IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am Ben Long, and welcome to
Photoshop CS5 for Landscape Photographers.
| | 00:11 | Getting out into the wilds can be a
great adventure, and while you have to work
| | 00:14 | hard in the field to get a good shot,
very often the real work of a landscape
| | 00:18 | photographer doesn't begin
until you are back at home.
| | 00:22 | Landscapes are difficult subjects to
capture in camera, and you will frequently
| | 00:25 | need to train Photoshop on your
images to get the results that you want.
| | 00:29 | In this course, we are going to use
Photoshop CS5 to create finished landscape images.
| | 00:35 | We will begin with the discussion of
gear, and a quick look at some important
| | 00:39 | landscape-specific shooting tips.
| | 00:41 | After a discussion of RAW and some
workflow issues, we will go over Photoshop's
| | 00:45 | histogram, an essential tool
for the landscape photographer.
| | 00:49 | Next, we will introduce you to the
Image Editing Workflow of the photographer,
| | 00:53 | as we work our way through cropping, retouching,
lens correction and tone and color adjustment.
| | 00:59 | Along the way, we will explore what
landscape-specific troubles you may find and
| | 01:04 | how to correct them.
| | 01:05 | Panoramas and HDR images are now
standard tools in the photographer's arsenal,
| | 01:10 | and we will look at both shooting and
post-processing techniques for these
| | 01:13 | essential procedures, as well as black-
and-white conversion, another option for
| | 01:17 | expanding your photographic vocabulary.
| | 01:20 | For landscape work, I use a small,
very refined set of techniques.
| | 01:24 | When these are backed up by an
understanding of certain principles, you get a
| | 01:28 | very robust landscape editing toolkit.
| | 01:31 | To that end, we will be spending a lot
of time discussing light, shadow, and
| | 01:35 | how to see a landscape.
| | 01:37 | So if you are ready let's get
started with Photoshop CS5 for
| | 01:42 | Landscape Photographers.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a premium subscriber to the
lynda Online Training Library, you have
| | 00:05 | access to the accompanying exercise files.
| | 00:08 | A good way to handle these is to download them
to a folder on your desktop, like I have here.
| | 00:13 | You will find a separate
subfolder for each chapter.
| | 00:16 | Whenever you see me open a new file in
a movie, and there is an accompanying
| | 00:21 | exercise file available for that movie,
you will see a yellow overlay on your
| | 00:25 | screen, which indicates
the location of that file.
| | 00:27 | There are two ways you
can go through this course.
| | 00:30 | You can follow in sequence, and when you
do that, you will be ensured that as you
| | 00:35 | move through an image as it progresses
through each lesson, you will always have
| | 00:39 | the most up-to-date version.
| | 00:41 | But if you want to jump in in the
middle and go in a nonlinear fashion, then
| | 00:46 | you need to be sure that within the chapter
folder you open the appropriate subfolder.
| | 00:51 | So, for example, if you're doing the
Basic Tonal Correction lesson in Chapter
| | 00:55 | 02, you want to use this file.
| | 00:58 | We only have subfolders for lessons
that involve raw files, and this has to do
| | 01:02 | with the way that edits are saved with
raw files, and you are going to learn all
| | 01:06 | about that when we talk about RAW.
| | 01:08 | Sometimes, though, you might find that
you will get just as much, or even more
| | 01:12 | value, by following along with
your own images. This is fine.
| | 01:15 | If you find that we are talking about a
problem that you've already seen in one
| | 01:19 | of your own images, grab that image,
open up, and follow along with that.
| | 01:24 | You will probably find the techniques
we're discussing move with no problem
| | 01:28 | into your own images.
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1. Getting StartedDefining landscape photography| 00:00 | Landscape photography can
be a tricky thing to define.
| | 00:03 | This is plainly a landscape
photograph, and so is this.
| | 00:09 | But what about this, or this?
| | 00:13 | The problem we are trying to define
landscape photography is that what one
| | 00:16 | person calls a landscape photo,
another might consider to be an environmental
| | 00:21 | portrait or an urban
landscape or a wildlife photo.
| | 00:25 | For this course, we are going to
take more of a classic view of landscape
| | 00:28 | photography and work primarily with
shots where the landscape is the main
| | 00:32 | subject of the image.
| | 00:33 | Our work will be centered on photos
whose subject matter is built out of vistas,
| | 00:37 | natural features, and sometimes man-made
features that are now part of the scene.
| | 00:42 | There are many reasons that you might
choose to shoot a specific landscape.
| | 00:46 | Sometimes a place stirs such emotions
in you that you want to try to express
| | 00:50 | those feelings through an image.
| | 00:52 | At other times, you might simply want
to report on a location, show it off to
| | 00:55 | other people when you get home.
| | 00:57 | And then there are times when a scene
catches your eye simply because of formal
| | 01:02 | elements, a play of light or
shadow, or geometry within the scene.
| | 01:07 | These are all excellent reasons for
choosing to take on a shot, for there are no
| | 01:11 | right or wrong ways to select
landscape subject matter, just as there are no
| | 01:15 | exact "right" or "wrong"
definitions of landscape photography.
| | 01:19 | If you've never shot landscapes before,
but have done other types of shooting,
| | 01:23 | you will probably find that most
of what you know still applies.
| | 01:26 | Landscapes might present different
exposure concerns than what you're used to,
| | 01:30 | and while you probably won't have to
worry about approaching strangers or
| | 01:33 | stopping fast-moving action, you will
need to think about weather and gear
| | 01:37 | selection, and you might have to pack
some things in your bag that you wouldn't
| | 01:41 | take to a location
that's closer to civilization.
| | 01:44 | As with any other type of photography,
your primary concern will be light, and
| | 01:48 | your most important
practice will be to shoot a lot.
| | 01:51 | Good landscape photos are often
discovered as much as they are crafted, and you
| | 01:54 | will stand a much better chance of
finding an image if you maximize the time you
| | 01:58 | spend looking through your camera's Viewfinder.
| | 02:01 | For the most part, no matter what
your precise definition of landscape
| | 02:05 | photography, and no matter how you
choose your subject matter, the technical
| | 02:08 | concerns of landscape
photography will be the same.
| | 02:11 | We'll be exploring both the
technical and artistic sides of landscape
| | 02:15 | photography in this course, and when
you're done, you should have a better idea
| | 02:18 | of how to find shots and how to
compose and work them into a finished image.
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| Considering cameras and gear| 00:00 | Ahh - the great outdoors, fresh air,
stunning vistas, the chance to feel part of
| | 00:08 | something larger than yourself,
and an excuse to by new photo gear.
| | 00:15 | All that artsy-fartsy stuff is important of
course, but who doesn't like to talk about gear?
| | 00:18 | What we're going to talk about now are
the landscape-specific issues that you
| | 00:23 | need to consider when you are choosing
your photo gear, everything from cameras
| | 00:26 | to the other things that you might need.
| | 00:29 | Of course, first and foremost,
camera choice is going to be your critical
| | 00:32 | decision in whether you already
have a camera, and you are thinking of
| | 00:34 | upgrading, or you're shopping for a
new camera. You are going to have some
| | 00:38 | difficult decisions ahead of you.
| | 00:40 | Cameras fall into pretty
much three different categories:
| | 00:43 | There are SLRs, there a point-and-shoot
cameras, and there is a new option that
| | 00:47 | we will look at in a minute.
| | 00:49 | An SLR is what you think of as the old-
fashioned typical 35 millimeter kind of camera.
| | 00:56 | They are typically identified by the
fact that they have removable lenses.
| | 01:00 | SLRs also are a particular way of shooting.
| | 01:02 | You've got to bring the camera all the
way up to your eye and block out the rest
| | 01:06 | of the world and really focus on your shot.
| | 01:09 | In digital cameras, SLRs come now in two flavors.
| | 01:13 | There are cameras like this, which have
a full frame sensor. That means a sensor
| | 01:18 | that is actually the size of
the piece of 35 millimeter film.
| | 01:20 | And then there are SLRs that have
what are called a cropped sensor, sometimes
| | 01:24 | referred to as an APS-sized sensor,
because it's the size of the piece of APS film.
| | 01:30 | The advantage of a full frame sensor
is that you are going to be able to
| | 01:34 | shoot with a shallower depth of field than you
will with an APS-sized sensor, or a cropped sensor.
| | 01:39 | The smaller the sensor size, the deeper the
inherent depth of field is in your image.
| | 01:44 | So your first big decision is going
to be to decide, do I want a full frame
| | 01:47 | sensorm, or do I want crop sensor?
| | 01:50 | The advantages of a full frame sensor
are, as I said, a more film-like image,
| | 01:54 | the possibly for a shallower or depth
of field, and there is just an extra
| | 01:56 | something that they have, that it's
kind of difficult to put your finger on.
| | 01:59 | The disadvantage is they are more
expensive, they are heavy, and they are
| | 02:04 | just physically larger.
| | 02:05 | Your lenses are to be bigger.
| | 02:06 | The camera itself is bigger.
| | 02:08 | The advantage of a crop sensor camera is
less expensive, smaller lenses, lighter
| | 02:12 | weight, but if you really want the
opportunity for shallow depth of field, the
| | 02:16 | ability to really blur out backgrounds
behind things, then you are not going to
| | 02:21 | have as much latitude as you
do with a full frame sensor.
| | 02:23 | Now with landscapes, we very often
want a very deep depth of field, and in that
| | 02:27 | regard a smaller sensor
camera might be a good option.
| | 02:31 | Some other things you want, and some of
the other advantages of depth of field,
| | 02:34 | are more manual control.
| | 02:36 | With an SLR, you're always going to
have the ability to go into a full
| | 02:39 | manual mode, or what are called
priority modes, which give you more control
| | 02:43 | over aperture and shutter speed.
Basically, you are going to have more creative control.
| | 02:47 | Finally, probably the biggest
advantage of an SLR over any other type of
| | 02:51 | camera is image quality.
| | 02:53 | Because of their larger sensors, SLR
is going to deliver better image quality
| | 02:57 | than a smaller camera.
| | 02:59 | They have a better signal-to-noise
ratio, which means they'll do better in
| | 03:02 | low light, and they usually have a
higher dynamic range, and the ability to
| | 03:06 | deliver more color.
| | 03:07 | So if you're really a stickler for image
quality, an SLR is going to be the way to go.
| | 03:13 | When you are shopping, you want to - in
your budget - remember that in addition to
| | 03:16 | the camera body, you've got to invest in lenses.
| | 03:19 | So you want to work that into
some of your budgetary choices.
| | 03:22 | A point-and-shoot camera has the
advantage of being very, very small.
| | 03:27 | Point-and-shoot cameras are easy to
carry with you, and a camera is only good if
| | 03:30 | you have it with you, but you are
going to want to think very carefully about
| | 03:34 | your point-and-shoot choice, because point
-and-shoot cameras can really suffer in
| | 03:38 | terms of image quality.
| | 03:40 | Ideally, you want the same types of
manual controls you will find on an SLR.
| | 03:44 | This is a Canon PowerShot S90.
| | 03:46 | It's a fine example of a point-
and-shoot camera that's good for
| | 03:49 | landscape shooting.
| | 03:50 | It's got full manual modes.
| | 03:52 | Most importantly, you can shoot raw,
which we're going to talk about later.
| | 03:55 | It's got an excellent ability to shoot
at high ISOs, meaning you can work in low
| | 03:59 | light, and you have more creative
latitude when the sun starts going down, and
| | 04:03 | you are shooting in shade.
| | 04:06 | Again, if you are backpacking, this is a
great camera, because it doesn't weigh anything.
| | 04:09 | You don't get the removable lenses, so
you don't have that flexibility, you can't
| | 04:12 | shoot in extremely low light, and
because it's a very small camera, it has a very
| | 04:16 | small sensor, which means
inherently deep depth of field.
| | 04:20 | So again, if you're wanting to do
blurring out backgrounds behind flowers and
| | 04:25 | things like that, this is
not to be the best choice.
| | 04:27 | You can do what I do, and you can
carry both of them, which is maybe a little
| | 04:30 | greedy, but it's great for those times
where if you are laden with gear, and
| | 04:33 | you can't get your SLR, you can maybe keep
this in a pocket that's very easy to get to.
| | 04:39 | There is a new option in the camera
world, and that is something called a
| | 04:42 | Micro Four Thirds camera.
| | 04:44 | It sits somewhere between
an SLR, and a Point-and-Shoot.
| | 04:47 | This is an example.
| | 04:48 | Micro Four Thirds is a standard that
has been agreed upon by a few vendors,
| | 04:53 | including Panasonic and Olympus, and
both Panasonic and Olympus make excellent
| | 04:56 | Micro Four Thirds cameras.
| | 04:58 | The hallmark of the Micro Four Thirds
camera is it's small, much smaller than my
| | 05:03 | SLR, but it still has removable lenses.
| | 05:07 | What differs between this and an SLR is
it's not a reflex - the R part isn't there.
| | 05:12 | If I take off the lens, you'll see
there is no mirror inside, the way there is
| | 05:16 | with an SLR. That means I don't
actually have an optical viewfinder that looks
| | 05:21 | through the lens, the way I do with an SLR.
| | 05:23 | Instead, I am always using my viewfinder.
| | 05:26 | So if you're not comfortable with this
type of shooting, where I'm looking at the
| | 05:29 | screen, this may not be the best choice.
| | 05:32 | For landscape shooting, it can be a
little tricky because if you're shooting into
| | 05:36 | bright light, it's going to be
very difficult to see the screen.
| | 05:38 | Fortunately, both Olympus and Panasonic
make clip-on viewfinders that allow you to
| | 05:43 | get more of an SLR type experience.
| | 05:45 | So the advantages are very
small, very light weight.
| | 05:48 | They're still a little pricy, and that's
partly because they're new. Their prices
| | 05:51 | will most likely be coming down, but
small camera, very lightweight, very
| | 05:55 | lightweight lenses, but
still excellent image quality.
| | 05:58 | The sensor is not as big as an SLR, but
it's still bigger than a point-and-shoot
| | 06:02 | camera, so you are going to have
better dynamic range, less noise.
| | 06:06 | These are wonderful compromises
between an SLR and a point-and-shoot.
| | 06:10 | Camera is not the only gear you've got
to decide about, of course. There are a
| | 06:15 | lot of other things you've got to take
with you into the field, and probably the
| | 06:18 | most important for a landscape
shooter is going to be a tripod,
| | 06:22 | both because there are times when you
need simply to get a stable shot in wind
| | 06:25 | or there are times when you want
to use very, very long exposures.
| | 06:29 | There is a wealth of options in tripods.
| | 06:31 | Where you want to start is with a
tripod that has a removable head.
| | 06:34 | This gives you the option of
customizing the tripod in a way that you like.
| | 06:38 | This tripod legs come in
lots of different materials.
| | 06:42 | This is a carbon fiber tripod, and the
advantages of carbon fiber are carbon
| | 06:47 | fiber is very light, but still very strong.
| | 06:50 | When I bought this tripod, one
of the advantages they cited was,
| | 06:53 | "Carbon fiber is so strong you could run over
this tripod with your car," and I thought, "Great.
| | 06:58 | When am I ever going to need to
run over my tripod with my car?"
| | 07:01 | What I hadn't counted on though was
the time I ran over my tripod with my car,
| | 07:05 | and sure enough, it survived with no problem.
| | 07:06 | I have been using this tripod ever since.
| | 07:09 | This is the head of the tripod.
| | 07:10 | This is what your camera attaches to.
They typically just screw right on the top.
| | 07:14 | The reason you like the ability to
customize, to have a separate head and tripod,
| | 07:17 | is I can choose the legs that I want, which
in this case are legs that are small and light.
| | 07:22 | I can backpack with this tripod, and yet
still have a head that works the way that I want.
| | 07:27 | This is a ball head, which means there
is just one control, and the camera can
| | 07:31 | rotate freely around on it.
| | 07:33 | I prefer this for photography to what
you typically find on, say, a video tripod
| | 07:37 | where you have separate locks
for pan, tilt and at each axis.
| | 07:42 | Also, what I like about
this tripod is it's all open.
| | 07:45 | It's very easy to clean, and it turns
out you can run over this tripod head with
| | 07:48 | a car, and it will still work, which
has proven to me to be very important.
| | 07:52 | For me, first and foremost, the main
factor in my tripod choice is weight because
| | 07:56 | I'm carrying it around.
| | 07:57 | I am hiking with it.
| | 07:58 | So a nice light tripod is an excellent
choice. That typically means you are going
| | 08:02 | to give up some height.
| | 08:04 | This tripod does not go particularly tall.
| | 08:07 | So if you're expecting a tripod that's
going to come right up to eye level, you
| | 08:10 | are not going to get that in a light tripod.
| | 08:13 | So a lot of people think, "Well, that's okay.
| | 08:14 | There is this center column that goes up."
| | 08:16 | Well, bear in mind that if I pull all
these legs out, my tripod gets to about here.
| | 08:22 | Sure enough, I could raise the center
column and put my camera on it, but I'm
| | 08:27 | for the most part now using a monopod.
| | 08:29 | This may be a little more stable than
a monopod that I would just be holding,
| | 08:32 | but if it's very, very windy out, this
is not going to be particularly stable.
| | 08:35 | So you typically want to avoid heavy
use of this in bad conditions, but one
| | 08:39 | thing you want to look for in a
tripod is the option for a hook down here,
| | 08:44 | because I can set my tripod up here
attach a hook to it and then hang my camera
| | 08:48 | bag from it, and I will
get a whole lot of stability.
| | 08:49 | I am kind of a nerd about tripods.
| | 08:53 | You would think that, well it's not --
it's just a tripod, but there is a lot
| | 08:55 | of really interesting tripod technology out
there that you can really kind of geek out over.
| | 09:00 | Those are the types of things that
you will carry with you, but there is a
| | 09:02 | lot of other gear that will stay back in your
car, or in your camp, that's just as important.
| | 09:06 | You are going to be out in
the field for a long time.
| | 09:08 | You are going to need to
think about battery power.
| | 09:11 | All of these cameras these days
have exceptionally long-life batteries.
| | 09:14 | I can shoot for a week with this SLR,
and not have a problem, but if you are
| | 09:18 | shooting heavy, if you are
viewing your images a lot on the back,
| | 09:21 | you're probably going to need an extra
battery or a way to charge the battery you have.
| | 09:25 | Solar-powered battery chargers are a
great option because they can also be used
| | 09:29 | to recharge your iPod and your cell
phone and your GPS, and whatever else you
| | 09:32 | may have brought with you.
| | 09:33 | Another option is if you're touring
by car, or driving around to a lot of
| | 09:37 | different places, find a third-
party battery charger that offers a
| | 09:40 | cigarette lighter adapter. Then you can
charge your battery while you're driving around,
| | 09:44 | and always have enough power.
| | 09:47 | The other thing, of course, that
you need to consider is storage.
| | 09:51 | Flash cards are much cheaper than they
used to be, so you can just load up with
| | 09:54 | lots of storage that way.
| | 09:56 | Another option is a digital wallet type device.
| | 09:58 | This is a little portable hard drive
that's powered by batteries and has an
| | 10:02 | interface built into it, so I just
stick the card in the drive, hit a button,
| | 10:05 | and all of my images are copied to the drive.
| | 10:07 | That can be another great
option for field storage.
| | 10:11 | If you are really gutsy, you can just
take a computer with you an offload
| | 10:14 | your pictures that way, but that's
typically more weight than you want to be carrying.
| | 10:18 | Obviously, what matters more than gear
is how you use your camera, but it's a
| | 10:23 | shame to get out there and have your
skills and see the great shot and be
| | 10:25 | betrayed by your gear because you end
up with shots that are too noisy, or you
| | 10:28 | can't hold the camera
steady and so on and so forth.
| | 10:31 | So gear won't necessarily take a bad
photographer and make them great, but it
| | 10:35 | will keep you from getting hamstrung
when you are out in the field and you
| | 10:38 | find that great image.
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| Shooting and composition tips | 00:00 | You know those annoying textbooks and
training videos that begin the explanation
| | 00:05 | of a subject by telling you the original
derivation of the name of that subject?
| | 00:09 | This is one of those videos, but the
fact is, the most important thing that
| | 00:13 | anyone needs to know about
photography is included in the word itself.
| | 00:18 | Photography derives from photos, the
Greek word for light, and graphia, roughly
| | 00:23 | the Greek word for writing.
| | 00:25 | You can read the word
then as writing with light.
| | 00:29 | Light is the raw material of all photography.
| | 00:32 | You cannot have a photo without light
any more than you can have music without air.
| | 00:37 | And learning to pay attention to and
think about light is the most essential
| | 00:41 | skill a landscape photographer can learn,
or any type of photographer for that matter.
| | 00:47 | Light and shadow are the essence of photographs.
| | 00:49 | They are what comprise texture, and the
interplay between them can guide the viewer's
| | 00:53 | eye through your image.
| | 00:54 | While the color quality of light in your
scene can have a profound emotional impact.
| | 01:00 | All photos begin with light.
| | 01:03 | So for landscapes your light source
will always be the sun, even if you are
| | 01:07 | shooting by moonlight, because the moon
merely reflects the light of the sun.
| | 01:13 | Sun is a very good light source.
| | 01:14 | It's bright, it's even, and it sits in
a place where our brains expect like to
| | 01:18 | come from, up in the sky.
| | 01:20 | Very often a landscape photo is not
actually a photo of a particular landscape,
| | 01:24 | but of the light that's hitting it.
| | 01:26 | In other words, it's often the light
that makes a landscape striking, not
| | 01:30 | the landscape itself.
| | 01:32 | Good light can make an otherwise boring
scene into something more interesting.
| | 01:39 | The easiest way to learn to recognize
good light is to tilt things in your favor
| | 01:42 | by shooting early in the
day or late in the afternoon.
| | 01:45 | In the middle of the day, the sun shines
from overhead, as opposed to earlier and
| | 01:50 | later in the day, when it
shines at a more extreme angle.
| | 01:54 | Angled light casts longer shadows,
which makes for more pronounced textures and
| | 01:58 | more variation in light and
dark throughout your image.
| | 02:02 | Afternoon light is also warmer, which can
lend a lush, reddish-orange glow to your images.
| | 02:08 | Going out with these hours greatly
improves your chances of finding good
| | 02:11 | subject matter, but you must work fast because
the light changes quickly during these times.
| | 02:17 | Good pictures can be taken under any
light, and overcast, low contrast light can
| | 02:22 | also yield good results.
| | 02:24 | But finding compelling subject
matter is much easier in the earlier and
| | 02:28 | later parts of the day.
| | 02:30 | Many people think that to shoot good
landscapes, you need a very wide angle lens
| | 02:34 | to capture as much of vista as
possible, but that's very rarely true.
| | 02:38 | Your job as a landscape
photographer is to represent.
| | 02:41 | So very often, rather than trying to
capture the enormity of a scene, such as this
| | 02:47 | dune field - sand dune field in
Death Valley's Panamint Valley,
| | 02:51 | it's better to get in close and
capture a representative sample of the scene.
| | 02:55 | This creates a simpler image that's
easier for the viewer to understand, yet can
| | 02:59 | still be evocative of the
grandeur or the emotion of the location.
| | 03:04 | Compositionally, you'll employ the same
ideas that you do in any type of shooting
| | 03:08 | when you're shooting landscapes.
| | 03:10 | You usually need to frame your shots
with a definite subject and background.
| | 03:14 | You need to use compositional ideas to
try to guide the viewer's eye, so that
| | 03:19 | they are not lost in your image.
| | 03:21 | Now, a detailed discussion of landscape
shooting is beyond the scope of this course.
| | 03:26 | This is about Photoshop and post-
production, but there is one piece of advice
| | 03:29 | that I'd like to give you.
| | 03:31 | When you are out shooting, obviously, you
need to have a good grasp of exposure theory.
| | 03:35 | You need to know aperture and shutter
speed and ISO reciprocity and the effect
| | 03:39 | of different focal lengths,
and all sorts of other stuff.
| | 03:42 | We can't go into all of that now,
but I can guarantee that more than an
| | 03:46 | understanding of those things, what's
going to make the greatest difference in
| | 03:50 | your photography is learning to work a shot,
and by that I mean simply shooting a lot.
| | 03:57 | I don't mean just pointing your camera
in every different direction, but when
| | 03:59 | you find a subject, working it,
trying to get a lot of coverage out of it.
| | 04:04 | People think that a National
Geographic Photographer goes and sees a scene,
| | 04:09 | takes a picture of it that's perfect, and goes
home to acclaim and fanfare. That's not true.
| | 04:15 | They work the shot.
| | 04:16 | They shoot hundreds of
images to get 12 keepers, maybe.
| | 04:19 | Here is an example.
| | 04:20 | I was in Panamint Valley, and I'd
spotted this little cloud up here, and I think
| | 04:26 | partly what struck my eye about the
cloud was that mirroring it down below was
| | 04:29 | this dark, roughly of the same
shape, and so I took this picture.
| | 04:33 | I thought, I don't know if
there is a picture there.
| | 04:36 | Then I thought maybe there is
something to do with these bushes.
| | 04:39 | So I zoomed in closer to compose it a
little bit, thinking that maybe I'd play
| | 04:42 | these two things off of
each other, and I don't know.
| | 04:45 | I still kept working.
| | 04:46 | I moved to the bushes out of the way.
| | 04:48 | And in doing so, I took a shot and realized,
oh look, there is this little rock down here.
| | 04:52 | It's a real dark counterpoint to the
light fluffy cloud up here, but they
| | 04:55 | are not quite lined up.
| | 04:57 | So I took a step to the left and shot again.
| | 05:00 | Ultimately, this turned
out to be my keeper image.
| | 05:03 | When I got back home and found this -
I'd forgotten I'd taken it, even -
| | 05:06 | looking through my images, I found this.
| | 05:08 | I started to do some things to it.
| | 05:10 | I increased the contrast.
| | 05:11 | I did some saturation work on the sky
and some other things, but ultimately I
| | 05:15 | decided color was distracting in his image.
| | 05:18 | This is an image about luminance and tone,
so I turned it into a black-and-white
| | 05:22 | image, cropped it a little bit
differently, and this became my finished image.
| | 05:26 | But even this shot did not come just
from those half-dozen images because after
| | 05:30 | I took this picture - I didn't
realize this until I was looking through my
| | 05:33 | thumbnails and bridge -
| | 05:36 | after I took this picture, I kept shooting.
| | 05:38 | I waited until the cloud got smaller
and shot it that way, because I could see
| | 05:42 | that the clouds were
changing shape very quickly.
| | 05:45 | I moved to the rock out of the way, or
got to a place where the rock wasn't, and
| | 05:48 | put this texture in the foreground.
| | 05:49 | In other words, I just shot and shot and
shot, with no idea of any of the images
| | 05:53 | were keepers or not, but when I got
home I found the one that worked and was
| | 05:57 | able to turn into a shot.
| | 05:59 | This is how you have to
treat all of your subject matter.
| | 06:02 | We're going to be talking about this,
and lots of other shooting things, during
| | 06:06 | the course of our post-production work,
because shooting and post-production are
| | 06:09 | tied very closely together.
| | 06:11 | When you are shooting, you need part of
brain in Photoshop already thinking about
| | 06:16 | how you might turn this shot a
particular way, thinking about the possibilities
| | 06:20 | of the shot or the scene based on
what you know you can do in Photoshop.
| | 06:24 | This is nothing new about digital.
| | 06:26 | Film photographers worked this way for years.
| | 06:28 | Ansel Adams when he was exposing a shot,
exposed it a particular way because he
| | 06:32 | knew he would be able to
process in a particular way.
| | 06:35 | You're going to learn to do that
too, through the rest of this course.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why you should shoot raw instead of JPEG| 00:00 | By default, your camera comes
configured to shoot JPEG images,
| | 00:04 | but if you're working with a digital
SLR or an advanced point-and-shoot, you
| | 00:08 | probably also have the
option to shoot in RAW format.
| | 00:12 | While JPEG images can yield great
quality, every bit as good as RAW, RAW has
| | 00:16 | quite a few advantages when it
comes to editing and adjustment.
| | 00:19 | However, before we get to those
advantages, let's talk about what RAW is not.
| | 00:23 | Shooting in RAW will not yield images
with more detail or better sharpness,
| | 00:28 | nor will you see richer or brighter
colors or an expansion of dynamic range.
| | 00:32 | Shooting RAW simply gives you some
different editing features, and the ability
| | 00:36 | to push your edits farther without
seeing certain types of image degradation.
| | 00:40 | When you shoot in JPEG mode, the
sensor in your camera records data that
| | 00:43 | represents the various
light levels in your scene.
| | 00:46 | To turn that data into a final image,
the camera's onboard computer has to do a
| | 00:50 | lot of gnarly calculations,
| | 00:52 | everything from interpolating color to
calibrating the color of the image for
| | 00:55 | the type of light you were shooting in
to applying contrast, sharpening, and
| | 00:59 | possibly saturation.
| | 01:01 | Finally, to make maximum use of your
storage card, the image is compressed using
| | 01:04 | an algorithm that can leave
visible artifacts in your final image.
| | 01:08 | When you shoot in RAW format, the data is
read off of the sensor and stored on the card.
| | 01:13 | That's it! The camera doesn't touch the data at all;
| | 01:16 | instead, all of that processing that
the camera performs when shooting in JPEG
| | 01:20 | mode is skipped so that you can
perform those steps yourself on your computer
| | 01:24 | using RAW conversion software.
| | 01:26 | Because you have controlled the conversion
process, there are several advantages to RAW.
| | 01:30 | First, your desktop RAW converter might
very well do a better job of conversion,
| | 01:34 | and yield better quality
images than your camera.
| | 01:37 | What's more, if a better RAW converter
comes along later, you can simply reprocess
| | 01:41 | your original RAW files.
| | 01:43 | That's the case with CS5.
| | 01:44 | Adobe has dramatically
improved the RAW converter,
| | 01:47 | so it's exciting to go back to older
images and try them with the new version.
| | 01:50 | But most importantly, when you
shoot in RAW, you gain access to editing
| | 01:53 | functions that are not
possible with JPEG images.
| | 01:56 | For example, this image has a
bit of a white balance problem.
| | 01:59 | It's just a little bit too cool.
| | 02:01 | There are some ways that I can warm
that up with a JPEG image, but I don't have
| | 02:05 | the flexibility with JPEG that I do with
RAW to radically skew my white balance.
| | 02:10 | What's more, radically skewing white
balance in a JPEG image could leave a
| | 02:14 | visibly degraded image.
| | 02:16 | With RAW, there is no price to
pay for adjusting white balance.
| | 02:19 | Here is another problem image.
| | 02:22 | Look at these highlights up here in
the sky. They've blown out to complete white.
| | 02:25 | With a RAW file, I stand a good chance of
recovering, and you're going to see that later.
| | 02:29 | There are other advantages to RAW.
| | 02:31 | RAW allows a greater bit depth for an image.
| | 02:34 | That means there is more data in your file.
| | 02:36 | That means you can perform more edits and
push them farther than you can with a JPEG image.
| | 02:41 | With the JPEG, you'll often see
your image start to fall apart.
| | 02:44 | You'll see bending and big flat areas of color.
| | 02:47 | That won't happen as quickly with a RAW file.
| | 02:50 | If you're not sure if your camera has
RAW, go to the menu on your camera where
| | 02:54 | you pick JPEG quality.
| | 02:56 | If there is a RAW option in there,
activate it, and you're shooting RAW. That's it.
| | 03:00 | Everything else works the same way.
| | 03:01 | You can also consult your camera's manual.
| | 03:04 | You may find that your
camera has a RAW plus JPEG option.
| | 03:07 | This means every time you take a picture,
the camera saves a RAW file and a JPEG file.
| | 03:13 | For landscape shooting, I can't really give
you an advantage to shooting RAW plus JPEG.
| | 03:17 | It takes up more storage,
and it slows your camera down.
| | 03:21 | If you're an event shooter, and you're
covering say a sporting event, and you
| | 03:24 | need to very quickly turn pictures in at
half time, say, then RAW plus JPEG can be
| | 03:30 | very valuable, because you can quickly
go through your JPEGs and turn those in.
| | 03:33 | If there is an image that you can't
easily correct in JPEG, you've got a
| | 03:37 | RAW file there for you.
| | 03:38 | So for landscape shooting, I don't
really see a point to shooting RAW plus JPEG.
| | 03:42 | If you're out in the field for a long
time, you're already worrying about how
| | 03:45 | you're going to manage your storage.
| | 03:46 | Why make it worse by shooting extra data?
| | 03:49 | RAW format is useful to landscape
shooters for all of these reasons.
| | 03:53 | While white balance is not as critical
as it can be for those shooting indoors,
| | 03:57 | highlight recovery, and expanded
dynamic range are fantastic advantages for
| | 04:00 | shooting landscapes, which tend
to have an incredibly wide range of
| | 04:03 | brightness variation.
| | 04:05 | With highlight recovery, you'll be able
to restore detailed over exposed skies,
| | 04:08 | while the expanded dynamic rrange will
help you preserve noise-free shadows.
| | 04:12 | You can shoot good images with JPEG, but
if you have a camera with RAW format, I
| | 04:17 | strongly recommend that you give it a try,
because you will have an extra safety
| | 04:20 | net that you just don't have when
you're working with a non-RAW format.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making selects | 00:00 | In the old days of landscape photography,
photographers returned from a shoot,
| | 00:04 | developed their film, and then made contact
sheets, pages of simple thumbnail of their images.
| | 00:09 | From these contact sheets, they
selected the images that would then go through
| | 00:13 | a whole postproduction process.
Because enlarging a print takes time on
| | 00:17 | expensive chemicals,
| | 00:18 | it was important to winnow a shoot down
to only the select shots before beginning
| | 00:22 | serious postproduction work.
| | 00:24 | Digital photography is no different.
| | 00:26 | When you return from your shoot, you'll
first transfer your images to your computer and
| | 00:30 | then determine which images are the
ones you want to take through the rest of
| | 00:33 | your postproduction process.
| | 00:35 | These select images, what some people
called picks or hero images, are the shots
| | 00:40 | that you'll actually edit, correct,
adjust, and ultimately output.
| | 00:44 | If you already have a workflow that
you like, you'll probably find that it's
| | 00:47 | fine for landscape shooting,
| | 00:48 | though there may be one or two
things you want to consider adding.
| | 00:51 | If you don't have a workflow,
I have some suggestions.
| | 00:54 | Photoshop comes bundled with an excellent
organization workflow tool called Bridge.
| | 00:59 | Bridge CS5 has some cool new
features that make it an even better tool.
| | 01:04 | One of the nicest things about Bridge is
that it can manage that copying of your
| | 01:08 | original images over to your computer.
| | 01:10 | It does that through something
called the Adobe Photo Downloader.
| | 01:14 | In Bridge, if you go up to the File
menu and choose Get Photos from Camera, the
| | 01:20 | Adobe Photo Downloader will launch.
| | 01:22 | If you're launching it for the first
time, it will ask you if you wanted to
| | 01:25 | launch every time you plug in a
card reader. That's just up to you.
| | 01:28 | So I have a card reader
plugged into the computer.
| | 01:31 | What bridge does is just manage
the process of doing the file copy.
| | 01:35 | I could also do a file copy by
hand using my operating system.
| | 01:39 | But Photo Downloader has some nice options.
| | 01:41 | First, it ask me where the
photos are going to come from.
| | 01:44 | I tell it the media card.
| | 01:45 | Next, it asks where they're going to go to.
| | 01:47 | I hit the Choose button, and I can
simply pick a location out there on
| | 01:51 | my computer somewhere.
| | 01:52 | I'm going to make a new folder
called Landscape Photos, and say Choose.
| | 01:58 | As far as how to organize the folder
structure on your drive, that's just up to you.
| | 02:03 | Some people make lots and lots of
subfolders, with separate folders for every
| | 02:07 | day and every shoot.
| | 02:09 | I prefer to keep as
little hierarchy as possible.
| | 02:12 | I have a folder for
images and within that folder,
| | 02:15 | I typically put one folder per event.
| | 02:18 | If I take a trip to Alaska, all my
Alaska photos will go in that one folder;
| | 02:23 | the reason being that Bridge has
lots of organizational tools of its own,
| | 02:27 | so I don't need to be organizing
files meticulously in my operating system.
| | 02:32 | Create Subfolder(s) will look at the
date and time that the image was shot, and
| | 02:36 | automatically create subfolders, so that
images fall into separate folders based
| | 02:40 | on when they were shot.
| | 02:41 | I'm going to turn that off.
| | 02:42 | I'm also going to tell it to not
Rename Files, because for the most part, I
| | 02:46 | don't actually care what the file is
named, because I'm going to be working
| | 02:49 | with little thumbnails.
| | 02:51 | Also, I like having the original file
name, because images come in in the order
| | 02:55 | that they were shot.
| | 02:57 | So I'm going to tell it not to rename files.
| | 02:59 | If I do need to rename files later,
that's okay, because Bridge has some very
| | 03:03 | good renaming features.
| | 03:05 | Most of these options here, you
really just don't need to worry about.
| | 03:09 | This Delete Original Files option, I
would recommend that you keep that off,
| | 03:13 | because it's better to format the card
in your camera than it is to erase images
| | 03:18 | using your computer.
| | 03:20 | Then finally, there is this Save Copies
to option, which can automatically make
| | 03:24 | a backup of every image as
it's imported to another location.
| | 03:27 | If I hit Get Photos right now, it
will import everything, or I can hit this
| | 03:31 | Advanced Dialog button, and I get the ability
to simply check the images that I want to import.
| | 03:37 | This can be handy if you forgot to
erase your card before you went out.
| | 03:41 | I get a couple of other options
like the ability to automatically Apply
| | 03:44 | a Metadata template.
| | 03:46 | This can be defined
elsewhere in Bridge or Photoshop.
| | 03:49 | It allows me to automatically add a
creator and copyright information if I want.
| | 03:53 | So I'm just going to hit Get Photos.
| | 03:57 | After all the files have been copied, Bridge
shows me the folder that they were copied into.
| | 04:02 | As you can see, I've got all
of these little thumbnails here.
| | 04:05 | Let's take a quick tour of the Bridge window.
| | 04:08 | Up here on the left, I have navigation tools.
| | 04:10 | This lets me navigate around
my computer's operating system.
| | 04:13 | If I click on Desktop, it
takes me out to the Desktop folder.
| | 04:18 | Obviously, when I click on something over
here, the contents are showed over here.
| | 04:22 | Here, you can see I've got a couple of images.
| | 04:23 | Then I have this Landscape
Photos folder that we just made.
| | 04:26 | I double-click on it, and I'm
inside, looking at all of my images.
| | 04:30 | Up here is the trail of little breadcrumbs.
| | 04:33 | I can click on any of these to go
further up the directory hierarchy.
| | 04:37 | Thumbnails can be changed, size-wise, by
using the slider down here, which can be
| | 04:42 | a nice way of getting a bigger view.
| | 04:43 | But I can also change the size of view by
altering the size of these panes up here.
| | 04:51 | The configuration of these
panes is defined as a workspace.
| | 04:55 | Adobe has generously given you a
bunch of different workspaces predefined.
| | 04:59 | So here is one that gives me more of a
Filmstrip workspace, where I can get the
| | 05:02 | large preview with thumbnails down below.
| | 05:05 | I can get a view that lets
me see just metadata upfront.
| | 05:10 | I've got this special pane for outputting files.
| | 05:12 | You'll probably spend the most of your
time switching back and forth between
| | 05:15 | Essentials and Filmstrip.
| | 05:17 | Here, in Essentials view, when I
click on an image, I get this kind of
| | 05:20 | large preview over here.
| | 05:21 | More importantly, I get all of
this great metadata information.
| | 05:24 | Metadata is simply data
that is stored with the image.
| | 05:27 | I can see all of the exposure settings
that I used when I was shooting, as well
| | 05:30 | as a whole lot of other data.
| | 05:32 | That can be very handy when editing.
| | 05:35 | Over here, I have a Filter pane.
| | 05:37 | This lets me choose criteria by which my
view of the current folder will be filtered.
| | 05:42 | So I can view by date, by
orientation: landscape or portrait.
| | 05:48 | I can view by the focal length of the
lens I was using, which camera I was using.
| | 05:52 | I can define keywords and sort by those.
| | 05:54 | Filters are a very powerful
tool for finding particular images.
| | 05:59 | I can define collections, which are
basically like digital photo albums, which
| | 06:03 | is another nice way of
keeping my images organized.
| | 06:06 | There is a lot of depth to Bridge.
| | 06:08 | It's worth digging around in some,
and getting to know it better, if you're
| | 06:12 | looking for workflow tool.
| | 06:13 | It's my tool of choice, for a number of reasons.
| | 06:15 | Unlike Lightroom and Aperture, there is
not a whole lot of overhead by managing
| | 06:20 | where my files are on my own in the
operating system, and just using Bridge as
| | 06:24 | a window onto that.
| | 06:26 | Because I tend to edit a lot in
Photoshop, I like not having that extra
| | 06:29 | structure in the way.
| | 06:30 | Bridge is a very quick way into Photoshop.
| | 06:33 | I find that very nice for my work.
| | 06:36 | Our next step, after importing our
images, is to go through and find the ones
| | 06:40 | that we like, the ones
that are our select images.
| | 06:44 | That's a very subjective process.
| | 06:46 | But here are some things that
you want to look for.
| | 06:48 | Aesthetically, obviously, you want
to look for the good images.
| | 06:51 | You want to look for the ones that are
composed well, that have a well-defined
| | 06:57 | subject, a well-defined background.
| | 07:00 | In landscape images, what you're
looking for, aesthetically, often depends on
| | 07:03 | why you were shooting.
| | 07:04 | Were you shooting something purely for
documentary reasons, or were you shooting
| | 07:08 | something for more of an emotional space?
| | 07:10 | Are you finding the elements in the
image that you need to deliver that
| | 07:14 | emotion and that message?
| | 07:16 | We're going to be talking a lot more
about the strengths and weaknesses of
| | 07:18 | particular images as we go through editing.
| | 07:21 | You also want to look for technical
problems when you are making your selects,
| | 07:26 | because you want to weed out images
that just aren't going to work very well,
| | 07:30 | because they are technically flawed.
| | 07:32 | For example, this image, which came in
sideways - I'm going to rotate it up here -
| | 07:36 | this image is plainly overexposed.
| | 07:39 | Nice feature in Bridge is I can hit
the Spacebar at any time to go this
| | 07:42 | nice full-screen view.
| | 07:44 | Plainly, this image has big technical problems.
| | 07:46 | It's overexposed. The clouds have
lost all their detail. The sand dune has
| | 07:50 | lost a lot of detail.
| | 07:51 | So exposure is a basic technical
concern that you're going to have, but you're
| | 07:55 | also going to be looking for vignetting,
that is a darkening in the corners,
| | 07:59 | maybe a white balance problem.
| | 08:01 | This image is a little cool.
| | 08:02 | The white balance was
little off when I was shooting.
| | 08:04 | That's something I'd want to fix.
| | 08:06 | I'm looking for reasons to
disqualify images, technical or aesthetic.
| | 08:10 | When I find an image that I like, one
that I know I'm going to pass on to the
| | 08:14 | rest of my workflow,
| | 08:15 | I want to tag it somehow.
| | 08:16 | The easiest way to do that
is by giving it a Rating.
| | 08:19 | If I go up to the Label menu,
I can assign one to five stars.
| | 08:23 | Obviously, there are
keyboard shortcuts for those, also.
| | 08:26 | So I'm going to give this image three stars.
| | 08:28 | I'm just going to keep working my way
through my images, looking for the ones that I like.
| | 08:34 | For example, I'm going to take
this as a keeper image, even though it
| | 08:37 | is technically flawed. It's low contrast.
| | 08:41 | I've got some detail problems in here,
| | 08:43 | but I remember looking at it, what it
was that struck me when I was shooting.
| | 08:47 | That is the symmetry and the
repetition of these lines here formed from the
| | 08:52 | erosion of this mountain, and these same types
of streaky lines up here formed by the clouds.
| | 08:56 | It was kind of a mirror image thing going on.
| | 08:59 | It doesn't show up particularly well
with the image like this, but I'm thinking
| | 09:02 | it's something I can bring
out with some adjustments -
| | 09:04 | a little lens flare problem
there that I need to take out.
| | 09:06 | There is nothing so wrong with this
image that I will disqualify it, but it's
| | 09:10 | one that I think I can work with,
| | 09:11 | so I'm going to give it three stars.
| | 09:13 | I did that by hitting
Command+3, Ctrl+3 on Windows.
| | 09:17 | So that's the rest of my process is just
go and do finding the images that I like.
| | 09:21 | We're going to be speaking later about
shooting panoramas and shooting something
| | 09:25 | called high dynamic range images.
| | 09:27 | Both of those processes
involved shooting a series of images.
| | 09:31 | For example, here is a high dynamic range set.
| | 09:34 | As you can see, it's a series of the
same shot, shot with different exposures.
| | 09:38 | So these images all go together.
| | 09:40 | In Bridge, I can select all these images.
| | 09:43 | I click on the first image, hold down
the Shift key, and click on this image
| | 09:47 | over here, and I get a
contiguous selection of all of these.
| | 09:49 | Now, if I go up to Stacks and choose
Group as Stack, you can see that the images
| | 09:55 | are all collapsed down
into this little Stack thing.
| | 09:57 | So I can open and close it by
clicking on the number right here.
| | 10:01 | So this is a great way of keeping
panoramic images and HDR images grouped
| | 10:06 | together within a folder.
| | 10:07 | It doesn't change the location in the folder.
| | 10:09 | You only see Stacks in Bridge, but it
allows me to fit more images onto my
| | 10:13 | screen at one time, and
generally unclutters my view.
| | 10:18 | So no matter which workflow tool you use,
these are the step you're going to go through.
| | 10:21 | Import your images, go through them to
find the select images that you like, and
| | 10:26 | you're choosing select based on your
aesthetic and technical concerns, with the
| | 10:30 | idea of weeding out images that are
flawed, and not going to be worth sending to
| | 10:35 | the rest of your workflow.
| | 10:36 | From here, you're ready to
move on to actual editing.
| | 10:39 | That's what we'll be beginning next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the histogram| 00:00 | The grandfather of all landscape
photographers was, of course, Ansel Adams.
| | 00:05 | Adams developed and employed a theory
of exposure called the Zone System, which
| | 00:09 | allowed him to precisely calculate
exposure settings, which when combined with
| | 00:13 | specific development techniques,
afforded him an incredible degree of control.
| | 00:18 | As a modern landscape shooter,
you can also employ the Zone System,
| | 00:21 | but fortunately, as a digital
photographer, you have the advantage of the
| | 00:24 | histogram. For shooting, and
especially for postproduction,
| | 00:28 | understanding how to read a histogram
is essential to getting good results from
| | 00:32 | your landscape shooting.
| | 00:33 | We're going to take a quick look at
what a histogram is and how to read it.
| | 00:37 | I'm here in Photoshop CS5.
| | 00:40 | I've got a few different images open.
| | 00:42 | First thing I need to do is
view Photoshop's histogram.
| | 00:45 | If you're using the standard workspace,
there is a little icon for the Histogram palette.
| | 00:50 | If you don't have it, you can pull it
off of the Window menu, Window > Histogram.
| | 00:55 | Here we go! This is a histogram.
| | 00:57 | You'll see these in lots of places in Photoshop.
| | 00:59 | You'll see them in lots of other image editors.
| | 01:01 | You'll see one on your camera,
which we'll talk about later.
| | 01:04 | A lot of people are immediately
intimidated by the histogram, because it looks like
| | 01:07 | it probably has something to do with
math, because there is all of these numbers, and
| | 01:11 | plainly just data here.
| | 01:13 | Well, it does have something to do
with math, but not in a scary way.
| | 01:16 | A histogram is a very easy thing to understand.
| | 01:18 | It is simply a bar chart.
| | 01:20 | The bars are real, real skinny. That's all.
| | 01:22 | It's a bar chart of the distribution of
tones in your image, from black to white,
| | 01:27 | with black over here on the left
and white over here on the right.
| | 01:30 | So let's just take a look
at this actual image here.
| | 01:35 | It's lacking something.
| | 01:36 | It just looks a little dull.
| | 01:38 | It's almost like it's got
this gray thing laying over it.
| | 01:42 | This is a low contrast image.
| | 01:44 | It's a textbook low contrast.
| | 01:46 | Nothing in here is actually black,
and nothing in here is actually white.
| | 01:50 | That's what the histogram tells us, also.
| | 01:52 | There is no black information,
because there is no data above it.
| | 01:56 | There is no bar there, nor is
there any white information.
| | 01:58 | All of the tones in this
image are clustered in the middle.
| | 02:02 | There is a whole bunch right here.
| | 02:04 | There are some darker ones here -
a textbook low contrast image.
| | 02:08 | Let's look at a couple of others here.
| | 02:10 | Another low contrast image.
| | 02:11 | I'm going to get the histogram out of
the way here by clicking on its tab, and
| | 02:15 | dragging it down here.
| | 02:18 | Then I can close that up.
| | 02:20 | It's interesting how in this case, the
histogram actually kind of looks like the image.
| | 02:23 | That doesn't happen very often.
| | 02:25 | Notice this big chunk of data right here.
| | 02:28 | That's this sky up here.
| | 02:30 | Next, we've got something
else that's fairly light-colored.
| | 02:34 | I know that, because remember the right
side of the histogram are lighter tones.
| | 02:37 | That would be this big piece here.
| | 02:39 | Then I've got some middle
tones and then some darker tones.
| | 02:43 | These darker tones would be
all of these dark bits in here.
| | 02:46 | There is no right or
wrong shape to the histogram.
| | 02:49 | It simply reflects the
tones that are in your image.
| | 02:52 | If I shoot a picture of a penguin
standing on a black and white checkerboard,
| | 02:56 | I'm going to have a whole bunch of data
down here, and a whole bunch of data up
| | 02:59 | here, and non in the middle.
| | 03:00 | That will be a correct histogram for that image.
| | 03:04 | Here is an image that has been
overexposed, and it's kind of lacking contrast.
| | 03:08 | Our histogram again belies that.
| | 03:10 | There is no shadow detail, a
whole bunch of detail in the middle.
| | 03:14 | The thing we never ever, ever want to see,
this big spike over here on the right side,
| | 03:19 | this means the image has been overexposed
to the point where we have lost detail, and
| | 03:25 | it's very obvious, in this
image, where that's happening.
| | 03:27 | It's up here in the sky.
| | 03:28 | All of these tones have
blown out to complete white.
| | 03:31 | If you're coming from the film
background, this may be a new thing for you.
| | 03:36 | Film rolls off the highlights.
| | 03:38 | You have to work really hard to get
to an area of really bright white.
| | 03:41 | Digital is not so forgiving in that regard.
| | 03:43 | Fortunately, if you're working with RAW,
there are some things you can do about it later.
| | 03:46 | So that's what an overexposed image looks like.
| | 03:49 | It's just what you would expect.
| | 03:50 | The bulk of the tones are
over here on the right side.
| | 03:53 | Let's look at another one.
| | 03:54 | This one is not quite as bad.
| | 03:56 | We've still got that spike over here.
| | 03:58 | That's probably coming from these
blown out parts in the clouds here.
| | 04:02 | A bulk of the image data, all of these
middle tones, the sky, and these gray
| | 04:07 | tones, that's what's right down here.
| | 04:10 | This big blob right here is going to
represent the lighter gray shades, which
| | 04:15 | are going to be this foreground
element, and all of this cloud detail.
| | 04:19 | So there's no geographic relationship
between the histogram and the image.
| | 04:24 | The tones over here don't mean that
there is image data on the left side of the
| | 04:28 | image, or anything like that.
| | 04:29 | Again, it's just
representation of darkest to lightest.
| | 04:34 | Here is an underexposed image. As you
would expect, the bulk of the tones have
| | 04:38 | heaped up on the left side.
| | 04:41 | So I've got a spike here, which means
I have underexposed some images to the
| | 04:45 | point of detail lost.
| | 04:46 | Those are going to be these areas
that have gone to complete black.
| | 04:49 | Now we don't care as much about shadow
areas that have stopped up completely,
| | 04:53 | because shadow areas are
supposed to be dark. That's okay.
| | 04:56 | Nevertheless, it's important to know
that they're there, and that if there was
| | 04:59 | detail that we wanted in there,
we probably could not get it.
| | 05:01 | There is no white in the image.
| | 05:04 | There is no light gray.
Almost all the way back down to 50%.
| | 05:07 | There is very, very little data.
| | 05:09 | If that sounds kind of
"Well, yeah. So what? That's real easy,"
| | 05:12 | the histogram is real easy.
| | 05:14 | The so what part is going to
come later when we start editing.
| | 05:17 | You're going to begin to see that
the histogram is a necessary tool for
| | 05:21 | assessing what edits an image needs,
for understanding when you've pushed
| | 05:26 | the edit too far, or far enough, and in some
cases some tools are built around a histogram.
| | 05:31 | You will actually decide how to
use the tool based on the histogram.
| | 05:35 | Now your camera also has
a histogram feature in it.
| | 05:38 | You can take a shot and then view a
histogram of the image on your camera's LCD screen.
| | 05:43 | This is a great way of determining if you
have overexposed an image, say, out in the field.
| | 05:50 | This is critical for landscape shooters
who very, very often face high dynamic
| | 05:54 | range situations where it's very
easy to overexpose your highlights.
| | 05:58 | You can take a shot when you're in a
situation where you think that might be
| | 06:02 | happening, like a big sky,
full of white puffy clouds.
| | 06:05 | You can take the shot. Look at the camera's histogram
right away and know if you've got the exposure you need.
| | 06:10 | One caveat when you're working with Raw:
| | 06:13 | When you look at the histogram on
your camera for a RAW file, what you are
| | 06:16 | actually seeing is a histogram of a
JPEG file that the camera has made, so that
| | 06:21 | it has an image to show
on the back of the camera.
| | 06:24 | What that means, for technical
reasons that we won't go into here, is that
| | 06:28 | your histogram on your camera is going to
show overexposure before it actually exists,
| | 06:34 | meaning you've probably got another
stop worth of exposure that you can go to
| | 06:39 | before you actually get clipping.
| | 06:41 | We'll be spending a lot of time with
histogram throughout the rest of this course,
| | 06:44 | so if you're not comfortable with it,
get some of your images out and look at
| | 06:48 | their histograms, and start trying to
get it understanding of how the histogram
| | 06:51 | relates to the image.
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| A little color theory| 00:00 | Some of the editing concepts that we're
going to cover later will be easier to
| | 00:04 | understand if you know a
few rudiments of color theory.
| | 00:07 | As you may remember from biology
class, your eyes have two types of
| | 00:11 | light-sensitive cells in them: rods and cones.
| | 00:15 | Rods comprise your night vision.
| | 00:17 | They are your black and white low-light vision.
| | 00:19 | They are what 98% of your vision is made of.
| | 00:24 | You also have cones, which are
cells that are sensitive to color.
| | 00:27 | What you may not remember from
biology class is that there are three
| | 00:31 | different types of cones.
| | 00:33 | Some are sensitive to red, some are
sensitive to green, and some are sensitive to blue.
| | 00:38 | These colors are significant because
they are the primary colors of light.
| | 00:42 | When you mix them together,
you can get any other color.
| | 00:44 | Here is an example.
| | 00:46 | I have three circles: one filled
with blue, one filled with green, and
| | 00:50 | one filled with red.
| | 00:51 | Where red and blue mixed
together, I get magenta.
| | 00:54 | Where blue and green mixed together, I get cyan.
| | 00:56 | Where green and red
mixed together, I get yellow.
| | 00:59 | I can mix these in an infinite variety of
combinations to get every other color in between.
| | 01:03 | If I mix equal amounts
of all three, I get white.
| | 01:06 | Now you may be thinking, "Well, in finger
-painting class, I remember that when I
| | 01:10 | mixed colors together, everything got
darker until it just turned into this kind
| | 01:14 | of brown sludgy thing."
| | 01:15 | That's because pigments work subtractively.
| | 01:18 | As you mix them together, they get darker.
| | 01:20 | Light works additively.
| | 01:22 | These are known as the additive
primary colors of light, because they mix
| | 01:26 | together to add up to white.
| | 01:28 | The reason we care about this is
because some image-editing problems are
| | 01:34 | easier to diagnose with an
understanding of how different color channels come
| | 01:38 | to bear on your image.
| | 01:40 | Sometimes, we will attack problems by
looking its specific color channels.
| | 01:44 | In Photoshop, I can go to the Channels
palette, which lets me look at specific
| | 01:49 | color channels in my image.
| | 01:51 | Right now, I'm looking at RGB, but
if I click on the Red channel, I'm now
| | 01:55 | looking at only the red channel.
| | 01:57 | What I see here is a white
circle on a field of black.
| | 02:01 | Where white pixels occur, it means 100% red;
where black pixels occur, it means no red at all.
| | 02:08 | Same thing for green and same thing for blue.
| | 02:11 | When I look at the final image, I see
that, sure enough, there is 100% red in
| | 02:15 | these pixels, 100% green here.
| | 02:17 | They are mixing together to create this yellow.
| | 02:20 | Let's take a look at a more real-world example.
| | 02:23 | Here is an image with a
fair amount of color in it.
| | 02:26 | We've got some blue up here, some
reds down here, a lot of browns over here.
| | 02:31 | If I go and look at the
Red channel, I find this.
| | 02:35 | It appears to be a black-and-white
image, just the way our last example was.
| | 02:39 | These red posts are showing up
predominately as white, because as you will
| | 02:43 | recall, 100% white in the Red
channel equates to red in the image.
| | 02:48 | So it makes sense that these red things
would appear as white in the Red channel.
| | 02:53 | Let's go look at the Green channel,
and now these red posts, in my final image,
| | 02:58 | appear much darker, because
there is very little green in them.
| | 03:01 | I'll switch back to RGB to view my whole image.
| | 03:07 | So, one of the most important things
for you to do before we get started here
| | 03:10 | is to make sure that your histogram
is set up in a way that you understand,
| | 03:13 | because the histogram in Photoshop
has the ability to show you separate
| | 03:17 | histograms for each color channel.
| | 03:19 | I'm going to go to the Window
menu and choose Histogram.
| | 03:22 | This is the Histogram we
were looking at earlier.
| | 03:24 | It is just showing luminance, or brightness.
| | 03:27 | In other words, it's showing the
distribution of tones from darkest to lightest.
| | 03:31 | Again, we see that I don't have strong
highlight detail here, mostly midtone
| | 03:36 | data, perhaps a little low contrast.
| | 03:39 | If I open up this pop-up menu up here
and choose Expanded View, I get some
| | 03:43 | additional controls,
including this Channels pop-up.
| | 03:46 | Now, by default, your Channel pop-up may be
set to something different than this RGB view.
| | 03:53 | It's probably set to Colors. Now I see this.
| | 03:57 | I see three different histograms, and
where they're overlapping, I see some
| | 04:01 | secondary histograms.
| | 04:02 | So you can plainly see back here the blue
histogram. You can see hints of the red
| | 04:06 | histogram and a couple of
hints of the green histogram.
| | 04:09 | There is also a little bit of
magenta, cyan, and yellow in here.
| | 04:12 | These are showing the separate
histograms for the separate color channels,
| | 04:17 | in other words, the distribution of
individual color channels in the image.
| | 04:21 | So you can see in the lighter tones,
there's more blue than anything else.
| | 04:24 | If you're wondering what this
exclamation mark means, it means that the
| | 04:28 | histogram is not
necessarily up-to-date for this image.
| | 04:30 | If I click on it, Photoshop will
take some time to calculate a more
| | 04:34 | accurate histogram.
| | 04:36 | So, when you're getting ready to do a
critical histogram-driven work, it's a
| | 04:39 | good idea to click on that exclamation mark.
| | 04:41 | We'll be returning a lot to Channels
and Histograms throughout this course,
| | 04:46 | so you'll get more practice with them,
and they should become easier to deal
| | 04:50 | with as we go along.
