keyboard Shortcuts
and let's go to our Adjustmentskeyboard
| | 00:51 | shortcuts and let's go to Show
Black and White Clipping Points.
| | 00:55 | What I typically use Command+Option+P
or Ctrl+Alt+P and I'm going to go
| | 00:59 | ahead and accept that.
| | 01:00 | And now when I go into the Adjustment
panel, I can use that Command+Option+P
| | 01:04 | or Ctrl+Alt+P in order to turn on and turn
off the Show Black and White Clipping Points.
| | 01:10 | All right, so I'm going to go ahead and
turn that on and you'll notice that with
| | 01:13 | the Command+Option+P now
you've the check box next to that.
| | 01:16 | What I'm going to use this for is I'm
just going to see where the lightest
| | 01:19 | portion of the image is. Not because I
want to set the highlight, but I just want
| | 01:22 | to make sure that I don't blow out anything.
| | 01:24 | So I'm just going to use this to pull
this in and if I need to, if I want to
| | 01:28 | adjust the highlight just to
brighten the image a little bit.
| | 01:30 | So now we've got the keyboard shortcut
to help us with the Command+Option+P or
| | 01:34 | Ctrl+Alt+P. And obviously the key
portion of this image is going to be the skin
| | 01:38 | tones in this image.
| | 01:39 | There's just no doubt about it.
| | 01:40 | Let's go ahead and place a
couple of Color Sampler Points here.
| | 01:43 | When we look at this on
screen, it's an okay image.
| | 01:45 | It's a cute picture of Ellie and she
has a gorgeous smile, but you know maybe
| | 01:50 | the color doesn't look quite right.
| | 01:51 | Maybe she is not-- I don't know.
| | 01:53 | It's kind of hard to look at it on screen.
| | 01:55 | The numbers are going to tell the story here.
| | 01:56 | First of all, we do see in the highlight
and we could do a little bit of overall
| | 01:59 | brightening by pulling in
the highlight a little bit.
| | 02:02 | The shadow one looks like its pretty
good. We don't have to worry about that.
| | 02:05 | There is no critical shadow area here anyway.
| | 02:07 | All right, let's look at the numbers,
because when we're dealing with skin tones,
| | 02:11 | it's all about the numbers, right?
| | 02:13 | Remember we start with red is greater than green,
is greater than blue and we certainly have that,
| | 02:17 | red greater than green greater than blue,
which is why the image looks okay.
| | 02:21 | But can we do a better job? You bet.
| | 02:23 | And let's move to the second tier or
the second level of sophistication in
| | 02:26 | terms of skin tones.
| | 02:28 | Remember that we do want red greater than green
greater than blue, but we also want the red-green
| | 02:33 | separation, the difference
between red and green, to be greater than
| | 02:36 | the green-blue separation.
| | 02:38 | And right now, we've got
147-168, or it's 47, 57, 66.
| | 02:43 | That's 20 points there and this is
about 20 points here and notice that we
| | 02:48 | don't have nearly as much separation
between the red and green as we do between
| | 02:51 | the green and the blue. All right.
| | 02:52 | We are at 198 here and that's at 207.
| | 02:56 | That's barely 10 points and that's why
the color to the eye doesn't look quite
| | 03:00 | as good as it might.
| | 03:01 | So what we can do, let's go ahead
and just move to the red channel then.
| | 03:05 | The separation between
the green and blue is fine.
| | 03:07 | We've plenty of separation there.
| | 03:08 | The problem is the red.
| | 03:09 | We really need to bump up the red.
| | 03:11 | So we don't need to mess with the
green and blue. We've got a good 20 points
| | 03:14 | of separation there.
| | 03:15 | What we need to do is move
this past 20 points of separation.
| | 03:18 | So we'll just go to the red channel,
we could just go Option+F3 and we can click
| | 03:22 | on both of those points and just take
the one that's closest to the midtone.
| | 03:26 | By the way, when you got a point
selected like this, you can just hit the
| | 03:28 | Delete key to get rid of it and then the
Plus or Equal sign to navigate to that point.
| | 03:33 | And then just use the Up Arrow to
increase the amount of red in the image.
| | 03:37 | And we're going to want more
than 20 points of separation here.
| | 03:40 | Let's take a look at this point number one.
| | 03:42 | Since we're using that we've
got about 20 points of separation.
| | 03:44 | Here's we've got 70, 80, 90.
| | 03:46 | So if we take this up into the mid 90s
and look at the difference, look at the
| | 03:50 | transformation just on screen between
the richness, the warmth of the skin tones,
| | 03:54 | with just that one correction there.
| | 03:57 | So in our evaluation here, we did have red greater
than green greater than blue but we dug in a little
| | 04:01 | bit and saw, oh, you know, there's
not quite as much separation or enough
| | 04:05 | separation between the red and the green.
| | 04:07 | And if we wanted to do an overall
master channel adjustment to overall lighten
| | 04:11 | the image, we can certainly do that.
| | 04:12 | Just make sure we don't go too
far to blow any data out there.
| | 04:16 | So we can overall lighten the image
and then work on the blue channel and
| | 04:20 | there we go.
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| Skin tones: Cast shadows| 00:00 | Let's take a look at another skin
tone challenge with a different image and
| | 00:05 | this is Hope and you know with images
that are this cute, you really want to
| | 00:08 | kind of get them as good as you can.
And notice we have already made our
| | 00:11 | duplicate copy here and let's take a
look at the image just visually and then
| | 00:15 | look at our Histograms.
| | 00:17 | Notice obviously the key portion of this image
is going to be the skin tones, no doubt about it.
| | 00:21 | Notice we have got an area that we
suspect as a specular highlight and as we
| | 00:25 | move our cursor around this image,
we see things were this very high 250s.
| | 00:29 | In fact when we look over here on our
Histogram, we see spikes on all three channels.
| | 00:34 | So indeed we do have some real white
areas in there and what we can do is we'd
| | 00:38 | just put a color sampler point up there
on one of the light areas and it's not
| | 00:41 | so critical to get it exactly right on
the brightest portion as you will see in
| | 00:44 | just a second, and then of course the
second point that's going to be critical
| | 00:48 | here is going to be a
skin tone. Now, two things.
| | 00:51 | One is since it is blown out. It's all 255.
| | 00:54 | We are not worried so much about
getting it neutral because it's blown out.
| | 00:59 | It's not a matter of neutrality, but
what we want to do is maybe just tone that
| | 01:02 | reflection down a little bit, so it's
not quite so harsh, and that's easy to do.
| | 01:06 | Let's go ahead and make a new
adjustments layer using that keyboard shortcut we
| | 01:09 | made earlier Command and then F2 to
create that Curves adjustment layer and
| | 01:14 | remember you can use this tool as well.
You can do all of this by mouse.
| | 01:17 | You can create a new Curves adjustment
layer just by clicking there.
| | 01:20 | And then what we'll do here is because
we know we have got a spike on this end
| | 01:24 | and we have placed a color sampler
point there, I'd just hit my plus or equals key
| | 01:28 | or if I want to with the mouse, you
can click there on that point and then
| | 01:32 | we are just going to move that down
where we kind of monitor these values right here.
| | 01:35 | We'll just move it down a little
bit, just to get that down into the 240s
| | 01:39 | and it just takes some of the
harshness of that reflection off there.
| | 01:42 | It's still nice and bright and look
at the difference, before and after.
| | 01:46 | It just takes a little
bit of that harshness off.
| | 01:48 | All right, then let's look at point
number two, which is the skin tone and
| | 01:52 | you can put multiple points
on here if you want to.
| | 01:54 | It's always good to monitor a couple of
points on skin tones if you have got the
| | 01:58 | Color Sampler Points to work with.
| | 01:59 | Remember you have got up to 4 points
that you can use here in Photoshop.
| | 02:03 | One thing to pay attention to here is
that this is all in cast shadow, isn't it?
| | 02:07 | We mentioned earlier that whenever
possible, you always want to work on well lit skin
| | 02:11 | just like we did with the
last color correction image of Ellie.
| | 02:15 | But in this case, the key portion of
the image is in the cast shadow, so that's
| | 02:19 | what we are going to work with.
| | 02:20 | Let's look at these values, 239, 246,
248. red is greater than green but green
| | 02:26 | is certainly not greater than blue and
we look at point number 2, we see exactly
| | 02:29 | the same story. 157 is greater than
127 but 127 is not greater than 133.
| | 02:35 | So not only are they close but
actually blue in both cases is much higher.
| | 02:40 | So, clearly we need to do the
adjustment on the blue channel and not on the red
| | 02:43 | or the green channel because
understand that there is pretty good separation
| | 02:46 | here between the red and the green.
We are at 157 and 127 here, so there is 30
| | 02:51 | points of separation there. We are at
190 and 146 here, so there is plenty of
| | 02:55 | separation between the red and the green.
| | 02:57 | Anytime during the highlight to
midtone areas, if you've got 20-30 points of
| | 03:01 | separation between your colors,
you are in a good range. No doubt about that.
| | 03:06 | So let's go to the blue channel and we
can Command and click on both points to
| | 03:10 | see and look they are
pretty darn close, aren't they?
| | 03:12 | So we just hit the Delete key to get
rid of the last one that we selected.
| | 03:16 | We just hit that equal or plus sign to
select that point and then we'll just
| | 03:19 | move this down as we monitor.
| | 03:22 | We have got about 30 points of
separation, so we would like a good 20 points of
| | 03:26 | separation anyway between the blue
and the green because we do want more
| | 03:29 | separation between the red and the green.
| | 03:31 | Notice how much more warmth that
provides Hope's face and at the same time,
| | 03:36 | well if we turn this off and on, look
at how the saturation of the colors in
| | 03:39 | her hat pop out as well because we
are taking out the blue, which is
| | 03:43 | desaturating those colors.
| | 03:45 | Now in some circumstances like this,
I might even come in and actually lower
| | 03:48 | the blue channel and the highlight a
little bit, even though I don't have a
| | 03:51 | real diffused white highlight to look at
where I could sample one of these points here.
| | 03:55 | But the reason why I might lower the
blue just a little bit here just because
| | 03:58 | I know this is an overall blue colorcast.
| | 04:00 | So I'm going to lower it about the same
rather than the highlight and that way
| | 04:03 | you don't have to be quite so anal
about measuring everything and remember that
| | 04:06 | diffused white highlight
is not the key point here.
| | 04:08 | It's the skin tone and
that's what we are focusing on.
| | 04:11 | All right, so there is Hope before and
after, and of course we'd follow this up
| | 04:14 | with a sharpening layer and be
very careful with the skin tones.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Skin tones: Babies| 00:00 | Okay, we'll do one more skin tone.
