IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:06 | Hi! I'm Deke McClelland. Hello and
welcome to Photoshop CS4 One-on-One.
| | 00:11 | My cradle to grave, everything you
need to know series on Adobe Photoshop.
| | 00:16 | If you watch the fundamentals or
advanced parts of this series, you already
| | 00:20 | know that I'm breaking Photoshop
CS4 One-on-One into three parts.
| | 00:25 | In this part, Part 3 Mastery, we'll
take on Photoshop's most verified and
| | 00:31 | powerful features. In the next eight
chapters, I'll show you how to use alpha
| | 00:36 | channels to create exacting masks and
select fine details like hair. We'll also
| | 00:41 | see scalable infinitely
editable vector base shapes.
| | 00:45 | Interested in editing a three-
dimensional scene? Then Vanishing Point is your
| | 00:49 | filter of choice. I'll also show you
the massive power of smart objects,
| | 00:54 | non-destructive transformations
and forever-editable smart filters.
| | 00:58 | Then we'll finish things off with a
look at Auto Align, Photo Emerge, Content
| | 01:04 | Aware Scale, and more
cutting edge technologies.
| | 01:08 | Looking to up your game, I've got
nearly 150 movies that are going to take you
| | 01:13 | into the absolute Photoshop stratosphere.
Welcome to Photoshop CS4 One-on-One Mastery.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Installing the DekeKeys keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 | All right gang, I want to give you the
opportunity to load a few settings here,
| | 00:04 | both my dekeKeys keyboard shortcuts
and my Best Workflow CS4 Color Settings.
| | 00:09 | And the idea is this. These files keep
Photoshop running at top form, and the
| | 00:15 | keyboard shortcuts allow us to access
some really common commands much more
| | 00:19 | easily than digging through the menu
system. And of course, Best Workflow CS4
| | 00:23 | ensures that we have consistent
color across different applications.
| | 00:27 | But also, I want you and I to be on
the same page, so that we are minimizing
| | 00:32 | any potential points of confusion. Now
you do not have to load these files. It
| | 00:36 | is not compulsory; they are
just there if you need them.
| | 00:39 | Those of you who dutifully worked your
way through the nearly 200 movies that
| | 00:44 | make up Photoshop CS4 One-on-One
fundamentals, and you already loaded dekeKeys
| | 00:48 | and Best Workflow CS4 in Chapter 3,
you don't have to do it again. These are
| | 00:53 | the exact same files, so you are good to go.
| | 00:55 | This is the folder you want to make
sure you are in. If you are a premium
| | 00:58 | member or you have access to the DVD,
you go to your exercise_files folder, and
| | 01:02 | you go to the 00_settings folder, and there and
you'll find a folder dekeKeys PsCS4 One-on-One.
| | 01:08 | I am going to go ahead and open up
this dekeKeys folder right there. Therein
| | 01:11 | you will find two files, one for the
Mac, and one for Windows, so it doesn't
| | 01:15 | matter whether you are using Windows
Vista, or Windows XP, it works for Windows.
| | 01:19 | Now, here's how you go ahead and load
these files. This is the easiest way to
| | 01:23 | do it. You should be able to just
double-click on one of these files. So one
| | 01:27 | that corresponds to your platform,
that's very important of course. And then
| | 01:30 | Photoshop, we'll go ahead and launch,
if it's not already running, or it will
| | 01:34 | come to front, and then it will go
ahead and load your keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:37 | But we've had users experience a few
problems, either the wrong version of
| | 01:41 | Photoshop Loads, or the completely
wrong application loads like Adobe Premiere.
| | 01:45 | So just be on a safe side, here's what
you do. You right-click on the file you
| | 01:50 | want to use, and I'm working under
Windows Vista, so I'd right-click on this
| | 01:53 | file; right here on the Windows file.
| | 01:54 | If you don't have a right-mouse
button on the Mac, then you would press the
| | 01:57 | Ctrl key and click. And then choose
the Open With command, on the Mac you
| | 02:01 | should see a sub-menu that will list
Photoshop CS4, go ahead and choose it. And
| | 02:07 | then wait a moment while I
tell the PC people what to do.
| | 02:09 | If you are on the PC, you choose the
Open With command, and then you should see
| | 02:13 | Adobe Photoshop CS4, perhaps along
with some other applications, right there
| | 02:17 | click on it. If you can't see it, then
you've got to go ahead and click on the
| | 02:21 | Browse button, and you should find
Photoshop if you did a default installation
| | 02:26 | on your C drive in the Program Files,
folder, inside the Adobe folder and then
| | 02:31 | dig your way into the Adobe
Photoshop CS4 folder, and you will find the
| | 02:34 | application. That's a pain in the neck,
but you'll have to do it if you don't
| | 02:37 | see it. Hopefully you'll see it
right there, and you'll just click on OK.
| | 02:41 | Now Photoshop is not running, you
should see it launch. If Photoshop is
| | 02:44 | running, it will probably come to front
but there is no guarantee. It certainly
| | 02:49 | will not beep or flash or give you any
indication that anything has happened.
| | 02:53 | Here's how you determine that something
has happened. You go to the Edit menu,
| | 02:57 | you choose the Keyboard Shortcuts
command, or you press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+K,
| | 03:01 | Command+Shift+Option+K on the Mac, and
up comes the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog
| | 03:05 | box. And you should see this. Photoshop
Defaults (modified). That tells you you
| | 03:09 | just got through modifying the keyboard
shortcuts. Hopefully they were modified
| | 03:13 | correctly. Let's check.
| | 03:14 | Go ahead and click on this twirly
triangle in front of File to twirl that open,
| | 03:18 | and then scroll your way down until
you come to this item right there, Place,
| | 03:23 | and you should see a keyboard
shortcut of Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D,
| | 03:26 | Command+Shift+Option+D on the Mac. In
case you are wondering, why you like keep
| | 03:29 | saying the keyboard shortcuts backward?
It's because the industry standard is
| | 03:33 | to say Ctrl or Command first, Shift
second, Alt or Option third, not in this
| | 03:38 | strange way that Adobe decides to list
its keyboard shortcuts, but I digress,
| | 03:42 | it really doesn't matter.
| | 03:43 | Anyway you should see that, Keyboard
Shortcut right there, if so, everything is
| | 03:46 | grand, I'm going to go ahead and
twirl this close for the sake of tidiness.
| | 03:50 | Then we'll save off our keyboard
shortcut, by clicking on the floppy disk icon
| | 03:54 | because after all, that's what we all
use to save things. Do not change the
| | 03:59 | directory; you want to make sure that
you are saving in the Keyboard Shortcuts
| | 04:02 | folder that is mired deep in
the bowels of your hard drive.
| | 04:06 | Now the exact path is going to be
different on the Mac, or under Windows XP,
| | 04:11 | just leave it alone. All right,
instead what you are going to do is go ahead
| | 04:14 | and name this file, and I propose that
you call it dekeKeys CS4, but I really
| | 04:19 | don't care what you call it. Call it
Freight Keys for all like here; name it
| | 04:22 | after yourself. That's fine.
They are just keyboard shortcuts.
| | 04:25 | Click on the Save button, and you are
done. You should see the set right there,
| | 04:29 | good to go, click OK, and now you can
get to some really great commands from
| | 04:33 | the keyboard. For example, some really
common filters, normally you have to dig
| | 04:38 | for filters, by going to the Filter
menu, choosing the sub-menu name and then
| | 04:42 | choosing the filter, and things like
Smart Sharpen and Unsharp Mask are so
| | 04:47 | essential that you may find
yourself using them on a daily basis.
| | 04:51 | So why not have keyboard shortcuts?
And I go ahead and give all of what I
| | 04:55 | considered to be the best filters, all
six of them. There are six filters that
| | 04:59 | I recommend you use pretty frequently.
And I go ahead and give them Shift plus
| | 05:04 | a Function key with my dekeKey
shortcuts. Now I tell you what. That isn't
| | 05:08 | necessarily going to work just right
out of the bag, for those of you who are
| | 05:11 | Macintosh users, because
of the way the Mac is setup.
| | 05:14 | So if you are PC people though you
should be fine, you should be good to go. Go
| | 05:18 | ahead now having gotten this to work,
skip ahead two exercises to my discussion
| | 05:23 | of installing the Best Workflow CS4
Color Settings. If you are a Mac person though,
| | 05:28 | I want you to stick tight, I want you
to watch the next exercise in which I'll
| | 05:32 | show you how to make sure that you
can you use your function keys inside of Photoshop.
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| Resetting the Function keys on a Mac| 00:00 |
Hello Macintosh users! All right,
for those of you who'd like to access
| | 00:04 |
function keys inside of Photoshop,
instead of having your function keys do
| | 00:08 |
silly things like change the volume,
and change the brightness of the screen or
| | 00:13 |
the keyboard or something along those
lines. Here's what you do. Because I find
| | 00:17 |
it easier to go ahead and use the
function keys by themselves inside of
| | 00:20 |
Photoshop. Because I'm using
Photoshop on a regular basis and if I want to
| | 00:24 |
change the volume from the keyboard,
then I can press Fn, that Fn key along
| | 00:29 |
with the Function key, because that's
a secondary item in my world anyway.
| | 00:33 |
And if you feel the same way, here's
what you have to do. Now I'm working on a
| | 00:36 |
PC, I didn't film this movie on a Mac,
I filmed it on the PC, but I have given
| | 00:40 |
you Macintosh users something to work with here.
| | 00:43 |
Notice this first screenshot, and by
the way these screens are included with
| | 00:48 |
the exercise files that are available
to you premium members and DVD people,
| | 00:52 |
and they are inside of this folder
right here called Mac Fkeys inside the
| | 00:56 |
00_settings, sub-folder inside the
exercise_files folder. just so you know.
| | 01:01 |
And the first one shows the Keyboard
and Mouse preferences. To get to this
| | 01:05 |
particular dialog box, you go up to the
Apple menu in the upper-left corner of
| | 01:08 |
the screen, and you choose System
Preferences. And then you'll see an icon that
| | 01:13 |
says Keyboard & Mouse, and
you go ahead and click on it.
| | 01:16 |
And it can be in any number of
different locations depending on how many system
| | 01:19 |
preferences you have. Anyway, you'll
see it, click on it. The first screen you
| | 01:23 |
come to is this Keyboard screen, and if
you are not seeing it then you click on
| | 01:26 |
the word Keyboard, and you will see
this check-box right there, Use all F1, F2
| | 01:32 |
etcetera keys as standard function keys,
when this option is selected press the
| | 01:36 |
Fn key to use the special
features printed on each key.
| | 01:40 |
What I want you to do is turn that On,
it's Off by default, go ahead and turn
| | 01:43 |
it On, and that will make your function
keys accessible to Photoshop, and then
| | 01:48 |
if you want to change things like
Volume, you press that Fn key just like it
| | 01:51 |
says, along with the function key.
| | 01:54 |
All right, secondly, I want you to
go ahead and click on that Keyboard
| | 01:58 |
Shortcuts button, and that will take
you to this screen right here. I want you
| | 02:03 |
to scroll down the list, like so, come
to this area. You go ahead and twirl it
| | 02:07 |
open. That's called Dock, Expose, and
Dashboard. And I want you to change all
| | 02:12 |
of the keyboard shortcuts
to what you see right here.
| | 02:15 |
So what you do is you click in this
little area to make it active, and then
| | 02:19 |
instead of pressing -- I believe
it's Command+D or Command+Option+D or
| | 02:22 |
something like that by default. I want
you to press your Ctrl key. That's what
| | 02:26 |
that little Carrot symbol means, your
Ctrl key; it actually features the word
| | 02:29 |
Ctrl on it. And you press Ctrl along
with D and for all Windows you go Ctrl+F9,
| | 02:35 |
Ctrl+F10, Ctrl+F11, I had one guy, I
think this is a pretty rare problem, but
| | 02:40 |
he was trying to type-in like Ctrl and
then like a Carrot and then F and then
| | 02:45 |
9, you don't do that. You press the
Ctrl key along with the F9 key, in order to
| | 02:49 |
apply that keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:50 |
And then for Dashboard I recommend you
go with Ctrl+F12. That way you can use
| | 02:55 |
the F12 key in order to revert your
images, which is a really great thing to do.
| | 03:00 |
Then move down here, to the
Spotlight options which conflict with zooming
| | 03:05 |
inside of Photoshop. And I recommend
you go with these keyboard shortcuts, but
| | 03:09 |
you can change them to anything you
like. As long as they are not what they
| | 03:12 |
start off being. They cannot be Command+Spacebar
and Command+Option+Spacebar,
| | 03:17 |
which is what I believe they are by
default. Instead I went ahead and set mine
| | 03:20 |
to Command+Ctrl+F1 and Command+Option+Ctrl+F1.
So Apple goes ahead and adheres
| | 03:27 |
to this backward keyboard strategy as well.
| | 03:29 |
But I'm telling you, nobody else does
this. Anyway, that's it. That's what you
| | 03:33 |
do, and then you go up here and you
close the window and that goes in and saves
| | 03:37 |
your changes and you are good to go.
| | 03:39 |
And of course that was just for
Macintosh people. I hope I didn't snag a
| | 03:42 |
Windows person as soon they are watching this.
You are fine. You didn't have to do anything.
| | 03:45 |
In the next exercise, I'm going to
show you how to install the Best Workflow
| | 03:49 |
CS4 Color Settings.
| | 03:50 |
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| Installing the CS4 color settings| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show
you how to install my Best Workflow CS4
| | 00:03 | Color Settings. And these are the
color settings that most professionals use.
| | 00:08 | They ensure consisting color across the
Adobe applications, and they also do a
| | 00:13 | pretty good job of making sure that
your images print properly. But they are
| | 00:17 | little bit harder to install than dekeKeys,
particularly if you are working on Windows.
| | 00:21 | Now this is where you need to install
the files, back here in this image that
| | 00:25 | you can see opened in the background,
and that image is this file right there,
| | 00:28 | Instructions.tif, that's found
inside my 00_settings folder inside the
| | 00:33 | exercise_files folder. But of course
you can just read it on screen, in just a
| | 00:38 | moment. The problem is-- you Macintosh
people should be fine. You can just go
| | 00:42 | ahead and follow these settings right
there while I'm talking to the PC people,
| | 00:46 | I'll come back to you in a moment.
| | 00:47 | You PC people though, Microsoft
doesn't like you to go into the folder
| | 00:52 | structure that I'm about to take you
into. It likes to deny you permission to
| | 00:56 | your own computer. It's very fond of
doing that to you. And so I'm going to
| | 00:59 | show you how to eliminate that problem.
| | 01:02 | Now you should be able to open any old
desktop window and then go to Organize
| | 01:08 | and choose Folder and Search Options.
But if you can't see that, another way to
| | 01:12 | get to the folder options is to find
your help, and here it's this little
| | 01:17 | button right there. That's how you get
help here under Windows Vista. And then
| | 01:21 | you would search for Folder Options,
like so, and then go ahead in letter rip,
| | 01:26 | and the first option right there
should be Change folder views and behaviors,
| | 01:30 | click on it, and then you should see
something that says Click to open folder
| | 01:33 | options. So you have to go through all that folder all right there. And
| | 01:37 | then I'm going to close that Help screen.
| | 01:39 | And next what I'm going to do is go
to here; I'll move this up so you Mac
| | 01:43 | people can still see that thing down
there. I'll go ahead and click on View,
| | 01:47 | and this dialog box right here looks
just the same under Windows XP as it does
| | 01:53 | here under Windows Vista.
| | 01:55 | You want to make sure first of all this
Hidden files and folders option is set
| | 01:59 | to Show hidden files and folders.
Goodness! It's so much more useful to be able
| | 02:03 | to see those things.
| | 02:04 | I would turn off Hide extension for
known file types, because might not see the
| | 02:09 | extensions, might as well. And then
go ahead and turn off Hide protected
| | 02:14 | operating system files (recommended),
and it's going to get grumpy at you and
| | 02:18 | say are you really sure you want to do
that because just look at you, I don't
| | 02:21 | trust you that's what Windows is saying.
But you trust yourself. So go ahead
| | 02:25 | and click on Yes, give me a
break. It's my computer. Go away.
| | 02:28 | So these settings right here are the
ones you need to change. So turn on Show
| | 02:32 | hidden files and folders, turn off
Hide extensions for known file types, and
| | 02:36 | turn off High protected operating system
files (recommended), and then click on OK.
| | 02:40 | And now from this point on, you can
actually access the folders. I'm about to
| | 02:45 | tell you to access. So you are going
to take this Best Workflow CS4 file, and
| | 02:48 | you are going to copy it into one of
these three folders. Now I've got this
| | 02:53 | file right here. I was telling you
about Instructions.tif. You copy the Best
| | 02:56 | Workflow CS4.csf file to a location
on your hard drive depending on your
| | 03:00 | platform. Under Windows XP, the location is
the C:\Documents and Settings\user. That's you.
| | 03:06 | So whatever user you are logged on as,
Application Data\Adobe, and each one of
| | 03:12 | these backslashes mean we are
entering another sub-folder,
| | 03:15 | Adobe\Color\Settings. So you have to
dig your way through what this is, one,
| | 03:19 | two, three, four, five, six folders deep, and
then copy Best Workflow CS4.csf to that location.
| | 03:25 | Under Windows Vista totally different place,
| | 03:27 | C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\
Color\Settings and of course, user is your
| | 03:35 | computer login name. That goes for both
of these items. And then you copy it to
| | 03:39 | this Settings folder.
| | 03:40 | On the Mac you have to do slightly
less digging. You go to the Finder level,
| | 03:44 | which is the Desktop level of your
computer, and you go to the Go menu and
| | 03:47 | choose Home. And then it also has a
keyboard shortcut of Command+Shift+H, then
| | 03:52 | you'll be inside your user folder, and
you'll dig into the folders that you see
| | 03:56 | here. You go to the Library
sub-folder then to Application
| | 03:59 | Support/Adobe/Color/Settings. And the
reason I use forward slashes for the Mac
| | 04:03 | versus backslashes for the PC is
that's what Microsoft and Apple use. So I'm
| | 04:08 | just subscribing to their conventions here.
| | 04:10 | Anyway, once you get that folder open,
then what you got to do is you go ahead
| | 04:15 | and grab Best Workflow CS4 sitting
here in this 00_settings folder, and you
| | 04:20 | drag it and drop it in order to
duplicate it. Then we are not done. That goes
| | 04:26 | ahead and installs the file in the
right location but to actually load these
| | 04:30 | color settings into Photoshop. That's
a separate step and I'll tell you all
| | 04:34 | about that separate step in the next exercise.
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| Setting up the CS4 color settings| 00:00 | All right gang! Thanks for hanging with
me here. I know it's a lot of busy work
| | 00:03 | but Adobe just doesn't make this part
easy. I think you'll be glad though that
| | 00:08 | you've got these settings installed
once we start getting into the fun creative
| | 00:13 | stuff inside of Photoshop.
| | 00:14 | All right, so I'm assuming that
you've gone ahead and copied Best Workflow
| | 00:18 | CS4.csf to one of these three
locations depending on your operating system.
| | 00:23 | Then you are going to do one of two
things, depending on whether you own
| | 00:27 | Photoshop by itself or whether you own
one of the many skews of the Creative
| | 00:32 | Suite whether it's the Design Premium
version, the Master Collection, doesn't
| | 00:36 | matter; any skew of the
Creative suite will work differently.
| | 00:40 | Okay, so let's start by imagining you
are working in Photoshop by itself and
| | 00:45 | even those of you who have the Creative
Suite, this isn't going to hurt you any.
| | 00:48 | Go up to the Edit menu and choose
the Color Settings command or press
| | 00:52 | Ctrl+Shift+K, Command+Shift+K on the
Mac and that will bring up the Color
| | 00:56 | Settings dialog box. You'll
probably see that your color settings are
| | 00:59 | synchronized which might give you a
lot of hope, make you think that's good.
| | 01:02 | The problem is they are synchronized in
North American General Purpose 2, which
| | 01:05 | is designed for consumers, completely
a consumer space, not a high-end color
| | 01:11 | space. It's good for web graphics but
it's only good for web graphics if you
| | 01:15 | are only creating web graphics and
there is better ways to work even if you are
| | 01:20 | just making images for the web,
because you can always output your images to
| | 01:23 | sRGB by the Save for Web and Devices
command that I explained in Chapter 12 at
| | 01:30 | the end of my Photoshop CS4 One-on-One
Fundamental series. So you can check that out.
| | 01:35 | If you are working with print at all
ever, if you even use your desktop printer
| | 01:40 | or your inkjet printer then you are
better off changing these settings and
| | 01:43 | here's what I suggest you do. I'm
going to go ahead and click on the More
| | 01:46 | Options button so that I can see some
more options down here at the bottom of
| | 01:50 | the screen. And notice, by the way,
this is a pretty helpful dialog box. If you
| | 01:54 | hover over any one of these options,
you are going to see a description of what
| | 01:57 | that option does down at
the bottom of the dialog box.
| | 01:59 | Now the descriptions aren't always
easy to comprehend but they are there and
| | 02:03 | they are accurate. Anyway, what I want
you to do is go to the Settings pop-up
| | 02:07 | menu here, I want you to click and I
want you to choose Best Workflow CS4. You
| | 02:11 | should see it right there, underneath
the North American junk and this is, of
| | 02:14 | course, assuming you are in the United
States, you may see one of these other
| | 02:18 | setup as the default space here.
| | 02:19 | Anyway, go ahead and switch over to
Best Workflow CS4 and that does a couple of
| | 02:25 | different things. It goes ahead and
switches your default working space to
| | 02:28 | Adobe RGB, which is a bigger RGB
working space and it's better designed to
| | 02:34 | accommodate print graphics. It's
great for your big colorful vivid digital
| | 02:38 | photographs. It's good for everything.
In fact, as long as you are working in
| | 02:42 | the 8-bit per channel RGB mode,
it's a really great working space.
| | 02:46 | And then you want all these
checkboxes turned off and you want all these
| | 02:48 | checkboxes turned on, as they are by
default, but I'm also changing Intent to
| | 02:53 | Perceptual because I'm assuming that
you are using Photoshop more often than
| | 02:57 | any other application that Photoshop is
your main program. It's something like
| | 03:01 | Illustrator or InDesign is your main
program, then you'd want to go ahead and
| | 03:04 | switch this over to Relative
Colorimetric but even then Perceptual is going to
| | 03:08 | work pretty well for you.
| | 03:09 | All right, one other thing I want to
show you is CMYK. Now if you work with a
| | 03:14 | commercial print house on a regular
basis, you'll want to get a profile from
| | 03:18 | them and you want to get that profile
updated every so often and you want to go
| | 03:22 | ahead and choose that profile for
CMYK and you can do that, by the way, by
| | 03:26 | clicking the Down arrowhead and then you can
go ahead and load a CMYK profile right there.
| | 03:30 | All right, anyway, this is good though,
let's just assume for now, you are not
| | 03:34 | going to change CMYK and you are not
going to change Intent; you are just going
| | 03:37 | to go ahead and accept Best Workflow CS4.
You are going to see that your color
| | 03:40 | settings are now unsynchronized.
| | 03:42 | Now those of you, who only own
Photoshop, you don't own the rest of Creative
| | 03:45 | Suite, don't worry about it; there is
nothing to synchronize with. Those of
| | 03:49 | you, who do own the Creative Suite,
follow along with me now. We'll go ahead
| | 03:52 | and click OK and now we are going to
switch over to the Bridge by either
| | 03:57 | clicking on this little Bridge icon
or you can choose Browse in Bridge over
| | 04:01 | here from the File menu. Ctrl+Alt+O
or Command+Option+O on the Mac switches
| | 04:05 | over to the Bridge. I happen to have
it trained on these settings folder just
| | 04:08 | for laughs, no reason. Then I'm going
to go up to the Edit menu and I'm going
| | 04:12 | to choose the Creative Suite Color
Settings command or press Ctrl+Shift+K.
| | 04:16 | Now this should bring up this dialog
box right here. If it brings up an error
| | 04:21 | message telling you that you can't load
this command because you need to launch
| | 04:26 | CS4 application first or you don't
own the entire Creative Suite, then
| | 04:30 | you-don't-own-the-entire-Creative-
Suite is most likely the culprit. So you
| | 04:34 | can't synchronize from the Bridge. It's
just the way it is. I don't understand
| | 04:37 | why Adobe does it that way but they do.
| | 04:40 | If you do own the Creative Suite and
you are getting that error message, then
| | 04:45 | you're probably going to have to
reinstall the software or you may be able to
| | 04:48 | relaunch the Bridge and when you
relaunch the Bridge, you would press
| | 04:51 | Ctrl+Shift+Alt or Command+Shift+Option
all at the same time while launching the
| | 04:55 | Bridge and then go ahead and reset the
Bridge in the dialog box that follows.
| | 04:59 | Anyway, hopefully none of that happens
and you'll just see this message right
| | 05:02 | here saying Not Synchronized, because
we just goofed things up in Photoshop.
| | 05:06 | But there is Best Workflow right
there and you can see I have even got this
| | 05:09 | little message here, These are the
settings that Deke recommends in his
| | 05:12 | Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
CS4 One-on-One series for Deke Press,
| | 05:15 | O'Reilly Media, and lynda.com. They
ensure consistent color and printing across
| | 05:20 | all three applications, and more, incidentally.
| | 05:22 | Now if you don't see Best Workflow, if
you see it, go ahead and click on it; if
| | 05:25 | you don't, turn on the Show Expanded
List of Color Settings Files, and you
| | 05:29 | should get a much longer list right
here and one of them should be my Best
| | 05:35 | Workflow CS4 right there and then click Apply.
| | 05:39 | Now I'll go back, you don't need to do
this. I'll go back to the Edit menu and
| | 05:43 | choose Creative Suite Color Settings
and you will see that things are now
| | 05:46 | synchronized. It's so happy and now we
have synchronized those color settings
| | 05:50 | across all of the
applications in the Creative Suite.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
23. Masking EssentialsIntroduction to masking| 00:00 | The topic of this chapter, Chapter 23
in the grand order of things, is masking.
| | 00:05 | A mask is a selection outline
represented as a black and white image. White
| | 00:10 | indicates the selected area,
black indicates the deselected area.
| | 00:14 | Well, that might sounds strange. Masks
are amazingly powerful. They allow you
| | 00:19 | to communicate with Photoshop on a
deeper level than anything we have seen so
| | 00:22 | far. Masking is quite literally the
art of using the image to select itself.
| | 00:28 | I have 24 movies for you, which is a lot,
but it's only an introduction. If you
| | 00:34 | want a master masking, check out my
series, Photoshop CS3 Channels and Masks,
| | 00:40 | and don't be put off by the CS3 in the
title. It remains every bit is relevant
| | 00:44 | for CS4. This is core stuff, much of
which hasn't changed since Photoshop 1.0.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing color range| 00:00 | In these first few exercises, I'm
going to introduce you to the topic of
| | 00:03 | masking and then we are going to
really get into it. We are going to roll up
| | 00:07 | our sleeves and create some
extremely accurate masks, my friends.
| | 00:12 | So we'll start off and sort of old
school, we'll be using the Color Range
| | 00:15 | command, new and improved inside of
Photoshop CS4. Then we'll turn our
| | 00:18 | attention to the Quick Mask Mode,
which is still a useful tool, although its
| | 00:22 | contribution to the masking process
has been somewhat minimized inside a
| | 00:27 | Photoshop CS4. Thanks to the arrival of
the masks palette, and we'll see all of
| | 00:32 | that stuff over the course
of these first few exercises.
| | 00:35 | I'd like you to open these two images
here. One is called Duckbill in tent.tif
| | 00:40 | and the other is called The planets.psd,
which affords us the unusual view of
| | 00:45 | the Earth as seen from the Earth,
pretty interesting I think. We are going to
| | 00:50 | go ahead and select this hadrosaur
that you see right here before you, this
| | 00:54 | duckbill, and we are going to move
him into this other worldly environment
| | 00:58 | right there. And he is going to become
intensely scary, you may recall from the
| | 01:02 | previous portion of this series, from
Photoshop CS4 One-on-One Advanced, this
| | 01:06 | hadrosaur character is none other than
Emperor Scratch. So he is extremely scary guy.
| | 01:14 | Anyway, let's make him and the idea
behind masking is that you are selecting
| | 01:18 | the image; you are just creating
a hyper accurate selection outline
| | 01:22 | essentially, and you can use that
hyper accurate selection to apply color
| | 01:27 | modifications if you want to, to apply
any sort of modifications to an image,
| | 01:31 | to enhance an image or you can select
a foreground image and move it into a
| | 01:35 | different background and that sort of
the pinnacle of masking which is the
| | 01:38 | reason we are doing it, because that's
where you can really see the flaws in
| | 01:42 | your mask and of course, address those flaws.
| | 01:45 | All right, so how do we go about
selecting this guy? Well it's tempting to whip
| | 01:48 | out the Magic Wand tool or something
along those lines. But don't. Because a
| | 01:52 | much better approach-- let's go ahead
and just select a different tool there so
| | 01:56 | that we know we are not working with
the Magic Wand-- is to choose the enhanced
| | 01:59 | version of the Magic Wand inside of
Photoshop, which is this command right
| | 02:03 | here. Under the Select menu,
it's the Color Range command.
| | 02:05 | It's so incredibly useful that for
those of you who went ahead and loaded
| | 02:10 | Dekekeys, then you have a keyboard
shortcut which is Ctrl+Shift+Alt+O or
| | 02:15 | Command+Shift+Option+O on the Mac and
this is truly Magic Wand 2.0 if you will
| | 02:21 | because it works very much like the Magic
Wand tool does, except it's just better.
| | 02:26 | We could select the hadrosaur, and I
could just click inside of him in order to
| | 02:29 | select various portions of the dinosaur
skeleton here. But where I to do that,
| | 02:34 | we'd only select a little bit here and
there at a time because we've all sorts
| | 02:38 | of highlights and shadows to content
with, whereas our background is fairly
| | 02:42 | homogeneous. So let's select the
background and then switch the selection later
| | 02:46 | to the foreground image instead. So in
other words, we are just selecting the
| | 02:49 | thing that's easiest to select.
| | 02:51 | Now we are seeing this command here,
which is a lot like the Magic Wand tool,
| | 02:54 | and I'm not lying to you. Even though
it doesn't look anything like the Magic
| | 02:58 | Wand, notice that you have got this
little eyedropper cursor that is your wand.
| | 03:01 | So if you click inside of the image,
then you'll select that color that you
| | 03:07 | clicked on and its neighbors and you
can see that the selection is occurring
| | 03:12 | here inside the Color Range dialog box.
| | 03:13 | So notice that you have got a little
preview of your selection represented as a
| | 03:18 | black and white image, and if you are
new to masking that can be a little bit
| | 03:22 | sort of difficult to come into terms
with. The whole notion that this is a
| | 03:25 | selection tool is a little bit foreign
because it doesn't look like one at all.
| | 03:29 | You will notice that we have white
right there, around the skeleton and then
| | 03:33 | the skeleton itself is black and what
that's telling you, the white regions are
| | 03:37 | the selected areas and the black
regions are the deselected areas and wherever
| | 03:41 | you see, gray is partially selected.
So light gray means it's pretty darn
| | 03:45 | selected, dark gray means its pretty
darn not selected, and 50% gray would mean
| | 03:51 | its right in between.
| | 03:52 | And so the delightful thing is that
you are creating the selection on the fly
| | 03:57 | here inside of the Color Range dialog
box and you haven't committed to the
| | 04:02 | selection outline, until you
actually click on the OK button.
| | 04:05 | There it is the Color Range command
under the Select menu, available to you
| | 04:09 | anytime that you want to use it, night
or day, brings up the Color Range dialog
| | 04:13 | box which gives you access to the more
powerful Magic Wand feature inside of
| | 04:17 | Photoshop and we'll be learning more
about this in the very next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding base colors and adjusting fuzziness| 00:00 | Let's see how we use the dialog box
and its friend, the Eyedropper tool, in
| | 00:04 | order to define hyper accurate
selections and this is a great masking tool.
| | 00:09 | So I was telling you that you just go
ahead and click with the Eyedropper tool
| | 00:13 | in order to define the base color for
your selection and just as with the Magic
| | 00:17 | Wand tool, the Color Range command
looks for pixels that are similarly colored.
| | 00:21 | But it goes ahead and selects both
adjacent pixels and non-adjacent pixels alike.
| | 00:26 | So if you look at the selection preview
right here, you can see that the white
| | 00:29 | not only extends into the background
behind the hadrosaur, but also into its
| | 00:34 | nasal cavity right there, which is
completely surrounded by dinosaur skull. So
| | 00:38 | it goes ahead and selects both non-
adjacent and adjacent pixels, something to
| | 00:41 | bear in mind. And you can mitigate that
a little bit using this Localized Color
| | 00:45 | Clusters function, which is new to
Photoshop CS4. I'll show you that later but
| | 00:49 | for now, here is what I want you to do.
| | 00:51 | Remember how you can Shift-click with
the Magic Wand tool in order to add a
| | 00:54 | base color, where you can do the
exact same thing using the Color Range
| | 00:57 | command. Now you have these buttons
over here, these tools that allow you to
| | 01:00 | add base colors or subtract base colors,
ignore them; you don't have to worry
| | 01:03 | about these Eyedropper tools because
you can get them on the fly. So you press
| | 01:06 | the Shift key and click, I'm Shift-
clicking below the hadrosaur's jaw right
| | 01:11 | there, and I add some more
background colors to my selection.
| | 01:15 | You can also Alt-click or Option-click
in order to delete a base color from the
| | 01:20 | selection. However, I don't find that
works very well in most cases. Over time I
| | 01:25 | have given up on that function
essentially because I find it very difficult to
| | 01:29 | predict, because what you are doing
is you are saying, okay, go ahead and
| | 01:32 | select colors that are like this one
and then select colors that are like this
| | 01:35 | one, but don't select colors that are
like this one here, rule them out. That
| | 01:38 | becomes a fairly complex equation for
Photoshop to keep track of, even more
| | 01:42 | complex I think for you to keep track of. So
instead, here's what I recommend you bear in mind.
| | 01:47 | Let's say I Shift-click right here
inside the dinosaur's orange skull or better
| | 01:52 | yet, check this out. I'll just go
ahead and press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the
| | 01:55 | Mac to undo that modification. You
can Shift+drag with the tool. So if you
| | 02:01 | Shift+drag across the dinosaur's skull,
look at that. I went ahead and added a
| | 02:05 | bunch of base colors to my selection
with a simple Shift+drag right there,
| | 02:09 | something you can't do with the
Magic Wand tool. And just like that, I
| | 02:13 | basically select the entire image.
| | 02:15 | All right, so this one I go to -- I
don't want to do that. That's too much; I
| | 02:18 | have added too many colors. So just
remember you have one level of undo, press
| | 02:23 | Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the Mac to undo
that last key color and you will go back
| | 02:28 | to your previous selection right there.
| | 02:30 | Another thing that you can do to
integrate more colors or fewer colors even
| | 02:34 | into your selection. You can change
this Fuzziness value right here. Now as
| | 02:38 | with the Tolerance value that's
associated with the Magic Wand tool up there in
| | 02:42 | the Options bar where the Magic Wand
is selected, that Tolerance value is
| | 02:45 | measured in luminance
levels and so is Fuzziness.
| | 02:47 | So in this case, I have got a default
value of 40 luminance levels going right
| | 02:51 | now and that means that Photoshop is
going to select 40 levels lighter and 40
| | 02:56 | levels darker than each of my base
colors. However, instead of absolutely
| | 03:01 | selecting the pixels that are
associated with those luminance levels, it's
| | 03:04 | going to slowly drop off my selection
over the course of these 40 luminance levels.
| | 03:09 | So, by time we get 40 luminance
levels away in either direction, either
| | 03:13 | brighter or darker, the selection goes
away. There is no selection anymore but
| | 03:17 | it gradually declines over the course
of those luminance levels, meaning that
| | 03:21 | you get a very accurate organic
selection going. So it's nothing like what you
| | 03:27 | get with the Magic Wand tool;
it's something much better.
| | 03:29 | And you can modify this setting on the
fly. So it's a dynamic adjustment, check
| | 03:34 | that out and you can see the effects
of your adjustment right here inside of
| | 03:38 | the preview. So I'm going to go ahead
and increase my Fuzziness value let's say
| | 03:42 | up to about 90 for this image right
here, and I have selected now most of my
| | 03:47 | background and if you want to check it
out in more detail and by the way, you
| | 03:50 | can click or Shift-click directly
inside the preview if you want to.
| | 03:54 | So that's an option as well. So you
don't have to do it inside the image
| | 03:57 | window; you can do inside the preview.
Also notice you can see the image, if
| | 04:01 | you want to, inside the preview or
the selection by which it means the mask
| | 04:05 | view of that selection. You can also
control what you are seeing out here in
| | 04:09 | the larger image window by changing
the Selection Preview setting. So I might
| | 04:13 | go ahead and set this to Grayscale, so
I can see a mask version of my selection
| | 04:18 | so far outside here in the image
window and then inside of the dialog box, I
| | 04:23 | might choose to see the image instead.
| | 04:24 | So a lot of flexibility here, a lot of
options available to you. Everything is
| | 04:29 | dynamic; it's just a thing of beauty.
Notice that you'll see it reflected right
| | 04:32 | there in the image window as I change
that Fuzziness value on the fly. All
| | 04:37 | right, but we are not done. I'm going
to show you one more thing that's been
| | 04:40 | added in Photoshop CS4. That's this
guy right here, Localized Color Clusters.
| | 04:45 | Stick with me.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Localized color clusters| 00:00 | All right, so in the previous
exercise, I showed you how the Color Range
| | 00:03 | command selects both pixels that are
adjacent to the click points as well as
| | 00:07 | non-adjacent pixels. Compare that to
the Magic Wand tool, which by default
| | 00:11 | selects adjacent pixels only.
| | 00:12 | So as a result, even though my click
point and my Shift-click point both fell
| | 00:17 | outside of the skull, I have managed to
select inside of this nasal cavity and
| | 00:21 | inside of this eye cavity and a bunch
of other holes inside of the skull as
| | 00:25 | well, which is generally a good thing.
| | 00:28 | It certainly turns out to be a great
thing where the skull is concerned. Still,
| | 00:32 | you might like a little better
control. You might want to reign in your
| | 00:36 | selections so that it is tight to your
click and Shift-click points. And if you
| | 00:40 | want to do that, then you can turn-on
this Localized Color Clusters checkbox
| | 00:43 | here inside the Color Range dialog box,
and I should say it's new to Photoshop
| | 00:48 | CS4. And as soon as you turn-on
this checkbox, you get a range value.
| | 00:51 | Now for some reason, Range remains
dimmed which is sometimes does. There's a
| | 00:55 | little bit of a bug going on here.
Then what you need to do is just go ahead
| | 00:58 | and click and Shift-click again in
order to reestablish your selection. Now
| | 01:03 | notice that the Range value by default
is set to 100% and this is 100% of the
| | 01:08 | overall size of the image. So in
other words, the selection is going to
| | 01:13 | ultimately taper off toward the outer
edges of the image, as the selection
| | 01:17 | outline is declining away from your
click and your Shift-click points.
| | 01:21 | You can reduce that selected area if
you want to by reducing this Range value.
| | 01:25 | So if I go ahead and take the value
down to something very low like so, you
| | 01:29 | will see that I'm reigning in my
selection to something of sort of a fuzzy
| | 01:35 | rectangle right here that's drawn
around my click and my Shift-click points.
| | 01:39 | Now we have got some odd behavior
associated with this checkbox. I just got to
| | 01:43 | tell you, it doesn't always work the
same way every time you use it. For
| | 01:47 | example, if you go ahead and set up
your Base colors first and then adjust the
| | 01:51 | Range value, you will get something
like what we are seeing here, but if you
| | 01:54 | adjust your Range value first and
then you set your base points, watch what
| | 01:57 | happens. I'll click here and then I'll
Shift-click down here and notice that
| | 02:02 | I'm restraining my selection to this
gradient circle that's being drawn around
| | 02:08 | each of my base points. So interesting, so
totally a different result this time around.
| | 02:14 | So I basically did the same thing I did
before, but I went ahead and performed
| | 02:18 | it after modifying the Range value
instead of before, and you get different
| | 02:21 | results. So it's just something to
bear in mind as you are working inside of
| | 02:25 | this dialog box, if you are taking
advantage of this function right here. So if
| | 02:29 | I increase that Range value though,
you will see that I'm allowing the
| | 02:32 | selection to drift farther and farther
away from those base points. So this can
| | 02:36 | be a very handy way for reigning in
your selection to the geographical area
| | 02:42 | around your click and your Shift-click
points, and in the case of this image
| | 02:46 | right here, it does tend to be helpful.
| | 02:48 | So I'm going to go ahead and crank
that Range value all the way up to 100%,
| | 02:51 | which typically is the way that I work.
This is a new option, of course, so
| | 02:55 | I've only had a few months now to
play around with it. So far this is the
| | 02:59 | conclusion I have come to that when in
doubt, a Range value of 100% works best.
| | 03:03 | And then I'll go ahead and click and
Shift-click in other points throughout the
| | 03:07 | image and even do one of those
Shift+drags around an area in order to select
| | 03:11 | many colors at the same time, and I'll
go ahead and Shift-click down here as
| | 03:15 | well. Maybe Shift+drag around a little
bit in order to make sure that I have
| | 03:19 | selected everything I can.
| | 03:20 | I don't want to Shift-click on this line.
Notice this line that's going through
| | 03:24 | the image right here, some sort of
seam in a tent. I actually shot this image
| | 03:29 | at Disney World, and if you Shift-click
on it though, you are going to lose a
| | 03:33 | lot of your dinosaur. You are going to
start encroaching into the dinosaur as
| | 03:37 | you see right there. So I don't want
that. I'll press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the
| | 03:40 | Mac to undo that modification.
| | 03:42 | Now you may see at this point tons of
the boneage here is turning sort of light
| | 03:46 | gray, meaning that it is going to
become selected. If you don't want that,
| | 03:50 | which you don't, you'd go ahead and
reduce this Fuzziness value and I'll take
| | 03:54 | it down to something like let's say 60%
%. And just a dreamy thing about this
| | 03:59 | Fuzziness value, not only does it
have an organic drop off which is super
| | 04:02 | wonderful, but it's also dynamic. So
you can adjust it on the fly and get a
| | 04:06 | sense for what kind of selection you
would like to create. So fully on the
| | 04:10 | Magic Wand. Where continuous-tone
images are concerned, the Color Range command
| | 04:14 | most of the time is going
to give you better result.
| | 04:16 | At this point, I think everything
looks really swell. It's not perfect and
| | 04:20 | I'm going to be modifying this mask in
the Quick Mask Mode in just a moment but
| | 04:24 | there is one last problem here; the
fact that I want to select the dinosaur
| | 04:28 | bones and I want to de-select the
background. So I have done exactly the
| | 04:30 | opposite of what I want. Bear in mind
that white means selected and black means
| | 04:35 | deselected. You sometimes hear
people say that white reveals and black
| | 04:39 | conceals, so that's
another way to think about it.
| | 04:41 | Opposite of what I want, turn on the
Invert checkbox, you get exactly what you
| | 04:45 | want or nearly exactly, obviously,
subject to some future further modifications
| | 04:50 | here. Now one more thing I'm going to
tell you is if you have had problems
| | 04:53 | following along with me, no problem,
because I have gone ahead and saved off my
| | 04:57 | settings. When you click the Save
button, you save your Base colors and you
| | 05:02 | save your Fuzziness and your Range
values right there, whether the Invert
| | 05:08 | checkbox is turned on or off, and I
have gone ahead and saved this off for you.
| | 05:11 | So I'll go ahead and click Load in
order to load those settings and there they
| | 05:14 | are right there, Localized duckbill.axt,
go ahead and click Load to load it on
| | 05:19 | up. You may see your selection shift
a little bit, I saw mine shift ever so
| | 05:23 | slightly, because I made different
decisions the last time around. That's fine.
| | 05:27 | Then you may decide that you can do
better, and you'd sort of click around and
| | 05:31 | see what you can do.
| | 05:32 | Now bear in mind, when the Invert
checkbox is turned on, Alt-clicking or
| | 05:36 | Option-clicking on the Mac is going
to add to the selection as I did just
| | 05:40 | there. And I was telling you that I
don't have very good luck with Alt-clicking
| | 05:43 | or Option-clicking usually, and here it
worked beautifully, and then of course
| | 05:47 | Shift-clicking is going to add to the de
-selection, and that's because we have
| | 05:51 | got Invert turned-on.
| | 05:52 | All right, when you are done selecting
as much of the dinosaur as you want to
| | 05:56 | select, then go ahead and click OK in
order to create that selection outline.
| | 06:01 | Now it's not perfect, it needs
modification, and that's why I'm going to show
| | 06:05 | you how to refine the selection in
the Quick Mask Mode in the very next
| | 06:10 | exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Quick Mask mode| 00:00 | All right gang! So here I'm working
inside of the image called Duckbill in
| | 00:04 | tent.tif over here in the Channels
palette. In case you want to catch up with
| | 00:09 | me, notice I have this selection
outline that I created using the Color Range
| | 00:13 | command here under the Select menu. And
if you are just joining me and you want
| | 00:17 | to load this selection outline on up,
then go over to the Channels palette and
| | 00:21 | what you do is you go down here to
this guy called imperfect and you would
| | 00:25 | press the Ctrl key or the Command key
on the Mac and you would click on its
| | 00:28 | thumbnail in order to load it up as a
selection outline, and then you will have
| | 00:32 | exactly the selection outline
you see me using on screen here.
| | 00:35 | What I did is I went down here to the
bottom of the Channels palette and I
| | 00:39 | click on this icon and notice it says
Save selection as channel. That tells me
| | 00:43 | that I'll indeed save the selection
outline as an alpha channel that's right
| | 00:47 | ready to go. In case, you are wondering
all about alpha channels and everything
| | 00:51 | else that's going on with channels
and masks, and you really want to learn
| | 00:53 | everything about masking, I have the series
that's part of the Lynda.com Online Training Library.
| | 01:00 | Right now it's called Photoshop CS3
Channels and Masks, but the beauty of it is
| | 01:03 | 100% of it works the same way in
the CS3 as it does in CS4. So it's all
| | 01:08 | applicable to Photoshop CS4, but there
have been some new things added to CS4,
| | 01:15 | so I'll be showing you some of those as
we look at masking here. But I do want
| | 01:18 | you to know, it goes on for hours.
There is
just tons and tons of stuff to learn about masking.
| | 01:23 | I am going to press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z
on the Mac because we don't need to add
| | 01:25 | that guy, he is already part of the
image and you can save alpha channels,
| | 01:31 | these extra channels here that contain
masks along with the image in the TIFF
| | 01:35 | file format. So TIFF and PSD, the
layered native Photoshop document format will
| | 01:43 | go ahead and accommodate masks. JPEG,
no sir, you cannot save an alpha channel
| | 01:48 | along with a JPEG image, just so you know.
| | 01:50 | All right, so anyway, we got this
selection outline going. It is imperfect,
| | 01:52 | what do we do? Well, one of our options
is to enter the Quick Mask mode and you
| | 01:57 | can enter the Quick Mask mode by
clicking on this little icon down here at the
| | 02:00 | bottom of the toolbox or you can just
press the Q key. So the Q key takes you
| | 02:04 | into the Quick Mask mode, and the Q
key takes you back out, or you can click
| | 02:08 | this button right there to go in and back out.
| | 02:11 | I say we go in for a moment, and the
grand thing about the Quick Mask mode is
| | 02:16 | that it allows you to paint a
selection outline. So you can edit a selection
| | 02:22 | outline as a mask and all of a sudden
basically the entire program, all of
| | 02:27 | Photoshop, becomes a selection
modification environment. So you can use any of
| | 02:32 | these tools now; not just these guys,
not just the selection tools up here, and
| | 02:36 | not just the commands under the Select
menu, but basically everything that's
| | 02:39 | available to you inside the whole
software. It's always its grayscale
| | 02:42 | compatible then you can apply it to this mask.
| | 02:46 | So there's nothing particularly quick
about the Quick Mask mode or easy about
| | 02:50 | it either, it's just as tough as full-blown
masking. It's just that it's
| | 02:53 | temporary, so you can get in, you can
get out, and I guess that's what so quick
| | 02:56 | about it. Of course, you get in, you
spend like a half-an-hour modifying the
| | 03:00 | mask and then you get back out that
very quick. But here, I'll show you some
| | 03:04 | quick things to do in the Quick Mask mode.
| | 03:05 | First of all, we have got an overlay
color, which is red. So we are now seeing
| | 03:10 | the mask in red. So in other words, the
deselected areas have a red overlay and
| | 03:14 | the selected areas have no overlay. So
we are just seeing the normal colors on
| | 03:18 | the image. And this is based on an old
technology called rubylith, which was
| | 03:23 | this acetate that had red stuff on it
and you would cut up the red stuff and
| | 03:27 | leave the acetate behind and you would
peel out the areas that you cut with an
| | 03:31 | X-Acto knife, for example. And then
that would serve as your mask for a
| | 03:35 | photographic image, when you are
doing stat camera techniques and so on.
| | 03:39 | Because it was so popular, it's a very
common technique. More than 20 years ago
| | 03:42 | back when I was a lad, I
used to actually do this stuff.
| | 03:44 | It became a sort of defacto standard
inside of Photoshop but you don't have to
| | 03:49 | work with a rubylith. You can change it
to a sapphire-lith for example, because
| | 03:54 | we need to make this overlay blue. And
why do we need to do that, because red
| | 03:58 | on red, this is not going to do us any
good, warm color against warm color does
| | 04:01 | not serve our purposes. So here is
what you do; you double-click on the Mask
| | 04:06 | icon. Now the thing is if you are in
the Quick Mask mode, and you double-click
| | 04:10 | on the Quick Mask icon, it's going to take
you out of the Quick Mask mode, which is crazy.
| | 04:14 | Then you have these options and you
can adjust them to your heart's content.
| | 04:18 | I'll show you in a moment. I'm going to
cancel that. I'm going to go back into
| | 04:21 | the Quick Mask mode. You go over to the
Channels palette and you will see this
| | 04:24 | new alpha channel called Quick Mask in
itals to show you that it's something
| | 04:28 | that Photoshop made and it also
happens to be temporary on the fly mask.
| | 04:32 | Double-click on it and you will stay
inside the Quick Mask mode and we we're
| | 04:36 | seeing the Quick Mask options. Go ahead
and click on this Color Swatch. I want
| | 04:40 | you to change the Hue value to 180,
which is Cyan, and click OK. Leave the
| | 04:44 | other values set as it is.
So it's just H 180 click OK.
| | 04:47 | You can change the Opacity if you want
to. I so wished you could preview the
| | 04:53 | setting, try to figure out if it's
going to what you wanted to be, but the only
| | 04:57 | way to preview it is to click OK,
which isn't really a preview; it's an
| | 04:59 | application and there it is. So anyway,
it works beautifully for us, this is
| | 05:02 | good enough. Now then what do we do?
Well, the thing to bear in mind with the
| | 05:07 | Quick Mask is that it's still black
and white; I mean you can see that right
| | 05:11 | here inside the Channels palette. So
the deselected area is black, the selected
| | 05:14 | area is white. It's just that it
previews differently. So we are seeing the
| | 05:17 | black areas shown in cyan and we are
seeing the white areas shown transparent
| | 05:21 | just as raw image
essentially, an un-colorized image.
| | 05:26 | So that means if we want to add to the
deselected area we paint with black, and
| | 05:30 | if you wanted to add to the selected
area you paint with white. So for example,
| | 05:34 | I'll go ahead and get my Paint Brush
tool right there; I want you to do it too.
| | 05:37 | Make sure that your brush is set to
something along these lines, which is to
| | 05:41 | say a Master Diameter of 20 pixels and
a Hardness of 100%. The reason is you
| | 05:46 | don't want to be slopping in fuzzy
edges when you are masking. That's rarely a
| | 05:51 | good idea. You want to be able to
observe
the natural edges in the image and paint inside of them.
| | 05:57 | Let's start painting and notice by the
way, if I paint in black, my foreground
| | 06:01 | color is set to black right there, then
I'm painting in cyan like so, and these
| | 06:06 | become deselected regions. So you can
de-select in just all kinds of crazy
| | 06:10 | patterns like this. And then when you
go back out of the Quick Mask mode, sure
| | 06:14 | enough, those areas are deselected.
All right, I'm going to undo that
| | 06:17 | modification by pressing Ctrl+Z
or Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 06:20 | Actually, I have to press Ctrl+Alt+Z or
Command+Option+Z on the Mac a few times
| | 06:24 | to get rid off all that garbage. Then
if I switch my foreground or background
| | 06:27 | color, so the foreground color is now
white like this and I paint, then I'm
| | 06:30 | painting in selection. So I can give
them sort of a selected beard right there
| | 06:35 | and then I switch out of Quick Mask
mode and you can see now that now I have
| | 06:37 | selected that region. All right, Ctrl+Alt+Z
a couple of times, Command+Option+Z
| | 06:41 | a couple of times on the Mac.
| | 06:42 | All right, here is what I want you to
do that we want to get rid of this line.
| | 06:45 | So let's go ahead and scroll all the
way over to the left, so that I can see
| | 06:49 | the far left side of the image and we
are going to get rid of this straight
| | 06:52 | line by doing this. Press the X key to
make the foreground color black, and now
| | 06:58 | I'll click right there, nice, and then
I'll Shift-click right there, and I just
| | 07:04 | deselected this line. Now you can
still see it but it's now covered with the
| | 07:08 | cyan overlay. Actually in the next
exercise, I'll show you how you make sure
| | 07:13 | that it is totally de-selected and
then go up here and click on this side of
| | 07:17 | the jaw, and then Shift-click right there
in order to paint away that seam as well.
| | 07:22 | In the next exercise, we are going
to make some further modifications by
| | 07:25 | viewing the mask independently of the
image, so that we can really hone in on
| | 07:30 | exactly what we are doing. Stay tuned!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Viewing a quick mask by itself| 00:01 | In this exercise I'm going to show
you how to modify a selection in a Quick
| | 00:04 | Mask mode and view the mask
independently of the RGB image, which can help to
| | 00:09 | remove some of the ambiguity, so you
know exactly what you're doing. So I'm
| | 00:13 | still working on this image called
Duckbill in tent.tif and I'm working on this
| | 00:19 | imperfect selection right there
and I've gone ahead and made some
| | 00:22 | modifications. Mostly, I just painted away
this scene, here inside the Quick Mask mode.
| | 00:27 | Now if I want to see whether I really
got rid of that scene or not, then here's
| | 00:31 | what you do, you go over to the
Channels palette, make sure it's up on screen.
| | 00:35 | And you can switch bounce very
easily in the Quick Mask mode. It's not a
| | 00:38 | limiting mode, the way the Free
Transform mode is or the way the Crop mode is.
| | 00:43 | You can do anything you want
inside this mode. It's really great.
| | 00:46 | But what I would like you to do is go
to the Channels palette and then turn off
| | 00:49 | the eyeball in front of RGB. And just
like that, as soon as the RGB image goes
| | 00:53 | away, you get rid of that color
overly and you just see the image by itself
| | 00:58 | because what you're really working on
is a black and white mask not a sort of
| | 01:02 | color overly mask, nothing like that going on.
| | 01:05 | All right, so now we see that the line
is gone from the image where we have a
| | 01:10 | lot of other problems that we need to
reconcile. And the first thing that I
| | 01:13 | need to do, and this is a really
standard masking technique that I'm about to
| | 01:17 | share with you, is you want to go ahead
and increase the Contrast of this mask.
| | 01:23 | Because if you look carefully, you're
going to see that you have some light
| | 01:26 | gray areas inside of the dinosaur
and then you have some dark gray flags
| | 01:30 | outside of the dinosaur and you need to
get rid of those light grays and those
| | 01:35 | dark grays. We want some nice whites
inside the dinosaur and some pure blacks
| | 01:39 | outside the dinosaur.
| | 01:41 | And you can do that, using a good
friend of ours, go to the Image menu, choose
| | 01:44 | Adjustments and choose Levels. On rare
occasions you need to resort to Curves,
| | 01:48 | but generally speaking Levels is your
guy. Go ahead and press Ctrl+ L, Command+
| | 01:53 | L on a Mac. Now right away you may go,
hey Deke, why are you applying a static
| | 01:58 | adjustment? Why don't we apply an Adjustment
layer, those are so much better? Well, you can't.
| | 02:04 | So layers can have channels
associated with them, and layers can also have
| | 02:08 | layer masks associated with them, but
masks and channels cannot have layers
| | 02:14 | inside of them. So you cannot pile
layers onto an independent channel. In other
| | 02:20 | words you have to apply static
adjustments, just like way back in old days.
| | 02:25 | So when you are masking inside a
Photoshop you are essentially performing
| | 02:28 | Photoshop 2.0 modifications, and it
really is that way. I mean that's one of
| | 02:33 | the wonders of masking, is even though
it's a really super wickedly powerful
| | 02:38 | tool that's available to you inside
Photoshop, really a group of tools, it
| | 02:42 | hasn't changed very much in more than a decade.
| | 02:45 | All right, so here we are inside of
Levels. I'm going to go ahead and increase
| | 02:48 | this black point value until we've got
the black point all the way over to the
| | 02:54 | right of this hump of shadow colors.
And another set I'm even including this
| | 03:00 | tiny bit of shadow colors right there.
And as a result I'm changing that black
| | 03:04 | point value to 60. So any pixel with
the luminance level of 60 or darker
| | 03:08 | becomes black. So we're clipping a lot
of colors. You want to clip colors when
| | 03:13 | you're working inside of a mask.
That's a desirable thing. So masking is not
| | 03:18 | like continuous tone
image editing in that regard.
| | 03:21 | And then I'm going to go ahead and
take this 255 value, the white point value
| | 03:24 | here, and I'm going to reduce it. I'm
going to press Shift+Down arrow and I'm
| | 03:27 | going to take it down 60, just as I
took the black point value up 60, until I
| | 03:33 | reduce that value to 195.
| | 03:34 | Now this isn't the kind of thing you
need to do on a regular basis. You don't
| | 03:37 | need to increase the black point value
and decrease the white point value by
| | 03:41 | the same amount. It just happens to
just work out pretty nicely for this image.
| | 03:44 | So, I'm saying any pixel with
luminance level of 195 or lighter now becomes
| | 03:48 | white and as a result we have some
nice black background colors and some nice
| | 03:52 | white foreground colors. Click OK.
| | 03:55 | Now at this point you can see that
we're closer to our goal but we still have
| | 03:59 | some schnills here and there that we need
to get rid of. So I'm going to increase
| | 04:03 | the size of my brush, my foreground
color is white, so that's a dreamy
| | 04:06 | wonderful thing, and I'll just paint
these away and it's pretty easy painting.
| | 04:10 | You are not painting all the edges.
