IntroductionWelcome| 00:06 |
Hello and welcome! I'm Jan Kabili,
your instructor for Photoshop CS4 Image
| | 00:12 |
Adjustments in Depth. In this course,
I'll show you how and why to use
| | 00:16 |
adjustment layers in a
nondestructive image editing workflow.
| | 00:21 |
You'll see how to use Levels to make a
flat photograph like this pop like this.
| | 00:27 |
You'll learn how to use Curves for
even more precise control over Brightness
| | 00:31 |
and Contrast. I'll walk you through a new
Photoshop CS4 workflow for correcting color with Curves.
| | 00:38 |
I'll demonstrate multiple ways to
remove a color cast. I'll also teach you how
| | 00:43 |
to use the new Adjustments panel and
how to read a Histogram. This course
| | 00:48 |
focuses on image adjustments, but it
necessarily mentions other Photoshop
| | 00:52 |
features along the way.
| | 00:54 |
If you need more information about
other Photoshop features, visit my course
| | 00:58 |
'Photoshop CS4 Essential Training'. As
a photographer and a senior trainer here
| | 01:03 |
at Lynda.com, I've designed this
course to teach you all the major adjustment
| | 01:07 |
features and to streamline
your image editing workflow.
| | 01:11 |
It's time to show you how to make your
images fit your vision, with Photoshop
| | 01:15 |
CS4 Image Adjustments in Depth.
| | 01:17 |
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a premium member of the
Lynda.com Online Training Library, or if
| | 00:04 | you're viewing the course on a DVD,
you have access to the Exercise Files.
| | 00:09 | These are image files that I'll use as
examples as I teach each lesson.
| | 00:14 | I've organized the Exercise Files by chapter,
the same chapters that you see in the
| | 00:18 | Table of Contents for this course. You
could see my Exercise Files open here on my Mac.
| | 00:23 | Inside the exercise files folder, are
chapter folders, and inside each chapter
| | 00:29 | folder, there's a subfolder for each
movie in that chapter that contains the
| | 00:32 | exercise files for that particular movie.
For most movies, I'll start with the
| | 00:36 | files open and you can open
the same files to follow along.
| | 00:40 | If you're monthly or an annual
subscriber to Lynda.com, I'm really sorry, but
| | 00:45 | you don't have access to the Exercise
Files. But that's okay, because you can
| | 00:49 | still follow along with the
lessons using your own files.
| | 00:53 | I hope you enjoy using these
Exercise Files as examples to learn about
| | 00:56 | Photoshop adjustments.
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| Setting up a workspace| 00:00 | There are lots of panels in Photoshop.
As you work through the movies in this
| | 00:04 | course, you'll see different
configurations of panels on the right side of my screen.
| | 00:08 | In many movies, I'll have open only
two panel groups and those are the
| | 00:12 | Adjustments panel group, which
contains the Adjustments panel and the Masks
| | 00:17 | panel, both of which are new in
Photoshop CS4. We'll be talking a lot about
| | 00:21 | both of these panels.
| | 00:22 | I also have open the Layers panel
group, which includes the all important
| | 00:27 | Layers panel. I'd like to show you
how to set up a custom workspace that
| | 00:31 | contains just those two panel groups,
so that it will be easy for you to get
| | 00:34 | back to that panel configuration
whenever you need to during the course.
| | 00:39 | Workspaces are controlled from up in
the Workspace menu, which is here on the
| | 00:43 | far right of the Applications bar. The
Applications bar is a new separate bar
| | 00:48 | on a Mac, and on a PC, its part of
the menu bar at the top of the screen.
| | 00:53 | The default workspace in Photoshop
CS4 is also new. It's this Essentials
| | 00:58 | workspace that you see here, which is
one of the Preset workspaces that come
| | 01:02 | with the program. If your workspace
isn't set to Essentials now, go ahead and
| | 01:06 | click on this Workspace
menu and choose Essentials.
| | 01:11 | The Essentials workspace displays not
only the Adjustments panel group and the
| | 01:15 | Layers panel group, but also this
Color panel group that contains the Color
| | 01:20 | Swatches and Styles panel.
| | 01:21 | We won't be using that particular panel
group much during this course. In order
| | 01:26 | to give more room to the Adjustments
and Layers panel groups, I'm going to go
| | 01:30 | ahead and close the Color panel group.
| | 01:32 | To do that, go to this icon on the
right side of the panel group, click there
| | 01:37 | to open the panel menu and choose
Close Tab Group. Now there is more room for
| | 01:42 | the Adjustments and Layers panel groups.
| | 01:44 | Since you'll be using this particular
panel configuration a lot during this
| | 01:48 | course, go ahead and save it as a
custom workspace that you can quickly return
| | 01:52 | to at any time. To do that, again,
click on the Workspace menu and this time go
| | 01:58 | down and choose Save Workspace.
| | 02:01 | In the Save Workspace dialog box,
let's give this workspace a name by typing
| | 02:05 | Adjustments in the Name field and
make sure that Capture Panel Locations is
| | 02:10 | checked and then click Save. Now
you've made a new custom workspace called
| | 02:15 | Adjustments that contains
just these panel groups.
| | 02:18 | You'll be able to get back to this
panel configuration at any time quickly.
| | 02:22 | For example, let's say that we're working
in a different workspace in one of the
| | 02:25 | movies, like say the Color and Tone workspace.
| | 02:29 | So go up to the Workspace menu and
let's select Color and Tone, which is one of
| | 02:34 | the pre-built workspaces that comes
with Photoshop. This workspace includes not
| | 02:38 | only the Adjustments and Layers panel
groups, but also the Histogram panel group.
| | 02:43 | So let's say that we are working in
this workspace and then we start another
| | 02:46 | movie and we want to get back to
the Custom Adjustments workspace.
| | 02:50 | To do that, just go back up to the
Workspace menu and this time choose
| | 02:54 | Adjustments from the top of that menu.
Again, you'll see just the Adjustments
| | 02:59 | and Layers panel groups open on the screen.
| | 03:01 | Now that you've created a Custom
Adjustments workspace, and you know how to
| | 03:04 | switch between workspaces, you can
quickly make your panel configuration match
| | 03:08 | mine as you follow along
with me through this course.
| | 03:12 | I suggest that in the beginning of
each movie, you check the name of the
| | 03:15 | workspace up here in the Workspace menu
and select that workspace from the menu
| | 03:19 | and you'll be all ready to go.
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|
|
1. Adjustment LayersCreating and editing adjustment layers| 00:00 |
Adjustment layers are the most flexible
way to correct the colors and tones in
| | 00:03 |
an image. Most of the commonly used
Photoshop image adjustments like Levels and
| | 00:08 |
Curves and Black and White and about a
dozen more can be applied as adjustment layers.
| | 00:13 |
So what exactly is an adjustment
layer and how do you make one? To show you
| | 00:17 |
that, I have my Adjustments panel open
and I have my Layers panel open, and in
| | 00:22 |
the Layers panel you can see
there are two layers in this file.
| | 00:26 |
I'm going to make the photo layer
temporarily invisible so you can see that on
| | 00:30 |
the lizard layer, there is just this
little lizard surrounded by transparent
| | 00:33 |
pixels. I'll make the photo layer
visible again and turn the lizard layer off,
| | 00:38 |
so that you can see that the photo
layer has this photo of a garden wall.
| | 00:41 |
And I'll make both of
those layers visible again.
| | 00:44 |
The first step in adding a new
adjustment layer is to select whichever layer
| | 00:48 |
you would like to have the new
adjustment layer come in above. I'd like this
| | 00:52 |
adjustment layer to affect both
the lizard and the photo layers.
| | 00:55 |
So I'm going to select the lizard
layer here in the Layers panel. Then I'm
| | 00:59 |
going to add an adjustment layer. If
you've created adjustment layers in
| | 01:03 |
previous versions of Photoshop, you
probably did that by going down to the
| | 01:06 |
Black and White icon called the Create
New Fill and adjustment layer icon at
| | 01:11 |
the bottom of the Layers panel and
clicking there and choosing one of the
| | 01:14 |
adjustment layer flavors from here.
| | 01:16 |
You can still do it this way, but in
Photoshop CS4 there is another and I think
| | 01:21 |
more direct way of applying an
adjustment layer and that's from the New
| | 01:24 |
Adjustments panel. So I'm going to
exit out of this menu without choosing an
| | 01:28 |
adjustment and I'm going to
go up to the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:31 |
At the top of the Adjustments panel,
there are 15 icons that represent the 15
| | 01:36 |
different kinds of adjustment layers.
If I move my mouse over any one of these,
| | 01:40 |
I see its name at the top
of the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:42 |
I'm going to go over to the first icon,
the Brightness/Contrast icon, and I'm
| | 01:48 |
going to click on that icon and that
adds a new Brightness/Contrast adjustment
| | 01:52 |
layer in the Layers panel. I know this
is an adjustment layer, because unlike a
| | 01:57 |
regular pixel-based layer, this
adjustment layer has two thumbnails on it.
| | 02:01 |
The thumbnail on the left is the
thumbnail that represents the adjustment and
| | 02:05 |
sometimes, by the way, this may look
like a generic icon, if you don't have a
| | 02:09 |
lot of room in your Layers panel.
There is a also a layer mask thumbnail on
| | 02:12 |
this adjustment layer, because each
adjustment layer comes with a layer mask
| | 02:17 |
that you can use to limit where the
adjustment applies in the image, this I'll
| | 02:20 |
show you how to do in a later movie.
| | 02:22 |
When I clicked the Brightness/Contrast
adjustment layer icon, not only did I
| | 02:26 |
get a new adjustment layer in the
Layers panel, but the Adjustments panel
| | 02:30 |
changed too to display the controls
for the Brightness/Contrast adjustment.
| | 02:35 |
That's different than in previous
versions of Photoshop where each adjustment
| | 02:39 |
had its own dialog box.
| | 02:41 |
Now all of the controls always appear
here in the Adjustments panel when an
| | 02:44 |
adjustment layer is active. I can use
these controls to tweak the appearance of
| | 02:49 |
the image. So, for example, if I want
this image to be brighter, I'll click on
| | 02:53 |
the Brightness slider and I'll drag
to the right. You can see that both the
| | 02:57 |
lizard on the lizard layer and the
photo on the photo layer have gotten
| | 03:00 |
brighter. Because, by default, an
adjustment layer affects all of the visible
| | 03:05 |
content on the layers beneath it.
| | 03:07 |
One important quality of an adjustment
layer like this one is that it does not
| | 03:10 |
directly change the image pixels.
So if I were to come in and make the
| | 03:14 |
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer
temporarily invisible, by clicking its eye
| | 03:18 |
icon, you can see that I still have
that same dark image on the lizard and
| | 03:23 |
photo layers below.
| | 03:24 |
This nondestructive quality of
adjustment layers is really important, because
| | 03:28 |
it means that you are protecting your
original image so that you always have
| | 03:32 |
access to it. That's true even if you
save the image, close it, and then reopen
| | 03:37 |
it as long as you've saved it in a
format that retains layers like the .PSD or
| | 03:42 |
Photoshop Document format, the TIF
format or the Photoshop PDF format.
| | 03:48 |
I'm going to turn this Brightness/Contrast
adjustment layer back on, by
| | 03:52 |
clicking in its visibility field, so
that I can show you that you can have more
| | 03:55 |
than one adjustment layer in an image.
To add another adjustment layer, I need
| | 04:00 |
to get back to Icon view
in the Adjustments panel.
| | 04:03 |
I can do that with the Brightness/
Contrast 1 layer selected by going to the
| | 04:07 |
bottom of the Adjustments panel and
clicking on this green arrow. Back here in
| | 04:11 |
Icon view of Adjustments panel,
I could choose a different adjustment this time.
| | 04:15 |
For example, I think, I'll apply
a Black and White adjustment by clicking
| | 04:19 |
on this icon right here and that
converts the image to black and white.
| | 04:23 |
It brings up the controls for the Black
and White adjustment layer here in the
| | 04:27 |
Adjustments panel, and you can see that
there is a new adjustment layer in the
| | 04:31 |
Layers panel, the Black
and White 1 adjustment layer.
| | 04:34 |
One of the great things about
adjustment layers is that they remain editable,
| | 04:37 |
and that means that I can go back at any time
and tweak the settings for an adjustment layer.
| | 04:42 |
So now that I've converted this image
to Black and White, I can see that I'd
| | 04:45 |
like it to be a little bit
brighter. So I can go back to the
| | 04:48 |
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer
by selecting it in the Layers panel, and
| | 04:52 |
that brings up the Brightness/Contrast
settings for that particular adjustment layer.
| | 04:57 |
And here, I could come up to the
Brightness slider and I could drag it further
| | 05:00 |
to the right or I could add contrast
to the image by clicking on the Contrast
| | 05:04 |
slider and dragging it to the right. By
the way, contrast means the difference
| | 05:08 |
between the light tones and
the dark tones in an image.
| | 05:11 |
I've mentioned some of the unique
qualities of adjustment layers, but in other
| | 05:15 |
ways, adjustment layers behave just
like regular layers. You've already seen
| | 05:19 |
that I can make an adjustment layer
temporarily invisible by clicking its eye icon.
| | 05:23 |
I also can change the
stacking order of adjustment layers.
| | 05:26 |
So, for example, if I click-and-drag
the Brightness/Contrast 1 adjustment layer
| | 05:31 |
to the top of the layer stack and
release my mouse when the border above the
| | 05:35 |
Black and White adjustment layer turns
bold, you'll see a slight change in the
| | 05:39 |
image, because adjustment layers
affect not just regular layers beneath them,
| | 05:43 |
but also other adjustment
layers that are beneath them.
| | 05:46 |
I can also change the Opacity of
an adjustment layer. So with this
| | 05:50 |
Brightness/Contrast 1 adjustment layer
selected in the Layers panel, I could go
| | 05:54 |
up to the Opacity field, click on the
arrow to the right of it and drag the
| | 05:58 |
slider to the left to slightly
reduce the strength or Opacity of the
| | 06:04 |
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer.
| | 06:06 |
Similarly, I could change the layer
blend mode of the adjustment layer from
| | 06:11 |
this menu or I could even delete an
adjustment layer by selecting it in the
| | 06:15 |
Layers panel and then pressing the Delete
key on the Mac or the Backspace key on the PC.
| | 06:20 |
Now that you know what adjustment
layers are and how to create and edit them, I
| | 06:25 |
hope you'll get in the habit of using
adjustment layers. If you're still using
| | 06:29 |
direct adjustments instead, you're
missing the important advantages that
| | 06:32 |
adjustment layers offer, which I'm
going to spell out for you in more detail in
| | 06:36 |
the very next movie.
| | 06:37 |
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| Adjustment layers vs. direct adjustments| 00:00 | Most tonal and color adjustments in
Photoshop can be applied to an image either
| | 00:04 | is in adjustment layer or as a
direct adjustment that's made right on the
| | 00:08 | image. Whenever you do have that choice
the adjustment layer method is the best
| | 00:13 | way to go, because adjustment layers
offer at least six unbeatable advantages
| | 00:17 | over direct adjustments, which
I'm going to cover in this movie.
| | 00:20 | The biggest advantage of an adjustment
layer is that it is non-destructive of
| | 00:25 | the original image as I mentioned in
the preceding movie. So in this case for
| | 00:28 | example, I have made a Brightness/Contrast
adjustment on this adjustment layer.
| | 00:33 | But doing so, hasn't changed or damaged
the pixels on the affected image layer below.
| | 00:38 | A second advantage of making
adjustments in an adjustment layer like this is
| | 00:42 | that the adjustments remain editable.
So if I did want to change the amount of
| | 00:47 | brightness or contrast that I've added
with this adjustment layer, I can get my
| | 00:51 | adjustment controls back by just
clicking on the Brightness/Contrast adjustment
| | 00:55 | layer or if my Adjustments panel isn't
open already, I can just Double-click on
| | 01:00 | the leftmost thumbnail on the
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer, to both
| | 01:04 | open the Adjustments panel and bring
up the controls for this adjustment.
| | 01:08 | Once I have these controls available,
I can click and drag on either of these
| | 01:12 | sliders to change the adjustments, and
I can do this as many times as I want
| | 01:16 | without degrading the image.
| | 01:18 | Another advantage of working with
adjustment layers in Photoshop CS4 is that in
| | 01:23 | this version of the program, I can
access other controls when the adjustment
| | 01:27 | layer settings are open as they
currently are here in the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:32 | So for example, I can move back and forth
between these controls and the controls
| | 01:36 | at the top of the Layers panel. With
the Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer
| | 01:40 | selected, I could change the way that
adjustment is blending with the pixels on
| | 01:44 | the image layer below. By going to
this layer blend mode here and choosing a
| | 01:49 | blend mode or even Normal.
| | 01:50 | I am going to go ahead and choose
Soft Light, which is a blend mode that
| | 01:54 | increases contrast. I also
could change the strength of this
| | 01:58 | Brightness/Contrast adjustment by going
to the Opacity field here, clicking the
| | 02:03 | arrow to the right of that field
and lowering the Opacity of the
| | 02:06 | Brightness/Contrast adjustment and then
clicking off of that slider. And I can
| | 02:10 | still go back up to the
Brightness slider and tweak it similar.
| | 02:14 | This ability to move back and forth
between controls in the Adjustments panel
| | 02:18 | and other image controls is something
you couldn't do with adjustment layers in
| | 02:22 | earlier versions of Photoshop, and
it's something you still can't do with
| | 02:26 | direct adjustment. His is a welcome
new feature that will seriously bump up
| | 02:30 | your efficiency when you are with
adjusting with adjustment layers.
| | 02:33 | Another benefit of adjustment layers
over a direct adjustment is that an
| | 02:36 | adjustment layer comes with a layer
mask, which you use to limit the area of
| | 02:41 | the image that's affected by the
adjustment. So in this case, you can see that
| | 02:44 | there is a layer mask thumbnail on the
right side of the Brightness/Contrast
| | 02:48 | adjustment layer. I've gone ahead and
created a gradient inside of that layer
| | 02:52 | mask that's limiting the application
of this Brightness/Contrast adjustment
| | 02:57 | where the layer mask is
dark at the top of the image.
| | 02:59 | I've show you exactly how to do that in
a later movie I'm working with working
| | 03:03 | with layer masks and adjustment layers.
But for now I'd like to tell you one
| | 03:07 | more benefit of using an adjustment
layer over a direct adjustment and that is
| | 03:12 | that after you correct one image with
an adjustment layer, you can easily apply
| | 03:16 | that adjustment layer to other
images even if they are images that have
| | 03:20 | different resolutions. And I'll be
showing you how to that in a separate movie
| | 03:24 | later in this chapter.
| | 03:25 | Now for comparison, I'd like to show
you what happens if I try to apply a
| | 03:29 | similar Brightness/Contrast adjustment
directly on the image layer rather than
| | 03:34 | by using in adjustment layer.
| | 03:35 | So I'm going to come down to the
Layers panel and make the adjustment layer
| | 03:39 | temporarily invisible by clicking its
eye icon. Then I'm going to select the
| | 03:43 | image layer in the Layers panel and to
apply a direct adjustment on this image
| | 03:48 | layer, I go up to the Image menu at
the top of the screen and down to the
| | 03:52 | Adjustments menu, then I move over
and I'll choose Brightness/Contrast.
| | 03:56 | That opens a separate dialog box where I can tweak
the Brightness or the Contrast of the image.
| | 04:02 | One disadvantage of working this way
is that while this dialog box is open, I
| | 04:06 | can't come into the Layers panel and
access the layer blend mode or change the
| | 04:10 | Opacity or the Fill. Those controls
just aren't available while a direct
| | 04:15 | adjustment dialog box is open.
| | 04:17 | I am going to click OK, to apply this
Brightness/Contrast adjustment to the
| | 04:21 | image layer and that brings up yet
another disadvantage of working with direct
| | 04:25 | adjustments, which is that this
adjustment has directly changed the pixels on
| | 04:30 | the image layer and I no longer have
access to my original unchanged photograph.
| | 04:35 | I could undo this adjustment, but once
I've saved and closed this image, the
| | 04:40 | direct adjustment will be permanently
baked in. I also can't go in and edit the
| | 04:44 | adjustment I just made. The best
I could do is to go back to the Image,
| | 04:49 | Adjustments, Brightness/Contrast again,
and notice that my sliders have gone
| | 04:54 | back to 0. So if I do make a change
here, it would be accumulative one on top
| | 04:59 | of the initial adjustment.
| | 05:00 | So I'm going to click Cancel to close
this dialog box. I'm going to open that
| | 05:05 | menu of direct image adjustments again,
by going up to Image, Adjustments and
| | 05:09 | take a look at the first fifteen
of these adjustments, all away from
| | 05:13 | Brightness/ Contrast down to
Selective Color. Any of those could be applied
| | 05:18 | with an adjustment layer rather than as
a direct adjustment, and that's what I
| | 05:21 | recommend that you too for
these fifteen adjustments.
| | 05:25 | There are a handful of
adjustments at the bottom of this menu from
| | 05:28 | Shadow/Highlights down to Equalize
that can only be applied as direct
| | 05:32 | adjustments. Fortunately, these aren't
the most frequently used adjustments.
| | 05:37 | Of these Shadow/Highlights and Variations
are probably the adjustments that you'll
| | 05:41 | use most. And fortunately, there is a
workaround that will let you apply these
| | 05:45 | two kinds of direct adjustments in a
non-destructive manner, which I show you
| | 05:49 | how to do in later movies in the course.
| | 05:53 | So please do use adjustment layers over
a direct adjustments whenever you have
| | 05:57 | a choice. Adjustment layers are the
corners stones of a flexible re-editable
| | 06:01 | and nondestructive workflow that
ultimately will save your time and effort.
| | 06:06 | So I do recommend that you use them liberally.
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| Using the new Adjustments panel| 00:00 | One of the big new features in
Photoshop CS4 is the Adjustments panel, which
| | 00:05 | for the first time offers one place
that you can go to manage all adjustment
| | 00:08 | layers in an image.
| | 00:09 | I'd like to take you on a tour of the
features in the Adjustment panel. I have
| | 00:14 | an image here that already has a
couple of adjustment layers in it. I'll tell
| | 00:17 | you more about this peculiar flavors of
adjustment layers in later movies, but
| | 00:21 | for now what I'd like you to see that
when I select one of these adjustment
| | 00:25 | layers, like the Brightness/Contrast
layer, the Adjustments panel changes and
| | 00:30 | shows me the controls for just that
adjustment layer. And if I click on a
| | 00:34 | different adjustment layer in the
Layers panel, I see different controls in the
| | 00:37 | Adjustments panel and I can use these
controls to edit the Vibrance adjustment layer.
| | 00:42 | You've seen in previous movies that
I can change the Adjustments panel from
| | 00:47 | this view to its icon view by going to
the bottom left of the Adjustments panel
| | 00:51 | and clicking the big green arrow.
From here I could add another adjustment
| | 00:56 | layer, as I've shown you how to do
already, by clicking one of the adjustment
| | 00:59 | layer icons, here at the
top of the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:02 | There's another way to add an
adjustment layer from this panel and that's what
| | 01:05 | I would like to show you here and
that's by using one of the adjustment layer
| | 01:10 | presets at the bottom of the Adjustments panel.
| | 01:12 | The first thing to do here is to
select the kind of adjustment layer that you
| | 01:16 | want to add. So I'm interested in
adding a Black & White adjustment layer that
| | 01:21 | will convert this image from color to
Black & White. So I move down to the Back
| | 01:25 | & White Presets in the Adjustments
panel and I'll click the arrow to the left
| | 01:29 | of Black & White Presets. Then I'll
scroll down to see the various presets
| | 01:34 | available for a Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 01:36 | I'd like to add an adjustment layer
that simulates the look of using a red
| | 01:41 | filter on a camera. So I'm going to
choose High Contrast Red Filter and when I
| | 01:46 | click that choice, several things
happen. First of all in the Layers panel,
| | 01:50 | there's a new Black & White adjustment
layer and the image has been converted
| | 01:54 | to Black & White and it's been
converted to Black & White according to this
| | 01:59 | preset group of settings
in the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:03 | Here at the top of the Adjustments
panel there is another menu that list the
| | 02:06 | various presets and it shows that the
High Contrast Red Filter preset is the
| | 02:12 | currently applied preset. I could just
accept these preset settings or I can
| | 02:17 | use them as a starting
point for further customization.
| | 02:20 | So for example, if I want more than
infrared film look to this image, I might
| | 02:24 | come into the Adjustments controls,
click on the Yellows slider and drag it to
| | 02:29 | the right to brighten the yellow
light in the image. There's a lot more to
| | 02:33 | learn about the Black & White
adjustment layer and I'll be coming back to this
| | 02:36 | adjustment is a later movie. But for
now, let's continue this tour of the
| | 02:40 | Adjustments panel by taking a look at some of the
controls at the bottom of the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:46 | Notice that there is an eye icon here,
which looks very much like the eye icon
| | 02:50 | that you may be familiar with from
the Layers panel. This eye icon in the
| | 02:54 | Adjustments panel does the very same
thing as the Layers eye icon. With that
| | 02:59 | Black & White adjustment layer selected,
if I click this eye icon, the Black &
| | 03:04 | White adjustment becomes temporarily
invisible. So the image once again looks
| | 03:08 | like a color image.
| | 03:09 | This eye icon comes in really handy for
a before and after comparison of how an
| | 03:14 | image looks with and without an
adjustment layer. I'll click that eye icon
| | 03:18 | again to bring back the
Black & White adjustment.
| | 03:22 | The next icon is the Previous State
icon. Clicking and holding this icon
| | 03:27 | displays the last state of the
selected adjustments layer. In this case, it's
| | 03:32 | showing how the image looked before the
last change that I made to the Black &
| | 03:36 | White adjustment layer. In other words,
before I dragged the Yellow slider to the right.
| | 03:40 | I release my mouse to go back to the
current view of the image and if I want to
| | 03:45 | reset the image to before I had
dragged the Yellows slider to the right, I
| | 03:49 | would move over one more icon and
click the Reset icon at the bottom of the
| | 03:53 | Adjustments panel, and if I click that
icon one more time, Photoshop takes me
| | 03:59 | all the way back to the default
settings for Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 04:04 | There are a couple of other icons here
at the bottom of the Adjustments panel
| | 04:07 | including the Expanded View icon. If
I click that, the Adjustments panel gets
| | 04:12 | wider and this comes in really handy
for adjustments that have a lot controls
| | 04:16 | in them, like a Curves adjustment
layer or a Levels adjustments layer.
| | 04:20 | This icon is the Clipping icon. You
may remember in an earlier movie I
| | 04:25 | mentioned that by default an
adjustment layer affects all layers that have
| | 04:28 | visible content that are beneath the
adjustment layer in the Layers panel.
| | 04:32 | This Clipping icon can be used to change
that behavior by limiting the layers to
| | 04:36 | which an adjustment layer applies, as
I'll be showing you in a later movie.
| | 04:40 | There's also a Trashcan icon here and
if I click this icon with an adjustment
| | 04:45 | layer selected and then click Yes,
the adjustment layer is completely
| | 04:49 | eliminated from the Layers panel. And
finally don't forget about the panel menu
| | 04:54 | that's at the top right of every panel
group. If I click the panel menu for the
| | 04:58 | Adjustments panel, I see a number of
controls related to this adjustment,
| | 05:02 | including a quick way to add another
adjustment layer of the different flavor
| | 05:07 | and controls for closing the Adjustments
panel and closing the entire tab group.
| | 05:13 | The Adjustment panel offers one stop
shopping for working with adjustment
| | 05:17 | layers. This is a place to go to
create adjustment layers, to access the
| | 05:21 | controls for all adjustments layers and
to edit adjustment layers. If you're a
| | 05:25 | long time Photoshop user, like all
interface changes, this new panel may take a
| | 05:30 | while to get used to. But once you do
get used to it, I think you'll agree that
| | 05:34 | the new Adjustments panel is a real
help when you are working with adjustments layers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reusing adjustment layers| 00:00 | If you shot more than one image in the
same lighting conditions, you can take
| | 00:04 | advantage of the fact that an adjustment
layer can be reused on more than one image.
| | 00:08 | For example, here I have two
photographs that I took from approximately the
| | 00:12 | same vantage point in the same lighting
conditions. This is flag2.psd to which
| | 00:18 | I have already applied two adjustment
layers: a Levels adjustment layer to set
| | 00:22 | the black and white points of the image,
as I'll show you how to do in later
| | 00:25 | movies, and a Brightness/Contrast
adjustment layer to tweak the overall
| | 00:29 | brightness of the image.
| | 00:30 | Then I have flag3.psd also open and
I'll click its tab to show you this image.
| | 00:36 | I haven't yet adjusted this image, but
I think that I can probably use the same
| | 00:40 | adjustment layers on this image that
I did on flag2.psd. So I'm going to go
| | 00:45 | back to flag2.psd and I'm going to
select both adjustment layers by clicking on
| | 00:51 | one and then holding down that Command
key on the Mac or the Ctrl key on the PC
| | 00:55 | and clicking on the other adjustment layer.
| | 00:58 | Then I'm going to get my Move tool and
I could then just click in flag2.psd and
| | 01:04 | drag up to the flag3.psd tab and then
move down into the image and release my
| | 01:11 | mouse and that would copy the
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and the
| | 01:16 | Levels adjustment layer to this second
image flag3.psd. So that's one way to do it.
| | 01:22 | I'm going to actually delete those
two adjustment layers by dragging them
| | 01:26 | to the layer trash and show you another way
to share adjustment layers between images.
| | 01:31 | I will go back to flag2.psd and
this time I'm going to go up to the
| | 01:36 | Applications bar and I'm going to
click the Arrange Documents menu here.
| | 01:40 | From this menu I'm going to choose this
2-Up view and this allows me to see both
| | 01:45 | flag2.psd and flag3.psd on
my screen at the same time.
| | 01:51 | I have flag2.psd selected as the
active documents and I have both, the Levels
| | 01:57 | and Brightness/Contrast adjustment
layers selected in the Layers panel for
| | 02:01 | flag2.psd. I still have Move tool
selected and now all I have to do is click on
| | 02:07 | flag2.psd and drag over into flag3.psd
and when that gray bounding box appears
| | 02:14 | inside of flag3.psd, I'll release
my mouse. And that copies those two
| | 02:20 | adjustment layers into flag3.psd and
I know some people prefer to do it this
| | 02:25 | way where they can actually
see both images at the same time.
| | 02:28 | Being able to reuse your adjustment
layers in this way is a great way to speed
| | 02:32 | up your production workflow and become
more efficient as you adjust your images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Confining AdjustmentsClipping adjustment layers| 00:00 | By default an adjustment layer affects
all of the visible layers beneath it in
| | 00:04 | the layers stack. If you want to
limit the effect of an adjustment layer to
| | 00:08 | just one other layer, you can clip
the adjustment layer to that layer.
| | 00:12 | This maneuver is a lot easier in Photoshop
CS4 than it was in previous versions of the
| | 00:16 | program, thanks to the new
clipping icon in the Adjustments panel.
| | 00:20 | I am working here on a file that has
four layers. To show you what's on each
| | 00:25 | layer, I'm going to hold down the
Option key on the Mac or the Alt key on the
| | 00:28 | PC as I click on the eye icon next to
each layer in turn. Now you are looking
| | 00:34 | at just the content of the image
layer, which is this photo of a model
| | 00:37 | against a white background. I'll Option-
click or Alt-click on the eye icon spot
| | 00:42 | next to the dot graphic layer and you
can see that it contains just this dotted
| | 00:46 | red line in the shape of a flower
on a transparent background that's
| | 00:51 | represented by these gray and white pixels.
| | 00:53 | I will Option-click or Alt-click on the
love graphic layer and you can see, if
| | 00:58 | you look closely that on this layer
there are transparent pixels and the word
| | 01:03 | love over and over again in the
shape of a heart and I'll Option-click or
| | 01:07 | Alt-click on the candy box layer so you
can see that contains this photo of the
| | 01:11 | candy box against transparent pixels
and Option-clicking or Alt-clicking one
| | 01:15 | more time on the candy box layer, makes
all of the other layers visible again.
| | 01:19 | I am going to add an adjustment layer
and I'll start off with that adjustment
| | 01:23 | layer at the top of the layers stack.
