IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
Hello I'm Tim Grey.
I've spent most of my adult life helping
| | 00:07 |
photographers improve their photographic
images both in the initial capture and
| | 00:10 |
also through post processing with a
variety of tools.
| | 00:15 |
When I spend time with photographers in a
hands-on environment, one of the most
| | 00:18 |
frequent requests is for me to simply
think out loud while optimizing an image
| | 00:21 |
so those in attendance can get a better
sense of how I make decisions about an
| | 00:25 |
image, and how I approach various
adjustments in a real world scenario.
| | 00:30 |
In this course I'm going to do exactly
that, enabling you to look over my
| | 00:34 |
shoulder as I work on some of my favorite
images.
| | 00:38 |
In the process of exploring adjustments
for a variety of images, you'll gain
| | 00:41 |
insights into a variety of potential
methods for interpreting your photos.
| | 00:45 |
I'll talk about my reasons for capturing
the image and the decisions that went into
| | 00:49 |
that capture, and also talk about my
intent for the photo.
| | 00:53 |
I'll then take you step by step through
the process of working toward that goal.
| | 00:56 |
I think you'll find this course to be
informative and entertaining, and I
| | 00:59 |
believe it will help you gain a better
understanding of how to approach an image
| | 01:03 |
to produce a truly optimized photograph
and how to make decisions in the process.
| | 01:08 |
So let's get started.
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|
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1. Golden PoppyIntroducing the image| 00:02 |
I certainly spend a considerable amount of
time working on my images in Photoshop,
| | 00:05 |
but my real passion is in creating those
images in the first place.
| | 00:09 |
Photoshop is really just a tool for
helping me make the most of my images.
| | 00:14 |
But I try my best to make sure that the
images are as good as possible in the
| | 00:17 |
initial capture so that they require a
minimal amount of work after the fact.
| | 00:22 |
And so when I'm capturing an image I try
to think about what I want that final
| | 00:25 |
result to be.
And here that result was pretty clear in
| | 00:29 |
mind as I lay on my belly among a field of
flowers, photographing this golden poppy.
| | 00:35 |
The idea's that I wanted a very narrow
depth of field, and a wash of color around
| | 00:38 |
the poppy.
I experimented with different positions
| | 00:42 |
different subjects, different setups.
But ultimately i settled on this
| | 00:46 |
particular flower, and this particular
arrangement.
| | 00:50 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the Metadata
panel in Bridge.
| | 00:53 |
And you can see that I utilize the
relatively open aperture, an aperture F5.6.
| | 00:57 |
I'll go ahead and enlarge the panel here,
and then we can scroll down and take a
| | 01:01 |
look at the actual capture settings for
this image, and you'll see that I was
| | 01:05 |
using a 70 to 200 millimeter lens at 200
millimeter.
| | 01:10 |
And so the aim here was to try to ensure a
very narrow depth of field so that the
| | 01:14 |
background of the flower for example is
rendered completely out of focus I also
| | 01:18 |
made sure that there were some other
flowers in the foreground adding a bit of
| | 01:22 |
a color wash.
I debated for a while in terms of the
| | 01:28 |
overall clutter in the background.
But, I felt that for most part that
| | 01:32 |
clutter actually added texture to the
scene and doesn't bother me too much.
| | 01:37 |
So, overall, I'm very happy with this
image.
| | 01:39 |
The one thing that really draws my eye and
that I really want to get rid of is this
| | 01:43 |
bit of a stem over on the right hand side.
That definitely needs to go.
| | 01:48 |
But, I think I might be able to improve
the overall appearance of the image as well.
| | 01:52 |
And I'd also like to explore some creative
options.
| | 01:56 |
So I have a pretty good sense of what I'd
like to do with this image.
| | 01:59 |
I'll perform a basic RAW conversion and
then perform a little bit of image cleanup
| | 02:02 |
and maybe explore some filters as
additional creative possibilities.
| | 02:07 |
And I think it's important to have at
least some sense of a goal in mind when
| | 02:10 |
you start working on a photo.
In this case I had a pretty good sense of
| | 02:14 |
what I wanted for the image at the time of
the original capture but that's not always
| | 02:17 |
the case.
The key is to take a little bit of time to
| | 02:21 |
think about that before you actually start
optimising the photo.
| | 02:26 |
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| Raw conversion| 00:02 |
I have a pretty good sense of the
direction I'd like to take this image,
| | 00:04 |
mostly applying some very minor
adjustments and a little bit of image
| | 00:07 |
cleanup work and exploring some creative
possibilities.
| | 00:11 |
And since this is a Raw Capture, my first
step is to convert that Raw Capture into
| | 00:15 |
an actual image file.
So I'll go ahead and double-click on the
| | 00:19 |
image in Bridge.
That will launch Photoshop if it's not
| | 00:22 |
already running and bring the image up
into Adobe Camera Raw.
| | 00:25 |
In this case, my initial sense is that I
don't need to make too much of an
| | 00:29 |
adjustment to the photo.
You can see that based on the histogram
| | 00:33 |
there are no clipped highlights.
There is a little bit of shadow detail
| | 00:36 |
that's been lost, but I don't think that's
going to be too significant.
| | 00:40 |
And so, really, it's just a matter of
optimizing the overall appearance of the photo.
| | 00:43 |
I'll start off by taking a look at the
Temperature and Tint sliders.
| | 00:47 |
If I take the Temperature down to a cooler
value, I actually get a more natural
| | 00:50 |
appearance for the image.
The colors look a little bit more natural,
| | 00:54 |
and we can actually see a little bit more
detail.
| | 01:14 |
In green and magenta and for this
particular image that's actually a little
| | 01:16 |
bit of a challenge.
There are some degree of magenta tones
| | 01:20 |
found in the orange values in the image
but more importantly the foliage for
| | 01:23 |
poppies includes some magenta values.
So, you can see the stems are green but
| | 01:28 |
there's also some magenta in there as
well.
| | 01:31 |
And so, I need to be very careful in
balancing that value.
| | 01:34 |
I'll shift a little bit too much over into
the green and a little bit too much over
| | 01:37 |
into magenta to get a sense of how the
image will respond.
| | 01:41 |
And then, I'll figure out exactly where I
want to finalize the position for that tent.
| | 01:46 |
And I think right about there looks to be
pretty good.
| | 01:48 |
You can see that the overall exposure is
pretty good, slightly dark perhaps, but
| | 01:53 |
overall, I think pretty good.
I will increase the value for exposure
| | 01:57 |
just a little bit, I'm going to add a
little bit of contrast but first I want to
| | 02:00 |
brighten things up overall.
I think I might tone down the highlights
| | 02:04 |
though, just a little bit, because I want
to be sure to preserve some of those
| | 02:08 |
highlight details.
I'm worried, for example, about the areas
| | 02:11 |
where there was a lot of reflection from
the sun.
| | 02:14 |
But my key focus in terms of these Tonal
Adjustments is going to be Shadows.
| | 02:18 |
And for that, I think I'll tone down the
shadows a little bit.
| | 02:21 |
And, in fact, I think as part of that
process, I'll take a look at the black
| | 02:24 |
slider as well.
I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
| | 02:27 |
Option key on Macintosh while adjusting
the Black slider.
| | 02:31 |
And you can see right from the start with
no adjustment, I'm already losing detail.
| | 02:35 |
The pixels show up as yellow, and that
means I'm losing detail on the blue channel.
| | 02:39 |
Since yellow is the opposite of blue, and
therefore these are dark areas of that
| | 02:42 |
blue channel.
I'll go ahead and move the slider over
| | 02:46 |
towards the left to see how far down I
need to go in order to get a true black.
| | 02:51 |
And, you can see, I need to take that
value down rather significantly, right to
| | 02:54 |
about there.
If I release the Alt or Option key, you'll
| | 02:58 |
see that this results in an image that's a
bit too dark.
| | 03:01 |
So as much as I want to darken up the dark
areas, I don't want to darken them up too much.
| | 03:06 |
So I'll release the Alt or Option key and
just work visually fine tuning that blacks value.
| | 03:11 |
And then I'll come back to my shadows
value and continue fine tuning there.
| | 03:15 |
And I'm going to error on having a
slightly darker image, that'll help keep
| | 03:18 |
those colors nice and rich.
And it'll add a little bit of contrast to
| | 03:23 |
a scene that risks being slightly washed
out.
| | 03:26 |
Next, I'll turn my attention to the
Clarity slider, in most cases I find that
| | 03:30 |
I end up increasing the value of clarity,
and this cuts back on haze and makes an
| | 03:33 |
image have just a little more snap, it's
almost like a sharpening effect.
| | 03:39 |
But, in this case, I actually want the
opposite.
| | 03:42 |
I want a little bit of an autherial type
of effect in this image.
| | 03:45 |
And so, I'm actually going to take that
Clarity value to a negative value.
| | 03:49 |
I don't want to go too strong, because
that will create a sort of water color
| | 03:52 |
appearence in the image.
But I do want to at least have something
| | 03:55 |
of a negative value there to create a
softer look for the photo.
| | 03:59 |
I'm then going to bring the vibrance up.
Now at the moment you might think that we
| | 04:03 |
don't want to increase saturation too
much.
| | 04:05 |
And that's certainly true, I think.
I don't want the colors to look artificial
| | 04:08 |
but I would like the colors that are not
too saturated to come up just a little bit.
| | 04:13 |
Some of those oranges in the background,
for example, I think could stand to be
| | 04:16 |
increased in terms of their saturation.
I'll go ahead and drag the slider way over
| | 04:20 |
to the right and you'll see that the
impact is not severe.
| | 04:23 |
But I don't need that much of an effect,
of course.
| | 04:26 |
I'll just increase right about there.
But once I've done that, essentially,
| | 04:29 |
increasing saturation for the colors that
aren't all that saturated to begin with,
| | 04:33 |
I'm actually going to tone down the
overall saturation in the image.
| | 04:37 |
So I've brought up the level of the colors
that weren't very saturated.
| | 04:41 |
And now, I'm just toning down the overall
image, so that I don't end up with too
| | 04:44 |
much saturation.
At this point, I'm pretty happy with the image.
| | 04:48 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the Preview
checkbox and then turn it back on a little bit.
| | 04:52 |
And you can see how I've essentially just
brought the colors back to a little bit
| | 04:56 |
more natural appearance, but still
maintaining a warm look for the photo.
| | 05:00 |
The before I felt was just a little bit
too orange to red and the after I think
| | 05:03 |
looks a bit better.
And I also like the slightly more ethereal
| | 05:07 |
appearance of the image as well.
So I'll take a look at my workflow options
| | 05:11 |
by clicking the Summary link down at the
bottom of Adobe Camera Raw.
| | 05:15 |
And I'll make sure that my color space is
set to ProPhoto RGB, and the bit depth is
| | 05:18 |
at 16 bits per channel.