You are just painting near the edges, as
| | 04:13 | you can see. Just get rid of that
stuff that obviously needs to go. Now I've
| | 04:16 | painted too far. So I'll go ahead and undo that
modification. Try again. Paint this area away.
| | 04:21 | It's usually better to paint too
little instead of too much in a single paint
| | 04:24 | stroke, in that way, if you have to
undo you haven't undone a ton of stuff. So
| | 04:29 | I'm just painting away this garbage
here and painting away like this garbage,
| | 04:33 | so let's go in for the kill here, going
a little smaller with the brush or that
| | 04:36 | is to say, and go ahead and paint in
these details. I can paint in this right
| | 04:42 | here and then I'm going to increase the
size of my brush again, press the X key
| | 04:46 | to paint with black and let's
paint this garbage away right there.
| | 04:50 | So you need to spend a little bit of
time making sure that the perimeter of
| | 04:54 | your image is in good shape, so don't
be zoomed in too far at the end here.
| | 05:00 | Now let's go ahead and turn the RGB
image back on to make sure that we got
| | 05:05 | everything that we wanted to get and
it's looking pretty darn good, I might
| | 05:08 | zoom in a little bit here to the top of
the snout to make sure I got everything
| | 05:12 | I wanted, and it looks like I didn't
quite get everything I wanted. So I'll
| | 05:16 | reduce the size of my brush, press the
X key to make sure that foreground color
| | 05:19 | is white. And then I'll click, Shift-
click, Shift-click, that kind of thing in
| | 05:23 | order to paint in straight segments
like so. And I just want to sure I'm
| | 05:28 | getting as much as I can get.
| | 05:30 | Now as a general rule of thumb I'll
tell you, you want to under select instead
| | 05:34 | of over select because if you select
too much of the edges, if you go too far
| | 05:38 | out, then you're going to end up with
some halos and some other weird edge
| | 05:41 | artifacting, and you don't want that.
If you go ahead and choke your selection
| | 05:45 | in a little bit and if you select too
little of the image then you are going to
| | 05:49 | eliminate some of those color halos.
| | 05:52 | This looks pretty darn good. I want to
tell you one more thing, here's a little
| | 05:55 | tip and trick from me to you by the way
of a keyboard shortcut that you should
| | 05:59 | know about. If you want to hide the
RGB image on the fly, you press the tilde
| | 06:04 | key and that is the key that's' just
above the tab key and below the Escape
| | 06:08 | key, and to the left of the 1 key on an
American keyboard, press tilde again to
| | 06:12 | view both image and mask at the same
time. I'm noticing that I have a little
| | 06:16 | bit of garbage right there, let's go ahead
and paint that in to make sure we get in.
| | 06:20 | You know we have some ruddy edges
up here that you might want to paint in
| | 06:24 | the place, totally up to you, how far
you want to go with this, how exact you
| | 06:27 | want to be. This looks pretty swell.
Tell you what we're going to do.
| | 06:31 | In the next exercise we're going to
exit the Quick Mask mode, we're going to
| | 06:34 | take this dinosaur composited against
the different background and see how it
| | 06:38 | looks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Testing the quality of edges| 00:00 | In this exercise, we are going to
test the quality of our mask, and we are
| | 00:04 | going to do that by transporting
this masked hadrosaur right here into a
| | 00:08 | different background. And that's when
you really get a sense of whether you've
| | 00:11 | done a good job or not,
and we have, but not perfect.
| | 00:15 | Anyway I'm working with two
different images. I have opened Duckbill in
| | 00:18 | tent.tif, and The planets.psd, and
I'm going to press the Q key to exit the
| | 00:23 | Quick Mask Mode and convert my mask
into a selection outline. If you are just
| | 00:27 | joining me a very similar mask, not
exactly the same because I made some
| | 00:31 | different decisions this time around,
by Ctrl-clicking or Command-clicking on
| | 00:35 | the channel called maskosaur
here inside the Channels palette.
| | 00:38 | Then what I want you to do, assuming
you are working with tabbed windows like I
| | 00:42 | am. Go ahead and press and hold the
Ctrl Key or the Command Key on a Mac, and
| | 00:45 | that get you the Move tool temporarily
of course, drag that dinosaur up there,
| | 00:49 | and notice I'm leaving a strangely
colored hole in the background. That's
| | 00:53 | thanks to the fact that I have been
monkeying around with the Color Range
| | 00:57 | command, which ends up changing
the foreground and background colors.
| | 01:00 | Then I'm going to drag this guy up to
The Planets.psd to that Title tab right
| | 01:04 | there, wait for Photoshop to switch
images. Drag your cursor back into the
| | 01:09 | image window. Press the Shift key and
drop. But if you are not working with
| | 01:13 | tabbed image windows, you can see two
windows at the same time, then you can
| | 01:16 | just do a standard Control+Drag+Shift+
Drop, Command+Drag+Shift+Drop on the Mac,
| | 01:20 | without having a resort to these tabs here.
| | 01:23 | Anyway, by virtue of the fact, I
press the Shift key when I drop the scale,
| | 01:26 | went ahead and registered it in the
place, inside of the strange composition,
| | 01:31 | where we seeing the earth, from the
earth. But the idea is this is the
| | 01:34 | traveling dinosaur planet, it can move
through space, and it's visiting earth.
| | 01:39 | We can see earth in the background.
| | 01:40 | Now the only question here, of
course it's strange that this hadrosaur is
| | 01:44 | sitting here on dinosaur planet, but
the strangest think is he must really be
| | 01:48 | far in the air. But that's okay, I kind
of have the notion of standing and it's
| | 01:52 | just very tall. But what's more important
than any of that is how does our mask fair?
| | 01:58 | Well let's go ahead and zoom in on it.
That's the only way we are going to see.
| | 02:01 | Here I'm viewing the composition at 200%,
and you can see some pretty ragged
| | 02:05 | edges going on, although I have to say
the edges are very accurate. And then if
| | 02:08 | you scroll up here to the nostril,
it's pretty jagged and not necessarily
| | 02:13 | accurate. We do have a little bit of
green that's showing up there, and a
| | 02:16 | little bit of sort of aberrant
background jagginess going on. And then, if we
| | 02:21 | scroll all the way over to the right-hand
side, this is very bad over here.
| | 02:24 | So the question becomes what you do
about it? Well, the couple of different
| | 02:27 | things we could do. One is I'll go over
to the Layers palette here. One option
| | 02:31 | notice that we have a new layer, and
we have transparency, basically the
| | 02:36 | transparency is now been hardwired
into this layer. Bear in mind, we don't have
| | 02:40 | direct access to this so-called
transparency mask. But Photoshop uses to track
| | 02:44 | the transparent pixels inside of a
layer, as suppose to the opaque pixels.
| | 02:49 | So we have gone ahead, and just
completely shaved away those pixels that are
| | 02:52 | outside the dinosaur. Our problem
though is we need to shave very more pixels,
| | 02:55 | so I could add a layer mask and I could
paint away some of these edges, if I'm
| | 02:59 | feeling bold, I could just go with the
Eraser tool. However I'm here to tell
| | 03:03 | you that there is a better to work.
I've shown you the Color Range command and
| | 03:07 | I showed you the Quick Mask mode,
and I want you to see those functions,
| | 03:10 | especially Color Range, because you'll
be using Color Range a lot in your own
| | 03:14 | compositions, in your own imagery.
| | 03:16 | However I also want to show you a
better way to work inside of Photoshop CS4.
| | 03:21 | We now have this Masks palette right
there. And I'll go ahead and twirl it
| | 03:25 | open. Now right now it saying No mask
selected, and all the options are dimmed,
| | 03:28 | it is the handy facilitator
where masking is concerned.
| | 03:32 | What I really appreciate about it is it
forces us to get into some good habits.
| | 03:36 | And so what we are going to do is we
are going to backup here. We are going to
| | 03:38 | redefine our selection. We are going
to start over from scratch. We are going
| | 03:42 | to do this in a way that affords us
more flexibility. So we are going to still
| | 03:45 | end up with the result that we see on
screen right now. But we are going to be
| | 03:48 | able to fix this image with a lot more
control,
as you'll see if you join me in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing the Masks palette| 00:00 | The new stuff is now, this is when
things get terribly exciting for those of us
| | 00:04 | who are new to Photoshop CS4, because
we are going to see how to re-approach
| | 00:08 | this very project the new and improved
Photoshop CS4 way, which involves the
| | 00:13 | Masks palette right there.
| | 00:15 | So I've got these two images still
open. The planets.psd and Duckbill in
| | 00:19 | tent.tif. I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or
Command+Z on the Mac to undo the addition
| | 00:25 | of the dinosaur. And then I'm going to
switch over to Duckbill in tent like so.
| | 00:30 | And I'm going to press Ctrl+D or Command+D
on the Mac to deselect the dinosaur.
| | 00:35 | Then I want you to press and hold the
Ctrl Key or the Command Key on the Mac,
| | 00:39 | and let's do a drag and drop once
again. We'll drag the dinosaur into
| | 00:42 | planets.psd like so, come back into
the image, press the Shift key and drop,
| | 00:48 | and we cover up the entire composition
with this new hadrosaur layer. Let's go
| | 00:52 | ahead and zoom out a little bit here,
so that we can take in more of the image
| | 00:55 | at a time. I'm going to go ahead and
rename this layer Duckbill, you can call
| | 01:00 | it hadrosaur if you are in a
scientific mood, and then press the Enter or
| | 01:04 | Return Key in order to assign that modification.
| | 01:07 | Now what do we do? We don't want to
completely delete those pixels the way we
| | 01:11 | did before, we just want to mask them
away. You go to your Masks palette, so
| | 01:15 | make sure that it's up on screen, and
if you can't find it go to the Window
| | 01:18 | menu and choose this command right there,
Masks, and I'll say something about,
| | 01:22 | oh, I just made it go away, go darn it,
go up to the Window menu and choose
| | 01:26 | Masks once again, there it is.
| | 01:28 | Now it's confusing. If you are new to
masking inside of Photoshop, you might
| | 01:32 | see the Masks palette and you think
Ctrl Central for masking, right? Because
| | 01:36 | after all everything you can do with
layers is provided to you here inside the
| | 01:40 | Layers palette, and everything you
can do with channels is available to you
| | 01:43 | here inside the Channels palette, and
so on. So Masks must be the place for
| | 01:48 | masking inside of
Photoshop. That's just not true.
| | 01:51 | The Channels palette is actually
your Ctrl Central from masking inside of
| | 01:55 | Photoshop, your headquarters, if
you will. Masks is just kind of a side
| | 02:00 | palette, it's just a facilitator, just
helps you out. It is just there, it's
| | 02:03 | your pal; it will get you go on if you need it.
| | 02:05 | What it's really looking for is a layer.
You got to have a layer, and it wants
| | 02:09 | you to have a layer mask associated
with that layer. So we don't have that
| | 02:13 | right now. Go ahead and make this
little wider here, the palette that is. And
| | 02:18 | so we have got to add a layer mask. You
can either do that by going down to the
| | 02:20 | bottom of the Layers palette, and
clicking on the Add layer mask icon or right
| | 02:25 | here inside the Mask palette you can
click on this guy, which is Add Pixel
| | 02:29 | Mask. So you can either had a pixel
mask or a vector mask if you prefer, most
| | 02:33 | of the time you are going to want to
pixel mask because especially when you are
| | 02:35 | doing this kind of thing.
| | 02:36 | If you add a vector mask, then you are
going to have to draw an outline using
| | 02:39 | the Pen tool. So our best bet is to go
over here to a pixel mask. Also by the
| | 02:44 | way the options inside the Mask
palette are really designed more to work with
| | 02:49 | pixel-based mask than they are with
the vector based mask. Anyway click there
| | 02:52 | to add the mask. We get this layer
mask thumbnail here inside the Layers
| | 02:56 | palette, and all of a sudden the Mask
palette is happy, and it gives us access
| | 03:00 | to all five of its options
including right there Color Range.
| | 03:03 | Now this will work the same. If you
go up to the Select menu and choose the
| | 03:07 | Color Range command, you'll get the
same effect as clicking on the Color Range
| | 03:11 | button. And in both cases we are not
going to create a selection outline this
| | 03:14 | time around. So I'll go ahead and
click on the Color Range button, and notice
| | 03:17 | the Color Range dialog box comes up
with all of our last applied settings. So
| | 03:21 | Localized Color Clusters is on, Invert
is on, Fuzziness is set to 60, so why do
| | 03:25 | we get such a different looking selection?
| | 03:27 | Well, because the Color Range command
is always working for the foreground
| | 03:31 | color. When you first bring it up, it
has one and only one base color and that
| | 03:35 | would be whatever the foreground color
is set up to. So in this case it's some
| | 03:38 | weird green that apparently occurs very
infrequently inside the image, which is
| | 03:44 | why we have just a few blacks and the
ton of whites, and that's because Invert
| | 03:48 | is turned on. It makes more sense if
we turn Invert off and then we can see
| | 03:51 | that we are just selecting a little
bit of the image. Thanks to the fact that
| | 03:55 | those colors to the one set
most closely resemble the screen.
| | 03:58 | I tell you what. Instead of going
through all that nonsense with regenerating
| | 04:02 | the selection, which is just a lot of
busy work at this point, click on the
| | 04:05 | Load button, click on the Localized
duckbill. See aren't you glad that I went
| | 04:09 | ahead and saved off these settings to
save us time now? And they should make
| | 04:12 | you think, hey, I wonder if when I'm
working inside the Color Range dialog box,
| | 04:16 | if I spend a fair amount of time in
there, maybe I should click Save and save
| | 04:19 | off my settings. Don't wonder;
just do it. It's a great idea.
| | 04:23 | My rule of thumb is if anything inside
of Photoshop takes you more than five
| | 04:26 | minutes, save it if you can. So save
everything that you can from the program,
| | 04:31 | because these are just dinky little
files. Click on Load to load it on up, and
| | 04:35 | you get your previous selection. It
looks beautiful, except for some reason the
| | 04:38 | Invert check-box state off. Turn it
back on if you want to, or don't, let's
| | 04:42 | leave it off, actually, so we are
selecting the wrong thing, right? So if I
| | 04:45 | click OK, then I masked away the dinosaur.
| | 04:48 | So notice I've got this black on white
layer mask right here. We are working
| | 04:53 | with the layer mask, black is the hole
and white is the opaque pixels. So black
| | 04:58 | becomes transparency, white is opaque,
and as a result, the dinosaur is turned
| | 05:03 | into a hole. Well, all we need to do is
invert the layer mask. You can do that
| | 05:07 | just by pressing this Invert button
here inside the Mask palette, and then that
| | 05:10 | gets you the result you would expect.
| | 05:12 | Now we didn't do any of that Quick
Mask stuff; that remains undone, because
| | 05:17 | that was a separate operation as you
may recall. So we need to go ahead and
| | 05:21 | modify this mask right here in the
Layers palette. To perform those sorts of
| | 05:26 | Quick Mask modifications, what you
need to do is you need to Alt-click or
| | 05:30 | Option-click on the Layer Mask
thumbnail here inside the Layers palette in
| | 05:34 | order to view the mask
independently of the image.
| | 05:38 | I did make it slightly different mask
this time around as you can see. Notice
| | 05:42 | that I have a lot of these gray areas
here, and that's because I didn't do that
| | 05:46 | last Alt-click or Option-click remember
few exercises ago we did that. You know
| | 05:50 | what I'm going to do? I'm just going
to clear out this mask here by pressing
| | 05:54 | Ctrl+Backspace or Command+Delete on
the Mac, and because the background color
| | 05:58 | is white at this point, that just went
ahead and made the entire mask white.
| | 06:02 | Let's go ahead and Alt-click or Option-
click again on this mask thumbnail, so
| | 06:06 | that we are seeing the entire
composition. And let's redo the Color Range right
| | 06:09 | there by clicking on Color Range once
again, loading the settings go ahead and
| | 06:13 | load up Localized duckbill.atx, click
Load and I'm going to go ahead and press
| | 06:19 | the Alt Key or the Option Key on the
Mac, and click inside of the dinosaur to
| | 06:23 | remove some of those areas from the
dinosaur selection. That's Alt-click or
| | 06:27 | Option-click again. Let's see if we
can do an even better job that's amazing.
| | 06:31 | Anyway, Shift-click then I could turn
on the Invert check box right there, and
| | 06:35 | then click OK in order to apply my modification.
| | 06:39 | Now then, I have once again recreated
that layer mask, the next thing that I'm
| | 06:43 | going to do is I'm going to go up to
the Image menu, I'm going to choose
| | 06:46 | Adjustments and I'm going to choose
Levels in order to increase the contrast of
| | 06:51 | this mask and I'm going to enter the
exact same values I have before. 60 for
| | 06:55 | the black point value Tab, Tab, 195
for the white point value, click OK, and
| | 07:00 | you can see that cleans up the mask
quite a bit. It's pretty subtle but watch
| | 07:03 | down in this region here, this is
before we've got some additional garbage
| | 07:07 | going down here, this is after, it's
just cleaned up. I tell you what, let's
| | 07:11 | Alt-click or Option-click in the mask,
if you would by itself, this is before
| | 07:16 | and now you can see what I was talking
about. See all those dark gray stuff,
| | 07:19 | albeit dark but it's still
a mess, and this is after.
| | 07:22 | So that goes and makes that area
totally transparent instead of semi murky
| | 07:27 | translucent. Then we need to go ahead
and paint inside of this mask in order to
| | 07:32 | refine the selection, and because
we get new and better feedback out of
| | 07:37 | painting inside of layer mask than we
do when painting inside the Quick Mask
| | 07:40 | Mode, I'm going to save that
technique for the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing a layer mask| 00:01 | In this exercise, I'm going to show you
how to clean up some of this layer mask
| | 00:04 | in much the same way as we cleaned up
the mask inside of the Quick Mask mode a
| | 00:08 | few exercises back, but we are going to
get better feedback, and we have a lot
| | 00:12 | more flexibility as well. We can paint
away details, we can paint in details,
| | 00:16 | and so on without any penalty whatsoever.
| | 00:19 | So I've gone ahead and save my progress
so far as an image called Bad duckbill
| | 00:23 | bad, so-called, because he has a bad
duckbill, he isn't masked very well that's
| | 00:29 | just not acceptable. So we need to fix the mask.
| | 00:32 | So I'm working on this duckbill layer
right there, as you can see that has an
| | 00:36 | image and a layer mask, and we are
going to be modified the layer mask. So make
| | 00:39 | sure the mask is selected, make sure
to click on that thumbnail, because
| | 00:43 | otherwise, if the image itself is
selected and you go and get your Brush tool,
| | 00:47 | and you press the D key to make sure
your foreground and background colors are
| | 00:50 | black and white respectively, and
you start painting, well then you are
| | 00:53 | actually going to paint black
into your image. You don't want that.
| | 00:56 | Press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on a Mac,
instead you want to be working on a layer
| | 00:59 | mask, then if you paint black for
example, you'll paint holes into the image,
| | 01:03 | Ctrl+Z or Command+Z to undo that. Press
the X key to make the foreground color
| | 01:07 | white and if you paint with white, you
are adding the background back to the
| | 01:11 | image. So you are painting the
image back in to the composition.
| | 01:14 | All right, I don't want either of
those modifications. So Ctrl+Z, Command+Z
| | 01:18 | once again. And I should say you can
switch back and forth between these guys
| | 01:22 | from the keyboard. It's pretty crazy
but it's Ctrl+2 or Command+2 on the Mac in
| | 01:27 | order to make the image itself
active, and then it's Ctrl+Backslash or
| | 01:33 | Command+Backslash on the Mac
to make the layer mask active.
| | 01:36 | Let's go ahead and hide the Color
palette for a moment here, collapse it so we
| | 01:39 | have a little more room. If you go
over to the Channels palette, you'll see
| | 01:43 | that you have this temporary mask
right here, or at least it's a mask that
| | 01:47 | Photoshop has gone ahead and
created for you. That is an alpha channel.
| | 01:50 | Go over to the Channels palette and
you'll see this italicize mask name
| | 01:54 | duckbill mask, and that shows you that
Photoshop has created this alpha channel
| | 01:58 | on the fly for you, and then you can
see the keyboard shortcuts as well. So
| | 02:01 | there is Ctrl+2 or Command+2 for
RGB, there is Ctrl+Backslash or
| | 02:05 | Command+Backslash on the Mac for the
alpha channel, and so you can see them
| | 02:09 | switch on the fly in real time as I
press those keyboard shortcuts. Go back to
| | 02:14 | Layers palette. It's up to you if you
want to memorize it. You also have the
| | 02:17 | option of viewing the image
and the mask at the same time.
| | 02:22 | So currently we're adjusting the image,
we are not seeing the mask at all. And
| | 02:25 | again, if I go to the Channels palette
you can see that's because the RGB image
| | 02:28 | has an eyeball in front of it, and the
mask doesn't have an eyeball in front of
| | 02:32 | it. You could turn on that eyeball if
you want to, or turn back off so you get
| | 02:36 | that nice quick mask version of the mask.
That's pretty great, or backslash by
| | 02:42 | itself makes the mask visible in the
sort of Quick Mask view. Backslash again
| | 02:48 | to make it go away, or when you are
viewing the mask, as so, so I'd press
| | 02:52 | backslash again, you can press the
Tilde key in order to turn off the RGB image
| | 02:57 | and then Tilde to bring it back. And
that's kind of weird, because backslash is
| | 03:02 | always all about that layer mask
whereas it's Ctrl+2 or Tilde for the RGB
| | 03:07 | image, and that's because Ctrl+2 or
Command+2 on the Mac is the new fangled
| | 03:11 | Photoshop CS4 keyboard shortcut, and
Tilde was the old fangled Photoshop CS3,
| | 03:16 | an earlier keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:18 | What do you we want to do here? Well,
we want to go ahead and paint away this
| | 03:22 | line. I'm going to make sure my
foreground black, so I'll press the X key to
| | 03:26 | make it black like so. Got my Brush
tool selected, wunderbar, Hard Brush
| | 03:30 | 25 pixels fine. Click right about
there and Shift-click right about here in
| | 03:37 | order to make that line go away, and
then I might tidy up a little bit over on
| | 03:41 | that side. And let's click here and
then Shift-click here in order to make that
| | 03:46 | go away, and then sure enough, if I
were to view the RGB image, again along
| | 03:51 | with the mask, then you can see
that we have indeed painted that line
| | 03:55 | completely away, and you might say,
"We got that rubylith overlay, you were
| | 03:58 | telling us that's so bad
because it's warm on warm, why don't you
| | 04:02 | care of that problem, how
in the world do you do it?"
| | 04:04 | Well, you don't go over here and start
double-clicking on Quick Mask, because
| | 04:07 | then you'd enter the Quick Mask mode
here inside the layer mask which is
| | 04:09 | something you can do. If you want to,
you can mask inside a mask, inside a
| | 04:12 | mask, but if you want to just change
the color associated with this layer mask
| | 04:16 | right there, double-click on it, and
you can either double-click on it here
| | 04:19 | inside of the Channels palette or I'll
cancel, go over to Layers double-click
| | 04:24 | on it there, either way works. Click on
the Color Swatch, change the Hue value
| | 04:28 | to 180, click OK, click OK, and there
it is. You see the mask overlay represent
| | 04:33 | it as a different color.
| | 04:34 | All right so we can continue painting
-- by the way my friends if you want to
| | 04:39 | bearing in mind, of course that if you
paint with white you are going to add
| | 04:43 | dinosaur, and if you paint with black
you are going to subtract dinosaur, but
| | 04:47 | of course what you are doing is you
temporarily erasing. I mean you are
| | 04:50 | painting with white you are instating
the image, so it's all happening on the
| | 04:53 | fly, very flexible. No permanent harm
to the image whatsoever, when you are
| | 04:58 | working with layer mask. The only
thing you can permanently harm of course is
| | 05:02 | the mask itself since these are pixel
level modifications, but you can always
| | 05:06 | come back and change your
mind later on if you want to.
| | 05:10 | Now you may find it more helpful at
this point. Let's see if we have any other
| | 05:14 | obvious gaps going on to modify the
mask while viewing the image, we are not
| | 05:20 | seeing the mask at all. So I'll go
ahead and press the Backslash key in order
| | 05:24 | to hide the mask, so that we are just
seeing the image, and as long as the mask
| | 05:28 | is active then we can still modify
the mask like so, and that's not the
| | 05:32 | modification I wanted to make. I just
painted a hole interestingly, because
| | 05:36 | Photoshop went and switched my foreground and
background colors on me without my knowledge.
| | 05:40 | Press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac,
press the X Key to make the foreground
| | 05:43 | color white, and then paint those
details back into the place, pretty handy way
| | 05:47 | to work. But what about this? I mean
if I were making a decision about what I
| | 05:52 | wanted to paint away, I'd be working
on these details over here. Yes, you are
| | 05:55 | absolutely right, those are the real
problem areas, but I'm going to tell you
| | 05:59 | something about those areas.
| | 06:00 | So it's a better way to fix them,
better than meticulously painting inside the
| | 06:03 | image, which is an ultimately a waste
of time after a certain point, we've got
| | 06:07 | some automation that way we can bring
to bare here. I'm going to show you how
| | 06:11 | that automation works. So I'm going to
show you how to choke the edges in the
| | 06:15 | very next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choking a mask with Gaussian Blur and Levels| 00:00 | Now you'll see that we still have
these icky edges that are surrounding the
| | 00:04 | hadrosaur which is why I've gone
ahead and saved my progress so far as icky
| | 00:07 | edges.psd. What we need to do is go
ahead and choke our mask inward, so that
| | 00:12 | we're getting rid of these bad edge artifacts.
| | 00:16 | Now there is a couple of different
ways to choke edges in a layer mask inside
| | 00:19 | of Photoshop. I want to show you both
of the ways. So there is an old-school
| | 00:22 | method that we'll see in this exercise
and there is a new-school method that
| | 00:25 | we'll see in the next exercise. For our
purposes the new-school method is going
| | 00:29 | to work out better. That's not always
the case. Sometimes old school is going
| | 00:32 | to work better. So it's good to have
both of these techniques in your arsenal.
| | 00:37 | So let's start by making sure that the
layer mask thumbnail is active here in
| | 00:40 | the Duckbill layer and it is. Go ahead
and click on it to make it active. Then
| | 00:45 | what you want to do is you want to
give yourself a little bit of blur to work
| | 00:49 | with around the edges and the idea
there is we are softening up the edges to
| | 00:53 | turn the edges gray, so that we can
then turn around and scoot the edges inward
| | 00:57 | by making them darker or scoot the
edges outward by making them lighter.
| | 01:02 | So I'm going to go up here to the
Filter menu and I'm going to choose Blur and
| | 01:06 | I'm going to choose Gaussian Blur. Then
inside the Gaussian Blur dialog box I'm
| | 01:09 | going to enter a radius value of 2
pixels. That's just going to give me a
| | 01:13 | little bit of wiggle room right there.
| | 01:14 | Notice that it creates a heck of an
edge artifact but it also gets rid of those
| | 01:19 | clunky jagged edges that we had before.
So we get a halo instead. That's fine.
| | 01:24 | The reason we're going get halo is
because we're not only blurring inward but
| | 01:28 | we're also blurring outward. So by
virtue of the fact that we're blurring the
| | 01:32 | white edges of this mask outward,
we're incorporating more of the edge pixels
| | 01:36 | and thereby producing a
glow. That is to be expected.
| | 01:40 | Now if you want fewer edge pixels to
work with then you want a lower radius
| | 01:43 | values, something like 1 pixels might
work out well, but notice that if I work
| | 01:47 | with a radius of 1, I still has some
pretty jagged edges. I'll go ahead and
| | 01:52 | scroll over here so that we can see
what I'm talking about. You can see that we
| | 01:54 | have some chunky edges going on and I
can get rid of those by raising that
| | 01:59 | radius value to 2. When you start
raising the radius value, you do get smoother
| | 02:03 | edges as you are about to see but you
also end up rounding off corners. So
| | 02:07 | that's something to bear in mind as well.
| | 02:09 | All right click OK. Now then what we
have, I'll go ahead and Alt-click or
| | 02:13 | Option-click on this mask thumbnail,
so we can see the mask by itself. This
| | 02:17 | before, nice and sharp, a little bit
jagged though. And this is after, nice and
| | 02:22 | smooth but awfully blurry. Well we can
use the Levels command in order to make
| | 02:28 | the dark luminance levels right here
darker and the light one lighter, thereby
| | 02:34 | increasing the contrast of those edges.
By emphasizing white, we can move the
| | 02:38 | edges outward; by emphasizing black,
we can move the edges inward. You'll see
| | 02:41 | what I'm talking about in just a moment.
| | 02:43 | Alt-click or Option-click again on this
mask thumbnail so that we see the image
| | 02:46 | and not the mask. The mask though is
still active. Press Ctrl+L or Command+L on
| | 02:50 | the Mac to bring up the Static Levels
command. Notice if I decrease the white
| | 02:54 | point value, I'm moving the edges
outward because I'm emphasizing the white
| | 02:59 | details, which are the dinosaur
of course inside of this mask.
| | 03:03 | That's not what I want to do. That
would be by the way what's known as a
| | 03:06 | spread. If you want to spread the
selection, you decrease the white point
| | 03:09 | value. So let's go ahead and take
that value back up. What I want to do is
| | 03:12 | choke it so I'm going to increase the
black point value. I'm going to take it
| | 03:17 | up pretty significantly up to 170.
I'm saying anything with the brightness
| | 03:20 | value of 170 or darker becomes black.
| | 03:23 | Then I'm going to turn around in order
to increase the contrast of the edges a
| | 03:27 | little to smooth things out. I'm
going to turn around and reduce the white
| | 03:30 | point value to 195. Now we have some
nice, sharp edges, which is a good thing.
| | 03:35 | Then I'll click OK in order to accept
that modification. That allowed us to
| | 03:39 | scoot those edges around. It's a
combination once again of Gaussian Blur
| | 03:43 | followed by the Levels command.
| | 03:45 | Now it's not necessarily working out
perfectly, at this point actually some of
| | 03:49 | the details are fantastic. Look at the
smoothness of that nasal cavity. Let's
| | 03:53 | go ahead and zoom in on that so you can
see what I'm talking about. Let's bring
| | 03:56 | up the History palette right there. I
if went ahead and switch back a couple of
| | 03:59 | states here. This is how the nasal
cavity used to look. We had a halo going on,
| | 04:04 | we have this color fringing, as well
as some jagged transitions, and this is
| | 04:08 | what the transitions look like now. So
much better. As a result of these two
| | 04:12 | very simple commands working with each other.
| | 04:14 | But we do have a little bit of an
issue over here. This pesky area right here
| | 04:18 | is still pesky. So here's what I do. I
just want to scoot the edges over to the
| | 04:23 | left, like 1 pixel is going to do me.
But if I scoot this over then I'm going
| | 04:27 | to scoot everybody over like the whole
thing is going to move, and I don't want
| | 04:31 | to see that happen. So instead what
you do is you just grab the area that you
| | 04:35 | want to scoot and you do it
using the Rectangular Marquee tool.
| | 04:37 | I'll go ahead and select that tool.
Then make sure that you select and area
| | 04:41 | like this that has a nice horizontal
edge associated with it because we're
| | 04:46 | going to be moving the pixels over to
the left. I don't want to create a new
| | 04:49 | weird transition at this end point
here, at the division between the move
| | 04:53 | pixels and the stationery pixels, so I'm
choosing an area that's horizontally flat.
| | 04:57 | Then I'll go ahead and Shift+Drag
around here like so, Shift+Drag here a little
| | 05:01 | bit and all the way down to about here
is what we want. Again I'm going to pick
| | 05:06 | an area that's nice and flat, nice
horizontal transition. But you know what,
| | 05:11 | the fact that I'm keeping this area
selected can prove to be a problem. So I'll
| | 05:14 | go ahead and Alt+Drag or Option+Drag
around this area to deselect it. That
| | 05:18 | should give me better results.
| | 05:19 | We still have a little bit of an
issue here. Let's go ahead and leave this
| | 05:22 | selected as it is. So there is my
selection outline. Press Ctrl+Alt+Left-arrow
| | 05:27 | or Command+Option+Left-arrow in the
Mac in order to duplicate and move these
| | 05:32 | pixels one, pixel over. Notice that's
what you get. So this before and this is
| | 05:37 | after. We have nice transitions up here,
because we were very deliberate about
| | 05:42 | the area that we selected.
| | 05:43 | Now the only area where we got a
problem and this is pretty subtle but it's
| | 05:47 | still obvious when you zoom in. I went
ahead and moved this mask over on the
| | 05:53 | left-hand side of this left edge. We
just wanted to move it left where the
| | 05:57 | right edge was concerned, not left
where the left edge is concerned.
| | 06:00 | So let's undo that modification by
pressing Ctrl+Z Command+Z on a Mac and I'm
| | 06:03 | going to Alt+Drag or Option+Drag on a
Mac to deselect this region like so. Just
| | 06:07 | have a little bit of a hole there
and then press Ctrl+Alt+Left-arrow or
| | 06:12 | Command+Option+Left-arrow on the Mac.
Isn't that awesome? Works out beautifully.
| | 06:16 | And that is the highly desirable
masked version of the dinosaur. But I was
| | 06:21 | telling you that's the old school
way to approach it. We can do a lightly
| | 06:25 | better job that involves better
feedback for one thing. A single command
| | 06:30 | instead of both Gaussian Blur and
Levels and doesn't require us to get in there
| | 06:34 | with Marquee tool. Using this button
right here, Mask Edge, inside of the New
| | 06:39 | Mask palette inside Photoshop CS4, and
I'm going to show you how that works in
| | 06:42 | the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choking a mask with Mask Edge| 00:01 | In this exercise I'm going to show
you the new and improved way to choke or
| | 00:04 | spread a layer mask inside of
Photoshop CS4. When I say new and improved, I
| | 00:09 | mean really neither actually. It's not
new because you used to be able to do
| | 00:15 | this inside of Photoshop CS3. It's
just that nobody knew you could do it
| | 00:18 | because of the strange way that
Photoshop presented this function. It's much
| | 00:23 | more obvious here inside Photoshop CS4.
And it is improved to the extent that
| | 00:28 | we get better feedback but sometimes
you get better results out of Gaussian
| | 00:32 | Blur and Levels. So you never know.
It's worth knowing about all of these
| | 00:35 | techniques as I was saying before.
| | 00:37 | All right so we want basically
reinstate the bad edges associated with our
| | 00:42 | hadrosaur here and you can either do
that by going up to the History palette
| | 00:46 | and backing up a few steps to the
step right before Gaussian Blur. So just
| | 00:51 | click on that state there here
inside the History palette and you will
| | 00:55 | reestablish the bad edges, or you
could go up to the File menu and choose the
| | 00:59 | Revert command. That will work for you as well.
| | 01:01 | All right anyway, we got the bad edges.
Let's go ahead and zoom in on them so
| | 01:05 | that we can keep track of just how bad
they are. Now what I want you to do is
| | 01:09 | make sure the layer mask is active.
It's not for me so I need to click on it
| | 01:13 | before I go messing up my image and
the Mask palette will tell you, actually
| | 01:17 | who's selected and who's not selected,
because if you click on the image to
| | 01:21 | make it active, then the Mask palette
goes, hey no mask selected buddy. Then at
| | 01:26 | that point you can either come down
here and click on it in order to select it
| | 01:29 | or you can click on this little icon and
that'll switch you over to the layer mask as well.
| | 01:34 | All right so we have this Mask Edge
function. Now what's amazing about this, by
| | 01:38 | the way, if you click on it, it brings
up this command called Refine Mask right
| | 01:42 | there. We'll cancel out. This function
used to be available to us. We would go
| | 01:45 | actually up to the Select menu and
choose the Refine Edge command and that
| | 01:49 | would allow you to modify the contents
of layer mask. It's just because it was
| | 01:55 | here under the Select menu and it was
called Refine Edge, we all naturally
| | 01:58 | thought it only affected selection
outlines but we now learned it affected
| | 02:02 | layer mask as well. So either way it's fine.
| | 02:05 | You can choose this command and
press this keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+R,
| | 02:08 | Command+Option+R on a Mac or you can
just click on the Mask Edge button. These
| | 02:13 | are the default settings right here,
which are no good for our purposes. The
| | 02:16 | first thing that's bad for our purposes
is we're seeing the dinosaur against a
| | 02:20 | white background. That's not helpful
at all. Now we could see the dinosaur
| | 02:23 | against a black background. Great!
Now we see that the edges are a mess.
| | 02:27 | However, wouldn't that be nice just
to see the dinosaur against its new
| | 02:31 | background instead of all this other
stuff? We care about how the dinosaur
| | 02:34 | looks against the otherworldly earth
against earth background. So I want you to
| | 02:39 | click on this first icon right there,
this first mobius tube, and that will
| | 02:44 | show you dinosaur against strange
background but it also show you the Marquee.
| | 02:51 | So then press Ctrl+H or Command+H on
the Mac and we're going to hide the ends
| | 02:55 | and you will see exactly what you want to see.
| | 02:58 | Now we've discussed these options in
the past. We've got Radius, which allows
| | 03:02 | you to blur into luminance levels
inside of the image. We've got Feather, which
| | 03:06 | is just a straight edge blur. We've got
Smooth which is going to smooth out the
| | 03:10 | jagged transitions. We've got Contrast,
which is going to increase the contrast
| | 03:15 | of the edges so that they're sharper.
And then we have Contract/Expand, which
| | 03:19 | allow us to either choke, in the case of
contract, or spread, in the case of expand, our edges.
| | 03:25 | So what do we want? In the case of
this dinosaur, let's crank down smooth. We
| | 03:28 | don't need more smoothing because
we're already getting some degree of
| | 03:31 | smoothing out of the Radius and Feather
functions. Then I'm going to change the
| | 03:35 | Contract/Expand value all the way down
to -100 so that we can see those edges
| | 03:39 | contract all the way in. Beautiful thing.
Looks totally awesome. We're getting
| | 03:43 | rid of those edges. We are creating
holes inside of the dinosaur in a few
| | 03:47 | places but we'll address those in
just a moment. But this is great.
| | 03:50 | We're going to leave Radius set to 1,
but now we can play with the Feather
| | 03:53 | value in order to determine how much
we really need to move the edges inward.
| | 03:58 | So I'm going to reduce this Feather
value by pressing the down arrow key so I'm
| | 04:02 | reducing it in 0.1 pixel increments.
I'm going to take it down until I start to
| | 04:08 | see edges pop up around the right side
of the dinosaur because this is where
| | 04:13 | the worst of the edge is or the worst
of the color fringing. Even instead of
| | 04:18 | 0.1, we don't have bad edges but we do
have some edge details popping up. So
| | 04:22 | I'll just go ahead and increase that
value to let's say 0.4 pixels and we get
| | 04:26 | this result here. Go ahead and click
OK in order to apply that modification.
| | 04:31 | This is before my friends. Ah! How
awful is that? Let's go ahead and zoom in.
| | 04:36 | This is before, Ctrl+Z or Command+Z for
after. Looks so much better, but we do
| | 04:41 | have some holes popping up. So
what I recommend to do is Alt-click or
| | 04:44 | Option-click on the layer mask
thumbnail so that we can see the layer mask by
| | 04:48 | itself and let's go ahead and get rid
of those bad things right there just
| | 04:53 | using the Rectangular Marquee tool.
| | 04:54 | I'm going to select this region and
then Shift+Drag around here and Shift+Drag
| | 04:58 | around here as well, and then press Alt+
Backspace or Option+Delete to fill that
| | 05:03 | area with white because white is the
foreground color. Nice! And you could
| | 05:07 | paint around some of these other areas.
So press Ctrl+D, Command+D on a Mac,
| | 05:11 | get your Brush tool for what you paint
here, make your brush much smaller if
| | 05:15 | you're going to paint around these edges.
| | 05:16 | But I'm not sure that these are
showing up that well. We can see them here,
| | 05:19 | when we're seeing the mask by itself.
But I think -- Oops! I definitely don't
| | 05:23 | want to paint in there like that. I
need to be careful if I'm going to do it.
| | 05:26 | But I don't really think that these
are showing up quite that much inside of
| | 05:31 | the actual masked layer.
| | 05:33 | Then what I recommend you do -- let's
just make sure we get rid of the most
| | 05:36 | obvious holes. That's the stuff I'm
most worried about, like this right there
| | 05:40 | and paint over these regions right here,
these weird little holes is what I'm
| | 05:45 | worried about, because these are single pixel
problems that grew up and turned into blobs.
| | 05:50 | Alt-click or Option-click on the mask
thumbnail in order to view the image
| | 05:54 | again. Let's see what happens if we
paint in there. Nope. That was a good edge.
| | 05:57 | It was fine the way it was. Look at
that. There is something going on right
| | 06:00 | there. Press the X key to make black
the foreground color and then paint, and
| | 06:03 | oh hey that's not something that's
binded by the dinosaur. That's a star.
| | 06:07 | That's actually in the
background. So that's okay.
| | 06:08 | Where else do we have problems? Let's
go ahead and zoom out here a little bit
| | 06:11 | and see, Ooh! There is one. There's a
good needy problem. Notice that
| | 06:14 | highlight has disappeared on that bone
right there on that vertebrae. So I'll
| | 06:19 | press the X key in order to make the
foreground color white and then I'll go
| | 06:23 | ahead and paint that spine back into
place and I've got another one right there
| | 06:27 | that I'll paint in. So that's nice. You
can see it happened right there on the
| | 06:30 | fly. This is no mystery. It's the way
there is with the Quick Mask mode. You
| | 06:34 | can actually see how the foreground
image and the background relate to each
| | 06:38 | other, right there on the fly when
you're working in the layer mask.
| | 06:42 | Anyway keep painting until you feel
like you've done what you need to do. Now
| | 06:45 | let's go ahead and zoom out. So I'm
going to go ahead and grab my Rectangular
| | 06:48 | Marquee tool. I'm going to drag
around this garbage like so. Let's scoot it
| | 06:52 | away from the beak of the mighty
duckbill by Spacebar dragging a little bit.
| | 06:56 | Let's go ahead and Shift+Drag around
this area just to make sure that we don't
| | 06:59 | have any problems there. We do have
some problems along the bottom here, so
| | 07:02 | Shift+Drag there. Go ahead and zoom
out and then we need to fill that with
| | 07:06 | black. Black is our foreground color.
So all I have to do now is just press the
| | 07:10 | Backspace key or the Delete key
on the Mac. And the deed is done.
| | 07:14 | We now have an expertly masked
hadrosaur against this wild other worldly
| | 07:19 | background but here's the deal folks.
Even when you've done a splendid job of
| | 07:24 | masking, you don't necessarily get
credible results. For example, even though
| | 07:28 | it's sort of a comic composition, we
need it to be credible. So you sometimes
| | 07:33 | have to apply a few compositional
tricks in order to make the foreground and
| | 07:37 | background match each other. The
compositional tricks are coming in the very next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a Gradient Overlay shadow| 00:00 | Now something you'll notice more and
more as you're compositing foreground
| | 00:04 | images against different backgrounds
inside of Photoshop. You'll come to
| | 00:08 | recognize that a good mask is not
enough. This is a perfect example. I mean
| | 00:13 | this could not be a better mask.
Check out the level of detail we have.
| | 00:17 | We've got these holes inside the
skeletal frame there and every single bone is
| | 00:21 | selected with impeccable care, even
this little weird tooth that's hanging down
| | 00:26 | there. This is a kind of selection we
would have never been able to craft using
| | 00:30 | the Lasso tool or the Magic Wand tool
or the Quick Selection tool and yet it
| | 00:35 | was pretty easy work using the Color
Range command and the Mask Edge function
| | 00:39 | here from the Masks palette.
| | 00:41 | But that's not good enough. Just
because these edges are absolutely impeccable
| | 00:46 | does not mean that I believe in this
composition. If you're with me for the
| | 00:51 | Advanced portion of this series, then
you know that this is Emperor Scratch.
| | 00:55 | I've gone ahead and saved my changes
thus far as a composition called Splendid
| | 00:59 | edges.psd and this composition is
going to serve as our prequel. Emperor of
| | 01:04 | Scratch here has happened
upon earth and he envies it.
| | 01:07 | We need to establish a frame in this
particular storyline, let's say. So here
| | 01:12 | in the Layers palette I want you to
turn on a couple of groups. First, we have
| | 01:15 | the caption group that tells you how he
envies it and how he is going to attack
| | 01:19 | earth at dawn. Then we've got this
features group. I'll go ahead and turn it
| | 01:23 | on. It's these hyper-realistic hands
down here at the bottom of the composition
| | 01:27 | along with his eye. All right, he's
missing his teeth. I didn't bother; he
| | 01:31 | doesn't have those inside of this composition.
That's okay; he's still going to be very menacing.
| | 01:35 | Now the problem is even after all these
tweaks, the lighting is all wrong. It's
| | 01:40 | just so brightly lit. It's like where
is this light coming from and what I want
| | 01:44 | to do is create a sinister cast
shadow on Emperor Scratch. Now we're not
| | 01:49 | going to do with the Drop Shadow.
That makes the Emperor look like he is in
| | 01:52 | front of a poster. That would
totally ruin the affect. Instead, and I've
| | 01:56 | mentioned this before, when you want
to cast shadow, a real quick and dirty
| | 01:59 | cast shadow, you want the
Gradient Overlay effect.
| | 02:03 | So here's what we're going to do. Make
sure the duckbill layer is active. It
| | 02:05 | doesn't matter if the layer mask or the
image itself is active. Go down to the
| | 02:09 | fx icon, click on it and choose
Gradient Overlay and that will bring up the
| | 02:14 | Gradient Overlay dialog box right here.
Now you should see a black to white
| | 02:18 | shadow like this. Looks totally wrong
at this point. That's okay. If you don't
| | 02:22 | though, you need to switch your
gradient by clicking this down pointing
| | 02:25 | arrowhead. Either switch it to this
foreground to background gradient or if you
| | 02:31 | have something other than black and
white setup as your foreground and
| | 02:33 | background colors, then switch to this
guy, Black to White. That's fine to you.
| | 02:37 | I'll just go ahead and
switch to Black, White. Why not?
| | 02:40 | Then we want to change the angle of
the gradient but first of all, I want to
| | 02:44 | change the blend mode. We want the
shadows to show up very nicely here but we
| | 02:49 | want the highlights to drop out. We
want the whites to go away. So I'm going to
| | 02:52 | change the blend mode from Normal to
this guy right here, Multiply, and we get
| | 02:56 | this stunning effect right there. But
the shadow is now being cast upon his
| | 03:00 | neck and jaw and his head is in light.
I want the opposite effect. I want the
| | 03:03 | shadow becoming down from the top of
his head and declining in this direction.
| | 03:08 | So I'm going to change the Angle value
to something like let's say -146 looks
| | 03:14 | pretty good to me and that is sinister
indeed. As you can see it's too dark,
| | 03:18 | let's reduce the Opacity value to 70%
and then I'm going to drag the shadow
| | 03:23 | back and forth. Notice you can drag
the shadow around. I'm going to drag it
| | 03:26 | just a little bit to the right,
like so. Then I'm going to click OK.
| | 03:31 | Just to give you a sense of what a
difference that very simple layer effect
| | 03:35 | makes. This is before. No, don't buy it;
it's not happening. This is after. Oh!
| | 03:40 | It works beautifully; it's looking
really sharp against this new background. So
| | 03:44 | bear in mind though that you can't
rely on the mask by itself in order to
| | 03:48 | provide you with a credible
composition. Sometimes you need to come in with
| | 03:52 | some compositional effects; some blend
modes, some layer effects and that kind
| | 03:56 | of thing. I go into elaborate detail,
in case you're curious, in my Photoshop
| | 04:00 | CS3 Channels and Masks series which
tells you everything you ever wanted to
| | 04:04 | know about masking inside of Photoshop.
| | 04:06 | In the exercise, I'm going to tell
you just a little bit more about what's
| | 04:11 | going on. I'll go ahead and click on
this layer mask icon right here. We
| | 04:14 | haven't seen two additional slider bars
here inside the Mask palette and I want
| | 04:18 | to show you how they work.
Density and Feather coming right up.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using live Density and Feather| 00:00 | All right, I want to show you a couple
more functions that are available to you
| | 00:04 | in the Masks palette that have no
corollaries in previous versions of
| | 00:09 | Photoshop. They're absolutely brand new
as you're about to see now. They're not
| | 00:14 | necessarily the most essential
functions in a program but I find them to be
| | 00:18 | highly interesting and possible
harbingers of wonderful things to come.
| | 00:23 | So I've gone ahead and saved out my
progress so far as this document called
| | 00:26 | Maniacal despot.psd because he is
indeed a maniacal despot with his sight set
| | 00:32 | on our beloved earth right there.
Just because I felt like he wasn't scary
| | 00:37 | enough, I went ahead and gave him the
teeth. Now he is just frightening I believe.
| | 00:42 | In the Layers palette, not only do I
have the duckbill layer selected, but I
| | 00:45 | also have its layer mask active. That's
very important so that you have access
| | 00:50 | to the functions that you need to have
access to, here inside the Mask palette.
| | 00:53 | But you may recall if the image itself
is active, all you have to do is then
| | 00:57 | click on this little icon right there in the
Mask palette to switch over to the pixel-based mask.
| | 01:02 | We've got these two sliders, Density
and Feather, and they are altogether
| | 01:07 | parametric. So these other guys make
permanent modifications. They actually
| | 01:10 | change the pixels inside the mask.
But these guys here make no permanent
| | 01:15 | modifications whatsoever.
| | 01:16 | So we have Density and what Density
does is it reduces the opacity of the mask
| | 01:23 | thereby increasing the opacity of the
layer. Let me show you what I mean. So if
| | 01:28 | I reduce the Density value to 50%,
for example, I'm graying out the mask so
| | 01:34 | that the black becomes gray, the
white remains white and as a result, we're
| | 01:38 | making the layer itself more opaque so
that we can see through less of it. This
| | 01:43 | is basically the antithesis
of the standard opacity value.
| | 01:48 | So instead of making the layer more
translucent, we're making the layer more
| | 01:52 | opaque by making the mask itself more
translucent because we have an inverse
| | 01:57 | relationship between the image and its
mask. This can be useful for previewing;
| | 02:03 | sometimes I'll use it to get a sense
of what my original edges look like, in
| | 02:07 | case I'm trying to paint around the
edges. For example, if I zoom in here, I'm
| | 02:11 | able to see that I have some edges
that go beyond the edge of my mask.
| | 02:16 | So let's see if I take the Density
value up a little bit, let's say to 70% and
| | 02:21 | I can see that I have a little wiggle
room left right there, then with the mask
| | 02:25 | active, as it is of course, I press the
B key in order to get my brush, reduce
| | 02:29 | the size of my brush a little bit, make
sure that's set to white, which it is,
| | 02:32 | foreground color that is to say. Then I can
paint some of these edges back into place.
| | 02:37 | So that's one use for that Density
option here, as you can see where the real
| | 02:41 | edges are. Now I've gone ahead and
paint it too far as you can see in both
| | 02:45 | cases, here and here. So I'll press the
X key in order to switch the foreground
| | 02:49 | color to black and then I would paint
this away, paint this here away, and
| | 02:54 | paint this region right there. I've
gone too far. Once again, this is not
| | 02:59 | uncommon they have to go back and
forth and so I'll just go ahead and paint
| | 03:02 | that back after pressing the X key, of course,
to reinstate a foreground color of white.
| | 03:06 | Anyway, so that's one way to work.
Other things that you can do with Density if
| | 03:11 | you want to be able to see through a
mask and reinstate some of the original
| | 03:15 | background, you can do it that way as
well. All right, so I'm going to now
| | 03:19 | reinstate the density back to 100%
and the beauty, of course, is that was a
| | 03:22 | non-destructive modification, totally
parametric and I can change my mind any time I want.
| | 03:27 | This one's even more remarkable and
it's very easy to get a sense of how you
| | 03:32 | might use it. If you want to feather
the edges of your mask, whether to create
| | 03:36 | halos or to fudge a few
transitions or to match the soft focus of the
| | 03:40 | foreground image, then you
can increase the feather value.
| | 03:44 | Notice as I increase that feather value,
I'm blurring the mask on the fly and
| | 03:49 | so I could increase that value as much
as I want, and of course, at this stage,
| | 03:53 | I'm going to get some very blurry
edges indeed which is great if I want ghost
| | 03:58 | dinosaur, but I don't. But still, it is
an entirely parametric modification and
| | 04:03 | then I can change my mind later and you
can see it reflected. If I Alt-click or
| | 04:07 | Option-click on the layer mask, you
can see that the layer mask is getting
| | 04:10 | blurred on the fly and
then I can un-blur it as well.
| | 04:14 | Now the reason I think this is so
remarkable, in addition to the fact that it's
| | 04:18 | just convenient, in case you want to
apply mask blurs on the fly and by the
| | 04:23 | way, both Density and Feather are
applicable to either pixel-based masks or
| | 04:28 | vector-based masks, meaning path
outlines, which we'll examine in more detail
| | 04:33 | in the later chapter. These three buttons right
here are only applicable to pixel-based masks.
| | 04:39 | Now the reason I think this is such a
remarkable function is because where else
| | 04:44 | can you apply on the fly blurring
inside of Photoshop? With Glows. Without the
| | 04:49 | Glows, Inner Glows, Drop Shadows, that
kind of thing, you can apply blurs on
| | 04:53 | the fly and you can come back and
change your mind where layer effects are
| | 04:56 | concerned. But where blurring imagery
is concerned, you really don't have that
| | 05:00 | option; you have to resort to smart
object and then apply the Gaussian Blur
| | 05:04 | filter and so on. Wouldn't it be great
if we have this sort of Blur function or
| | 05:08 | Sharpen function, a slider right there
on the fly that was available for all of
| | 05:13 | our layers? I think it might happen
because this is here. They did it for
| | 05:18 | masking. If they did it for a
pixel-based mask, they can do it for a
| | 05:20 | pixel-based layer. So I remain ever hopeful
that one day that will be available to us.
| | 05:26 | Let's go ahead and Alt-click or Option-
click to escape the mask and reinstate
| | 05:29 | the Feather value of 0 in order to get
those nice sharp edges right there. You
| | 05:34 | know what I'm going to do? Press the F
key a couple of times in order to hide
| | 05:39 | all that interface fodder also.
We're seeing the image by itself. This is
| | 05:43 | the image as it appeared when we
first got done masking it. Beautiful
| | 05:47 | impeccable mask but a little
light on the credibility, of course.
| | 05:52 | This is the final version of our
composition. Thanks to a couple of extra
| | 05:57 | layers, of course, and that Gradient
Overlay layer effect that really sells
| | 06:02 | that composition, creates that sort of
cast shadow effect. The entire process
| | 06:06 | facilitated by the new Masks
palette inside of Photoshop CS4.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Journeyman masking| 00:00 | All right, we've seen how to select an
articulated object such as a skeleton
| | 00:05 | using the Color Range command that's
one of your tools that's available to you
| | 00:08 | when you're masking images inside of
Photoshop. Before we're done with this
| | 00:12 | chapter, I'm going to show you how to
select hair and how to select glass.
| | 00:17 | We're going to be selecting these
images not using a command but rather by
| | 00:22 | building a mask from scratch. We're
going to building our own alpha channel here.
| | 00:27 | And this is journeyman masking. This
is the kind of stuff that once you start
| | 00:32 | masking in Photoshop, you'll be
doing on a routine basis. Masking is an
| | 00:36 | enormous topic. I've already mentioned
this before, but if you really want to
| | 00:39 | immerse yourself in it and find out
just virtually everything there is to know
| | 00:43 | about masking, then you can check out
Photoshop CS3 Channels and Masks series.
| | 00:47 | There is an Essentials portion of the
series and there is an Advanced portion.
| | 00:51 | So it comes in two parts, 18 chapters.
I dare say that it is the most detailed
| | 00:57 | examination of masking in video form at least.
| | 01:00 | Anyway, we're going to just hit the
Essentials right now. This is Russell
| | 01:04 | Preston Brown.tif and we're going to
select him and isolate him from his
| | 01:08 | background. The reason is, if you know
Russell, he is an industry expert, great
| | 01:13 | guy, and very, very knowledgeable,
always on the cutting edge. We decide to
| | 01:17 | have him on our show. I have this
audio-only podcast that I do with my web
| | 01:22 | editor. It' called Martini Hour and I
had created this logo right here. That's
| | 01:27 | available on a variety of different
colors; here's an emerald version, down
| | 01:30 | here I have this coffee colored version.
So I wanted to embellish the logo with
| | 01:35 | Russell sort of peeking out over the
back of it and covering up the microphone,
| | 01:39 | of course, I didn't want that to show up.
| | 01:42 | So this is what I was going for right
here. With Russell's head poking at the
| | 01:46 | background, his hands sort of grabbing
the logo element and then he's got some
| | 01:51 | words that he's saying. What he was
discussing was lenticular imagery, which is
| | 01:56 | where you create a 3D effect that
doesn't require glasses because the lens is
| | 02:01 | actually built into the image itself.
You've seen lenticular images. You may
| | 02:06 | not have heard of this term before,
but it's sort of children's art. Like the
| | 02:10 | kind of stuff that you get in a box of
cereal where you start to twist it back
| | 02:14 | and forth and you watch the character
on the card, for example, move. The lens
| | 02:20 | is a reticulated layer of translucent plastic.
| | 02:23 | So I wanted this 3D version of logo
and he's wearing 3D glasses, of course,
| | 02:27 | which are completely unnecessary when
creating lenticular imagery. But still,
| | 02:31 | this is the effect I wanted. So that
meant, of course, masking out Russell's
| | 02:35 | head right there and masking some of
the hair along with it. No sense in
| | 02:39 | getting all this hair up here. I decide
not to worry about that but I did want
| | 02:43 | the hair along the sides and I did want
it to look nice and natural and have a
| | 02:47 | little bit of edge. Notice that I went
ahead and left the edge in here because
| | 02:51 | he's showing up against the white background.
| | 02:54 | So how in the world do you achieve such
a thing? Well, that's what I'm going to
| | 02:58 | be showing you here inside Photoshop.
So what I've got open Russell Preston
| | 03:01 | Brown.tif and I've also got this image
called martniHour_GuestSpot.psd, which
| | 03:08 | is the layered version of the image, just so
you can get a sense of how it's put together.
| | 03:13 | Notice that most of my layers are
arranged in groups right here. Why don't we
| | 03:17 | go ahead and zoom in, since this is a
tiny graphic, of course, because it's for
| | 03:20 | the web. And I just created a tiny.
Sometimes I work really large and then
| | 03:24 | reduce the size of my image but I
didn't this time around. Notice the hideous
| | 03:28 | JPEG artifacts around the words, TIME
TO UNWIND, and that's because this had
| | 03:33 | already gone through compression and
now I'm building all these layered to this
| | 03:38 | flat image that I had on me.
| | 03:40 | I'm going to go ahead and turn off
logo elements because I want you to see
| | 03:43 | what's really going on in the
background because it's kind of shocking. We're
| | 03:45 | seeing one hand holding the glasses,
another hand holding the sign, but if I go
| | 03:50 | ahead and turn off logo elements, it's
much less impressive than that and then
| | 03:53 | I just re-purpose this hand. I grab
this hand right there and I rotated it and
| | 03:58 | then built it into this form right
here; made it holding this little bit of
| | 04:02 | sign. You can check out how that's put
together inside of this left fist grip
| | 04:06 | because it is his left fist even
though it is on the right side of the image.
| | 04:10 | There is a few things going on. I had
to take this last knuckle of the pinky
| | 04:15 | and I need it to bend it at a
different angle as you can see, so that was
| | 04:19 | wrapping around and gripping the sign.