So I'm going to select the candy box
| | 01:27 | layer in the Layers panel and then I'm
going up to the Adjustment panel, then
| | 01:31 | I'll select the flavor of the adjustment.
I'm going to use an Invert adjustment
| | 01:36 | and as you can see this has an
extreme effect on the image. It inverts the
| | 01:39 | content of all of the layers
below it to their negative color.
| | 01:43 | I choose this kind of an adjustment
layer so it would be easy for you to see,
| | 01:47 | but you can do the same thing I'm
doing here with the Levels adjustment or
| | 01:50 | Curves adjustment or any
of the adjustment layers.
| | 01:53 | Now I don't want this Invert
adjustment to affect all of the layers below.
| | 01:57 | I want it to affect only the content of
the love graphic layer, which you can
| | 02:01 | remember is just this graphic of the
word love in a heart shape. So I'm going
| | 02:05 | to take the Invert 1 adjustment layer
in the Layers panel, click on it and drag
| | 02:10 | down, so it's between the candy box
layer and the love graphic layer and when
| | 02:15 | the border between those layers
turns dark, I'll release my mouse.
| | 02:18 | Now the content of the candy box
layer is not affected by this adjustment,
| | 02:22 | because it's above the adjustment layer
in the layers stack, but the adjustment
| | 02:26 | layer is still affecting the content
of all three of the layers beneath it.
| | 02:31 | I can limit this adjustment layer to
affect only the love graphic layer by
| | 02:35 | clipping it to the love graphic layer.
| | 02:37 | Now in previous versions of Photoshop
clipping two layers together wasn't the
| | 02:40 | easiest or most intuitive thing to do.
We had to move your mouse over the
| | 02:44 | border between the two layers, hold
down the Option key on the Mac or the Alt
| | 02:48 | key on the PC and click when you saw
this particular icon. I'm not going to do
| | 02:52 | it that way, instead with the Invert
adjustment layer selected in the Layers
| | 02:56 | panel, I'll go up to the Adjustments
panel and as you can see this particular
| | 03:00 | adjustment layer has no controls or
no options, but at the bottom of the
| | 03:05 | Adjustments panel there
is the Clipping layer icon.
| | 03:09 | All I have to do is click on that and
the adjustment layer has been clipped to
| | 03:13 | the love graphic layer and as you can
see in the image it's now inverting the
| | 03:18 | color of only the content of the love
graphic layer. I can tell that these
| | 03:22 | layers are clipped together because the
Invert adjustment layer is indented and
| | 03:27 | it now has this arrow on it, which means
it's clipped to the layer just below it.
| | 03:31 | Now what if I wanted to take this step
further and have this adjustment layer
| | 03:36 | affect not only the love graphic layer,
but also the dot graphic layer, can I
| | 03:40 | do that? Well, let's see, I'm going to
move my mouse over the border between
| | 03:44 | the love graphic and dot graphic
layers and hold down the Option key on the
| | 03:48 | Mac, the Alt key on the PC as I just
showed you and when I see that double
| | 03:52 | circle icon I'll click. And that
includes the love graphic and the dot graphic
| | 03:57 | layers in the clipping group with the
Invert adjustment layer, but I don't get
| | 04:02 | the result that I want.
| | 04:03 | If you look in the image, you can see
that the content of the love graphic
| | 04:06 | layer has completely disappeared and
that's because a clipping group like this
| | 04:11 | uses the bottom-most layer. In this case,
the dot graphic layer that contains
| | 04:16 | this dotted flower as the base
layer for the clipping group.
| | 04:19 | Now there are two ways around this
problem. I can either use a layer group or a
| | 04:24 | Smart Object to confine the effect of
an adjustment layer to multiple layers,
| | 04:29 | but not all the layers in a layered
file and I'm going to show you how to do
| | 04:34 | that in the following movies.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Including adjustment layers in a layer group| 00:00 | In the last movie, I showed you how
to change the default behavior of an
| | 00:04 | adjustment layer, which is to affect
the content of all layers beneath it in
| | 00:08 | the layer stack by clipping in
adjustment layer to just the layer beneath it.
| | 00:13 | And that limits the effect of the
adjustment layer to that single layer to
| | 00:16 | which it's clipped.
| | 00:17 | So here, for example, I have an Invert
adjustment layer, and what this layer is
| | 00:22 | doing is inverting the color of the
layer beneath it, the content of the love
| | 00:27 | graphic layer, which contains just
the word love in the shape of a heart.
| | 00:31 | I accomplished this in the preceding
movie by selecting the Invert adjustment
| | 00:35 | layer and then clicking this clipping
icon, which clipped the adjustment to the
| | 00:40 | love graphic layer right below it.
| | 00:41 | Well, now I'd like to go a step further.
I'd like that Invert adjustment layer
| | 00:45 | to affect not only the love graphic
layer but also the dot graphic layer, which
| | 00:50 | contains this dotted flower. I showed
you in the last movie that adding more
| | 00:55 | layers to this clipping
group won't accomplish that.
| | 00:58 | So here's the workaround that you can
use when you want an adjustment layer to
| | 01:01 | affect multiple layers in a file, but
not every single layer beneath it in the
| | 01:05 | Layers panel. I'm going to start by
unclipping the Invert 1 adjustment layer
| | 01:09 | from the love graphic layer.
| | 01:11 | The way to do that in Photoshop CS4 is
to select the adjustment layer and then
| | 01:16 | go up to the Adjustments panel and
click the Clipping icon again. Now that
| | 01:21 | adjustment layer is affecting the
content of all the layers beneath it,
| | 01:24 | including the image, which
I don't want it to affect.
| | 01:26 | So what I'm going to do is to select
that adjustment layer as well as the love
| | 01:32 | graphic and dot graphic layers. The
quick way to do that with the adjustment
| | 01:36 | layer selected is to go down to the dot
graphic layer, hold down the Shift key
| | 01:41 | and click on that layer, and that
selects the layer in between as well.
| | 01:44 | With those three layers selected, now
I'm going to go to the panel menu on the
| | 01:48 | Layers panel group, click there and I'm
going to choose New Group from Layers,
| | 01:54 | and then I'll click OK. That causes
Photoshop to make a layer group that
| | 01:58 | contains those three layers.
| | 02:00 | I can see then if I click the arrow
to the left of Group 1, there's my
| | 02:04 | adjustment layer and the two layers
that I would like it to affect. To get that
| | 02:08 | adjustment layer to affect just these
two layers in the group, I need to change
| | 02:13 | the default blend mode of this group.
| | 02:15 | Notice that with Group 1 selected, the
layer blend mode is set to Pass Through,
| | 02:20 | by default, which means that any
adjustment layers inside of that group, like
| | 02:24 | this Invert adjustment layer, will
continue to affect all of the layers beneath
| | 02:28 | in the Layers panel including the
image layer which is not in this group.
| | 02:32 | To change that, I simply have to
change this blend mode from Pass Through to
| | 02:37 | Normal. And as soon as I do that, my
Invert adjustment layer affects only the
| | 02:43 | love graphic layer and the dot graphic
layer that are in the same layer group
| | 02:47 | and you can see that in the image,
I have the result that I want.
| | 02:51 | The Invert adjustment layer has
inverted the colors of the content of the love
| | 02:55 | graphic layer and the dot graphic layer,
but has left the image layer alone.
| | 03:00 | So that's one technique to try when
you want to confine the effect of an
| | 03:03 | adjustment layer to more than one,
but not all the layers in an image.
| | 03:08 | In the next movie, I'll show you another
way to do the same thing using a Smart Object.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Including adjustment layers in a Smart Object| 00:00 | In addition to the layer group method
that I showed in the last movie, there is
| | 00:04 | another way to limit the layers that
are affected by an adjustment layer, and
| | 00:08 | that is to group an adjustment layer
along with the layers that you want it to
| | 00:12 | affect into a Smart Object.
| | 00:14 | The adjustment layer will affect only
the layers that are part of that Smart
| | 00:17 | Object, rather than all of the layers
beneath it in the Layers panel, which is
| | 00:22 | the default behavior of an adjustment layer.
| | 00:24 | This is a good method to use, if you
want an adjustment layer to affect more
| | 00:28 | than one but not all the layers in a
file, and you're going to want to resize
| | 00:33 | or otherwise transform the adjusted
layers as well. I'm starting here with a
| | 00:37 | file that has four image layers in it.
| | 00:39 | I'd like to add an adjustment layer
that affects the top three layers here in
| | 00:44 | the Layers panel. The love graphic
layer, which contains this heart shaped
| | 00:48 | graphic of the word love, the dot
graphic layer, which contains this flower
| | 00:53 | shaped dotted graphic and the candy box layer,
which contains this photograph of a candy box.
| | 00:58 | But I don't want my adjustment layer
to affect the photograph of the model on
| | 01:02 | the image layer. I have the love
graphic layer selected at the top of the layer
| | 01:06 | stack and I'm going to come in and add
an adjustment layer. I'm just going to
| | 01:10 | use one of the preset adjustments,
and I'll use one for the Hue/Saturation
| | 01:14 | adjustment layer, by clicking the arrow
on the left side of the Hue/Saturation
| | 01:18 | Presets in the Icon view of the
Adjustments panel. Then I'll scroll down and
| | 01:23 | I'm going to choose Sepia.
| | 01:26 | That adds a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer in the Layers panel and it's
| | 01:30 | changed the content of all the layers
below that adjustment layer to a Sepia tone.
[00:01:34.0]
It's also changed the
Adjustments panel to show the controls for a
| | 01:37 | Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
I won't be addressing those in this movie,
| | 01:42 | but I'll be covering them in detail
in a later movie in this course.
| | 01:45 | Now how am I going to limit the Sepia
toning to just the love graphic, the dot
| | 01:50 | graphic and the candy box layers? I'm
going to do that by including all of
| | 01:55 | those layers along with this Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer in a Smart Object.
| | 02:00 | So my first step is to select all
those layers. I already have the
| | 02:04 | Hue/Saturation adjustment layer
selected. To select all the layers in between
| | 02:08 | that and the candy box layer, I'll
hold down the Shift key and click on the
| | 02:12 | candy box layer, and now I have
all four of those layers selected.
| | 02:16 | To make a Smart Object out of those
four layers, I'm going to go to the panel
| | 02:21 | menu on the right side of the Layers
panel, click there and choose Convert to
| | 02:25 | Smart Object. That takes all four
layers and creates a Smart Object from them.
| | 02:32 | A Smart Object basically takes those
layers and embeds them deep inside this
| | 02:37 | file, leaving in there instead this
Smart Object layer which happens to be
| | 02:41 | named Hue/Saturation. You can see on
the thumbnail for this Smart Object layer,
| | 02:46 | this symbol, which
indicates that it is a Smart Object.
| | 02:49 | Importantly, if you look at the image,
you can see that the Sepia toning on the
| | 02:54 | Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is
affecting just the image layers that have
| | 02:58 | been embedded with that adjustment
layer inside of this Smart Object.
| | 03:03 | So we could just leave it at that, but
let's say that I want to edit my adjustment
| | 03:09 | layer, just like I could edit any
adjustment layer in the Layers panel.
| | 03:12 | If I look at the Layers panel, I can't
see that adjustment layer. So where do I
| | 03:16 | go to edit it? To do that, I have to
open up the Embedded Smart Object. To open
| | 03:22 | that Smart Object, I'm going to go to
the Smart Object layer and Double-click
| | 03:27 | the thumbnail on that layer.
| | 03:28 | I'll click OK at the prompt, and notice
that there is now a second file open in
| | 03:34 | my document window. And it's got the
extension PSB rather than PSD, which is
| | 03:41 | the extension on this
original document right here.
| | 03:44 | So, with that PSB file active in the
document window, I can see that in the
| | 03:49 | Layers panel, I now have available to
me my original Hue/Saturation adjustment
| | 03:54 | layer, as well as the three image layers
that I included with it in this Smart Object.
| | 03:59 | So, I can edit this Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer in the normal way.
| | 04:03 | If I select that layer up in the Adjustments
panel, I have all the controls to edit
| | 04:08 | this adjustment layer. I'm just going
to go up to the Preset menu for this
| | 04:12 | Hue/Saturation adjustment layer,
click on it, and I'm going to choose a
| | 04:16 | different preset. I'll
choose Cyanotype instead of Sepia.
| | 04:20 | As soon as I do that, the content of
all the layers beneath the Hue/Saturation
| | 04:24 | adjustment layer that are embedded in
this Smart Object have been changed to a
| | 04:29 | Blue or Cyanotype color. That includes
the content of the candy box layer, the
| | 04:34 | dot graphic layer and the love graphic layer.
| | 04:37 | The next step is to save this
modified Smart Object and I have to save in
| | 04:42 | exactly the same place. So the easiest
way to do that is just to go to the File
| | 04:46 | menu and choose Save. Then I'll go to
the document window and I'll click on the
| | 04:52 | X on this tab for the PSD document and
that closes it. And now I'm back in my
| | 04:58 | original PSD or Photoshop Document,
with the changes that I made to that
| | 05:03 | adjustment layer are affecting all of
the content in the Smart Object, but not
| | 05:08 | the content on the image layer below.
| | 05:10 | Now you remember that the motivation
for converting these layers to a Smart
| | 05:14 | Object layer was primarily to limit the
effect of the adjustment layer to just
| | 05:18 | those layers. But a Smart Object
offers another advantage. Because a Smart
| | 05:23 | Object is just a proxy for the actual
layers embedded in it, you can resize a
| | 05:28 | Smart Object or perform other
Transform operations on it as many times as you
| | 05:33 | want without degrading the image quality.
That isn't true of pixel-based layers.
| | 05:38 | So, for example, if this photograph of
the candy box were not a Smart Object,
| | 05:42 | but just a regular pixel-based layer,
I couldn't transform it up and then down
| | 05:46 | more than once or it would start to
look really degraded. But because it's part
| | 05:50 | of this Smart Object, I can do exactly
that. So let me show you that, by making
| | 05:55 | sure that I have my Smart Object layer
selected in the Layers panel, and then
| | 05:59 | going up to the Edit menu and I'll
go down to Transform and then Scale.
| | 06:05 | That brings up this bounding box with
anchor points and I'm going to move my
| | 06:09 | mouse over to bottom right corner.
I'll hold down my Shift key to constrain
| | 06:12 | proportions, and I'm going to click-and-
drag to make the content of this Smart
| | 06:17 | Object smaller. Then I can also click
inside of this bounding box and move all
| | 06:22 | that content wherever I want it in the
image, and when I'm done, I'll accept
| | 06:26 | that transform by going up to the
Options bar and clicking the checkmark.
| | 06:30 | Now you'll notice that all of this
content still looks good and it will look
| | 06:35 | good if I resize it up again. So again,
with the Hue/Saturation Smart Object
| | 06:40 | layer selected, I'll go back to Edit
and this time I'll just choose Free
| | 06:44 | Transform, which is another option to
do the same thing. I'll move my mouse
| | 06:49 | over the bottom left anchor point,
hold down the Shift key to constrain
| | 06:52 | proportions and drag to
make that content bigger again.
| | 06:57 | My only constraint is that I don't
want to make it larger than 100%, because
| | 07:02 | you don't want to resize up larger
than the original size of an image.
| | 07:06 | Then finally, I'll click this checkmark in
the Options bar and you can see that my
| | 07:10 | content still looks great.
| | 07:12 | So if you want an adjustment layer to
affect more than one but not all the
| | 07:16 | layers beneath it in an image, and
you also want the freedom to resize and
| | 07:21 | transform the adjusted layers over and
over, try using this Smart Object method
| | 07:26 | of confining the effect of an adjustment layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the adjustment layer mask| 00:00 | When you add an adjustment layer to an
image, by default it affects the entire
| | 00:04 | image area. But you can control the
area that's affected by an adjustment
| | 00:08 | layer by using the layer mask that
comes with every adjustment layer.
| | 00:12 | In this case, I would like to add some
contrast to the mountains here.
| | 00:15 | But I don't really want to increase the
contrast in the clouds or in the foreground
| | 00:19 | because I'm afraid I'll lose detail
in those areas. So I'm going to add an
| | 00:23 | adjustment layer and use the layer
mask on the adjustment layer to limit the
| | 00:27 | areas to which the adjustment applies.
| | 00:29 | I'll start by going to the
Adjustments panel and I'm going to add a Curves
| | 00:34 | Preset adjustment layer. I'll click
the arrow to the left of Curves Presets,
| | 00:38 | and then I'm going to scroll down and
I'm going to choose Strong Contrast.
| | 00:42 | The Adjustments panel now changes to show
the Curves settings and you can see the
| | 00:47 | Strong Contrast Curve here, which is
making the dark parts of the image darker
| | 00:52 | and the light parts of the image lighter.
| | 00:53 | I'll be covering the Curves
Adjustment panel in much more detail in a later
| | 00:58 | movie. But for now, I want to show
you how to use the layer mask that comes
| | 01:03 | with the Curves adjustment layer and
with every adjustment layer to limit the
| | 01:07 | extent of an adjustment.
| | 01:08 | Notice that there is a layer mask
thumbnail on this Curves adjustment layer in
| | 01:12 | the Layers panel and that thumbnail is
white. When a layer mask is white, it's
| | 01:17 | revealing everything on the adjustment
layer to which it's attached. But if I
| | 01:22 | add black or gray paint to this layer
mask, I can hide or partially hide the
| | 01:26 | adjustment from parts of the image.
| | 01:28 | There are several ways to add black
or gray pixels too in adjustment layer mask.
| | 01:33 | One way is to add a black to
white gradient to the layer mask, and that's
| | 01:38 | a nice way to get a smooth transition
between the parts of the adjustment that
| | 01:42 | are hidden and the parts that are revealed.
| | 01:44 | So my first step in doing that is to go
to the Foreground and Background color
| | 01:49 | boxes at the bottom of the Toolbox.
I want to make sure that my Foreground
| | 01:53 | color box is black and my Background
color box is white. If yours are the
| | 01:57 | opposite, then click this double-pointed
arrow right here to switch the
| | 02:01 | Foreground and Background colors.
| | 02:02 | You only have access to black, white
or gray in these boxes when you have a
| | 02:07 | layer mask selected. Next, I'm going to
go to the Gradient tool, which is here,
| | 02:11 | and select it and then I'm going to go
up to the Options bar for the Gradient
| | 02:15 | tool and look at that first option, the
Gradient bar. It should be black on the
| | 02:19 | left and white on the right. If yours
isn't, then click the arrow to the right
| | 02:23 | of this bar and in the palette that
appears, click this small arrow and choose
| | 02:29 | Reset Gradients. And that will return
the gradients to the defaults that you
| | 02:33 | see here including the first
gradient, which is black to white.
| | 02:38 | Then click in a blank area of the
Options bar to close that panel. I'm going to
| | 02:42 | go back to the Layers panel and make
sure that I have my Curves adjustment
| | 02:46 | layer selected. And you'll notice that
there is a border around the layer mask
| | 02:50 | thumbnail meaning that the gradient, I'm about
to create, will be located on that layer mask.
| | 02:56 | So I'm going to click at the bottom of
the image, and I'm going to drag up and
| | 03:00 | I'm going to stop just below the
mountains. And doing that has created a black
| | 03:05 | to white gradient on the layer mask.
I'm going to show you that gradient by
| | 03:09 | holding the Option key on a Mac or the
Alt key on a PC and clicking right on
| | 03:13 | the layer mask, and that
shows the mask here in the image.
| | 03:16 | So where this mask is black, this
Curves Strong Contrast adjustment is being
| | 03:21 | hidden, and where this mask is gray,
that Curves adjustment is partially
| | 03:26 | hidden. And where the mask is white,
the Curves adjustment is in full force.
| | 03:30 | I'm going to hold the Option or Alt key
again and click on that Layer Mask icon
| | 03:35 | to bring the image back in the document
window. If I don't like this particular
| | 03:39 | effect, I can always come back in and
click-and-drag again to redraw that gradient.
| | 03:45 | I also can fine-tune this layer mask,
by painting on it with black, gray or
| | 03:50 | white. So, for example, I would like
to hide the adjustment from the sky up
| | 03:55 | here, so that I get more detail in
my clouds. To do that, I'll go to the
| | 03:59 | Toolbox and select the Brush tool.
I'll make sure that I have black as my
| | 04:03 | foreground color and then I'm going
to come into the image and with a soft
| | 04:07 | brush I'm going to paint on top of the
clouds. As I do, I'm bringing back the
| | 04:13 | detail in the clouds.
| | 04:14 | Now by mistake, I'm painting too far
and I'm covering part of the mountains
| | 04:22 | with the black paint that I'm adding
to the layer mask. And that's hiding the
| | 04:26 | adjustment not only from the sky where
I wanted to hide it but also from the
| | 04:29 | mountains where I would like
the adjustment to show through.
| | 04:32 | I've done that so that I can show you
how easy it is to reverse whatever you do
| | 04:36 | to a layer mask. If I want the
Curves adjustment to appear again on the
| | 04:40 | mountains, all I have to do is go back
down to the Foreground and Background
| | 04:45 | colors in the Toolbox, click the double
pointed arrow to change the Foreground
| | 04:49 | color to white and come back in and
paint with white on top of the mountains,
| | 04:54 | and that's adding white to the layer
mask. Once again revealing the Curves
| | 04:59 | adjustment layer in that area of the image.
| | 05:02 | I could continue to fine-tune this
layer mask but I think you get the idea.
| | 05:07 | If I go back to the layer mask, and hold
down the Shift key, and click on that
| | 05:11 | mask, you can see how the adjustment
looked when it was applying to the entire
| | 05:15 | image and then if I Shift-click again
on the layer mask, how it is when I've
| | 05:19 | used black to white gradient and
black paint to fine-tune the layer mask on
| | 05:25 | this adjustment layer.
| | 05:26 | As you can see, an adjustment layer
mask is a really powerful tool and the use
| | 05:31 | of a layer mask to limit the portion
of an image affected by an adjustment
| | 05:34 | layer is one of the big advantages
of using adjustment layer over direct
| | 05:38 | adjustments whose reach can't be
limited to just part of an image like this.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using selections with adjustment layers| 00:00 | When you're working with an adjustment
layer, a selection can come in really
| | 00:03 | handy. It can both limit the area to
which the adjustment applies and it can
| | 00:08 | affect the pixels that you are
taking into account by the adjustment.
| | 00:12 | To show you what I mean, I have an
image here that has this photograph and this
| | 00:16 | frame all on one layer. I would
like to lighten the photograph, without
| | 00:20 | affecting the frame. So I'm going to
start out by going to the Toolbox and
| | 00:24 | making a selection around the photograph.
| | 00:27 | I'll get my Rectangular Marquee tool,
I'll come into the image and I'll click
| | 00:31 | and drag a selection around the
photograph in the image. With that selection
| | 00:35 | active, I'm now going to add an
adjustment layer. I'll use one of the Curves
| | 00:40 | preset adjustments by going to the
Curves Presets in the Adjustments panel,
| | 00:45 | clicking the arrow there and moving down
and selecting the Lighter Curves Preset.
| | 00:49 | Now take a look in the Layers panel
and you'll see that there is a new Curves
| | 00:54 | adjustment layer and that it has a
layer mask thumbnail that's already been
| | 00:58 | filled in with black and white. I'm
going to hold on the Option key, that's the
| | 01:02 | Alt key on a PC and click on that layer
mask thumbnail, to show the layer mask
| | 01:07 | here in the document window. As you
can see, where there was an active
| | 01:11 | selection, the layer mask is white,
revealing the Curves adjustment.
| | 01:15 | But outside of that selection, the
layer mask is black, hiding the Curves
| | 01:20 | adjustment from the image. So I'm
going to go back to the Layers panel and
| | 01:24 | Option-click or Alt-click again on that
layer mask thumbnail. And to show you,
| | 01:28 | how this adjustment would look, of it
was affecting the entire image, this time
| | 01:32 | I'm going to hold down the Shift key
and click on the layer mask thumbnail to
| | 01:35 | temporarily deactivate it.
| | 01:38 | Now you can see this Curves adjustment
on the entire image. It's lightening not
| | 01:41 | only the photo but also the frame. But
when I Shift-click again on that layer
| | 01:46 | mask thumbnail, you can see how it
leaves the frame dark and just lightens the
| | 01:51 | photograph in the middle.
| | 01:52 | The selection did one more thing. If
you look at the Adjustment panel, you'll
| | 01:56 | notice that there's a graph here,
behind the Curves. This graph is called a
| | 02:00 | histogram. And I'll be talking about
this histogram in much more detail in
| | 02:04 | later movies. But what I do want you to
realize at this point is that because I
| | 02:08 | made a selection of just the
photograph in this image, before I created this
| | 02:13 | Curves adjustment layer, this
histogram here, is taking account of only the
| | 02:17 | area that was inside that selection,
not the area outside that selection.
| | 02:22 | So as you can see a selection can be
very powerful when you're working with
| | 02:25 | adjustment layers. Now what happens if
you created an adjustment layer and you
| | 02:30 | hadn't yet made a selection? You
could still use a selection to limit the
| | 02:34 | coverage of the adjustment layer.
| | 02:36 | To show you that, with the Curves
layer selected, I'm going to go up to the
| | 02:40 | Adjustments panel and click the
trashcan and then click yes to delete that
| | 02:45 | adjustment layer. Now this time, I'm
going to create a similar adjustment but
| | 02:49 | without making a selection first.
| | 02:51 | So I'll go up to the Adjustments panel
and I'll go to the Curves Presets and
| | 02:56 | again I'll choose Lighter. That
creates the Curves adjustment layer with a
| | 03:00 | layer mask that's completely white
meaning that the Curves adjustment is
| | 03:04 | affecting the entire image. And the
histogram in the Adjustment panel looks
| | 03:10 | different then it did a few moments
ago because it's taking into account the
| | 03:13 | entire image, the frame
as well as the photograph.
| | 03:17 | Next, I'm going to get my Rectangular
Marquee tool, come into the image and
| | 03:21 | click and drag a selection around just
the photograph. What I would like to do is
| | 03:25 | to select everything except the
photograph so that I can hide the adjustment
| | 03:29 | from everything except the photograph
in the image. So I'm going to go up to
| | 03:33 | the Select menu and I'm going to
choose Inverse, and that inverts this
| | 03:38 | selection so that everything
except the photograph is selected.
| | 03:42 | Then I'm going to fill that selected
area by going up to the Edit menu and down
| | 03:47 | to Fill. And I'll choose to use black
to fill this selection. I'll click OK and
| | 03:54 | then I'll deselect by going to the
Select menu and choosing Deselect. And you
| | 03:59 | can see that I now have a layer mask
that's very much the same as the layer
| | 04:03 | mask that I started out with at the
beginning of this lesson when I had made
| | 04:06 | the selection before
creating the adjustment layer.
| | 04:09 | So you can do it either way and you get
the same effect, both on the layer mask
| | 04:14 | thumbnail and in the histogram
inside the Curves Adjustment panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Masks panel with adjustment layers| 00:00 | The Masks panel, which you see here on
my screen, is new in Photoshop CS4.
| | 00:05 | If you use a mask on an adjustment layer
to limit where an adjustment applies
| | 00:09 | inside an image, as I showed you how
to do earlier. Don't forget to pay a
| | 00:13 | visit to the Masks panel because there
you're going to find some really useful
| | 00:16 | controls for softening the edge of
the mask, for lowering the density or
| | 00:21 | opacity of the mask and for
otherwise refining the mask edge.
| | 00:24 | I am going to use this image to
introduce you to the features of the Masks
| | 00:28 | panel and show you how to use it with
an adjustment layer, to virtually paint
| | 00:32 | with light. I'll start by adding a
Levels adjustment and I'm going to use one
| | 00:36 | of the presets to make things simple.
So I'll click on the Adjustments tab here
| | 00:40 | to open the Adjustments panel and then
I go down to the presets area, click on
| | 00:45 | the arrow to the left of Levels
Presets and I'm going to select Lighten
| | 00:48 | Shadows. That preset Levels adjustment,
lightens the dark areas of the photo,
| | 00:53 | revealing detail there.
| | 00:55 | If you take a look at the Layers panel,
you'll see the new Levels adjustment
| | 00:58 | layer, which like all adjustment layers
has a thumbnail that represents a layer mask.
| | 01:03 | By default, that layer mask is
white, as you can see here, and where a
| | 01:08 | layer mask on an adjustment layer is
white, it's completely revealing the
| | 01:11 | adjustment everywhere in the image.
What I'd like to do is the opposite.
| | 01:16 | I'd like to fill that adjustment layer mask
with black. So that's completely hiding
| | 01:20 | this Levels adjustment everywhere in
the image and then, I'm just going to paint
| | 01:24 | that adjustment back in where I wanted.
| | 01:27 | So, a quick way to fill that mask with
black is to go to the Masks panel.
| | 01:32 | My Masks panel is open on my screen. So
I'm just going to click its tab. If your
| | 01:36 | Masks panel isn't open, then go up to
the Window menu and go down to Masks.
| | 01:42 | At the top of the Masks panel, I see
this message that I have a Pixel Mask.
| | 01:46 | In other words, a regular mask, as
opposed to a vector based mask, already
| | 01:50 | selected in the Layers panel and by
the way, if you don't have the mask
| | 01:54 | selected, which is one of those things
that's a gotcha in Photoshop can trip you
| | 01:58 | up, then you'll see a different message here.
| | 02:00 | For example if I click on the
adjustment thumbnail on this adjustment layer
| | 02:04 | that deselects the mask and you can see
up at the top of the Masks panel, this
| | 02:08 | message that I don't have a mask
selected and there is a quick way to select
| | 02:12 | the mask, right from here in the
Masks panel. With that adjustment layer
| | 02:16 | selected in the Layers panel, all
I have to do is click on this icon right
| | 02:19 | here, and that selects the
mask on the adjustment layer.
| | 02:23 | Now I came to the Masks panel in order
to fill that mask with black and to do
| | 02:28 | that, all I have to do is to come down
to this Invert button in the Masks panel
| | 02:32 | and click. You can see that the layer
mask thumbnail is just now completely
| | 02:36 | black and the image is as it was before
I added this Levels adjustment because
| | 02:42 | that black layer mask is completely
hiding the adjustment everywhere in the
| | 02:46 | image. But the adjustment is still
there and now I can paint it back where I
| | 02:50 | wanted by using white paint.
| | 02:52 | So I'm going to go over to the Toolbox
and I'm going to select my Brush tool,
| | 02:56 | then I'll go down to the foreground
color box and in order to make sure that
| | 03:00 | that's white, I'm going to press the X
key on my keyboard. I'll move the brush
| | 03:04 | into the image and I'm going to make
it a little bigger by pressing the right
| | 03:08 | bracket key on my keyboard and then
with that mask selected, I'm going to come
| | 03:13 | in and I'm just going to paint with
white. As you can see wherever I paint a
| | 03:19 | stroke, the image looks lighter.
| | 03:23 | Why is that happening? Because
wherever I put white paint on this layer mask,
| | 03:27 | I'm revealing the Levels
adjustment and you remember that that Levels
| | 03:31 | adjustment that I added at the
beginning of the lesson is one that lightens.
| | 03:34 | Let me show you that layers mask by
going over to the layer mask thumbnail,
| | 03:38 | holding down the Option key on a Mac or
the Alt key on a PC and clicking on the
| | 03:42 | thumbnail and you can see where my
streaks of white are. And then I'll
| | 03:46 | Option-click or Alt-click again on that
thumbnail to go back to the image for you.
| | 03:50 | Back in the Masks panel, there's
another really useful feature and that's the
| | 03:54 | Feather slider. I can use this slider
to soften the transition between the
| | 03:58 | masked and unmasked areas on my layer
mask and what I really like about this
| | 04:03 | slider is that I have an interactive
preview in my image. So I can see exactly
| | 04:08 | how the image will look, as I feather the mask.
| | 04:11 | So I still have that mask selected as
the Masks panel tells me. I'll click on
| | 04:16 | the Feather slider and I'll drag it
really far over to the right and you can see
| | 04:20 | that that has really blurred those
white strokes, so much so that one of them
| | 04:24 | up here has even disappeared. So I'm
going to go back the other way and I'm
| | 04:28 | just going to blur these strokes a
little bit to ease that transition from the
| | 04:32 | white strokes over to the black part
of the image and if I Option-click or
| | 04:36 | Alt-click again on the layer mask
thumbnail, you can see that the edges of
| | 04:40 | those strokes aren't indeed blurry and
that's what makes that transition so soft.
| | 04:44 | Now I'll go back and Option-click
or alt-click again on the layer mask
| | 04:47 | thumbnail, to show you something else
in the Masks panel and that is the Mask
| | 04:52 | Edge button. I'm going to click that
button and that opens the Refine Mask
| | 04:56 | dialog box. I'm not going to go
through every feature here, but I do want to
| | 05:00 | let you know what this dialog box does.