Otherwise, I'm happy with all of these
| | 05:23 |
settings, so I'll go ahead and click OK to
accept that.
| | 05:26 |
And now, I'll click Open Image in order to
have Adobe Camera Raw process this image,
| | 05:29 |
and open it in Photoshop so that I can
continue with some other fine tuning adjustments.
| | 05:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Some basic cleanup| 00:02 |
To me, the ideal situation for a
photographic image is that it comes out of
| | 00:05 |
the camera absolutely perfect.
Of course, more often than not, I want to
| | 00:09 |
apply at least some basic adjustments, at
least in the raw conversion.
| | 00:14 |
But hopefully those adjustments will be a
minimum.
| | 00:16 |
And the second best thing, of course, is
to have just a very small number of
| | 00:19 |
adjustments that are needed.
With this particular image I really didn't
| | 00:23 |
need much adjustment in order to produce a
result that I was happy with.
| | 00:26 |
By and large I was happy with the image as
it came out of the camera and therefore
| | 00:29 |
the raw conversion was relatively
straightforward.
| | 00:33 |
I applied some very minor tonal
adjustments and some basic color
| | 00:36 |
adjustments but nothing too significant.
The biggest issue in my mind for this
| | 00:40 |
particular image relates to image cleanup.
And that really boils down to removing
| | 00:45 |
distracting elements from the scene.
What catches my eye the most is this green
| | 00:49 |
stem over on the right hand side.
So I most certainly want to get rid of that.
| | 00:54 |
And I'll also keep any eye out for other
areas.
| | 00:57 |
I don't mind most of this clutter in the
center.
| | 00:59 |
Because, to me, it just matches the
environment.
| | 01:02 |
And I certainly don't mind the additional
poppies in the background that are
| | 01:05 |
rendered completely out of focus.
To me that creates the overall texture
| | 01:08 |
that I was really after for this scene.
So, let's take a look at a basic approach
| | 01:13 |
to image cleanup, getting rid of
distractions in the photo so that we can
| | 01:16 |
make sure to focus on the key subject.
I'm going to start off by creating a new,
| | 01:21 |
empty image layer, because I want to work
in a completely non-destructive way.
| | 01:26 |
So at the bottom of the layers panel, I'll
click the Create New Layer button, the
| | 01:29 |
blank sheet of paper icon.
And then, with that new layer created,
| | 01:32 |
I'll double-click on the name of the
layer, and type in new names, so that I
| | 01:35 |
know exactly why this layer is here.
I'll just type image clean up, and then
| | 01:40 |
press Enter or Return on the keyboard in
order to apply that change.
| | 01:45 |
Next I'll choose the spot healing brush
tool from the toolbox.
| | 01:48 |
And in ideal circumstances, this will be
the only image cleanup tool that I'll need.
| | 01:53 |
And I think in this photo, it'll work out
just fine.
| | 01:56 |
But I want to make sure that I'm using the
best settings for this tool, and that
| | 01:59 |
means, first and foremost, turning on the
Content-Aware type.
| | 02:04 |
In other words, Photoshop will use it's
advanced content aware technology to
| | 02:08 |
intelligently analyze the image and
perform the clean-up in the area that I specify.
| | 02:13 |
I also need to make sure that I turn on
the Sample All Layers checkbox so that I
| | 02:17 |
can work between layers.
In other words, I'll be sampling from the
| | 02:22 |
overall image as I see it, but then I'll
be placing the clean-up pixels.
| | 02:26 |
Onto my image cleanup layer.
And that means that the cleanup will be
| | 02:29 |
separate of the underlying image and
therefor I'm not harming those underlying
| | 02:32 |
pixels, so I can always get back to the
original image as it were at any time.
| | 02:37 |
So with those options established I'll
bring my mouse out over the image And then
| | 02:41 |
I'll use the left and write square bracket
keys to adjust the brush size.
| | 02:46 |
The left square bracket key will reduce
the brush size and the right square
| | 02:49 |
bracket key will increase the brush size
and I want a brush that is no larger than
| | 02:53 |
the area I need to clean up.
And in some cases only to work with a
| | 02:57 |
smaller brush and build up a correction
with several brush strokes.
| | 03:01 |
So I'll set the brush to be about the
width of the area that I need to clean up
| | 03:05 |
and then I'll click and paint over this
area.
| | 03:08 |
You'll notice that I get a dark overlay
indicating where I'm painting Painting in
| | 03:11 |
the image so that I can make sure that I'm
painting over the entire blemish.
| | 03:15 |
Once I've done that, I can release the
mouse and Photoshop will clean up that
| | 03:19 |
area placing the clean up pixels on my
image layer since that's the active layer
| | 03:22 |
on the Layers panel.
Now, one of the best ways to make sure
| | 03:27 |
that you don't find any problems in your
image is to zoom out so you can't really
| | 03:31 |
see any good detail.
But the best way to find problems, so that
| | 03:36 |
you make sure they won't disappoint you
later, is to zoom in very closely on the
| | 03:40 |
image and evaluate the results.
And here, when I zoom in, you can see that
| | 03:45 |
that clean up was not quite perfect.
I'll turn off the visibility for my image
| | 03:49 |
clean-up layer and then turn it back on
again.
| | 03:51 |
And you can see it certainly removed the
blemish, but it left some artifacts behind
| | 03:54 |
as well.
And so I'll adjust my brush size, once
| | 03:57 |
again with the left and right square
bracket keys, and paint over these areas
| | 04:00 |
once again.
In this case, I'm going to paint back and
| | 04:05 |
forth in the direction opposite of the
path of the area that I'm trying to clean up.
| | 04:10 |
And I'll basically just hit this area
multiple times with the spot healing brush
| | 04:13 |
tool, building up a correction as needed,
and hopefully creating a good result.
| | 04:19 |
And then we have a good result after just
a few brush strokes, so now I'm happy with
| | 04:23 |
that area and now I can focus on other
areas of the photo.
| | 04:27 |
By enlarge, I think we are in good shape
but I do think that the bottom left
| | 04:29 |
corner, there's a little bit too much
distraction down there.
| | 04:33 |
So I'll zoom in that area of the photo and
now I'll reduce the brush size since this
| | 04:37 |
area represents much smaller blemishes or
distractions, and then I'll paint along
| | 04:41 |
each of these little blades of grass or
stems or whatever they are And paint on
| | 04:44 |
additional areas, as needed, to perform
some blending.
| | 04:50 |
It's just a few if these areas that I am
finding to be distracting.
| | 04:54 |
So, I don't need to do too much work.
Right about there looks to be pretty good.
| | 04:58 |
I will go ahead and blend this area and a
little bit better as well, and then I can
| | 05:01 |
zoom out and get a look at the overall
image.
| | 05:05 |
It's also a good idea to evaluate the
results.
| | 05:08 |
When you think you're finished, turn off
your image cleanup layer, and turn it back
| | 05:11 |
on again.
And make sure that you like the after
| | 05:13 |
version of the image more than the before
version.
| | 05:16 |
Since I was happy with the initial image
right out of the raw conversion in Adobe
| | 05:19 |
Camera raw.
The only other real issue was image cleanup.
| | 05:24 |
At this point, I'm pretty happy with the
results.
| | 05:26 |
So, I'll go to the File > Save As in order
to save a copy of this image.
| | 05:31 |
And then, I'll type a new filename and
click Save, in order to save this result.
| | 05:36 |
I'll keep the Maximize Compatibility
option turned on, so that I can import
| | 05:39 |
this PSD file into Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom later if I want to.
| | 05:43 |
So I'll go ahead and click the OK button,
and that updated version of my image is saved.
| | 05:48 |
With a good clean up result I think and
also a good overall appearance in terms on
| | 05:52 |
tonality and color.
This image really didn't require much work
| | 05:56 |
but with a little bit of effort I'm now
much happier with the result.
| | 05:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Oil paint effect| 00:02 |
Every now and then, after working to
optimize a photographic image, I like to
| | 00:05 |
explore some additional creative options.
And for this image, I think I might like
| | 00:10 |
to apply a creative filter, or at least
experiment around with that possibility.
| | 00:15 |
For this photo, I actually think that the
Oil Paint filter might work pretty well.
| | 00:19 |
And so, I'd like to take a look at that
option.
| | 00:21 |
But actually, the Oil Paint filter doesn't
work all that nicely with high-resolution images.
| | 00:28 |
Let me show you what I mean.
I'll go ahead and create a composite layer here.
| | 00:31 |
So, on Windows, I'll hold the
Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys.
| | 00:33 |
On MacIntosh, that would be the
Cmd+Option+Shift keys.
| | 00:36 |
And then, I'll press the letter N on the
keyboard while I'm holding those keys to
| | 00:40 |
create a new layer.
And then, I'll continue holding those keys
| | 00:43 |
and press the letter E, and that will
create a new layer.
| | 00:47 |
I'll go ahead and rename that layer, so I
know why it's there.
| | 00:50 |
I'll double-click on the name, and I'll
just type Oil Paint.
| | 00:53 |
And then press Enter or Return on the
keyboard in order to apply that change.
| | 00:57 |
Now I'll go to the Filter > Oil Paint.
And you can see the Oil Paint dialog
| | 01:02 |
appears and I can adjust the overall
settings for that oil paint effect.
| | 01:07 |
but the effect doesn't work all that well.
When I scale it up it just looks a bit artificial.
| | 01:12 |
It's an interesting texture, but it's not
as good a result as you can achieve with a
| | 01:16 |
lower resolution image.
So, I'll go ahead and click Cancel.
| | 01:20 |
And then, I'm going to create a duplicate
copy of my image, so that I don't
| | 01:23 |
inadvertently save the original at a
reduced size.
| | 01:26 |
To do that, I'll go to the Image >
Duplicate.
| | 01:31 |
Since this is a derivative image for
creative purposes, I really don't need my
| | 01:34 |
layers intact.
So I'll go ahead and turn on the Duplicate
| | 01:39 |
Merged Layers Only checkbox, which really
means flatten the result.
| | 01:43 |
I'll also change the name here.
This name becomes the default when I save
| | 01:47 |
the image, so I'll call this golden poppy
oil paint, for example, and then I'll
| | 01:51 |
click okay.
That will create an additional copy of my image.
| | 01:56 |
You can see it's flattened and the default
name is Golden Poppy Oil Paint.
| | 02:00 |
At this point, I can close my original
image, just so I don't get confused.
| | 02:05 |
And, in this case, I don't really need to
save the result because this just involved
| | 02:08 |
adding that oil paint layer.
So I'll click No to not update that saved file.
| | 02:13 |
And just so that I can always come back to
this version of the image, I'll make a
| | 02:16 |
copy of my Background Image layer.
So I'll drag the thumbnail for that layer
| | 02:20 |
down to the Create Mew Layer button, the
blank sheet of paper icon at the bottom of
| | 02:24 |
the Layers panel.