| | 00:02 | This is a beautiful picture of
little Camilla, and isn't she gorgeous
| | 00:06 | with all her baby friends?
| | 00:08 | And I just couldn't resist doing the
color correction on this one, because
| | 00:10 | it was just too cute not to correct.
| | 00:12 | Let's do a quick eval and let's go over here
and look at our Histogram. Let's start there.
| | 00:17 | Notice pretty clearly we can see in the
Histogram, there is likely to be a blue
| | 00:20 | colorcast in this image.
| | 00:21 | It may not be immediately obvious to
you looking at the image, but when we see here,
| | 00:25 | you betcha it is.
| | 00:27 | And also we see there is a little bit
of blank space, particularly on the green
| | 00:30 | channel and the red channel, and the
highlight. Mayybe not in the blue channel.
| | 00:34 | So let's go after the highlight first
and then we'll look at the skin tones and
| | 00:38 | then do that correction.
| | 00:39 | Okay, so let's go ahead and make our
adjustment layer and we'll select the
| | 00:44 | background using that option and
then one of the bracket keys or Alt and
| | 00:48 | Bracket key and let's bring up the
Show Clipping to find out where the
| | 00:52 | highlight value is here and let's
take a look and there are couple of areas
| | 00:57 | that are kind of showing up here.
| | 00:59 | Let's choose one that's going to be a
critical portion of the image, maybe right
| | 01:02 | there on her lapel or I'm not
sure what you call that on a baby.
| | 01:07 | I'll call her baby lapel,
there we go, and then we'll cancel.
| | 01:10 | So we get our bright highlight point
there and then of course, we are going to
| | 01:14 | set a Color Sampler point somewhere here
on as well lit portion of the face as we've got.
| | 01:22 | So let's take a look. Notice the blue
value is at 239, just as we thought it
| | 01:25 | would be and the red,
and the green are very low.
| | 01:27 | And as we suspected there is a blue
colorcast in this image. In fact when we
| | 01:31 | look at the Color Sampler point for
the skin tone, we see 213 is greater than
| | 01:35 | 167, but again it's not greater than 171.
| | 01:37 | So let's just go ahead and do our
correction here, which is just Opt and then
| | 01:42 | bracket to move up or click on that
Curves layer, and let's go right into the
| | 01:46 | red layer and hit the equal sign.
| | 01:48 | We are going to have to do a little
bit adjustment here to get that up to
| | 01:52 | around the 240 mark.
| | 01:53 | Just hit that Left Arrow to bring that
highlight point over and then Option+4
| | 01:57 | to move over to the green channel and
then Left Arrow to move that highlight
| | 02:00 | point over and just get up into the low 240s.
| | 02:03 | And then finally, Option+5 and we just
give that one little scoots like that to
| | 02:08 | get it right at Neutral.
| | 02:10 | And notice that our RGB values are
moving here a little bit as well.
| | 02:13 | Now let's take a look at the separation here.
| | 02:16 | 233 to 181 that's a huge separation.
| | 02:19 | It's 80, 90, 200 and then 30 points
plus its like 50 points a separation, where
| | 02:26 | there is only 10 points of separation here.
| | 02:28 | So there is a couple of things we can do.
| | 02:30 | We can maybe do a double-correction
here, maybe lower the red, just a little
| | 02:33 | bit, and perhaps lower the blue as well.
| | 02:37 | The other thing you can do in the
circumstance like this, as we can just go in
| | 02:39 | and move the green up a little bit
closer to the red, which would lower the
| | 02:43 | separation between the green and the
red, and increase the separation between
| | 02:46 | the green and the blue.
| | 02:47 | But given the fact that we know we do
have a bit of a blue colorcast here.
| | 02:51 | Let's go ahead and start with the blue channel,
and let's just go ahead and Command+Shift.
| | 02:56 | Since we may be working on all three
channels here, I'll just Command+Shift and
| | 02:59 | click on point number 2.
| | 03:01 | And remember what that does is it puts
those control points on all three channels.
| | 03:05 | So when we look on all three channels,
the red, the green and the blue, we see
| | 03:09 | control points on all three channels.
| | 03:11 | Now just take a look at the blue
and the green, and see how we are down
| | 03:14 | approaching the mid-tone, when we look at that
red channel version, see how high up that is?
| | 03:19 | It's really high up close to the
quarter tone, because the red is indeed so
| | 03:22 | high, and that corresponds with all
this red data that we see up here.
| | 03:26 | But let's start with an
adjustment of the blue channel.
| | 03:28 | Let's go ahead and lower the blue,
because we know that there was a little bit
| | 03:31 | of a blue cast here, so
we'll just lower that blue.
| | 03:34 | And then let's move back to the green
channel, we can raise the green a little
| | 03:38 | bit if we want to, or we can just
go after the red, and raise the red.
| | 03:42 | And let's just move this down a little bit so
we can kind of see what's going on in our image.
| | 03:46 | And let's go back to the red channel,
and we could lower that red channel just a
| | 03:50 | little bit to decrease a little bit of
that separation between the red and the
| | 03:53 | green if we want to.
| | 03:55 | And back to the blue channel I'm
going to keep lowering that blue
| | 03:57 | channel, because that's really the
one where we need to get the greatest
| | 04:00 | amount of separation.
| | 04:01 | Now we've got a good 20 points of
separation between the blue and the green.
| | 04:04 | And the truth of the matter is that
when you are working with baby pictures is
| | 04:08 | that babies do tend to have more
red in their skin than adults do.
| | 04:12 | So with baby pictures like this,
you're going to expect to have higher
| | 04:16 | separation of red and green than you do
between the green and the blue, but we
| | 04:20 | certainly want to do this.
| | 04:21 | We certainly want at least 20, 25
points of separation between the two.
| | 04:24 | And notice before and after, before and after.
| | 04:28 | So notice that the skin looks an awful
lot better, and all that blue in there
| | 04:32 | was taking out the red, but now we are
getting a nice separation between all the colors.
| | 04:36 | Some of this is a judgment call as to
how much red do you actually want in
| | 04:39 | that image, but you certainly want to
have at least separation between all three colors.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Neutrals and potential neutrals| 00:00 | In this project let's look at
neutrals and potential neutrals in doing a
| | 00:04 | correction of an image.
| | 00:05 | Here's a photograph near my house in
Homer, Alaska in the end of Homer Spit,
| | 00:09 | which is one of the largest
oceanic spits in the world.
| | 00:12 | Like so many pictures that are shot in
bright sunlight, the contrast is kind of low;
| | 00:16 | the color is really not
popping the way they should.
| | 00:18 | Let's take a look over here at our Histogram
to help us do a quick visual eval of the data.
| | 00:23 | And sure enough we've got flat ends on
both the highlight and the shadow, so
| | 00:26 | this really directs us where we need to go.
| | 00:28 | But there is a little more detail in here.
| | 00:30 | If we take a look at the red
Histogram here, notice there is a good deal of
| | 00:34 | red data over here, where there is not quite as
much green, and almost no blue in that portion.
| | 00:39 | So we suspect there might be a little
bit of a red cast in the highlight end.
| | 00:43 | Let's go take a look.
| | 00:45 | We know darn well where the lightest
portion in this image is going to be, right?
| | 00:48 | It's going to be right up here somewhere
in the snow and we can just do a quick
| | 00:51 | eyedropper evaluation of this and we
see that 216 for the red, 205 for the
| | 00:57 | green, and blue is 197, sure enough.
| | 00:59 | So, it confirms numerically
what we see in the Histogram.
| | 01:02 | The more you use histograms, the more
valuable you see that they are, because
| | 01:05 | they really help you quickly focus on
what needs to be done on that image.
| | 01:09 | Then the numbers allow you do an accurate
rapid correction or adjustment of those images.
| | 01:14 | Okay, so what we're going to do, of
course as always, and we've already made our
| | 01:18 | duplicate copy here.
| | 01:19 | Let's go ahead and set our highlight
point and find out where the lightest
| | 01:23 | portion of this image is.
| | 01:24 | Now, notice we've got a little bit of
data coming up here on the white chairs,
| | 01:29 | frankly I don't care too much about
the white chairs, and they seem to be
| | 01:33 | blowing out a little bit
faster actually than the snow.
| | 01:36 | So, what I'm going to do in a
circumstance like this is I'm going to go ahead
| | 01:40 | and set the white highlight in the
critical portion of the image, no doubt about
| | 01:43 | that, and we'll click Cancel.
| | 01:45 | And then what I'll do is I won't set the
highlight right at 242, maybe I'll back
| | 01:49 | it off a little bit, and just set it at 240.
| | 01:52 | In that way I know that
the chairs won't blow out.
| | 01:54 | So, if there is something that's a
little bit lighter in the image but it's not
| | 01:57 | critical, you can just set the highlight
on the critical area and just make it a
| | 02:01 | little below 5% or a little bit
darker than 5%, and you'll be good to go.
| | 02:04 | All right, let's go ahead
and use our keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:07 | Let's practice, Command+F2
to bring up our Curves layer.
| | 02:10 | And by the way if you use more than
one adjustment layer, just like we did
| | 02:14 | gnarly reflections it's a
good idea to name those channels.
| | 02:17 | If you've only got one adjustment
layer then it's not critical to do that.
| | 02:20 | But if you have more than one, name
those channels so you can keep track of what
| | 02:23 | the heck you're doing, no doubt about that.
| | 02:26 | And then let's go ahead right over to
Option, and 3 to go to the red channel,
| | 02:30 | and hit that equals sign or plus sign
and let's just move that right into 240.
| | 02:35 | We're monitoring of course the RGB
values for point number 1, start at 225, and
| | 02:40 | just use my Left Arrow.
| | 02:42 | And then Option+4, and because we
selected that first point in the red channel,
| | 02:47 | the highlight is automatically selected
in the green and the blue, as well, and
| | 02:51 | that really helps speed you up.
| | 02:52 | So, we'll just move this over to at 239-
240, we're going to stop just short of
| | 02:56 | the 5%, then Option 5% and do the same
thing to bring that blue into - notice we
| | 03:02 | have to move that one a lot further
to get it to 239 or 240, all right!
| | 03:06 | Is there anything else we can use in this image?
| | 03:09 | That's a clear highlight neutral, but
with that much of a cast we suspect it may
| | 03:13 | be nice to find something down in the mid-tone.
| | 03:15 | And you know with beaches like this in
Alaska, these are all volcanic beaches.
| | 03:19 | Unlike the nice white or tan beaches
you find in the Bahamas, these are all
| | 03:23 | volcanics, and they are all gray-wacky
type sediments, so they are indeed pretty
| | 03:28 | close to be a neutral gray.
| | 03:29 | So, we can place a Color Sampler point
number 2 right there on that beach, and
| | 03:33 | see what we've got, and look at that.