It's pretty well done. I dare say. If I
| | 04:24 | turn off some of these layers here,
like this guy right there which is little
| | 04:27 | bit of sign that's covering up the
pinky and I'll also go ahead and turn off
| | 04:33 | this layer mask for a second. By
Shift -clicking on the layer mask, I'll go
| | 04:36 | ahead and make my Layers palette wider
so you can see it's the hand layer. You
| | 04:39 | can see that I did a pretty darn good
job of rebuilding this knuckle right there.
| | 04:44 | But I should tell you, it was a fair
amount of duplication, a fair amount of
| | 04:48 | cloning with the Clone Stamp tool and I
also did some painting. I actually just
| | 04:53 | painted in some details. I even went
in with the Pencil tool and just clicked
| | 04:57 | to create some colors at points. So we
won't be twirling for that's just kind
| | 05:01 | of tedious artist stuff. Let's go ahead
and turn these guys back on so that we
| | 05:06 | have a credible effect to work here.
I'll go ahead and close that guy up.
| | 05:10 | What I'm going to show you is how to
go ahead and mask the larger Russell out
| | 05:16 | of his background and bring it into
this composition. So for now, let's go
| | 05:20 | ahead and return to the Russell Preston
Brown.tif image here and switch over to
| | 05:24 | the Channels palette and notice that I
do in addition to the RGB composite and
| | 05:28 | the individual red, green, and blue
channels here, I have this mask channel
| | 05:33 | that I've created and it is sitting
there right ready to go. That's what we're
| | 05:37 | going to be building and we're going to
begin to build this very mask starting
| | 05:42 | in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating an alpha channel| 00:01 | In this exercise I'm going to show you
how to create an alpha channel that will
| | 00:04 | serve as the basis for a mask here
inside of Photoshop. I'm going to switch
| | 00:09 | over to the Channels palette and I
would like you to do the same. Now this
| | 00:13 | image is utterly wonderful for
masking purposes because it's got some
| | 00:18 | interesting things going on.
| | 00:20 | First of all, it's a low light
snapshot because the camera was set to just
| | 00:24 | auto-functions all around, auto-
metering. We have got a high ISO of 800 which
| | 00:28 | means that we have just ton of noise
going on the background and it's kind of
| | 00:33 | wormy noise because of Camera Raw's
automatic sharpening. So I ran this to Raw,
| | 00:37 | it really didn't pay much attention to
the image inside of Raw, I just brought
| | 00:41 | it over, did a little bit of development.
| | 00:43 | But I did allow the noise to get
sharpened a little bit and as a result, we
| | 00:48 | have some sort of warm like texture
going on in the background, which is
| | 00:53 | definitely one of the things that
Camera Raw tends to do if you don't watch it.
| | 00:56 | Anyways, that's okay. We can work
with it. We also have a lot of stray hair
| | 01:01 | which is great because this is the kind
of thing that Photoshop just excels at
| | 01:06 | selecting masking is terrific where
hair is concerned. So if you have light
| | 01:11 | hair against the dark background, as
we do, or dark hair against the light
| | 01:14 | background, even if it's only
occurring in a single channel inside of the
| | 01:19 | image, then you are in great shape.
That means you can select that hair.
| | 01:22 | So a lot of people are scared of hair,
rightly so, I mean it looks like will be
| | 01:26 | extremely complicated to select all
of this junk, and of course, if we are
| | 01:30 | relying on any of the selection tools,
we'd never get anywhere with it. We are
| | 01:33 | not going to trace around these
hairs with the Magnetic Lasso tool, for
| | 01:36 | example. And we are really not going
to do it with the Color Range command
| | 01:39 | either because it tends to exaggerate
the hair details and kind of clump them up.
| | 01:44 | What you want to do instead is create a
journeyman alpha channel here inside of
| | 01:49 | the Channels palette. But you need to
choose the right channel in the first
| | 01:52 | place from which to build your alpha channel.
| | 01:54 | So here we are in the Channels
palette, you can see that I have got RGB
| | 01:57 | composite image, which comprises the
Red, Green and Blue channels. So RGB is
| | 02:02 | not a channel in and of itself, it's
the composite blend of the channels that
| | 02:06 | follow it. And then we have two extra
channels; these alpha channels right here
| | 02:09 | called Partial Mask and Final Mask
and if you were paying attention in the
| | 02:14 | previous exercise, you may notice that
we have more channels than we used to
| | 02:17 | have and that's because I just went
ahead and added one behind the scenes
| | 02:20 | between exercises there.
| | 02:21 | The reason being when I was actually
creating my web graphic, I didn't worry
| | 02:25 | about the lower section of Russell here,
I just worried about the portion of
| | 02:28 | his head and his hand that were going
to be above the marquee but I figured as
| | 02:33 | long as we are here in masking, as long
as we are doing a project, we might as
| | 02:36 | well do it for real. So I went ahead
and masked all of the flesh and the hair
| | 02:40 | away from the background. I didn't
worry about the shirt; the shirt would be a
| | 02:43 | completely different beast in terms
of masking. It would be possible but
| | 02:47 | because it's dark on dark, it
would be a little more complicated.
| | 02:50 | So that's the high irony of masking
folks. It's that something like hair; these
| | 02:54 | filigree details as long as you
have good contrast definition there, no
| | 02:58 | problem. It's when you start running
out the contrast then you start having
| | 03:01 | problems inside of Photoshop. So fabric
details are typically more difficult to
| | 03:06 | select than hair. If you want to learn
all about the stuff, please checkout My
| | 03:10 | Channels and Masks series here on
the Lynda.com Online Training Library.
| | 03:15 | What we need to do is to find the
channel that is going to enable us to take
| | 03:19 | the image and use the image to select
itself and that is what masking is all
| | 03:23 | about. You are trying to trick
Photoshop into seeing what you are seeing; you
| | 03:27 | can't just click on Russell and select him.
| | 03:29 | However, you can use Photoshop's way
of seeing the image to your advantage in
| | 03:34 | order to use the image just I say to
select itself. So why don't we go about
| | 03:37 | doing that? Well we want to find a
channel inside the image that already gets
| | 03:41 | us a large portion of the way there.
| | 03:43 | So we are going for this. This is what
we want. We want Russell totally white
| | 03:47 | to indicate that he is selected against
the pitch black background to indicate
| | 03:51 | that he is totally deselected with some
nice sort of anti-aliased edges around
| | 03:56 | Russell and these edges are what
really sell the effect, it's not about the
| | 04:00 | interior, it's not about the area
that's not selected, it's all about these
| | 04:04 | edges right there. So you
want some grayness in the edges.
| | 04:07 | So let's go ahead and zoom out again.
Which channel resembles this the most?
| | 04:11 | Well let's go back to the RGB image
for starters and notice that we have got
| | 04:15 | these keyboard shortcuts. So you can
either click on a channel to see the
| | 04:18 | channel to select it or you can use a
keyboard shortcut and these keyboard
| | 04:22 | shortcuts have changed since Photoshop CS3.
| | 04:24 | So it's CTRL+2 or Command+2 on Mac to
see the Composite image. It's Ctrl+3 or
| | 04:28 | Command+3 on the Mac to see the first
channel, which is in this case is the Red
| | 04:32 | channel. It's Ctrl+4 or Command+4 on
a Mac for the Green channel and then
| | 04:35 | Ctrl+5 or Command+5 on the Mac for
the Blue channel and they are all listed
| | 04:39 | right there so you can't help but remember them.
| | 04:42 | Notice that he looks very high contrast
in the Red channel. He does have quite
| | 04:46 | as much contrast in the Green channel.
So he is very white in the Red channel
| | 04:49 | against a fairly dark background. The
background is fairly similar in the Green
| | 04:54 | channel but he is darkening up and then
by time we get to the Blue channel, the
| | 04:58 | background is darkening a little bit but
Russell is darkening like crazy in the Blue channel.
| | 05:03 | This isn't Russell, not resonating well
in the Blue channel, this is all of us
| | 05:07 | and especially under low light like
this we are just noise like crazy creep up
| | 05:12 | in the Blue channel. When things start
going wrong inside of an image, it's the
| | 05:15 | Blue channel that suffers first and
suffers foremost and then the other
| | 05:20 | channels start trailing behind it. You
are going to look in the Green channel
| | 05:24 | but you are going to look best in the
Red channel. Why? We are all different
| | 05:27 | luminance levels essentially of
orange, which is mostly red with a little
| | 05:32 | bit of green. Not much blue at all.
| | 05:34 | All right, so that's my long winded
way of saying you want to blend the Red
| | 05:37 | channel and the Green channel
together, the Red channel and Blue channel
| | 05:39 | together, using this command under
the Image menu called Calculations, by
| | 05:43 | spending an entire chapter on
Calculations in my Channels and Mask series. And
| | 05:48 | that command is useful when no channel
is really doing what you wanted to do;
| | 05:51 | when you have to blend a couple
of channels to get to a good base.
| | 05:56 | Anyway, we have already got good
channel so we have got red, he is dark in
| | 05:59 | the background, he is light in the
foreground, he already looks a lot like the
| | 06:02 | Final mask as you can see. So once you
do the first step here, once you have
| | 06:06 | identified the channel that's going
to work for you, you grab that channel.
| | 06:09 | Don't just start editing it because
the image relies on that Red channel. For
| | 06:13 | example, I'll just select an area in
the Red channel and press the Backspace
| | 06:17 | key to get rid of it. Well that kind
of damages the RBG image. So you can't
| | 06:22 | touch that Red channel. You cannot,
if you are trying to make some color
| | 06:25 | modifications but you
don't want to mask directly.
| | 06:28 | So Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac, let's
go ahead and press Ctrl+D or Command+D
| | 06:32 | on the Mac to deselect the image.
Instead what you do is you grab that Red
| | 06:35 | channel and you duplicate it by
dragging it on to the page icon down at the
| | 06:38 | bottom of the Channels palette and
releasing. Now you have got a copy of the
| | 06:42 | channel, now you can do anything you
want with it. This is now an alpha channel
| | 06:45 | that's ready for your editing and I'm
going just go ahead and rename it my mask
| | 06:49 | or something along those lines. By
double-clicking on its name and entering a
| | 06:52 | new name just as you do with
layers and we are now good to go.
| | 06:56 | By good to go, I mean we are going to
begin to build our mask, we are going to
| | 06:59 | increase the contrast to the mask and
I'm going to show you how to save an
| | 07:02 | alpha channel along with an
image in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Increasing contrast| 00:00 | All right, so here I'm inside the
image called Russell Preston Brown.tiff and
| | 00:05 | all I have done so far is grabbed the Red
channel and duplicated and renamed it my mask.
| | 00:10 | Our next step is to take this alpha
channel and convert it into this Final mask
| | 00:15 | right here. So step number one was to
duplicate the channel, we already did
| | 00:18 | step number one. Step number two is to
increase the contrast of the channel so
| | 00:23 | that we can get essentially about 50% there.
| | 00:26 | All right, so I'm going to go back to
my mask that I'm working on right there;
| | 00:29 | best way to increase the contrast of a
channel in my opinion, go to the Image
| | 00:33 | menu, choose Adjustments and choose
Levels. If you need more control go with
| | 00:37 | Curves, you can even get away with
Brightness/Contrast. Humorously enough if
| | 00:41 | you use Brightness/ Contrast which you
can do, you would want to turn on Use
| | 00:46 | Legacy because notice if I increase
the Contrast, I don't really get all that
| | 00:49 | far; I do make some progress but I
don't make as much progress as I like to.
| | 00:54 | Whereas, if I turn on Use Legacy, so
that I can now to go ahead and clip
| | 00:59 | luminance levels inside of the image,
then increase in contrast does a lot of
| | 01:04 | work really fast. You can see now I'm
changing a lot of the background to black
| | 01:08 | and a lot of the foreground to white.
So you can work this way and you can
| | 01:11 | create great masks using Brightness/
Contrast by the way my friends. I'm not
| | 01:15 | going to, because I'd rather get the
control that's afforded to by the Levels command.
| | 01:19 | So let's go to Image, let's choose
Adjustments, let's choose Levels. We can see
| | 01:23 | the Histogram. We have got some
gianormous bumps going on here on the left hand
| | 01:28 | side of the Histogram, indicating our
big areas of shadow detail and then we
| | 01:33 | have quite bit of highlight detail as
well and we have some clipped highlights
| | 01:37 | and some clipped shadows inside of this image.
| | 01:39 | Not that great of a photograph in the
first place but what you could do now at
| | 01:43 | this point is just increase the
contrast all right, and we want the background
| | 01:47 | to be black, so I could just say fine,
it's all going to be black, at black
| | 01:51 | point value of 101, I'm saying
everything that has the luminance level of 101
| | 01:54 | or darker becomes black, super duper,
that gets rid of the background.
| | 01:57 | Then let's go ahead and reduce the
white point value until everything inside of
| | 02:02 | Russell is going white and now we
have a ton of contrast, isn't that great?
| | 02:06 | Well the problem is our edges. We
really need those edges to look just
| | 02:11 | absolutely awesome and they don't;
they look very ratty and very jagged. Also
| | 02:15 | we are losing some contrast between
stuff we don't we don't want like the o in
| | 02:21 | the logo of my beloved book publisher O'Reilly,
we don't want that coming out of Russell's head.
| | 02:27 | So we need better definition right in
that area and we are losing it, thanks to
| | 02:30 | trying to get too much done at once
here inside the Levels dialog box. So what
| | 02:34 | I caution you to do is to work patiently
in incrementally, a little bit at a time.
| | 02:40 | So I'm going to back off that white
point value to something like about
| | 02:43 | two-ten, I'm just working with even
numbers so that it's easy to track what I'm
| | 02:47 | doing and then I'll take the black
point value down to something like 70.
| | 02:51 | Now that works for this image. Don't
you dare think for a second that these are
| | 02:55 | magical numbers that are going to work
for every image; they are not. They are
| | 02:58 | just for this image. I'm looking at
the image in the Image window here and
| | 03:03 | making a judgment call, as I'm
modifying my slider triangle values here.
| | 03:08 | All right, but that looks good, I like
that. So we have increased the contrast
| | 03:12 | quite nicely, we still have a little
bit of contrast between the O and the top
| | 03:17 | of Russell's head. That's probably
the worst of the contrast right there.
| | 03:20 | Certainly it's going away at this
point but we'll take care of that you will
| | 03:24 | see and we still have some nice
contrast here around the hand, which is another
| | 03:29 | area that we are starting to lose.
| | 03:30 | So you can see that we have some pretty
dark shadow detail right next toward to
| | 03:34 | some very dark shadow detail and we
can exaggerate the contrast at that point
| | 03:38 | later. But otherwise, I think we are
looking good and the hairs are standing
| | 03:43 | out just beautifully aren't they? All right
click OK in order to accept that modification.
| | 03:48 | Now this is about the point at which
I save my work because I have done a
| | 03:51 | little bit of work at this point.
Something about saving alpha channels inside
| | 03:55 | of Photoshop, little bit of note. You
can't save to the JPEG formats. So if you
| | 03:59 | are working on a JPEG image, you have
to switch to a different file format, if
| | 04:02 | you are working from a Raw image and
this comes up as a DNG file, you are going
| | 04:05 | to have to save to a different format
because you can't save the DNG or any of
| | 04:09 | the other Raw formats from Photoshop.
You are going to have to go with either
| | 04:12 | TIFF or the native PSD format.
Let me show you how to do that.
| | 04:16 | Go up to the File menu, choose the Save
As command and then what you want to do
| | 04:22 | is you want to go ahead and rename the
image. I'm going to call mine something
| | 04:25 | like mask in progress, make sure Alpha
Channel is turned on. That's very, very
| | 04:30 | important. That check box must be on
if you want to save these alpha channels
| | 04:33 | along with the image. Now presumably
you are looking at a different format
| | 04:37 | right now but you would switch
either to TIFF or PSD. Now which one win?
| | 04:42 | Well here is my rule of thumb; if your
image contains layers, or you plan on
| | 04:47 | adding layers to the image, then go
ahead and save the image out to the native
| | 04:52 | PSD format right here. The file format
does have some compression associated
| | 04:57 | with it by the way and that will
become important in just a moment when I
| | 04:59 | explain how that compression works but
not quite as much as much as TIFF but
| | 05:03 | anyway, just know that that's the
file format if you've got layers.
| | 05:06 | If you don't have any layers and you
are not planning on adding layers to the
| | 05:09 | image, just as I'm not because I'm
just building up the alpha channels here,
| | 05:12 | then you switch to this format
right there, TIFF, instead that's what I
| | 05:16 | recommend. And if you decide to go
with TIFF, then you go ahead and click the
| | 05:20 | Save button, you are going to get
another dialog box here that's asking you
| | 05:24 | about things like Pixel Order, which
you would leave set to Interleaved, and
| | 05:27 | Byte Order, which you would set to
anything you want. It doesn't matter if it's
| | 05:30 | PC or Macintosh; they are both
compatible on both platforms.
| | 05:34 | If you have got a customer that's
working on the Mac and you just want to make
| | 05:37 | sure that they don't have any problem
with this image whatsoever, then go ahead
| | 05:41 | and select Macintosh even though you
are working on a PC, for example, you
| | 05:44 | shouldn't have any problems
every with the Byte Order.
| | 05:47 | So anyway, I'm going to leave it set to
IBM PC because that's what I'm working
| | 05:50 | whatever. Don't turn on the Image
Pyramid. This is the thing that I want you to
| | 05:54 | change. Image Compression. By default
it's set to None. What that does is it
| | 05:58 | just saves every pixel completely
uncompressed and you have gianormous images
| | 06:02 | on your hard drive, taking up all kinds
of room that could be spent on more and
| | 06:07 | more images. You want LZW.
| | 06:09 | So go ahead and turn on LZW compression,
this is lossless compression, it is
| | 06:13 | not going to harm your image, it's
not JPEG and it does a terrific job
| | 06:17 | specially where alpha channels are
concerned of minimizing the size of the
| | 06:20 | alpha channels, because what LZW
compression does is it looks for neighboring
| | 06:24 | pixels that are of the same color. So
lots of white pixels for example, or lots
| | 06:28 | of black pixels, it just group them
altogether and as a result, creates a
| | 06:32 | smaller file on your hard drive, it's
the same size in memory, it's the same
| | 06:36 | size when you open it up as it ever
was but it smaller on your hard drive,
| | 06:39 | thanks to LZW compression and way
smaller where alpha channels are concerned.
| | 06:43 | Click OK in order to save out that
image and you have now saved both your full
| | 06:48 | color image and your alpha channels for future
use and you can save all kinds of alpha channels.
| | 06:53 | Now in the next exercise, we still
have more work to do, of course, inside of
| | 06:57 | this image. What we have got to do is
basically get from here my mask to Final
| | 07:02 | mask and we are going to do that by
painting inside of the alpha channel. But
| | 07:07 | as you will see this painting is
fairly automated. It's not a lot of grunt
| | 07:10 | work; it's a lot of great work. Stay
tuned and you will see how it works.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Overlay painting| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show you
how to paint inside of an alpha channel
| | 00:04 | to exaggerate the contrast of
specific edges so that you can make selective
| | 00:09 | modifications using the Brush tool, and
we'll just be painting. We are going to
| | 00:14 | rely on some blend mode automation that's
really going to help us out as you will see.
| | 00:19 | I have gone ahead and saved my
progress so far as an image called mask in
| | 00:23 | progress.tiff. You saw me do it in the
previous exercise those of you who are
| | 00:26 | following along with me here. We need
to get from my mask right here inside the
| | 00:31 | Channels palette to Final mask that's
where we are eventually going over course
| | 00:34 | within next few exercises but let's
start by getting some of these hair details
| | 00:39 | where we want them.
| | 00:40 | So switch over to my mask and you know
what I'm going to do, I'm going to go
| | 00:44 | ahead and call this guy contrast
because all we have done is increase the
| | 00:47 | contrast of the mask and then I'll
make a duplicate of it and I'll call this
| | 00:51 | one painting or something along
those lines because we are going now be
| | 00:54 | painting inside the mask and this is
a really great way to work because you
| | 00:58 | don't have layers, when you are working
with channels, you need to go ahead and
| | 01:02 | save your progress as you go through
the process of creating a mask. It's just
| | 01:08 | a good idea in case you want to come back
to one of your previous versions of the mask.
| | 01:13 | You can do that just by duplicating
the channels as you move your way through
| | 01:17 | the process here and if you want to
make sure that you still have access to
| | 01:21 | your keyboard shortcuts so that you can
press, for example, Ctrl+9 or Command+9
| | 01:25 | to get to this channel because the next
channel I create would have no keyboard
| | 01:29 | shortcut because we are out of numbers.
| | 01:32 | You can just change the order of the
mask. You could drag it to the top of the
| | 01:34 | stack. I could say okay, this guy is
going to be my first mask. It will now
| | 01:37 | have a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+6 or
Command+6, so that happens automatically
| | 01:41 | depending on the order of the alpha
channels here inside of your palette and
| | 01:45 | the I would make contrast. The next
guy, he is sort of the lieutenant right
| | 01:49 | there and then we have these
other masks that I created for you.
| | 01:52 | Here is the painting alpha channel. I
want you to go ahead and grab the Brush
| | 01:56 | tool. Also make sure that your alpha
channel is set to white, as it should be
| | 02:00 | by default, because when you are
working inside of an alpha channel, Photoshop
| | 02:03 | makes the assumption that you want to
paint with white, that you want to paint
| | 02:07 | in the selection and that the
background color should be black because that
| | 02:11 | would be painting away the selection.
| | 02:13 | So if it's not already set to white and
black, then you can just click on this
| | 02:16 | little icon there, and notice the
default icon shows white as the default
| | 02:20 | foreground color. I'm going to make my
brush bigger, right now I have got a 90
| | 02:25 | pixel soft brush. So we want a soft
brush for our purposes here, 0% hardness
| | 02:31 | and that may surprise you because
after all if we start working with the soft
| | 02:34 | brush, we are going to start doing this
number here where we add in artificial
| | 02:38 | edges and we just make a mess of thins
and this looks like a blurry ol' blob
| | 02:42 | at this point. We are not doing as
decent job of selecting the hair at all.
| | 02:44 | That's because we are working in the
normal mode, which relies on us to be
| | 02:48 | extremely careful with our painting.
We don't want that so press Ctrl+Z or
| | 02:52 | Command+Z on the Mac. Instead, what we
want is one of the contrast modes and
| | 02:56 | your best bet is Overlay. But you can
change that, you can experiment with
| | 03:01 | other modes as well if you want to and
I'll be experimenting with Soft Light
| | 03:04 | before we are done here but let's go
with Overlay right now and then I'll pres
| | 03:08 | the Esc key here on the PC so that
blend mode isn't selected anymore.
| | 03:12 | Then watch what happens when I paint.
That exact same brush stroke I painted
| | 03:15 | before. Notice that Photoshop goes
ahead and relegates my light brush stroke to
| | 03:21 | the light areas inside the image. So
it's brightening the highlights, it's
| | 03:25 | changing the mid tones, it's also
lightening the mid tones, it's leaving the
| | 03:29 | shadow detail intact.
| | 03:31 | Now I don't happen to like that
modification right there, it's too over the
| | 03:34 | top, so I'm going to undo because I'm
making those hair too thick. We'll come
| | 03:38 | back to them but I do want to paint
inside of his face like so and over his ear
| | 03:43 | and you may have to paint multiple
times but notice as I'm painting, it's a
| | 03:46 | miracle tool here, the Brush tool
along with the Overlay mode, produces this
| | 03:51 | wonderful masking tool that allows us
to paint in the highlights and protect
| | 03:55 | the shadows, it's just the most
wonderful thing every really, where masking is
| | 03:59 | concern, it's really great.
| | 04:00 | Now there are other ways to work and
when you start getting into move advance
| | 04:03 | territory, then you can work with the
Dodge and Burn tools which give more
| | 04:08 | selective control but you can learn all
about them in my Photoshop CS3 Channels
| | 04:12 | and Mask video series if you like.
| | 04:14 | All right, so I'm going to paint
inside the arm as well, paint, no we don't
| | 04:18 | really need the arm to be painted too
much but I'll paint down it little bit.
| | 04:22 | Paint over here inside the hand, this
is looking pretty darning great, I'm
| | 04:25 | leaving the hair alone, notice that, I
haven't really painted along the hair
| | 04:28 | because if I start painting along the
hair, I'm going to exaggerate it pretty
| | 04:31 | terrifically and I don't want to do
that. So I'll press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on
| | 04:35 | the Mac to undo that modification there.
| | 04:37 | Now what about the background, it's so
darning light, it needs to be nice and
| | 04:40 | black. Well all you do is you press
the X key to make the foreground color
| | 04:43 | black, you have already got the mode
set to Overlay, just start painting, just
| | 04:47 | automatically, the highlights are
protected now and by virtue of the fact that
| | 04:50 | you are using this contrast mode here
mode the first and foremost contrast mode
| | 04:54 | the Overlay mode, don't you know.
| | 04:56 | All right and I'm just painting paying
attention to the edges I'm not worried
| | 04:59 | too much about the stuff that pretty
far away from the edges because I can take
| | 05:02 | care of that independently. I do have
some issues along the arm right here that
| | 05:06 | I'll resolve in just a moment, I'm
going to paint next to the arm down in this
| | 05:10 | location as well, paint in the
background over here and so on.
| | 05:14 | Now once you get to a point where you
don't have good edge stuff to work with
| | 05:20 | like right here along the edge of the
arm, we have got this white highlight
| | 05:24 | right here that indicates that we are
going to select this area but it's not
| | 05:28 | something that I want to select, let's
see what it is. It's some person in the
| | 05:31 | background at the tradeshow, a shoulder
or something along those lines. I don't
| | 05:35 | want that. I want that out of there.
| | 05:37 | So go back to the painting mask that
I'm working on right here and let's change
| | 05:40 | the blend mode back to Normal because
we are going to have to do some hand
| | 05:44 | painting here and then I also
recommend and then I also recommend that you
| | 05:47 | increase the Hardness. Now you might
want to go with Sharp is at 100% or you
| | 05:51 | would take it down to something like 75%
is the lowest you want to go if you
| | 05:55 | are going to work this way. Just to
have a little bit of organic edge going on.
| | 05:59 | I want it all the way hard however, so
I'll set that to 100%, I'll reduce the
| | 06:03 | size of my brush and I'm just going
to click right there and then drag away
| | 06:07 | from it. So I'm trying to be very careful.
| | 06:09 | Then I'll click right here and drag
away and the brush is thoughtfully round
| | 06:14 | which actually works really well for
these kinds of organic details. Now should
| | 06:18 | you determine at some point here that
you would like to see the image at the
| | 06:22 | same time, you can take advantage of
that quick mask technique that I was
| | 06:26 | showing you before, where you just
click in the eyeball in front of RGB so that
| | 06:29 | you are seeing the RGB image and the
mask at the same time. And if you don't
| | 06:33 | like the color of that mask, double-
click on it and change it's color to
| | 06:37 | something like, once again 180 is
going to work out pretty nicely, click OK,
| | 06:41 | click OK again and now we can see the
mask very well and I can see for example
| | 06:46 | that Russell's nostrils are blue and I
don't want that. That's why I press the
| | 06:49 | X key to make my foreground color white
and I paint that stuff away in order to
| | 06:54 | add it to the selection as I'm doing right here.
| | 06:57 | Then if you don't want to see the RGB
image anymore, then you turn off the
| | 07:00 | eyeball or take advantage of that
wonderful keyboard shortcut, the tilde key.
| | 07:04 | So the tilde shows the image, tilde
hides the image. Press X for white and then
| | 07:10 | paint away the glasses right there,
paint a little bit right there on ear,
| | 07:14 | notice I'm not doing a lot of just
clicking on details, when in doubt, be very
| | 07:18 | careful and just click and right here
on the hand, your best bet is just do
| | 07:22 | these kinds of clicks and notice
the world is made of circles, people.
| | 07:27 | The circular shape of the this brush
is no accident and it works beautifully
| | 07:31 | for us where masking is concerned and
the I'll just go ahead and drag down
| | 07:35 | right there in order to get rid of
some of that stuff. We are left with a few
| | 07:40 | things I guess. I mean this needs to go,
this needs to go, why don't we just go
| | 07:45 | ahead and get rid of this stuff as
well? And when I say get rid of, we are
| | 07:48 | actually adding it to the selection.
Press the X key and paint this stuff away.
| | 07:52 | You could also select this area with
Lasso tool or something like that and then
| | 07:56 | just fill up with black by pressing Alt+Backspace
or Option+Delete in our case
| | 08:01 | since I now have black as foreground
color. Anyway, paint, paint, paint, get
| | 08:05 | rid of a lot of this stuff, not
everything of course, as you are seeing.
| | 08:09 | Now you will notice that we still have
some residual dark gray going on in the
| | 08:14 | background where it really wants to be
black. However, if I were to just paint,
| | 08:19 | even with the Overlay mode, over these
details, I really start losing that hair
| | 08:23 | and so I'm going to show you a more
careful way to work in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up whites and blacks| 00:01 | In this exercise, we are going to
address some of the tough details at the top
| | 00:05 | of Russell's head right there that we
need to deal with. We need to distinguish
| | 00:09 | the top of his head from the O, in the
word O'Reilly, my publisher. And we also
| | 00:14 | need to address these very delicate
hair details that are going on, on the
| | 00:19 | right side of the image. This is of
course the left side of Russell's head,
| | 00:23 | where he's concerned.
| | 00:24 | By the way, I've gone ahead and saved
my progress as a document called Overlay
| | 00:28 | painting.tif, so called, of course,
because we were painting with a brush set
| | 00:32 | to the Overlay mode. But now we're
going to have to roll up our sleeves and be
| | 00:35 | a little more selective here.
| | 00:37 | I've been painting with black allover
the place and white inside of the image
| | 00:42 | and it's helpful to know where in a
world your black edges drop off or your
| | 00:46 | white edges drop off, and where things
turn dark gray or light gray, so light
| | 00:52 | or dark that you can't quite make
out the transitions on the screen.
| | 00:54 | There for example, if you zoom in here
on the right side once again, Russell's
| | 01:00 | left side of this head, you'll see
that there are some sort of garbage-y dark
| | 01:05 | details that aren't quite black. They
may show up more prominently on your
| | 01:09 | monitor or less prominently on your monitor
depending on how that monitor is calibrated.
| | 01:14 | But you can see for sure, exactly where
the black ends and other colors begin,
| | 01:18 | using the Magic Wand tool, and this is
a fantastic use for the Magic Wand tool.
| | 01:23 | So go ahead and select it from the fly-
out menu here. Then as opposed to having
| | 01:27 | the Tolerance set to 32, set it to 0,
and then turn Anti-alias to off. So we're
| | 01:32 | only selecting one color and one color only.
| | 01:35 | Then what I want you to do is I want
you to click in an area that you know to
| | 01:39 | be black in the background. So I'll
click up here and notice, these are all the
| | 01:43 | black pixels now, outside of Russell's
head. If I wanted to make sure to select
| | 01:46 | the black pixels throughout the image,
then I would go up to the Select menu
| | 01:50 | and I would choose Similar right there.
That will jump the gaps, essentially.
| | 01:56 | Now we only still have black pixel
selected, because the Tolerance value is set
| | 02:01 | to 0, and that Tolerance value does
affect the behavior of the Similar and Grow
| | 02:05 | commands. But now we have all of the
black pixels selected throughout the
| | 02:09 | image. We know, for example, that
these guys up there are not black and they
| | 02:13 | should be black. These guys right there should
be black and these guys too. So this is what I do.
| | 02:18 | I now switch over to the Rectangular
Marquee tool like so, and then I'll
| | 02:22 | Shift+Drag around those areas that
need to be picked up. Here, of course,
| | 02:28 | Shift+Drag here, Shift+Drag around
this guy, not anything that's really super
| | 02:32 | close to the image, we're staying
pretty far out here. We're just getting these
| | 02:35 | guys that are up in the far flung
areas of the background or if you have a
| | 02:40 | straight area, like this right here, you
can go ahead and try to select it as well.
| | 02:44 | So I'll add that to the selection, I
might as well add these guys to the
| | 02:47 | selection to the best of my ability,
like so. Otherwise, just note where these
| | 02:53 | problems are occurring, if you don't
want to get too close to that edge.
| | 02:56 | So right now we've got some areas,
let's see, let's check out Russell at the
| | 03:00 | same time. Right around this knuckle
and the right edge of his neck right
| | 03:06 | there, are areas that I'm going to
have to work on. Also, around his ear and,
| | 03:10 | of course, around the hair, I
knew, this area, was a problem.
| | 03:13 | This stuff, obviously, we're going to
have to address more delicately. We can't
| | 03:17 | just go in there with the Rectangular
Marquee tool, but I can select here, so
| | 03:20 | Shift+Drag, Shift+Drag around this area,
Shift+Drag here. If you have a mind
| | 03:24 | tool again, some of this stuff you can
get using Brush tool in just a moment.
| | 03:28 | We have some stuff going on along the
top of the hand sort of duly noted, grab
| | 03:32 | this stuff, Shift+Drag around it,
Shift+Drag around here. It's like we're
| | 03:35 | working inside of a swimming pool or
something. Shift+Drag there, Shift+Drag
| | 03:39 | here, I just mentioned that as an
aside because it occurred to me as I was
| | 03:43 | working and I have nothing else to
talk to you people about. I'm selecting
| | 03:46 | stuff. I mean it's not exciting, I
don't think anyway. It's feeling kind of
| | 03:50 | dull, but I have to say something. I can't
just sit here and be silent, because it's a movie.
| | 03:55 | So this looks pretty good. I think
I've selected most of the junk that I want
| | 03:58 | to select. I'm going to press the
tilde key to hide Russell, so that I'm just
| | 04:02 | looking at the mask. Now I want to
fill everything that I have selected with
| | 04:06 | black, because just selecting it
doesn't make it black, we have to actually
| | 04:09 | fill it with black.
| | 04:10 | Black happens to be my foreground color
right now, so I'll press Alt+Backspace
| | 04:14 | or Option+Delete on the Mac to
make sure all of that stuff is black.
| | 04:17 | Now if deselect the image by clicking
off of it, go back to the Magic Wand tool
| | 04:20 | and click in the background, low and
behold, I've got this entire area selected
| | 04:24 | right now. All black. That's good. Then
I could Shift-Click down here if I want
| | 04:28 | to instead of using the
Similar command, another way to work.
| | 04:31 | That area is nice and homogeneously
black. Let's deselect that area, click
| | 04:34 | inside Russell now to check the whites.
So, they are in pretty good shape, but
| | 04:39 | we still do have some ratty details
here and there. Shift+Drag around them with
| | 04:42 | the Rectangular Marquee tool.
| | 04:43 | Why the Rectangular Marquee tool, why
not the Lasso tool? Because we can get
| | 04:47 | right next to the edges with the
Rectangular Marquee tool and not worry about
| | 04:51 | adding in any anti-aliasing. So
it's just a great choice. Let's go and
| | 04:55 | Shift+Drag around there, Shift+Drag
around there, Shift+Drag here if I want to.
| | 04:59 | Note the neck. The neck needs work
anyway. I'll renew that. The hand, this is
| | 05:03 | the back end of his left hand, and we've got
some areas in the right hand as well, fine.
| | 05:09 | Go ahead and select as much as you
dare with the Rectangular Marquee tool, of
| | 05:12 | course, and then once you're done,
which at some point you will be, when we
| | 05:15 | presume, then you will press the
Backspace key, because the background color is
| | 05:19 | white for me. So I just press Backspace
or on the Mac I would press the Delete
| | 05:24 | key, and that goes ahead and takes care
of those stray non-black and white colors.
| | 05:29 | So, we're doing great. We still need
to get in there and address these little
| | 05:34 | hairs and those other details that we
saw that weren't quite black, weren't
| | 05:37 | quite white. We'll do that by painting
once again, except we're going to use a
| | 05:42 | more cautious mode, Soft Light, join
me, won't you, in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Soft light painting| 00:00 | All right, we still have some more
details that we need to clean up here,
| | 00:03 | especially, along the sort of top right
portion of the head where we have a few
| | 00:09 | stray hairs, some noise details going
on and this area, the top of the head
| | 00:14 | that we really want to sort of shave
as you will see. Alarming as that may
| | 00:18 | sound, but first thing is first.
Let's go ahead and work on his tricky area
| | 00:22 | right here and I'll tell
you what is going to be best.
| | 00:25 | If Overlay is too much of a mode for you,
as we'll see, you want switch back to
| | 00:29 | Soft Light and then you can take down
the Opacity as well, if you want to. Let
| | 00:33 | me go ahead and grab my Brush tool
once again. And why don't we set it to
| | 00:36 | Overlay just so I can show you what's
going on here, by pressing Shift+Alt+O or
| | 00:40 | Shift+Option+O on the Mac.
| | 00:41 | Now as soon as you switch blend
modes, you will also want to switch the
| | 00:44 | hardness of the brush. So when you
are working with Normal, you want a hard
| | 00:47 | brush. When you are working with
Overlay or one of the other modes, then you
| | 00:50 | want a soft brush. So, I'm going to
switch this guy down to hardness of 0% and
| | 00:54 | that way, you have nice transitions
between your edges. You don't have abrupt
| | 00:58 | weird transitions since you are
painting over the large areas of the image.
| | 01:02 | So I'm going to a make my brush a
little bigger here and notice if I start
| | 01:06 | painting, let's say with white, I'll
press the X key to make sure that white is
| | 01:09 | my foreground color. I'll paint over
this area, and notice that I'm not only
| | 01:14 | increasing the contrast around this
area, making the hair as whiter. I'm also
| | 01:19 | making it bigger. So this is before,
this is after, so they are getting thicker
| | 01:24 | and I'm bringing out a bunch of noise
in the background that I don't want.
| | 01:27 | So I want an effect that's a
little more subtle than this. So press
| | 01:30 | Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac. I'll go
ahead and switch from Overlay to Soft
| | 01:35 | Light, and then I'll press the Escape
key on the PC to make sure that mode is
| | 01:38 | no longer active. So Soft Light is, of
course, more subtle contrast mode than
| | 01:43 | Overlay. In fact, it's the most
subtle contrast mode there is inside of
| | 01:47 | Photoshop. Now, rather than painting
over the hairs like this, which is still
| | 01:51 | going to go a long way toward
exaggerating them. I want you to instead keep your
| | 01:56 | cursor inside of the hair, so you are
letting the softness of the brush do the work.
| | 02:01 | So I'll go ahead and paint along this
edge like so and notice that I'm just
| | 02:05 | making those hairs ever so slightly
lighter than they were before. Now I'll
| | 02:09 | press the X key to make the
foreground color black and I'll paint in this
| | 02:14 | region here in the background, in
order to make the background darker. And
| | 02:18 | again, notice that I'm letting the edge
of my brush do the work for me, so that
| | 02:22 | I'm letting that softness work to my advantage.
| | 02:25 | Now then at this point, you can go
work on the O, if you want to just sort of
| | 02:30 | scrub it away a little bit which I
recommend you do, even though we are
| | 02:32 | ultimately just going to get rid of
that O, but I'm going to scrub over the top
| | 02:35 | of the hairs. You might also try this.
Press the X key to make the foreground
| | 02:40 | color white and paint inside of this
area of hair and then press the X key to
| | 02:44 | make the foreground color black
and paint around here like so.
| | 02:47 | Again letting the soft edge, do the
work for you. Then paint here in these
| | 02:51 | areas. I'm just clicking, by the way.
I'm just sporadically here and there. And
| | 02:55 | then press the X key and drag along the
neck right there to get rid of it or at
| | 02:59 | least that is to say to make it
lighter and select it actually. Now the more
| | 03:05 | times you drag over an area, the
sharper your edge is going to become and
| | 03:09 | ultimately, you paint too many times
and you're going to get jagged edges, so
| | 03:12 | you need to watch out for that.
| | 03:14 | I will paint down here along the hand
and then I'll press the X key and paint
| | 03:17 | over this area of the hand as well.
Then you can check for stray edges, if you
| | 03:22 | want to with the Magic Wand tool, so
press the W key for Wand tool. Once again
| | 03:26 | click in the background and just see
where the little noise details are showing
| | 03:31 | out there and you can see that
things are pretty smooth where my mask is
| | 03:35 | concerned, pretty smooth along the hand
and along the neck and the ear is okay,
| | 03:41 | but then we start having noise detail
show up along the hair. I'm not all that
| | 03:45 | concerned about that. That's okay.
That will work actually to my advantage.
| | 03:49 | You want the hair to have a lot of
action inside of it. So that you maintain
| | 03:53 | those fine filigree details; don't you
know the wispy hair? All right, this is
| | 03:58 | okay, cut some garbage stuff going on
the hand. I might go ahead and take care
| | 04:02 | of that. Now let's see you want to keep
track of it, you want to keep an eye on
| | 04:06 | where this bad stuff is. Leave the
selection outline attached, but right now
| | 04:10 | it's selecting the area that you don't
want to modify. To select the area you
| | 04:13 | do want to modify, go to the Select
menu and choose Inverse. And now, you have
| | 04:19 | selected the area that you want to
change, press the B key for the Brush, once
| | 04:23 | again, let's make sure we are painting
with black because that's what we are
| | 04:25 | interested in changing and paint along
this edge, paint along this edge too.
| | 04:29 | That's going to smooth out some of
those details, even though we are painting
| | 04:32 | into the wrist a little bit, painting
down here into the arm. Now these would
| | 04:35 | be arm hairs, by the way, that we are
painting away, depends if you want to
| | 04:39 | keep them or not. You want to keep the
arm hairs, make the guy look like he is
| | 04:42 | really fury or do you want to get rid
of the arm hairs to make look like he is
| | 04:46 | ridiculously smooth. I mean it's
kind of up to you to make that call.
| | 04:49 | All right, so I'm going to press the X
key in order to paint with white and I'm
| | 04:54 | going to paint along the wrist here in
order to make it lighter. Now let's see
| | 04:58 | what happens. Let's just go ahead and
grab the Wand by pressing the W key and
| | 05:03 | then press Ctrl+D, Command+D on the
Mac to deselect that area and then click
| | 05:06 | again, and see if we are selecting a
little tighter to the hand than we are. We
| | 05:10 | do have a little bit of overage right
there, a little bit of edgy stuff going
| | 05:15 | on, but that's okay and I do want to
have a little bit of hair, because we are
| | 05:19 | all mammals, hair works to our
advantage. It makes us look good and makes the
| | 05:22 | composition look credible.
| | 05:24 | Now, where we still have a big
credibility gap is on the top of the head. No
| | 05:27 | person I know has an O coming out of
their head like Russell does at the
| | 05:32 | present time. And also, we have got
this tuft of random hair at the top of his
| | 05:37 | head. Now, that's something that we
want to get rid of, we want to smooth that
| | 05:40 | away and we are going to do that, we
are going to make the hair look really
| | 05:43 | spiffy and wonderful and good,
starting in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting in style| 00:00 |
In this exercise, we enter the ever-
tricky world of style and we are going to
| | 00:06 |
make an aesthetic judgment call about
how Russell is going to look best. Do we
| | 00:11 |
think he's going to look better,
once we get done masking him with these
| | 00:14 |
fragile hairs at the top of his head
or do we think he's going to look better
| | 00:18 |
with the top of his head just shaved,
smooth and clean? I'm going to tell you,
| | 00:23 |
I'm coming down on the side of shaving,
that he's going to look better with a
| | 00:26 |
chrome dome right there.
| | 00:28 |
Which is why I have gone ahead and name
this file as Time to shave.tif. That's
| | 00:33 |
how committed I am. It's all toward
making our subject look as good as
| | 00:38 |
possible, so let's go over to the RGB
composite image for a moment. Join me,
| | 00:42 |
won't you? And let's analyze Russell
for a moment. Good looking guy, older
| | 00:47 |
gentleman and in terrific shape. He is
balding, however, if not just plain
| | 00:52 |
old bald, even somebody who is
bald, who is the absolutely the baldest
| | 00:55 |
person you ever met in your life, has
hair. Everybody has got hair coming out
| | 00:59 |
of the top of their head. It's just
that the hair is more fragile and you are
| | 01:01 |
seeing through the hair to the skin.
| | 01:04 |
Now the way styles are running these
days. There is a very low tolerance for
| | 01:08 |
straggly hair, so I think what we
should do we just get rid of those hairs and
| | 01:12 |
that will also make getting rid of the
O a lot easier as well. So, let's go to
| | 01:17 |
this painting mask that have created
so far, let's go ahead and duplicate it
| | 01:20 |
once again, because we are going to
make a big change this time, and I'm going
| | 01:24 |
to call it something like chrome
dome or something along those lines. To
| | 01:28 |
indicate that, I'm going to polished
off the top of his head, move that to the
| | 01:31 |
top of the stack, so I can easily
switch back and forth between my composite
| | 01:36 |
image and now let's zoom in.
| | 01:38 |
Actually you know what; we are probably
going to be better off doing this while
| | 01:41 |
looking at the RGB image, so let's go
back to the RGB image for a moment here.
| | 01:46 |
What tool should we used to select
the top of Russell's head? If I had to
| | 01:50 |
choose my favorite selection tool,
it would be the Marquee tools here.
| | 01:53 |
Rectangular, which I used all the time,
and then Elliptical, which is great,
| | 01:57 |
because the world is just filled with ellipses
and one ellipse would be the top of Russell's head.
| | 02:03 |
So let's go ahead and grab that
Elliptical Marquee tool and then I want you to
| | 02:06 |
drag across the top of his head like
so, and then I'm using the Spacebar in
| | 02:10 |
order to locate the selection with
respect to the top of his skull here. So
| | 02:18 |
select the top of his head like so and
just try to get it mostly right. Then
| | 02:22 |
how about all these other details?
Just more ellipses, so press the Shift key
| | 02:26 |
and drag around here like so and then
use the Spacebar just to get things more
| | 02:30 |
or less in place and then Shift+Drag
again. I have got the Shift key down just
| | 02:34 |
throughout this whole thing, using the
Spacebar, every once in a while in order
| | 02:37 |
to get things where I want them to be.
| | 02:39 |
Then Shift+Drag around this area as well,
just like right about there with the
| | 02:44 |
Spacebar, aiding and assisting me in
placement. And this is good, right there,
| | 02:49 |
and then Shift+Drag around this area
as well, if I want to. And that's good.
| | 02:53 |
That's going to serve us very nicely I
think. Now, go up to the Select menu,
| | 02:57 |
choose Modify, and let's just give it
a little bit of a Feather, just to make
| | 03:00 |
sure that we are matching the natural
organic details inside the image because
| | 03:04 |
the top of his head is a little bit out
of focus. So, we'll go ahead and choose
| | 03:07 |
the Feather command and I'd suggest
the Feather radius of 1 and click OK.
| | 03:11 |
All right, now this is going to work
pretty nicely for us. Let's go to this
| | 03:16 |
chrome dome alpha channel that we're in
the process of working on here. We are
| | 03:20 |
fine on the inside of this ellipse.
Everything is pretty well taking care of.
| | 03:23 |
It's the outside of the ellipse that
needs to work. So go up to the Select menu
| | 03:27 |
and choose the Inverse command and now,
we have selected the area outside of
| | 03:32 |
this strange sort of blobby form. Now I
want you to grab your Brush tool and we
| | 03:38 |
don't want a mode, we want no mode at
all, Normal, which of course is the no
| | 03:42 |
mode, the default mode. I'll press the
Escape key, so that Normal is no longer
| | 03:46 |
active and I'll make my brush bigger,
let's make it harder. Let's go with
| | 03:49 |
something like about 75% and going to
make my brush smaller again, changing my
| | 03:54 |
mind right, left, and center.
| | 03:55 |
Now I had made some decisions that took
a little bit of back and fore things to
| | 03:59 |
figure out. So I'm going to look at my
final mask and notice that I have got a
| | 04:02 |
little bit of hair, sort of showing up
there and that's so good either, I think
| | 04:06 |
we'll do a better job this time around,
but it did let the hair sort of drift
| | 04:09 |
in, and then I kept this little tuft
right there and obviously, I'm keeping
| | 04:13 |
these guys because I want this to look
nice. We just want it to look, like it
| | 04:17 |
was naturally this way. So back to
chrome dome. So in other words, right about
| | 04:22 |
there is where we need to start
painting and painting. And white is not going
| | 04:26 |
to do the trick at all folks. So,
let's go ahead and undo that modification.
| | 04:29 |
Press the X key to make the foreground
color black, in my case, and then I'll
| | 04:32 |
paint away this like so and then
I'll paint away some of these as well.
| | 04:38 |
Let's see, if we are making the kinds
of decisions I want to make, I'm just
| | 04:41 |
checking my finished mask because I
did spend a fair amount of time making
| | 04:45 |
decisions about what hairs to keep and
which ones to get rid of and see that we
| | 04:49 |
are slopping off over here and slopping
off over there. Let's go back to chrome
| | 04:52 |
dome, I have gotten rid of some of
that. That's fine and let's see how that
| | 04:57 |
compares once again. I see. All right,
so I might sort of cut in a little bit
| | 05:02 |
there like so and then at any time you
feel like you went too far, why then,
| | 05:06 |
what you want to do is click on the
History palette guy right here, bring up
| | 05:09 |
the History palette and back up just a
little bit to like -- let's say where I
| | 05:13 |
was creating the Elliptical Marquee tool.
| | 05:15 |
I will go ahead and click right there
in order to set the source in front of
| | 05:18 |
Elliptical Marquee and then I'll hide
the History palette. I'll go ahead and
| | 05:21 |
grab my History Brush tool, right
there, click on it. Let's make the brush
| | 05:26 |
bigger, this is incredibly small brush,
I have going right now. It is soft, so
| | 05:30 |
that I can bring back some of that
natural organic detail right there and I can
| | 05:34 |
paint that back in, if I like, but of
course I'm painting back in the O. So I
| | 05:38 |
don't think I want to do at all, I
think I made a good decision, let's just
| | 05:42 |
leave that out or maybe just painted
in just a little bit right down there at
| | 05:46 |
the bottom like so.
| | 05:47 |
Let's go back to the Brush tool, paint
that stuff away because I don't like it.
| | 05:51 |
And I think we are better off without
any of these hairs. You go away to, don't
| | 05:55 |
you? All right that looks pretty good
to me. Then press Ctrl+H or Command+H on
| | 05:59 |
the Mac, just to make sure that we have
some nice roundness associated with the
| | 06:02 |
top of the head here and it's a little
bumpy. And so you know what? Let's go up
| | 06:06 |
to the Select menu. Choose Inverse once
again. Now let's just go ahead and fill
| | 06:11 |
the selected area with white. So I'll
press Ctrl+H, Command+H on the Mac, so I
| | 06:15 |
can keep track of what I'm doing and
I'm going to press the Backspace key,
| | 06:18 |
watch it, the selection grows.
| | 06:20 |
But I think it's looking pretty darn
nice, actually, and I press the Backspace
| | 06:25 |
key or the Delete key on the Mac
because my foreground color is white. So that
| | 06:28 |
filled that selected area with white,
which is exactly what I want. The power
| | 06:33 |
of the Elliptical Marquee tool, folks,
it's an amazing tool and I think we now
| | 06:37 |
have what is going to serve as a
wonderful mask. Why don't we just go ahead and
| | 06:41 |
call it wonderful mask because it is.
In the next exercise, I tell you what. We
| | 06:46 |
are going to actually use it to take
Russell into the final composition, so
| | 06:50 |
that he is part of the martini
hour mix-up. Join me, won't you?
| | 06:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Employing masks as selections| 00:00 | In this exercise, we are going to
employ our mask as a selection outline and
| | 00:05 | that's something that you need to do.
Alpha channels are exceedingly useful
| | 00:10 | repositories for masks. But in order to
actually use the mask, you need to turn
| | 00:14 | it into a selection outline or a layer
mask or something else that Photoshop
| | 00:18 | can use to isolate your modifications.
| | 00:22 | Now, I'm working with two images here,
we are going to actually select Russell
| | 00:25 | and move him into a different
composition. One of them is Final masks.tif and
| | 00:30 | it contains all of the masks that I
have created so far, all the alpha
| | 00:34 | channels, all five of them including
wonderful mask, the most recent of the
| | 00:38 | masks, don't you know?
| | 00:39 | And then we also have martiniHour_
GuestSpot.psd. So, here's what I want you to
| | 00:44 | do. Go ahead and switch to the RGB
composite image by clicking on RGB here in
| | 00:48 | the Channels palette. And then we are
going to load the wonderful mask alpha
| | 00:52 | channel, or if you prefer, you can
load your mask or you can load the final
| | 00:56 | mask, whatever you want as a selection.
| | 00:58 | This is one way to work; you can go
to the Select menu and choose the Load
| | 01:01 | Selection command. And then from
inside this dialog box right here, you would
| | 01:05 | choose the channel that you want to
load, either wonderful mask, whatever you
| | 01:09 | called your mask, the final mask, what
have you. Then you click OK and then you
| | 01:15 | have a selection outline.
That's all there is to it.
| | 01:17 | How much easier could it be? Well, it
turns out, it could be easier and it
| | 01:21 | could be more flexible. Notice which
channels are not appearing here, all the
| | 01:25 | alpha channels are appearing, but Red,
Green, Blue and the RGB composite are
| | 01:29 | not available to us. So, let's cancel
out. And the reason I mention that is
| | 01:33 | because, you can load the color bearing
channels if you want to as selection outlines.
| | 01:38 | All you have to do to load any of the
channels as the selection outline is to
| | 01:42 | press the Ctrl key or the Command key
on the Mac and click on it. So, if I
| | 01:46 | Ctrl-click on wonderful mask, I
load it as the selection outline, if I
| | 01:50 | Ctrl-click or Command-click on Red, I
load it as the selection outline. You can
| | 01:55 | even Ctrl-click or Command-click on
the RGB composite in order to load a
| | 01:58 | grayscale version of that
image as the selection outline.
| | 02:02 | Any of the channels can be loaded this
way. I want you to load wonderful mask
| | 02:05 | or the mask that you created by Ctrl-
clicking or Command-clicking on that mask,
| | 02:10 | converts it to a selection outline.
Now, the selection outline doesn't look
| | 02:13 | like it's going to be all that great.
That's because we are previewing the
| | 02:16 | selection with marching ants.
| | 02:18 | The selection outline is every bit as
good as the mask was. It is exactly the
| | 02:23 | same, pixel for pixel is identical to
the mask. So, this is non-destructive
| | 02:27 | transformation when you are
converting from an alpha channel to a selection
| | 02:30 | outline. You are not really performing
any sort of conversion at all. You are
| | 02:33 | just loading it up. So, it
is exactly the same thing.
| | 02:36 | And in fact, Photoshop, when it's
working on the selection, this is what it
| | 02:39 | sees. It sees a grayscale version of
that selection outline at any given time.
| | 02:45 | You can test that for yourself. Watch
this. I'll go back to the RGB image. I'll
| | 02:48 | convert this over to the Quick Mask
Mode, like so, just by clicking on the
| | 02:52 | Quick Mask icon. Now, I'm working in
Quick Mask. And now if I was to press to
| | 02:56 | Tilde key to hide the RGB composite for
just a moment, and I was to switch back
| | 03:00 | and forth between the Quick Mask and
wonderful mask, you would see that they
| | 03:05 | are identical to each other.
| | 03:06 | So, we haven't changed things at all.
Now, things get kind of wonky when you
| | 03:09 | switch back to Quick Mask. That's
because it's trying to show both Quick Mask
| | 03:13 | and wonderful mask at the same time. If
you do that, you will just get a bunch
| | 03:16 | of cyan depending on your color
settings. But anyway, let's just go ahead and
| | 03:20 | press the Q key to escape out of the
Quick Mask mode, go back to the RGB image
| | 03:25 | and we are now ready to move the
selected Russell into the martiniHour
| | 03:28 | composition. And we are going to do
that by pressing and holding the Ctrl key
| | 03:32 | or the Command key on the Mac to get
the Move tool on the fly, and dragging
| | 03:35 | inside the selection, go ahead and drag him up.
| | 03:38 | Notice how well he is selected. Peels
right out of his background there. That's
| | 03:42 | awesome. Drag and hold on the title if
indeed you are working with the tabbed
| | 03:46 | window view here as I am, wait for the
martiniHour composition to appear. Then
| | 03:51 | drag your cursor down into the image
window and drop, you will get this Profile
| | 03:56 | Mismatch message if you are working
along with me, so irritating, because we
| | 04:00 | already told Photoshop not to bug us
with color warnings. But it's still doing
| | 04:05 | it here in this case.
| | 04:06 | It's telling me that the Source image,
that is Russell, the Final masks.tif
| | 04:10 | image was set to the Adobe RGB mode,
fine. And that the working space is also
| | 04:15 | Adobe RGB. But the Destination that
is my martiniHour mash-up right here is
| | 04:20 | sRGB and I set it that way because
I'm going to the web with this image.
| | 04:24 | I didn't absolutely have to do that. But
often times, it's a better way to work.
| | 04:28 | So, well there's going to be a color
conversion. Well, of course there is.
| | 04:31 | Yes, that's what I want. Photoshop, you
are doing good work there. Click OK to
| | 04:35 | tell Photoshop to stop winding and
just do its thing and it will go ahead and
| | 04:38 | plop Russell in the background there.
Now, it's currently covered up, in my
| | 04:42 | case by a few layers. So, we'll go over
to the Layers palette and I'll turn off
| | 04:45 | the logo elements, so that I can see
through from little Russell to big Russell.
| | 04:50 | We still have some modifications to
make, we need to move big Russell in the
| | 04:53 | place, scale him in the place, and so on.
Make sure that he's working with the
| | 04:57 | new composition. And we are going
to do that in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling and compositing layers| 00:00 | All right, so here I'm looking at this
mess of a composition at this point and
| | 00:04 | I actually -- when I say mess of a
composition, I think it looks great. It's
| | 00:08 | like this wonderful, happy
accident art image with big Russell in the
| | 00:12 | background, the little Russell in the
foreground. But it's not what I'm going
| | 00:15 | for. It doesn't really
message Martini Hour properly.
| | 00:18 | So, tell you what, let's go ahead and
scale Russell in the place so he is where
| | 00:23 | he needs to be. And I'm still working
inside the martiniHour_GuestSpot.psd
| | 00:28 | image found inside the 23_masking folder.
| | 00:31 | And of course, I have made some
modifications. I have dragged Russell in the
| | 00:34 | place. He is just called Layer 1 right
now, in my case. I'm going to call him
| | 00:38 | new russell to indicate that he is the
new and improved Russell Brown. And I'm
| | 00:42 | going to move him in front of the other
elements here, logo elements is turned
| | 00:48 | off, so we can see what we are doing.