And then, I'll go to the Filter > Oil Paint.
| | 02:30 |
But, of course, I also want to reduce the
size of this image before I apply the oil
| | 02:34 |
paint filter.
So I'll go to the Image > Image Size.
| | 02:40 |
I'll make sure that the units are set to
pixels.
| | 02:43 |
And for this image, I'll just set the
height to 1500 pixels and then I'll click OK.
| | 02:49 |
That reduces the size of the image.
I'll go ahead and adjust the Zoom setting
| | 02:52 |
here to fit the image in the available
space.
| | 02:54 |
And now I can go to the Filter > Oil
Paint.
| | 02:58 |
That will bring up the Oil Paint dialog,
and you can see we now have a much
| | 03:01 |
stronger effect in the image because we're
working at a lower resolution.
| | 03:06 |
I'll start by toning down the various
values here so that we have a little bit
| | 03:09 |
better idea of exactly what we're going to
end up with.
| | 03:13 |
I'll also turn the shine value down
significantly.
| | 03:17 |
Then, I'll just start from the top and
work my way down, maybe bouncing around
| | 03:20 |
just a little bit to fine tune the
settings.
| | 03:23 |
The stylization determines to what degree
we're going to be applying an oil paint
| | 03:27 |
type of effect.
I generally like to use a relatively high value.
| | 03:31 |
Cleanliness, I also like to use a
relatively high value so that we get more
| | 03:35 |
of a paintorly look in the image.
The scale will depend on the image, but
| | 03:39 |
generally it's best to use a relatively
low value for scale.
| | 03:44 |
With too high a value, the appearance
tends to be a little bit repetitive, so
| | 03:47 |
I'll tend to use a moderately low setting
there.
| | 03:50 |
I can also choose how much detail I want
for the bristles.
| | 03:53 |
With a lower value, the image will look a
bit more smooth.
| | 03:56 |
And with a higher value, the image will
have a little bit more of a detailed
| | 03:59 |
appearance to it.
We can also adjust the degree of shine and
| | 04:02 |
the angle of that shine.
I'll go ahead and bring the value up to an
| | 04:06 |
exaggerated amount so that we can see the
effect in the image a little better.
| | 04:09 |
And then I'll adjust the angular
direction.
| | 04:12 |
And this can have a dramatic effect on the
perceived texture within the photo.
| | 04:17 |
I think right about there is looking
pretty good.
| | 04:18 |
So I'll leave that value for the angular
direction and then I can tone down the
| | 04:22 |
shine to taste.
Of course, it's always helpful to go back
| | 04:26 |
and play with the various settings.
Perhaps I want to look at a lower
| | 04:30 |
stylization versus a higher value, but I
do think, in most cases, a higher value
| | 04:33 |
works pretty well.
I can adjust all of these settings.
| | 04:37 |
I'll go ahead and take a look at
cleanliness but once again a high value
| | 04:40 |
tends to work pretty well.
I can adjust the scale.
| | 04:43 |
And I think maybe a lower value will work
out a little bit better in terms of the
| | 04:46 |
overall shapes that I'm getting in the
photo.
| | 04:50 |
And I think Bristle Detail works pretty
well at a high value, it just creates a
| | 04:53 |
bit more of that painterly type of look in
the image.
| | 04:56 |
So I think this is looking pretty good,
I'll go ahead and click OK to apply that change.
| | 05:00 |
And now I have my oil paint version of the
image.
| | 05:03 |
I'll certainly want to save this as a
derivative image.
| | 05:06 |
So I can go to the File > Save.
And you'll notice that the filename that I
| | 05:11 |
choose when I duplicated my original image
is preserved here.
| | 05:14 |
So I can simply click the Save button.
In order to save that derivative image,
| | 05:18 |
I'll leave Maximized Compatibility turned
on, so that I can import this image into
| | 05:22 |
Lightroom or view it with other
applications.
| | 05:26 |
So I'll go ahead and click OK.
And now I have my finalized oil paint
| | 05:29 |
version of my original poppy image.
| | 05:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Brooklyn BridgeImage overview| 00:02 |
I set out one night to capture a classic
scene of the Brooklyn Bridge,
| | 00:05 |
photographhed from Brooklyn, looking into
Manhattan.
| | 00:08 |
The only problem is that I chose to do
that on a winter night.
| | 00:12 |
It was early February and it was very,
very cold.
| | 00:16 |
To make matters worse, I had decided to
get there before sunset, so that I could
| | 00:19 |
maybe capture a timelapse of that process,
or get some earlier dusk shots.
| | 00:25 |
And in the process I spent a lot of time
outside and it was very very cold but the
| | 00:28 |
experience was still fun.
I came away with an image that I was happy
| | 00:33 |
about but that certainly needed some work.
You'll probably notice right from the
| | 00:37 |
start that there is a dust spot down at
the bottom left.
| | 00:41 |
That's something that I should have known
about before hand.
| | 00:43 |
Frankly, I probably could have seen it
through the viewfinder if I was paying attention.
| | 00:46 |
Certainly though with reviewing the image
on the LCD of the camera, I should have
| | 00:49 |
spotted that and I could have even cleaned
the sensor in the field if need be.
| | 00:54 |
But fortunately that shouldn't be too much
of an issue in terms of image clean up.
| | 00:58 |
But there is a bigger issue that I'll need
to pay attention to when I am optimizing
| | 01:02 |
this image and that is chromatic
aberrations or color fringing.
| | 01:07 |
I was a little bit surprised that I ended
up with any chromatic aberrations at all
| | 01:10 |
with the particular lens I was using.
This was a Canon 24-105 lens that is
| | 01:15 |
regarded as being a very high quality
lens.
| | 01:18 |
Yet, if you zoom in on a portion of the
image, you can see some cyan and reddish
| | 01:22 |
fringing over here for example.
Taking a look at these buildings over on
| | 01:27 |
the right, some additional fringing.
That's certainly problematic and something
| | 01:31 |
I'm going to need to resolve.
It probably stems in large part from the
| | 01:34 |
fact that I stopped down the lens to F22.
That was partly to make sure that I could
| | 01:40 |
get some star burst effects with the
lights but also to render the water very
| | 01:43 |
very smooth.
Of course even stopping down to F22 I only
| | 01:48 |
ended up with a thirtieth of a second
shutter speed but you can see that
| | 01:51 |
produced a nice soft effect for the water.
In retrospect I wish I hadn't stopped down
| | 01:56 |
quite so much even at F16 for example and
possibly F11 I would've gotten a good star
| | 02:00 |
burst effect for the lights and I would've
ended up probably with less chromatic
| | 02:03 |
aberration and a sharper image overall.
And with that neutral density filter I
| | 02:09 |
would have been able to achieve an even
longer exposure potentially.
| | 02:13 |
But ultimately the raw conversion is
really going to be critical for this image.
| | 02:17 |
So I want to pay attention to the overall
tonality, making sure that I don't have
| | 02:21 |
too contrasty of photo and really focus a
lot of energy making sure that I get that
| | 02:24 |
chromatic aberration under control.
| | 02:28 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Raw processing| 00:02 |
I've given some thought to how I want to
process this image and the key things that
| | 00:05 |
I want to be aware of as I'm working on
that image.
| | 00:08 |
And I think most of those issues can be
resolved in the Raw conversion process
| | 00:12 |
using the Adobe Camera Raw.
So, I'll double-click on the image in
| | 00:16 |
Bridge in order to open that Raw Capture
in Photoshop which, of course, will bring
| | 00:20 |
up the Adobe Camera Raw dialog.
And here my primary concern is two-fold.
| | 00:25 |
One, I want to focus on overall tonality
to try to make sure that I'm retaining a
| | 00:28 |
reasonable amount of detail in the image.
And two and perhaps most importantly I
| | 00:33 |
want to resolve the chromatic aberrations
that are evident throughout the photo.
| | 00:37 |
I'll start off with my general
adjustments.
| | 00:41 |
In this case, the color seems reasonably
accurate, so I'm going to start off with
| | 00:45 |
my adjustments for Tonality.
I want to first establish the overall
| | 00:49 |
dynamic range of the scene.
And so I'm going to start off with the
| | 00:52 |
Whites and Blacks sliders.
I'll start off with the Blacks.
| | 00:56 |
I'll simply hold the Alt key on Windows or
the Option key on Macintosh and then
| | 00:59 |
adjust the black point.
And that will give me a clipping preview.
| | 01:03 |
And you can see that with the baseline
exposure, I have a little bit of detail
| | 01:07 |
loss and even a little bit of a Black
value.
| | 01:10 |
In this case, I think I'm going to open up
the image just a little bit, brightening
| | 01:13 |
up those Blacks, so that I don't have
quite so much density.
| | 01:17 |
And that will help overall in making sure
that I'm retaining as much detail as possible.
| | 01:21 |
I'm also going to take a look at the white
point in a similar way.
| | 01:25 |
So I'll hold the alt key on Windows or the
option key on MacIntosh once again and
| | 01:28 |
take a look at those Whites values.
You can probably tell just by looking at
| | 01:33 |
this clipping preview that the clipped
detail mostly relates to bright lights in
| | 01:37 |
the scene.
And so I'm not really too terribly
| | 01:40 |
concerned about that.
I might back off just a little bit, so
| | 01:43 |
that we don't get too much of sort of halo
type of appearance in those lights.
| | 01:48 |
But by and large, I'm not worried about
trying to retain detail in each individual
| | 01:52 |
light source since those are obviously
very bright relative to the scene.
| | 01:56 |
I then take a look at the Highlights and
Shadows sliders.
| | 02:00 |
I'll start with Shadows, and I'll try and
open things up just a little bit and see
| | 02:04 |
if a little more detail will work out
nicely for the image.
| | 02:08 |
And I think it will.
I don't want to open up so much detail
| | 02:11 |
that it starts to become a distraction but
I don't want to block up image either.
| | 02:16 |
So I'll try to balance that.
I want it to look like night but, of
| | 02:19 |
course, the scene is, in some ways
illuminate it.
| | 02:22 |
I think right about there will work out
pretty well.
| | 02:25 |
Then I'll take a look at the highlights
and I can choose to brighten or darken
| | 02:28 |
those highlights.
I think I'll brighten highlights just a
| | 02:31 |
little bit, I don't want to go too far but
I do want to sort of enhance overall contrast.
| | 02:36 |
Since I've opened up the shadows I want to
open up the highlights even more you might say.
| | 02:41 |
Having adjusted overall tonality that way,
I don't need to worry about the Contrast
| | 02:45 |
or Exposure sliders.
But I will take a look at color temperature.
| | 02:48 |
The tonality was my bigger concern, but
having addressed that, I'll go ahead and
| | 02:52 |
adjust overall color temperature.
And I think I'll warm things up a little bit.
| | 02:57 |
The result with the automatic adjustment
was a little bit cooler than the actual
| | 03:00 |
scene appeared to my eye.