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|
|
2. Performing Basic Edits in Camera Raw Opening an image | 00:00 | With your images transferred, and your
selects made, you're ready to start your
| | 00:04 | image editing process.
| | 00:06 | Just as there is an overall workflow
that you should follow - import, rate
| | 00:09 | images, and make selects, edit, and
finally output - when you're editing and
| | 00:13 | adjusting your images, you also
need to follow a specific workflow.
| | 00:17 | By performing edits in a
particular order, you'll have an easier time
| | 00:20 | determining what edits need to be made.
| | 00:22 | But more importantly, you'll preserve
better quality throughout your edits.
| | 00:26 | To begin working within an
image, you have to open it.
| | 00:29 | You can launch an image into Photoshop
form Bridge, simply by double-clicking on
| | 00:33 | the image's thumbnail, or
by pressing the Return key.
| | 00:35 | Of course, there are lots of other
ways to open images, but if you've already
| | 00:39 | been working in Bridge, it's
probably easiest to launch into Photoshop
| | 00:42 | directly from there.
| | 00:44 | Earlier, I strongly recommended that you
shoot your landscape images in RAW format,
| | 00:48 | so we're going to begin our
editing lessons with RAW images.
| | 00:52 | This is a RAW file right here.
| | 00:53 | It has a CR2 extension.
| | 00:55 | This is a RAW file from a Canon camera.
| | 00:57 | Not all RAW files have the same extension.
| | 01:01 | If you're shooting Nikon,
you'll have an NEF extension.
| | 01:04 | Olympus cameras have an ORF
extension, and so on and so forth.
| | 01:08 | So, there is no standard for RAW format.
| | 01:11 | I'm going to double-click on this image.
| | 01:14 | A couple of things happen.
| | 01:15 | First, you see that we switched to
Photoshop, and now you see this big dialog
| | 01:19 | box you may not have ever seen before.
| | 01:20 | It says Camera Raw.
| | 01:22 | Camera Raw is a plug-in, which
controls RAW conversion in Photoshop.
| | 01:27 | We're going to be spending a lot of time here.
| | 01:30 | Camera Raw performs all of the RAW
conversion that your camera normally performs
| | 01:34 | when you're shooting in JPEG mode.
| | 01:35 | In other words, it takes all of the
steps required to get it from RAW sensor data
| | 01:39 | to a finished image.
| | 01:41 | The advantage, of course, is that you're
in control of how these steps are made.
| | 01:45 | Let's take a quick tour of
the Camera Raw dialog box.
| | 01:48 | Obviously, right here in the
middle is a big preview of my image.
| | 01:52 | Just like in Photoshop, I can
zoom in and out, and pan around.
| | 01:56 | I can zoom in and out using the
Magnifying Glass tool, click to zoom in,
| | 02:00 | Alt+Click or Option+Click to zoom out.
| | 02:03 | I also have this nice little pop-up
menu down here with some different sizes.
| | 02:07 | I've got these buttons over here.
| | 02:08 | But probably the easiest way to get
in and out is the same way you do in
| | 02:12 | Photoshop, which is Command or Ctrl,
Plus and Minus to zoom in and out and
| | 02:19 | Command+0 to fill the screen with an image.
| | 02:22 | Unfortunately, unlike Photoshop, there is
no Command+1, which takes you to 100% view.
| | 02:27 | When you're zoomed in, you can use
the Pan tool, which is this little hand
| | 02:31 | here to pan around, or you can just press and
hold the Spacebar while you click and drag.
| | 02:37 | That will bring up the Hand tool
when you have another tool selected.
| | 02:41 | Up above the image, I have a bunch of tools.
| | 02:43 | We're going to go over these as
we work through these lessons.
| | 02:45 | I've got these Eyedropper tools and
Cropping tools and Straightening tools
| | 02:48 | and Retouching tools.
| | 02:50 | Rotation tools, if your image came in
rotated wrong, you can fix it that way.
| | 02:55 | Preview button lets me toggle
the current adjustments on or off.
| | 02:59 | I don't have any adjustments right now,
so clicking it doesn't do anything.
| | 03:02 | But this basically gives me a
way to see before and after.
| | 03:05 | This button lets you go fullscreen
If you have sized the window down,
| | 03:10 | this not only takes it up to the full
width of your screen, but also wipes out
| | 03:13 | the Photoshop menu bar. It gives you
just a little bit of extra space.
| | 03:16 | If you're working on a laptop,
that can be particularly useful.
| | 03:20 | To the right of that, we have a histogram.
| | 03:24 | This is a three-channel histogram.
| | 03:26 | Below that, we have the essential
exposure information that we used when
| | 03:30 | shooting this image.
| | 03:31 | I can see it was shot at f/10, in
1/160th of a second, at ISO 100, using
| | 03:35 | this particular lens.
| | 03:36 | Below that are what appear to be some buttons;
| | 03:39 | they are actually the tops
of a bunch of little tabs.
| | 03:40 | I'm looking at the Basic tab right here.
| | 03:42 | I've also got these other tabs: Tone
Curve and Detail and HSL/Grayscale, a whole
| | 03:48 | bunch of different
controls that we'll be looking at.
| | 03:51 | But these, the Basic controls, are
really the workhorse tools that we'll be
| | 03:55 | spending most of our time with.
| | 03:57 | Finally, down here at the bottom, I have
what Adobe calls the workflow controls.
| | 04:01 | That's all of these buttons.
| | 04:03 | These control how I get out of Camera Raw,
and what I do with the resulting image.
| | 04:07 | We'll be talking about these later.
| | 04:09 | Finally, this thing that looks like a
link here actually is a link to this
| | 04:14 | dialog box, which gives me some more options.
| | 04:17 | The Camera Raw dialog box is a very
complete image editing environment.
| | 04:21 | Many of the adjustments and edits that
you can perform with Photoshop's tools
| | 04:24 | can also be performed here in Camera Raw.
| | 04:27 | As we proceed, you'll begin to
understand which edits you might want to perform
| | 04:31 | here, and which you'll save
later for Photoshop. Don't worry;
| | 04:35 | we're going to be spending a lot of
time here in the Camera Raw dialog box, so
| | 04:38 | you'll become very familiar
with all of these controls.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cropping and straightening | 00:00 | Your very first image editing step is to crop.
| | 00:04 | We start with cropping for a few reasons.
| | 00:06 | First, with many images, you won't know for
sure that it's a keeper until you crop it.
| | 00:10 | So, cropping is required to
determine if the image is truly a select.
| | 00:14 | Second, after cropping, your histogram
can appear very different, because you
| | 00:18 | may have cropped out some tones.
| | 00:20 | So, it's best to crop first to ensure
that your histogram is as accurate as
| | 00:24 | possible when editing.
| | 00:26 | Photoshop has some amazing editing tools in it.
| | 00:28 | While the Cropping tool may not seem
as sophisticated as say Content-Aware
| | 00:32 | Fill, it's actually one of the most powerful,
important tools in your image editing arsenal.
| | 00:37 | With the Crop tool, you can
recompose an image after the fact.
| | 00:42 | For landscapes, cropping is especially
important, because it's often very hard
| | 00:46 | to compose a shot the way
that you like it in camera.
| | 00:49 | Let's take a look at this image,
which I'm looking at in Camera Raw.
| | 00:53 | Camera Raw has a Crop tool of its own.
| | 00:55 | It looks just like the Photoshop Crop tool.
| | 00:56 | It's right up here.
| | 00:58 | Like in Photoshop, some tools have
these little arrows next to them.
| | 01:01 | If I click on that, I get a pop-up menu.
| | 01:03 | We're going to come back
to those in a little bit.
| | 01:04 | I just want the default
Crop tool, so I click on it.
| | 01:07 | It's very simple, as you would expect.
| | 01:08 | You click and drag to
define the crop that you want.
| | 01:12 | After you have a crop defined, you
have these handles that you can use
| | 01:16 | for refining your crop.
| | 01:18 | So, I can put these wherever I want.
| | 01:23 | That's pretty much the Crop tool.
| | 01:25 | Of course, the big thing with
cropping is, well, how should I crop my
| | 01:28 | image, aesthetically?
| | 01:30 | What's the better crop for this image?
| | 01:32 | I want to go up here to the Crop tool
and choose Clear Crop, because I want to
| | 01:36 | get back to my original image.
| | 01:38 | So, what kind of crop does this image need?
| | 01:40 | It's not a bad image like this, except
that there's all this big empty sky up here.
| | 01:45 | It's not really
contributing anything to your image.
| | 01:48 | The point of composition is to use
the elements in the image to guide the
| | 01:53 | viewer's eye through it.
| | 01:54 | Obviously, the subject of this
image, for the most part, is this rock
| | 01:58 | formation here, Shiprock.
| | 01:59 | This is in Northern New Mexico, near the
Four Corners area, and Shiprock kind of
| | 02:04 | looms up over the horizon.
| | 02:07 | With all the sky here, I'm not getting
that looming vibe from Shiprock, because
| | 02:11 | it's being overpowered by this
huge sky that's mostly empty.
| | 02:14 | So, I really don't need it.
| | 02:16 | So, I'm going to crop the sky out, which
is also going to give me more of a wide
| | 02:20 | landscape-type image.
| | 02:23 | So, that's where I start,
| | 02:26 | but then I run into some other questions,
which is, well, how far do I crop the sky?
| | 02:31 | As in most landscape crops, the ever-
present question of where do I put the
| | 02:35 | horizon? I've got the horizon right
here, and there are a lot of different
| | 02:38 | things I can do with it.
| | 02:40 | Note that once I've got a crop defined,
I can click within the crop and drag to
| | 02:44 | move the entire crop rectangle
around without changing its size.
| | 02:47 | So, let's say I have decided that
this looks pretty good insofar as
| | 02:51 | relationship of sky to foreground, and so
on and so forth, but I don't know.
| | 02:55 | There is this horizon thing.
| | 02:56 | Should it be higher or lower, in the
middle? What are the different advantages?
| | 03:01 | Very often, when you're facing any kind
of creative, aesthetic decision in your
| | 03:06 | work, one of the easiest ways to get
to a solution is to try to think back to
| | 03:10 | what it was that caught your
eye when you shot the image.
| | 03:15 | I said it already in one word: looming.
| | 03:18 | Shiprock looms over the horizon.
| | 03:21 | It was a little less loomy
with all that sky up there.
| | 03:23 | We've gotten rid of that, but I'm
still not getting the big loom thing.
| | 03:26 | I think that's because
there's all this foreground here.
| | 03:28 | So, probably, it's best not to have the
horizon in the dead center of the image here.
| | 03:34 | It's obviously wrong to put the horizon up
high, which I can do by cropping down low.
| | 03:39 | That makes this image largely about the
foreground with this thing sitting out there.
| | 03:43 | That's no good.
| | 03:44 | I definitely want these clouds in here.
| | 03:46 | I like them for a couple reasons.
| | 03:48 | They are just interesting looking.
| | 03:49 | But also they serve to
balance Shiprock over here.
| | 03:53 | There is something that has a little
compositional weight on this end to keep
| | 03:56 | the image from skewing too much to the left.
| | 03:59 | I'm going to pick this up and drag it up
higher, just to take some foreground out.
| | 04:02 | Now, the image has changed a lot.
| | 04:05 | Now I've got a sense of
this rock on the horizon.
| | 04:09 | It's a little bit easier for me to
understand why this image might have been
| | 04:12 | compelling to me in the first place.
| | 04:14 | It still needs a lot of work, but at
least I've got a decent crop going on.
| | 04:17 | We can make it a little skinnier, but
I'm actually just liking that shape.
| | 04:21 | Sometimes, just particular shape of
a crop, it's just something you feel
| | 04:25 | more than anything else.
| | 04:26 | Just when you get it wrong, your
teeth itch somehow or something.
| | 04:30 | So this just feels right.
| | 04:32 | So I'm going to double-click inside
the crop rectangle, or I can hit Return
| | 04:35 | to accept the crop.
| | 04:37 | Now Photoshop shows me
my finished cropped image.
| | 04:41 | Now, I hit the Done button,
and Camera Raw will close.
| | 04:46 | Let's go open another image.
| | 04:47 | I'm going to go back to Bridge,
and I'm going to open Crop2.
| | 04:51 | This is a tree in South Africa in the
bushveld of the Kruger National Park, I believe.
| | 04:58 | Aspect Ratio is the ratio of the
width of an image to its height.
| | 05:03 | If you're shooting with a digital SLR,
or a 35-milimeter camera, then you are
| | 05:08 | most likely shooting with the
aspect ratio, as in this image, of 3 to 2.
| | 05:12 | If you're shooting with a point-and-
shoot camera, or a Micro Four Thirds camera,
| | 05:16 | you're very likely shooting
with an aspect ratio of 4 to 3.
| | 05:18 | A lot of times when you crop, you will
want to do like we did on the last image,
| | 05:23 | and crop freeform, to
define your own aspect ratio.
| | 05:25 | A lot of other times, you're going
to want to preserve the aspect ratio.
| | 05:28 | You might want to do this for two reasons.
| | 05:30 | One, you might want to ensure that
when you print the picture, it fits in a
| | 05:34 | standard frame size:
| | 05:35 | 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10; these are all
standard aspect ratios that you can buy
| | 05:41 | store-built frames for.
| | 05:43 | So, a lot of times it's worth
preserving an aspect ratio for that reason.
| | 05:46 | A lot of other times, you want to
preserve aspect ratio, because you want to
| | 05:49 | hide the fact that you've been
cropping, because some people are just picky
| | 05:52 | about that sort of thing. So this is a little
deceitful, but we are going to do it anyway.
| | 05:55 | I want to preserve this aspect
ratio, because I want to put this in a
| | 05:58 | normal sized frame.
| | 05:59 | So, I'm going to open up
the Crop Tool menu here.
| | 06:01 | I just click on it and hold,
and I'm going to choose 2 to 3.
| | 06:04 | Now, just as before, I'm
going to drag out a crop.
| | 06:07 | So, what am I going to do here?
| | 06:08 | When I shot this, I really
thought, the tree is very powerful.
| | 06:11 | It's got this nice light behind it.
| | 06:13 | It's strong enough to hold up on its
own in the dead center of the frame.
| | 06:16 | I also really like all these little
identical trees back here in the background.
| | 06:20 | Now that I look at it, I'm finding
that's not true, for a couple of reasons.
| | 06:23 | This black is really heavy.
| | 06:25 | It overpowers the whole image.
| | 06:27 | There is too much black in the foreground.
| | 06:29 | This edge of the image has
gotten a little bit darker.
| | 06:32 | So there is this just general kind of
disappearing into the black over here that
| | 06:36 | just doesn't really work for me.
| | 06:37 | I want to get more sky, less foreground.
| | 06:40 | And I can do that by cropping.
| | 06:41 | This is what I mean by the idea that I
can recompose my image with the Crop tool.
| | 06:46 | I click and begin to drag.
| | 06:47 | Now, no matter where I drag, I only
get a cropping rectangle that's the
| | 06:51 | aspect ratio that I want.
| | 06:52 | So, I'm going to drag out
something closer to that.
| | 06:56 | Now this image is getting a
little more interesting to me.
| | 06:58 | It's a little bit easier to tell
what the subject of the image is.
| | 07:01 | It's not that big black
foreground. It's the tree.
| | 07:03 | I'm also getting kind of a nice
balanced thing here of this empty space,
| | 07:08 | balancing the stuff over here.
| | 07:10 | I can tweak and refine and do whatever I want.
| | 07:12 | Along the way, when you're cropping,
you're going to start noticing and
| | 07:16 | assessing other edits that
are going to need to happen.
| | 07:18 | I can see there is sensor dust up here.
| | 07:20 | On the last image, I noted
that it was low contrast.
| | 07:23 | Just file all that information away
while you're cropping, because those are the
| | 07:27 | kinds of things you're going
to want to deal with later.
| | 07:30 | Double-click to take the
crop and now hit Done again.
| | 07:33 | I'll explain later why we're choosing Done.
| | 07:35 | I'm going to go back to Bridge, and I'm
going to open this image called Badwater.
| | 07:40 | Now, first of all, notice that it's
rotated 90 degrees to the left. That's no good.
| | 07:44 | So I'm going to hit this
Rotate 90 degrees to the right button.
| | 07:47 | I can also do that with Command+Left
Bracket and Command+Right Bracket on the keyboard.
| | 07:53 | Open that up.
| | 07:55 | Despite your best efforts while
shooting, there will be times when an image
| | 07:58 | comes out a little crooked.
| | 07:59 | Fortunately, Camera Raw has
an excellent Straighten tool.
| | 08:02 | It's sitting right here next to the Crop tool.
| | 08:05 | It's very simple to use.
| | 08:06 | I click on one end of something in the
image that is supposed to be straight.
| | 08:10 | Here, I'm looking at this horizon line here,
and I can see that it's a little crooked.
| | 08:14 | So I click on this end. I drag out to this end.
| | 08:16 | And you can see that I've
dragged out a slightly diagonal line.
| | 08:19 | When I let go of the button, Camera
Raw has defined an off-kilter crop here.
| | 08:25 | One thing about the Crop tool is if I
go up here, next to one of these handles,
| | 08:29 | my cursor turns into this
little two-sided arrow thing.
| | 08:32 | I can rotate this crop like that.
| | 08:35 | So, what Camera Raw has done is defined
a crop with a certain amount of rotation
| | 08:40 | that when I accept that crop,
my image is straightened.
| | 08:43 | My image is also a little bit smaller.
| | 08:45 | So, if there was some critical detail
right here on the edge, I would have lost
| | 08:48 | it. That's the reason why it's better to get
the image straight in camera, rather than
| | 08:52 | relying on a straightening tool.
| | 08:53 | When cropping an image, you want to think
about the same compositional ideas that
| | 08:57 | you consider when you're framing your shot.
| | 08:59 | Your crop should serve to yield an
image that is balanced and whose elements
| | 09:03 | guide the viewer's eyes, so that
they are not lost in the image.
| | 09:06 | I'm going to hit Done here, and
take a look at a couple of images here.
| | 09:11 | You'll see that very often a crop
can take an otherwise unusable image.
| | 09:16 | Obviously, this image
needs a lot of contrast work.
| | 09:19 | But this image is mostly about
this giant freeway right here.
| | 09:22 | With a crop, I can really refine it down
and turn it into an image that's usable.
| | 09:26 | Here is an image that's pretty strong.
| | 09:30 | It needs some exposure work.
| | 09:31 | But the tree is a little bit lost.
| | 09:33 | Cropping it down just really gets me this
nice, tall tree perched on the edge of this cliff.
| | 09:39 | Sometimes, you'll shoot an image
with the intention of cropping it later.
| | 09:42 | At other times, you'll stumble into
a crop that you weren't expecting.
| | 09:45 | Revisiting your old images with an
eye towards cropping is a great way to
| | 09:48 | practice your cropping chops.
| | 09:51 | You may find that you can salvage some
images that you didn't know were keepers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Nondestructive editing | 00:00 | A digital image is composed of a
grid of different colored pixels.
| | 00:05 | When you perform an adjustment in
Photoshop, any kind of adjustment - besides
| | 00:08 | cropping and rotating - all you're
doing is changing the colors of specific
| | 00:12 | pixels. Granted, some edits perform
incredibly sophisticated color alterations.
| | 00:17 | But still, changing the colors of
pixels is all that's really happening.
| | 00:21 | Once those colors are altered, that's it.
| | 00:22 | Sure, you can undo or use Photoshop's
History palette, but these offer a limited
| | 00:26 | ability to backtrack through your edits.
| | 00:29 | For this reason, Photoshop is
considered a destructive editor.
| | 00:33 | As you edit, the previous state of your
images is destroyed, and you may not be
| | 00:36 | able to get back to it if you need to.
| | 00:38 | One of the great advantages of RAW
files is that working with them is a
| | 00:41 | nondestructive process.
| | 00:43 | It is impossible for Photoshop to alter
the original RAW file, so you can undo or
| | 00:48 | alter an edit at anytime.
| | 00:50 | Here is how it works.
| | 00:51 | I am going to switch back to Bridge.
| | 00:54 | As you recall, this is an
image that we have cropped.
| | 00:58 | You probably did this yourself following along.
| | 01:00 | We cropped the image, and at the bottom
of the Camera Raw dialog box, when we
| | 01:04 | were finished, we hit the Done button.
| | 01:07 | When we did that, Photoshop, Camera
Raw wrote out an extra little file.
| | 01:13 | So here's my original file, Crop1.CR2.
| | 01:16 | And now, sitting right next to
it, created today is Crop1.xmp.
| | 01:22 | XMP is a variation of XML;
| | 01:25 | it's something that Adobe came up with.
| | 01:27 | I am going to open this up in a
TextEditor, and you'll see that XMP file is
| | 01:31 | just a little text file. That's all it is.
| | 01:34 | It's a text file containing a description of
the edits that I want to apply to this image.
| | 01:39 | Now, you may think, well,
what are all these doing here?
| | 01:41 | All you did was crop it. That's true.
| | 01:43 | There is an entry for every Camera Raw
edit that I could have made, and a lot of
| | 01:47 | them are just simply set at the default values.
| | 01:50 | So what I have now is a set of original
image data, which is this RAW file, and
| | 01:56 | a list of edits that I want
applied to that image data.
| | 01:59 | Now, anytime I open the file in Camera
Raw, Camera Raw automatically goes and
| | 02:05 | looks for a corresponding XMP file.
| | 02:07 | If it finds one, then it loads those settings.
| | 02:10 | If I now change the crop and hit Done, that
XMP file is altered to show a different crop.
| | 02:18 | When I open the image
again, there is my new crop.
| | 02:21 | So my crops are never destructive;
| | 02:24 | they never completely alter the image.
| | 02:26 | I can go back at anytime
and edit them and alter them.
| | 02:29 | This is true of every edit
that I make in Camera Raw.
| | 02:32 | It's a completely nondestructive editing system.
| | 02:35 | This is tremendously powerful,
for a number of different reasons.
| | 02:38 | One, it means that while I'm working on
image, I don't have to worry about "Now,
| | 02:42 | I might need to go back and change that
Saturation setting, or something." I can at any time.
| | 02:45 | "Oh! I don't like the crop.
I want to do it differently." I can at any time.
| | 02:49 | It becomes even more important later
when I am coming back to the image, say,
| | 02:53 | when I'm getting ready to print it,
and I find that what I thought were
| | 02:57 | originally good settings turned
out not to work out so well on paper.
| | 03:00 | Let's take a look at these workflow
buttons that we glanced over earlier.
| | 03:05 | These let me control what happens
to the image when I leave Camera Raw.
| | 03:11 | As you saw earlier, if you hit done,
then the Camera Raw dialog box closes,
| | 03:15 | but also Camera Raw updates the XMP file to
hold all of the edits that you might have made.
| | 03:21 | The idea here is that I go and I make a
bunch of edits to this image in Camera Raw.
| | 03:25 | I hit Done. I don't have to wait for anything;
| | 03:28 | I can go right on to the next image in Bridge.
| | 03:30 | I am going to open up another image.
| | 03:32 | If I make some changes to this image -
here I'll goose the saturation real far -
| | 03:38 | if I hit Cancel, Camera Raw closes, and
no alterations are made to the XMP file.
| | 03:44 | In other words, when I go back to this
image, it doesn't have the saturation boost.
| | 03:49 | If I hit Open Image, Camera Raw will
close, the XMP file will be updated, and
| | 03:56 | the image will be converted into a
document and opened in Photoshop.
| | 04:00 | So now I am in Photoshop, as you can
see up here, with all my normal Photoshop
| | 04:03 | tools, and I am looking at the image
processed according to how I can figure my
| | 04:08 | settings in Camera Raw.
| | 04:09 | If I look up here at the file name,
you'll see that I am working on Crop2.CR2,
| | 04:13 | which was the name of the original raw file.
| | 04:15 | But let's say I make a change to this
image of some kind and I go to Save it.
| | 04:20 | If I go up here to File and choose
Save, normally just choosing Save on an
| | 04:25 | edited image would write over the original file.
| | 04:28 | When it's a RAW file though,
Photoshop gives you a Save dialog box.
| | 04:33 | You cannot write over an
original RAW file with Photoshop.
| | 04:36 | So now I can go ahead and choose a format.
| | 04:38 | You are going to want to use Photoshop
or TIFF format for saving these - never
| | 04:42 | JPEG, because JPEG degrades your image.
| | 04:45 | It's a lossy compressor.
| | 04:47 | Obviously, if you need to output a
JPEG file at some point, to e-mail this to
| | 04:51 | someone or post on the web, that's fine.
| | 04:52 | But for our work files, we stay in a
lossless format, like Photoshop or TIFF.
| | 04:55 | Give it a name. Hit Save.
| | 04:59 | From that point on, I would then
edit the Photoshop file for additional
| | 05:02 | edits, not the RAW files.
| | 05:03 | So I will end up with multiple images.
| | 05:06 | Let's just do that right now, actually.
I am going to hit Save As, which is same as
| | 05:10 | Save, and I am working
with the RAW file, Photoshop.
| | 05:13 | Save this back into the
folder where the RAW file was.
| | 05:16 | And now you'll see I have the RAW
version of the image and the Photoshop
| | 05:22 | version of the image.
| | 05:23 | If I want to continue to make
Photoshop edits, I will work on this file.
| | 05:27 | Finally, there is this Save Image button.
| | 05:31 | If I click this, I get this dialog box.
| | 05:35 | This lets me update the XMP file,
just like all the other buttons do, but
| | 05:39 | rather than opening it in Photoshop, it just
writes it out to the file in any of these formats.
| | 05:44 | The idea here is batch processing.
| | 05:47 | You can actually open up multiple
images in Camera Raw, simultaneously.
| | 05:51 | So, I am going to take these three RAW
files and double-click on them, and now
| | 05:55 | you see I get this Filmstrip view over here.
| | 05:58 | I can edit these different images, and
then when I am all done, select them all,
| | 06:03 | which you can do with the Select All
button, hit Save Images and tell Camera Raw
| | 06:07 | to write out a Photoshop file for each of them.
| | 06:09 | Then I can go to lunch while
it processes all my images.
| | 06:12 | That should be plainly obvious;
| | 06:14 | nondestructive editing gives you
tremendous flexibility in the way that you work.
| | 06:18 | Photoshop also has some
nondestructive editing features, which we will look
| | 06:21 | at in detail later.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Spotting and cleanup | 00:00 | If you spend a lot of time shooting
outdoors with an SLR, it's inevitable that
| | 00:05 | you will, at some point,
have a problem with sensor dust.
| | 00:08 | Even if you never change lenses in the
field, dust can still work its way into
| | 00:12 | your camera and show up on
your images as smudges and spots.
| | 00:16 | You can tell for sure that a dust
spot is a dust spot on your sensor if it
| | 00:20 | appears in the same place across several images.
| | 00:25 | Watch this spot right here, which looks
like it could actually be a feature on
| | 00:28 | the ground, but as I switch to the next
image, an image which is panned, you can
| | 00:32 | see now the spot is staying in the same place.
| | 00:35 | I have got the same problem up here,
and there is another one over here.
| | 00:42 | So in this case, my sensor is
completely covered with dust, which isn't too
| | 00:46 | big of a surprise, given that I am
standing on top of the sand dune.
| | 00:49 | You'll probably also find that dust
spots are more visible when shooting
| | 00:53 | at smaller apertures.
| | 00:54 | Unfortunately, because you usually
shoot landscapes with small apertures to
| | 00:58 | ensure deep depth of field, this means
that your landscape images will be more
| | 01:01 | prone to revealing any dust
problems that you might have.
| | 01:04 | The good news is that Camera Raw has an
easy mechanism for dealing with sensor dust.
| | 01:08 | I want you to open an image, but first,
I want to show you a quick shortcut here.
| | 01:12 | You can easily take a folder and drop
it over here in the Favorites panel of
| | 01:19 | Bridge to create a shortcut to it.
| | 01:21 | So now I can just click on Exercise Files
to get to a folder full of exercise files.
| | 01:28 | Open up Crop1 again.
| | 01:30 | This was the image that we are working
with for awhile now, and you've probably
| | 01:33 | already noticed that there is a bad
dust spot right here, and there are couple
| | 01:36 | of others hidden around here and there.
| | 01:38 | So we need to take that out.
| | 01:40 | Another tip that I have learned the hard way;
| | 01:43 | before you go scrubbing with your mouse
on a piece of dust, pick up the window
| | 01:48 | and move it around a little bit and
make sure this spot of dust moves.
| | 01:51 | I don't know how much of my life I have
lost to trying to remove spots that were
| | 01:55 | actually pieces of dust on my monitor.
| | 01:57 | It's very embarrassing.
| | 01:58 | Actually, I can't believe I am talking about it.
| | 02:01 | The Spot Removal tool is right here.
| | 02:03 | If I select it, I get a
cursor that is just a Brush tool.
| | 02:08 | I have two controls for it: Radius and Opacity.
| | 02:11 | Radius controls the size.
| | 02:12 | Problem with the Radius slider is if I
go over here and adjust the Radius, I've
| | 02:17 | got to come back over here to see how
big the brush is. The easier way to adjust
| | 02:21 | the radius of the brush is to simply use the
Left and Right Bracket keys on the keyboard;
| | 02:25 | same as the Brush shortcuts in Photoshop.
| | 02:27 | I want to make the brush just a little
bit bigger than the spot of dust, and then
| | 02:32 | I click, and that's it; the dust is gone.
| | 02:34 | There's really not that much to say about the
Spot Removal tool because it works really well;
| | 02:38 | it's very easy to use.
| | 02:39 | If you're wondering what this other
circle is, this is where Photoshop is
| | 02:44 | sampling from and building a
patch that goes over this image.
| | 02:48 | See if I am dragging up here
now, it's not quite as clean.
| | 02:52 | So, if Photoshop makes a mistake in
where it chooses, you can manually correct
| | 02:56 | it by moving this around.
| | 02:57 | So I am just going to prowl through my
image here, looking for other dust spots.
| | 03:02 | It's worse on this side of
the sensor it looks like.
| | 03:04 | Make my brush a little smaller,
take out that one, that one.
| | 03:10 | Again, these are nondestructive
edits, because all Photoshop has to do is
| | 03:14 | remember the coordinates of these
different points, and it can store those in the
| | 03:19 | XMP file, and that's pretty good.
| | 03:22 | I have got the image pretty clean.
| | 03:24 | While it's possible to do more complex
corrections with the Spot Removal brush,
| | 03:29 | it's best to really use it only for spots.
| | 03:31 | Sure, I could go in with it and meticulously
try and paint ship rock out of here, but
| | 03:34 | if those are the types of edits you
want to use, you're better off working in
| | 03:38 | Photoshop with a variety of different tools.
| | 03:41 | Really, Spot Removal is for
these kind of single-click spot jobs.
| | 03:44 | Obviously, once you've found a sensor dust
problem, you want to address it at the
| | 03:48 | camera level before you go shooting again.
You need to get your sensor clean.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning the camera sensor| 00:00 | Landscape photography, of course,
comes with its hazards, falling in lakes
| | 00:05 | and that kind of thing.
| | 00:06 | But one of the biggest troubles you're
going to run into, out in the field with
| | 00:09 | your camera, is sensor dust.
| | 00:11 | It may not happen all the time, but with
an SLR, if you're out in the wilds, and
| | 00:15 | you're changing lenses a lot, there's a very good
chance that dust is going to get in the camera.
| | 00:19 | When that happens, you're going to
see spots and smudges and things on your
| | 00:23 | images, and we talk about how to get
that off, but I want to talk now about how
| | 00:27 | to clean the camera once it happens.
| | 00:29 | A lot of people are afraid of sensor
cleaning, and with good reason; you can
| | 00:33 | damage the camera if you
clean your sensor incorrectly.
| | 00:37 | What I have got here is a collection of
gear designed specifically for sensor
| | 00:41 | cleaning, and we are going to look at
how this works, and try to give you an idea
| | 00:44 | of what cleaning your sensor entails, so
you can decide if you want to invest in
| | 00:47 | this kind of gear, and do it yourself,
or send the camera in to have it cleaned
| | 00:53 | when you run into a sensor dust problem.
| | 00:55 | This is a Canon 40D, and like a lot
of cameras these days, it's got a
| | 01:00 | self-cleaning sensor mechanism, and what
it is is right in front of the sensor
| | 01:04 | there is a small glass plate that
protects the sensor. That can vibrate very
| | 01:11 | quickly, and by default, when you turn
the camera on, it vibrates very quickly.
| | 01:15 | The idea being it will shake off
any dust, and there is a little pad of
| | 01:18 | something sticky down at the
bottom that will trap the dust.
| | 01:21 | Some cameras do it every time you turn
it on, and every time you turn it off.
| | 01:24 | There's usually a preference, so that
if you don't want it to clean when you
| | 01:28 | turn the camera on -
because it does take a moment -
| | 01:30 | you can deactivate that, so it
only cleans when you turn it off.
| | 01:33 | It helps you ensure that the camera will
be ready to shoot as quickly as possible.
| | 01:36 | Those mechanisms work very well.
| | 01:38 | There's a definite difference, I've
experienced, between cameras that have it and don't.
| | 01:42 | I don't feel like I have the sensor
dust problems that I used to, now that I'm
| | 01:46 | using a Canon camera that's a self-cleaning.
| | 01:50 | But no matter how careful you are with
keeping your lenses clean, with having a
| | 01:54 | self-cleaning sensor,
| | 01:55 | there will be times that you
need to get dust off your sensor.
| | 01:59 | Here is how it works.
| | 01:59 | First thing, obviously, you got to
take the lens off the camera, which merely
| | 02:03 | means you're more prone to dust.
| | 02:05 | But it is probably not a
problem if you're in a clean spot.
| | 02:08 | Ideally, you would want lens
cap to put over your lens.
| | 02:10 | I am going to just set it like this
for right now, to keep the lens clean.
| | 02:15 | Now inside here is the mirror chamber.
| | 02:17 | The mirror, of course, flips up every time
I press the shutter button. It flips up,
| | 02:21 | behind there is the shutter, the
shutter opens and behind there is the sensor.
| | 02:25 | So to be able to get to the sensor to
clean it, I need to get the mirror out of
| | 02:29 | the way, and I need to get the shutter open.
| | 02:32 | Your camera should have a
cleaning mode that you can activate.
| | 02:36 | For this to work, you need to either
have the camera plugged into a power
| | 02:39 | outlet, running off the wall, or you need to
be sure that you have a fully charged battery.
| | 02:44 | The reason being, when the mirror is up,
and the shutter is open, and you're
| | 02:47 | digging around in there with tools, you
don't want the battery to die, because
| | 02:51 | if it does, the shutter will close,
and the mirror will come down.
| | 02:54 | If you got it, some kind of
implement in there, it could jam up the whole
| | 02:57 | mechanism, and you could have real
problem with a torn shutter, or a screwed up
| | 03:00 | mirror, or something like that.
| | 03:02 | So somewhere in your camera's menu
should be an option for cleaning mode, which
| | 03:08 | will flip up the mirror and open the shutter.
| | 03:10 | I am going to activate that now, and on
this particular camera, when I activate
| | 03:15 | sensor cleaning, it gives me an
option for clean now, which means that will
| | 03:19 | trigger the camera's cleaning
mechanism, or I have to clean manually which
| | 03:24 | means that I press the button and now
my mirror is up, my shutter is open, and
| | 03:32 | I can see the sensor.
| | 03:33 | So I've already spotted some spots on an image.
| | 03:37 | That's why I know that I
need to clean my sensor.
| | 03:40 | Next thing is to figure out
where exactly the dust is -
| | 03:42 | a couple of ways of doing that.
| | 03:43 | One is to take an image of an empty
sky or an evenly-lit, white wall, put your
| | 03:51 | camera in aperture priority, set
the aperture as wide as you can.
| | 03:55 | That means the largest number.
| | 03:56 | Defocus your shot and take a picture.
| | 03:58 | Then take that picture into Photoshop.
| | 04:00 | Increase the contrast, and you'll
be able to see where the dust is.
| | 04:04 | An easier way is to get an
actual sensor magnifying glass.
| | 04:09 | This is called a sensor loop.
| | 04:11 | This is made by the VisibleDust Company.
| | 04:13 | All of the sensor cleaning gear that
I'm using here it is made by VisibleDust,
| | 04:17 | and I'm very, very pleased with their equipment.
| | 04:20 | It has worked very well
for me and all of my cameras.
| | 04:23 | This is the company that for years
has been making products designed
| | 04:26 | specifically for cleaning optical equipments:
| | 04:28 | microscopes and other
fine pieces of optical gear.
| | 04:31 | So they really do know what they're doing.
| | 04:32 | What this is is a magnifying
glass with lights inside it.
| | 04:37 | So when I put that over here, I can
look inside and see exactly where the
| | 04:42 | dust is on the sensor, and I can see
here that I have got about 5 or 6 spots
| | 04:46 | of really bad dust.
| | 04:48 | Now that I have a better idea of where
they are, I know where to look. And now
| | 04:52 | there are series of steps that I go
through to try to get the sensor clean.
| | 04:55 | I will set this aside for the moment,
and I am going to go to the first step,
| | 04:58 | which is to simply blow
air into the sensor chamber.
| | 05:02 | Never ever, ever put a can of
compressed air to your camera.
| | 05:07 | Compressed air has a liquid propellant
in it that can get on your sensor, and
| | 05:09 | then you're going to be in really big trouble.
| | 05:11 | What I got here is just a blower bulb,
| | 05:12 | the kind of thing you can buy in a photo store.
| | 05:15 | Holding the camera upside down because
I want gravity working in my favor here,
| | 05:18 | and I'm not sticking this way up in
there, because I don't want to bump in
| | 05:21 | anything, and I am just giving it some
good blasts of air here, and I am hoping
| | 05:27 | that I am dislodging whatever is in there.
| | 05:29 | Now there are different kinds of dust.
| | 05:31 | There is just dried particulate
matter that can stick to the sensor.
| | 05:36 | There are drops of moisture that can
stick to the sensor, and then there is the
| | 05:40 | perfect storm of sensor dust, which
is a piece of dry particulate matter
| | 05:44 | sticking to a spot of moisture on your sensor.
| | 05:46 | There are different ways
of getting all of those off.
| | 05:48 | Obviously, just blowing air is not going
to help with moisture or something that
| | 05:53 | stuck to a moist spot on your sensor.
| | 05:56 | I'm not sure what kind of dust I was
facing there, and that got most of it,
| | 06:01 | except for one or two pieces.
| | 06:03 | Now sometimes when you're looking in
here, you will also see other bits of
| | 06:07 | dust around the camera.
| | 06:08 | The entire sensor chamber can be a
little bit dirty at times, and that may or
| | 06:13 | may not be a problem.
| | 06:14 | So I notice there was some dust up above,
and I am going to try and blast that out.
| | 06:18 | I usually get the blower brush a
couple of tries because this is the least
| | 06:21 | invasive and the most
benign form of sensor cleaning.
| | 06:25 | So if I can do the job with the blower
brush, I am in good shape, and now there
| | 06:30 | is one piece that's really sticking in there.
| | 06:32 | All right, so this means we go to kind
of Defcon 2 of sensor cleaning, which is
| | 06:38 | we are now going to have to brush
the surface of the sensor with a brush.
| | 06:43 | Now, you may think, oh I have
got some really nice cotton balls.
| | 06:45 | I am going to use those.
| | 06:46 | No, cotton may feel soft to
your skin, but bear in mind;
| | 06:50 | we are talking about an image sensor
that's about that big that has, in this
| | 06:55 | case, 10-12 million pixels on it.
| | 06:58 | That means an individual
pixel is very, very, very tiny.
| | 07:01 | A single strand of cotton is much, much
largerm and cotton can be abrasive on the
| | 07:06 | surface that is that finally honed.
| | 07:09 | You want to use brushes and tools
specifically designed for sensor cleaning, and
| | 07:13 | that's what these VisibleDust brushes are.
| | 07:16 | You don't want to go
| | 07:17 | 'I will just grab this makeup
brush that I found that's really soft.'
| | 07:21 | I want to use a special tool.
| | 07:23 | What I've got here is a
VisibleDust cleaning brush.
| | 07:28 | This is a slightly older model;
| | 07:29 | they make newer ones.
| | 07:30 | You can check on their web site;
| | 07:31 | I think now they are called the Arctic
Butterfly or something, and there are a
| | 07:34 | few things that are
significant about this brush.
| | 07:37 | First of all, the brush itself is guaranteed,
or at least finely-tuned, to not be abrasive.
| | 07:46 | It stays very dry.
| | 07:47 | I don't ever want to touch the brush.
| | 07:48 | I don't want any oils from
my fingers getting on it.
| | 07:50 | I don't want it to be dusty itself, and
the other thing about this brush is its
| | 07:54 | got this fancy handle here
with all these batteries in it.
| | 07:57 | Now, here is the exciting part;
| | 07:59 | when I push the little
button, the brush spins around.
| | 08:02 | This does a couple of things.
| | 08:04 | It throws off any dust that's on the
brush, but more importantly than that, the
| | 08:07 | spinning gives the brush a static charge.
| | 08:10 | So there is a very good chance that
the static charge alone is going to suck
| | 08:13 | some stuff right off the sensor.
| | 08:14 | So now, and this is the part that starts to feel
little creepy if you've never done it before,
| | 08:19 | I am going to stick this
brush inside the camera.
| | 08:23 | I don't twirl the brush while it's in there.
| | 08:25 | All I am doing is brushing across the
sensor, and I know that the spot that I
| | 08:32 | was going for is at the bottom of the sensor.
| | 08:34 | So I am really focusing on that and
sometimes, again, I am just hoping that the
| | 08:39 | static charge will absorb it a little bit.
| | 08:43 | Sometimes you end up just
pushing the dust around.
| | 08:45 | So I am going to take a
quick look here in the loop.
| | 08:48 | If you don't have one of these, what
this means is after each step, you're going
| | 08:51 | to put the lens back on the camera, take
another test image and take a look, and
| | 08:57 | that looks like I got it.
| | 08:58 | I don't see it there anymore, which is
good because I really didn't want to go
| | 09:03 | on to the next level.
| | 09:03 | So we are not going to demonstrate this
for you, and it would probably just be
| | 09:07 | far too suspenseful and
unnerving for you to watch anyway.
| | 09:09 | The next level involves liquid and liquid in
your camera just is always a scary combination.
| | 09:15 | VisibleDust makes these
VisibleDust sensor swabs.
| | 09:18 | These are specially - just
like at the end of the brush -
| | 09:21 | they are a swab material that is
designed to be safer for sensor and a special
| | 09:25 | very benign cleaning fluid that you
put on the swab, and you begin wiping it
| | 09:30 | across the sensor, and that just feels
awful because you're in there with a wet,
| | 09:34 | high-tech Q-tip rubbing goo on
your sensor, just, it's terrifying.
| | 09:39 | You rub the stuff on, and then you get
another one of these swabs and you dry it off.
| | 09:43 | And then you look and you hope
that not only is the dust gone;
| | 09:46 | you hope that you haven't left streaks of
cleaning material of the cleaning fluid.
| | 09:50 | If you have, you have to
start over and do it again.
| | 09:52 | So I believe that we've got this
sensor cleaned now and as you can see, it
| | 09:56 | was pretty painless.
| | 09:59 | That said, I will say
there is a risk to doing this.
| | 10:02 | I have cleaned my sensor a
lot on many different cameras;
| | 10:05 | I had never ever had a problem.
| | 10:07 | In each case, I have used gear,
VisibleDust gear, designed specifically
| | 10:11 | for sensor cleaning.
| | 10:13 | Also, they have demo movies of how to use
this stuff on their web site. They have PDFs.
| | 10:17 | I've poured over every word of it to be sure
I knew what I was doing before I ever started.
| | 10:22 | Also, just some common sense, you do
it in a clean area and that kind of
| | 10:25 | thing. And if you're having an allergy attack
in the middle, you stop, that kind of thing.
| | 10:30 | That said, I've never had a problem.
| | 10:32 | If you are clumsy or not comfortable
handling gear, or things like that, or you
| | 10:37 | just really don't want to take the risk,
you can send your camera back to the
| | 10:41 | manufacturer, and they will clean it for you.
| | 10:43 | Obviously, the problem with this is
you're out of the camera for awhile, and I
| | 10:46 | don't know what they
charge for that kind of thing.
| | 10:48 | VisibleDust, there are some
other companies out there.
| | 10:50 | I am not as familiar with them, but I
have been very impressed with this equipment.
| | 10:53 | At the very least, get yourself a good
blower bulb because, as I mentioned in
| | 10:58 | another video, the best way to
prevent sensor dust is prevention.
| | 11:02 | So cleaning the end of your lens with
your blower brush is a very good way to
| | 11:06 | ensure that you're not
going to have a dust problem.
| | 11:10 | If it's too late, and you've already
got dust on your images, we are going to
| | 11:13 | see how to deal with that in other videos.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lens correction | 00:00 | Sometimes your images will have
flaws that are no fault of your own.
| | 00:04 | While you might have carefully crafted
the right exposure for a scene, your lens
| | 00:08 | itself might betray you due to
aberrations and problems in its optics.
| | 00:13 | Unfortunately, most of these types
of problems only show up in the exact
| | 00:16 | situations that landscape
photographers tend to work.
| | 00:19 | The good news is that Camera RAW and
Photoshop both have excellent tools for
| | 00:23 | correcting lens troubles.
| | 00:25 | Vignetting is a darkening in the
corners of your image, and it's usually only
| | 00:30 | a problem when shooting at wide
angles, again something landscape
| | 00:33 | photographers tend to do.
| | 00:35 | You can see that in this image, obviously, the
first problem with this image is it's sideways.
| | 00:38 | So in Camera RAW, hit the Rotate tool
up here, which rotates you clockwise.
| | 00:43 | And now just look up here in the
corner can see the darkening here.
| | 00:47 | Now there is also darkening down here, but
that part of the image is dark so it's hidden.
| | 00:52 | If you're shooting against any kind
of busy background, vignetting is often
| | 00:56 | hidden, but because landscapes
usually include bright skies, vignetting can
| | 01:00 | show up quite a bit.
| | 01:02 | There are times when you want to add
vignettes to bring more attention to the
| | 01:06 | center of your image, but in this
case we'd like to get rid of it.
| | 01:09 | Fortunately, Camera RAW
provides a very easy way to do that.
| | 01:13 | If you go over here to the Lens
Correction tab in Camera RAW, you'll see tools
| | 01:18 | for two different things:
Chromatic Aberrations and Lens Vignetting.
| | 01:21 | First, there's an Amount slider, which
dials in the amount of correction that you want.
| | 01:27 | So I have dark corners
that I would like to brighten.
| | 01:29 | So I'm going to drag the slider to brighter end,
watch the image - particularly the upper corners -
| | 01:35 | and you'll see that there goes my vignetting.
| | 01:37 | If that seems magical, just keep going,
| | 01:40 | and you'll see what it's doing, because now
I'm getting an edge burn. It got too bright.
| | 01:45 | So you can see what's going on is
Photoshop is just brightening the corners, and
| | 01:49 | that's serving to counteract the vignette.
| | 01:51 | And that's pretty good.
| | 01:53 | The Midpoint slider controls
how big the corner brightening is.
| | 01:58 | And the easiest way to see it is
to - let's do an exaggerated vignette.
| | 02:02 | Rather than lightening the corners, I'm
going to darken the corners by dragging
| | 02:05 | the Amount slider down here.
| | 02:07 | And now, as I move the Midpoint slider, you
can get a better idea of what it's doing.
| | 02:15 | So it to the left makes a larger
radius on the corner darkening; to the right
| | 02:19 | makes a smaller radius.
| | 02:20 | Set that back to the middle and
put my vignette back to correct.
| | 02:28 | And I've taken out my vignetting problem.
| | 02:30 | You can see also that it's opened up a
little bit in these corners down here,
| | 02:33 | which is kind of nice.
| | 02:34 | We can play more with them later
when we get to editing this image.
| | 02:37 | I'm going to hit the Done button
to keep my vignette correction.
| | 02:41 | At a given focal length, vignetting
may be better or worse, depending on the
| | 02:45 | aperture that you use.
| | 02:46 | For example, here's the same scene shot at
two different apertures. This is at F11.
| | 02:52 | And now the same image, roughly the
same framing shot at F4 looks like this.
| | 02:57 | Obviously, there is a change in depth of field.
| | 02:59 | Here again is F11, F4.
| | 03:01 | My background went softer.
| | 03:03 | But watch the corners up here, F11, F4.
| | 03:07 | So in this particular lens, there is a
definite increase in vignetting at wider apertures.
| | 03:14 | It's easy to test your lens for vignetting.
| | 03:15 | Just point it in a
brightly lit wall or at the sky,
| | 03:18 | zoom out to the widest focal length,
and try shooting at the widest aperture.
| | 03:22 | And then stop it down to around 8 or 11.
| | 03:25 | By learning which lenses have problems
with vignetting, you can work around the
| | 03:28 | problem in the field, or as you've seen
here, you can correct vignetting in Camera RAW.
| | 03:33 | This is a case where in this image I actually
like the vignetting because the sky is empty.
| | 03:37 | There are no clouds.
| | 03:38 | Without the vignetting, it's a
little bleak out there. I don't know.
| | 03:42 | I can call that in either way actually,
but very often vignetting will serve to
| | 03:46 | bring more focus to the center of your image.
| | 03:48 | Let's look at another problem.
| | 03:50 | Open up the image that we
were cropping earlier, Crop1.
| | 03:56 | We know that this image
has a few different problems,
| | 03:59 | and we're going to get to them
later, but right now I want to zoom in
| | 04:02 | on shiprock over here.
| | 04:03 | I'm going to zoom in a
long way, and that's at 100%.
| | 04:07 | Look here along this edge.
| | 04:09 | There is a little bit of red halo, and
if you look real close, you can see a
| | 04:13 | little bit of green halo over here.
| | 04:14 | Let's zoom in a little bit closer.
| | 04:15 | And now it's becoming much more apparent.
| | 04:18 | This is chromatic aberration.
| | 04:21 | Chromatic aberration occurs when your
lens is not capable of focusing different
| | 04:25 | wavelengths in light, all three
primary colors, to the exact same spot.
| | 04:29 | In other words the red channel's just
slipped out of registration a little bit here.
| | 04:33 | And it's leaving this little red fringe.
| | 04:35 | First thing to notice about identifying
any type of problem when you're zoomed
| | 04:39 | into 300% on a 20 megapixel image,
there is a very good chance that this is not
| | 04:45 | going to show up in print, but this
is also something that's very easy to
| | 04:49 | correct, so there's no reason not to,
because if I was to blow this image up
| | 04:52 | real large it might actually turn up.
| | 04:54 | So let's go back to the Lens
Correction tab and you see Chromatic Aberration:
| | 04:58 | Fix Red/Cyan Fringe or Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe.
| | 05:02 | Well, I'm having a Magenta/Green Fringe.
| | 05:06 | I'm going to say that's
pretty closed to Red/Cyan.
| | 05:09 | And I'm going to take this
slider and drag it to the left.
| | 05:11 | So watch this edge here as I do that, and
you'll see the red halo there just disappear.
| | 05:18 | And now it's started to turn green.
| | 05:20 | And this is what happens if you
drag too far; you reverse the problem.
| | 05:22 | So I'm going to go until about right there.
| | 05:27 | Now what Camera RAW is doing is it's
geometrically shifting the position of one
| | 05:32 | color channel to put it back into registration.
| | 05:35 | So that looks much better.
| | 05:36 | My problem is gone.
| | 05:37 | I'm going to quickly zip over
here to the other side of the image.
| | 05:40 | I'm holding down the Spacebar to get
the Pan tool, and then I'm just clicking
| | 05:43 | and dragging, because I want to make
sure that I didn't introduce the problem
| | 05:47 | somewhere else, and it's
all looking pretty clean here.
| | 05:50 | So I think we are in pretty good shape.
| | 05:53 | I'm going to hit Done to keep that.
| | 05:56 | We tackle spot removal and lens
correction and vignetting correction early in
| | 06:01 | our image editing workflow because if
we can't fix all of these problems then
| | 06:04 | there is a good chance that
we're going to abandon the image.
| | 06:06 | For example, there is no point in
performing a bunch of fancy exposure
| | 06:09 | adjustments only to find out later that
there's sensor dust that's so bad that the
| | 06:13 | image can't be used.
| | 06:15 | Sometimes spots and vignettes will
only appear after you've made some
| | 06:18 | exposure alterations,
| | 06:20 | so you might need to return to all of
these tools later in your workflow if
| | 06:24 | problems become apparent.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting overexposed highlights | 00:00 | With our geometric dust and lens
correction problems solved, we're ready to move
| | 00:05 | on to the core of our image editing
process: tone and color adjustment.
| | 00:10 | Now, I say adjustment rather than
correction because while you will sometimes
| | 00:14 | use Photoshop to correct problems, very
often you will be using it to adjust an
| | 00:18 | image, to make it fit what
you envisioned at the location.
| | 00:21 | Many times there's simply no way to the
final product that you want. Here's an example.
| | 00:26 | Driving down the road, I saw what to me
was very plainly a cloud just hovering
| | 00:32 | over this mountain, casting
this menacing dark shadow.
| | 00:35 | And I shot this picture.
| | 00:37 | And yeah, okay, if you squint,
you can kind of see that.
| | 00:40 | And even if you've been sitting next to me
in the car, and I'd said wow! Look over there.
| | 00:43 | Look at that really dark
shadow on that mountain,
| | 00:45 | you might have gone, oh, oh yeah,
I see what you're talking about.
| | 00:49 | For whatever reason when I looked at
this image, I just was really struck
| | 00:53 | by that dark shadow.
| | 00:55 | There was no way of capturing it,
in camera, the way that I wanted,
| | 00:59 | particularly driving on highway.
| | 01:00 | Yes, I could have dramatically
underexposed it in camera. That would have created
| | 01:04 | a whole new set of problems
that would have to be adjusted.
| | 01:07 | So this is a case where the only way
to get the image that I envisioned was
| | 01:12 | through adjustments to alter
contrasting color, and obviously some cropping and
| | 01:16 | other things, to get that
menacing shadow that I had seen.
| | 01:20 | This is true with any subject matter,
but especially true for landscapes
| | 01:23 | where you're often dealing with dynamic
range situations that your camera can't capture.
| | 01:27 | Having to make a lot of these types of
adjustments does not mean that you're
| | 01:31 | doing something wrong while shooting.
| | 01:32 | However, as we'll see, you need to be
careful when you shoot to be sure that you
| | 01:36 | can pull off some of the
adjustments that you want later.
| | 01:39 | Most of the time your biggest
exposure concerns will be highlights.
| | 01:42 | Losing shadow detail usually isn't
critical because shadows are dark, but
| | 01:46 | highlights that have blown out to
complete white can be a big distraction.
| | 01:50 | So we're going to start our
tonal adjustment process with some
| | 01:53 | highlight examples.
| | 01:56 | So open up Badwater, the image
that we were straightening earlier.
| | 02:01 | Now I hope by now one of the first
things you do when you open an image is
| | 02:05 | you check out the Histogram, because
you are so proud of your new histogram
| | 02:09 | reading capabilities.
| | 02:10 | And if you do that, you'll see this big
spike over here on the right side, which
| | 02:13 | as we discussed before, means overexposure.
| | 02:17 | You may look at the image
and go, well, I don't know.
| | 02:19 | It looks all pretty well exposed to me.
| | 02:22 | There are these white spots on the
cloud, or white patches on the cloud, that are
| | 02:26 | complete white. They have no detail.
| | 02:27 | And it's very easy, particularly with
clouds, to look at that and think, well,
| | 02:30 | it's just how the clouds look.
| | 02:31 | There was bright light bouncing off of
them, and they just looked really white.
| | 02:35 | Well, let's find out for sure.
There is a Highlight Warning button up here.
| | 02:40 | If I click on it, Camera RAW
highlights any overexposed areas in red.
| | 02:46 | These are areas that are
blown out to complete white.
| | 02:48 | They are completely devoid of detail.
| | 02:50 | This image has other exposure of
concerns, but our first issue is to deal with
| | 02:54 | these overexposed highlights.
| | 02:56 | If this was a JPEG image, we
would be done with the clouds.
| | 02:59 | There would be nothing we could do.
| | 03:00 | We could not get detail back in there.