And I need to scale Russell. Not only do
| | 00:51 | I want to scale him though. I want him
to grow sharper as I'm downsampling him.
| | 00:57 | And because I'm going to the web, I
want tiny sharpening, very crisp details.
| | 01:02 | And that's a great use by the way for
that Bicubic Sharper setting. So, what I
| | 01:07 | want you to do is I want you to press
Ctrl+K, Command+K on the Mac to bring up
| | 01:11 | the Preferences dialog box. And I want
you to switch Image Interpolation from
| | 01:15 | Bicubic to Bicubic Sharper (best for
reduction), which it is in this case.
| | 01:20 | When you are creating web graphics,
it's a really great feature in my opinion.
| | 01:24 | I use it a lot, because it's the kind
of sharpness that works well on screen,
| | 01:27 | doesn't work worth beans for print. All
right, so I'll go ahead and click OK in
| | 01:31 | order to accept that change. And then
I'm going to press Ctrl+T or Command+T on
| | 01:36 | the Mac in order to enter the Free
Transform mode. Now, I can't see the
| | 01:39 | handles, because Russell's head is so
gargantuan, I have to zoom out in order
| | 01:43 | to see all those handles right there.
| | 01:45 | But I'm not really interested in
seeing the handles anyway. I'm just going to
| | 01:49 | work from the Options bar. I'm going
turn on the link and I'm going to press
| | 01:53 | Shift+down arrow a few times with H
selected. So, I went ahead and selected the
| | 01:58 | H value, I could have just as easily
selected the W value till I get down to
| | 02:02 | let's say about 60%. And it dawns on
me I can't really tell if I'm lining
| | 02:06 | things up right or not at this point, because I
can't see the little Russell in the background.
| | 02:11 | I could change the Opacity value here
inside the Layers palette. But if I did,
| | 02:15 | then I'm going to get a washed out
version of Russell. I don't want that.
| | 02:18 | Instead, if I want to maintain the
intensity of the colors and detail and
| | 02:23 | everything inside of the scaled
image as I'm working on it, but I want to
| | 02:27 | reveal other elements in the background,
why then I would switch the mode from
| | 02:31 | Normal to Multiply, another great
use for a really great blend mode.
| | 02:36 | And now I can see everything inside of
the image. It looks great, so I'm going
| | 02:39 | to go back here to the W value this time.
So, now I'm going to press Shift+down
| | 02:43 | arrow couple more times, maybe take it
down to 30%. And actually 30% is exactly
| | 02:49 | a match. Look at that. So, that must
be what I did before. So, 30-30, looks
| | 02:54 | great, go ahead and press the Enter
key or the Return key on the Mac in order
| | 02:57 | to accept your modification
and we now have new russell.
| | 03:01 | So, how does he fair? Well, let's
get rid of old Russell here, rbrown, by
| | 03:07 | turning off that layer. And then I'll
drag new russell down below darken like
| | 03:12 | so. Now, I just introduced it into the
clipping mask, because after our darken
| | 03:17 | was clipped by rbrown, this Darken
adjustment layer so that it affects just the
| | 03:21 | rbrown layer. And because I
sandwiched new russell in between, it becomes
| | 03:24 | clipped as well. While, we are clipping
to an invisible layer, so everything is
| | 03:28 | invisible. I don't what that, so I
got to do a couple of Alt-clicks or
| | 03:31 | Option-clicks on the Mac.
| | 03:32 | I am going to Alt-click here or
Option-click here on the horizontal line
| | 03:36 | between new russell and rbrown. Now,
I can see him again, but darken is no
| | 03:40 | longer clipped to anything. So,
I'll Alt-click or Option-click on the
| | 03:44 | horizontal line between darken and
new russell and now it is clipped as
| | 03:47 | indicated by this little down pointing
arrowhead and everything is hunky-dory.
| | 03:52 | Now, how do things look? Well, let's
go ahead and turn on the logo elements
| | 03:55 | layer and he looks like he is peeking
over my logo, just fine, it looks totally
| | 04:00 | awesome. Now, if you feel like he needs
to be sharper still, then go up to the
| | 04:05 | Filter menu. Make sure of course new
russell is active. Choose Sharpen and then
| | 04:09 | choose Smart Sharpen would be my
recommendation for such a small item. And I
| | 04:14 | have already established the settings I
want to use, an Amount of 100%, Radius
| | 04:17 | of 0.5 pixels. Remove is set to Lens Blur.
| | 04:19 | Now, I was telling you back when we
were discussing sharpening that if you are
| | 04:22 | trying to compensate for the effects
of Image Interpolation for downsampling
| | 04:28 | the image, then you really want to go
with Gaussian Blur. But because, we have
| | 04:32 | a very small image that's intended for
screen use, so it's going to go to the
| | 04:35 | web, Lens Blur is going to give us more
tactile results. So, that's what I want
| | 04:39 | in this case. I'll go with
Lens Blur and I'll click OK.
| | 04:42 | That's too much sharpening of course.
So let's go and back it off by going to
| | 04:46 | the Edit menu, choosing the Fade
Smart Sharpen command, Ctrl+Shift+F,
| | 04:50 | Command+Shift+F on the Mac. And let's
change the mode of course to Luminosity,
| | 04:54 | because we don't want to introduce any
aberrant colors. And you will see things
| | 04:58 | shift a little in the
background when I choose Luminosity.
| | 05:01 | Notice that we have 4-5 details running
outside of the head, which I like quite
| | 05:05 | a bit. And then I'm going to take the
Opacity value, because he's just way too
| | 05:09 | sharp. I'm going to take it down to
about 45%. Looks good to me. I like the
| | 05:13 | fact that we have these nice dark edges
around Russell's head. Now normally, if
| | 05:19 | I were compositing Russell against a
photographic background and I wanted an
| | 05:23 | incredible effect, then I wouldn't want this
darkness right there. I would work to get rid of it.
| | 05:28 | I will show you how of course, all
sorts of different ways to composite masked
| | 05:32 | images inside of my full Photoshop CS3
Channels and Masks series, which is just
| | 05:37 | as accurate for Photoshop CS4 as it
is to Photoshop CS3. But in my case, I
| | 05:43 | don't want that appearance. Nobody is
going to believe for a second that he was
| | 05:47 | photographed behind this sign
against the white background. So, I want to
| | 05:51 | distinguish him from the white
background as much as possible and so these dark
| | 05:54 | edges look really great.
| | 05:56 | So, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
out to take in the final version of this
| | 06:00 | composition. And a word about
martiniHour, it's a free audio podcast that's
| | 06:05 | available to you at Deke.com. We'll
talk about computer graphics and digital
| | 06:10 | imaging which is the stuff I eat, and
breathe, and drink, and everything, right.
| | 06:14 | In the next exercise, we are going to
transition to our final project in which
| | 06:18 | I show you how to select translucent
objects, specifically glass, so that you
| | 06:23 | can see through the glass to a totally
foreign
environment and it looks great. Please, join me.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compositing glass| 00:00 | In this final project, I'm going to
show you how to select glass. Now, this
| | 00:05 | isn't the only way to select glass,
there's different ways to approach a glass
| | 00:09 | project. This is just one way. But
I'll show you a few different ways to
| | 00:13 | approach it, just for fun.
| | 00:15 | This isn't just glass my friends. This
is water as well. So, we are going to
| | 00:19 | select this water. And we are going
to see-through the glass and water to a
| | 00:23 | totally different background. And
that background is going to be this
| | 00:27 | background right here,
the Star pattern background.
| | 00:30 | And I should tell you that we have a
few different images open here. One is
| | 00:34 | Splash in glass.jpg. This image comes
to us from photographer Chris O'Driscoll
| | 00:40 | of istockphoto.com. The star pattern
image, which is called Star pattern.jpg,
| | 00:45 | it comes to us from Harold Fela
also with istockphoto.com. And in this
| | 00:51 | composition, this mash-up, which is
called Glass on pattern.psd, it comes to us
| | 00:56 | from me and from you after you get
done building it. And just check it out.
| | 01:01 | You would never know, in a million
years that the glass started against this
| | 01:04 | background here, we have altogether
eliminated that background. But we have all
| | 01:08 | the glass, we have all the water, we
have all the just delightful highlights,
| | 01:12 | we have the shadows, we have the little
glimmering bubbles here. But check out
| | 01:17 | this. This is pretty impressive I think.
I think you will think it's impressive
| | 01:20 | too. Notice that the tabletop is sort
of just gray at this point, but as soon
| | 01:25 | as we introduce the new background, it
becomes infused with Star pattern color as well.
| | 01:31 | So, it looks like this glass has lived
against this background its entire life.
| | 01:36 | And if you zoom in here on these
details, you will see all kinds of stars in
| | 01:42 | the background behind this water. Is
that not just delicious? I think it looks
| | 01:47 | so awesome and it even looks like,
there is a little bit of distortion
| | 01:51 | associated with the stars like the
water in the glass is distorting everything
| | 01:55 | that's going on behind it. That's not
happening, there's no distortion. It's
| | 01:58 | just simply a matter of your
eyes and brain making that up.
| | 02:01 | But it is a delightful trick and it
looks just wonderful. And I'll show you
| | 02:06 | that we have a few different
variations going on. If you bring up the Layer
| | 02:09 | Comps palette here, we have got one
that's called found mask which is what we
| | 02:12 | are looking at here, it's the easiest
of the masking tricks and it's the last
| | 02:16 | one I'm going to show you. And then
we have color range 1 which is a little
| | 02:19 | stronger, let's go ahead and zoom out
here, so that we can see more of the
| | 02:22 | glass at a time. This is color range 1
versus found mask and then this is color
| | 02:27 | range 2 versus color
range 1 and versus found mask.
| | 02:31 | So, you can get all kinds of different
effects here. So, I'll show you how to
| | 02:35 | do all of them. And let's start by
just establishing the base composition and
| | 02:39 | then in the next exercise, I'll show
you how to approach this selection using
| | 02:43 | the Color Range command. And then the
in the exercise after that I'll show you
| | 02:46 | how to use the Found Mask, which
could not be easier. If it sounds like I'm
| | 02:51 | talking to you like I'm insane it's
because it's so easy, Found Masks are so
| | 02:55 | easy to use and yet produce such great effects.
| | 02:58 | All right, so, let's set things in
motion here. I'm going over to Splash in
| | 03:02 | glass and I want you to do that as
well. And I want you to Ctrl+drag or
| | 03:06 | Command+drag the glass image here,
because Ctrl+dragging or Command+dragging.
| | 03:10 | That gets you the Move tool on the fly.
So, Ctrl+drag or Command+drag up to the
| | 03:14 | title, like so, so that it switches
over to Star pattern. Move your cursor back
| | 03:18 | into the image window, press and hold
the Shift key along with Ctrl or Command
| | 03:22 | and drop. And you are going to
register these two images in place with each
| | 03:27 | other, because they are
both exactly the same size.
| | 03:29 | Now, let's go ahead and rename this guy,
something like base layer. And then we
| | 03:33 | are going to take advantage of a blend
mode. Now often times, blend modes can
| | 03:38 | serve either to take the place of masks,
so that you don't need a mask at all,
| | 03:43 | or they can facilitate masking. In
this case, it's more of a facilitation
| | 03:48 | thing. When you are working with
glass or any sort of translucent objects,
| | 03:52 | typically you are interested in
keeping the shadows and the highlights and
| | 03:56 | dropping out the mid-tones, because
the areas of mid-tones are the areas of
| | 04:01 | translucency and the highlights
and the shadows tend to be opaque.
| | 04:05 | So, we are going to switch this
layer to one of the Contrast blend modes,
| | 04:08 | because the Contrast blend modes, they
keep the highlights and the shadows and
| | 04:11 | they drop out the mid-tones. You might
be tempted to go with Overlay, and of
| | 04:14 | course that is your when-in-doubt mode,
so go ahead and try out Overlay. But
| | 04:18 | you are not going to get a very good
result. That's going to look like garbage
| | 04:22 | and we are seeing through the
highlights and we are seeing through the shadows
| | 04:25 | and everything is becoming informed by this
orange background. And that's not what we want.
| | 04:30 | So, let's go ahead and knock it up a
notch, so let's get those shadows and
| | 04:34 | highlight details a little more opaque
by switching to Hard Light. And you will
| | 04:38 | get this effect here. So, just with the
application of a single blend mode, you
| | 04:42 | already get a heck of a composition.
I mean if that's all you knew about
| | 04:46 | masking transparent objects inside of
Photoshop. That would be a heck of a
| | 04:49 | thing to know. Just change the object
to the Hard Light mode and you are done.
| | 04:53 | But we can do better than that.
| | 04:55 | And what we want to do is we want to
pound those highlights a little more,
| | 04:58 | meaning that we want to bring them out.
So that the highlights are little more
| | 05:02 | visible. That means that we are going
to mask the highlights and then bring
| | 05:05 | them in once again to this composition.
And we'll do exactly that in the next
| | 05:09 | exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting glass highlights| 00:01 | So far we have managed to create a
pretty darn incredible glass composition
| | 00:05 | just by dragging the glass against a
different background, and setting it to
| | 00:08 | the Hard Light mode, which is why I
have called this version of the image Hard
| | 00:12 | Light comp.psd found inside the 23_
masking folder. But I think we can do
| | 00:16 | better. If you take a look at this
Glass on pattern.psd file also found inside
| | 00:20 | that same folder, you will see that we
have a richer background going on. So
| | 00:26 | it's not quite so dark, and we have
some much better highlights, much brighter,
| | 00:30 | more vivid highlights.
| | 00:32 | Now we can take care of the background
by just dimming down the layer a little
| | 00:36 | bit, by reducing the Opacity of the
layer. So I'll switch back to this Hard
| | 00:39 | Light comp image, because the layer is
selected and my Marque tool is active.
| | 00:44 | I press the 8 key to reduce the Opacity
of the layer to 80%, and that brightens
| | 00:48 | up the background quite a bit actually.
But it also dims down the highlights.
| | 00:51 | All the more recent to reintroduce
the highlights, to select them and then
| | 00:55 | reintroduce them into the composition.
So let's go back to Splash in glass,
| | 01:01 | this image right here, the original
image from photographer Chris O'Driscoll,
| | 01:05 | and let's select it.
| | 01:06 | Now I'm going to show you two
different ways to select the highlights in this
| | 01:09 | glass. One is to do it very exactingly
using the Color Range command, which is
| | 01:14 | a familiar command to us as well. It
gives us a lot of control. Then I'll show
| | 01:17 | you the quick and dirty way to do it,
just by using a Found Mask, so easy, you
| | 01:22 | will not believe it. It doesn't give
you as much control but in our case, we
| | 01:26 | don't need the control as you will see.
| | 01:27 | All right, so here we are. We are
looking at the glass. Go up to the Select
| | 01:31 | menu, choose the Color Range command.
Or if you loaded Dekekeys, mash your fist
| | 01:35 | on the keyboard, and press O.
That's Ctrl+Shift+Alt+O on a PC and
| | 01:38 | Command+Shift+Option+O on the Mac. Up
comes the Color Range dialog box, these
| | 01:43 | are the default settings so we are
seeing the masked version of the selection
| | 01:47 | inside of the dialog box. And
Selection Preview set to None so that we are
| | 01:51 | seeing the original image out here in
the image window. Fuzziness is set to 40,
| | 01:54 | Localized Color Clusters is off, Invert
also turned-off, we want both of those
| | 01:59 | options off actually.
| | 02:00 | First thing I want you to do is click
in a highlight, such as right here, this
| | 02:05 | highlight right there in the water,
works out beautifully. And at this point,
| | 02:09 | you will see that you haven't really
selected all that many highlights inside
| | 02:12 | of the image. So let's go ahead and
crank up the Fuzziness, and I want you to
| | 02:16 | take that Fuzziness value up to about
125, and now we are selecting quite a few
| | 02:20 | more highlights inside the image.
| | 02:21 | The one thing that's not a highlight
that we do definitely need to select is
| | 02:25 | this lime because otherwise we are
going to have a translucent lime, and we
| | 02:29 | don't want that. So Shift-click on
the lime in order to add the lime to the
| | 02:33 | selection. And notice now that you
have a lot of frothy highlight goodness
| | 02:37 | going on inside of the Selection Preview.
And if you want to see that Selection
| | 02:41 | Preview, big and beautiful inside
of the image window, then change the
| | 02:44 | Selection Preview
function right here to Grayscale.
| | 02:48 | You can also, by the way, this is
pretty useful, you can preview the selection
| | 02:52 | against a Black or White Matte,
meaning that you will just see the selection
| | 02:56 | set against white for example, which
isn't terribly helpful to see, white
| | 03:00 | highlights against the white
background. Black though is very useful in the
| | 03:03 | case of this image. So you can just
see what a wonderful selection you have
| | 03:07 | created. Can you believe this,
that quickly? All we did was click and
| | 03:11 | Shift-click and set the Fuzziness to
125, and we get this deliriously awesome
| | 03:16 | effect. Thanks to one of the most
wonderful features inside of Photoshop, the
| | 03:21 | Color Range command. I just love this command.
| | 03:23 | You can also preview the selection
as a Quick Mask, if you want to, not
| | 03:27 | particularly useful to us, but there it
is. Anyway, let's just see a Grayscale
| | 03:31 | version of the mask. There it is.
Looks nice. Now if you are having problems
| | 03:35 | getting this result, I don't see how
you get that problems, but I did go ahead
| | 03:38 | and save off my settings. And you can
load them if you want to. If you click on
| | 03:42 | the Load button, you will see that you
have got Highlights, which is just the
| | 03:46 | highlights without the lime, and
you can click Load to check that out.
| | 03:49 | So notice that the lime is black in
this case, so deselect it. Of course, you
| | 03:53 | can go ahead and add it in by Shift-
clicking on it if you want to. That will
| | 03:56 | add in that lime. It does a terrific
job. Or if you want to get the selection
| | 04:00 | you were seeing just a moment ago or
something very much like it, then click
| | 04:03 | Load and select Lime & highlights.axt
and then click Load. And you will get
| | 04:08 | this result right there. Or just do it
yourself click and Shift-click. That's
| | 04:13 | all there is to it, so easy. Set the
fuzziness to 125, wonderful. Click OK, you
| | 04:18 | now have a selection outline, awesome.
| | 04:20 | Now I want you to press the Ctrl key or
the Command key on the Mac in order to
| | 04:24 | get your Move tool on the fly. Make
sure that you are seeing a little pair of
| | 04:27 | scissors next to the Move tool cursor.
Right now, I'm not. You do want to see
| | 04:31 | the scissors. That will tell you that you
are inside the selection, very important.
| | 04:34 | Now Ctrl+drag, look at that. That's
amazing. I'm selecting just the highlights.
| | 04:39 | It's so awesome. And I'm so shrill
while I'm amazed. And I'll go ahead and drag
| | 04:44 | this guy up here to the title once
again, wait for the image to switch over,
| | 04:48 | then drag back down, press and hold
the Shift key along with Ctrl or Command
| | 04:53 | and drop. And you get these
highlights right there in place, so beautiful.
| | 04:58 | Now, you might say well, not really. If
you start zooming in, we have got some
| | 05:02 | pretty sort of weird transitions going
on. We do have the lime, no coconut, but
| | 05:07 | we do have a little bit of orange in
the background right there, so that's all
| | 05:09 | right. But then we have got these kind
of weird dark areas that don't quite go
| | 05:13 | with the new background. Well, that's
because we don't have it set to the right
| | 05:16 | mode. So let's go ahead and rename this
layer, color range. Why don't you? And
| | 05:20 | then I want you to change the mode
from Normal to, we are just trying to keep
| | 05:25 | the highlights and we are trying to
blend those highlights with the background,
| | 05:28 | so we want to drop out the
dark colors, so Screen is our guy.
| | 05:32 | The when in doubt keep the light colors
mode and it works out beautifully. Look
| | 05:37 | at that. Now there is one downside,
if you are a stickler. There is the
| | 05:42 | downside of the lime turning into a
lemon because we are screening the green
| | 05:47 | against the orange, it does go yellow
on us. I'm not thinking that's a problem.
| | 05:51 | If you want a lime, you have to go back
and grab your greens. You could select
| | 05:55 | the greens independently using Color
Range, and then bring them in to this
| | 05:59 | image. And so certainly you can do that,
and why don't we just give it a quick trial.
| | 06:03 | I will go back to Splash in glass right
there, press Ctrl+D or Command+D on the
| | 06:06 | Mac to deselect the image. Go back up
to the Select menu. Choose Color Range,
| | 06:11 | Ctrl+Shift+Alt+O or Command+Shift+Option
+O on the Mac. It's very important that
| | 06:14 | you deselect the image first before
choosing Color Range because otherwise the
| | 06:17 | Color Range command will find the
intersection of the existing selection and
| | 06:21 | the new one that you are trying to
create, which is going to be a mess.
| | 06:24 | So anyway, start with the deselected
image and then just click. Wow! It's like
| | 06:28 | it's psychic or something. And that's
because the last thing I clicked on was
| | 06:33 | the lime and so that became the
foreground color because that's what happens
| | 06:37 | when you click on a color with the
Eyedropper. And the Color Range command is
| | 06:40 | set up to automatically grab that
foreground color, so it's grabbing the lime.
| | 06:43 | Incidentally, by the way, we do have
the option of just setting Select to
| | 06:48 | Highlights. Just select the highlights
without doing any clicking whatsoever,
| | 06:52 | or any other group of colors. But it
doesn't really work very well for our purposes.
| | 06:55 | That's what the Color Range command
considers to be highlights, which is to say
| | 06:59 | oh, golly, and bad transitions too,
really sharp harsh edges, I don't like it,
| | 07:05 | not going to work for the glass. So
anyway let's go back to Sampled Colors, and
| | 07:08 | it should go back to our lime. Cool,
I'm not going to do anything, if you are
| | 07:12 | not seeing the lime selected, you
could click on it. And then click OK.
| | 07:15 | And then, let's just do another Ctrl+
drag. Make sure you could see the scissors
| | 07:19 | next to your cursor. Ctrl or Command+
drag that lime right there, that little
| | 07:23 | wedge of lime up to the tab. And then
wait it for it to switch, and then drag
| | 07:29 | back down and then press and hold the
Shift key along with Ctrl or Command and
| | 07:32 | drop it in the place. And now you have
got a lime, totally up to you. And you
| | 07:35 | might be able to blend it a little
better by setting it to the Color mode or
| | 07:39 | something along those lines, so that it looks
like it's little more integrated into the scene.
| | 07:44 | You could also experiment with
something like Overlay. I'm totally making this
| | 07:47 | up on the fly, people. So I'm not sure
if it's going to work out. It didn't.
| | 07:50 | I'm glad I provided you with that
warning upfront. Wonder what Linear Burn
| | 07:54 | would look like? It would like a rotten
lime. So I don't think that's the way I
| | 07:58 | want to go. I probably would go with
Color. But I tell you what? You know what
| | 08:01 | I would really do? I would really
leave it off. I like the lemon. I think the
| | 08:05 | lemon looks great. Anyway, I'll just go and
call this lime just so I know from whence it came.
| | 08:10 | Okay, so that's one way to work,
pretty easy. I don't think that was hard or
| | 08:14 | anything, I think that was pretty
stinking easy, especially since we are
| | 08:17 | selecting glass. I mean this is one
of those things that just seems like it
| | 08:20 | would so darn tough, but it gets even
easier to select those highlights. And
| | 08:24 | I'll show you just how easy it can be,
you don't need to choose a command, you
| | 08:29 | don't need to go clicking with the
Eyedropper, you don't need to click twice
| | 08:32 | with the darn thing. You just need to
work with a Found Mask and I'll show you
| | 08:36 | how to work with that Found
Mask in the next and last exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with found masks| 00:00 | All right gang, I have gone ahead
and saved my progress so far as Lime is
| | 00:04 | lemon.psd found inside the
23_masking folder. So called because we have
| | 00:08 | magically transformed what was
formally a lime into a lemon inside of this
| | 00:13 | composition and we invoked that
transformation by selecting the highlights
| | 00:18 | inside of the original glass image
using the Color Range command, bringing the
| | 00:21 | highlights into the composition and
setting those highlights to the Screen mode.
| | 00:25 | Now you can experiment with different
modes. If you want a harsher effect, you
| | 00:28 | could try something like Color Dodge,
ouch, not necessarily the route I would
| | 00:32 | recommend or you would try let's say
Linear Dodge which is going to give you
| | 00:36 | less vividly saturated colors but some
over the top highlights as well, but of
| | 00:41 | course needless to say I think the best
thing for this image is going to be Screen.
| | 00:45 | So I'm just going to press the Escape
key to make that darn option inactive and
| | 00:50 | then I'll press Shift+Alt+S or Shift+
Option+S on a Mac to return to the Screen
| | 00:54 | mode. Now let's say this is still too
vivid for your liking. In other words,
| | 00:58 | the highlights are a little bit too
harsh. You want something with softer
| | 01:01 | transitions like the image that we are
seeing inside of this composition, so
| | 01:04 | Glass on pattern.psd. It's a little
smoother and by the way, I'm looking at
| | 01:10 | this layer comp, the found mask layer
comp right there, so that we are seeing
| | 01:14 | the highlights found layer along
with base colors in background.
| | 01:17 | All right, so how do we get that? Well,
you would load a found mask. What in
| | 01:21 | the world am I talking about? Well,
let me show you. I'm going to go back to
| | 01:25 | Lime is Lemon for a moment here, I'm
going to turn off that color range layer
| | 01:28 | because we are going to create new
highlights and I'm going to select the base layer.
| | 01:33 | Now, let's go back to Splash in glass,
that original image once again from
| | 01:37 | photographer Chris O'Driscoll, and I
guess if I keep telling you about Chris
| | 01:40 | O'Driscoll, I actually keep telling
you about Harold Fela. Both of these
| | 01:44 | guys are responsible for these base images here
and Harold Fela did the stars in case you forgot.
| | 01:48 | All right, let's go back to Splash in
glass. What are we going to do? Well,
| | 01:51 | press Ctrl+D, Command+D on the Mac to
make sure nothing is selected because I
| | 01:54 | still have that lime selected right
there and go to the Channels palette. These
| | 01:59 | are found masks, these channels. Every
one of these channels, Red, Green and
| | 02:03 | Blue, can be turned into a
mask on a moment's notice.
| | 02:06 | They are just sitting there waiting for
you to make the masks, they want you to
| | 02:10 | make the masks and they are perfect
for selecting highlights. Why are they so
| | 02:14 | great at selecting highlights? Well,
because the highlights are light and light
| | 02:17 | colors are selected when you are
working with masks. It's that easy. So these
| | 02:21 | are what are known as Luminance masks.
They are masks that are going to select
| | 02:25 | the luminance information inside the image.
| | 02:27 | Now, what we want is a mask that's
going to provide us with a nice degree of
| | 02:31 | contrast between the foreground which
is the glass and the water and a table
| | 02:36 | and the bubbles and so on, where that
is these little spots of water and the
| | 02:39 | background which is the other junk.
However, we also want to select the lime
| | 02:44 | and the Blue channel does not select
the lime because the lime is dark in the
| | 02:47 | Blue channel. So forget about it as is
so frequently the case, the Blue channel
| | 02:51 | is not our friend where
masking this image is concerned.
| | 02:55 | Let's go to the Green channel instead.
That looks good. We have got a nice
| | 02:58 | light lime and we have got some nice
light highlights and so on and some nice
| | 03:02 | dark shadows and then red. Now red,
not so good, because we are getting a
| | 03:06 | darker lime once again and we are getting a
lighter background. So green is our choice.
| | 03:11 | Now, I was telling you that Red
channel is frequently a great channel for
| | 03:14 | selecting portrait shots especially
if you have a person against a dark
| | 03:18 | background. If you have a person
against a light background, you might find
| | 03:21 | Blue to be more useful, believe it or
not. When you are working with still
| | 03:25 | images and you are not concerned about
things like skin tones, Green is your
| | 03:29 | when-in-doubt channel because that's
your detail channel, a lot of detail out
| | 03:33 | of that Green channel and it turns out
to be the best channel for us, but I do
| | 03:35 | recommend you always peruse your
channels and make intelligent decisions
| | 03:40 | because relying just on those arbitrary
recommendations I just gave you is not the way to go.
| | 03:45 | So just look at what you got and make
a decision accordingly. Then when you
| | 03:48 | decided what you want, Ctrl-click or
Command-click on that channel to load it
| | 03:52 | as a selection outline. No changes,
don't make a duplicate, don't do anything
| | 03:56 | to it, it's right ready to go. Go back
to RGB like so and then I want you to
| | 04:01 | make sure that you are seeing the
little pair of scissors next to the arrow cursor
| | 04:04 | there. Ctrl+Drag or Command+Drag the
lime just because it's the easiest thing
| | 04:08 | to grab into this tab right there. Lime
is lemon.psd, drag back into the Image
| | 04:14 | window, press the Shift key along with
Ctrl or Command, drop it into place. My
| | 04:18 | goodness, there are the highlights, not
looking exactly the way you wanted to look.
| | 04:22 | Actually I would say it's a better
composition, the one we saw before with
| | 04:26 | color range, we have more credible
transitions inside of this composition at
| | 04:31 | this point, even set to the Normal
mode and that would maintain the lime as a
| | 04:36 | lime look right there. You would have a
nice greenish lime but if you want even
| | 04:40 | better transitions, then you want to
switch back to Layers palette, you want to
| | 04:44 | go ahead and call this guy found lime
or something along those lines and then
| | 04:49 | change the blend mode from Normal to of
course Screen and you are going to get
| | 04:53 | a beautiful composition.
| | 04:54 | Now was that easy? I ask you, isn't it
nice to end something that's so advanced
| | 04:59 | like masking on such an easy note? So
just remember, anytime you want to select
| | 05:03 | highlights inside of Photoshop, you
don't under any circumstances go to the
| | 05:08 | Magic Wand tool, never, never do that.
You could go to the Color Range command
| | 05:12 | if you want a lot of control or you
can just load a Found Mask and for more
| | 05:16 | information my friends, please, if
you are interested in mastering masking
| | 05:20 | inside of Photoshop, this is just the
beginning of your journey. Definitely
| | 05:24 | check out Photoshop CS3, one day we
might update it to CS4 but doesn't really
| | 05:28 | need that much updating.
| | 05:30 | Photoshop CS3 Channels and Masks, a two
part series found here in the lynda.com
| | 05:35 | Online Training Library. All right gang,
that's it for masking inside of this
| | 05:40 | series. In the next chapter, we are going to take a
look at vector-based shapes inside Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
24. Vector-Based ShapesIntroduction to vector-based shapes| 00:00 | Generally speaking Photoshop brokers
in pixels or so-called Raster Art.
| | 00:05 | But the program dabbles in vectors on the
side. A vector, in case you don't know,
| | 00:10 | is a mathematically defined outline.
The outline traces a shape. Photoshop
| | 00:14 | renders that shape to pixels on the fly.
But at its heart, the shape is just a
| | 00:20 | bunch of math, meaning that it can
be scaled or transformed without any
| | 00:24 | degradation in quality. Ever.
| | 00:27 | One way to scale vectors is to print
them to a postscript compatible printer.
| | 00:31 | Regardless of the resolution of the
image, it might be 3 pixels wide.
| | 00:36 | The vector renders at the full resolution
of the output device. But few of us own
| | 00:41 | postscript printers and other printers
don't work this way. For the rest of us,
| | 00:44 | there is Free Transform and Image Size.
Increase the size of the shape or image
| | 00:50 | and the vector scale away,
always remaining razor sharp.
| | 00:55 | Vectors are a world apart from
anything we have seen and in Photoshop vectors
| | 00:59 | go by one of three names, shape layers,
vector masks and paths. But really,
| | 01:05 | they are all the same thing as you
will learn in the following exercises.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Vector-based type outlines| 00:00 | All right gang, we are going to do
this chapter in kind of weird order, as
| | 00:03 | opposed to showing you how to draw a
vector based shapes inside of Photoshop
| | 00:08 | and then telling you how great they are,
I'm going to tell you how great they
| | 00:11 | are first and then I'll show you how to
draw your vector based shapes. Because
| | 00:15 | you need to know why you would do it in
the first place before you start doing it.
| | 00:19 | And these guys by the way, just in case
you are curious, these are your vector
| | 00:22 | based Drawing tools right here. Just
the standard stuff, like the Rectangle
| | 00:26 | tool for example. And you know you
want to round off the corners, you've got
| | 00:29 | the Rounded Rectangle tool, the
Ellipse tool, Polygon tool which also draws
| | 00:32 | stars incidentally and we'll see how
that works. The Line tool draws shapes,
| | 00:37 | actually that look lines, they are not
stroke shapes the way they are in, say,
| | 00:40 | Adobe Illustrator or
InDesign or one of those programs.
| | 00:43 | And then we have a Custom Shape tool
that actually draws custom shapes like
| | 00:47 | crowns or frames or all kinds of stuff
as you will see. And you can make your
| | 00:52 | our own custom shapes. And if you
decide to go that route where you want to
| | 00:55 | design your own custom shapes, you can
use this guy right there, the Pen tool.
| | 00:59 | And we'll see it ever so briefly.
I'll show you how that works.
| | 01:02 | Before we get to actually using the
tools, I want to show you why shapes are so
| | 01:07 | great, because after all if you
know anything about the litany of Adobe
| | 01:11 | products, the various programs in the
Creative Suite. Then you know that the
| | 01:15 | true vector based drawing tool is
Illustrator. It ain't Photoshop.
| | 01:19 | It's Illustrator. So why in the world
would you sit around and draw vector based
| | 01:23 | shapes, which is Illustrator's bread
and butter? Why would you bring it over
| | 01:27 | into Photoshop? Photoshop is a
photography tool for crying in a bucket.
| | 01:31 | So why would you do vector stuff?
| | 01:33 | Well, because Photoshop's so great
at it and because you can do stuff in
| | 01:37 | Photoshop that you just can't do in
Illustrator. Or that's a lot easier to do
| | 01:41 | in Photoshop like the stuff that we
are seeing right here which is based
| | 01:44 | largely on layer effects, for example.
All right, so before I even tell you how
| | 01:49 | great vector based shapes are, I got to
tell you one other thing, I got to tell
| | 01:52 | you this little tricky thing about
converting text to shapes. Because it comes
| | 01:57 | up first when you start opening up the
images, it becomes an issue. So there is
| | 02:01 | two images I want you to open
if you are working along with me.
| | 02:03 | One is called Tip pixels.psd and the
other is called Vector tip.psd, both found
| | 02:10 | inside the 24_vector_shapes folder. And
I have a pixel-based version of the tip
| | 02:15 | and we'll see how that differs in
just a moment. And then we have a vector
| | 02:19 | based version offset tip, which is a
lot of more flexible as you will see.
| | 02:23 | But when you first open the vector-based
version of this image, you will get this
| | 02:28 | error message right here. Presumably
those of you who are working on a PC will
| | 02:33 | very likely see it; those of you
working on the Mac may or may not see it.
| | 02:36 | But it's basically saying that the font
that I have used for the word Tip here is
| | 02:40 | missing on your system.
| | 02:42 | And the font happens to be Myriad,
just plain old Myriad which does exist on
| | 02:46 | the Mac but doesn't typically exist on
the PC. Myriad Bold, you will just have
| | 02:50 | to click OK. That's your only option to say,
"Okay, I get it, I don't have that font."
| | 02:55 | But the text is still going to look
fine because Photoshop goes ahead with
| | 02:59 | every file that contains text; it keeps
track of the pixels that are associated
| | 03:02 | with that text as well. So that if you
do happen to open it up on a different
| | 03:06 | system, you can still see what the
text looks like so long as you don't go
| | 03:10 | messing with it. So if I decide, "Hey,
I think I'm going to edit this text
| | 03:14 | right here. I'm going to like double
click on it or do something." Notice that
| | 03:18 | Photoshop's going to whine at you and
say, "Hey, you do not have Myriad Bold on
| | 03:23 | this system." If indeed you don't.
Would you like to go ahead and continue? And
| | 03:26 | if you do continue, font
substitution will occur.
| | 03:30 | Now notice it's not telling me what
kind of font substitution will occur.
| | 03:34 | What font it's going to use? It's a big
roulette wheel is essentially like comes
| | 03:38 | down to, it may decide Couriers, the
closest match, you never know. But let's
| | 03:42 | go ahead and click OK and see what it
does. And in my case it comes up and
| | 03:46 | says, "Hey, how about Myriad Pro
which is actually a very close font, very
| | 03:51 | close substitute?" So that's great.
| | 03:53 | And in fact in many regards it's
equivalent, it's the exact same font, it's
| | 03:57 | just an open type version of Myriad.
And it ships along with various versions
| | 04:01 | of the Creative Suite, so you may
actually have it installed on your system as well.
| | 04:05 | If so, it will probably come up
as Myriad Pro Regular and you will need
| | 04:09 | to switch it out to Myriad Pro Bold
like so. You may notice on my screen I have
| | 04:15 | got the big font previews right here,
because that's the way I set it up in the
| | 04:19 | previews chapter way long ago
when we were discussing text.
| | 04:22 | Anyway you may see smaller samples
right there. That's no big deal, doesn't
| | 04:26 | matter. All right thought, now I have
got the proper font substitute here so
| | 04:30 | that's grand, I'm going to go ahead and
just sort of press the Enter key on the
| | 04:34 | keypad in order to accept my
modifications. Now let's say you are worried this
| | 04:38 | is going to happen to somebody else,
somebody else is going to open up your
| | 04:41 | document and they are going to be
confronted with this message saying, "Hey,
| | 04:45 | you don't have the right font" and you
don't want that to occur. Of course you
| | 04:48 | want to make sure that your image that
you are sending off to whomever it is,
| | 04:52 | is as system ambivalent as possible.
| | 04:54 | So you have two options that are
available to you. If you right-click on this
| | 04:59 | text layer like so, some place in this
empty are right there, you are going to
| | 05:03 | see that you can rasterize the type or
you can convert it to a work path which
| | 05:08 | means it's going to go over to the
Paths palette right there. Or you can covert
| | 05:10 | it to a shape. Now if you rasterize the
type, watch what happens. Go ahead and
| | 05:15 | choose Rasterize Type and it doesn't
change its appearance at all. It looks sweet.
| | 05:19 | Right, it totally looks great.
It is now pixels. You can't edit it
| | 05:24 | anymore with the Type tool, so you
would choose the Save As command in order to
| | 05:27 | preserve the original text.
| | 05:29 | However, you could send this off to
whomever and it would look beautiful for them.
| | 05:33 | Problem is this isn't going to
be scalable and I'll show you why that's
| | 05:37 | so very important in a future exercise.
But just know for now it's not scalable
| | 05:42 | if you go that route. So if you want
true vector type just like you used to
| | 05:46 | have, just a moment ago you had
vector type before you converted it over to
| | 05:49 | pixels. If you want to keep that vector
type but you don't want any whining out
| | 05:53 | of Photoshop about the fonts and so
on. Then go ahead and press Ctrl+Z,
| | 05:56 | Command+Z on the Mac to undo that
modification. And I want you to pay close
| | 06:00 | attention to this text.
So go ahead and watch it.
| | 06:02 | I will right-click once again or Ctrl-
click if you don't have a right mouse
| | 06:06 | button on the Mac. And I'll choose
Convert to Shape and that will go ahead and
| | 06:10 | convert the text to shape outline, so
we are going to have a little bit of
| | 06:13 | change. Did you see how the I and the
P changed ever so subtly there? This is
| | 06:18 | before and this is after, actually I
should say all the letters have changed
| | 06:22 | ever so subtly. We didn't have that
problem with pixels, we'll potentially have
| | 06:27 | that problem with vectors when you
convert type to vector based outlines.
| | 06:31 | Especially, if you have some warping
involved and that's what we have going.
| | 06:34 | We have some warped text.
| | 06:36 | And what's Photoshop is doing is it's
trying to interpret the math and it's
| | 06:40 | getting it mostly right. But now this
is scalable and this is true vector based
| | 06:46 | goodness here inside of Photoshop. Now
you are going to see these little path
| | 06:49 | outlines show up right there, they
don't print, so those little ratty outlines
| | 06:53 | aren't going to print. They are not
really there. It's just Photoshop showing
| | 06:57 | you what the vector outlines look like.
If you don't wan to see them anymore,
| | 07:00 | just click on that vector mask thumbnail.
That's what that is. And they will go away.
| | 07:06 | And there you have it. So we
have now made vector based text inside of
| | 07:10 | our vector tip photographic
illustration, we are going to see how this Vector
| | 07:14 | tip.psd document absolutely wipes the
floor with this Tip pixels.psd document
| | 07:21 | starting in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The benefits of vectors| 00:00 | All right, so I have got two
different documents opened this time around.
| | 00:03 | I still have Tip pixels.psd and then I
went ahead and saved my progress inside of
| | 00:08 | the other document as Type to vectors
.psd in which I have gone ahead and
| | 00:13 | converted my text to shape outlines.
Both of these images are found inside the
| | 00:19 | 24_vector_shapes folder. And in this
exercise, I'm going to tell you about
| | 00:24 | three of the four great
advantages of vectors over pixels.
| | 00:29 | Now it's not like pixels are bad, I
need to make that perfectly clear, we have
| | 00:32 | been spending a ton of time with pixels
inside of this series of course so far.
| | 00:37 | So obviously pixels rock. And they are
especially necessary for representing
| | 00:43 | photographic images. There is no way
currently to represent photographic images
| | 00:48 | without pixels. However, vectors have
their own rocking quality as well as you
| | 00:54 | are about to learn.
| | 00:55 | So advantage number one to vectors,
they print at the full resolution of your
| | 01:00 | printer as long as you have a
postscript based printing device. So if you have
| | 01:05 | a postscript printer, then even if you
have got a very low resolution image and
| | 01:10 | it's filled with vectors, all the
vector outlines will print smooth and silk.
| | 01:14 | They will print as smooth as if you
created them inside of Adobe Illustrator.
| | 01:17 | So you can check that out on your
own if you like, those of you who have
| | 01:22 | postscript output devices. If you
don't, if you just have a standard inkjet
| | 01:25 | device or something along those lines
or a laser printer that isn't equipped
| | 01:28 | with postscript, why then, you will
just get the standard pixel output.
| | 01:32 | That's advantage number one, a
little obscure but it's there.
| | 01:35 | Advantage number two is that vectors
are uniquely editable. So for example, if
| | 01:41 | I'm working here inside of my pixel
based version of the Tip file right there.
| | 01:47 | Notice that I have this pixel based
spikes layer that has these gray spikes
| | 01:52 | that are colored using layer Effects.
We'll see that shortly. And then we have
| | 01:56 | got a little bit of pixel based
layer mask right there and if I wanted to
| | 02:00 | modify the spikes layer, then I
could by getting something like the Paint
| | 02:05 | Brush, for example, and then lets go
ahead and set the foreground color to the
| | 02:10 | same color that I used here, the same gray.
| | 02:13 | I will do that by switching over to
the Eyedropper tool for a moment.
| | 02:17 | I'll switch sample to current layer and
then I'll just click on that star in order
| | 02:22 | to lift gray. All right, and thanks to
the fact that I have this sample option
| | 02:26 | now inside Photoshop CS4. I can lift
the gray pixel color without lifting the
| | 02:30 | colors associated with the layer
effects and so on. All right, now I'll go
| | 02:33 | ahead and grab the Paint Brush and I'll
paint on this layer. And let's go ahead
| | 02:38 | and make sure that we have a nice
sharp brush here, we do. And I'll go ahead
| | 02:41 | and paint on this layer and notice, wow!
The layer effects go ahead and pick up
| | 02:46 | as well. So that's pretty groovy.
| | 02:48 | However, let's say what I really
wanted to was I wanted to move one of the
| | 02:52 | spikes to a different location. Well,
that's very difficult to do with the
| | 02:57 | pixel-based layer. It has to
essentially redraw that spike whereas with a
| | 03:02 | vector-based layer, it's very
easy to do. So I'm going to undo that
| | 03:04 | modification that right there because
that's not what I want. Let's switch over
| | 03:07 | to Type to vectors.psd in which I
converted the type to vectors and then I'm
| | 03:13 | going to go ahead and grab this Arrow
tool. Now notice that it's called the
| | 03:17 | Path Selection tool, whatever. I call
them, these two tools right there, the
| | 03:20 | Black Arrow tool and the White Arrow
tool, which makes a ton of sense because
| | 03:24 | the keyboard shortcut is A for Arrow
even though the word arrow never appears
| | 03:28 | in the official description of the
tools. So the Black Arrow tool or Path
| | 03:32 | Selection tool if you prefer.
| | 03:34 | Let's go ahead and switch over to the
spikes layer over here. What it does is
| | 03:37 | it allows you to select a whole path
at a time and move it to a different
| | 03:41 | location or what have you, you can
scale it, you can rotate it and so on.
| | 03:46 | Go ahead and undo that modification by
pressing Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 03:50 | Go ahead and click off of the spikes in
order to reselect them, so then I can show
| | 03:53 | you that the Direct Selection tool or
what I prefer to call the White Arrow
| | 03:57 | tool allows you to select specific
points and segments. So I could say you know
| | 04:02 | this spike right here doesn't want
to be at this location, it wants to be
| | 04:07 | slightly over like so. Then this guy
wants to be over here like so and so on.
| | 04:13 | So you have a completely different
editing option available to you. You are
| | 04:18 | editing this path outline by moving
its anchor points, adjusting its segments
| | 04:23 | and so on. So you are adjusting the
path as if it was a Bezier based path
| | 04:29 | outline, which it is. So that's great.
All right, so that's another advantage,
| | 04:33 | I'm going to go ahead and undo those
modifications however, because I don't
| | 04:36 | want to just adjust those spikes, I
like where they were. I'm pressing
| | 04:38 | Ctrl+Alt+Z or Command+Option+Z
on the Mac to undo those changes.
| | 04:42 | Oh! By the way, this is a little bit
of a tip for you. When you have one of
| | 04:47 | these tools selected right here, these
are all the vector-based tools by the
| | 04:51 | way, vector-based Pen, vector-based
Type. So type is vectors inside of
| | 04:55 | Photoshop. We have got the Path
Editing tools of course, the Arrow tools and
| | 04:59 | then have the Path Creation tools.
When any of these tools are selected, you
| | 05:03 | can hide and show the vector mask
outline by pressing the Enter key or the
| | 05:08 | Return key on the Mac. See how that
works. So pressing Enter or Return hides
| | 05:12 | and then pressing Enter or Return again shows.
| | 05:14 | Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and hide
those path outlines by pressing Enter or
| | 05:19 | Return once again. And then the third
advantage is that the illustration is
| | 05:23 | going to be smaller in memory. Notice
down here in this little dock item in the
| | 05:28 | lower left corner of the image window,
we are seeing in the pixel based image
| | 05:32 | that the layered version of the image
is 4.77 megabytes whereas with the vector
| | 05:38 | based version, it's just 1
.75 megabytes in memory.
| | 05:42 | Now it's very important to note that
this is in memory. On disk it may be
| | 05:45 | completely different and in fact where
these two images are concerned, the Tip
| | 05:50 | pixels.psd document, it's a little
smaller on disk. It's 600K versus 700K and
| | 05:55 | that's just the function of the native
PSD file formats run-line compression
| | 06:01 | for what it's worth. But in memory,
which is where you are editing the image,
| | 06:06 | the vector-based version of the image
is smaller. Finally, there is the fourth
| | 06:10 | advantage and this is the best
advantage of them all, vectors are scalable,
| | 06:16 | pixels are not. You are going to see
exactly what that means; this is such a
| | 06:20 | big thing that I devoted an entire
exercise to the topic. And that of course
| | 06:24 | would be in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Upsampling vs. nondestructive scaling| 00:00 |
In this exercise, I'm going to show
you the biggest benefit of all associated
| | 00:05 |
with vector-based paths inside of
Photoshop, and i.e., that they are scalable.
| | 00:09 |
Meaning that you can increase the
size of a photo illustration without any
| | 00:13 |
penalty. So, I still have open Tip
pixels.psd and Type to vectors.psd, both
| | 00:18 |
found inside the 24_vector_shapes folder. I
want to show you something about this image.
| | 00:24 |
I'm going to go up to the Image menu,
and I'm going to choose, and it doesn't
| | 00:27 |
matter which image we're looking
at right now. This happens to be Tip
| | 00:30 |
pixels.psd. I'm going to choose
the Image Size command, Ctrl+Alt+I,
| | 00:34 |
Command+Option+I on a Mac. And we'll
see that even though this image has a very
| | 00:38 |
high resolution, my goodness, 600
pixels per inch. That will ensure that we
| | 00:42 |
have very, very smooth edges associated
with this wonderful photo illustration here.
| | 00:48 |
But it's dinky; it's not even an inch.
So it's a tiny, little, tiny thing,
| | 00:53 |
which is great, by the way, for having
a margin icon or something along those lines.
| | 00:57 |
But let's say I'm so proud of
my tip, and I want to shout that to the
| | 01:00 |
world and I'm going to be at a trade
show. My goodness, I'm just making this up
| | 01:04 |
on the fly. I want a big, huge poster,
draping down from the ceiling, so it's
| | 01:09 |
going to be gianormous, this word Tip,
and nobody is going to be able to ignore it.
| | 01:14 |
So anyway, you'd think then, in that
case, why gosh, if it's so darn scalable,
| | 01:19 |
I should just be able to zoom in on it,
and it's going to look great, because
| | 01:22 |
you can't do that in the Illustrator,
right? You can zoom in on your vectors
| | 01:26 |
and zoom all you want and they're going
to look smooth forever. Well, not so in
| | 01:29 |
Photoshop. So, I'll go over to Type to
vectors.psd. We're viewing the image at
| | 01:33 |
100% right now. If I zoom in, I just
get big, chunky pixels exactly as I would
| | 01:39 |
in the pixel-based version of the image.
| | 01:41 |
What gives? Why am I seeing this mosaic
pattern, especially after I was telling
| | 01:45 |
you how great and smooth and wonderful
and awesome these vectors are? How come
| | 01:49 |
I'm lying to you? Well, I'm not. It's
just that Photoshop tops out at 100%.
| | 01:54 |
Beyond 100%, no matter what you see
bigger pixels. That's just the way
| | 01:58 |
Photoshop works. So how do we make
this photo illustration bigger then? Well,
| | 02:03 |
we use the Image Size command.
| | 02:04 |
So let's check that out, because it's
so darn cool. I'm going to go ahead and
| | 02:07 |
zoom back out to 100% by pressing Ctrl+
1, Command+1 on the Mac. Let's switch
| | 02:11 |
over to Tip pixels.psd and let's try a
side by side comparison, why don't we?
| | 02:17 |
Let's get rid of this Layers palette
over on the side by pressing Shift+Tab, to
| | 02:21 |
make it go away. Then I'm going to go
up to the Image menu, I'm going to choose
| | 02:25 |
the Image Size command, and I could press
Ctrl+Alt+I, Command+Option+I on the Mac.
| | 02:29 |
But I already told you that you can
already see that, so let's get on with it.
| | 02:32 |
Here we are inside the Image Size
dialog box and I'm just for the sake of
| | 02:36 |
demonstration going to set my
Interpolation method here to Nearest Neighbor
| | 02:42 |
(preserve hard edges), just so that we
can see it at its worst. I'm going to
| | 02:47 |
really zoom the heck out of this thing;
I'm going to set it to 847 percent.
| | 02:51 |
Now, what is that going to shape out
in pixels? I don't know if I showed you
| | 02:54 |
this little trick yet, it's pretty cool.
If you go ahead and change this guy,
| | 02:58 |
from percent to pixels on the fly, it
will say, "oh, you want 847 pixels," and
| | 03:03 |
by the way, this has gotten changed to
pixels as well. So it changed both Width
| | 03:06 |
and Height. Then if you change it back
to percent, it's going to goof the whole
| | 03:09 |
thing up, lovely feature. Anyway, I'm
going to set this back to 847 percent.
| | 03:14 |
Let's say you just want to change one
of them, so I change the Width value to
| | 03:18 |
847 percent. I have all these guys
turned on; by the way, you want all the
| | 03:21 |
checkboxes on Scale, Constrain and
Resample, Nearest Neighbor, if you're
| | 03:25 |
following along with me. With this
active -- well, let's say I want to check
| | 03:28 |
out the pixels, without goofing things
up the pixels associated with Height,
| | 03:32 |
and I want to leave 847 percent right there.
| | 03:35 |
So I'm going to press the Shift key,
choose pixels. If you do that, then just
| | 03:40 |
Height changes the pixels and Width
stays what it was, which is percent.
| | 03:43 |
You change one option independently of
the other one, and that's a Shift-choose,
| | 03:47 |
by the way. It works with these guys too,
these Width and Height values right there.
| | 03:50 |
Completely weird, hidden trick
inside Photoshop. The image will now be
| | 03:54 |
4235 pixels high and it will also be
that same number of pixels wide because
| | 04:00 |
it's square. That's a gianormous image.
It's going to grow to 51 megabytes.
| | 04:06 |
That's going to be huge.
| | 04:07 |
So go ahead and click OK in order to
make that occur. Now it's also going to
| | 04:11 |
look like garbage, look at that. I'm
not even sure which part of the image
| | 04:15 |
we're looking at right here, so I'm
going to take advantage of the bird's-eye
| | 04:18 |
technique, where you press and hold the
H key, and then you click and hold, and
| | 04:22 |
then you scroll some other portion of
your image with the H key still down, and
| | 04:26 |
then you release to go there, and then
you release the H key. And you can see
| | 04:30 |
that looks like garbage.
| | 04:33 |
So that's established, all right. Let's
replay that exact same modification, on
| | 04:37 |
Type to vectors.psd. So I'm going to
take advantage of that keyboard shortcut,
| | 04:41 |
Ctrl+Alt+I, Command+Option+I on the
Mac. We'll change the percent, let's go
| | 04:45 |
ahead and change this percent right
there to 847. Let's go ahead and try out
| | 04:51 |
Nearest Neighbor, really doesn't
matter. Well, actually it does matter to a
| | 04:54 |
small extent. We do have some layer
masks, some pixel-based layer masks going
| | 04:59 |
on inside of this image.
| | 05:00 |
So those will still be modified to the
tune of Nearest Neighbor, but vectors
| | 05:04 |
are not affected by Image Interpolation.
So we'll do nothing to the vectors as
| | 05:10 |
you'll see. I'll go ahead and click OK,
except grow them beautifully. I'll go
| | 05:13 |
ahead and click OK in order to
create my gianormous 51.3 megabyte image.
| | 05:19 |
We will wait a moment for Photoshop to
do its thing, and then, I'll go ahead
| | 05:25 |
and press and hold H, click and hold
inside of my image. Drag over here, once
| | 05:30 |
it gets done redrawing things, it's a
little slow in a redraw with a gianormous
| | 05:34 |
image like this. Then I'll release my
mouse button and I'll release the H key
| | 05:40 |
and check that out. Now this guy
right there, it's a little bit of garbage there.
| | 05:44 |
That's because I selected
Nearest Neighbor and we did the Nearest
| | 05:47 |
Neighbor Interpolation,
then a pixel-based layer mask.
| | 05:50 |
But the vector outlines are crisp as
they can possibly be. So, this is going to
| | 05:57 |
look beautiful, we can print this
out now. And if I press Ctrl+Alt+I,
| | 06:00 |
Command+Option+I on a Mac, I'm now
going to have a 7-inch image at 600 pixels
| | 06:04 |
per inch, but gosh, I was telling you I
want a big poster. Well, we don't need
| | 06:08 |
that kind of resolution for a distant
poster. So I'll turn off my Resample
| | 06:11 |
Image checkbox here and I'll say I
want this to be like, 6 feet in inches.
| | 06:18 |
That's 72 inches, I believe.
| | 06:19 |
So we'll do it 72 inches wide, the
Resolution is only going to be 58.819 pixels
| | 06:25 |
per inch. That's okay, click OK, and
now this thing is going to be gianormous,
| | 06:28 |
it's going to be huge. Send it off to
my service bureau, have them printed up.
| | 06:32 |
I'm going to have some garbage-y
edges right there. So, of course, what I'd
| | 06:35 |
really do, go ahead and back-step, Ctrl
+Alt+Z, Ctrl+Alt+Z a couple of times,
| | 06:39 |
Command+Option+Z, Command+Option+Z
couple times on the Mac. This word Tip
| | 06:43 |
having the path outlines around it, so let's go
ahead and select a different layer right there.
| | 06:48 |
So with that, we're not going to be
plagued by this in the future. Shift+Tab
| | 06:51 |
that away again, if we want to do
it right, then I press Ctrl+Alt+I,
| | 06:55 |
Command+Option+I on the Mac. I would
say Resample. Definitely scale those
| | 06:58 |
styles, because those styles are
really integral to what's going on here.
| | 07:01 |
Change the percent to 847, what have you,
whatever it is you want to use, then
| | 07:06 |
you can goof around with these options
if you want to. We'll use Bicubic (best
| | 07:11 |
for smooth gradients) as
our Interpolation method.
| | 07:13 |
So our layer mask looks good, click OK.
Wait for it to happen, press and hold
| | 07:18 |
the H key, drag up to there, release,
release the H key and ooh! Oh! It's so
| | 07:25 |
beautiful! It's going to
output just beautifully as well.
| | 07:28 |
So that's the kind of flexibility
that's associated with scalable vector-based
| | 07:33 |
paths here inside Photoshop.
| | 07:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Vectors and effects| 00:00 |
I'm going to pass along now another
advantage, I was telling you there are four
| | 00:04 |
advantages to vectors over pixels
inside of Photoshop. Well, this is kind of a
| | 00:09 |
fifth advantage, but it's not really
an advantage of vectors over pixels in
| | 00:13 |
Photoshop, it's an advantage of
vectors in Photoshop over vectors in
| | 00:19 |
Illustrator. There are lots of great
things about vectors in Illustrator, and
| | 00:22 |
you can learn all about those great
things. If you check out my Illustrator
| | 00:26 |
series, I have a series
called Illustrator CS4 One-on-One.
| | 00:29 |
As I'm talking, I've already filmed
the Fundamentals portion of the series,
| | 00:33 |
which is tons of videos. I'm going to
film before I die; hopefully, I'm going
| | 00:39 |
to film an advance series and a
mastery series, just like I've done here for
| | 00:44 |
Photoshop. So check that out,
obviously, I'm so in love with Illustrator, I
| | 00:48 |
think it's a great program. But
the advantage that Photoshop has over
| | 00:52 |
Illustrator where vectors are
concerned is that these vectors are fully
| | 00:56 |
compatible with layer effects, so
that you can use layer effects and
| | 01:01 |
vector-based path outlines together. You really
don't have layer effects inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:06 |
Not the same way, you do have some
apparent stuff that's available to you, but
| | 01:09 |
you don't have the same degree of
control over drop shadows and you don't have
| | 01:12 |
inner shadows and bevels and some of
these other effects in Illustrator.
| | 01:16 |
That's why I had to create this specific
illustration inside of Photoshop. So here I'm
| | 01:21 |
working inside of Type to vectors.psd.