It offers a number of sliders that you
| | 05:05 | can use to refine the edge between the
masked area and the unmasked area and if
| | 05:10 | you want to know what each one of
these sliders does, you can just move your
| | 05:13 | mouse over one of them and it tells you
down at the bottom of the dialog box in
| | 05:16 | the description area.
| | 05:18 | Notice that there is a button on the
right side that says Default. When if I
| | 05:21 | open this dialog box, I click this
button first to send all the sliders back to
| | 05:26 | their defaults and then I'll go down
to these icons and I'll decide which of the
| | 05:30 | icons I want to use to view the mask.
Right now I'm looking at the masked
| | 05:35 | portions in white or I could look at
the masked portions of the image in black,
| | 05:40 | or in this red semitransparent color,
or this is the view that I like the most,
| | 05:45 | in standard view, with the unmasked
portions outlined and the marching ants of
| | 05:50 | a selection and by the way, that's
because basically a selection and a mask are
| | 05:54 | just the same thing displayed in different ways.
| | 05:57 | So when I use this view, I get an
interactive preview in my image to see what
| | 06:01 | happens when I move the sliders in the
Refine Mask dialog box. I'm also going
| | 06:05 | to hide those marching ants, so I get
a better view and one way to do that is
| | 06:09 | to go up to the View menu at the top
of the screen and uncheck extras. So the
| | 06:14 | selection is still there, it's still active.
I just don't have to see the marching ants.
| | 06:18 | So it's just one example of the
sliders in the Refine Mask dialog box.
| | 06:22 | I'll show you Contract/Expand. If I move
this slider all the way over to the left,
| | 06:27 | like this, you can see that those
streaks of light contracted in on themselves
| | 06:32 | because the edges of those streaks
have been contracted. To show you another
| | 06:36 | view, I'll click here on the white
view again and you can see the streaks
| | 06:40 | really have got narrower. If I go the
other way and make the streaks really
| | 06:45 | wide, and I'll show you another view like that.
| | 06:48 | So that's one way that you can refine
the edge of a mask. I'm actually going to
| | 06:52 | go somewhere in this neighborhood so
that I can actually see some of the
| | 06:57 | strokes in the image and I'll go back
to the standard view. So I like it that way.
| | 07:00 | And when I'm done in this dialog
box, I can click OK and it closes.
| | 07:05 | There is another new convenient slider for
masks in the Masks panel and that's this
| | 07:10 | Density slider right here.
| | 07:12 | If I drag this slider to the left,
I'll be making the black mask less dense.
| | 07:16 | In other words, changing it from black to
shades of gray. As you know where a mask
| | 07:21 | is black, it completely conceals an
adjustment. But if the mask were gray,
| | 07:26 | it would only partially conceal the adjustment.
| | 07:28 | So here's what that looks like. I'll
take that Density slider and I'm going to
| | 07:32 | move it all the way over to about 50
percent and when I release my mouse, I see
| | 07:37 | that there is some more light showing
in the rocks. And if I Option-click or
| | 07:40 | Alt-click on the layer mask thumbnail,
you can see that I have changed the
| | 07:44 | black of the mask to gray, so that
it is partially revealing my Levels
| | 07:48 | adjustment. I'm going to Option-click or Alt-
click again to go back to the document view.
| | 07:53 | So using the features in the Masks
panel, the Feather slider, the Mask Edge
| | 07:57 | button, the Invert button, the Density
slider, I've managed to make the image
| | 08:01 | more dramatic, I think by painting on
it with light, and I've also introduced
| | 08:05 | you to all those useful new
features in the new Masks panel.
| | 08:09 | The Mask panel can be used with any
kind of mask, a layer mask, a vector mask
| | 08:13 | or a layer mask on an adjustment layer
and it really makes working with masks
| | 08:17 | so much easier than in previous
versions of Photoshop because it offers all the
| | 08:22 | controls in one location and it gives
you easy to use sliders and it's there
| | 08:26 | for you to come back to at any
time so that you can tweak your masks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Blend If sliders with adjustment layers| 00:00 | The Blending sliders are one of those
hidden Photoshop features that you are
| | 00:04 | not going to find unless you know
about them. By the end of this lesson you
| | 00:07 | will know where to find those
sliders and you'll also know how handy the
| | 00:11 | Blending sliders can be to limit the
tones that an adjustment will affect.
| | 00:15 | In this image, for example, I would
like to apply an adjustment that just
| | 00:19 | brightens up and adds contrast to the
white part of the waves. I really don't
| | 00:23 | want my adjustment to affect the sky or the
beach or the dark parts of the ocean out here.
| | 00:29 | I'm going to use Blending sliders to
do that. I'm going to start by adding a
| | 00:32 | Levels adjustment layer to the image,
I'll do that from the Adjustments panel
| | 00:36 | and I'll use one of the Levels Presets,
I'll click the arrow to the left of
| | 00:40 | Levels Presets and I'm going
to chose Increase Contrast 3.
| | 00:45 | In a later movie, I'll cover the
Levels Adjustments panel in detail, but for
| | 00:49 | now I just want you to tweak this
preset a bit to make the image even lighter
| | 00:53 | because I don't think that preset made
it light enough. So to do that click on
| | 00:58 | this gray slider right here and drag
to the left, and just do that to taste
| | 01:04 | until, you think that the white froth
is pretty light and looks like the kind
| | 01:08 | of thing you might see on a real beach.
| | 01:10 | Now before I use the Blending sliders,
I already know that I don't want this
| | 01:13 | adjustment to affect the sky up here
because that made the sky too light. So,
| | 01:17 | as I have shown you, how to do in other
movies I'm just going to mask off that
| | 01:21 | area with black pixels, so I'll go to
the Toolbox and I'll get my Brush tool,
| | 01:26 | I'll make sure I have black as my
foreground color by pressing the X key on the
| | 01:29 | keyboard. I have the layer mask
selected on that Levels adjustment layer and I
| | 01:35 | can come in and make my brush a little bit
bigger by pressing the Right Bracket key.
| | 01:39 | I also want to make sure that the brush
is soft, so I'll press the Shift key as
| | 01:44 | I click the Left Bracket key, and then
I'm just going to come and drag over the
| | 01:48 | sky here, and that protects the
sky from this Levels adjustments.
| | 01:54 | Now to get on to the real subject
of the lesson which is how to use the
| | 01:57 | Blending sliders to limit where this
adjustment is applying in the rest of the
| | 02:01 | photo. To access the Blending sliders,
I have to go in to the Layers Styles
| | 02:05 | dialog box. Now that's not very
intuitive but that's where they are located.
| | 02:09 | So to get there, I'm going to go down
to the Layers panel and I'm going to
| | 02:12 | double click on that Levels
adjustments layer. And that opens Layers Styles
| | 02:17 | dialog box with settings that will
affect this particular layer. Notice that
| | 02:22 | Blending options is highlighted over
here and because of that I can see various
| | 02:26 | Blending options in the center
part of the Layer Style dialog box.
| | 02:30 | The options I'm interested in are
those right here, in this section labeled
| | 02:34 | Blend If. You will notice that there
are two gradients here. These are scales
| | 02:39 | that have all the possible grayscale
values in the image, from black on the
| | 02:42 | left with a graycales value of 0 to white
on the right with a grayscale value of 255.
| | 02:48 | Now what I want to do is to limit this
adjustment to just the brightest whites
| | 02:52 | in this image. And so I'm going to
use this black slider here on the top
| | 02:57 | gradient, the gradient labeled This
Layer. Before I do that, I'm going to move
| | 03:00 | the Layer Style dialog box over to the
right, so that you can see better what's
| | 03:03 | happening in the image and then I'm
going to take that black slider and I'm
| | 03:07 | going to move it to the right.
| | 03:11 | Notice in the image that as I do that,
the dark areas of the sea and of the
| | 03:16 | beach and the waves are turning dark
and that's because Photoshop is protecting
| | 03:21 | them from the adjustments on the Levels
adjustment layer and allowing us to see
| | 03:26 | through to the Image layer below. But
if I just drag the black slider as a
| | 03:31 | whole, the transitions between the
masked portions and the unmasked portions
| | 03:36 | are too sharp and it really doesn't look good.
| | 03:38 | So I'm going to split this slider
apart to soften that transition. First of
| | 03:43 | all, I'll drag this slider over to the
right, a little bit more, maybe I'll go
| | 03:48 | around there and then I'm going to
hold down the Option key on my keyboard
| | 03:52 | that's is the Alt key on a PC and drag
the left part of that slider over to the
| | 03:56 | left and I'll keep going until I have
removed all those sharp transitions.
| | 04:01 | So what's happening now is that the
lightening effect of my adjustment layer is
| | 04:06 | applying only to pixels whose
grayscale value is larger that the grayscale
| | 04:11 | value at this point which is 173. In
other words, just to these brighter pixels
| | 04:16 | represented by this part of the tonal
range and my adjustment is not being
| | 04:21 | applied at all to parts of the image
whose grayscale value is darker over to
| | 04:25 | the left of this point on grayscale.
| | 04:28 | In other words, less that the grayscale
value of 70, this area over here and in
| | 04:33 | between my adjustment is being
partially applied. To get a better sense of what
| | 04:38 | that has done, I'll move my Layer Style
dialog box back into the scene and I'm
| | 04:42 | going to uncheck Preview and you can
see how, the adjustment was affecting the
| | 04:47 | entire image down here before I did
this and now with the changes to the
| | 04:52 | Blending sliders the adjustment is
affecting just the brightest whites.
| | 04:56 | Now notice that, there are some other
sliders here, I'm not going to use them
| | 04:59 | in this case but I'll mention to you,
what they do. If I were to drag the white
| | 05:03 | slider on this top gradient over to
the left it would hide the light parts of
| | 05:07 | the adjustment so that the underlying
image which showed through the light
| | 05:11 | part-- in other words, the white froth and
only the darker areas-- would be adjusted.
| | 05:16 | If I come down to this slider on the
Underlying layer gradient, the black
| | 05:20 | slider and drag that one to the right,
it will cause the dark parts of the
| | 05:24 | original image to show through the
adjustment and if I go to the white slider
| | 05:28 | on the Underlying layer gradient and
I drag that one to the left, that will
| | 05:32 | cause the light parts of the original
image to show through the adjustment.
| | 05:36 | So when working with adjustment layers
I primarily work in the top gradient.
| | 05:40 | I'm going to click OK to close the
Layer Style dialog box and I'm done
| | 05:44 | adjusting this image. To give you a
before and after view I'll go to the bottom
| | 05:48 | of the Adjustments panel and I'll
click the eye icon. This is how the image
| | 05:52 | looked when I started and this is how it
looks now, and I think it's much improved.
| | 05:57 | So don't forget about the Blending
sliders, just because they are hidden away
| | 06:00 | in the Layer Style dialog box. They
really are a good way to fine-tune the
| | 06:04 | areas that are affected by an adjustment layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Lighting AdjustmentsReading the Histogram panel| 00:00 | Before you correct the tonality of an
image it's important to diagnose the
| | 00:03 | problem that you want to correct. It
takes practice to train your eye to read
| | 00:07 | the tonal values in a photograph and
even if you are skilled in the art of
| | 00:11 | reading photographs, there will be
times when you'll find it hard to determine
| | 00:14 | what's wrong with an image by
relying on visual cues alone.
| | 00:18 | That's when the Histogram panel can
really come in handy. The Histogram panel
| | 00:23 | offers an invaluable way to evaluate
photographs to diagnose problems that you
| | 00:27 | want to correct and to monitor the
effects of adjustments as you make them.
| | 00:31 | Let's start by opening the Histogram
panel. You can do that by going up to the
| | 00:36 | Window menu at the top of the screen
and choosing Histogram or as I did, you
| | 00:41 | can change you workspace to one that
includes the Histogram panel like the
| | 00:45 | Color and Tone workspace.
| | 00:47 | By default the Histogram panel looks
like this when you open it. I prefer to
| | 00:51 | see it larger and so I like to go
the panel menu on the right side of the
| | 00:55 | Histogram panel group and choose
Expanded View. In Expanded View I have a menu
| | 01:00 | up here that I can use to change the way
the channels in the image are represented.
| | 01:06 | By default the Histogram panel
represents each one of the Color Channels in the
| | 01:10 | image. I think it's easier to read the
Histogram, if you go into the channel
| | 01:15 | menu and you choose RGB instead which
presents a composite view of the Red
| | 01:20 | Green and Blue channels in an open image.
| | 01:23 | The Histogram in this panel is
basically a diagram or a bar chart of the tonal
| | 01:28 | values in the open image. The left side
of the Histogram represents the darkest
| | 01:33 | tones in the image and the right side
of the Histogram represents the brightest
| | 01:36 | tones in the image.
| | 01:37 | The mound in between represents the
Gray values in between the brights and the
| | 01:42 | darks. If you could pull this mound
apart, you'd see that it's made up of
| | 01:47 | individual vertical bars. And each
vertical bar represents a particular shade
| | 01:52 | of Gray in the image. The height of a
bar varies with the relative frequency of
| | 01:56 | its tone in the open image.
| | 01:59 | A tall bar like these in the middle of
this histogram mean that there is lots
| | 02:03 | of that particular tone in the open
image. If there are no bars, in an area of
| | 02:07 | the image or very few like those over
here on the right, it means that there is
| | 02:12 | not much of the corresponding tone in
the image, so in this particular image,
| | 02:15 | there isn't much white.
| | 02:17 | Many photographs look best if they have
a wide range of tones and good contrast
| | 02:22 | between the blacks and the whites,
like this photograph does. So it's often
| | 02:27 | your goal to expand the tonal range of
a photograph as you are adjusting it.
| | 02:31 | Now let me show you an image that
doesn't have such a good tonal range.
| | 02:35 | I'm going to click on lifeguard.psd, which
is open in this tab. This image looks
| | 02:41 | pretty flat when you view it and if you
go over to the Histogram panel you can
| | 02:44 | see why. There are lots of Gray
pixels in the image and some dark pixels as
| | 02:49 | well but there are no bright pixels
at all. And that means there is very
| | 02:53 | little contrast in the image because
contrast refers to the difference between
| | 02:58 | the bright brights in an
image and the dark darks.
| | 03:01 | This could probably be fixed with an
adjustment like Curves or Levels but
| | 03:05 | before you apply an adjustment like that,
you need to analyze what the problem
| | 03:09 | is and the Histogram
panel can help you with that.
| | 03:12 | Now let's look at another image
restaurant.psd which is also open here. In the
| | 03:17 | histogram, it looks like there is a
pretty good tonal range in this image from
| | 03:22 | darks all the way over to brights. But
there's one thing about this histogram
| | 03:26 | to be wary of and that's the spike
over here on the far right. A spike like
| | 03:30 | this means that that area of the photo is clipped.
| | 03:35 | In other words, in this case, that
the detail in these highlight areas is
| | 03:39 | missing from the photograph. If you
happen to be adjusting a photograph and you
| | 03:43 | notice a spike either on the right
side representing clipped highlights or on
| | 03:48 | the left side representing clipped
shadow areas, you might want to pull back a
| | 03:52 | bit and your adjustment to
avoid losing detail in those areas.
| | 03:56 | Let's look at one more image, fence.psd.
I'm showing you this image because by
| | 04:01 | default the histogram represents the
tones in an entire image. But if you want
| | 04:07 | to, you can change the histogram to
represent the tones in just a single layer.
| | 04:12 | I'm going to go down to the Layers
panel here which has collapsed to make room
| | 04:15 | for the histogram panel and I'll
Double-click the Layers tab to expand the
| | 04:19 | Layers panel again.
| | 04:20 | Here you can see that there are two
layers in this file. The foreground layer,
| | 04:25 | which contains all this foreground
image along with some transparent pixels,
| | 04:30 | and the sky layer, which contains
just the dark sky and some transparent
| | 04:35 | pixels. Now if I select the sky layer
in the Layers panel and I then go up to
| | 04:40 | the Histogram panel, look how the
histogram changes. If I change the Source of
| | 04:45 | the Histogram from the Entire Image
where there's a wide range of tones to the
| | 04:49 | selected Sky layer. The histogram is
now confirming that in the sky layer most
| | 04:56 | of the pixels are gray or dark and
there are no light areas at all. You can use
| | 05:01 | this information if you
are adjusting just the sky.
| | 05:04 | So as you can see the histogram is a
really useful tool which can help you to
| | 05:08 | evaluate an image before you adjust it
and to understand the effects of your
| | 05:12 | adjustments on an image as you make
them. If you do have room on your screen,
| | 05:16 | I'll suggest you always try to keep the
valuable Histogram panel open whenever
| | 05:20 | you are adjusting tone in an image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Levels adjustment for tonal corrections| 00:00 |
This chapter is all about correcting
tonal values which are the darks, the
| | 00:04 |
lights and the mid-tones that make up
the underlying tonal structure of every
| | 00:08 |
image whether it's a color photograph
like this one or a black and white image.
| | 00:13 |
Colors sometimes makes it difficult
to see tone but if you squint your eyes
| | 00:17 |
that often helps you to envision the
underlying gray scale tones that make up
| | 00:21 |
an image. I don't have to squint very
much in this case to see that this image
| | 00:25 |
is dull and flat. It lacks
bright whites and dark darks.
| | 00:30 |
One way to fix a flat image like this
is to increase its contrast and tweak its
| | 00:34 |
brightness using a Levels adjustment
and that's what I'm going to show you how
| | 00:38 |
to do in this movie. I can apply a
Levels adjustment as a direct adjustment
| | 00:42 |
from the Image menu at the top of the screen.
| | 00:45 |
But as you know, from previous
movies I prefer using a nondestructive
| | 00:49 |
re-editable adjustment layer whenever
I can. So I'm going to apply Levels from
| | 00:54 |
over here in the adjustments panel by
clicking the Levels icon, which is the
| | 00:58 |
second one in the top row.
| | 01:00 |
Then I'll go down to my Layers
panel and I'll expand that panel by
| | 01:04 |
Double-clicking the Layers tab so
that you can see that has added a Levels
| | 01:09 |
adjustment layer above the background
layer that contains the image in this case.
| | 01:13 |
I'm going to go back to my Adjustments
panel by Double-clicking its tab to show
| | 01:18 |
you the controls in the Levels
Adjustment panel. The first thing you'll notice
| | 01:22 |
here is that the Levels Adjustment
panel has a histogram in it and that
| | 01:26 |
histogram looks just like the histogram
up here in the Histogram panel. So why
| | 01:31 |
do I have the Histogram panel open.
The reason is that, there's one big
| | 01:34 |
difference between these two histograms.
| | 01:36 |
As I modify the Levels here in the
Levels Adjustment panel, this histogram will
| | 01:41 |
not update. It will always look
like it does now. But as I make those
| | 01:46 |
adjustments, the histogram in the
Histogram panel will automatically update and
| | 01:50 |
that will help me to see the effects of
the changes that I'm making. So I like
| | 01:54 |
to have the Histogram panel
open when I'm using Levels.
| | 01:58 |
Down in the Adjustments panel the
histogram represents the possible tonal
| | 02:02 |
values in the open image. The far
left side of the histogram represents the
| | 02:06 |
darkest possible values and the far
right, the brightest possible values.
| | 02:11 |
This mound is actually made up of individual
vertical bars, the taller the bar,
| | 02:15 |
the higher the relative frequency of the
corresponding tonal value and you can see
| | 02:21 |
the tonal value of any one of these
bars by moving straight down from that bar
| | 02:25 |
to this gradient down here. So the
very tallest bar in this image represents
| | 02:30 |
this kind of middle gray that I can
see here in the black to white gradient.
| | 02:35 |
I can also see in this histogram that
there are no bars at all in the brighter
| | 02:39 |
parts of the tonal range and there are
only a very few bars here in the darker
| | 02:43 |
parts of the tonal range. So my goal in
adjusting this image is going to be to
| | 02:48 |
create some bright whites and some
dark darks in this image and to expand the
| | 02:53 |
middle tones in the image across the
entire tonal range and that will add
| | 02:57 |
contrast to the image so that it hopefully
will look a lot less dull than it currently does.
| | 03:02 |
I'm going to start by setting the white
point for the image and I'll do that by
| | 03:05 |
coming over to this white input
slider here, clicking-and-dragging it until
| | 03:10 |
it's just beneath some of the
vertical bars in the image. The trick here is
| | 03:14 |
knowing how far in to go.
| | 03:16 |
If I pull this white slider in too far,
I'm pushing the tones directly above it
| | 03:21 |
and all the tones to the right of it
to pure white with no detail or texture
| | 03:26 |
and you can see that in the image. This is
called clipping the highlights and it's
| | 03:30 |
something that you normally want to avoid.
| | 03:32 |
So I'm going to take that white slider
and start again by dragging it all the
| | 03:35 |
way over to the right and this time
I'm going to use a built-in guide called
| | 03:40 |
the Threshold view to help me decide
where to drop that white slider. To use
| | 03:45 |
Threshold view, I hold down the Option
key on my keyboard, that's the Alt key
| | 03:48 |
on a PC and I'll drag that
white slider over to the right.
| | 03:53 |
And when I hit that mound of
vertical bars I'll start to see some colored
| | 03:57 |
pixels in the image that represent
clipping in individual Color Channels.
| | 04:02 |
I'm going to keep going until I see some
white right there in the middle of that
| | 04:06 |
colored area. The white pixels
represent pixels in the image that will now be
| | 04:12 |
clipped to pure white with no detail.
| | 04:14 |
So I just want to have a few of those
pixels and then I'll release my mouse.
| | 04:18 |
And you can see that I have lightened
the bright points of the image but that
| | 04:22 |
there is still detail in
most of the white areas.
| | 04:25 |
Now I'm going to do the same thing
with the black slider. I'll click on it
| | 04:28 |
while holding down the Option key on a
Mac or the Alt key on a PC and I'll drag
| | 04:33 |
to the right. In the Threshold view the
entire image looks white to start with
| | 04:38 |
and as I go to the right I start to
see a few black pixels right there on the
| | 04:42 |
center of the image. So I'm going to
release my mouse and what I have done is
| | 04:45 |
actually set the dark area here to pure black.
| | 04:49 |
Now let's see a before and after view
by going down to the Eye icon at the
| | 04:53 |
bottom of the Adjustment panel and
clicking that. This is how the image looked
| | 04:57 |
when I started this adjustment and
this is the way that it looks now. You can
| | 05:01 |
see a diagram of the results up here in
the histogram that's in the histogram panel.
| | 05:06 |
I now have pixels in the brightest
parts of the histogram and in the darkest
| | 05:10 |
parts of the histogram and the gray
tones in between those two anchor points
| | 05:15 |
have now been spread out across the
entire histogram. So what I have done is
| | 05:19 |
increase the contrast of the image
by setting white and black points and
| | 05:23 |
letting Levels automatically
increase the tonal range of the image.
| | 05:27 |
When you make an adjustment like this,
there's one thing to watch out for.
| | 05:30 |
Notice in the histogram that there
are now some gaps between these vertical bars.
| | 05:34 |
Those gaps represent tones for
which there are no pixels in the image
| | 05:38 |
right now. I don't really see any
problem in this particular image but if I was
| | 05:42 |
working in an image in which I was
going to make extreme tonal changes or
| | 05:47 |
repeated tonal changes, gaps in the
histogram can cause visible banding or posterization.
| | 05:53 |
The solution for that is to start out
with as much tonal information as you can
| | 05:58 |
in an image. So if you are shooting
with a digital camera, consider shooting in
| | 06:02 |
raw mode which produces 16-bit files
and if you are scanning, try to scan with
| | 06:08 |
as high a bit-depth as you can, so that
you are starting off in Photoshop with
| | 06:12 |
as much tonal information as you can
get before you make your adjustments.
| | 06:16 |
I'm going to go back to the Adjustments
panel one more time to show you another
| | 06:20 |
feature and that is the Output Levels
feature down here. Output Levels are used
| | 06:25 |
when you are preparing an image for
print in order to compensate for the
| | 06:28 |
difficulties that printers have in
printing very dark darks and very bright
| | 06:33 |
brights while retaining detail.
| | 06:37 |
Using Output Levels I can remap the
very brightest whites to slightly darker
| | 06:41 |
tones by taking the white slider here
and dragging it over to the left.
| | 06:46 |
I'll put it at about 245 and I can do the
same for the darkest shadows in the image
| | 06:51 |
by taking this black slider and
dragging it over to the right.
| | 06:55 |
The exact values that you need to use
for Output Levels depend on the printer
| | 06:59 |
that you are preparing your image for.
So the numbers that I'm showing you here
| | 07:03 |
are just within the generally
acceptable range of print Output Levels.
| | 07:08 |
Another thing to keep in mind when you
are increasing contrast with Levels is
| | 07:11 |
that sometimes that can introduce a
color cast to your image. So if that
| | 07:15 |
happens to you, you'll have to add
yet another kind of adjustment like a
| | 07:19 |
Hue/Saturation adjustment or perhaps
a Color Balance adjustment and I'll be
| | 07:23 |
addressing those Color
adjustments in another chapter.
| | 07:26 |
But for now, just knowing how Levels
work can help you take a so-so photograph
| | 07:31 |
and change it into one that really pops
by setting its black and white points,
| | 07:36 |
increasing its tonal range and
brightening or darkening the entire image with a
| | 07:40 |
Levels adjustment.
| | 07:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Curves adjustment for exposure| 00:00 |
The most powerful and flexible way to
adjust tones in an image is with Curves.
| | 00:05 |
Curves like Levels can be used to
adjust brightness, contrast and even color in
| | 00:10 |
an image. But while Levels offer just
three tonal controls, the Black, White
| | 00:14 |
and Gray sliders. With a Curves
adjustment you can control up to 16 different
| | 00:19 |
tonal values with a single adjustment.
| | 00:21 |
I'm going to apply a Curves adjustment
layer to this image to introduce you to
| | 00:25 |
the Curves Interface and show you
how to use Curves for just one of its
| | 00:28 |
purposes to fix the exposure or
brightness of an image. I could apply Curves as
| | 00:34 |
a direct adjustment from the image
adjustments menu up here, but as you know
| | 00:38 |
from other movies, I prefer to use
an adjustment layer wherever possible.
| | 00:42 |
And so I'm going to close this menu
and go over to the Adjustments panel and
| | 00:46 |
I'm going to find the Curves
adjustment icon there and click that icon to
| | 00:50 |
change the Adjustments panel to the
Curves controls and if I look at the Layers
| | 00:55 |
panel which I'll do by Double-clicking
its tab, you can see that there's now a
| | 00:59 |
Curves adjustment layer
above the background image layer.
| | 01:02 |
I'm going to go back to the
Adjustments panel by Double-clicking the
| | 01:06 |
Adjustments tab so that I can show you
the Curves Interface. The first thing
| | 01:10 |
you'll notice is this big graph in the
middle of the Curves Adjustments panel.
| | 01:14 |
Inside that graph there is a histogram
and this is a histogram that represents
| | 01:19 |
the actual tonal values in this image.
| | 01:21 |
I have already explained how a
histogram works. That it's really a collection
| | 01:25 |
of vertical bars each of which
represents a different gray scale tone in the
| | 01:30 |
image and the height of the bars
tells you the relative frequency of a
| | 01:34 |
particular tone. You'll notice that
this histogram in the Curves Adjustment
| | 01:38 |
panel is just like the histogram
up here in the Histogram panel.
| | 01:41 |
The difference is that as I make my
Curves adjustments, the histogram in the
| | 01:45 |
Histogram panel will update itself to
show me the change and the histogram down
| | 01:51 |
here in the Adjustments panel will
just stay the way you see it now. So that's
| | 01:55 |
why I have the histogram panel open too.
| | 01:57 |
Notice also that there is a horizontal
scale at the bottom of this graph and a
| | 02:02 |
vertical scale along the left side of
the graph. I think I have the horizontal
| | 02:06 |
scale as the before scale and the
vertical scale as the after scale, because I
| | 02:11 |
use the horizontal scale to tell me the
gray scale value of a particular point
| | 02:16 |
before I make an adjustment and I use
the vertical scale to tell me the gray
| | 02:20 |
scale value of that same point
after I make a Curves adjustment.
| | 02:24 |
And the way that I make a Curves
adjustment is by changing the shape of this
| | 02:28 |
diagonal line, which is the actual
curve. The top right of this curve
| | 02:33 |
represents the brightest pixels in an
image and the bottom left of the curve,
| | 02:37 |
the darkest pixels in an image.
| | 02:39 |
One of the simplest ways that I can
adjust this curve is to set a black point
| | 02:43 |
and a white point in the image if
necessary. Now in this case I don't see a
| | 02:47 |
reason to set a black point because
the histogram is telling me that there
| | 02:50 |
already are some pure black pixels in
this image. So I'm going to take a look
| | 02:55 |
at the white portion of this horizontal
scale over here on the right and I can
| | 02:59 |
see that there are no vertical bars
above the white portion of this scale.
| | 03:03 |
So that means that there is no pure
white in this image and I can see that if I
| | 03:08 |
look at the image even this whitewashed
fence looks pretty gray. So what I want
| | 03:12 |
to do is to set the white point, and I'm going
to do that almost the same that I did in Levels.
| | 03:17 |
I'm going to hold down the Option or
Alt key. I'm going to click on this white
| | 03:20 |
slider in order to bring up this
Threshold view. That will help me to know
| | 03:24 |
where to place the white slider and
then I'm going to drag to the left.
| | 03:28 |
And notice that that control point at the top
of the curve is moving to left along with me.
| | 03:35 |
When I start to see some small pixels
of white in the image I'll release my
| | 03:39 |
mouse and I have now reset the white
point. I can use the before and after
| | 03:45 |
scale to understand exactly how
I have changed the brightest tones in this
| | 03:49 |
image. This black square up here is the
control point that represents the brightest tones.
| | 03:55 |
It used to be over here in the top
right corner. If I move directly down from
| | 04:00 |
that point to the before scale at the
bottom of the Curves graph, I can see the
| | 04:06 |
gray tone that used to be the brightest
tone in the image. Now if I go back to
| | 04:11 |
that black control point and I move
directly to the left, I can see on the
| | 04:16 |
vertical scale, the current value of
the brightest points in the image and that
| | 04:21 |
is this pure white that I see here.
| | 04:23 |
And if I would like to see that
numerically I can look down at the output and
| | 04:27 |
input fields here which are telling
me that the brightest tone in the image
| | 04:31 |
used to be about 200 on a scale of 0-
255. And now the brightest tone is 255.
| | 04:38 |
Another thing to look at in the Curves
graph is this diagonal line, which is
| | 04:43 |
the baseline curve, and then this line
is the current curve. When this line is
| | 04:47 |
above the baseline, the image is
brighter and when this line is below the base
| | 04:53 |
line, the image would be darker.
| | 04:54 |
Another thing that I could do with
this curve would be to use it to increase
| | 04:59 |
the exposure of the entire image. The
simple way to do that is to move my mouse
| | 05:03 |
over approximately the mid-point of
the curve, click there to set an anchor
| | 05:08 |
point and then click-and-drag on that
anchor point up in order to increase the
| | 05:13 |
overall Exposure of the entire image.
| | 05:17 |
Another way to move that point would
be to use the arrow keys on my keyboard
| | 05:20 |
and I actually prefer to do it that way
because the arrow keys make changes in
| | 05:24 |
small increments and when you are
using Curves often making small changes is
| | 05:29 |
the best way to go. So I'm going to
press the down arrow on my keyboard, which
| | 05:33 |
is reducing the overall Exposure of the image.
| | 05:36 |
If I would like to reduce the Exposure
in larger increments I'll hold on the
| | 05:40 |
shift key as I press the Down arrow key.