But because this is a raw file, we can do
| | 03:05 | this seemingly magical thing of
restoring detail where there is none right now.
| | 03:11 | So I want you to watch these
parts of the clouds while I drag this
| | 03:15 | Exposure slider to the left.
| | 03:16 | So with your eye on the
clouds I drag to the left.
| | 03:20 | And look, those highlights are no
longer exposed. There's detail.
| | 03:24 | There's full on cloud back there.
| | 03:26 | So first of all you see that oh!
| | 03:28 | There really was detail there.
| | 03:29 | It was wrong to leave those blown out.
| | 03:31 | And second, you probably are left
wondering how in the world is that possible?
| | 03:36 | It turns out that when you overexpose
a particular tone, you sometimes don't
| | 03:40 | overexpose it in all three color channels.
| | 03:43 | If you have only overexposed the Red
channel or the Red and the Blue channel,
| | 03:46 | and the Green channel is still there,
or any other single channel's left
| | 03:50 | surviving, Camera RAW can use that
channel to rebuild the missing information,
| | 03:55 | and put detail back where there was none before.
| | 03:58 | I'm going to put Exposure back to where
it was by hitting Undo with Command+Z.
| | 04:02 | This time, I want you to watch the
right side of the histogram as I drag the
| | 04:05 | Exposure slider to the left.
| | 04:07 | And you see there, my spike is going
away, but look, right at the top it's
| | 04:11 | turned a little bit red and
indicates that the Red channel is still more
| | 04:15 | overexposed, keep dragging.
| | 04:17 | There's a little bit of yellow in
there, which implies that the two other
| | 04:21 | channels are overexposing.
| | 04:22 | And now I'm back to normal.
| | 04:25 | So this is one of the key reasons
why we shoot with Raw is the ability to
| | 04:29 | recover overexposed highlights.
| | 04:31 | Now the down side to it is now
the rest of my image is darker.
| | 04:35 | I'm going to undo that last
adjustment again to put Exposure back to 0.
| | 04:39 | It looks like I moved it more than just once.
| | 04:42 | So I'm going to just put that at 0.
| | 04:44 | Notice this Recovery slider down here.
| | 04:46 | As I slide that to the right, again,
I'm getting detail back in my clouds.
| | 04:53 | And I've killed this spike over here, but I
haven't shifted the entire tonal range down.
| | 04:59 | So I haven't darkened any more of my image.
| | 05:01 | So the Recovery slider is a very
good way to recover highlights without
| | 05:05 | darkening your entire image.
| | 05:06 | It doesn't necessarily have as
much latitude as the Exposure slider.
| | 05:10 | So there will be times when maybe you
drag this all the way over to the right,
| | 05:14 | and you haven't recovered all your highlights.
| | 05:15 | At that point, you might have to
resort back to the Exposure slider.
| | 05:20 | Hit Done to save those changes.
| | 05:22 | Now take a look at this image.
| | 05:26 | This isn't technically a landscape
image, but it's a good example of
| | 05:31 | bad highlight clipping.
| | 05:32 | So here you can see I've got
overexposed highlights here.
| | 05:35 | And it's pretty obvious where they are.
| | 05:36 | Let's hit the Highlight warning just to be sure.
| | 05:39 | And whoa, there is a lot of it.
| | 05:40 | The sky is completely blown out.
| | 05:41 | I'm going to hit my
Recovery slider all the way over.
| | 05:45 | And I've recovered a fair amount already.
| | 05:46 | I got all of this back.
| | 05:47 | I've got a lot more data up here,
but I'm going to go further.
| | 05:50 | I'm going to take my Exposure
slider and slide it to the left.
| | 05:52 | Now watch the clouds.
| | 05:53 | You'll see more detail come back in, more,
more, more, except that this isn't changing.
| | 06:01 | And I've still got a spike over here.
| | 06:03 | So what we've got here is we had an
area where highlights were only overexposed
| | 06:07 | in one or two channels.
| | 06:09 | Those areas were recovered, but then
we had this area where highlights are
| | 06:12 | overexposed in all three channels.
| | 06:14 | That's an example of a
highlight that's just too far gone.
| | 06:17 | There is nothing you can do about it.
| | 06:20 | So this is one reason that we start our
adjustments with overexposed highlights
| | 06:24 | is to be sure that we can recover them,
but also because we need to have the
| | 06:28 | highlights in place before we
move on to the rest of the image.
| | 06:31 | Plainly, the Badwater image is far from
finished, but at least our overexposed
| | 06:35 | highlights are now under control
and are proving to be salvageable.
| | 06:39 | Overexposed highlights are a big
concern for landscape shooters.
| | 06:42 | Anytime you're shooting a scene where
there is a possibility of the sky blowing
| | 06:46 | out or any other highlight blowing out,
| | 06:47 | it's best to bracket a few shots, that
is, take the same shot multiple times
| | 06:51 | with varying exposures.
| | 06:52 | The Exposure Compensation control
on your camera makes this very easy.
| | 06:56 | And most SLRs have auto-bracketing
features that will do this for you.
| | 07:00 | One tip: If you're trying to control
depth of field and so are using your camera
| | 07:05 | in Aperture Priority mode with a
specific aperture, when you use Exposure
| | 07:09 | Compensation or Auto-Bracketing, then
your chosen aperture will still take
| | 07:13 | priority as long as you're in Aperture
Priority mode, that is, the camera will
| | 07:17 | make its compensations through changes
in shutter speed, and possibly ISO, to ensure
| | 07:22 | that your aperture stays where you set it.
| | 07:24 | With your highlights recovered, it's
time to move on to the rest of your
| | 07:27 | tonal adjustments.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Basic tonal correction| 00:00 | Tone in photography refers to
brightness, and by extension, contrast.
| | 00:05 | Tonal adjustments are some of the most
critical adjustments that you'll make to any image,
| | 00:09 | and we perform them next because very
often the process of correcting the tone
| | 00:14 | of an image will also fix any
color problems that it may have.
| | 00:17 | You've already seen how to
recover overexposed highlights.
| | 00:21 | This image does not have that problem.
| | 00:23 | One of the first steps in adjusting tone is
to figure out what tonal problems an image has.
| | 00:29 | And as we've discussed before, the
histogram can be your key to that diagnosis.
| | 00:34 | You can see, from this histogram, that
this is a slightly low contrast image.
| | 00:40 | And I can see that because there are
no blacks in the image, and there are no
| | 00:43 | whites, and the distance between the
darkest and lightest point is fairly small,
| | 00:50 | not tiny, but it's not as big as it could be.
| | 00:52 | In other words, there's very little
contrast between this point and that point -
| | 00:56 | I shouldn't say very little, but
there's not as much contrast between those two
| | 00:59 | points as there could be.
| | 01:01 | I can also tell that this image is
little contrast by looking at the image.
| | 01:05 | And you maybe think why do
I need the histogram for?
| | 01:07 | I should just look at the image.
| | 01:08 | Well, sometimes even a contrast problem is
difficult to assess simply by looking at it.
| | 01:12 | You may look at it and think, now the
whites are too dim or something, which
| | 01:17 | they are. But in this case, what's
really going to be more critical,
| | 01:20 | contrast-wise, are the blacks.
| | 01:22 | We've got some pretty bright tones.
| | 01:24 | We don't have a lot of really dark tones.
| | 01:25 | The main you know is that this
images needs a contrast adjustment,
| | 01:29 | and we have plenty of
tools for dealing with that.
| | 01:31 | Let's look at these sliders.
| | 01:32 | You've seen the Recovery slider.
| | 01:34 | You've seen that the
Exposure slider can darken an image.
| | 01:38 | Watch what happens to the data in the
histogram as I move this Exposure slider around.
| | 01:42 | All of it gets shoved to the left when
I slide to the left, meaning the image
| | 01:46 | gets darker, because now as you can
see, there are lots of dark tones in the
| | 01:50 | image, very few light tones.
| | 01:52 | As you would expect, dragging the
other way brightens the image, to the point
| | 01:55 | where I can even blow out highlights.
| | 01:58 | Put that back in its default value.
| | 02:01 | The Blacks slider - which comes in with a
default of five - the Blacks slider moves
| | 02:06 | only the lower part of the range.
| | 02:08 | When we're working in tonal adjustments,
it's important to think of this whole
| | 02:12 | tonal range here as divided
into three different areas.
| | 02:14 | There are shadows, there are
midtones, and there are highlights.
| | 02:21 | With the Blacks slider, I can adjust the
shadows independently on the other tones.
| | 02:26 | So there - now I'm looking at
the histogram at this point;
| | 02:29 | I'm not even really watching the image.
| | 02:31 | I've managed to fill in a bunch of
detail down here without affecting the whites.
| | 02:35 | The whites are still just
as white as they were before.
| | 02:37 | In fact, I'm still lacking a
little bit of brightness there.
| | 02:40 | Now as you move the slider, you
may think, well, no that slider is
| | 02:43 | adjusting the whole image.
| | 02:44 | I mean, this is changing
up here. And that's true.
| | 02:47 | But remember, the histogram is a
graph of the distribution of tones.
| | 02:51 | So what's happening when I slide the Blacks
slider in is I'm darkening a bunch of tones.
| | 02:56 | Tones that were in the midtone area
are now darkening up, and thus showing
| | 03:01 | up in the shadow area.
| | 03:02 | So I'm redistributing these tones.
| | 03:04 | I'm pushing this data down into the dark end.
| | 03:07 | Right away my image looks better.
| | 03:09 | It's got a little more punch.
| | 03:10 | It's got a little more pop because
it's got closer to correct contrast.
| | 03:14 | How far should I go with the Blacks slider?
| | 03:16 | What's the measure of when to stop?
| | 03:18 | Well, it's partly personal taste, but
you can look for a more objective measure.
| | 03:22 | As I go too far, I start
losing detail in shadow areas.
| | 03:26 | And so how much detail you want
to preserve is just up to you.
| | 03:30 | Too much black will
start looking a little weird.
| | 03:33 | Now at this point, I could also look at the
Histogram and say, whoa, there's no white.
| | 03:37 | Plainly, I must brighten up some of this image
to get some tones up there. And that's true.
| | 03:41 | I can do that. I can use the Exposure
slider to pull these over here.
| | 03:45 | And technically, I still have the
correct image, in terms of highlights.
| | 03:49 | Nothing is overexposed.
| | 03:51 | But in this case, I don't think
that adjustment works that well.
| | 03:54 | The sky is now a little too harsh.
| | 03:56 | It's actually probably a pretty
correct sky, given that I was shooting in the
| | 03:59 | middle of the day, but
aesthetically, it's now as pleasing.
| | 04:01 | So I'm going to undo that.
| | 04:03 | And you can see that's before, and that's after.
| | 04:07 | So I like it better with the sky a little dark.
| | 04:10 | So you don't always go exactly by the
numbers and say, well, I have to have to
| | 04:13 | white, and I have to have black, and
I have to have everything in between.
| | 04:16 | There are times when a
slightly duller sky is okay.
| | 04:20 | That's said, this area still
looks a little dim to me somehow.
| | 04:24 | The Brightness slider moves the midtones
back and forth while trying to maintain
| | 04:30 | minimal adjustment on
the shadows and highlights.
| | 04:31 | So that lets me put a little bit more
back into the mids without blowing up the
| | 04:36 | sky like we were before.
| | 04:37 | Finally, there is the Contrast slider,
which simply, in a way, slides both the white
| | 04:41 | point and the midpoint at the same time.
| | 04:43 | What's nice about it is it
will spread out all tones.
| | 04:45 | It will spread midtones into
shadows, midtones into highlights.
| | 04:48 | It will spread out the
highlights that are there.
| | 04:49 | It'd be a great way to immediately
add a little bit of extra contrast when
| | 04:54 | you're finding that adjusting the
black and white point is not getting you
| | 04:57 | where you need to be.
| | 04:59 | One thing to take note of - I'm
going to uncheck the Preview button.
| | 05:02 | That's before; that's after.
| | 05:05 | Our contrast is much better, but
notice what's happening to the color.
| | 05:09 | Watch this grassy area here.
| | 05:11 | Before, a little bit dull;
| | 05:13 | after, it's very saturated.
| | 05:15 | Same thing with the sky, although
not quite as much, lighter blue,
| | 05:19 | more saturated blue.
| | 05:20 | This is what I mean about tonal
adjustments will very often take care of
| | 05:25 | color adjustments also.
| | 05:27 | It's good that we did not go in
before our tonal adjustments and say, ooh!
| | 05:31 | This isn't saturated enough, and crank
the Saturation slider up, because then
| | 05:35 | after we've done our tonal adjustments
and picked up a bunch of saturation from
| | 05:39 | that, there is a good chance
this would have been overdone.
| | 05:42 | So we do our tonal adjustments first.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting blacks| 00:00 | Learning to use the tonal sliders in
Camera Raw, Blacks, Exposure, Contrast,
| | 00:05 | Brightness, this takes practice.
| | 00:07 | Hopefully, you're finding that the
histogram helps both in diagnosing problems
| | 00:11 | and in creating solutions.
Let's look at a few more examples.
| | 00:15 | Obviously, this image needs to be rotated.
| | 00:16 | I'm going to use the Rotate button at
the top of the Camera Raw dialog box.
| | 00:21 | By now, you should readily recognize
this image as being low-contrast, both
| | 00:25 | because it looks like it has a low
contrast and because you can tell from the
| | 00:28 | histogram that there are no blacks.
| | 00:30 | You've already seen that you can use
the Blacks slider to push image data down
| | 00:35 | into the blacks of the image.
| | 00:37 | I'm going to do that right now.
| | 00:39 | What we get is a pretty contrasty image.
| | 00:41 | In fact, it's an image that's possibly
too contrasty for the subject matter.
| | 00:45 | So, as much as I've been harping on
the histogram as a tool that lets you
| | 00:50 | understand what edits you can make to an
image where you might need to make to an image,
| | 00:53 | you also have to keep an eye on content.
| | 00:55 | This is a sand dune in bright sunlight.
That's a pretty pastel subject.
| | 00:59 | Even if you weren't there, even if you
don't remember, you should still be able
| | 01:02 | to recognize this i=as something that
doesn't need to be super-contrasty.
| | 01:06 | Nevertheless, where we
started is not contrasty enough.
| | 01:10 | It is washed out, and the image did
not look like this in real life, either.
| | 01:15 | Let's look at the difference between
using the Blacks slider to improve this
| | 01:18 | contrast and using the Contrast slider.
| | 01:20 | So, you've already seen that if I
stretch this out here, my sky gets very
| | 01:24 | saturated, but the main thing that I
want you to focus on is this area in here,
| | 01:30 | the relationship between this tone
and this tone and this tone. These have
| | 01:34 | gotten much darker, but the overall
relationship between these three areas has
| | 01:39 | not changed that much.
| | 01:40 | I'm going to put Blacks
back to where it was before.
| | 01:44 | Camera Raw has a default black setting of 5.
| | 01:47 | Sometimes, when you pull in an image,
that's actually too much and you want to
| | 01:50 | back it off, but here
we're going to leave it there.
| | 01:51 | Now, I'm going to take the Contrast slider
and increase it to add contrast to the image.
| | 01:57 | That's as far as it will go.
| | 01:58 | Now, if you look at this tone and this
tone, there's more variation between them
| | 02:04 | than there was when I
simply changed the Blacks slider.
| | 02:07 | Let's put Contrast back to where it was,
and move the Blacks slider out to here.
| | 02:11 | The dune overall has darkened, and this
and this have been darkened pretty much
| | 02:17 | by equal amount, so there's not
been an increase in Contrast here.
| | 02:19 | If I drag the Contrast slider to the
right, it's subtle, but the tones are
| | 02:24 | changing a slightly different way.
| | 02:27 | This image still needs a Blacks adjustment.
| | 02:29 | I'm going to push this over here.
| | 02:30 | Now we're getting back to an image
that's a little more normal.
| | 02:35 | Now, I do have black, which is showing up over
here, but I have a broader range of contrast.
| | 02:42 | Which one is correct, that's up to you.
| | 02:44 | When I do it this way, it feels like
this gradient here has lost some subtlety.
| | 02:49 | It's not a really smooth gradient from
this darker tone into this lighter tone.
| | 02:53 | Let's put things back to where they
were and now simply increase the Blacks.
| | 02:59 | Now, there is more tonal variation in here,
| | 03:01 | just a little bit; these are
very slight, subtle differences.
| | 03:04 | So which is correct?
| | 03:05 | Well, one thing that I don't like about
the Blacks images is that all of these
| | 03:09 | midtone values have gone very dark.
| | 03:11 | I can use the Brightness
slider to punch those back up.
| | 03:16 | Now, I'm possibly starting to
sacrifice some things over here.
| | 03:19 | This is what tonal adjustments are.
| | 03:21 | It's a lot of balance and compromise, and we
will use all three of these sliders together.
| | 03:27 | The image is looking too contrasty now.
| | 03:29 | I've got a couple of options.
| | 03:30 | I could back off the Blacks slider,
but if I do that, I'm going to lose this
| | 03:33 | nice black that I picked up over here;
| | 03:35 | instead, I'm going to use the
Contrast slider to now lower the contrast.
| | 03:40 | What's happening now is these midtone
values in here are being pushed back
| | 03:44 | together, and I'm getting a sand dune that
maintains its kind of nice pastel quality.
| | 03:49 | I've got good blacks overall in the
image, and I've got a level of brightness
| | 03:54 | that keeps the image from being a
little bit dull. I'm going to boost the blacks a
| | 03:57 | tiny bit, pull back a
little bit more on the contrast.
| | 04:00 | I think that's looking pretty good, and
that looks a little more like a shadow
| | 04:03 | off of a sand dune should look.
| | 04:05 | Let's take a look at another image.
| | 04:07 | I'm going to hit Done.
| | 04:08 | I don't want to open this one right now.
| | 04:09 | I just want to store those edits away.
| | 04:13 | Open up the Eureka Dunes, just
sticking with our sand dune theme here.
| | 04:19 | This image again is low contrast-ish.
| | 04:23 | The histogram shows that I don't have
strong black, I don't have strong white,
| | 04:26 | and you can see that the
shadow is not truly, deeply black.
| | 04:30 | I think that this shadow
shouldn't be truly, deeply black.
| | 04:33 | Again, we're in a very pastely environment.
| | 04:35 | If I follow the histogram to the
letter and put my Blacks way over here,
| | 04:39 | obviously, now I've got an
image that's too contrasty.
| | 04:42 | Even if I back off halfway, I'm still
getting a little too much dark in here.
| | 04:47 | So again, the histogram is a guide.
| | 04:49 | It's not the end-all be-all final
say in how an image should be adjusted.
| | 04:54 | I'm going to hit Done again to save
those edits, and return to this image, which
| | 05:02 | we had adjusted before.
| | 05:04 | This is a case where following the
histogram does work very well, as we saw.
| | 05:08 | At this point, I want you to notice the
difference between having Blacks here -
| | 05:12 | Now, what's black in the image?
| | 05:13 | There is a lot of little highlights
down in here, and there is this dark shadow
| | 05:16 | right here, which is not truly black.
| | 05:18 | Now, you may look at that and go, well,
it looks black to me, particularly
| | 05:22 | compared to those light browns over there.
| | 05:24 | No, that's not black. That's black.
| | 05:27 | Black is a quantifiable phenomena.
| | 05:29 | Black actually is an objective state.
| | 05:33 | Sometimes it's very important to
understand that when you're looking at a print
| | 05:37 | and going, that looks a little
dull, but there's black in there.
| | 05:40 | There may not be black in there.
| | 05:42 | Photoshop can tell you the
color value of an image of a pixel.
| | 05:46 | You can simply mouse over it.
| | 05:49 | Over here, you'll get an RGB readout.
| | 05:52 | So, this still is not quite black.
| | 05:53 | Black would be 000.
| | 05:55 | We don't need to go that far.
| | 05:57 | Actually, this is too far for this image.
| | 05:58 | I want some detail in there, and I
don't want the image to be that contrasty.
| | 06:02 | As you practice, over time,
you'll develop an eye for true black.
| | 06:06 | You'll be able to immediately spot when
the blacks are off by even a small amount.
| | 06:10 | This will make it easier to assess
Contrast, and to know when should sacrifice
| | 06:13 | shadow detail for better black.
| | 06:14 | But you'll also learn when
the lack of black is okay.
| | 06:17 | There is one more tool in
Camera Raw for adjusting blacks.
| | 06:21 | That is the Fill Light slider.
| | 06:23 | Open the Saline Valley image.
| | 06:26 | It's an image that has some vignetting
problems that we could correct, and it's
| | 06:29 | also plainly got some black issues.
| | 06:32 | I don't have a good, strong black
point right here, and yes, the
| | 06:36 | air was filled with sand and haze when
this shot was taken, which means it's
| | 06:41 | inherently going to be a low-contrast image.
| | 06:43 | Nevertheless, this foreground detail
could have some more contrast in it.
| | 06:46 | It could have stronger blacks.
| | 06:48 | So, I'm going to bump the black up, and
what this image is really about is this
| | 06:55 | wonderful gradient in
here, and this color in here.
| | 06:58 | In fact, this image could use a crop.
| | 07:00 | Let's quickly take out some of that sky.
| | 07:02 | This is interesting!
| | 07:03 | My crop has dragged out,
and is constrained to 3 to 2.
| | 07:08 | This is because the last
crop I did was a 3 to 2 crop.
| | 07:11 | I want a free crop, so if you're ever
dragging the crop around and getting
| | 07:15 | frustrated that it won't go where you
want, go up to the Crop tool and make sure
| | 07:20 | that these are set properly; either
true as an aspect ratio that you want, or
| | 07:23 | just put it on normal.
| | 07:25 | That gets you back to
the full cropping controls.
| | 07:29 | Again, I want to balance
where the horizon should be.
| | 07:31 | I've got a little too much
foreground here if the focus of this image is
| | 07:35 | supposed to be this area in here, but I
really like this lit-up little shrub here,
| | 07:39 | so I'm going to maybe try and
keep the foreground right about there.
| | 07:44 | So, I'm adjusting the black point with
the idea of increasing the contrast in
| | 07:48 | the image overall to bring out a little
more definition in here, and to add some
| | 07:52 | saturation to the sky.
| | 07:53 | The problem now is this
stuff has gone way too dark.
| | 07:56 | I've lost detail in all these little
plants up here, and that's no good.
| | 08:00 | I could try the Brightness slider,
but Brightness adjusts midtones, and
| | 08:04 | these are shadow values,
| | 08:05 | so, I'm not going to pick up
much from adjusting the Brightness;
| | 08:08 | in fact, I lose the sky before I get
any adjustment on this stuff down here.
| | 08:12 | I could use Exposure, but
that's going to adjust everything.
| | 08:15 | I can't use Blacks, because I've
already set my black point where I want it.
| | 08:19 | So, I'm going to use the Fill Light
slider, which is roughly akin to having a
| | 08:23 | gigantic flash on my camera.
| | 08:26 | It's going to fill in just the shadows.
| | 08:31 | Notice that these areas are brighter,
but my black point hasn't really changed.
| | 08:35 | I didn't get a contrast change up here.
| | 08:37 | It's as if I fired a fill flash into this area.
| | 08:40 | I don't think I want to go quite that
far, but just for the sake of example, I
| | 08:43 | wanted you to see how much it can
brighten the shadows, and how good it is at
| | 08:48 | identifying what is a shadow, and
what is something that is merely black.
| | 08:51 | So, I'm going to put that back here.
| | 08:55 | That's looking pretty good!
| | 08:57 | Also, I forgot to take my crop.
| | 08:59 | I'm going to double-click on it to
go ahead and commit to that crop.
| | 09:04 | Again, hit Done when we're finished.
| | 09:08 | One last image to take a
look at: Sky and Clouds.
| | 09:11 | This is one we took a brief look at earlier.
| | 09:13 | This is an image that on first
glance - there's not much here.
| | 09:17 | As I mentioned in an earlier lesson,
very often you might open an image and
| | 09:22 | think, why in the world did I take this?
| | 09:24 | It's just this big, dull mount of dirt.
| | 09:27 | But as I look at it, I remember that I
was struck by some contrast and texture
| | 09:32 | detail that's not necessarily
here in the image right now.
| | 09:34 | I really like this repeating
pattern here mirrored against the same
| | 09:39 | repeating pattern in the sky.
| | 09:41 | That's not showing up in this image.
| | 09:44 | I don't necessarily know right now how
to get there, which means I need to just
| | 09:47 | start trying some things.
| | 09:49 | First thing I need to do is take out
that little bit of lens flare, which I'm
| | 09:52 | going to do with the Spot Removal tool.
| | 09:56 | As you learned earlier, I'm just
going to click on it, and that pretty
| | 10:01 | much takes care of that.
| | 10:02 | So, I can see, from the histogram, that
I'm lacking a black point that's strong.
| | 10:06 | I'm going to go ahead and put that there.
| | 10:08 | I'm imagining this is going to
be a pretty high-contrast image.
| | 10:12 | Next thing that's happening is now this
is going a little dark compared to this,
| | 10:16 | but I'm going to not worry about that right now.
| | 10:19 | Now, I'm starting to see
more contrast in the sky.
| | 10:21 | These lines are coming out a little
bit more, which I like, but these are
| | 10:25 | staying pretty flat.
| | 10:27 | What it would be nice to be able to
do is brighten up some of this without
| | 10:32 | brightening this any further, and
then maybe even go little farther and
| | 10:35 | brighten some sides of these, while
darkening the others to bring a little more
| | 10:39 | contour to the image.
| | 10:41 | We don't know how to do that yet.
| | 10:43 | So far, all of these tools that
we've been looking at are global.
| | 10:46 | They apply to the entire
image in a uniform manner.
| | 10:50 | So, our next task will be to
learn how to locally edit tone.
| | 10:54 | The reason I'm bringing this up now
is it's important when you're working
| | 10:58 | globally to not get distracted by the
fact that this still isn't looking right.
| | 11:02 | Yes, there may be more steps, but I
can still look at overall contrast ratio
| | 11:06 | with an eye towards what
I might need to do later.
| | 11:09 | Hopefully, what you're getting from
these examples is the contrast, and
| | 11:12 | therefore black levels, are one of
your primary concerns as a landscape
| | 11:16 | photographer. Yes, you will face
the occasional overexposed highlights,
| | 11:20 | and sure, some images will need midtone
adjustments, or overall brightening, or darkening.
| | 11:24 | But ultimately, if your blacks aren't in place,
your image contrast ratio is out of wack,
| | 11:29 | the Exposure, Blacks, Brightness, and
Fill Light slider can work together to
| | 11:33 | define your tonal range.
| | 11:35 | There are no hard and fast
rules for tonal correction.
| | 11:37 | I can't give you a formula for
how to get good tone on every image.
| | 11:41 | Instead, you have to look at each image
on its own, and determine what it needs.
| | 11:44 | Sometimes, you'll make this decision
based on purely technical concerns, and
| | 11:48 | other times, you'll make
adjustments based on what you want to achieve
| | 11:51 | aesthetically with an image.
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| Correcting white balance | 00:00 | Very often, correcting the tone in your
image will also fix any color problems.
| | 00:05 | As you've seen, as you increase
contrast, you often get a saturation boost;
| | 00:10 | however, some images need more
than simple saturation adjustments.
| | 00:13 | Fortunately, a white balance adjustment
can often take care of your color issues.
| | 00:17 | White balance is simply the process of
calibrating your camera to the type of
| | 00:21 | light that you're shooting in.
| | 00:23 | Different lights shine with different
colors, and if your camera's white balance
| | 00:27 | is not set properly, the overall
color in your image won't be correct.
| | 00:31 | Most auto white balance mechanisms on
today's cameras do a great job shooting
| | 00:35 | in direct sunlight.
| | 00:37 | So, for most landscape photography, you
won't have a big white balance problem.
| | 00:41 | However, shooting in shade, or possibly
at dusk, can sometimes send the auto white
| | 00:47 | balance mechanism a little bit off.
| | 00:49 | That's happened in this image a little bit.
| | 00:51 | Color isn't bad, and obviously, there's
not a tremendous amount of color in the
| | 00:55 | image, but overall the image is a little cool.
| | 00:58 | This is very often how your auto
white balance mechanism will go when
| | 01:02 | you're shooting in shade.
| | 01:03 | I was standing on the down side of a big
sand dune, and was shooting predominantly
| | 01:07 | under shade, and it confused my camera.
| | 01:10 | Temperature controls the - white
balance is always measured in degrees Kelvin -
| | 01:15 | temperature simply controls where your
white balance is set for, and what type
| | 01:18 | of light it is set to shoot in.
| | 01:19 | I'm going to warm up the image,
just by sliding this to the right.
| | 01:23 | Right away, with a very small adjustment,
I get sand dunes that are back to being
| | 01:27 | a nice, warm dune color.
| | 01:29 | Her flesh tones are much
better. She is a redhead.
| | 01:32 | Her hair actually looks more red now.
| | 01:33 | Let's go before and after.
| | 01:37 | So, it's just generally a nice warmer image.
| | 01:40 | Tint is a very, very subtle
adjustment that allows you to shift colors more
| | 01:45 | towards green or magenta.
| | 01:46 | I'm going to do a wild tint
adjustment here, just so you can see.
| | 01:49 | Okay, see, it's not always so subtle,
if you drag it all the way to left,
| | 01:54 | but it's going to take awhile
before you start to see too much change.
| | 01:57 | You'll very rarely use the Tint slider.
| | 02:00 | Temperature is often usually the only
white balance control you need to worry about.
| | 02:04 | I don't do a tremendous amount of
color correction on my landscape photos,
| | 02:08 | because in general the
camera is getting it right.
| | 02:11 | If I do need an adjustment, it's
typically a white balance adjustment.
| | 02:14 | Hit Done to save that.
| | 02:16 | Let's look at another image.
| | 02:17 | This is the Badwater image that we were
working with earlier. Let's open it up.
| | 02:23 | Here's an example where I was
shooting in bright daylight.
| | 02:26 | The white balance is probably
pretty much correct, but I don't like it.
| | 02:31 | There will be times when you will
adjust white balance to get the colors
| | 02:34 | looking more correct.
| | 02:35 | There will also be times when you
adjust the white balance purely for your
| | 02:38 | own personal taste.
| | 02:39 | This is not the one where I would like
the white balance to be a little warmer.
| | 02:43 | So, I'm going to put it up to about here.
Maybe that's too far - right around in there.
| | 02:49 | It warms it up a little bit.
| | 02:51 | It just was a little bleak and stark somehow.
| | 02:55 | I know that's surprising, bleak and
stark standing in the middle of a desert.
| | 02:58 | But still, I like it a little warmer this way.
| | 03:01 | There's this White Balance menu up here,
which includes presets that Adobe has
| | 03:04 | come up with for different lighting situations.
| | 03:07 | Let's put it on its daylight setting,
which is 5500, and that's looking a little
| | 03:11 | too pink to me, which we could probably
back off this Magenta slider and get it
| | 03:16 | back to where it needs to be.
| | 03:17 | Now, it's interesting, typically,
people agree that daylight shines at a color
| | 03:21 | temperature of 5500.
| | 03:22 | I'm going to put this back on As Shot,
in which case, we could now say, well,
| | 03:26 | the camera didn't get it right.
| | 03:27 | It was off by about 500 degrees Kelvin.
| | 03:30 | But again, sometimes you will adjust
white balance according to technical
| | 03:33 | concerns of color accuracy, and
| | 03:36 | sometimes it's just going to be
about your own aesthetic and what you
| | 03:39 | would like for the image.
| | 03:41 | Now, let's address some of the
other color issues in this image.
| | 03:44 | I increased the contrast a lot, and in
the process of doing that, I brought out
| | 03:50 | some nice detail here,
| | 03:51 | I got the image a little more punchy,
but the sky is really blue now, and this
| | 03:54 | stuff is really red.
| | 03:56 | This is just not right, again, for
a very pastel-y sort of environment.
| | 04:01 | Saturation lets me increase and decrease
color saturation in the image on a global scale.
| | 04:07 | So, I'm going to decrease the saturation.
| | 04:10 | When I do that, I drain a lot
of the color out of the image.
| | 04:14 | I get the sky a little more back under control.
| | 04:16 | I get this a little less red.
| | 04:19 | But again, this is global.
| | 04:20 | I've also lost some of the color
that I had introduced with the white
| | 04:23 | balance adjustment.
| | 04:24 | What if I would like to only calm down the sky?
| | 04:28 | I'm going to set Saturation back to 0.
| | 04:31 | If you look at these other tabs over
here, you will find the HSL/Grayscale.
| | 04:35 | That's Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.
| | 04:38 | This allows me to adjust Hue, Saturation,
and Luminance on specific color ranges.
| | 04:43 | So, I'm going to the
switch over to Saturation here.
| | 04:46 | At this point, I've got a
couple of options. I can guess.
| | 04:49 | I can say, well, this is probably blues,
so I'm going to drag the Blues slider
| | 04:54 | to the left to desaturate just the sky.
| | 04:57 | Now I've got control of the saturation
of the sky, but I haven't drained color
| | 05:02 | out of my foreground.
| | 05:04 | I've also taken some color out of here,
because there's a lot of blue in those areas.
| | 05:08 | But there's another way to do this edit.
| | 05:09 | And that's with Camera Raw's Targeted
Adjustment tool, which is this little
| | 05:13 | Target thing up here.
| | 05:15 | I'm going to open that up and choose Saturation.
| | 05:19 | When I do that, I can now go to my
image and click in a color and drag left or
| | 05:25 | right to change the saturation of that color.
| | 05:28 | Now, that's a global edit.
| | 05:29 | That is not like a magic
wand thing going on there.
| | 05:32 | I'm clicking in the image to identify
the color range that I want, and then it's
| | 05:36 | adjusting that color range throughout the image.
| | 05:37 | So, let's also see what
happens if we hit this area here.
| | 05:44 | That's hitting some oranges and some yellows.
| | 05:46 | I can calm that down a little bit
without affecting my foreground too much.
| | 05:50 | So, these are some very powerful Color
Correction tools that you have in Camera Raw.
| | 05:54 | If you're trying to absolutely,
accurately nail the color or something, or
| | 05:57 | do lots of subtle, little color adjustments,
these tools can be very, very powerful.
| | 06:02 | Typically, again, my color adjustments
and landscape shooting are pretty much
| | 06:06 | limited to saturation concerns,
because I'm mostly just playing with how much
| | 06:11 | color I want in an image, and making
sure that my white balance is correct.
| | 06:15 | Like Tonal Correction tools, you'll
just get a feel for this as you use the
| | 06:19 | sliders more and more.
| | 06:20 | But also, as with tonal correction,
remember that these are global edits.
| | 06:25 | I've shown you how to do a localized
color correction here, but there might
| | 06:28 | still be other times when you're
wanting to get even more localized correction,
| | 06:32 | and that's what we'll be
looking at in the next chapter.
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3. Localized Editing and Color Correction in Camera Raw Performing localized edits with the Gradient Filter tool | 00:00 | As you've probably discovered by now,
with many landscape shots, global edits -
| | 00:05 | that is edits that are applied to the
entire image - often don't work, because
| | 00:09 | landscape shots usually
have a lot of dynamic range.
| | 00:12 | If you've got a big, bright sky in
the upper half of the frame, and a dark
| | 00:15 | foreground in the lower half, you're
going to have trouble finding a single
| | 00:19 | tonal adjustment that works for both
the bright sky and the darker foreground.
| | 00:22 | Now, while you can shoot with a
graduated filter on your camera to try to even
| | 00:26 | out the exposure, these days it's much
easier to correct the problem later by
| | 00:31 | using some localized edits, and
Camera RAW has a couple of really good
| | 00:35 | localized editing tools.
| | 00:37 | So let's look at this image here.
| | 00:38 | I have not yet done anything to it.
| | 00:41 | I've got a plainly bright sky, and
plainly a dark foreground, and what's going
| | 00:45 | on over here is the sun was
setting off in this direction.
| | 00:48 | And so the ground is already in shadow, so it's
completely dark, but the sky is still lit up.
| | 00:53 | A storm had just broken up, so I was
getting these very dramatic skies, just as
| | 00:58 | the sun was setting.
| | 00:59 | A lot of people when the
weather turns bad, they think, ooh!
| | 01:01 | I've got to put my camera
away and not go shooting.
| | 01:04 | And that is absolutely 180 degrees
the wrong direction to be heading.
| | 01:08 | When the weather turns bad, get
your camera out and go shooting.
| | 01:11 | You're not going to hurt your gear, and
that's very often when you're going to
| | 01:15 | get the best light, or certainly the
most unusual light, and you're going to get
| | 01:19 | a lot of color, and your
sky is not going to be empty.
| | 01:21 | One of the tricky things about
landscape shooting is you tend to go, oh, it's
| | 01:25 | a beautiful day out.
| | 01:26 | I'll go take pictures.
| | 01:27 | But if the sky is empty, you've then got
this big empty thing blue on the top of
| | 01:30 | your image, and it's often very boring.
| | 01:32 | Bad weather is a great time to
be out shooting landscape photos.
| | 01:37 | The problem with really cool, weird,
tricky light is that it often means that
| | 01:41 | from one part of your frame to another,
you've got a tremendous variation in
| | 01:45 | overall brightness.
| | 01:46 | That's what we've got here, a lot of
dynamic range, and it's going to be hard to
| | 01:49 | get it under control with a global edit.
| | 01:52 | Let's say we want to brighten up the foreground.
| | 01:54 | Well, I could do that by hitting the
Exposure slider, but I lose my skies.
| | 01:58 | Let's say we want more contrast in the sky.
| | 02:00 | Well, I could do that by moving my
Blacks slider, which gets the sky looking
| | 02:05 | really interesting and menacing, and
now I've lost even more of my foreground.
| | 02:09 | The sky and the foreground are just
not editable with the same adjustments.
| | 02:14 | Fortunately, I have this
Gradient Filter tool up here.
| | 02:18 | This allows me to apply and edit to
one part of an image, and then roll that
| | 02:23 | edit off along a gradient
into the rest of the image.
| | 02:26 | So when I select the Gradient Filter
tool, all of my controls over here change.
| | 02:31 | What I'm defining right now is
the edit that I want to make.
| | 02:34 | Unfortunately, I don't get a preview of
any kind, as I'm setting these sliders,
| | 02:38 | so I'm just going to ballpark it.
| | 02:40 | It's probably going to
be wrong, but that's okay.
| | 02:42 | I'll be able to adjust it later.
| | 02:43 | I'm going to bump the Exposure up
with the idea of brightening this area.
| | 02:48 | So, one of the tricky things,
normally, about getting an adjustment into a
| | 02:52 | particular area is how do you mask it off
and keep it from impacting somewhere else?
| | 02:56 | One of the great things about
landscapes is very often there is a subtle change
| | 03:01 | in brightness as you recede into the
distance, just because of the atmosphere.
| | 03:05 | It creates a tone and color-
obscuring haze most of the time.
| | 03:10 | So, just creating a gradient from
here to here is going to help us a lot.
| | 03:13 | I'm going to click here, and I start to
drag, and right away you can see that
| | 03:18 | I've got a lot of
brightness coming into the image.
| | 03:20 | This control is a little
bit tricky to handle at first.
| | 03:22 | But I'm going to drag it up to about there.
| | 03:25 | So, from the green, this line and
below is getting the full strength of the
| | 03:29 | adjustment that I've dialed in, and it's
slowly being ramped off over a gradient
| | 03:33 | out to here, which means above this
line is getting no adjustment at all.
| | 03:36 | So, you can tell that this part is
not being brightened as much as this
| | 03:40 | part, but it looks okay.
| | 03:42 | It looks correct to our eye, because
our eye writes it off as, well, that part
| | 03:46 | was in shadow, and this part is
lightening or not getting as light just because
| | 03:50 | it's farther away, and so on and so forth.
| | 03:52 | So it's an edit that makes sense.
| | 03:53 | Unfortunately, this particular edit is a
little too strong, so I'm going to back
| | 03:57 | off on the Exposure adjustment here.
| | 03:59 | And as you can see, as I'm making these
adjustments, they're constrained just to
| | 04:02 | the area defined by the Gradient tool.
| | 04:05 | I want more contrast in this area.
| | 04:07 | I don't have a Blacks slider in here,
which is a little bit frustrating.
| | 04:11 | All I can do is hit the Contrast slider up.
| | 04:14 | We'll put some more brightness in here.
| | 04:20 | I'm also going to work with the
Brightness slider itself, which is going to
| | 04:22 | goose my mid-tones a lot.
| | 04:26 | Now, I'm also going to go ahead and do
some color adjustment while I'm in here.
| | 04:29 | Once I leave the Gradient tool, I
can come back and adjust these further.
| | 04:33 | Again, this is the miracle
of nondestructive editing.
| | 04:37 | So, I've got sunset, which is always a
very orange-y light, as the sun shines,
| | 04:41 | more atmosphere bouncing off
of these clouds onto the ground.
| | 04:45 | The ground is not normally red.
| | 04:47 | It was actually being illuminated red
by the light bouncing off the clouds.
| | 04:50 | I would like to increase that a little bit.
| | 04:53 | I could do that here. I could crank
up the Saturation, and I'm getting more
| | 04:58 | saturation here, but not here.
| | 05:00 | But this is a case where I want a
global saturation adjustment, not a localized
| | 05:05 | one, so I'm not going to do
a saturation adjustment here.
| | 05:08 | I think I'm done with my gradient edits.
| | 05:10 | So if I just switch back to the
Magnifying Glass, or the Hand tool, I'm back to
| | 05:15 | my normal controls, and I no
longer see that Gradient tool there.
| | 05:19 | So, now I've got a more even exposure.
| | 05:21 | The image overall is still off.
| | 05:24 | You can tell it's still low contrast.
It lacks a certain punch. And if I look at
| | 05:27 | my histogram, I see why. There is no
black, and the blacks and the shadow tones
| | 05:31 | aren't down far enough.
| | 05:32 | But my exposure is at least even.
| | 05:34 | That's what the Gradient tool has brought me.
| | 05:36 | So now, I can go in and just work normally
to get my tone and color where I want it.
| | 05:40 | I'm going to increase Blacks to get
the contrast up, and right-away, my sky is
| | 05:44 | more interesting. The ground looks great.
| | 05:47 | These colors are kind of matching here.
| | 05:49 | It really does look like
light reflecting off of the sky.
| | 05:51 | Let's see what happens if I expand the contrast.
| | 05:55 | I'm wondering if there's more and more
subtle, little detail to pull out of all
| | 05:59 | of these striations in the clouds.
| | 06:01 | So, I'm going to just - there we go.
Now I'm getting somewhere.
| | 06:05 | I pulled out some nice stuff here and
around here, so the sky is getting really pretty.
| | 06:10 | In the process of doing that, I'm
wondering if the foreground has now gone
| | 06:14 | just a tiny bit dark.
| | 06:16 | If I again do a global adjustment, well,
now, I'm sacrificing some of that cool
| | 06:21 | sky stuff that I got.
| | 06:23 | Let's go back to the Gradient tool, and
now I can have multiple gradients on an
| | 06:27 | image, so each one will show up
with this little handle thing here.
| | 06:30 | I'm going to select this one to get
access again to the controls for that
| | 06:35 | particular gradient.
| | 06:36 | That's looking pretty good, back to the
Hand tool, and now I do think that maybe
| | 06:42 | the image needs just a tiny
bit of overall brightening.
| | 06:45 | I'll do that with the Brightness
tool to protect my highlights, and we're
| | 06:49 | in pretty good shape.
| | 06:50 | The Graduated Filter tool is often all
you need to equalize the foreground and
| | 06:54 | background in your images, but there
are other localized editing tools at your
| | 06:58 | disposal, and we'll take a look at those.
| | 06:59 | Hopefully, what you've also seen
here is the thought process of thinking
| | 07:03 | about where light is in your
landscape, and how it might need to be
| | 07:08 | realistically represented.
| | 07:10 | If you say, well, is this really that realistic?
| | 07:13 | It's closer than it was for sure,
because your eye, as we've discussed, has a much
| | 07:17 | greater dynamic range than your camera did.
| | 07:19 | My eye should actually be able to
see detail in here and detail up there.
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| Performing localized edits with the Adjustment brush | 00:00 | Camera Raw includes another tool for
making localized edits, the Adjustment
| | 00:04 | brush, which lets you brush specific
edits onto any part of your image.
| | 00:08 | We'll be doing localized edits like
this for the rest of this course, painting
| | 00:11 | light, and shadow and color
into specific parts of an image.
| | 00:15 | This is the real meat of
landscape photo editing.
| | 00:18 | It's how we add depth to an image.
| | 00:20 | It's how we bring focus to
particular subject matter.
| | 00:23 | It's how we take bad light and turn
it into good and interesting light.
| | 00:27 | We'll be doing some of these
adjustments here in Camera Raw.
| | 00:29 | We'll be doing others in Photoshop, and
as we go on, I think the merits of the
| | 00:33 | different tools will become obvious.
| | 00:35 | This is the Adjustment brush here.
| | 00:37 | When I click on it, as with the Gradient
tool, I get a whole new set of controls
| | 00:41 | over here, and I get this big brush cursor.
| | 00:44 | That inner solid circle is the size of my brush.
| | 00:47 | That area will get the
full weight of my adjustments.
| | 00:51 | That outer dotted circle shows the width
of the feathering, and that's a rolling
| | 00:56 | off of the effects from the center to the edge.
| | 01:00 | So it's basically a blurring,
and that allows me to paint in
| | 01:03 | smoother transitions.
| | 01:05 | I can use these sliders over here
for adjusting size and feathering.
| | 01:08 | It's a little bit easier to use the
keyboard, because then I can see the actual
| | 01:12 | size of my brush as I go.
| | 01:14 | Left and Right bracket changes the
overall size of the brush, and the Feather
| | 01:18 | moves along with it.
| | 01:20 | If I hold down the Shift key while I
use left and right bracket, I can change
| | 01:23 | the feathering without changing the brush size.
| | 01:27 | So I can get a full range of
brush and feather combinations.
| | 01:32 | Notice though that on the keyboard my
feather size changes 10 units at a time
| | 01:37 | and my brush size changes 2 units at a time.
| | 01:40 | I can get a finer degree of
control using the sliders, if I need to.
| | 01:43 | Up above, I have a normal set of tonal
and color adjustments, and these are the
| | 01:48 | effects that will be brushed on.
| | 01:50 | This is just like the Gradient
tool that we looked at earlier.
| | 01:53 | I can set the adjustment that I want to
make and then paint it onto the image.
| | 01:57 | So, I'm going to just dial in
some adjustment and then paint it on.
| | 02:01 | What's the problem with this image?
| | 02:02 | I've got pretty good exposure, I've
got blacks, I've got whites and yet it's
| | 02:07 | still just kind of dull, which is not
too surprising given that it was overcast
| | 02:11 | which I can see, because it's all cloudy.
| | 02:12 | So, there's no real huge
change in light and shadow.
| | 02:17 | Light and shadow is the essence of photography.
| | 02:19 | It's the vocabulary that you have to work with.
| | 02:21 | So, I would like to break up the
evenness of this exposure, somewhat.
| | 02:25 | Since everything's kind of evenly exposed,
my eye is not really sure what to do.
| | 02:28 | I want to darken the sky, because a
darker sky looks a little more interesting
| | 02:33 | and have a little more contrast, and
then we'll see where to go from there.
| | 02:35 | So I've dialed in -1 stop Exposure adjustment.
| | 02:41 | Exposure slider is measured in stops,
just like the exposure compensation
| | 02:44 | control on your camera.
| | 02:45 | So I'm going to darken the sky by one
stop, and I'm just going to paint a stroke
| | 02:48 | right across here and sure,
enough the sky got darker.
| | 02:52 | Now, what's cool about the fact that
it's feathered is I've got a smooth blend
| | 02:57 | coming into the mountains.
| | 02:58 | If I mouse over this thing, you can see
white, indicating where the brush stroke
| | 03:05 | is, and you can see that it's a
pretty even fade around where I've brushed.
| | 03:10 | So now that I've got the
stroke in, I can refine my settings.
| | 03:13 | I'm going to darken it up a little more,
and maybe increase the Contrast a little more.
| | 03:19 | I don't want to go too nuts here, and I
can also see that I painted right along
| | 03:24 | here, which means that
upper corner is feathered.
| | 03:27 | So it's not getting as
much adjustment as in here.
| | 03:30 | Sometimes that can be nice because it
just looks like an uneven exposure, but in
| | 03:33 | this case it actually looks like
the corners are burned a little bit.
| | 03:37 | If you notice up here,
I've got New, Add, and Erase.
| | 03:39 | I'm set on Add, which means that any
additional brush strokes that I make right
| | 03:43 | now will be added to the stroke,
indicated by this little pin here.
| | 03:48 | So, I'm just going to brush into the
corner here to darken that up and then
| | 03:52 | maybe along the top here to hit those
areas, and I'm going to shrink my brush a
| | 03:57 | little bit and hit that area.
| | 04:00 | So, there I managed to
darken the sky a little bit.
| | 04:02 | Now I want to brush on the flowers,
and I would like to brighten these up,
| | 04:06 | maybe even going so far as to hope that
it's going to look like a ray of light
| | 04:10 | is breaking through and lighting up
the flowers on the foreground while the
| | 04:13 | background is dark.
| | 04:15 | So, the first thing I need to do is be
sure that I click this New button here,
| | 04:18 | because I want to create new stroke.
| | 04:19 | I don't want to add to the old one.
| | 04:21 | Now that I've got a new
stroke, I can change my settings.
| | 04:24 | I don't want to darken, I want to
lighten, and I don't want to go too nuts.
| | 04:27 | I'm not going to do a full one stop adjustment.
| | 04:29 | I'll do two-thirds.
| | 04:31 | I'm not going to worry about too
much contrast adjustment, either.
| | 04:34 | I'm also not going to
paint over all the flowers.
| | 04:36 | There is this bunch of them right
here that I'm going to try and hit, and
| | 04:40 | maybe right in here.
| | 04:41 | I'll make my brush a little bit
bigger, and I want to increase the
| | 04:44 | feathering, and I'm just going to
paint some brightness in, and right away I
| | 04:49 | see that's way too bright.
| | 04:53 | So I'm going to pull this back down.
| | 04:56 | I am going to pull this back down.
| | 04:57 | Actually, I'm just going to put all this
back to 0, to kind of start from scratch here.
| | 05:05 | I'm not crazy about brightening
up the green along with the yellow,
| | 05:08 | so I'm going to set that to 0 and I'm
going to go for more Contrast, and I'm
| | 05:12 | going to punch that up a little bit.
| | 05:16 | Now, we're kind of starting to get somewhere.
| | 05:28 | I'll touch this up a little bit.
| | 05:30 | So now these flowers are little
bit brighter than these back here.
| | 05:34 | They're maybe giving me a little bit
of a hint of something that's giving my
| | 05:38 | eyes something to do here.
| | 05:41 | And yet I'm not crazy
about brightening up that part.
| | 05:44 | There's a bunch of gray in here that's
getting brightened up, and I just don't like it.
| | 05:47 | I'm going to hit the Erase button here
and erase that part of the edit, and now
| | 05:53 | you can really see how much
contrast I was brushing in there.
| | 05:56 | Now I'm going to switch back to Add,
and I'm going to get a very, very,
| | 06:01 | very, very small brush.
| | 06:04 | If you go too small, eventually it
just turns back into those crosshairs.
| | 06:08 | So, I'm going to zoom in so that
I've got some room to see a larger brush,
| | 06:13 | and now I'm going to go through and
just paint directly on some of these
| | 06:18 | yellow flowers to brighten them up, without
brightening up all of this gray twigs in there.
| | 06:24 | In fact, those gray twigs may prove to
be a little bit of a problem that we want
| | 06:29 | to address with yet another brushstroke.
| | 06:32 | So let's try that now.
| | 06:33 | I'm going to hit New, and now I'm
going to dial in a brushstroke that has no
| | 06:40 | contrast adjustment and some
darkening, and I'm going to see about taking
| | 06:45 | some of that down, just to calm down some
of those bright gray areas, but I don't know,
| | 06:52 | that may not work because it's
creating this area of darkness in there
| | 06:57 | that might look strange.
| | 06:58 | I'm going to zoom out again in a
minute and see how noticeable that is.
| | 07:02 | No, it's not so noticeable, actually.
| | 07:09 | If you want to get rid of these little
thumbtack things, I can just switch back
| | 07:12 | to here and see my image.
| | 07:14 | So let's do a before and after.
And that's before, and what we ran into here is
| | 07:19 | something that honestly I'd forgotten
about until now; the Adjustment brushes
| | 07:23 | are not affected by this Preview check box.
| | 07:25 | I can't do a before and
after of the Preview check boxes.
| | 07:28 | The only thing I can do would
be to try and undo everything.
| | 07:32 | What I've done though is brighten up
this foreground, darken the background.
| | 07:35 | I've made no changes to here, and
I've made no global edits at all.
| | 07:39 | All of our adjustments to this
image have been completely localized.
| | 07:42 | I might want to take out that
telephone wire at some point.
| | 07:44 | We'll do that later.
| | 07:46 | But this is the power of the Adjustment
brush, and its ability to paint tone and
| | 07:51 | color correction into
specific parts of your image.
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| Controlling brush and gradient edits| 00:00 | You can combine the Adjustment Brush
and the Gradient Filter to create very
| | 00:04 | complex localized adjustments, and
that's what we're going to do here.
| | 00:07 | Right off the bat, of course, you
can see another low contrast image.
| | 00:10 | I'm going to adjust my black point here.
| | 00:13 | What should I do next?
| | 00:15 | That's very often the question
you're going to face in your image editing
| | 00:18 | workflow, and as I've said before, a
lot of times you've just got to go back
| | 00:21 | to thinking about what
struck you in the first place.
| | 00:25 | Why did I stop in the middle of this
road and get out and take this picture?
| | 00:28 | It was because I liked the symmetry
between these lines here and these lines
| | 00:34 | here, then the kind of reflection
that's created across the mountains here
| | 00:38 | of those two patterns.
| | 00:39 | So it would be nice to play that up more.
| | 00:42 | I can hit the Contrast slider.
| | 00:44 | The problem is if I do that, yes, I
get some more contrast in here, and I get
| | 00:47 | some more in here, but it's pushed a lot
of this stuff into black and so it lost
| | 00:52 | a lot of detail that just looks kind of chunky.
| | 00:54 | So there's not going to be a global
edit that I can make here to get those the
| | 00:58 | way that I want them.
| | 00:59 | So, instead, I'm going to start with
the Gradient Filter, and I'm going to
| | 01:03 | work on the sky first.
| | 01:04 | I'm going to pull that down.
| | 01:06 | Again, this is creating an effect
wherein the full effect of my sliders is
| | 01:12 | hitting up until the green line,
and then it's being ramped off along a
| | 01:16 | gradient to the mountains.
| | 01:17 | So the mountains are not getting
any more contrasty, which is okay.
| | 01:20 | They're in the distance. They look kind of hazy.
| | 01:22 | My settings look pretty good, actually.
| | 01:23 | I've got some Brightness and
some Contrast dialed in here.
| | 01:28 | These are just settings that were
left over from a previous adjustment,
| | 01:30 | so I'm kind of lucky that
they work out that well.
| | 01:33 | I've got to be a little bit careful.
| | 01:35 | I'm getting the sky too blue, but I
could take that down with a localized
| | 01:38 | saturation adjustment later.
| | 01:40 | Also, as I play with this, I'm starting to
see there's some vignetting in the image.
| | 01:44 | I'll take that out later with Lens Correction.
| | 01:47 | So right now, mostly what I'm looking at is if
I'm getting the lines in the sky that I like.
| | 01:52 | I picked up this kind of
weird cyan halo around here.
| | 01:55 | I'm not sure that we can do anything.
| | 01:56 | It may be a sign that I
had pushed this edit too far.
| | 02:01 | There is not an infinite
amount of editability in your image.
| | 02:05 | So, it may be that I need to back that off,
but I'm not going to worry about that yet.
| | 02:10 | I'm going to see if I can
correct that later with a localized
| | 02:12 | saturation adjustment.
| | 02:13 | The other thing I'd mentioned was it
would be nice to have more contrast on
| | 02:18 | the road, but I don't want more
contrast in these plants, because they're
| | 02:21 | going to loose detail.
| | 02:22 | So, I'm now going to take my Adjustment Brush,
| | 02:25 | make sure this is set on New, and
obviously the others are not even an option.
| | 02:29 | I don't know where my settings are, and
I'm not going to worry about that yet.
| | 02:31 | I'm just going to brush onto the road.
| | 02:33 | It's a nice big brush.
| | 02:36 | I've got a Brightness increase, a
Contrast increase, and Exposure decrease.
| | 02:41 | These are basically the same
settings that I had with my gradient.
| | 02:43 | So they're not quite right.
| | 02:45 | I am going to pull back on the
brightness, and I'm going to really amp up the
| | 02:48 | contrast, again, trying to exaggerate
the sense of a bunch of diagonal lines the
| | 02:54 | way that we've got a bunch up there.
| | 02:55 | This is obviously an
image plainly about formal
| | 03:01 | geometric exercise.
| | 03:03 | That's what struck me, and I wasn't
feeling some great spiritual attachment to
| | 03:08 | the place at that moment, or
experiencing some great emotion.
| | 03:11 | I just simply liked the look of
this, and very often that's fine.
| | 03:14 | That's all you need for a good
landscape image, or a good image of any kind.
| | 03:18 | I like this darker.
| | 03:20 | As I darken it more, I see that
I need more brushstroke in here.
| | 03:25 | So I'm going to go to a smaller size,
hit some of those, and now it's way
| | 03:31 | darkened the corners, but again, that's the
vignetting problem that we've been fighting.
| | 03:35 | It's a little too dark though,
so I'm going to brighten that up.
| | 03:37 | Also, a little worried
that my brush stroke here -
| | 03:42 | if I mouse over here, I can see that my
brush stroke is covering these plants,
| | 03:46 | and they've got a little bit too dark.
| | 03:47 | So I'm going to make an Erase stroke,
and then I am going to get a very,
| | 03:52 | very, very small brush.
| | 03:53 | In fact, I'm going to zoom in, and now
I can erase the correction from these
| | 03:59 | dark shadowy areas.
| | 04:00 | Put the detail back in them.
| | 04:05 | So, by combining the Gradient tool and
this Brush tool, and the careful use of new
| | 04:10 | strokes and adding strokes and erasing
strokes, I can really get an adjustment
| | 04:15 | that's keyed into just the
parts of the image that I want.
| | 04:18 | So that's looking pretty good down here.
| | 04:21 | I'm done with these local edits,
| | 04:23 | so I'm going to go back here to the
Hand tool and start thinking about how the
| | 04:27 | sky just looks too blue.
| | 04:30 | I could do, as we've done before, a
global saturation adjustment to drain some
| | 04:34 | color out of the image.
| | 04:35 | Actually, I like this as a desaturated
image, but I don't like losing this stuff.
| | 04:39 | So I'm going to do a localized
saturation adjustment up there.
| | 04:42 | Before I do that though, I want to
remember that I need to take care of my
| | 04:45 | vignetting problem, because it's
creating a darkening in the corners that I
| | 04:50 | don't want to be adjusting around.
| | 04:52 | So, I'm just going to brighten the
corners, and that does a very good job of
| | 04:57 | taking out my vignetting.
| | 05:00 | So now, let's go back to the HSL
Grayscale tab and grab my Targeted Adjustment
| | 05:06 | tool, and set it on Saturation.
| | 05:07 | I'm going to drain some
saturation out of the sky there.
| | 05:14 | I think that's looking a little better.
| | 05:16 | I lost that weird extra-colored halo
around it, which is good, but now it's
| | 05:22 | making me think that I've lost
some contrast in the sky again.
| | 05:26 | So I'm going to go back to the Basic tab.
| | 05:30 | Remember, I had made my adjustment
in the sky through a Gradient tool.
| | 05:33 | So I'm going to go back to the
Gradient tool, select this gradient, and now
| | 05:37 | throw in some Contrast, and
that's looking a little bit better.
| | 05:41 | That, of course, has put some blue back
into my sky, but I think it looks okay.
| | 05:46 | I'm not going to worry too much about it.
| | 05:48 | If I print it, I may find that
I need to go back and tweak it.
| | 05:52 | So, these tools work in concert very well.
| | 05:54 | You need to think about combining
brush strokes with gradient strokes.
| | 05:58 | There will still be some edits that
are just very difficult to make within
| | 06:01 | the Camera Raw brush.
| | 06:02 | It's kind of a blunt instrument.
| | 06:04 | You can't see your strokes
that well. It's a big brush.
| | 06:08 | You can't change the shape
of it and so on and so forth.
| | 06:10 | That's why we have localized editing
tools in Photoshop also, and we'll be
| | 06:13 | looking at those in the next chapter.
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|
|
4. Final Steps in Camera RawWorking with noise reduction | 00:00 | Throughout all of this talk of
brightening and darkening images there is one
| | 00:03 | important caveat that hasn't been mentioned.
| | 00:05 | Sometimes there is a price to pay for
brightening an image, and that price is noise.
| | 00:10 | Some images actually come
out of your camera with noise.
| | 00:13 | Here's one right here, and if
are not familiar with noise,
| | 00:16 | this should make it
pretty obvious what noise is.
| | 00:19 | Less ugly noise sometimes
just looks like film grain.
| | 00:23 | Noise like this looks like little
colored specks all over the place.
| | 00:27 | There are two different kinds of noise;
| | 00:28 | Luminance noise, which changes in
brightness, that just look like film grain,
| | 00:32 | and Chrominance noise.
| | 00:34 | And this image has a combination of
both Chrominance noise being color
| | 00:38 | splotches, sometimes they are big
sometimes they are speckling patterns like this.
| | 00:42 | Noise is simply a function of the
electronics in your camera, just as if you
| | 00:46 | turn up the amplifier on your stereo, you'll
hear more noise and your music, that hissing sound.
| | 00:52 | Same thing with your camera's
electronics. There is noise alongside
| | 00:56 | the signal of the image
information that's passing around inside your
| | 01:00 | camera. Fortunately, with Camera RAW
6.0, which is the Camera RAW that's
| | 01:03 | included in Photoshop CS5,
| | 01:05 | Adobe has included some new really
wonderful noise reduction technology.
| | 01:10 | And here in the Detail tab, you'll
find the noise reduction controls.
| | 01:14 | So as I mentioned there are two
types of noise. They give us controls for
| | 01:17 | Luminance and Color noise.
| | 01:18 | I'm going to zoom in here to around 50%.
| | 01:24 | Now, one thing about noise.
| | 01:25 | It's very easy to zoom in to an image and see
this and go, well, this image is just useless.
| | 01:31 | But bear in mind when you are
looking at an image at 100%, you're looking
| | 01:35 | at individual pixels.
| | 01:36 | On an 8 or 10 mega pixel camera, a single
pixel is a teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny little space.
| | 01:43 | In a print, particularly a small print,
like a 4x6 or even an 8x10, you're never
| | 01:47 | going to see an individual pixel.
| | 01:49 | So lot of the noise in your image is
simply going to be sampled out when the
| | 01:53 | image is sized for a final print.
| | 01:55 | So don't go too nuts when you see noise in
an image, or any defect in an image at 100%.
| | 02:02 | Nevertheless, this image is noisy,
and this would show up in print.
| | 02:05 | So we're going to do what we can
to reduce the noise using the Noise
| | 02:07 | Reduction controls.
| | 02:08 | We're going to start with Chrominance
noise, and I'm just going to slide this,
| | 02:13 | and already you can see most
of the Color noise disappearing.
| | 02:17 | And it's kind of about all you have to
do for noise reduction in Camera RAW.
| | 02:21 | Color Detail helps you preserve
detail in your image while you're reducing
| | 02:26 | noise, and this is always the balance
you're trying to seek with noise reduction
| | 02:29 | technology of any kind.
| | 02:30 | As you reduce noise, you sometimes
soften the image, and so these Color Detail
| | 02:36 | sliders help you preserve
more detail on your image.
| | 02:40 | There is still a little bit of, if you
kind of squint your eyes or revert your
| | 02:45 | eyes a little bit, you'll see there's
maybe some Magenta noise, a big patch on it
| | 02:49 | right there and some here, and there
is some green kind of big splotches.
| | 02:54 | The chances of those showing up in
print are pretty small actually, so that's
| | 02:57 | done a good job on our Chrominance noise.
| | 03:00 | Now let's look at the Luminance noise,
and Luminance noise is something you
| | 03:03 | really can only judge at 100%, but
again, bad Luminance noise at 100% doesn't
| | 03:09 | mean bad Luminance noise in a print.
| | 03:10 | I'm going to drag the Luminance slider to
the right, and that's done a very good job.
| | 03:17 | It's just taken the edge off the noise.
| | 03:19 | I can play with Luminance Detail,
again to control the balance between the
| | 03:24 | blurring that is eliminating the noise
and the overall softening of the image
| | 03:29 | that results from that, and I can
increase the contrast that's left behind.
| | 03:35 | So it's kind of mostly just a process of
balancing these sliders until you get a
| | 03:39 | level of noise reduction that you'd like.
| | 03:41 | So zooming back out to full size,
even a full size there is a pretty
| | 03:46 | dramatic difference in this image, but let's
zoom back in here and do it before and after.
| | 03:50 | This is before, and this is after.
| | 03:54 | So Photoshop is done an
exceptional job in reducing the noise.
| | 03:57 | Now, whether this is the right level
of noise reduction or not, I can't say
| | 04:02 | until I print the image.
| | 04:04 | If my goal was to output this as an
electronic file for e-mail or something, then
| | 04:08 | I could go through the process of
sizing it the way I want, spitting it out and
| | 04:12 | seeing if my noise is okay there.
| | 04:14 | But if my ultimate goal is printing
of a certain size, I need to do a test
| | 04:18 | print to determine if my
noise Reduction has been effective.
| | 04:23 | You are mostly going to get noise
troubles in low light images, if you're using
| | 04:27 | any kind of modern digital camera.
| | 04:29 | For example, here's an image shot
strictly by the light of a full moon in
| | 04:33 | Monument Valley, very late at night.
| | 04:36 | And this was shot at ISO 1600 on a
Canon 5D Mark II, and if I zoom into 100%
| | 04:43 | here, you can see that even at ISO
1600, the camera is still doing a very good job
| | 04:49 | of keeping noise down, but it is there.
| | 04:52 | When assessing a camera for landscape
shooting, noise response is something you
| | 04:56 | really want to take a look at,
particularly if you have any intention of
| | 04:59 | shooting in low light.
| | 05:00 | But even shooting in just dim light, like
at dusk where you'll have deep shadows,
| | 05:05 | those shadow areas are going to be more
prone to noise, so you want to try and
| | 05:09 | find a camera that can handle them well.
| | 05:11 | You shouldn't be seeing any noise at
bright daylight with just about any camera.
| | 05:14 | If you are, there is a chance that you
have set the ISO too high, so you need
| | 05:19 | to get it back down.
| | 05:20 | As I mentioned before, noise
reduction is often something that you do
| | 05:24 | in concert with sharpening, and
that's why the Sharpening and Noise
| | 05:27 | Reduction controls in Camera RAW are
side-by-side, and we will be taking a
| | 05:31 | look at sharpening next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Clarity and sharpening | 00:00 | As photographers, we all
strive for detail in our images.
| | 00:04 | To that end, we buy more expensive lenses,
| | 00:06 | we worry about depth of field, also
that every tiny bit of texture in a
| | 00:11 | scene can be visible.
| | 00:13 | To help in this detailed mania, Camera
Raw includes a couple of handy tools.
| | 00:18 | Now, you've seen how contrast affects
saturation, but what you may not have
| | 00:21 | noticed yet is that contrast also
affects the apparent sharpness in your image.
| | 00:25 | I want to return to the Badwater
image now to give you a demonstration of
| | 00:29 | what I'm talking about.
| | 00:30 | I'm going to zoom in a little bit here,
and previously, we did a contrast
| | 00:34 | adjustment to this image.
| | 00:36 | I'm going to turn it off now, basically.