I've gone ahead and reverted it back to
| | 01:25 |
its original appearance. This
image, of course, is found inside the
| | 01:27 |
24_vector_shapes folder.
| | 01:30 |
Then just so that we're filling up
the screen a little better, why don't we
| | 01:33 |
scale this? Because we can. I'm going
to go up to the Image menu, choose the
| | 01:37 |
Image Size command, and enough
already of this Bicubic Sharper (best for
| | 01:41 |
reduction) thing; that's become my
default setting because I changed the
| | 01:45 |
preference in the previous chapter.
Let's cancel out. Fix that. Ctrl+K,
| | 01:49 |
Command+K on the Mac, in order to
bring up the Preferences dialog box.
| | 01:52 |
Let's change Image Interpolation
right there to Bicubic (best for smooth
| | 01:56 |
gradients), and then click OK. Then
press Ctrl+Alt+I or Command+Option+I for
| | 02:00 |
the Image Size command. Now there is
our default setting, all three checkboxes
| | 02:04 |
on, very important. Let's go ahead and
change the Width value to 800 pixels,
| | 02:10 |
what the heck, and then we'll have a
Height of 800 pixels as well. Make sure
| | 02:13 |
Scale Styles is turned on; all of these
checkboxes need to be on. Then click OK
| | 02:17 |
to see it grow inside of your video.
| | 02:22 |
So I'm going to increase the Width
here a little bit of my Layers palette so
| | 02:27 |
that we can see the names of all my
layers, because a few of the layers have
| | 02:30 |
both vector-based and pixel-based
masks associated with them. We'll see how
| | 02:34 |
that works in the next project when
we actually build a vector-based photo
| | 02:39 |
illustration. But what I want you to
see in this exercise is how these layer
| | 02:43 |
effects aid in the creation of this
wonderful illustration right here.
| | 02:47 |
So I'm going to go over to my Layer
Comps palette right there and I'm going to
| | 02:51 |
switch to Base layers, first of all, so
that you can see that if there were no
| | 02:55 |
layer effects associated with them,
all of the Base layers are just gray or
| | 02:59 |
white, so dark gray, light gray or
white. That's it, no color, no depth, no
| | 03:04 |
nothing associated with them. Let's
start though so that we can build things up
| | 03:08 |
here with Spikes only, so that
we're just seeing that Spikes layer.
| | 03:11 |
Now notice, in addition to the vector-
based spikes, well, don't worry, we'll
| | 03:15 |
see how to create these things. I just
want you to see all of the things that
| | 03:18 |
you can do with them first. These
vector-based spikes right there are filled
| | 03:21 |
with gray, so this solid color swatch
shows you the color that's assigned to
| | 03:25 |
the vector shape and then I also have
a pixel-based layer mask so that I'm
| | 03:30 |
cutting a hole. Notice that if I Shift-
click on that layer mask to turn it back
| | 03:34 |
on, I'm cutting a little bit of a
gradient hole in those spikes, and we'll see
| | 03:39 |
why that is useful in just a
moment as we build this thing up.
| | 03:41 |
Now let's go ahead and twirl-open the
effects and you can see that I have a
| | 03:45 |
series of layer effects applied. I'm
going to turn them on in opposite order,
| | 03:49 |
here, starting with the Gradient Overlay,
so we've got a little bit of gradient
| | 03:51 |
going on. That's nice. There is our
color, so we can infuse color into these
| | 03:56 |
boring, drab vector objects.
Then I can add a Bevel and Emboss.
| | 04:00 |
Now so far, we're not really
doing that much that we couldn't do in
| | 04:03 |
Illustrator. Illustrator does actually
let us do everything we're doing so far.
| | 04:06 |
You can do Gradients, obviously, you
could add color and you can create these
| | 04:10 |
kinds of layer masks, they're called
Opacity Masks inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:14 |
They are a little harder to create, but they are
there, but you don't have a Bevel and Emboss.
| | 04:18 |
So you're not going to get
something this radically cool. You might get
| | 04:21 |
something else radically cool. I
don't need to jump on Illustrator.
| | 04:25 |
It's a great program. I'm just saying this
you ain't going to get. Then this Inner
| | 04:28 |
Shadow, which is so awesome.
Illustrator, eat my dust! Then I'll go ahead and
| | 04:34 |
add a Drop Shadow here, and we get this
effect here. So this is kind of unique
| | 04:38 |
basically to Photoshop. Awesome! Then
I would go ahead and add this circle
| | 04:43 |
layer, which is drab and gray and
boring and dull, and then I would turn on its
| | 04:48 |
layer effects right there,
after twirling it open.
| | 04:51 |
In a moment, we'll come back to this
circle layer, in the next exercise; we'll
| | 04:54 |
show you something else we're going to
do with it. But for now just twirl it closed,
| | 04:57 |
if you're working along
with me. Twirl this guy open, coil.
| | 05:01 |
Now I should note, I'll go ahead and turn
on the coils, you cannot draw spirals
| | 05:04 |
inside of Photoshop. So what did I do?
I actually drew them in the Illustrator.
| | 05:09 |
Yes I did, I drew it in Illustrator,
converted it to path outlines, so that it
| | 05:14 |
worked right inside of Photoshop.
Then copied and pasted it into Photoshop,
| | 05:18 |
something that you can do.
| | 05:20 |
I tell you how to transfer vectors
between Illustrator and Photoshop in my
| | 05:25 |
Illustrator series, or I'll tell you
as soon as I finish recording the whole thing.
| | 05:28 |
But for now just note that
you can, and it's just a Copy and Paste
| | 05:31 |
operation. Then I added these layer
effects right there. That's something you
| | 05:35 |
can do in Photoshop but you can't do
in Illustrator, of course. Then I felt
| | 05:38 |
like it was getting too dark in the
center, this thing was kind of overwhelming
| | 05:42 |
the Tip and it was starting to look
like a burner on a stove or something.
| | 05:46 |
So I added a little bit of layer mask
to the center to kind of wipe that out a
| | 05:50 |
little bit. Let's go ahead and twirl
that close. Then I went ahead and added
| | 05:54 |
this right there and whole idea is
that I wanted the spikes to look like they
| | 05:58 |
were blurring a little bit. So this is
a pixel-based layer because it's blurry.
| | 06:03 |
I went ahead and added a little bit of
a layer mask there as well to constrain
| | 06:08 |
the appearance of this
effect, just inside the circle.
| | 06:11 |
So it looks like the circle is sitting
on top of the spikes and creating kind
| | 06:15 |
of a blur effect, essentially. Then of
course, I've have got some layer effects
| | 06:19 |
right there that I'll go ahead and
turn on. Nice, and finally, I've got the
| | 06:23 |
vector-based Tip letters, and I'll go
ahead and twirl those open. Now all I
| | 06:27 |
went ahead and kept with the drop
shadow and a stroke but notice that I have a
| | 06:31 |
lot of other layer effects that are
turned off right now that I decided not to use.
| | 06:35 |
They're really cool. Notice I got this
Inner Shadow right there and I got this
| | 06:39 |
Bevel and Emboss effect that will in a
moment, you can't see it too well until
| | 06:42 |
I put on the Gradient Overlay. There
you can really see the effects of Bevel
| | 06:46 |
and Emboss. There it is off, there it
is on. Nice, and there is the Gradient
| | 06:49 |
Overlay for a little bit of depth
we're not actually seeing much of it.
| | 06:53 |
The Color Overlay has ended up trouncing
on top of it. But we could create some
| | 06:56 |
kind of interaction if we wanted to.
| | 06:58 |
But here's my point, I thought this
looked really, really great and it does
| | 07:02 |
big, but as soon as you reduce that
Tip icon on the page to less than an inch
| | 07:05 |
to its printed size, it gummed up the
words and you couldn't really read it
| | 07:09 |
very well. So, beautiful as it was, I
went ahead and turned these guys off, but
| | 07:12 |
I did not throw them away, I kept them,
so that I could use them in the future
| | 07:16 |
if I decided that they were worthy.
| | 07:19 |
Why throw them away, they are not
taking up any space in memory or anything;
| | 07:22 |
they are not hurting us one iota. Now,
the one thing that is hurting us one
| | 07:26 |
iota is this circle layer, and the
reason is notice that it's set to an Opacity
| | 07:31 |
of 100%, Fill Opacity 100% as well.
So as a result we're getting this gross
| | 07:36 |
interaction, and by gross it mean icky
interaction between this gray and the
| | 07:40 |
Color Overlay and the other stuff
that's going on here. So we're sort of
| | 07:43 |
graying out the effect. I want that
effect to really pop and sizzle and look
| | 07:48 |
super-duper great and integrate
better with the rest of the icon.
| | 07:53 |
The way it does here in the final
version of the icon, check that out.
| | 07:56 |
That's what we're looking for. Let's go back
to last document state right there, by
| | 08:00 |
clicking in front it, so we have the
bad version. I'm going to show you how to
| | 08:03 |
get from bad to good, in the next exercise.
| | 08:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fill Opacity and clipped layers| 00:00 | All right gang, I've gone ahead and
saved my progress so far as a document
| | 00:04 | called Bad circle bad.psd found
inside the 24_vector_shapes folder, because
| | 00:09 | this circle needs work. I'll bring up
the Layer Comps palette, I want it to
| | 00:12 | look like final icon, like that,
beautiful and pretty and lustrous and
| | 00:16 | translucent. But instead, it looks like
this here. So how do I get that effect?
| | 00:21 | Well, I would use, Fill Opacity, you
already know the answer but I just want
| | 00:26 | you to see that vector-based shape
layers are completely fully integrated into
| | 00:31 | the Photoshop experience.
| | 00:33 | So you can apply blend modes, you
can apply Opacity, you can apply Fill
| | 00:36 | Opacity. So let's say, for example,
that I decide I do want it to be less
| | 00:39 | opaque and my Rectangular Marquee
tool is selected, so press the 7 key to
| | 00:45 | reduce the Opacity of this layer to 70%.
But in doing so I not only reduce the
| | 00:50 | opacity of the gray but I also reduce
the opacity of all the layer effects. So,
| | 00:55 | for example, if my Drop Shadow was set
to an Opacity of 70%, let's see what it
| | 01:00 | is set to, it's set to an Opacity of 100%,
but my Inner Shadow is set to an Opacity of 50%.
| | 01:06 | So that would be compounded, right,
it would be 50% times now 70%, which is
| | 01:10 | 35%, so my Inner Shadow has gone down
to 35% Opacity. So everything declines as
| | 01:17 | a result of that overall so called
Master Opacity value right there. I say it's
| | 01:23 | a so-called Master Opacity value, not
because it is anywhere inside of the
| | 01:27 | software, except, one place that I
know of anyway, here inside the History
| | 01:32 | palette. So notice that I've changed
my Master Opacity value, because the
| | 01:36 | History palette says so.
| | 01:38 | It's true too, because it affects
everything that's associated with this layer,
| | 01:41 | and by the way, right now it's
affecting also the opacity of the clipped
| | 01:47 | layers. These guys right here, so coil
and spikes, which are clipped to circle,
| | 01:51 | are also reduced to 70% of their normal
opacity and so are their layer effects.
| | 01:56 | So you can see that Master Opacity
really affects a lot of things, has sort of
| | 02:01 | a domino effect, if you will.
Compare that, of course, to Fill Opacity.
| | 02:05 | So let's say I decide to take the
Fill Opacity down to 35%, which is what I want.
| | 02:09 | Press the Shift key, type 35,
and that changes that Fill value to 35%.
| | 02:16 | Now, we are just declining the opacity
of the gray, we are not affecting this
| | 02:23 | time the layer effects, nor are we
affecting or further affecting I should say,
| | 02:28 | the opacity of spikes and coil.
| | 02:31 | Now let's say that spikes and coil,
bless them, they don't want to be reduced
| | 02:36 | in opacity in any way, shape or form;
we don't want them to be affected either
| | 02:39 | by the Fill Opacity modification or by
the Master Opacity modification. What do
| | 02:43 | we do? Well, we take advantage of
one of those checkboxes. Remember those
| | 02:47 | checkboxes that I showed you way back
in Layer Effects chapter, why. They are
| | 02:51 | our friends right now too.
| | 02:52 | So double-click on the circle layer,
some gray portion of the circle layer, not
| | 02:56 | here and not here. Double-click here
and that will bring up the Layer Style
| | 03:00 | dialog box. Then what I want you do
is turn off this checkbox, watch what
| | 03:05 | happens on screen. Turn off Blend
Clipped Layers as Group and then we increase
| | 03:10 | the Opacity of those guys right there,
spikes and coil. The reason that they go
| | 03:16 | back to full opacity now, 100% of
whatever they were, is because what Blend
| | 03:21 | Clipped Layers as Group does when it's
turned on is it goes ahead and applies
| | 03:25 | that Master Opacity value as well as
the blend mode to everything that's
| | 03:29 | clipped to this layer.
| | 03:30 | However, if you turn it off, then
they're set free of the blend mode and
| | 03:33 | Opacity and they go their own way. More
than anything, just know these guys are
| | 03:37 | available to you and that they can
solve some of your problems as I was telling
| | 03:41 | you before. Now I'll go ahead and
click OK in order to accept that
| | 03:44 | modification, and now we have a good-
looking Tip icon. So, if I were to press
| | 03:51 | the F12 key to revert to what we were
seeing before, looks bad, let's get rid
| | 03:55 | of that outline too. Then I'll go
ahead and press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the
| | 03:59 | Mac in order to reinstate the good version.
| | 04:02 | So you knew this stuff, you knew about
Fill Opacity versus Master Opacity, you
| | 04:07 | might have recalled the discussion of
that checkbox there, the real point of
| | 04:12 | this exercise is to show you that vector
-based shapes are full partners in the
| | 04:17 | image editing experience
here inside Photoshop CS4.
| | 04:20 | In the next exercise, we are actually
going to start using the Shape tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Basic shape creation| 00:01 |
In this exercise, we're going to dig
in and start to use the vector-based
| | 00:04 |
drawing tools inside of Photoshop. Now,
for the most part, very easy tools to use.
| | 00:09 |
So I'm not going to belabor this.
I think you could suss out how to
| | 00:12 |
use them very easily. I'll just show
you the cool stuff, the stuff you wouldn't
| | 00:16 |
figure out on your own. I'm working
inside of this document here called
| | 00:20 |
Election.psd, found inside of
the 24_vector_shapes folder.
| | 00:24 |
It features this wonderful fabric
pattern here from the PhotoSpin Image Library;
| | 00:30 |
otherwise everything is
synthetic. This goes to the notion that
| | 00:34 |
you can mix and match pixels with
vectors inside of Photoshop, no problem
| | 00:39 |
whatsoever, very easy to do. All right,
so we've got our Shape tools down here,
| | 00:44 |
the Rectangle tool, the Rounded
Rectangle tool, the Ellipse tool and so on.
| | 00:47 |
I mean they work just like
the tools we've already seen.
| | 00:50 |
I'll go ahead and grab the Rounded
Rectangle tool because it's a little bit unusual.
| | 00:54 |
But notice, if you start dragging
with it, you'll get a rounded rectangle,
| | 00:58 |
like so, and if you want to
drag from the center out, you would
| | 01:01 |
press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac. I'll go ahead and
| | 01:04 |
release that. If you want a square,
you would press and hold the Shift key,
| | 01:08 |
like so. I'll release that as well.
| | 01:10 |
If you want to move the shape on the fly,
you would press and hold the Spacebar
| | 01:14 |
as you're drawing the shape. Now,
something that you can't do is change
| | 01:18 |
the roundness on the fly, the roundness
of the corners. You have to change that
| | 01:22 |
Radius value before you start drawing with
the tool. I'll show you that in just a moment.
| | 01:27 |
But as soon as I release, notice
that you create a new independent
| | 01:29 |
shape layer that's filled with the
solid color which is going to match
| | 01:33 |
your foreground color, whatever you
have your foreground color set to.
| | 01:37 |
It's masked by a vector-based mask
right there. So if you look very closely at
| | 01:42 |
this thumbnail, everything that's white inside
of the vector mask, that's going to show up.
| | 01:47 |
So, that's the interior of the
mask and that's where you're going
| | 01:50 |
to see the color. Everything in the
gray area that's outside of the mask, so
| | 01:55 |
that's going to be masked away. So,
rather than seeing a white and black the
| | 02:00 |
way that you do with a pixel-based
layer mask, Photoshop chooses to show you
| | 02:04 |
white and gray, the reason being that black
is the outline of the vector-based shape,
| | 02:09 |
so it's just something to bear in mind, if
you're looking at the thumbnail, if you care.
| | 02:13 |
Anyway, I'm going to undo that,
creation of that layer, and I'm going to show
| | 02:16 |
you how to change Radius value up here.
You can either change it manually.
| | 02:20 |
I want it to be 36 pixels or what have you,
then press the Enter or the Return key there.
| | 02:25 |
Or you can change it from the
keyboard by pressing the Bracket keys.
| | 02:29 |
So, the right bracket key makes
the value bigger, the left bracket key
| | 02:33 |
makes the value smaller. You can also
press Shift+Right bracket to increase
| | 02:38 |
that value in 10-pixel increments or
Shift+Left bracket to decrease the value
| | 02:43 |
in 10-pixel increments. So, whatever you
want to do there, but you have to do it
| | 02:46 |
before you draw the shape. You
can't do it on the fly the way you can,
| | 02:49 |
by the way, in Illustrator. Anyway,
I'll make this value bigger and then
| | 02:52 |
I'll draw a shape for you and you can
see what it looks like and we're done.
| | 02:56 |
So that's how the Shape tools work, essentially.
| | 02:59 |
We're not going to work with the basic
ones. We're going to work with the fun ones
| | 03:02 |
in this illustration. For example,
I'm going to go ahead and press Ctrl+Z
| | 03:06 |
or Command+Z on the Mac. I'm going to show
you how to create stars using the Polygon tool.
| | 03:10 |
That's a lot of fun, as
you'll learn in the next exercise.
| | 03:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing interacting shapes| 00:00 | All right, so let's have fun
inside of this file. I'm working inside
| | 00:04 | Election.psd found inside the 24_vector
_shapes folder and you may or may not
| | 00:10 | see it, but this file is riddled with
guides. Riddled I tell you! In order to
| | 00:15 | see those guides, go up to the View
menu and choose Show and choose Guides or
| | 00:20 | press Ctrl+; that memorable keyboard
shortcut, Command+; on the Mac and there
| | 00:25 | you go, riddled I tell you.
| | 00:27 | All right, let's go ahead and scroll
over to the right, just a little bit. Now,
| | 00:31 | we're going to draw a star and I want
that star to be at the top of the stack.
| | 00:35 | So, let's just go ahead and click on
that top layer, election, make it a little
| | 00:38 | wider so we can see its name, nice.
You draw stars using the Polygon tool, so
| | 00:43 | we've got this regular Polygon tool,
by regular Polygons I mean all of the
| | 00:47 | sides are the same length and
all the angles are the same angles.
| | 00:52 | So, you're going to get things like
triangles and squares, squares are regular
| | 00:56 | polygon and pentagons and octagons, all
the -gons are going to be on your list there.
| | 01:03 | So, you would go ahead and click
on that tool in order to select it, or
| | 01:07 | of course you can select it from the
Shape tool fly-out menu, either way is
| | 01:10 | going to work out for you there. Then
you determine the number of sides that
| | 01:13 | you want to draw and by default, you're
going to draw pentagon like so, notice
| | 01:17 | that it draws from the center outward,
whether or not you're pressing the Alt
| | 01:21 | key, doesn't matter.
| | 01:22 | So, you might need to take advantage
of the Spacebar in order to move it to a
| | 01:25 | more appropriate location. If you
press the Shift key incidentally, you're
| | 01:28 | going to constrain the angle of the
polygon and not necessarily to anything
| | 01:34 | that you'd want. It's the amusing
thing about it. Just go ahead and drag from
| | 01:40 | the center outward in order to create
your polygon. Now, you can't change the
| | 01:43 | number of sides on the fly, you have
to do that before you start working with
| | 01:45 | the tool and you can see that Sides
value up there in the Options Bar.
| | 01:48 | All right, I'm going to go ahead and
undo the creation of that shape and I can
| | 01:53 | change the number of the sides from
the keyboard before I create my new shape
| | 01:57 | by pressing the Bracket keys. So,
obviously the Right Bracket key is going to
| | 02:01 | increase the number of sides and the
Left Bracket key is going to decrease the
| | 02:04 | number of sides and the reason I say
obviously is because once you know it's
| | 02:08 | the Bracket keys, that's the way it
works throughout the software, left is down
| | 02:11 | and right is up. But anyway, you can see,
you can take it down as low as three sides.
| | 02:16 | You can't have a two-sided polygon.
Think about it. So, you can't go any lower
| | 02:20 | than that and a one sided polygon is
just crazy talk. Anyway, what we want is
| | 02:25 | five for what we're about to do. We're
going to create a star. Well, how do you
| | 02:28 | create a star? I don't see any star
stuff up here. You click on this down
| | 02:31 | pointing arrowhead right there and
that's where you can specify star and I'll
| | 02:36 | go ahead and turn on Star and then you
can decide how much you want to Indent
| | 02:39 | the Sides By. If you want to draw a
good old American five-pointed star baby,
| | 02:45 | then you want 50% indent for your sides.
| | 02:48 | You can experiment with different
indent values to get spiky stars or get less
| | 02:52 | spiky stars, that kind of thing. You
can smooth your corners, which are going
| | 02:56 | to be the points of the stars, the
outside points, or smooth your indents,
| | 02:59 | which are going to be your inside
points with the spikes join into each other.
| | 03:03 | But we don't want that. So, we're
going to go ahead and draw a five-pointed
| | 03:07 | star, we've got all the settings we need,
everything is right ready to go.
| | 03:10 | What I want you to do is drag from this
point right there, out, like so, in order to
| | 03:15 | lock the star into the very specific
location that it needs to be at, inside of
| | 03:20 | this photo illustration here and you'll
see why this is important in just a moment.
| | 03:24 | But obviously, when you're working
with a tool, you'd go your own way.
| | 03:27 | You do whatever you want. I just want
to make sure that you and I get the same results.
| | 03:30 | That's why I have these guides set up.
All right, when you draw the star,
| | 03:33 | it's going to be colored in the
foreground color, whatever, which is gray
| | 03:38 | in my case, pretty ugly. Let's go ahead
and change the color of that star right now.
| | 03:42 | I'm going to do that by going up
to the Options Bar and clicking on this
| | 03:45 | little swatch and that will bring up
the Pick a solid color dialog box, the
| | 03:50 | Color Picker, always changing its name on us.
| | 03:52 | Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and
change the color to white and click OK and
| | 03:57 | now there it is, the nice white star.
All right, I now want to cut a hole in
| | 04:01 | the star. I want to basically create a
star outline. So, I'm going to create a
| | 04:06 | star hole inside of my larger star shape.
If I were to draw a new star right at
| | 04:11 | this location from the corner out to
this point right there, that's what I
| | 04:14 | want, I would draw a new star layer.
Notice that I've got another shape layer
| | 04:19 | now, an independent shape layer.
That's not going to do me much if any good.
| | 04:23 | I suppose, I could make it work for me
by establishing it as a knockout layer,
| | 04:27 | something crazy like that. But I'm just
going to press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on a Mac.
| | 04:30 | Instead, what I want to do is I
want to add this new shape to the old shape.
| | 04:34 | So, I want to modify the
existing vector mask and you do that by
| | 04:38 | availing yourself of these options
right here. This guy, for example, Adds to
| | 04:42 | the shape area, see the Plus sign,
I'll tell you what that means in a second.
| | 04:46 | Subtract from shape area, a Minus sign and
then you've got Intersect and you've got Exclude.
| | 04:51 | So, you can take advantage of those if
you want to. You can also by the way,
| | 04:55 | take advantage of the Shift and Alt keys,
Shift will add and Alt will subtract
| | 05:00 | and by the way, I believe Shift and
Alt will intersect, but none of them are
| | 05:04 | going to do anything until I make
this mask active again. So, notice by
| | 05:09 | switching back to this first option, I
went ahead and deactivated my Shape layer.
| | 05:13 | So, I need to make it active again. I
need to be able to see that vector mask
| | 05:17 | thumbnail by clicking on it. So it
needs a nice outline around it like so. Now,
| | 05:21 | I can modify it. Now these options are
available to me once again and let me
| | 05:25 | just confirm that I'm not lying to
you. If you Shift+Drag, you do add.
| | 05:28 | Excellent. You've got two stars
interacting with each other, beautiful.
| | 05:33 | Let's go and undo that modification.
Alt of course or Option on the Mac will go
| | 05:37 | ahead and subtract. We'll see that in a
moment. What I want to see is if I get
| | 05:40 | an intersection, all I do
with Shift and Alt together.
| | 05:44 | So, isn't that great? So you can create
one of these things right there if you
| | 05:47 | want to. If you need Exclude, you are
just going to have to do that manually
| | 05:51 | and you can test that up for yourself,
if you want. I'm going to go ahead and
| | 05:53 | undo the addition of that last star.
I'm going to press and hold the Alt key or
| | 05:57 | the Option key on the Mac and I'm going
to drag out from the center like so, to
| | 06:01 | this point right there and release and
I've now created a smaller star, that's
| | 06:05 | cutting a hole inside of a larger star.
The two are aligned with each other,
| | 06:09 | thanks to my guides that I've provided to you.
| | 06:11 | In the next exercise, we're going to
take this star and we're going to clone it
| | 06:14 | and we're going to take advantage of
power duplication inside of Photoshop and
| | 06:17 | it's going to work out beautifully
as you'll see if you stick with me.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Power-duplicating paths| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show you
how to apply a series transformation or
| | 00:04 | power duplication if you prefer to a
pair of vector based shape outlines.
| | 00:10 | I'm still working inside of Election.psd
found inside the 24_vector_shapes folder.
| | 00:15 | I have made a modification. I have gone
ahead and created this new shape layer,
| | 00:20 | which features a smaller star inside of
a larger one. And I'm going to go ahead
| | 00:24 | and rename this layer, stars and you
might want to do that as well if you are
| | 00:27 | working along with me.
| | 00:29 | Make sure that you can see the vector
mask, which I can right now. But you need
| | 00:33 | to make sure that your vector mask has
a nice thick outline around it, a double
| | 00:37 | outline. Then I want you to get your
Black Arrow tool which is your Path
| | 00:41 | Selection tool of course, that's what
Photoshop call it anyway. And then click
| | 00:45 | on one of the shapes and Shift-click
on the other one to select both of them.
| | 00:49 | Or you can do this where you kind of
marquee them a little bit and you will get
| | 00:53 | both of them like so.
| | 00:55 | Anyway you want both shapes selected,
then we are going to apply a very
| | 01:00 | specific transformation. Now I want
to transform and duplicate the star, we
| | 01:04 | have already seen this but you press
Ctrl+Alt+T or Command+Option+T on the Mac.
| | 01:10 | Ctrl+T or Command+T of course enters
the Free Transform mode. Alt or Option
| | 01:15 | also ensures that you are going to
clone the shape. And we are going to clone
| | 01:19 | these shapes, we are not going to clone
the entire layer, we are just going to
| | 01:21 | clone the shapes inside of this existing layer.
| | 01:24 | So we are going to add to the vector-
based mask, which is a little different
| | 01:28 | than what we have seen when you are
working with pixel layers. If we had
| | 01:31 | pressed Ctrl+Alt+T or Command+Option+T
on the Mac when a pixel-based layer was
| | 01:34 | selected, we would duplicate that
layer and create a new layer. So a little
| | 01:38 | different action going on here. And
here are the very specific values I want
| | 01:42 | you to apply, I want you to click on
the link up here in the Options Bar and I
| | 01:46 | want you to change either
the W or the H value to 80.
| | 01:50 | Then I'm going to take tab over to the
rotate value right there and I'm going
| | 01:53 | to change it to -16, and then I want
you to go ahead and drag your star until
| | 01:59 | it aligns with that guide intersection.
So until you see this effect right
| | 02:04 | here, this is what you want to see. And
then I want you to press the Enter key
| | 02:08 | a couple of times here on the PC or the
Return key a couple of times on the Mac
| | 02:13 | in order to create this star right there.
| | 02:14 | Now we are set for some series
transformations, for some power duplication here.
| | 02:19 | I want to create three more
stars over here on the left side of the
| | 02:24 | illustration. I so cleverly set this
up in advance, you and I both can just
| | 02:29 | press, and here is the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T. Remember that one,
| | 02:33 | Command+Shift+Option+T on the Mac. So
mash your fist down and press the T key
| | 02:38 | and you will get this. So
that's the first Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T or
| | 02:41 | Command+Shift+Option+T on the Mac. And
then this and then this. So press that
| | 02:45 | keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T or
Command+Shift+Option+T on the Mac three
| | 02:49 | times in order to create a series
of five stars. Is that not awesome?
| | 02:55 | All right, and there you have it. So
with series duplication, even that works
| | 02:59 | with vector based path outlines
inside of Photoshop and in a unique and
| | 03:04 | tantalizing way. In the next exercise
we are going to add the very patriotic
| | 03:09 | Field and Stripes layers. Stay tuned.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Combining pixels and vector masks| 00:00 |
In this exercise, we are going to add
the Field and Stripes layers and we are
| | 00:04 |
going to assign blend modes to them, so
you can get a sense for how even vector
| | 00:08 |
based shape layers support blend modes.
And then we are going to add a layer mask.
| | 00:14 |
This is the piece de resistance.
We are going to add a pixel based layer
| | 00:18 |
mask to a layer that already
contains a vector based mask.
| | 00:22 |
All right, so here is what I want you
to do. Go ahead and click on the field
| | 00:27 |
layer to make it active and then turn
it on so that we can see set layer.
| | 00:32 |
And if you don't want to see the path
outline right there, just click on that
| | 00:35 |
vector mask thumbnail in order to
hide it from view. And then I want you to
| | 00:39 |
change the blend mode from Normal to
Hard Light for this layer. And then I have
| | 00:44 |
got to press the Escape key because I'm
working on Windows here, so I have got
| | 00:47 |
to deactivate that blend mode option.
And then I'll press the 8 key to reduce
| | 00:51 |
the Opacity to 80%.
| | 00:53 |
All right, so that's the field layer
for you. That's all we are going to do it.
| | 00:57 |
Otherwise looks brilliant, love it. Now
I'm going to switch over to the stripes
| | 01:01 |
layer, turn it on, click on its
vector mask thumbnail to hide the vector
| | 01:06 |
outlines. And I'm going to change this
one to Multiply and I'm going to do it
| | 01:10 |
from the keyboard by pressing Shift+Alt+
M or Shift+Option+M on the Mac so that
| | 01:14 |
I'm burning those stripes into my
composition. Looks delightful in my opinion.
| | 01:20 |
Now I want the stripes to kind of fade
into view. I want them to start opaque
| | 01:24 |
down here on the lower right region of
the illustration and I want them to fade
| | 01:28 |
away in the upper left region over here.
And I could do that by switching out
| | 01:34 |
this solid fill for a gradient that
had some translucency built into it.
| | 01:39 |
But here is the deal. That's a pain in
the neck. Inside Photoshop CS3 we used
| | 01:43 |
to be able to switch out fills and
strokes and very easily. And there was a
| | 01:47 |
command actually under the Layer menu,
that instead of saying New Adjustment
| | 01:51 |
Layer or New Fill Layer or what
have you, it said Change Adjustment or
| | 01:55 |
something, I can't remember what it
said. But anyway you could switch the
| | 01:58 |
contents of the layer to something
else. You can't do that anymore, it's so
| | 02:02 |
arbitrary. They took it out
and I have only myself to blame.
| | 02:06 |
During the beta process for CS4 they
announced to everybody, hey, we are
| | 02:09 |
thinking of taking it out. What do
you guys think? And nobody responded.
| | 02:13 |
We all ignored them. And looking back on it,
I should have piped in and said, hey,
| | 02:17 |
don't do that. But I did end up
saying that but about five days before the
| | 02:21 |
program shipped. So didn't do as much
good. Hopefully, we'll get it back one
| | 02:24 |
day but if you do want to change out a
solid fill for a gradient or something
| | 02:28 |
along those lines. What you have to
do is you got to go down here, create a
| | 02:32 |
gradient and then you will say
whatever gradient, sure. Ugly graded
| | 02:36 |
transparent, that's great. Love it.
Or you would switch it out to something
| | 02:39 |
better like let's go ahead and double-
click on this guy right here and switch
| | 02:43 |
it to red, brilliant. Click OK,
so it will go red to transparent.
| | 02:47 |
And then click OK, now we have a
gradient fill and we could change its angle if
| | 02:51 |
we wanted to. And then once you have
created you new gradient, and I'll call it
| | 02:55 |
gradient or something along those lines.
It's just, unnecessarily rename this
| | 02:59 |
layer then you drag your vector mask on
to it, like so. And then you throw this
| | 03:04 |
guy away presumably but I also got
rid of my drop shadow and stuff. Anyway,
| | 03:10 |
I'll press Ctrl+Alt+Z, Ctrl+Alt+Z,
Ctrl+Alt+Z, Ctrl+Alt+Z some more.
| | 03:15 |
Command+Option+Z several times on the
Mac in order to get back to this point here.
| | 03:19 |
And what I want to do instead is
add a layer mask, a pixel based layer mask.
| | 03:23 |
So got this layer selected, great. Come
down here to the little layer mask icon
| | 03:28 |
at the bottom of the Layers palette.
If you just click, you will add a
| | 03:32 |
pixel-based layer mask because there
is already a vector-based layer mask, so
| | 03:35 |
there is nothing else you can add. And
notice now it's dimmed because that's as
| | 03:39 |
many masks as you can have, you can
just have two masks associated with a
| | 03:42 |
layer, one pixel-based, one vector-based,
if you want to. That's it. That's your max.
| | 03:46 |
All right, let's click on this guy to
hide those path outlines, then let's get
| | 03:51 |
the Gradient tool and I want you to
make sure that your gradient is not set to
| | 03:56 |
this full gradient right here. Let's go
ahead and set it to the very first one,
| | 04:01 |
right there, which is Foreground to
Background. Go ahead and click on it in
| | 04:04 |
order to make it active. And notice
even though it showing up as gray to white,
| | 04:09 |
it's going to show up here as white
to black because those are truly are
| | 04:12 |
foreground and background colors.
Because we are working inside of a mask now.
| | 04:15 |
So it's not the standard foreground and
background colors. But anyway, you want
| | 04:19 |
to make sure that Foreground to
Background is active, you want to make sure
| | 04:22 |
that your Linear Gradient option is
active. Mode is Normal, Opacity 100%,
| | 04:26 |
Reverse off, the other two checkboxes on. So
these are the default settings right there.
| | 04:30 |
Just in case press the D key, D as in
default to make sure that we are going to
| | 04:35 |
create a white to black gradient. And
then I'm going to drag from right here at
| | 04:39 |
the top of the interior portion of the
4 and I'm going to drag off screen to
| | 04:44 |
about this location right there.
So you will need to see some of your
| | 04:47 |
pasteboard over here on the left hand
side. And notice that I'm matching the
| | 04:49 |
angle of this strike, I'm dragging to
right there. There is other places you
| | 04:53 |
could drag to get the same effect. I
just want you to drag here, so you and I
| | 04:56 |
are on the same page. Release and you
get that nice fade out there. So you can
| | 05:02 |
have the best of vectors and the best
of pixels working together in the best of
| | 05:07 |
programs, I swear to you,
Photoshop, it's just amazing.
| | 05:11 |
In the next exercise-- get this,
people. If this doesn't get you excited,
| | 05:15 |
I don't know what will. We are
going to draw a horizontal line.
| | 05:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Line tool and layer attributes| 00:00 | All right so here we are, people, in
the 24th chapter of this gianormous series,
| | 00:06 | 3000 movies inside of Photoshop CS4 One-on-One.
| | 00:10 | We are in the portion of the series
called Mastery, in which I purport to tell
| | 00:15 | you how to master Photoshop. How to
make it do anything you wanted to do.
| | 00:20 | And I'm going to tell you with a
straight face that this exercise is all about
| | 00:23 | drawing a horizontal line. And it's
actually it is an important little lesson
| | 00:27 | because Photoshop doesn't handle lines
like any of the other programs out there,
| | 00:32 | like your Illustrators and your
Flashes and your InDesigns and so on.
| | 00:35 | Instead it draws a line as a shape because it
has to be filled in, and that's just the paradigm.
| | 00:41 | I have gone ahead and saved my
progress so far as Field & stripes.psd found
| | 00:45 | inside of the 24_vector_shapes folder.
I want you to click on the election
| | 00:49 | layer right there to make it active.
And you might want to twirl it open too,
| | 00:52 | so that you can see your drop shadow
there, which tells you that we have a Drop
| | 00:56 | Shadow layer effect assigned to this layer.
| | 00:59 | Now it will become important in
just a moment. Now I want to create an
| | 01:02 | underscore, under the word election,
using a horizontal line. And you might
| | 01:06 | say, "Deke, if you wanted to do that,
why didn't you just add an underscore
| | 01:10 | type style to this text before you
went and converted it to a shape layer?
| | 01:15 | You could have done that, buddy."
| | 01:16 | Well, here are two reasons I didn't.
One, you don't really have control over
| | 01:19 | an underscore. You don't have the control
over the spacing. You don't have control
| | 01:22 | over the weight. And I want this
underscore to go all the way to the left edge
| | 01:28 | of my photo illustration here.
| | 01:29 | So lots of reasons that we are going
to draw it by hand. It gives us more control.
| | 01:34 | We are going to go over here
to the toolbox, click and hold on the
| | 01:38 | Polygon tool, which happens to be the
last tool I used. We are going to switch
| | 01:41 | to the Line tool and I want to draw a
thick line. That's going to have a Weight
| | 01:47 | of 12 pixels. So I'm going to press
Shift+Right Bracket. Notice that increases the
| | 01:52 | Weight value by 10 pixels so up to 11.
And then I'll press Right Bracket again
| | 01:56 | for 12 pixels. And of course you could
change the value manually, if you had a mind to.
| | 02:01 | Now something else to note about the
Line tool. It's great for creating arrows.
| | 02:06 | So if you click this down pointing
arrowhead. You have the option of choosing
| | 02:10 | to Add Arrowheads to your line. And it
can be at the start of the line or at
| | 02:13 | the end of the line, either way and you
can set the Width, which is going to be
| | 02:17 | how wide the arrowhead is. How long
it is. By the way these percentages are
| | 02:22 | with respect to the Weight value. So 500%
of the line weight wide and 1000% of
| | 02:29 | the line weight tall.
| | 02:30 | So in other words you are going to have
a 120 pixel tall arrowhead, because the
| | 02:34 | 1000% is ten times. And then Concavity,
you know let me show you that one.
| | 02:39 | Let's go ahead and draw an arrowhead
at the start of this line for just a
| | 02:42 | moment. So we can see what I'm
talking about. And so there is our arrowhead
| | 02:45 | right there at the start of the line.
But notice that it has a perpendicular edge
| | 02:49 | to it right there.
| | 02:50 | So it goes from a diagonal line to a
differently diagonal headline right there.
| | 02:55 | But let's say you want a more
standard arrow that actually pulls back this
| | 03:01 | thing a little bit. So it's more of a
spear. Then you would want to change the
| | 03:04 | Concavity value and I'll
show you how that works.
| | 03:06 | Let's go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
Command+Z on Mac to undo the creation of
| | 03:10 | that arrow line. And I'll change the
Concavity value to something I like to use
| | 03:14 | a lot, which is 20%. It turns out to
work out pretty nicely. This is the value
| | 03:18 | I just kind of default to and I don't
like it so long. I want this more like
| | 03:22 | 500% Length and let's go with
something wider, like let's try 1000% wide.
| | 03:28 | Why don't we, just for fun? And then I'll
drag. Oh! That looks terrible. But notice
| | 03:33 | there is the Concavity right there.
| | 03:35 | So we have some arching going on. That
is just awful though. Let's go ahead and
| | 03:39 | switch here to something better.
Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac. Let's change
| | 03:42 | that Length value to 1000% as well. So
1000, 1000 and let's go ahead and drag
| | 03:48 | once again. And that's more like it.
I still think that arrowhead is way too
| | 03:52 | big for this line, 500, 500 might have been
better. But you get a sense for how it works.
| | 03:56 | So there is your concavity going on
right there. We don't want that, so Ctrl+Z,
| | 04:01 | Command+Z on the Mac. I want no
arrowheads, so I'm going to turn off the
| | 04:05 | arrowhead like so. And also I want to
match the style and both the color that's
| | 04:10 | associated with election, white, so
we are not drawing these gray things
| | 04:14 | all the time. And I want that
exact Drop Shadow, how do I get it?
| | 04:17 | Well you can come up here and click on
this chain icon right there. Ain't going
| | 04:20 | to work for me though. Notice I'm
clicking on that chain. You can't really see
| | 04:23 | me clicking away here, but I'm telling
you I am. And it's not working for me.
| | 04:27 | The reason is because the mask has to
be active. I don't know why that is, but
| | 04:31 | the vector mask has to be active.
| | 04:33 | So you have to click on that vector
mask all the sudden, Ooh! It goes ahead and
| | 04:37 | selects itself. A moment ago it
wouldn't respond to anything I was doing, but
| | 04:41 | as soon as it sees the vector mask --
Oh! Oh yeah, I get it. It goes ahead and
| | 04:45 | selects itself, great. Anyway you can
turn it off if you want to, if you want
| | 04:49 | to go your own way. Anyway I want it on.
| | 04:50 | Now because we have these guides up
on screen, we are going to snap to the guide.
| | 04:55 | I want it kind of keep it right
there in the middle of the guides like that.
| | 04:58 | But I don't want the snapping to occur.
So I'll press Ctrl+; or Command+;
| | 05:03 | on the Mac, get rid of those guides.
| | 05:05 | So they are not intruding on my
ability to draw horizontal line. And now I'll
| | 05:09 | draw like so. And notice it's going to
be at whatever crazy angle you want to
| | 05:14 | make it. I'm going to press and
hold the Shift key, in order to get a
| | 05:17 | horizontal line, or it could be
vertical or diagonal, depends on the direction
| | 05:21 | of your drag and draw all the way off
screen. Far enough so that you are going
| | 05:26 | off of the illustration and you get a
line just like this one here. That's so
| | 05:30 | very pretty. And then let's go ahead
and name it something like underscore.
| | 05:35 | Now somebody who is paying attention
might say "Hey, since you wanted the same
| | 05:39 | fill and you wanted the same drop
shadow and everything and this was already a
| | 05:43 | shape layer. Couldn't have you just
added it to that same vector mask?"
| | 05:46 | To which I would tell you nice! Yes, that's
there is no reason on earth to make this an
| | 05:51 | independent layer. We could have done that.
If I wanted to do that, well I would have done.
| | 05:55 | Let's just go ahead and back step a
couple steps or Ctrl+Alt+Z a couple times,
| | 06:00 | Command+Opiton+Z a couple times on
the Mac. Click on that vector-based mask
| | 06:04 | right there, in order to make it active.
So that you can see the outlines and
| | 06:07 | press and hold the Shift key like so,
so that we are going to add to that
| | 06:11 | vector mask and drag like so, like
that there. You can press the Spacebar in
| | 06:16 | order to move the line on the fly if
you want to, if you need to. Get it in
| | 06:20 | exactly the right position like so.
This looks pretty darn good to me I think.
| | 06:25 | And then release and now they are
together, and notice that it is a filled shape.
| | 06:31 | So just something to bear in mind.
You are not going to change the Line Weight
| | 06:33 | after drawing the line. Photoshop must
be like the only program on the face of
| | 06:38 | the planet that's left that after you
draw a line you can't change the Line
| | 06:43 | Weight value anymore. And that's
because it's not a line with a Weight value
| | 06:46 | with the stroke associated with it.
Instead what it is is a shape.
| | 06:50 | All right so there you have it.
We drew a horizontal line in Photoshop.
| | 06:55 | In the next exercise, I'm going to show you
how to draw a custom shape and I'm going
| | 06:58 | to show you how to load a world of
custom shapes that are available to you that
| | 07:02 | you would never know about coming right up.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Copying and pasting path outlines| 00:00 | In this exercise I'm going to show
you how to draw a custom shape inside of
| | 00:04 | Photoshop and how to access the Larger
Custom Shape Library that ships along
| | 00:09 | with Photoshop and this is actually,
really, really great, really useful.
| | 00:13 | I've gone ahead and saved my progress
so far as Underscore and more.psd found
| | 00:17 | inside the 24_vector_shapes folder and
you know, something is really bugging me
| | 00:21 | all of a sudden. I realize that I
didn't go ahead and copy the attributes
| | 00:26 | associated with the other layers to the
stars layer and as a result, the stars
| | 00:29 | are white, but they don't have drop
shadows. You know what, I could just go
| | 00:33 | ahead and of course duplicate the
drop shadows that's associated with the
| | 00:35 | election layer, move it up to stars,
but it affords me the opportunity here,
| | 00:39 | because I made this happy fortunate of mistake.
| | 00:42 | Let's say what I want to do is I want
to add the stars that I've already drawn,
| | 00:45 | I want to add them to the election
layer. How do I go about doing that,
| | 00:48 | combining these two vector masks
together? Well, you'd go ahead and click on
| | 00:53 | stars and I'm clicking on its vector
mask in order to make it active and then,
| | 00:58 | I'll switch over to my Black Arrow
tool and I'll drag across the stars; you
| | 01:03 | have to do a manual drag, you can't do
it like a Ctrl+A or Command+A on a Mac
| | 01:07 | to do a Select All, because that will
just select the entire image. It will go
| | 01:10 | back to Pixel mode. So you need to tell
Photoshop that you want the vectors to
| | 01:14 | be selected. Then I'll press Ctrl+X or
Command+X on the Mac or of course you
| | 01:19 | could go up to the Edit
menu, choose the Cut command.
| | 01:21 | What's going to happen is Photoshop is
going to freak out, it's going to go,
| | 01:25 | dude! That was all you had. Man! If
you take away those path outlines, you're
| | 01:31 | left with nothing; you've nothing
inside your vector mask anymore. What do you
| | 01:34 | want me to do with this strange layer
that will just be totally transparent at
| | 01:39 | this point? Do you want to keep it, or
what do you want to do? If you select
| | 01:43 | Vector Mask Contents Only, the final
option, you're going to remove just the
| | 01:47 | stars and you're going to
leave that vector mask there.
| | 01:50 | I'll show you what that looks like.
I'll click OK. That leaves the vector mask
| | 01:53 | there so that we have transparency;
this guy is a dead layer right now.
| | 01:57 | Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the Mac to undo that.
I'll press Ctrl+X again, Command+X on the
| | 02:01 | Mac and you can also choose to delete
the vector mask, in which case, you'll
| | 02:05 | get rid of the items, the vector
shapes here as well as the mask itself,
| | 02:10 | it will go away, click OK.
| | 02:11 | Now you've got solid white, which is
unfortunate, I'd think, because it's
| | 02:16 | blocking our view of everything else.
Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac. The default
| | 02:19 | setting is the way to go. Ctrl+X,
Command+X on the Mac, the default setting is
| | 02:23 | Layer 'stars'. It will go ahead and
delete the entire darn layer. You click OK,
| | 02:27 | yeah, good-bye. That's awesome.
| | 02:29 | Now the election layer is
automatically active. That's nice. We can see its
| | 02:33 | path outlines and everything, but if
you're not seeing him, go ahead and click
| | 02:36 | there in order to make that active.
You want the double outline around that
| | 02:39 | vector mask and you want to be able
to see the outlines around the word
| | 02:42 | Election and its underscore, so that
we know that it's active and then press
| | 02:46 | Ctrl+V, Command+V on the Mac in
order to paste those stars in the place.
| | 02:50 | Now, had I not done that? Had I not
made sure that the vector mask was active?
| | 02:54 | I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z,
Command+Z on the Mac to undo that. I would
| | 02:57 | paste new paths into the Paths palette.
So I'd go over here and I see, oh look,
| | 03:03 | I got a new work path over here in the
Paths palette. Okay, I don't want that.
| | 03:06 | So anyway, Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the
Mac to undo that modification, go back to
| | 03:10 | layers, click on this guy to make it
active, press Ctrl+V, Command+V on the Mac
| | 03:14 | in order to paste the stars
in with Election underscore.
| | 03:17 | They're all happy together. We've got
the drop shadow, one big merry bunch.
| | 03:21 | In the next exercise, I'll show you all
that stuff I promised about the Custom Shape tool.
| | 03:26 | Stay tuned.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing custom shapes| 00:00 | In this exercise we are going to add a
Custom Shape to this photo illustration,
| | 00:05 | and I'm calling it a photo
illustration just because it's not the most
| | 00:08 | photographic thing on earth, but it
does have a combination of photographic
| | 00:12 | elements and illustration elements and
so on. So that's where that's coming from.
| | 00:16 | This document is called Happy
vector mash.psd. Found inside the
| | 00:20 | 24_vector_shapes folder. So called
because we have many happily coexisting
| | 00:25 | vector-based path outlines here inside
of this one shape layer. We are going to
| | 00:30 | add another one now, Custom Shape. Here
is how you make a Custom Shape and more
| | 00:33 | importantly, because it is really easy
to draw, here is how you get to all the
| | 00:37 | custom shapes, a big rich library of
shapes that ships along with Photoshop.
| | 00:41 | Go to the Line tool, click and hold
choose the Custom Shape tool. I love this
| | 00:44 | tool so much that if you load a Deke
keys, I got rid off the keyboard shortcuts
| | 00:48 | for everybody else, but the Custom
Shape tool because my reasoning, at least my
| | 00:52 | experiences the one Shape tool that I
use over and over and over again is the
| | 00:56 | Custom Shape tool. I don't
use the others nearly as much.
| | 01:00 | The Line tool is a distant second,
because every once in a while I need arrows,
| | 01:04 | but the Custom Shape tool that one is
just plane old wonderfully useful.
| | 01:08 | So go ahead and select it. And then go up
to the Shape options right there, click the
| | 01:12 | down pointing arrowhead and you will
see this collection of Custom Shapes.
| | 01:16 | Now if these were all the custom shapes
that were available to you, I would say
| | 01:19 | phooey on the Custom Shape tool,
because it's just such a random little
| | 01:24 | rinky-dink collection including a
copyright and registered trademark symbol and
| | 01:28 | the trademark symbol.
| | 01:29 | Whatever. I mean those are characters
or type that you can use fairly easily,
| | 01:33 | but watch this. Click the right
pointing arrowhead and you'll see that among
| | 01:38 | some other options that are available
to you, we have a list of libraries.
| | 01:41 | So we have Animals, Arrows, Banners and
Awards, all these different libraries.
| | 01:45 | We have this one right here called All,
and that will load all the libraries.
| | 01:49 | What I love about this option is that
there is all kinds of other libraries out there.
| | 01:53 | There is this pattern libraries
out there, there is Pattern Libraries,
| | 01:55 | there is Contour Libraries that kind
of thing, Gradient Libraries, and they
| | 01:58 | come in individual libraries that
ship along with Photoshop and you have to
| | 02:01 | load them independently of each other.
| | 02:03 | There is no All command except for the
Custom Shape tool it come with All so
| | 02:07 | that you can load all the libraries.
So you don't have to load each one
| | 02:10 | dependently. And what's great about
it is it does include all these other
| | 02:13 | libraries, and it includes all the
ones that are available by default right here.
| | 02:17 | So you just choose it and then
you say okay, you don't say Append because
| | 02:22 | you duplicate all the ones that
are here like the notes, and little
| | 02:24 | fleur-de-lis and so on. You just click
OK, and then you get them all. And it's
| | 02:29 | so many, it's like a couple of hundred,
and then you can take these over and
| | 02:33 | use them inside of Illustrator as well,
which I do and I'll teach you how to do
| | 02:36 | in Illustrator series. It's very easy,
but I do show you how to do it, because
| | 02:39 | it can come in very handy for symbols and so on.
| | 02:42 | So I'm going to go ahead and grab
Crown in order to make it active. Then just
| | 02:47 | go ahead and hide this bunch of junk
there by clicking on the arrowhead and now
| | 02:51 | in order to make sure that I'm adding
this crown to the current election shape
| | 02:57 | mash up right there, I'll press and
hold the Shift key and I'll get a little
| | 03:01 | plus next to my cross shaped cursor, and
I'm going to drag from here, upward like so.
| | 03:06 | And because I have that Shape key down,
I'm constraining my crown so that it's
| | 03:11 | not all tall or short or something
along this line. So it constrains it to its
| | 03:15 | original proposition. So I still have
the Shift key down there in order to get
| | 03:18 | that affect. And I'll press the
Spacebar in order to move the crown over a
| | 03:21 | little bit. So it's right there above
the T in election, and then release and
| | 03:25 | now, well, we have a crown. And then I
would click on my vector mask thumbnail
| | 03:29 | right there in order to deactivate
that mask so that I can see my composition
| | 03:35 | without any of that other
garbage going on screen.
| | 03:38 | Now I'm going to press the F key a
couple of times in order to fill the screen
| | 03:40 | with it. Zoom in so that we can see
the shapes more up close and personal.
| | 03:46 | In the next exercise we are going to
switch over to a different project in
| | 03:49 | which I'll show you a basic overview of
how to use the Pen tool. A very useful
| | 03:55 | custom shape creation tool inside of Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing with the Pen tool| 00:00 |
In this exercise I'm going to show you
how to create custom shapes of your own
| | 00:05 |
using the Pen tool, and the Pen tool
is its own discipline. I'm just going to
| | 00:10 |
show it to you very briefly right now
so you have a sense of how it works.
| | 00:13 |
If you want to learn it in even more
detail and you want to see how it's useful
| | 00:18 |
as a masking tool, it's a really
great masking tool, then check out my
| | 00:22 |
Photoshop CS3 Channels and Masks series,
and there is an entire chapter devoted
| | 00:28 |
just to the Pen tool and
its many wonderful ways.
| | 00:32 |
Anyway here it is inside of Photoshop,
this guy right there. So get to it by
| | 00:36 |
clicking on this little Pen tool nib
or pressing the P key, P for pen of
| | 00:40 |
course. And I'm working inside an
image called Electrocardioheart.jpg found
| | 00:45 |
inside the 24_vector_shapes folder.
This image comes to us from a photographer
| | 00:49 |
who goes by the handle Morratson at
iStockphoto.com. And as always you can
| | 00:54 |
learn more about these people by going to
the File menu and choosing File Info command.
| | 00:59 |
And what we are going to do is we are
going to trace this heart. Now there are
| | 01:02 |
hearts that are available to us with
the Custom Shape tool. If you go up to the
| | 01:07 |
Custom Shape tool for a moment here
in the Options bar and click the down
| | 01:10 |
pointing arrowhead, you will find a
heart or two. There is one, for example.
| | 01:15 |
None of them match this particular
heart. And so they are not at the right angle.
| | 01:19 |
We could always rotate them.
But they are not really shaped the right
| | 01:22 |
way either. So we are going to go
ahead and trace this heart for ourselves.
| | 01:27 |
And here is how. I'm going to switch
over once again to the Pen tool.
| | 01:30 |
Now I want you to see something. Notice
these little options right here at the far
| | 01:34 |
left side of the Options bar. This one
called shape layer, which goes ahead and
| | 01:38 |
automatically creates an independent
shapes layer inside the Layers palette.
| | 01:42 |
This is a single layer flat image right
now. But you can also go ahead and draw
| | 01:47 |
paths that appear in the Paths palette
and that way you can store the paths for
| | 01:51 |
later use, you can trace them, a lot of
different things you can do with paths
| | 01:55 |
inside of Photoshop. You can use them
in selection outlines, convert them to
| | 01:58 |
layer masks and so on.
| | 02:00 |
Basically, when you are drawing a
free form Pen tool outline, you don't
| | 02:04 |
typically want to create a new shape
layer because after all you are trying to
| | 02:07 |
trace something inside of your image.
And you can't really see what you are tracing
| | 02:12 |
if you trace it with a shape layer,
because you start filling in
| | 02:15 |
the shape very quickly and you
start blocking out your view of the core
| | 02:20 |
photographic image itself.
| | 02:21 |
So very wisely inside of Photoshop CS4,
Adobe has changed the default behavior
| | 02:26 |
of the Pen tool. So if you click on the
Pen, you will notice you automatically
| | 02:30 |
switch over to creating a path that
appears in the Paths palette. And that's
| | 02:34 |
really smart as you will see.
| | 02:35 |
All right, so here is how we use the
Pen tool. I'm going to go ahead and zoom
| | 02:39 |
in a little bit here so that we are
seeing the heart a little more closely.
| | 02:43 |
You can either just click with the tool
like so in order to create points, and
| | 02:48 |
these are corner points and each one
of the corner points is connected to the
| | 02:52 |
previous one by a straight segment. So
it's pretty easy to use the Pen tool this way.
| | 02:58 |
By the way if we go to the Paths palette,
you will see that I'm now working on
| | 03:01 |
this work path. So this is getting
created automatically for me on the fly.
| | 03:05 |
Then if you want to go ahead and close
the path, then you would click on the
| | 03:09 |
first point inside of the shape, and
it's a little difficult to see because of
| | 03:13 |
the way Adobe has chosen to represent
points and paths inside of Photoshop CS4.
| | 03:20 |
We get a straight inversion of the
colors in the background, which often make
| | 03:23 |
seeing what's going on quite difficult.
| | 03:26 |
So here is what I'm going to do. I'm
going to press and hold the Ctrl key or
| | 03:28 |
the Command key on the Mac. That's
going to get me the White Arrow tool on the fly
| | 03:32 |
and that's going to allow me to
move this point to a location where we'll
| | 03:36 |
be able to see what's going on a
little better. And now I'll release the Ctrl
| | 03:39 |
or Command key and I'll return to my Pen tool.
| | 03:42 |
Now if I hover over that first point,
you can see what was I talking about there.
| | 03:45 |
You will see a little O. And as
soon as I click, sure enough I close off
| | 03:49 |
that path outline and now I would
create a different path outline like so.
| | 03:53 |
All right, we don't want any of this junk.
This isn't very heart shaped at all.
| | 03:57 |
So I'm going to go ahead and click off
of the path so that it becomes inactive,
| | 04:02 |
because I want you to see that this
is pretty precarious right now. We just
| | 04:05 |
have the path temporarily and if I
start drawing a new path, this old one will
| | 04:09 |
disappear. I happen to want that in
this case, but if you don't want it,
| | 04:12 |
you would need to rename the path and I'll
show you how that works in just a moment.
| | 04:15 |
But I'll go ahead and draw like so.