| | 03:34 | The Color Sampler point number 2.
| | 03:36 | Look how high the red value is.
| | 03:38 | Even after doing our highlight
correction, it's still pretty darn high.
| | 03:42 | Notice the green and the
blue, boom, boom! 109, 109.
| | 03:44 | So, this confirms what we see over here is
that indeed the red is high even in the mid-tone.
| | 03:50 | So, although we've done a highlight
correction, we're doing a potential neutral,
| | 03:54 | there is something we see in the sand,
and because that about has the same
| | 03:57 | balance of red to green and blue that
we saw in the highlight, we have some
| | 04:01 | confidence that that's supposed
to be pretty darn close to neutral.
| | 04:03 | So, we'll do a Command+Shift-click on
that point and then we'll just go right
| | 04:06 | down the red channel and notice it
puts it right just past the mid tone.
| | 04:10 | It's right in the middle of that
peak right there. That's nice.
| | 04:13 | So, we'll just lower this down to the 109 area.
| | 04:16 | So now we've neutralized the mid-
tone using a potential mid-tone neutral.
| | 04:20 | Let's turn this layer off and on.
| | 04:22 | Look at the difference in
that image, oh, yeah, very nice!
| | 04:25 | And if you want to add Hue/Saturation
layer, and bump up the blue even more, you
| | 04:30 | can certainly do that if you want to.
| | 04:32 | I'm going to choose not to on
this particular image. But we could.
| | 04:35 | So, there is before and after using
our honest-to-goodness neutral that we
| | 04:38 | didn't put quite at 5% because we
didn't want to blow out the chairs.
| | 04:42 | Then we used the potential
neutral of something else.
| | 04:44 | It's in the image that's the sand that we
suspect is neutral gray sand, and work like a champ.
| | 04:49 | All right! So, there are
neutrals and potential neutrals.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Clouds, snow, ice, and land| 00:00 | Let's do another Neutrals project
and this is a terrific image to look at
| | 00:03 | neutrals, make neutral adjustments,
where we can take some both technical
| | 00:07 | and creative license working with this
image and this is at the top of one of
| | 00:10 | my favorite hikes and we are eyeball-to-
eyeball with the top of the Harding Ice Field.
| | 00:13 | And what do we have here?
| | 00:15 | Well, we have got some clouds, we have
got some snow, snow covered ice and then
| | 00:18 | we also have some foreground here and
when we look over here at our histogram,
| | 00:23 | we see we have got a pretty full histogram.
| | 00:24 | This image overall is nice in terms of
overall brightness and contrast and
| | 00:29 | we look and do a little bit of evaluation
of the highlight end here, notice that
| | 00:32 | we see that the blue is offset a little
bit more from the green, which in turn
| | 00:35 | is offset a little bit more from the red.
Very common in sky and snow pictures,
| | 00:40 | to have the blue a little bit higher than
the others and have a little bit of a blue cast.
| | 00:43 | The question is do you like
this the way it is or not?
| | 00:46 | There's not a right or a wrong way to do this.
| | 00:49 | This is really more of an
adjustment than it is a correction.
| | 00:52 | If you want to maintain the balance of
the colors, then we'll just fine-tune
| | 00:56 | the highlights and the shadows a little bit,
but if you want to change this,
| | 00:59 | you want to neutralize it or halfway
between, it's completely up to you.
| | 01:02 | You have complete creative control.
| | 01:04 | But to get started, let's go ahead and
get rid of this old Curves layer here and
| | 01:08 | we'll go, let's go ahead and just set
our critical control points and obviously,
| | 01:13 | we are going to be looking for a neutral
white highlight because we could easily
| | 01:16 | blow detail out of this image.
| | 01:18 | So we are going to be
very careful about this.
| | 01:19 | We will open up our Curves, Command+M,
Ctrl+M, and we are going to go right to
| | 01:23 | the lightest portion of this.
| | 01:25 | We are going to pay very
close attention. There it is.
| | 01:27 | There is the first part that opens up.
| | 01:28 | So we want to make sure that no
portion of this image blows up.
| | 01:32 | We are going to be a little bit anal about this.
| | 01:34 | Make sure we just get the best
point possible. There we go.
| | 01:39 | Pretty darn good.
| | 01:41 | Get rid of that there and just go back
and take another look at our image and --
| | 01:45 | how about shadow point?
| | 01:46 | Is shadow critical in this image?
| | 01:47 | In a lot of images, shadow was not
critical, but in this image, it really is
| | 01:51 | critical because it's a
critical portion of the image.
| | 01:53 | The way I have composed the image is I
have got this nice ridgeline, which is
| | 01:57 | the top of the soil between two
different mountain ranges, right along the edge
| | 02:00 | of the Harding Ice Field.
| | 02:02 | But notice there is good detail in here.
| | 02:04 | As I move my Eyedropper around here,
let's move this up here so you can clearly
| | 02:07 | see marks as RGB values.
| | 02:09 | As I move this around, there's lots of detail.
| | 02:11 | Those RGB values are
changing all over the place.
| | 02:13 | So indeed, we do want to set
a critical shadow point here.
| | 02:16 | So let's go back to our Curves tool and
of course, we do this all in one step.
| | 02:19 | I'm just kind of talking our way
through here and let's pull that in and find
| | 02:23 | one of the darker areas and oh!
| | 02:24 | there is a good one.
| | 02:25 | Let's zoom in on that.
| | 02:27 | Command+Space to zoom in and set that
puppy and then Command+Period to get rid
| | 02:31 | of that Curves and Command+0 to take us down.
| | 02:33 | See, all these keyboard shortcuts make
it so much easier for us to navigate and
| | 02:37 | spend our time actually creatively
working on our image rather than just trying
| | 02:39 | to get the tools working for us.
| | 02:42 | So we have set a critical highlight,
critical shadow and notice that what we
| | 02:45 | have got here, we have got values of 1,
2 and 5 here and let's zoom in and just
| | 02:50 | take a look at that portion of the image.
| | 02:52 | As we move this around here and say
yeah, you know that there's still little
| | 02:55 | bit of data in there, so we might want to
lighten that shadow portion of the image just a bit.
| | 03:00 | I'm not so concerned about how neutral that is.
| | 03:02 | I'm more concerned about the
neutrality of this up here.
| | 03:05 | So we have got highlight, shadow and
then, heck let's go ahead and place one
| | 03:08 | somewhere in the midtone here and just
follow the RGB values right here, 150's,
| | 03:12 | 160's, 170's, 180's.
| | 03:15 | Notice the blue value is high
just like it is in the highlight.
| | 03:17 | So we are close to midtone, we are
little bit lighter than midtone but we are
| | 03:21 | close enough for what we want to do here.
| | 03:23 | So we have set three points now, the
highlight, shadow and then our midtone.
| | 03:27 | So, we are going to correct those two
points first and I'm doing it in the order.
| | 03:30 | Now, I know that I mentioned earlier
that I like to do it sequentially in terms
| | 03:33 | of highlight, midtone to shadow, but
sometimes I'll deviate from that if I have
| | 03:37 | a really critical shadow point
that I'm going to want to set first.
| | 03:39 | If you know the rules well enough, you
know when you can bend them a little bit.
| | 03:42 | So we are going to bend our Tonal
range rule a little bit here because we do
| | 03:45 | have the critical shadow.
| | 03:46 | Highlight, shadow adjustment and then we
are going to come back in here and just
| | 03:49 | fine-tune the midtone. So Command+F2.
| | 03:52 | That's that keyboard shortcut that we
created to create our new Curves layer
| | 03:56 | and let's just go right to our
highlight on each of the channels, so we'll go
| | 03:59 | Option+3 to move to the red and then
just hit that Equal sign until we select
| | 04:04 | that highlight point and we'll watch
right down here, on Color Sampler point
| | 04:07 | number 1, and which just moves that over
until we get that right at 242, very nice.
| | 04:13 | And then, Option+4 and notice the
highlight point is already preselected for us,
| | 04:17 | we don't need much adjustment there,
then Option+5 to do same thing.
| | 04:22 | Now, notice the blue is blown out here,
so what we are going to do is we are
| | 04:25 | going to use the Down Arrow.
| | 04:26 | So we are going to lower this to a down point.
| | 04:28 | Remember, our focus here is on --
we are going to neutralize the image.
| | 04:31 | We may end up doing something
different but for right now, we are going to
| | 04:34 | neutralize that image.
| | 04:35 | And how about the shadow point?
| | 04:37 | Well, we can go in and individually
correct the shadow point if we want to or
| | 04:42 | we'll just go to the Master Curve,
Option+2 and we'll select that shadow point
| | 04:48 | using the Equal sign and then we'll
just move this up, just a little bit, just
| | 04:53 | to lighten that shadow point
until we are up in the 12-13 range.
| | 04:56 | Still want it nice and dark, but
we want to make sure we maintain all
| | 04:58 | that shadow detail.
| | 05:00 | And then often, I'll just kind of move my
Eyedropper around here and look at those values.
| | 05:04 | Notice they are on the 20's and 30's,
which is good, which means we are tending
| | 05:07 | towards the three-quarter
tone for a lot of this area.
| | 05:10 | So if the very, very darkest fills in,
we'll have a lot of shadow detail in this
| | 05:15 | portion of the image.
| | 05:16 | And if we need to increase contrast
overall, we can do that on the master
| | 05:19 | channel when we get down with our correction.
| | 05:21 | Okay, so now let's do a Command+Shift
and then Click or Ctrl+Shift-click on
| | 05:26 | point number 3 and that's going to
put our adjustment on our midtone.
| | 05:30 | Let's look at our values now, 159, 170, 182.
| | 05:33 | So let's just go to our channels and
then notice that we don't have a particular
| | 05:37 | target value here, do we?
| | 05:38 | We knew that we wanted the highlight on
242, we knew we wanted the shadow on, we
| | 05:41 | want the darkest to be around 12, but we
don't know what this is supposed to be.
| | 05:45 | So on a case like this, when we are
adjusting a neutral somewhere between
| | 05:49 | highlight and shadow, what we are going
to do, if you have two values that are
| | 05:52 | the same like we did in the last image
on the Kachemak Bay, then we adjusted the
| | 05:55 | third value down to that one.
| | 05:57 | But here, we have got three different values.
| | 05:59 | So the smart thing to do
is go after the middle one.
| | 06:02 | And notice the middle one here is the green.
| | 06:04 | So we are going to move the red up to
170 and the blue down to 170 from 182.
| | 06:09 | So let's go right to the red channel
then and notice it's preselected, so we
| | 06:13 | Command+Shift-click on that.
| | 06:14 | So I'm just going to raise that up to
170 and then Option+5 to go to the blue
| | 06:18 | channel, I'm going to lower that
and that's what we would expect.