And to increase Exposure, I'll hold
| | 05:46 |
the shift key as I press the Up arrow
key. Using the mid-point of a curve to
| | 05:51 |
change the overall Exposure of an image
is very much like moving the gray input
| | 05:55 |
level slider in a Levels adjustment.
| | 05:58 |
But that's not all you can do with
Curves. With Curves you can change the
| | 06:02 |
exposure of any point on the curve. To
show you that I'm going to remove the
| | 06:06 |
control point that's currently on the
curve and the curve will snap back to
| | 06:10 |
where it was just after I moved this
white slider. To remove that control point
| | 06:15 |
I'll click on the control point, hold
on my mouse and then with one movement
| | 06:19 |
I'm going to click-and-drag off of
the curve and I'll release the mouse.
| | 06:22 |
Now let's say that I decide I want to
adjust the exposure of all the image
| | 06:27 |
except the white door. To do that I'm
going to lock down the points of the
| | 06:31 |
curve that represent bright pixels in
the image. I'll just come in to the curve
| | 06:35 |
and I know that this portion of the
curve represents the bright areas. So I'm
| | 06:40 |
going to click a few times on the curve
in the portion that controls the bright
| | 06:44 |
parts of the image.
| | 06:48 |
Then I'm going to come down to portion
of the curve that controls the darker
| | 06:52 |
parts of the image and I'll click
there and then I'm going to use the arrow
| | 06:56 |
keys on my keyboard to increase Exposure.
I'll hold on the Shift key and the Up
| | 07:01 |
arrow key and as you can see I'm
increasing the exposure of the Adobe without
| | 07:06 |
really increasing the exposure of the
white door which is locked in place by
| | 07:10 |
these three Anchor Points.
| | 07:12 |
And if I have gone too far and I want
to go back the other way I'll press my
| | 07:16 |
Down arrow key and what's moving is
just this one selected Anchor Point.
| | 07:22 |
So that's how you can use Curves to
adjust the Exposure or Brightness of an
| | 07:26 |
image. There's one more thing that
I usually do when I make a Curves adjustment
| | 07:31 |
and that is to go back into the Layers
panel, which I do by Double-clicking the
| | 07:34 |
Layers panel tab, selecting the Curves
adjustment layer and changing its blend
| | 07:39 |
mode from Normal to Luminosity.
| | 07:42 |
The reason that I do that is that a
Curves adjustment sometimes affects the
| | 07:46 |
color in an image and changing the
blend mode of a Curves adjustment layer to
| | 07:50 |
luminosity eliminates that color change.
| | 07:53 |
So with that introduction to Curves
adjustment controls and to the use of
| | 07:57 |
Curves to control Exposure you should
be getting a sense of the power of this
| | 08:01 |
important adjustment. But controlling
Exposure isn't the only thing you can do
| | 08:06 |
with Curves. Stay with me for the next
movie to learn how to control Contrast
| | 08:10 |
with a Curves adjustment.
| | 08:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Curves adjustment for contrast| 00:00 | In the last movie I showed you how to
use a Curves adjustment layer to adjust
| | 00:04 | the exposure of an image. But that's
not the only way that you can change the
| | 00:08 | tonality of an image with Curves.
| | 00:10 | You can also adjust the contrast of an
image, which is the difference between
| | 00:13 | the bright tones and the dark tones
in the image. This photograph actually
| | 00:17 | needs both an exposure adjustment and
a contrast adjustment, so I'm going to
| | 00:22 | add more than one Curves adjustment layer.
| | 00:24 | I'm working here in my Adjustments
workspace by the way, which does not include
| | 00:28 | the Histogram panel, because I need
room to show you both the Adjustments panel
| | 00:32 | and the Layers panel. I'll start by
going to the Adjustments panel, and
| | 00:36 | clicking the Curves icon to add the first
Curves adjustment layer to the Layers panel.
| | 00:41 | Then I'm going to go to the
Adjustments panel. I'm going to click the Expand
| | 00:45 | View icon so I have a better of the
Curves adjustment panel. I'll use this
| | 00:50 | first Curves adjustment layer just to
increase the exposure in this image.
| | 00:54 | So I'll click on the approximate mid point
of the curve, right here, and I'll drag up.
| | 00:58 | That increases the
exposure of the entire image.
| | 01:01 | Then I'm going to go down to the Layers
panel, I'm going to give a name to this
| | 01:05 | Curves adjustment layer, since I'm
going to have more than one adjustment
| | 01:08 | layer. I'll Double-click the default
name, Curves 1, and I'm going to type
| | 01:12 | exposure curve instead. Then I'll click
off that editing area, and I'm going to
| | 01:18 | go up to the Adjustments panel, click
the green arrow at the bottom of that
| | 01:22 | panel to go back to icon view, and I'm
going to add a second Curves adjustment layer.
| | 01:28 | To do that, I'll go back to the
Curves icon and click it again. You can see
| | 01:32 | that there is now a second Curves
adjustment layer in the Layers panel, I'll
| | 01:36 | give that one a name by Double-clicking
its default name, I'll type contrast
| | 01:41 | curve, then I'll click off
of that text editing block.
| | 01:44 | With the contrast curve adjustment
layer selected in the Layers panel, I'm
| | 01:48 | going to go back up to the Adjustments
panel, and here I'm going to use this
| | 01:52 | graph that's part of the Curves
adjustment display, to figure out where to
| | 01:56 | place a couple of points on my curve.
| | 01:59 | My graph is set to show 10% intervals.
If yours isn't, you can go up to the
| | 02:04 | Adjustments panels menu here, and
choose Curve Display Options, and in the
| | 02:09 | Curve Display Options dialog box, make
sure that this icon is selected, rather
| | 02:13 | than this one, which gives
you a three quarter view graph.
| | 02:17 | So I've got the 10% graph selected,
I'll click OK. I use this graph to come
| | 02:23 | into about the second of the
intersection lines, and I'm going to click on the
| | 02:27 | curve right there, to set a point in
the light area of the curve. Then I'll go
| | 02:32 | down to the dark area of the curve,
and I'll set a point at that second
| | 02:36 | intersection line down there. I've got
that dark point selected, so I'll use
| | 02:40 | that to darken the shadows in the image.
| | 02:43 | I'm going to hold down the Shift key
on my key board and press the down arrow
| | 02:48 | to move that point down below the
baseline curve. Then I'm going to go up to
| | 02:52 | the other control point, I'll click on
it carefully to avoid moving it, and I'm
| | 02:57 | going to hold the Shift key and
click the up arrow on my keyboard.
| | 03:00 | Now that's a pretty strong adjustment,
so I might want to come in and tweak that.
| | 03:04 | I can select either of these
points, and move them up or down or to the
| | 03:09 | left or right to adjust this S curve.
You'll notice that the middle portion of
| | 03:15 | the S curve is the steepest part of the
curve, and where curve is steepest, you
| | 03:19 | get the most increase in contrast.
| | 03:22 | So what a traditional S curve does is
increase contrast in the mid-tones while
| | 03:27 | anchoring down or leaving alone the
white point and black point in the image.
| | 03:32 | To get a before and after view of this
adjustments, I'm going to go down to the
| | 03:35 | Layers panel and turn off
the two adjustment layers.
| | 03:38 | So that's where I started. That's
where I was after the exposure curve, and
| | 03:43 | here is where I'm with both Curves.
Because I've set these up as adjustment
| | 03:47 | layers, I can fine-tune either one of
these adjustments. So for example, if I
| | 03:51 | think that the contrast curve is too
intense, I can go to the Opacity slider at
| | 03:55 | the top of the Layers panel, and with
the contrast curve layer selected I can
| | 03:59 | reduce the opacity of that adjustment.
| | 04:01 | So that's another look into the power
and flexibility of Curves, which you can
| | 04:06 | use not only to adjust image exposure,
but also image contrast, and as I'll
| | 04:10 | show you in later chapter, image color.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making On-Click Curves adjustments| 00:00 |
In Photoshop CS4 Adobe added an
important feature to the Curves adjustment, an
| | 00:05 |
on-click image adjustment tool. This is
a visual method of adding points to the
| | 00:10 |
curve and reshaping the curve
from right within the image.
| | 00:14 |
The process is really intuitive, and
it streamlines the work of finding a
| | 00:18 |
particular tone on the curve, adding
points to a curve and adjusting those
| | 00:22 |
points. Here's how it works. I'm going
to add a Curves adjustment layer to this
| | 00:26 |
image by going up to the Adjustments
panel and clicking the Curves icon.
| | 00:31 |
In the Curves adjustment panel, I'm
going to enable the On-click feature by
| | 00:36 |
going to this icon and clicking there.
Now that I've enabled that feature, I
| | 00:40 |
can do several things. One thing
I can do is just move my cursor over the
| | 00:45 |
image, and notice that when I do that
I get a hollow circle in the part of the
| | 00:50 |
curve that corresponds
to this area of the image.
| | 00:53 |
So if I'm looking say for the lightest
part of the image, all I have to do is
| | 00:57 |
move my cursor around the image, and
that hollow circle will move on the curve,
| | 01:02 |
identifying where the lightest part of the
image might be. I think it's just around there.
| | 01:08 |
Another thing that I can do with the
On-click adjustment is to add points to
| | 01:12 |
the curve from inside of the image. So
if I wanted to add a point here in the
| | 01:16 |
lightest part of the image, I would just
click and I now have a point there on the curve.
| | 01:22 |
I can add another point in the mid-
tones by moving over a middle gray area of
| | 01:26 |
the image, and clicking there, and
I can add another point to the dark areas by
| | 01:31 |
moving over some dark shadows and
clicking there. Now that I have some points
| | 01:36 |
on the curve, I can use those
to manually reshape the curve.
| | 01:40 |
So right now I have the dark point
selected on the curve. If I go to the arrow
| | 01:45 |
keys on my key board and press the up
arrow, I'll be opening up the shadow
| | 01:50 |
areas. To move to another point on the
curve, I can just click on that point,
| | 01:54 |
or I can click the plus or
minus keys on my keyboard.
| | 01:58 |
So I'll click the plus key to move to
that mid-tone point, and I'll click the
| | 02:02 |
plus key one more time, and it selects
the highlight point that I added.
| | 02:06 |
Then I'm going to use the down arrow key on
my keyboard to darken the highlights in
| | 02:10 |
the image. So that's one way that
the On-click adjustment comes in handy.
| | 02:14 |
But I think that the biggest advantage
of this On-click feature is that I can
| | 02:18 |
use it to make adjustments to the
curve directly from the image. I'd like to
| | 02:21 |
show you that, so I'm going to go back
to the default curve by going up to the
| | 02:26 |
Curves menu at the top of the
Adjustments panel, and from the list of presets
| | 02:30 |
there, I'll choose. That sets the curve
back to its original shape without any
| | 02:36 |
adjustments to the image.
| | 02:38 |
I still have the On-click adjustment
enabled here. What I can do is come into
| | 02:42 |
the image, find that part of the
image that I want to adjust. Say I want to
| | 02:46 |
open up the shadows down here, click
and hold, and I get this icon that shows a
| | 02:52 |
finger with a double
pointed arrow facing up and down.
| | 02:56 |
What that icon is trying to tell me is
that if I drag up, I'll be lightening
| | 03:00 |
this area of the image, and if I drag
down, I'll be darkening. So I'm going to
| | 03:04 |
drag up here to open up the shadows,
and you can see that that has reshaped the
| | 03:09 |
entire curve. So that adjustment has
made the shadow areas look better.
| | 03:13 |
But I don't like what it's done to the sky.
| | 03:16 |
I had some really nice contrast-y
clouds there a moment ago, and now they are
| | 03:19 |
all washed out. To bring them back,
I'm just going to move my cursor over at
| | 03:23 |
the sky, and I'm going to click and
hold and drag down to darken the highlight
| | 03:29 |
areas. Keep your eyes on the curve
as I do this and you'll see that I'm
| | 03:33 |
basically reshaping the
curve from inside of the image.
| | 03:37 |
This is such an intuitive way to use
Curves that it really makes the feature
| | 03:41 |
accessible to everyone. And I've
realized that if you've been using Curves for
| | 03:45 |
a while and you have an establish
workflow, that it may take you while to get
| | 03:49 |
used to the new on image adjustment workflow.
| | 03:52 |
But if persevere, I think you'll agree
that it really is intuitive and a time
| | 03:57 |
saver in Photoshop CS4.
| | 03:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying Shadow/Highlight nondestructively| 00:00 | The Shadows/Highlight adjustment is
one of the most useful adjustments in
| | 00:03 | Photoshop. It's designed to fix photos
that have some areas that are too dark,
| | 00:08 | and other areas that are too light.
Which is what often happens when your
| | 00:11 | subject is back lit, like this one.
| | 00:14 | Unfortunately the Shadow/Highlight
adjustment is a direct adjustment. It's just
| | 00:18 | not available as an adjustment layer.
But that's okay, because I'm going to
| | 00:22 | show you a work around that will
allow you to use the Shadows/Highlight
| | 00:26 | adjustment in a way that's just as non-
destructive and re-editable as any adjustment layer.
| | 00:32 | The trick is to convert the layer
to which you're going to apply this
| | 00:35 | adjustment to a Smart Object. I can
either use the Convert to Smart Object
| | 00:40 | command here in the Layers panel menu
or I can go up to the Filter menu at the
| | 00:45 | top of the screen, and
choose Convert for Smart Filters.
| | 00:49 | Because what I'm going to be doing is
fooling Photoshop into thinking that the
| | 00:52 | Shadows/Highlights adjustment is a
Smart Filter. I'll click OK, and now on the
| | 00:59 | Image layer I can see this symbol that
indicates that I've converted this layer
| | 01:03 | to a Smart Object layer.
| | 01:05 | Next I'm going to apply a Shadow/
Highlight adjustment. So I'll go up to the
| | 01:09 | Image menu and down to Adjustments, and
notice that none of the adjustments are
| | 01:13 | available, expect for two,
Shadows/Highlights and Variations.
| | 01:17 | The reason for that is that you can't
apply these other direct adjustments to a
| | 01:22 | Smart Object layer. So I'm going to
choose Shadows/Highlights. That opens the
| | 01:27 | Shadows/Highlights dialog box to its default
settings, and already the image looks better.
| | 01:32 | Because the default setting here is to
open up the shadows by 50%. Sometimes
| | 01:38 | I'll just leave the adjustment at
that and click OK, or I'll add a Highlights
| | 01:44 | adjustment as well, dragging the Amount
slider over to the right, to darken the
| | 01:48 | highlight tones in the image
separately from the shadows.
| | 01:51 | But for now, I'm going to take both
those sliders and drag them all the way
| | 01:55 | over to the left, to put things
back as they were before I applied this
| | 01:59 | adjustment, and I'm going to click
Show More Options check box here, to reveal
| | 02:05 | some additional options that I can use to
fine-tune the Shadows/Highlights adjustment.
| | 02:11 | First of all I'm going to move this
dialog box out of the way by clicking in
| | 02:14 | its title bar and moving over to the
right, so that you can see the entire
| | 02:18 | image. I'm going to start with the shadows
area here. There are three sliders that
| | 02:23 | control lightening of
shadows with this adjustment.
| | 02:27 | The first slider you've already seen,
that's the Amount slider. If I drag the
| | 02:30 | Amount slider over to the right, I'll
be increasing the strength of the Shadows
| | 02:35 | adjustment, that's lightening the
dark tones in the image. The Tonal Width
| | 02:40 | slider controls what's considered as
shadow for purposes of this adjustment.
| | 02:45 | If I drag this slider to the right,
I'll be including more areas in the
| | 02:49 | definition of shadow and so more parts
of the image will get lighter. If I drag
| | 02:53 | the Tonal Width slider to the left,
fewer parts of the image will lighten.
| | 02:58 | I'll put it just about here. Then
I'll go down to the Radius slider.
| | 03:02 | The Shadow/Highlight adjustment uses
neighboring pixels to determine whether an
| | 03:06 | area is a shadow or a highlight, for
the purposes of the adjustment. The Radius
| | 03:11 | slider controls the range of
neighboring pixels that the Shadows/Highlight
| | 03:15 | adjustment takes into account
when making that determination.
| | 03:19 | So if the Radius slider is too far to
the left, like this, too many pixels end
| | 03:25 | up getting adjusted, and everything
looks really flat. But if the Radius slider
| | 03:30 | is too far to the right, like this,
then not enough pixels get adjusted, and I
| | 03:35 | don't get the effect that I want.
| | 03:36 | So I basically have to experiment
with the slider on each image, moving it
| | 03:41 | until I like the appearance of the
image. In this case I think this slider
| | 03:45 | looks best over here, on the left side
of its range. There are three similar
| | 03:50 | sliders in the Highlights area.
| | 03:52 | Increasing the Amount slider darkens
the highlights in the image. In this case
| | 03:57 | making the sky more dark and dramatic.
The Tonal Width slider controls which
| | 04:02 | portions of the image are considered
highlights. So if I drag that to the left,
| | 04:08 | less of the image is considered a
highlight, so less of the image is darkened.
| | 04:12 | When I do adjust the Highlight sliders,
I sometimes get a slight glow or halo
| | 04:18 | at the edges of the objects. The
Radius slider will sometimes reduce that
| | 04:22 | effect. If I drag that Radius
slider all the way over to the right, I'm
| | 04:27 | smoothing out those halos,
so they are less obvious.
| | 04:31 | There are a couple more sliders down
here in the Adjustments area.
| | 04:35 | The Shadows/Highlights adjustment
sometimes affects the colors in the image.
| | 04:39 | I can use the Color Correction slider to
correct the saturation of color, dragging it
| | 04:44 | to the right, to add more
saturation, and the left to desaturate.
| | 04:49 | In this case it's not having much of
an effect, but sometimes it does.
| | 04:53 | That Shadows/Highlights adjustment
concentrates on the dark tones and the bright
| | 04:57 | tones, but not on the mid-tones. So
there's another slider here to adjust
| | 05:01 | mid-tones, the Mid-tone Contrast slider.
| | 05:04 | If I drag that slider to the right,
it increases contrast in the mid-tone
| | 05:09 | areas. In this case, in this part on
the memorial, and if I drag to the left,
| | 05:13 | it decreases contrast. In this
case I would like it just about here.
| | 05:18 | If I shot a lot of photos in the same
light, and I think I'm going to want to
| | 05:21 | apply the same Shadows/Highlights
settings to more than one photo, I can save
| | 05:26 | these settings as defaults by
clicking this button. So that the next time I
| | 05:30 | open the Shadows/Highlights dialog box in
another image, these will be the default settings.
| | 05:35 | I'm not going to bother doing that
for now. I'm just going to click OK to
| | 05:40 | accept these settings in my Shadows/
Highlights adjustment. To remind you of how
| | 05:45 | this image looked before this
adjustment, I'm going to go down to the Layers
| | 05:48 | panel, and I'm going to click
the Eye icon to the left of the
| | 05:51 | Shadows/Highlights Smart Filter. You
can see that this is how the image was,
| | 05:56 | and this is how the
image is with the adjustment.
| | 05:59 | So opening up the Shadows on this
memorial focuses the viewers' attention on
| | 06:03 | this part of the image, rather than
on the background. Notice that the
| | 06:07 | Shadows/Highlights adjustment is
listed here in the Layers panel as a Smart
| | 06:11 | Filter. A Smart Filter is basically a re-
editable filter that comes with a layer mask.
| | 06:17 | I can take advantage of all the
qualities of Smart Filters. Most important of
| | 06:22 | which is that I can reopen the Shadows/
Highlights adjustment by just double
| | 06:26 | clicking the Shadows/Highlights Smart
Filter layer. So I'll do that now and the
| | 06:31 | Shadows/Highlights dialog box reopens,
and I can click on any one of these
| | 06:36 | sliders, drag it to change my
settings, and then click OK.
| | 06:40 | I also can take advantage of this
feature, if I Double-click this icon here, I
| | 06:45 | get a dialog box where I can adjust
the opacity of the Shadows/Highlight
| | 06:49 | adjustment, and the blend mode of the
adjustment. So for example, if I lower
| | 06:54 | the opacity by moving my mouse over
the opacity label and dragging the left,
| | 06:59 | I'm lowering the strength of
the Shadows/Highlights adjustment.
| | 07:03 | Actually I like it better at 100%. So
I'm going to put it back and click OK.
| | 07:06 | There is also a layer mask on the Smart
Filters that I can take advantage of to
| | 07:12 | hide the Shadows/Highlights adjustment
from part of the image if I want to.
| | 07:16 | So for example, I might click on that
layer mask, and then go and get the Brush
| | 07:20 | tool, set my foreground color to black by
pressing the D key, and then the X key on my keyboard.
| | 07:27 | Then I'll come into the image, and
I'll make my brush bigger, I'll paint over
| | 07:31 | part of the image; in this case the
bushes, to remove the adjustment from that
| | 07:35 | part of the photograph. Give the
Shadows/Highlights adjustment a try to fix
| | 07:40 | your own images that are back lit,
that are over flashed, that are lacking in
| | 07:45 | Shadow or Highlight detail, or that
just have a mix of lighting problems.
| | 07:49 | You'll often be surprised at the
results you get with this powerful adjustment,
| | 07:53 | and don't forget to apply it with the
work around that I showed you here for
| | 07:56 | maximum flexibility.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing Brightness/Contrast| 00:00 | The Brightness/Contrast adjustment is
the simplest, most direct way to make an
| | 00:04 | image brighter or darker or to change
its contrast. Granted if you're making a
| | 00:09 | serious adjustment to an image,
you're going to want to use Curves or even
| | 00:12 | Levels to adjust Brightness and
Contrast. But sometimes all you're doing is
| | 00:17 | working with a snapshot or preparing
an image for the web, or to attach to an
| | 00:20 | email, and you just want a quick
easy way to adjust its brightness or its
| | 00:25 | contrast, and that's when
this adjustment comes in handy.
| | 00:29 | You can apply a Brightness/Contrast
adjustment either as a direct adjustment
| | 00:32 | from the Image menu, or as an
adjustment layer. I'm going to add it as an
| | 00:37 | adjustment layer to this image by going
to the Adjustments panel; I'm going to
| | 00:41 | Double-click its tab here, and
clicking the first icon in the Adjustments
| | 00:45 | panel, the Brightness/Contrast icon.
| | 00:47 | Now in the Layers panel which I'll
Double-click, you can see that there is a
| | 00:51 | Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer,
and I'll go back to the Adjustments panel
| | 00:55 | by Double-clicking its tab to
show you the simple controls for the
| | 00:59 | Brightness/Contrast adjustment. I usually
start in this dialog box with the Contrast slider.
| | 01:05 | Many images need a boost to contrast,
which you can get by dragging the
| | 01:09 | Contrast slider to the right. And in
this case I have already got a pretty
| | 01:12 | contrast-y image. So I'm going to try
reducing the contrast by dragging the
| | 01:17 | slider over to the left, and then I'll
go up to the Brightness slider and I'll
| | 01:21 | use that to make the entire
image a little bit lighter.
| | 01:24 | So I'll drag the Brightness slider
over to the right. If I go down to the eye
| | 01:30 | icon at the bottom of the Adjustments
panel, I can see a before and after view,
| | 01:35 | so I'll click the icon, and this is
where I started and this is where I am.
| | 01:40 | So just these two simple adjustments have
opened up this image and revealed a lot
| | 01:44 | more of the detail in the books.
| | 01:46 | It's also important that in the
Histogram, I don't see any clipping, either on
| | 01:50 | the right or on the left, meaning that
I'm not losing any shadow or highlight
| | 01:54 | detail. That's because a couple of
versions of Photoshop ago, Adobe improved
| | 01:59 | the Brightness/Contrast adjustment, so
that it works just on the mid-tones of
| | 02:03 | the image rather than clipping
the highlights or the shadows.
| | 02:06 | Now there's one thing to be careful of
when you're using these adjustment, and
| | 02:10 | that is not to check Use Legacy,
because that sends the Brightness/Contrast
| | 02:15 | adjustment back to its former behavior,
when it really didn't work very well.
| | 02:20 | So for example, if I do check Use
Legacy, and then I come in and move the
| | 02:24 | Brightness slider over to where it
was just a moment ago at about 80.
| | 02:29 | The result really isn't what I want.
What's happened is that instead of extending
| | 02:34 | the mid-tones across the total range,
the legacy behavior of this adjustment
| | 02:38 | just pushes the entire histogram over
to the right when I brightened the image,
| | 02:43 | and sends the brightest values off to
the edge losing detail in the highlights,
| | 02:48 | as you can tell by this spike over here.
| | 02:50 | So it's important to keep Use
Legacy unchecked, when you're using this
| | 02:54 | adjustment. Granted you don't have lots
of control over Contrast or Brightness
| | 02:59 | with just these two simple sliders.
Certainly not as much as you have with the
| | 03:03 | Curves adjustment or even a Levels
adjustment but if you've made a photo that's
| | 03:07 | too dark or light or that's flat and
needs more contrast, you can quickly save
| | 03:12 | it from your reject pile, by applying
a Basic Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer.
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| Dealing with exposure | 00:00 | Adobe never intended the Exposure
adjustment to be used on individual images.
| | 00:04 | Instead, the Exposure adjustment was
designed specifically to be used with HDR
| | 00:10 | or High Dynamic Range images. But
sometimes the Exposure adjustment comes in
| | 00:14 | handy as a quick way to
adjust brightness and contrast.
| | 00:18 | If you look at the Histogram for this
image, you can see that it's lacking in
| | 00:22 | bright tones. I'm going to add an
Exposure adjustment layer, by going to the
| | 00:26 | Adjustments panel Double-clicking its
tab, and clicking here on the Exposure icon.
| | 00:31 | If I Double-click on the
Layers tab you can see that I now have an
| | 00:36 | Exposure adjustment layer.
| | 00:37 | I'll Double-click back on the
Adjustments tab to show you the three simple
| | 00:41 | sliders that are available for an
Exposure adjustment. The Exposure slider here
| | 00:47 | is much like the Exposure slider in
the Camera Raw interface. Moving this
| | 00:51 | slider impacts primarily the
highlights in the image, and not the dark areas.
| | 00:57 | So if I take this Exposure slider and
drag it over to the right, you can see
| | 01:02 | that the bright areas of the image
have become brighter, and there are now
| | 01:05 | pixels here in the Histogram in
the bright part of the total range.
| | 01:10 | The next slider is the Offset slider.
I usually don't change this slider.
| | 01:15 | What it does is it adjusts the dark areas
with little attention to the light areas,
| | 01:19 | but unfortunately, I'll show you what
it does, I'm going to drag the Offset
| | 01:23 | slider to the right, and you can see
that it just moved the Histogram off to
| | 01:27 | the right, which adds this filmy look
over the image, and I really don't like that.
| | 01:31 | So I'm going to go back to the Offset
field and I'm going to type in zero to
| | 01:35 | send it to its default. And finally
there is a Gamma slider. The Gamma slider
| | 01:40 | adjusts the midpoint of image. So if
I drag this to the right, it will make the
| | 01:44 | entire image darker, and if I drag
this to the left, it will make the entire
| | 01:48 | image brighter. I'm going to drag it
just a bit to the right, and then I'm
| | 01:53 | going to go down to the Eye icon at
the bottom of the Adjustments panel, and
| | 01:57 | click there to see a before and after view.
| | 02:00 | This is how my image started. It was
dark and kind of dull, and this is how it
| | 02:06 | is now, brighter, and with
the full range of contrast.
| | 02:10 | So if you are looking for a quick way
to improve brightness and contrast, you
| | 02:13 | might give the Exposure adjustment a
try, even though it wasn't specifically
| | 02:17 | designed for use, on
individual images like this one.
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| Using adjustment layers with blend modes| 00:00 |
You can use an empty adjustment layer.
In other words, one in which you haven't
| | 00:05 |
set any of the controls, along with a
layer blend mode to lighten, to darken or
| | 00:10 |
to enhance the tonal contrast in an
image. I think you are going to like this
| | 00:14 |
technique, because it's a relatively
quick and easy fix for exposure and
| | 00:18 |
contrast problems in a photograph.
| | 00:20 |
This particular image has a couple of
tonal problems. First, you can see it's a
| | 00:24 |
little bit dark and I think it's also
a little flat or lacking in contrast.
| | 00:28 |
I think I can improve both its exposure
and its contrast with this quick method.
| | 00:33 |
So the first thing I'm going to do is
to add an empty Levels adjustment layer here.
| | 00:37 |
I can choose a Levels
adjustment or a Curves adjustment. It really
| | 00:41 |
doesn't matter, because I'm not going
to set the controls in this adjustment.
| | 00:45 |
So I'll go over to the Adjustments
panel, and I'll click on the Levels icon.
| | 00:50 |
That gives me my first Levels
adjustment layer here. I'm going to name this
| | 00:54 |
layer because I'm going to be adding
a few more Levels layers and I want to
| | 00:57 |
know which one is which.
| | 00:58 |
So, I'll Double-click on the Levels
1 label and I'm going to type instead
| | 01:02 |
exposure levels, and I'll click off
of that text box. Now with that layer
| | 01:08 |
selected, note that I haven't change
any of the sliders in the Adjustments
| | 01:12 |
dialog box. I'm just going to leave
the adjustment at its defaults. So it's
| | 01:15 |
really not doing
anything to the image right now.
| | 01:17 |
I am going to change the layer blend
mode of that adjustment layer, by going to
| | 01:22 |
the Layers panel and clicking this menu
here that's labeled Normal. That brings
| | 01:27 |
up this list of layer blend modes,
which are basically algorithms or formulas
| | 01:32 |
that you can use to blend the tones
and colors between layers. This menu is
| | 01:36 |
divided into groups according to,
what the various blends modes do.
| | 01:40 |
So this group right here are blend
modes that will give you a darker result
| | 01:45 |
than your original. And this group of
blend modes here will give you a lighter
| | 01:49 |
result than your original and this group
of blend modes will increase the contrast.
| | 01:54 |
In this case, I'm trying to make this
dark image lighter, and so I'm going to
| | 01:58 |
go this group, the Lighten group and
I'm going to choose the Screen blend mode,
| | 02:03 |
and right away the image looks brighter.
So I fixed one of the problems. If you
| | 02:07 |
think that the image is a little bit
too light, you can lower the strength of
| | 02:12 |
this adjustment, by going to the
Opacity slider at the top of the Layers panel,
| | 02:16 |
moving your mouse over the
Opacity label and dragging to the left.
| | 02:19 |
Now, I'm going to do much the same
thing to fix the flat problem, to give a
| | 02:24 |
little more contrast to this image.
I'll go to the Adjustments panel and I'll
| | 02:28 |
click the green arrow there, to return
to the icon view of this panel. I'll go
| | 02:33 |
up to the Levels icon again, and
click it to add a second Levels adjustment
| | 02:37 |
layer in the Layers panel. I'm
going to Double-click the name of that
| | 02:41 |
adjustment layer, and I'm going to call this one,
contrast levels, and click off the text box.
| | 02:49 |
Again, I'm not going to move any of the
sliders in the Levels Adjustment panel.
| | 02:54 |
Instead, in the Layers panel with the
contrast levels layer selected, I'll go
| | 02:58 |
to the layer blend mode and down to the
contrast area. Now sometimes, I'll use
| | 03:04 |
the Overlay blend mode. So I'll give
that one a try, but I think that in this
| | 03:08 |
case, it increases the contrast too
much. It's made the background too light
| | 03:12 |
and the foreground really
doesn't look good either.
| | 03:15 |
So instead of Overlay, I'm going to
try the next blend mode in that group,
| | 03:20 |
which is Soft Light. And this also
increases contrast, but it does so in a more
| | 03:25 |
subtle way. And I think that looks a
lot better. So to remind you, of how I fix
| | 03:31 |
the image so far, I'm going to turn
off the Eye icons on the left of both of
| | 03:35 |
these adjustment layers.
| | 03:37 |
This is where I've started, then
I improve the exposure, and then I improve the
| | 03:42 |
contrast. So far so good. There is one
more change that I can make, if you have
| | 03:47 |
an image or part of an image that you
would like to darken. You can use this
| | 03:51 |
same technique with the Multiply blend
mode. One reason to darken part of an
| | 03:56 |
image is to focusing on the bright
part. So sometimes you'll see, digital
| | 04:01 |
artists darkening the edges of the corners of
a photo, and that's what I'm going to do now.
| | 04:05 |
I am going to go to the Toolbox and
I'll select the Lasso tool, and I'm going
| | 04:10 |
to drag all around the border of the
image, pretty close to the border and I'm
| | 04:14 |
not going to be very careful about the
line that I'm drawing, and when I get to
| | 04:18 |
the beginning I'll release my mouse.