Now notice that this time instead of
| | 04:20 |
clicking I'm dragging. So if you want
to think of this as click and drag, you can.
| | 04:24 |
But I'm dragging from this point
to this point like so. The point at which
| | 04:28 |
I began my drag is the anchor point
and in this case it's a smooth point,
| | 04:32 |
because the path is going to smoothly
arc through this point and then a point
| | 04:37 |
at which I end my drag, the release
point, as soon as I do release, is the
| | 04:42 |
control handle. And this control
handle is a lever. So the path has to go
| | 04:47 |
through the anchor point and the
lever out here just attracts the path or
| | 04:52 |
repels it. And you will see that what
that does is it creates curvature in our
| | 04:57 |
path outline. So instead of having
straight segments like we had a moment ago,
| | 05:00 |
we'll have curvature. So I'll go
ahead and drag to about this point here.
| | 05:03 |
Now this is one of those tools that
you get better at over time. There is no
| | 05:07 |
substitute for just getting in there
and using it. It can be very frustrating
| | 05:12 |
at first and once again if you want to
really get cozy with the tool and see
| | 05:15 |
how you use it for masking purposes, check
out my Photoshop Channels and Masks series.
| | 05:19 |
All right, now I'm going to drag
from this point here and notice that I'm
| | 05:23 |
dragging in the same direction. And
when I say direction, I don't mean
| | 05:27 |
down/right, as in the direction
I dragged the first time there. I mean
| | 05:32 |
I'm sticking with either clockwise or
counterclockwise. In my case, I started in
| | 05:36 |
the clockwise direction. I'm going to
keep in the clockwise direction.
| | 05:40 |
So I'm clicking and dragging in the direction
of the next point I'll be creating.
| | 05:44 |
This is another thing
that throws people sometimes.
| | 05:46 |
Notice that I have symmetrical
control handle that's going in the opposite
| | 05:50 |
direction. That's actually controlling
the curvature of my segment in progress.
| | 05:55 |
And you can see how it's bending.
It's either going to bend a lot or
| | 05:59 |
it's going to bend a little. So if you bring
the control handle toward the segment,
| | 06:03 |
it's going to remove some of the
curvature. If you drag it away from the segment,
| | 06:07 |
it's going to increase the
curvature. If you drag it the other
| | 06:09 |
direction, it's going to create a
wave going in that direction like so.
| | 06:14 |
So I want it to go about here. That
looks pretty good. And you can always
| | 06:18 |
change your mind. So remember that.
Once you get done dragging, if things
| | 06:21 |
aren't quite lining up the way you
want because probably you are not going to
| | 06:25 |
get these incredible results right off
the bat. This first control handle, for
| | 06:28 |
example, might not be working for you.
So you would press and hold the Ctrl key
| | 06:31 |
or the Command key on the Mac to
temporarily get that White Arrow tool once again.
| | 06:35 |
Don't switch to it manually,
because that's going to interrupt your flow.
| | 06:37 |
Just press the Ctrl key or the
Command key on the Mac and then drag that
| | 06:41 |
control handle to where you want it to be,
to a better location, adjust this one too,
| | 06:44 |
if you want to and then release Ctrl
or Command and you are back to the Pen tool.
| | 06:49 |
And then I would scroll down to this
location, for example, and I'm going to
| | 06:52 |
create another point and control handle
right about there. So what we have now
| | 06:58 |
is the sequence of smooth points.
We have one, two, three smooth points now,
| | 07:03 |
all with symmetrical control handles
that ensures that the segment comes in and
| | 07:08 |
goes out smoothly. Hence smooth points
and we are creating continuous arcs.
| | 07:13 |
But we want corners. This valentine here
does have corners associated with it.
| | 07:18 |
Down at the bottom and up at the top we
have some sort of soft corners, but we are
| | 07:22 |
going to represent them
nice and sharp as you will see.
| | 07:25 |
So we've already seen corner points,
which were connected by straight segments.
| | 07:28 |
Those were easy. Now we have got these
more complicated smooth points that are
| | 07:32 |
connected by curving segments. What do
we do if we want curving segments that are
| | 07:36 |
joining at anchor points? Well, then we
create cusp points, a different variety
| | 07:41 |
of corner point that has control
handles associated with it. And I'll show you
| | 07:44 |
how to make those cusp
points in the next exercise.
| | 07:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating cusp points| 00:00 | All right, so here we are looking at
this custom path that I have drawn so far
| | 00:04 | using the Pen tool. I'm going to go
ahead and save it out for you so that you
| | 00:08 | can open it up if you need to, so you
have a progress file. But I'm going to do
| | 00:11 | it in front of you, so you see how it
works. The first thing I need to do is
| | 00:14 | make sure that I have saved my path,
so that I don't end up wiping it out
| | 00:18 | the way I wiped out the last path that I drew.
| | 00:20 | You do that just by double-clicking
anywhere on Work Path right here, and then
| | 00:24 | you go ahead and name it, and I'll
call mine something like Heart shape or
| | 00:28 | something along those lines, because
that's ultimately what it's going to be,
| | 00:30 | and then I'll click OK. And now if I
click off of this path outline in order
| | 00:36 | to make it inactive and I started
drawing something else like so, like this
| | 00:40 | incredibly realistically rendered
hourglass here, it becomes my new Work Path,
| | 00:45 | but my Heart shape still survives.
| | 00:48 | All right, so very important. Let's go
ahead and get rid of that guy, however,
| | 00:52 | and I did that just by pressing the
Backspace key or the Delete key on the Mac.
| | 00:55 | Now I'll go ahead and save out this file.
I'll choose Save As from the File menu,
| | 00:58 | and this is terribly interesting
I think you will see. I'll call this
| | 01:02 | Heart with path, and I get rid of that
extra T there and I'm going to save it
| | 01:07 | to the JPEG format. What gives?
Since when is JPEG able to
| | 01:11 | accommodate specialty information?
| | 01:13 | Well, you can save paths to any file
format. It's amazing, anything that
| | 01:18 | Photoshop supports, you can go ahead
and save the path outline to, because all
| | 01:21 | of the various file formats support
metadata. There is not a path checkbox,
| | 01:24 | you don't have to worry about it;
they just get automatically saved.
| | 01:27 | And just choose the Save command and then go
with whatever compression options you like.
| | 01:31 | Baseline Optimized gives you smaller
file sizes generally speaking. Click OK.
| | 01:36 | The path has totally disappeared. How
do we bring it up and keep working on it?
| | 01:39 | Well, you may end up having this problem,
where all of a sudden your path goes
| | 01:42 | inactive on you accidentally, and you
are like, ah curses! What do I do?
| | 01:47 | So irritating, this darn Pen tool. Go
ahead and click on Heart shape in order to
| | 01:51 | make it active, so you can see, sort
of see anyways, it's not super easy to see,
| | 01:55 | but you can see that path outline
right there. It's inactive. Anytime you
| | 01:58 | see the Pen tool with little x next to it,
it means you are going to start a new path.
| | 02:02 | So even though you got this one path
sitting there raring to go, it's not active.
| | 02:06 | Okay, so what you do is you
press and hold the Ctrl key, Command key on
| | 02:09 | the Mac, to get that white arrow tool
once again. Click on that point or click
| | 02:13 | somewhere on the path outline to make
it active. That is to say you will now
| | 02:16 | see the points and handles that are
associated with the path. However, if I now
| | 02:21 | release the Ctrl key or the Command key,
the Pen tool still sees this as being
| | 02:25 | an inactive path because we still have that x.
| | 02:26 | Now to get the Pen tool to recognize
that path outline so it knows that you
| | 02:30 | want to continue to draw this path,
you need to go ahead and click on the end
| | 02:34 | point from which you want to continue.
So in our case, that's this end point
| | 02:38 | right there, because we are going
around this direction. You could change
| | 02:41 | directions at this point. You could
decide you are going to go counterclockwise
| | 02:44 | now if you wanted to. But I'm going to
go this way, and all you got to do is
| | 02:48 | you just click on that end
point and now the Pen tool is happy.
| | 02:52 | It no longer has any sort of markings
next to it; it's just a pen nib.
| | 02:56 | That tells you, you now have an active path
and you will continue to draw from it.
| | 03:00 | Now you need to create a cusp point
at this location right down there, that
| | 03:04 | includes control handle, so it's a
corner between two curving segments.
| | 03:07 | I'm going to go ahead and drag like this
in order to create a smooth point at this
| | 03:12 | location. So there is a couple of
different ways to work. I just want to show
| | 03:15 | them both to you, even though
one is much easier than the other.
| | 03:18 | But we'll start with the sort of harder
way I guess. I'll go ahead and zoom in
| | 03:23 | here by pressing Ctrl+Plus, Command+
Plus on the Mac, and also Ctrl+drag this
| | 03:27 | handle up a little bit, that would be
a Command+drag on the Mac, in order to
| | 03:31 | get that white arrow tool for a moment,
just so that we are pulling these two apart.
| | 03:35 | Because you don't want them to
overlap each other like that because you
| | 03:37 | are going to get weird, bizarre
curves, unless that's what you want.
| | 03:40 | If you want smooth organic curves,
then you want each handle to basically go
| | 03:45 | about a third of the length of the
segment. Do you see that this guy takes up
| | 03:49 | about a third, this guy takes up
about a third? More importantly, they both
| | 03:53 | together take up about two-thirds of
the length of the segment and then there
| | 03:56 | is about a third that's left open in
the middle and that's going to give you
| | 04:00 | smooth results, is what it comes down to.
| | 04:02 | It's an old rule but a goody. All right,
we have got two symmetrical control
| | 04:06 | handles associated with this smooth
point right here. We want these control
| | 04:10 | handles to separate from each other,
so that they can move independently of
| | 04:14 | each other and you do that by pressing
and hold the Alt key or the Option key
| | 04:18 | on the Mac and drag from that anchor
point and now you have got a new control
| | 04:23 | handle that's going off on its own
direction. These two are no longer locked
| | 04:27 | into alignment with each other.
| | 04:27 | I'll go ahead and release the Alt or
Option key, by the way. If you press the
| | 04:31 | Ctrl key or the Command key on the
Mac, and now drag one of these control
| | 04:34 | handles, you can see that it is
totally independent. All right, so that's one way
| | 04:39 | to create a cusp point right there.
Now, let's go ahead and add some more
| | 04:43 | smooth points. I'll drag from here up,
I'm continuing around the path in the
| | 04:47 | clockwise direction now that I have now
reestablished that as the direction in
| | 04:50 | which I'm drawing this path outline.
| | 04:52 | Then I'll drag over the hump like so,
and if ever I feel like things aren't
| | 04:57 | working out the way I want them to,
I can press that Ctrl key, that Command key
| | 05:00 | on the Mac in order to get the white
arrow tool. Now let's say it's this
| | 05:04 | segment that I'm concerned about.
I don't like the way it looks, but I can't
| | 05:07 | see those control handles anymore. Ctrl-
click, with that Ctrl key down, Command
| | 05:11 | key down on the Mac, and you will see
its control handles and then you could
| | 05:14 | drag this guy inward.
| | 05:15 | So I might not be completely
accurately tracing this edge now but
| | 05:20 | it's aesthetically more pleasing to me.
This is the edge that I want. So sometimes
| | 05:25 | you are going to make aesthetic
decisions. That's fine, of course. Then I want
| | 05:29 | to adjust this segment, let's say.
Click on it with the Ctrl key down, Command
| | 05:33 | key is still down on the Mac, and I
would drag this guy inward a little bit.
| | 05:37 | That kind of a thing and you can move the
points around and whatever you want to do.
| | 05:39 | But he is still active. That endpoint
is still active, as warranted by fact
| | 05:43 | that I release the Ctrl key or the
Command key and I still have just a pen nib,
| | 05:46 | which is telling you that the path is
active, you are going to continue from it.
| | 05:50 | You can only continue from an
endpoint and it must be this last endpoint
| | 05:53 | that you are going to continue from.
Sure enough that's the way it is.
| | 05:55 | Now this is another location where I
want a cusp point. So I'm going to begin
| | 05:59 | dragging until I get the previous hump
the way I want it. Then there is another
| | 06:04 | way to work. Instead of releasing and
then Alt+dragging or Option+dragging on
| | 06:07 | the Mac, while you still have the mouse
button down, press and hold the Alt key
| | 06:11 | or the Option key. Keep that Alt or
Option key down though because if you
| | 06:15 | release it, you are going to get this.
It will go back to being a smooth point
| | 06:18 | and you will mess everything up.
| | 06:18 | So get that guy where you want it
again, press and hold Alt or Option,
| | 06:22 | move this out of alignment like so, beautiful,
and then let's go ahead and close the
| | 06:27 | path and you can do that by dragging
from this smooth point like so.
| | 06:31 | But the problem with working this way is
you end up kind of messing up the
| | 06:35 | angle of the control handles and you
had already gotten it exactly the way
| | 06:38 | you wanted it, so you run
the risk of messing things up.
| | 06:40 | All right, so Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the
Mac in order to undo that modification.
| | 06:44 | Watch this. Now you can just click on
that smooth point in order to complete
| | 06:50 | the shape and all my anchor points and
handles have disappeared, but if I press
| | 06:54 | and hold the Ctrl key or the Command
key on the Mac and click on that path
| | 06:58 | outline, I'll see that this is
still a smooth point. I'll go ahead and
| | 07:02 | Ctrl+drag this point in a little bit,
so that I'm shaving off the interior of
| | 07:06 | that heart ever so slightly. I'll drag
this control handle in. I'll drag this
| | 07:09 | control handle out, so we have more of
a smooth organic curve going on at this point.
| | 07:14 | And this looks like
a really nice path outline.
| | 07:19 | In the next exercise, I'm going to
show you how we save it off as a custom
| | 07:23 | shape and then we'll see how to
employ this path outline as a vector mask.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining a custom shape| 00:00 | In this brief exercise, I'm going to
show you how to save out your custom path
| | 00:05 | outline as a custom shape that you can
draw over and over again, it's so easy
| | 00:09 | to do, but it's definitely worth
knowing. I have got my Heart shape path
| | 00:15 | selected here inside the Paths palette.
So you want to switch over to Paths
| | 00:18 | palette in order to make it active and,
of course, I have gone ahead and saved
| | 00:22 | my progress as Final heart shape.jpg.
| | 00:25 | How do we go about saving this path
outline as a custom shape? With the path
| | 00:29 | selected, it's very important that
the path is selected here in the Paths
| | 00:32 | palette, go up to the Edit menu and
choose Define Custom Shape right there, and
| | 00:37 | then you will have the option of
naming that shape and I'm going to go ahead
| | 00:41 | and call it Organic Heart or something
like that because it is a little more organic.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assigning a vector mask to an image| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show
you how to employ a path outline, whether
| | 00:04 | you drew it with the Pen tool or the
Custom Shape tool or the Line tool, as a
| | 00:08 | vector mask to a photographic image
element. So instead of just filling a shape
| | 00:13 | layer with a solid color, for example,
how do you assign it to something else?
| | 00:18 | We're going to go ahead and use our
path outline in order to trace the shape of
| | 00:23 | this heart right here.
| | 00:24 | So I've got open Heart on heart.psd,
found inside the 24_vector_shapes folder
| | 00:30 | that includes my shape layer heart on
top of the photographic heart. We also
| | 00:35 | have the original path outline here in
the Paths palette. So I'll show how to
| | 00:38 | work with either, the path outline
that's associated with the shape layer or
| | 00:42 | the path outline that's available to us
here inside the Paths palette, either one.
| | 00:45 | Go to the Layers palette, first
thing we're going to do is we're going to
| | 00:48 | double-click on this Background layer,
so we can turn it into an independent
| | 00:51 | image layer. I'll go ahead and call
this one photographic heart or something
| | 00:56 | along those lines. Then click
OK. Now it's a layer, great.
| | 01:00 | If I wanted to grab the vector mask
that's assigned to the heart layer, I could
| | 01:05 | just drag it onto photographic heart.
That would go ahead and move that vector
| | 01:09 | mask, notice, it moved it from heart,
which is now covering up everything, to
| | 01:13 | photographic heart, or go ahead undo
that modification by pressing Ctrl+Z,
| | 01:17 | Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 01:18 | You could Alt+Drag or Option+Drag
that vector mask and drop it on the
| | 01:23 | photographic heart, in order to
duplicate it, like so. Then I'll go ahead and
| | 01:27 | turn off the heart layer so that we
can see the photographic heart layer
| | 01:31 | underneath. But let's say we're working from
a path outline instead. How does that work?
| | 01:36 | Well, go ahead and undo that most
recent modification. Leave that heart layer
| | 01:39 | turned off so that we're not seeing it.
Go to the Paths palette. I want you to
| | 01:43 | click on Heart shape to make it active.
Now go back to Layers, so you're seeing
| | 01:47 | that path outline right there. I want
you to press and hold the Ctrl key or the
| | 01:52 | Command key on the Mac and click on
that layer mask thumbnail at the bottom of
| | 01:55 | the Layers palette.
| | 01:57 | Now, if you were to just click on it,
you're going to add an unrelated layer
| | 02:02 | mask, like so. That's not what we want.
So press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 02:06 | When you Ctrl-click or Command-click
on this icon, you add a vector mask.
| | 02:10 | And if you already have a vector outline
selected, as we did, then it goes ahead
| | 02:14 | and puts it inside of that vector mask
and we now have a vector outline drawn
| | 02:19 | around our heart. Well, you may ask,
what in the world good does that do us?
| | 02:23 | I mean we don't have any sort of
any composition at work here.
| | 02:26 | Well, we can now add this heart
layer along with its vector mask, intact
| | 02:30 | altogether to an existing composition.
That's what we're going to do.
| | 02:33 | We're going to integrate it into a
delightful composition in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a vector object to a composition| 00:00 | All right gang, I've got two images
open this time. One is called Masked
| | 00:04 | heart.psd, and this represents my
progress so far. I've gone ahead and assigned
| | 00:08 | the path outline as a vector mask to
this photographic image element right here
| | 00:12 | and I actually changed the name of this
layer to photo heart for that's worth.
| | 00:16 | Then we also have opened up Good tip
circle.psd, which is the good version of
| | 00:21 | the tip circle image. Also it's a
larger size than the very first one we were
| | 00:25 | working on. Both of these images,
by the way, are found inside the
| | 00:29 | 24_vector_shapes folder. So
here's what I'm going to do.
| | 00:32 | Go back to Masked heart.psd, make
sure that heart, that image that is, and
| | 00:37 | vector mask are linked together. And
they are, there is a little chain icon
| | 00:40 | right there. You can turn it off if
you want to move one independently of the other.
| | 00:44 | But we want to keep them together.
So I'll turn that back on. Because,
| | 00:47 | I want to be able to drag and drop the
heart along with its vector mask into the
| | 00:51 | Good tip circle.psd composition.
| | 00:54 | When one of the Selection tools is
active or just about any of the other tools
| | 00:57 | are active, you can get the Move tool
on the fly by pressing and holding the
| | 01:00 | Ctrl key or the Command key on the Mac.
Then you can drag that heart around,
| | 01:03 | like so. However, if you have one of
these tools selected, for example if I
| | 01:07 | have the Pen tool active, and I press
and hold the Ctrl key or the Command key
| | 01:11 | on the Mac, I'm going to get the Arrow tool,
which ain't going to do me any good.
| | 01:14 | That's for selecting
path outlines, obviously.
| | 01:17 | Even if I have the Arrow tool selected,
like I've got the Black Arrow tool
| | 01:21 | selected let's say and I press and
hold on the Ctrl key or the Command key on
| | 01:24 | the Mac, then I just get the other
variant of the Arrow tool in this case.
| | 01:28 | Let's see what happens, if I have the
Direct Selection tool selected and I
| | 01:31 | press and hold the Ctrl key or the
Command key on the Mac, I switch back to the
| | 01:34 | Black Arrow tool, switch back to Marquee
tool, since it's our nice default tool.
| | 01:38 | Then we would go ahead and Ctrl+Drag
or Command+Drag both path outline and
| | 01:43 | image layer, and I'll drag up to the
Title tab for Good tip circle.psd.
| | 01:47 | Then I'll drag back down once Photoshop
switches over to this image. I'll drop the
| | 01:52 | heart into place, seems to have appeared
in front of the circle layer, in my case.
| | 01:56 | Fine, but that also means that it's
getting clipped by the circle layer.
| | 01:58 | I don't want that. So I'm going to Alt-
click or Option-click on that horizontal
| | 02:02 | line and then I'll Alt-click or Option-
click on this horizontal line so that
| | 02:07 | I'm clipping the spirals inside of the
photo heart, like so. I'm going to turn
| | 02:11 | off spikes. I'm going to turn off Tip.
I don't need those guys. I might go
| | 02:15 | ahead and Ctrl+Drag or Command+Drag
my heart up just a little bit, like so.
| | 02:20 | I am going to turn off the circle layer,
but I really like the effects that are
| | 02:25 | associated with circles. Why don't we
go ahead and grab those effects right
| | 02:28 | there and drop them on photo heart. So
I just dragged the fx icon and dropped
| | 02:34 | on photo heart. And now, I'll turn off the
circle layer, because I don't want it anymore.
| | 02:38 | Now everything is turning way too
sort of orange for me, because the
| | 02:42 | composition was originally set to sort
of a yellowish, orangish flavor. We want
| | 02:46 | it to be gold. But I want this heart to
be nice and red, so we're going to have
| | 02:49 | to make some alterations. First though,
I'm going to turn off the layer mask
| | 02:53 | that's associated with the spikes.
| | 02:54 | I like the spikes, but I don't want
this circle of a layer mask there. So I'm
| | 02:58 | going to Shift-click on the layer mask
in order to turn it off. You could also
| | 03:01 | Shift-click on the vector mask to turn
it off. If you want that effect right
| | 03:05 | there, that's like the heart
fell into puddle. Huh! Interesting!
| | 03:09 | What does it look like if I turn
off that? Actually, I'll go ahead and
| | 03:12 | Shift-click to turn those spikes back on.
That's kind of nifty too, because it
| | 03:15 | means that the heart has issues. It's
thorny; it doesn't want anybody to get
| | 03:19 | near to it. Anyway, we've got the
spikes turned on; we've got the circle turned
| | 03:23 | off right there. That's just the
function of Shift-clicking on these thumbnails.
| | 03:27 | Let's take a look at our individual
layer effects right there. I'm going to go
| | 03:30 | ahead and double-click on Drop Shadow.
I'm going to change the color of that
| | 03:33 | Drop Shadow from -- it's almost a
greenish color right now, but it's yellow.
| | 03:37 | I'm going to click on it and I'm going
to change it to red as easily as just
| | 03:41 | changing that Hue value. It's a very
quick and easy way to switch colors out.
| | 03:44 | Click OK, then I'd switch to Inner
Shadow, click there. Click inside Hue, like
| | 03:49 | so, change it to 0, click OK. Go to
Bevel and Emboss. I think you're getting
| | 03:54 | the idea of what I'm doing here. Click
on anything that's not the color I want
| | 03:57 | it to be. Change it to 0. Click OK.
White's fine, I'll leave that alone.
| | 04:02 | Color Overlay, I don't even think, we
want a Color Overlay. Let's just go ahead
| | 04:04 | and turn that guy off. Then Gradient
Overlay is currently sort of a bronzing
| | 04:09 | agent right here. Let's go ahead and
click inside of that Gradient bar, then
| | 04:12 | double-click on that Color Stop. Then
change that value to 0, what a surprise!
| | 04:19 | I knew you weren't expecting that.
Click OK. Leave white. That's fine.
| | 04:23 | Click OK. Click OK, because we're done.
We have changed all the colors and now
| | 04:27 | we have this effect here.
| | 04:29 | I'm going to Ctrl+Drag it up a little
bit so that it's better aligned with the
| | 04:33 | spikes, like so. I think this will
work nicely, except for you know what?
| | 04:38 | The spirals getting out of alignment. So
let's go ahead and Ctrl+Z, Command+Z to
| | 04:41 | undo that. Select both of those
layers, like so. Then we'll Ctrl+Drag or
| | 04:45 | Command+Drag it up into let's say
this position. That looks pretty nice.
| | 04:49 | Now if you want more spikes, obviously,
you can get them. You just click on the path
| | 04:53 | outline for that spikes layer right
there. And you can tell it's the spikes
| | 04:56 | layer, because it had to make it
wider so you can see that its spikes.
| | 05:00 | I drag this over little bit there,
i.e. scroll the window over. Then I'll
| | 05:04 | switch over to my Direct Selection tool,
White Arrow tool. Click on this point
| | 05:08 | right there. Drag it to a different
location. So you have all kinds of
| | 05:12 | flexibility available to you here. You
could even drag it outside of the canvas
| | 05:16 | if you want to. You could expand the canvas,
and then you could scale the whole darn thing.
| | 05:19 | All right, let's turn off the spikes.
I'll press the F key a couple of times to
| | 05:23 | tab away all the extra chunk. That's
the final version of vector illustration
| | 05:29 | created inside of Photoshop replete
with layer effects, thanks to the power of
| | 05:34 | vector-based path outlines and vector-
based shape layers, here inside Photoshop CS4.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
25. Vanishing PointIntroduction to Vanishing Point| 00:00 | Despite Photoshop's considerable and
much ballyhooed capabilities, it typically
| | 00:05 | confines you to the two dimensions of
your canvas, height and width. Granted,
| | 00:10 | you have the added dimension of layers
and you can add Bevels and Drop Shadows
| | 00:14 | to stimulate depth.
| | 00:16 | Photoshop Extended even grants you an
array of three-dimensional imaging tools.
| | 00:20 | But inside the standard edition of the
program, your one and only glimpse into
| | 00:25 | the deep dark chasm of 3D is Vanishing Point.
| | 00:30 | The Vanishing Point Filter lets you
edit images in perspective. Mind you,
| | 00:34 | it doesn't miraculously bring your 2D
layers into 3D space, but it does a heck
| | 00:39 | of a job pretending. The Filter lets
you divide your canvas into a series of
| | 00:43 | rectangular planes that match the angles of
the actual objects and surfaces in a photograph.
| | 00:48 | Then you can move, paint, clone, and
even heal areas of your image within that
| | 00:54 | stimulated 3D space. It takes a little
bit of time to set up the planes and the
| | 00:58 | tools don't always work the way you
might expect them to. But I think you'll
| | 01:02 | agree that Vanishing Point opens a
whole world or at least another dimension of
| | 01:08 | image editing flexibility and fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and saving the first plane| 00:00 | Now the great thing about the
Vanishing Point filter is that it allows you to
| | 00:04 | edit an image in 3D perspective, so
that you're matching the perspective of the scene.
| | 00:09 | just so you know, the
Vanishing Point filter is located right here
| | 00:13 | under the Filter menu. There it is.
It's actually one of these independent
| | 00:16 | utilities, so it just happens to run
inside of Photoshop like Camera Raw and
| | 00:20 | like Liquefy, just straight there above it.
| | 00:23 | It gives you a series of tools. You've
got an Image window to work inside of it
| | 00:26 | and so on. Now, what we want to do in
the case of this image right here, and it
| | 00:31 | goes by the name of Dingy subway.tif,
and it comes to us from photographer
| | 00:35 | Josef Kubicek of iStockPhoto.com. We
want to heal away this unauthorized
| | 00:41 | graffiti down here in the subway scene.
Then ultimately, replace it with this
| | 00:47 | trademarked logo right here, so that we
are letting the good people know of the
| | 00:51 | wonderful service that we've provided for them.
| | 00:54 | The whole thing is going to be
rendered in perspective. It will look great, I
| | 00:57 | tell you. Anyway, I'm going to return
to this image, Dingy subway.tif, and that
| | 01:02 | other image is called, by the way,
Scrubbco banner.psd. You may wonder, well,
| | 01:06 | all right, why do we have to go into
Vanishing Point? Why do we have to use a
| | 01:09 | totally different filter, completely
different environment in order to heal
| | 01:13 | away this graffiti? Why can't we
just use the Healing Brush right there?
| | 01:16 | Well, I'll show you. Let's go ahead and
get the Healing Brush tool. This is the
| | 01:19 | one that allows you to specify a
source point. So I'm going to press and hold
| | 01:24 | the Alt key or the Option key on the
Mac and I'll set the source right about
| | 01:28 | there at this intersection of these
bricks. That will, of course, establish as
| | 01:34 | the source point. Then I'll move my
cursor up so that it's aligned to the
| | 01:37 | bricks properly at the beginning of
this graffiti line here, this little bit of
| | 01:41 | spray paint. Then I'll paint across it in
order to clone it away in order to heal that away.
| | 01:48 | Paint a little more, and then go
ahead and release and let Photoshop do its
| | 01:51 | things. Now, ignoring for the moment,
these weird, little dark and light spots
| | 01:55 | that are a problem, of course. We have
the larger problem that the grid that
| | 02:00 | we've created, this matrix of bricks
right here, does not match at all.
| | 02:05 | It's not a match for the perspective of
the scene. Even though, I'm healing very
| | 02:08 | close to my source point.
| | 02:10 | So I just move my cursor up about an
inch inside of this photograph, and yet,
| | 02:14 | that completely ruins our perspective
effect. And that is because ultimately,
| | 02:18 | Photoshop is generally speaking a two-
dimensional image editor. It recognizes
| | 02:23 | height and width and that's about it.
| | 02:25 | Whereas Vanishing Point can match the
actual 3D perspective of the scene.
| | 02:29 | So I'm going to undo that modification by
pressing Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 02:34 | Here is what we're going to do. Switch
back to the neutral Rectangular Marquee tool.
| | 02:37 | Not necessary but something I like to do.
| | 02:40 | Then go up to the Filter menu and
choose the Vanishing Point filter. Now, once
| | 02:46 | Vanishing Point comes up on screen,
the first thing that I like to do is to
| | 02:50 | establish my base plane and then go
ahead and save that off so that I don't end
| | 02:55 | up wracking it, because it takes a
while to get your first plane exactly right.
| | 02:59 | Notice right here, I have the Create
Plane tool selected. That's good, we want that.
| | 03:03 | Now, I want a plane that covers
the entire rear wall back here. I'm going
| | 03:08 | to start that plane at the most
obvious thing that I can marquee, and that
| | 03:13 | would be this area right here between
the 2 and the 3 signs. So I'm going to go
| | 03:18 | ahead and zoom in on it, and I'm
zooming by Ctrl+Spacebar-clicking or
| | 03:22 | Command+Spacebar-clicking on the Mac.
| | 03:23 | You also have this option,
incidentally. If you press the X key as you're
| | 03:28 | editing inside of Vanishing Point, for
as long as X is down you will see a 2x
| | 03:32 | version of whatever zoom level you
are operating inside of. As soon as you
| | 03:35 | release X, you'll go back to whatever
zoom level you are operating inside of.
| | 03:39 | So, it switches back and forth
between standard and 2x view.
| | 03:43 | just so you know, if you want to
zoom in for a moment, you press the X key,
| | 03:46 | kind of a useful trick, actually. I'm
going to go ahead and zoom in for real by
| | 03:50 | pressing Ctrl+Plus or Command+Plus on
the Mac to 200%, so I can see this area
| | 03:54 | between the 2 and the 3 signs. Now,
when you're creating a plane, you're
| | 03:58 | creating a rectangle that's rotated in
3D space sort of like a billboard.
| | 04:03 | You create it by clicking at four points,
each of the four corners of the rectangle.
| | 04:07 | So, for example, I would click here to
set the first one. And then here to set
| | 04:11 | the second one, then down here for
the third corner and then here for the
| | 04:15 | fourth corner. Now, you're going to see
one of three things, when you get done
| | 04:21 | creating your rectangular plane here.
The plane will be rendered in one of
| | 04:24 | three colors. Either it will be
rendered in Red, like so, which means that
| | 04:29 | Vanishing Point hates you, is
essentially what it means. It's disgusted with you.
| | 04:34 | You have created a horrible plane.
It's not something you can work with.
| | 04:37 | And it's telling you, buddy, shape up.
I'm not going to do anything with this plane.
| | 04:41 | It's not going to work for you.
| | 04:42 | So Red is bad. Now, you can see that
just a tiny little movement of one of
| | 04:46 | these corners can send it to Blue,
which is good. Blue is all the way good.
| | 04:50 | That's Vanishing Point reaching out
and giving you a hardy handshake and
| | 04:53 | saying, nicely done, sir. I can work
with that. Yellow is the other color you
| | 04:58 | might see. It's scene between color,
and this is Vanishing Points where it's
| | 05:01 | saying that's not a good plane, but
it's not horrible. And if that's the best
| | 05:04 | you can give me, I'll try to work
with it. It's not the best you can do.
| | 05:08 | You can do Blue. You can always do Blue.
| | 05:09 | So go for Blue, don't go for Yellow or
Red. Obviously, Red, you don't want to
| | 05:13 | anger the gods of Vanishing Point. So
Blue is good. Now then, having created a
| | 05:19 | nice blue plane, I'm going to zoom out,
and then I'm going to take this plane
| | 05:24 | and I'm going to render it across the
entire rear wall right there by dragging
| | 05:29 | the side handles, like this one and
then this one there. So drag it all the way
| | 05:34 | to the scene between the two walls,
this right edge, that is to say. Then drag
| | 05:39 | this left edge all the way over to the
left beyond the end of the image, so it
| | 05:43 | extends out into the pasteboard here.
| | 05:45 | Now I'm not comfortable with the
angle of this side, because our wall isn't
| | 05:49 | angling in like that. It's not falling
over. So let's go ahead and move this
| | 05:52 | line outward. Now as I do, notice
what's happening to these vertical grid lines.
| | 05:57 | As I try to straighten this wall,
I get more and more vertical grid lines,
| | 06:01 | and pretty soon I get this.
You don't want this. You don't want the
| | 06:05 | vertical grid lines pack this tightly.
That will not work for you. You'll get
| | 06:09 | terrible brush strokes out of the filter. I
find it very irritating that it ever does this.
| | 06:13 | You want something along these lines
here, so that you have these fairly open
| | 06:18 | mini rectangles right there. Because
these little boxes here, they represent
| | 06:22 | the proportions of your brush. So a
circular brush will actually fit inside of
| | 06:28 | this rectangular area right there.
You'll see what I mean later, but you don't
| | 06:32 | want a really super thin brush, you
want something that has a little bit of
| | 06:35 | volume associated with it. You'll get
that out of this grid, the grid that
| | 06:38 | you're seeing before you right now. So
try to match it as closely as you can,
| | 06:42 | if you're working along with me.
| | 06:44 | Then I'm going to go ahead and drag
this edge down. Notice that cursor, that
| | 06:48 | left/right cursor right there, the
cursor should be up and down. The cursors
| | 06:52 | don't always represent the directions
of your drag as well as they should.
| | 06:56 | For example, I mean, this needs to be
an up/down cursor as well. So what I'm
| | 07:00 | telling you is don't worry about it.
If you see the wrong kind of cursor, just go
| | 07:03 | ahead and drag the direction you want
to drag. And it will do the right thing.
| | 07:07 | There's our big plane across the rear
wall. Love it, love it to tears! What's
| | 07:12 | tempting to do is just now start
editing the image. Make whatever modifications
| | 07:16 | you want to make. Don't do that. Because,
if you do, you'll be tempted to go up
| | 07:20 | here and click the Cancel button,
especially, because we're modifying a flat
| | 07:24 | image, and that's no good, you want
layers. We need to create a layer before we
| | 07:27 | start modifying the image.
| | 07:29 | So you'd want to click Cancel in order
to avoid ruining the image, of course.
| | 07:33 | But if you click Cancel, then you're
going to lose your plane. You want to keep
| | 07:35 | your plane. So here is how you keep your plane.
| | 07:37 | Don't make any modification, just
click OK. That will go ahead and save your plane.
| | 07:41 | Vanishing Point is now aware of it.
If you want to save the plane along
| | 07:44 | with the image, you go to the File
menu and choose the Save command.
| | 07:47 | And planes, just like paths, the paths that
we saw in the previous chapter, you can
| | 07:51 | save planes along with JPEG images or
TIFF images or any old file format.
| | 07:56 | They take a very little space. So go ahead
and choose the Save command and then you
| | 08:00 | will be right ready to create some more planes.
| | 08:03 | In the next exercise, for example,
we're going to create some perpendicular planes,
| | 08:06 | which is very exciting, as you'll see.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating perpendicular planes| 00:00 |
In this exercise we are going to add
couple of more planes. At least one for
| | 00:05 |
this back wall right here, because
it's just covered in graffiti as you can see.
| | 00:08 |
Then we are also going to create
another plane along the floor. And these
| | 00:13 |
are both perpendicular planes. That
is they are locked into perpendicular
| | 00:16 |
alignment with the rear wall. The
Vanishing Point filter handles perpendicular
| | 00:22 |
planes splendidly as you are about to see.
| | 00:25 |
So I have going to say my progress as
One pane down.tiff because after all,
| | 00:29 |
one pane down, a few more to go. Now I
would like you to go up to the Filter menu,
| | 00:33 |
choose Vanishing Point and there is
your previous plane that should be just
| | 00:36 |
sitting there waiting for you. Great.
| | 00:38 |
Now we are going to drag out some
perpendicular ones. I want to show you that
| | 00:42 |
you can create as many planes as you
want inside of your composition and you
| | 00:46 |
can even create overlapping planes,
if you want to. For example, let's say
| | 00:50 |
I want to create a plane along this
angled wall right there between the two lights.
| | 00:54 |
I would grab my Create Plane
tool and I would click at the four points
| | 01:00 |
like so, which represent the four
corners of this plane, and then I would hope to
| | 01:05 |
heck that is blue, which it is. So
that's great and if it isn't, if it's red or
| | 01:09 |
it's yellow, then I would just
modify the corners ever so slightly.
| | 01:12 |
And I should say, by the way, vis-a-vis
that whole red yellow thing. Yellow is
| | 01:16 |
not that common; you don't run into
yellow all that often. You run in red like crazy.
| | 01:20 |
Vanishing Point is always getting
mad at you, about the planes anyway.
| | 01:24 |
As I say just modify them until you get it blue.
| | 01:27 |
So you can create independent planes,
if you want like what I just did, but
| | 01:31 |
you can also create planes that are
locked into perpendicular alignment.
| | 01:36 |
How do you that? Well, watch this, and this
is really a sight to behold. I think you're
| | 01:40 |
going to be very excited by this one.
| | 01:41 |
I am going to click on this rear
plane in order to make it active.
| | 01:44 |
Notice Vanishing Point is very smart about
automatically switching between tools for me.
| | 01:48 |
So, as soon as you get done modifying
a plane or you click on an existing plane,
| | 01:52 |
you switch right away to the
Edit Plane tool. So you can get to it by
| | 01:56 |
pressing the V key, but you don't need to.
| | 01:58 |
Now watch. If I were to drag this side
handle, I would go ahead and stretch the seam.
| | 02:02 |
I would stretch this plane farther
into the distance and I can go way, way
| | 02:08 |
down there, down to the Vanishing Point,
if I want to. But the wall ends here,
| | 02:11 |
so I don't want to go any further than that.
| | 02:13 |
If you want to create a perpendicular
plane along this rear wall, for example,
| | 02:17 |
then you press and hold the Ctrl key or
the Command key on the Mac and drag it
| | 02:21 |
from that side handle, and look at that.
It goes ahead and creates a plane that
| | 02:25 |
exactly aligned to that rear wall.
I'm going to now drag this stop handle up
| | 02:30 |
like so in order to move it up. I'm not
Ctrl+Dragging it at this point I'm just
| | 02:33 |
dragging it up like that, because
you can expand each one of these panes
| | 02:38 |
independently at this point. It's just
this right there, this edge is locked
| | 02:41 |
into perpendicular alignment.
| | 02:43 |
If things are looking bad, if your
rear plane here is out of alignment with
| | 02:48 |
rear wall, then you need to go ahead
and undo the creation of the plane.
| | 02:54 |
You would press Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Z, couple of
times in a row. That would be Command+Z,
| | 02:58 |
Command+Z in a couple of times in a row.
On the Mac you have standard multiple
| | 03:02 |
undos inside of Vanishing Point. So
you don't have to press Ctrl+Alt+Z or
| | 03:06 |
Command+Options+Z the way
that you do in Photoshop proper.
| | 03:09 |
And then you would go ahead and modify
this wall here until you get it right
| | 03:13 |
and then you try again. And the
reason is because otherwise, watch what
| | 03:17 |
happens if you start trying edit things
after you got perpendicular walls.
| | 03:21 |
I'll go ahead and Ctrl+Drag or Command+
Drag this guy out there, maybe drag this
| | 03:26 |
handle up once again. And then if I try
to drag this corner handle, things
| | 03:31 |
get twisted very quickly. Look at that.
That is bad! We've got two reds now.
| | 03:36 |
This is double anger out of Vanishing Point.
Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac in order
| | 03:41 |
to undo that unpleasant
modification right there.
| | 03:43 |
So you can see things go bad very quickly.
And you no longer have access to any
| | 03:48 |
control handles, any corner handles
that is to say, at this intersection.
| | 03:52 |
So that has lost you. You really need to get
that first plane right before you proceed.
| | 03:57 |
Hey! How about the floor? Watch this.
I'll click on this rear wall again.
| | 04:01 |
There is my middle point right there, my
bottom point and I'll go ahead and Ctrl+Drag
| | 04:06 |
it outward to cover up the floor.
Awesome! Then I'll go ahead and zoom out here
| | 04:12 |
and drag this handle. Not Ctrl+Drag,
just drag it out in order to expand the
| | 04:17 |
floor so it goes all the
way outside of the image.
| | 04:19 |
You can even go ahead and cover the
ceiling, if you wanted to do with this guy.
| | 04:23 |
You Ctrl+Drag from this point here
or Command+Drag on the Mac outward and
| | 04:28 |
then presumably you would drag this one
out as well in order to cover it up.
| | 04:32 |
So that's up to you, just how nuts you
want to go with your planes. You can create
| | 04:36 |
as many as you want.
| | 04:37 |
Anyway, the ones we really need are
this plane along the rear wall and this
| | 04:40 |
plane on the really rear wall, the
one farthest away from us. And we'll be
| | 04:46 |
editing inside of those
planes in future exercises.
| | 04:49 |
Now of course, you don't want to
edit. You don't want to make any
| | 04:52 |
modifications right here. Instead,
because you have been making similar planes,
| | 04:55 |
you want to go and click on OK button
in order to accept those new planes.
| | 05:00 |
And then you go up to the File menu and
once again choose the Save command so that
| | 05:04 |
you've saved your changes.
| | 05:06 |
In the next exercise, we are going to
actually put these planes to use and
| | 05:10 |
we are going to heave away the graffiti
and replace it with brick pattern.
| | 05:14 |
Stay tuned.
| | 05:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Healing in perspective| 00:00 | I have gone ahead and saved my
progress so far as All planes present.tif and
| | 00:04 | you may have caught then I called my
previous catch-up document one pane down.
| | 00:09 | They are planes not panes, but I don't
want to say one plane down. That wouldn't
| | 00:13 | have been any good.
| | 00:14 | All planes are present and accounted
for inside of this image and we are now
| | 00:19 | ready to edit the image. We are
going to clone these brick patterns in
| | 00:23 | perspective as you'll see. I'm going
to warn you upfront because we got a lot
| | 00:27 | of bricks to match here. So this is not
the most forgiving image on the face of
| | 00:32 | the planet but the good news is you'll have
plenty of chance to practice. Isn't that great?
| | 00:37 | All right, but before we make any
modifications whatsoever, we need to create a
| | 00:40 | new layer. I'm going to Shift+Tab up
my Layers palette right here. I want you
| | 00:44 | to see that we have a single layer
image. And here is the thing, vanishing
| | 00:49 | point is always seeing the composite
image, so a merged version of all layers
| | 00:53 | inside of your document, but then it
turns around and deposits its results on
| | 00:58 | the active layer. So the ideal
situation is that you have a blank layer ready
| | 01:04 | and waiting for vanishing point so
that you can modify the results of the
| | 01:08 | Vanishing Point Filter anytime you like.
| | 01:10 | So here is what I want you to do.
Press Ctrl+Shift+N, Command+Shift+N on the
| | 01:14 | Mac for New Layer, and we'll call
this Perspective edits or something along
| | 01:18 | those lines and then click OK, and
now we have a blank layer ready for
| | 01:22 | vanishing point, great. And vanishing
point will see through that layer to the
| | 01:25 | background, so it will actually use
the background imagery to make its edits
| | 01:31 | and then it will put the edits on
Perspective edits. You get it? Okay, so here we go.
| | 01:34 | We are going to go to the Filter menu,
choose Vanishing Point, gone all over
| | 01:40 | planes all over the place. Let's go
ahead and zoom in here on this first wall,
| | 01:44 | the one that has the largest brick
patterns on it, and then I want you to go
| | 01:48 | ahead and select this tool
right here, the Stamp tool.
| | 01:50 | Now the Stamp tool does double duty
inside of the Vanishing Point Filter.
| | 01:54 | It serves as a standard cloning tool
like the Stamp Clone tool inside of
| | 01:58 | Photoshop. It also serves as a Healing
Brush. So it can do either. So go ahead
| | 02:02 | and click on it to make it active. You
want to set the healing right there, the
| | 02:06 | Heal mode from Off which is the
default setting, not to Luminance, which will
| | 02:11 | heal the luminance information, but
leave the color alone. We want on, full on,
| | 02:15 | because we have both color and luminance
wavering across the course of this wall.
| | 02:20 | So go ahead and choose on and I
suggest you work with Aligned on as well, so
| | 02:25 | that we are aligning our brush strokes.
Then what you what to do is you want to
| | 02:30 | set a source. So go ahead and press the
Alt or Option key and click in order to
| | 02:34 | set the origin at the intersection
of a few of the bricks right there.
| | 02:38 | Then as soon as you release, you will
see a preview of how your brush is going
| | 02:42 | to paint, which is great, very handy
of course. You can increase the diameter
| | 02:46 | of the brush by pressing the Right
Bracket key; decrease the diameter by
| | 02:50 | pressing the Left Bracket key. The
Hardness you can control just as you can in
| | 02:53 | Photoshop with Shift+Right Bracket or Shift+Left Bracket. It
works in finer increments, which is nice.]
| | 02:56 | All right, so I'm going to set the
Diameter to actually to 175, and Hardness to
| | 03:04 | 80, and the Opacity wants to be 100%,
so that's great, and then I'm going to
| | 03:09 | make sure that my brush aligns.
| | 03:11 | Now notice the shape of that brush,
it's all elliptical, right? You can see it
| | 03:16 | as I move it around here that's an
elliptical brush. It's not, it's circular.
| | 03:20 | That is vanishing points idea of a
circular brush, it just happens to be
| | 03:23 | rendered in Perspective. That's why I
was telling you the proportions of those
| | 03:28 | little rectangles in the grid inside of
the plane are so important because they
| | 03:32 | determine the proportions of your
brush as well. And if they get too skinny,
| | 03:36 | you are going to have this little
vertical line of a brush, which just produces
| | 03:39 | horrible edits. You can give it a try if you
like but I recommend you just stay clear of it.
| | 03:44 | I am going to go ahead after I get
this more or less aligned. Now it's never
| | 03:48 | going to be perfectly aligned, even
though the Vanishing Point Filter is really
| | 03:52 | wicked smart as I was saying. Notice
look, you moved the brush up, look at the
| | 03:57 | angle of those horizontal lines, they
are moving up and to the left, and now I
| | 04:01 | move it down they are moving down and
to the left. So it's so smart, just sits
| | 04:04 | here and matches the perspective of
the scene. What a good little program.
| | 04:08 | However, the problem is that these
bricks aren't necessarily rendered
| | 04:12 | impeccably well. And so we have got
some wavering tiles. They are not even
| | 04:16 | bricks. They are tiles. Why do I
keep calling them bricks? They are not
| | 04:20 | necessarily all uniform. So you can
knock yourself out to make sure that every
| | 04:24 | tile looks exactly right. I don't
recommend you do that. It's a little too
| | 04:27 | masochistic. I recommend that you just
kind of just accept that people aren't
| | 04:32 | going to really notice very much.
| | 04:34 | All right anyway, I'm going to go
ahead and paint that area away. You don't
| | 04:37 | want to paint too high, you are going
to start cloning the graffiti some more.
| | 04:40 | So I'll just go as high as I can go
without running into former graffiti there
| | 04:45 | and then I'll release in
order to clone that graffiti away.
| | 04:49 | Now I think this looks pretty good. I
do have a little bit of repetition right
| | 04:52 | there, this line that's also appearing
down here, and you can see, by the way,
| | 04:56 | the two crosses; the green cross shows
the source and the blue cross or it's
| | 05:00 | actually kind of a white cross here,
shows the destination. So you can see
| | 05:04 | that, of course, I'm going to clone this
area because it's down there at the source.
| | 05:08 | So if you don't want that happen, if
you want to clone that away then you'd
| | 05:11 | have to Alt-click or Option-click to
set a different source point. I'm going to
| | 05:15 | set it over here, Alt-click or Option-
click at this location and then let's
| | 05:19 | see, if we can just do a single
click in order to get rid of that without
| | 05:22 | making a mess of things.
| | 05:23 | Now it's great, pretty great. I mean
we have got a little bit of weirdness
| | 05:26 | right there. What the heck? Well let's
get rid of the weirdness. Let's click on
| | 05:29 | the weirdness to get rid of it and it
looks good I think. All right and then
| | 05:34 | let's go ahead and set another source
point from my edits. It helps if you kind
| | 05:38 | of move your cursor off to this side
like this and then press Alt or Option and
| | 05:42 | then go looking for your source
point because otherwise, you are going to
| | 05:44 | covered up with your brush preview right there.
| | 05:46 | So I'm going to Alt-click or Option-
click at -- let's say this location right
| | 05:50 | there, and then I'll clone it if I can,
across that whatever that text says up there.
| | 05:57 | It looks like it said the word
milkman but I don't think that was really
| | 06:00 | anything. It's in a different language,
and then I'll paint that away.
| | 06:04 | Let's see if we can go ahead
and Spacebar+Drag things over.
| | 06:06 | You know one of the things that's a
little irritating about this filter on the
| | 06:10 | Windows side of things is that the
options-- it's got plenty of opportunities
| | 06:14 | for your options to get stuck. So like
when you change Heal from off to on for
| | 06:19 | example, then it stuck on like that,
so helpful. And then when you press the
| | 06:23 | Spacebar, you can't get the Hand tool
anymore. If you find that happening, you
| | 06:26 | Windows people, you Macintosh people
thankfully aren't going to run into that
| | 06:29 | problem, but if you, Windows people do,
you have to switch tools and then you
| | 06:33 | can get back to your Spacebar dragging, so
many workarounds with this Windows stuff.
| | 06:37 | All right, so press and hold the Alt
key, the Option key on the Mac. I'm not
| | 06:40 | going to completely fix this wall in
front of you because it does take a little
| | 06:42 | bit of effort and a little bit of
time and it's kind of like watching your
| | 06:46 | paint dry, but Alt-click or Option-
click at that intersection right there, and
| | 06:50 | then let's go ahead and paint this away.
I'll tell you some familiar things work.
| | 06:55 | Let me point one out for example.
Notice that these bricks are wavering a
| | 06:59 | little more than I would like them to.
So I could go with a small brush.
| | 07:02 | I could reduce the size of my brush and
I could click here check this out, click
| | 07:06 | here at that location, oops, that off.
So let's go ahead and turn off Aligned.
| | 07:10 | I just press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on
the Mac to undo that modification.
| | 07:14 | I'll turn off the Aligned checkbox for a moment,
and let's see if we can find a better alignment.
| | 07:19 | Oh, look at that, let's set a
better source point there, Alt-click or
| | 07:22 | Option-click at this location right
there and let's go ahead and begin
| | 07:28 | painting. Actually, let's lower that,
Alt-click or Option-click right there and
| | 07:33 | then we'll begin painting at this
location. I'll click in order to establish
| | 07:38 | the alignment, that's what I'll do, and
then I'll turn on Aligned like so.
| | 07:43 | Then I'll try to remember where the heck
I was. And I'll Shift-click like so in
| | 07:48 | order to draw a straight line across there.
So click and Shift-click for a straight line.
| | 07:53 | Now this happens to be a horrible
demonstration of that function because I just
| | 08:00 | charred the wall at this location, I
like heated it up. So forgive me for doing
| | 08:05 | that, I did not mean to scorch the
wall. Let's go ahead and press Alt or
| | 08:09 | Option, and click once again. Those of
you who are following exactly along with
| | 08:12 | me will want to do this. Who are
making even exactly the same mistakes I'm
| | 08:16 | making. Let's go ahead and paint that
away. That doesn't seem likely, but you
| | 08:19 | never know, and I'll paint this and
see what has get better. That's good.
| | 08:23 | All right, so I'm going to keep doing
this. I'm going to keep working on this
| | 08:27 | wall, you keep working on your wall,
just remember that I'm in the background
| | 08:31 | going, "Boy, girl, you are doing a
great work" and then once you are done,
| | 08:35 | beating your head against this wall
here, rejoin me. In the next exercise, I
| | 08:39 | have lots more fun stuff to share with
you. Once we get this wall right, we can
| | 08:43 | duplicate it onto the other walls.
That's really easy as you'll see.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cloning and scaling in perspective| 00:00 | I have gone ahead and save my progress
as Healed wall.psd and I'll provide you
| | 00:06 | with some insights. This wall by no
means perfect. There are some imperfections
| | 00:10 | here and there but it's in
pretty darn good shape actually.
| | 00:14 | And one of the areas that I worked
hard on was this left edge, which if you
| | 00:20 | just heal it out right will end up
producing some sort of charred areas.
| | 00:24 | You'll get some dark spots over here and
notice by the way I have deposited my
| | 00:29 | modifications on this separate layer
called Perspective edits that I had
| | 00:33 | created in advance in the previous
exercise, you saw me do it. So I have
| | 00:36 | clicked OK. I'm out here in
the larger world of Photoshop.
| | 00:38 | Let's go back into Vanishing Point so
I can show you how I dealt with that edge.
| | 00:43 | It's not that hard. Need just a lot
of back and forth-ing. It's basically
| | 00:49 | a function of using the Stamp tool and
switching back and forth between off for
| | 00:53 | Heal and on. So back and forth between
those two options right there. Luminance
| | 00:58 | is of no use where this wall is
concerned. So I would just basically turn it
| | 01:03 | off long enough to heal away one of
those singed edges there and then turn it
| | 01:08 | back on in order to get the colors
right and the transitions right and so on.
| | 01:12 | So little bit of back and forth-ing.
| | 01:14 | Now I'm here to tell you that was hard
as I think I have established here, this
| | 01:20 | next thing that we're about to do now
is easy, friends so easy. What we're
| | 01:25 | going to do is we're going to take
this wall that we've created so impeccably
| | 01:29 | wonderfully well and we're going to
clone it on to the other two walls back
| | 01:34 | here, this one and this one
and here's how that works.
| | 01:36 | We're going to use the Marquee tool.
Now the Marquee tool is your one and only
| | 01:40 | selection tool here inside Vanishing
Point. But the great thing about it is it
| | 01:45 | draws its marquees in perspective.
Check it out. I'll go ahead and grab my
| | 01:48 | Marquee tool, then I'll move down to
this wall right there and now you can
| | 01:52 | press the X key in order to magnify, I
was telling you about that and I'll go
| | 01:55 | ahead and surround this area.
I still have the X key down.
| | 01:58 | With the Marquee, remember that
Spacebar trick that comes in so handy when
| | 02:02 | you're using the Shape tools and the
Marquee tools and all that stuff inside
| | 02:05 | Photoshop, doesn't work here inside
Vanishing Point. Completely does not work,
| | 02:10 | too bad. So what that means is you need
to be careful when you're drawing your
| | 02:14 | Marquees in the first place. I have
gone ahead and drawn this Marquee.
| | 02:17 | It's not animated not animated
marching ants just static ants, just ants that
| | 02:22 | are just sitting there. All right I'm
going to release the X key now in order
| | 02:25 | to zoom back out. Now then having
surrounded this area that I want to modify,
| | 02:31 | what you want to do is make sure that
Move mode is set to Destination. This is
| | 02:35 | just crazy what we're going to do here just
without pressing in really inside of Photoshop.
| | 02:39 | I should take that back. It's kind of
like the Patch tool little bit. So Move
| | 02:43 | mode is set to Destination, Heal
should be set to On, so that we go ahead and
| | 02:48 | heal our modification here and then I
want you to press the Ctrl and the Shift
| | 02:52 | keys and what's happening here is Ctrl+
Drag a selection to fill the area with
| | 02:57 | the source image. So we're going to
define a source as we drag, Ctrl+Drag to a
| | 03:01 | new location. Shift allows us to
constrain the direction of the drag to exactly
| | 03:05 | horizontal in this case, of
course, horizontal in perspective.
| | 03:09 | So now having set that. Ctrl+Shift+Drag
or Command+Shift+Drag on the Mac until
| | 03:14 | you see what you're seeing over there
inside of this area. Watch this area, see
| | 03:19 | how it kind of pans around that I just
love that. I think that's so cool.
| | 03:23 | It's like whoa, it's like a big LCD screen
that showing this wall moving by and drag
| | 03:29 | over to about here. So you can see
this edge, right? This tiled edge with the
| | 03:35 | alternating light and dark tiles
should appear against this edge over here.
| | 03:40 | But I need to move my cursor over
here to make it happen. You see what I'm
| | 03:43 | talking about, right there is where
you want to release. You're going to have
| | 03:46 | some empty area over on the left side
of that selection. That's okay and then
| | 03:50 | you'll have a nice heal. Check that out.
Now when I say nice heal I mean pretty nice.
| | 03:55 | I'm going to zoom in here a little bit.
It is a little jaggedy and when I
| | 04:00 | say a little jaggedy,
it's quite jagged actually.
| | 04:04 | Vanishing Points interpolation leave
something to be desired. It's not the best
| | 04:09 | interpolation engine on the planet.
It's not as good as Photoshop proper.
| | 04:13 | In its defense it's trying to do it in
perspective but my thinking is it could be
| | 04:17 | heck of a lot better than this. When
you're making big reductions that's when
| | 04:20 | it tends to look pretty ratty. So you want
to reduce a little bit at a time if you can.
| | 04:26 | Now we're going to make things look a
little better by transforming this wall a
| | 04:30 | little bit by stretching it. We're
going to do that by switching to this tool,
| | 04:33 | the Transform tool, you get it by
pressing the T key that makes sense.
| | 04:37 | All right, so get the Transform tool then
drag this edge, watch this, until we're
| | 04:42 | close to those alternating tiles over
on the left hand side. So at this point
| | 04:46 | you want to release and then it's
going to re-interpolate so this is one
| | 04:49 | interpolation on top of another. But
because we're upsampling and here is the thing.
| | 04:54 | I have railed against
upsampling in Photoshop so far.
| | 04:56 | I have been telling you, don't do it.
It's not going to do you any good.
| | 05:00 | It's kind of a little inverted here inside
Vanishing Point. We have terrible downsampling
| | 05:05 | inside vanishing point and
reasonably good upsampling. So sometimes
| | 05:08 | after downsampling, upsampling can
unmess up some of your transitions.
| | 05:13 | So make them a little smoother as they are
now where this wall is concerned. Again,
| | 05:18 | it's not perfect but it's better.
| | 05:19 | Now I want to take this wall and I
want to go ahead and copy it over to this
| | 05:25 | location over there. And I'll do that
by this time pressing Shift and Alt and
| | 05:30 | that would be Shift and Option on the
Mac and dragging this guy over to the
| | 05:34 | right like so in order to clone it.