I'm going to put the Blacks back out to here.
| | 00:39 | So my black point has moved back out
here, the image is now lower contrast, and
| | 00:44 | it appears that there is less detail in there.
| | 00:46 | These areas are little more washed out.
| | 00:48 | I don't see as much detail.
| | 00:49 | When I start dragging the Blacks
slider back in, I do see detail.
| | 00:54 | So, why does contrast lead to more detail?
| | 00:56 | An edge in an image is always composed
of a light pixel next to a dark pixel.
| | 01:03 | So, this mountain range here, which now
that I zoom in on it, I see is suffering
| | 01:08 | maybe for a little chromatic
aberration that I want to correct,
| | 01:11 | this edge here is a light pixel
followed by a dark pixel, side-by-side.
| | 01:15 | So that contrast makes for the
appearance of that edge. Texture is the same way.
| | 01:21 | The more variation in pixel color I have,
the more texture I see, the more detail.
| | 01:26 | So, when I increase contrast, I'm
increasing the apparent shift from this light
| | 01:31 | pixel to this dark pixel, and that's
making that texture appear more pronounced.
| | 01:35 | Do this over the entire image, and I
can get a pretty radical change in the
| | 01:39 | appearance of texture in my image.
| | 01:41 | With that in mind, it's important to
keep an eye on overall texture when
| | 01:45 | you're adjusting contrast.
| | 01:46 | If you take your contrast too far, in
addition to the image possibly becoming
| | 01:51 | too lighter or too dark, it
could actually become too texture-y.
| | 01:54 | You may think, well, how
could there be too much texture?
| | 01:57 | I thought the idea was to get as
much detail on an image as possible.
| | 02:00 | Not always. Because sometimes texture
can be a little bit overwhelming to the
| | 02:04 | eye. It can make the image too busy
or too noisy somehow, not noisy in the
| | 02:08 | camera noise sense, but just
too much for the eye to deal with.
| | 02:11 | So, I'm going to back off
of that edit that we made.
| | 02:14 | If you notice down here, the Cancel
button, which we've talked about before, if I
| | 02:17 | hold down the Option key,
it turns into a Reset button.
| | 02:21 | Click that and my image settings go
back to where they were when I opened the
| | 02:25 | file, not to where they were
originally when it came out of the camera -
| | 02:28 | for that, I can use the Default button -
but back to where they were when I
| | 02:32 | last saved the image.
| | 02:34 | If you're working with a RAW file,
your images will come out of the camera
| | 02:37 | looking a little bit soft.
| | 02:39 | This is an unfortunate necessity of
digital image sensors, and it happens for
| | 02:43 | all RAW-capable cameras, no matter
how good your lens is, no matter how
| | 02:47 | expensive your camera was.
| | 02:48 | It has to do with the method
that a camera uses to capture color.
| | 02:52 | Fortunately, the softening can be
easily corrected through software, and your
| | 02:56 | camera does this when you shoot in JPEG mode.
| | 02:58 | But when you're working with a RAW
file, it will be up to you to add a
| | 03:02 | sharpening step to your workflow.
| | 03:04 | Camera Raw includes some sharpening
tools, but we are not going to use them.
| | 03:07 | The sharpening should always be
performed as the last step in your workflow,
| | 03:12 | and we'll learn more about why later, when
we'll talk about sharpening in the output chapter.
| | 03:16 | Camera Raw is not the last step for us.
| | 03:18 | We're going to be going on into
Photoshop and doing a lot more editing.
| | 03:22 | So, we don't want to apply any sharpening on.
| | 03:24 | However, when you sharpen, you often
increase the amount of contrast in your
| | 03:28 | image, because as we've seen,
more contrast means more detail.
| | 03:32 | So, sharpening by adding more
detail often leads to increased contrast.
| | 03:36 | Consequently, it can be difficult to
know if you've got the contrast set
| | 03:40 | properly in your image.
| | 03:41 | You might go do a lot of work refining
your contrast in your image, then apply
| | 03:44 | some sharpening and find that you get
more contrast, maybe more than you want.
| | 03:48 | So, Camera Raw does allow you to see
a preview of your sharpening without
| | 03:52 | actually applying any effects.
| | 03:54 | This can be a good way of assessing whether
you've got the sharpness right in your image.
| | 03:58 | Now, by default, Camera Raw does apply
sharpening, and it's been doing that for
| | 04:02 | your images all along.
| | 04:03 | But we haven't actually opened any
into Photoshop yet and done anything.
| | 04:07 | So, we haven't already applied
some sharpening to our images.
| | 04:11 | I'm here in Camera Raw's Preferences,
which you get to by clicking this
| | 04:13 | Preferences button right here.
| | 04:15 | You'll notice in the General section
there is an Apply sharpening to pop-up menu.
| | 04:20 | I'm going to change that from
All images to Preview images only.
| | 04:24 | This means that Camera Raw will not
actually apply any sharpening to the image,
| | 04:28 | but it will show me sharpening onscreen
when I'm in Camera Raw, as controlled by
| | 04:34 | these settings over here.
| | 04:35 | So, in other words, I can have Camera
Raw kind of throw in a simulation of what
| | 04:40 | my final sharpening might be,
| | 04:42 | to give me a better sense of whether I've
got the contrast that I want in my final image.
| | 04:46 | But when I open the image in
Photoshop, there won't be any of the
| | 04:49 | sharpening applied. That's fine!
| | 04:51 | We're going to be talk about sharpening in
great detail later in the Output chapter.
| | 04:56 | After we do that, you'll have a better
understanding of what these sliders are.
| | 04:58 | Simply put, just fiddle with the
balance of these until you get a little bit of
| | 05:02 | sharpening that you like.
| | 05:03 | You may think, well, I want my
image to be as sharp as possible,
| | 05:05 | so I'm going to drag this all the way
over here. As you can see, there is such a
| | 05:09 | thing as too much sharpening.
| | 05:12 | We'll understand why that is when
we get to the Sharpening section.
| | 05:15 | For now, apply a little bit of light
sharpening in Preview Only mode, and we'll
| | 05:19 | learn about real
sharpening in the Output chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exiting Camera Raw| 00:00 | You've already been using the Done
button down here in the workflow area of the
| | 00:04 | Camera Raw dialog box,
| | 00:05 | but now we're getting ready
to head on into Photoshop.
| | 00:07 | So it's time to take a look at the
Workflow Options dialog box, which lets us
| | 00:11 | control the last few steps
of our RAW conversion process.
| | 00:16 | Clicking this thing that looks like a
link here in a web browser actually takes
| | 00:19 | us to Workflow Options.
| | 00:21 | I have a few different choices that I
can configure for how Camera Raw is going
| | 00:25 | to produce a final RAW file by
combining the RAW image data in my RAW file with
| | 00:31 | the settings that I've defined
over here in Camera Raw's controls.
| | 00:34 | First of all, there is Color Space.
| | 00:36 | When your camera captures color data, it
assigns a number to every pixel in an image.
| | 00:43 | So, it may decide, for example, that
this is 100% yellow, this pixel right here,
| | 00:47 | but what does 100% yellow mean, 100% of what?
| | 00:51 | The Color Space is a mathematical model that
defines the ranges of colors in your image.
| | 00:57 | So, 100% yellow in one color space
may equate to only 50% yellow in a
| | 01:02 | larger color space.
| | 01:04 | Camera Raw provides four different
color spaces, sRGB being the smallest.
| | 01:08 | This is a color space designed
primarily for web output, and it can't
| | 01:11 | produce quite the range of reds and
a couple of other colors that some of
| | 01:14 | the larger color spaces can.
| | 01:17 | Adobe RGB is the default color space,
and it's a good compromise color
| | 01:22 | space between the small color space of sRGB
and the very large color space of ProPhoto.
| | 01:28 | You may think, well, why wouldn't I
just stay on ProPhoto all the time?
| | 01:32 | Well, if you get too bigger color space,
there is a chance that your colors will
| | 01:36 | become too spread out in that color
space, and you won't be able to achieve
| | 01:40 | smooth gradients and other
transition areas in your image.
| | 01:44 | However, there might be times when you
open an image and find some highlight
| | 01:48 | clipping over on the right side.
| | 01:50 | In fact, this image has it.
| | 01:51 | Let's just see what happens if I change from
Adobe RGB to ProPhoto color space and hit OK.
| | 01:58 | Notice that that little red
spike over there went away.
| | 02:01 | In ProPhoto color space, I am no longer
clipping that red channel that was in there.
| | 02:07 | Just to give you an idea, I'm going to go
back and change it back to Adobe RGB, hit
| | 02:13 | OK, and you can see that
my clipping has come back.
| | 02:16 | This color space, Adobe RGB, is not
big enough to hold all of the color
| | 02:21 | that this image has.
| | 02:22 | Let's go to an even smaller color space.
| | 02:25 | Now there is even more
clipping, again, in the red channel.
| | 02:30 | So where this is going to show up, I
can hit the Highlight Warning, and you can
| | 02:34 | see in here, these areas that I
brightened earlier are now overexposing.
| | 02:39 | So, changing the Color Space
can solve this problem for me;
| | 02:43 | whether that amount of clipping would show
in a final print or not is another story.
| | 02:48 | So sometimes, spending too much time juggling the
color space is maybe more work than you need to go to.
| | 02:53 | On the other hand, I might as well
play it safe and stick with ProPhoto here.
| | 02:58 | I can also tell how many bits
per channel I want to capture.
| | 03:02 | More Bits/Channel means more gradations
of color within your image are possible.
| | 03:07 | Your camera probably captures
10 to 12 bits of color per pixel.
| | 03:11 | Some might even capture 14 bits per pixel,
but a JPEG file can only hold 8 bits per pixel.
| | 03:16 | So when you shoot in JPEG mode, one of
the first things that happens is your
| | 03:19 | camera throws out a lot of color information.
| | 03:21 | A RAW file can hold the full amount.
| | 03:24 | You can choose between 8 and 16.
| | 03:26 | If you choose 16, you're not actually
generating 16 bits of color per pixel.
| | 03:31 | That's a container that's big enough to
hold everything what your camera generated.
| | 03:36 | I almost always work in 16 bits,
because it gives me more editing flexibility,
| | 03:41 | more editing latitude, and we'll see
what that means a little bit later.
| | 03:44 | 8 bits per pixel does not, in the end,
mean that you can't get just as beautiful
| | 03:49 | an image with all the dynamic range and
everything else, but if you're planning
| | 03:52 | on doing a lot of editing, which I
typically do, 16 Bits/Channel is a better way to go.
| | 03:57 | Size, by default, it's going to store
the full pixel count of your image, which
| | 04:02 | in this case, was a 10-megapixel image.
| | 04:04 | I can also choose to have Camera
Raw size it down or even enlarge it.
| | 04:09 | These are operations that I can also do
in Photoshop. Why would I do them here?
| | 04:13 | Because if I was batch processing, if I
had selected 200 images that I wanted to
| | 04:17 | split them all out at 2 megapixels,
because I was going to just do 4 x 6 inch
| | 04:22 | prints or something,
| | 04:23 | I could set this here, then later hit
the Save Image button, and let it go
| | 04:26 | through and crank all of
those into finished files.
| | 04:29 | I'm going to leave this at full-size.
| | 04:31 | Resolution, doesn't matter what you set this at;
| | 04:33 | this is purely just a
timesaving device from printing later on.
| | 04:38 | Again, Sharpening, we don't
want any sharpening applied.
| | 04:41 | So we're going to leave this turned off.
We're going to come to Smart Objects later.
| | 04:45 | I'm going to hit OK.
| | 04:46 | Now, those settings will stay that
way, as the defaults, until I change them.
| | 04:51 | If I already have other settings set
for a previous image that I'd opened, then
| | 04:55 | obviously, it'll update when I open that image.
| | 04:57 | But for now I'll be outputting ProPhoto
16-bit images, so I'm going to want to
| | 05:01 | keep an eye on that as I continue to work.
| | 05:03 | Now, we're ready to move on into Photoshop,
which I can do by hitting the Open Image button.
| | 05:08 | Camera Raw will process the image,
which can take awhile, depending on the speed
| | 05:11 | of your computer, and how big the
image is, and open it up in Photoshop.
| | 05:15 | We looked at this before
when we discussed opening.
| | 05:18 | I have a document here that says flowers.CR2.
| | 05:21 | That's the name of my RAW file.
| | 05:23 | I do not have to worry about saving
over my original RAW file though, because
| | 05:28 | if I go choose Save, it will ask me for a new
name, and we'll talk again about saving later.
| | 05:34 | Now, we're ready to move on
and continue editing this image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Performing Additional Edits in Photoshop Retouching| 00:00 | Now that we are in Photoshop, that is now
that we have performed our initial tone
| | 00:04 | and color adjustments, whether in Camera
RAW or in Photoshop, we are ready to hit
| | 00:08 | the next stage of our
workflow, which is retouching.
| | 00:11 | Retouching includes things like spot
removal, which you probably already did in
| | 00:14 | Camera RAW, but what we're going to
talk about here is actually changing the
| | 00:18 | content of an image to a more extreme degree.
| | 00:21 | We do retouching now, after our tone and
content adjustments, because this is kind
| | 00:25 | of the next line of deciding
whether the image is a keeper.
| | 00:29 | If we can not pull off the retouching,
| | 00:30 | we may to abandon the image.
| | 00:32 | If it's a very, very, very complex retouching,
| | 00:34 | you may want to do that before you
do any other tone or color adjustments,
| | 00:38 | because if you can't pull it off,
you may need to get rid of the image.
| | 00:41 | This image doesn't need a
huge amount of retouching.
| | 00:43 | It's just there is this little telephone wire
up here, which I couldn't get rid of.
| | 00:46 | And now when I look, I also see there
are some dust spots that I missed before.
| | 00:51 | I think those are dust spots.
| | 00:52 | I am going to move my window around,
yeah they are not on my monitor, and I
| | 00:55 | am going to zoom in.
| | 00:58 | Even if they are birds or something, I don't
want them in there, no those are dust spots.
| | 01:01 | Okay. So I didn't get these in Camera RAW,
so I need to take them out in Photoshop,
| | 01:06 | which is very easy to do over here on
the left, the Spot Healing Brush tool
| | 01:11 | which is this old band-aid with a little
dotted circle next to it, and this works
| | 01:15 | just like it did in Camera RAW.
| | 01:17 | I need to set my Brush Size to be a
little bit bigger than the spot, and I am
| | 01:21 | just using the Left and
Right Bracket keys for that.
| | 01:23 | I just hold it over the spot
and click, and my spot is gone.
| | 01:27 | It's not a real difficult technique.
| | 01:29 | It's just clicking, so you push the
mouse button down and then let it go.
| | 01:34 | Photoshop is sampling pixels from the
surrounding area and basically copying
| | 01:38 | them into that area where I clicked,
and then doing some tonal adjustments to
| | 01:42 | make sure everything blends together.
| | 01:44 | So the next concern would
be this telephone wire here.
| | 01:47 | There are a lot of ways I could get rid of this.
| | 01:49 | I could get rid of this
with the Healing Brush tool.
| | 01:51 | I could get rid of this with the
Rubber Stamp tool. These are all perfectly
| | 01:55 | viable ways, but they are just not
nearly as cool as the new Content Aware
| | 02:00 | Fill Option in CS5.
| | 02:01 | So I am going to choose that
for this particular instance.
| | 02:04 | I am just grabbing the Lasso tool.
| | 02:06 | Actually, I don't even
have to use the Lasso tool.
| | 02:08 | That's even more complex than I need.
| | 02:10 | I am going to grab the Marquee tool and just
drag a box around the area that I want to fix.
| | 02:14 | Then I am going to go up
here to Edit and choose Fill.
| | 02:18 | I can also do Shift+F5, and by default,
now, Fill comes in with the Contents Area
| | 02:25 | filled to Content Aware as opposed to
foreground and background color, or any of
| | 02:29 | these other options.
| | 02:30 | Content Aware Fill is going to try to
fill the selected area with content that
| | 02:35 | is appropriate for that particular area,
and it's going to do that by analyzing
| | 02:39 | the image data around this area
and then building new content that's appropriate.
| | 02:44 | So I am going to hit OK, and
there we go. My edit is done.
| | 02:48 | I am going to deselect that, so I
can see, and it did a great job.
| | 02:52 | It filled that with appropriate sky,
and you may think well that's no big deal.
| | 02:55 | That's just gray, but as we'll see
later, Content Aware Fill can do some very,
| | 03:00 | very sophisticated filling,
in very complex content.
| | 03:04 | So that's probably all the
adjustment that this image needs.
| | 03:07 | I could, of course, go nuts and add more
flowers, take flowers away, so on and so forth.
| | 03:12 | Instead, I am just going to be
done with this image, and save it.
| | 03:14 | So I am going to go to File and choose Save.
| | 03:18 | I can Save this out wherever I want.
| | 03:20 | I am going to put it in the Exercises
Folder, alongside my other images, and I
| | 03:29 | am going to call it Flowers,
which is the name of my Raw file.
| | 03:32 | I am going to give it a psd extension,
Photoshop document, and I am going to make
| | 03:35 | sure that I am set for Photoshop.
| | 03:37 | I want to use a lossless format. That's
going to be Photoshop or TIFF, not JPEG.
| | 03:43 | If I ever need a JPEG file, I'll write one
out separately, but I want to preserve
| | 03:47 | as much image quality as I can, so I
am going to save that as a JPEG file.
| | 03:51 | Now I will have the RAW file and the
Photoshop file. If I want to do any
| | 03:56 | additional editing to this image later,
| | 03:57 | I will do that editing to the Photoshop
file because the Photoshop document is
| | 04:02 | now the most current version.
| | 04:03 | It's the one that's been retouched.
| | 04:05 | Let's look at another example.
| | 04:08 | You should have
Tehachapis.jpeg. It's a JPEG image.
| | 04:13 | We looked at this image a little bit before.
| | 04:15 | This image has this telephone pole in
it right here that just really bugs me.
| | 04:20 | There is a good change that
no else would have noticed it.
| | 04:22 | So you probably, in those situations,
shouldn't go around and going, oh look
| | 04:24 | at that telephone pol,e because
there is a good chance that other people
| | 04:27 | wouldn't notice that.
| | 04:28 | I just don't like that it breaks up
the line of these power lines
| | 04:32 | marching into the distance.
| | 04:33 | So I'd like to get rid of it, and again, there
are lots of different options to choose from.
| | 04:39 | I am going to go with the easy one again,
and do a Content Aware Fill, and then
| | 04:42 | way that I am going to do it is I am
going to select around this area here,
| | 04:51 | Edit > Fill and Content Aware Fill and
select, and we hit OK, and there we go; my
| | 04:57 | telephone pole is gone.
| | 04:58 | There is still this part around here,
which Content Aware Fill is probably going
| | 05:01 | to have more difficulty with, because
there is that tree sitting right next to
| | 05:04 | it, but let's give it a try.
| | 05:06 | Shift+F5 to bring up the
Fill dialog box. Hit OK.
| | 05:09 | I am going to Deselect by
choosing Deselect from the Select menu.
| | 05:14 | That did a pretty good job actually;
| | 05:17 | odds are no one is going to notice that.
| | 05:18 | There are a couple little gaps in here, but
those just look like highlights or things.
| | 05:22 | Nevertheless, I could take care of that
with the Spot Healing Brush tool. I could
| | 05:27 | also use the Rubber Stamp tool.
| | 05:28 | Just take that out. Maybe I will take that out.
| | 05:31 | So that's pretty good.
My telephone poll is gone there now.
| | 05:34 | A lot of people question this
type of work in photography,
| | 05:38 | and wonder about the ethics of
editing an image this way, and if you are a
| | 05:41 | photojournalist unequivocally,
you shouldn't be doing this.
| | 05:45 | That is a huge ethical violation,
trying to present an image off as some sort
| | 05:49 | of journalistic factual truth, after you
have cut things out of it is just not right.
| | 05:55 | I am not a photojournalist, and I've
been assuming that the images that we
| | 05:58 | are working here are not photojournalism
images, but that they are more of fine art images.
| | 06:02 | That puts you more into
the realm of the painter.
| | 06:05 | If you were painting this scene, you
might choose simply to not paint that
| | 06:08 | telephone pole in there, and for the
most part, would hassle you about it.
| | 06:12 | Your job, when working with a fine
art image, is to create the image that
| | 06:16 | evokes the emotion that you want, that
conjures the sense of space that you were in there,
| | 06:20 | that helps the viewer see what you were seeing.
| | 06:23 | And to that end, I don't have a problem
with manipulating the image in this way
| | 06:27 | to get it where I want it.
| | 06:28 | Here's a more extreme example of that.
| | 06:32 | Here is a location in Death Valley.
A storm was breaking up again, bad weather,
| | 06:38 | so I got my camera and ran out,
and there was this wonderful location,
| | 06:42 | this turnaround just perched right on
the edge of Panamint Valley here, and as I
| | 06:48 | was working up the image back
at home, I thought, "This was great.
| | 06:51 | It's just too bad there's nothing here."
| | 06:53 | This is such a stage.
| | 06:55 | Ideally what would have happened is
while I was shooting some aliens would come
| | 06:58 | and landed here, because that would just
be exactly the right thing to go in that
| | 07:02 | spot at that time. That didn't happen.
| | 07:04 | And as I was looking through my images,
I realized that I had another shot
| | 07:07 | with a friend standing out there, and
she was wearing this great red shirt,
| | 07:11 | which really showed up well, and I was
thinking boy, why didn't I put her in that image.
| | 07:15 | That's the one where she really needs to
be and then, of course, I realized, well I can.
| | 07:20 | So I copied her in there, and
it now has a focus up to it.
| | 07:23 | That is now more of a subject and a
background, even though the subject is tiny.
| | 07:27 | Yes it's a manipulation. No, that specific
literal moment in time didn't actually happen.
| | 07:33 | On the other hand, this image
is so heavily manipulated anyway.
| | 07:36 | I have made tone and color
alterations, and so on and so forth.
| | 07:39 | I have long given up any
journalistic integrity that this image had.
| | 07:43 | So retouching is just a decision you
need to make for yourself, for the specific
| | 07:47 | image that you are working on, and if you
are thinking well landscape photography
| | 07:51 | is about reporting on what a
particular landscape looks like.
| | 07:54 | Yes, sometimes that's true.
At other times, it's a more impressionistic
| | 07:59 | subjective thing, and yet other times
with the combination of both, where you want to
| | 08:02 | report on the feeling of the place,
and the only way that you can show the
| | 08:06 | truth feeling that you were having there is by
doing some literal manipulation to your image.
| | 08:12 | So personal decision that you will
need to make for some edits; other edits
| | 08:16 | are like removing dust spots and maybe
even telephone wires are a little simpler
| | 08:20 | and easier to justify.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Levels adjustment layers| 00:00 | So far, in your work in Camera Raw,
you've been working completely
| | 00:03 | nondestructively, meaning that you can
go back later and change any of your
| | 00:07 | adjustments. For obvious reasons,
| | 00:09 | editing nondestructively is a better way
to work, and you can continue to employ
| | 00:13 | nondestructive techniques in Photoshop.
| | 00:15 | I am going to open the
ApproachingStorm image in Photoshop, from Camera RAW.
| | 00:20 | So the RAW file is processing and
here are my results in Photoshop.
| | 00:23 | Hitting Command+0 to make this
large as possible on my screen.
| | 00:29 | There are a lot of things that I
would like to do to this image.
| | 00:30 | We got it close in Camera RAW, but
there is still more than we could to do.
| | 00:34 | It'd be nice to bring out some contrast,
more in some of these texture-y parts of
| | 00:38 | the clouds, and the foreground
still looks a little flat to me.
| | 00:42 | It'd be nice to do something to give
it a little more something or other.
| | 00:47 | That's not like a real technical term,
"a little more something or other."
| | 00:49 | I just honestly I am not sure
yet what it is, and that's okay.
| | 00:53 | Very often you feel your way
through image-editing cycle.
| | 00:55 | You find your way through
the changes that an edit needs.
| | 00:59 | I think I am going to start with
these big fluffy parts of the clouds here.
| | 01:03 | I would like to increase the contrast
on this area and on this area, possibly
| | 01:09 | on these little bits.
| | 01:10 | As you can see, I am pulling out the
real chunky fractal-y parts of the clouds.
| | 01:14 | I don't want to increase the contrast on any
of this dark stuff back here for two reasons;
| | 01:18 | one, it's already very dark, and I
don't want to push it any darker, and two,
| | 01:22 | if I keep it where it is and change this,
I will create more distinction between
| | 01:27 | the two, and that might give me
even a little more depth in the image.
| | 01:30 | Because this image does have such an
overall red cast, it's being a little bit
| | 01:34 | flattened out by that overall color tone.
| | 01:38 | The Layers palette in Photoshop is
where we're going to be driving our
| | 01:41 | nondestructive image-editing efforts.
| | 01:44 | If you don't see the Layers palette,
you can open it up from the Window menu.
| | 01:47 | If you want to have your windows displayed
or your palettes displayed exactly
| | 01:51 | as I do, you can go to Workspace and
choose Essentials. That's the workspace that
| | 01:56 | I am using right now.
| | 01:57 | Above the Layers palette is this
Adjustment palette, which gives you a shortcut
| | 02:01 | to creating what are called adjustment layers.
| | 02:03 | Adjustment layers are also available from
this Adjustment layer pop-up menu down here.
| | 02:08 | I'm going to choose a Levels
adjustment layer, which is right here.
| | 02:12 | If I click it, Photoshop adds a levels
adjustment layer to my Layers palette.
| | 02:17 | I could also have created that by
opening this up and choosing Levels.
| | 02:21 | If you've have never used Levels before,
it's very simple. It's going to be very
| | 02:24 | much like what we were doing in Camera RAW.
| | 02:25 | The Levels Adjustment shows a histogram.
| | 02:28 | Here is black on the left, white on the right.
| | 02:30 | Here is my midpoint.
| | 02:31 | What's cool about Levels
is these points are moveable.
| | 02:34 | So in Camera RAW when I would move the
black slider to the right, that's exactly
| | 02:38 | the same as doing this, and you can
see my image gets darker, and moving the
| | 02:42 | white point slider to the left is the
same as dragging the Exposure slider in
| | 02:47 | Camera RAW to the right
to brighten everything up.
| | 02:49 | I am basically taking this point right
here, and turning it into the white point
| | 02:54 | by dragging the white point over to it.
| | 02:56 | So it's kind of a backwards from what we
were doing in Camera RAW, but it still works.
| | 03:00 | I am going to increase
the contrast in the image.
| | 03:03 | Now I said that I didn't want to
increase the contrast in these areas, but I am
| | 03:06 | not worrying about that right now.
| | 03:07 | I am going to go back and mask them out
later, but as you can see I was right.
| | 03:10 | These areas got too dark.
| | 03:11 | By dragging the black point to the right,
now look what's happened to these clouds.
| | 03:15 | They've just got a little bit of
extra texture and feel to them.
| | 03:18 | I like it a lot more.
| | 03:20 | I want to brighten them up a little bit,
| | 03:21 | so I am going to do a midpoint adjustment there.
| | 03:24 | Now, the problem is this levels
adjustment is affecting my entire image.
| | 03:28 | I want to constrain it to only the clouds.
| | 03:32 | This thing right here in the Layers
palette represents my levels adjustment layer.
| | 03:36 | I can turn it off by clicking of the
eyeball, and there is my image without
| | 03:39 | the levels adjustment.
| | 03:40 | There it is with a back on.
| | 03:42 | I can of course go in and adjust the
settings of my levels adjustment layer up
| | 03:46 | here, and then I got this white
thing over here. This is a mask.
| | 03:50 | This lets me control which parts of the
image are affected by the adjustment layer.
| | 03:54 | You can think of this adjustment layer
as some kind of magic spray that you are
| | 03:59 | spraying on to your image, and
that spray is producing contrast.
| | 04:03 | You can think of this as a stencil
that you are spraying through, and in this
| | 04:07 | case, the stencil is all white, meaning
the entire image is being exposed to this
| | 04:13 | contrast-producing levels
adjustment that I am going to spray on.
| | 04:16 | So, if I grab a paint brush and select black
paint, these are my color pickers down here.
| | 04:21 | I currently have white paint
selected with black in the foreground.
| | 04:23 | I am going to swap those with
this little thing right here.
| | 04:26 | I am going to select a bigger brush, and
now where I paint the image is getting
| | 04:31 | lighter, and the reason it's getting
lighter is that part of the image is now
| | 04:37 | being protected from my levels adjustment layer.
| | 04:40 | So this is a way that I can constrain
where the levels adjustment layer goes.
| | 04:44 | What I would like to do is have
only these bits of the cloud affected.
| | 04:49 | The easiest way to do that is to set
my background color to black, choose
| | 04:54 | Select All, which I can also do by hitting Command
+A and Ctrl+A. That's selects the entire image.
| | 04:58 | Now if I hit Command+Delete, that will fill
my image with the current background color.
| | 05:05 | In this case, because the adjustment
layer is selected, that's filling the
| | 05:09 | layer mask with black.
| | 05:11 | So again if you think of this as a
stencil, the stencil is now completely
| | 05:15 | opaque; no part of my image is
getting the effect of this adjustment layer.
| | 05:19 | I am going to go up to
Select and choose Deselect.
| | 05:24 | Now with my brush and some white paint
and a nice big brush with a soft edge,
| | 05:29 | which is what I have up here, again, I
am going to use Left and Right bracket
| | 05:32 | to change brush size,
| | 05:33 | I can start painting, and where I paint,
| | 05:36 | I am painting in that
contrast increase. If you look here,
| | 05:42 | there is now a white hole in my
mask, in this little stencil.
| | 05:46 | So now the adjustment is going through.
| | 05:49 | I am going to now crank that up a little more.
| | 05:51 | This may be getting a little too color
saturated, but I will worry about that later.
| | 05:56 | I am going to paint on some
contrast in a couple of other areas.
| | 06:01 | I am kind of following the
tones that are already in the image.
| | 06:05 | The areas that are a little bit dark,
| | 06:07 | I am hitting, and maybe I'll
even get that bit of cloud there.
| | 06:16 | Again, before and after.
| | 06:17 | Let's turn this Adjustment layer off.
| | 06:19 | That's what the image looked like before.
| | 06:21 | That's what it looks like now.
| | 06:22 | A little more drama in the sky, and I
am feeling more or like this big chunk of
| | 06:28 | cloud here does look a little more separate
from this stuff behind it now, which I like.
| | 06:31 | There is a little more depth in the image.
| | 06:33 | Something that's bugging me is when I
brushed over this, I had darkened up a
| | 06:38 | little bit of the cloud behind it.
| | 06:39 | And remember, I am brushing with white
paint to punch a hole in the stencil.
| | 06:43 | If I just switch back to black paint, I
can fill that back in. In other words, I
| | 06:48 | can make sure that that
adjustment does not take there.
| | 06:51 | So I can go back and forth, painting with
black and white to add or remove my adjustment.
| | 06:56 | Let's do another one.
| | 06:57 | I am going to add another levels
adjustment layer. I'm going to add this one from
| | 07:01 | this menu down here now.
| | 07:03 | No difference between using that or the
adjustment panel, and I am going to brighten.
| | 07:07 | I am going to take the white point.
| | 07:08 | I am going to drag it over here.
| | 07:10 | That's brightening the whole image.
| | 07:11 | I am not worried about that yet.
| | 07:13 | I am also not worried about getting my
adjustment set precisely where I need
| | 07:16 | it, because I can go back and address that
later, because I am going to mask this again.
| | 07:20 | This brightening has blown
out some parts of my sky.
| | 07:22 | I don't like that, but again, I don't care.
| | 07:24 | I am going to put black in my
background color. With this layer mask selected
| | 07:29 | here, I am going to select
all, and again, Command+Delete.
| | 07:34 | If you can't remember that, you can go
up to the Edit menu and choose Fill and
| | 07:38 | instead of Content Aware, make that
Black or Background Color, because right now
| | 07:42 | my Background Color is set to black.
| | 07:44 | Okay, now the brightening is gone
from my image because the mask is
| | 07:50 | completely full. Deselect.
| | 07:53 | Now if you're not sure what's going to happen -
| | 07:56 | if I paint with white, my
image will get brighter.
| | 08:00 | Just to test that, I am going
to draw a stroke across there.
| | 08:03 | Sure enough, my image got
brighter, and you can see why;
| | 08:06 | I punched a hole in my mask.
| | 08:07 | So now I have the ability to
paint brighter into my image.
| | 08:11 | I can basically paint bits of
light into my image wherever I want.
| | 08:15 | So what can I do with what?
| | 08:17 | Well, what I am thinking what I am
going to do with that is I am going to in
| | 08:19 | here to all of these little flowers, or
all of these little bushes here, and I am
| | 08:22 | going to brighten up the tops of them,
| | 08:24 | so that they look like they're getting hit by
the light that's bouncing off of these clouds.
| | 08:28 | As we discussed earlier,
the sun is setting over here.
| | 08:31 | It's shining onto these clouds, and the reason
| | 08:34 | the ground is so pink is because the light is
reflecting off of these clouds onto the ground.
| | 08:38 | So let's just exaggerate that reflection
little bit by saying, I want the top of
| | 08:43 | that bush a little bit brighter.
| | 08:47 | Where should you paint? It's very easy.
| | 08:49 | This is like the easiest
paint by number set in the world.
| | 08:52 | Just look for areas on the plants that
are already brighter than other areas
| | 08:55 | and paint over them, and you will just
exaggerate that brightening that they've already got.
| | 08:59 | I missed there.
| | 09:03 | So I am just going to work my way
through, find these areas to brighten.
| | 09:08 | Now what I am serving to do here is get
my eyes something else to look at when
| | 09:13 | I am finding my way through the image,
but also I am breaking up that kind of
| | 09:17 | dull, overly-red foreground that we had,
and to a degree, adding still even more
| | 09:24 | depth to the image, because now these
elements stand out of the foreground a little bit.
| | 09:30 | So I will just quickly go
through, hit the rest of these.
| | 09:37 | I am using a mouse at the moment.
| | 09:39 | For a lot of this work, I
typically use a pressure-sensitive tablet.
| | 09:43 | I prefer Wacom tablets. If you're not familiar
with a pressure-sensitive tablet, it's a little tablet
| | 09:47 | you plug into your computer, and you
have a stylus that you paint on it with,
| | 09:52 | and you can program the pressure of the
stylus to do different things, so that if
| | 09:56 | you press harder, your brush gets
bigger, or changes color, or things like that.
| | 09:59 | If you do a lot of painting and
retouching, it can be a really great thing, not
| | 10:04 | only because it can save you from
repetitive stress injuries, or save you from
| | 10:08 | exaggerating repetitive stress
injuries that you already have, but there are
| | 10:11 | also painting effects that are just
really hard to do with a mouse. With the
| | 10:15 | tablet, you can get very subtle shading effects.
| | 10:18 | All right, there we go.
| | 10:19 | I am going to turn that off.
| | 10:21 | So that's before, and that's after.
| | 10:24 | It's a somewhat subtle effect, but it is
adding a little more depth to my scene, and
| | 10:30 | I think I am going to go maybe a
little bit farther and brighten up some of
| | 10:34 | this, a little of that, and one of those.
| | 10:38 | So these are adjustment layers,
levels adjustment layers, specifically.
| | 10:42 | They allow you to paint light and
shadow into your scene wherever you want it.
| | 10:45 | This is a technique that we are going
to be using extensively for the rest of
| | 10:49 | this course because it allows us to
control the lighting in our scene, make it
| | 10:53 | more interesting, change the depth in
our image, and have a lot to do with
| | 10:56 | controlling the viewer's eye.
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| Saving images with adjustment layers| 00:00 | Before we go on with more adjustments,
it's important to think about saving,
| | 00:03 | because the whole saving thing
around RAW files can be confusing.
| | 00:07 | We've been editing this document in
Photoshop, but when I look up at the name it
| | 00:10 | still says CR2, because
this was originally a RAW file.
| | 00:14 | It was RAW data that was
processed into colored pixels.
| | 00:19 | There is no color in a RAW file.
| | 00:21 | There is no actual visible
pixel data in a RAW file.
| | 00:25 | It's just a very strange collection
of data that has to be converted into
| | 00:28 | colored pixels, and that's what we have
here is just a grid of colored pixels.
| | 00:33 | It still got the name of the RAW file,
but actually, this set the data right
| | 00:38 | here has not been saved anywhere.
| | 00:40 | If I close this document and don't save,
I can't get back to this, because if I
| | 00:45 | open ApproachingStorm.CR2 again,
well, that's my original RAW file.
| | 00:49 | Because of the XMP file, it will still
have the adjustments I made in Camera
| | 00:52 | RAW, but it won't have any of
these adjustment layers or anything.
| | 00:55 | So right now, I'm basically
working with an unsaved document.
| | 00:59 | Anytime I go from a RAW file into
Photoshop, it's going to be that way.
| | 01:02 | I will - despite having a name,
I'm working with unsaved document.
| | 01:06 | So I need to save it.
| | 01:07 | We've already talked about how
you can't say over the RAW file.
| | 01:12 | Photoshop simply won't do that.
| | 01:14 | But we do need now just to preserve our
edits in case our computer crashes or something.
| | 01:18 | We do need to save this file out,
because we are going to want to
| | 01:21 | continue working with it.
| | 01:22 | And because as in a workflow I might
want to save now, because I like these
| | 01:27 | edits, and if I accidentally screw
up the image, I will have a way of
| | 01:31 | reverting back to this state.
| | 01:32 | So I am going to go to the File menu and
choose Save, and I get a standard Save dialog box.
| | 01:39 | Photoshop presents lots of
different Format options.
| | 01:42 | Now if this menu looks smaller than
what you're used to, it's because we are in
| | 01:47 | a 16-bit image right now, which you
can see, and there are only certain file
| | 01:50 | formats that support 16-bit.
| | 01:51 | This menu is a little confusing,
because actually a JPEG does not support
| | 01:57 | 16-bit, and this is a new thing in
Photoshop CS5, that JPEG is now option when
| | 02:02 | you have a 16-bit image.
| | 02:03 | What's nice is if I choose JPEG,
Photoshop will automatically convert it 8
| | 02:07 | and then do a save.
| | 02:08 | So this is really just a time-saving feature.
| | 02:10 | We don't want to save as JPEG,
because that would be in 8-bit conversion,
| | 02:13 | also because JPEG does not support
layers, so all of our adjustment layers will
| | 02:17 | go away, and there will be a lossy
compression scheme applied to the image,
| | 02:22 | which will degrade the quality of the image.
| | 02:24 | We want to save in either
Photoshop or TIFF format.
| | 02:27 | Both are lossless formats.
| | 02:29 | They both support adjustment layers.
| | 02:31 | Which one to choose really just has to
do with what you want to do with the image.
| | 02:35 | TIFF files are typically more
portable, if you are going to try to move to
| | 02:38 | another editor, or maybe you're going to
take this image into say a video editing
| | 02:43 | program, or something like that.
| | 02:44 | Just because another application
supports TIFF doesn't mean it supports
| | 02:48 | a layered TIFF file.
| | 02:50 | For our work, and for most your just
personal work of working up an image and
| | 02:55 | taking it to print or final
electronic output, I recommend using Photoshop
| | 02:59 | format, just because it works fine,
it supports all the Photoshop features.
| | 03:02 | There is no reason not to.
| | 03:04 | So now if I hit Save, I am going
to end up with ApproachingStorm.psd.
| | 03:09 | So I am going to do that, add a version.
| | 03:11 | We are going to replace that.
| | 03:12 | It presents me with this
Maximize Compatibility thing.
| | 03:15 | Just take the defaults.
| | 03:16 | In fact, you can tell it Don't show
that again, and now it will just go away.
| | 03:19 | So it's going to write the file and
when it's done, it's going to change the
| | 03:25 | name of it up here, just as you would expect.
| | 03:27 | There we go, ApproachingStorm.psd.
| | 03:29 | I am not going to cover much more about
saving throughout this course. I am
| | 03:33 | going to assume that you kind of know
what you are doing insofar as saving.
| | 03:36 | You might want to save various versions
of a document as you go along to save it
| | 03:40 | in different states, because maybe
you want to be able to go back to a
| | 03:43 | particular state, and of course,
| | 03:45 | you can do that with a Save As,
and you will get the same dialog box.
| | 03:48 | You cannot ever save, though, as a RAW file,
because this - you're not dealing with RAW data.
| | 03:54 | RAW, again, it's got no color information.
| | 03:57 | You're done with RAW now, until you go
and start on a new image, or until you
| | 04:01 | start this image over as a RAW file.
| | 04:04 | So as we move along, you will be
wanting to make sure that you save as
| | 04:08 | Photoshop documents.
| | 04:09 | If you go well, but ultimately, I know
I want to e-mail a JPEG to someone,
| | 04:12 | don't worry about that.
| | 04:12 | You'll do a JPEG conversion at the
very end, and we'll talk about that in
| | 04:16 | the Output chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Advanced Levels adjustment layers| 00:00 | Now we are going to dig a little bit
deeper into the Levels adjustment layer, and
| | 00:04 | how you might use it for a landscape image.
| | 00:06 | Obviously, we are still in
Camera Raw at this point.
| | 00:08 | This is an image that you haven't seen.
| | 00:10 | These are the Panamint dunes in
Panamint Valley, in Southern California, right
| | 00:13 | next to Death Valley.
| | 00:14 | One of the amazing things about this
valley is it's difficult to tell scale.
| | 00:18 | These dunes are probably 6 or 7 miles away.
| | 00:20 | They are three or four stories tall.
| | 00:23 | So there is a lot of
depth to be had in this image.
| | 00:25 | One thing that's great about this storm,
this storm was rolling in,
| | 00:28 | so I thought the obviously thing:
| | 00:30 | It's time to get my camera
and go outside and go shooting.
| | 00:32 | Hopefully, that's a lesson you're learning here.
| | 00:35 | Notice we've got this bank of black
clouds back here with a bunch of rain
| | 00:39 | falling in front of it.
| | 00:40 | It would be nice to play that up more
and get to see more of that depth that's
| | 00:45 | in there, as well just
generally have more interesting clouds.
| | 00:49 | I am going to hit Open to
convert this into a Photoshop document.
| | 00:52 | You may be wondering, so why aren't
we just doing this with the Adjustment
| | 00:56 | brush in Photoshop?
| | 00:57 | It will become apparent as we go on here.
The Adjustment brush is going to let
| | 01:01 | me brush a uniform adjustment into the area,
and I want something a little more varied.
| | 01:06 | So I'm going to add a Levels
adjustment layer, and I see my histogram here.
| | 01:11 | What I want to do is increase
the contrast in this area up here.
| | 01:15 | I know how to increase contrast.
| | 01:16 | Obviously, the problem is going to be if
I increase the contrast down here, I am
| | 01:20 | going to lose a lot of detail.
| | 01:21 | I am not going to worry about that,
because we will make a layers mask.
| | 01:23 | So I am going to set my adjustment layer
Levels Settings right now to add more contrast.
| | 01:29 | That's going to cause all
of this stuff to go bad.
| | 01:31 | Don't worry about that. Just keep your eye
on this area up here as I make the adjustment.
| | 01:37 | There we go!
Now we are getting somewhere.
| | 01:40 | I can start to see the
patterns of the rain in here.
| | 01:43 | I am getting a definite nice distinction
between the cloud layer and the rain in front of it.
| | 01:48 | I am seeing a little more depth there.
| | 01:49 | In the process I pulled some cool
texture out back here that's kind of neat,
| | 01:53 | that I couldn't see before.
| | 01:54 | The bad news is I've completely
trashed the foreground of the image.
| | 01:57 | This stuff has turned blue, which is curious.
| | 02:00 | This stuff has just
dropped out to complete black.
| | 02:02 | It's kind of cool that this has
exaggerated this pool of light that it opened up
| | 02:06 | on top of sand dunes.
| | 02:07 | Plainly though, I need a mask.
| | 02:10 | So in this case, I am
going to do what I did before.
| | 02:12 | I'm going to fill the
Adjustment layer with black.
| | 02:15 | I've set my background color to black.
| | 02:17 | I am going to hit Command+A to select all,
Command+Delete to fill the adjustment
| | 02:22 | layer with black and then Command+D to deselect.
| | 02:27 | So I have this Adjustment layer
that's adding contrast, but there is a
| | 02:31 | completely opaque mask between the
layer and my image, so none of that contrast
| | 02:35 | adjustment is getting through.
| | 02:36 | I am going to select a nice, big brush,
really big brush with a soft edge, and
| | 02:41 | then I am going to brush my contrast
adjustment in here, and all sorts of things
| | 02:48 | are starting to happen here.
| | 02:49 | I'll go down to, make sure this stuff gets hit.
| | 02:54 | I want to be very careful about all
that blue stuff that I was getting before.
| | 03:01 | All right, we are not done yet, so
don't worry about the problems you may be
| | 03:06 | seeing in this image.
| | 03:07 | But let's assess what we have.
I'll make sure that's filled in.
| | 03:11 | I have a mask that is white
on top and black on bottom.
| | 03:14 | In the words, the contrast increase
that this adjustment layer has called for
| | 03:19 | is hitting the upper parts of the area of the
image, but not the lower areas of the image.
| | 03:24 | So it's great! This has improved a lot, and I
can see the distinction between this rain in
| | 03:28 | front and the clouds in back, but
this stuff has gone kind of bad.
| | 03:34 | So I could switch back to black
paint and paint into this area to restore
| | 03:39 | the mask, but that doesn't really
work either, because how am I going to
| | 03:43 | make a transition from this area
where there's no contrast adjustment to
| | 03:47 | this area where there is?
| | 03:48 | Now one great thing about
clouds is they're abstract.
| | 03:51 | It's not that unusual to have a sudden
change from black to white, but this big
| | 03:56 | white splotch here is just a little bit too sudden.
| | 03:59 | So I am going to go back in and white
back to white paint and open up that part
| | 04:03 | of mask again, but here we are.
| | 04:04 | We are back to something that's way too dark.
| | 04:07 | So the problem is I need
something between there.
| | 04:09 | It would be nice to add a little bit
of contrast to this, but not as much as
| | 04:13 | I've got right now.
| | 04:14 | If I change the settings in the Levels dialog
box, then all of this is going to get messed up.
| | 04:18 | There is a better way, fortunately, a
more effective way, and that is as you've
| | 04:23 | seen, I can paint with white paint to
punch a hole in the mask, black paint to
| | 04:28 | fill in the mask, and as logically
follows, if I paint with a shade of gray, I
| | 04:33 | will do something in between.
| | 04:35 | I am going to set by color here to
about 50% gray, and now I am going to
| | 04:39 | paint into this area. Aha!
| | 04:42 | Now, I've got a level of contrast adjustment
that fits better with that part over there.
| | 04:49 | It's not quite as
conspicuous as what I had before.
| | 04:53 | This is still a bit too dark.
| | 04:54 | I am keeping an eye on my mask
down here to see what's going on.
| | 04:57 | I think I've now opened up
more of the mask that should have.
| | 05:00 | I am going to switch back to black
and start restoring some of this.
| | 05:04 | And I am looking for a way of getting
something that's more of a natural blending.
| | 05:13 | Then again, clouds are abstracts,
| | 05:15 | so I have got a lot of leeway here
for faking a lot of us, which is exactly
| | 05:22 | what's going to happen here.
Whoa! That's wrong.
| | 05:32 | So I am just trying to put in a
contrast adjustment in a way that it looks a
| | 05:40 | little bit believable.
| | 05:41 | So this area in here is still a
little bit dark, but again I think that
| | 05:44 | that just looks like a
shadow in that particular valley.
| | 05:46 | So I've built a pretty good mask here.
| | 05:48 | Let's do another before and after thing here.
| | 05:51 | That's my image before, and that's after.
| | 05:55 | So I have darkened little bit of this.
| | 05:56 | The main thing though, again, is I've
brought out all the stuff in the sky up here.
| | 06:00 | Before. After.
| | 06:01 | What I can really see is this
rainstorm in front of the clouds behind.
| | 06:05 | Let's exaggerate it a little further.
| | 06:06 | Now that my mask is in place, let's
go tweak our levels adjustment. Aha!
| | 06:10 | Look what's happened here.
| | 06:12 | Now, I have pulled out a little more to
texture in these clouds up here, and I
| | 06:16 | have exaggerated this
difference even a little bit farther.
| | 06:18 | What I don't like about this is now these
parts of the clouds have gone really dark.
| | 06:23 | I would like to mask those out so that they
don't get the full effect of the Levels adjustment.
| | 06:29 | If I paint with black, I am going to
block the contrast adjustment completely.
| | 06:32 | I don't want to do that.
| | 06:33 | I am going to go back to about 75% gray.
| | 06:36 | If you can't remember whether it's
black or white, or light gray or dark gray
| | 06:41 | that's correct for what you need
to do, that's fine. That was wrong.
| | 06:45 | It should have been 25% gray.
| | 06:47 | It's okay to brush some effect on.
| | 06:49 | If it's not right, just undo it.
| | 06:51 | Pick another color and try again.
| | 06:53 | You don't have to have an exact ability
to predict exactly how a mask is going
| | 06:59 | to turn out, and you can experiment and
fiddle with it, and figure it out as you go.
| | 07:03 | That's okay.
| | 07:07 | So that looks a little better lined up,
although it's still not quite there.
| | 07:12 | This is a case where painting with a
darker color is giving me lighter results.
| | 07:20 | Again, what's great about clouds is I
can just dab and do whatever I want in
| | 07:24 | here, and it ends up just
looking like clouds texture.
| | 07:25 | It's very hard to do a bad
edit on clouds a lot times.
| | 07:30 | Well, there's one right
there, but we can fix that.
| | 07:33 | I spoke a little too soon. No.
| | 07:35 | So again, I'm just kind of feeling my
way through what's the right direction to
| | 07:40 | go with my mask color.
| | 07:44 | Einstein said, "Never memorize anything
you can look up," and I think that there's
| | 07:50 | often merit to that idea.
| | 07:53 | This is looking a little - whoa! That's wrong.
| | 07:55 | This is looking a little weird.
| | 07:56 | I'm going to zero in on a color that will help me
equalize some of that, and that's not quite it.
| | 08:11 | I am going to back out of those.
| | 08:13 | This is the History palette.
| | 08:14 | It lets me work backwards through brush strokes.
| | 08:16 | It's very handy for backing
your way out of bad painting.
| | 08:25 | That part is still too dark.
| | 08:26 | I need to do something about it.
| | 08:28 | But look at my mask.
| | 08:31 | So this area has too much contrast,
meaning that it's probably too light there.
| | 08:36 | I am right on the boundary
between two different mask colors.
| | 08:42 | That's going to be a little tough to fix.
| | 09:01 | Again, with this falling rain, it's kind
of okay if I've got some variation in color.
| | 09:08 | So again, before and after. By mixing various
shades of gray to blend in different amounts
| | 09:15 | of contrast adjustment, I've pulled a lot of texture
and depth and detail out of these cloud images.
| | 09:22 | In the next lesson, we are going to look at
the exact opposite of what we've been doing.
| | 09:26 | We've been trying to brighten a lot of
things up with the idea that brighter and
| | 09:31 | more clear is better.
| | 09:32 | There are times though when you will
find that you want to darken things
| | 09:34 | on purpose.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Guiding the viewer's eye with Levels| 00:00 | While it's often easy enough to spot
a good landscape, figuring out how to
| | 00:04 | capture it is another story.
| | 00:06 | The real world doesn't always
have the obvious boundaries.
| | 00:09 | When you look at the big wide vista
that seems to stretch in all directions,
| | 00:13 | figuring out how to contain it
within a single frame can be tricky.
| | 00:17 | Where should you stand? How should you frame?
| | 00:19 | These are difficult questions sometimes.
| | 00:22 | Your job as a photographer is to
compose your shot in such a way that the
| | 00:25 | viewer's eye will know where to go, and
not be left wandering around the image.
| | 00:30 | There are many compositional and
exposure techniques that you can employ to
| | 00:33 | achieve this, from finding framing
elements within the scene to controlling
| | 00:38 | depth of field to guide the viewer's eye.
| | 00:41 | Another option is to help the
viewer's eye in postproduction,
| | 00:45 | doing things in postproduction that
are going to change how the viewer
| | 00:48 | interacts with your image.
| | 00:50 | That's what we're going to here through
the judicious use of some very carefully
| | 00:55 | constructed adjustment layers.
| | 00:57 | So continuing with what subject
matter of our last image we are still in
| | 01:00 | Panamint Valley, next the Death Valley,
and what made me stop to take this
| | 01:04 | shot was that the storm had, in the middle of it,
| | 01:07 | this big hole opened up in the clouds
and all this light shined down, right on
| | 01:10 | this huge dune field.
| | 01:12 | That's the thing that I wanted to see,
and while it's there, it is, unfortunately,
| | 01:18 | overshadowed, or upstaged, by
all the stuff in the foreground.
| | 01:22 | At the time, I knew that.
| | 01:23 | I worked hard to try and get around that.
| | 01:24 | I stood on top of the car. I tried this.
| | 01:26 | I tried that.
| | 01:27 | It just couldn't - there was no way
to not have all this in the foreground.
| | 01:30 | Unfortunately, it was very brightly lit also.
| | 01:32 | I thought maybe I could just walk out to
the ridge here, but that turned out
| | 01:36 | to be a long way away, and the
storm was just getting worse.
| | 01:39 | So instead, what we are going to do is
we are going to try and darken this with
| | 01:41 | a Levels adjustment, and that's going
to be just the first of the adjustments
| | 01:45 | that we are going to make to this image.
| | 01:46 | So I am going to make a new Levels
adjustment layer here, and I am not going to
| | 01:49 | worry about anything that
happens up here while I am adjusting.
| | 01:52 | I am simply going to trying to darken this.
| | 01:54 | I am going to start with a black
point adjustment, which does okay.
| | 01:59 | The problem with it is if I push this
too far, I am going to lose all my detail
| | 02:03 | in these bushes here, and I don't like that.
| | 02:06 | Playing with midtones is
not going to get us very far.
| | 02:09 | I can't really get anything blacker in there,
| | 02:14 | so I am going to restore that to where it was.
| | 02:17 | There are two sliders that we
haven't looked at yet, and those are these
| | 02:20 | Output sliders here.
| | 02:22 | These allow me to change what is
white and what is black in the image.
| | 02:26 | So I'm going to change the
white point to be more about here.
| | 02:33 | Now, this is darker.
| | 02:34 | What I've done is said that the whitest
thing in the image should actually only
| | 02:39 | be as bright as this middle shade of gray.
| | 02:42 | So it's made it a lot more dull, but
again, that's kind of our goal here is to
| | 02:46 | dull that foreground down a bit, so it
doesn't upstage the rest of our image.
| | 02:50 | Now, obviously the problem we're having
is that we've lost the rest of the image.
| | 02:55 | That's okay. We know how to deal with that.
I just pressed D to set my foreground color to
| | 03:00 | white and my background color to black.
| | 03:02 | I am going to hit Command+A to select
all, Command+Delete to fill the layer
| | 03:08 | mask, and I know it's going to be the
layer mask because that's selected over
| | 03:11 | here in the Layers palette.
| | 03:12 | Command+Delete to fill the layer mask
with black and then Command+D to deselect.
| | 03:17 | Now I can take a paint brush with white paint,
| | 03:19 | make my brush a little bit bigger, and
start brushing in the foreground here.
| | 03:27 | I have got a soft edged brush,
| | 03:30 | so that's getting me a feather along the top.
| | 03:32 | So I have actually inadvertently
darkened a little bit of that, but that's okay.
| | 03:36 | The scene has weird light, and I am
going to exploit that by making people think
| | 03:40 | it was just weird light that caused that
little dark halo along the top edge, if
| | 03:45 | anyone notices at all.
| | 03:46 | So that's pretty good.
| | 03:48 | Now, it would be nice to
work on the clouds a little bit.
| | 03:53 | They are the next big
dramatic element in the scene.
| | 03:56 | So I can't really do
anything with this adjustment layer.
| | 04:00 | In the last lesson, we were fiddling
with painting gray in varying amounts to
| | 04:03 | get varying degrees of an effect, but
this effect that I've applied here I
| | 04:08 | don't want that up here.
| | 04:09 | I don't want the clouds darker.
| | 04:10 | I want them more contrasty.
| | 04:12 | There is lot of subtle
shades of gray in these clouds.
| | 04:15 | If I increase the contrast, I will
bring that more and be able to see more of
| | 04:18 | this cool fractal-y cloud details.
| | 04:20 | So I am going to make
another new adjustment layer.
| | 04:23 | Now when I have an adjustment layer
selected down here, I don't get that menu of
| | 04:28 | adjustment layer options.
| | 04:30 | There are two things I can do.
| | 04:31 | I can click off the adjustment
layer and that comes back, but my Levels
| | 04:36 | adjustment layers are going to
be added in between these two.
| | 04:38 | I really wanted them next.
| | 04:40 | So I am going to come down here and say Levels.
| | 04:45 | Now, again, without looking at any of
this down here, I am going to keep my eye
| | 04:49 | on the sky and drag my black point
over to increase my contrast, and that's
| | 04:54 | looking pretty good.
| | 04:55 | I could consider moving my white point around.
| | 04:59 | I got to be very careful that I
don't blow out these highlights in here.
| | 05:02 | Yeah, that's getting too bright.
| | 05:05 | We'll maybe do that a
little bit and maybe pull it back.
| | 05:13 | So that's pretty good.
| | 05:14 | We are now in the same
problem we were facing before.
| | 05:17 | My adjustment layer that's good
for up here is bad for down here.
| | 05:21 | Select All, Command+Delete to fill the
adjustment layer, Command+D to deselect
| | 05:27 | and now B for the brush.
| | 05:29 | If you are ever wondering what
keyboard shortcuts are for the tools, just
| | 05:32 | mouse over them, and you will get a
little tooltip. In parentheses that tells
| | 05:36 | you the keyboard shortcut.
| | 05:37 | I'm going to paint in that Levels adjustment.
| | 05:45 | I am not going to paint down here,
because I know already that that's going
| | 05:51 | to end two contrasty-.
| | 05:52 | In fact, I already
brushed over that a little bit.
| | 05:54 | Kind of what I'm choosing to do is
paint over just some parts of the image.
| | 06:02 | See? That's starting to look a little weird.
| | 06:03 | So I am going to switch back to black paint.
| | 06:05 | The X key swaps
foreground and background colors.
| | 06:08 | This is a very easy way that you can switch
back and forth between black and white paint.
| | 06:15 | That's no good.
| | 06:16 | I am going to undo that, and I am just
going to paint this contrast adjustment
| | 06:24 | that I have defined into my image.
| | 06:28 | Again, clouds are somewhat random textures,
| | 06:32 | so I am just kind of painting, not
totally randomly, but the fact that I am not
| | 06:36 | painting uniformly doesn't show
up as a bad thing. That's before.
| | 06:41 | That's after.
| | 06:42 | I like those clouds better.
| | 06:44 | So that's looking pretty good.