| | 06:22 | We would be lowering the blue in this
portion of the image and there we go.
| | 06:27 | So now, we have got an image and we
know it's going to print very nicely in a
| | 06:30 | highlight, we have got the shadow
detail, we have got a neutral midtone.
| | 06:33 | Remember, this is not right
or wrong, it just neutralized.
| | 06:36 | There is the original image and there
is the neutralized version and you can
| | 06:39 | create anything that you want to in between.
| | 06:41 | And if you decide, hey, I really like
the neutral image because that fits better
| | 06:44 | with your design, you have got a black
and white design, you love the picture
| | 06:48 | but you don't want the blue color in
there, or not as much blue, your choice.
| | 06:52 | And let's just go back to the Master
channel here and that's Option+2 and
| | 06:57 | let's say we want a overall lighting,
just a little bit, increase contrast,
| | 07:01 | we'll go to that quarter-tone and
let's darken up the three-quarter tone just
| | 07:05 | a little bit and lower that.
| | 07:07 | Remember, we are going to watch our
points, so make sure we don't drop down too
| | 07:10 | low in the three-quarter tone.
| | 07:11 | Make sure we are staying in the 20's,
low 20's and 30's here and sometimes you
| | 07:15 | want to fine-tune, see we'd drop
just little bit down below 12 there.
| | 07:19 | I hit the Equal or Plus key and
we'll just pop that up just little bit.
| | 07:22 | Make sure we stay at 95% or above.
| | 07:24 | We have increased little bit of
contrast and taken out all the colorcast.
| | 07:28 | So it's both a correction
and an adjustment, isn't it?
| | 07:30 | Now this thing have all sorts of fun,
once you understand these histograms and
| | 07:34 | the numbers, you can have your
way with the color in your images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Flat images| 00:00 | All right, let's do some more
combination of corrections and adjustments.
| | 00:04 | And as we've talked about throughout
this course, every image has its own little nuances,
| | 00:08 | its own little
things that it throws at you.
| | 00:12 | It's so important to learn the
fundamentals, because if all you've learned is a
| | 00:14 | technique about how to do it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
there's going to be all sort of images that are going
| | 00:18 | to throw curveballs at you, such as
we've talked about. Sometimes you set the
| | 00:22 | highlight on not the lightest portion
of the image; you set it on the critical
| | 00:25 | white highlight and then you back off.
Instead of setting it at 242, you maybe
| | 00:29 | set it at 240 or 239, because you
understand what's going on with the pixel block.
| | 00:33 | You understand how your image is put together.
| | 00:35 | Well, let's address this image and
what we'd like to do with this and
| | 00:39 | we've got a beautiful barn, nice composition,
beautiful oak tree, nice fence in the foreground.
| | 00:44 | We've got some green grass,
but it's a little bit flat.
| | 00:47 | When we look over here at the
histogram, we see white is flat, again.
| | 00:50 | And it's so common. You're probably
getting used to this by now seeing these flat
| | 00:54 | areas on the highlights and the
shadows causing low contrast images.
| | 00:57 | And it's because if we don't have
the light lights and the dark darks.
| | 01:00 | Of course, that's what creates contrast,
nice white highlights and nice dark shadows.
| | 01:04 | So, what else do we see?
| | 01:05 | Do we see anything else over
here in terms of offset histograms?
| | 01:08 | They're all pretty close to each other.
| | 01:09 | It looks like the red is a little bit
offset here, can't quite see, but the
| | 01:15 | numbers will tell the truth, that's for sure.
| | 01:16 | All right, so where do we start?
| | 01:17 | Well, are there any critical
white highlights in this image?
| | 01:21 | Let's do our Command+M to do the Show Clipping.
| | 01:24 | Let's just crank this up
here to see what happens.
| | 01:27 | We're getting some light
areas in here, what's all that?
| | 01:31 | So, that's the light area of the barn.
| | 01:34 | Notice how it really does
go white all of a sudden.
| | 01:36 | All right, so we've got that.
| | 01:39 | It's kind of our lightest area in the image.
| | 01:42 | When we look at this image though,
one of the things we're going to ask is,
| | 01:45 | is there anything in this
image that's actually neutral?
| | 01:48 | We don't have any really
neutral white highlights.
| | 01:50 | We've got a real light portion of the
barn, but is there anything that's neutral?
| | 01:54 | How about the barn?
| | 01:55 | I've used this all the time, weathered wood.
| | 01:57 | Is it 100% neutral?
| | 02:00 | Are you absolutely sure of that? No.
| | 02:01 | But it's going to be pretty close.
| | 02:03 | It's going to be a great thing to use.
| | 02:04 | Use what you've got, smoke em
if you got em kind of thing.
| | 02:08 | What we've got here is we've got weathered wood.
| | 02:11 | We can use that as a potential neutral.
| | 02:13 | So, let's go ahead and do our Show Clipping.
| | 02:15 | Let's go ahead and put a color sampler
point on the lightest portion of our image.
| | 02:19 | I'll just put it right there, boom!
| | 02:23 | Just hold down the Shift key
when you want to move that puppy.
| | 02:25 | All right, there we go.
| | 02:26 | Then we'll just cancel that,
Command+0 to go back out.
| | 02:29 | So, we'll put that as the lightest
portion of the image, then we can decide how
| | 02:32 | light we want to make that.
| | 02:33 | We can take that all the way to 242
if you want to, or maybe back off, maybe
| | 02:37 | not quite that light.
| | 02:38 | How about something more in the midtones?
| | 02:40 | First of all, let's look at
those values, 232, 227, 225.
| | 02:45 | That's interesting. Look at the green
and blue are pretty close to each other,
| | 02:49 | but the red is high.
| | 02:50 | All right, let's look around here
and this is in the 170s and 180s.
| | 02:56 | So, that's not quite midtone.
| | 02:58 | But most of the rest of this roof
is in the 170s and 180s, isn't it?
| | 03:01 | So, let's go ahead and place our second
tonal range point right there on the roof.
| | 03:06 | Clearly this is the critical portion of
the roof, there's no doubt about that.
| | 03:09 | We could also place a point over
here, where it's a little bit darker.
| | 03:14 | That's interesting, or
come all the way down here.
| | 03:16 | Let's do that, ooh!
| | 03:17 | That's in the 70s and 80s, so
that's well south of the midtone.
| | 03:20 | Let's go ahead and put a point here.
| | 03:21 | Then let's eval what the numbers are telling us.
| | 03:25 | All right, in points one and two which
are well lit, red 232, green 227, blue 225.
| | 03:31 | Here the green and blue are just
about equal. Point number 2, look at that.
| | 03:34 | green and blue equal again and
again the red is a bit higher than the
| | 03:39 | green and the blue.
| | 03:40 | But look at point number 3.
| | 03:42 | In this case, we've got red 68, green
70 and blue is the one that's high here.
| | 03:48 | I wonder if that's just an anomaly.
| | 03:50 | Let's go ahead and move this around.
| | 03:52 | No matter where we look here, do you see how
that blue is higher than the red and the green?
| | 03:57 | You betcha! This is called color crossover
and this is very common in images where you're
| | 04:01 | evaluating an image in the bright
highlight portion of the image or the well lit
| | 04:05 | portion, not necessarily the highlight,
but the well lit portion of the image.
| | 04:09 | Then if you have a cast shadow, and
this is very common, the color balance
| | 04:12 | in cast shadow is almost always different
than the color balance for the rest of the image.
| | 04:16 | Now, typically, if I'm measuring the
deep shadow here for instance, notice how
| | 04:20 | the blue is indeed a little bit higher there,
| | 04:23 | I'll often ignore the deep cast
shadow color balance, because the human
| | 04:27 | eye doesn't see it.
| | 04:28 | But in this case, in point number 3,
we're about the three-quarter tone and
| | 04:32 | it's an important part of the image.
| | 04:33 | So, we're actually going to pay
attention to that in this case.
| | 04:36 | This is where judgment comes in.
| | 04:37 | Yes, it's important or no, it's not.
| | 04:39 | So, let's go ahead and do our correction
and let's go ahead and add a Curves layer.
| | 04:43 | Let's go right to our red channel and
hit the Equal sign to select that point.
| | 04:48 | How do we want to set this?
| | 04:50 | We're in the 230s. Why don't we go to
238, not quite a full white highlight?
| | 04:56 | Then let's go to the green and we'll
neutralize that at 238, 239, right in there,
| | 05:02 | then right to the
blue and the same thing.
| | 05:07 | Take that up a little bit, okay.
| | 05:10 | Then let's go Command+Shift on point
number 2. Remember do the Command+Shift
| | 05:15 | or Control+Shift on Windows, because
it automatically places color sampler
| | 05:18 | points on all three channels. Nifty!
| | 05:21 | So, once again, remember our analysis here is
that you go for the middle of the two values.
| | 05:27 | Right here, because we neutralized the
highlight, look at the red and the blue
| | 05:30 | are just about equal now.
| | 05:32 | In fact, there's not much difference
between any of these. We can go to the
| | 05:35 | green channel and we can pop that up
one or two points and that's about it.
| | 05:39 | We now have a neutral image in the
highlights down through the midtones.
| | 05:43 | Let's look at color sample point number 3.
| | 05:44 | Let's do a Command+Shift on that to
place color sampler points in all those
| | 05:48 | locations and who do we have? red,
green and blue if we want to neutralize this.
| | 05:53 | The red is a 65, the green is 71, the
blue is at 76, so which one do we use
| | 05:59 | for our target value?
| | 06:00 | The middle one, yup, so
we'll go for green again.
| | 06:03 | So, we're not going to move the green.
| | 06:05 | Let's go right back to red and see
it's preselected, because we did that
| | 06:08 | Command+Shift-click.
| | 06:09 | We'll just raise that to 71 and then
we'll go to blue, Option+5, and we'll lower
| | 06:14 | that down to 71, nice!
| | 06:17 | All right, so now what we've done,
we've taken care of that color crossover.
| | 06:19 | Let me point out, notice how the slope
of the blue channel changes where the
| | 06:23 | slope is higher here and then it's
lowering a little bit, because you're getting
| | 06:26 | that color crossover to switch from the
red colorcast in the well lit portion
| | 06:30 | of the image to the blue.
| | 06:32 | The only reason we did indeed neutralize
this is it is an important part of the image.
| | 06:36 | All right, so let's see what
we've got so far, boom, boom!
| | 06:40 | We've got a nice neutral
barn, don't we? Very nice!
| | 06:43 | Notice the green in the grass.
| | 06:46 | See how the green is now popping.
| | 06:48 | It's more saturated, because we took
out that red and the blue colorcast, and
| | 06:52 | in this case, the red colorcast and
the highlight, the midtone is probably the
| | 06:56 | most important for making that
green grass greener. Are we done?