Just do a straight clone and we'll line up
| | 05:38 | those alternating tiles over there on
the right hand side and then I'll drop
| | 05:42 | things into place and we
get a reasonably good match.
| | 05:46 | You're going to stop perfect, some
ratty interpolation of course, since we're
| | 05:49 | downsampling. So tremendously also
things are in sharper focus then they are
| | 05:54 | over in this wall. Things are pretty
fuzzy over in this wall by this point.
| | 05:58 | So we can then follow it up inside
Photoshop right? So that's what we'll do.
| | 06:01 | All right, so anyway that's how you do a
clone. When you're transforming you have
| | 06:06 | the option of doing a Flip and a Flop.
These have to be some of my favorite
| | 06:11 | options in Photoshop.
| | 06:13 | Just a notion that somehow we are
going to be able to distinguish Flip from
| | 06:18 | Flop and notice if you hover and you
get the tip, it says Flip the copy. Okay,
| | 06:22 | thank you. That helped. And then
Flop the copy. Thank you Photoshop for
| | 06:27 | explaining that to me. Now it
becomes perfectly clear. What? So Flip is a
| | 06:34 | horizontal flip by the way. See how it
flipped horizontally and Flop is a vertical flip.
| | 06:41 | Now we chose to name them flip and
flop because sometimes what happens if you
| | 06:48 | rotate this wall and now what was
formerly, for example what was formerly a
| | 06:54 | Flip becomes a Flop. Now formerly a
horizontal flip becomes a vertical flip.
| | 06:59 | So they didn't want to call them horizontal
or vertical. We'll call them flip and flop.
| | 07:02 | That makes sense. Anyway I undid
that rotation. I don't want that.
| | 07:06 | I want what we got just wanted to mention
what flip and flop to you just in case you
| | 07:10 | are curious and then click OK in order
to accept this modification and deposit
| | 07:16 | the results on to this Perspective
edits layer, not bad, looks okay from a
| | 07:21 | distance. Once we zoom in it looks pretty bad.
| | 07:23 | But why don't we just go ahead and
select this area because it's on a separate layer.
| | 07:26 | I can modify it independently of
the background image. So let's go ahead
| | 07:30 | and turn this layer off for just a
moment so I can get a sense. That's pretty
| | 07:32 | blurry back there. So let's turn it
back on. So we're probably going to want to
| | 07:36 | perform a fair amount of blur.
| | 07:38 | Go up to the Filter menu and choose
the Blur command and then choose Gaussian
| | 07:42 | Blur, you could choose Lens Blur if
you want to get it really right but
| | 07:45 | Gaussian Blur I think it's going to be
good enough for us. Not that much let's
| | 07:48 | see something like I'm experimenting
here. Something like 0.5, maybe even
| | 07:52 | that's pretty strong. Let's take it
down to 0.3 pixels right there and click OK
| | 07:56 | and that's probably going to do us better. It's
a fake right, it's a phony but it's looking okay.
| | 08:02 | All right so there we have it. We have
the new walls in place. What about this
| | 08:06 | wall back here? This guy is a real
offender, it's a wall with issues and we
| | 08:12 | need to cover up that graffiti. I
mean if we're going to do the scrub code
| | 08:15 | number we've got to cover up this guy
too. This is not a marquee shape, right,
| | 08:19 | it kind of goes in and out.
| | 08:22 | We have this 4 sign that we've got to
cover up. What do we do about that? How
| | 08:25 | do we accommodate your regular
selections they aren't exclusively rectangular.
| | 08:29 | I'll answer that question.
I'll show you how, in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Patching an irregularly shaped area| 00:00 |
I have gone ahead and saved my
progress so far as Wall of clones.psd and
| | 00:05 |
we have cloned these walls. That's where
the name comes from after all. But there
| | 00:09 |
is this rear wall right here that's
covered in the big, actually cool looking
| | 00:13 |
graffiti. We are going to cover it up
though; we are going to get rid of it.
| | 00:16 |
So the problem is this is an irregular
little area here. That's super irregular
| | 00:21 |
but it's not going to be defined by a
rectangle. If I try to heal over with a
| | 00:25 |
Rectangular Marquee, I'm going to get
rid of 4, and I want to keep that little
| | 00:29 |
4 sign, even though it's mostly
illegible but the 4, you can see.
| | 00:32 |
I am outside in larger world of
Photoshop here, no longer inside the vanishing
| | 00:37 |
point filter. What you do is you define
a selection in Photoshop. You just have
| | 00:41 |
Photoshop do it, and that way you
are masking off this area, and I have
| | 00:45 |
actually saved a mask for you.
| | 00:47 |
If you go over to the Channels palette,
you will see that there is this alpha
| | 00:50 |
channel called Rear Wall, just go
ahead and Ctrl-click on it or Command-click
| | 00:54 |
on it, on the Mac, and then go
back to your Layers palette, make sure
| | 00:58 |
Perspective edits is still active
right there, and then we'll go up to the
| | 01:01 |
Filter menu and we'll choose Vanishing Point.
| | 01:03 |
Now inside the Vanishing Point filter,
you will go over here and you will get
| | 01:08 |
the Rectangular Marquee tool or
just the Marquee tool. And you will
| | 01:12 |
double-click inside of this plane back
here in order to select the whole plane
| | 01:16 |
like so. All right, great.
| | 01:17 |
Now you will press and hold the Ctrl+
Shift keys or the Command+Shift keys on
| | 01:22 |
the Mac and you will drag this guy
over all the way to this wall right there.
| | 01:26 |
Now, I want you to note something
that's highly confusing about this. I'll go
| | 01:28 |
ahead and release, and then
it will clone into the space.
| | 01:32 |
By the way, this specific exercise is
sort of an exercise in confusion.
| | 01:36 |
There is a lot of things that can go wrong.
I just want to warn you this upfront.
| | 01:39 |
We'll do it together, we'll see the
things that go wrong together, so that you
| | 01:43 |
can personally witness me
having problems which is always fun.
| | 01:47 |
I do want you to note that if you
decide to Undo, if you press Ctrl+Z,
| | 01:51 |
Command+Z on the Mac, and then you try
to do it again, do the Ctrl+Shift thing,
| | 01:55 |
this time you are moving a marquee
around, like so. Then it's like what, well,
| | 01:59 |
I thought this is what you do.
| | 02:02 |
You have to press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z
on the Mac twice. It's not going to look
| | 02:07 |
any different. Nothing is going to
happen. But well, I shouldn't say that.
| | 02:11 |
What's going to happen is you will notice the
Move mode changes to Destination right there.
| | 02:15 |
Let's go back here to where it was.
The first time you press Ctrl+Z or
| | 02:19 |
Command+Z, your marquee will go back to
its proper location but Move mode will
| | 02:23 |
be set to Destination dimmed. And then
if you press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z again,
| | 02:29 |
then you will see Destination come back.
| | 02:31 |
What's happened is that when you do
that Ctrl+Shift+Drag, you perform two
| | 02:35 |
operations. You float the selection
and you also do that sort of patch thing,
| | 02:41 |
that you float it. So your first Undo
is undoing the patch and then your second
| | 02:47 |
Undo is undoing the float.
| | 02:49 |
I know that doesn't make any sense but
that's what's happening. Anyway, I just
| | 02:53 |
want you to know if you run into
problems with Vanishing Point, it may be
| | 02:55 |
because you just need to press Ctrl+
Z or Command+Z again. Give it a try.
| | 02:59 |
All right, so anyway, Ctrl+Shift+Drag,
Command+Shift+Drag this guy in order to
| | 03:03 |
heal that background, release the
keys, zoom in. Here is where things get
| | 03:08 |
delightfully confusing. And get your
Transform tool because we have got to yank
| | 03:12 |
this up, sort of like a garage door or
something that we need to pull up.
| | 03:16 |
So that's covering everything but that 4. The 4
will take care of itself because it's masked.
| | 03:20 |
But the Transform can go just
wickedly delightfully wrong. Keep your cursor
| | 03:26 |
inside of this area to the best of
your ability. If you stray, Oh! It's not doing it.
| | 03:31 |
Let's go out wider. Let's see
if I can get it to do it. Oh! Sometimes
| | 03:35 |
if you move your cursor out here, you
will see like this marquee just kind of
| | 03:40 |
go wonky and decide to go off into this area
over here. It may be a function, let's see.
| | 03:44 |
You can actually fix things a little
bit by turning these two options off and
| | 03:48 |
I'll show you those guys in more detail,
later in just a moment actually.
| | 03:52 |
But for now, let's go ahead and drag this
guy up. This is the safest way to perform
| | 03:57 |
this Transformation, because if you
start dragging it too far down, look at that.
| | 04:00 |
That's what I'm talking about.
What's that about? That's because the
| | 04:03 |
selections now move to the bottom
plane, and that's of course a disaster.
| | 04:07 |
So what you want to do is you want to
move this down as low as you can. Oh!
| | 04:11 |
See, we are chasing the marquee, can
get very confusing right there. Oops! Look
| | 04:17 |
at that guy. Wow! What's that about?
Okay, so let's go ahead and drag this guy
| | 04:20 |
up, Oh! That's too high.
| | 04:22 |
But you would just want to make sure
that you drag it up high enough that you
| | 04:26 |
are filling the entire back panel and
then we'll just go ahead and drag this
| | 04:29 |
guy down a little bit, so that it
fills up this entire space. So we just want
| | 04:34 |
this plane-- I'm sorry, not panel. This plane to
be filled up with this patched area right there.
| | 04:39 |
Then I'll go ahead and press the X key,
so we can zoom in for just a moment,
| | 04:42 |
temporarily. The great thing is look,
thanks to that selection that I made, we
| | 04:46 |
are keeping the 4 and we are also
keeping that shadow in there. So it looks
| | 04:51 |
nice and realistic with one exception,
darn it, I goofed. I made a mistake.
| | 04:55 |
So we are going to have to
back up a little bit here.
| | 04:57 |
I will press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the
Mac a few times until we get back to this
| | 05:01 |
location right there. Let's see, if I
move to the Marquee tool, Destination is
| | 05:05 |
dimmed, so Ctrl+Z or Command+Z again
so that Destination is available.
| | 05:10 |
Heal needs to be set to On.
That's the goof. Sorry, folks.
| | 05:13 |
Now, let's try it again, but this gives
you a sense of how this works. Let's go
| | 05:17 |
ahead and drag this over, Ctrl+Shift+
Drag or Command+Shift+Drag onto this wall
| | 05:21 |
like so. In order to fill things up,
that's going to be a better match. Now,
| | 05:25 |
let's press the T key to switch to the
Transform tool, and let's see if we can
| | 05:29 |
move this up, all right, and I'm
trying to be deliberate and careful so that
| | 05:33 |
things don't go kooky and wrong for me. And
this looks like it might actually work out.
| | 05:39 |
Again, let's see if I press the X key
to zoom in, it looks pretty good.
| | 05:42 |
Might be a little too tall; let's see if
I can drag that down with that something
| | 05:46 |
going horribly wrong. There we go,
because we don't want those tiles to be too tall.
| | 05:50 |
That works for me, I'll buy it.
| | 05:52 |
Whatever this edge is going on there,
wasn't really there in that original
| | 05:56 |
wall, but it's going to be there in the
new one, so good. Now, while the coast
| | 06:01 |
is clear, let's go ahead and click on
the OK button in order to accept this
| | 06:05 |
modification and it just
fills in the selected area.
| | 06:08 |
I will click off of this selection in
order to deselect it of course. Actually,
| | 06:13 |
I'll undo that de-selection there.
I'll press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the Mac
| | 06:16 |
because you know what, we ought to
just go ahead and apply Gaussian Blur to that.
| | 06:20 |
As we are applying Gaussian
Blur here, it stands a reason that this
| | 06:23 |
should be a little blurry as well.
| | 06:24 |
So I'll go up to the Filter menu and
just choose Gaussian Blur right up front
| | 06:28 |
there, or press Ctrl+F, Command+F on
the Mac in order to apply a little bit of
| | 06:32 |
blurring and now I can click off and
the deed is done. So that's how you go
| | 06:36 |
about healing inside of an irregular area.
| | 06:39 |
In the next exercise, we are going
to introduce the Scrubbco banner.
| | 06:44 |
We are finally going to take advantage of
this wonderfully colorful goofy thing here
| | 06:47 |
and bring it into this what has to be
called I think the grimmest scene in this
| | 06:52 |
entire series. And we are going to
have fun doing it, darn it. So join me, please.
| | 06:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Healing between planes| 00:00 |
I have gone ahead and saved my
progress as Rear wall patched.psd because the
| | 00:04 |
rear wall after all, gosh darn it, is
patched now. And I told you we are going
| | 00:08 |
to be introducing the Scrubbco banners
on the walls and we are. It's just not
| | 00:13 |
going to be in this exercise, it will
be in the next exercise because first I
| | 00:16 |
want to show you something else. We
haven't done anything with the floor so
| | 00:19 |
far. I want to use the floor as an
opportunity to show you how you can clone
| | 00:24 |
between planes inside Vanishing Points.
| | 00:27 |
I have been giving Vanishing Point
something of a hard time here. I thought I
| | 00:30 |
do a little mercifully short up with
Vanishing Point exercise, so we'll all be
| | 00:35 |
thrilled and happy. So make sure
Perspective Edits is active inside the Layers palette.
| | 00:40 |
Go up to the Filter menu, choose
Vanishing Point. Notice that Vanishing Point
| | 00:43 |
like Liquify is not tracked by the
first Filter command. Go ahead and choose
| | 00:48 |
the command to bring it up and then I
want you to get your old Stamp tool. And
| | 00:53 |
make sure that Heal is turned on, and
Aligned, I have Aligned turned off right now.
| | 00:57 |
I am going to go ahead and zoom in on
the floor details right here, this little
| | 01:01 |
panel, whatever that thing is, and this
drain. I don't know what they are but I
| | 01:05 |
want them out of there. So watch this.
| | 01:07 |
I could go ahead and accidentally
switch to the Hand tool permanently by
| | 01:12 |
pressing the Spacebar. Isn't that nice?
Let's go back to the Stamp tool, say I
| | 01:15 |
thought this was going to be an up
with Vanishing Point exercise but it's
| | 01:19 |
turning on a down note. That's okay.
| | 01:21 |
Press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac and click to set the
| | 01:25 |
source point in the wall. I just want
you to see this and then I'm going to
| | 01:29 |
have a really big brush. I have
already done this. I have made my brush very
| | 01:32 |
large, so that you can see it moving across
this plane right there. Isn't that lovely?
| | 01:37 |
But watch this. It will transform to
another plane. No problem, and I can just
| | 01:43 |
go ahead and heal with it on an
entirely different surface. So this is like so
| | 01:48 |
computationally intensive and yet
Vanishing Point can handle it, no problem.
| | 01:52 |
Then I release and it goes ahead
and heals that information into place.
| | 01:56 |
Amazing, I tell you, amazing. Anyway,
that's not what I want, so I'll press
| | 02:00 |
Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on the Mac in
order to undo that modification.
| | 02:05 |
Let's go ahead and scroll over just a
little bit here. Move my cursor out of
| | 02:09 |
the way, press and hold the Alt or
Option key, move my cursor back into a
| | 02:13 |
better location. This seam right here
is pretty easy to track. So I'm going to
| | 02:18 |
Alt-click at about this location right
there. That would be an Option-click on
| | 02:21 |
the Mac to set my origin.
| | 02:23 |
Then I'll move my cursor over here and
I'll paint away that metal doohickey,
| | 02:29 |
whatever it is, drain, what have you.
And I'll paint that other thing away too
| | 02:32 |
and then I'll release and nice. Just heals that
stuff away, it does a really nice job actually.
| | 02:38 |
If we are uncomfortable with this
little bit of shine, that's cloned from this
| | 02:42 |
region right there, then I could Alt
or Option-click at a different location.
| | 02:47 |
Actually, I'll just keep it where it
was. That's actually a decent place for
| | 02:51 |
it. And Aligned is turned off, so I
can keep cloning from that location. I'll
| | 02:55 |
reduce the size of my Brush by
pressing the Left Bracket key a few times, and
| | 02:58 |
then I'll just kind of do a little
dinky drag over that area. Looks good.
| | 03:04 |
So isn't Vanishing Point awesome? Now
then, and I didn't have to say why I'm
| | 03:09 |
just saying that, because it is, it
truly is. It's a little funky here and
| | 03:12 |
there. It's kind of a little buggy
even. But it works wonders when treated
| | 03:17 |
gently. Let's go ahead and click OK in
order to accept that modification and
| | 03:21 |
deposit my edits on the
Perspective Edits layer right there.
| | 03:25 |
In the next exercise, I really will be
introducing the Scrubbco banner items
| | 03:30 |
from this image right here. Join me, please!
| | 03:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing an image into a 3D scene| 00:00 | In this exercise, we are going to
introduce the Scrubbco banner on these many
| | 00:04 | walls in the subway here, these many
cleaned up walls. So make sure that you
| | 00:09 | are caught up with me. If you are not,
you can open this image called Better
| | 00:11 | floor.psd. You also want to
have open Scrubbco banner.psd.
| | 00:18 | Notice that the Scrubbco banner has a
variety of different layers. So it's a
| | 00:22 | layer composition, dramatically
understated as you can see here. We'll be
| | 00:27 | importing these elements into
Vanishing Point. There is no import command
| | 00:32 | inside of Vanishing Point. There is
nothing like that in fact. There is no Text
| | 00:35 | tool, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing.
| | 00:38 | The way that you get stuff from an
image into Vanishing Point is via the
| | 00:43 | Clipboard. So you copy and paste. It's
very old school. So here is what we are
| | 00:47 | going to do. Here inside Scrubbco
banner, I want you to press Ctrl+A or
| | 00:51 | Command+A on the Mac to select the
entire image like so. And then you go up to
| | 00:55 | the Edit menu and choose Copy
Merged or your can press Ctrl+Shift+C,
| | 00:59 | Command+Shift+C on the Mac, and that
will copy a merged version of all the
| | 01:03 | layers. It will also retain the
transparency, so we'll be okay there.
| | 01:07 | Now, return to Better floor.psd and
let's create a new layer. I'm going to
| | 01:10 | press Ctrl+Shift+N or Command+Shift+N
on the Mac. I'll call this layer Scrubbco
| | 01:17 | elements or something along those lines,
and I go ahead and spell it correctly.
| | 01:20 | Yes, I did, good. And I'll click OK
in order to create that new layer right
| | 01:24 | there, new blank layer.
| | 01:26 | We want it independent of the
Perspective Edits because I'm going to want to
| | 01:29 | modify these elements independently.
And after all, we are going to be heaping
| | 01:34 | the Scrubbco banners onto these
Perspective Edit modifications. So we would
| | 01:38 | have pixel on top of pixel right there,
and to avoid that, so that we have more
| | 01:42 | flexibility, new layer.
| | 01:45 | Anyway, go to the Filter menu now,
and choose for about the billionth time
| | 01:49 | Vanishing Point, and then with all
these planes active, go ahead and press
| | 01:53 | Ctrl+V or Command+V on the Mac. You
have no other option than to use a keyboard
| | 01:58 | shortcut. There it is. There is our
banner. Now, it always comes in like that.
| | 02:02 | Always in the upper left hand corner
and free of any of the planes as if the
| | 02:07 | planes don't even exist.
| | 02:08 | Your job is to move it onto a plane
like so, and as soon as you do, you are
| | 02:13 | going to get a very entertaining
effect here where the Scrubbco banner is
| | 02:18 | mapping onto multiple surfaces like
so and it's way too large. And you just
| | 02:23 | never know, just never know how big
these things are going to come in inside of
| | 02:26 | Vanishing Point or what kind of notion
of scaling it has or whether the things
| | 02:30 | are going to be rotated at odd angles or what.
| | 02:33 | So here is what I want you to do just
so that we have more control over what's
| | 02:37 | going on here. I want you to go to this
little menu icon right there, click on it.
| | 02:42 | Turn off Allow Multi-surface
Operations, it's a great feature,
| | 02:46 | but it's getting in our face here. It's
intruding on our ability to safely transform
| | 02:51 | this banner into place.
| | 02:52 | So as soon as you turn it off, you
will get rid of the wrap around that's
| | 02:57 | occurring there where the image is
wrapping onto multiple surfaces. So now it's
| | 03:01 | just on this background wall right there
presumably if that's where you dragged it.
| | 03:05 | Then I want you to go up to the menu
icon again and turn off Clip Operations to
| | 03:10 | Surface Edges by which it means plane
edges. In this way, you will see the
| | 03:15 | entire object. You will see the entire banner.
| | 03:18 | Now, I want you to go ahead and get
the Transform tool, and we are going to
| | 03:21 | have to zoom out by pressing Ctrl+Minus
a few times, so that we can really see
| | 03:26 | what's going on here because this
thing is so gianormous. Then just go ahead
| | 03:30 | and drag the corner handles until we get
this down to a more manageable size like so.
| | 03:35 | Then zoom back in and then drag this
to the desired location. So you can drag
| | 03:39 | corner handles in order to scale,
you drag outside of the transformation
| | 03:44 | boundary in order to rotate and so on.
Kind of the usual transformation stuff.
| | 03:48 | You can't do any of that distort stuff
like Ctrl or Command+Dragging the corner
| | 03:52 | handles for example. But you can scale
and rotate and of course you've got your
| | 03:57 | flip and your flop.
| | 03:58 | All right, there is that banner. Now,
let's go ahead and clone it onto the
| | 04:01 | other walls, and I'm going to do that
by Shift+Alt+Dragging this guy there or
| | 04:06 | Shift+Option+Dragging it on the Mac in
order to clone it to this region.
| | 04:11 | Then we'll do it again. Shift+Alt+Drag or
Shift+Option+Drag on the Mac and then
| | 04:15 | I'll do the same onto this back wall and
notice that it immediately leaps onto that
| | 04:20 | wall as you can see, but it scales
totally differently. So we are going to have
| | 04:24 | to change the width of that banner, so
that's a little more manageable once again.
| | 04:29 | Now, we have got the banner on
multiple surfaces. Great! Now, it doesn't look
| | 04:33 | good at all of course. It looks pretty
bad at this point, but we are going to
| | 04:38 | make it look better inside of Photoshop.
| | 04:40 | So go ahead and click OK in order to
accept your modification, in order to
| | 04:44 | create your many banners here inside of
the layer composition. Now, to create a
| | 04:50 | match because there is no way that this
banner here, if it was painted directly
| | 04:56 | onto the wall, there is no way it
would look like this at all. That would be
| | 04:59 | this opaque and this bright and what has
to be the world's most dingy environment.
| | 05:04 | So in order to get a better match,
I'll go ahead and increase the width of my
| | 05:08 | Layers palette just a little bit, so
that I can see the entire name here.
| | 05:10 | I'm going to change the mode from Normal
to Multiply. Now, we have some nice dingy
| | 05:17 | elements going on here. They match
their scene quite nicely and we are of
| | 05:21 | course letting the entire world know that we
have cleaned up the subway on their behalf.
| | 05:28 | In the next exercise, I'm going to
show you how to create perspective type.
| | 05:31 | Now, this is already perspective type
of course, but this was not editable
| | 05:35 | text, so it has all been rendered out
to pixels. What do you do if you have
| | 05:38 | editable text that you want to add in
perspective to a scene? You will find out
| | 05:43 | in just a few moments.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding perspective type| 00:00 | My newest version of this document is
called Thank you Scrubbco.psd, because
| | 00:05 | the walls of this subway have been
scrubbed clean by our good friends at
| | 00:09 | Scrubco and the trains will
run on time and so on and so on.
| | 00:13 | But you know what, I'm not sure that
this looks terribly realistic. I'm going
| | 00:16 | to go ahead and zoom in. I think the
edges are way too sharp and I think they
| | 00:20 | want to be blurred away just a little
bit. With the Scrubbco elements layer
| | 00:24 | active, I'm going to press Ctrl+Alt+F
or Command+Option+F on the Mac, and this
| | 00:29 | tiny Radius value of 0.3 pixels works
out pretty nicely. Let's take it up to
| | 00:33 | 0.4, just to nudge it up just a
little bit there. And of course Ctrl+Alt+F
| | 00:37 | brought up Gaussian Blur, Command+Option+F
on the Mac, because it was the last
| | 00:42 | real filter that we had applied. The
last filter that Photoshop tracks anyway.
| | 00:47 | Click OK. And then you know what I'm
going to take the Opacity down to 80% by
| | 00:52 | pressing the 8 key when my Rectangular
Marquee tool is active. And we get this
| | 00:57 | effect here which I think looks pretty
good actually; it looks like it could be
| | 01:01 | a real part of that scene.
| | 01:03 | All right, so now I want to add some
text. I want to add a little bit of text
| | 01:07 | right there on that plane. And I
have gone ahead and created the text in
| | 01:11 | advance. It's called Some type.psd.
But you know here is the thing, now I'm
| | 01:16 | going to switch back to the other
image for just a minute, and let's go ahead
| | 01:18 | and create a new layer. I'll press
Ctrl+Shift+N or Command+Shift+N on the Mac
| | 01:22 | and I'll just enter a URL, it's a good name
for that layer I think. And then I'll click OK.
| | 01:28 | And if I go up the Filter menu and
choose Vanishing Point with the expectation
| | 01:32 | that I can then type in some text in
perspective inside Vanishing Point, I'll
| | 01:37 | be horribly disappointed, because
there is no Type tool. And that's it. There
| | 01:41 | is no Type tool. There is no nothing
going on in here. So how in the world do
| | 01:43 | we not get Type and I mean really
Vanishing Point, this perspective tool
| | 01:48 | doesn't allow you to do perspective
type, one of the common things you would
| | 01:51 | want inside of this filter, really?
| | 01:54 | Anyway, cancel out, because yes, it
really. Here is what you do instead. You go
| | 01:58 | ahead and render the type in some
other image like so and then make sure that
| | 02:03 | the Type layer is active, as it is.
This is live type inside of Photoshop. Now
| | 02:07 | you might think what you do is copy it
which is true, you do copy and paste it.
| | 02:11 | And you might figure while you will
go ahead and get your Type tool right
| | 02:14 | there. And then you will go ahead and
select the type like so and then go up to
| | 02:18 | the Edit menu and choose the Copy
command, something along those lines.
| | 02:21 | No, you don't do that. Because
Vanishing Point not only does it not have a Type
| | 02:26 | tool, it can't even see type. It
doesn't know type from anything; it only knows
| | 02:30 | pixels. So what you do, and this
is a little known function inside of
| | 02:34 | Photoshop, you press Ctrl+A or Command+A
on the Mac. And then you press Ctrl+C
| | 02:40 | or Command+C on the Mac and what you
just did, because the Type layer was
| | 02:44 | active, you just copied the pixel
version of this type. So Photoshop is always
| | 02:49 | tracking a pixel representation of live
type and you can copy it just by doing
| | 02:54 | a Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Command+A,
Command+C on the Mac.
| | 02:57 | Now go back to the other composition
here. You have got your URL layer all
| | 03:02 | right, ready to go. So go up to the
Filter, Vanishing Point, and now press
| | 03:08 | Ctrl+V or Command+V on the Mac in
order to paste in your text. Now get ready
| | 03:12 | for the pain, my friends. Go ahead
and drag this text around and see what
| | 03:18 | happens to it. So it's up here on the
ceiling. That's kind of cool. It will go
| | 03:21 | down to the proper location on the back
wall. It does something just bizarre on
| | 03:26 | the sidewall and on the floor. It
gets upside down and sideways and stuff.
| | 03:31 | And there is nothing you can really do
about that, even if we had copied the
| | 03:34 | text sideways, it comes in this way. I
don't know why. And this though, once we
| | 03:39 | match it to this little plane right
there, it comes in very nicely. And now
| | 03:43 | switch over to your Transform tool and
we'll go ahead and scale the text into
| | 03:48 | place like so. And we want it right
about there; I think it's going to look
| | 03:53 | nice, maybe not quite so tall, so it
doesn't look like it's stretched. So
| | 03:57 | something along these lines. And then
I'll go ahead and click OK in order to
| | 04:01 | put that text on a new layer.
| | 04:02 | Now at this point I want to make some
Photoshop modifications to the text.
| | 04:07 | I want it to the white. White is
currently background color. So I'm going to
| | 04:11 | press Ctrl+Shift+Backspace or
Command+Shift+Delete on the Mac in order to fill
| | 04:16 | the text with the background color
because of Ctrl+Backspace or Command+Delete
| | 04:21 | on the Mac. And because we have a
Shift key down as well, we are just filling
| | 04:25 | in the opaque portions of the layer. So
we are respecting the transparency. And
| | 04:29 | now I want to go ahead and add an
outer glow effect to this layer so that it
| | 04:33 | looks like its projecting light
just like the lights next to it.
| | 04:36 | So I'll go to Outer Glow down here
from the fx icon. I'll change the color of
| | 04:41 | course to white like so, click OK.
Let's take the Opacity down to like 55% and
| | 04:47 | then tab down a size and take it up to
15 pixels like so. And actually maybe
| | 04:52 | let's go back to Opacity; let's take it
up to 65% that looks good. Click OK and
| | 04:57 | then I'm thinking those letters are too
sharp once again. So let's go up to the
| | 05:00 | Filter menu and choose Gaussian Blur,
Ctrl+F, Command+F on the Mac. And we
| | 05:05 | don't have anything, but pixels to
work with so I might as well just go ahead
| | 05:07 | and filter them directly and we get
this wonderful perspective text, accurately
| | 05:12 | represented perspective
text here inside of Photoshop.
| | 05:14 | And remember this URL, people. If you
ever decide to leave the lynda.com Online
| | 05:19 | Training Library and then later you
decide to come back, won't you use this
| | 05:23 | wonderful entrance right here? LYNDA.COM/DEKE
is your portal of choice my friends.
| | 05:28 | In the next exercise I'm going to show
you how to map an image that's already
| | 05:32 | in perspective into another
perspective scene. Stay tuned.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing and matching perspective| 00:00 | In this exercise we are going to turn
this grim scene here into a thing of
| | 00:05 | beauty, because we are going to
introduce a painting. It's going to actually
| | 00:10 | look really cool. And the painting is
in perspective, but we want to introduce
| | 00:15 | it into a different perspective so we
are going to have to basically crop it
| | 00:18 | out of one scene and then
introduce it into another, as you will see.
| | 00:22 | So I have two images open, I have gone
ahead and saved my progress so far as Mi
| | 00:26 | portal es tu portal.psd in honor of
lynda.com/deke and then we also have
| | 00:32 | Perspective painting.jpg. Now then,
I did add a little bit of depth to
| | 00:37 | LYNDA.COM/DEKE, you will see this
bluish area on the sides there that sort of
| | 00:43 | matching the bluish kind of cast
that's associated with these lights. And you
| | 00:47 | might say well, how in the world
did you create that depth effect, that
| | 00:50 | extrusion effect? Well, it's a fake
extrusion that I created using a drop
| | 00:54 | shadow. So there is the drop shadow
right there on the URL layer. You will see
| | 00:58 | if I turn it off, it goes away. No depth
now. And then I turn it on, it comes back.
| | 01:04 | And how is it working? Well, if you
double-click on drop shadow, you will see
| | 01:07 | that I went ahead lifted one of these
cyan colors right here from the actual
| | 01:12 | lights. And I set it to screen and I
set the Opacity to 70%, I matched the
| | 01:16 | Angle, Distance, Size, all laid out
in front of you right there. So just a
| | 01:21 | really simple effect. Sometimes that
works, especially when the drop shadow is
| | 01:25 | exactly in alignment with the text.
You can see that it's just shifted over
| | 01:30 | with respect to the text. So if the
text is at this -17 degree angle then the
| | 01:34 | drop shadow matches nicely and it looks
like an extrusion effect where at some
| | 01:39 | other angle, it wouldn't turn out so nicely.
| | 01:41 | Anyway, I'm going to cancel out of
there. That's cool. What I want to do is I
| | 01:45 | want to coat these walls now. I don't
want them to look like these grim tiled
| | 01:49 | walls. I want them to look bright and
beautiful much like our perspective URL.
| | 01:53 | And I'm going to do that by
introducing this painting. This lovely painting
| | 01:57 | called Perspective painting.jpg. But
it's already in perspective is the thing.
| | 02:02 | It already has its own angle going.
So there is no way I'm going to go
| | 02:06 | reconcile the two. When you are working
with Vanishing Point, you have to bring
| | 02:10 | in a flat image, it has to start flat
and then you can match it to the angle of
| | 02:14 | the scene. You can't start with
something that's already angled. Even if it's
| | 02:17 | kind of at the same angle like this one is.
| | 02:20 | So let's flatten it out, and of course
you may recall from way back when. If
| | 02:24 | you want to yank a picture out of a
scene, or you want to flatten the scene in
| | 02:27 | general, why then, you take advantage
of this special Crop tool function, and
| | 02:31 | I'm about to reshow you. I'll go
ahead and grab the Crop tool and then I'll
| | 02:35 | drag around the painting like so.
| | 02:37 | Now I'm finding the shield to be very
distracting. So I'll turn of the Shield
| | 02:41 | option so that I'm just seeing the
crop boundary. And then I'll turn on
| | 02:45 | Perspective, so go ahead and turn on
that checkbox and then let's move these
| | 02:50 | corner handles where they want to go.
So each one of the corner handles now can
| | 02:54 | move independently of the other ones,
thanks to that Perspective checkbox being on.
| | 02:58 | Go and move this guy up a little bit,
move this guy down a little bit. You want
| | 03:00 | to make sure that you are all the way
inside of the frame and you are not even
| | 03:04 | selecting any of the shadows that are
being cast by the frame that is. That
| | 03:09 | said, I think this boundary looks
pretty darn great. So I'll go ahead and press
| | 03:12 | the Enter key or the Return key on the
Mac and there we have it, the scene has
| | 03:16 | been yanked out of its frame. It's now
nice and flat as if we were viewing the
| | 03:19 | image head-on. So we'll press Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C.
That's a Command+A, Command+C on the Mac.
| | 03:26 | Now let's switch back to our
composition in progress here. We need a new layer
| | 03:30 | of course. I'll press Ctrl+Shift+N or
Command+Shift+N on the Mac and I'm going
| | 03:35 | to call this Beauty, because it is
going to be beautiful, you will see, and
| | 03:39 | I'll click OK. So we have got a new
layer called Beauty. Now let's go to the
| | 03:44 | Filter menu and choose Vanishing Point.
I'll press Ctrl+V, Command+V on the Mac
| | 03:50 | in order to paste in my painting and
I got to zoom out here, because we are
| | 03:56 | going to drag it in here it's going to
come massive, massive painting once again.
| | 04:01 | And let's move it over so it's
completely covering up those tiles. We don't
| | 04:04 | want to so much as a hint of tile
showing up. Now I'll press Ctrl+minus or
| | 04:08 | Command+minus a few hundred thousand
times in order to zoom out so that I can
| | 04:14 | see my entire marquee. I'll switch
over to the Transform tool; I'll drag this
| | 04:20 | handle down so that we are reducing the
image to a more normal size. It's going
| | 04:25 | to sort of fit the scene better.
| | 04:27 | Then we can zoom in by pressing Ctrl+Plus
or Command+Plus on the Mac. Go ahead
| | 04:31 | and nudge this down a little bit, move
this in somewhat. Actually, I think this
| | 04:36 | looks pretty darn good the way it is.
And then we need to clone it onto these
| | 04:40 | other two tiled walls right there. So
I'm going to go ahead and Shift+Alt+Drag
| | 04:44 | or Shift+Option+Drag that painting over
to the right until it completely covers
| | 04:49 | up the tiles like so. And let's go
ahead and scale that out a little bit,
| | 04:52 | because my Transform tool is still
selected. And then I'll Shift+Alt+drag or
| | 04:55 | Shift+Option+drag again to cover up
that last bit of tile, maybe do a little
| | 05:00 | bit of transformation. And then click
OK in order to accept that modification.
| | 05:05 | And now we have a real beautification
project in order here. Actually, let's
| | 05:10 | zoom back in and Shift+Tab away the
palettes. That looks pretty darn good. Now
| | 05:14 | you know what would make it look even
better, if we had reflections. If the
| | 05:19 | scenes were reflected onto the highly
polished floor, wouldn't that be cool,
| | 05:23 | straight down reflections? I think
that would be so cool that we are going to
| | 05:27 | do it, friends. We are going to create
the reflection effect of your dreams;
| | 05:31 | it's going to look so great. And we
are going to do it in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying a reflection in perspective| 00:00 |
In this exercise we are going to take
these beautiful paintings right here that
| | 00:04 |
appear to be backlit at this point.
I mean that's the only thing that makes sense.
| | 00:08 |
They are so much brighter than
the rest of this grim scene that they
| | 00:11 |
must be backlit in order for us to work it
out in our minds. So that's actually perfect.
| | 00:17 |
Now we are going to make it appear
as if the floor is highly polished and
| | 00:22 |
reflecting these backlit scenes right
back up at us. And it's just going to
| | 00:25 |
look gorgeous by the time we are done
with this. It's going to take us a couple
| | 00:28 |
of exercise to pull it off right,
but it's a really beautiful effect.
| | 00:33 |
I have gone ahead and saved my changes
so far as Reimagined subway.psd. The top
| | 00:40 |
layer is selected in the stack there.
I'm going to press Ctrl+Shift+N or
| | 00:43 |
Command+Shift+N on the Mac and I'm
going to call this new layer Reflections and
| | 00:48 |
then click OK. And then I'm going to
go ahead and choose the Vanishing Point
| | 00:52 |
filter again. I invite you to do so as
well. So go to the Filter>Vanishing Point.
| | 00:56 |
Here we are inside this
fairly familiar utility by now.
| | 01:01 |
Now let's say that I try to reflect the
paintings as they are on the planes as
| | 01:07 |
they are. Well, things would go fairly
awry as I'm about to show you. I'll go
| | 01:11 |
ahead and get my Marquee tool and
then I'll double-click in this plane to
| | 01:15 |
select the whole thing. Now I'll
Shift+Alt+Drag this plane of walls right
| | 01:21 |
there, and this is a Shift+Option+
Drag on the Mac. As soon as I drag this
| | 01:25 |
selection on to the floor, it doesn't
look like it's reflected; it looks like
| | 01:29 |
the whole wall fell over. And so
that's not the effect I want at all.
| | 01:32 |
What I want is for these paintings to
go directly downwards, straight down.
| | 01:37 |
And that means I'm going to have to get
rid of the floor plane, which sounds likes a
| | 01:41 |
bad thing that we are going to totally
delete it, which is what we are going to do.
| | 01:44 |
We have to, because we need to
get access to the bottom handle for this
| | 01:48 |
plane right here and drag it down. It
sounds like a bad thing to throw away a
| | 01:52 |
plane, but it's so easy to recreate
it if indeed we would need it again.
| | 01:56 |
Because after all it's a perpendicular plane,
so it's so easy to drag out, don't you know?
| | 02:00 |
All right, so let's press Ctrl+Z,
Command+Z on the Mac in order to undo that
| | 02:05 |
cloning and then I'm going to go up
to this Edit Plane tool, click on it to
| | 02:09 |
make it active, click on the bottom
plane to select it, press the Backspace key
| | 02:14 |
or the Delete key on the Mac in order
to get rid of it. Then click on this
| | 02:17 |
plane right here, now we have access
to this bottom handle again. We had lost
| | 02:21 |
it, of course, because it had gone away
since we had a perpendicular plane down
| | 02:25 |
here on the ground. But we have
it now, zoom out, press Ctrl+minus,
| | 02:29 |
Command+minus on the Mac and drag this
guy way down, all the way down like that
| | 02:32 |
and then let's go ahead
and zoom in a little bit.
| | 02:35 |
All right, now grab your Marquee tool,
don't double-click this time, drag from
| | 02:39 |
this upper left corner like so and
drag down to the bottom of the wall like that.
| | 02:44 |
And don't drag too far. If you go
to the other wall, you will get a very
| | 02:48 |
unfortunate effect. You want to get a
selection that looks more or less like this.
| | 02:52 |
All right, now we are going to
do another Shift+Alt+Drag or if you are
| | 02:56 |
working on the Mac, this would be a
Shift+Option+Drag of course in order to
| | 02:58 |
move that wall down like so.
| | 03:01 |
Now a big problem; it's not reflected,
it's still upright. This wall is still
| | 03:04 |
upright. The perspective has changed,
so that's why we are getting things at
| | 03:08 |
different angles and getting sort of
an M. C. Escher effect with the stairway here.
| | 03:11 |
But that's not what we want.
We want a true reflection. So we are going
| | 03:14 |
to have to go to Transform, the
Transform tool that is, this guy right there.
| | 03:18 |
And then we are going to have to
choose Flip or Flop. Which is it? Well, this
| | 03:22 |
happens to be a Flop, because it's a
vertical transformation, a vertical flip.
| | 03:27 |
And so there you go.
| | 03:28 |
But of course you know if you try one
out like you try out flip at first and
| | 03:33 |
you go, oh, what's that, what is
happening there, this can't be right. I guess,
| | 03:39 |
what is that, the stairs, I don't even
know what that is. Anyway, that's wrong.
| | 03:42 |
That's for sure. So it must not be Flip,
it must be Flop. Good, so that's how
| | 03:47 |
you know that's how you can keep track
of it. Try one, it doesn't work, try the other.
| | 03:52 |
They are might as called the
mystery option A and mystery option B,
| | 03:56 |
because I think that would
have been just as helpful.
| | 03:58 |
Anyway, go ahead and click OK in
order to accept this reflected scene right
| | 04:03 |
there, and then I think I'll go ahead
and press the 3 key in order to reduce
| | 04:07 |
the Opacity to 30%. Now at this point
you are looking at and going, that is
| | 04:11 |
pretty cool, actually that's pretty
darn nifty right there. And it's in
| | 04:15 |
perspective, the whole number and it's
in the right perspective. This is how
| | 04:19 |
the reflection would really look
except for one thing. The rear wall would be
| | 04:23 |
reflected as well and I'm not going to
worry about the rear wall. You can do
| | 04:26 |
that on your own, if you want to. I'm
just ignoring it for now because it's
| | 04:29 |
just more busy work.
| | 04:30 |
But here is the thing that really
matters where this wall is concerned is we
| | 04:35 |
would have a fade. It would start off
strong at the top and fade away at the
| | 04:39 |
bottom here. And it would fade away
in perspective, I can't just create a
| | 04:44 |
gradient layer mask right there and
expect it to work out right, because the
| | 04:48 |
gradient actually needs to be in
perspective. So how do we create a gradient
| | 04:53 |
layer mask? I have never seen anybody
demonstrate this and I'm going to show
| | 04:58 |
you how to make it work in the next exercise.
| | 05:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a perspective gradient| 00:00 | All right gang, this is going to be
interesting. We are going to use Vanishing
| | 00:05 | Point in order to create a perspective
layer mask. This is not something I have
| | 00:10 | ever tried to do before. And it's
pretty great, actually it works out really
| | 00:14 | nicely and that way we are going
to have a real bona fide perspective
| | 00:18 | reflection that looks like it's
popping off this highly polished floor here
| | 00:23 | inside of this otherwise
grim, grimy subway station.
| | 00:28 | I have gone ahead and saved my progress
so far as Lustrous reflections.psd and
| | 00:33 | guess what, gang? We are going to
make another layer. Ctrl+Shift+N,
| | 00:37 | Command+Shift+N on the Mac, call this
one Gradient and click OK. And let's zoom
| | 00:42 | out a little bit. All we are going to
do is just draw a linear gradient that we
| | 00:45 | are then going to turn around and
modify inside of Vanishing Point.
| | 00:49 | So all we have to do is just sort of
select a general area with a Rectangular
| | 00:53 | Marquee tool, you don't have to get
too fancy with it. And then grab your
| | 00:57 | Gradient tool like so, make sure that
it's set up to make a black to white
| | 01:01 | gradient and then we want it to be
Linear and all these other options are set
| | 01:05 | as you see them. And then just go ahead
and drag upward like this from black to
| | 01:09 | white, like so. All right, great.
| | 01:12 | Now, I want you to copy this gradient
because we are going to introduce it into
| | 01:15 | our scene. So press Ctrl+C or Command
+C on the Mac in order to copy this
| | 01:19 | gradient to clipboard. And then I want
you to turn it off and then go ahead and
| | 01:23 | press Ctrl+D or Command+D on the
Mac in order to deselect that image.
| | 01:27 | All right, so we just needed this
for a moment just to get it into the
| | 01:30 | clipboard, we might as well keep it
around. But we don't want it to be visible.
| | 01:33 | All right, so now press Ctrl+Shift+N
or Command+Shift+N on the Mac and we'll
| | 01:37 | call this one Perspective grad or
something along those lines and click OK.
| | 01:42 | Now go up to the Filter menu and choose
Vanishing Point once again, and I want
| | 01:48 | you to press Ctrl+V or Command+V on
the Mac in order to paste that gradient.
| | 01:51 | Now then, here is the thing; you may
end up getting some weird results.
| | 01:57 | What can happen as soon as we drag the
gradient into the plane is that it flips so
| | 02:01 | it's perpendicular to the plane but
now I'm dragging it in and I'm not having
| | 02:06 | any problems. This is the way you
would expect the gradient to come into the
| | 02:09 | plane, just like this here at the exact
same angle of the plane so this is fine.
| | 02:14 | And notice that the white is at the top
and the black is at the bottom just the
| | 02:18 | way it needs to be. But that may not
be your experience and if you are seeing
| | 02:23 | the gradient perpendicular to the
plane then go over and grab the Transform
| | 02:27 | tool and you would then move your
cursor outside the bounding box so you get
| | 02:30 | the Rotate cursor and you would rotate
your gradient while pressing the Shift
| | 02:35 | key and the idea there is that Shift
key constraints the angle of rotation to
| | 02:39 | 45 degree increments and it just
makes far more predictable experience.
| | 02:43 | Now it's still going to be very
strange and I have to apologize and I'm not
| | 02:47 | having the problem, you may be having a
problem that I'm not having right now.
| | 02:51 | Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and drag
my gradient down a little bit and now
| | 02:55 | something weird has happened. Notice
that we have this little sliver of a
| | 02:59 | gradient over here on the far left
side of the screen over here. And that's
| | 03:03 | because Vanishing Point has gotten
confused and put the gradient in the wrong
| | 03:06 | location, sort of packed it into
some weird recess of another plane.
| | 03:11 | Anyway, I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or
Command+Z on the Mac to undo that gradient
| | 03:16 | and put it back outside of the plane so
that I have got a little bit of preview
| | 03:20 | problem. Now I'll go ahead and drag
that gradient down once again and this time
| | 03:24 | all right, it's doing something strange
and this is what I anticipated before.
| | 03:27 | Notice how it's perpendicular to the
angle of the plane and if you get this
| | 03:33 | problem, as I'm pretty sure you will,
then with the Transform tool you need to
| | 03:38 | drag outside the bounding box
as you see me doing right now.
| | 03:41 | And you are going to have this wale
of a gradient looming towards you, just
| | 03:45 | like this. Press the Shift key in
order to constrain the angle to 45 degrees
| | 03:49 | and that's what we are seeing right now.
Now you are not going to be able to
| | 03:51 | rotate the gradient in one big
operation just as I can. So now I'm going to
| | 03:56 | move my cursor over to the right side
of the gradient as you see me doing and
| | 04:00 | I'm dragging upward and pressing the
Shift key once again and I have now
| | 04:04 | wrestle this gradient to the ground.
It's at the angle I want it to be.
| | 04:08 | Let's go ahead and zoom out here, so I
can move the gradient into the proper
| | 04:12 | position, I'll go ahead and drag it all
the way to the right side of the plane
| | 04:16 | right there. And let's scale it forward,
so it takes up this entire amount of
| | 04:20 | room along the floor of the subway
station. I'm also going to scale the height
| | 04:24 | of the gradient so that it's
approximately the same height as the reflections
| | 04:28 | and making it little taller
than the reflections at this point.
| | 04:32 | But I think I want it to be pretty
much exactly the height of the reflection.
| | 04:35 | So I'm going to zoom in another
increment here and I'll drag this handle upward
| | 04:40 | just a little. All right, so now we
still have a little bit of an issue.
| | 04:44 | If I want to go ahead and mask the
reflections on the floor successfully using this
| | 04:49 | gradient, then I want the opposite of
the effect we are seeing here. I want the
| | 04:52 | white at the top of the gradient and
the black at the bottom of the gradient.
| | 04:57 | So I need to take advantage of Flip and
Flop and the question becomes which one
| | 05:00 | of these options do I use?
| | 05:02 | I will go ahead and try Flip and see
what happens. And sure enough, that's
| | 05:06 | exactly the result I want. I want
white on top and black on bottom, who would
| | 05:11 | have thought that Flip would have done
it because Flip ought to be named flip
| | 05:15 | horizontal and Flop ought to be named
Flip vertical but this is the reason I
| | 05:19 | guess they named them Flip and Flop,
it's because when you get this kind of
| | 05:23 | bizarre behavior, you don't
know what's up and what's down.
| | 05:26 | So in this case what is usually flip
horizontal, ends up performing a vertical
| | 05:31 | flip for us. What counts more than
anything else rather than trying to wrap our
| | 05:34 | brain around what's going on with
Flip and Flop, what counts is that we are
| | 05:37 | getting the right result. And we have
white on top and black on the bottom,
| | 05:41 | which is going to serve
as a perfect Gradient mask.
| | 05:43 | All right, I'm going to go ahead and
click the OK button in order to accept my
| | 05:46 | changes, in order to create
that layer of perspective gradient.
| | 05:53 | Now, how do we take this over and
turn it into a layer mask? How do we make
| | 06:00 | this work for us? Because right now
it's just a layer and not a layer mask.
| | 06:03 | I'll show you how to make this thing
work exactly the way that we want it to work.
| | 06:07 | It's going to be so great.
In the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting a gradient to a mask| 00:00 | This exercise marks the end of this
project and I'm thinking, I'm going to
| | 00:05 | knock your socks off. This is really
impressive what's about to happen here. We
| | 00:09 | are going to go ahead and take this
perspective gradient that we just got done
| | 00:12 | creating in the previous exercise and
we are going to transform it from being a
| | 00:15 | layer into a layer mask that's going
to mitigate this Reflections layer and
| | 00:19 | it's going to look just so good.
| | 00:21 | Anyway, I have gone ahead and saved my
progress as Moby gradient.psd, because I
| | 00:26 | felt like I had to wrestle Moby Dick to
the ground there with that big rotation
| | 00:30 | that we had to apply. Or not maybe you
didn't have to apply it. It was looking
| | 00:34 | touch and go there for a little while.
Currently we have got a layer, we have
| | 00:38 | got to turn it into a layer mask, how
in the world do we do that? Because you
| | 00:41 | can't just do like a drag and drop
into a layer mask from a layer, just no
| | 00:45 | miracle cure for this. Instead what
you do, it's kind of two part thing.
| | 00:49 | You go to the Channels palette and you
want to make sure that you are seeing
| | 00:53 | that perspective gradient right there
and inside the Channels palette I want
| | 00:57 | you to go ahead and Ctrl-click or
Command-click on any one of these channels.
| | 01:03 | Anything but Rear wall works just
fine. So I'm just going to go ahead and
| | 01:06 | Ctrl-click on RGB. That's a Command-
click on the Mac and that goes ahead and
| | 01:11 | loads that gradient as the selection
outline that we can then turn around and
| | 01:15 | convert back into a layer mask. So we
are going from the world of masks here
| | 01:19 | inside the Channels palette to a
selection and then to a layer mask.
| | 01:23 | But currently we have got too much of
the image selected. We just want this
| | 01:27 | area inside the gradient to be
selected. So go over to the Layers palette,
| | 01:31 | there is the Perspective grad
layer right there. I want you to press
| | 01:35 | Ctrl+Shift+Alt. That would be Command+
Shift+Option on the Mac. Move your cursor
| | 01:41 | over the thumbnail. You will see a
little pointing finger with an inset x and
| | 01:45 | click. So Ctrl+Shift+Alt-click on the PC,
Command+Shift+Option-click on the Mac.
| | 01:50 | Now you have just got the gradient
selected. Nothing more, turn it off, we are
| | 01:54 | done with it. Go to the Reflections
layer right there and this is going to be
| | 01:57 | much more impressive if the
Reflections layer is set to 100% Opacity. So I'm
| | 02:02 | going to switch back to my Marquee
tool by pressing the M key and then I'm
| | 02:05 | going to press the 0 key, in order to
restore 100% Opacity here. And now drum
| | 02:11 | roll please. Go down to the bottom of
the Layers palette to add a layer mask
| | 02:15 | and click on it and check that out.
| | 02:18 | In true perspective I tell you, not
only are the paintings in the Reflections
| | 02:23 | and Perspective, but the drop-off is
in Perspective as well. Now then I would
| | 02:27 | say let's back off the effect to 60%
by pressing the 6 key, or even 50% by
| | 02:33 | pressing the 5 key. That looks pretty
good me and there you have it friends.
| | 02:37 | That is the finished version of this
wacky project. I'm going to go ahead and
| | 02:42 | press the F key a couple of times in
order to hide the interface and then I'll
| | 02:47 | go ahead and zoom in on my scene and
this is the final version of this spruced
| | 02:51 | up subway. Thanks to the power of
Perspective modifications inside Vanishing
| | 02:56 | Point.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Swinging planes to custom angles| 00:00 | All right I'm going to wrap things
up with a couple of quick feature
| | 00:03 | demonstrations, some really fun options
that were added to Vanishing Point with
| | 00:07 | Photoshop CS3 but continued to be just
as useful here inside Photoshop CS4. And
| | 00:14 | these options are the following; you
can swing planes on their hinges, we'll
| | 00:17 | see how that works and then you can
wrap artwork onto multiple surfaces.
| | 00:22 | So I have opened two images. One is
called DVD case.psd and the other one is
| | 00:26 | called Chans & Mask.psd and here I'm
just imagining what the artwork might look
| | 00:32 | like for Adobe Photoshop CS4
Channels and Masks, were I to get around to
| | 00:36 | filming such a series. But Photoshop
CS3 Channels and Masks is just as useful.
| | 00:42 | Most of the techniques work exactly
the same way in CS4 as they did in CS3.
| | 00:46 | Anyway, what I want to do is I want to
take this artwork and I want to wrap it
| | 00:49 | around the DVD case here. So the
first thing we need to do is establish the
| | 00:53 | planes. So with DVD case.psd open I'm
going to go on up to the Filter menu and
| | 00:59 | choose, guess what? Vanishing Point. Go figure.
| | 01:02 | And I have already created the planes
for you in advance just so you can see
| | 01:05 | them, just you know what to except, get
rid of him, press the Backspace key or
| | 01:09 | the Delete key on the Mac to make
them go away assuming they were selected
| | 01:12 | which they should be, the
second you enter Vanishing Point.
| | 01:15 | All right, now I'm going to establish
my base plane so my Create Plane tool is
| | 01:20 | active of course, and I'll click at
each of the four points along this back
| | 01:25 | cover right here and I'm clicking
inside of the plastic area that is to say the
| | 01:30 | whole darn thing is plastic, inside of
the transparent plastic region because
| | 01:35 | that's the area in which the
DVD artwork fits, don't you know.
| | 01:39 | All right and I have got blue. That's
nice, it's not red or yellow or any of
| | 01:43 | those other colors. My goodness! I
really have to warp it quite a bit to get
| | 01:47 | any other color but blue. Anyway so it
works out nice and that's good and I do
| | 01:50 | want to make sure that I have got it
setup exactly right that I'm matching all
| | 01:54 | of my lines as well as can expected
and it looks pretty darn good to me, I
| | 01:58 | might want to take this down just a
little bit because I do want to make sure
| | 02:01 | that each one of my edges is parallel to
one of the black box edges right there.
| | 02:05 | All right, so I might tweak it a little
more, whatever. At some point I'm going
| | 02:09 | to stop, one would think, and I'm
going to create a perpendicular plane. When
| | 02:13 | you want linked planes or multiple
planes that are linked to each other, and
| | 02:16 | yet they are not quite perpendicular,
as will be these planes right here, you
| | 02:21 | start off with perpendicular planes.
So let me show you how that works.
| | 02:24 | You Ctrl+Drag, well you already
know how this works, you Ctrl+Drag or
| | 02:28 | Command+Drag from the side handle to
pull out this plane right here. But it
| | 02:33 | wants to be at a different angle, it
doesn't want to be perpendicular which
| | 02:36 | supposedly is what we are seeing right now.
| | 02:39 | It wants to be at some other angle
entirely. So what do you do? Well, if you
| | 02:42 | just keep dragging this handle, you
are just going to move the plane in and
| | 02:46 | out. However, if you press the Alt
key or the Option key on the Mac, then
| | 02:51 | notice your cursor changes to a little
swinging cursor right there and you can
| | 02:54 | now swing this plane as if it's a door
on hinge. That's my analogy for you. And
| | 03:01 | I think it works beautifully, the
analogy that is, as well as the feature.
| | 03:04 | So that's an Alt+Drag or Option+Drag
right there. Then release Alt or Option,
| | 03:08 | make the plane a lot narrower because
it doesn't want to be nearly that wide.
| | 03:12 | And then, another Ctrl+Drag or Command+Drag in
order to create a perpendicular plane right there.
| | 03:18 | Now who knows how deep that plane is?
It could go quite far back there and
| | 03:24 | we'll find out, as soon as we Alt+Drag
or Option+Drag this handle, we'll see
| | 03:28 | how long it is and it's pretty dang
long. They get long fast when they are
| | 03:32 | perpendicular like that, especially when
they are declining dead away from us there.
| | 03:36 | All right, anyway, so I was able to Alt
+Drag or Option+Drag this door here on
| | 03:42 | its hinge to swing it out and then
I'll go ahead and drag the handle backward
| | 03:47 | in order to limit the area that is
covered by this plane. So that we are inside
| | 03:51 | of the transparent plastic sleeve.
| | 03:54 | All right and that's it. That's all
there is to creating swinging planes here
| | 03:58 | inside of Vanishing Point. I'm going
to go ahead and click OK in order to
| | 04:02 | accept my plane. Of course, I don't
want to set it in editing yet, I want to
| | 04:05 | make sure that I have established my
plane the way I want it and then I would
| | 04:09 | go up to the File menu, were this the
first time I had created this plane, I
| | 04:12 | would go to the File menu and choose
the Save command. I have already saved the
| | 04:15 | plane for you in advance, so I'm not
going to do that, but you might want to,
| | 04:18 | it depends on how you are feeling.
| | 04:21 | In the next exercise, we are going to
go ahead and bring over the Channels and
| | 04:24 | Masks artwork right here. And we are
going to wrap it around all three surfaces
| | 04:29 | of that DVD box.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wrapping art around multiple surfaces| 00:00 | Okay gang. Now for this final
demonstration of the immense power of the
| | 00:05 | Vanishing Point Filter, I'm going to
show you how to wrap artwork around
| | 00:09 | multiple surfaces. So let's make sure
that we have both our artwork and our
| | 00:13 | surfaces open. The two images in
question are Chans & Masks.psd, which you see
| | 00:18 | before you right now and DVD case.psd,
which we saw just a moment ago.
| | 00:23 | You can see it again, here it is.