So now, I have a selection close to the
| | 04:22 |
edge of the image. Right now, the
area in the middle is selected and what I
| | 04:26 |
want to do is select the outside.
Because I'm going to make that a dark border.
| | 04:30 |
So I'll go up to the Select menu at the
top of the screen and I'll choose Inverse.
| | 04:36 |
Next, I'm going to go the Adjustments
panel and click the green arrow to go
| | 04:40 |
back to icon view, and I'm going to add
yet another Levels adjustment layer by
| | 04:45 |
clicking the Levels icon. And I give
that layer a name, I'll Doubleclick the
| | 04:50 |
Levels 1 default name, and maybe I'll
call this dark border levels, and click
| | 05:00 |
off the text box. As before, I'm not
going to change any of the adjustment
| | 05:04 |
settings, I'm just going to give this
layer another blend mode, by going to the
| | 05:08 |
Layer Blend Mode menu and
this time choosing Multiply.
| | 05:12 |
Now what's happened is that because
this area around here was selected that
| | 05:17 |
area of the image becomes darker, and
the part inside of the border doesn't
| | 05:22 |
become darker because I have black
pixels on this layer mask which I'll show
| | 05:26 |
you now by holding the Option key
on the Mac or the Alt key on a PC.
| | 05:30 |
So this darkening effect that
I achieved with the Multiply blend mode on an
| | 05:34 |
empty Levels adjustment layer is only
affecting this area that's white on the
| | 05:38 |
layer mask. So I'm going to Option-
click or Alt-click again on the layer mask
| | 05:42 |
thumbnail to go back to this view and
I would like to blend that border in a bit.
| | 05:46 |
So I'm going to go my Masks panel,
which I have open on my screen next to the
| | 05:51 |
Adjustments panel and which you can
open from the Window menu, if yours isn't open.
| | 05:55 |
And here, I'm just going to use
the Feather slider to blur the edge of
| | 06:00 |
that mask and I'll go over to the
right until I think it looks just about
| | 06:04 |
right. And it's just darkening the
edges a little bit. So that technique works
| | 06:09 |
to make an image darker, to make an image
lighter, or to pop its contrast a little bit.
| | 06:14 |
Now granted, I didn't have as precise
control over these adjustments as I would
| | 06:19 |
have if I would use the controls in a
Levels adjustment or a Curves adjustment,
| | 06:23 |
but this method will come in handy,
when you are looking for a quick way to
| | 06:27 |
make a simple photo that's too dark
or too light or too flat, look a little better.
| | 06:32 |
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|
|
4. Color Correction AdjustmentsMaking Vibrance adjustments| 00:00 | Many places in Photoshop, color is
represented as having three qualities.
| | 00:05 | It has Hue, which is the actual color,
Brightness, which means the lightness or
| | 00:09 | darkness of the color, and Saturation, which
refers to the intensity or purity of the color.
| | 00:14 | There are two different adjustments
that allow you to directly control the
| | 00:18 | saturation of an image. And those are
the Hue/Saturation adjustment, which I'll
| | 00:23 | be covering in another movie,
and the new Vibrance adjustment.
| | 00:26 | In many cases, I prefer the Vibrance
adjustment because it takes a more subtle
| | 00:31 | approach to the saturation of color.
Let me show you what I mean. By adding a
| | 00:35 | Vibrance adjustment layer to this
image, I'm going to go to the Adjustments
| | 00:39 | panel by Double-clicking its tab and
I'm going to click on this icon, which
| | 00:43 | represents the Vibrance adjustment layer.
| | 00:45 | In the Layers panel, I'll Double-click
its tab. You now can see, the Vibrance
| | 00:50 | adjustment layer that I've added. I'll
Double-click the Adjustment Layer tab
| | 00:53 | one more time to bring up the two
sliders in the Vibrance Adjustment.
| | 00:57 | I'm going to start out with the
Saturation slider, which works very much like
| | 01:02 | the Saturation slider in the Hue/Saturation
dialog box. This image is a little
| | 01:06 | bit desaturated. I would like to make
it pop more by increasing its saturation.
| | 01:11 | So if I take that Saturation slider and
I drag to the right, watch what happens?
| | 01:17 | The image does get saturated, but
it's way too much. The Saturation slider
| | 01:22 | pumps up all the colors, even those
that are already saturated in the lollipop,
| | 01:26 | and it makes the gentleman look as if
he has a sunburn. So I'm going to put
| | 01:31 | Saturation back to zero by
typing zero in that field.
| | 01:35 | Instead, I'm going to work with the
Vibrance slider. I'll drag that slider over
| | 01:39 | to the right. And as you can see,
I have a nice subtle increase in saturation.
| | 01:44 | If I go down to the Eye icon at the
bottom of the Vibrance adjustment layer and
| | 01:48 | click that, you can see how the image
was and how it is now. So by just adding
| | 01:54 | this one simple adjustment I have
increased the intensity of color in the image
| | 01:58 | without overdoing it.
| | 02:00 | And that's the beauty of a Vibrance
adjustment. It looks for those colors that
| | 02:04 | aren't as saturated as others and
concentrates its work on those. And it also
| | 02:09 | does a really good job of protecting skin
tones from over saturation as you've seen here.
| | 02:14 | So the next time you want to saturate
the colors in an image, give the Vibrance
| | 02:18 | adjustment a try. I think
you'll be pleased with the results.
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| Using Hue/Saturation adjustments| 00:00 | The Hue/Saturation adjustment is a
full featured method for changing the
| | 00:04 | saturation or the hue of all the colors
in the image or of just targeted colors
| | 00:09 | in an image. As I'm going to
show you how to do in this movie.
| | 00:12 | You can add a Hue/Saturation adjustment
either as a direct adjustment from the
| | 00:16 | Image menu or as an adjustment layer.
I'm going to add a Hue/Saturation
| | 00:20 | adjustment layer by going to the
Adjustments panel and clicking here on the
| | 00:24 | Hue/Saturation icon. And that adds this
Hue/Saturation layer down on the Layers
| | 00:28 | panel and changes the controls in
the Adjustments panel to those for the
| | 00:32 | Hue/Saturation adjustment.
| | 00:34 | The three sliders in this Adjustments
panel represent the three qualities of
| | 00:38 | color in Photoshop. If I click on the
Hue slider here and drag to the right or
| | 00:43 | to the left, I'll change the actual
color of all of the colors in this image.
| | 00:48 | And if I click on the Saturation
slider, I'll change the intensity or
| | 00:52 | saturation of all of the colors in the image.
| | 00:55 | If I go the other way with the
Saturation slider, I'll be desaturating all the
| | 00:59 | colors in the image. If I go all the
way to the left with this slider, I'll
| | 01:03 | remove all color from the photograph
making it look like a black and white
| | 01:07 | image. This is one quick way to
create a black and white conversion from a
| | 01:11 | color image, but it's not the
recommended way. You get a lot more control of
| | 01:15 | your black and white conversions by
using a black and white adjustment, as I'll
| | 01:19 | show you how to do in a later movie.
| | 01:21 | So I'm going to move these sliders
back to their defaults by going up to the
| | 01:25 | Hue/Saturation Preset menu and
choosing Default. There's another slider here,
| | 01:29 | the Lightness slider, which you can
use to alter the brightness of an image.
| | 01:33 | But I tend not to use this slider
because I get more control over Brightness
| | 01:37 | using an adjustment like Curves, Levels
or even the Brightness Contrast adjustment.
| | 01:42 | As you've seen by default, the
Hue/Saturation controls affect all the colors in
| | 01:47 | an image. But there are several ways
that you can limit these changes to just
| | 01:51 | specific color ranges. One way to do
that is with the new On Image feature
| | 01:56 | that's been added to the
Saturation adjustment in Photoshop CS4. This is
| | 02:01 | similar to the On Image feature that
I've already showed you in the Curves
| | 02:05 | adjustment and which you also see
in the Black and White adjustment.
| | 02:08 | To activate the On Image control, I'm
going to go up to this icon right here,
| | 02:12 | in the Adjustments panel and select it.
| | 02:15 | And now you can come into the image and
just click-and-drag on any color and if
| | 02:20 | I go to the right, I'll be increasing
the saturation of that color and related
| | 02:25 | colors around it. And if I go to
the left, I'll be desaturating.
| | 02:29 | I can also use this On Image control
to change the hue of selected colors.
| | 02:34 | So let's say that I want to change the
color or the hue of the orange tiles up here.
| | 02:38 | I'm going to hold down the
Command key on a Mac or the Ctrl key on a PC.
| | 02:43 | Click on one of those orange tiles and
drag to the right, to change those to a
| | 02:48 | green. Or I can go the other
direction and make them pink.
| | 02:54 | To get a sense of how I've changed
those colors, take a look at the two
| | 02:57 | Gradient Bars down here. The top bar
represents the colors as they were before
| | 03:02 | I made this adjustment. The gray bar
beneath that identifies exactly which
| | 03:07 | colors have been adjusted.
| | 03:09 | The darker part of that gray bar
identifies the fully adjusted colors and the
| | 03:14 | lighter gray portions of the bar,
partially adjusted colors in a kind of
| | 03:17 | transitional or fall-off area. And the
other Gradient bar at the bottom here
| | 03:23 | represents the adjusted colors as they
currently are after I've made this adjustment.
| | 03:28 | So you can see that the yellows and
oranges have been changed to pinks and
| | 03:32 | magentas. I think that this On Image
Adjustment is the most intuitive way to
| | 03:37 | change hue and saturation in the
Hue/Saturation Adjustments panel. But there
| | 03:41 | are a couple of other ways
that I would like to show you.
| | 03:44 | So I'm going to go back up to the
Hue/Saturation Presets and choose Default
| | 03:48 | again. And I'm also going to disable
the On Image Adjustment by clicking its
| | 03:52 | icon again. Now notice that there's
a drop-down menu here. Usually, this
| | 03:57 | drop-down menu is set to Master so
that whatever changes I make in the
| | 04:01 | Hue/Saturation Adjustments panel,
affect the entire image. But if I want to try
| | 04:06 | to limit my changes to just a color
range, I can go to this drop-down menu and
| | 04:11 | choose from the Reds, Yellows, Greens or
one of the other color ranges listed here.
| | 04:17 | I'm going to choose Reds in this case
and then I'm going to come down to the
| | 04:20 | Saturation slider and I'm going to drag
it over to the right. And as I do, you
| | 04:25 | can see that I'm increasing the
saturation in just a reddish tones in the
| | 04:29 | image, here in the dragon's mouth and up
here in these orange tiles on the dragon's head.
| | 04:35 | Now let's say that I don't want to
include these orange tiles in this change.
| | 04:39 | One way that I can try to limit the
range of tones affected is by coming down
| | 04:43 | to the Gradient bars at the bottom of
the image and moving either the triangles
| | 04:48 | at the edges of the fall off zones or
these white bars at the edges of the
| | 04:53 | darker area of the gray bar. I'm going
to try moving the right hand triangle on
| | 04:58 | this gray bar by clicking on that
triangle and then dragging to the left and I
| | 05:03 | can see that that's done a pretty good
job of eliminating the orange parts of
| | 05:06 | the image from this change.
| | 05:08 | Now let's say that I want to make a
change to the blue tiles in the image.
| | 05:12 | I'll go back up to that Master color menu
and this time I'm going to choose Cyans
| | 05:17 | because I think those tiles are
actually more cyan than blue. To change the hue
| | 05:22 | of just the cyan colors in the image,
I'll move to the Hue slider and I'll drag
| | 05:27 | that to the right and you can say that
those blue tiles are becoming purple.
| | 05:31 | Now, if I go a little further, all the
way over to Magenta, I can see that I
| | 05:35 | have actually missed a few tiles here
because this tile here and this tile here
| | 05:39 | must not be within the range of colors
that Photoshop considers to be cyan.
| | 05:44 | And that's one of the problems with using
that drop-down menu. It's hard to predict
| | 05:48 | in advance, exactly which
colors will be affected.
| | 05:51 | I could try to include those blues in
the affected color range by moving the
| | 05:55 | sliders in the Gradient Bar. But
another way to do that is to use the
| | 05:59 | Eyedroppers here. If I want to add to
the tonal range that's affected, I'll use
| | 06:03 | the Plus Eyedropper.
| | 06:05 | So I'll select that Plus Eyedropper and
then I'll move into the image and I'll
| | 06:08 | click on that blue tile right there
and that automatically included those
| | 06:12 | couple of tiles in the affected color
range. One thing to note is that when I
| | 06:17 | change the Master menu, I'm
actually making cumulative changes.
| | 06:22 | So this is the change to the Cyans but
if I go back and look at the Reds, I can
| | 06:27 | see that I still have the changes that
I made in the red range. So as you've
| | 06:31 | seen the Hue/Saturation adjustment
offers some useful options for changing
| | 06:36 | either the hue or the saturation of an
entire image or of targeted colors in an
| | 06:41 | image. There is one downside to the
Saturation control in the Hue/Saturation
| | 06:46 | adjustment, and that is that it tends
to over saturate colors that are already
| | 06:50 | saturated as well as skin tones.
| | 06:53 | So if you're running into those kinds
of problems, as an alternative to the
| | 06:56 | Hue/Saturation adjustment, you can try
out the new Vibrance adjustment, which I
| | 07:01 | covered in a separate
movie earlier in this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding color correction| 00:00 | In this chapter, I'll be covering a
variety of ways to correct color cast in
| | 00:04 | photographs. Before I walk you through
the steps of various color correction
| | 00:08 | methods, I'd like to give you a sense
of what a color cast is and how color
| | 00:12 | correction in Photoshop
counteracts a color cast.
| | 00:15 | I know you're eager to get going on to
the actual methods, but please do stick
| | 00:19 | with me for this brief movie, because
if you don't listen to this movie, then
| | 00:22 | the methods I'm about to show you,
won't be as easy to understand or execute.
| | 00:27 | So a color cast is a predominance
of one color across a photograph.
| | 00:31 | For example, if you shoot under
fluorescent lights, you may end up with a
| | 00:35 | photograph that has a slight green
color cast. If you shoot in snow or in fog,
| | 00:41 | you might get a blue color cast. Of
course, not all color casts are bad or
| | 00:44 | need to be corrected. For example, a
sunset shot could have an orange or pink
| | 00:50 | or yellow color cast. It's really subjective.
| | 00:53 | Feel free to go ahead and use whatever
color conveys the mood and the look of
| | 00:57 | the photo as you, the artist, want it
to be. But there are color casts that are
| | 01:01 | obviously wrong. Sometimes they can be
a real mood killer, particularly with
| | 01:06 | something like food. If you do have an
undesirable color cast in a photo, there
| | 01:10 | are several ways to try
to reduce it in Photoshop.
| | 01:13 | All the methods that I'm going to be
showing you in this chapter are based on
| | 01:17 | one principle, and that is
counteracting in excess of one color with the
| | 01:21 | complementary or opposite
color on the color wheel.
| | 01:25 | This is one simple rendition of a
color wheel. Of course, there are lots more
| | 01:28 | colors in between those that you see
here. But these are the primary colors
| | 01:32 | that you'll deal within
Photoshop when you're color-correcting.
| | 01:35 | The three primary colors in a Red,
Green and Blue color mode file, which are
| | 01:39 | Red, Green and Blue, and the three
colors from the CMYK color mode, Cyan,
| | 01:44 | Magenta, and Yellow. Notice that these colors
are opposite one another on the color wheel.
| | 01:50 | So, for example, the opposite of Red is
Cyan, the opposite of Green is Magenta,
| | 01:58 | and the apposite of Blue is Yellow. If
you remember those three color pairs,
| | 02:03 | then everything that we're going to be
going over in the rest of this chapter
| | 02:06 | will make a lot more sense. You'll see this
exact color relationship in various adjustments.
| | 02:12 | So, for example, here I have the
Adjustments panel for the Color Balance
| | 02:16 | adjustment, which I'll be covering in
another movie in this chapter. You can
| | 02:20 | see those same color pairs here on
these sliders, which you can use to add or
| | 02:24 | subtract opposite colors from an image.
| | 02:27 | So again, Cyan and Red, Magenta and
Green, and Yellow and Blue. You'll also see
| | 02:32 | this in the Variations adjustment, and
you'll see the same principle apply when
| | 02:36 | I show you how to color-
correct with Curves and Levels.
| | 02:39 | One thing to keep in mind as I go
through the various methods in this chapter
| | 02:43 | is that there is no one perfect color
correction technique for all images or
| | 02:47 | for that matter for all users.
| | 02:49 | You may be comfortable with one method
over another and just want to use that,
| | 02:53 | or sometimes one of the methods will
work better with a particular photo than
| | 02:56 | others. So the thing to remember is
just use the method that's most appropriate
| | 03:00 | at the time. Also, keep in
mind that the color is subjective.
| | 03:04 | So even if you follow every single step
that I show you, in every single one of
| | 03:08 | these methods, you might end up with a
photograph whose colors are pleasing to
| | 03:12 | you, or they don't match your color
memory of the scene where you took the
| | 03:16 | photograph. In that case, do what you
need to, to make the colors work for you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using color samplers and the Info panel| 00:00 |
Several of the color correction
methods that I'm going to show you in this
| | 00:03 |
chapter, including the use of Levels
and Curves and Color Balance, work along
| | 00:08 |
with Color Samplers and the Info panel.
So I'd like to show you what those are
| | 00:12 |
and how to apply color samplers.
| | 00:14 |
A Color Sampler is basically just a
marker that I can place somewhere on my
| | 00:18 |
image, so that I can keep track of that
point of the image and the color values
| | 00:23 |
at that location, while
I'm doing color correction.
| | 00:26 |
I'll often want to put a Color Sampler
on an area that represents the brightest
| | 00:30 |
whites in the image, the darkest
shadows in the image, and the midtones in the
| | 00:34 |
image. To add three Color Samplers like
that to this image, I'm going to start
| | 00:38 |
by going over to the Eyedropper tool
in the toolbox, and clicking there and
| | 00:42 |
holding, and from the flyout menu
I'll choose the Color Sampler tool.
| | 00:45 |
I'm also going to open my Info panel.
Because I'm in the Color and Tone
| | 00:50 |
workspace, the Info panel is here with
my Histogram panel, and to bring it to
| | 00:55 |
the foreground, I'll just click on the
Info tab. If your Info panel isn't on
| | 00:59 |
the screen, then just go up to the
Window menu and down to Info. I'm going to
| | 01:04 |
set a Color Sampler, and then I'll
show you how it looks on the Info panel.
| | 01:07 |
First, I want to set a sampler on the
brightest whites in the image. To find
| | 01:12 |
out exactly where that is, I can
just look at the image and see where the
| | 01:15 |
brightest brights are or I could
temporarily apply a Levels adjustment layer
| | 01:20 |
and use the Threshold view there.
| | 01:23 |
So to show you how that goes I'm going
to click on the Levels adjustment layer
| | 01:26 |
icon, here in the Adjustments panel.
I'll remind you that you can go to the
| | 01:30 |
white Input Levels slider, and hold
down the Option key on a Mac, the Alt key
| | 01:34 |
on a PC. Then drag slightly to the
left, and you'll start to see areas of
| | 01:39 |
color, and eventually, white areas
appear in this Threshold view. Those are
| | 01:44 |
representing the brightest points in the image.
| | 01:46 |
So now I can see some places that
I might want to set my Color Sampler for the
| | 01:50 |
highlights. I'm going to move that
slider back over to the right, because I
| | 01:54 |
really don't want to set the white
point. I was just using this as a guide to
| | 01:57 |
figure out where to set
my Highlight Color Sampler.
| | 02:00 |
With the Color Sampler tool, I'll move
into the image over one of those bright
| | 02:04 |
areas, one of these onions, for example,
and I'm going to set a Color Sampler
| | 02:08 |
right at the tip of that Eyedropper
icon. To set the Color Sampler, I'm going
| | 02:12 |
to hold down the Shift key
on my keyboard and click.
| | 02:16 |
There is a small Target icon
representing Color Sampler number 1. By the way,
| | 02:21 |
you can also set a Color Sampler using
the Eyedropper tool as you hold down the
| | 02:25 |
Shift key. Now take a look at the Info
panel. The color values for our Color
| | 02:30 |
Sampler number 1 are located here in
the bottom-left quadrant. You can see it
| | 02:35 |
says number 1 and there is a
little picture of a Color Sampler.
| | 02:38 |
This is showing me the RGB values or
the Red, Green and Blue values for the
| | 02:42 |
pixels under the Color Sampler. There
are two sets of numbers here. The three
| | 02:47 |
numbers on the left represents the
current RGB color value at that point, and
| | 02:52 |
the three numbers on the left, the
adjusted color values. And those will change
| | 02:56 |
as I correct the image.
| | 02:58 |
Keep your eye on this upper-left
quadrant too. As I move my cursor into the
| | 03:02 |
image, I'll be able to see the current
and corrected color values of whatever
| | 03:06 |
pixels are under my cursor at the moment.
| | 03:08 |
Now to set Color Samplers for the dark
values and the midtones in the image,
| | 03:13 |
I'll just do the same thing. To find
the darkest darks in the image, I could
| | 03:17 |
use the black Input Levels slider
holding down the Option or Alt key as I drag
| | 03:21 |
it to the right. But in this case,
I don't need to because I can see right away
| | 03:25 |
where the darkest area is.
It's here inside the fireplace.
| | 03:28 |
So I'm going to hold down the Shift
key and click there to set Color Sampler
| | 03:32 |
number 2. Finally, I'll set a Color
Sampler on the midtone area that should be
| | 03:37 |
a neutral gray in the corrected image.
| | 03:40 |
Now this is often a little bit hard
to find. If you happened to have a gray
| | 03:44 |
object in the photograph, then it's
easy. But in this case, for example, I'll
| | 03:47 |
just have to be subjective about
what I think should be neutral gray.
| | 03:51 |
So, I'm going to assume that this
shadow on the wall should be a neutral gray.
| | 03:55 |
So I'll hold down the Shift key and
I'll click there to set Color Sampler
| | 03:59 |
number 3 to represent the midtones in
the image. As you can see in the Info
| | 04:03 |
panel, there is now a quadrant for
Color Samplers number 2 and 3 as well as the
| | 04:08 |
first Color Sampler.
| | 04:10 |
In the next movie, I'm going to show
you how you can use these Color Samplers
| | 04:14 |
to take the color cast out of the
highlights and the midtones and the shadows
| | 04:17 |
in this particular image, using the
Eyedroppers in the Levels Adjustment panel.
| | 04:22 |
So please stay tuned for that movie.
| | 04:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Levels eyedroppers for color correction| 00:00 | In an earlier chapter I explained
how to use a Levels adjustment layer to
| | 00:04 | correct exposure and contrast, but
that's not all that you can do with Levels.
| | 00:08 | You can also use a Levels adjustment to
correct color cast in your photos.
| | 00:13 | One way to use Levels to correct color
is to use the Levels eyedroppers.
| | 00:17 | This is the same as the eyedroppers
in the Curves adjustment. So you can do
| | 00:20 | this technique from either the Levels
or the Curves adjustment panel and
| | 00:25 | I like to use Levels and Curves as
adjustment layers as you know, but
| | 00:29 | theoretically, you could also do this
using Levels or Curves as a direct adjustment.
| | 00:34 | In the last movie, I applied some
color samplers to this image, and in the
| | 00:38 | course of doing that I applied a
Levels adjustment layer to the image.
| | 00:42 | I'll open the Layers panel, so you can
see that there is now a Levels adjustment
| | 00:46 | layer there. But I haven't yet tweaked any of
the settings for this Levels adjustment layer.
| | 00:50 | I am going to do that now in the
Adjustments panel. So I'll Double-click the
| | 00:54 | Adjustments tab again to bring the
panel back. Notice also that I have three
| | 00:59 | color samplers already on the image.
One here in the highlight area, one here
| | 01:04 | in the shadow area and one here in
an area that I would like to have be a
| | 01:08 | neutral gray after this color correction.
| | 01:11 | And as you can see, the entire image is
a bit warm. It's got kind of an orange cast
| | 01:15 | to it that I'd like to remove. I took
this picture and I've remembered that the
| | 01:19 | walls were a really nice whitewashed color and
they didn't actually have this orange
| | 01:23 | glow. Finally, take a look at the
Info panel over here, which is giving me
| | 01:28 | three readouts for each of the color
samplers. This is for color sampler number
| | 01:32 | one in the Highlight area; this for
color sampler number two in the Shadow area
| | 01:37 | and this readout is for color
sampler number three in the midtone area.
| | 01:41 | By the way if your Info panel isn't
open, you can open that panel from the
| | 01:45 | Window menu up here at the top of the
screen. But the best thing to do, if you
| | 01:49 | are going through this movie, is to
make sure that you've also listened to the
| | 01:52 | preceding movie on setting color
samplers. Because I'm going to use this color
| | 01:56 | samplers, as I correct colors using the
eyedropper tools in the Levels adjustments panel.
| | 02:01 | Those eyedropper tools are right
here on the left side of the Levels
| | 02:05 | adjustments panel. The first
eyedropper I'm going to use is the White point
| | 02:08 | eyedropper right here. So I select
that and then I come over to that color
| | 02:13 | sampler that I said, what I thought
was the brightest point in the image and
| | 02:17 | I'll move my mouse over that. If
I want to line up my cursor exactly with
| | 02:22 | that color sampler, I can hold down the
Caps Lock key on my keyboard, and that
| | 02:26 | changes the icon for the white
eyedropper to the same icon as the color
| | 02:30 | sampler. So I can line up those
two icons and then I'll click.
| | 02:35 | As soon as I click there, whatever
color cast that was in the pixels under my
| | 02:40 | cursor and any pixels brighter than
that in the image has been removed.
| | 02:45 | I've basically set the pixels under the
cursor to pure white on the tonal value.
| | 02:50 | And if you look at the Info panel now, you
can see that, in the readout for color
| | 02:55 | sampler number one. The left hand part
of that readout is telling me the RGB
| | 02:59 | value of that point before I made this
change and on the right I see the RGB
| | 03:04 | value of the same point after the change.
And 255 is the brightest point on the
| | 03:09 | tonal scale and the fact that these
three color values the Red, Green, and Blue
| | 03:14 | values are the same means that I have
neutralized that point, so there is no color cast there.
| | 03:19 | I'd like to do the same thing in the
shadow areas over here where I've set
| | 03:23 | color sampler number two. To do that
I'll go to the Levels panel and I'll
| | 03:27 | choose the Black eyedropper tool and
then I come over into the image, move my
| | 03:31 | cursor on top of color sampler number
two. My Caps Lock key is still down, so
| | 03:36 | those two icons lined up just
perfectly and I'll click. That's removed any
| | 03:40 | color cast that there was in the dark
pixels under my cursor and it set those
| | 03:44 | pixels to pure black.
| | 03:46 | As you can see over here in the readout
in the Info panel on the right side for
| | 03:51 | color sampler number two, pure black
is 0, 0, 0 on the RGB scale. So this is
| | 03:57 | almost there. And finally, I'll do the
same thing for the midtones. I select
| | 04:02 | the gray eyedropper, here in the Levels
adjustments panel and then I move into
| | 04:06 | the image and over color sampler
number three, and I'll line up those icons
| | 04:11 | and then I'll click and that
removes color cast from the midtones.
| | 04:15 | Now you probably notice that that was
a significant change in the image.
| | 04:18 | It looks a little blue right now, and
that's just maybe because it was so warm or
| | 04:22 | gold looking just a moment ago. If
you look at the Info panel, you can see
| | 04:26 | that, the readout for color sampler
number three is almost a neutral gray.
| | 04:30 | There is just a little more Green and
Blue in this image than there is Red.
| | 04:34 | Green and Blue makes cyan. So if
I wanted this point to be completely neutral
| | 04:38 | gray, I'd have to remove a
little bit of cyan from the image.
| | 04:41 | But I think I'm going to leave it for
now; it looks just about right to me,
| | 04:44 | except that I think the image is a
little dark and so I'm going to come down to
| | 04:48 | my Levels adjustment panel and move
to the gray input slider here. As you
| | 04:52 | remember from the earlier movie,
about how to use Levels to correct tone,
| | 04:56 | moving the gray slider to the left will
make the entire image a little bit lighter.
| | 04:59 | Now there is one caveat to the
technique I just showed you. The Black and White
| | 05:05 | eyedroppers here do more than just
remove color from the bright and dark areas
| | 05:09 | of the image. They also set the
black and white points for the image.
| | 05:13 | So if you've already done some tonal
corrections using Levels or Curves or
| | 05:17 | another method in which you've set
the black and white points and you've
| | 05:20 | already got them where you want them,
then you are not going to want to use
| | 05:23 | these Black and White eyedroppers,
because they are going to reset the black
| | 05:26 | and white points wiping out
the work that you did before.
| | 05:29 | So if that's ever the case, then leave
the black and white points as they were.
| | 05:34 | Don't use the Black and White
eyedroppers, but feel free to use the Gray
| | 05:37 | eyedropper here in order to
remove any color cast from midtones.
| | 05:41 | So that's how to use the Levels or
Curves eyedroppers to correct color.
| | 05:45 | There is another way to use Levels to
correct color and that's to go into the
| | 05:49 | individual color channels, and I'm going to
show you how to do that in the very next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Levels channels for color correction| 00:00 | There is another way to use Levels to
remove a color cast from an image, and
| | 00:04 | that's to go into the individual
color channels in a Levels adjustment, and
| | 00:08 | tweak the mid-tone slider there, and that's
what I'm going to show you how to do in this movie.
| | 00:13 | As I showed you how to do in an earlier
movie about Color Samplers and the Info
| | 00:17 | panel, I've already added some color
samplers to this image to help me identify
| | 00:21 | the color cast and remove it. There are
three Color Samplers here, one here in
| | 00:27 | the highlights, one here in the shadows,
and the one I'm going to use in this
| | 00:30 | technique is right here, it's hard to
see, it's color sampler number three, and
| | 00:35 | it's one this gray rock, right here.