| | 06:59 | Could be, or if you want to,
let's just go a little bit more.
| | 07:02 | Let's add a Hue/Saturation layer, oh, yeah!
| | 07:06 | First let's go after the grass.
| | 07:08 | Notice when I just put my eyedropper
and look back to the RGB values here,
| | 07:12 | the red and the green are about equal and
as you move it around, we can actually go
| | 07:16 | after the combination of red
and green, which is yellow.
| | 07:20 | Typically, when I'm working
on plants, I work in yellows.
| | 07:22 | I don't really work in greens.
| | 07:24 | You can drag the Saturation slider here
or the easy thing to do is just click on this,
| | 07:28 | which is this scrubby slider
tool, and then you just click and drag.
| | 07:32 | Watch the Saturation numbers here as I
do this, as you drag across the Grass.
| | 07:36 | Now, yes, you can be obnoxious and do this.
| | 07:39 | It's only if your mother-in-law
is in the picture. There we go.
| | 07:42 | So, you can pull it up.
| | 07:44 | Typically, I don't like to go too much
above 20% to 30%, but I'm going to make
| | 07:48 | the green pop a little bit.
| | 07:49 | How about the blues? How about the sky?
| | 07:51 | Look at the red, green
and blue values in the sky.
| | 07:53 | Yeah, we could go after Cyan
or blue on this one, either one.
| | 07:57 | Let's go after the Cyan.
| | 07:59 | Again, we'll just go to the scrubby
slider and drag that up a little bit.
| | 08:02 | Now, you can get obnoxious with this as well.
| | 08:04 | The sky is so darn flat, if we
just give it a little bit of punch,
| | 08:07 | it's really going to help.
Up to 25 or 30 on that.
| | 08:11 | Then we can combine these two layers in
a group, where you can select those two
| | 08:15 | and create a new group or just go--
of course, the way the way to do it is
| | 08:18 | Command+G to create your
correction group and then you can turn those
| | 08:21 | corrections off and on, off and on.
| | 08:25 | Nice, very good job!
| | 08:27 | Then as always, remember the
keyboard shortcut we set up earlier for
| | 08:30 | our sharpening layer.
| | 08:32 | Then we can apply sharpening to that.
| | 08:33 | On this particular image,
what are we going to do?
| | 08:35 | Oh, yeah, we're going to crank on it.
| | 08:36 | We're going to go 200%, we're
going to do zippo Threshold.
| | 08:40 | Let's take a look at that puppy.
| | 08:41 | Now, maybe a little bit much, Taz.
Let's go down to 100, maybe 125.
| | 08:48 | Remember, we want to look at this at 100%
to really judge what that's going to
| | 08:51 | look like and turn the preview off
and on, and maybe just stick with 100.
| | 08:55 | I don't want to go too far or too fast on that.
| | 08:58 | All right, so there's our sharpening layer
that you can turn off and on, there we go.
| | 09:03 | So, we've done some color crossover and
we did-- again, it's a combination of
| | 09:06 | adjustment and correction.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Underwater images| 00:01 | Well, certainly no course on color
correction it would be worth its salt if we
| | 00:04 | didn't have at least one underwater image here.
| | 00:06 | And this is one of my favorites.
| | 00:08 | This is the shot I took of a Whitetip
Reef Shark swimming around up on
| | 00:11 | the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia, couple of years ago.
| | 00:14 | If you've ever shot images underwater,
you know what the challenge is,
| | 00:17 | is everything looked blue green
after you get below about 10 feet.
| | 00:20 | And the reason for this is that the
hydrogen bonds that loosely bind the water
| | 00:24 | molecules together, absorb
preferentially the longer wavelength's radiation.
| | 00:28 | That is the oranges, and
the reds, and the yellows.
| | 00:31 | So the deeper you go, the more
absorbent you get to that and the more
| | 00:34 | blue-green things look.
| | 00:35 | And when we look at the Histograms,
we clearly see the Histogram evidence or
| | 00:40 | we can visually see over here is the
blue is way offset, the green is somewhat offset,
| | 00:44 | and then there is the red
channel which is way far to the left.
| | 00:47 | All right, so how would we correct this?
| | 00:49 | Well, we could go and do a Histogram
correction, but when I was underwater and I
| | 00:52 | saw this shark, I realized what was in front of
me was something very cool. Let's take a look.
| | 00:58 | Do you see anything in this
image that should be a neutral gray?
| | 01:02 | That's the question I asked
myself and I'll ask you the same thing.
| | 01:05 | And of course, the answer is sure.
| | 01:07 | It's called a Whitetip Reef Shark.
| | 01:09 | Therefore, we have the white tip,
which should be about a neutral
| | 01:14 | white highlight, right?
| | 01:15 | So let's go to a Eyedropper tool and let's
click on there to set our white highlight.
| | 01:20 | And let's go back out.
| | 01:22 | How about anything else
that's supposed to be neutral gray?
| | 01:25 | Have you ever seen a
shark out of water? You bet!
| | 01:29 | The body is all gray.
| | 01:31 | So in fact, the shark's
body as a whole we can use.
| | 01:34 | Now where we're going to
put our point? Down here?
| | 01:36 | No, that's a cast shadow.
| | 01:38 | Right to get the best representative
for the color balance we want, we're going
| | 01:41 | to put one right here.
| | 01:42 | Well, do we have a three-quarter tone
that we could use as neutral gray? You betcha!
| | 01:47 | Right here on the back fin. So how about that?
| | 01:50 | We've got a highlight, a mid-tone, and a shadow.
| | 01:53 | And it occurred to me, while I was
down, and thinking about this that well,
| | 01:56 | basically we have a swimming gray-scale target.
| | 01:59 | So when you want to do underwater
photography, look for the Whitetip Reef Shark,
| | 02:03 | take a picture, and then we
can correct the shark just like we did
| | 02:06 | our 10 step target.
| | 02:07 | Let's see if it works.
| | 02:09 | Let's go ahead and create our
Curves adjustment channel here.
| | 02:13 | And let's just go right to the red channel.
| | 02:17 | Let's look at the values here, move
this up here 150, 240, 253, look at
| | 02:24 | the blue, holy smokes!
| | 02:26 | So we know, we're going to be
moving the red all the way over here.
| | 02:29 | 243, go right to the green channel,
same thing, we'll move it over.
| | 02:34 | We'll have to adjust it
nearly so much, just a little bit.
| | 02:37 | Then of course the blue channel,
we're actually going to have to move down,
| | 02:41 | there we go, and let's go to number 2.
| | 02:43 | While we're on the blue channel,
let's go ahead and do the blue channel.
| | 02:46 | Now, notice we've 145, 164, 166.
| | 02:50 | Hmmm. The blue and the green have already
been largely corrected, haven't they?
| | 02:54 | So we're going to use the
green channel as our target.
| | 02:56 | So I'll just move the blue down a
little bit and then we'll go Option+3 to go
| | 03:00 | to the red channel and we'll
raise that up to get to 163, 164.
| | 03:05 | Command+Shift-click to
establish the three-quarter tone point.
| | 03:10 | And on the red channel
what do we have? 70, 66, 84.
| | 03:14 | So which one are we going
to use, as the target value?
| | 03:17 | Exactly, the green because it's in between.
| | 03:19 | And you can see it make sense.
| | 03:20 | In the original version of our
histograms, the green was the middle channel.
| | 03:24 | Right, so it's going to
naturally follow into that category.
| | 03:26 | We're going to want to lower the red to
about 66, and then we would just scoot
| | 03:30 | over the blue channel, we'll drop
that puppy way down to 66, and lo and
| | 03:34 | behold, look at that.
| | 03:36 | A beautiful color corrected
swimming gray-scale target. Before, after.
| | 03:41 | And if that's not cool enough that we have
a swimming gray-scale target, watch this.
| | 03:45 | So what do we do now is we come up here,
and we're going to choose Save Curves, right?
| | 03:49 | And we're going to save this as the
Shark Curve and then we're going to go
| | 03:53 | back over to our Bridge.
| | 03:55 | And I've got two images that I shot at
approximately the same time of day in
| | 03:59 | about the same depth of water.
| | 04:01 | And then all I have to do to correct
these is create a Curves adjustment layer,
| | 04:05 | come underneath Default,
choose Shark, boom, color corrected.
| | 04:10 | For the Soft Coral, create
Curves adjustment layer, Shark, boom,
| | 04:16 | color corrected, done.
| | 04:19 | Swimming gray-scale target,
you gotta love it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sacrifices| 00:00 | Well, if you are a car buff, you
will recognize this as an Edsel.
| | 00:04 | I took these pictures, bright sunshine,
knew I was going to have a colorcast.
| | 00:08 | Also knew I could fix it in Photoshop.
| | 00:10 | So let's take a look.
| | 00:11 | I mean this image doesn't
look bad. That's for sure.
| | 00:14 | But I think we can do better.
| | 00:15 | First of all, let's do our
visual evaluation as always.
| | 00:18 | The critical portion of this image is
obviously the car and boy, that nice red color,
| | 00:22 | we want to make
sure we can bring that out.
| | 00:24 | Any neutral areas in this image?
| | 00:26 | Now you betcha. You will look at the
white tires here, the white roof here,
| | 00:30 | the white building in the background.
| | 00:31 | Who cares about that? Nobody.
| | 00:33 | So, are there any problem areas? Well, sure.
| | 00:35 | Look at the background, it's blown out.
| | 00:37 | In fact, when I bring my INFO tool
up here, let me do an eval of this.
| | 00:41 | Notice we've got everything in the high 250s.
| | 00:43 | So it's completely blown out.
| | 00:45 | Now, we could make a selection like we
could go the Magic Wand tool and select
| | 00:49 | the car here and select the
background and try to edit them separately and
| | 00:53 | that's all possible.
| | 00:54 | We are not going to do it. Why?
| | 00:56 | I got too much kayaking to do,
not all this selection stuff, particularly
| | 00:59 | a difficult selection.
| | 01:01 | So, what we are going to in fact do
is we are just going to leave that area
| | 01:03 | pretty the much the way it is, but
we are not going to make it any worse.
| | 01:07 | That's the sacrifice area in the image.
| | 01:08 | That's obviously one of the
lightest portions in the image.
| | 01:11 | But it's not something we are going to
use as the diffuse white highlight, are we?
| | 01:14 | No. We're going to try to find some
neutrals in this image that are more important
| | 01:19 | and one of them likely is going to
be down here in this white wall tires.
| | 01:23 | These white walls, we want
to make sure they are neutral.
| | 01:26 | Are they going to set at 5%?
| | 01:27 | No, we are not going to set them at 5%.
| | 01:29 | In fact, it would be a
mistake to set those at 5%.