Let's go to the Chans & Masks.psd image.
| | 00:28 | I want you to press Ctrl+A, but we've got
two layers that we're trying to contend
| | 00:32 | with here, because of my little CS4
guy right there. So press Ctrl+Shift+C or
| | 00:37 | Command+Shift+C on the Mac in order
to copy a merged version of all of the
| | 00:42 | layers inside of this image.
| | 00:45 | Now go back to DVD case. Let's create
a new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N,
| | 00:50 | Command+Shift+N on the Mac, and I'm
going to call this guy Artwork, like so, or
| | 00:55 | maybe lowercase a, because I've got a
lowercase d for depth, fine. Click OK,
| | 01:00 | and then I'm going to go to the
Filter menu and choose the Vanishing Point
| | 01:04 | Filter. I'll press Ctrl+V or Command+V
on the Mac to paste in that artwork. It
| | 01:12 | is a merged version of the artwork; I'm
seeing both CS3 and CS4 in red on top of it.
| | 01:16 | Now, I'll go ahead and drag my artwork
down onto one of the planes. Now, where
| | 01:21 | you're seeing the default settings, you
would not be seeing what you're seeing
| | 01:24 | now in front of you, at least
inside of the video. But I've modified my
| | 01:28 | settings a little bit because I needed
to restrain that big huge Scrubbco logo
| | 01:34 | that was sliding down onto the floor.
I needed to eliminate that problem.
| | 01:38 | So I turned off an option that's turned
on, by default. We want to turn it back
| | 01:42 | on. So go up here to little menu icon,
and notice this option right here that
| | 01:46 | says Allow Multi-surface Operations.
Go ahead and turn it on. Now the artwork
| | 01:52 | will wrap onto all of the connected
planes, this is very important, were these
| | 01:57 | planes not connected, then we would not
be able to wrap onto multiple surface.
| | 02:01 | It's just because we pulled that
perpendicular planes and then we swung them
| | 02:06 | that this is able to work. It would
also work with perpendicular frames that we
| | 02:09 | had not swung, but they do have to be
linked to each other, the planes, that is.
| | 02:13 | All right, so this is looking good. Now
the problem is the artwork is too big,
| | 02:17 | notice that if I align the spine of
the artwork to the spine of the box, then
| | 02:22 | Lynda's head is getting cut off over
here, the logo, and the ISBN numbers are
| | 02:27 | getting cut off and my face is
getting cut off. So my goodness, my eye is
| | 02:31 | going, it's just Lynda's shoulder. Gee whiz!
We need to reinstate some body parts here.
| | 02:36 | Go to the menu icon and turn off Clip
Operations to Surface Edges, so that we
| | 02:41 | can see the full edges all the way out,
and that will enable us to gain access
| | 02:47 | to our control handles when we want to
scale this artwork. So I'll go ahead and
| | 02:51 | switch to the Transform tool right there.
Let me show you what I mean. You can
| | 02:56 | see now that I do indeed have access
to all of my corner handles and my side
| | 03:00 | handles, my top and bottom handles and so on.
| | 03:03 | If we were clipping the operations,
these are operations, whatever, clip the
| | 03:07 | artwork to surface edges, then we would
lose those transformation handles. They
| | 03:13 | just totally disappear, which is nuts,
in my opinion. It's one thing to clip
| | 03:17 | the artwork, it's another thing to clip
away the interface, but anyway, that's
| | 03:21 | what they do. So let's go ahead
and turn that back off, like so.
| | 03:26 | So I'm going to go ahead and scale this
guy down, right there. I'll scale this
| | 03:31 | corner handle as well, so that we
bring Lynda back into the picture. Then at
| | 03:36 | this point we just need to make a
determination about whether the spine fits
| | 03:39 | the way we wanted to, I think, it does,
I mean the spine artwork right here.
| | 03:42 | You need to make sure that the logo
text right there, Lynda.com, fits inside
| | 03:46 | the spine. Everything looks really
good to me. Of course, you could rotate if
| | 03:52 | you wanted to or something along those
lines, but this is perfect, I think. So
| | 03:55 | I'm going to go ahead click OK in
order to accept my modification.
| | 03:58 | Now the only problem at this point is
that we don't have any depth. We don't
| | 04:03 | have any shading associated with this
effect, and that's Vanishing Point for
| | 04:06 | you. It is strictly a distortion tool.
It does not do any shading or any
| | 04:11 | lighting or anything along those lines.
So you're just matching the perspective
| | 04:15 | of the scene, nothing more.
| | 04:17 | If you want to add shading, you're
going to have to do it using other methods.
| | 04:21 | What I did was I created this depth
layer right there, which is really just a
| | 04:25 | series of areas that I selected using
the Lasso tool. Then I filled with these
| | 04:32 | gradients here, these light gray to white
gradients inside of these three regions.
| | 04:37 | You can see that this layer, which
resembles the folded piece of paper, it
| | 04:41 | actually extends outside of the DVD box.
So we need to do a couple of things.
| | 04:46 | We need to go ahead and clip everything
to the box to the best of our ability,
| | 04:50 | and in my case, I can just go ahead
and clip the depth layer to the artwork
| | 04:55 | layer by Alt-clicking or Option-
clicking on that horizontal line.
| | 04:58 | So, now we've got a nice clipping
going on. We don't have too much paper to
| | 05:01 | work with. Of course, we don't want
it to look like just a bunch of blank
| | 05:05 | paper. That would kind of ruin the
effect of the artwork. So I'll switch to the
| | 05:09 | depth layer. I want to keep the shadows.
I want to drop out the highlights. Of
| | 05:13 | course, I'm going to change the blend
mode. We've seen this a million times
| | 05:17 | now, but still, it's always we're
seeing over and over again. Change the blend
| | 05:21 | mode to Multiply, because that
is such a rocking blend mode.
| | 05:25 | This is what the artwork looks like
without that layer. This is what it looks
| | 05:28 | like with that layer. Why don't we go
ahead and fill the screen by pressing the
| | 05:32 | F key a couple times. Zoom in. This is
the final version of our artwork, thanks
| | 05:38 | to those very simple but elegant
operations that are available to us, swing in
| | 05:43 | planes and multi-surface artwork,
here inside of Vanishing Point.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
26. Using Smart ObjectsIntroduction to Smart Objects| 00:00 | Smart Object earns my vote for the
worst name for one of the best features in
| | 00:05 | all of Photoshop. Why? Because the
term Smart Objects gives you no sense of
| | 00:09 | what the feature is. And what it is
is great. They should have called them
| | 00:13 | super layers, because everything
about Smart Objects is super. How super?
| | 00:19 | A Smart Object is a layer that
remembers its original appearance. No matter how
| | 00:23 | hard or how many times you beat it up,
the super layer gets up, brushes itself off
| | 00:29 | and comes back for
more. What does that mean?
| | 00:32 | It means you can apply nondestructive
transformations. It means you can clone a
| | 00:36 | layer and make changes to all clones
from a single source. As we'll learn it in
| | 00:41 | the next chapter, it means you can apply a
filter without damaging the original layer.
| | 00:46 | You can gain access to everything,
anywhere, anytime. They really should have
| | 00:51 | called them super layers or maybe
elasto layers or X layers. Here is why.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Placing a Smart Object| 00:00 | In this first exercise, I'm going to
show you the easiest way to create a Smart
| | 00:04 | Object inside of Photoshop, which is
to introduce an image or an illustration
| | 00:09 | into an existing composition using this
command right here under the File menu,
| | 00:14 | the Place command. Place always
introduces images or illustrations, any
| | 00:18 | graphic, into a composition as a
Smart Object, always, always. Very useful
| | 00:24 | command these days. Back in the old days,
not so useful. Now really great, in my opinion.
| | 00:29 | Anyway, before we choose that command,
I want you to open this composition
| | 00:33 | right here. It's called Glistenex ad
.psd, and it's found inside of the
| | 00:36 | 26_smart_objects folder. It features
as a backdrop, this self-portrait by
| | 00:43 | photographer Joshua Blake of
iStockPhoto.com, and this dude is going to serve
| | 00:47 | as the background for an anti-bacterial
hand soap ad. Because he's just so darn
| | 00:53 | scared of germs, we want to exploit that.
| | 00:56 | So we need to introduce the Glistenex
logo into this composition. That's the
| | 01:00 | first thing that we're going to do.
Like so many logos out there, this one is
| | 01:04 | saved as an .AI file. So it's vector
artwork from Adobe Illustrator. Go up to
| | 01:10 | the File menu and choose the Place
command, and then go to the 26_smart_objects
| | 01:15 | folder. Therein you will find this
file among others. This one is called
| | 01:18 | Glistenex logo.ai. Then I want you to
click on the Place button, and you will
| | 01:23 | get this dialog box right
here that says Place PDF.
| | 01:27 | Now I've gone ahead and set my
Thumbnail Size to Fit Page, yours might be
| | 01:30 | really dinky like this. So you get
this wee, little logo here. Whatever, it's
| | 01:34 | not very indicative anyway; it's all
jagged and weird looking. It looks much
| | 01:38 | better against the black background
than a white background. Of course, it's
| | 01:42 | super smooth, because it's vector artwork
from Illustrator. It looks really super great.
| | 01:46 | But here is the deal, why in the world
does it say Place PDF? What in the world
| | 01:50 | is going on with that? This isn't a
PDF file, it's an .AI file, it's an
| | 01:54 | Illustration from Adobe Illustrator.
Well, for the last several versions,
| | 01:58 | Illustrator has taken to embedding PDF
information, Portable Document Format
| | 02:03 | information into .AI files, which is very
essential to other programs other than Illustrator.
| | 02:09 | If you want to be able to open the
illustration in Adobe Reader, for example,
| | 02:12 | then you need that embedded PDF data
and Photoshop needs it too. You cannot
| | 02:18 | import an illustration without the PDF
stuff. So anyway, I'm going to go ahead
| | 02:22 | and click OK, and that brings in a logo,
as we're seeing right there. Now, I'll
| | 02:27 | go ahead and scale it, I don't want it
to be nearly this big. Now I'm going to
| | 02:31 | go ahead and scale it, I don't
want it to be nearly this big.
| | 02:33 | So I'll go up to the Options bar here,
turn on the Link icon so that we scale
| | 02:38 | this illustration proportionally. I'm
going to change the Width value to 35%,
| | 02:43 | so both Width and Height are 35% now.
Now I'll go ahead and move this guy into
| | 02:48 | a location down here in the lower
right region of the composition and I'll
| | 02:52 | press the Enter key or the Return
key on the Mac in order to finalize the
| | 02:57 | placement of this illustration. It may
look a little jagged on your screen.
| | 03:01 | It does on mine. That's because I'm
viewing the image at 60% view size.
| | 03:05 | If I zoom in to 100%, it's going to
look ultra great. Now, I was telling you
| | 03:10 | that the Place command always generates
Smart Objects, and that is true.
| | 03:13 | How do you know? Because if you go over to
the new layer, of course, the logo appears
| | 03:18 | on its own layer. You'll see this
little dinky icon right there that shows a
| | 03:22 | kind of page right next to this
something else, like a little graphic next to a
| | 03:26 | page or something. That shows you that
you have a Smart Object. That's a Smart
| | 03:30 | Object icon inside of
Photoshop for what it's worth.
| | 03:34 | Now, I believe the reason that they
choose this little page metaphor is because
| | 03:39 | you essentially have an illustration
working inside of Photoshop. So it's
| | 03:44 | almost like you have a link going to a
file on disk, the way you would inside
| | 03:49 | of InDesign. The big difference is it's
not a link, it's an embed, which means
| | 03:54 | the Illustrator information is
actually now part of the Photoshop file, it's
| | 03:58 | embedded into the Photoshop file, and
we'll see what that means in later exercise.
| | 04:02 | But why don't we just go ahead for
the sake of demonstrational purposes, if
| | 04:07 | nothing else. I want you to see that
Smart Objects are full-fledged citizens
| | 04:11 | inside of Photoshop. They have all
the rights of other kinds of layers.
| | 04:14 | For example, we can go ahead and
apply, if we want to, a Drop Shadow.
| | 04:18 | So I'm going to go down to the fx icon
and I'll choose Drop Shadow right there
| | 04:22 | and I'm just going to go ahead and
accept the default settings, which are these.
| | 04:24 | Multiply 75%, 5, 5 with a 0
in between there and an angle of 138
| | 04:30 | degrees, which I've already established
with my Global Light right there.
| | 04:34 | I'll click OK and now we have a nice little
Drop Shadow behind the logo. So we have
| | 04:38 | the sweet interaction between a pixel-based
Drop Shadow and a vector-based logo right here.
| | 04:45 | All right, so that's it. We have
created the Smart Object, now we'll see what
| | 04:49 | that means in a future exercise. But
first, before I show you just how grand it
| | 04:54 | is that we have a Smart Object and
what we can do with it, I want you to
| | 04:57 | understand that you've got to have PDF
content in that illustration before you
| | 05:01 | can add it to Photoshop. I'll show you
what that means, in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving a PDF-compatible AI file| 00:00 | Now in the previous exercise, I was
telling you that it's very important that
| | 00:03 | you save out PDF data along with your
.AI illustrations from Adobe Illustrator
| | 00:08 | if you intend to use those
illustrations with Photoshop or really any of the
| | 00:12 | other Creative Suite applications for
that matter. I'm going to show you what I mean
| | 00:15 | and what can go
wrong inside of this exercise.
| | 00:18 | Note upfront that we are going to
switch over to Adobe Illustrator in just a
| | 00:21 | moment, and I realize that actually
invokes anger among some photographers that
| | 00:27 | we would go over to Illustrator while
we're discussing Photoshop, because some
| | 00:31 | folks feel like they're never going to
use Illustrator ever and they don't want
| | 00:34 | to have anything to do with it.
| | 00:35 | Well, here is the deal. Even if you
don't anticipate that you'll be using
| | 00:38 | Illustrator, which you may never, you
will work with people who do, believe me,
| | 00:42 | and you want to make sure that they're
watching their Ps and Qs and you want to
| | 00:45 | know what can go wrong. So that's what I'm
going to be showing you inside this exercise.
| | 00:49 | So I've gone ahead and saved out my
progress as 35-percent logo.psd, and we've
| | 00:54 | introduced this logo element
right here. This is a vector-based .AI
| | 00:59 | illustration and we've brought it in as
a Smart Object using the Place command.
| | 01:04 | So it's being rasterized on the fly.
Everything has got to get rasterized
| | 01:07 | inside of a photographic composition,
has to get converted into pixels.
| | 01:11 | But it's happening on the fly, we still
have the vector-based data embedded now
| | 01:16 | inside of this photographic composition.
| | 01:18 | I am now going to switch over to
Illustrator. Please join me or just at least watch.
| | 01:23 | Here I'm inside of Illustrator CS4,
a program that I personally love.
| | 01:28 | I have gone ahead and opened up
Glistenex logo.ai and I'm going to go up to
| | 01:32 | the File menu and I'm going to choose the
Save As command so that we're going to
| | 01:36 | save this file without the PDF info.
| | 01:39 | So I'll go ahead and call it Glistenex
logo (no PDF), for example. I'll save
| | 01:46 | this as an .AI file. It's not necessary
that you save it as a PDF document; you
| | 01:50 | don't have to do that. You can do it
with .AI file. That's plenty fine.
| | 01:54 | Go ahead and choose that and then click
Save, if you're working along with me, and
| | 01:58 | notice right there that we have this
option to create a PDF-compatible file.
| | 02:03 | Even if I were to save this as an
Illustrator CS file, so several versions back
| | 02:06 | right now, I still have the option of
creating a PDF-compatible file. In fact,
| | 02:10 | how far do I have to go back before
I lose that option? It can still be
| | 02:14 | PDF-compatible, going back to
Illustrator 10, so Illustrator 9, the option
| | 02:18 | becomes dimmed, interesting.
| | 02:20 | So I'll go ahead and choose
Illustrator CS4, as we'll choose the most recent
| | 02:24 | version of the file format, but I'll
turn off Create PDF Compatible File.
| | 02:28 | Now the advantage to turning this checkbox
off is that you will generate a smaller
| | 02:33 | file from Adobe Illustrator, and you
would presumably want to choose an older
| | 02:37 | format if you really wanted to get
the file size down. But anyway, we'll go
| | 02:41 | ahead and keep it CS4 for
the sake of demonstration here.
| | 02:43 | I'll just turn off PDF Compatible File.
We'll get a smaller file, but we'll
| | 02:46 | also get a file that Photoshop cannot
work with. So I'll click OK and the logo
| | 02:51 | gets saved to disk, it's presumably
saved now. So let's go over back to
| | 02:55 | Photoshop at this point, and I'm going
to go up to the File menu, choose the
| | 02:59 | Place command, the exact same
thing we did in the previous exercise.
| | 03:02 | But this time, I'll click on
Glistenex logo (no PDF).ai, click on the Place
| | 03:07 | button and we'd still get the Place PDF
dialog box, but now we get this message
| | 03:13 | repeated over and over again that this
is an Adobe Illustrator file that was
| | 03:17 | saved without PDF content.
| | 03:19 | Now what I love about this little
message right here is that it is repeated
| | 03:22 | over and over again, so small that is
totally illegible. So why don't then just
| | 03:26 | make it big? But anyway, we'll go
ahead and click OK, we'll just ignore it,
| | 03:29 | because it is after all something you
can't read very easily. So we'll click
| | 03:33 | OK, and then we'll get this big
version of this message down, and we actually
| | 03:39 | are placing a big copy of the message,
not of course, the original logo at all.
| | 03:44 | So Photoshop is completely incapable of
rendering out that .AI information, it
| | 03:51 | needs the PDF version of the
illustration in order to make things work, in
| | 03:56 | order to rasterize the content. So
I'm just going to go ahead and press the
| | 03:59 | Backspace key or the Delete key on the
Mac in order to get rid of that layer
| | 04:03 | and we'll just keep the Glistenex logo layer.
| | 04:05 | Now, so long as you do save a PDF
version of your illustration, as we have, and
| | 04:10 | as happens, by default, then you're
okay and you can do all sorts of wonderful
| | 04:15 | things with this Smart Object
including, edit it inside of Illustrator or
| | 04:21 | transform it nondestructively. We'll see
those operations beginning in the next exercise.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Performing nondestructive transformations| 00:00 | The first and foremost advantage of
Smart Objects inside Photoshop is that they
| | 00:04 | permit you to apply non-destructive
transformations, meaning that you can scale
| | 00:09 | a Smart Object as many times as you
like without ruining it. Compare that to
| | 00:14 | scaling some other pixel based layer
inside of Photoshop. If you scale it
| | 00:18 | multiple times, you will incrementally
destroy the information on that layer
| | 00:22 | and we'll see how that works.
| | 00:23 | We will see the difference
between destructive and non-destructive
| | 00:27 | transformations in this very exercise.
So what I'd like you to do is go ahead
| | 00:30 | and open this document that's called 35-
percent logo.psd. I have so named this
| | 00:36 | document because after all I have scaled
the logo to 35% of its original size.
| | 00:41 | Now back in the old days, prior to
Photoshop CS2, if you imported an
| | 00:45 | illustration into Photoshop, it would
be permanently rasterized. So it would
| | 00:49 | look like this. Just for the sake of
comparison here, I'll go ahead and show you
| | 00:52 | what it used to look like.
| | 00:53 | I will go to the Glistenex Logo layer,
right-click in an empty portion of the
| | 00:57 | layer, not on the name and not on the
thumbnail, and if you don't have a right
| | 01:01 | mouse button on the Mac, you would
press the Ctrl key and click, and then
| | 01:04 | choose Rasterize Layer and you will see
that your Smart Object icon goes away,
| | 01:09 | and we now have a standard pixel based layer.
| | 01:11 | So here I am. I have got my logo. I'm
playing around with it, my art director
| | 01:15 | comes by and says, "what in the world
are you doing?" And I'm like, "just doing
| | 01:20 | my job." Then here she says, "No, no,
no, that Glistenex logo is too darn small.
| | 01:25 | They are very fussy client,
and they just hate it when their logo is
| | 01:28 | only of the size of the dude's shoulder.
It needs to be much larger than this."
| | 01:32 | And I'm like okay, yeah, fine.
| | 01:34 | So what I'll do is I'll just go ahead
and transform it and make it bigger.
| | 01:38 | Why don't I? So I'll go up to the Edit
menu and I'll choose the Free Transform command,
| | 01:43 | Ctrl+T, Command+T on the Mac.
And then it's telling me that the size
| | 01:47 | of the logo is 100%. Even though I know
it's 35% of its former size, I'm being
| | 01:52 | told that's 100% of its size and
that's because now that its pixels, Photoshop
| | 01:57 | has no memory of what it used to be.
| | 01:59 | All right, so I'll just go ahead and
make it really gargantuan because that's
| | 02:02 | what they want. They want their logo so
huge that it covers up the dude's face,
| | 02:06 | and it's looking pretty choppy actually.
I'll go ahead and zoom in on that logo
| | 02:10 | to the 100% view size and I'm thinking,
hmm, that's not welcome news,
| | 02:14 | but at the same time, Free Transform doesn't
show you the anti-aliasing while you are
| | 02:19 | in the Free Transform mode.
It abandons the anti-aliasing.
| | 02:22 | So it's not really a good indicator of
the final appearance. You are not going
| | 02:25 | to know what it really looks like until
you go ahead and press the Enter key or
| | 02:29 | the Return key on the Mac. And there it is
and it looks like garbage. It looks
| | 02:32 | very bad and you can see that we have
got some very rough transitions and
| | 02:37 | this is a function of bicubic interpolation.
So it's good interpolation, it's just
| | 02:41 | horrible results because we
have upsampled so significantly.
| | 02:45 | So then the art director says, "Whoa,
that looks terrible. Make it smaller again.
| | 02:49 | We can't have it that big if
it's going to look like that." So you will
| | 02:51 | press Ctrl+T or Command+T on the Mac
and make it smaller. I'm Shift+Dragging by
| | 02:56 | the way the corner handle, so
I'm constraining the proportions.
| | 02:58 | So I'd say, "Okay, I'll make it smaller"
and press Enter or Return, and they
| | 03:02 | say, "No, not that small. What are
you thinking? Make it bigger again".
| | 03:05 | So I'll press Ctrl+T or Command+T on the Mac
and I'll make it bigger again and
| | 03:10 | I'm getting flustered now and I press
Enter or Return and now it really looks like
| | 03:14 | just horrible now and I get fired.
| | 03:16 | So that's a very sad story. Thanks to
a lack of Smart Objects in Photoshop CS
| | 03:22 | and earlier, I got fired. All right, so
boy, that looks terrible. So now thanks
| | 03:28 | to Smart Objects, how do things look?
| | 03:29 | Let's just go up to the File menu and
choose the Revert command or press F12 in
| | 03:34 | order to restore the original Smart
Objects version of the logo. So let's
| | 03:38 | replay that exact conversation. I'm sitting
there, la, la, la, la, la, editing my ad,
| | 03:42 | art director comes by, slaps me around
a little, tells me that Glistenex logo
| | 03:46 | should not be the size of the dude's
shoulder. It needs to be much bigger.
| | 03:49 | I'm like okay, okay, I'll make it bigger.
| | 03:51 | So I press Ctrl+T, Command+T on the Mac.
It is a Smart Object now. So we have
| | 03:56 | our original vector data embedded
inside of this photographic composition and
| | 04:01 | that's why Photoshop knows that the
size is 35%. So it remembers. So if I make
| | 04:08 | the logo really big like so, it's not
looking good. I'll go ahead and zoom into
| | 04:13 | 100% again and it's not looking good
in the Free Transform mode, but that's
| | 04:16 | because the anti-aliasing
is temporarily turned off.
| | 04:19 | I will go ahead and press the Enter key
or the Return key on the Mac to accept
| | 04:22 | that larger size. And see how long it
took for Photoshop to calculate that?
| | 04:26 | It's working from that
original data. Oh! It's gorgeous.
| | 04:29 | Now, my art director says, "No, no, no,
what are you thinking. It doesn't want
| | 04:32 | to be that big. Make it smaller." And
so I say, okay, Ctrl+T, Command+T on
| | 04:36 | the Mac and make it really tiny, just
this infinitesimal little dot of a logo.
| | 04:41 | That's only 1.4% of its original size
and then I press the Enter or Return key
| | 04:46 | in order to accept that, and then my
art director says, "My God man, have
| | 04:50 | you lost your mind? It can't be that small.
It could fit in the guy's shirt. It's so tiny."
| | 04:55 | So I say, "Oh! Okay,
you are right", and I press Ctrl+T,
| | 04:57 | Command+T on the Mac in order to
bring up Free Transform again. I press the
| | 05:01 | Shift key, I make my logo bigger,
and actually they want it at 65%.
| | 05:05 | So she mercifully tells me that, or he,
and I'll change the Width value to 65%,
| | 05:10 | while the link is on, so I have a
height of 65% as well and then I press the
| | 05:14 | Enter or Return key a couple of times
in order to accept that modification and
| | 05:17 | it looks gorgeous. My job is saved.
In fact, I just got a big, fat Glistenex raise.
| | 05:24 | So that's awesome.
| | 05:26 | Anyway, thanks to the power of Smart
Objects and the fact that they do afford
| | 05:30 | you access to non-destructive
transformation. So you can make something
| | 05:33 | smaller, make it bigger, rotate it,
rotate it back, do whatever you want.
| | 05:37 | You can even warp and unwarp objects
without harming them, because every single
| | 05:41 | operation is concatenated. Meaning
that there is just one overarching
| | 05:46 | transformation that's applied.
| | 05:48 | In this case, it's a 65% scale and
that's it. Despite all of the many
| | 05:53 | transformations that I applied over
and over again, it all boils down to 65%.
| | 05:57 | The end. In the next exercise, we'll
see how we can edit this illustration
| | 06:03 | right here from Photoshop
in Illustrator. Check it out.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing a Smart Object in Illustrator| 00:00 | In the previous exercise I showed you
how you can scale a Smart Object logo as
| | 00:05 | many times as you want without harming
it one iota. In this exercise, I'm going
| | 00:10 | to show you how we can modify the
logo by double-clicking on it, launch
| | 00:15 | Illustrator, make some changes inside
of Illustrator, and then save our changes
| | 00:20 | into Photoshop, not to an AI file on
disc, but right back into Photoshop in
| | 00:25 | memory. It's an amazing thing.
| | 00:27 | All right, so here I am. I have gone
ahead and saved my progress as 65-percent
| | 00:31 | logo.psd. So called of course because
my logo appears at 65% of its original
| | 00:36 | size back in the Illustrator.
| | 00:38 | We've kind of established that I and
my art director don't necessarily get along.
| | 00:42 | So let's say the art director
comes by and goes, "What do you think, and
| | 00:46 | what am I going to do with you?"
Glistenex is very particular about their
| | 00:51 | Glistenex blue, and they do not like
their letters stroked with purple like that.
| | 00:56 | That is just not going to fly.
| | 00:58 | We need to get those strokes blue as
well. We need to make everything Glistenex
| | 01:01 | blue, and I'm like "Hey! No problem.
Now that I understand how Smart Objects
| | 01:06 | work, all I'm going to do is go over
here to this Glistenex Logo layer, go to
| | 01:09 | the thumbnail, double-click on it.
| | 01:12 | You are going to see this warning here
that's going to tell you how to go about
| | 01:16 | saving your changes. So once you get
done modifying the contents of this logo,
| | 01:21 | meaning that you are going to modify
the logo itself, go ahead and choose File
| | 01:25 | >Save to commit the changes. And
I'll show you a different way to work.
| | 01:27 | But those changes will be reflected
upon returning to this composition right here.
| | 01:31 | The file must be saved to the
same location. This is a nutty little bit
| | 01:35 | of text right here to the same
location meaning, what? If the Save As dialog
| | 01:40 | box appears, choose Cancel and flatten
the image before saving. It has nothing
| | 01:44 | to do with what we are about to do, because you
can't flatten the image inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:49 | But anyway, we'll not see a Save As
dialog box. The more important thing about
| | 01:53 | this is that it is announcing to you
that you should not choose Save As.
| | 01:57 | You just want to choose the Save command
or just close the Illustration and click
| | 02:01 | on the Save button. That's
a good way to work as well.
| | 02:04 | I am not going to turn on my check box.
You probably would want to do that.
| | 02:08 | Once you learn how this works, you will
probably not enjoy seeing this warning
| | 02:12 | over and over again. So you will
probably want to turn that on. But I'm just
| | 02:15 | going to go ahead and click OK in order
to open up the logo inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:20 | So here I'm inside of Adobe Illustrator.
Now, those of you who don't know how
| | 02:24 | Illustrator works, don't worry about it,
unless you want to learn of course by
| | 02:28 | all means. Check out my Adobe
Illustrator CS4 One-on-One series.
| | 02:32 | Anyway, what I want to do is I want to
click on the logo to select it using my
| | 02:37 | Black Arrow tool right here, and then
I'm going to go over to the Appearance
| | 02:40 | palette and I'll see here inside Appearance
that I have a couple of different strokes.
| | 02:45 | Actually, I have this None stroke as
well. I don't know what that's about.
| | 02:48 | But I have got this Violet stroke and
I have got this sort of Grayish stroke.
| | 02:51 | So I'm going to click on the violet
one and by clicking this down-pointing
| | 02:55 | arrowhead, I'm going to change it to
this color right there, Glistenex blue,
| | 02:58 | this little swatch.
| | 02:59 | That will take care of the offending
violet color, and then I think I should do
| | 03:04 | something with that Gray stroke as well.
So I'll click on the Gray stroke right
| | 03:07 | here, and I'll go ahead and click the
down-pointing arrow, and I'll choose
| | 03:10 | Glistenex blue like so. And now I have
got blue on blue, which doesn't look too good.
| | 03:14 | I want to back off
of the blue a little bit.
| | 03:17 | So I'm going to go up here to the Color
palette, and I'm going to go ahead and
| | 03:21 | set it to HSB as I have already done
in advance. Probably appears the CMYK if
| | 03:25 | you are working along with me. But
I'll go to HSB and I'll decrease the
| | 03:29 | Saturation value a little bit and I'll
increase the Brightness as well and I'll
| | 03:32 | press Ctrl+H or Command+H on the Mac
to hide the anchor points and the other
| | 03:36 | selection artifacts, so
I can see what I'm doing.
| | 03:39 | Let's go ahead and take that Brightness
all the way up to 100% and see how that looks.
| | 03:42 | Now, it looks pretty darn good
to me. All right, now what I want to do
| | 03:46 | is I want to go ahead and save my
changes to Photoshop, and it's very easy.
| | 03:49 | All you have to do, you can either go to
the File menu and choose the Save command.
| | 03:52 | You just do not want to choose Save As
or any of those, or you can just close
| | 03:57 | the Illustration. Just click on the
close box and then Illustrator will ask
| | 04:00 | you, Do you want to save the changes?
And you click Yes. Now, you are not
| | 04:04 | saving them. It implies that you are
going to save in an Adobe Illustrator
| | 04:07 | document called Vector Smart Object.ai. No,
you are not. That's actually not true.
| | 04:12 | But go ahead and click Yes. Oh! And
now it's telling you, you are saving to a
| | 04:15 | legacy format, which really doesn't
make any dang sense, because you are saving
| | 04:19 | into Photoshop. But somehow Photoshop
is tracking it this way. So anyway, you
| | 04:24 | just say, "Yes, don't worry
about it. I do want to continue".
| | 04:26 | Then the file will close of course. You
will go over to Photoshop manually and
| | 04:31 | a moment later, you will see the
logo updates. So you may see a couple of
| | 04:35 | seconds of old logo and then you will
see it update inside of Photoshop.
| | 04:38 | You just saved your changes into Photoshop,
into this layer right there. How do you
| | 04:44 | know you didn't go ahead and for
example save to the original document?
| | 04:48 | Well, let's go to check it out.
| | 04:49 | I will go to the Bridge for a moment
here, and I have got Glistenex logo and
| | 04:54 | Glistenex logo (no PDF). Let's go
ahead and open up Glistenex logo, because
| | 04:58 | that's the one that I imported in the
Photoshop. So I'll double-click on it to
| | 05:01 | open it inside of Illustrator, and you
can see here is the old purple stroke
| | 05:06 | and the gray stroke around it.
| | 05:08 | So we have the same old double stroke
effect we had in the past. So Photoshop
| | 05:12 | is not linking to this Illustration
here, instead you actually save directly
| | 05:18 | into Photoshop. So this Illustration
exists only in Photoshop and nowhere else.
| | 05:23 | Now, if you decide later, Hey! I would
like to have access to this version of
| | 05:28 | the Illustration, because I want to
import it into InDesign or some other
| | 05:31 | program. Why then you would double-
click on it in order to open it up inside of
| | 05:35 | Illustrator. You would click OK to the
warning and just not worry about that.
| | 05:39 | You will bring up the second document.
Notice you now have opened, or at least
| | 05:42 | I do, Glistenex logo.ai and this more
generically named Vector Smart Object.ai,
| | 05:49 | and you would go up to the File menu
and you would now choose Save As, and you
| | 05:53 | would save this under a different file name.
| | 05:55 | Now, you are going to be dumped into
this Temp folder right there.
| | 05:58 | That's pretty standard. So you're going
to have to dig your way out. But then you
| | 06:00 | would go ahead and call it something
like Glistenex blue or something along
| | 06:04 | those lines and then click Save. But
of course in a different location,
| | 06:07 | you wouldn't want to do it here.
| | 06:09 | Anyway, I'm going to cancel out. I'm
fine the way things are. I'm just going to
| | 06:11 | go right back to Photoshop. So
that's how you launch Illustrator from
| | 06:15 | Photoshop, make some modifications and
save all your vector information right
| | 06:19 | back into that Photoshop Smart Object
layer. And does that mean that we have
| | 06:23 | got all that vector information which
would expand the size of my Photoshop
| | 06:27 | file? Does that mean I have got that
information now inside of this Photoshop
| | 06:31 | document? Yes, indeed it does. The PDF
information is there and available for
| | 06:36 | editing inside of
Illustrator at any point in time.
| | 06:39 | My goodness, what a technical topic. In
the next exercise, we are going to get
| | 06:44 | a lot less technical. We are going to
import the first of many germs.
| | 06:49 | Stay tuned.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting an image to a Smart Object| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show
you another way to create Smart Objects
| | 00:03 | inside of Photoshop. And this time, as
opposed to working from a vector-based
| | 00:08 | illustration, we'll create a pixel-
based Smart Object, which is more likely,
| | 00:13 | quite frankly. I mean, depending on
your workflow you may import a fair number
| | 00:17 | of illustrations in Photoshop. But
more of us are going to be creating
| | 00:20 | pixel-based Smart Objects and it's
still plenty useful as you'll see. In fact,
| | 00:27 | one might argue it's even more useful still.
| | 00:30 | I've gone ahead and saved my progress
as Blue strokes.psd, and I have this
| | 00:34 | image right here that I also have
open that's called Germ.psd. This is a
| | 00:40 | cartoon that was created for me by
Jason Woliner. We've mentioned this guy
| | 00:43 | before. He now directs the MTV Sketch
Comedy 'Human Giant' just an amazing guy.
| | 00:49 | Anyway, he created this hilarious
cartoon, I think. I want to import it into
| | 00:53 | the other composition as a Smart Object.
| | 00:55 | So there are two different ways I
could work. One is I could go back to Blue
| | 00:58 | strokes.psd. I could go to the File menu,
I could choose the Place command, and
| | 01:03 | then I could select my Germ, right there,
Germ.psd, and I could place it and it
| | 01:08 | would come in as a Smart Object. So,
I'm originally allowed to determine the
| | 01:12 | size as I'm placing this image.
I'll just go ahead and accept its huge
| | 01:17 | gianormous size right there as it is,
by pressing the Enter key or the Return
| | 01:21 | key on the Mac and then I'll see,
sure enough, it's a Smart Object.
| | 01:24 | Even though, it's a pixel-based image,
so it may look like an illustration
| | 01:27 | because it has nice sharp edges and
it's a cartoon, but it was, in fact,
| | 01:32 | created inside of Photoshop using
pixels. All right, so that's one way to do
| | 01:37 | it, but we've already seen that, so
I'll press Backspace or Delete on the Mac
| | 01:40 | in order to get rid of that
layer. Let's try a different way.
| | 01:42 | Again, this is potentially a more
common way for you to work, depending, you've
| | 01:46 | got all sorts of options available to
you, but I find that I tend to work this
| | 01:50 | way more often. Now, I'm wondering why,
why do I work this way more often? I
| | 01:54 | don't know. But anyway, let's go back
to Germ.psd. I'm going to press and hold
| | 01:58 | the Ctrl key on the Command key on
the Mac to get my Move tool right there.
| | 02:01 | I'll go ahead and drag this guy up to
the Blue strokes.psd tab, because I'm
| | 02:06 | working in the tabbed window display.
| | 02:08 | Then I'll move my cursor back into the
composition once it pops up on screen
| | 02:12 | and I'll release and there is the big
old germ, not a Smart Object, notice
| | 02:16 | that's also not named the way it was
automatically named just a moment ago.
| | 02:20 | When you choose the Place command,
Photoshop automatically names the layer
| | 02:24 | after the document on disc. So, I
would have gone ahead and called it Germ.
| | 02:28 | I'm going to have to manually name
mine Germ 1, because we're going to have
| | 02:31 | several Germs, and then I'll press the
Enter key or the Return key on the Mac.
| | 02:34 | But it's not a Smart Object. So
were I to sit here and scale it in one
| | 02:38 | direction and then another
direction and so on and so on, then I would
| | 02:41 | incrementally ruin the image.
| | 02:43 | Let me just show you that because I
want to show you what you need to do to
| | 02:47 | avoid that. So I'll press Ctrl+T,
Command+T on the Mac, because he is an
| | 02:51 | awfully big germ. Germs are scarier
when they're tiny. That's the whole thing
| | 02:55 | that's so scary about germs is they
can get in all over the place and create
| | 02:59 | havoc because there are so many of the
tiny guys. So anyway, he needs to be smaller.
| | 03:04 | So, I'm going to make him like really,
really super dinky, let's say, so dinky
| | 03:08 | that I totally lose track of them.
So let's go ahead and go find them.
| | 03:11 | He's down here and oops! Look, he's so
dinky I can't even drag them properly.
| | 03:15 | I accidentally removed his origin point.
Let's go ahead and get him and move them
| | 03:19 | over and then I'd say I want it
really dinky. He's so tiny. This is more
| | 03:24 | indicative of the real size of a germ.
Actually that would still be gianormous
| | 03:27 | for a germ, but it's only 2%.
| | 03:29 | Press the Enter key or the Return key
on the Mac and I say that was 2% of its
| | 03:33 | original size because I saw that, ever
so briefly up there in the Options bar.
| | 03:36 | Now I'll press Ctrl+T or Command+T
again, because of my art director, of
| | 03:39 | course, telling me that that's too
small. Now I'm seeing that the width and
| | 03:42 | height are 100%, because Photoshop has
no knowledge of the previously existing
| | 03:47 | germ, we wiped it out. That's the way it is
when you're not working with Smart Object.
| | 03:51 | So I'll make it bigger, I'm like, yeah,
okay, I'll make it bigger. That's not
| | 03:55 | looking too good and I press the
Enter key or the Return key on the Mac and
| | 03:58 | I've got a big, blobby, blurry germ and,
of course, I get fired again. So much
| | 04:02 | for that job. I'm getting fired a lot
during this one composition here, but it happens.
| | 04:08 | Anyway, the point is before I embarked
on these transformations, I should have
| | 04:14 | gone ahead and made it a Smart Object.
First thing, so let's go ahead and back
| | 04:18 | up, Ctrl+Alt+C, Ctrl+Alt+C a
couple of times. Command+Option+Z,
| | 04:21 | Command+Option+Z on a Mac to get the
germ back to its original size, to its big
| | 04:26 | old size there. Then let's
make it a Smart Object right now.
| | 04:30 | The simplest way is to go to the
Layers palette menu right there, the flyout
| | 04:33 | menu, and choose Convert to Smart Object.
And I love this command so much that
| | 04:37 | if you have loaded DekeKeys, I've
given you a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Comma
| | 04:41 | or Command+Comma on the Mac. I'll go
ahead and choose that command there, and
| | 04:45 | now we have a Smart Object.
| | 04:46 | Now I can run through that exact same
scenario that we witnessed just a moment
| | 04:50 | ago, Ctrl+T, Command+T on the Mac, in
order to enter the Free Transform mode.
| | 04:54 | Then scale the germ to the point you
can't see it anymore. Then go ahead and
| | 04:57 | drag it down a little bit and then make
my germ dinky, tinysaurus right there,
| | 05:01 | just so small you can't even know how
big it is. It's down to 0.1% now.
| | 05:06 | Oh my goodness! That's small.
| | 05:08 | Press the Enter key or the Return key
on a Mac. I don't even know what happened
| | 05:11 | to my germ anymore. It's so tiny that
I've lost track of it. Let's go ahead and
| | 05:17 | zoom in. Now that's accurate germ size.
That's what I would argue with my art
| | 05:22 | director. That's about how big a germ
would be. Look at that, now we're seeing
| | 05:26 | the pixel grid. I'll go ahead and press
Ctrl+H or Command+H on the Mac, so that
| | 05:30 | we can see. There is our single pixel germ now.
| | 05:33 | Anyway, my art director and I
frequently don't see eye to eye. So I'm told that
| | 05:37 | this needs to be bigger. So I'll
press Ctrl+T, Command+T on the Mac to gain
| | 05:41 | access once again to the Free
Transform mode. What I'll do is take this up to
| | 05:46 | 25%. So I'm going to go ahead and make
it bigger. Now it's not looking like its
| | 05:50 | going to look too good here. It's looking bad
for me and my ability to hold on to this job.
| | 05:56 | We'll see, but I'll go ahead and
zoom out. Drag this corner handle as I'm
| | 06:00 | pressing the Shift key and I'm going
to take this guy up to, 25% is what I'm
| | 06:05 | looking for. So I'll go ahead and
just cut to the chase, click on the Chain
| | 06:08 | icon right up here in the Options bar,
and change either the W or H value to
| | 06:12 | 25%, and then press the Enter key a
couple of times and there it is, looking sweet.
| | 06:17 | So even though, I had reduced it to a
microscopic level, I can still make it
| | 06:22 | larger here inside Photoshop, by
applying a nondestructive transformation,
| | 06:26 | always it's that way, as long as you take the
time to set up a Smart Object in the first place.
| | 06:31 | In the next exercise, I'll show you
how Smart Objects not only afford us the
| | 06:36 | option of applying nondestructive
transformations, which, if that's all they
| | 06:40 | did would be actually fairly terrific,
but not only that, you can also create
| | 06:44 | instances, so I can create multiple
germs that are based on a single, original.
| | 06:49 | Stay tuned.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cloning Smart Objects| 00:00 |
In this exercise, I'll show you how to
replicate this germ here so that we're
| | 00:04 |
creating multiple instances of a
single Smart Object. Then in the next
| | 00:08 |
exercise, I'll show you why that's so
great. So this is kind of a two-parter here.
| | 00:13 |
We've got the one germ. That's all
we've got so far, 125% germ, and I've saved
| | 00:17 |
this version of the document as One
big germ.psd. Let's go ahead and make a
| | 00:23 |
clone of this germ, and I'm going to
do that. There is a couple of different
| | 00:26 |
ways we can work. One is to press Ctrl
+Alt+J or Command+Option+J, while the
| | 00:31 |
Germ layer is active. That goes ahead
and jumps him to a new layer, and I'll
| | 00:36 |
call this guy Germ 2, and then I'll click OK.
| | 00:39 |
It's sitting right on top of Germ 1, so
we can't tell that we've got two germs
| | 00:43 |
unless we Ctrl+Drag one of them to
move it to a slightly different location.
| | 00:46 |
Let's go ahead and move him over to
this side of the frightened dude's head.
| | 00:51 |
I'll press Ctrl+T or Command+T on the
Mac in order to invoke Free Transform,
| | 00:55 |
I'll right-click and I'll choose Flip
Horizontal. Why are these guys called
| | 00:59 |
Flip and Flop? I wonder.
| | 01:01 |
I'll go ahead and choose Flip
Horizontal, which would be the Flip, of course,
| | 01:06 |
and I'm going to change the size of
this germ right here to 35%, so I'm going
| | 01:10 |
to have to actually leave one. I can't
click on the Link icon, because if I do
| | 01:15 |
that, he'll unflip. No, he'll flop.
Yes, he both flipped and flopped.
| | 01:20 |
Now, okay, good, because that is both
the same value. I'll go ahead and turn
| | 01:24 |
that off. We need one to be -35 and
the other to be +35, like so, nice! We
| | 01:31 |
could also rotate. I haven't done
any rotating, but rotation is also
| | 01:35 |
nondestructive when applied to a
Smart Object, all of these different
| | 01:39 |
transformation functions are.
| | 01:40 |
All right, so I'll go ahead and press
the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac.
| | 01:43 |
Let's drag this guy to a slightly
different location. Now it's appearing a
| | 01:47 |
little bit more jagged, but if I zoom in,
it should look awfully darn smooth
| | 01:51 |
and it does. So it looks really nice.
Actually, I'm going to move it just
| | 01:54 |
slightly onto the logo element there.
That probably won't sit well with my art
| | 01:58 |
director, but I'll take that risk.
| | 02:00 |
Now let's go back to Germ 1, because I
want to create another germ that's on
| | 02:04 |
this side of the guy's face. So,
might as well work from Germ 1, it doesn't
| | 02:06 |
matter which of the germs you work from
there. All are going to be instances of
| | 02:10 |
this single Smart Object, the way that
we're working right now. I'm going to
| | 02:13 |
take advantage of a different cloning
technique, I'm going to press the Ctrl
| | 02:16 |
and Alt keys or the Command and
Option keys on the Mac and drag this guy
| | 02:20 |
directly to a different location, like so.
| | 02:23 |
And there he is, Germ 1 copy. I'm
going to change his name to Germ 3, because
| | 02:28 |
that's who he is. Then this time around,
I'm going to press Ctrl+T or Command+T
| | 02:33 |
on the Mac to invoke Free Transform,
I'm going to rotate him this direction a
| | 02:36 |
little bit and I'm also going to warp
him. So let's go ahead and enter the Warp
| | 02:40 |
mode here by clicking on this little
icon in the Options bar, or if you have
| | 02:45 |
loaded DekeKeys, you can press Ctrl+
Shift+R or Command+Shift+R on the Mac.
| | 02:49 |
I'm going to drag up on his head a
little bit, to give him a little bit more of
| | 02:52 |
a volumetric form, and also make him
look like he's yelling ominously at this dude.
| | 02:56 |
But you don't want to go too wacky
with your warping because the guy ends up
| | 03:01 |
looking pretty choppy, pretty quickly.
So I'll press the Enter key in order
| | 03:04 |
to accept that modification and it
looks good. I think it actually looks pretty
| | 03:08 |
darn good. Every germ is kind of an
individual at this point. So that's nice!
| | 03:13 |
So far, because we've just been
taking advantage of standard cloning
| | 03:17 |
techniques, everyone of these germs
is linked to an original Smart Object
| | 03:22 |
that's embedded inside of this
photographic composition here. If you don't want
| | 03:28 |
that, if you want one of the germs for
example, yet another germ to be linked
| | 03:31 |
to a separate Smart Object, which will
of course get embedded into the larger
| | 03:35 |
composition, then you do this. You
go over. Let's go to Germ 1 again.
| | 03:39 |
I will right-click on Germ 1 in an
empty area of the layer. This would be a
| | 03:43 |
Ctrl-click, if you don't have a right
mouse button on the Mac. You would choose
| | 03:47 |
New Smart Object via Copy. So if you
choose that command, you will now separate
| | 03:52 |
to a new Smart Object. That's the key
right there. So I'll go ahead and choose
| | 03:56 |
that and then let's take this guy over here.
| | 03:59 |
What I want to do with him is I want to
put him behind the word germ and let's
| | 04:04 |
press Ctrl+T, Command+T on the Mac,
and make him smaller. I'm actually
| | 04:08 |
Shift+Alt+Dragging at this point or
Shift+Option+Dragging the corner handle so
| | 04:13 |
that I'm scaling the germ with respect
to the center. Then I'll move him into
| | 04:17 |
the g a little bit so that he now
becomes the frightened guy inside of this g
| | 04:21 |
and I'm rotating him in the place as well.
| | 04:24 |
I don't want him to stick out like
he is. Some of his little sort of
| | 04:27 |
doohickeys, whatever these things are,
are sticking out of the g ever so
| | 04:31 |
slightly. So I'll press the Enter key
or the Return key on the Mac in order to
| | 04:34 |
accept that transformation. Then I'll
go ahead and grab my Elliptical Marquee
| | 04:38 |
tool, and I'll surround this region
right there, so I'm staying inside the g,
| | 04:44 |
and I'll go ahead and apply that as
mask, by dropping down to the Add Layer
| | 04:48 |
Mask icon down at the
bottom of the Layers palette.
| | 04:51 |
I'll rename this layer; let's call this
one independent germ or something like that.
| | 04:56 |
We're not going to be able to see
that name because it's too long, but if
| | 04:59 |
I drag-open the palette, we can. So he
is independent germ, let's go ahead and
| | 05:02 |
put him at the top of the stack, so he's
right below the g. We'll see what that means.
| | 05:08 |
So far, we're just kind of doing things.
We haven't seen what the advantage to
| | 05:11 |
doing these things is. In the next
exercise, you will. We'll see how we can
| | 05:15 |
change all three of these germs in one
lickety-split operation, and this germ
| | 05:20 |
will stay the same. And
you'll see that, if you stay tuned!
| | 05:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a multilayer Smart Object| 00:00 | In this exercise, I'm going to show
you how we can modify a Smart Object and
| | 00:05 | gain access to pixel-level
modifications and even create a multilayer Smart
| | 00:10 | Object, if we want to. So multiple
layers inside of a single Smart Object
| | 00:13 | container. I've got ahead and saved my
changes as Horde o germs.psd, and I went
| | 00:19 | ahead and renamed this one layer right
there. He used to be called independent
| | 00:22 | germ, I changed his name to breakaway
because he really is a breakaway germ and
| | 00:26 | that's a shorter name, so I don't
have to have my Layers palette so wide.
| | 00:29 | So this guy is linked to a different
Smart Object because as you may recall, we
| | 00:33 | right-clicked in order to create that
Smart Object. We selected one of the
| | 00:37 | other ones, right-clicked on it and
chose this command right there, New Smart
| | 00:41 | Object via Copy. So
that's why he is a breakaway.
| | 00:44 | The others are straight clones, by
which I mea they are instances of a single
| | 00:49 | Smart Object. All right, so now let's
say my art director and I are getting
| | 00:53 | along a lot better, you'll be glad to
know. And we've decided that the add is
| | 00:57 | ready to go and we are showing it off
to the client and now the client totally
| | 01:01 | loses it, and they have got two big
problems. One is they love the germ that's
| | 01:05 | trapped inside the g, right there.
They love that. But they hate the other
| | 01:08 | germs because they are blue, so they
are matching the glistenex logo.
| | 01:11 | They ought to match the green of the word
germs and also they are not scary enough.
| | 01:15 | They need to have more terrifying
expressions. They are just too cute, the way
| | 01:19 | things are all right now.
| | 01:20 | So, imagine I had forty or fifty germs.
If I worked for Smart Objects, I would
| | 01:23 | have to edit every single one of the
germs independently. Thanks to the fact
| | 01:26 | that all these are the instances of a
single Smart Object with the exception of
| | 01:30 | breakaway here, which the client wants
to keep the same as it is. We can edit
| | 01:33 | them all at one fell swoop. But how?
How best to approach these? Well, the best
| | 01:38 | command for making these germs nice
and scary, it seems to me because I don't
| | 01:42 | want to have to redraw them would be
the Liquefy command, because I could use
| | 01:45 | the Liquefy filter in order to modify
the features, in order to make the eyes
| | 01:49 | smaller, and the eyebrows scarier and
the teeth bigger and that kind of thing.
| | 01:52 | The problem is I'll go to Germ 3 here,
just an arbitrary layer, just any one of
| | 01:57 | them is fine. If I go to the Filter
menu, you will see that Liquefy is dimmed
| | 02:01 | and so is Vanishing Point and so is,
for example, Lens Blur. And the reason
| | 02:06 | that they are dimmed is these guys
require direct access to the pixels.
| | 02:10 | That's the only way they function. And
that also goes for a few other commands,
| | 02:14 | as well as a few other tools.
| | 02:16 | So, for example, I wanted to heal this
fellow. If I went and got the Healing
| | 02:20 | Brush, which requires direct access
to pixels as well, I would get a little
| | 02:24 | Ghostbusters icon. I can't apply
directly to a Smart Object because when you
| | 02:27 | are working with the Smart Object, the
fact that you are able to do things like
| | 02:30 | applying nondestructive modifications
is great, but there is a little bit of a
| | 02:35 | penalty and that penalty is you do not have
direct access to pixel-level modifications.
| | 02:40 | If you want that, you've got to open up
the Smart Object in a separate window.
| | 02:44 | Okay, so I'll do that. I'll go over
to the Germ 3 layer. Again, it doesn't
| | 02:48 | matter which one of the three Germs
you open, but I'll go to Germ 3 and I'll
| | 02:52 | double-click on its thumbnail in
order to open that germ in an independent
| | 02:56 | window and now notice, I can't apply
the human brush because I do have direct
| | 03:00 | access to the pixels. But where I do
apply a transformation, which would be a
| | 03:05 | really dumb thing to do in this view, you
would now be applying destructive transformations.
| | 03:10 | So you either have one or the other,
you have direct pixel access are you have
| | 03:15 | nondestructive transformations and all
of the other wizardry that's associated
| | 03:18 | with Smart Objects. So in order to
regain access to the nondestructive
| | 03:22 | modifications, you would just move back to
the larger layered composition, right here.
| | 03:27 | All right, so anyway, I'm going to go
back to Germ 11, it's called for me.
| | 03:31 | It might be called Germ 1.psd. The idea is
when you open a Smart Object, Photoshop
| | 03:36 | has to create a temporary document
inside this Temp folder and it's going to
| | 03:40 | end in psd, but it's going to have an
arbitrary name, don't worry about that.
| | 03:43 | All right, I'm going to switch back to
my rectangular Marquee tool because the
| | 03:46 | command I want to use is Liquefy.
| | 03:48 | I am going to go up to the Filter
menu and choose Liquefy command, and that
| | 03:52 | brings up the big old Liquefy utility
right here, and then I would just start
| | 03:57 | making my changes, Right, I would make
his eyebrows really stern, right there
| | 04:02 | and I would increase the size of it's
mouth and I would make his tongue really long.
| | 04:05 | So it looks like he's got something
in his cheek that's scary and gives
| | 04:10 | him a really big chin.
| | 04:11 | Actually, what I think I'll do is
click on the Load Mesh button because I've
| | 04:15 | created a much more satisfactory mesh
in advance here and it's this one Angry
| | 04:20 | germ.msh. Go ahead and click on it and
then click Open, and you'll get this,
| | 04:25 | which I quite like.
| | 04:26 | This is looking good. And then
I'll click okay in order to apply that
| | 04:30 | modification and there he is, Oh! He's
so scary. All right, now I want to make
| | 04:34 | him green instead of cyan. So I'm
going to go to my adjustments palette right
| | 04:38 | there, expand it and I'll Alt-
click or Option-click on this little
| | 04:42 | Hue/Saturation icon, right there and
I'll call this skin to green, I think, it
| | 04:48 | will work for me and I'll click okay
and I'm now going to change the Hue value,
| | 04:53 | but If I change the Master Hue value,
to something like -51 let's say which
| | 04:58 | works nicely for changing his cyan
skin to green, then I also change his red
| | 05:02 | mouth to magenta and that's no good at all.
| | 05:05 | So let's undo the modification there.
Instead I'm going to take advantage of
| | 05:10 | the new Target Adjustment tool. I'll go
ahead and click on it to make it active
| | 05:13 | and then I'll Ctrl+Drag because I want
to change the Hue value or Command+Drag,
| | 05:18 | inside of the Germ's skin like so.
And so that's the Ctrl+Drag on a PC and
| | 05:23 | Command+Drag on a Mac, until I
changed that Hue value to -50. This time I'm
| | 05:27 | only affecting the cyan, so
I'm leaving the mouth alone.
| | 05:30 | Looks awesome. Now my point here is I
can have a multi-layered Smart Object if
| | 05:35 | I want. So you can create layers
inside
of this Smart Object container.
| | 05:39 | In the next exercise, we are going to see
how the moment we choose the Save command,
| | 05:44 | we update all of the instances in kind
and it really is worth seeing in its own
| | 05:49 | exercise, coming right up.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Updating multiple instances at once| 00:00 |
All right, in this exercise, we are
going to see what happens when we go ahead
| | 00:04 |
and save out our changes to the Smart
Object. Now I can't provide you with
| | 00:08 |
catch up documents for this exercise.
You will have had to perform the previous
| | 00:12 |
exercise in order to follow along with this one.
| | 00:15 |
Just an FYI for you, so I have got my
Smart Object opened here, my Germ and I
| | 00:20 |
have gone ahead and liquefied the
underlying the Germ layer, Germ 1 layer here
| | 00:25 |
and I have changed his skin tone
such as it were to green using a
| | 00:28 |
Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. I
want to see both the Germ and the Horde o
| | 00:32 |
germs.psd composition at the same time.
| | 00:35 |
So I'm going to go ahead and switch to
the 2 Up display right here and I can
| | 00:40 |
make the green germ window a
little smaller and then I'll Ctrl+Tab or
| | 00:44 |
Command+Tilde on the Mac in order to
switch over to the Horde o germs.psd image
| | 00:50 |
and scroll it up just a little bit.
And you will see that so far I haven't
| | 00:53 |
changed a single germ, every one of my
germs looks exactly the same as it did
| | 00:56 |
before, including the
breakaway germ. So all four of them.
| | 00:59 |
All right, let's switch back to Germ 11.
psb in my case. In your case, probably
| | 01:05 |
called Germ 1.psb and then I'm going to
go up to the File menu and I'm going to
| | 01:09 |
choose the Save command. Don't choose
Save As. That will break the link to the
| | 01:13 |
original composition. You want to save
but bear in mind you are not saving to disk.
| | 01:18 |
The standard save is not occurring here.
What you are doing is you are
| | 01:21 |
updating the Smart Object inside of
the larger composition. So you are saving
| | 01:26 |
from this image into this image.
| | 01:28 |
All right, so I'll go ahead and
choose the Save command or press Ctrl+S,
| | 01:31 |
Command+S on the Mac and watch what
happens. Watch the screen here. You will
| | 01:35 |
see that these three germs go ahead
and update every single one of the them.
| | 01:38 |
But the little breakaway germ who is
linked to a separate Smart Object, he
| | 01:43 |
stays the same. All right, great.
| | 01:44 |
Now I'll go ahead and close the big
old mean old germ, which is the Smart
| | 01:49 |
Object itself, and I'll reveal all
these guys. Let's go ahead and complete our
| | 01:53 |
advertisement at this point. We have
got this Extras g |
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