And so I'm going to shift toward yellow
| | 03:04 |
just a little bit.
And then I'll take a look at the Tint
| | 03:07 |
slider and see if I want to take it more
toward green or more toward magenta.
| | 03:11 |
And I think I'll keep it a little bit more
toward the magenta side of things.
| | 03:15 |
That looks to be a much more accurate
rendition of the color as I remember
| | 03:18 |
seeing it in the scene.
I do think however that the color was a
| | 03:22 |
little bit more intense onto those actual
circumstances so I come down to the
| | 03:25 |
vibrance adjustment and increase that
value to bring up the saturation of the
| | 03:29 |
colors that are not saturated to begin
with.
| | 03:34 |
I might even boost the saturation itself a
little bit under relatively dark
| | 03:37 |
conditions, the colors and the reflections
of all that light really had a strong
| | 03:41 |
intensity to it and I want to try to
reproduce that intensity in the image.
| | 03:47 |
That looks far closer to what I observed
than at the scene, specially as regards
| | 03:50 |
these smooth water reflections in the
middle of the east river here.
| | 03:54 |
So I think we're off to a really good
start for this photo.
| | 03:57 |
I'm also going to take a look at clarity,
this is sort of a haze reducer.
| | 04:01 |
If we increase the value Or an ethereal
maker if we reduce the value, and in this
| | 04:05 |
case I think I would tend toward
increasing clarity just a little bit.
| | 04:10 |
Certainly the ethereal version of the
image could work quite well, but I'm more
| | 04:14 |
interested in having kind of a
crystal-clear type of scene here.
| | 04:18 |
So I'll increase clarity just a little
bit.
| | 04:21 |
When I do so, I need to make sure that I'm
not blocking up too much shadow detail.
| | 04:25 |
If I am, I can certainly just open up that
shadow detail a little more.
| | 04:28 |
But I think in this case we're in pretty
good shape, even with that increase in clarity.
| | 04:33 |
And now we have moment of truth.
I need to fix or at least minimize
| | 04:36 |
chromatic aberrations and color fringing
in the image, so I'll switch to the lens
| | 04:40 |
correction section.
And then I am going to go to Color tab and
| | 04:45 |
I'll turn on the checkbox for remove
chromatic aberration.
| | 04:49 |
I'll then zoom in to the part of image
that exhibits chromatic aberration and
| | 04:52 |
I'll go ahead and toggle that checkbox off
and then on.
| | 04:57 |
And you can see, it certainly improved
things significantly but not quite enough.
| | 05:01 |
So I also need to utilize the defringe
options.
| | 05:04 |
I'll increase the value for Purple amount
first and you'll notice if I increase
| | 05:08 |
significantly enough that I get rid of
that color fringing, I can also increase
| | 05:11 |
the value for the Green amount.
But, in this case, I think I actually have
| | 05:17 |
a little bit more of a sort of bluish to
cyan value, so I'll expand the range for
| | 05:20 |
purple hue in order to include those blue
values.
| | 05:25 |
But now, you'll notice I'm creating other
artifacts in the image.
| | 05:28 |
So I'll need to back off on that
expansion.
| | 05:31 |
Instead, I'll take a look at the green hue
and see if I can expand that into that
| | 05:34 |
sort of blue cyan range without creating
any problems and it looks like I can.
| | 05:40 |
I'll need to fine tune the overall
settings.
| | 05:43 |
But it looks like we're ending up with a
reasonably good result here.
| | 05:46 |
The challenge with chromatic aberration is
that, as you improve the result in one
| | 05:50 |
area of the image, you might create a
bigger problem in another area of the image.
| | 05:55 |
So it's important to evaluate various
areas of the scene in order to determine
| | 05:59 |
if you've actually gotten the best
results.
| | 06:02 |
And now you can see as I navigate to a
different area of the image While it was
| | 06:05 |
looking very good for the tower of the
Brooklyn Bridge, things are looking pretty
| | 06:08 |
messy over here.
So, I'll need to reduce my range once
| | 06:12 |
again, maybe even tone down that Purple
Amount value.
| | 06:16 |
And, overall, just fine tune my settings
so that I'm not expanding into additional
| | 06:20 |
color values and creating additional
problems for myself.
| | 06:24 |
Right about there looks to be a pretty
good compromise.
| | 06:27 |
I'll go ahead and take a closer look,
though, at that tower of the bridge and
| | 06:30 |
there's a little bit of fringing there.
Let me see if I can expand my purple range
| | 06:34 |
just a little bit in order to improve
that.
| | 06:37 |
That looks much better.
And once again back to the other side and
| | 06:40 |
that looks to be a pretty good compromise.
So the name of the game when it comes to
| | 06:44 |
chromatic aborrations an color fringing is
compromise.
| | 06:48 |
We'll need to offset one area versus the
other, and evaluate multiple areas of the
| | 06:51 |
image in order to make sure you're getting
the best result possible.
| | 06:56 |
But at this point I'm pretty happy with
the overall results for my Raw conversions.
| | 07:00 |
So, I'm ready to take this image into
Photoshop and perform some cleanup.
| | 07:04 |
And perhaps, some additional fine tuning
of the image.
| | 07:06 |
So, I'll go ahead and click open image.
That will process the Raw Capture in Adobe
| | 07:11 |
Camera Raw and open the resulting image in
Photoshop.
| | 07:15 |
And at this point, I'll go ahead and save
the result before I even get started.
| | 07:19 |
So, I'll chose file, save as.
And then I'll specify a file name for the
| | 07:24 |
image, I'll save this as a photoshop PSD
file and I'll go ahead and click save in
| | 07:28 |
order to save that image.
| | 07:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Spot removal| 00:02 |
Having process my RAW capture, I'm very
happy with the initial result, but I'm not
| | 00:06 |
so happy with a dust spot.
A very big dust spot down toward the
| | 00:10 |
bottom left corner, and so I definitely
want to get rid of that spot very early in
| | 00:13 |
my workflow.
I also notice as I pay closer attention to
| | 00:17 |
the image that there are some lesser dust
spots throughout the sky so, I'll get rid
| | 00:21 |
of those in the same process.
I want to work non-destructively, and soa
| | 00:26 |
I'm going to click on the Create New Layer
button, the blank sheet of paper icon at
| | 00:29 |
the bottom of the layers panel.
And then I'll rename the layer, so I know
| | 00:33 |
why I've added it to do so.
I'll double click on the name of the layer.
| | 00:37 |
I'll just type a new name.
I'll call this Image cleanup, then press
| | 00:40 |
Enter or Return on the keyboard to apply
that change.
| | 00:43 |
Next, I'll choose the spot healing brush
tool, always my first choice when it comes
| | 00:47 |
to image clean up work in Photoshop.
In large part because it offers a content
| | 00:52 |
aware option that generally provides very
good results with minimal effort.
| | 00:57 |
I also need to make sure that the Sample
All Layers check box is turned on, since
| | 01:00 |
I'm working on a separate layer from my
background image layer.
| | 01:05 |
With those settings established, I'll move
my mouse out over the image and I'm going
| | 01:08 |
to start off by zooming in on that really
problematic dust spot down below.
| | 01:12 |
I'll increase the size of my brush and
then paint over that spot and we get a
| | 01:18 |
very good result.
I'll then zoom back out and now I'm going
| | 01:22 |
to zoom in on additional areas of the
photo Photo, mostly the sky of course,
| | 01:26 |
looking for those dust spots.
I can adjust the brush size again as
| | 01:30 |
needed, using the left square bracket key
to reduce the brush size and the right
| | 01:33 |
square bracket key to increase the brush
size.
| | 01:36 |
And then I'll click on each of those dust
spots and in most cases I'll think you'll
| | 01:40 |
find that with the spot healing brush tool
It does a very good job of resolving these
| | 01:44 |
sorts of basic dust spots.
It's important to pan through the entire
| | 01:51 |
image, and it's generally best to do that
in a somewhat organized fashion.
| | 01:56 |
So I'll pan all the way across the topmost
portion of the image.
| | 02:00 |
Looks like we might have had an airplane
or something up in the sky there, so I'll
| | 02:03 |
get rid of that as well and pan all the
way over to the left side.
| | 02:07 |
There's another little dust spot, and once
I get to this edge of the image, then I
| | 02:12 |
will pan the image up and continue working
across the scene.
| | 02:17 |
It can be very helpful to observe the
image as it's moving because you will then
| | 02:21 |
be better able to see those dust spots as
they pan across with the image.
| | 02:29 |
And once again when I get to the other
side, then I'll pan down the image just a
| | 02:32 |
little bit.
Ultimately when I get into these more
| | 02:36 |
cluttered areas, you'll probably find that
the blemishes are simply not going to be
| | 02:40 |
as obvious, and that means you probably
don't need to spend too much clean up
| | 02:43 |
efforts in those areas, simply because the
relative clutter hides those blemishes
| | 02:47 |
from view.
I will get rid of that spot there, there's
| | 02:52 |
actually a couple of very small spots over
on the edge of the photo.
| | 02:56 |
There we go.
That takes care of it, maybe one more
| | 02:58 |
click right there, and I'll continue
panning across the photo, checking for any blemishes.
| | 03:04 |
In this case, mostly focusing on the
waters, since that's a relatively smooth area.
| | 03:09 |
A little bit of a blemish there, and
there's a bit of a spot there.
| | 03:13 |
I need to increase my brush size for that
one, and maybe a little spot right there,
| | 03:17 |
and I'll continue panning across the
water.
| | 03:20 |
Checking the entire area of the image
making sure that I'm ending up with as
| | 03:25 |
pristine a final version as possible.
But that looks to be taking care of
| | 03:32 |
everything, and so I'll go ahead and zoom
back out, knowing at this point I have a
| | 03:35 |
much cleaner version of my image.
| | 03:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cropping and straightening| 00:02 |
As I take a closer look at this image, I'm
happy with the overall effect.
| | 00:06 |
But I think it needs to be rotated just a
little bit, and I also think I'd like to
| | 00:10 |
crop most of the bottom.
I like the water effect, but I feel that
| | 00:14 |
the image just sort of fades off down here
toward the bottom edge of the image.
| | 00:19 |
And so I'd like to crop the image to get
rid of that portion, and I can do both of
| | 00:23 |
those tasks, straightening and cropping,
with the crop tool.
| | 00:27 |
So I'll get started by choosing the crop
tool from the crop box.
| | 00:31 |
And before I even try to define the crop,
I'm going to straighten it.
| | 00:34 |
Now I need to choose which element in the
image should be perfectly horizontal or vertical.
| | 00:39 |
Because I captured the image with a wide
angle lens, there's a certain amount of
| | 00:42 |
distortion and that actually doesn't
bother me in this case.
| | 00:45 |
So I won't worry about the left tower of
the Brooklyn Bridge here or the buildings
| | 00:49 |
over on the far right.