| | 01:32 | One, it would blow out the rest of
this image horribly, which would draw the
| | 01:35 | eye too much to it.
| | 01:36 | And two, look at this is in the shadow.
| | 01:39 | So it's going to be neutral, but
it's not going to be 5% white highlight.
| | 01:43 | But we'll treat that as the diffuse
white highlight or quarter tone, let's say,
| | 01:47 | and then see if we can find some other areas.
| | 01:49 | Let's just dive right in and see if
indeed that turns out to be one of the
| | 01:53 | light critical areas in the image.
| | 01:55 | We'll go to Command+M, bring up our
Curves, and notice we got all of this
| | 01:58 | stuff popping out there. Holy smokes!
| | 02:00 | What's all that all about? Notice these are...
| | 02:04 | What are they?
| | 02:05 | That's right, specular highlights.
| | 02:07 | The reflections of bumpers.
| | 02:08 | They are supposed to be blown out. That's cool!
| | 02:10 | We are focusing in on the
area that we have identified.
| | 02:13 | Here again is where judgment comes in.
| | 02:15 | If all you're taught is, well, set the
lightest portion of the image at 242,
| | 02:19 | we'll be trying to set this at 242
and everything else in the foreground is
| | 02:22 | going to go too dark and we
don't care about that anyway.
| | 02:25 | So, yeah, it's all about properly
evaluating the image, and we have identified
| | 02:28 | those white tires as some
place we want to make neutral.
| | 02:31 | We are not sure what the
value is, but by golly, we know.
| | 02:34 | Let's just check to make sure. Oops!
| | 02:37 | That's not that tire, is it?
| | 02:38 | The tire is up here.
| | 02:39 | It'd be easy to set that there.
| | 02:41 | Where is the lightest
portion of that tire? There it is.
| | 02:45 | There is that puppy.
| | 02:47 | So we'll put our Color Sampler point
right in the middle of that and then we'll
| | 02:51 | Command+Period to get rid of all that.
| | 02:53 | Command+0 to go up to the
full screen preview. Nice!
| | 02:56 | Anything else that's a neutral?
| | 02:57 | We've got the white highlight. Anything else?
| | 03:00 | Well, you know chrome is basically
neutral and when you set chrome neutral
| | 03:05 | that looks very nice. So let's do that.
| | 03:08 | Let's look for something in the chrome
that we can make neutral and let's go
| | 03:12 | back to our Eyedropper tool and it would be
nice to find something around the midtone.
| | 03:17 | Look at this right here and look at
our RGB value there, 91, 112, 133.
| | 03:23 | There is a green at 120. Let's do that one.
| | 03:24 | Shift-click to set the Color Sampler
point and any place else you have the
| | 03:30 | darker in the chrome?
| | 03:31 | Well, look at this.
| | 03:32 | This is the chrome accent along the
side of the hood and we are getting
| | 03:36 | reflection of the black driveway right here.
| | 03:40 | So we could either go after the black
driveway or better yet, let's go after the
| | 03:44 | reflection of the black driveway in
the chrome, because that's what we really
| | 03:48 | want to be neutral is the chrome.
| | 03:50 | So we'll set our third point there. Nice!
| | 03:54 | And then we'll go create our
Curves adjustment layer. Good.
| | 03:58 | What do we want to correct first?
| | 04:01 | Well, let's go take a look at our
highlight and look at those highlight values,
| | 04:05 | because we are not sure what they need to be.
| | 04:07 | Remember, we're not going after the 242.
| | 04:09 | We have got what, 213, 227, 232.
| | 04:15 | Why don't we use the blue,
since that's the highest value?
| | 04:17 | Why don't we use the blue as the target value?
| | 04:19 | In this case, we are not going to use
the middle, although it wouldn't make too
| | 04:21 | much difference here, would it?
| | 04:22 | Because green and blue are so close.
| | 04:24 | But in this case, because we are not
setting it to white highlight, because the
| | 04:27 | white highlight is out here and
it's blown out and it isn't the shadow.
| | 04:30 | So we want it to be neutral.
| | 04:30 | We want it to be pretty light. So let's do 232.
| | 04:33 | That's getting up there.
| | 04:35 | I mean you might decide, hey, I want
to make that 235. That's okay too.
| | 04:39 | It's really kind of up to you
as to which way you want to go.
| | 04:42 | So let's go Option+3 to bring up the
red channel and then hit the plus or the
| | 04:46 | equal sign and let's start moving
this back to 232 and see what happens.
| | 04:53 | Look what happened.
| | 04:54 | See that background of that image is
starting to get lighter. You know what?
| | 04:58 | Maybe we should use the red
value as the target instead.
| | 05:01 | Let's use the red value.
| | 05:02 | Let's shoot for 213, you know why?
| | 05:04 | Because then, we won't be lowering the
overall highlight values of this whole image
| | 05:08 | and this area here won't blow out anymore.
| | 05:10 | Okay, good solution.
| | 05:13 | So let's go to the good green
channel and we are going to lower that.
| | 05:16 | I'm just using my Down arrow and then
Option+5 to go to the blue channel and
| | 05:20 | because we already selected the
highlight point earlier in the red channel
| | 05:23 | all of the other channels
were automatically selected.
| | 05:26 | So lot less mousing around. There we go.
| | 05:29 | Now notice that we have now neutralized
the very important portion of our image,
| | 05:33 | but we haven't blown out any
more of the rest of the image.
| | 05:35 | So it prevents us from having go in and select
that and do all that nonsense. All right, cool!
| | 05:39 | So, what's next?
| | 05:40 | Well, number 2, point number 2, and let's
Command+Shift or Ctrl+Shift on Windows. Click.
| | 05:47 | That puts a Color Sampler point on all
three channels, boom, boom, boom,
| | 05:51 | right around the midtone and let's
look at our values here, 102, 116, 132.
| | 05:57 | We are around the midtone.
| | 05:58 | Which one do we use for our target value?
| | 06:00 | That's it, the green channel,
because that's the middle one.
| | 06:03 | Here we absolutely will use the middle.
| | 06:05 | So we'll go to blue, since we are
already there, let's just go ahead and lower
| | 06:08 | that down to 116 and then
Option+3 to go the red channel.
| | 06:12 | See these points are already selected for us.
| | 06:15 | And we'll raise that 116, very nice and then
finally, let's go Command+Shift on point number 3.
| | 06:22 | That's such a handy shortcut to
use that and we are at 59, 52, 48.
| | 06:28 | So again we are going to use the green channel.
| | 06:30 | We are in the red channel, so let's
lower that to 52, and then we'll go to the
| | 06:34 | blue channel and raise that to 52. Nice!
| | 06:38 | There we go. So what we've done is we have
neutralized the critical neutral portion to this
| | 06:43 | image, which we by evaluating the image,
went after the tire, a neutral portion
| | 06:47 | in the chrome and then the
three-quarter tone in the chrome.
| | 06:50 | Now look at the difference in this
image, before and after, and watch the
| | 06:53 | chrome in particular.
| | 06:54 | Before and after, before and after.
| | 06:57 | See, how much nicer that chrome looks.
| | 06:59 | Now notice we have overall
brightened this image as well.
| | 07:02 | We might come back into the master curve,
Option+2 and click on the midtone, and
| | 07:07 | in this case, make it just a little
bit darker, just a little bit darker and
| | 07:12 | then go to the quarter tone, bump up
the quarter tone, go to the three-quarter
| | 07:17 | tone, drag that down a little bit.
| | 07:19 | Now let's take a look at
it before and after. Ooh!
| | 07:22 | That's looking rich.
| | 07:23 | That's looking saturated. That's nice.
| | 07:25 | Could we add a Hue/Saturation layer to this?
| | 07:27 | Yeah, but we are not going to.
| | 07:28 | We are cool the way it is.
| | 07:30 | Then of course we'll throw a Sharpening
layer on there, I won't take time to do
| | 07:33 | that now, but let's just look
aside by each comparison of these.
| | 07:37 | Look at the improvement, look how that
chrome pops now, where it didn't before.
| | 07:40 | All right, here is something we can do.
| | 07:43 | I shot multiple versions of this image.
| | 07:46 | Let's go ahead and open these and by
the way working through Bridge you select
| | 07:50 | multiple images, you just hit the Enter
key and it will open up both images and
| | 07:54 | the nice thing about having corrected
this first image, and we'll just put these
| | 07:57 | down here, is that we can then take
the correction from this and we can Save
| | 08:03 | Curve Preset, and we'll call this the
Edsel correction and click Save, and then
| | 08:09 | we are going to open this image, we are
going to add an adjustment curve to it
| | 08:14 | and then we are just going to come
underneath Curves and choose Edsel, boom!
| | 08:18 | Come underneath this image, add a
Curve's tool, and choose Edsel. Boom!
| | 08:25 | Notice we got automatic correction of
all those images, because they were shot
| | 08:28 | into similar lighting circumstances.
| | 08:29 | It works like a champ.
| | 08:31 | So, anytime you have multiple images
like that, you can do the correction on one,
| | 08:35 | save the Curves and then apply those
same Curves to the other images in the group.
| | 08:39 | So now we've got a really cool looking Edsel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Image within image: Snow and sky| 00:00 | Well, we are back to our snow image
and if you remember, we looked at this a
| | 00:04 | little bit earlier in the course and
we decided that this was one of those
| | 00:07 | images that had some complex
requirements. It was what I like to call an
| | 00:10 | image within an image.
| | 00:12 | When we do a visual and histogram
evaluation of this, we are going to see some
| | 00:16 | of the challenges we are up against.
| | 00:17 | This image is all about
the highlights, isn't it?
| | 00:19 | And in fact, there are highlights in
the snow and highlights in the sky.
| | 00:23 | In fact, let's just go right to our
Curves tool and do the Show Clipping and
| | 00:27 | you will see what the challenges are.
| | 00:28 | Let's just drag this in here and notice
that our first highlight comes up right
| | 00:32 | there in the edge of the sky.
| | 00:34 | And if we keep dragging this, we have to
drag it all the way over here before we
| | 00:39 | actually start to see any of
the highlights in the snow.
| | 00:42 | So if we correct the image for the
highlights here, well, what happens to this?
| | 00:45 | It just stays dark and we'd really like to
have the foreground snow to be different.
| | 00:49 | Plus, notice that when we look at
the RGB values over here, notice that
| | 00:56 | everything is in the high 230s and
they are fairly close together, 237, 239, 234,
| | 01:02 | whereas here in the lighter areas of
the image, everything is down in 190s and 200s.
| | 01:08 | Notice the blue is significantly higher
than the red and green, which are pretty
| | 01:11 | close to being equal.
| | 01:12 | So not only is there a big tonal range
difference but there is a difference in the colorcast.