The problem now is what originally caught my eye
| | 06:47 | was that this was all lit up, and it's
still kind of lit up, but it's not great.
| | 06:53 | So let's increase the brightness of this by
adding yet another adjustment layer - Levels.
| | 07:02 | And I am going to drag my white point over here.
| | 07:08 | I am not worried about
what's happening with the clouds.
| | 07:10 | I know they are blowing out, but that's okay.
| | 07:12 | I am going to open up the mids a little
to get me a little more texture in here.
| | 07:18 | Now same thing, Command+A to select
all, Command+Delete to fill with the
| | 07:23 | background color, Command+D to deselect.
| | 07:26 | I'll grab my brush, and we will go to down here.
| | 07:30 | I don't like brightening up the sky that much.
| | 07:35 | I am going to undo that.
| | 07:36 | I am going to go over the mountains, and I
am going to go over this foreground area.
| | 07:46 | That's a little too bright in there.
| | 07:48 | I am going to select middle
gray, paint some of that back out.
| | 07:55 | So that's pretty good.
| | 07:56 | I am going to try a crop.
| | 07:58 | I am in Photoshop. C for the Crop tool.
| | 08:01 | This is just like the Crop tool in
Camera RAW, except that this is going to
| | 08:04 | be destructive edit.
| | 08:05 | If I don't like this later,
there is nothing I can do about it.
| | 08:08 | In Camera RAW, I now have the
option for a Crop Guide Overlay.
| | 08:13 | I am going to just going to
double-click to take the crop.
| | 08:16 | That's working better.
| | 08:17 | Getting rid of some of that
foreground has helped a lot.
| | 08:19 | Now I've got an image that's - my eye
knows a little bit more with to do.
| | 08:23 | I see this up here. I come down here.
| | 08:25 | As westerners, we can reach
an image from left to right.
| | 08:28 | So I like that more.
| | 08:30 | There are some tonal adjustments.
| | 08:31 | I've managed to constrain the
viewer's eye to the part of the image that I
| | 08:35 | had found compelling.
| | 08:36 | I've taken a broad landscape and
cropped a bit out of it, and given some tonal
| | 08:43 | cues that lets the viewer
know where they need look.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using gradient masks for multiple adjustments| 00:00 | Well, being able to paint a
layer mask affords you an easy way to
| | 00:03 | constrain edits in an image,
| | 00:05 | there will be times when it's
difficult or impossible to paint around certain
| | 00:09 | details in your scene;
| | 00:11 | for these times, creating a
Gradient mask may be your best alternative.
| | 00:16 | This is similar to what we did in Camera
RAW using the Gradient tool, but it's a
| | 00:20 | way of applying gradients to an
adjustment layer to ramp off the effects of that
| | 00:25 | adjustment layer across your image.
| | 00:27 | Here is also an example of sometimes
the best way to capture a landscape has
| | 00:31 | nothing to do with a broad vista
sometimes its details getting close to a tree,
| | 00:36 | grass, getting down on the ground,
shooting something that evokes the feel of
| | 00:41 | the place close up, rather than
trying to capture an entire broad valley.
| | 00:45 | Something else you might notice about
this image is that it's not straight.
| | 00:48 | This is one that I didn't think to straighten
in Camera RAW before I brought it into Photoshop.
| | 00:53 | Fortunately, in CS5 we now have a
very easy-to-use Straighten tool.
| | 00:57 | The Ruler tool sits here on the Menu bar.
| | 01:00 | By default, you may see this, the
Eyedropper tool, but if you click and open it
| | 01:04 | up you'll get the Ruler tool.
| | 01:07 | This is just like the
Straighten tool in Camera RAW.
| | 01:09 | I'm going to click and drag across a
line that should be straight. That's going to
| | 01:15 | be about in there.
| | 01:17 | Now up here on the Control bar for the
Ruler tool is something called Straighten.
| | 01:22 | Click that, and Photoshop does some thinking.
| | 01:25 | It straightens and crops
the image, which is very nice.
| | 01:28 | What I would like to do
here is deal with the sky.
| | 01:31 | It would be nice if there was
just a little bit more punch to it.
| | 01:34 | I don't want to do too much, because I don't
want to upstage all the stuff in the foreground.
| | 01:40 | I could try to go in with the Levels
adjustment layer and a layer mask and paint,
| | 01:44 | except I'd have to paint around all these
things, grass, and it would be very difficult.
| | 01:49 | So instead, I am going to create a
Levels adjustment layer, increase the
| | 01:53 | contrast in the sky just a little bit.
| | 01:57 | There is a sandstorm going on, or a
windstorm, going on in the background.
| | 02:00 | So I've got this wonderful difference
between the dark of the mountains and the
| | 02:03 | light of all this dust.
| | 02:04 | The problem is when I do that, the
foreground is going a little bit darker than I like.
| | 02:09 | That's okay. We'll just mask that away later.
| | 02:13 | Now, there is going to be a little bit
of a cheat here to what we are doing.
| | 02:16 | I am taking the Gradient tool.
| | 02:18 | I've got white as my foreground
color, black as my background color.
| | 02:21 | I know I want this cloud to
get the full contrast adjustment,
| | 02:25 | so I am going to click beneath the cloud.
| | 02:27 | I am going to hold down the Shift key to
constrain it to only dragging in 45 degree increments.
| | 02:34 | So this makes it very easy to
drag a straight, vertical line.
| | 02:37 | I am going to come down to about here.
| | 02:40 | Now, you can see from my mask I've got
white up here, which means this is getting
| | 02:46 | the full effect of the adjustment layer
and starting about here it's beginning
| | 02:49 | to ramp off to nothing about here.
| | 02:51 | I think I would actually like
more of the sky to get an adjustment.
| | 02:54 | So again, I'm going to start here, and I am
going to come down to about here. All right.
| | 03:00 | Well that was subtle. Wasn't it?
| | 03:02 | Let's try one more.
| | 03:03 | Let's come all the way down to here.
| | 03:05 | Okay, that pushed a little
contrast adjustment down into here.
| | 03:08 | Now, you may think well, but
what about the blades of grass?
| | 03:11 | Are they getting some of that
levels adjustment? Yes, they are.
| | 03:14 | If I turn this off, it's very, very
subtle, but you can there is a tiny bit of
| | 03:19 | contrast adjustment
happening on this one right here.
| | 03:21 | Let me turn this back on.
| | 03:22 | I lost a teeny bit of highlight.
| | 03:25 | It ends up just looking like a silhouette, as
if am looking into a bright light, which I am.
| | 03:30 | So, that's a cheat that
I can afford right there.
| | 03:33 | So that's a Gradient mask that has
increased the contrast in the sky, a little
| | 03:37 | bit in the mountains, but left
my foreground largely undisturbed.
| | 03:41 | But I still want more out of this cloud.
| | 03:43 | So I am going to create
another Levels adjustment layer.
| | 03:46 | It will be nice if just the shadows
on the cloud were a little bit more
| | 03:50 | pronounced, so that the
cloud looked a little more poofy.
| | 03:53 | I am going to try a midtone adjustment,
not a blacks adjustment, because if I
| | 03:58 | do - that's a mid-tones adjustment -
| | 04:00 | if I undo that and do blacks, you see
that it's very easy to right away get
| | 04:04 | the cloud too dark.
| | 04:05 | So instead, I am going to
darken with the midtone adjustment.
| | 04:07 | It's a little more subtle,
unless I take it too far.
| | 04:11 | The rest of the image is going out of whack,
but that's okay because we are going to
| | 04:14 | put in another layer mask, and
we will put it back in whack.
| | 04:18 | Now, I'm going to select
all, as we've done before.
| | 04:21 | I've got black as my background color.
| | 04:23 | My adjustment layer mask is selected;
| | 04:26 | Command+Delete to fill the mask with
black, Command+D to deselect, grab my paint
| | 04:32 | brush, got white paint already, my brush
is way too big, left bracket to make it
| | 04:38 | smaller, and now I can just
start painting some of this.
| | 04:43 | The tricky part here is I don't
actually want to paint into any of the sky,
| | 04:46 | so I am not going to paint to the edge
of the clouds. And I blew it in there.
| | 04:51 | So I am going to switch back to black
paint by pressing the X key, which swaps
| | 04:56 | my colors down here.
| | 04:57 | Let's paint those out.
| | 05:03 | So what I'm arriving at is the
edges of the clouds are not getting any
| | 05:07 | adjustment at all, and that looks pretty well.
| | 05:11 | Let me switch back to white paint, and to
this cloud a little bit, and we are pretty good.
| | 05:20 | So that is a Gradient Adjustment layer,
and a regular just hand-painted mask
| | 05:25 | adjustment layer all on the same
image, giving me a lot of very controlled
| | 05:30 | contrast adjustment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting color in JPEG images | 00:00 | I hope by now that you've seen the
various advantages to shooting in RAW, and how
| | 00:04 | landscape photographers
especially benefit from RAW,
| | 00:07 | thanks to its highlight recovery
capabilities and 16-bit output, among other things.
| | 00:12 | However, there might still be times
when you shoot JPEG images, either because
| | 00:16 | you are shooting with a point-and-
shoot camera or a cell phone that doesn't
| | 00:19 | offer RAW, or because you don't enough
space on your card to shoot RAW, or you
| | 00:24 | forgot to change your camera to RAW
after shooting some JPEG files, or maybe
| | 00:27 | you are just stubborn.
| | 00:29 | Whatever the reason, there will be
times when you have JPEG files that have
| | 00:33 | slightly off white balance.
| | 00:35 | That's what we have here, and it's very
similar to the bad white balance that we
| | 00:38 | corrected earlier in RAW.
| | 00:40 | The sun had sunk low enough that the camera's
auto white balance just went a little bit cool.
| | 00:45 | It would be nice to warm the image up.
| | 00:46 | Now, I have chosen an image with a
person in it because the human eye is very
| | 00:50 | sensitive to even subtle
incorrections in flesh tone, and warmer flesh tone
| | 00:55 | generally looks less dead.
| | 00:58 | So it would be nice to warm the flesh
tones up a little bit, and there is a very
| | 01:02 | easy way to do that in Photoshop.
| | 01:04 | There are a lots of ways of adjusting color.
| | 01:06 | We could use a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer or Color Balance;
| | 01:09 | we can even fix it in Levels.
| | 01:11 | But the easiest way to address this
particular issue is with Photo Filter, which
| | 01:15 | mimics the process of putting a
filter on the end of your camera's lens.
| | 01:19 | So I am going to pick Photo Filter, and
it's going to add an adjustment layer,
| | 01:22 | and there we go; our image is fixed.
| | 01:24 | That's really all there is to it.
| | 01:26 | By default, Photo Filter comes in with
the equivalent of an 85 Warming filter.
| | 01:32 | If you have any familiarity with filters of
camera lenses, you'll know what that means.
| | 01:36 | It's basically just a
filter that warms up the image.
| | 01:38 | I can control how dense the filter is,
how much warming is being applied with
| | 01:43 | this slider right here.
| | 01:44 | So I kind of wouldn't mind going even
a little bit warmer. It makes the dunes
| | 01:48 | look more sand colored.
| | 01:49 | It makes her flesh tone better.
| | 01:51 | It just generally makes the
image a warmer prettier picture.
| | 01:56 | This pop-up menu here lets me change
the type of filter that's added, and as you
| | 02:01 | can see, there is lots of different colors.
| | 02:03 | A lot of these have to do with
mimicking filter effects when working with
| | 02:06 | black-and-white images.
| | 02:08 | The other one that you might use as a
landscape shooter is a Cooling Filter for
| | 02:12 | those times when you accidentally get
a white balance that's way too cool.
| | 02:15 | It gives you something more like that,
definitely not what we're looking for here.
| | 02:20 | Because it's an adjustment layer, I can
mask it to warm up just some of the image.
| | 02:24 | I can turn it on and off. I can delete it.
| | 02:27 | It's not going to solve the problem
of a wildly inaccurate white balance.
| | 02:31 | If I stepped outside and shot in
bright daylight while my camera were set
| | 02:35 | on fluorescent white balance because maybe
I've been inside shooting under fluorescent light,
| | 02:40 | that's not going to be something I
can correct with a single filter.
| | 02:42 | That's going to be a very difficult
problem to address. But for the type of
| | 02:46 | just slightly off white balance
problems you are going to have when shooting
| | 02:49 | landscapes, the Photo Filter set
to Warming can be a fantastic way of
| | 02:54 | correcting JPEG, Photoshop, or TIFF images,
that is non RAW files that have bad white balance.
| | 03:01 | If you're shooting with RAW, it's still much
better to work with the white balance
| | 03:06 | controls in Camera Raw for fixing the
RAW edits, and you'll learn more about why
| | 03:11 | when we talk about knowing how to
tell when your edits have gone too far.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a vignette | 00:00 | Earlier, we talked about how the
photographer's job, when composing a shot, is to
| | 00:04 | help guide the viewer's eye.
| | 00:07 | We looked at tonal control as a way
to lead the viewer through your image.
| | 00:10 | But there are many other options, and
one of the most effective is vignetting.
| | 00:14 | Of course, earlier we viewed vignetting as a
problem, and we looked at ways to remove it.
| | 00:19 | But there will be times when adding a
vignette might be exactly what you need to
| | 00:22 | guide the viewer's eye through your image.
| | 00:24 | Now, we could have added
a vignette in Camera Raw,
| | 00:27 | but honestly I didn't think of it at the
time because I didn't know the image needed it.
| | 00:31 | It wasn't until I got here to Photoshop
and made some other corrections that I
| | 00:35 | started to realize well, it's kind of
just grass going out both sides of the
| | 00:39 | image here. My eye doesn't really
know what to do; it just wonders off.
| | 00:42 | Maybe if there was a vignetting,
because I can see a little bit of it here,
| | 00:45 | maybe if there was all the way around
the image, that would keep the viewer's
| | 00:48 | eye here in the center.
| | 00:49 | Fortunately, we can add a vignette here
in Photoshop, and not have to go back to
| | 00:54 | Camera Raw and start over.
| | 00:55 | The Photoshop Vignetting
tool is a destructive edit.
| | 00:59 | It goes in and darkens the
corners of the current layer.
| | 01:02 | I would like to implement it in a way
that is nondestructive, in case vignetting
| | 01:06 | turns up actually to be a really bad idea.
| | 01:09 | So what I am going to do is go over
here to my Layers palette where I have
| | 01:12 | my Background layer, which contains my
image, and I have these two adjustment layers.
| | 01:16 | I am going to duplicate the Background layer.
| | 01:18 | I can do that by clicking and
dragging it down to the Add New layer button.
| | 01:22 | Now, I have two copies
of exactly the same image.
| | 01:25 | I basically made a backup of the
image data within the file itself.
| | 01:29 | With my copy selected, I am going to go up
here to Filter, and choose Lens Correction.
| | 01:35 | That takes me to Photoshop's mighty Lens
Correction plug-in here, which has a few
| | 01:41 | different things in it.
| | 01:42 | In this tab, I've got Auto Correction,
which will automatically try to identify
| | 01:46 | what lens and camera I was using.
| | 01:49 | To tell you the truth, it got it wrong.
| | 01:50 | I've got the lens correct,
but it didn't get the camera.
| | 01:54 | It's going to, based on what it knows
of that lens, try to automatically fix
| | 01:57 | geometric distortion, which means barrel,
and pin cushion distortion, which looks
| | 02:03 | like an image that's being
blown outwards or blown inwards.
| | 02:06 | It's going to try and correct Chromatic
Aberration and Vignetting, all of things
| | 02:09 | that we saw in Camera Raw.
| | 02:11 | I am going to turn all this off, and
there you see my image just went back to
| | 02:14 | where it was, as I liked
the way the image looked before.
| | 02:17 | I am going to switch over here to the
Custom tab where I get a lot of manual controls,
| | 02:21 | manual controls of Distortion, Chromatic
Aberration, Vignetting, and Perspective.
| | 02:26 | This can be really nice when
you are shooting architecture.
| | 02:29 | You can correct perspective and vanishing point.
| | 02:32 | But what I would like to do is
darken the corners of the image,
| | 02:35 | so I am going to just drag this to
the left, and right away I've got a
| | 02:39 | pretty nice vignette.
| | 02:40 | Just as in Camera Raw, I control how
wide the vignette is with this slider, and
| | 02:44 | I am liking that a lot more.
| | 02:45 | It's almost turned the image
into kind of a circular thing.
| | 02:49 | I am going to click OK to accept this
edit, and make the change, and there we go.
| | 02:54 | I now have an upper layer
that has a vignette on it.
| | 02:57 | I can hide that, and you can
see the un-vignetted layer below.
| | 03:01 | If it turns out I don't like this
vignette, I cannot go back and adjust its
| | 03:05 | parameters the way that I can in Raw,
but I could, if I so chose, drag it to the
| | 03:10 | Trash, and now I am back to
just my normal un-vignetted image.
| | 03:14 | So this is a way of taking a
normally destructive edit and making
| | 03:18 | it non-destructive.
| | 03:19 | More importantly, it's a way of adding
a vignette to my image to try to bring
| | 03:23 | focus back to the center.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Knowing when edits have gone too far | 00:00 | Photoshop has a lot of useful image
editing tools and features, to say the least,
| | 00:05 | and learning how to use the ones that
are useful to a landscape photographer is
| | 00:08 | only half the battle;
| | 00:09 | just as difficult, sometimes, is
knowing when to stop using them.
| | 00:13 | Photoshop offers so much power and so
many options, wrapped up in so many choices,
| | 00:18 | that it's easy to become
paralyzed with end decision when editing.
| | 00:21 | Should I do this to an image,
should I do that to an image?
| | 00:24 | I know I need more contrast, but how much?
| | 00:26 | While many of these decisions are subjective,
| | 00:28 | there are some objective
measures you can use, as well.
| | 00:31 | So there is a finite amount of editing
that you can do to an image before you
| | 00:34 | start seeing deleterious artifacts
in your scene and other problems.
| | 00:38 | Let's return to this approaching
storm image and look at an example.
| | 00:43 | I am going to zoom in here.
| | 00:46 | This part of the cloud that I was
increasing the contrast on earlier, as you'll
| | 00:50 | recall, with this adjustment layer right here,
| | 00:53 | I am going to turn it off,
| | 00:55 | I have gone from there to there by way of
making the cloud a little more dramatic.
| | 00:59 | But I can go a lot more dramatic than that.
| | 01:01 | If I continue to push the black point,
the cloud gets more and more contrast-y.
| | 01:06 | So where's the point that's too far?
| | 01:10 | If you watch the shadow area here,
you can see it go from this, which is
| | 01:17 | very finely defined gradient of ever so
subtly darkening tones going from here to here,
| | 01:24 | I can go from there to this,
which is a great reduction in tones.
| | 01:31 | Now, I've got mostly just
three or four intermediate tones.
| | 01:35 | That nice smooth gradient that's been
in there has dropped out into almost
| | 01:39 | bands of color, and a whole bunch of
intermediate tones have fallen out to a complete black.
| | 01:47 | From a purely subjective
standpoint, that just looks too dark.
| | 01:49 | It doesn't look realistic.
| | 01:51 | But setting that aside for the
moment, we can also look at a more
| | 01:54 | objective benchmark, which is the
reality of this situation was a fairly
| | 02:02 | fine, soft gradient.
| | 02:03 | I don't want to get too far from that.
| | 02:05 | I don't want to lose too many tones in there.
| | 02:09 | Tone breaks and posterization, the
process of a fine gradient being reduced down
| | 02:14 | to just a few simple number of tones,
| | 02:17 | that's a sign that an edit has gone too far.
| | 02:19 | I don't want to go much farther than
here, even though I've got all of this range
| | 02:25 | over here that I can drag through, but
I am bumping into the limits of what's
| | 02:30 | going to preserve a decent gradient.
| | 02:32 | This is going to be true on clouds,
on pieces of chrome and flesh tones.
| | 02:36 | For a landscape shooter, particularly
dealing with skies, particularly dealing
| | 02:40 | with the very subtle gradients that
can appear in a sky, it's very, very
| | 02:44 | important to keep an eye on when those
gradients are breaking down into a far
| | 02:49 | simpler set of tones.
| | 02:51 | If you hit that point, then you've
pushed your edits too far, and you need
| | 02:55 | to back off of them.
| | 02:56 | If you have reduced the glow of the
sunset on a horizon down to a single shade
| | 03:01 | of orange, you have created an
entirely unrealistic image, and created edits
| | 03:07 | that defy what the viewer is expecting to see.
| | 03:10 | You need to back off from those.
| | 03:12 | When you're using that as a benchmark,
you suddenly find yourself in a much more
| | 03:16 | limited editing environment which is
good in some ways because it means you're
| | 03:20 | not overwhelmed by all the
possibilities that could arise from all of these
| | 03:24 | different tonal adjustments.
| | 03:26 | I've got the realm of possibility
narrowed down to these fairly slim latitudes
| | 03:31 | of what makes up a good
gradient and good tonal content.
| | 03:35 | So that's an excellent way of
knowing when your edits have gone too far,
| | 03:39 | when it's time to back off a little
bit, and knowing when to back off will
| | 03:43 | perhaps get you out of that paralysis
of too much choice, and decisions that
| | 03:47 | are too difficult.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. PanoramasPreparing to stitch| 00:00 | Once you have a set of panoramic images,
you're ready to stitch them into a finished whole.
| | 00:06 | Before we can construct the
stitching process though, we need a little
| | 00:08 | preparation on our images.
| | 00:10 | I'm here in Bridge, and I've got these
four images that are a panoramic set.
| | 00:13 | I have stacked them, as I recommended
earlier, because stacking is a great way of
| | 00:17 | keeping related images together.
| | 00:19 | Let's take a look at them, though.
| | 00:21 | Switching to Filmstrip View.
| | 00:22 | And the Preview Pane, Preview Pane always
shows you every image that is currently
| | 00:27 | selected, so I'm seeing all four here.
| | 00:29 | We're going to look at what they are there.
| | 00:31 | There are just images that
pan across this vista here.
| | 00:34 | A few things to note here.
| | 00:35 | There's a car right here.
| | 00:37 | I'd rather not have that in my finished panorama.
| | 00:39 | I could go in with the Retouch
Brush in Raw and take that out.
| | 00:42 | The problem is it's also in this image right
there, and it's in this image right here.
| | 00:47 | I've to retouch all three, and I
don't know which part of which image is
| | 00:51 | actually going to end up in the final panorama.
| | 00:52 | It's just going to be easier to wait
and take the car out of the final product.
| | 00:56 | And that's true of almost
all of your retouching things.
| | 00:58 | Don't worry about sensor dust in your
original images, because if there is
| | 01:02 | stuff over here on the edge, you don't
know that that edge is even going to be
| | 01:04 | in your finished image.
| | 01:06 | So wait till you get the final stitched
panorama, and then worry about your retouching.
| | 01:10 | The next problem though, is overexposed
highlights up here in the clouds, across all
| | 01:14 | of these images, except for -
this one is not so bad.
| | 01:18 | But these are going to be in my final
image. The clouds will be overexposed.
| | 01:21 | These are RAW files and when I
initiate the stitching process, Photoshop will
| | 01:26 | open these RAW files and process them
according to whatever settings sit in
| | 01:31 | their XMP files, just as always.
| | 01:33 | So, I need to go in and edit these in
Camera Raw to take care of that overexposure.
| | 01:38 | The problem is I need to be sure that I do
exactly the same edit to every image.
| | 01:43 | Because I've, through exposure lock,
been very careful to keep my exposure
| | 01:47 | constant across all four images, but
if I edit one image more than another,
| | 01:51 | brighten one image more than another, or
darken another image or something like that,
| | 01:54 | I'll screw all that up, and I could end up
with bad exposure variation in my final panorama.
| | 01:59 | So, there is fortunately a very easy
way to make the same edit to each image.
| | 02:03 | I'm going to select all four images.
| | 02:05 | And I'm going to do that.
| | 02:06 | I've selected the first image.
| | 02:07 | I'm going to hold down the Shift key,
hit the right arrow to select the next
| | 02:10 | image and then the next and then the next.
| | 02:12 | Now I'm going to double-click on them.
| | 02:14 | All four open in Camera Raw, and you
can see their thumbnails over here.
| | 02:18 | I can click on an image to view it.
| | 02:21 | So it's now obvious from looking
at the histogram, sure enough, there's
| | 02:25 | overexposure. I need to deal with that.
| | 02:27 | I could make an adjustment to this image,
take note of the parameters over here.
| | 02:31 | Go to this image, put those
parameters in here, keep going.
| | 02:35 | That would yield fine results, but
there is much easier way of doing it.
| | 02:38 | And I hit the Select All button, and
then I'm going to hit Synchronize, and I
| | 02:42 | get this big list. What
edits do I want to synchronize.
| | 02:45 | Well, I want to synchronize
all of them. That's fine.
| | 02:48 | I'll just hit OK.
| | 02:50 | Now, any change that I make to this image
will automatically be made to all the others.
| | 02:55 | I want to work on this image because
it's the one with the worst overexposure.
| | 03:00 | So I'm going to pull my Exposure slider down,
until it looks like - that's pretty good.
| | 03:07 | I'll hit the Highlight Warning button.
| | 03:09 | I don't see any overexposed
highlights, my histogram looks clean.
| | 03:12 | That's pretty good.
| | 03:13 | The image is possibly a little dark now.
| | 03:17 | I could possibly use a midtone
adjustment. It doesn't have strong blacks either.
| | 03:20 | It's a little bit low contrast.
| | 03:22 | I could go through here and also
adjust those bits in Camera Raw, but I
| | 03:26 | think I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait
until the final image is stitched.
| | 03:29 | Why should I wait instead of doing it here?
| | 03:31 | Because really, the only edit in Camera
Raw that I cannot make in Photoshop is
| | 03:36 | Highlight Recovery and White Balance Adjustment.
| | 03:39 | As far as adjusting the black point,
adjusting contrast, I can do all that in
| | 03:42 | Photoshop to the same end, but Highlight
Recovery is something I have to do here
| | 03:47 | and again, I'd rather wait and work
on a finished image than working on the
| | 03:50 | individual components.
| | 03:51 | We've already discussed the
Workflow options down here.
| | 03:55 | These control how the image goes into Photoshop.
| | 03:58 | If I brought in a 16-bit image, I
would have more editing latitude.
| | 04:02 | So, I think I'm going to do that, even
though it's going to be a larger file.
| | 04:05 | However, each one of these pictures
was shot with a 21 Megapixel camera.
| | 04:10 | I'm going to stitch four of them together.
| | 04:12 | If they were sitting side-by-side, I
would have a tremendously enormous image.
| | 04:18 | They will be overlapped a little bit,
but they're still going to be huge, and I
| | 04:21 | don't need that much resolution.
| | 04:22 | I don't need that many pixels.
| | 04:23 | I'm not going to print this
particular image out really really large.
| | 04:28 | So I'm going to shrink this, and I
could go down a lot actually; even probably
| | 04:33 | just a two megapixel image would be fine.
| | 04:36 | But just to be safe, I'm going to put
it more at about a six Megapixel image.
| | 04:40 | So what that means is my final panorama
is not going to be 3000 x 2000; each one
| | 04:47 | of these images is going to
be processed at 3000 x 2000.
| | 04:51 | That will make my stitching go much
faster, and it will mean that the resulting
| | 04:55 | image will not be tremendously huge.
| | 04:58 | So I'm just going to hit OK.
| | 04:59 | I'm going to double check now that the
other images have the same settings, and
| | 05:06 | they do, because I had them all
selected when I hit the Workflow options.
| | 05:11 | So, 16-bit is going to get me some nice
editing latitude and the smaller pixel
| | 05:16 | size is going to make things go faster
and not give me such an enormous panorama
| | 05:21 | at the end, which would
continue to bog down my computer.
| | 05:23 | I'm going to hit Done now because
I don't need to open those images.
| | 05:26 | I'm going to to go back to Bridge.
| | 05:28 | Now let's let it the update its
thumbnails, which is happening here.
| | 05:32 | Now, we can see that the car is still there,
but my highlights are in much better shape.
| | 05:37 | So, I've done the tonal adjustments
that can only be done in Raw.
| | 05:41 | I've kind of sussed out the image and
decided, yes, there is some retouching
| | 05:44 | that I need to do, but I'll do that later.
| | 05:46 | There is some tone adjustments I need to do.
| | 05:48 | I'll do that later.
| | 05:49 | I've made sure that I'm not opening
huge images, and that I'm working with
| | 05:53 | 16-bit for more editability.
| | 05:55 | Now I'm ready to start stitching,
which we'll talk about in the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Stitching| 00:00 | With our images prepped, we're now
ready to start our stitching process.
| | 00:04 | Stitching is very easily
launched from within Bridge itself.
| | 00:08 | First, I need to select the
images that I want to stitch.
| | 00:10 | So, I've clicked on the first one, and
then I'm going to hold down the Shift key
| | 00:13 | and click on the last one.
| | 00:14 | That gets a contiguous selection of all of them.
| | 00:17 | And then I'm up to the Tools menu,
down to Photoshop and choosing Photomerge.
| | 00:23 | Now as soon as I pick that, I'm back
into Photoshop, and this box appears.
| | 00:27 | This is Photoshop's Photomerge dialog box.
| | 00:29 | I can also invoke this from down
here in the Automate or Scripts menu.
| | 00:34 | To be honest, I can't remember which one it is.
| | 00:36 | If I had brought this up from within
Photoshop, I would be able to use the
| | 00:39 | Browse button to go choose images
that I wanted to choose them by hand.
| | 00:43 | But it's very easy to launch a
particular selection from Bridge right into here.
| | 00:47 | Over here, I have different stitching
algorithms that I can choose from, from
| | 00:52 | Collage and Reposition, which do an old-
school type of panorama, which is they
| | 00:57 | just layer images on top of each other,
to these three: Spherical, Cylindrical,
| | 01:01 | and Perspective, and then finally Auto,
which tries to make the best choice on its own.
| | 01:05 | These are the ones you're going to
want to work with for a seamless panorama.
| | 01:09 | The way these work as they take each
individual image, and they wrap each image
| | 01:14 | around a virtual sphere, or on and
off axis 3D plane of some kind.
| | 01:20 | And they use that to correct the perspective.
| | 01:22 | Here's the perspective
problem that we're facing.
| | 01:25 | This image here has a vanishing point in
its center. All lines recede to this point.
| | 01:30 | This image also has a vanishing
point but in a different place.
| | 01:33 | In the last image, lines were
vanishing onto this rock. Now they are
| | 01:36 | vanishing over here.
| | 01:37 | How do we reconcile those?
| | 01:39 | Well, through this cylindrical or
planar mapping that will happen, we can
| | 01:44 | cheat the perspective out of the picture and
then use tone blending to the hide the seams.
| | 01:51 | So these are different algorithms.
| | 01:53 | Why would they give me this choice
of these vaguely geometric things?
| | 01:57 | Well, you'll see that when we do a couple.
| | 01:59 | There are advantages to one over another.
| | 02:01 | We're going to start with Perspective,
just so you can see precisely what it is.
| | 02:05 | Now, I want my images blended together.
| | 02:07 | This is the default.
| | 02:08 | The times you would not want this
is if you were doing a reposition or
| | 02:12 | collage, and you'd like that David
Hockney look of just a lot of different
| | 02:16 | images laid on top of each other.
| | 02:18 | If I had noticed any vignetting in
the image, I could have taken it out in
| | 02:22 | Camera RAW on my own.
| | 02:23 | If these were non-Raw files, this
would do some vignette removal for me.
| | 02:27 | Same thing if there was
geometric distortion like their Barrel or
| | 02:30 | Pincushion distortion.
| | 02:31 | These are in here because sometimes
you'll shoot panoramas with a wide-angle
| | 02:34 | lens, and so it's nice to have the
ability to remove those at stitch time.
| | 02:39 | So, I'm going to hit OK, and a lot of
processing is going to happen here.
| | 02:43 | The first thing that happens is Photoshop
is going to copy all four images into
| | 02:48 | separate individual layers within one
document. That's what's happening now.
| | 02:52 | You can see that here's one
of my Raw files open, and here's
| | 02:56 | an Untitled_Panorama.
| | 02:58 | So it's just opening each document,
copying the contents into this
| | 03:01 | Untitled_Panorama document, and then
it's going to go through a process of
| | 03:05 | aligning those images.
| | 03:07 | It's going to try to figure out how they
overlap to create a more seamless layout.
| | 03:13 | And you can see that here;
they're all overlapping.
| | 03:15 | And now, it's going to and just trying to
blend them, so that the seams don't show.
| | 03:20 | Right off the bat, you can see that
this leftmost image has been mapped onto a
| | 03:24 | plane that's been tilted off axis along the way.
| | 03:26 | That's how they're
matching the perspective here.
| | 03:28 | And it's that tilting that's going to
create some trouble for us, for two reasons.
| | 03:33 | Here's our finished panorama.
| | 03:35 | Look what we have got here.
| | 03:36 | We got four different layers. Each one
has its own layer mask, which controls
| | 03:41 | which parts of the image are visible
and which aren't. We aren't going to need
| | 03:44 | the ability to edit any individual images.
| | 03:47 | If there were trouble with the
exposure along a seam, this might be a way we
| | 03:51 | could fix it by working on an individual image.
| | 03:53 | We don't need that, and having multiple
layers is going to slow the machine down.
| | 03:57 | So I'm going to flatten this image.
| | 03:59 | So this was Perspective mapping.
| | 04:01 | Look what we've got here.
We have got, on the plus side,
| | 04:03 | we have got this really big, wide vista.
| | 04:05 | It's definitely feeling
expansive and big, and that's nice.
| | 04:09 | That's why we stopped to shoot
this image in the first place.
| | 04:11 | There is a price to pay for Perspective
mapping, and the most obvious thing is
| | 04:16 | boy, I'm really going to just
have to crop this image to death.
| | 04:18 | I've got all this stuff up here
that's got to be cropped out of the way.
| | 04:21 | I've got a whole lot of content down here
that's got to be cropped out of the way.
| | 04:25 | It's a very odd shaped image, and it's
probably going to have to be cropped down
| | 04:28 | to about here, which means I'm
going to loose a lot of content.
| | 04:31 | More importantly though, look
what's happened to these rocks over here.
| | 04:34 | They've been stretched.
| | 04:36 | This whole part of the image has been stretched.
| | 04:38 | This entire mountain range has been stretched.
| | 04:40 | Look at these rocks.
They're very oblong.
| | 04:42 | Let's go back and look at the original, and
you'll see that, naw these were pretty round.
| | 04:47 | And look at this ridge. It's not
real long as it passes over the southern
| | 04:51 | little mountain here.
| | 04:52 | Here, that little mountain has been
stretched like raffy or like, I guess, molten
| | 04:58 | rock, and stretched to be much much longer.
| | 05:01 | So, this stretching has, on the one hand
given us this really wide expansive view.
| | 05:06 | It has also really distorted the
image and pretty dramatically changed the
| | 05:09 | reality of at least this section of it.
| | 05:11 | We would probably find the same
thing if we went and examined this area.
| | 05:15 | So let's keep this image, and
let's do another stitching.
| | 05:18 | I'm going to select these again
and go up here and launch Photomerge.
| | 05:23 | This time, let's try Spherical mapping.
| | 05:25 | We could do either, actually.
| | 05:27 | I just know from experience that I
think Spherical mapping is going to work
| | 05:30 | pretty well on this image. I'll hit OK.
| | 05:33 | And it's going to go off
and do the same thing again.
| | 05:35 | It's going to copy these four images
into a single document, align them, so
| | 05:41 | that the same things in each image are
overlapping, and then it's going to blend those seams.
| | 05:45 | Now, we're going to end up with, this
time, with an image that's not going to
| | 05:48 | require as much cropping, and is not
going to have all that weird distortion in it.
| | 05:52 | The down side to it is it's not going
to have that huge, wide, expansive-feel
| | 05:57 | of the other image.
| | 05:58 | So, we would be left with an aesthetic
decision: What more evokes the sense that
| | 06:03 | we were feeling when we
were standing there shooting?
| | 06:05 | Do we want it to be really really wide,
or it is something like we're starting
| | 06:08 | to see here, good enough or better even?
| | 06:12 | So, it's just creating a seamless
composition, which is just going to take a
| | 06:15 | moment, and here we go.
| | 06:17 | Right away, you can see some differences.
| | 06:19 | First thing you might notice is
there's this big, bad stitching seam thing.
| | 06:23 | Don't worry, as I zoom in, that goes away.
| | 06:27 | It's just when I zoom out at
different zoom ratios, Photoshop is having to
| | 06:31 | choose which pixels to display, and
sometimes these seams become visible.
| | 06:36 | I'm going to a flatten the image like
we did on last where in. That's going to
| | 06:38 | take care of that problem once and for all.
| | 06:40 | Those would not have
shown up in print, by the way.
| | 06:42 | So, look at the difference here.
| | 06:44 | I've got an image that doesn't seem as wide.
| | 06:46 | More importantly, it's not
going to require huge cropping.
| | 06:49 | And these rocks over here are back to
looking round, and this thing is back to
| | 06:55 | looking more the size that it
was originally, as compared to this.
| | 06:58 | So, while I like how wide it feels on
the side of the road over here as compared
| | 07:04 | to this, I still think I'm going to go
with this image because I prefer it not
| | 07:09 | being distorted and stretched.
| | 07:11 | It's not going to look so much like
a packed together, stitched panorama.
| | 07:16 | Which is right for you is really just
going to be very depending on what you
| | 07:19 | want and with the individual subject matter.
| | 07:21 | But I'm going to save this image now.
| | 07:23 | I'm doing a Save As, and I'm going
to save this as Cylindrical Panorama.
| | 07:30 | And in the next lesson, we're going
to look at, what are some of the obvious
| | 07:33 | problems in this image?
| | 07:34 | It's got to be cropped and we got to
figure out how to do that, and then we're
| | 07:37 | going to needs some tonal adjustment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Panoramic touchup| 00:00 | Picking up from where we left off in the
last lesson, we have our stitched panorama.
| | 00:04 | It's looking pretty good, but obviously
there are some things that need to be done.
| | 00:08 | We got this weird, uneven border here.
| | 00:11 | Now, if you notice this part of the image
goes down lower than this part of the image.
| | 00:14 | That's because I wasn't holding
perfectly level, but this curvature that we've got
| | 00:19 | at the top, that's going to be there
even if you're lockdown on a panoramic
| | 00:22 | tripod head and being very careful.
| | 00:24 | As I mentioned earlier, the
individual images are wrapped to virtual curved
| | 00:30 | planes or cylinders.
| | 00:32 | So, every panorama is
going to require some cropping.
| | 00:36 | So what we got to decide is how
much image data are we willing to lose?
| | 00:41 | I could very easily go in and crop
like this, and that's not bad, except now
| | 00:47 | there's some more road there, and I got
a little bit more mountain over there,
| | 00:50 | and there's some sky up here.
| | 00:51 | It's really hard to give that up, and
it's even harder if you had not done as
| | 00:55 | good a job with the stitching and the shooting.
| | 00:59 | and say you're needing more of a wild crop,
for example, if we were trying to crop
| | 01:02 | that perspective mapped
panorama that we had stitched also.
| | 01:05 | If this were CS4, I would say, yes,
maybe take a crop like that, or maybe
| | 01:12 | you could crop it like this, and you
can use the Clone tool, and you can
| | 01:15 | try and fill in some of this bush
over here and some of this sand, and maybe
| | 01:20 | touch up some of that.
| | 01:20 | It'll be a little bit of work though,
but since this is mighty CS5, and we have
| | 01:25 | the all-powerful Content Aware Fill,
I'm going to say let's be less aggressive
| | 01:30 | with our crop and try and keep more of
our image data, because we're going to
| | 01:34 | have a very easy way to
fill in the missing spots.
| | 01:38 | Now, as far as the sky is
concerned, a lot of this is just empty blue.
| | 01:41 | I don't know how much I need of it.
| | 01:43 | So, I'm not going to be
quite as aggressive there.
| | 01:46 | Skies are tricky things to replace, as
we've talked about before, and as it is a
| | 01:50 | landscape shooter, it's going to be one
of your - one of the things you struggle
| | 01:53 | with a lot, how do you touchup skies,
because they are such subtle gradients.
| | 01:57 | In this image, it's not just a
gradient from upper atmosphere to horizon;
| | 02:02 | it's from left to right, also.
| | 02:04 | So those are very, very tricky to figure out.
| | 02:07 | So, I'm going to take this crop for now.
| | 02:09 | If we can't patch up the sky,
we may need to crop it again.
| | 02:12 | So, we're getting there.
| | 02:13 | We've now got an image that's a little
more rectangular, but we have these bits
| | 02:17 | over here to deal with.
| | 02:18 | So this is the fun part, because we get to
do all this great repair for very little work.
| | 02:25 | We need to select the area that we want
to fill, and I'm going to do that with
| | 02:29 | the Magic Wand tool.
| | 02:30 | I'm just going to click over here in the white.
| | 02:32 | Sometimes with Content-Aware Fill,
| | 02:34 | you need to select an area
that overlaps a little bit.
| | 02:36 | I'm going to just try it in
this way and see what happens.
| | 02:40 | I'm going to go up here to the Edit
menu, choose Fill, make sure it's set on
| | 02:43 | Content-Aware, hit OK.
| | 02:45 | Now it's going to sit there and think
for awhile, as it tries to generate content
| | 02:50 | that is correct for that area
that I've selected. There we go!
| | 02:54 | I'm going to deselect, and it's
done a pretty astonishing job, actually.
| | 03:00 | It's nailed the sky.
| | 03:02 | I don't see any banding in the sky.
| | 03:04 | It's filled in some extra clouds here,
some mountains here, rocks, sand.
| | 03:08 | This looks very, very good.
| | 03:10 | The only thing which you might notice
is that this is a perfectly repeating
| | 03:13 | pattern right there.
| | 03:14 | Let me zoom in on that.
| | 03:15 | You can see that it's just
duplicated that rock exactly.
| | 03:21 | Odds of anyone noticing that are
probably pretty astronomical, unless they're
| | 03:25 | some kind of digital photo forensics expert.
| | 03:30 | As I get in a little bit closer, I can
see, okay, there's a seam right there,
| | 03:34 | and there's a seam right there, and
there's a little bit of blurring there, but
| | 03:38 | I can very easily fix that
with the Rubber Stamp tool.
| | 03:42 | I'm going to grab the Rubber
Stamp tool, take a smaller brush,
| | 03:45 | I'm going to hold down to sample this area,
and I'm going to just brush in some stuff here.
| | 03:54 | I don't have to make perfect edits here.
| | 03:56 | What I'm really after is just,
obviously, hiding this seam and just breaking up
| | 04:02 | any really visible repetition.
| | 04:05 | So these rocks may end up with some
extra weird folds in them and things like
| | 04:08 | that, but again, the odds of anyone
ever looking, and also if I'm printing this
| | 04:13 | out small, these particular
problems are not going to be visible.
| | 04:17 | It's a little soft in there, but that's okay.
| | 04:19 | I could spend some time retouching
more of this and clean that up, but that's
| | 04:22 | looking pretty good.
| | 04:24 | Let's go over here. Magic Wand this area.
| | 04:28 | Now let's try growing this selection to
see to if that gives us a better seam than
| | 04:32 | what we got in that last one.
| | 04:33 | I'm going to go down to Select,
and I'm going to choose Refine Edge.
| | 04:37 | I would like to view this
Marching Ants on top of my image.
| | 04:46 | I'm going to go up here to Shift Edge,
and I'm going to add quite a bit of Shift.
| | 04:54 | That's shifting it inward, and I hit
OK, and now Shift+F5 to bring up Fill.
| | 05:00 | Content-Aware is selected, and hit OK.
| | 05:03 | It's going to do some thinking,
thinking, thinking, thinking. It's done.
| | 05:06 | It didn't make a huge difference,
but still, this is a fantastic Fill.
| | 05:14 | It's certainly at least as good, if not
better, than what I could have done with
| | 05:17 | the Rubber Stamp tool.
| | 05:18 | I might need to fix that little bit
of visible seam right there, and I
| | 05:23 | believe we just got one last
little bit up here. Magic Wand to that,
| | 05:28 | Shift+F5, hit OK, think. There is our sky.
| | 05:32 | Now, we have a nice, rectangular panorama.
| | 05:35 | So, that fixes our
cropping and our content problems.
| | 05:39 | Let's just take a quick look at the
histogram to confirm that we are still
| | 05:42 | having, yeah, we got some
contrast issues. Let's fix those.
| | 05:45 | I'm going to throw on a Levels
adjustment layer, and goose the blacks little bit.
| | 05:53 | I don't have a lot of latitude to play
with my whites, because I'm going to clip
| | 05:56 | those clouds again after doing
all that work to recover them.
| | 06:00 | I put that about there, zoom in a
little bit, and that's looking much better.
| | 06:05 | That's before and that's after.
| | 06:07 | Finally, let's take out that pesky car.
| | 06:09 | I never noticed them before, but there's
someone by the side of the road, also.
| | 06:15 | They're probably shooting
a panoramic image of me.
| | 06:18 | They might be editing me
out right now somewhere.
| | 06:21 | I'm going to use the Spot
Healing Brush to see what that does.
| | 06:24 | Now, that wasn't great.
| | 06:26 | I put some stuff in the middle of the road.
| | 06:27 | So, instead I'm going to use the Rubber
Stamp tool and just paint the car out,
| | 06:37 | and I'm going to sample over here,
because I need to copy that bit of the road
| | 06:42 | to ensure that the road boundary looks okay.
| | 06:46 | Touch this up a little bit.
| | 06:47 | Again, this is one of those things that,
odds are, no one is ever going to look at.
| | 06:51 | As long as I've got the Rubber Stamp
tool in hand, I'll take that person out, and
| | 06:56 | no one will ever know that we weren't
out in the middle of nowhere by ourselves
| | 06:59 | shooting panoramas, and
shooting them very well, I might say.
| | 07:02 | This came out very nice.
| | 07:03 | Content Aware Fill is a real
lifesaver when it comes to doing panoramas.
| | 07:08 | It's going to allow you to keep more
of your image data, not have to crop as
| | 07:11 | far and still end up with an image
that's got nice, seamless detail all the way
| | 07:16 | through.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting a panorama| 00:08 | As a landscape shooter there will be
times when you encounter scenes that really
| | 00:12 | require you to work them.
| | 00:13 | You've got to dig to find the composition.
| | 00:15 | You know there's something interesting
there, but you're not sure exactly what
| | 00:19 | it is, and how you're going to get it.
| | 00:22 | This is in one of those times.
| | 00:23 | If you look real close, you might notice
the grand sweeping vista that lies before us.
| | 00:29 | We want to capture this vista.
| | 00:31 | Unfortunately, it's so grand and
sweeping that it won't fit into a single frame.
| | 00:35 | Fortunately, we have a trick up our sleeve
that can help us deal with this situation.
| | 00:39 | We can take multiple frames of this
grand, sweeping vista and stitch them
| | 00:44 | together into a single seamless panorama.
| | 00:47 | Photographers have done this for years.
| | 00:48 | They used to just lay images on top
of each other to create a collage.
| | 00:51 | We're going to do something much
better by stitching the images together,
| | 00:54 | it will look like we've taken one big picture.
| | 00:57 | To pull this off though, we have to
shoot our images in a very particular way
| | 01:02 | and be careful about getting data
that's going to stitch well together.
| | 01:07 | So here are couple of tips
when you're shooting panoramas.
| | 01:09 | First of all, a lot of people think that
you've got to have a tripod to shoot panoramas.
| | 01:14 | It certainly doesn't hurt to have a
tripod, but you don't have to have one.
| | 01:17 | So if you see a grand sweeping vista
somewhere, and you're thinking, I'd love to
| | 01:20 | shoot a panorama of that,
but I don't have a tripod,
| | 01:22 | don't worry about it; do it anyway.
| | 01:24 | That said, you've got to be smart about
the way that you handle your camera when
| | 01:28 | you're shooting a panoramic image,
and we're going to talk about that and a
| | 01:31 | couple of other tips.
| | 01:33 | I've seen my scene. I need to, as I
would with any shot, think about how to
| | 01:38 | capture it, and the first
thing is going to be focal length.
| | 01:40 | I've got a zoom lens on this camera.
| | 01:42 | With a long focal length, I can make those
mountains appear very large in the frame;
| | 01:46 | I can compress a lot of
this depth in the foreground.
| | 01:48 | With a wider focal length, the
mountains are going to be smaller, and they're
| | 01:52 | going to recede further into the distance.
| | 01:54 | You might think, wow, that makes the
telephoto think sound a lot better, and
| | 01:57 | it is, except that a telephoto image,
the longer image is going to have a
| | 02:02 | narrower field of view.
| | 02:03 | So it's going to require more
frames for me to capture the whole thing.
| | 02:07 | That means more possibility of me
making a mistake when I'm doing my panning.
| | 02:12 | With a wider angle, I can get the
whole thing in fewer shots, but it may be a
| | 02:17 | little difficult to see the mountains
in the horizon and some of the detail.
| | 02:21 | Ideally, you do it both
ways, and you see what works.
| | 02:23 | I'm going to pick a fairly telephoto range.
| | 02:28 | Next, depth of field control.
| | 02:30 | I know I want deep depth of field in this image.
| | 02:32 | So I'm on Aperture priority.
| | 02:33 | I've dialed into about F11.
| | 02:35 | I can do F11 well on a full frame camera.
| | 02:38 | If you're working with a cropped
sensor camera, you probably don't want to go
| | 02:40 | much beyond F8 or F9.
| | 02:42 | Otherwise, your image will start to soften.
| | 02:44 | So, next thing I do is I
figure out my first shot.
| | 02:48 | I'm going to take a little practice swing here
and try and figure out where I want to go.
| | 02:53 | I think I've got it.
| | 02:54 | I've got a plan in my head.
| | 02:55 | Now I need to think about how I pan.
| | 02:58 | The idea is I want to rotate the camera.
| | 03:01 | Doing this is not rotating the camera.
| | 03:04 | This is rotating me with
the camera stuck to my face.
| | 03:07 | The camera needs to rotate around itself.
| | 03:10 | So what that usually means is I take a
shot, I rotate the camera, and then I've
| | 03:14 | got to move myself around behind it,
all the time keeping this camera level and
| | 03:18 | not translating the camera, not moving it.
| | 03:20 | So it can take a little coordination,
and at the end, you may end up a little
| | 03:23 | twisted up, but with practice,
you can get very good at it.
| | 03:26 | The other thing about panning is I need
to overlap my images, and they need to
| | 03:30 | overlap by about a third.
| | 03:32 | So, when I'm shooting, I take note of
something in the frame and I take that
| | 03:36 | picture, and then I pan that thing
over to here and I take the next picture.
| | 03:40 | So, with all that in mind,
we're ready to start shooting.
| | 03:43 | I frame and press the shutter
button halfway to focus in meter.
| | 03:49 | Then I press the exposure
lock button on my camera.
| | 03:52 | I want all of these images to have the
exact same exposure, so that I don't get
| | 03:56 | any kind of exposure
banding when I stitch the image.
| | 03:59 | If one is dark and the other is light,
I might see a stripe along that seam.
| | 04:03 | So, I press the shutter button
halfway down to Meter, I lock exposure with
| | 04:07 | Exposure Lock and I take the picture.
| | 04:10 | Now, I'm doing my rotation of the camera.
My exposure's still the same, because
| | 04:15 | my Exposure Lock is still active.
| | 04:16 | I'm just working my way through the image,
until I get to the end of where I want.
| | 04:23 | And that looks pretty good.
| | 04:25 | Probably a good idea to do a couple of
other passes just to be sure as safeties.
| | 04:30 | One thing to note about Exposure Lock:
| | 04:32 | Once you activat it, it's on a timer.
| | 04:34 | Your exposure will stay locked for a
certain amount of time, and on this camera,
| | 04:38 | in the viewfinder, there's a little
asterisk that appears to indicate that my
| | 04:41 | exposure's still locked.
| | 04:42 | I need to keep an eye on
that, because it times out.
| | 04:45 | I'm not necessarily going to have still
my locked exposure across the whole thing.
| | 04:49 | With those images captured, we're now
ready to start thinking about stitching.
| | 04:53 | That's a process that happens in
Photoshop, and we're going to cover that
| | 04:56 | in another lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Stitching a panorama| 00:00 | Now we're going to take these
stitching skills that we've learned, and apply
| | 00:04 | them to the Sweeping Vista panorama that
we shot earlier, these four images that
| | 00:11 | we shot up on top of the cliff.
| | 00:13 | So just taking a look at this, as I did before.
| | 00:16 | These are RAW files.
| | 00:17 | I want to look for overexposure and
that kind of thing, any edits that might
| | 00:20 | need to be made ahead of time.
| | 00:22 | I don't have any overexposure problems,
but remember, these were shot with a
| | 00:27 | 21 megapixel camera.
| | 00:28 | I don't want these images coming in at
full size, because I just don't need a
| | 00:32 | final result that's that big, and
because it would bog the camera down.
| | 00:35 | So, just as we did before, I'm going to
select all of these to get into Camera Raw.
| | 00:39 | You don't need to make any edits here.
| | 00:42 | Yes, it's a little low contrast.
| | 00:43 | That's because of all of this haze.
| | 00:45 | We're going to have to deal with that
later, but the main thing is I don't
| | 00:47 | have something that I can only deal with in
RAW right now, such as overexposed highlights.
| | 00:52 | So I'm not going to worry about that.
| | 00:53 | Instead, I'm going to Select All.
| | 00:55 | I'm going to Synchronize, and I'm
going to go down here to Workflow controls.
| | 01:01 | I'm still set on a six megapixel image.
| | 01:03 | I'm going to bump that down to
roughly 2, because this is a wide panorama.
| | 01:08 | I think we have got plenty
of room. Hit OK, say Done.
| | 01:11 | Now I'm ready to start my stitch.
| | 01:14 | Just as we did before, Tools
menu > Photoshop > Photomerge.
| | 01:19 | Photoshop will activate and take off.
| | 01:21 | I've got my correct images.
| | 01:24 | I'm not sure which is the right one to
use here, because it looked like that
| | 01:28 | was a pretty clean pan.
| | 01:29 | So I'm going to leave it on Auto.
| | 01:31 | If we come out with something that's
wildly skewed, like we were last time, we'll
| | 01:35 | go back and try Spherical, or
one of the other mechanisms.
| | 01:38 | It's not unusual to have to of little
bit of experimentation, particularly when
| | 01:42 | you're shooting handheld.
| | 01:43 | If you were shooting with a tripod,
and a special panoramic head which locks
| | 01:48 | down to specific panning intervals,
then once you're used to stitching settings
| | 01:54 | that work with that head,
you can use them every time.
| | 01:58 | This went together pretty well.
| | 01:59 | I don't see extreme distortion.
| | 02:02 | It's plainly not doing a
prospective algorithm, like we saw last time.
| | 02:05 | I don't have something
skewed wildly to the side.
| | 02:07 | Each of these images has
been curved a little bit.
| | 02:10 | So I think we're into cylindrical
map of some kind. This looks good.
| | 02:14 | So I'm going to keep this stitch.
| | 02:16 | I know I'm not seeing any seams in here.
| | 02:19 | I know I don't want to do any
editing of the actual merge.
| | 02:22 | So I'm ready to flatten this image,
because I don't need access to the
| | 02:27 | individual layers, which is great.
| | 02:29 | We had an easy time stitching.
| | 02:31 | Now we are just ready to start with the
cropping and other issues that we have.
| | 02:35 | I'm going to size this to fit.
| | 02:37 | This is a pretty clean rectangular image.
| | 02:39 | There is problem of it being lower
on this side and higher on this side.
| | 02:42 | That's my fault when I'm panning.
| | 02:44 | I did not keep the bottom of the camera level,
| | 02:47 | so I wasn't panning even.
| | 02:49 | In my own defense I'll say I usually
don't talk a lot while I'm shooting.
| | 02:52 | So that was a different experience.
| | 02:54 | But also, I don't really care
this stuff is so dark and shadowy.
| | 02:58 | I don't really need to keep it anyway.
| | 02:59 | So I'm going to draw a pan out to about here.
| | 03:02 | As you learned last time, I'm going
to be able to cheat a bunch of content
| | 03:07 | back into the image. Now, that might be
a little too much sky, compositionally.
| | 03:11 | Well, let's go ahead and keep it.
| | 03:12 | I'm not sure where to crop this right now.
| | 03:14 | I want to see the rest of the data.
| | 03:15 | I'm going to take that crop, and just
as I did before, I'm going to select
| | 03:18 | my Magic Wand tool.
| | 03:21 | I'm ready to do my Content-Aware Fill.
| | 03:25 | We'll see what it comes up with.
| | 03:27 | You notice this time, I didn't worry
about trying to expand the selection.
| | 03:31 | I found, typically with skies,
that's not really an issue.
| | 03:34 | It'll do a good job of buddying the old
data with the new data, and make a clean seam.
| | 03:40 | That looks like I did a pretty good job.
| | 03:41 | Let's zoom in here. Wow!
| | 03:43 | It got the gradient really well.
| | 03:45 | When you move it, you can see there is
a little bit possibility of an exposure
| | 03:50 | shift there, but I'm not sure
it's enough to show up in print.
| | 03:53 | No weird artifacts or
repetition over here, none over here.
| | 03:59 | So a Content-Aware Fill did a very good job.
| | 04:01 | So now we've got an image.
| | 04:02 | Let's look at tonal correction.
| | 04:05 | It was a very hazy day.
| | 04:06 | There was nothing we could
really do about that when shooting.
| | 04:09 | Some people would say, well, you
could have put a haze filter on the lens,
| | 04:12 | but this is so hazy.
| | 04:14 | However, haze as you can see,
turns us into a low contrast situation.
| | 04:18 | Well, we know how to deal with contrast.
| | 04:21 | Sure enough, we've got a
histogram that's showing low contrast.
| | 04:24 | So I'm going to go in and
hit it with Levels adjustment
| | 04:27 | to boost the contrast. I'm just
going to take my black point over here.
| | 04:31 | That makes an image that's
got a little more pop to it.
| | 04:34 | What's going to clear the haze out
of the way, in a lot of cases, is a full
| | 04:40 | contrast adjustment.
| | 04:41 | Now, I don't want to take the white
point all the way over to here, because I
| | 04:43 | lose too much color in the sky, and
end up getting little washed out.
| | 04:47 | I'm going to push the black point now.
| | 04:49 | I'm being little hesitant with the
black point, because I don't like how I'm
| | 04:52 | losing all of this shadow detail down here.
| | 04:56 | This is looking nicer,
and getting more contrast-y.
| | 04:58 | I can even take the haze out almost
completely there, but I lose so much stuff down here.
| | 05:02 | I'm not sure it's worth it.
| | 05:04 | But I'm going to sacrifice a little bit
of it, because there is another tool we
| | 05:07 | can use to bring it back.
| | 05:08 | This is something we haven't looked at yet.
| | 05:10 | So those are Levels adjustment for this.
| | 05:12 | The next edit I'm going to
make is a destructive edit.
| | 05:15 | So, to give myself a way to back out of
it later, this is just like what we were
| | 05:20 | doing with sharpening.
| | 05:21 | I'm going to duplicate my Background layer.
| | 05:23 | I do that by dragging it down here.
| | 05:26 | I now have a copy of the Background layer.
| | 05:27 | These are two identical images.
| | 05:29 | I'm going to go up to Image >
Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights.
| | 05:34 | Now when I pick this, it's going to
come in with some default values that
| | 05:37 | are too aggressive.
| | 05:38 | But don't worry about what happens to the image.
| | 05:39 | We'll back off from those. So here we go.
| | 05:42 | I've got a Shadows slider
and a Highlights slider.
| | 05:44 | Look what's happened to my image already.
| | 05:46 | All these shadows are brighter.
| | 05:47 | Shadows is just like the
Fill Light slider in Camera RAW.
| | 05:51 | It tries to identify things in the image
that are a shadow, and it brightens them.
| | 05:56 | So I'm going to hit that right there.
| | 06:01 | That's pulled some more detail in here.
| | 06:04 | Now in the process, it's
made all this stuff blue.
| | 06:06 | Again, that's partly because the
shadow you cast from sunlight is blue.
| | 06:10 | We're seeing a true sunlight shadow,
but it's just looks little too blue to me.
| | 06:15 | There is something I can do about that.
| | 06:16 | I can hit Show More Options.
| | 06:18 | Now I have Adjustments Color Correction.
| | 06:21 | I can take some of that blue color out
that came in when I did my shadow adjustment.
| | 06:26 | So Shadows brightens
shadow areas when you need it.
| | 06:31 | The Highlight slider darkens highlights,
| | 06:35 | so I can use that. When we brighten
the Shadows, it felt like we lost a
| | 06:38 | little pop from the sky.
| | 06:39 | I'm going to darken the highlights
to put some of that color back in.
| | 06:43 | That's looking pretty good.
| | 06:44 | I feel like I've lost a little
tiny bit of contrast in here.
| | 06:47 | So I'm going to go back to my Levels
adjustment layer and boost the contrast
| | 06:51 | back up just a tiny bit, not so
much that I undo the effects of the
| | 06:55 | Shadows/Highlights layer.
| | 06:56 | So just to reiterate what's happened
here, I've got two identical layers, except
| | 07:00 | that this upper one has had a Shadow/
Highlight adjustment applied to it. I can hide that.
| | 07:05 | You see the original one.
| | 07:07 | So if I print this and decide that the
Shadow/Highlight adjustment was wrong, I
| | 07:10 | can throw the layer out, reduplicate the
Background layer, and apply a different setting.
| | 07:15 | So that's not bad.