And the reason that I put it there is that
| | 00:39 | I would like that particular gray to
be a neutral gray, after I have made my
| | 00:43 | color correction. And that will help
all of the other tones fall into line, and
| | 00:47 | remove the color cast that's in this image.
| | 00:49 | It's hard to know from just looking at
the image exactly what that color cast
| | 00:53 | is because I took this picture in the
Caribbean, and the water was a strange
| | 00:58 | color to me anyway. So I'm not sure
exactly what color everything should be,
| | 01:02 | but I know that it doesn't look
exactly right. To figure out what the color
| | 01:06 | cast is, I'm going to go to the Info
panel and to read out here for that Color
| | 01:10 | Sampler number three.
| | 01:12 | This is the current RGB value for the
pixels under Color Sampler number three,
| | 01:16 | and as you can see there is almost an
equal amount of green and blue, but there
| | 01:20 | is much less red at that point. What
I'm trying to do is get all three numbers
| | 01:24 | the same here and that will mean that
gray rock really is a neutral gray. Well,
| | 01:29 | if you think about it, green and blue
makes cyan, and so what I've got here in
| | 01:34 | this image is a cyan color cast, and now that
I have a look at the image. That makes sense.
| | 01:39 | So I want to reduce that cyan color cast,
and you maybe remember from the Color
| | 01:44 | Wheel that I showed you earlier that
the opposite of cyan on the Color Wheel is red.
| | 01:48 | So if I add some red, I should
be able to get these three numbers just
| | 01:53 | about the same, and
neutralize the mid-tones in the image.
| | 01:56 | So that's how I'm going to remove the
color cast, and I'm going to use Levels
| | 02:00 | to do it. I'll go to the Adjustments
panel, and I'll click the Levels icon to
| | 02:05 | add a Levels adjustment layer. This
menu is telling me that I'm currently
| | 02:09 | working in the RGB Composite Color
Channel, but I can get in and access the
| | 02:14 | individual red, green and blue channels
by going to this menu and choosing one
| | 02:19 | of those individual channels from the
drop down, or I could use a shortcut for
| | 02:23 | the channels here, and I want to
mention something for those who have been
| | 02:26 | using Photoshop for a while, and are
used to the channel shortcuts.
| | 02:30 | They changed in this version of Photoshop.
| | 02:32 | So now the shortcuts for the red,
greed and blue channels respectively are
| | 02:37 | Option+3, Option+4, and Option+5 on
the Mac, or Alt+3, Alt+4 and Alt+5 on the PC.
| | 02:43 | So you'll have to learn those new
shortcuts, if you are someone who likes
| | 02:46 | to use shortcuts. For the rest of us,
we'll use this drop down menu to access
| | 02:51 | the individual color channels.
| | 02:53 | I know that what I want to do here
is increase the amount of red in the
| | 02:56 | mid-tones. So I'm going to select the
red color channel. Now I'm looking here
| | 03:00 | at the histogram for just the red
channel, and under that histogram, I have my
| | 03:05 | input level sliders, which I have
taught you about in the earlier movie on
| | 03:09 | correcting tone and contrast with Levels.
| | 03:12 | The slider I'm interested in now to
correct the color cast is just the gray
| | 03:15 | slider here, the mid-tone slider,
because I'm in the red channel if I click on
| | 03:20 | this mid-tone gray slider and I move to
the left, I'll be increasing the amount
| | 03:25 | of red in the mid-tones, and I'm
going to stop for just a minute, because I
| | 03:30 | want to come up here and tell you to
keep your eye on this number right here,
| | 03:34 | which is the amount of red in the
mid-tones. What I'm trying to do is get that
| | 03:38 | number equal to the amount of green
in the image, and I'm using green as my
| | 03:42 | reference point, because of these
three values that's the middle value.
| | 03:47 | So I'll go back down to that gray
slider, and I'll keep moving to the left
| | 03:50 | until I have got that value at 153. Now
if you don't get exactly to 153, that's fine.
| | 03:56 | You just want to be close. To
see what that's done to the image,
| | 03:59 | I'm going to go down to the Previous
State icon here at the bottom of the
| | 04:01 | Adjustment panel, and click and hold,
and keep your eye on the image as I do that.
| | 04:05 | This is how it was when I started,
and this is how it is now, and
| | 04:10 | I've removed a lot of that color cast
already, but I see that there's a still a
| | 04:13 | little bit more blue in the mid-
tones, than there is green and red.
| | 04:18 | So I'm going to switch to the blue
channel here, and I'm going to take the gray
| | 04:23 | slider in the blue channel and drag to
the right trying to get that value to
| | 04:28 | 153 also, and I did manage to do that,
but again, you don't have to get it
| | 04:32 | exactly to 153, but what I have
managed to do now is to neutralize that gray
| | 04:38 | that's under color sampler number three.
And the other tones have also fallen
| | 04:42 | into place around that changed mid-tone,
so that you can see when you look at
| | 04:46 | the image that it's no longer cyan.
And if I come down to the bottom of the
| | 04:50 | Adjustments panel, and I click on the
Previous State icon again, you can see
| | 04:54 | the image as it started
and the image as it is now.
| | 04:57 | So that's how to use the individual
color channels and Levels to remove a color cast.
| | 05:01 | In the next movie I'm going to
show you how you can use Curves to remove
| | 05:05 | the color cast.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding Curves adjustments for color correction| 00:00 | The most flexible way to remove a
color cast in Photoshop is to use Curves.
| | 00:05 | In the past, Curves got the reputation
for being relatively complicated to use,
| | 00:09 | but I promise you that it's got much
easier and more intuitive in Photoshop
| | 00:14 | CS4, if you use a Curves adjustment
layer as opposed to a direct adjustment, and
| | 00:19 | that's because you could use the new
On-image control in a Curves adjustment
| | 00:23 | layer to remove a color cast.
| | 00:25 | In an earlier movie I showed you how to
use that control to adjust the contrast
| | 00:29 | and exposure in an image. In this
movie, I'll concentrate on removing color
| | 00:33 | cast with this control.
| | 00:35 | I'll start by adding a Curves
adjustment layer by going to the Adjustments
| | 00:39 | panel and coming down to this icon,
the Curves icon and clicking. There's the
| | 00:44 | new Curves adjustment layer in the
Layers panel, and in the Adjustments panel
| | 00:48 | you can see the Curves graph
and some controls for Curves.
| | 00:52 | Right away, I'm going to enable the
On-image feature, because with that on, my
| | 00:56 | color correction workflow will be
different than it would be, if that feature
| | 01:00 | were not enabled. So I'll come up and
I'll click on the On-image icon right
| | 01:05 | here, and then I'm going to move my
cursor into the image, and what I'm going
| | 01:09 | to do is to look for an area
that I think should be neutral.
| | 01:13 | To see whether it really is neutral,
or whether there is a color cast, and if
| | 01:17 | so, what that color cast is. There is
some gray in the horse's skin, and I
| | 01:22 | think that should be neutral gray. So
I'll move my mouse over the gray area of
| | 01:26 | the dappled skin and then I'll take a
look at the Info panel, which is opened
| | 01:30 | at the top of the screen.
| | 01:31 | If your Info panel isn't open, you can
open it from the Window menu. In the top
| | 01:36 | left corner of the Info panel, I see
the RGB readout telling me, the red, green
| | 01:41 | and blue values for the pixels under my
cursor. As you can see the green value
| | 01:46 | is higher than the red and blue values,
it's 196 as oppose to a blue value of
| | 01:52 | only 173, and a red value in between of
188. If the grays under my cursor were
| | 01:59 | indeed neutral, than these three
numbers would be the same, and so my goal is
| | 02:03 | going to be to get those three numbers
the same, as I remove the color cast.
| | 02:07 | As I mentioned in an earlier movie
there are two numbers for each color value
| | 02:10 | there, because the numbers on the left
side of the slash represent the current
| | 02:14 | RGB values, and after I do the
correction, the numbers on the right side of the
| | 02:18 | slash will show the corrected RGB values.
| | 02:22 | The first thing I want to do is to set
a color sampler here so I can preserve
| | 02:26 | the RGB readout in the Info panel.
Because I have the On-image controls on,
| | 02:31 | they make my cursor act just like a
color sampler tool. So I don't have to
| | 02:34 | bother going and getting the color
sampler tool; all I have to do to add a
| | 02:38 | color sampler is hold down the Shift
key and click. And there is my color
| | 02:42 | sampler 1, and you can see in the Info
panel that now down here is the readout
| | 02:48 | for that color sampler, which reveals the RGB
values of the pixels under the color sampler.
| | 02:53 | The way I'm going to get rid of this
color cast is to use the individual red,
| | 02:58 | green, and/or blue channels in the
Curves adjustment. I might have to use more
| | 03:03 | than one panel. So I want to put a point
on the curve on each of those channels.
| | 03:08 | The way to do that is to come in to
the image again, to move over that color
| | 03:12 | sampler and to hold down the following
shortcut keys. I'm going to hold down
| | 03:16 | the Command key and the Shift key on
a Mac, that's Ctrl+Shift on a PC, and
| | 03:21 | click right in the middle of that color sampler.
| | 03:23 | Now I'm going to go into the Curves
Adjustments panel where I can see that I'm
| | 03:27 | currently looking at the curve for the
RGB composite channel. I want to access
| | 03:32 | the individual color channels, in
particular the Green Channel, because what I
| | 03:37 | want to do is reduce the amount
of green in the sampled pixels.
| | 03:41 | So I'll go to this menu in the
Curves Adjustments panel, click, and I can
| | 03:45 | choose the Green Channel from here,
or I could use the shortcut Option+4 or
| | 03:50 | Alt+4. By the way, if you are used to
using shortcuts to access individual
| | 03:54 | color channels for Curves, note that
they have changed in Photoshop CS4.
| | 03:58 | Now for the red, green and blue
channels respectively, the shortcuts are
| | 04:03 | Option+3, Option+4 and Option+5 on a
Mac or Alt+3, Alt+4 and Alt+5 on a PC.
| | 04:11 | So to access the Green Channel, I can
either choose Option or Alt+4, or I can
| | 04:15 | choose Green from this menu.
| | 04:18 | Now I'm looking at the curve for just
the Green Channel, and you can see that
| | 04:21 | on that curve, there is the point
that I just added to all three of the
| | 04:24 | channels. I can see that that point is
selected, because it's solid, and the
| | 04:28 | other points on this line are not
solid; meaning that this is the selected
| | 04:32 | point. But if it wasn't selected,
I could cycle through to select the
| | 04:36 | individual points by clicking either
the plus or minus keys on the keyboard.
| | 04:41 | But since that point is already
selected, all I'm going to do now is move it
| | 04:44 | down in order to reduce the
amount of green in the mid-tones.
| | 04:48 | I could click on that point and drag,
but it's a lot easier to make changes in
| | 04:53 | Curves by using the arrow keys on the
keyboard. So I'm just going to press my
| | 04:57 | Down arrow, and as I do, I'm going to
keep my eye up here on the green value,
| | 05:03 | and I'll watch it get lower, and I'm
going to try to make it equal the red
| | 05:06 | value which is the middle of the three values.
| | 05:09 | I went a little bit too far, so now
I'll press the Up arrow and I'll just leave
| | 05:14 | it at that. 189 is close enough.
| | 05:17 | Next I want to get the blue value in
sync with the other two values. So I need
| | 05:21 | to increase blue, and do that I'm
going to go to another channel, the Blue
| | 05:25 | Channel. So I'll come down to my
Channel menu in the Curves Adjustments panel
| | 05:29 | and I'll choose the Blue Channel.
There's also a point on the curve for the
| | 05:33 | sampled pixels in this Blue Channel,
and that point is selected. It's a solid
| | 05:37 | point. So all I need to do to increase
the amount of blue is click the Up arrow
| | 05:42 | key on my keyboard. By the way, if
I hold the Shift key down, as I do that, I
| | 05:47 | can move in larger increments, but I'm
actually pretty close here, so I'm just
| | 05:51 | going to keep clicking one click at a
time, until I'm close to the values of
| | 05:56 | the red and the green channels. And
if I use the Down arrow once, I'll move
| | 06:00 | down to 188. So I think that's about as
closer as I'm going to be able to get,
| | 06:05 | and what I've done is to neutralize
the color of the gray under the color
| | 06:09 | sampler right here.
| | 06:11 | And by doing that I've remapped all of
the other tones in the image, removing
| | 06:16 | the color cast from the mid-tones. If
I want to see the difference between how
| | 06:20 | the image is now after the correction,
and how it was when I started, I'll come
| | 06:24 | down to the bottom of the Adjustments
panel and click the Last State icon right here.
| | 06:29 | So this is how it was, and you
can see now that there was a green cast,
| | 06:33 | and this is how it is now
with the neutralized mid-tones.
| | 06:36 | I am going to go back to the RGB
composite channel by choosing it from this menu.
| | 06:41 | This is where I'm going to stop
on this particular image, but if I was
| | 06:45 | working with an image that looked
like it also had a color cast in the
| | 06:48 | highlights or the shadows, I would go
through the same procedure setting color
| | 06:52 | points in those areas, and using
the individual channels in the Curves
| | 06:56 | Adjustments panel to remove
the color cast from those areas.
| | 07:00 | So as you can see the workflow in
Curves using the On-image adjustment is
| | 07:04 | really pretty intuitive and accessible.
Curves really is the most complete
| | 07:09 | place to go to do color correction and
tonal correction. So I urge you to take
| | 07:14 | the time to get to know and use
Curves, so that you have the most control
| | 07:17 | possible over color and tone in your own images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making Color Balance adjustments| 00:00 | Yet another adjustment that you can
use in Photoshop to try to remove a color
| | 00:03 | cast is the Color Balance adjustment.
Like other adjustments, this can be
| | 00:08 | applied as a direct adjustment or as
an adjustment layer. I'm going to add a
| | 00:12 | Color Balance adjustment layer to this image,
which has a very obvious warm color cast.
| | 00:17 | So I'll go to the Adjustments panel and
open that panel and I'm going to click
| | 00:21 | the Color Balance icon here, and in
the Layers panel you can see that there's
| | 00:25 | now a new Color Balance adjustment layer.
| | 00:28 | And I'll go back to the Adjustments
panel to show you the controls there.
| | 00:32 | At the top I have a Tone control, and
that allows me to adjust the Shadows,
| | 00:36 | the Mid-tones and the Highlights in the
image separately. And then beneath that,
| | 00:41 | are three pairs of sliders,
representing the same pairs of colors that I've
| | 00:45 | been working with in all of the other color
correction methods that I've been showing you.
| | 00:49 | As I explained in the earlier movie
on Color Correction in the Color Wheel,
| | 00:53 | these colors are opposites. The
opposite of red is cyan, the opposite of green
| | 00:57 | is magenta, and the opposite of blue
is yellow. So if I want to reduce the
| | 01:02 | yellow in the mid-tones, I would just
take the yellow-blue slider and drag it
| | 01:06 | from yellow toward blue.
| | 01:08 | And that's really all you need to do
is keep an your eye on the image.
| | 01:11 | Make your best guess by dragging these
sliders. So I might do it that way, and then
| | 01:16 | I might click on the Highlights and
see if I could remove some of the yellow
| | 01:19 | from the Highlights as well.
| | 01:20 | It also looks to me like there's some
red in the Highlights. So I might take
| | 01:25 | the red slider, and with the
Highlights button selected, move toward the
| | 01:29 | opposite of red, which is cyan. And as
I do that, I see that my image really
| | 01:34 | does look more neutral in the highlight
areas here, and up on the wall in the gray areas.
| | 01:41 | Now I have added color samplers in
the mid-tone area here, and a dark area
| | 01:46 | here, and in the highlight areas here.
And if I wanted to, I could keep my eye
| | 01:51 | on these color read-outs for each one
of the samplers, as I drag the sliders in
| | 01:55 | the Color Balance adjustments layer.
| | 01:57 | And my goal would be to get the numbers
on the right side of the slash for each
| | 02:01 | of these color samplers to be even. But
sometimes, I'll just some in and try to
| | 02:06 | use my eye, and get a result that I like. And
that's fine to do with the Colors Balance adjustment.
| | 02:11 | One of the reasons that I say that is
that this adjustment tends not to be the
| | 02:15 | professional adjustment. Professionals
are more likely to use Curves, and the
| | 02:19 | truth is that there's nothing you can
do here that you can't do in Curves.
| | 02:23 | And in Curves you get a lot more control
over the results. But I think that Color
| | 02:27 | Balance is fine to use when you just
want to do something quick and easy.
| | 02:31 | And for some people it's a lot more intuitive to
use these sliders, than it is to use Curves.
| | 02:36 | There's one more feature I want to
mention here, and that's Preserve
| | 02:39 | Luminosity. I usually leave this
checked so that the changes that I make to
| | 02:43 | color with these sliders have a
minimal effect on the tones in the image.
| | 02:48 | Remember that adjusting colors isn't
the only thing that you'll do as you're
| | 02:51 | correcting an image. So in this case,
I think that I also need to make the
| | 02:55 | image lighter. To do that I'm
going to go back to the Layers panel by
| | 02:59 | Double-clicking its tab, and I'm going
to try to lighten the image by changing
| | 03:03 | the blend mode of this Color Balance layer.
| | 03:05 | With the Color Balance adjustment layer
selected, I'll go up to the blend mode
| | 03:09 | menu in the Layers panel, and I'm
going to go down to the blend modes that
| | 03:13 | lighten, and I'm going to choose Screen.
That makes the image much lighter, but
| | 03:18 | I can lower that effect by going up to
the Opacity slider here, moving my mask
| | 03:23 | over the Opacity label and dragging to
the left. I'll try it at about 50%, and
| | 03:29 | I think that looks fine.
| | 03:30 | Now let's see how this image looked
when I started before the Color Balance
| | 03:34 | adjustment. I'm going to click the
eye icon on the Color Balance layer to
| | 03:38 | remind you of the way that I started
with this image, and how it is now.
| | 03:43 | So that's how you can use Color Balance to
pretty intuitively remove a color cast from an image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making Photo Filter adjustments| 00:00 | A Photo Filter adjustment offers a
simple way to counteract or neutralize a
| | 00:05 | color cast in an image or to introduce
a desired color cast. The Photo Filter
| | 00:10 | adjustment simulates the effect of a
colored filter on your camera lens.
| | 00:15 | I can apply a Photo Filter adjustment either
as a direct adjustment from the Image
| | 00:20 | menu or as an adjustment
layer which I prefer to do.
| | 00:24 | So I'm going to click the Photo Filter
adjustment icon here in the Adjustments
| | 00:28 | panel and that adds the Photo Filter
adjustment layer to the Layers panel.
| | 00:33 | In the Adjustments panel, I see that
filter set to its defaults. There is a whole
| | 00:38 | list of flavors of Photo Filter here
in the Filter menu and I could just come
| | 00:43 | to this menu and choose one of these flavors.
| | 00:46 | The Warming filters add a gold look to
the image, the Cooling filters a blue
| | 00:51 | look and then there is a list of
various colored filters here. If you don't see
| | 00:57 | a color that you need or that you like
in that list, you can create your own
| | 01:01 | Photo Filter by clicking the Color
button here. Then if you click in the Color
| | 01:06 | Field, the Color Picker opens and from
here you can pick a color of your liking.
| | 01:12 | The Density slider in the Photo Filter
adjustments panel controls the strength
| | 01:16 | of the adjustment. If I drag that to
the right, I get a stronger Photo Filter
| | 01:20 | look and if I go to the left, a less
strong effect. It's also important to
| | 01:25 | leave Preserve Luminosity checked to
retain the total balance in the image.
| | 01:29 | I'm going to make this Photo Filter
adjustment layer temporarily invisible by
| | 01:33 | clicking the eye icon at the bottom of
the Adjustments panel. So you can see
| | 01:38 | that there is a very slight green color
cast in this image and you can see that
| | 01:42 | most on this white wall here and here.
| | 01:45 | The compliment to green is magenta. So
I'm going to try to add a subtle magenta
| | 01:50 | Photo Filter to neutralize this green
color cast. To do that, I'll go back to
| | 01:55 | the eye icon at the bottom of the
Adjustments panel and make the Photo Filter
| | 01:59 | adjustment layer visible again. Then
I'll go to the Filter button and select
| | 02:03 | that and from the Filter menu, I'm
going to choose Magenta as my Photo Filter.
| | 02:08 | I'll go to the Density slider and I'll
try moving that to the right slightly to
| | 02:14 | increase the strength of this filter.
| | 02:16 | Now I'd like to see a before and after
view. So I'm going to go back down to
| | 02:19 | the eye icon at the bottom of the
Adjustments panel and take a look at the
| | 02:23 | image without this Photo Filter where
I do see that green color cast and now
| | 02:28 | with the Photo Filter, which pretty
effectively neutralizes the green color cast.
| | 02:33 | If you've got a really strong color
cast in an image, you may not be able to
| | 02:37 | neutralize it with this subtle
adjustment. But in many cases like this one, it
| | 02:41 | works well. It's also a good way to
introduce a color cast. So let's say for
| | 02:45 | example, I wanted to warm up this image,
I might go up to the Filter menu and
| | 02:51 | choose one of the warming filers.
That adds a gold glow to the image.
| | 02:55 | So the next time that you're trying to
neutralize a color cast that you don't
| | 02:59 | want or introduce the color cast
that you do want, give the Photo Filter
| | 03:04 | adjustment a try.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making Variations adjustments| 00:00 | As you've seen, color balancing can be a
really difficult thing because color is
| | 00:04 | pretty subjective. And sometimes
the only way that you're going to feel
| | 00:08 | confident about changing the color in
an image is to do it visually and that's
| | 00:12 | where the Variations adjustment really
shines. It's one of the most intuitive
| | 00:16 | ways to correct a color cast in an
image and to balance the colors in an image
| | 00:21 | because it's all visual.
| | 00:22 | Unfortunately Variations is one of the
few adjustments that's not available as
| | 00:27 | an adjustment layer. But I'm going to
show you a work around that lets you use
| | 00:30 | Variations in a way that makes it non-
destructive and re-editable even though
| | 00:34 | it's a direct adjustment. This is the
same Smart Filter work around that I
| | 00:38 | showed you how to use with the
Shadows/Highlights adjustment earlier.
| | 00:41 | So before I apply a Variations
adjustment to this image to balance its color,
| | 00:46 | I'm going to convert the Image layer
to a Smart Object. To do that I'll make
| | 00:50 | sure that the layer is selected in the
Layers panel. Then I'm going to go up to
| | 00:53 | the Filter menu and I'm going to
choose Convert for Smart Filters. I'll click
| | 00:58 | OK and down in the Layers panel, I can
see that icon on the image thumbnail.
| | 01:04 | That means that this is a Smart Object layer.
| | 01:07 | Now I'm going to add a Variations
adjustment by going up to the Image menu and
| | 01:11 | down to Adjustments and over to
Variations. Notice that most of the adjustments
| | 01:17 | here aren't available and that's
because I'm working on a layer that's been
| | 01:20 | converted to a Smart Object layer. So
I'll select Variations. That opens the
| | 01:25 | large Variations dialog box. If your
dialog box doesn't look like mine, you can
| | 01:29 | get to this view by clicking here on
Midtones and then in this area clicking on Original.
| | 01:35 | So let's take a look at what's here.
This is the area where you'll be doing
| | 01:39 | most of your color balancing. In this
area there is a wheel or a circle of
| | 01:43 | thumbnails that represents the
image with different variations of color
| | 01:47 | balancing. This circle represents a
color wheel of primary colors with opposite
| | 01:52 | or complimentary colors across
from each other on the wheel.
| | 01:56 | So for example, the opposite of blue
is yellow. So the More Blue thumbnail is
| | 02:00 | down here and diagonally opposite it is
the More Yellow thumbnail. The opposite
| | 02:05 | of red is cyan. So we have the More Red
thumbnail over here and across from it
| | 02:10 | the More Cyan thumbnail. The opposite
of green is magenta. So we have those two
| | 02:15 | thumbnails opposite one
another diagonally in this diagram.
| | 02:19 | Up here on the right, you can choose
whether you want to adjust the color of
| | 02:23 | the shadows or the dark areas of the
image, the Highlights, the bright areas of
| | 02:27 | the image, or the Midtones. I'm going
to start here with the Midtones.
| | 02:31 | I'm going to come down into this color
wheel and just look at these thumbnails and
| | 02:35 | choose the one that looks best to me.
I think that this image will look a
| | 02:38 | little bit better if it has more blue.
So I'm going to click once on the More
| | 02:42 | Blue thumbnail and that changes the
Current Pick thumbnail in the middle and it
| | 02:46 | also changed all these other
thumbnails to show me what will happen next if I
| | 02:50 | apply one of those.
| | 02:51 | So for example, I can apply More Red
and now I've changed my Current Pick again
| | 02:57 | and all the other thumbnails have
changed too. If I want to compare my Current
| | 03:00 | Pick with the changes I've made to
the Original, I could just look up here
| | 03:04 | where there is another copy of the
Current Pick thumbnail right next to the
| | 03:08 | thumbnail that represents how the
image looked when I first opened it. So you
| | 03:12 | can see that there is already quite a
difference just from those two small changes.
| | 03:16 | Next I'm going to try to adjust the
highlights in the image. So I'll go over to
| | 03:19 | this area and I'll click Highlights.
There is a slider here from Fine to Coarse
| | 03:24 | and if I drag that over to the left,
I'm going to make smaller adjustments with
| | 03:28 | each click on a thumbnail. Here in the
highlights, I might want to add a little
| | 03:31 | bit more yellow. So I'll click More
Yellow. I could also make color adjustments
| | 03:36 | in the Shadows if I wish, but
I don't think I have to in this image.
| | 03:39 | Notice that there is a field here
called Show Clipping. I have that unchecked
| | 03:44 | because it sometimes gets in the way.
I'm going to check Show Clipping again
| | 03:48 | and you can see there are these
bright colors here on the white wave.
| | 03:52 | What that's indicating is that that part of
the image is going to be clipped to pure
| | 03:56 | white without detail. I don't think
that's relevant to my color balancing, so
| | 04:01 | I'm going to leave Show Clipping
unchecked for now. But you can always turn
| | 04:04 | that on if you want to check on
whether the changes that you're making are
| | 04:08 | resulted in some unwanted
clipping of highlight or shadow detail.
| | 04:11 | From this dialog box I can also change
the brightness of the image by clicking
| | 04:16 | on these thumbnails over here. But
I actually prefer to address brightness with
| | 04:20 | a Curves adjustment or a Levels
adjustment or even a Brightness/Contrast
| | 04:24 | adjustment where I have more control over
brightness. So I'm going to leave those as they are.
| | 04:29 | I could also adjust the saturation of
the image by clicking on this button and
| | 04:34 | choosing from one of these thumbnails.
I usually do my saturation adjustments
| | 04:38 | using the Hue/Saturation adjustment or
the Vibrance adjustment because again I
| | 04:42 | get more control over saturation there.
But just to show you how this works,
| | 04:46 | I'll click on the More Saturation
thumbnail this time and that changes my
| | 04:49 | Current Pick here and up here at the
top of the screen. I'm going to go back to
| | 04:54 | Midtones by clicking here.
| | 04:56 | Notice that on the right, if I like
the settings that I've chosen and I think
| | 04:59 | I'm going to be applying them to
other images that I've taken in the same
| | 05:03 | light, I can click Save to save these
settings and then on another image I
| | 05:07 | could load the settings. But for
now I'm just going to click OK.
| | 05:11 | Notice in the Layers panel that I have
this Smart Filters layer underneath my
| | 05:15 | Image layer and the Variations sub-
layer under Smart Filters. If I click the
| | 05:20 | Eye icon next to the Variations sub-
layer, you can see how the image was, quite
| | 05:25 | yellow and green looking, and how it
is now, a lot more blue and magenta.
| | 05:29 | So what I've done is to fool
Photoshop into thinking that I'm applying
| | 05:33 | Variations as a Smart Filter. Smart
filters are re-editable and so if I wanted
| | 05:39 | to, I could go back into the
Variations adjustment dialog box by just
| | 05:44 | Double-clicking on this Variations
layer and I could make another change here.
| | 05:48 | Maybe I'll add a little more
cyan and then I'll click OK.
| | 05:54 | I also can use the layer mask that
comes with every Smart Filter layer by
| | 05:58 | clicking on that layer mask to select
it. Then getting a Brush tool from the
| | 06:02 | Toolbox, making sure I have black
paint as my foreground color and I can get
| | 06:06 | that by pressing D and then X on my
keyboard and then coming into the image,
| | 06:10 | making the brush a bit bigger and I'm
going to paint over this area of the sky
| | 06:15 | and the sea to hide this
adjustment from that area of the image.
| | 06:20 | If I want to bring it back just a
little bit, I'll click on the Masks tab to
| | 06:24 | bring up the Masks panel and I'll lower
the Density of that black mask turning
| | 06:29 | it into more of a gray mask. So a
little bit of my adjustment shows through in
| | 06:33 | the sea and the sky.
| | 06:35 | So that's how you can use the
Variations adjustment to visually balance the
| | 06:39 | colors in an image. Under the hood,
it's working much like the Color Balance
| | 06:42 | adjustment that I have showed you
earlier. But it's easier to use and I think a
| | 06:46 | lot more intuitive.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the auto-correction features| 00:00 | When you are in a hurry and
looking for a quick fix, the idea of Auto
| | 00:04 | Correction options is really nice. But
there are some downsides to Auto Correction.
| | 00:09 | In Photoshop, there are three Auto-Correction
commands located here under the
| | 00:13 | Image menu. Here is Auto Tone, Auto
Contrast and Auto Color. The problem with
| | 00:18 | applying these commands from here is
that they are commands that work directly
| | 00:22 | on the Image layer, so they are not
nondestructive and you really don't have
| | 00:26 | any control over what they are going
to do on a particular image. So all you
| | 00:30 | can do is just try them out.
| | 00:32 | Take a look at this image and you will
see it has a slight warm color cast that
| | 00:35 | I would like to correct. So I'll try
these Auto Options, Auto Tone might work
| | 00:41 | and it does get rid of a little bit of
the color cast, but it's still kind of
| | 00:44 | warming, it's not exactly what I had in mind.
| | 00:47 | So I'm going to press Command+Z,
that's Ctrl+Z on a PC and try these others.
| | 00:52 | There is Auto Contrast, which
generally doesn't affect color cast. It's just
| | 00:57 | Photoshop's attempt to increase contrast.
So I'll undo that one with Command+Z
| | 01:02 | or Ctrl+Z and I'll try the last one,
Auto Color, which often is the best bet if
| | 01:07 | you are trying to remove a color cast.
| | 01:09 | So as you can see in this case, it
really does get rid of that gold or warm
| | 01:13 | color cast but it makes it a little
bland. It's just really gray now. So I'm
| | 01:18 | going to undo that, Command+Z or Ctrl+Z.
| | 01:21 | If you do want to use any of those
Auto Correction commands, I suggest that
| | 01:26 | what you do is use them as an
adjustment layer rather than as a direct
| | 01:30 | adjustment from the Image menu.
Here is how you can do that.
| | 01:33 | You can go to the Adjustments panel and
you can add either a Curves or a Levels
| | 01:38 | adjustment layer. Either one has an
Auto button in it. Before you click that
| | 01:43 | Auto button to apply an Auto Correction,
I strongly suggest that you go up to
| | 01:47 | the panel menu on the Adjustments
panel group, click there and choose Auto
| | 01:51 | Options. That opens the Auto Color
Correction Options and there are a lot of
| | 01:56 | big words in this box, but basically
these are the algorithms that define the
| | 02:02 | three Auto Correction
commands that I just showed you.
| | 02:05 | Enhance Monochromatic Contrast is just
like Auto Contrast. So watch the image
| | 02:10 | as I select that and you will see that
just like Auto Contrast, this command
| | 02:15 | increases contrast but doesn't
really affect a color cast. It's called
| | 02:19 | Monochromatic Contrast because what
it's doing is applying the same adjustments
| | 02:24 | to all three color channels.
| | 02:26 | Then there is Enhance Per Channel
Contrast, which is the same as Auto Tone and
| | 02:31 | it is applying adjustments to each
channel individually. Now sometimes this one
| | 02:35 | works, but sometimes it even introduces another
color cast and you never know till you try it.
| | 02:41 | If you are going to use Enhance Per
Channel Contrast, I suggest you give Snap
| | 02:45 | Neutral Midtones a try with it because
that will help neutralize any color cast
| | 02:50 | in the Midtones. And then there is
Find Dark and Light Colors and that one,
| | 02:55 | when you have Snap Neutral Midtones
checked, is just like Auto Color.
| | 03:00 | So in this case we have that kind of grayish result.
| | 03:03 | If you do use one of these Auto Color
Correction Options and it manages to
| | 03:08 | remove a color cast as this one has
done, you can fine-tune the way that the
| | 03:12 | image looks. So in this case, for
example, I like the fact that the color cast
| | 03:16 | is gone but it's too gray. What it's
doing is trying to set the midtones to
| | 03:21 | this middle gray that's
here in the Midtones box.
| | 03:23 | So I'm going to click there and change
that. Instead of this absolute middle
| | 03:28 | gray, I'm going to select a little bit
warmer tone. I'll go to this Spectrum
| | 03:33 | slider and I'll move it up toward the
warm tones and then I'll move my cursor
| | 03:38 | over a little bit here and notice
that as I did that, I got a little bit of
| | 03:42 | yellow back in the image. I could go
even further, maybe something like that.
| | 03:47 | I think it looks kind of nice and I'll
click OK and you can see that midtone gray
| | 03:52 | is now changed to a little bit warmer gray.
| | 03:55 | I can save these as my default settings
and I might do that if I had a bunch of
| | 03:59 | other images that I had shot in the
same light and the same place and I wanted
| | 04:03 | to apply these as the default for that Auto
button in the Levels or Curves dialog box.
| | 04:08 | I am going to click OK though without
saving defaults this time and I'm asked
| | 04:13 | if I want to save that new warm gray as
the target color for the Midtones and I
| | 04:18 | won't bother this time, but again that
would come in handy if you were applying
| | 04:21 | Auto Correction to more than one image.