| | 01:16 | We have got crossover here.
| | 01:18 | So the answer here is really to correct
these two portions of the image separately.
| | 01:23 | All right, so what are we going to do?
| | 01:25 | First of all, let's go ahead
and set our two highlights.
| | 01:27 | We can do that right now here
while we have got this opened.
| | 01:29 | So we are going to set two highlights
in this image, one for the foreground and
| | 01:34 | one for the background.
| | 01:35 | Let's just pull this back, so we'll
get the highlights outright. Bingo!
| | 01:39 | Right there, good, and Command+
0 and then drag this in here.
| | 01:46 | That's a good highlight area there.
| | 01:48 | And then we'll just Command+Period to
get rid of that, Command+0 and then
| | 01:54 | we are going to want to set one more point
anyway, somewhere in the middle area of the snow.
| | 01:59 | Shift-click to set one and
let's see what we have got.
| | 02:03 | Yeah, the 160s to 180s, the 190s to 200s
and then look at the highlight value
| | 02:08 | set here, 246, 247, 242.
| | 02:10 | blue is right on the money.
| | 02:12 | The red and green are just a tad high
but completely different tonal range and
| | 02:15 | colorcast than these points here.
| | 02:18 | So what we are going to do to
correct these two portions of the image
| | 02:21 | separately is start with making a
selection and I'm going to go to the Quick
| | 02:25 | Selection tool, and we just drag this
across here to make our initial selection
| | 02:31 | and then if I want to, and let's tab to
get rid of that, hold down my Shift key
| | 02:35 | and I can add some of the mountains to this as
well and I might be a little bit more careful.
| | 02:40 | I'm doing this for real.
| | 02:42 | Then let's go to the other Magic Wand
tool, the regular Magic Wand tool to take
| | 02:49 | care of these look-throughs here.
| | 02:51 | Shift to add to. Do you see
there's a little Plus sign?
| | 02:53 | If you keep using the Quick Selection, it
will just add everything, which you don't want.
| | 02:57 | Now always be cognizant of those
look-throughs when you are making
| | 03:00 | selections like this.
| | 03:01 | And then of course, we'll go to Refine
Edge and we can feather this edge and
| | 03:06 | smooth the edge if we want to.
| | 03:08 | We could add a feather of
2 and then we'll click OK.
| | 03:12 | The whole objective there is to smooth
the edge a little bit and we can go to
| | 03:16 | the Quick Mask tool and that is just
typing Q for Quick Mask, if you want to get
| | 03:20 | a look at what the edge looks like.
See it's a nice smooth edge, so that any
| | 03:24 | adjustments that we make separately on
the foreground or background will not
| | 03:27 | appear as any abrupt changes in
tonal or colorcast along that edge.
| | 03:32 | So we've selected our sky and we are
going to go ahead and Option-click on this
| | 03:37 | and this is how you can create a new
alpha channel mask to save that selection.
| | 03:41 | We'll call that Sky.
| | 03:42 | Clicking with the Option key, or Alt in
Windows there, allows you to name that
| | 03:46 | selection by the way,
which is always a good idea.
| | 03:48 | Then let's inverse that and let's
create the foreground and we'll call
| | 03:53 | this the Snow selection.
| | 03:55 | There we go and notice the keyboard
shortcut is Command+6 and Command+7, if you
| | 03:59 | want to go to those channels, but
more important shortcut to know is
| | 04:02 | Command+Option+6/7 or Ctrl+Alt
+6/7 on Windows. Watch this.
| | 04:07 | I'm going Command+Option+7, Command+Option+6.
| | 04:12 | Notice how it allows me to load those
selections in there right from the keyboard.
| | 04:16 | So that's sweet.
| | 04:17 | That's nice to be able to do that.
| | 04:19 | What I want to show you here is
let's go Command+Option+6 and look at the
| | 04:23 | histogram for the sky.
| | 04:25 | Now keep your eye over here,
I'm going to switch to 7. Boom!
| | 04:28 | Do you see how all of the histograms shift over?
| | 04:30 | Let's go back to 7 again. 7 and 6,
there is 6, there is 7, see how that shifts?
| | 04:37 | And notice that when we were on the
sky, on 6, notice how we get a better
| | 04:42 | alignment of the histograms whereas
when we go to 7, the blue is sticking out
| | 04:45 | just a little bit more.
| | 04:46 | Okay, so now we can work on these two
portions of the image separately. So let's go back.
| | 04:52 | Let's do our sky first.
| | 04:53 | So let's load our number 6
selection here and let's go back to our
| | 04:59 | Eyedropper tool, make sure we have got
an Eyedropper tool active and once we
| | 05:02 | have that selection loaded, then we can go
Command+F2 to create a new Curves adjustment layer.
| | 05:09 | Notice when you make a new Curves
adjustment layer and you have a selection active,
| | 05:12 | a layer mask is automatically created,
so that curve will only apply to
| | 05:18 | that portion of the image.
| | 05:19 | You don't have to create a clipping group,
make a separate layer and then create
| | 05:22 | a clipping group out of an adjustment layer.
| | 05:24 | Make a selection, create the Curves
adjustment layer and layer mask will
| | 05:28 | restrict whatever corrections you are
going to make or whatever adjustments to
| | 05:31 | just that portion of the image.
| | 05:32 | So that's very handy.
| | 05:34 | You can get by with a lot
less work and a lot fewer layers.
| | 05:37 | Just tuck this under here.
| | 05:38 | 246, 247, 242, blue is right on
the money, isn't it? Holy smokes!
| | 05:43 | And then let's go Option+3 to go to
the red channel, hit the Equal sign to
| | 05:47 | select that highlight point and we
are at 246, so we are going to go down.
| | 05:53 | We are going to move
that down to round about 242.
| | 05:55 | It doesn't take much and then let's
go to the green channel, Option+4, same thing,
| | 05:59 | just Down arrow to move that to 241,
242 and now we have neutralized that sky.
| | 06:05 | So we have corrected that portion of the
image and we've got some nice bright skies.
| | 06:09 | Now let's go back and select our snow
portion of our image and again create an
| | 06:14 | adjustment layer, and we'll call
this the snow adjustment layer and
| | 06:20 | as I mentioned before, when you've got
multiple correction curves or adjustment layers,
| | 06:24 | make sure that you label your layers.
| | 06:26 | All right, so now we are going to be
working on our snow layer and let's
| | 06:30 | look at our values.
| | 06:32 | Our highlight point, we
decided to select right there.
| | 06:34 | 195, 200, 205, so the
blue is a little bit higher.
| | 06:38 | Let's just go right down the list.
| | 06:40 | Let's go to our red channel
and we'll go to our highlight.
| | 06:43 | Just hit the Equal sign
and we'll just lower that.
| | 06:48 | Drag it to the left until we are right
where we want to be and then Option+4.
| | 06:53 | Notice Highlight is already selected,
we can just hold down that Left arrow,
| | 06:57 | put that right at 242 and then Option+5.
| | 07:00 | Do the same thing with the blue and
that one we are going to drag over a
| | 07:04 | fair amount as well.
| | 07:05 | There we go and boy, look at the
difference in the snow already. Before and after.
| | 07:10 | Then let's go look at our midtone, see
what's happening with the midtone point.
| | 07:14 | 203, 204, boy that's right on the money.
| | 07:17 | blue's still a little bit high.
| | 07:18 | So let's Command+Shift-click on point
number 3 and let's go to the blue channel,
| | 07:22 | Option+5 and that's already selected.
| | 07:25 | So we'll just lower that
until we are about neutral.
| | 07:29 | So there we go. We have completely
neutralized the snow and you might decide at
| | 07:33 | this point that's just a little too
white, given the blueness of the sky.
| | 07:38 | So you could put in a little bit of that blue.
| | 07:40 | See I'm just going to go, boom, boom,
just up a little bit, so it's not quite
| | 07:44 | so stark a difference.
| | 07:45 | Boom boom, this is where human
judgment comes into play here, in terms of
| | 07:50 | you are looking at the image going,
it just doesn't look natural enough.
| | 07:52 | So you could make it neutral and just
back it off a little bit to give it just a
| | 07:55 | little bit more blue so it looks
little more natural with that sky.
| | 07:59 | Let's go back to our master curve
and then we'll have to click on our Sky
| | 08:03 | adjustment layer down here and we can
move to the adjustment layer and if you want to,
| | 08:08 | I'm making a huge adjustment
here just to show you what you can do,
| | 08:12 | is you can make huge adjustments in
either one of these layers if you want to.
| | 08:15 | I'm choosing not to here or if
anything I might just do it a little bit.
| | 08:19 | Increase the contrast on that layer.
| | 08:21 | Point is you have control because now
you have made your selections and you can
| | 08:26 | do your adjustments to your heart's delight.
| | 08:27 | All right, we'll Command+D to deselect
and there is our image within an image.
| | 08:33 | So it's important to be able to
recognize when you have the images within
| | 08:36 | images, where the foreground and the
background need to be corrected separately.
| | 08:41 | There is our starting and ending and
again, you can select both of those and
| | 08:46 | create an individual group, Command+G,
where you can turn the selection off and on.
| | 08:50 | Remember you can adjust this
as any way that you want to.
| | 08:52 | I have pretty much neutralized here
with just a little bit of blue but it would
| | 08:55 | be up to you and once you make your
selections, you have got your numbers and
| | 08:58 | you have complete control.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Image within image: Sunrise and mountains| 00:02 | Well, here we have a second image
within image project to take a look at.
| | 00:07 | I'm going to save us a little bit
of time here, because I have already made
| | 00:09 | selections of the sky and the
mountains using the Magic Wand tools.
| | 00:14 | I have already selected some color
sampler points, the lightest point in the sky,
| | 00:17 | and then some snow samples,
and then the deepest shadow here.
| | 00:22 | What I really want to focus on is not
setting the points and making the selections.
| | 00:25 | More about making the adjustments,
because this is really all about making
| | 00:30 | adjustments at this point
for this particular image.
| | 00:33 | And let's go ahead and load the sky and
the number on the channel is number 6.
| | 00:38 | So to load that, Command+Option+6,
and by the way, if you just don't like
| | 00:43 | keyboard shortcuts and you don't
want to go kayaking sooner, that's okay.
| | 00:48 | But you can come underneath Select and
go select and then Load Selection and
| | 00:53 | then find the Sky and click OK, or you can
just go Command+Option+6. It's up to you.
| | 00:58 | And then, of course, what we want to
do is we want to make a adjustment layer
| | 01:02 | out of that and since we are going to
have multiple layers, we'll call this
| | 01:05 | the Sky layer and then let's load the
mountains and Command+F2, and we'll call this
| | 01:12 | the Mountains layer.