Instead, I'm going to focus on what's
| | 00:53 |
essentially the horizon in this image.
It's not necessarily a true horizon, but
| | 00:57 |
because it's such a strong line, I think
it's important that it appear relatively straight.
| | 01:03 |
So I'll choose the Straighten tool from
the Options bar for the Crop tool.
| | 01:06 |
And then I will click and drag along that
horizon line in order to specify that that
| | 01:11 |
is the line that I want to be perfectly
horizontal.
| | 01:15 |
You'll see that it's just a minor amount
of rotation being applied to the image but
| | 01:18 |
it does improve the overall appearance.
It makes it appear a bit more balanced I think.
| | 01:24 |
You'll notice that the crop by default
comes inside the image.
| | 01:28 |
So when the image rotated the corners of
the crop came in so that none of the crop
| | 01:31 |
box falls outside the image.
So I don't need to necessarily move the
| | 01:36 |
crop box inward in order to preserve the
full image, but I do want to bring the
| | 01:39 |
bottom edge of the crop box upward just a
bit.
| | 01:44 |
And I think right about there will work
pretty nicely.
| | 01:46 |
It takes away the area of that water that
I think is just not all that interesting
| | 01:50 |
and helps tighten up the overall
composition.
| | 01:53 |
I also like to create a wider aspect ratio
since we do after all have a grid spanning
| | 01:58 |
across the scene.
Next, I'll make sure that the delete
| | 02:03 |
cropped pixels check box is turned off.
Because as much as I want to crop the
| | 02:08 |
image, I don't want to end up in a
situation where I want to undo or modify
| | 02:11 |
that crop and I've lost all of those
pixels outside the cropped area.
| | 02:17 |
With the delete cropped pixels check box
turned off, at any time if I want to bring
| | 02:21 |
back the cropped pixels, I can simply
choose image, reveal all from the menu.
| | 02:26 |
So with those settings established, I'll
go ahead and click the Apply button on the
| | 02:30 |
Options bar.
I could also double click inside the Crop
| | 02:33 |
Box or press Enter or Return on the
keyboard in order to apply that crop, but
| | 02:36 |
now I have an image that I think is
working a bit better relative to the
| | 02:39 |
original version.
It didn't take much cropping or rotation,
| | 02:44 |
but I think it's had a good impact on the
photo.
| | 02:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a vignette| 00:02 |
I'm pretty happy with this overall image
of the Brooklyn Bridge.
| | 00:05 |
In the raw conversion process, I had to
pay careful attention to some chromatic
| | 00:08 |
aberrations and color fringing in the
image.
| | 00:11 |
But overall there wasn't too much work to
be done and it's looking pretty good I think.
| | 00:16 |
But one thing that I would like to do in
order to help frame up the image a little
| | 00:20 |
bit is to add a vignette effect.
In essence, the image doesn't feel bookended.
| | 00:25 |
It doesn't feel like there is a beginning
and end necessarily.
| | 00:29 |
The tower over the Brooklyn Bridge over on
the left side certainly helps to add a
| | 00:32 |
framing element, as do the set of towers
over on the far right side of the image.
| | 00:36 |
But, I still think a vignette can really
help to sort of close off this image a
| | 00:40 |
little bit.
And so, I am going to apply a vignette effect.
| | 00:43 |
I could have, in theory, created that
effect in Adobe Camera Raw, except then I
| | 00:47 |
later applied a cropping to the image.
In theory, I could also use the lens
| | 00:51 |
correction filter.
But doing that at this point would be a
| | 00:55 |
little bit tricky in terms of my actual
image layers because I have both an image
| | 00:58 |
layer, as well as an image clean up layer.
Instead, I'm going to create a new layer,
| | 01:04 |
not a duplicate of my image layer but just
a separate layer that will be used purely
| | 01:07 |
for applying a vignette effect, and then
I'll still use the lens correction filter
| | 01:11 |
in order to apply that effect.
Let's take a look at the process here.
| | 01:17 |
I'll start off by creating a new layer,
but I want that layer to have special properties.
| | 01:21 |
So instead of just clicking on the create
new layer button, the blank sheet of paper
| | 01:24 |
icon at the bottom of the layers panel.
I'm going to hold the Alt key on Windows,
| | 01:28 |
or the Option key on Macintosh while
clicking on that button.
| | 01:32 |
That will cause the new layer dialogue to
appear, and I can type a name for the
| | 01:36 |
layer for example.
I'll type vignette of course.
| | 01:40 |
And then I'm going to change the blend
mode from normal to multiply.
| | 01:44 |
And that will mean that this layer can
only darken whatever's down below.
| | 01:49 |
Finally, I will turn on the check box for
"fill with multiplying neutral color,"
| | 01:52 |
that will cause this layer to be filled
with white.
| | 01:56 |
However, because white is the neutral
color for the multiply blend mode that
| | 01:59 |
won't cause white in the image, it will
actually cause no effect, whatsoever.
| | 02:05 |
So with that checkbox turned on and with
my other setting established, I'll click
| | 02:08 |
the OK buttons in order to create that
layer.
| | 02:11 |
Next, in order to add a little bit of
flexibility to my workflow, I'm going to
| | 02:15 |
utilise a smart filter.
And that means I need to convert my
| | 02:19 |
vignette layer To a Smart Object.
I'll go to the Filter > Convert For Smart Filters.
| | 02:25 |
I'll get a confirmation.
I can just click OK there.
| | 02:28 |
And that will cause the Vignette Layer to
be converted to a Smart Object.
| | 02:32 |
Which means I can always come back and
fine tune the filter effect later.
| | 02:37 |
Next I'll go to the Filter > Lens
Correction.
| | 02:40 |
I'll make sure that all of the adjustment
options on the Auto Correction tab are
| | 02:44 |
turned off, and then I'll go to the Custom
tab.
| | 02:47 |
And there, I'll find the Vignette amount
and Midpoint sliders.
| | 02:51 |
I'll drag the Amount slider over toward
the left in order to darken the effect.
| | 02:55 |
But, then I'm going to drag the mid point
value over toward the right because I
| | 02:58 |
really want that vignette to just be at
the very edges and especially at the
| | 03:01 |
corners of the image.
Of course, because I'm working on a pure
| | 03:06 |
white layer, getting a sense of what
settings would be best can be little bit
| | 03:10 |
tricky, but fortunately I'll be able to
compensate for this in just a moment.
| | 03:16 |
I'll go ahead and click OK and apply that
filter.
| | 03:18 |
And you can see that I now have vignette
effect on the image.
| | 03:21 |
I can turn off visibility for that
vignette layer turn it back on to get a
| | 03:25 |
sense of the before and after.
I can turn down the Opacity for my
| | 03:29 |
vignette layer, if I want to reduce the
strength of the effect, but I can also
| | 03:33 |
return to my lens correction filter at any
time, because I applied it as a smart filter.
| | 03:40 |
So I'll double click on lens correction
for the filter.
| | 03:43 |
And then I can go back to the custom tab
and adjust the settings as I see fit.
| | 03:48 |
Perhaps pushing the vinette a little
further to the edge of the image and
| | 03:51 |
softening it up just a little bit.
Making it not quite as much of a darkening effect.
| | 03:56 |
I think that will work pretty well.
I'll go ahead and click okay.
| | 03:58 |
And so what;s the result look like.
And that looks to be quite a bit better.
| | 04:03 |
I'll toggle the visability off and then on
again.
| | 04:05 |
Maybe I'll reduce the opacity just a
little bit for that layer, but not by too much.
| | 04:10 |
And that looks much better.
Now I have a sense of framing for the
| | 04:13 |
image, helping to keep the viewer focused
on the center of the image.
| | 04:17 |
And with that, I think I have a good
result from this image.
| | 04:21 |
It didn't require too much work, I had to
focus on some corrections for the
| | 04:24 |
chromatic aberrations and color fringing.
A little bit of spotting here and there,
| | 04:28 |
and some cropping.
But, finally, with this vignette effect I
| | 04:32 |
feel that this photo is finished.
| | 04:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Horse at SunsetReviewing the photo| 00:02 |
I'm sure you've had an experience where
you were so excited capturing the
| | 00:05 |
particular subject or scene that you maybe
didn't pay as much attention as you
| | 00:08 |
would've liked to some of the details.
And I'd like to think that it was that
| | 00:14 |
excitement in this case that caused a few
problems, the most obvious initial problem
| | 00:18 |
of course is that the horizon is far form
straight.
| | 00:23 |
I like to think that the reason for that
is that this line in the foreground seemed
| | 00:26 |
to be more straight, but that's not a very
good excuse considering that that horizon
| | 00:30 |
is pretty obvious in the frame.
I also overcompensated a little bit in
| | 00:35 |
terms of the exposure.
I set minus two stop exposure compensation
| | 00:39 |
while working in the aperture priority
mode because of the way the overall
| | 00:43 |
lighting of the scene was tricking the
camera's meter.
| | 00:47 |
And also because I wanted to make sure
that I was ending up with really deep,
| | 00:50 |
rich colors in the image without too much
of the reflected areas getting completely
| | 00:54 |
blown out.
The result is that the image is a little
| | 00:59 |
bit Too dark.
I also noticed, upon closer examination,
| | 01:02 |
that there were a few, what seem to be
dust spots up in the sky.
| | 01:06 |
I'm hoping that those were actually just
birds off in the distance and that my
| | 01:09 |
sensor was actually nice and clean.
There's also a surfer over here on the
| | 01:13 |
right that I think I'd like to get rid of
from the frame.
| | 01:17 |
Just because that shape doesn't add
anything to the image, and it serves as a
| | 01:20 |
little bit of a distraction.
You can also tell that the image is pretty
| | 01:24 |
well bullseyed.
I have the horse and rider pretty well
| | 01:27 |
centered in the frame.
That's far from ideal, so when I'm
| | 01:30 |
straightening the image, I think I'd like
to crop it as well.
| | 01:33 |
I think the key really is to focus on
what's working in the image and what's
| | 01:37 |
not, and to have a little bit of a plan.
I certainly had a great time capturing
| | 01:42 |
this image around sunset on a beach in
California, and I think it turned out
| | 01:45 |
pretty well, but with a few problems.
But hopefully those problems won't be too
| | 01:50 |
challenging to resolve, and of course,
it's helpful to have a sense of exactly
| | 01:54 |
where you're trying to take an image
before you even get started.
| | 01:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting the raw capture| 00:02 |
The first step in optimizing an image when
that image is a raw capture, is to process
| | 00:05 |
the raw photo in Photoshop utilizing Adobe
Camera Raw.
| | 00:10 |
So for this photo, I'll go ahead and get
started by double clicking on the
| | 00:13 |
thumbnail in Adobe Bridge, in order to
open the image in Photoshop which of
| | 00:16 |
course will take us first to Adobe Camera
Raw.
| | 00:21 |
In theory, I could certainly crop the
image here in Adobe Camera Raw, but I'd
| | 00:24 |
prefer to save that for a later step in
Photohshop.
| | 00:28 |
Here, I'm really just going to focus on
the overall adjustment to the image.
| | 00:32 |
Frankly, I think that pretty much means
adjusting the overall tonality and maybe
| | 00:36 |
fine tuning color just a little bit.