We were not shooting in the best light.
| | 07:18 | We had a haze situation to deal with.
| | 07:21 | So there wasn't a great image to be had there.
| | 07:23 | But we were able to pull a lot out of it,
and give a pretty good demonstration
| | 07:27 | of how you put together a panorama.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. HDR ImagingShooting an HDR Image| 00:01 | Photography is a process of making choices.
| | 00:04 | Sometimes you've got to make a
lot of difficult decisions.
| | 00:06 | Sometimes you get into trouble,
because you forget there are some decisions
| | 00:09 | that you need to make.
| | 00:11 | One of the most important
decisions that you need to make involves
| | 00:14 | understanding the limitations of your
camera, and its ability to capture a
| | 00:19 | certain range of light to dark.
| | 00:21 | So I was walking along here, and I
came across a shot that I like.
| | 00:25 | I've got an interesting thing in the
foreground, and I've got a thing in the background.
| | 00:28 | Now, what I am looking at this
particular scene with my eye, I can see a full
| | 00:33 | range of detail, from dark shadow areas
into distant, brightly-lit by-sun areas.
| | 00:41 | My eye actually has a range of
about 20 stops worth of light.
| | 00:45 | As photographers, we measure light in stops,
every stop being one doubling of light.
| | 00:51 | That gives my eye a dynamic range of
a billion to one or something like that.
| | 00:56 | Unfortunately, we do not have a
technology that can do the same thing.
| | 00:59 | My digital camera cannot do that.
| | 01:01 | It cannot capture the full range of
brightness values from shadows to bright sunlight.
| | 01:07 | Neither can a film camera, neither in
fact, kind of video camera, because it's
| | 01:11 | based on the same digital
imaging technology as my still camera.
| | 01:14 | Right now, you're seeing detail on me.
| | 01:17 | But that bright background back there
is probably washed out, but if the camera
| | 01:22 | operator changes to expose
for that bright background,
| | 01:27 | now, I am probably in silhouette.
| | 01:29 | You can see detail back there in the
sunlight, but you can't see me anymore.
| | 01:33 | If you were him, standing right
behind the camera, you would still be able
| | 01:36 | to see all of that.
| | 01:37 | That's the wonderful thing about the human eye is
| | 01:39 | it's got this tremendous range that the
video camera doesn't. I am hoping that at
| | 01:43 | some point it will come back to me,
and you'll be able to see me again.
| | 01:47 | That, in this case, is the right choice, as
far as exposure, as far as I am concerned.
| | 01:52 | In this situation, shooting a still
image, I have to make some decisions here.
| | 01:56 | I have to first recognize, whoa, I
am in a high dynamic range situation.
| | 02:01 | I've got more levels of
brightness than my camera can capture.
| | 02:05 | What do I do about that?
| | 02:06 | Well, I can either choose to take a
shot that will show me this foreground, and
| | 02:10 | accept that the background is going
to be blown out to complete white.
| | 02:13 | There are times when that's a good decision.
| | 02:14 | There are times when that's a very
evocative image, with the background
| | 02:18 | burned into some kind of extreme light situation,
particularly for black and white photography.
| | 02:23 | That kind of high key image can be powerful.
| | 02:25 | Or I can choose to expose for that
background detail back there, and just accept
| | 02:30 | that this is going to fall into shadow.
| | 02:32 | In this particular case, that's not
going to be such a good choice, because so
| | 02:36 | much of the foreground is
just going to be lost to shadow.
| | 02:39 | Another option is I can choose to
expose for the highlights, to capture all that
| | 02:42 | detail back there, and just really hope
that when I get back to the computer, I
| | 02:46 | can pull detail out of the foreground.
| | 02:49 | The risk there is that I am not gong
to be able pull enough detail out, but
| | 02:53 | probably more pertinent is that when I
do pull that detail out, I am going to
| | 02:56 | have a big problem with noise.
| | 02:58 | There is a third option.
| | 03:00 | This is a more recent option that's
come about since the advent of RAW digital
| | 03:03 | photography, and some very
special software that's come along.
| | 03:07 | That is to do something called
HDR shooting, High Dynamic Range.
| | 03:11 | This is a process of shooting and
postproduction that allows me to capture a
| | 03:15 | much greater dynamic range
than what I can with single shot.
| | 03:20 | So what I am going to be doing is
taking a series of shots, and using special
| | 03:24 | software to combine those into one
image that has a full dynamic range.
| | 03:29 | So the first thing I have to do is what I
would do with any other shot. I need to set up,
| | 03:33 | I need to compose my shot, and frame my image.
| | 03:37 | So, I've done that just like I would
any other shot, using all of my same
| | 03:40 | ideas of composition.
| | 03:42 | Now, what I've chosen here is I've got
a strong foreground element, and then
| | 03:45 | I've got my background back there.
| | 03:47 | Now, if I take just a single image of
this, as I've said with exposing for the
| | 03:52 | foreground, I get this.
| | 03:55 | The camera did a good job of metering.
| | 03:56 | It brought out a lot of detail in the
foreground, but look at the background.
| | 03:59 | It's all overexposed, and it's
blown out to complete white, almost.
| | 04:03 | So, what I need to do is underexpose.
| | 04:05 | Now I'm shooting in shutter priority,
because I am trying to manage my depth of field.
| | 04:08 | I want a lot of depth of field here.
| | 04:10 | So, I am going to use my Exposure
Compensation to underexpose by 2 stops.
| | 04:15 | I am just picking 2 stops
| | 04:16 | because I think that'll be a
good amount of underexposure.
| | 04:18 | I am going to take this shot, and now
here I've got my background exposed well.
| | 04:24 | Now, you might be thinking well,
why don't you just take those two images into
| | 04:27 | Photoshop and merge them,
composite them somehow.
| | 04:30 | I can do that, but it would be
a really difficult masking job.
| | 04:33 | I'd be spending a lot of time painting
around the leaves, and I am really not
| | 04:36 | interested in doing that.
| | 04:38 | That's the advantage of HDR is I don't
get mired in a bunch of awful masking stuff.
| | 04:42 | Now, here is how we pull off the HDR.
| | 04:45 | First of all, we're going to be bracketing;
| | 04:47 | we're going to be auto bracketing.
| | 04:49 | Where my camera is in Aperture Priority
mode, that means that all of my exposure
| | 04:55 | changes will be to shutter speed and ISO.
| | 04:58 | Whatever the camera decides to do, it's going
to keep aperture where I set it. That's good.
| | 05:02 | I am not going to have to worry about my
depth of field changing from shot to shot.
| | 05:07 | My camera's still framed the way that I wanted.
| | 05:09 | So the next thing I am going to do
is turn on Auto Exposure Bracketing.
| | 05:12 | Some cameras just call this Exposure Bracketing.
| | 05:15 | What this does is I can set a
number frames and an interval.
| | 05:19 | So, I've set the camera now to shoot
three frames exposed one stop apart.
| | 05:24 | So, it's going to shoot a frame as
metered, it's going to shoot a frame one stop
| | 05:27 | under, and it's going
shoot a frame one stop over.
| | 05:30 | The next thing I am going to
do is turn on Burst mode.
| | 05:35 | This is the mode that allows me to just
hold the button down, and it'll just sit
| | 05:38 | there, and take pictures.
| | 05:39 | With those two modes enabled, I can
notice press and hold the button for three
| | 05:43 | shots, and I've got a bracketed set.
| | 05:49 | Now, what you may have heard there was the
shutter was staying open for a really long time.
| | 05:54 | There is a problem with a long
exposure image like that, which is my tripod
| | 05:58 | might be shaking, the leaves might be blowing.
| | 06:00 | I would really much prefer to
have my shutter speed faster.
| | 06:03 | But to hold the depth of field that
I want, I can't change my aperture.
| | 06:06 | So, what I am going to
do is increase by ISO now.
| | 06:09 | I am now at ISO 100.
| | 06:09 | I am going to bump it up to 400, which is
going to buy me two stops of exposure latitude.
| | 06:15 | Now, I am going to take another set.
| | 06:20 | That was much faster there, until the end.
| | 06:22 | Listening to your camera and the
shutter speed that it's choosing can very
| | 06:25 | often cue you into when you are
possibly facing a slow shutter speed situation
| | 06:30 | that you don't want to be in.
| | 06:31 | So now I have got my bracketed set.
| | 06:34 | Just to be safe, I am going to
take another one. Here is why.
| | 06:37 | These images have to be aligned with each other.
| | 06:40 | Photoshop can do a very,
very good job of doing that.
| | 06:42 | But still, any camera movement
between images can make problems.
| | 06:46 | We're going to have enough
trouble with the leaves blowing around.
| | 06:49 | I don't want to introduce any
more trouble with camera shake.
| | 06:51 | Ideally, I would be doing this with a
camera remote, so that I wouldn't have
| | 06:54 | to handle the camera.
| | 06:56 | But I am just going to do
another set just for safety.
| | 06:58 | We'll be very careful here, to
try and hold the camera steady.
| | 07:05 | That should be good.
| | 07:06 | I should be now ready to deal with those images.
| | 07:10 | I'd like to say a quick word about, yes,
| | 07:11 | I am using a tripod here.
| | 07:13 | You don't have to have a tripod to shoot HDR.
| | 07:16 | I do lots of HDR handheld, particularly
if you've got a camera with a very fast
| | 07:20 | burst that can nail those images really quickly.
| | 07:23 | Go back to your stabilization
techniques that we talked about earlier, to be
| | 07:26 | sure your shooting good
steady brackets of shots.
| | 07:31 | You can do HDR handheld.
| | 07:32 | Obviously, if you've got a
tripod, that's a better option.
| | 07:36 | So, now that we've got those
images, we're ready to do the merge.
| | 07:41 | We don't do that in camera.
| | 07:42 | We do that in Photoshop.
| | 07:43 | We've got a whole lesson on how to
merge those images to turn them into a
| | 07:48 | finished image with a dynamic range
that's pretty close to what your eye
| | 07:51 | can see.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Merging with HDR Pro| 00:00 | As you'll recall, in chapter 1 we came
across this scene, a rock under a heavily
| | 00:06 | wooded forest canopy with a
bright opening in the background.
| | 00:10 | Now, as I was standing at this location,
I was able to see detail in this rock
| | 00:14 | and detail up here and detail out here,
and that's because the human eye has a
| | 00:19 | tremendous dynamic range.
| | 00:20 | The human eye can see
about 20 stops worth of light.
| | 00:23 | That is 20 doublings of light.
| | 00:26 | If I pull my camera up to my eye and
frame this shot, I am still looking through
| | 00:29 | an optical viewfinder, which means
I am still seeing just with my eye.
| | 00:32 | I am seeing the full
dynamic range that my eye can see.
| | 00:35 | Then I might take this picture and then come
home and look at it, and it looks like this.
| | 00:39 | And I think, well, what's the deal?
| | 00:41 | I was seeing detail out here, and I was
seeing detail down here, and now there is not any.
| | 00:45 | That's simply because your camera, and
any camera that we can come up with, has a
| | 00:51 | much smaller dynamic range than your eye does.
| | 00:54 | Your camera simply cannot capture the full
range of dark to light that your eye can see.
| | 01:00 | It's very important to understand this when
you're out in the field, because if you
| | 01:04 | don't there is a very good chance,
you are going to be disappointed.
| | 01:06 | You are going to come home and see that
you don't have the entire scene that you
| | 01:10 | thought you were shooting.
| | 01:11 | In that chapter, we demonstrated a
technique for getting around this problem, and
| | 01:15 | a High Dynamic Range or HDR method of shooting.
| | 01:19 | What we did was we shot three
different frames, exposed three different ways,
| | 01:23 | with the idea that we would
combine them in the computer later.
| | 01:26 | Going to switch over to Essentials now,
so that can see the Metadata pane and
| | 01:30 | look at what we have here.
| | 01:31 | I knew that I wanted deep depth of field,
so I wanted to shoot at F/11.0 and
| | 01:36 | this image was shot F/11.0.
| | 01:38 | The camera metered and decided that 1/13
of a second was appropriate and at ISO 400.
| | 01:45 | I also knew that I did not want the
depth of field to change from image to
| | 01:48 | image, so I have had my
camera's Aperture Priority.
| | 01:50 | That means when I shot the second image,
I was using my Auto Exposure Bracketing,
| | 01:55 | which tells the camera to
automatically bracket my shots by one stop.
| | 01:59 | You can see that this image is
underexposed by one stop, off of what the meter
| | 02:04 | thought it should be.
| | 02:06 | But it's still at F/11.0, because I was
in Aperture Priority and so it's gone to
| | 02:10 | a faster shutter speed.
| | 02:12 | I have 1/13 of a second here;
one stop underneath that is 1/25.
| | 02:17 | It's roughly a doubling of 1/13.
| | 02:19 | Look what happened.
| | 02:20 | Now, I've got the detail out
here in my highlight areas.
| | 02:24 | Obviously, the shadows have
gone much darker, but that's okay.
| | 02:26 | I have got detail here
when I didn't have it here.
| | 02:29 | Third image, still at F/11.0, because I
am on Aperture Priority, but now my Auto
| | 02:34 | Exposure Bracketing has set
overexposed by one stop, so the shutter speed has
| | 02:38 | dropped to a sixth of a second.
| | 02:41 | That's one-stop over what the
camera's meter thought it should be.
| | 02:44 | So, the camera's meter thought it should
be 1/13. One stop over would be half of
| | 02:48 | that roughly, or 1/6.
| | 02:51 | Now, look what has happened.
| | 02:52 | We have definitively lost all the stuff
out here even more, but compared to this
| | 02:56 | image, we have got a lot more detail down here.
| | 02:58 | So, from these three images, I've
actually got detail in all three tonal ranges.
| | 03:04 | Let's switch back over here.
We can see them side-by-side.
| | 03:08 | So, this image has nice midtone
detail that's lacking in this image and is a
| | 03:12 | little overexposed over here,
| | 03:14 | but this image has highlight detail
that neither of these images have, and this
| | 03:18 | image has shadow detail that
neither of these images have.
| | 03:21 | So, what do I do with these three images?
| | 03:23 | Well, I could take them each into
Photoshop and go nuts trying to paint masks,
| | 03:28 | stack all these images together in to
a layer document and go nuts trying to
| | 03:31 | create masks that would reveal only the
appropriate sections of each image, but
| | 03:35 | that would be very difficult and time-
consuming. Probably painting around all
| | 03:38 | these leaves would be very rough.
| | 03:39 | Instead, I can use a feature
in Photoshop called HDR Pro.
| | 03:43 | This is an automation script that will
automatically take these three images and
| | 03:47 | pull tonal values from the appropriate image.
| | 03:50 | So, it will pull the tonal values from
the shadow areas of this image, it will
| | 03:54 | pull highlight values from the
highlight areas of this image, and it will pull
| | 03:58 | midtones, at least from in this area
from here, but it will probably pull
| | 04:01 | midtones from all three images.
| | 04:03 | That's going to yield a single image
that has a dynamic range that's greater
| | 04:08 | than any of these individual images.
| | 04:10 | So, let's fire that up right now.
| | 04:11 | The easiest way to launch into
HDR Pro is to do it from Bridge.
| | 04:14 | So, I have got my three images selected. Then
I choose Tools > Photoshop > Merge to HDR Pro.
| | 04:22 | When I do that, I am thrown into
Photoshop, because again this is a Photoshop
| | 04:25 | operation, Bridge is merely launching it for me.
| | 04:28 | Now, Photoshop is going to do the
process of loading each of these images and
| | 04:32 | copying them into this
new untitled HDR document.
| | 04:36 | Now notice, I am working with RAW files
which is really the way to go for HDR,
| | 04:40 | because of two reasons.
| | 04:41 | You want the higher bit depth.
| | 04:43 | Notice I am producing a 16-bit image here.
| | 04:45 | I want as much bit depth as possible.
| | 04:48 | So RAW files are going to give me 16-bit
images, as opposed to the 8-bit images from JPEG.
| | 04:53 | Also, I want a little bit of that
Highlight Recovery Capability if I need it.
| | 04:57 | So, when you are working with HDR,
you really want to be shooting RAW.
| | 05:00 | You can hand HDR Pro other images,
but it's better to stick with RAW files.
| | 05:05 | So, what I have got here, right away,
you can see I have already got an image
| | 05:09 | that's better than any of my source images.
| | 05:11 | I've got some detail down here.
| | 05:12 | I've got detail up here.
| | 05:14 | I haven't overexposed any of my midtone detail.
| | 05:16 | Right away, I've got far more dynamic
range than I had in any of my source images.
| | 05:21 | But this image can be better.
| | 05:22 | We are not necessarily going to get a
completely finished image out of HDR Pro,
| | 05:26 | but we are going to be able to get pretty close.
| | 05:28 | If you've seen HDR images before, you
may be used to these somewhat garish,
| | 05:34 | baroque kinds of images where
everything is exposed and really detailed.
| | 05:39 | HDR Pro has this Presets menu up
here that has a lot of these kinds of
| | 05:43 | looks in it. I can say, give me a
Photorealistic low contrast, and, well okay,
| | 05:48 | that didn't do much, so I can Surrealistic
low contrast, and then I get this weird thing.
| | 05:54 | I can do Surrealistic high contrast, and
then I get what looks like a bad xerox.
| | 05:59 | To tell you the truth, I am
not real game on these presets.
| | 06:02 | For the most part, I would say leave on
default and work the sliders yourself.
| | 06:06 | For landscape photography, I think a
little bit of HDR goes a long way.
| | 06:10 | While you can use HDR to create
radical textures and things in your image,
| | 06:13 | where I think it's most useful is
simply for doing a merge of a bright sky with
| | 06:17 | a dark foreground, like we are doing here.
| | 06:19 | So, what I now want to do is employ
my standard kind of tone analysis and
| | 06:24 | adjustment techniques that we have
been doing for all of our other images.
| | 06:27 | I don't have a histogram here, but by
this point you are probably pretty good at
| | 06:30 | recognizing some tonal problems.
| | 06:32 | This image doesn't have super strong blacks.
| | 06:34 | It is a little bit low contrast, and
over here under Tone and Detail, you will
| | 06:38 | see a number of sliders.
| | 06:39 | Gamma is a word we haven't talked about yet.
| | 06:42 | It's just another point from midpoint.
| | 06:43 | The Midpoint slider in
levels can also be called Gamma.
| | 06:46 | The Brightness slider in
Camera RAW is a Gamma slider.
| | 06:49 | Exposure is just like the
Exposure slider in Camera RAW;
| | 06:52 | it's going to brighten and darken my image.
| | 06:55 | We will get to rest of
these sliders in a minute.
| | 06:56 | Let's talk about what we might want to do.
| | 06:58 | I would like the foreground to be brighter, if
possible, but I don't want to blow this out.
| | 07:02 | I would like a little
more contrast in the image.
| | 07:06 | So, since I want it brighter, the first
thing that I am going to do is increase
| | 07:08 | the Exposure slider, and just as we
have done when working with adjustment
| | 07:12 | layers, I am not going to worry
too much about this right now.
| | 07:14 | I know that that's overexposing.
| | 07:16 | I am just going to keep an eye on this area
right here and see how bright I can get it.
| | 07:21 | Now, this was a dark shady area.
| | 07:24 | I can't brighten this up too much.
| | 07:25 | So, I am going to go up to about there,
and I am going to stop, because now I
| | 07:29 | want to see if I can get
some of these highlights back.
| | 07:31 | I control my highlights
with the Highlight slider.
| | 07:34 | I drag to the left to
make the highlights darker.
| | 07:36 | So, as you can see, I am able to pull
data back in, and again this is the result
| | 07:41 | of having these nice,
data-rich 16-bit RAW images.
| | 07:46 | This is why you really want to be
working with RAW files when you are doing this.
| | 07:49 | So, that's looking better.
| | 07:50 | I have gotten my foreground brightened
without losing my highlights back here.
| | 07:55 | The image is still low contrast, and as
you've learned, that's a function of black.
| | 07:58 | I don't have really strong
blacks, or shadow details yet.
| | 08:02 | But look how much detail I have got in here.
| | 08:04 | I didn't have that on my first image in my set.
| | 08:07 | So, with the Shadow slider, I can
brighten and darken my shadows.
| | 08:10 | I am going to darken the shadows by
sliding this to the left, and already I am
| | 08:15 | getting more contrast in the image,
but I am not really sacrificing too much
| | 08:19 | down here, which is great.
| | 08:21 | Now, I have got an image with a little
more punch to it, and I still have not
| | 08:25 | sacrificed any thing up here.
| | 08:27 | So, that's all I am going to probably do
to this image, but let's take a look at
| | 08:30 | some of these other sliders.
| | 08:31 | Detail is a lot like the
Clarity slider in Camera RAW.
| | 08:36 | It's going to do a lot of little just edge
detection, micro contrast kind of things.
| | 08:42 | If I push it too far, it's
going to look like an image that's
| | 08:43 | been over-sharpened.
| | 08:44 | I don't want to go there, but this is
how I can start to get into that kind of
| | 08:48 | crunchy traditional HDR look,
which again, I am not real crazy about.
| | 08:53 | So, I am not going to go nuts with the
detail slider, because I know that I am
| | 08:58 | going to be able to apply some
sharpening to this image and pull some more
| | 09:02 | detail out that way.
| | 09:03 | We didn't use the Gamma slider at all
in this image, partly because the image
| | 09:06 | doesn't need it, but also because
the Gamma slider is a little bit of a
| | 09:09 | brute force instrument,
| | 09:11 | although actually a little bit of Gamma
adjustment to put a little bit more blacks
| | 09:14 | into the midtones is good.
| | 09:16 | All of these sliders, you can get a feel
for what they do and understanding for
| | 09:19 | what they do simply by moving them around.
| | 09:21 | Let me put that back to zero. Whoa!
Not zero. I need to put that at one.
| | 09:25 | That's Gamma at the other extreme.
| | 09:28 | Pull this back down to here.
| | 09:33 | Look at these other controls.
| | 09:35 | Vibrance is just like the
Vibrance slider in Camera RAW.
| | 09:38 | This will increase saturation while
not having an effect on flush tones.
| | 09:42 | Saturation is just a saturation adjustment.
| | 09:44 | I am going to wait and play
with these controls in Photoshop.
| | 09:48 | I would rather do my
saturation adjustments there.
| | 09:51 | Remove ghosts, if you are
shooting HDR in a landscape situation,
| | 09:57 | if this had been windy day, we might
have had trouble because these trees
| | 10:00 | might have been blowing, and there would
have been movement from one frame to the next.
| | 10:05 | That could result in a smeary,
ghosty look in our final image.
| | 10:09 | If I click the Remove ghost button, I
can pick one of these images down here to
| | 10:13 | serve as the master image.
| | 10:16 | It will then defer to that image when
trying to decide how to reconcile the fact
| | 10:21 | that this tree branch might be
in other place if it was windy.
| | 10:24 | We don't really have that problem in this image.
| | 10:26 | Let me turn that off.
| | 10:28 | Finally, there is this Edge Glow, which
is another mechanism for getting kind of
| | 10:33 | more of that HDR look.
| | 10:35 | It will put a glow around edges in the image.
| | 10:38 | You can see it here.
| | 10:39 | They are kind of highlighted.
| | 10:40 | I find this to be a strange choice on
Adobe's part, because Edge Glow in HDR has
| | 10:47 | always been an artifact of just
the difficulty of the algorithm.
| | 10:51 | It's not something that people - I don't
feel like ever going for, it was just an
| | 10:54 | unfortunate side effect of the HDR process.
| | 10:57 | Now, that has become so much the HDR
aesthetic that Adobe has put in the
| | 11:02 | ability to add that
artifact. It's very strange.
| | 11:04 | I personally never use these controls.
| | 11:06 | If you want to go for a really
out-there, surrealistic look, like we saw
| | 11:10 | in one of those presets, you can do that.
| | 11:12 | This is set to Local Adaptation. HDR Pro
has some other modes for toning your image.
| | 11:17 | They are all much harder and
offer much less flexibility.
| | 11:20 | I wouldn't even bother with them.
| | 11:22 | This controls what bit
depth we will have coming out.
| | 11:25 | Best to stick with 16-bit.
| | 11:26 | You can go to 8-bit, but you are not
going to have as much editability when
| | 11:29 | get into Photoshop.
| | 11:30 | You can go to 32-bit, which is going
to produce a huge image, and not all of
| | 11:34 | Photoshop's tools are available
at 32-bit. So, stick with 16.
| | 11:37 | Let's hit OK, and that's going to
process our image and move it into Photoshop.
| | 11:44 | Here we are, our finished HDR
image - well, our finished HDR merge.
| | 11:48 | We have more to do to this image, and
we are going to take a look at that in
| | 11:50 | the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting and retouching| 00:00 | After all that fiddling we did in the
HDR Pro dialog box, we are now sitting in
| | 00:04 | Photoshop with our merged HDR image.
| | 00:07 | What's great about this image, of course,
is that compared to any of the originals that
| | 00:10 | we shot, we have a very full dynamic range.
| | 00:13 | I've got detail down here in the shadows.
| | 00:14 | I have got detail out here in the highlights.
| | 00:16 | I have got nice detail in the midtones.
| | 00:18 | It still looks a little bland to me somehow.
| | 00:21 | It's possibly lacking in contrast.
| | 00:23 | Let's go take a look at the histogram
because that's what we do when we are
| | 00:26 | confused about our image.
| | 00:28 | I am going to set my histogram back to RGB.
| | 00:30 | I don't need a three-channel histogram.
| | 00:33 | So it appears I've got a little
bit of highlight clipping somewhere.
| | 00:36 | That's probably in here, in one
of these highlight areas in here.
| | 00:40 | I am not going to worry about that.
Some little specular highlights off the
| | 00:43 | leaves would look fine.
| | 00:45 | But look, my black point is weak, and
that's explaining the lack of contrast, and
| | 00:50 | there are a couple of other
things I am going to do to this image.
| | 00:51 | So let's get started.
| | 00:52 | I'm going to make a Levels
adjustment layer, just like we've been doing
| | 00:55 | through the bulk of our editing, and
I am going to fix the black point.
| | 00:59 | That punches up the image a lot.
| | 01:02 | There is a thing about HDR images, that
they can look flat, and that's because as
| | 01:08 | the HDR merge algorithm, because
it's able to pull data from these three
| | 01:13 | different sources, it's just got a
tremendously data-rich environment, and so we
| | 01:17 | can find perfect exposure for every
detail in the scene, and that can make the
| | 01:22 | image look flat because we're
losing contrast. We lose shadow.
| | 01:26 | We lose depth.
| | 01:27 | And so we need to work to
put some of that back in.
| | 01:30 | Now, as I am making these global
adjustments, all I am doing is making that
| | 01:33 | whole flat scenario more contrast-y,
which is good, but I'm still not getting a
| | 01:39 | lot of - I don't know.
| | 01:41 | There is something not here.
| | 01:42 | And I am going to start with the idea
of trying to exaggerate the difference
| | 01:46 | between these highlight areas
and these shadow areas over here.
| | 01:50 | The problem is the HDR merge algorithm, in
trying to get everything exposed properly,
| | 01:55 | it's aiming every tone in
the image towards middle gray.
| | 01:58 | And so this is kind of a midtone
highlight, and this is kind of a midtone
| | 02:03 | shadow, and these are midtone
leaves, and it's just overall a very
| | 02:06 | midtoney kind of image.
| | 02:08 | I am going to add another
Levels adjustment layer here,
| | 02:12 | with the idea of, let's just start
painting in light and shadow where we want it.
| | 02:17 | And I am going to do that by making
an Adjustment layer that's brighter.
| | 02:21 | This is going to brighten the whole image,
but I am not going to worry about that,
| | 02:26 | because, of course, I am going to add a
mask, just like we've been doing in our
| | 02:29 | other editing lessons.
| | 02:30 | Select All to select the entire image.
| | 02:32 | I've got black as my background color.
| | 02:34 | So I am going to hit Command+Delete.
| | 02:36 | That fills the Mask with black.
| | 02:39 | I am going to hit Command+D to deselect.
| | 02:41 | So now if I take a white brush and
start painting with white into my adjustment
| | 02:49 | layer mask, I am painting brightness.
| | 02:51 | So I am going to brighten
up these leaves in here.
| | 02:54 | I am using the Bracket
keys to change the brush size.
| | 02:59 | Just trying to get some bit of
variation in tonality in the image
| | 03:06 | to break up the fact that the HDR
process skews towards flat even tones.
| | 03:11 | And there we go. Those are some
highlights now that have a little more punch.
| | 03:14 | Let me turn that adjustment layer
Off, so you can see before/after.
| | 03:20 | That's helping a little bit.
| | 03:22 | I feel like these shadow tones back here -
| | 03:24 | it'd be nice if they've got a little bit
darker as they receded into the distance,
| | 03:30 | so let's take another Levels adjustment layer.
| | 03:33 | Let's darken the image.
| | 03:36 | Maybe I don't want to do this
darkening with a black point adjustment because
| | 03:39 | that adds too much contrast.
| | 03:41 | I am going to do it with a midtone adjustment.
| | 03:43 | And of course, this is
darkening the entire image.
| | 03:46 | So I am going to, again, fill my
Adjustment layer with black, just selecting,
| | 03:51 | hitting Command+Delete to fill.
| | 03:53 | Now I need to try and build a mask
that's going to ramp off into these
| | 03:57 | areas, and we know, from our previous lessons,
that we can do that with the Gradient tool.
| | 04:00 | So I am going to tell it to start
about here and go to about there, and I
| | 04:07 | did that backwards.
| | 04:08 | I have darkened the
foreground and not the background,
| | 04:10 | so I am going to undo and
click from here and go down.
| | 04:16 | Now that's darkened everything up
here, the trees and this other light.
| | 04:19 | I didn't want that. I only wanted this
area to get darker, and I'd like it to
| | 04:23 | get darker over a larger range,
| | 04:26 | but I don't want it to affect these areas.
| | 04:28 | So I am going to take the brush and
switch back to black and paint in my mask
| | 04:33 | here, so that this darkening
doesn't happen on these trees.
| | 04:37 | So let's see before/after. There we go.
| | 04:42 | So that's a little bit of a slightly
subtle darkening of this area back here.
| | 04:47 | I am going to turn off
both adjustment layers again.
| | 04:49 | Here's my original image.
| | 04:51 | All of these tones in
here looks somewhat uniform.
| | 04:54 | I can brighten the highlights here
and then darken these tones back here.
| | 04:59 | Now, I am starting to get more
of a sense of depth in the image.
| | 05:02 | Let's see what we can do with these trees.
| | 05:03 | The lights shining through from this area,
it's lighting up these trees back here.
| | 05:07 | It's lighting up the underside of these
trees here and the tops of the trees are dark.
| | 05:11 | Let's see if we can exaggerate that some.
| | 05:13 | I am going to go back here to this
adjustment layer, which we know brightens the
| | 05:16 | image and if you can't remember
what a layer does, just turn it Off.
| | 05:19 | Oh okay, so this is a
layer that contains brightness.
| | 05:22 | I can paint that brightness in
wherever I want, by painting white.
| | 05:27 | So let's brighten up these highlights in
here and just see about brightening the
| | 05:35 | underside of the trees a little
bit. It doesn't have any huge effect.
| | 05:40 | I'm pretty much following what's in the image.
| | 05:43 | If an area is bright, I
am brightening it further.
| | 05:47 | This layer we know brushes in darkening.
| | 05:50 | So I don't want to brush in full darkening.
| | 05:52 | I am going to pick a middle-gray.
| | 05:54 | I am going to go through and darken the tops.
| | 05:59 | Well, maybe I do one full darkening,
and I am going to switch over to white.
| | 06:03 | It's okay if you don't
actually know what the layer is doing.
| | 06:07 | You can just feel your way through it.
| | 06:12 | And I am just trying to make the
trees a little less uniform, a little more
| | 06:16 | contrast-y, and a little more
dramatic. So before/after.
| | 06:21 | Now we are starting to get somewhere.
| | 06:22 | Let's see what we can do with the
roc. Ideally, in a perfect world,
| | 06:25 | this shaft of the light that was
coming on here would have been striking the
| | 06:28 | stump. The stump just was in the wrong position.
| | 06:31 | Still, I could put a
little kind of modeling on it.
| | 06:33 | I am going to go back here to my
Brightening layer and just brighten up the
| | 06:38 | top of it a little bit.
| | 06:42 | The idea being this part is
probably catching light, but this part isn't
| | 06:46 | because it's tilted at an angle. And so I
can make the rock possibly look a little
| | 06:51 | more three-dimensional by painting some
light onto this top surface here, just
| | 06:58 | to indicate that it's kind
of faceted. And there we go.
| | 07:01 | That's our finished, adjusted image.
| | 07:03 | We've gone from a scene that the camera
could not capture to a scene with very
| | 07:08 | complete dynamic range.
| | 07:10 | We would still want to sharpen and
size and do the other things that this image
| | 07:14 | requires for output, but our main goal
was to capture full dynamic range, and
| | 07:19 | we've got that here, and with little
adjustment, we've undone those problems that
| | 07:23 | HDR can lead to, which is drab, even exposure.
| | 07:27 | In the next lesson, we will take a look
at another HDR lesson, just to explore
| | 07:30 | some of these topics further.
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|
|
8. Converting to Black and WhiteWhy use black and white for images?| 00:00 | Black and white. Because all new
photographers start learning with color cameras nowadays,
| | 00:05 | they aren't forced to learn black
and white shooting and processing.
| | 00:09 | This often means that I they also
don't get a chance to learn about
| | 00:12 | black-and-white photography.
| | 00:14 | In fact, many photographers
today simply see black and white as
| | 00:17 | something old-fashioned
| | 00:18 | that they get to skip over
because now we have color cameras.
| | 00:21 | And of course, when you have a camera
that can capture such exceptional color, why
| | 00:25 | mess with black-and-white?
| | 00:25 | There is a reason though that some of
the most famous landscape images in the
| | 00:30 | world are black-and-white.
| | 00:32 | We've discussed how, as a landscape
shooter, you can't cram a vast landscape
| | 00:36 | into a single image.
| | 00:38 | You can't capture exact visuals of what it
feels like to stand in a particular place.
| | 00:42 | And that's okay, because standing in a
particular place is about much more than
| | 00:46 | just what you're seeing.
| | 00:47 | It's about sounds and
smells and feelings and context.
| | 00:51 | People get caught up in thinking that
photography is an exact duplicate of one's
| | 00:55 | visual experience, but it's not.
| | 00:57 | Like all art forms, it's an abstraction.
| | 01:00 | It's not what things really look like.
| | 01:02 | It has less dynamic range in color.
| | 01:04 | It's not three-dimensional.
| | 01:06 | It doesn't fill your entire field of view.
| | 01:08 | But this abstraction is what makes any
representative form powerful, because the
| | 01:13 | more you abstract, the more you ask
the viewer to do work of their own.
| | 01:16 | A more abstract image requires the
viewer to fill in more details and involve
| | 01:21 | themselves more in the image.
| | 01:23 | This is why black-and-white is powerful.
| | 01:26 | With a black-and-white image the viewer is
often much more engaged than with a color image.
| | 01:32 | Color is often too much information.
| | 01:35 | Color doesn't always add to an image;
sometimes it just detracts from the
| | 01:39 | power of the scene.
| | 01:41 | Over 90% of your visual
system is black-and-white vision.
| | 01:45 | Your eyes are extremely sensitive to
subtle changes in light and shadow,
| | 01:49 | and so they drink up black-and-white images.
| | 01:51 | Black-and-white images are
all about luminance, light.
| | 01:55 | So when you see an especially
interesting play of light and dark on a landscape,
| | 01:59 | of brightness versus shadow, then you
want to start thinking of that scene as a
| | 02:03 | potential black-and-white image.
| | 02:05 | You can't shoot it in black-and-white.
| | 02:07 | But you can start trying to see a
composition that favors light and dark forms,
| | 02:12 | which you can then bring
to the fore in Photoshop.
| | 02:14 | In his chapter, will be looking at
how to convert your color images
| | 02:19 | to black-and-white.
| | 02:20 | And I hope you'll learn why lack of
color can often lead to a better image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Black-and-white conversion| 00:00 | Your first step in making a black-and-
white image is to convert your color image
| | 00:04 | into black-and-white.
| | 00:06 | Now here's the weird
thing about black-and-white.
| | 00:08 | There is no objective shade of
gray for any particular color.
| | 00:13 | This shade of blue, for example, could be
represented as a very light gray, or a very dark gray.
| | 00:18 | That confuses some people at first.
| | 00:19 | They think oh no, no.
That blue must be a particular blue.
| | 00:23 | But as you'll see, we can render this sky
very light or very dark, or any shade in between.
| | 00:28 | Photoshop has dozens of ways of
converting to black-and-white.
| | 00:32 | Some of them are intentional black-and-
white conversion features; others are hacks.
| | 00:36 | There are lots and lots of ways to
convert an image to black-and-white.
| | 00:40 | The easiest most straightforward way is to
go up to the mode menu and choose Grayscale.
| | 00:45 | I don't recommend that.
| | 00:46 | It's going to give you a decent black-
and-white image, but it's just kind of a
| | 00:51 | boilerplate stock recipe black-and-white,
which doesn't offer you any control or
| | 00:57 | open up the power of what black-
and-white can do for an image.
| | 01:00 | Instead, I would recommend, both
because it offers more power and because
| | 01:05 | it's nondestructive,
| | 01:07 | adding a Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 01:09 | So I am adding this adjustment layer, just
like I would any other adjustment layer.
| | 01:13 | And the first thing that's going to
happens is it's going to convert my image
| | 01:15 | to black-and-white.
| | 01:17 | And here is this Adjustment layer in here.
| | 01:19 | As with any Adjustment layer, I can turn it off.
| | 01:21 | There is my color image by back
behind it, because this is just a
| | 01:24 | black-and-white conversion
affect that's getting put on my image.
| | 01:27 | I can mask it, if I want.
| | 01:29 | If you want to create that now
somewhat tried effect of the black-and-white
| | 01:32 | image with one colored thing
in it, this is a way to do it.
| | 01:35 | You can just paint out one
area to restore it to color.
| | 01:39 | The most important thing about this filter
though is the control it gives you for
| | 01:42 | specifying what shade of gray a
particular color tone it should be.
| | 01:47 | You see up here I've got all these
color sliders: reds, yellows, greens, cyans.
| | 01:51 | These refer to colors in my original image.
| | 01:54 | So in my original image, I've got blues up
here. I've got reds and yellows down here.
| | 01:58 | How I drag these sliders determines
what shade of gray those colors will be.
| | 02:02 | So if I drag Blues to the left,
blues in my image will become darker.
| | 02:07 | I drag it to the right, and they become lighter.
| | 02:10 | And what's cooler is, just as we've done
with the couple of other tools, I've got
| | 02:15 | this target adjustment tool thing up here.
| | 02:18 | Click on the finger, and now I
can click in a color in my image.
| | 02:22 | It can be difficult to tell
what is the color that I want.
| | 02:24 | I'm going to turn that off.
| | 02:26 | And now I see that I want to
click in this area to get the sky.
| | 02:30 | Click and drag, and now Photoshop is
automatically sampling the color at that
| | 02:34 | point and identifying the
appropriate target color range.
| | 02:38 | It's saying oh he wants blues, and so
now I can drag to darken those blues.
| | 02:44 | So this is what I mean by there is no
correct shade of gray for any particular color.
| | 02:49 | The sky looks just fine, dark rather than light.
| | 02:52 | And you may think of, when you look at
the color image, you may think well this
| | 02:55 | is a very light sky.
| | 02:57 | It needs to be represented by a
light shade of gray, not necessarily.
| | 03:01 | As you'll recall, my original intent with
this image was to play up the symmetry in
| | 03:05 | between these lines here and the similar
lines radiating outwards in the clouds.
| | 03:11 | So I'd like to have a lot of contrast here.
| | 03:13 | I would like the sky to be darker, so
that the clouds would be set off more.
| | 03:17 | I would also like this to be lighter,
so that it's not so much bright up here
| | 03:22 | and dark below, but
something with a more equal exposure.
| | 03:25 | So I am going to click on here
to sample this shade of dirt.
| | 03:28 | And I am going to brighten up these tones.
| | 03:30 | So as can see, that's the
Yellows, as you would kind of expect.
| | 03:34 | So in this way, I can work through my
image and get the base gray tones exactly
| | 03:38 | where I want them to be.
| | 03:39 | From here, as we'll do in the following
lessons, we can further refine this edit
| | 03:44 | with normal image editing adjustments.
| | 03:47 | But first off, we just want to get
our black-and-white tones in place.
| | 03:52 | And the Black & White
Adjustment layer is a great way to do it.
| | 03:55 | Let's take a look at another image.
| | 03:56 | Here is the flowers image
we were working with earlier.
| | 04:00 | This has a lot more color in it,
| | 04:02 | and again, a heavy sky. There are a lot
of things we could do with this Black &
| | 04:06 | White-wise. I am going to add a
Black & White adjustment layer.
| | 04:09 | Now look, right off the bat, there is
really no distinction between the yellow
| | 04:13 | flowers and the green leaves and
stems and things underneath them.
| | 04:18 | When you first add a Black & White
adjustment layer, Photoshop gives you its
| | 04:21 | default recipe for Black & White.
| | 04:23 | This is a good basic mix of tones
that gives you, for the most part, a decent
| | 04:28 | black-and-white image.
| | 04:30 | There are other pre-built recipes up here.
| | 04:32 | A lot of these will make sense to you if
you ever shot black-and-white film with
| | 04:36 | colored filters over your lens.
| | 04:38 | Here is the equivalent of black-and-white
with a Blue Filter there's a Green Filter.
| | 04:43 | And that's looking much closer to the kind of
thing we'd like to have, and so on, and so forth.
| | 04:47 | I can get a kind of fake infrared look.
| | 04:50 | We can get a lighter image.
| | 04:51 | But let's put it back on default
and work on this image on our own.
| | 04:55 | Again, now I've got yellow
in here and green down below.
| | 04:59 | Now the problem is yellow and green are very,
very close to each other on the color wheel,
| | 05:04 | but I think we can still pretty well
isolate the yellow there to brighten that up.
| | 05:11 | And now, let's see if we can darken the green.
| | 05:13 | Let's find an example of a green tone.
| | 05:14 | Here is a one right down here.
| | 05:16 | So I am going to take
these Greens and darken them.
| | 05:19 | Unfortunately, in the process of doing that I am -
look I didn't get the Greens. I got the Yellows.
| | 05:26 | So I am going to drag the Yellows back
up here and instead of trying to sample a
| | 05:30 | specific color, I am just
going to in and darken the Greens.
| | 05:33 | And that's working pretty well.
| | 05:35 | So now I've really set the flowers
off from all the green behind them.
| | 05:39 | Let's see what other colors we have to work with here.
| | 05:41 | There's lot of greens back here.
| | 05:44 | So I can just work through my image here
and try to find the tones that I think work.
| | 05:50 | I like a darker more menacing sky
back there to offset these white things.
| | 05:54 | Overall, the image now has
still some contrast issues.
| | 05:58 | But again, I will fix those
using normal toning controls.
| | 06:03 | This is just to get my
initial Black & White settings.
| | 06:06 | I want to return for just a minute,
to the Sky and Clouds example.
| | 06:10 | Earlier, we talked about how to know
when you've pushed an edit too far,
| | 06:14 | and it's very easy to do with the Black
& White filter, particularly in skies.
| | 06:18 | I am going to grab the Blues slider.
| | 06:20 | As you'll recall, we were darkening the Blues
slider to get this nice, darker sky. Look what happens
| | 06:24 | if I go all the way over here.
See this splotchy thing that's turned up here?
| | 06:29 | And there is another one over here.
| | 06:31 | I can zoom in on those.
| | 06:34 | You can see my gradients in here are
really falling apart. They are posterizing
| | 06:38 | really bad into just a
series of banded simple tones.
| | 06:42 | That will show up in print.
| | 06:43 | So this is going way too
far on my Blues adjustment.
| | 06:46 | I am going to back it off to about here.
| | 06:50 | Now here's part of the problem
with this image. It's an 8-bit image.
| | 06:54 | If I had brought this out of my Raw
Converter as a 16-bit image, I would have
| | 06:58 | more latitude for this kind of adjustment.
| | 07:01 | So we can still do a lot of contrast
adjustment and equalization to these two images.
| | 07:06 | In the next lessons, where we are going
to look at applying the toning controls
| | 07:10 | you've already learned
to black-and-white images.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting tone in black-and-white images| 00:00 | With our color image converted to
black-and-white, we're ready to move on to
| | 00:03 | the next stage of our black and white
processing, which is tonal adjustment,
| | 00:07 | and this is just like what we do with
a color image, except that we don't
| | 00:11 | have to worry about color.
| | 00:12 | So, thanks to our Black & White
adjustment layer, we've already got our colors
| | 00:16 | converted to shades of gray.
| | 00:18 | But now, we need to think about how the
overall tone of the image looks and to me,
| | 00:22 | right off the bat, I would say this
image looks like its a little low contrast.
| | 00:25 | So I'm going to bring up the histogram,
and sure enough, there's not much black
| | 00:29 | information. In fact, we don't get
into real serious data until over here.
| | 00:34 | Again, remember, there's never a
correct shape to the sistogram.
| | 00:38 | There is only the shape that reflects
what the image is, and you do not adjust the
| | 00:41 | image to achieve a particular shape.
| | 00:43 | So, I do know that I need some stronger blacks,
and that that's going to fix the contrast.
| | 00:48 | Now, I'm calling this a low contrast
image, even though there is data almost
| | 00:51 | all the way across.
| | 00:52 | We don't have real strong white either.
| | 00:54 | So, why am I saying this is a low contrast?
| | 00:56 | Because, with a black-and-white image,
all you have is black and white and those
| | 01:01 | intermediate shades of gray.
| | 01:03 | So, it doesn't take a loss of data
on either end to really reflect as a
| | 01:09 | lessening of contrast.
| | 01:10 | So, let's do what we would do with
any other image, with any color image.
| | 01:13 | Let's add a Levels adjustment layer
right off the bat, and go to work on our
| | 01:19 | contrast adjustment.
| | 01:20 | I'm going to bump the black in here to
get blacks more where they need to be. I'm going
| | 01:25 | to bump the whites out here.
| | 01:28 | Now, I have an immediate problem if I
come over here, which is I'm going to loose
| | 01:32 | highlight detail up here, which is
a shame because I really like what's
| | 01:36 | happening down here.
| | 01:37 | I'm going to do it anyway, and if you
look at the shape of the histogram, you see
| | 01:41 | there's just this one little blip out
here, and that's this data in here and
| | 01:47 | maybe a little bit in here.
| | 01:48 | The bulk of the image data really
doesn't start until about right here, which
| | 01:52 | means it's not until I get in here
that I'm starting to get a serious
| | 01:56 | brightening on this area right here.
| | 01:59 | Let's put this back out here to where it's
safe white-wise and then head for the midtones.
| | 02:04 | The problem with the midtone adjustment is
it undoes some of my black adjustment,
| | 02:08 | and I lose some of that
nice contrast that I have.
| | 02:11 | So I'm going to do a very
aggressive white point adjustment.
| | 02:14 | I'm watching these middle areas here,
and I'm sure you know what I'm up to here.
| | 02:18 | I'm going to do a fairly aggressive
white-point adjustment with the idea of
| | 02:21 | masking out that sky.
| | 02:26 | Also again, black-and-white
images are about contrast.
| | 02:28 | Its okay for them to have a lot of contrast.
| | 02:30 | All right, by let's now grab a
paintbrush, switch our foreground color to
| | 02:36 | black, get the brush size up where we want it,
and let's see if we can put some of this back in.
| | 02:46 | Again, the skies are very forgiving
of a lot of masking because they are
| | 02:51 | somewhat randomly, chunky things to begin with.
| | 02:57 | So that's looking pretty good.
| | 02:58 | Here is our before. Here's our after.
| | 03:00 | it's just got a little more pop, which I like.
| | 03:04 | With my mask defined, I'm going to see
what I can do here, and then I'm just
| | 03:09 | losing more and more of the sky.
| | 03:10 | So I'm going to leave that like that.
| | 03:12 | It's easy to get greedy with some of
these things, but I want you to notice
| | 03:16 | something. As I pull this in, ooh,
the sky is getting a lot more interesting,
| | 03:20 | even if this goes bad.
| | 03:21 | I'm going to undo, and now I'm going
to add another Levels adjustment layer,
| | 03:26 | because that last little bit clued
me into the idea that maybe there's an
| | 03:30 | adjustment in here to be had, and maybe I
can build a gradient mask. And if you're
| | 03:38 | not following this go work over the
Gradient Adjustment tool things that we
| | 03:44 | did before, and I'm just going to
build a gradient mask like this.
| | 03:51 | So, that gets me some darkening in
here and here, but there's very obviously
| | 03:55 | some masking going on here.
| | 03:56 | I'm going to see if I can now add
to this mask with my paintbrush.
| | 04:01 | What I'm trying to do is avoid the
difficulty of having to paint a mask
| | 04:06 | around this mountain.
| | 04:07 | That looks pretty good.
| | 04:09 | I don't really see the seam of my mask
there because fortunately there's this
| | 04:14 | bright halo-y thing here, but I do
believe my adjustment's a little aggressive.
| | 04:18 | This is falling apart back here and up
here. Just to be sure let's zoom in, and
| | 04:23 | that's pretty chunky.
| | 04:24 | So I'm going to back this off.