So I'm going to click No. So if you had
| | 04:25 | saved those defaults and you open
another image, then you could click the Auto
| | 04:29 | Correct button here and it would
apply those defaults to the next image.
| | 04:33 | So one advantage of working this way is
that you have all that control over how
| | 04:37 | those Auto Correction methods work and
another advantage is if you look in the
| | 04:41 | Layers panel, you have those Auto
Corrections on a Levels adjustment layer.
| | 04:46 | And so like any adjustment layer, you can
go back in and tweak them, you can make
| | 04:51 | the layer temporarily invisible, you
can change the blend mode, you can lower
| | 05:00 | the Opacity and if you don't want that
correction at all, you can change your
| | 05:05 | mind and take the adjustment layer
and drag it to the Trash and it's gone.
| | 05:10 | So that's a work around for using Auto
Correction options, but using them in a
| | 05:14 | way that gives you the control you need
to get the nondestructive results that you want.
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|
|
5. Local Adjustments Using the Dodge and Burn tools| 00:00 | After you have made global corrections
to tone and color using the techniques
| | 00:04 | you have learned so far in this course,
there is still often a need to work
| | 00:07 | small, to make local tonal
corrections and one way to do that is to use the
| | 00:12 | Dodge and Burn tools.
| | 00:13 | Professionals used to shy away from
these tools because to be honest, they
| | 00:17 | didn't work very well. But in Photoshop
CS4, these tools have gotten a makeover
| | 00:21 | and they are much better, so
they are worth taking a look at.
| | 00:24 | The Dodge and Burn tools are located
over here in the Toolbox. Like their namesakes
| | 00:29 | in the traditional wet dark room,
the Dodge tool is used to lighten local
| | 00:33 | areas and the Burn tool to darken local areas.
| | 00:36 | I am going to select the Dodge tool
and then I'll come up and look at the
| | 00:40 | Options bar. The Range feature allows
me to choose whether the Dodge tool is
| | 00:45 | going to affect Midtones, Shadows or Highlights.
| | 00:47 | I will start with Midtones and
I can always come up here and change to
| | 00:51 | Highlights or Shadows if I need to. The
Exposure field determines the strength
| | 00:55 | of the effect of the Dodge tool.
I think it's a good idea to start with a lower
| | 00:59 | exposure and then you can build up an
effect with multiple strokes of the Dodge tool.
| | 01:04 | To change the number in the Exposure
field, you can scrub over the Exposure
| | 01:08 | label, you can use the Exposure slider
or the way that I like to do it is to
| | 01:13 | use keyboard shortcuts as
I'm working in the image.
| | 01:16 | To change the Exposure in multiples of
10, you can just press one digit, so if
| | 01:20 | I wanted a 30% exposure, I would press
3 and if I wanted a 50% exposure I would
| | 01:26 | press 5 and if I wanted 45% I would
press 4 and 5. So that's a quick way to
| | 01:32 | change Exposure as you work.
| | 01:33 | I am also going to make sure that
Protect Tones is checked. This is the secret
| | 01:38 | to making the tool work better in
Photoshop CS4 and it's particularly important
| | 01:42 | to have Protect Tones checked if you
are working on skin tones like this.
| | 01:47 | Now I'm going to go over to the Layers
panel. The big downside of the Dodge and
| | 01:51 | Burn tools is that they are not
nondestructive. In other words, if I use the
| | 01:55 | tools on this image layer, the pixels on
this layer will be permanently changed.
| | 02:00 | So in order to preserve the original,
I suggest making a duplicate of the image
| | 02:04 | layer before you use the Dodge and
Burn tools. Yes, it will make the document
| | 02:08 | bigger, but at least it will
preserve your original image.
| | 02:11 | To make a copy of this layer, I'm going
to hold down the Ctrl key and click on
| | 02:15 | the layer on a Mac or Right-click on
a layer on a PC and choose Duplicate
| | 02:20 | Layer. I'll click OK and I work on
that selected Background copy layer.
| | 02:26 | Now I'm going to move the tool into the
image. I can resize the brush by using
| | 02:31 | the right bracket key to make it
bigger or the left bracket key to make it
| | 02:34 | smaller and I can hold down the Shift
key and press the left bracket key to
| | 02:38 | make sure I have a soft brush.
| | 02:40 | I would like to lighten this dark area
under the model's eye, so I'm just going
| | 02:44 | to click and drag over that area,
I can do that a couple of times to increase
| | 02:49 | the effect. I might do the same here
in the corner of her eye and under her brow.
| | 02:54 | I can also use
this tool lighten eye color.
| | 02:58 | So I can come over the iris of her eye
here and click and if I do that a few
| | 03:02 | times, accumulatively lighten her eye.
If I think I have gone a little bit too
| | 03:09 | far, I'll press Command+Z on my
keyboard. That's Ctrl+Z on a PC keyboard.
| | 03:14 | Now I'm going to give the Burn tool a
try. I'll go back over to the Burn and
| | 03:19 | Dodge tool space in the Toolbox, click
there and I'll choose the Burn tool.
| | 03:23 | Up in the Options bar, I have the same
options that I had for the Dodge tool.
| | 03:27 | I'm going to lower the Exposure to maybe
40% and I'm going to try using this tool
| | 03:32 | to darken her lipstick. So I'll just
come over the model's lips and I'll click
| | 03:37 | and drag to make them a bit darker.
| | 03:39 | If I come up to her eyes and I use
the left bracket key to make the brush
| | 03:43 | small, I can make her eye makeup darker.
It's already pretty dark, so I'm not
| | 03:48 | going to do too much there.
| | 03:49 | So you can use the Burn tool to
emphasize features in a portrait like this one.
| | 03:54 | You can also use it to direct the
viewer's attention toward the lighter parts
| | 03:57 | of the image by darkening the corners,
which is sometimes called vignetting.
| | 04:01 | I'll do a little bit of that in this
portrait by moving up to one of the
| | 04:05 | corners and making my brush bigger
and then I'll just swipe it across her
| | 04:10 | forehead a little bit, maybe here on
this hot spot, over on her ear, down her
| | 04:15 | cheek and down her neck.
| | 04:17 | When I'm done with my local corrections
with this tool, I can get a before and
| | 04:21 | after view by going over to the Layers
panel and clicking the eye icon on the
| | 04:25 | Background copy layer.
| | 04:27 | So this is how I started a few
minutes ago and this is where I am now.
| | 04:32 | Some subtle changes, but significant ones.
Remember that the Dodge and Burn tools
| | 04:37 | aren't just for portraits like this.
You can try them out anywhere that you
| | 04:40 | need to make a local correction to tonal values.
| | 04:43 | Unfortunately, this is not a
nondestructive tool. So if you prefer to work
| | 04:47 | nondestructively, which I really do
recommend, please listen to the next movie
| | 04:51 | where I'm going to show you how to
Dodge and Burn on a neutral separate layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dodging and burning nondestructively| 00:00 |
Unfortunately Photoshop's official
Dodge and Burn tools, which are used to
| | 00:04 |
darken and lighten local areas of a
photograph, are not nondestructive as you
| | 00:09 |
learned in the last movie. If you are
looking for a way to dodge and burn while
| | 00:12 |
preserving your original photo and
while offering you the ability to reedit
| | 00:17 |
your dodge and burn marks. You'll probably
prefer the method I'm going to show you in this movie.
| | 00:22 |
It makes use of the magic of blend modes
to dodge and burn on a special neutral
| | 00:27 |
layer. The first step in this technique
is to make a new layer that's going to
| | 00:31 |
hold all your dodge and burn marks, so
that you're not painting directly on
| | 00:35 |
the image, and this is what
makes the technique nondestructive.
| | 00:39 |
To make that kind of a layer, I'm going
to go down to the bottom of the Layers
| | 00:42 |
panel, to the Create New Layer icon
there, I'm going to hold down Option on a
| | 00:46 |
Mac, the Alt key on a PC and click on
that icon to open the New Layer dialog box.
| | 00:52 |
In this box I'll give this layer a name.
I'll call it my dodge burn layer.
| | 00:57 |
This is the important part. I'm going to
change the blend mode of this layer from
| | 01:01 |
Normal down to either Overlay or Soft
Light. I usually use Overlay because
| | 01:06 |
it'll also increase the contrast, which
usually makes an image look a little better.
| | 01:11 |
For a more subtle look I could use Soft
Light. But now I'll choose Overlay and
| | 01:17 |
the other important thing I need to do
here is check Fill with Overlay-neutral
| | 01:21 |
color (50% gray), and you'll see what that
means in just a second when I press OK here.
| | 01:27 |
Now in the Layers panel I have a brand
new layer called dodge burn. I'm going
| | 01:32 |
to turn off the Background layer so
that you can see that this dodge burn layer
| | 01:35 |
is filled with 50% gray, in the layer
blend mode you can see that its blending
| | 01:41 |
mode is set to Overlay.
| | 01:43 |
What's important about all that is that
the Overlay blend mode is blind to this
| | 01:47 |
shade of gray. So this gray layer has
no impact on the image. If I turn the
| | 01:52 |
Background layer on, you just see the
photograph. You don't see the content of
| | 01:56 |
the dodge burn layer.
| | 01:57 |
In addition when I paint on this layer
with any shade that's darker than 50%
| | 02:02 |
gray, it'll have the effect of
darkening the appearance of the image of image
| | 02:06 |
on the layer below just as if I was
burning. If I paint on this dodge burn
| | 02:11 |
layer with any shade lighter than 50%
gray, it'll lighten the appearance of the
| | 02:15 |
image on the layer below just as if I was
dodging. That's what makes this technique work.
| | 02:21 |
I don't paint with the Dodge and Burn
tools with this technique; I'm just going
| | 02:24 |
to paint with the regular Brush tool.
So I've selected the Brush tool here in
| | 02:29 |
the Toolbox, I'm going to go up to the
Options bar where I think it's important
| | 02:33 |
to lower the opacity of the brush.
| | 02:36 |
I usually start somewhere around 20%,
I can change opacity either by scrubbing
| | 02:41 |
over the Opacity label by moving the
Opacity slider or by just pressing 2 on my
| | 02:47 |
keyboard to change Opacity to 20% as
I showed you how to do in the last movie.
| | 02:51 |
Now I'm going to come into the image,
I'll make my brush a little smaller by
| | 02:55 |
pressing the left bracket key. I also
want the brush to be soft, so I'll hold
| | 03:00 |
down the Shift key and press on the
left bracket key again. Then I'm going to
| | 03:04 |
make sure that I have white as my
foreground color here in the Toolbox.
| | 03:08 |
I can do that either by clicking this double
pointed arrow or by pressing X on the keyboard.
| | 03:13 |
Now I'm ready to dodge over the
ballerina shoe. So I'll just click and drag
| | 03:17 |
over the shoe and as I do you can see
that it's getting lighter. If I click and
| | 03:22 |
drag and hold my dodge mark doesn't get
stronger but if I release my mouse and
| | 03:27 |
then I drag again in the same place,
the effect is cumulative and that area
| | 03:32 |
will get lighter. So I'll continue to
dodge wherever I want the image to be
| | 03:36 |
lighter, I'll do a little,
up here on the stocking.
| | 03:43 |
Now let's say that I add a dodge mark
in an area and I change my mind.
| | 03:47 |
I'd rather not have this area of the
dancer's leg be so light because that draws
| | 03:52 |
attention to that area. So when
I change my mind, how do I undo?
| | 03:57 |
Well I can't erase because then I'll
be erasing the gray on the dodge burn
| | 04:01 |
layer. So here's what I do instead,
I'm going to set the foreground color to
| | 04:06 |
the same 50% gray with which
I originally filled the dodge burn layer. If there
| | 04:11 |
is still is some 50% gray on that
layer, I can just get my Eyedropper tool,
| | 04:15 |
turn off the Background layer so
I can see where to click and click on that
| | 04:19 |
dodge burn layer to sample that color gray.
| | 04:22 |
But if I've been doing a lot of
dodging and I don't have any of the original
| | 04:25 |
gray left on this layer, I can just
click on the foreground color box to open
| | 04:29 |
the Color Picker, I can set 50% gray
by typing 128 in each of the Red, Green
| | 04:37 |
and Blue fields because
that's the RGB value for 50% gray.
| | 04:41 |
I'll click OK here, I'll turn my
Background layer back on, I'll select the
| | 04:46 |
Brush tool again, I'm going top set the
Opacity of the tool to 100% in order to
| | 04:51 |
fix that error, then I'll come into the
image and I'll just click and drag over
| | 04:56 |
the part that I don't want to dodge.
I'm effectively undoing that dodge mark.
| | 05:01 |
Now what if I want to burn or make
part of the image darker? All I have to do
| | 05:05 |
is paint with black or a shade of
gray that's darker than 50%. I'm going to
| | 05:09 |
switch my foreground color to black
either by pressing this double pointed
| | 05:13 |
arrow or pressing the X key on my keyboard.
| | 05:15 |
I'll lower the Opacity to 20% by
pressing 2 on my keyboard, then I'm going to
| | 05:21 |
come in, I'm going to paint around the
corners and the edges of this image in
| | 05:25 |
order to focus the viewers attention
on the brighter parts of the image.
| | 05:33 |
This technique is called vignetting and
it's one thing that I often use burning for.
| | 05:39 |
When I'm done, I can see a
before and after view by going over to the
| | 05:52 |
Layers panel and clicking the eye
icon next to the dodge burn layer.
| | 05:56 |
This is the result of dodging and
burning on the separate layer and this is
| | 06:00 |
where I started. So what I'm using
dodging and burning for here is not just
| | 06:05 |
to change tonal values but to change
the impact of the image on the viewer.
| | 06:11 |
I think this changes the mood of the
image and it helps to focus the viewer's
| | 06:14 |
eye on the important subject matter.
The beauty of working this way on a
| | 06:18 |
separate neutral dodge burn layer
rather than directly on the image with the
| | 06:23 |
official Dodge Burn tools is that I've
preserved the original photo and I have
| | 06:27 |
retained the option to lower the
opacity of the dodge burn layer to go back in
| | 06:32 |
and edit my marks or even to throw the dodge
burn layer away completely and start over.
| | 06:37 |
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| Working with the Red-Eye tool| 00:00 | If you've ever taken a flash photo at
night or in a dark room, you have ran
| | 00:04 | into this problem, which is called
red eye. Red eye is just the flash
| | 00:08 | reflecting off the back of the
subject's retina. This is my son Cobby with some
| | 00:12 | serious red eye going on but that's
okay because I can fix it with just one
| | 00:17 | click in Photoshop CS4 using the Red Eye tool.
| | 00:21 | The Red Eye tool is located behind
the Spot Healing Brush right here in the
| | 00:25 | Toolbox. I'm going to select the Red
Eye tool and then I'll go up to the
| | 00:29 | Options bar and take a look at the
options there. I usually make the Pupil Size
| | 00:33 | option smaller than the default of 50%
because I found that if the subject has
| | 00:38 | lots of red in his or her face, this
tool will sometimes pick up that as well
| | 00:43 | and try to correct to correct
it, thinking that it's red eye.
| | 00:45 | So I'm going to lower that Amount, I'll
start with maybe 20% and if it doesn't
| | 00:51 | work I can always come in and change
this Amount. The Darken Amount determines
| | 00:55 | the darkness of the gray or light black
that's going to be used to replace the
| | 00:59 | red in Cobby's eyes.
| | 01:01 | I'll leave that at its default to start.
This really is a one-click process.
| | 01:06 | All I have to do is come over one
of the red eyes, click on the red and
| | 01:12 | Photoshop fixes it. I'll do the same in
the other eye, as you can see this tool
| | 01:18 | leaves some detail in the eye so the
results usually look pretty realistic.
| | 01:22 | So the next time you end up with a
shot with serious red eye, don't put it in
| | 01:26 | the reject file, just use
Photoshop's Red Eye tool to fix the problem.
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|
|
6. Black & White AdjustmentsApplying Black & White adjustments| 00:00 | There is something really special
about a black and white photograph; maybe
| | 00:03 | that's because we see so many
photographs in color. If your goal is a black and
| | 00:08 | white image, I suggest that when you
are shooting with a digital camera or when
| | 00:11 | you are scanning to capture the image,
that you capture in RGB color mode
| | 00:16 | rather than in gray scale mode and
that's because a gray scale mode image has
| | 00:20 | only one channel on tonal values as
compared to a RGB color image which has
| | 00:25 | three channels of tonal information.
| | 00:28 | To show you that, I have an RGB color
image open here and I'm going to go to my
| | 00:32 | Channels panel, which is in the
Layers panel group. If your Channels panel
| | 00:36 | isn't open, you can open it from the
Window menu at the top of the screen.
| | 00:40 | I'm also going to collapse the Adjustments
panel for a moment by Double-clicking
| | 00:43 | its tab so that there is more
room to see the Channels panel.
| | 00:47 | The Channels panel shows that there are
four channels in this image. Three that
| | 00:51 | have gray scale thumbnails and one
that's in color. The color image is a
| | 00:57 | composite of the three gray scale
channels. I'm going to click on the Red
| | 01:01 | Channel to show you what's on that
channel and as you can see, it really looks
| | 01:05 | like a black and white image. The
Red Channel contains these particular
| | 01:08 | brightness values for the
various parts of the scene.
| | 01:11 | So notice, for example, that the roof
on this building is kind of a middle gray
| | 01:15 | and the building is bright on the Red
Channel. But if I click on the Green
| | 01:19 | Channel, the brightness values are
different. In this version of the image,
| | 01:23 | there is a dark roof on the building
and if I go to the Blue Channel, the
| | 01:28 | brightness values change once again.
| | 01:30 | Here I have got kind of a middle gray
in the building as opposed to the light
| | 01:33 | value that I had with the Green and
Red channels and it's a combination of
| | 01:37 | these three gray scale images that
make up the composite color channel in an
| | 01:42 | RGB color image and it's a good thing
to have all of this tonal information in
| | 01:47 | your image because then you just have
so many more tones to represent the scene
| | 01:51 | and to work with if you
manipulate or adjust the image.
| | 01:55 | I am going to go back to the Layers
panel because if you do capture an image in
| | 01:59 | color and you want it to be black and
white, you are going to have to convert
| | 02:03 | it from color to black and white and
that's something that you can do in
| | 02:06 | Photoshop. You may have heard that
there are many methods of converting from
| | 02:10 | color to black and white in Photoshop
and some are better than others. There is
| | 02:14 | one method that's better than all the rest
and that is a Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 02:19 | I think it's the most intuitive and it
also gives you the tools to control the
| | 02:23 | process to get the result that you
have in your mind's eye. So let's take a
| | 02:27 | look at a Black & white adjustments
layer. The Black & White adjustment can be
| | 02:32 | applied as a direct adjustment from the
Image, Adjustments menu but as I have
| | 02:36 | said many times in this course,
when you can apply an adjustment as an
| | 02:40 | adjustment layer, I suggest you do so.
| | 02:43 | So I'm going out of this menu and
back to the Adjustments panel where I'll
| | 02:46 | Double-click the Adjustments tab. I'm
going to click on this icon, the Black &
| | 02:50 | White icon in the Adjustments panel
to add a Black & White adjustment layer
| | 02:55 | down here in the Layers panel. And that
is also to change the Adjustments panel
| | 02:59 | to these controls for the Black &
White adjustment and it's applied a default
| | 03:03 | Black & White conversion to the image.
| | 03:05 | Sometimes this default conversion is
pretty good. In this case, it's not too
| | 03:09 | bad although, I don't see very many
bright whites in the image. But the real
| | 03:13 | beauty of the Black & White adjustment
layer is that you don't have to accept
| | 03:17 | the default conversion. You can use
the tools in the Adjustments panel to
| | 03:21 | customize that conversion.
| | 03:23 | Notice that there are six sliders here.
They represent the primary RGB colors,
| | 03:29 | Red, Green, and Blue, as well as the
CMYK colors, Yellow, Cyans, and Magentas.
| | 03:35 | If you've listened to the earlier movie
about the Color Wheel, and the various
| | 03:38 | movies about correcting color, you may
remember that some of these colors are
| | 03:42 | paired of with other colors. But the
point is here that you don't have to know that.
| | 03:46 | You don't need to know that
there is a color wheel or that Red is the
| | 03:50 | opposite of Cyan; all you have to
do is use the sliders intuitively.
| | 03:56 | Notice that each one of the sliders is
dark on the left and light on the right
| | 04:01 | and that's telling you that if you take
a slider and you move it to the right,
| | 04:04 | you'll be lightening the areas of the
black and white conversion that were Red
| | 04:09 | in the color image.
| | 04:11 | So, for example, if I drag the Red
slider over to the right, keep your eye on
| | 04:15 | the roofs, and you'll see that they are
getting lighter and if I drag that Red
| | 04:19 | slider to the left, the roofs get darker.
| | 04:22 | So that's pretty easy. All you have to
do is remember what colors there were in
| | 04:26 | the colored version of the image and
if you want to, you can come down to the
| | 04:29 | bottom of the Adjustments panel and
click the Eye icon there to see the image
| | 04:33 | in color and then click again
to see it in black and white.
| | 04:37 | So that's one way to work in the Black
& White Adjustments panel. But there is
| | 04:41 | an even easier and more intuitive
way and that is to enable the On-image
| | 04:46 | feature. This is the same kind of On-
image control that you can use in a
| | 04:51 | Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and in
a Curves adjustment layer in Photoshop
| | 04:55 | CS4. This is the third adjustment
layer that offers an On-image control.
| | 05:00 | To enable the On-image feature, I'll go
up to this icon here in the Adjustments
| | 05:04 | panel and click this icon that looks
like a hand with a double pointed arrow
| | 05:10 | and now I don't even have to use these
sliders. All I have to do is go into the
| | 05:14 | image and think about which areas
I want to be dark and which I want to be
| | 05:18 | light. So I could really change the
look of this image from this default
| | 05:23 | conversion by doing something like,
clicking in the water, and dragging to the
| | 05:28 | left and if I drag to the left, I'm
darkening the parts of the image that are
| | 05:32 | Cyan and you can see that if you look
at the Cyan slider which has just moved
| | 05:36 | with me, let's say that I think
this building should be lighter.
| | 05:40 | I don't care whether the building is
yellow or green or purple, all I have to
| | 05:44 | do is click on it and drag to the
right and the building will get lighter and
| | 05:49 | you'll notice that that Yellow slider
is moving with me in the Adjustments
| | 05:52 | panel. I'll put that around there and
maybe I'll lighten this building which
| | 05:57 | happens to be green but it doesn't
matter to me, I just have to click-and-drag
| | 06:00 | and then I think I'd like the viewers
attention to focus on this man. I've no
| | 06:06 | idea what color shirt he is wearing
but I'm going to click on his shirt and
| | 06:10 | drag to the right and
his shirt will get lighter.
| | 06:13 | So my vision of how this image should
look in black and white is much different
| | 06:17 | than the default. To remind you
I'm going to go to the bottom of the
| | 06:20 | Adjustments panel and click the
Previous state icon right here. This was the
| | 06:25 | initial conversion and this is how it looks now.
| | 06:29 | There are a couple of other features
to remind you of in the Black & White
| | 06:32 | Adjustments panel. One is that there
are presets here and there are some
| | 06:37 | interesting creative ones for you to
try like Infrared, High Contrast Red
| | 06:41 | Filter and some others. And even if
you don't like these results, you can use
| | 06:45 | them as a starting point and then
customize as I have shown you how to do here.
| | 06:49 | And if you ever want to get back to
the original default conversion, you can
| | 06:53 | just go to this menu and choose Default.
There is also an Auto button that you
| | 06:57 | can try which gives you Photoshop's
best guess of how the image should be
| | 07:02 | converted and there is a Tint feature
here which I'm going to be addressing in
| | 07:05 | the separate movie as I show you how to
take an image and turn it into a monochrome.
| | 07:11 | So when I want to convert a color image
to a black and white image, the Black &
| | 07:15 | White Adjustments panel is the first
place that I go but it's not the only way
| | 07:20 | that you can do a color to black and
white conversion in Photoshop and if you
| | 07:24 | stay tuned for the next movie, I'll
show you another way using the Channel
| | 07:27 | Mixer adjustment layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making Channel Mixer adjustments| 00:00 | Another way to convert a color image
to black and white is to use the Channel
| | 00:04 | Mixer adjustment. That can be applied
as a direct adjustment from the Image
| | 00:08 | menu or as an adjustment layer.
| | 00:12 | So I'm going to add a Channel Mixer
adjustment layer to this color photograph
| | 00:16 | by clicking here on the Channel
Mixer icon in the Adjustments panel.
| | 00:20 | That changes the controls here in the
Adjustments panel to those for the Channel
| | 00:23 | Mixer and interestingly, the default
controls are not setup to convert from
| | 00:28 | color to black and white but rather
to mix a custom Color Channel. In this
| | 00:33 | case, a custom Red Channel made up
of values from the Red, Green and Blue
| | 00:37 | channels in the image.
| | 00:39 | That's not what I'm going to show
you in this movie. Instead, I want to
| | 00:42 | concentrate on how you can use the
channel mixer to convert this image from
| | 00:46 | color to black and white and the
secret is to click this check box right here
| | 00:50 | that says Monochrome.
| | 00:52 | As soon as I click that, Photoshop
gives me a default black and white
| | 00:57 | conversion in the document window and
it changes the output channel to gray.
| | 01:01 | What I'm going to be doing in this
panel is mixing or creating a new
| | 01:06 | distribution of brightness values
from the three gray scale channels; red,
| | 01:11 | green and blue that make up an RGB image.
| | 01:14 | Before I start making that special
recipe, I usually take a look at each
| | 01:18 | channel to see which parts of a
particular channel are bright and which are dark.
| | 01:21 | To do that, I'm going to go to
the Layers panel, I'm going to make the
| | 01:25 | Channel Mixer adjustment layer
temporarily invisible by clicking its Eye icon
| | 01:30 | and then I'm going to click on the
Image layer, the Background layer.
| | 01:34 | Then will go to my Channels panel here
and if yours isn't opened, you can open
| | 01:37 | it from the Window menu at the top of
the screen. In an earlier movie, I showed
| | 01:42 | you that an RGB color image is made up
of three gray scale channels; each of
| | 01:46 | which contains different versions of
brightness values. So I'm going to click
| | 01:51 | on the Red channel and I can see that
here the man and his shirt are quite
| | 01:55 | light and the rest of the image is darker.
| | 01:58 | If I click on the Green channel,
I see that there is lots of detail in the
| | 02:02 | background and in the water but the
man is much darker. And if I click on the
| | 02:07 | Blue channel, the water is light but
the man is dark and there is not as much
| | 02:13 | as detail in the forest as there was in
the green. I also see some noise in the
| | 02:17 | dark areas in the Blue channel. So I'm
probably not going to want to use too
| | 02:21 | much of the Blue channel.
| | 02:22 | I am going to click back on the RGB
Composite channel to make the image appear
| | 02:27 | colored again and then I'll go back to
the Layers panel. I'm going to make the
| | 02:32 | Channel Mixer layer visible again by
clicking in its Eye icon space and then
| | 02:37 | I'm going to select the Channel
Mixer layer to bring up the channel mixer
| | 02:41 | slider again in the Adjustments panel.
| | 02:44 | So what I just learned from looking at
the channels is that if I want a lot of
| | 02:47 | detail in the background and in the
water, I might want to increase the amount
| | 02:51 | of green in my gray scale mix. Before
I do that, take a look at the default
| | 02:57 | values. By default the channel mixer
uses a mix of brightness values that's 40%
| | 03:03 | from the Red channel, 40% from the
Green channel and 20% from the Blue channel.
| | 03:08 | That doesn't sound too bad in this case
because I did notice that there wasn't
| | 03:12 | too much l liked about the Blue Channel.
I really liked the Green channel and
| | 03:16 | there were some things
I liked about the Red Channel.
| | 03:17 | I actually would like to lighten the
man's face to focus attention there.
| | 03:23 | So I do want to go to the Red slider here
and increase that percentage. I could just
| | 03:28 | click-and-drag on this gray slider like
this but that's a little bit difficult
| | 03:33 | to control. So I'll put that back
approximately where it was and instead,
| | 03:37 | I'm going to click in the Red field and
I'm going to use the Up arrow on my
| | 03:41 | keyboard to move up one percentage
point at a time and if I go so far that I
| | 03:46 | don't like the result, for example,
here I see that the man's hand is starting
| | 03:50 | to blow out, I'll back off by clicking
the Down arrow key on my keyboard.
| | 03:55 | So maybe I'll put this at say 50.
| | 03:58 | Now if you take a look at the total,
you will notice that it's more than 100
| | 04:02 | and I get this little warning sign
telling me that. For creative purposes there
| | 04:06 | is nothing wrong with having the total
of all these percentages add up to more
| | 04:10 | than 100. The danger of doing that
is that I might lose detail in the
| | 04:15 | highlights. At 100%, I'm just
maintaining the correct distribution of
| | 04:20 | brightness or tonal values in the image.
But when I go above that, I'm going to
| | 04:25 | be pushing some white values to pure
white and I can see that if I look at the
| | 04:29 | Histogram panel, which is up here,
there is a small spike starting to grow on
| | 04:33 | the right and that's because I do have a
Total brightness value of more than 110.
| | 04:38 | So to even that out, I might want to go
into my Blue channel by clicking in the
| | 04:43 | blue field and then press the Down
arrow key on my keyboard to reduce the
| | 04:47 | percentage from the Blue
Channel and get things back to 100%.
| | 04:52 | Now let's say I want to add some green
because I want to open up the forest and
| | 04:56 | I noticed that in the Green Channel,
I had some lighter values back here.
| | 05:01 | I'll click in the Green Channel field, and
I'll press the Up arrow. By the way, if
| | 05:05 | you hold the Shift key and press the Up
or Down arrows, these numbers will move
| | 05:09 | in increments of 10%. So I'm going to
Shift-click the Up arrow and that does
| | 05:14 | open up the forest. I'm going to try
that one more time. So I like the look in
| | 05:18 | the background but now again, I'm way
past 100%, I have that spike growing in
| | 05:23 | the Histogram and I have blown out a
bunch of highlights here in the image.
| | 05:28 | So I'm going back to the Blue channel
and I'm going to reduce it even further.
| | 05:31 | Maybe I'll take that all the way down
to something like 5% and I'll go to the
| | 05:37 | Red channel and I'll reduce that and
I'm still a little bit over 100%, so I'm
| | 05:43 | going to back off a little more on
the greens taking that down to 55.
| | 05:48 | So as you can see the process of
working in the Channel Mixer is a back and
| | 05:52 | forth amongst the three Red, Green,
and Blue sliders trying to get just the
| | 05:57 | right mix of brightness values from
each of the gray scale channels. If you
| | 06:02 | take the time and you have the patience
to work with the Channel Mixer, you can
| | 06:06 | get some really great results and
exercise lots of control over those results.
| | 06:11 | But to be honest, in most cases, I find
it easier to work in the Black & White
| | 06:15 | adjustment layer where I don't have
to worry as much about these numerical
| | 06:19 | values or trading off between various
sliders. But when you are working on a
| | 06:24 | professional job or really special
image, you might want to give the Channel
| | 06:28 | Mixer adjustment layer a try.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Threshold adjustment| 00:00 | One of the adjustments in Photoshop
that you may not be familiar with is the
| | 00:04 | Threshold adjustment. This adjustment
takes all the pixels in an image and
| | 00:08 | pushes them to either pure white or pure black.
| | 00:11 | One use for this adjustment is to add a
graphic look to a photograph like this one.
| | 00:15 | I'll show you how in this lesson.