| | 01:13 | There we go and remember that layer
masks are automatically created here.
| | 01:17 | And take a look at the difference
in the histograms and watch the
| | 01:20 | histogram right up here.
| | 01:21 | There's a significant difference
between the sky and the mountains.
| | 01:24 | The mountains is a lot lower key image,
and the sky is a lot higher key image.
| | 01:29 | So we'll work on the sky first and we
can click on the sky and we can make
| | 01:35 | it deeper and redder.
| | 01:36 | You can make the sky look
any way that you want to.
| | 01:39 | This is totally a creative adjustment here.
| | 01:41 | There's nothing right or wrong.
| | 01:42 | It's just totally a creative adjustment.
| | 01:44 | Then we can Option and then bracket and
move to the Mountains layer and here
| | 01:51 | we can choose to lighten and lighten and
lighten and lighten, until you get an
| | 01:56 | unreal looking landscape.
| | 01:58 | The point being is you have complete
control over everything between this and this.
| | 02:06 | Depending upon the layer mask that you
are working on. Notice you don't have to
| | 02:09 | load any selections, because all of
that is controlled through the layer mask
| | 02:13 | that you have right here.
| | 02:14 | So let's decide that we would like to
bump the sky up a little bit and we would
| | 02:18 | like to make the mountains a little
bit lighter, but not too much lighter.
| | 02:23 | There is our adjustment and we are really
basing it upon looking at the histograms.
| | 02:26 | Oh! The only last thing we might want to
do is down here I'm looking at point number 4,
| | 02:31 | which is a shadow.
| | 02:32 | When we get done, let's go back to the
mountains and let's just hit that Enter
| | 02:36 | key and just move that up a little bit,
until we have got some-- That's it.
| | 02:41 | We got some shadow detail on there,
so it doesn't print 100% black.
| | 02:45 | So there is images within images and how
much correction and control you can get
| | 02:50 | and make sure that you feather
the edges of your selections.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Weird color casts| 00:02 | No set of color correction projects
would be complete without some weird color casts
| | 00:06 | and here's the image that we
looked at way back at the beginning when we
| | 00:09 | were doing our initial image
evaluations and we looked at this image and said
| | 00:13 | this one obviously has a colorcast.
| | 00:15 | You don't have to be a
color scientist to know that.
| | 00:17 | And this is a photograph of my lovely
cousin Lyn, who was a prima ballerina for
| | 00:22 | the Boston Ballet, a soloist for many years.
| | 00:24 | She is now a yoga master and my
workout buddy whenever we get together.
| | 00:28 | So how do we correct Lyn?
| | 00:30 | Well, obviously this is shot is indoors,
strong colorcast, interesting looking
| | 00:34 | image first of all but it's just
too darn red. That's what it is.
| | 00:38 | And when we look over here at the
histogram, we look at the master histogram,
| | 00:41 | we say you know that's a full
range, full tonal range here.
| | 00:44 | That's why the image doesn't
look really so much low contrast.
| | 00:47 | It's just really red.
| | 00:48 | So it's not a tonal range problem.
| | 00:51 | It's almost completely a colorcast
problem and when we look down at the
| | 00:55 | histogram, yeah, we see the story is
told right here. Look at all the reds
| | 00:59 | particularly in the highlights, in the
quarter tones, and the blue is almost
| | 01:03 | completely absent from here.
| | 01:05 | And this is very common inside of
stores like this that have incandescent
| | 01:08 | lighting, so let's go about identifying
key portions of our image and then let's
| | 01:13 | go about doing some corrections as well.
| | 01:15 | What are we going to look for first?
| | 01:17 | Let's look for any neutrals we have in
this image and key portions of this image.
| | 01:21 | Well, clearly one key portion of
the image is going to be the skin tones.
| | 01:24 | No doubt about it.
| | 01:26 | So we are going to want to pay
attention to that but first let's see if there
| | 01:29 | are any neutral highlights and let's
just bring up our old favorite, the Curves tool,
| | 01:34 | and let's just slide this puppy
over and, ooh, there is something in the
| | 01:37 | background, what's that. That's right.
| | 01:39 | It's a specular so we are
not going to worry about that. Ooh!
| | 01:42 | Some things coming up here,
something white looks like to me.
| | 01:45 | All right, T-shirt, cool.
| | 01:48 | That's a good point. Isn't it?
| | 01:50 | And it's a neutral.
| | 01:51 | It should be a neutral white and it's an
important part of the image, so you betcha.
| | 01:55 | We'll set Color Sampler Point number 1
right there and them we'll Command+Period
| | 01:58 | to get out of that.
Command+0 to go back to full screen.
| | 02:01 | We can enlarge our image a
little bit here. So what's next?
| | 02:05 | Are there any other neutrals in this image?
| | 02:07 | Kind of tough to tell except for,
remember up here in the specular?
| | 02:12 | That's zinc plated and zinc
is pretty much neutral grays.
| | 02:16 | Is it right on the money? No.
| | 02:17 | But it's probably close enough
particularly given the colorcast of this image.
| | 02:20 | We can very lightly use
this to some good effect.
| | 02:24 | So let's go ahead and Shift-click on
here and create Color Sampler Point number 2.
| | 02:27 | Now, while we are here, let's
create a skin tone Color Sampler point.
| | 02:32 | Yeah, so there we've got three points.
| | 02:33 | We have got two neutrals, one in the
highlight, one in somewhere around the midtone.
| | 02:38 | All right let's do a numeric key value
here, Color Sampler Point number 1,
| | 02:41 | 249, 235, 224, Color Sample Point number 2,
143, 128, 116, and once again notice how
| | 02:50 | we have the same ratios or near ratios
between number 2 and number 1, thereby
| | 02:55 | giving us some confidence that number 2
point is indeed supposed to be a neutral.
| | 02:58 | Because we knew number 1 was for sure
and we suspected this was and it's got
| | 03:02 | about the same balance so we are good to go.
| | 03:04 | And Color Sampler Point
number 3, this is skin tone.
| | 03:07 | red is greater than green and greater than blue.
| | 03:09 | Well, sure enough but look at this.
| | 03:11 | 175, 85, 95, 205, 215, 225.
| | 03:15 | That's 50, that's 55 points of separation.
| | 03:18 | All right here we have got
close to 160 and then 70.
| | 03:22 | It's about 15 to 18 points of separation.
| | 03:25 | So clearly even on the skin tones it's too red.
| | 03:28 | So let's go about doing our correction
then. We'll create our Curves layer and
| | 03:32 | we have got our diffused white highlight.
We can just go right to the red channel
| | 03:38 | and we'll just hit the Enter key
until we get our point selected here.
| | 03:42 | And the red is at 249, so we're just
going to lower it because we suspected that
| | 03:46 | that was going to be blown out.
| | 03:47 | So we can just lower that down to 241, 242.
| | 03:51 | All right and then let's go to the
green channel, already preselected as we know,
| | 03:55 | and we'll just move it to the
left with the left key and then go to
| | 04:00 | the blue channel and it's at 224.
| | 04:02 | So we are going to move that left
as well to raise that and then let's
| | 04:06 | Command+Shift on that Color Sampler
Point number 2 and let's evaluate here.
| | 04:12 | We are not sure what it's supposed to
be but we have got 139, 132 and 124.
| | 04:19 | So what we are going to use? The
green channel because that's the middle of
| | 04:22 | three and that's that handy one to use.
| | 04:24 | So we are already on the blue channel.
| | 04:25 | Let's just go ahead and hit the up arrow,
until we get the 132 and then we'll go
| | 04:29 | Option+3 to go to the red and we'll
bring that down just a skosh, here we go.
| | 04:34 | Now let's re-eval our skin tone, 176, 184, 221.
| | 04:39 | We have to been able to bring that red down
significantly and I'm going to go ahead
| | 04:43 | and Command-click on the number 3 point
to see where that is on the red channel.
| | 04:48 | Notice how high that is.
| | 04:49 | We could lower that red
channel at that point a little bit.
| | 04:52 | I need to zoom in so you can just
take a look here. Watch the skin tone.
| | 04:57 | Now the skin tones turn to, it lightens
a little bit on the red, takes a little
| | 05:01 | bit more of that red out of there. Nice, okay.
| | 05:05 | Let's look at the before
and after. Before, after.
| | 05:08 | Oh yeah, much better.
| | 05:10 | How much red you take out of really
going to depend upon your own personal
| | 05:13 | preference but the other thing, notice
how all of the other colors in the image
| | 05:17 | pop pretty nicely too when we turn on
that correction layer. The blue, the red,
| | 05:22 | the greens, the yellows, they are all
popping because we are taking out a lot
| | 05:26 | of that excess red but most importantly Lyn's
skin looks really nice and looks a lot more human.
| | 05:31 | So there we go and there
is before and after. Nicely done.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Review| 00:01 | Well, here we are at the end of your
color correction course in our final image
| | 00:06 | and what more appropriate image to
work in then wonderful Zipper dog.
| | 00:09 | This is my dog Zappy.
| | 00:10 | He is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi that's
Kachemak Bay in background in the Homer Spit
| | 00:14 | and that's Grace Ridge, which is
one of my favorite hikes in the world.
| | 00:18 | You can get up there and you can
see for 150 miles and 360 degrees.
| | 00:21 | It's pretty spectacular.
| | 00:23 | So, I thought we'd take our final image
and just kind of review our workflow a
| | 00:27 | little bit while we go and
create a variation of this image.
| | 00:30 | There is nothing wrong with this image,
but we can create variations of it
| | 00:34 | using all the skills we have learned
in color correction and of course the
| | 00:37 | first thing that we do in our workflow
is to go underneath our Color settings
| | 00:42 | and set up our Color Settings.
| | 00:44 | Make sure you have got the proper RGB
and then if you are doing work in CMYK or
| | 00:48 | even tend to covert to CMYK.
| | 00:49 | Particularly, doing correction process
if you are reviewing the CMYK values,
| | 00:54 | make sure you choose the color profile
of the final output device you intend to
| | 00:57 | go to and in printing the
Sheetfed Press and Coated stock.
| | 01:01 | Then of course you would choose the tool
that you want, and you arrange them and
| | 01:05 | then you can create your own custom
workspace like we have got the Taz Color
| | 01:08 | Correction here and you assign your
own keyboard shortcuts to things that
| | 01:13 | we have been doing through out the seminar
and then and arrange your panels the way
| | 01:17 | you want to on screen, so that you can
access everything quickly and easily.
| | 01:21 | Then you are ready to open an image like
we have done here and ready to go to work.
| | 01:24 | The first thing that we do after we
open up our image is of course is make a
| | 01:28 | duplicate copy of that image. Not only
to protect the original image, but so we
| | 01:34 | can have the C & C here,
the Compare and Contrast up o |
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