I think the image was underexposed a
| | 00:41 |
little bit too much, I was trying to
preserve the deep color tones and the
| | 00:44 |
result is that the scene is a little bit
too dark.
| | 00:48 |
I do like the silhouette effect of course,
but I think the detail in the background
| | 00:50 |
could be brighten up a little bit.
I could start by increasing the overall exposure.
| | 00:56 |
But you notice that if take that too far,
the color gets a bit washed out so I don't
| | 01:00 |
want to increase exposure too much, maybe
right about there and then I'll move on to
| | 01:04 |
the black slider mostly, because I want to
make sure that I'm not losing too much
| | 01:07 |
detail in those black values.
I think right about there it will work.
| | 01:13 |
I'm holding the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh, so that I can see
| | 01:17 |
a clipping preview for the photo.
The colors indicate that one or more
| | 01:22 |
channels are losing detail, but the black
pixels indicate that all three channels in
| | 01:26 |
that area have lost detail, and so it's a
pure black value.
| | 01:30 |
>> That looks to be pretty good for the
overall image.
| | 01:33 |
So I don't need to reduce blacks too much,
just a little bit.
| | 01:36 |
I could also take a look at the Whites
Slider, again holding the Alt or Opt key.
| | 01:40 |
And I could increase or decrease the
amount of clipping there.
| | 01:44 |
I don't mind just a little bit of clipping
in that bright sunlight and the
| | 01:47 |
reflections, but I want to minimize it to
some extent.
| | 01:51 |
Next, I'll take a look at the shadows.
And I think that's going to be my primary
| | 01:55 |
focus here.
I'd like to open up just a little but of
| | 01:57 |
shadow detail.
Not too much, I don't want to bring out
| | 02:00 |
too much detail in the rider.
I really want to maintain a bit of a
| | 02:03 |
silhouette type of appearance for the
horse and rider.
| | 02:06 |
But I would like to bring out some of the
detail in the background.
| | 02:10 |
So that's going to call for a little bit
of a compromise in that setting.
| | 02:13 |
Right about there I think we'll work
pretty well.
| | 02:15 |
I can always fine tune with an adjustment
in Photoshop later if I need to emphasize
| | 02:19 |
one particular area of the photo.
I then take a look at the highlights, in
| | 02:24 |
theory, I might want to brighten highlight
in order to enhance over our contrast but
| | 02:28 |
in actual fact, I think I'll tone down
those highlights in order to maintain a
| | 02:31 |
bit more richness in the colors.
And speaking of richness in the colors,
| | 02:36 |
I'll also take a look at vibrance,
possible increasing the value just a
| | 02:39 |
little bit in order to bring out some of
the cell colors throughout the photo, I
| | 02:43 |
can even take a look at the Saturation
slider.
| | 02:47 |
But, I don't want the things to get too
out of control here, maybe a very slight
| | 02:51 |
increase, but not much.
Finally, I'll take a look at the clarity slider.
| | 02:56 |
Increasing clarity essentially cuts back
on haze in the image and reducing clarity
| | 03:00 |
adds something of an (UNKNOWN) effect in
the photo.
| | 03:04 |
And in this case, I actually think a
little bit of an (UNKNOWN) effect might
| | 03:07 |
work nicely.
So I'll set a negative value for clarity.
| | 03:11 |
I don't want to go too far, I'll set this
to its minimum value, minus 100 value and
| | 03:15 |
then I'll zoom in on an area of the image
here and you can see that we get a sort of
| | 03:19 |
a softening sort of effect.
If I increase clarity we have some crisper detail.
| | 03:25 |
If I tone down the Clarity, you'll see
that we essentially get an ethereal glow.
| | 03:29 |
I don't want the image to appear to be out
of focus, I just want to have a little bit
| | 03:32 |
of that kind of haze, that ehtereal glow
going on.
| | 03:36 |
And at this point, the image is looking I
think pretty good.
| | 03:39 |
I'll take a look at those shadows once
again and decide where I want to finalize
| | 03:43 |
that value.
The more I look at the image, the more I'm
| | 03:46 |
thinking that maybe it's not so bad after
all to lose a little bit of that shadow detail.
| | 03:50 |
I'd like to have a sort of dramatic look
for the image.
| | 03:54 |
So I think I'll open up shadows.
Just a little bit so I'll take that value
| | 03:57 |
down a little bit, still with the positive
value but not quite as high as it had been previously.
| | 04:03 |
I can also take a look at the temperature
and tint to see if I want to fine tune the
| | 04:06 |
overall color.
Maybe shifting a little bit more toward
| | 04:10 |
yellow or a little bit more toward
magenta, but I don't want the color to
| | 04:13 |
look too artificial.
So I'm going to be a little bit careful
| | 04:16 |
about those adjustments.
I think right about there will work pretty well.
| | 04:21 |
I'll turn off the Preview checkbox to get
a better sense of my original starting
| | 04:24 |
point and then I'll turn it back on so I
can see the final result as it stands
| | 04:27 |
right here in Adobe Camera Raw.
And I think that's a good improvement,
| | 04:32 |
I've opened up a little bit of detail and
enhanced some of the color in the photo
| | 04:35 |
and I think that's a great starting point.
I'll save the image clean up work as well
| | 04:40 |
as the cropping work that I need to do
here.
| | 04:42 |
I have a crooked horizon and some
blemishes throughout the photo, but I'm
| | 04:46 |
going to save those for Photoshop proper.
So at this point, I'm ready to finalize
| | 04:50 |
the processing in Adobe Camera RAW.
So I'll simply click the Open Image button.
| | 04:55 |
And Adobe Camera Raw will process the raw
capture and open up the final result in Photoshop.
| | 05:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Crop and Rotate| 00:02 |
It takes virtually no time at all to
realize that one of the biggest issues
| | 00:05 |
with this particular photo is that the
horizon is crooked, and also I think the
| | 00:08 |
image could be cropped a little bit.
I need to have a little more space in
| | 00:13 |
front of the horse rather than behind the
horse, and so I want to crop on the left
| | 00:16 |
side of the frame.
So to get started I'll choose the crop
| | 00:20 |
tool from the toolbox, that will create an
initial crop box, but what I'm going to do
| | 00:24 |
first is actually straighten that horizon.
So I'll click on the straighten tool on
| | 00:29 |
the options bar and then click on the
horizon, and drag over toward the other
| | 00:32 |
edge of the image, making sure that the
line I'm drawing with the straighten tool
| | 00:36 |
perfectly matches up with that horizon.
When I release the mouse, the image will
| | 00:42 |
then be straightened so that that line is,
in this case, perfectly horizontal.
| | 00:47 |
You can see that the crop box has been
adjusted inward on the image as well, and
| | 00:50 |
so at this point, in theory, I could be
finished, knowing that I have a straight horizon.
| | 00:56 |
But I also want to crop form the left side
of the image, so I will go ahead and drag
| | 01:00 |
the left edge of that crop box in ward a
bit, and I think right about there should
| | 01:04 |
work pretty well.
I want to tighten up the left side of the
| | 01:09 |
image without closing into to close to the
horse and while leaving a bit more space
| | 01:13 |
on the right side than on the left,
essentially, giving the horse somewhere to go.
| | 01:18 |
May be I will bring it in just a little
bit more, I think right about there works
| | 01:21 |
pretty nicely.
I think I might also tighten up the top of
| | 01:25 |
the crop dragging the top edge downward
just a little bit.
| | 01:29 |
Right about there will work pretty nicely
for this image.
| | 01:33 |
You'll notice by the way that I have not
set a specific aspect ratio.
| | 01:36 |
I'm cropping freeform based on the
subject, not based on particular dimensions.
| | 01:42 |
I also am working with the Delete Cropped
pixels checkbox turned off so that the
| | 01:46 |
pixels that fall outside of the crop box
won't be deleted, but rather will just be
| | 01:49 |
hidden from view.
If I ever need to bring those pixels back,
| | 01:54 |
I can go to the Image menu and choose
reveal all in order to enlarge the canvas
| | 01:58 |
to show me those pixels.
With those settings established, I'll go
| | 02:03 |
ahead and click the Apply button, in order
to apply that crop to the image, and now I
| | 02:06 |
think we have a much better result.
So we straightened off that horizon, and
| | 02:11 |
cropped a little more tightly into the
scene.
| | 02:14 |
In the process, I also got rid of one of
those blemishes on the left side that I
| | 02:17 |
thought I was going to have to clean up,
so that'll save me just a little bit of
| | 02:20 |
work as well.
But now, I have a much improved image,
| | 02:23 |
just by applying a simple cropping and
straightening.
| | 02:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up blemishes| 00:00 |
One of my biggest pet peeves in an image
is distractions and blemishes.
| | 00:06 |
Things that catch your eye that aren't
adding anything to the image.
| | 00:10 |
In this image I have, for example, what I
think is a bird off in the distance in the
| | 00:14 |
sky that could be a dust spot on my image
sensor as well.
| | 00:18 |
There's also a surfer on one of the waves
here that I'd like to remove from the scene.
| | 00:22 |
And a few other slightly distracting
elements.
| | 00:25 |
So, for example, there's some pebbles and
whatnot on the sand here in the foreground
| | 00:28 |
and they just catch your eye a little bit
too much, I think.
| | 00:32 |
I'd like to remove them from the scene so
they don't serve as distractions.
| | 00:36 |
So to get started, I'm going to create a
new image layer because I want to perform
| | 00:39 |
my clean up work separate of my actual
pixel layer.
| | 00:43 |
So on the Layers panel, I'll click on the
Create New Layer button.
| | 00:46 |
The blank sheet of paper icon at the
bottom of the layers panel, then I'll
| | 00:49 |
double click on the name of the layer so
that I can type a new name for the layer.
| | 00:53 |
I'll just call it image cleanup, and then
press Enter or Return on the keyboard to
| | 00:57 |
apply that change.
For something like the bird or dust spot
| | 01:01 |
that's in the sky there, using the Spot
Healing Brush tool is a piece of cake.
| | 01:05 |
For other areas of the image, you need to
be a little bit more careful.
| | 01:08 |
I'll start by choosing the Spot Healing
Brush tool from the tool box.
| | 01:12 |
And then I'll make sure the Content Aware
option is set for Type on the Options bar.
| | 01:17 |
And I also want to make sure the Sample
All Layers is turned on so that I can work
| | 01:21 |
across, in this case my.