I'm going to add a Threshold adjustment
| | 00:19 | not as a direct adjustment,
but as an adjustment layer.
| | 00:22 | So I'll go to the Adjustment panel,
and I'm going to click here on the
| | 00:25 | Threshold icon. That adds this
Threshold adjustment layer. And it really
| | 00:30 | changes the look of the image. All of
the pixels in that photograph now appear
| | 00:34 | either appear pure black or pure white.
| | 00:36 | To understand why, take a look at
the Adjustments panel. Here there is a
| | 00:40 | histogram of the tonal values in the
underlying photograph. And those range
| | 00:45 | from level 255 pure white on the right,
to level 0, or pure black on the left.
| | 00:51 | There is a slider here that's smack
dab in the middle at level 128.
| | 00:56 | And this adjustment is taking all of the
pixels in the image that are lighter than
| | 01:00 | value 128. All of those over here in
the histogram, and pushing those to pure
| | 01:05 | white, and then it's taking all of the
pixels darker than that middle 128, all
| | 01:10 | of them over here, and
pushing those to pure black.
| | 01:14 | The histogram tells us that there were
more dark pixels in the image to start
| | 01:17 | with and so there is now more black.
I can change that balance by moving the
| | 01:22 | slider in the Threshold Adjustment
panel. So if I take that slider and I drag
| | 01:26 | to the left, I'm reducing the number of
black pixels, and increasing the number
| | 01:31 | of white pixels. Because there are now more
white pixels on the right side of this slider.
| | 01:36 | Now I'm going to use a layer blend mode.
To blend this Threshold view with the
| | 01:41 | photograph on the layer below, I'll
make sure the Threshold adjustment layer is
| | 01:45 | still selected in the Layers panel, and
that I'm going to go to the Layer Blend
| | 01:48 | Mode menu and click there, and I'm
going to go down and choose the Overlay
| | 01:52 | blend mode. And I think that gives a
really nice graphic effect, with the black
| | 01:56 | pixels on the Threshold adjustment
layer, outlining some of the tones and
| | 02:00 | colors showing through from the
photograph on the Background layer below.
| | 02:04 | So that's one interesting way to
use a Threshold adjustment layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Color Manipulation AdjustmentsColorizing with Hue/Saturation adjustments| 00:00 |
There are lots of ways to
manipulate color in Photoshop to make some
| | 00:03 |
interesting creative effects with
your images. One of those is to use the
| | 00:08 |
Colorized feature in the
Hue/Saturation adjustment panel.
| | 00:11 |
To show you that I'm going to add a
Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to this
| | 00:15 |
image by going up to the Adjustment
panel and clicking the Hue/Saturation icon,
| | 00:19 |
then I'm going to go to the Adjustment
panel and there I'm going to click the
| | 00:23 |
Colorized check box. When I do that
the colors in the image changed to the
| | 00:28 |
monotone, all different tones of the same Hue.
| | 00:31 |
I can adjust this effect by going to
the Hue slider and dragging it perhaps
| | 00:36 |
over to the blues or to the cyans or
down into the orange range to create a
| | 00:42 |
sepia tone. I can also adjust the
saturation of the effect by moving the
| | 00:47 |
Saturation slider, making it a
little more saturated or less saturated.
| | 00:51 |
I actually like to keep the saturation down
when I'm colorizing, I think it creates
| | 00:55 |
a more realistic effect. So I'll leave it there.
| | 00:58 |
I could stop here, but that's not all
that I can do. I can bring back some of
| | 01:02 |
the color into this image, to make this
look like an old fashioned sepia toned
| | 01:07 |
and hand painted photograph. To do that
I'm going to use the layer mask here on
| | 01:11 |
the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
| | 01:14 |
I'll make sure that the mask is
selected, and if it's not, I'll click its
| | 01:17 |
thumbnail right here. Then I'm going to
go over to the Toolbox and I'm going to
| | 01:21 |
select my Brush tool. I'll make sure
that my foreground color is set to black,
| | 01:25 |
if it's not I'll just press the D-key
and then the X-key on my keyboard, and
| | 01:30 |
then I'm going to come into the image
and start painting on top of this horse.
| | 01:34 |
And wherever I paint, I'm masking away
the sepia toning and bringing back the
| | 01:39 |
original color on the
Background layer in the Layers panel.
| | 01:45 |
When I'm all done painting on this
mask, the image will look something like this.
| | 01:49 |
The horse and front will be in
color and the rest of the image will
| | 01:52 |
retain the sepia tone that I created
using the Colorized check box in the
| | 01:56 |
Hue/Saturation Adjustment panel.
| | 01:58 |
Now I can go in to the Masks panel
and reduce the Density of this mask, to
| | 02:03 |
bring back a little of the sepia
toning in the colored areas. The Masks panel
| | 02:07 |
is here in the Adjustments and Masks
panel group. If your Masks panel isn't
| | 02:11 |
open, you can go up to the Window
menu and down to the Masks to open it.
| | 02:15 |
I'll click on the Masks panel tab,
and here in the Masks panel I'm going to
| | 02:21 |
lower the Density of the mask on the
Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
| | 02:24 |
First I'll make sure that that mask is still
selected as it is and then I'll go to
| | 02:29 |
that Density slider, and I'm
going to drag it to the left.
| | 02:32 |
I'll lower it to about say 60%, and to
show you the result of that change, I'm
| | 02:37 |
going to hold down the Option key on my
Mac or the Alt key on a PC, as I click
| | 02:42 |
on the Hue/Saturation layer mask
thumbnail. You can see that this is the area
| | 02:46 |
that I painted with black, and I have
lowered its density, so that it's gray
| | 02:50 |
instead of black. So it's letting
some of that sepia toning back and mixing
| | 02:54 |
with the color. I'll Option or Alt-click
again, on that layer mask thumbnail,
| | 02:59 |
to go back to the full view of my image.
So that's one way that you can take an
| | 03:03 |
ordinary image like this one, and
change it into something that you might call
| | 03:07 |
a piece of art, like this one.
| | 03:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Tinting with Black & White adjustments| 00:00 | In an earlier movie, I showed you how
to use to Hue/Saturation adjustment to
| | 00:04 | colorize an image giving it a
monochrome look. You can do something similar
| | 00:08 | from the Black & White
adjustment only there it's called Tinting.
| | 00:12 | To show you that I'm going to add a
Black & White adjustment layer by going to
| | 00:15 | the Adjustment panel and clicking
the Black & White icon. As I showed you
| | 00:19 | earlier in another movie, that converts
the image to black and white, it adds a
| | 00:23 | Black & White adjustment layer and it brings
up these controls in the Adjustments panel.
| | 00:27 | I am not going to tweak any of these
controls except for one, the Tint checkbox
| | 00:32 | right here. I'm going to check that
box and that changes the image from
| | 00:36 | straight black and white to
black and white with a color tint.
| | 00:40 | This is the default color tint, but
I can change this to any color I like by
| | 00:44 | clicking in the Tint field right here
to open the color picker. In the color
| | 00:48 | picker I can choose any color I like.
Here I've clicked on the blue part of the
| | 00:52 | slider. I could click on the purple
part of the slider or I might go down and
| | 00:56 | look for a warm goldish tone,
something like that and click OK.
| | 01:00 | That applies that one gold tone across
the highlights, shadows and midtones in
| | 01:05 | the image for this monochrome effect.
Because this is an adjustment layer, it
| | 01:09 | comes with its own layer mask and I can
use that layer mask to paint back in, a
| | 01:14 | little bit of the underlying color
image for a nice hand painted look.
| | 01:18 | To do that, I'll go over to the
Toolbox and I'm going to click in the
| | 01:21 | foreground color box and I'm going to
choose the middle gray and click OK.
| | 01:26 | Then I'm going to get my Brush tool, I'll
move into the image and I'm going to make
| | 01:30 | my brush a little bigger, so that
it encompasses most of this bouquet.
| | 01:34 | To do that I'll press the Right
Bracket key on my keyboard. I also want the
| | 01:38 | edge to be soft, so I'll hold down
the Shift key and press the Left Bracket key.
| | 01:41 | And then I'm just going to click
once in the Black & White adjustment
| | 01:45 | layer mask with that gray paint to add
a soft gray mask that hides some of the
| | 01:51 | monochrome effect on the
Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 01:54 | If I want a little bit stronger effect,
I might give it one more hit clicking
| | 01:58 | again there. So that's how simple it
is to tint an image using the Black &
| | 02:03 | White Tint feature and then to bring
back a little bit of the color from the
| | 02:06 | underlying layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making a Gradient Map adjustment| 00:00 | The Gradient Map adjustment is a
creative tool that you can use to apply a
| | 00:04 | gradient by mapping it to the light and
dark tones in an underlying image, and
| | 00:09 | that makes for some
really great looking gradients.
| | 00:11 | One of the things that you can use the
Gradient Map adjustment for is to remap
| | 00:16 | the colors in an image to black and
white. So I'm going to show you how to do
| | 00:19 | that first and then I'll show you how
to apply a color gradient on top of it.
| | 00:22 | I am going to use an adjustment layer so,
I'll go to the Adjustments panel and
| | 00:27 | here is my Gradient Map adjustment
icon, which I'm going to click to add a
| | 00:31 | Gradient Map adjustment layer in
the Layers panel. You can see that the
| | 00:35 | document has been changed to black
and white. That's because I have just
| | 00:39 | applied this black to white gradient,
this is the default gradient in the
| | 00:43 | Gradient Map adjustment layer.
| | 00:46 | The default gradient is okay, but
I can customize it to make an even better
| | 00:50 | black to white conversion. To do that
I'll click inside the gradient in the
| | 00:54 | Adjustments panel and that opens the
Gradient Editor. In the Gradient Editor
| | 00:58 | there are some Presets and the first of
those is black to white. That's the one
| | 01:02 | that's currently being used. You can
see that's gradient down here, in the bar
| | 01:06 | in the Gradient Editor.
| | 01:07 | I am going to edit this gradient just
a bit, by clicking on the white color
| | 01:11 | stop down here that represents the
white in the gradient. That lets me see this
| | 01:16 | mid point of the gradient. So I'm going
to take that midpoint and I'm going to
| | 01:20 | drag it over to the left, to add more
white to the gradient and less black and
| | 01:24 | that will lighten things up just a bit.
| | 01:27 | The next thing I'm going to do is take
that white stop and move it over to the
| | 01:30 | left just a bit, so that the widest
parts of the gradient are a little bit
| | 01:34 | wider. And then I'll click OK. So
that's the first part of the lesson and I
| | 01:39 | could stop here, but what's really
fun is adding a color gradient that maps
| | 01:43 | itself to the tones in the image. You
could do that right on top of a color
| | 01:48 | image, but it tends to work a little
better when you have a good black and
| | 01:51 | white conversion first.
| | 01:53 | So, I'm going to go back to the
Adjustments panel and click this green arrow to
| | 01:57 | go back to Icon view, and then I'm
going to go to the Gradient Map icon again
| | 02:02 | and click there to add a second
Gradient Map adjustment layer and this one also
| | 02:06 | is set to black and white, but I'm
going to change that by clicking in the
| | 02:10 | middle of the Gradient bar in the
Adjustments panel to open the Gradient Editor
| | 02:14 | again for this second
Gradient Map adjustment layer.
| | 02:17 | I could choose another one of the
Presets and I'll just show you some of those,
| | 02:20 | most of these are kind of bright, but
they can all be tweaked. However, I'm
| | 02:25 | going to stick with the first one, the
black to white. And I'm going to make
| | 02:28 | one change and that is that I'm
going to move down to the bottom of the
| | 02:32 | Gradient bar here and I'm going to
add another color stop by clicking.
| | 02:36 | By default that color stop is black,
but I'm going to change a color to a light
| | 02:40 | brown. So, to do that I'm going to
click inside of that color stop twice and
| | 02:45 | that opens the Color Picker. My Color
Picker is set to only web colors and
| | 02:49 | that's okay. I'm sure I'll find a color
among those that I like. I'll move the
| | 02:53 | bar in the middle up into the orange
brown tones. Right away I see there is a
| | 02:58 | kind of a coffee color here that
I think will do. So I'm going to click that
| | 03:02 | and then I'll click OK.
| | 03:03 | Now let's see what's happened, the
Gradient that used to go from just black to
| | 03:07 | white, now moves from black through
light brown over to white. If I don't like
| | 03:12 | that brown, I can Double-click that
stop and change the color or I can click
| | 03:16 | the stop and move it to redistribute
the black, brown and white in the gradient
| | 03:22 | and I can just play with it with an
interactive preview in the image until I
| | 03:26 | get things just the way I want them.
I think that looks pretty good.
| | 03:30 | Before I close this dialog box, I want
to tell you that I think that this is
| | 03:34 | one of the best ways that you can add
a sepia tone or any other monochromatic
| | 03:38 | tone to an image. And the reason is
this; some of the other methods like
| | 03:42 | colorizing in the Hue/Saturation
dialog box or adding a tint in the Black &
| | 03:47 | White dialog box apply one color
across the entire image to the highlights,
| | 03:52 | shadows and midtones.
| | 03:54 | But as you can see here, when you use a
Gradient Map adjustment through using a
| | 03:58 | whole range of tones in the gradient
and those tones are mapped differently to
| | 04:03 | the highlights, shadows and midtones in
the image. So I'm going to click OK and
| | 04:08 | that's my resulting image. So those
are a couple of ways that you can put a
| | 04:11 | Gradient Map adjustment layer to work
for you, when you are looking for some
| | 04:15 | creative effects in your images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying a Selective Color adjustment| 00:00 | The Selective Color adjustment was
designed for use in a high-end print shop in
| | 00:04 | order to control the amounts of
process colors or CMYK colors in the primary
| | 00:09 | colors in an image. But the still
reason that you can't use the Selective Color
| | 00:13 | adjustment to tweak the
colors in your own photographs.
| | 00:16 | I'm going to apply a Selective
Color adjustment layer by going to the
| | 00:19 | Adjustments panel and clicking the
Selective Color icon. That adds this
| | 00:23 | Selective Color adjustment layer in
the Layers panel. Up here I have the
| | 00:27 | controls for Selective Color.
| | 00:29 | The first stop here is the Colors menu.
If I select Reds here, then whatever
| | 00:34 | changes I make to the cyan, magenta,
yellow and black sliders will affect only
| | 00:39 | the reds in the image. In other
words these should affect only the Life
| | 00:43 | Preserver and not the ocean behind.
| | 00:45 | So for example if I go to the Black
slider and I drag that to the right, I'll
| | 00:49 | be deepening the red and if I drag that
slider to the left reducing the amount
| | 00:54 | of black, I'll be moving toward pink.
If I go somewhere in the middle, I've
| | 00:58 | changed the reds to more of an orange.
I might try adding some yellow and the
| | 01:03 | other sliders all work the same way.
Either adding or subtracting color from
| | 01:07 | whichever color is listed
here in the Colors menu.
| | 01:09 | So if I wanted to change the color of
the ocean and sky, I'll go to the Colors
| | 01:14 | menu and I'll choose Blues. If I'd like
to deepen the color of the ocean, I'll
| | 01:19 | go to the Black slider and move it to
the right. If I want to increase the
| | 01:23 | amount of blue, I'll go to the Yellow
slider because I know that blue is the
| | 01:27 | opposite of yellow on the color wheel.
So I'll drag that Yellow slider to the
| | 01:31 | left, reducing the amount of yellow and
adding some blue to the ocean and the sky.
| | 01:36 | Now to see where I started and where
I ended up, I'll go down to the Previous
| | 01:40 | State icon at the bottom of the
Adjustments panel and I'll click and hold that.
| | 01:44 | So you can see that I've changed both
the reds in the image and the blues.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Replace Color adjustment| 00:00 | The Replace Color adjustment can be
used to substitute colors for those already
| | 00:05 | in an image. It's one of the few
adjustments that we'll be looking at that's
| | 00:08 | not available as an adjustment layer.
So before I apply the Replace Color
| | 00:12 | adjustment, I'm going to duplicate
the background layer that contains this
| | 00:16 | photograph by going to the Layers panel
and on a PC I'll Right-click, on a Mac
| | 00:21 | I'll hold the Ctrl key and click on
this background layer and choose Duplicate
| | 00:25 | Layer and then I'll click OK.
| | 00:27 | So I'll be working on the background
copy, preserving my background layer.
| | 00:32 | To apply this adjustment, I have to
go up to the Image menu and down to
| | 00:36 | Adjustments. At the very bottom of
this menu, you can see there is few
| | 00:40 | adjustments that are available only as
direct adjustments. I'm going to choose
| | 00:44 | Replace Color. That opens
the Replace Color dialog box.
| | 00:48 | There are two things to do in this
dialog box. One is to select the areas where
| | 00:53 | I want to change the color and the
other is to go ahead and change the color.
| | 00:58 | When I do change the color, I'll be
able to change the hue, the saturation or
| | 01:03 | intensity of the color as well as the
brightness or lightness of the color.
| | 01:07 | But first to select the areas that
I want to change, I'm actually going to move
| | 01:10 | the Replace Color box over a bit just
for now, so you can see whether I have
| | 01:15 | all the flowers selected or not.
I'm going to start by selecting this
| | 01:20 | eyedropper right here. I'd like to
start with the Fuzziness slider pulled over
| | 01:25 | somewhat to the left because the
Fuzziness slider is really like a Tolerance
| | 01:29 | slider. When I click on a particular
color, it determines the range of colors
| | 01:33 | that will be selected around
the one on which I've clicked.
| | 01:36 | I'm going to try to select the pink
flowers. So I'm going to click on part of
| | 01:41 | this pink flower and I can see over
here in this diagram, in white the areas
| | 01:46 | that are currently selected, the
black parts are not selected and wherever
| | 01:50 | there is a gray in this diagram,
there is a partial selection.
| | 01:53 | Now I'm going to add some colors to
that selection. So I'm going to click on
| | 01:57 | the Plus Eyedropper and with that, I'm
going to come into the flower and I'll
| | 02:01 | click on a lighter pink. You can see
in the diagram that I've succeeded in
| | 02:05 | selecting a little bit more.
| | 02:06 | I think this diagram is really hard
to see. So what I'm going to do is just
| | 02:11 | choose some really bright color that's
going to allow me to see in the image
| | 02:15 | what I've selected so far. First I'll
go to the Saturation slider and I'm going
| | 02:20 | to drag that over to the right and
then I'm going to drag the Hue slider as well.
| | 02:23 | So now I've got this bright
saturated green as my replacement color for
| | 02:28 | the time being to help me see what's selected.
| | 02:32 | I can see that I need to add the deep
pink parts of the flower. So with my Plus
| | 02:37 | Eyedropper still selected, I'll
click on some of the deeper parts of the
| | 02:40 | flowers. Now I'm going to try moving
the Fuzziness slider over to the right to
| | 02:47 | see if I can just include those last bits
of the flowers. I think I've almost got them.
| | 02:53 | If you're going through the same
process and you find that you're selecting
| | 02:56 | items that you don't want, that are at
a different place in the image, you can
| | 03:00 | try clicking Localized Color Clusters
and that will sometimes fix the problem.
| | 03:05 | In this case it's making it worse,
so I'm going to uncheck that.
| | 03:08 | So now I've got a pretty good selection
of the flowers and I'm going to move my
| | 03:12 | Replace Color dialog box over again, so
that I can go on to the next step which
| | 03:16 | is to replace these colors. I'll go
to the Hue slider and I'll pick a color
| | 03:21 | that I like, maybe orange.
| | 03:24 | I'll go to the Saturation slider and
I'm going to reduce the saturation of that
| | 03:28 | orange so it's more subtle and I also
can vary the lightness. I'll see how it
| | 03:33 | looks a little darker. I think I like
it just about in the middle. If there are
| | 03:38 | still some areas that I want to add to
the selection, I can do that even after
| | 03:42 | I've adjusted the Hue/
Saturation and the lightness.
| | 03:45 | So with my Plus Eyedropper, I'll click
on these little bits that I didn't get
| | 03:50 | yet and that last click went too far.
It partially included the sky in the
| | 03:55 | selection. I could get the Minus
Eyedropper and click in the sky to try to
| | 04:01 | eliminate it from the selection. But
I have to be careful not to go too far and
| | 04:06 | eliminate some colors that I want down
here. So I'm back to the Plus Eyedropper
| | 04:10 | and I'll click in the flowers.
| | 04:11 | So you can see that there is a
little bit of back and forth involved, but
| | 04:15 | eventually I've got it the way I wanted.
If I wanted to save these settings to
| | 04:19 | apply to another image, I could do
that by clicking the Save button.
| | 04:23 | I'll preview the change that I've made by
unchecking the Preview box. So that's
| | 04:27 | where I started and that's where
I ended up. Then I'll click OK. I've made that
| | 04:32 | adjustment on the Background Copy
Layer preserving my original photograph on
| | 04:36 | the background layer below.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making Match Color adjustments| 00:00 | The Match Color adjustment is one that
doesn't get a lot of press but it can be
| | 00:04 | really useful if you're in advertising
or marketing and you're trying to match
| | 00:08 | skin color of the model from
shot-to-shot, or if you're trying to show a
| | 00:12 | product in multiple colors.
| | 00:14 | Let me show you how it works here with
these two images. The source file on the
| | 00:18 | left and the target file on the right.
One of the things that I can do with
| | 00:22 | match color is to try to match a
model skin tone from image-to-image.
| | 00:27 | So in this case I'd like to put both of
these images in the same brochure, but her
| | 00:31 | skin is much darker here than it is here.
| | 00:33 | I'll start matching her skin tones by
making a selection of the good skin tone
| | 00:38 | here in the source image. I've
actually already done that for you, so you can
| | 00:41 | just load that selection if you're
following along. By making sure that
| | 00:45 | source.psd is the active image and
then going up to Select and down to Load
| | 00:50 | Selection and make sure Document is
set to source.psd and Channel is set to
| | 00:58 | skin source and then click OK. So there
is the selection that I made for you or
| | 01:03 | you can make your own.
| | 01:04 | Now I'm going to go to the target image.
The one in which I want to change the
| | 01:08 | skin color and I'm going to select her
skin color here. I've already done that,
| | 01:12 | so I'll just load that selection by
going to select Load Selection, make sure
| | 01:17 | the Document is set to target.psd and
the Channel is set to skin target and
| | 01:22 | I'll click OK. So that's all of
the area that I want to change.
| | 01:27 | Next, I'm going to open the Match
Color Adjustment dialog box. This is one of
| | 01:31 | the few adjustments that's only
available as a direct adjustment. So I'm going
| | 01:35 | to go up to the Image menu and down to
Adjustments and way down here to Match
| | 01:39 | Color. I'm going to move the Match
Color dialog box over, so that you can see
| | 01:44 | the model in both shots.
| | 01:47 | I'd like to make these marching ends
that indicate the selection boundary
| | 01:50 | temporarily invisible, so that I get a
better view of the change I'm about to make.
| | 01:55 | I don't want to delete that
selection, but just to make a selection
| | 01:58 | invisible you can hold down the Command key
on your Mac and press H or the Ctrl+H on a PC.
| | 02:06 | Now to replace this model's skin with
the colors from the skin in the source
| | 02:11 | image, I'm going to go down to the
Source menu in the Match Color dialog box
| | 02:15 | and I'm going to choose source.psd.
That's it, what an amazing change! There
| | 02:21 | are a few other things to take a look
at here in the Match Color dialog box.
| | 02:25 | One is that there are sliders up
here that allow me to tweak this match.
| | 02:29 | So for example, if I would like to
bring back some of the darker skin, I can
| | 02:34 | fade the match by dragging the Fade
slider over to the right, like that.
| | 02:38 | I can also change the luminance or the
brightness of the model's skin in the target
| | 02:42 | image by using the Luminance slider and
going in the other direction makes the
| | 02:48 | skin darker. I think I'll make it just
a bit lighter. I could change the color
| | 02:52 | intensity, or the
saturation of the match colors.
| | 02:56 | Moving to the right intensifies the
color and to the left has the opposite
| | 03:00 | effect. I'll put that back in about the
middle. So I think that's a pretty good
| | 03:04 | match. Before I close this dialog
box, I just want to show you the two
| | 03:08 | checkboxes down here. The first
checkbox is saying please use the selection
| | 03:13 | over here in the source image that I'd
made of her skin to calculate this Color
| | 03:17 | adjustment and the second checkbox is
saying please only change the color in
| | 03:22 | selected areas in the target image.
| | 03:24 | Now if I had some other photos I've
taken in the same light with the same
| | 03:27 | model, I might want to save all these
settings so that I could load them and
| | 03:31 | apply them the next time I open the
Match Color dialog box with another image.
| | 03:36 | So to save all these settings, I could
just press Save Statistics, but I'm not
| | 03:40 | going to do that this time. Instead
I'm going to click OK to close the Match
| | 03:46 | Color dialog box. I want to be sure
that that selection that I have, which I'll
| | 03:50 | show you by pressing Command+H or
Ctrl+H on the PC, gets deselected.
| | 03:56 | So I'll press Command+D on the Mac or
Ctrl+D on the PC. Now another thing that
| | 04:00 | I could do is change the color of these
model's shirts and I do adjust the same way.
| | 04:05 | If I wanted to have a blue version
of her shirt, I could just select some
| | 04:09 | blue from this model's shirt over here,
make a selection around this model's
| | 04:12 | shirt and use Match Color as I showed
you. This is really a powerful adjustment
| | 04:17 | and I hope you don't forget about it
down there in the direct Adjustments menu.
| | 04:21 | Give it a try on your own images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying the Equalize adjustment| 00:00 | In this movie, I'm going to show you a
few adjustments that aren't used very
| | 00:04 | often, but are worth knowing about. And
those are the Equalize adjustment, the
| | 00:08 | Posterize adjustment and the Invert adjustment.
| | 00:11 | The Equalize adjustment is a direct
adjustment, so I don't want to do it on my
| | 00:15 | Background layer, instead I'll
make a copy of my Background layer by
| | 00:19 | Ctrl-clicking on that layer on a Mac
or Right-clicking on a PC and choosing
| | 00:23 | Duplicate Layer. And I'll click OK.
| | 00:26 | So the first thing, I'm going to do
is to Equalize the tonal values in this
| | 00:29 | photograph, and what that means is
that if you look at the histogram here in
| | 00:33 | the Histogram panel, you can see that
most of the tones are to the left of
| | 00:38 | middle gray. That's why the
image looks a little flat.
| | 00:41 | A quick way to move the tones
across the tonal field here is to use the
| | 00:45 | Equalize command. Now there are better
and more precise ways to do this as I've
| | 00:50 | shown you in other movies. For example,
using the Levels input sliders or using
| | 00:54 | Curves. That Equalize can come in handy
as a quick way to do this in some cases
| | 00:59 | particularly, if you are making a kind of
decorative graphic image as I'll be making here.
| | 01:03 | So to apply the Equalize command, I'll
just come up to the Image menu and I'll
| | 01:07 | go down to Adjustments, and I'll
find Equalize there at the bottom of the
| | 01:11 | Adjustments menu. Taking a look at the
Histogram, you can see that the midtones
| | 01:15 | have now been spread out across the
tonal range and there is the concentration
| | 01:19 | of tones in the highlights over here,
and the dark areas over here. And that's
| | 01:23 | giving the image quite a bit of pop or
contrast as well as more saturation in the colors.
| | 01:28 | Now, I'm going to go onto another
adjustment, the Posterize adjustment. This I
| | 01:33 | can add, as an adjustment layer but
before I do, I'd like to isolate some of
| | 01:37 | the image from this adjustment. I'd
like to keep the model's face and arm with
| | 01:41 | their photographic quality rather
than posterizing them. So, I'm going to
| | 01:45 | select everything except the face and arm.
| | 01:47 | Actually, I've already done that and
if you are following along, you can load
| | 01:50 | that selection. By going to the Select
menu and choosing Load Selection.
| | 01:55 | And then in the Load Selection dialog box,
go into the Channel menu and choosing
| | 01:59 | selection and choosing OK. Now, I'm
ready to add my Posterize adjustment layer,
| | 02:05 | so I'll go to the Adjustments panel and
I'm going to click the Posterize icon.
| | 02:09 | You can see the new Posterize
adjustment layer down here, in the Layers panel
| | 02:13 | and notice that there is some black on
that layer thumbnail. I'll Option-click
| | 02:17 | on the thumbnail, that's Alt-click on
the PC so you can see the parts of the
| | 02:21 | image that are being protected from
this Posterize adjustment. I'll Option or
| | 02:25 | Alt-click again on that
thumbnail to go back to see the document.
| | 02:28 | What Posterize does is limit the
brightness levels available in each one of the
| | 02:32 | color channels. If I were to take the
Levels slider, and go all the way to the
| | 02:36 | left where there are only 2 Levels,
the only colors available would be red,
| | 02:41 | blue, green, yellow, cyan, magenta,
and white and black. And so the image has
| | 02:46 | this real graphic quality.
| | 02:48 | As I move Levels over to the right,
you can see some of the photographic
| | 02:52 | quality come back. And if I go all the
way over to this way, I have my plain
| | 02:57 | photograph. I think, I'm going to take
it back to about 4 Levels and one way to
| | 03:01 | do that is just to click in
the Levels field here and type 4.
| | 03:05 | The next thing I'm going to do is add
another kind of adjustment layer and
| | 03:09 | that's an Invert adjustment layer.
Before I do, I again want to load that
| | 03:13 | selection to protect the model's face
and arm. One way to load a selection, if
| | 03:18 | it's already been used in a layer mask,
is to hold down the Command key on a
| | 03:22 | Mac or the Ctrl key on a PC and
click on that layer mask thumbnail on the
| | 03:26 | Posterize adjustment layer. And
that brings back that adjustment.
| | 03:30 | Remember, everything except the model's
face and arm is now selected. So when I
| | 03:34 | Invert, I'll be inverting everything
else in the image. I'm going to go back to
| | 03:39 | the icon view of the Adjustments panel
by clicking the green arrow here at the
| | 03:43 | bottom of the Adjustments panel. And
in the Adjustments panel icon view, I'll
| | 03:47 | go up to the Invert icon right here and click
it. And that adds this Invert adjustment layer.
| | 03:53 | And what this layer is doing is looking
at the brightness value of every pixel
| | 03:58 | and inverting those brightness values.
And as a result, the colors look to be
| | 04:02 | the opposite of those that I saw a moment ago.
| | 04:06 | So, let me turn that layer on and off
for just a moment by clicking the eye icon.
| | 04:09 | As you can see, where there were
yellows and oranges, there are now blues
| | 04:13 | and greens. With the Invert adjustment
layer selected here in the Layers panel,
| | 04:18 | I'd like you to see what happens
when I lower the Opacity slider.
| | 04:21 | If I take Opacity all away from 100%
to 0, I go back to my original view
| | 04:27 | because I've re-inverted the colors.
And if I put Opacity at 50% by typing it
| | 04:33 | in there, actually I see none of the
image because I'm right in the middle
| | 04:37 | between the positive and negative
brightness values for all the colors.
| | 04:41 | So that's kind of interesting, but I'm
going to go back to 100% Opacity now.
| | 04:45 | And I finished making this decorative
image. It's not the most beautiful image
| | 04:49 | in the world, but I hope that it's
given you an idea of what the Equalize, the
| | 04:52 | Posterize, and Invert
adjustments will do for you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | I wanted to thank you for joining me
for this course, Photoshop CS4 Adjustments
| | 00:05 | in Depth. It's really been a treat to
be able to concentrate on this rich area
| | 00:09 | of Photoshop. There's so much you can
do with adjustments in this program.
| | 00:13 | I do hope that you'll practice some of
the techniques that I've shown you here on
| | 00:16 | your own images, because
that's how you get good at it.
| | 00:19 | If you had questions that came up that
are outside of the scope of this narrow
| | 00:23 | course, you might want to take a look
at some of our other Photoshop courses,
| | 00:27 | including some of my courses, like
Photoshop CS4 Essential Training, or
| | 00:32 | Photoshop CS4 Layers In-Depth, or
Photoshop CS4 for the Web. And I hope you'll
| | 00:37 | join me for future courses at the
Lynda.com online training library.
| | Collapse this transcript |
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