Ooh, I've going to back it off a lot, and
| | 04:28 | even then, some of those are still left
there from my black and white conversion.
| | 04:32 | Again, normally I'd be working
with 16-bit file out of this.
| | 04:36 | I'm going to wait and see how
those print. They may be okay.
| | 04:38 | They may be too much, though.
| | 04:40 | I can see from my mask down here that I
missed a couple of spots, so I'm going
| | 04:43 | to paint those out, and we're doing pretty well.
| | 04:46 | That's a pretty nice edit.
| | 04:48 | There's more to do, but we're going to
do that in the next lesson, and I'm going
| | 04:51 | to move onto this flowers image
that we were looking at before.
| | 04:54 | Again, this appears low contrast to me.
| | 04:56 | Let's look at the histogram. Click the
exclamation mark to update the histogram
| | 05:01 | to make it more accurate.
| | 05:03 | We have a clipped highlight. I don't care.
| | 05:05 | That's probably some stuff
out here that lost detail.
| | 05:07 | Again, black-and-white images are more abstract.
| | 05:10 | It's okay for some things
to blow out to complete white.
| | 05:12 | Definitely weak on the blacks.
| | 05:14 | There is a tiny bit of data here, but
the bulk of our image data doesn't come
| | 05:18 | in until level 40, which is a good ways in,
and I'm going to close that, and the
| | 05:24 | expected Levels adjustment layer, and
dial in my black point and right away,
| | 05:29 | the image has more pop.
| | 05:30 | Now, I'm getting the contrast between
the flowers and the green behind that that
| | 05:35 | I was trying to get in the Black &
White conversion, but couldn't because the
| | 05:38 | yellow and green were too close together.
| | 05:40 | I'm not crazy about how dark that is going.
| | 05:44 | I could try to brighten it up with a
midpoint adjustment, which isn't too bad,
| | 05:48 | In fact, that's pretty good. I think
I'll go do that. So, before/after.
| | 05:55 | Just because I have a thing for big
clouds like that, I'm going add another
| | 06:00 | Levels adjustment layer, crank the
black point a little bit and darken up the
| | 06:05 | mids a tiny bit, with the idea
of making the sky more dramatic.
| | 06:09 | The rest of this has gone
a little out of control.
| | 06:11 | So, as we've learned, I'm going to
select all with Command+A. I've got black as
| | 06:15 | my background color.
| | 06:16 | I'm going to hit Command+Delete to
fill the adjustment layer mask with black,
| | 06:22 | Command+D to deselect. Then I'm going
to switch to my Gradient tool, and that's
| | 06:29 | looking pretty good, just
dragging out a gradient.
| | 06:33 | Okay, and that's gone a little much.
| | 06:35 | So, I'm going to back off to there,
grab my brush and very lightly try to try to
| | 06:44 | starting with black paint, paint some of that back in.
| | 06:51 | That's looking pretty good.
| | 06:52 | So this image may be done and ready
for a test print. Again, I've lost
| | 06:56 | some exposure there.
| | 06:58 | In this case, that doesn't
look terrible for two reasons.
| | 07:01 | One, black-and-white images can
sometimes suffer high key overexposure.
| | 07:05 | Another thing is a lot of
people might see this and go, oh,
| | 07:08 | it was dark enough here, and they shoot
with a longer shutter speed and so this
| | 07:12 | just looks like motion-blurred waves.
| | 07:14 | I'm not saying that we're intentionally
trying to be deceptive or pull some kind
| | 07:17 | of photographic wool over someone's eyes;
| | 07:19 | it's just not something
that looks too distracting.
| | 07:22 | The other thing is compositionally,
this area is strong enough that it keeps
| | 07:26 | that from being too much of an eye magnet.
| | 07:28 | Nevertheless, it might be worth
seeing about going back to the RAW file
| | 07:33 | and seeing if we can recover that
overexposed highlight and working again
| | 07:37 | from there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding highlights to black-and-white images| 00:00 | Black-and-white film photographers of
course did not have to go through the
| | 00:04 | black-and-white conversion process
that we went through earlier, but they did
| | 00:09 | have a lot of other stuff they had to do.
| | 00:10 | They had to think about how long of
an exposure to take when they were
| | 00:15 | developing their film.
| | 00:16 | They had to think about
exposure times printing their film.
| | 00:18 | They had to think about how much they
were agitating the tray and shaking the
| | 00:22 | film tank and all that kind of stuff.
| | 00:23 | We don't have to worry about any of that,
but all those things served to do some
| | 00:28 | of what we were doing by simply
clicking on colors and dragging left and right,
| | 00:32 | that is they were able to expose
different tonal values in different ways.
| | 00:37 | We don't have to do that.
| | 00:38 | They didn't have to go through the conversion
| | 00:40 | we did, but there are certain things
that we share with traditional film
| | 00:43 | black-and-white photographers.
| | 00:44 | First is we try to get our tonal values
set the way we want them, but after that,
| | 00:49 | in addition to that, film
photographers would also go through sometimes
| | 00:54 | extensive processes of dodging and
burning different parts of their images to
| | 00:58 | make some parts brighter and some parts darker.
| | 01:01 | We can do the same thing, to the same
end, which is to accent some things, hide
| | 01:07 | some of the things away, to add contour,
to make more interesting lighting. All of
| | 01:11 | these same vocabulary of light and
shadow that film photographers used,
| | 01:15 | we still have in our landscape work.
| | 01:18 | Fortunately, our tools are much easier
to deal with, and we can back out of our
| | 01:22 | edits if we need to.
| | 01:24 | Photoshop does provide Dodge and Burn
tools, which are right here, but they are
| | 01:29 | destructive, meaning we can't undo
them later if we need to, and they're kind
| | 01:33 | of blunt instruments.
| | 01:34 | We're going to do dodging
and burning in a different way.
| | 01:36 | We're just going to use
localized adjustment layers;
| | 01:39 | we're going to use Levels Adjustment
layers with masks with the idea of painting
| | 01:42 | in light and shadow.
| | 01:44 | This image has a problem, which is
it was shot in the middle of the day.
| | 01:47 | So while there's a little bit of
contour in here, there is not a lot.
| | 01:50 | This looks kind of lumpy,
and kind of flat and boring.
| | 01:54 | I am hoping that we can punch it up a little
bit with some careful placement of some lighting.
| | 02:00 | I am going to make a Levels
adjustment layer and just brighten the image.
| | 02:04 | I am not worried about the
fact that this is blown out.
| | 02:06 | I really don't care what it does because
the next thing I am going to do is mask
| | 02:10 | it all out completely.
| | 02:11 | I have selected black as my background color.
| | 02:14 | I am selecting all, Command+A,
Command+Delete to fill this mask with black,
| | 02:19 | Command+D to deselect, and now
selecting a brush with the Brush key.
| | 02:23 | White is my foreground color, so as I
paint into the mask, I am going to be
| | 02:27 | painting in the
brightening of that adjustment layer.
| | 02:30 | As I do that, I've now exaggerated the
light side and dark side of this, and it
| | 02:36 | looks a little more three-
dimensional. Here's the before.
| | 02:39 | Here's an after.
| | 02:40 | I am going in and basically faking
later afternoon light, trying to get more
| | 02:47 | contour onto this image. And the way
that I am choosing where to paint is I am
| | 02:52 | just following the
highlights that are in the image.
| | 02:55 | I am just making them brighter.
| | 02:58 | It's pretty easy to see, if the light is
coming from over here mostly, and again
| | 03:04 | it's a little bit over head, of course the
sun is never completely over head, but it
| | 03:07 | does seem to be biased more to one side.
| | 03:10 | So I just need to think about what
would be in light and what would be in
| | 03:13 | shadow, and of course there are also
some of these stones are simply darker and
| | 03:18 | so they appear more black.
| | 03:21 | I decided I don't like that one;
| | 03:23 | I am going to undo that.
| | 03:24 | I am going to paint in some of this.
| | 03:27 | The more I can create contrasting
textures, the more I am going to see contour
| | 03:37 | in the form, and this is not
an obscure edit I am doing.
| | 03:43 | I do this to most of my landscape images.
| | 03:45 | I go in and I try to exaggerate
the lighting in a realistic way.
| | 03:51 | I think that's actually a shadow.
| | 03:52 | That looks like its sticking straight
up, so the next light part would be up
| | 03:57 | here maybe. This does also work on
color images, and we're going to be taking
| | 04:06 | a look at that later.
| | 04:09 | I think that's a little much,
| | 04:11 | so I am going to do what we did before.
| | 04:12 | I don't want that much brighten things,
| | 04:14 | so I am going to go in with some
gray, and tone that down a little bit.
| | 04:22 | So let's do another before and after.
| | 04:24 | This is before my localized editing, and after.
| | 04:28 | Suddenly, this thing goes from this
just sitting there overhead lit thing to
| | 04:33 | filled with much more contour,
a little more three-dimensional.
| | 04:36 | So I think this is working pretty well.
| | 04:41 | There's only so far I can
push an image like this.
| | 04:45 | Another thing that I am doing, in a way,
is painting in gloss. Some of these areas
| | 04:49 | up here, when I hit them with more
light they end up looking slippery.
| | 04:53 | They look like they have been worn.
| | 04:54 | They look like water has been
running down them maybe. So I am not
| | 05:01 | just painting light;
| | 05:02 | I am painting geologic time,
changing the geologic history.
| | 05:09 | CS6 will have a Geologic History
brush which we will do that for you.
| | 05:14 | So I am just going to add some of
this in here. Incidentally, that's not true.
| | 05:20 | I don't know what's in CS6.
| | 05:23 | If you believed that there was going to
be a Geologic History brush, then I have
| | 05:29 | an old copy of such Photoshop
you might want to buy.
| | 05:30 | All right, now I am going to turn this off again.
| | 05:33 | I am looking at this area here that I
just went over, and I am liking that better,
| | 05:38 | look at this area here, liking that better.
| | 05:42 | This is a very, very powerful effect,
and again, it's one that I use in a lot of
| | 05:46 | black-and-white images.
| | 05:47 | Let's take a quick look at some of these,
and you can get a better sense of what I did.
| | 05:53 | I first did my black-and-white conversion,
which didn't involve a lot of toning there.
| | 05:57 | I then hit it with global adjustments
that plunged a lot of this stuff into shadow.
| | 06:02 | Trees are wonderful things for black-and
-white because they're round, so they get
| | 06:05 | these beautiful gradients of light
across those, so I painted highlights on the
| | 06:09 | bright sides of the trees, and I painted
shadows on the dark side. And I did the
| | 06:13 | shadows just by making a Levels
adjustment layer that went to darker, and then
| | 06:20 | just painted those into those areas.
| | 06:21 | Here, I went in some places, and
painted very thin little bits of highlight on
| | 06:25 | certain pieces of bark and not on others.
| | 06:27 | They're really going through and
exaggerating certain highlights and
| | 06:31 | exaggerating certain shadows. Same thing here,
| | 06:35 | although not to the same degree;
| | 06:36 | this image is pretty good
just in a straight conversion.
| | 06:39 | So very powerful tool, something you
want to think about with your black-and-
| | 06:42 | white conversions, is localized
painting of light and shadow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Putting It All Together and Thinking Like a PainterPainting light and shadow pt. 1| 00:00 | Now we are going to take all of the
things we've been talking about through
| | 00:04 | this whole course and try to put them
together to work one image from start to finish.
| | 00:09 | Along the way, I am hoping that you
are also going to see something about an
| | 00:13 | approach to post production, a mindset,
the way that you find your way through
| | 00:17 | an image and the edits that you need,
and kind of a more philosophical approach
| | 00:21 | that you might want to be thinking about.
| | 00:24 | Boy, that sounds much heavier than
this lesson is going to be; don't worry.
| | 00:26 | So I have got what you should
recognize by now as an HDR set.
| | 00:31 | I have got three different images:
| | 00:33 | one exposed normally, one
under-exposed, one over-exposed.
| | 00:38 | As I step through these, you can see
that I was handheld-shooting this HDR.
| | 00:42 | They are not quite registered perfectly,
but that's okay, Photoshop is going to
| | 00:46 | be able to take care of that for us.
| | 00:48 | So again, I have got good midtone data
here, got good highlight data here, and I
| | 00:53 | have got good shadow data here.
| | 00:55 | So I am going to go ahead and start
that merge process from Bridge just firing
| | 01:01 | up Merge to HDR Pro.
| | 01:03 | The reason that handheld HDR
shooting can work is that HDR Pro can do an
| | 01:07 | exceptional job of aligning images,
as long as your camera movement is just
| | 01:12 | strict translation, up
or down and left and right.
| | 01:15 | If you are rotating the camera
around its axis, or rotating it clockwise,
| | 01:19 | counter-clockwise, that's either yaw, pitch or roll.
| | 01:22 | I always get those confused.
| | 01:23 | Anyway, any of that kind of just
straight translation, Photoshop can deal
| | 01:27 | with it pretty well, and for that
reason, handheld HDR shooting is a perfectly
| | 01:32 | viable thing to do.
| | 01:33 | Don't pass by an HDR scene just because
you don't have a tripod. So here we are.
| | 01:38 | We are now in HDR Pro.
| | 01:40 | I am going to just basically follow
the same procedure we did earlier
| | 01:42 | of trying to figure out what
adjustments we can make in here before
| | 01:46 | heading on into Photoshop.
| | 01:47 | Of course, my primary concern is
going to be this highlight detail up here.
| | 01:51 | I want to be sure that I can preserve
that. And look, there is actually a lot of
| | 01:54 | detail in there as I drag the
Highlight slider to the left.
| | 01:57 | Obviously, the next problem is the foreground.
| | 01:59 | It's just way too dark.
| | 02:00 | So I am going to boost my Exposure,
which is going to cost me my sky.
| | 02:06 | So I am going to pull that back down.
| | 02:10 | Now my image is looking a little flat.
| | 02:12 | I will hit some Gamma, and
I will darken the shadows.
| | 02:16 | But I am facing another problem here.
| | 02:18 | In brightening up the
foreground, my sky has lost something.
| | 02:20 | It's not as contrasty as it was.
| | 02:22 | It's a little more boring.
| | 02:24 | So I am going to put my Exposure back
down to 0, which means I can back off of
| | 02:32 | this and get a little more
contrast back into the sky.
| | 02:34 | So that looks better, but
now my foreground is too dark.
| | 02:37 | So I have two choices here.
| | 02:38 | I am not going to be able
to fix this in Merge to HDR.
| | 02:40 | I am going to have to either, in
Photoshop, brighten the foreground or darken the
| | 02:44 | sky, and I think the way to make this
decision is to remember that right now, in
| | 02:49 | Merge to HDR, I am working
with this huge pool of data.
| | 02:53 | HDR Pro can pull from those three
different images, which means I have got a 32
| | 02:57 | bit space of data that I am working in.
| | 03:01 | What that means is with that much
data, I can brighten details without
| | 03:06 | worrying about adding noise.
| | 03:08 | That's something that's a problem in Photoshop.
| | 03:10 | So I think I am going to err on the side
of brightening the image in HDR Pro and
| | 03:16 | fixing the sky when I get into Photoshop.
| | 03:19 | So that means I am still going to make
sure that my highlights are preserved
| | 03:22 | here, and get the image as close as
possible as I can in here, but I think
| | 03:27 | that's going to be a better way to go
than getting the sky right in here and
| | 03:30 | fixing the rest in Photoshop.
| | 03:32 | Shadows, brightening shadows is a
dubious proposition sometimes because you will
| | 03:37 | end up introducing a lot of noise.
| | 03:38 | Gamma is going to give me a little more contrast
punch, darkening the shadows a little bit more.
| | 03:44 | It's looking pretty good.
| | 03:45 | I have lost more sky there,
so let's put that back.
| | 03:51 | Obviously, right off the bat, what's
still working well is that I have got more
| | 03:54 | dynamic range than I had in any of my originals.
| | 03:58 | I am going to go ahead and
hit OK and let this process.
| | 04:01 | I have got that HDR problem of the
image being just overall a little bit flat,
| | 04:05 | just like our last one was.
| | 04:07 | So I will need to do some work in
Photoshop to get that punched back up.
| | 04:11 | So here is our merged image.
| | 04:13 | Now anytime you do a merge, the first
thing you want to do is make sure that the
| | 04:17 | alignment went okay.
| | 04:19 | We didn't do this in the last lesson
because I was shooting on a tripod, and
| | 04:22 | though things can go out of
alignment on a tripod, I was pretty confident
| | 04:25 | that they were good.
| | 04:26 | But this was a handheld shot, and we saw, back
here, how out of registration the images are.
| | 04:33 | So before I go any further, I want to
double-check Photoshop's alignment work.
| | 04:37 | I am going to zoom in to 100%, which I
did with Command+1, and I am just going to
| | 04:42 | look at the details in here to see if they are soft.
| | 04:44 | They are a little bit soft because RAW images
out of a camera are always a little bit soft.
| | 04:52 | That's something we didn't talk about.
| | 04:53 | I am very intentionally working with
RAW images because I need that 16 bit data
| | 04:58 | space to have a lot of room in HDR Pro to work.
| | 05:01 | Yes, you can hand a JPEG image to HDR Pro,
but you are not going to get very good results.
| | 05:05 | If you want to shoot HDR, put your
camera in RAW, then leave it there.
| | 05:09 | That's really how you want to be working.
| | 05:11 | You can process raw files ahead of
time, say about 16 bit TIFFs or PSDs;
| | 05:16 | still, it's just easier to work with raw.
| | 05:18 | I find you have an easier workflow,
and there is really no reason not to, and
| | 05:23 | raw files are smaller than TIFFs or PSDs.
| | 05:25 | So I am not seeing any
blurring around here. That's good.
| | 05:27 | That means two things: my registration
went well in HDR Pro, and also it was a
| | 05:32 | calm day; the trees aren't blowing,
| | 05:33 | so I don't have ghosting
problems. So that's great.
| | 05:36 | That means we can continue with this image.
| | 05:37 | If I had found those things, I would
probably abandon the image at this point,
| | 05:41 | because it would be a drag
to correct all that stuff.
| | 05:43 | Now, we go through a
normal photographic workflow.
| | 05:45 | Does the image need to be
cropped? I don't think so.
| | 05:48 | I like the composition of the image.
| | 05:51 | It's a little flat right now, because of that
HDR problem, but we have got a dramatic sky.
| | 05:55 | We've got a very discernible subject.
| | 05:57 | We are going to do some work to bring all
that out, but no, I don't think we need a crop.
| | 06:01 | It doesn't need to be straightened.
| | 06:03 | It does need some retouching, and that's
because these power lines are driving me nuts.
| | 06:07 | They are really just cutting across.
| | 06:09 | They are distracting.
| | 06:10 | They are bright enough that you
almost wonder, am I thinking this is a
| | 06:13 | compositional element of
some kind? And they are not.
| | 06:15 | So I am going to get rid of them.
| | 06:18 | We've seen the wonderful
majesty of Content Aware Fill.
| | 06:23 | I am going to try it here, but to be
honest, I don't think it's going to work
| | 06:27 | very well because sitting right next to
this power line is another power line,
| | 06:33 | and I am afraid all it's going
to do is copy one into the other.
| | 06:39 | But maybe if I try and select
fairly close, I will be okay.
| | 06:42 | I am using the Polygonal Lasso, just because
it's easiest way to select something for me,
| | 06:48 | I mean something like this. All right!
| | 06:50 | There are couple of different ways, as we
have seen, of invoking Content Aware Fill.
| | 06:54 | I can go up here and choose
Fill, or I can hit Shift+F5.
| | 06:57 | One we haven't looked at before is I can hit
Shift+Delete, and that brings up the Fill box.
| | 07:02 | Content Aware was selected, so I am going to hit
OK, and we'll see what happens. That didn't work.
| | 07:10 | Wow! It did a goofy thing, too.
| | 07:12 | It now looks like a wavy wire with breaks in it.
| | 07:15 | It's copying data from over here.
| | 07:17 | So it's just copying over the neighboring
power lines, so that doesn't really work.
| | 07:21 | I am going to Undo, deselect,
and I am going in by hand.
| | 07:24 | I am going to have to use normal
retouching tools to try and get rid of this.
| | 07:28 | I am going to start with the Retouch
brush, which if you have never used, it's
| | 07:31 | just like the Rubber Stamp tool.
| | 07:32 | I Option+Click to select a source
point, and then I start painting.
| | 07:36 | Here's a tip, though.
| | 07:37 | I can go along trying to brush, but I have
got to be real careful about my movements.
| | 07:42 | I am brushing over what
is mostly a straight line.
| | 07:44 | So I am going to click here once, and
then I am going to Shift+Click here, and
| | 07:51 | actually, I am going to start over.
| | 07:53 | I am going to Option+Click here first.
| | 07:55 | I am going to click here, then
Shift+Click here, and when I do that,
| | 08:00 | Photoshop paints a straight line from
my last brush stroke to the one that I
| | 08:04 | just Shift+Clicked on.
| | 08:05 | That gives me a very easy way of quickly,
with just a few clicks brushing over this.
| | 08:12 | Now, this is not creating a
perfect retouching, but it's creating a
| | 08:16 | mostly perfect retouching.
| | 08:17 | You can see here it's screwed up here.
| | 08:19 | Good enough that now I can go in with my
Rubber Stamp tool and just pick up the problem areas.
| | 08:25 | So that's about finding the right
brush size, looking for the bits that are
| | 08:29 | noticeable and going in. I am going to
click there and just painting over these bits.
| | 08:38 | The main thing when doing a retouching
like this is I just want to break up any
| | 08:43 | regular patterns that my
eye is going to queue into.
| | 08:47 | Your visual system is largely about
pattern recognition, and so if I can just
| | 08:52 | break this stuff up, it's
going to look more normal.
| | 08:56 | It can be very easy, when you are in
the middle of a retouching job to go, oh,
| | 09:00 | well, look at that thing right there,
that one little shadow right there.
| | 09:03 | It's so obvious that it -- well
it's not obvious to anyone else.
| | 09:06 | So it's important to kind of keep one
eye planted in someone else's head to get
| | 09:13 | a sense of what's truly
a problem and what's not.
| | 09:16 | I am not going to worry too much about
what's going on up here with these power
| | 09:20 | lines. Anyone who is really going to get
nit-picky about that is probably someone
| | 09:25 | that I am not that
interested in talking to anyway.
| | 09:28 | And if you are more picky than that, I
understand. I admit that I am a little bit
| | 09:33 | lazy in that regard.
| | 09:34 | I don't feel like an image like this needs
to be pixel perfect, down to every detail.
| | 09:38 | This image is going to be about the sky,
and that foreground element down there.
| | 09:44 | Also, if I am printing this small, you
are not going to notice something like
| | 09:47 | that, and if I am enlarging it real big,
you are going to be viewing it from so
| | 09:51 | far away that those details
probably will not be obvious.
| | 09:57 | If you are the type of person who
wants to do that, then I will talk to you.
| | 10:00 | I didn't mean to sound so
reactionary there. All right!
| | 10:04 | So that takes care of that one.
| | 10:06 | Now all we've got to do is this last one.
| | 10:08 | So as you could see, a combination of
the Retouch brush and then refining it -
| | 10:13 | boy I just really blew that
telephone pole right there.
| | 10:15 | I am going to click here and then there.
| | 10:19 | That's working a lot better.
| | 10:22 | I will have to go back and hit that again.
| | 10:25 | As I was saying a combination of the
Retouch brush and the normal Rubber Stamp
| | 10:28 | is working pretty well on these.
| | 10:30 | So we're almost done here.
| | 10:38 | I can kind of get into this work.
actually, as tedious as it is.
| | 10:41 | It's relaxing somehow.
| | 10:44 | Going back and looking for those
bits that got a little bit screwed up.
| | 10:52 | Actually, this part came out okay.
| | 10:53 | There is a little bit of a seam there
that's visible, that we will take out.
| | 10:57 | So these power lines now go nowhere.
| | 11:00 | I can tidy that up while I
am here. I'll tidy it up.
| | 11:03 | I just chop that off.
| | 11:05 | We'll try and make it look like
they actually just end at the pole.
| | 11:08 | Here is a little bit of a repeating
pattern that I should take out. All right!
| | 11:14 | Now, here is where I can go really
obsessive compulsive disorder and start
| | 11:18 | working on every little pixel level
thing, and I just don't think that matters.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Painting light and shadow pt. 2| 00:00 | Let's zoom back in, though.
| | 00:01 | I am zooming in and out with
Command+Plus and Command+Minus.
| | 00:04 | These power lines here, to
be honest, they don't bug me.
| | 00:07 | They are not super-high contrasty,
they don't stand out, and they are a
| | 00:11 | real part of the image.
| | 00:12 | I'm not going for, plainly, a
really natural empty landscape.
| | 00:15 | I've got parking lots
and houses and things here,
| | 00:18 | so I don't mind these coming across here.
| | 00:20 | And here is a cesspool or something.
I should probably get rid of that, but I'm
| | 00:25 | okay with that level of reality in the scene.
| | 00:27 | So I am going to keep that.
| | 00:28 | So that takes care of our retouching.
| | 00:30 | Now we are ready to move on to our
next bit. There is no spot removal or
| | 00:34 | anything we need to do.
| | 00:35 | So I am ready to head on into Tonal Adjustments.
| | 00:37 | So what do I need to do here?
| | 00:39 | The image looks a little low contrast to me.
| | 00:40 | Let's take a look at the histogram, and
click the exclamation mark to update it
| | 00:45 | and sure enough, there is no strong
black. There's not really any strong whites, but
| | 00:49 | there is obviously the
stuff up here in the clouds.
| | 00:52 | The bulk of our image data
is from here to about here.
| | 00:56 | Well, the bulk of our image is these gray tones.
| | 01:00 | Obviously, some of the sky is reflected
in these tones, but what this tells us
| | 01:04 | is that the majority of our
foreground is pretty dark.
| | 01:06 | That's going to have to be
brightened at some point.
| | 01:08 | So I am going to start with black,
because black, as we've learned, is the key to
| | 01:12 | all contrast problems.
| | 01:14 | I am going to add a Levels adjustment layer.
| | 01:15 | I am going to drag my black point in and
immediately, our image has better contrast.
| | 01:21 | Now there is still a lot to do contrast
-wise, but I'm first trying to get an
| | 01:25 | initial hit on what is a good contrast,
and you might say, but you've clipped
| | 01:29 | these shadows here, and that's true.
So what have I lost?
| | 01:32 | I've probably lost some detail down here,
maybe up here, maybe a little bit in here.
| | 01:36 | I don't care. There is nothing down there that
I need to look, at and having detail everywhere
| | 01:42 | means that the viewer's eye
just doesn't know where to go.
| | 01:45 | Now I might go in and open that up a
little bit later, but just because there's
| | 01:48 | detail to be had - and this is
the thing with digital cameras.
| | 01:51 | They're able to capture such good
shadow detail that it can become very easy to
| | 01:55 | go, ooh, ooh I want to pull that
detail out there, and it's important to
| | 01:57 | understand that shadow is part
of your photographic vocabulary.
| | 02:00 | So I am going to leave that about right there.
| | 02:03 | I said that this area needed to be brightened,
| | 02:05 | so I am going to pull that up, and
that's pretty good, except I've lost my sky.
| | 02:11 | So I am going to see about, now going
in with the Black brush in my layer mask.
| | 02:17 | Okay, that's not really working because
as I am doing that I'm getting a color
| | 02:24 | shift. There is some brown in
here that just doesn't look right.
| | 02:26 | I am going to undo all that,
painting white back into that area.
| | 02:30 | I could not simply undo that because there
are multiple brush strokes in there. Oops.
| | 02:33 | I am not painting with
white. Okay, there we go.
| | 02:36 | Now I am painting with white.
| | 02:38 | Let's just do a whole fill.
There we go, now it's back to normal.
| | 02:41 | So that's more of a white
adjustment that I am willing to make.
| | 02:44 | In fact, I am thinking now, maybe I am
going to leave the white where it is and
| | 02:47 | attack this foreground brightness
problem separately, because that's going to be
| | 02:51 | something that just needs to be dealt with.
| | 02:54 | Let's do look at these shadows down
here and think about opening them up.
| | 02:57 | If I paint black into these areas to
protect them from that black point
| | 03:02 | adjustment, I get a little bit of detail
back in there, and I think I do like that.
| | 03:07 | So I am going to open up some of
these shadows just a little bit, the
| | 03:11 | really, really dark ones.
| | 03:12 | I think that's probably a good choice
for the image not looking too contrast-y
| | 03:19 | and looking too manipulated.
| | 03:21 | We should be able to see detail in these areas.
| | 03:25 | Okay, maybe now up there, that's
starting to look gray, and I don't mind there
| | 03:27 | being a shadow of this rock face.
| | 03:29 | And that's also looking a little gray
and a little contrasty, so I am going to
| | 03:36 | shift from painting into the mask with
black to painting with light gray,
| | 03:39 | so that I am not creating
quite as extreme an effect.
| | 03:44 | All right, now as is often the case with
HDR, we have a problem of overall, I got
| | 03:50 | similar tone throughout the image.
From here to here, it all looks about the
| | 03:54 | same, and you might think,
well, yeah, it's green.
| | 03:57 | I am not talking about color. I am
talking about tone. I am talking about
| | 03:59 | brightness, and though this is green,
and this is a different hue of green,
| | 04:03 | they have roughly similar tones.
| | 04:05 | In a landscape image, I need depth. I
need to see landscape. I need to see big
| | 04:10 | and grand, and that kind of thing, and
I am not getting a real sense of depth
| | 04:14 | from here to here because everything is
mostly the same tone, and it's shift from
| | 04:19 | lighter to darker that's going to imply depth.
| | 04:21 | So what I want to do is brighten up
some areas to make them standout more.
| | 04:27 | And to figure out how to do that, I need
to actually look at the light in the scene.
| | 04:30 | This storm is breaking up.
| | 04:31 | There is all this light coming through,
shining down onto here, shining down onto here.
| | 04:35 | So I am going to paint some light
into these areas and see how that looks.
| | 04:38 | I am going to go and create a
new Levels adjustment layer.
| | 04:40 | I am going to brighten, not worried
about what's happening up here, because the
| | 04:44 | very next thing I am going to do
is hit D. Watch this area down here.
| | 04:47 | I press D. I get white and black
back. Command+A is to select all.
| | 04:51 | Command+Delete, Ctrl+Delete if you are on
Windows, to fill this layer mask with black.
| | 04:56 | Command+D to deselect.
| | 04:58 | Now, B to select my brush.
| | 05:00 | I've got white as a foreground color.
| | 05:02 | I am going to paint white into this
mask, and where I do, the image will get
| | 05:07 | brighter, because this adjustment level
brightens things, and by punching a hole
| | 05:11 | in the mask, that brightening comes
through to my image, and what I get,
| | 05:16 | effectively, is painting light into the image.
| | 05:20 | This is a very important
thing for you to think about.
| | 05:22 | Landscape photographs are
very often just about the light.
| | 05:26 | I didn't really need to take a
picture of this little housing addition.
| | 05:29 | But it's plainly a beautiful scene.
| | 05:30 | It's a beautiful little housing
addition, but what struck me was the light.
| | 05:34 | The storm was breaking up.
| | 05:35 | There is these incredible
Jacob's ladders of lights coming down.
| | 05:38 | Look, there is one just
shining right down onto this house.
| | 05:40 | So I am trying to exaggerate that and
accentuate that and really bring that to
| | 05:44 | the fore, and by thinking more like a
painter, and thinking about where light
| | 05:49 | falls in an image, and what that light
should look like and how to play up that light,
| | 05:54 | I can create an image that's more interesting.
| | 05:57 | So I am painting highlights onto
areas that are already lit up, but just by
| | 06:04 | way of exaggerating them, making the light
that's falling into the scene more pronounced.
| | 06:09 | And now, here is the one
that I particularly like.
| | 06:11 | I am going to go along and paint light
on the tops of these trees, because the
| | 06:15 | tree should be really glowing with light.
| | 06:19 | And you can see that they are.
| | 06:20 | There is already highlights on there.
| | 06:22 | I am just playing them up more.
| | 06:23 | To be honest, I think I am painting a
little too much light onto the trees, so I
| | 06:27 | am going to back off to more of a shade of gray.
| | 06:31 | But what that means is rather than painting
white into the mask, which is allowing
| | 06:36 | the full levels adjustment to come
through, I am painting gray into the mask,
| | 06:41 | which is allowing only some of the
levels adjustment to come through, but I am
| | 06:44 | still getting brightening.
| | 06:45 | In a minute, I am going to give you a
little before-and-after look, and you'll
| | 06:51 | get a better idea of what this is doing.
| | 06:54 | Just moving along, painting highlights in.
| | 06:59 | I had mentioned before that for work
like this a Wacom pressure-sensitive
| | 07:04 | tablet is wonderful.
| | 07:06 | It doesn't have to be Wacom, a
pressure-sensitive tablet is wonderful.
| | 07:10 | I prefer Wacom tablets.
| | 07:11 | I think they are very well made.
| | 07:13 | Their software is exceptional.
| | 07:14 | Pressure-sensitivity means that as I
push harder my brush gets bigger, which can
| | 07:20 | make it very nice for
painting subtle painterly-like masks.
| | 07:25 | This is not so subtle.
| | 07:26 | I don't really need pressure-
sensitivity for this bit that I am doing, because
| | 07:31 | I am really just choosing how much light
to paint in by the color of my Mask.
| | 07:37 | So hitting Highlights, you may notice
that when I do work like this, I start
| | 07:43 | talking as if I'm narrating a golf tournament.
| | 07:47 | I don't know why that happens.
| | 07:48 | I think it's possibly because I
am concentrating on other things.
| | 07:52 | Oh, I know what it is. It's because I
have to hold my tongue in a particular
| | 07:56 | position, and it makes me talk funny.
| | 07:59 | I probably do the same
thing when I am using scissors.
| | 08:03 | Using scissors is very dramatic when I do it.
| | 08:06 | All right, I think we're coming along here.
| | 08:08 | I am going to turn this adjustment layer
off and you are going to see before and after.
| | 08:14 | So first watch this area in here.
It lightens up, which reflects this shaft of
| | 08:20 | light that's hitting down.
| | 08:21 | Now watch these trees.
| | 08:23 | They just brighten up.
| | 08:24 | And if you notice the overall effect
is the trees look more three-dimensional
| | 08:28 | now; they are not just a flat color.
| | 08:29 | They have light and shadow on them.
| | 08:31 | So I've an Adjustment layer here that
allows me to paint light into the scene.
| | 08:35 | I can paint that light wherever I want.
| | 08:37 | So let's think about the light
that's hitting back here, and maybe go in.
| | 08:41 | I don't want to paint as much light,
because this area is farther way.
| | 08:45 | It's obscured by more atmosphere, which
is a good, strong depth cue for us, but I
| | 08:51 | can maybe highlight this.
| | 08:55 | As a landscape photographer, it's
worth spending some time looking at
| | 08:59 | landscape painting.
| | 09:00 | Look at the old masters.
| | 09:01 | Look at how they use light.
| | 09:02 | Look at how they will paint
extremely contrast-y light into a situation.
| | 09:06 | They won't let their blacks go totally,
totally black, but they will hit a
| | 09:10 | strong highlight of light,
| | 09:12 | a good accent of light onto an area, to really
bring it out, and that's what we are doing here.
| | 09:18 | I think those bluffs I
might have gone too far there.
| | 09:21 | I am going to paint black back over
those to take those out, but I like
| | 09:25 | this lightening here.
| | 09:26 | This is very evocative of the type of
light you get when a storm breaks up.
| | 09:31 | Let's now focus on these rocks in here.
| | 09:33 | One of the things that happens when a
storm breaks up is you can have small
| | 09:37 | shafts of light hitting all over where
a rock may be sticking into light off of
| | 09:42 | a face that's still in shadow.
| | 09:45 | Okay, so that wasn't happening here, but that
doesn't mean we can't make it look like it was.
| | 09:50 | Again, we are not going
after photojournalism here.
| | 09:53 | We are going after an image that's
evocative of the scene, and when I was
| | 09:57 | standing there, what was striking me
was light erupting all over the place.
| | 10:01 | You cannot necessarily always capture that in
a single frame, or even in an HDR frame, as it is.
| | 10:08 | Sometimes we have to
point that out to the viewer.
| | 10:12 | That's all we're doing.
| | 10:14 | It's as if I'm standing here next to you,
saying, "Look at that tree right there.
| | 10:17 | See how it's lit up?"
| | 10:18 | Since I can't actually be there,
standing next to you, pointing that out, just
| | 10:22 | exaggerating a little bit
to make sure that you see it.
| | 10:25 | That's all it's happening.
| | 10:25 | Let's do before-and-after.
| | 10:27 | Again, before-after.
| | 10:30 | That's looking pretty good.
| | 10:31 | Now these trees are bugging me.
| | 10:32 | I think they are too lit up.
| | 10:33 | I am going to calm down that shadow.
| | 10:36 | I think I painted full white into there.
| | 10:38 | I love the look of the individual trees.
| | 10:40 | I like that they really look more three-
dimensional, but I don't think there is
| | 10:42 | actually that much light
hitting this part of the scene,
| | 10:46 | so I am going to try to darken them
a little bit by painting over it with a
| | 10:55 | darker shade of gray.
| | 10:56 | That's looking a little more believable,
and I am going to completely take the
| | 11:00 | highlighting off of these.
| | 11:02 | The reason I'm making that decision is
I'm trying to follow the light that's
| | 11:06 | realistic in the scene, and it's getting
much darker over here. So before/after.
| | 11:12 | That's great! That has added some depth, and yet
there's still not enough distance, to my eye,
| | 11:17 | between this foreground
element and this background.
| | 11:19 | I want this background to
recede more into the distance.
| | 11:23 | I could try to darken the background,
but that's a really difficult thing to
| | 11:26 | pull off in this situation because
part of what's making this background work
| | 11:30 | is its very low contrast, because
there is a bunch of haze and mist in the
| | 11:33 | air, and that's creating depth cues and
obscurations that are making this look farther away.
| | 11:39 | If I try to darken this by changing the
black point, you can see what's going to happen.
| | 11:42 | I am going to immediately make
that part of the image more contrast-y.
| | 11:47 | So let's just do a quick example
and you'll see what I am talking about.
| | 11:51 | I have now got Levels adjustment layer
that's darker, but when I paint that in,
| | 11:57 | it's serving to take the haze off the mountain.
| | 11:59 | It's improving the contrast on the
mountain, and that's actually doing the exact
| | 12:03 | opposite of what I want, which
is to make this look farther away.
| | 12:06 | So rather than darkening the
background, I am going to look at leaving the
| | 12:11 | background where it is, and I am
going to lighten the foreground.
| | 12:14 | As we have already said, the
foreground needs lightening anyway.
| | 12:16 | Let's look at our global histogram here.
| | 12:19 | The bulk of our images are these
foreground tones. Most of those tones
| | 12:23 | are falling in here, I think. These big shadow areas
are this stuff over here. All of this highlight
| | 12:30 | detail are all of these clouds.
| | 12:31 | So this stuff in here is going to be
this foreground area, and it's kind of just
| | 12:38 | a bunch of midtone data.
| | 12:40 | It needs to be brighter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Painting light and shadow pt. 3| 00:00 | We are going to do something we've done before.
| | 00:02 | We are going to create, of course,
a Levels adjustment layer that brightens.
| | 00:06 | Then we are going to use the
Gradient map to wrap it into the background.
| | 00:10 | So, I am going to brighten that up there.
I'm even going to adjust the black point a little bit.
| | 00:14 | Notice that I have put this
adjustment layer above all of the others.
| | 00:18 | I want this one to affect everything
below it, including the brightening effects
| | 00:22 | that we added before.
| | 00:23 | This is something that
needs to hit the whole image.
| | 00:25 | Now, I am going to be masking this
layer, so I am not worrying too much about
| | 00:29 | nailing my Levels adjustments
layer settings right off the bat.
| | 00:33 | I've got my level mask on there;
I am ready to fill it with black.
| | 00:35 | Now, I am going to grab the Gradient tool,
white in the foreground, black in the background.
| | 00:42 | I know that I want from
here down to be brightened,
| | 00:45 | so, I am just going to click from about
here up to about here. Before. After.
| | 00:53 | So, my foreground is brightened. I am not
liking how much this gotten brighter, though.
| | 00:58 | So, I am going to actually drop my
gradient down to about here and go up to
| | 01:02 | there. That didn't really
do much, did it? Before. After.
| | 01:09 | I like that better.
| | 01:11 | What I'm worried about is this transition zone.
| | 01:13 | I don't want to be able to see the seam.
| | 01:15 | I am not sure we got all the
brightening in here that we need,
| | 01:17 | so I am going to crank the Levels
adjustments a little bit more, and the black
| | 01:23 | point, make a little more contrast-y.
| | 01:26 | What I am worried about is I don't
want it to be visible that there is this
| | 01:29 | gradient mask in here. Having made the mask,
| | 01:31 | I know what to look for, so I see
there is this bit here that is plainly
| | 01:36 | the transition zone.
| | 01:37 | But we are so lucky that this is a
valley full of mist, which means uneven
| | 01:41 | light, which means anyone
else looking at it is going hmm!
| | 01:43 | Look at the beautiful mist in the valley.
| | 01:45 | So I am not going to worry about that.
| | 01:47 | I think we are okay with that
transition, which is great. That's a really
| | 01:50 | quick and easy edit.
| | 01:52 | It's almost a hack, actually. So before, after.
| | 01:57 | I can't take my eyes off this section.
| | 01:59 | I am really worried that is
visible, and I don't think it is.
| | 02:02 | But what I am thinking is let's expand the
gradient so that it's not a sudden change,
| | 02:06 | and out to there.
| | 02:08 | Now, that's brightening maybe.
| | 02:11 | I think that looks better.
I don't see as much of a change there.
| | 02:13 | Unfortunately, I am also now getting
the darkening that I was aiming for
| | 02:18 | there in the first place.
| | 02:19 | So, let's try again.
| | 02:21 | What you're seeing here is that every
time I redraw my gradient it just replaces
| | 02:25 | the old one, which is nice.
| | 02:26 | Okay, that's looking pretty good.
| | 02:30 | I think, though, that I have
darkened the house a little bit,
| | 02:32 | so what I am going to do is with this
same adjustment layer mask selected, I am
| | 02:35 | going to choose black and a very small brush.
| | 02:38 | I am going to go over
these elements. Oh. No, they were okay.
| | 02:47 | I wanted them lightened. I want to go
over with these white to make sure that
| | 02:52 | this area is not picking up any of
the darkening, and it looks like it was.
| | 02:57 | So, being careful not to
paint above any of the trees.
| | 03:03 | Oops! I missed there.
| | 03:09 | Normally, you would think, "Well, painting
around trees is a drag," but these trees
| | 03:12 | are kind of silhouetted.
| | 03:13 | So, I don't have to be real perfect.
If the tops end up dark, that's okay;
| | 03:17 | it just looks like part of the silhouette.
| | 03:19 | I am not doing anything
that compromises my mask.
| | 03:24 | All right, now this stuff is really
standing out. So, that's before.
| | 03:29 | That's after. That's working pretty well.
| | 03:32 | There's a lot more little detail I
could go in and paint, but I'm trying to
| | 03:36 | just give you an idea of what we are after here.
| | 03:37 | I think there's something else that the
image needs though, and that is that the
| | 03:40 | sky needs to be darker.
It needs to be more dramatic.
| | 03:43 | I want to do a gradient
darkening from here to here,
| | 03:46 | but I am little worried that it's
going to interfere with the other gradient
| | 03:50 | lightening that I've done from here to here.
| | 03:51 | So, I would like to actually do the
exact opposite mask that I did here, and
| | 03:57 | that's very easy to do.
| | 03:58 | I've got nothing selected, currently.
| | 04:00 | I am going to right-click on this layer
mask and say Add Masks to Selection.
| | 04:05 | That actually creates a selection from the mask.
| | 04:10 | There is a gradient in here you
can't see it, but trust me its there.
| | 04:13 | Now, I am going to go up to the Select
menu and choose Inverse, or Inverse if
| | 04:19 | you prefer that sort of thing.
| | 04:21 | Now, I've got exact opposite mask.
| | 04:24 | If you have a selection made when you
create an adjustment layer, a layer mask
| | 04:28 | has automatically created
that matches that selection.
| | 04:30 | So, now I'm going to make a Levels
adjustment layer, and as you can see, it
| | 04:34 | comes in with the mask.
| | 04:36 | Now, I can hit darken.
I'm going to have to be careful.
| | 04:41 | Obviously, if I go too
far, the mask becomes visible.
| | 04:45 | So, this is going to be a very subtle
edit, and even with it, I am not sure that
| | 04:49 | the mask isn't visible in here.
| | 04:50 | So, I might need to do a little mask work in there.
Before. After. I think that sky looks better.
| | 04:59 | I am going to see what it looks like
| | 05:01 | if I - yeah, that's not good.
I am going to switch to 50% gray.
| | 05:07 | I am just trying to break up the mask here.
| | 05:14 | Again, I am facing the problem of I know
there is a mask there and so I am noticing it.
| | 05:18 | I am not sure that the viewer would.
I think that's looking better, though.
| | 05:22 | Again, we have got so much weird
striations of light and things in here that
| | 05:26 | I think that that really does just look like a
varying sea of mist down there in the valley.
| | 05:32 | Before. After.
| | 05:34 | I'm going to make one more change. I'm going to
lighten the blacks up a little in the foreground.
| | 05:40 | Before. After.
| | 05:43 | Well, the problem with this darkening
is I've picked up more contrast on the
| | 05:47 | mountains, and things
have gone a little bit hazy.
| | 05:50 | So, I'm going to redo this layer mask.
Command+D to make sure nothing is selected.
| | 05:56 | I am just going to pick a gradient,
turn this layer back on, and do
| | 06:02 | something like this.
| | 06:04 | I think that looks better.
| | 06:06 | Now, I've got the mist back on the mountains.
| | 06:08 | I've got more drama back in my sky
| | 06:10 | There is something I want you to
notice about what I'm doing here, which is I
| | 06:12 | want you to notice that I don't
actually know what I'm doing here.
| | 06:16 | I don't mean that I don't know
how to make these adjustments.
| | 06:18 | I mean that I don't know what the image needs;
| | 06:19 | I am finding my way through the image.
| | 06:22 | I'm not looking at the image and saying,
plainly, this image needs a 1.08 gamma adjustment.
| | 06:28 | I don't know that.
| | 06:29 | I'm feeling my way through.
| | 06:30 | I am not just feeling my way
through the individual sliders.
| | 06:32 | I am feeling my way through even an
understanding of what the image needs.
| | 06:36 | I didn't really, when I
first opened the image, realize, oh!
| | 06:39 | there's the nice, misty background.
| | 06:40 | I am going to have to be
careful about contrast there.
| | 06:42 | This is a very normal way to work, and I
think very often when you listen to a tutorial,
| | 06:47 | because, so often,
tutorials are prebuilt or planned,
| | 06:52 | it's very easy for you to think "Gosh!
| | 06:54 | this person just really knows what
they're doing like, by the numbers.
| | 06:57 | I never feel that way."
| | 06:58 | Don't worry; I never do, either.
| | 06:59 | I'm finding my way through the image.
| | 07:01 | I am finding what works.
| | 07:02 | I may keep going and
ultimately go, "Mm...it's not working.
| | 07:06 | What I'm doing is not
working, or the image doesn't work."
| | 07:09 | There have been plenty of times
where I have been an hour into an imaging
| | 07:11 | session and then decided no,
there is not an image here to be had.
| | 07:14 | This is not one of those times, fortunately.
| | 07:16 | But it's perfectly normal if you are
just stumbling through trying to figure
| | 07:20 | what an image needs.
| | 07:22 | I think we are done with this.
| | 07:23 | Let's take a look at the before and after.
| | 07:25 | I am going to turn off all of these
adjustment layers, and there is a very
| | 07:28 | easy way to do that.
| | 07:28 | If I click on the first one, I can just drag
over the others. Then when I let go, they all turn off.
| | 07:33 | This is the image as it came out of HDR Pro.
| | 07:37 | HDR Pro did a great job of giving us a
sky with lots of detail in it, a foreground
| | 07:41 | with lots of detail, but it's kind of flat.
| | 07:44 | So, we added all of these and got this:
| | 07:48 | an image with a lot more depth, and fixing
our tone we've picked up some color saturation.
| | 07:53 | It's an image that our eye knows a
little bit more about what to do.
| | 07:56 | Let's take a quick look at
what we did, step-by-step.
| | 07:59 | We added an overall Levels adjustment
layer that improved the contrast in the image.
| | 08:05 | In the process of doing that, I stopped
up some shadows down here so you can see
| | 08:08 | there's little black spots in the mask,
where I painted black to open those back up.
| | 08:12 | After that, we added brightening: the
trees, the foreground, this hill over here.
| | 08:18 | We added those to create
a greater sense of depth,
| | 08:21 | not just to make this look more
three-dimensional, but to separate the
| | 08:24 | foreground from the background.
| | 08:26 | But we didn't quite get as much
separation as I wanted, so we added a layer to
| | 08:30 | brighten the foreground, and then
because the sky wasn't looking quite dramatic
| | 08:34 | enough, we darkened the sky
- a very subtle adjustment.
| | 08:37 | It would be nice to maybe to go a
little bit further, but I don't think we can
| | 08:40 | without compromising the image too much.
| | 08:43 | So, though there might be a little
more that I'd want to do to this image,
| | 08:46 | I am going to leave it as is right
now, and I am going to hit a Save.
| | 08:48 | It comes in untitled.
It's a 16-bit image.
| | 08:52 | I am going to save it
though as a Photoshop document.
| | 08:57 | Because a Photoshop document will
preserve all of my layers, a Photoshop
| | 08:59 | document supports 16-bit images.
| | 09:02 | I am going to call this Drakensburg Merged.
| | 09:08 | And while I like this image, it's going
to need sharpening, sizing, and I'm going to
| | 09:11 | want to print it to make
sure that it looks okay.
| | 09:14 | There's another approach that I
could've taken to this image, and we are going
| | 09:17 | to look at that in the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| HDR + LDR| 00:00 | We went to a lot of work with this
image to solve a problem that's inherent to
| | 00:05 | a lot of HDR images,
| | 00:06 | and that is this low contrast problemm
or this just even, dull tonal problem.
| | 00:11 | Out of HDR, because it was able to pull
good tone for so many pixels, we end up
| | 00:15 | with an image that's a little flat.
| | 00:16 | And so we went through, and we painted
in light, and we painted in brightening,
| | 00:21 | and we painted in darkening.
| | 00:23 | And that works great, but
there is something to bear in mind.
| | 00:26 | We did a lot of work to restore
good contrast to this foreground.
| | 00:32 | If I go back to my original image,
well, this foreground already has good
| | 00:36 | contrast in it, but the problem
with this image is it's got a bad sky.
| | 00:41 | But what if we took this image and
merged the foreground with our nice HDR sky?
| | 00:46 | Would that give us a result that's a
little bit easier to achieve than doing
| | 00:49 | all of this painting? Maybe, maybe not.
| | 00:51 | Let's take a look and see what happens.
| | 00:52 | The way I'm going to do this is, in
Bridge, I'm going to open up just this first
| | 00:56 | image, which of course is
going to open Camera Raw.
| | 00:58 | I'm not going to worry too much
about setting my tone, because I think the
| | 01:02 | foreground looks pretty good.
| | 01:03 | This highlight clipping is happening in the
sky, and we're going to loose the sky anyway.
| | 01:07 | So I'm going to open
this image as a 16-bit file.
| | 01:09 | Camera Raw will process it.
| | 01:12 | Now I'm going to select
all with Command+A and Copy.
| | 01:16 | I can now go and paste
that into the other image.
| | 01:19 | There's another way I could do this.
| | 01:21 | In the Layers palette, I can go to this
menu and choose Duplicate Layer and tell
| | 01:26 | it to put it in Drakensburg Merged.psd.
| | 01:30 | And now what I end up with is this.
| | 01:34 | This is that LDR, Low Dynamic
Range image, sitting here as a layer.
| | 01:38 | I'm going to drag it down here, so
that it's just above my HDR image.
| | 01:42 | So this is the original source image.
| | 01:46 | That's the HDR version.
| | 01:47 | As I turn this off and on, you can
see that - a couple of things here.
| | 01:52 | Obviously, better sky here, better
foreground here, but they're not registered.
| | 01:58 | Fortunately, Photoshop can
take care of that for us.
| | 02:00 | Holding down the Shift key, clicking on
the Background layer, now both of these
| | 02:04 | layers are selected.
| | 02:06 | If I go to the Edit menu and choose Auto
-Align layers, put it in Auto mode and
| | 02:11 | hit OK and just let it think for while,
| | 02:14 | it's going to align the layers for me.
| | 02:16 | This is the same algorithm
it uses during its HDR merge.
| | 02:19 | And note, it's kind of cool to see what it did.
| | 02:22 | It needed to do a little bit
of rotation, it looks like.
| | 02:25 | And it translated it a little bit,
but now look what happens if I turn off
| | 02:29 | the foreground layer.
| | 02:30 | There is no movement.
| | 02:32 | Obviously, the telephone wires
are coming back. That's fine.
| | 02:34 | We'll paint those out later.
| | 02:36 | So these are perfectly aligned.
| | 02:37 | I'll need to crop it at some point.
| | 02:39 | I'm not going to worry about that
now because I want to see if this
| | 02:41 | technique is even going to work.
| | 02:43 | So what I need now is to merge the
foreground from this image with the sky
| | 02:48 | in the background.
| | 02:49 | I'm going to do that,
obviously, with a layer mask.
| | 02:53 | Content layers don't, by default,
have a layer mask attached to them.
| | 02:56 | So I'm going to select this layer and
go up to Layer and choose Layer Mask.
| | 03:01 | I'm going to tell it to Reveal All.
| | 03:04 | That gives me a layer mask that's white,
| | 03:06 | meaning every bit of this layer is visible.
| | 03:09 | And you should know the next bit by now.
| | 03:11 | I'm just going to create - with this layer
mask selected, notice I can select here or here.
| | 03:17 | If I select here then I'm
painting into the image.
| | 03:20 | That's data actually going into the image.
| | 03:22 | If I paint here, I'm painting into the mask.
| | 03:27 | And that's revealing the
image that's down below.
| | 03:29 | What I want to do is a
gradient from maybe here to here.
| | 03:35 | And looking here, now I have got my
foreground Low Dynamic Range Image with
| | 03:41 | good contrast and my HDR sky.
| | 03:44 | So that's pretty cool.
| | 03:47 | I can't really see the seams of my mask.
| | 03:49 | It's as they were in last lesson there, obscured
by all of this haze back here. So that's good.
| | 03:54 | Let's have a look now at some of our
other adjustments, because since all of
| | 03:57 | this stuff has properly registered, all of
this painting fits fine on top of either layer.
| | 04:02 | You can now think of these two
layers as being our single image layer.
| | 04:05 | So the next we did was we
improved the contrast overall.
| | 04:08 | Well, I don't know that we need it that
aggressive because this image was already
| | 04:15 | contrast-y to begin with.
| | 04:16 | I'm going to skip that one for now, or
actually, no I'm going to adjust - oops!
| | 04:20 | I'm going to adjust this one for now.
| | 04:23 | Let's back off that black point a little bit.
| | 04:25 | I like it a little contrast-y.
| | 04:26 | It's hardly anything, all right.
| | 04:29 | So our next layer was painting
and highlights. And I like that.
| | 04:33 | That actually still works on
the Low Dynamic Range image.
| | 04:36 | And then we brightened the foreground.
| | 04:40 | That's looking a little too bright to me.
| | 04:41 | Let's leave that off for
now, and let's darken the sky.
| | 04:45 | So I'm not sure which is the way to go.
| | 04:46 | We'd need to look at them side-by
-side and just make a decision.
| | 04:49 | And that's the kind of decision you're
going to want to make on paper because
| | 04:51 | these images are going to
change a lot when they print.
| | 04:54 | But still, there will be times when the
easiest way to correct the contrast in an
| | 04:58 | image is to pull as much as you can
from one of your original source images.
| | 05:02 | And thanks to the Auto-Alignment tool,
| | 05:03 | it's very easy to stack up layers that way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing sample images for inspiration| 00:00 | Now that we've gone through all of the
tools and most of the techniques that I
| | 00:04 | typically use when I am working on
landscape images, I thought we'd just take a
| | 00:08 | moment to look at some images and talk
about my approach to them, not necessarily
| | 00:13 | in terms of technical why I moved
this knob and push this button,
| | 00:16 | but just what I was thinking and why I
edited them the way that I did, along with
| | 00:20 | a few mechanical details.
| | 00:23 | This is a shot in Death Valley.
| | 00:25 | As you probably noticed by now, I
spent a lot of time in the desert,
| | 00:27 | especially in Death Valley.
| | 00:28 | It's a really spectacular place, but
don't tell anyone, because one of the
| | 00:32 | things that is so spectacular
about it is that no one is there.
| | 00:35 | Again, a storm was not so much breaking up
as just a lot of clouds were going through.
| | 00:39 | This is a sandstorm out
here, way in the distance.
| | 00:43 | As I mentioned before, scale in
Death Valley is very, very strange.
| | 00:46 | This is probably 20 or 30 stories high.
| | 00:50 | Great light coming, because the sun was
setting, but I was also standing in a
| | 00:54 | place where a shaft of light
had opened up in the foreground.
| | 00:57 | That was not what caught my eye.
| | 00:58 | What caught my eye was the sandstorm.
| | 01:00 | Light at dusk changes very quickly.
| | 01:02 | I knew I had to act quickly.
| | 01:04 | I was driving down the road, I stopped,
I got out, and I knew that I wanted to
| | 01:08 | get a shot of this
sandstorm that was all lit up.
| | 01:10 | I was worried that it was dark in the
foreground, because it's a strange thing
| | 01:14 | to have a dark thing in the foreground.
| | 01:16 | I thought I need to find a subject.
| | 01:17 | I just started walking around until I found
this rock, and I planted it in the foreground.
| | 01:22 | So I've got a foreground, a
mid-ground, and a background.
| | 01:25 | While the background was
actually what had caught my eye,
| | 01:27 | you would think that's the subject of the image.
| | 01:29 | Of course, the rock kind of ends up, being
the subject to the image. I like the shot.
| | 01:33 | I am not entirely sure what I think about it.
| | 01:35 | I am not sure that I haven't
edited it a little too far.
| | 01:37 | It looks little bit like a diorama.
| | 01:38 | I kind of feel like there should be a
fake neanderthal standing here or something.
| | 01:42 | But I do like that there is a context
for this thing that had caught my eye
| | 01:47 | in the first place.
| | 01:48 | This was as in HDR, a bracket of
three shots merged with HDR.
| | 01:53 | I then did a lots of masked levels
adjustments to paint in brightness here.
| | 01:58 | I darkened this a little bit, and
brightened up the foreground a little bit, with
| | 02:02 | some isolated contrast
adjustment here and there.
| | 02:05 | This is just a geometric exercise in symmetry.
| | 02:08 | I was walking along, and just noticed
that the light was hitting this cloud of
| | 02:12 | dust directly above a
similarly-shaped dark mount.
| | 02:17 | This was originally a rectangular image.
| | 02:18 | I cropped it square, because I thought
that that highlighted these two things more.
| | 02:23 | Pretty simple contrast adjustment, just
wanted to be sure that this stuff stayed
| | 02:27 | dark to bring this out.
| | 02:28 | But this cloud was actually
very visible in the scene.
| | 02:32 | We've spent a lot of time talking
about contrast, and how you got to get true
| | 02:36 | black and have lots and lots of contrast.
| | 02:38 | Here is an example where that's not true.
| | 02:40 | Sometimes low contrast works really well.
| | 02:43 | The original image was very contrasty.
| | 02:45 | As I started working with it, I
realized I just really like the dark tree
| | 02:48 | standing out against the white background.
| | 02:50 | That made me realize this
image is about luminance;
| | 02:53 | therefore, it's a black-and-white image.
| | 02:54 | So, I converted it to black-and-white,
but the background is so contrast-y that it
| | 02:59 | was hard getting separation.
| | 03:00 | So, I thought, well, I'm going to
lower the contrast of the background.
| | 03:03 | I did that with an adjustment layer,
a masked adjustment layer that lowered
| | 03:06 | the contrast of the background, and then I
increased the contrast of the tree a little bit.
| | 03:10 | So, the tree is somewhat normal contrast, but
the rest of the image is not. I think it works.
| | 03:17 | Again, the light changes very quickly.
| | 03:18 | This image should
actually be cropped about here.
| | 03:21 | I saw that this cloud was
being lit up by the sun.
| | 03:25 | I noticed that the airplane when it was
about here, and I thought only airplane
| | 03:28 | is going to fly right through this.
| | 03:29 | That's going to look cool.
| | 03:31 | Landscape photography, like all
photography, is about keeping your eyes open, and
| | 03:34 | about being willing to wait.
| | 03:35 | Sometimes you have to stand and wait
for the light to change, and you've got to
| | 03:38 | stand there for a long time.
| | 03:40 | There are landscape photographers
who plan a single shot months in advance.
| | 03:45 | They will just be out hiking
somewhere and see an area, and go, boy, this
| | 03:49 | particular scene would
look great in the late fall.
| | 03:52 | I know that because I know the light will be
coming from this direction, and so and so forth.
| | 03:56 | They will go get an almanac and figure
out when the sun is going to hit that
| | 03:59 | particular geographic location really well,
and they will I plan to trip around it.
| | 04:03 | Landscape photography is very often
about almost working at geologic time.
| | 04:08 | You're waiting a long time for shots to happen.
| | 04:12 | Another low contrast shot, although not
one where I've manipulated the contrast.
| | 04:16 | This was an area where the low contrast
of the scene just really caught my eye.
| | 04:20 | I haven't done a lot to this.
| | 04:21 | It was just very, very, very pink this evening.
| | 04:24 | This is at sunset, obviously.
| | 04:27 | This is a shot that's about the light.
| | 04:29 | It was just, oh, my gosh!
| | 04:30 | There is this incredible pink.
| | 04:31 | I've got to find something, and
jumped out of the car, and simply tried to
| | 04:36 | compose geometrically with all of
these different elements that were there.
| | 04:40 | Another shot that's entirely about light.
| | 04:42 | I mentioned before that empty skies,
though they're great for walking around and
| | 04:46 | not getting rained on, are not
the best thing for photography.
| | 04:49 | So sometimes just seeing a contrail on this
sky, can really be something you can work with.
| | 04:54 | Still, what attracted me first was, wow,
this light is really beautiful, what can
| | 04:59 | I do with it? What I find to shoot?
| | 05:01 | Then when I saw the plane coming along, I
thought, okay now, I got something to work with.
| | 05:05 | I framed the shot, again,
with some symmetry going on.
| | 05:08 | I don't know that it really works, but
sometimes you follow these ideas, even if
| | 05:12 | they don't show up in the final image.
| | 05:13 | I like this line versus this line here.
| | 05:17 | But again, it's very often that you
will see the light first, and then have to
| | 05:22 | find something to shoot it in.
| | 05:24 | Landscape photography is very often
more of an impressionistic approach of
| | 05:27 | "I'm not actually taking a
picture of a particular landscape;
| | 05:29 | I'm just taking a picture of the light."
| | 05:31 | All photography is like that, to a degree.
| | 05:34 | In case you hadn't guessed, this is an HDR image.
| | 05:36 | This is one of my more HDR-ish images,
but I actually don't mind how much extra
| | 05:42 | HDR nonsense is going on in this image.
| | 05:44 | Shiprock, this is something
that we were working with earlier.
| | 05:47 | The sky was great that day.
| | 05:49 | I've done a lot of post-HDR processing on this.
| | 05:52 | I've painted a great highlight
into the middle of the image.
| | 05:55 | It's almost achieving a vignetting
effect, except I didn't want to darken the
| | 05:58 | sky, because I liked the wide-open sky.
| | 06:01 | I didn't want the viewer's
attention being brought into the middle.
| | 06:04 | I wanted to keep this expansiveness up here.
| | 06:07 | But I did want it to look like a hole in
the sky had opened, and a bunch of light
| | 06:10 | was being cast here.
| | 06:12 | So, this is a fairly complex, circular
gradient that's creating a field of light right here.
| | 06:18 | Another way you could have achieved
this would be to add a vignette to the
| | 06:22 | image, and then composite it with a
second image, and remove the vignette from it.
| | 06:28 | This is a fairly just geometric form.
| | 06:31 | This is an example of very exaggerated blacks.
| | 06:33 | My eye can actually see full detail
in here and full detail in the tree.
| | 06:36 | But what's so great about this tree are
these weird snake-like arms that it has,
| | 06:41 | and I wanted to really exaggerate that.
| | 06:43 | So, I fixed the sky with a levels adjustment.
| | 06:45 | That's got a gradient coming down this way.