Two layers, the underlying image layer
| | 01:26 |
with all of my pixels and my blank image
cleanup layer that I'll use as the
| | 01:29 |
destination for the pixels that I'll be
using for cleanup purposes.
| | 01:35 |
I'll then zoom in on the image to the area
that I need to cleanup.
| | 01:39 |
And I'll adjust the brush size for the
spot healing brush tool.
| | 01:43 |
i can reduce the brush size with left
square bracket key or increase the brush
| | 01:46 |
size with the right square bracket key and
i want the brush size just large enough to
| | 01:50 |
clean enough the blemish,click and paint
over that area ,dark overlay in the case
| | 01:54 |
which portion of the image i am painting
on And when I release the mouse, that
| | 01:57 |
blemish will disappear.
I'll go ahead and hold the space bar to
| | 02:04 |
access the Hand tool, and pan down to that
surfer so that I can resolve that area of
| | 02:08 |
the image.
I will start by increasing the brush size
| | 02:12 |
to encompass scenario just a little bit
large than the surfer and then I'll click
| | 02:15 |
and hopefully that will resolve things
well, and actually it looks like its done
| | 02:19 |
great job in this case.
As I am zoomed in on the image, I noticed
| | 02:24 |
this other area, it's not actually a
blemish, I think it's probably just a wave
| | 02:27 |
catching the light.
I am not really sure.
| | 02:30 |
But it is an eye catching distraction so I
think I'll get rid of that as well.
| | 02:35 |
As important as it is to zoom in very
closely on the image when you're
| | 02:37 |
performing your clean up work it's also
important to back off a little bit and get
| | 02:41 |
an overview of the image.
I also like to turn off the Visibility for
| | 02:46 |
my image cleanup layer and then turn the
Visibility back on so that I can see the
| | 02:49 |
before and after and make sure that I'm
happy with the results.
| | 02:55 |
That looks pretty good over on the right
side of the image.
| | 02:56 |
I'll then zoom in down below, and clean up
a few other areas.
| | 03:00 |
You can see this spot, for example, is
really just a splash of some sort.
| | 03:04 |
Perhaps a rock or some sand hit the water
there.
| | 03:07 |
But it's just a little bit too
distracting, and so I'd like to get rid of it.
| | 03:10 |
So I'll adjust my brush size as needed and
paint into that area of the image a little
| | 03:14 |
bit, in order to clean up that blemish.
There are a couple others over here that I
| | 03:18 |
think I'd like to remove from the scene.
Mostly just to sort of blend things in a
| | 03:23 |
little bit so that we end up with an image
that is to the extent possible distraction-free.
| | 03:30 |
I think I'll also get rid of these dark
spots.
| | 03:32 |
Most of the water droplets here, caught a
bit of light and so they look pretty nice
| | 03:36 |
actually, I especially like the splash
down in the water below but this darker
| | 03:40 |
spot just looks like a spot.
So I'll remove that from the frame as well
| | 03:45 |
and that one as well.
Just by painting and I'll pan across and
| | 03:48 |
check for any other areas that seem to be
a bit distracting, but I think that takes
| | 03:52 |
care of most of it.
Oh, after zooming in a little closer, I
| | 03:57 |
find another bird off in the distance.
I'll go ahead and check the horizon on the
| | 04:01 |
other side as well, but that looks to be
pretty clean.
| | 04:04 |
It's a good idea to pan through the entire
image checking for distractions with a
| | 04:08 |
nice, zoomed in setting.
So you can find all possible blemishes
| | 04:14 |
within the image.
But in this case I think I'm in pretty
| | 04:18 |
good case, as far as that overall image
cleanup.
| | 04:21 |
I've removed quite a few distracting
elements and I think that really makes a
| | 04:23 |
big difference in terms of being able to
focus on our key subject in the photo.
| | 04:28 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Final adjustments| 00:02 |
I felt that my initial capture for this
image was a bit too dark, and that
| | 00:05 |
probably explains why at this point, I
feel the image isn't quite dark enough.
| | 00:11 |
I think I just overcompensated a little
bit in the Raw conversion.
| | 00:14 |
Adjusting the tonal adjustments to produce
an image that was a little bit too bright.
| | 00:19 |
Not too bright, but a little bit too
bright.
| | 00:21 |
And especially I'd like to focus some
attention on the rider here.
| | 00:25 |
There's still a bit of detail evident
there and I'd rather have a bit more of a
| | 00:28 |
pure silohoutte effect in the image.
So I'm going to apply initially a Curves Adjustment.
| | 00:34 |
I'll start off by adding an adjustment
layer so I'm working with a nondestructive
| | 00:38 |
work flow.
So I'll click the half black half white
| | 00:41 |
circle icon, the Add Adjustment Layer
button.
| | 00:44 |
At the bottom of the Layers panel, and
then from the pop-up menu that appears,
| | 00:47 |
I'll choose Curves.
I'll scroll down so I can see the entire
| | 00:50 |
histogram area in the curve.
And what I want to do is darken up the
| | 00:55 |
darks, but probably not darken the brights
too much.
| | 00:59 |
And that's actually going to create an S
curve.
| | 01:02 |
That is sort of the classic adjustment
with curves because with most images, it
| | 01:06 |
produces a much better result.
And that's because it's enhancing mid-tone
| | 01:11 |
contrast without losing highlight or
shadow detail.
| | 01:14 |
So I'll start off toward toward the left
end of the curve.
| | 01:17 |
And I will click on the curve itself and
drag downward just a little bit.
| | 01:21 |
I just want to create a little bit more of
a create a silhouette effect.
| | 01:25 |
And one of the key things to keep in mind
with Curves is that a little goes a long way.
| | 01:28 |
You don't need to adjust very far in order
to produce a pleasing result.
| | 01:32 |
And it doesn't take very much to start
creating problems in the image.
| | 01:36 |
So, I'll bring that adjustment back up a
little bit, so that the anchor point is
| | 01:40 |
closer to the original starting point.
For that curve.
| | 01:43 |
I think right about there works pretty
well.
| | 01:46 |
That adjustment is focused on the dark
areas of the image, but it's really
| | 01:49 |
affecting the entire image.
And so I now want to compensate a little
| | 01:53 |
bit over toward the brighter range.
So I'll move a little bit to the right of
| | 01:57 |
middle gray, and then click and drag
upward on that curve.
| | 02:01 |
I could brighten those values up a lot if
I wanted to.
| | 02:05 |
But really, I just want to sort of
normalize that curve a little bit.
| | 02:08 |
I want to brighten the highlights a little
but not too much.
| | 02:13 |
You can see, that the shape of the curve
now slightly resembles an S.
| | 02:17 |
It doesn't look like a letter S exactly,
it's just somewhat reminiscent of an S,
| | 02:20 |
with the top part bulging upward and the
bottom part bulging downward.
| | 02:25 |
But that enhances contrast in the image,
without clipping the shadow or highlight
| | 02:29 |
details, and I think that works pretty
well.
| | 02:33 |
I'll turn off the visibility for that
curves adjustment and then turn it back on
| | 02:36 |
again, and I think in terms of overall
tonal values, this is working nicely.
| | 02:40 |
It produces a bit more dramatic scene,
here.
| | 02:43 |
I do think though that the colours are
getting a little bit too saturated, so I'm
| | 02:47 |
going to add a vibrance adjustment layer.
I'll click on the add adjustment layer
| | 02:52 |
once again and then choose vibrance from
that pop up menu.
| | 02:55 |
And then I think I'm just going to tone
down the colours that are too saturated.
| | 03:01 |
And since Vibrance has a variable effect
that will work out very nicely.
| | 03:05 |
When I increase the value for Vibrance,
the colors that are not very saturated get
| | 03:09 |
increased in terms of saturation more than
the colors that already were saturated.
| | 03:14 |
So, we're able to increase saturation
without creating colors that look
| | 03:17 |
artificial or weird.
>> When we reduce vibrance, the colors
| | 03:20 |
that are heavily saturated will be reduced
in saturation more than the colors that
| | 03:24 |
were relatively subtle.
And what that means is we can tone those
| | 03:29 |
strong colors without causing the areas
that are not all that saturated to turn grey.
| | 03:34 |
I don't much of an adjustment here.
Just a minor little reduction in overall vibrance.
| | 03:40 |
I'll go ahead and toggle the visibility of
that adjustment.
| | 03:43 |
I think I could take it down just a little
bit more.
| | 03:45 |
I don't want to take it down too far,
maybe right about there so that the colors
| | 03:49 |
look a little more natural, nice and deep
but not overprocessed.
| | 03:55 |
So now, with just a couple of additional
adjustment layers, I'm feeling much better
| | 03:58 |
about this image.
Most of the adjustments that I applied
| | 04:02 |
were relatively straightforward.
When I process the Raw capture, there was
| | 04:05 |
very little adjustment applied.
I had to apply a rather significant crop
| | 04:09 |
in order to straighten out the image, and
I also needed to do some image clean up
| | 04:13 |
work, but now with just a couple of minor
adjustments, I think we're in really good
| | 04:16 |
shape for this photo.
| | 04:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Swirling SurfRaw processing| 00:02 |
One of the things that fascinates me about
digital photography is the potential to
| | 00:05 |
review images later and apply some rather
significant adjustments.
| | 00:10 |
And because of that and because of a
variety of other factors related to the
| | 00:13 |
way our camera interpret a scene.
It can sometimes be rather surprising just
| | 00:18 |
how much you can salvage an image.
Now this is a tricky subject, because I'm
| | 00:22 |
a huge advocate for getting the best
results in camera and then making the best
| | 00:26 |
of them with some minor adjustments.
But sometimes you might not realize the
| | 00:31 |
potential of an image.
And this photo happens to be one of those.
| | 00:35 |
When I captured it, the scene was quite
beautiful.
| | 00:38 |
There were a lot of colors going on.
Reflected light from the sunset and some
| | 00:41 |
of the natural green colors in the water.
As well as some cyans, blues, and purples
| | 00:47 |
appearing in the rocks.
Yet, the capture just doesn't look very
| | 00:51 |
good at all.
Fortunately though, I've took some time to
| | 00:55 |
play with it and I actually like the final
result I was able to achieve.
| | 00:59 |
Let's take a look at the basic rock
inversion, to get things started.
| | 01:02 |
>> That will help us get a better sense of
the true potential of this image because
| | 01:06 |
from the start it really doesn't look all
that good.
| | 01:09 |
This is frankly an image that I probably
would've just deleted, but let's take a
| | 01:12 |
look at what we can find in Adobe Camera
Raw.
| | 01:15 |
I'll double click the image in Adobe
Bridge and that will launch Photoshop, if
| | 01:19 |
it's not already running.
And bring out Adobe Camera Raw since this
| | 01:23 |
is a raw capture and then I can explore
initially some of the color adjustments
| | 01:26 |
just to see if I can pull out some of that
original color, the color that was very
| | 01:29 |
obvious in front of my eyes but the camera
doesn't seem to have recorded.
| | 01:36 |
I'll start by increasing the value for For
vibrance.
| | 01:38 |
And I'll take it up rather signifigantly.