I painted in just lots of darkening by hand.
| | 06:51 | This is using a very broad, very soft
brush to get darkening where I want it,
| | 06:55 | painting then with gray in here on the mask.
| | 06:57 | Then I darkened up the tree some by hand.
| | 07:00 | This is another rather extreme HDR image,
| | 07:02 | but I think this one works just
because it was a very dramatic day.
| | 07:06 | This is behind Ubehebe Crator in Death Valley.
| | 07:09 | I am telling you that specific location simply,
because I wanted an excuse to say Ubehebe.
| | 07:13 | Ubehebe Crater is a volcanic crater
at the northern end of Death Valley.
| | 07:17 | That's very dramatic.
| | 07:18 | One of the things about it is the
landscape around it is all this volcanic
| | 07:23 | landscape that's very baren and moonlike.
| | 07:24 | I happened to turn around just right as
the sun was breaking through and casting
| | 07:28 | these incredible shafts of
light down onto the ground.
| | 07:32 | Do not keep your lens cap on
when you're landscape shooting.
| | 07:35 | Keep your camera powered up, your lens cap off,
and your most flexible lens on your camera.
| | 07:39 | I had about 15 seconds to get this shot.
| | 07:42 | I managed to get my camera
settings set accordingly,
| | 07:45 | that was get it in Drive mode, get in
Aperture Priority, set my aperture, put it
| | 07:49 | on Auto Exposure Bracketing and get the shot.
| | 07:51 | If I had had to take the lens cap off,
and change lenses, or even just turn the
| | 07:55 | camera on, I might have missed it.
| | 07:56 | Another HDR image.
| | 07:59 | My taste has changed since I did this
image. I would do this image differently now.
| | 08:01 | I would back off on
some of this background detail.
| | 08:04 | I like the sky, and I like the fact
that it really did kind of feel like this
| | 08:08 | when I was there, not at all a literal image.
| | 08:11 | Driving down the road, I
realized, wow, this was weird.
| | 08:15 | This road has half black and half white.
| | 08:17 | Mostly, that's all that had caught my eye.
| | 08:20 | I was driving pretty fast.
| | 08:21 | So I had got into the bottom of the hill,
before I had slowed down enough to take the shot.
| | 08:26 | Then I realized well, there was a
moment up above where I noticed black and
| | 08:30 | white road with this mountain behind it.
| | 08:32 | So I turned the car around.
| | 08:34 | That's a technique that we
have not detailed in this lesson.
| | 08:38 | But one of the most important
photographic techniques you'll ever use is the
| | 08:41 | U-turn, whether that's a three-point
turn or a five-point turn, or if it's a
| | 08:45 | really narrow road maybe even a
seven point turn; it doesn't matter.
| | 08:49 | You've got to go back and get the shot.
| | 08:51 | When you get that hit of "I think
there is a picture back there,"
| | 08:54 | you've just got to turn around and go.
| | 08:56 | Sometimes they= hit is just a flash.
| | 08:58 | It's a very, very, very
subtle impulse that just hits you.
| | 09:02 | It may take you half a mile to
decelerate and get turned around and go back, or
| | 09:05 | find a place where you can turn around safely.
| | 09:08 | I had taken more images after
U-turns than any other type of image.
| | 09:13 | It's a critical photographic technique.
| | 09:16 | Because this image had originally
struck me as this contrast between the left
| | 09:19 | and right side of the road, and the
darkness of these up here, it then became
| | 09:23 | very obviously to me a black-and-white image.
| | 09:26 | This is pretty much the exact opposite.
| | 09:28 | Again, an HDR image, but this as one
where I think the extra HDR oomph actually
| | 09:32 | does add something.
| | 09:34 | However, the image did not come out
of the HDR converter looking like this.
| | 09:38 | I've done a whole lot of painting.
| | 09:40 | Same thing, the bulk of what makes
this image work is I've painted a big pool
| | 09:44 | of light right here.
| | 09:46 | Again, your job as a photographer is to
guide the viewers' eye through the image.
| | 09:50 | If there is a subject to this image,
I don't believe it's this road.
| | 09:54 | I don't believe it's the dramatic sky up here.
| | 09:56 | I think it's this pool of light.
| | 09:58 | Even though this part of
the image is completely empty,
| | 10:01 | your eye is just guided right into here,
and then it just follows the road.
| | 10:05 | This is more of a definitely just
atmospheric tonal piece than anything else.
| | 10:09 | Another example of low contrast
working very well: I've added a bunch of
| | 10:13 | contrast into the mountain,
and then pulled it way back.
| | 10:16 | This is kind of what it
looked like while I was there.
| | 10:19 | I was really struck by just this
strange kind of ghostly mountain off in the
| | 10:22 | distance. I also did some work of
adding a gradient to darken this as it
| | 10:27 | recedes, to create more of a sense of death.
| | 10:30 | This one was pretty easy.
| | 10:31 | It just looked like this.
| | 10:32 | The sky was breaking up,
and this road was all lit up.
| | 10:34 | I've done some contrast adjustment to
exaggerate those tones, and to knock out
| | 10:39 | some of the foreground.
| | 10:40 | That's it. As you can see, it's
mostly about thinking about light.
| | 10:46 | As we said at the beginning,
that's what landscape photography is.
| | 10:49 | Very often, you're not
taking a picture of a landscape;
| | 10:51 | you're taking a picture of the light that
just happens to be around that landscape.
| | 10:55 | You're looking like mad to try to
find something in the landscape to anchor
| | 11:00 | that light to.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Outputting ImagesSizing| 00:00 | No one takes pictures just to
correct and edit them, of course.
| | 00:03 | At some point you want to get your
pictures out into the world, either as print
| | 00:07 | or delivered as electronic
images via e-mail or the web.
| | 00:10 | To preserve the best possible image
quality for your output though, you need to
| | 00:14 | follow a fairly strict procedure when
outputting your files, and that process
| | 00:17 | begins with sizing your image for output.
| | 00:20 | Most digital cameras these days capture
a tremendous number of pixels, tens of
| | 00:24 | millions of them in some cases.
| | 00:26 | And very often these are far more
pixels than you need. To get accurate results
| | 00:30 | when sharpening and to speed the
process of printing or saving and
| | 00:33 | transmitting a file,
| | 00:34 | it's best to size your image to the
print side that you want using Photoshop.
| | 00:38 | We are going to size this image, with the
idea of making an 8X10 inch print out of it.
| | 00:44 | Now whether we were going to a bigger
print size or an electronic file, we would
| | 00:48 | still use the same tool for sizing our image.
| | 00:51 | We are going to assume an 8 x 10 inch print.
| | 00:53 | In Photoshop, all image sizing is done
by going to the Image menu and choosing
| | 00:58 | Image Size, which brings up Photoshop's
Image Size dialog box, which is not just
| | 01:03 | how you can resize your image.
| | 01:05 | It's also a nice little calculator for
determining how big an image might be
| | 01:09 | able to go before you start
seeing some visible degradation.
| | 01:13 | The Image Size dialog box
is divided into two areas.
| | 01:16 | There is Pixel Dimensions.
| | 01:17 | These are how many pixels are in my image?
| | 01:19 | This image is 4300 x 2900 pixels.
| | 01:22 | Then there is Document Size.
| | 01:24 | This is how big of a print will come
out of this particular group of pixels.
| | 01:30 | So right now, if I were to print this, it
would be 18 x 12 inches because it has a
| | 01:36 | resolution of 240 pixels per inch.
| | 01:39 | In other words, if I take these 4,368
pixels and line them up so that there are
| | 01:44 | 240 of them per inch, I will
have a width of 18 inches.
| | 01:49 | Let's do a little digging
around in the dialog box here.
| | 01:52 | I am going to uncheck this Resample Image box.
| | 01:55 | Resample means that Photoshop is allowed
to throw out pixels or make up new pixels.
| | 02:01 | When Resample Image is checked,
all of these boxes are editable.
| | 02:04 | I'm going to uncheck it.
| | 02:06 | And you'll notice the first thing that
happens is Width and Height are no longer editable,
| | 02:11 | Width and Height in Pixel Dimensions, I mean.
| | 02:13 | I cannot change the
number of pixels in an image.
| | 02:16 | All I can do is change the Print Size.
| | 02:18 | So I'm fixed at having 4300 x 2900 pixels.
| | 02:22 | Let's say I change this to 10 inches.
| | 02:27 | Photoshop automatically calculates
that for the size of this image, 10 inches
| | 02:31 | wide, my height will be 6.667 inches,
to be precise, at a resolution of 436.8.
| | 02:38 | So let's talk about this problem first.
| | 02:40 | I said I wanted an 8 x 10.
| | 02:42 | Well 8 x 10 is not a three to two aspect
ratio, and that's what this image was shot at.
| | 02:47 | So there is no way that I can
get an 8X10 without cropping.
| | 02:50 | So I am going to give up on the 8 x 10 idea,
| | 02:52 | and say, well, I'll put this
in something that's 10 inches wide.
| | 02:55 | And I'll just have some extra space
about and below so it will be 10 x 6.
| | 02:57 | We will talk about cropping it down later.
| | 03:00 | That's an additional option.
| | 03:02 | But I really composed of this image within
the full frame, so I'd rather not crop it.
| | 03:06 | However, when I sized my image down to
10 inches, my Resolution went way up.
| | 03:11 | Because again, I've got 4,300 pixels, that
can not change, so the only way to get
| | 03:15 | an image that's 10 inches wide is to
crush the pixels in closer together so that
| | 03:20 | there are 436.8 of them for every inch.
| | 03:25 | Do I care what the Resolution is?
| | 03:27 | I certainly care what the
Resolution is if the Resolution is too low.
| | 03:30 | Do I care about having too much? Yes.
| | 03:34 | You don't necessarily have to, but it's
a good idea to build resolution that's
| | 03:37 | appropriate for your
printer, for a couple reasons.
| | 03:39 | It'll make your files smaller.
| | 03:41 | It will make your printing go quicker
because you won't have as much data to
| | 03:45 | transmit to the printer,
| | 03:46 | and the printer won't have to sit there
and chug through a whole bunch of extra
| | 03:48 | pixels that it doesn't need.
| | 03:50 | And it will make your sharpening
efforts possibly more accurate.
| | 03:54 | On a desktop inkjet photo printer,
that is a printer that has six or more
| | 03:58 | ink cartridges in it,
| | 04:00 | you really never need a
resolution higher than 240 pixels per inch.
| | 04:05 | You can go up to 300, that's okay, but
240 is kind of about as good as you need.
| | 04:11 | If you were to take this out to another
printing technology, maybe to send it to
| | 04:14 | an offset printing place, they might want 300.
| | 04:16 | So let's just go ahead at 300, and then
we will have an option for printing on an
| | 04:20 | inkjet or some other way.
| | 04:22 | So if I change Resolution now
to 300, uh oh. Now my Width changed.
| | 04:27 | It went back up to 14.
| | 04:29 | Again, this is because I cannot lose
any pixels in this image, because these
| | 04:34 | aren't editable right now.
| | 04:36 | And Photoshop indicates this by
showing that all three of these fields
| | 04:39 | are linked together.
| | 04:40 | I cannot change one without the other.
| | 04:42 | You can think of pixels as
a quantity of brown sugar.
| | 04:46 | You can pour a certain amount of brown sugar
into one size cup and fill it up to the top.
| | 04:50 | You could then take that brown sugar
and stick it in a smaller cup and possibly
| | 04:54 | crunch it down to fit in there.
| | 04:55 | You're not changing the size of the
brown sugar grains, but you are compressing
| | 04:59 | them closer together.
| | 05:00 | You're increasing the resolution, the density.
| | 05:02 | That's what we are doing with these pixels.
| | 05:04 | What I would like to do is be
able to have 10 inches wide at 300.
| | 05:08 | But again, I can't do that right now
because these three things are linked together.
| | 05:12 | To unlink them and get what I want, I
have to check the Resample Image box.
| | 05:17 | So now these are editable.
| | 05:19 | I've got a Width 10 inches.
| | 05:20 | If you notice, I currently have 4300
pixels for 72 mega-pixels worth of data.
| | 05:26 | If I crunch this down to 300, my
pixel count just dropped a lot.
| | 05:31 | It dropped down to 3000 and my
overall dimension is changed.
| | 05:34 | So now I have a 10 x 6 at 300 pixels per inch.
| | 05:38 | This is now resized properly for print.
| | 05:42 | Let's look though at trying to
get an actual 8 x 10 out of this.
| | 05:46 | There is no way I can get 8 x 10 out of
this using the Image Size dialog box,
| | 05:52 | because if I put 8 in here, 10 will
change because Width and Height are linked
| | 05:57 | together because I have
Constrain Proportions checked.
| | 06:00 | So I have to actually go into a
crop now to get this down to 8 x 10.
| | 06:03 | I am going to cancel out of here.
| | 06:05 | So no changes have been made.
| | 06:06 | And I am going to grab Photoshop's Crop tool.
| | 06:09 | I can specify, though, the
dimensions that I would like to crop to.
| | 06:13 | I would like 10 inches wide and 8 inches high.
| | 06:18 | I don't have to fill in the Resolution
field if I don't want to, but I'll go
| | 06:21 | ahead and put it at 300.
| | 06:22 | That'll just save me from having
to type that in later in Camera Raw.
| | 06:25 | And I am going to hit the Caps Lock key
to change from the Crop tool cursor just
| | 06:32 | to crosshairs, because I find that easier.
| | 06:34 | And I am going to start dragging a crop.
| | 06:36 | Now this is a constrained crop. I can
only drag out something that is the correct
| | 06:41 | aspect ratio for 8 x 10.
| | 06:43 | So Photoshop CS5 has a couple
of new features in its Crop tool.
| | 06:47 | It's got this Crop Guide Overlay, which lets
me display these different grids and things.
| | 06:52 | I don't actually want those
right now; those are distracting.
| | 06:55 | And as in previous versions of Photoshop,
I have this shield that comes over here
| | 06:59 | that hides more of my image.
| | 07:01 | I can change the color of it how pink it
is and just trying to give me a preview
| | 07:04 | of what the crop will look like.
| | 07:06 | So my goal here now is to find a good crop.
| | 07:08 | And I'll say, right off the bat, that I'm
not going to think any of these are good
| | 07:12 | crops, because I really framed this
in the camera the way that I wanted.
| | 07:16 | But really the big part of his
image is this cloud thing right here.
| | 07:20 | I could take this crop.
| | 07:21 | It looks weird to me because
I've got all these stuff up here.
| | 07:23 | So I am going to try squeezing that
down to there to bring a little more focus
| | 07:30 | just to this big, brightly-colored thing here.
| | 07:33 | So the image is losing a lot, but I am
going to go ahead and take that crop.
| | 07:37 | Photoshop is going to think about it.
| | 07:40 | And when it's done, I'll go to the Image
Size dialog box and double check that it
| | 07:44 | has put my crop where I want it.
| | 07:48 | Image > Image Size, and now I have a 10 x 8 at 300.
| | 07:54 | So if I had to fit this into a
particular frame size, or output to a particular
| | 07:58 | size to go on a specific size box in a
web page or something like that, I could
| | 08:03 | do that very easily with the Crop tool.
| | 08:05 | So this is the Image Size dialog box.
You will be using it probably on every
| | 08:10 | image that you output.
| | 08:11 | If you're going out to the web, you
will possibly have specific pixel
| | 08:14 | dimensions in mind.
| | 08:15 | You might need to output
an image that's 640 x 480.
| | 08:19 | I can just type 640 in here.
| | 08:20 | And then I see that okay I've got the
wrong aspect ratio for 640 x 480, because
| | 08:25 | that would be a four to three aspect ratio.
| | 08:28 | Anyway, I could work through this again
and get those to the sizes that I want.
| | 08:31 | How large should you go for print?
| | 08:34 | A lot of people think that, well, if my
printer wants 300 dots per inch then I
| | 08:38 | have to always have 300 dots per inch.
| | 08:40 | And that's not true, because as an image
goes larger, you view it from farther away.
| | 08:46 | If you're printing out 11 x 17 or 13 x 19
inch image you are probably going to frame
| | 08:51 | that and hang it on the wall.
| | 08:52 | You're inherently going to stand at a
greater distance from that then you would
| | 08:56 | a 4 x 6, which you are going to
hold in your hand and look at.
| | 08:59 | So as image size goes up, the
resolution that you need can go down.
| | 09:04 | Now we are going to talk about
enlarging and reduction in the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enlarging and reducing| 00:00 | You'll almost always need to
reduce your images for output because
| | 00:03 | typically your camera will capture
far more data than you need for most
| | 00:07 | common print sizes.
| | 00:08 | But occasionally, you'll want to
enlarge them to produce poster size prints.
| | 00:11 | Especially as a landscape photographer,
you'll probably find yourself wanting to
| | 00:14 | print big, whether you have a large
printer of your own or you're using an
| | 00:17 | online photo printing service.
| | 00:19 | You can handle all that resizing in
Photoshop's Image Size dialog box.
| | 00:23 | We looked at the Image Size in the
last lesson and went through its controls.
| | 00:27 | We were entirely doing
reductions in the last lesson.
| | 00:30 | We're going to talk about enlargements now.
| | 00:33 | So I've got here my image as it came out
of the camera, 4300 x 2900 pixels. It's set
| | 00:37 | for 240 pixels per inch,
which gives me an 18 x 12.
| | 00:41 | It's defaulting to 240 because, as I
mentioned before, that's pretty much of all
| | 00:45 | the resolution that you
need for an inkjet print.
| | 00:49 | So let's look at if we wanted to go
bigger, so 18X12, all that's a pretty big.
| | 00:52 | Well, let's say we wanted a 24 inch-wide image.
| | 00:54 | I'm going to turn off Resample.
| | 00:57 | I always do this first.
| | 00:58 | I work with Resample off, just to see
what I can get away with the native
| | 01:02 | resolution of the image.
| | 01:04 | So if I hit 24 inches wide,
my resolution goes down to 180.
| | 01:08 | That's really not bad for a large
print because, as I mentioned before, a
| | 01:12 | large print is going to be viewed
from farther away, so you don't need
| | 01:16 | super-dense pixel resolution.
| | 01:18 | Billboards have a resolution of two or
three pixels per inch, because they're
| | 01:21 | viewed from hundreds of
yards away, and they look fine.
| | 01:25 | If you're just looking from across your
living room, you can probably get away
| | 01:27 | with pretty low resolution.
| | 01:29 | But let's say I wanted to go up to 36
inches wid.,Mmaybe I have a very large
| | 01:33 | printer at my disposal, and
I want a huge print of this.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm down to 121.
| | 01:37 | That's getting pretty low.
| | 01:39 | That's probably lower
than we would like to have.
| | 01:41 | If we could get that back up to
180, would be in pretty good shape.
| | 01:45 | Obviously, if we could get it up to
the 300, we'd be in great shape, but we
| | 01:48 | don't need a 300 pixel
per inch image at the size.
| | 01:52 | So let's put it back up to 180.
| | 01:54 | As we saw before, if I put in 180 here,
my print size goes back down to 24,
| | 01:59 | because all three of these are linked,
because I cannot change the number of
| | 02:03 | pixels in the image.
| | 02:04 | I want to change a number of pixels in the
image, so I'm going to check Resample image.
| | 02:09 | I'm at 180 here, which is good.
| | 02:12 | I'm going to put this thing back up to 36.
| | 02:15 | Now when I do that, Photoshop has to
make up some data. Look at my Width.
| | 02:20 | It's gone from 4000 up to 6000.
| | 02:23 | Photoshop is going to have to
interpolate and add some pixels.
| | 02:26 | It's going to analyze each pair of
pixels and find new data to go in
| | 02:31 | between them, and it has many
different algorithms that it can use for
| | 02:35 | doing that interpolation.
| | 02:36 | That's what this pop-up menu is down here.
| | 02:38 | It defaults to a Bicubic Interpolation.
| | 02:41 | These are just the names of the algorithms
the Photoshop uses for making up new pixels.
| | 02:46 | If I open it up, you see we have several
algorithms, and one of them is listed as
| | 02:50 | best for enlargement, Bicubic Smoother.
| | 02:53 | It's really worth checking this.
| | 02:55 | You can get good results from Bicubic,
but a lot of times you will notice better
| | 02:58 | results with Bicubic
Smoother, and where you'll notice it,
| | 03:01 | actually in the image, we'd probably do
fine with Bicubic, because we don't have
| | 03:05 | any really strong diagonal lines
that could start to show stair stepping.
| | 03:10 | So it's just best to always choose
Bicubic Smoother for when you're enlarging.
| | 03:13 | Bicubic can be used for enlarging or reduction.
| | 03:16 | Photoshop also includes Bicubic Sharper,
which they say is best for reduction,
| | 03:19 | and it does do a very good job with reduction.
| | 03:21 | I've never been able to tell as much
difference between Bicubic and Bicubic Sharper.
| | 03:26 | But when you're reducing, there's
no harm in switching over to this.
| | 03:28 | So, we put this on Bicubic Smoother,
and then we hit OK, and Photoshop is going
| | 03:33 | to think for awhile because it's
got a bunch of data to make up.
| | 03:38 | But when it's done, my image comes in
zoomed in, because it's still - I was set
| | 03:43 | at 22% before, as far as my zoom ratio goes,
and now I'm zoomed in to a larger image.
| | 03:48 | So, let's go back up to the Image Size,
and we'll see that I've now 6400 pixels.
| | 03:53 | My image has gone up to 160 megabytes.
| | 03:56 | I'm going to hit Command+0 to fit the image.
| | 03:59 | My image doesn't look that much
different, except that when I started looking
| | 04:03 | down here, I see it's a lot softer, and
that's the first you're going to notice
| | 04:07 | anytime you do an enlargement is
you're going to suffer a sharpness penalty.
| | 04:12 | This is why, in our Output Workflow,
we start with sizing our image, because
| | 04:17 | there's no point in sharpening an image
if we're then going to blow it up later
| | 04:22 | and introduce a bunch of softening.
| | 04:23 | Similarly, there's no point in
sharpening an image if we're going to reduce it,
| | 04:27 | because when we reduce an image,
we will pick up some sharpness.
| | 04:30 | So we do our sizing first.
| | 04:32 | So plainly, this image is going to need
a fairly aggressive level of sharpening
| | 04:36 | before we're ready to output.
| | 04:38 | If you get lost in the in Image Size
dialog box, just remember, look for its clues.
| | 04:42 | Over here, it shows you which fields
are linked together and pay attention to
| | 04:46 | the fact that one box is total number
of pixels in the image, the other box is
| | 04:51 | Print Size, and there's a
relationship between these two things.
| | 04:54 | Image Size is very well designed in
its interface and in cluing you in to how
| | 04:58 | these things work together.
| | 04:59 | And with just a little bit of the
practice, you'll get good at using it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving| 00:00 | We need to talk for a minute
about a Version Control issue here.
| | 00:04 | We've resized the image and in doing so,
I've sizes down to 8 x 10, so I've thrown
| | 00:08 | out a bunch of pixels.
| | 00:09 | So I had my original version that I
opened, which has my full pixel data and now
| | 00:14 | I have sampled it down.
| | 00:15 | I've thrown it out in a bunch of
data because I want to print 8 x 10.
| | 00:18 | I do not now want to save over my
original image, because my original image
| | 00:23 | is chock-full of data.
| | 00:25 | It has got far more pixels then I need for 8 x 10.
| | 00:27 | So if I later want to print say a 13 x 19,
I'll want to have all of that data,
| | 00:32 | and I won't want to have to go
to and redo all of my adjustments.
| | 00:35 | So having saved my image, it's very
important that I now go and choose Save As
| | 00:42 | and give it a different name.
| | 00:45 | And so what I usually do is label it a
print image, and tell the size, and save that out.
| | 00:51 | I'm saving as a Photoshop document, because
I want to keep all of my adjustment layers.
| | 00:56 | I will definitely keep separate
documents for different print sizes.
| | 01:00 | I will sometimes even keep separate
documents for different print sizes on
| | 01:03 | different types of paper, because
different types of paper need different
| | 01:07 | adjustments, and we'll talk about them
more when we get into paper selection.
| | 01:10 | But very important that you do a Save
As, and save out your data at a particular
| | 01:16 | size, so that you don't overwrite
your original, robust, data-heavy image.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sharpening| 00:00 | As mentioned earlier, RAW files always
come out of your camera a little bit soft.
| | 00:05 | This is an unfortunate result of the
methods that cameras use to capture color.
| | 00:09 | Fortunately, it's only a little bit of
softening, and it's something that can
| | 00:12 | easily be corrected in Photoshop
via a little bit of sharpening.
| | 00:16 | However, sharpening is something that
can quickly go awry, so it's important
| | 00:20 | to sharpen intelligently.
| | 00:22 | A few things to know about sharpening;
first of all, it's not actually possible.
| | 00:26 | We're not going to be sharpening the image;
| | 00:28 | we cannot take an image that's
out of focus and make it sharper.
| | 00:30 | What we can do though, is exploit a
kind of optical illusion to get the
| | 00:34 | appearance of more sharpness, and that optical
illusion involves something called acuteness.
| | 00:39 | We are going to make the
edges in the image more acute.
| | 00:44 | An edge has a light side and a dark side, always.
| | 00:47 | So, we are going to run a process
that will lighten the pixels on the light
| | 00:52 | side of every edge in the image and darken
the pixels on the dark side of every image.
| | 00:56 | That will serve to make the edge more
acute, and will stand down a little more,
| | 01:00 | and overall our image will appear sharper.
| | 01:03 | Second, we always, when
sharpening, view our image at 100%.
| | 01:06 | Now, I've said at other times in this
course that while at 100% you don't need
| | 01:11 | to worry about how much noise you're
seeing or other possible artifacts because
| | 01:14 | the odds of those showing up in
print are very slim, and that's true, but
| | 01:18 | sharpening is going to be
easier to assess viewing at 100%.
| | 01:23 | Finally, we want to make sure we're on
the right layer. A lot of times you'll
| | 01:25 | fire up a sharpening plug-in and only
to find that it is not doing anything and
| | 01:30 | if you look a little closer, you'll
see that possibly you've selected an
| | 01:33 | adjustment layer and what you're
actually doing is sharpening that mask rather
| | 01:36 | than sharpening the image data.
| | 01:37 | So, we select the image
data layer and sharpen that.
| | 01:43 | Filter > Sharpen, and we find a
bunch of different sharpening algorithms.
| | 01:47 | The one we're interested in is Smart Sharpen.
| | 01:50 | This is really the only one you
need to concern yourself with.
| | 01:53 | It's a variation of Unsharp Mask,
which is actually a traditional darkroom
| | 01:57 | technique for sharpening.
| | 01:59 | Bring up the Smart Sharpen dialog box,
and you see that I get a preview here of
| | 02:04 | my image, but also the current
sharpening settings are being applied to the
| | 02:08 | image in the background, so
I can see it in both places.
| | 02:10 | The cool thing about this preview, if I
click and hold the mouse button, the
| | 02:13 | sharpening is removed.
| | 02:15 | So there's my original image.
| | 02:17 | I can let go the mouse button
and see the sharpened version.
| | 02:20 | So I've got before and after.
| | 02:23 | To see what sharpening is really up to,
let's crank the sharpening real far.
| | 02:27 | You may think, well, I want my
images as sharp as possible.
| | 02:29 | I'm just going to turn
sharpening up all the way.
| | 02:30 | Well, this is what happens when
you turn sharpening up all the way,
| | 02:34 | This edge along the mountains here, now
you can really see that the dark side of
| | 02:38 | it is very, very dark, and the
light side of it is very, very light.
| | 02:41 | Well, that's happening to every little
edge in the image, and so it's making this
| | 02:45 | image that's all crackly
and noisy and basically ugly.
| | 02:49 | So here, you can really see that we
are not actually sharpening the image.
| | 02:52 | We are just simply doing a whole bunch
of little halos in the image, and if I
| | 02:56 | crank my settings too far,
I actually see the halos.
| | 02:59 | For a typical 10 to 12 megapixel image,
you're probably going to fall somewhere
| | 03:04 | around here, in 90% Amount, Radius of 0.9.
| | 03:06 | Amount is how much brightening and
darkening is being applied to each edge.
| | 03:11 | Radius is how wide that edge is.
| | 03:13 | The rest of the defaults - you can leave them.
| | 03:16 | How much sharpening to apply?
| | 03:19 | Obviously, our main concern is
we don't want to apply too much.
| | 03:22 | We don't want to get to the point where
we're seeing that crackly, over-sharpened
| | 03:26 | look, and once you're kind of turned on
to this problem, you're probably going
| | 03:30 | to start to notice it in more places;
| | 03:32 | you're going to see that, maybe
sometimes if you're shooting JPEG with your
| | 03:35 | camera that it oversharpens
and edges have little halos.
| | 03:38 | You'll see a lot of stuff posted on
the web that's been oversharpened.
| | 03:41 | More sharpening is not necessarily a good thing;
| | 03:43 | in fact, very often it's a very bad thing.
| | 03:46 | So, what we want is enough sharpness
to give it just a little more clarity
| | 03:50 | without introducing those halos, and
remember, as you blow your image up larger,
| | 03:56 | you will be viewing it from farther away.
| | 03:58 | People think, well, I am
viewing something really big.
| | 03:59 | It's got to be very, very sharp.
| | 04:00 | Well, no, if you're looking at it from
across the room, sharpness is not so critical.
| | 04:04 | So probably right around in here is okay.
| | 04:07 | The other thing I'm trying to balance
though, is this image has some noise and
| | 04:10 | so I'm sharpening that noise, which is making
the noise more apparent, and that's no good.
| | 04:13 | I'm going to go ahead and hit OK,
but we're not going to keep this
| | 04:17 | sharpening, and here's why.
| | 04:18 | First of all, sharpening is a destructive edit.
| | 04:21 | We don't want to muck up our image data
because we may print this and find the
| | 04:26 | sharpening settings were wrong,
and we're going to want to undo them.
| | 04:29 | Well, that's not going to be possible later.
| | 04:30 | But more importantly, the reason I'm not
going to keep this level of sharpening
| | 04:34 | is I actually don't want to sharpen
the whole image, for a couple of reasons.
| | 04:38 | I don't want to exaggerate this
noise here, and there's no reason to
| | 04:41 | be sharpening clouds.
| | 04:43 | Clouds are inherently pretty soft
things, so why should I worry about adding
| | 04:47 | any sharpening to them, particularly when
that sharpening is making noise more pronounced?
| | 04:51 | So I'm going to undo that
sharpening, and we're going to sharpen in a
| | 04:54 | nondestructive manner.
| | 04:56 | Photoshop does not have a built-in
nondestructive sharpening feature, but we can
| | 05:01 | make one of our own using
the same type of technique
| | 05:04 | we've been using with our adjustment layers.
| | 05:05 | The first thing I'm going to do is duplicate
the background by dragging it down here
| | 05:09 | to the Create New Layer button.
That gives me a background copy.
| | 05:13 | So I've got two identical copies of my
image, and now I'm going to sharpen this
| | 05:18 | layer. And since I know the sharpening
settings that I used last time are still
| | 05:23 | correct, I'm just going to go up here to Filter.
| | 05:24 | Here's the last filter that I applied.
| | 05:27 | I'm just going to take that, and it's doing
| | 05:29 | its sharpening thing, and when it's
done, my upper layer is sharpened; my
| | 05:34 | lower layer is not.
| | 05:35 | So now if I hide this layer,
you see the softer layer below it.
| | 05:39 | So what would be nice is if there was a
way of combining the sharp parts of the
| | 05:43 | top layer with the nice,
soft parts of the bottom layer.
| | 05:48 | Well you already know how to do that.
| | 05:49 | That's with a mask. But there's
no masking thing right here now.
| | 05:53 | Well, by default, an image layer does
not come in with an adjustment mask.
| | 05:57 | We have to add one.
| | 05:58 | So, if I go up here to Layer > Layer Mask,
this is going to let me add a layer mask.
| | 06:05 | I'm going to add one that hides all of
the image that it's attached to, and what
| | 06:10 | that means is I come in
with a mask that's black.
| | 06:13 | Now, what you know from your layer
masking experience and with Adjustment layers
| | 06:17 | is that if I now paint white into
this layer mask, I will reveal the
| | 06:21 | corresponding parts of this image.
| | 06:23 | Well, this image has been sharpened.
| | 06:24 | So basically I'm going to
be painting in sharpening.
| | 06:28 | So I'm going to pick white there,
I'm going to take a nice big brush, and
| | 06:33 | there you can see it. It punched a little
hole in the mask, and now those areas of
| | 06:37 | the mask are sharp.
| | 06:40 | Another strange thing about sharpening,
and we talked about this when talking
| | 06:43 | about shooting depth of field,
sharpening can recede into the background because
| | 06:48 | we don't expect things in
the background to be as sharp.
| | 06:50 | They don't have as much detail.
| | 06:52 | So there's really very little need
to apply sharpening to these mountains,
| | 06:56 | because we're mostly just adding noise there.
| | 06:59 | So what I'm actually going to do with
this image is apply a gradient filter to
| | 07:03 | my sharpening, so that'll make sure
that my foreground is nice and sharp, but I
| | 07:07 | won't end up sharpening these mountains,
which don't sharpen up that much anyway
| | 07:11 | and really just fill with noise.
| | 07:13 | So, just as we were doing with our
adjustment layers, I've just grabbed my Gradient tool.
| | 07:18 | I got white and black selected.
I'm holding the Shift key to drag a straight
| | 07:20 | line, and I'm creating a gradient there.
| | 07:23 | So now you can see that the
foreground of my image is white; it's
| | 07:26 | getting sharpening.
| | 07:27 | It's fading into the background, which
is not getting any sharpening at all.
| | 07:31 | So my clouds don't have that
oversharpened noisy look to them.
| | 07:36 | We can easily see it before and after.
Obviously, we're zoomed out now, so we're
| | 07:38 | not going to see as much of a
difference, in fact we're not going to see any
| | 07:41 | difference at that size. We were only 20%.
| | 07:43 | Let's go out a little bit bigger
there, so that's sharpened. That's not.
| | 07:49 | I'm just showing the
sharpened layer and hiding the others.
| | 07:53 | In landscape photography, you very often
will want to use a protective sharpening
| | 07:57 | like this because there's
no need to sharpen skies.
| | 07:59 | There is no need to sharpen distant,
slightly-out-of-focus background things in
| | 08:04 | your image, and the less sharpening
you can apply to an image, the better off
| | 08:08 | you are in terms of noise.
| | 08:10 | So that's sharpening: something you will
do to every image, after you've resized.
| | 08:15 | Now, that we are working on the saved
version that we had saved after we resized,
| | 08:19 | so I can just save this image and
continue with my output workflow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Outputting an electronic file| 00:00 | There are many forms of
electronic display and delivery of images.
| | 00:04 | You can e-mail an image, put in on a
photo sharing site, add it to your blog,
| | 00:08 | stick it in a PowerPoint presentation
and so on. Or we might need to deliver a
| | 00:13 | high-quality electronic file
to a publisher, or a magazine.
| | 00:16 | If you need to output an electronic
file, you'll first go through your sizing
| | 00:20 | and sharpening process, as we've already
done, and then you'll be ready to save it.
| | 00:23 | So I have this image here that I
am going to e-mail to somebody.
| | 00:26 | So I've gone ahead and sized it
down to a good e-mail size: 800 x 533.
| | 00:32 | When I'm outputting just for web
or electronic delivery, I don't care
| | 00:36 | about document size.
| | 00:37 | It doesn't matter what the resolution is,
or what the print width and height are.
| | 00:41 | It's just about pixels.
| | 00:42 | All the pixels will be shown, unless
they have a facility for zooming in and out
| | 00:45 | on their web page or whatever,
but this part is irrelevant.
| | 00:47 | So I've got this to the size that I want.
| | 00:50 | My next step then is to flatten the image.
| | 00:52 | I'm going to save this as a JPEG,
and JPEGs don't support layers.
| | 00:56 | What's more, the image is
only going to be viewed.
| | 00:57 | No one needs access to these
adjustment layers to make changes or anything.
| | 01:01 | So I'm going to, in the Layers
palette, open this menu right here and
| | 01:05 | choose Flatten Image.
| | 01:07 | That applies the edits in those
adjustment layers to my image.
| | 01:11 | It basically kind of bakes
the edits under the image.
| | 01:14 | So here's my finished,
flattened, adjusted image.
| | 01:16 | I can also get to that Flatten
command up here from the Layer menu.
| | 01:20 | It's right down here.
It's grayed out now because I don't have layers.
| | 01:23 | So I've got a flattened image.
| | 01:25 | I'm almost ready to go.
| | 01:26 | Before I send an image out into the
world though, because images tend to float
| | 01:30 | around the web pretty easily, it's not
a bad idea for me to add some ownership
| | 01:34 | metadata to prove my ownership of this image.
| | 01:37 | So I'm going to go up here to
the File menu and choose File Info.
| | 01:42 | And here, I get access to a whole
bunch of metadata fields that I can edit.
| | 01:46 | These are standard fields that I
can include all sorts of information.
| | 01:51 | And IPTC is the International Press
Telecommunications, something that starts
| | 01:57 | with C. I think that was in there
and Council, International Press
| | 02:01 | Telecommunications Council.
| | 02:03 | These are metadata fields
that they've agreed upon.
| | 02:06 | And so these are used for newspaper and
magazine publishing, but they're also good for you.
| | 02:10 | You can put your obviously all of your
contact information and things in here.
| | 02:12 | I'm going to put my name.
Because I've typed it before,
| | 02:17 | it gives me an option, a shortcut there.
| | 02:20 | I can put multiple names.
| | 02:21 | When I fill in the Author field
that automatically also fills in the
| | 02:23 | Creator field in IPTC.
| | 02:25 | I would like to have my copyright information.
| | 02:27 | So I can choose Copyright here.
| | 02:29 | I can add a Copyright
Notice and a web address here.
| | 02:32 | This is the sort of thing that I'm to
be adding probably to all of my images
| | 02:35 | that I output, something
I'm doing very regularly.
| | 02:38 | So fortunately, Photoshop has a
facility for storing this as a template.
| | 02:41 | So I'm going to export this.
| | 02:45 | So that's this year's copyright information.
| | 02:47 | I'm going to hit Save. And now that's saved as a
metadata template, that perhaps we'll see I can apply
| | 02:52 | from a lot of different places.
| | 02:53 | From this dialog box, I can just
simply come down here and choose Import and
| | 02:57 | pick the template, or I can pick it
right there, and it'll fill in all these
| | 02:59 | fields the next time I open an image.
| | 03:01 | So now my metadata is applied to
that image. I'm ready to save.
| | 03:05 | There are a few different ways I
can save out of Photoshop CS5.
| | 03:08 | Again, my goal here is a JPEG.
| | 03:10 | I'm going to go up to file and choose Save As.
| | 03:14 | I can pick a location and
a name and just pick JPEG.
| | 03:18 | One of the nice things about CS5 now
is even when you have a 16-bit image, you
| | 03:22 | can now save as JPEG.
| | 03:24 | You couldn't do that in previous versions.
| | 03:25 | You had to convert down to 8-bit first.
| | 03:27 | So this is one option is saving out here.
| | 03:30 | Another option though, is to go up to
File and choose Save for Web & Devices.
| | 03:35 | This brings you up to the Save for Web
dialog box, which can automatically build
| | 03:41 | images optimized for the
web in particular formats.
| | 03:44 | So it's a good way of getting the
best quality you can out of a JPEG image.
| | 03:48 | Now by default, it's coming in as a GIF file.
| | 03:50 | We don't want that.
| | 03:51 | We want to change this preset up
here to one of these JPEGs settings.
| | 03:54 | So I'm going to choose High,
meaning the best quality.
| | 03:59 | And her,e it's filled in
somethings. It picked some quality levels.
| | 04:02 | It is automatically by
default converting to sRGB.
| | 04:06 | sRGB is a color space designed for the web.
| | 04:09 | It's not going to guarantee that
your image is going to look great on any
| | 04:12 | monitor out there in the world, but it
will improve your chances of your image
| | 04:16 | looking good on a majority of monitors.
| | 04:18 | So that's not a bad thing to keep checked.
| | 04:20 | You may have noticed a color shift in
your image, particularly in an image like
| | 04:23 | this that has lots of red in it.
| | 04:26 | This metadata thing here lets me
control what metadata that's already in the
| | 04:30 | image that will be included in the JPEG file.
| | 04:33 | In other words, I can have
that strip out certain metadata.
| | 04:36 | I could choose All, which will include
all of the camera and exposure metadata
| | 04:39 | and all that kind of stuff, or I
can include everything but that.
| | 04:42 | In this case, I'm going to just leave the
Copyright and Contact Info that we already added.
| | 04:46 | If I wanted, I could resize the image here.
| | 04:49 | It's still nicer to do the resizing on
your own in a controlled image size step.
| | 04:54 | I just feel like I get more control that way.
| | 04:55 | And I can get a better idea of
the trade-offs of different sizes.
| | 04:59 | So I can hit Save here,
and it would ask me where to save it.
| | 05:03 | So this is another very
nice way of saving JPEG images.
| | 05:07 | Very often though, you're not going
to be just outputting a single image.
| | 05:10 | You're going to be
outputting a whole mess of images.
| | 05:13 | And Bridge allows for some easy
batch processing capabilities.
| | 05:17 | I'm going to switch over to Bridge
here, where I've got a batch of images.
| | 05:20 | So let's say I wanted to
output these for the web.
| | 05:22 | The first thing I would want to do is
apply my metadata to all of the images.
| | 05:27 | So I'm going to go up here
to Edit and choose Select All.
| | 05:29 | Then if I go over here to the Tools
menu and choose Replace Metadata, I'm
| | 05:35 | going to replace all of the metadata
that's in this image with this template
| | 05:39 | that I created earlier.
| | 05:40 | So that template that we've created
in Photoshop is already over here.
| | 05:43 | So I can just pick this,
| | 05:44 | and it will replace any of the IPTC
metadata that's currently in the image with
| | 05:49 | what's in my template.
| | 05:50 | And my template had a lot of blank fields in it.
| | 05:52 | And I might have, at some point, filled in
some of the other fields on this image.
| | 05:56 | So I'm going to choose Append Metadata,
which will only fill in the fields that
| | 06:01 | were in this template.
| | 06:02 | So it's going to fill in my name and
copyright information. So I pick that.
| | 06:06 | At first, you may think, well, nothing
happened, but if you look down here you see
| | 06:09 | some progress indicators.
| | 06:11 | So it's added my
metadata to all of those images.
| | 06:14 | Now, I'm ready to spit them
out in whatever form I want.
| | 06:18 | And if you look, we've
got a variety of forms here.
| | 06:20 | We've got TIF files, and we've got PSDs.
| | 06:23 | So let's say I was going to put these
out as JPEGs, because I was going to e-mail
| | 06:27 | them, or maybe upload them to
Flickr, or something like that.
| | 06:29 | I could open up each image individually
and go through a save process, but that
| | 06:33 | would really be a drag.
| | 06:34 | Instead, I'd rather have
my computer work for me.
| | 06:36 | I'm going to go up to the Tools menu,
| | 06:38 | go to Photoshop and choose Image Processor.
| | 06:42 | This actually takes us back to
Photoshop because this is a Photoshop automation
| | 06:46 | script that's built into the CS5.
| | 06:48 | This was also in some
previous versions of Photoshop.
| | 06:51 | Select the images to process.
| | 06:53 | Well, I wanted to
process the images from Bridge.
| | 06:55 | There're 24 of them. Great.
| | 06:56 | Where do I want to save them?
| | 06:58 | I don't want to save them in the same location.
| | 06:59 | I could come down here,
| | 07:01 | and say, give me a New
Folder called Images For Web.
| | 07:07 | And they're going to go in here.
| | 07:09 | Now how would I like them to save?
| | 07:11 | I'm going to save them as JPEGs.
| | 07:12 | I want a higher quality than that.
| | 07:15 | And now, there's this cool thing: Resize to Fit.
| | 07:18 | Obviously, if you're resizing a
portrait oriented image, that's different from
| | 07:22 | how you might want to resize
a landscape oriented image.
| | 07:24 | I know that the widest dimension on my
target screen is, let's say, 700 pixels.
| | 07:31 | So I'm going to say resize this image
to fit in a 700 pixel box, or you could
| | 07:36 | say what's the tallest?
| | 07:37 | Well it may only be 500 pixels, so
I'm going to resize them to be 500.
| | 07:41 | I can actually spit out multiple formats.
| | 07:43 | I can also, at the same time, save a TIF file.
| | 07:45 | If I wanted, I could
also run a Photoshop Action.
| | 07:49 | So I might have an Action that I've defined
that maybe burns a watermark into the image.
| | 07:54 | I could check this, pick
the Action and have it added.
| | 07:57 | If I did not add my Copyright Info
through a metadata template, I could type it
| | 08:01 | in here, and it would be added.
| | 08:03 | Now when I hit Run, all of those
images will be written out as JPEGs.
| | 08:06 | That might take awhile, because
my original files are very large,
| | 08:10 | and there's a resizing step and some
other things, but I could go to lunch while
| | 08:13 | my images are exported.
| | 08:15 | You won't always be outputting as JPEGs.
| | 08:17 | Sometimes you will be needing to
output a quality file for inclusion in a
| | 08:21 | high-quality printing process of some kind.
| | 08:24 | For that, you're going to size
it appropriately, sharpen it,
| | 08:28 | flatten it, unless the person with that
asks specifically for a layered document.
| | 08:32 | Then choose Save As.
| | 08:33 | And you're probably going to want
to save as either Photoshop or TIF.
| | 08:37 | In most of these cases, if you're
going out to service bureau for printing or
| | 08:40 | a publisher for printing, you ought to ask
for very specific output export parameters.
| | 08:45 | Do they want 8-bit or 16?
| | 08:46 | Do they want a particular color space?
| | 08:48 | What file format do they want?
| | 08:50 | If you do need to change bit depth, you
can do that up here from Image > Mode.
| | 08:54 | I can knock this down to 8 Bits.
| | 08:56 | And then ask them what file format they need.
| | 08:58 | That's saving electronic files.
| | 09:00 | Next, we'll talk about outputting a web gallery.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making a web gallery| 00:00 | If you have your own blog or web site, then
you might want to host your own web galleries.
| | 00:05 | You can easily use Bridge to create a
flash-based gallery of images that's
| | 00:09 | very attractive, with its own
navigation system and everything.
| | 00:12 | I have got these images here.
| | 00:14 | I am going to select the all, because I
want all of these images in my gallery,
| | 00:17 | and I am just going to click
on this Output button over here.
| | 00:20 | When I do that, I come
into this Output workspace.
| | 00:23 | Now this is a little bit different
than these other workspace presets.
| | 00:26 | When I change from Essentials to
Filmstrip or Metadata, it kind of just
| | 00:29 | rearranges the existing
panes into different orders.
| | 00:31 | This adds to the whole new output pane
over here, which let's me do two things:
| | 00:36 | Let's me split out PDF contact sheets,
which can be handy if you need send
| | 00:40 | Thumbnails to somebody, or
let's me put out a web gallery.
| | 00:43 | Web galleries, again, they are flash-
based with their own navigation systems, and
| | 00:47 | there are many different templates
included, Left Filmstrip, Filmstrip, a
| | 00:51 | Journal with a Filmstrip.
| | 00:52 | Filmstrip refers to little thumbnails
that you can click on for navigation.
| | 00:56 | If you have been using Lightroom,
you can get a Lightroom gallery.
| | 01:00 | If you don't want to use Flash,
there is a pure HTML gallery.
| | 01:05 | It's really worth just going through
these on your own and finding the gallery
| | 01:09 | style that you like.
| | 01:10 | I am just going to pick Filmstrip here.
And then within each template there are
| | 01:14 | sometimes different styles, which have
to do with colors and that kind of thing.
| | 01:19 | So I have picked all of my images.
| | 01:21 | I get to now just fill in the
information for this gallery, so I will give it a
| | 01:24 | title, and I can have a caption for the
gallery, and I can go through and fill
| | 01:31 | in all this information.
| | 01:32 | I can put in my own
contact information and e-mail.
| | 01:35 | You'll see where all these goes
when we'll look at the gallery.
| | 01:37 | I have got full control over the
color of different elements. I can click on
| | 01:41 | these color swatches and change things.
| | 01:43 | I've got the option to choose to show
file names, and I can control the Size
| | 01:47 | and things of those.
| | 01:49 | For the Flash galleries, I
have got transitions and fades.
| | 01:53 | Then finally, I've got the option to
define an FTP server that the gallery will
| | 01:58 | automatically be uploaded to.
| | 02:00 | If you have a different way that
you would deliver your content to your
| | 02:03 | web server, that's fine.
| | 02:04 | I am going to just tell it to save it to
my local hard drive, because then I have
| | 02:08 | always got the option of uploading it later.
| | 02:11 | Let's get out here to the desktop and
make a web gallery folder and choose that.
| | 02:17 | You can see that it's going to say
that here and I'm going to call this LandscapeGallery.
| | 02:25 | That's the name that it will have,
in theory, in the files that it saves.
| | 02:31 | So with that all done let's -- before
we actually write it out, lets preview it.
| | 02:35 | I can say Preview in browser, and it
will actually build the entire thing and
| | 02:41 | open it up in my default web browser,
so I can look at it before I go to the
| | 02:44 | trouble of saving it.
| | 02:46 | This is a little bit faster than saving
it and opening it yourself in a browser
| | 02:50 | or in a HTML editor or something like that.
| | 02:56 | So it pulls out my
default browser, and here it is.
| | 02:59 | Now, it opened to the last
sized window that I had opened.
| | 03:03 | So you can see that it has put in my
title here, and here is that little caption
| | 03:07 | and fill in the contact name.
| | 03:09 | I've got thumbnails down here that I
can click on, and I can control thumbnail
| | 03:14 | size in my parameters over here.
| | 03:17 | I have also got just basic
navigation for navigating around.
| | 03:20 | I have also got the option to lose
the filmstrip and get bigger images.
| | 03:27 | So this is just one of the templates
with one of the styles, and what it's done -
| | 03:31 | now if I decide okay I do like
that, I am going to spit it out,
| | 03:35 | I could, obviously, go through and
edit any of these different things.
| | 03:38 | So now I'm going to tell it save,
and it's going to write up the files.
| | 03:43 | When it's done, I have just a little
folder full of images that I can move to my
| | 03:51 | web server on my own, and here it is.
| | 03:55 | There is, as you can see, an index file,
this is the actual HTML file that drives
| | 04:00 | the site and then this folder full of resources.
| | 04:02 | So these are the javascript and flash and
image files that it needs to build its thing.
| | 04:07 | I just dump that in a directory,
point my browser at it, and off it goes.
| | 04:12 | So web galleries are a very easy
thing to produce with Bridge.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Printing| 00:00 | Call me anachronistic, but I just
don't feel like an image is finished
| | 00:04 | until it's been printed.
| | 00:06 | Now this might just be an old-school
habit, but I think it's more than that.
| | 00:09 | It has a lot to do with image quality.
| | 00:12 | While an image onscreen can be really
bright and saturated, over time, you'll
| | 00:16 | probably learn to appreciate that
prints of images almost always look better
| | 00:20 | than images onscreen.
| | 00:21 | Yes, onscreen images are bright and
glossy, but that's just a cheap thrill.
| | 00:25 | Your eye was evolved to see reflective
color, and an image on paper can have a
| | 00:29 | richness and feel that no monitor can reproduce.
| | 00:31 | Now, of course, that's assuming it's well
printed, and getting a good print is tricky.
| | 00:36 | Now, obviously, in a screencast, we
can't show a complete printing process, and
| | 00:39 | all printers are different,
but here are some tips.
| | 00:41 | If you've done any printing before, you
already know that getting a print that
| | 00:45 | matches your image
onscreen can be very difficult.
| | 00:50 | You can spend a lot of money and
build yourself a color-calibrated system.
| | 00:55 | We're not going to talk about
color management and calibration here.
| | 00:58 | That's way beyond the scope of this
course, and the fact is it's a huge
| | 01:02 | investment in money.
| | 01:03 | Not only do you need gear for
calibrating your monitor, gear for calibrating
| | 01:07 | the paper you're printing on, but
you also have to have a monitor that's
| | 01:10 | calibratable, and most desktop LCD
screens, and pretty much all laptop LCD
| | 01:16 | screens, really are not even
calibratable to the point that good a color-managed
| | 01:20 | workflow is possible.
| | 01:22 | However, it's nice to, because of ink
cost, to reduce the number of test prints
| | 01:25 | that you need to make.
| | 01:26 | So we're going to look at a few tips
for ballpark-guessing how your print's
| | 01:31 | going to come out before you print
it, so that you can maybe make some
| | 01:33 | adjustments ahead of time
and not waste so much paper.
| | 01:36 | I have already resized this image for printing.
| | 01:39 | This is the image that I sized to
10 x 6, 300DPI. I've sharpened it.
| | 01:44 | I have, still, the adjustment layers
that I made to tone the image the way that
| | 01:48 | I wanted, and any other nondestructive edits
that I might have made could be stacked in here.
| | 01:52 | I'm going to keep all those.
| | 01:53 | I don't want to flatten the image, even
though this is my printing copy that I
| | 01:56 | will save separately just from this size.
| | 01:59 | I want to keep all of these because on paper
| | 02:01 | I may find that an edit that I made was
too aggressive, or not aggressive enough,
| | 02:05 | and so it's nice having all
these prebuilt masks and things.
| | 02:08 | It's nice being able to deactivate the
sharpening that I've applied and apply a
| | 02:12 | different level of
sharpening and so on and so forth.
| | 02:14 | The first thing I want to do is try to get
an idea of how this image is going to
| | 02:17 | print, and to do that I'm
going to look at the Histogram.
| | 02:20 | Open up the Histogram, and I'm going to
hit the exclamation mark here to get it
| | 02:24 | to update the histogram.
| | 02:25 | Now, Photoshop has reverted to Colors.
| | 02:28 | I'll change this back to here.
| | 02:33 | We've looked at how the histogram is a
distribution of the tones in my image.
| | 02:37 | The histogram is also a statistical device,
and you can see some statistics that
| | 02:41 | it's generated down here, the mean color
value, standard deviation or the median
| | 02:45 | color is, and if I think of it that way,
if I think of this as a statistical
| | 02:49 | representation of the tones in my image, I
can see that the image is trending towards dark.
| | 02:55 | The majority of the tones
piled up here are at about 70%.
| | 02:59 | Here we go level 75, right there, and
this is middle gray, the midpoint of my
| | 03:05 | image, most of the tones are below that.
| | 03:07 | Now here's the problem with printing.
| | 03:09 | Your image is always going to print
darker than it appears onscreen because when
| | 03:14 | your printer fires a blob of ink at the
piece of paper that you handed it, that
| | 03:18 | ink hits the paper, the paper absorbs
the ink, and that little dark gets a
| | 03:21 | little bigger than the computer was expecting.
| | 03:24 | There's nothing that can be done about that.
| | 03:26 | Your image is just always going to be
darker because your printer can't be
| | 03:30 | entirely sure how far
that dot gain is going to go.
| | 03:34 | So, with the idea that the image
is going to be darker anyway and now
| | 03:38 | recognizing that the image is
trending towards being pretty dark,
| | 03:41 | it's a pretty safe assumption that our
first print of this image is going to be
| | 03:45 | either outright underexposed or just
look dull and drab and generally too dark.
| | 03:51 | So I want to brighten this image.
| | 03:53 | Now, you may think, but we've
meticulously worked through with our histogram and
| | 03:57 | crafted these carefully, lovingly-
constructed layer masks and things to get the
| | 04:00 | tones exactly where we
want them, and that's true,
| | 04:03 | and we're going to keep all of those.
| | 04:04 | We're just going to throw an
additional adjustment layer on top of everything
| | 04:07 | else that's aimed specifically at
printing, and I'm not going to be real
| | 04:11 | scientific about this process here.
| | 04:13 | We're just eyeballing a lot of things,
because very often that's good enough.
| | 04:16 | We're not aiming for maniacal color accuracy.
| | 04:20 | We just want a print that looks good.
| | 04:22 | Again, the majority of my
tones are falling down here.
| | 04:25 | Now, there's this little black bit here,
these darkest tones that kind of level off.
| | 04:30 | That's probably all of these black
mountains, these black things here, and of
| | 04:34 | course every little speck of black
throughout the image, and these dark tones over here.
| | 04:37 | Then we get this big section here, which
most likely is the foreground, and some
| | 04:44 | of the tones in the clouds. All of
this light stuff is plainly the sky, the
| | 04:47 | brighter parts of the clouds, meaning
that our foreground and the middle tones
| | 04:51 | in here, which are really the dominant parts
of the image, are not falling in the midpoint.
| | 04:55 | They're all way down here, about half to
one stop farther down than they should be.
| | 05:01 | So, I'm going to brighten the
image, and I'm watching my histogram,
| | 05:04 | for the time being ignoring the image even
though I'm going to be playing havoc with it.
| | 05:08 | Now I'm going to push that midpoint down,
so that it's at least closer to where
| | 05:12 | the majority of my image data is, and
now I'm just looking at the foreground
| | 05:18 | here and boy, it's a lot brighter.
| | 05:20 | My black point's not real strong.
| | 05:22 | In fact, there's no black data, so
I'm afraid that this brightening has
| | 05:25 | possibly washed things out.
| | 05:27 | So I'm going to push the black in just a
little bit to give me a little bit more
| | 05:31 | contrast, and then that means I'm going
to push this back down a little bit to
| | 05:35 | get my midpoint back where I wanted it.
| | 05:38 | So, to give you before and after,
here's before; here's after.
| | 05:42 | Now that you see the image brightened,
when I turn it off, you can see that
| | 05:46 | yeah, there is kind of a dull quality to it.
| | 05:49 | There is just kind of this overshadowing
of drab, and that does take some of it off.
| | 05:55 | It's very strange how much your eye
compensates for things when you're looking
| | 05:58 | at an image, and an adjustment
can help open your eyes sometimes.
| | 06:02 | The problem with this adjustment is I've
now blown these things out to complete white.
| | 06:06 | Let's turn it off again, look at the
sky, see there's some nice gradients in
| | 06:10 | there that are being lost, same thing in here.
| | 06:12 | Well, we know how to deal with that.
| | 06:14 | We're just going to mask those parts out.
| | 06:16 | Now, I could grab a brush and paint
black paint over these areas, but I'm going
| | 06:21 | to have a real problem getting a good
clean - okay, maybe it's not so terrible,
| | 06:28 | but there's a color shift in here.
| | 06:29 | I've got more magenta here than I have here.
| | 06:31 | It's going to be a tricky
masking job to pull off.
| | 06:35 | So, rather than work that way, I'm
going to put white back in here to get
| | 06:39 | my mask emptied out.
| | 06:42 | Rather than that, we're going to now --
we're going to go back to our Gradient
| | 06:45 | tool and build a gradient mask to
protect the sky, so that I'm picking the
| | 06:48 | Gradient tool, going from white to black.
| | 06:51 | I know I want my
foreground completely affected here.
| | 06:54 | So I'm going to start about here,
go to about here, and there we go.
| | 06:58 | Now, I've got a foreground that's nice
and bright and a sky that still has all
| | 07:03 | the detail in it that I had before.
| | 07:05 | Now it's interesting.
| | 07:06 | If we look at our histogram, we've
pulled a little more data here into middle.
| | 07:12 | The great thing about the fact that
this is an adjustment layer is that I can
| | 07:17 | try this out, and if it doesn't work
very well, I can change this adjustment
| | 07:19 | layer, print it again.
| | 07:21 | If it turns out that the sky is still
little too drab, I could change my mask
| | 07:25 | from white to black.
| | 07:26 | I could go from white to maybe a dark
gray, so that I would get a little bit of
| | 07:31 | brightening in the sky.
| | 07:32 | So now, if I drop a gradient on there,
my sky's got a little bit brighter,
| | 07:37 | which might be nice.
| | 07:38 | Now I try a test print and either it
comes out great, and I'm very lucky, or I
| | 07:43 | go, okay, I would like it a
little bit brighter, a little bit darker.
| | 07:46 | I manipulate this one
adjustment layer and print again.
| | 07:50 | Paper selection can be
critical in your final result.
| | 07:54 | A lot of people, when
they're starting out, they go, whoa!
| | 07:57 | I'm going to print this out on some
nice, real-glossy paper, and it's going to
| | 08:00 | look just like I did on my monitor.
| | 08:01 | It's going to be really pretty.
| | 08:03 | Stay away from glossy paper.
| | 08:04 | The blacks in glossy paper are not very black.
| | 08:07 | In addition, glossy papers have all
that gloss on them, and that gloss
| | 08:12 | creates reflections.
| | 08:13 | It's something between you and the image.
| | 08:15 | A nice, high-quality matte paper will
deliver a much blacker black than any
| | 08:20 | glossy paper that's out there, and as you've
learned, black is the key to good contrast.
| | 08:25 | You want a good strong black to
ensure that you've got a nice tonal range
| | 08:28 | throughout your image.
| | 08:30 | Cheaper matte paper is going to yield
cheaper results. The main difference
| | 08:34 | between one matte paper and another is
going to be how strong a black it holds.
| | 08:38 | A nice fine art matte paper from a
reputable paper manufacturer like, Hahnemhle
| | 08:42 | or Red River, Moab or even the one's sold
by your printer manufacturer Epson, HP,
| | 08:49 | Canon, will deliver very good results.
| | 08:51 | Another excellent choice for
landscape photography is to print on canvas.
| | 08:55 | There are number of different
canvases you can buy for inkjet printers.
| | 08:58 | The great thing about canvas is you
don't put glass in front of it.
| | 09:02 | You can frame it and hang it on
the wall, but there's no glass.
| | 09:04 | Glass is always going to give you a
saturation and contrast cut in your print.
| | 09:09 | So if you can keep from putting
something in front of the image, it's going
| | 09:11 | to look a lot better.
| | 09:12 | Images on canvas will just leap across the room.
| | 09:16 | Finally, one last thing:
online printing services.
| | 09:19 | If you don't have a printer, if you
don't want to pay for ink, you can use an
| | 09:22 | online printing service.
| | 09:23 | I can't really recommend one right now
because there are lots of them, and a lot
| | 09:28 | of them are very good. A lot of them
will also change from time to time,
| | 09:31 | depending on who's operating
the printing machine that day.
| | 09:34 | Try a few. Pick a few out.
Do some test prints with them.
| | 09:37 | They're almost always going to want you
to have your image in sRGB color space.
| | 09:42 | You can change the color space of an
image by coming down here to Assign Profile
| | 09:47 | under the Edit menu.
| | 09:48 | It's going to give you warning that your
color's probably going to shift, and now
| | 09:51 | I can change this to sRGB.
| | 09:54 | They will also have fairly
profound image size and file format names;
| | 10:00 | those will all be detailed on their web site.
| | 10:03 | What's nice about an online printing
service is you don't have to invest in a printer.
| | 10:06 | They're great for one-off prints.
| | 10:08 | You don't have as much control.
| | 10:09 | You can't do a print and then
immediately see I'd like to tweak the saturation
| | 10:13 | this way or adjust the tone that way,
but if you're not going to do a whole lot
| | 10:17 | of printing and don't want to invest
in the gear, an online photo printing
| | 10:21 | service can be an excellent option.
| | 10:23 | Printing takes practice, just like
everything else that we've been discussing in
| | 10:26 | this course, and you will get better
particularly if you work with the same
| | 10:29 | gear over and over.
| | 10:30 | You will learn how an image on your
monitor corresponds to a printout of your
| | 10:33 | printer, and you'll find that
over time, you'll need to do less
| | 10:37 | experimentation, and you'll be able to
get a great print out of your computer
| | 10:40 | with just one or two tries.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | And that's it!
| | 00:01 | That's everything we've got.
| | 00:02 | That's Photoshop CS5 for
Landscape Photographers.
| | 00:05 | Oh, wait. No, no.
I've got one more piece of advice.
| | 00:07 | First of all, I would really
like to thank you for watching this.
| | 00:10 | I hope you learned a lot, but the most
important thing to remember right now is
| | 00:14 | get away from the computer
and get out there shooting.
| | 00:16 | You should be outside.
| | 00:17 | It's probably a beautiful day.
| | 00:18 | Thanks again!
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