You can start to see a little bit of the
| | 01:42 |
yellows and the greens coming up.
And I'm also going to increase the value
| | 01:46 |
for saturation.
And this gives me a better result.
| | 01:50 |
Not perfect, but an improvement,
certainly.
| | 01:52 |
But we'll explore some additional
possibilities here in just a moment in
| | 01:55 |
order to improve the final effect.
I also want to take a look at the over all
| | 02:01 |
exposure and also clarity, but I'm going
to start with clarity because I think that
| | 02:04 |
has the greatest potential to realizing
what I thought was going to be possible
| | 02:08 |
with this image.
I'll increase that value, this is
| | 02:13 |
essentially reducing haze as it Or in the
image.
| | 02:16 |
Or applying a sort of broad based,
sharpening effect.
| | 02:20 |
If I reduced the value, you'll see we have
more haze.
| | 02:23 |
But in this case, I really think it's
interesting in terms of overall textures
| | 02:26 |
to increase that value for clarity.
And frankly, to increase it a lot.
| | 02:31 |
I'll take it to it's maximum value in
fact.
| | 02:33 |
And already we have a result that's quite
a bit different from what we originally saw.
| | 02:38 |
I want to fine tune things a little bit
more.
| | 02:40 |
I'm tempted to just increase vibrance all
the way to it's maximum, and maybe even
| | 02:44 |
increase saturation to its maximum.
I really like some of the cyans and mostly
| | 02:49 |
the green and the yellows that are going
on in the image here.
| | 02:53 |
But I'm not so crazy about those magenta
or sort of purplish tones.
| | 02:57 |
And so I'm going to switch to the HSL
section in Adobe Camera Raw and then I'll
| | 03:01 |
switch to the saturation tab.
I'm going to reduce saturation first for
| | 03:07 |
the magentas.
I'll go ahead and swing the slider through
| | 03:10 |
at extremes and you can see that some
areas of the image are responding.
| | 03:13 |
I won't take the value all the way down to
its minimum negative 100 but I will reduce
| | 03:17 |
it significantly.
Then I'll take a look at the purple and
| | 03:21 |
this is actually the biggest problem in
the image, you can see quite clearly as I
| | 03:24 |
increase the value for purple saturation,
I see a lot areas in the image that are
| | 03:28 |
responding and they don't look very good.
So I'm going to tone down the saturation
| | 03:34 |
for those color values as well.
I'll take a look at the blues and you can
| | 03:38 |
see that that represents some of these
areas that look a little bit too artificial.
| | 03:42 |
I like the colors, they sort of look cool
but it's such a little bit too strong so I
| | 03:46 |
think I like to tone things down for those
blues a little bit.
| | 03:50 |
And I actually am going to increase the
value for the yellows and for the greens
| | 03:54 |
because those are the colors that I think
are really working best within the image.
| | 03:59 |
Might even increase the aquas a little
bit.
| | 04:02 |
If you are unsure about a particular
slider, I really encourage you to swing
| | 04:05 |
the slider Through its extremes all the
way to the maximum and then back to the
| | 04:08 |
minimum value in order to get a better
sense of how that slider will affect the image.
| | 04:14 |
I'll take a look at the oranges as well
and we have a reasonable amount of orange
| | 04:17 |
in the image.
The reds I'm a little bit concerned about
| | 04:20 |
because I think those purple values and
magenta values in the rocks might be
| | 04:24 |
brought back but it looks like I can
increase reds just a little bit.
| | 04:29 |
This is obviously a far cry from what we
saw initially with this image, but I would
| | 04:32 |
like to adjust overall tonality as well.
So I'll return back to the basic set of
| | 04:37 |
adjustments and then I'll take a look
first at the white slider, I'll hold the
| | 04:41 |
Alt key on Windows, or the Opt key on
Mackintosh as I increase or decrease as
| | 04:44 |
needed the adjustment and I want it to see
just a little bit of white.
| | 04:51 |
I want the brightest pixels in the image
to appear white, so I'll increase the
| | 04:54 |
value for whites until with the clipping
preview, because I'm holding the Alt or
| | 04:58 |
Opt key that I can see some pixels are
turning to pure white.
| | 05:03 |
I'll then release the Alt or Opt key on
the keyboard and you can see that I
| | 05:06 |
brighten up those highlights quite a bit.
I'll then adjust the black value as well,
| | 05:10 |
so I'll hold the Alt or Opt key, once
again and take a look at that black
| | 05:13 |
slider, but you can see I already have
some clip values and so I think I'll
| | 05:16 |
actually slightly increase the blacks
because really I just want to maximize the
| | 05:20 |
tonal range in the scene.
I don't want to create too many areas that
| | 05:26 |
are clipped, and certainly I don't want
areas where I completely lost all detail
| | 05:29 |
Next I'll take a look at the Shadows and
Highlights values, and I'm actually going
| | 05:33 |
to use these values mostly to enhance
contrast a little bit.
| | 05:38 |
So I'll reduce the value for Shadows, and
then increase the value for Highlights,
| | 05:42 |
and I think I actually can take that value
up pretty high.
| | 05:47 |
That's working pretty well, I'll go and
turn off the preview checkbox so that we
| | 05:50 |
can see the original image and then turn
that preview checkbox back on.
| | 05:54 |
And you can see we've really had a rather
dramatic impact on this photo.
| | 05:58 |
And I really do like the energy that's
exhibited here, the textures, the colours.
| | 06:03 |
I really think this is working kind of
nicely.
| | 06:05 |
>> I do think that I might like to enhance
things a little bit further, but at this
| | 06:09 |
point quite honestly I've sort of maxed
out the potential.
| | 06:13 |
I will take a look at the temperature and
tense sliders just to make sure that the
| | 06:16 |
colors are the best they can be, but I
don't think too much of an adjustment is
| | 06:19 |
going to be necessary there.
I think right about there is working
| | 06:23 |
pretty well.
But again, I think overall we've reached a
| | 06:27 |
point where the adjustments in Adobe
Camera Raw aren't quite taking the image
| | 06:30 |
as far as I'd like it to go although we
have made a huge improvement so, we have a
| | 06:34 |
much better starting point for this photo.
So, with that I'll go ahead and click the
| | 06:41 |
Open Image button in order to process this
image in Adobe Camera Raw and send the
| | 06:46 |
result to Photoshop.
| | 06:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding local contrast| 00:02 |
This image started out looking very, very
drab, but when I processed the original
| | 00:05 |
raw capture in Adobe Camera Raw, I
utilized a variety of different
| | 00:09 |
adjustments in order to bring out the
color contrast and texture in the image.
| | 00:15 |
I use the Clarity Adjustment in Adobe
Camera Raw, and that worked out very nicely.
| | 00:20 |
But it wasn't quite enough of an
adjustment even at its maximum intensity,
| | 00:23 |
and so I'd like to create a similar effect
here in Photoshop.
| | 00:28 |
There are a couple of ways that I could go
about that.
| | 00:30 |
One of them is to simply apply sharpening
to the image, but in this case, I think I
| | 00:34 |
can use a technique for enhancing local
contrast in order to achieve a similar result.
| | 00:41 |
I'll start off by creating a copy of my
background image layer.
| | 00:44 |
So, I'm going to drag the thumbnail for
that background layer down to the create
| | 00:48 |
new layer button, the blank sheet of paper
icon at the bottom of the Layers panel,
| | 00:51 |
and then I'll rename this layer so I know
why it's there.
| | 00:55 |
So I'll double-click on the name of the
layer, and I'll type Contrast Enhancement
| | 00:59 |
in this case, and then press Enter or
Return on the keyboard to apply that change.
| | 01:04 |
And then I'm going to change the blend
mode for this layer to Overlay.
| | 01:09 |
The default is normal, and so of course we
see just a normal image here.
| | 01:13 |
But if I click the popup at the top left
of the Layers panel, I can choose Overlay,
| | 01:17 |
and that will enhance contrast.
Of course, it's enhancing contrast, not in
| | 01:22 |
the best way possible, and so I want to
fine tune the effect.
| | 01:27 |
And for that, I'm going to use a special
filter.
| | 01:30 |
I'll go to the Filter menu and choose
Other.
| | 01:32 |
Yes, it's a menu that doesn't have the
best name, so you might not ever look
| | 01:36 |
here, but the high pass filter can
actually be very helpful in a variety of situations.
| | 01:42 |
So, from the Filter menu, I'll choose
Other, followed by High Pass.
| | 01:45 |
That will bring up the High Pass dialogue.
I'll start off with a value of 10 for
| | 01:50 |
radius, but I can increase or decrease the
value as I see fit.
| | 01:54 |
Notice that in effect what we're getting
is an embossed effect in the photo.
| | 01:59 |
In this case I think I want to increase
the radius somewhat significantly.
| | 02:02 |
I think right about there, maybe a little
higher.
| | 02:05 |
That looks to be pretty good.
I really like the dramatic effect on
| | 02:08 |
getting as far as the texture in the
image.
| | 02:11 |
I think I'm going to need to enhance
contrast a little bit in order to really
| | 02:14 |
improve upon the photo overall, but to me,
this is looking pretty interesting.
| | 02:18 |
I really enjoy the textures here.
Perhaps partly I'm biased because the
| | 02:22 |
original image was so drab, but I really
do think this effect is working pretty nicely.
| | 02:28 |
I'll go ahead and click Okay to close the
High Pass dialogue, applying that effect.
| | 02:32 |
I can also tone down the effect if needed
by adjusting the opacity value for my
| | 02:36 |
contrast enhancement layer up at the top
right of the layers panel.
| | 02:41 |
You can see if I reduce the value to zero
I end up with no effect.
| | 02:45 |
If I increase the value back to 100 I get
a very strong effect.
| | 02:49 |
I might tone it down just a little bit,
but not too much.
| | 02:52 |
I really do enjoy the texture that's going
on here.
| | 02:55 |
That looks to be pretty good so I'll go
ahead and finalise that as the setting for
| | 02:58 |
my contrast enhancement.
So you can see just by utilising a
| | 03:02 |
duplicate layer with the overlay blend
mode and the high pass filter, adjusting
| | 03:06 |
opacity for the layers as needed, we can
get some interesting texture, sort of like
| | 03:10 |
a clarity or sharpening effect enhancing
contrast in localised areas of the image.
| | 03:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enhancing with adjustments| 00:02 |
This image has really come a long way from
the original, without too many adjustments
| | 00:05 |
needed, but I do think that I need one or
two final adjustments in order to create
| | 00:09 |
the final image.
I'm going to start off with a Curves adjustment.
| | 00:14 |
And so at the bottom of the Layers panel,
I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer
| | 00:17 |
button, and then choose Curves from the
popup menu.
| | 00:21 |
I'll scroll down, so that we can see the
entirety of that histogram display for
| | 00:25 |
Curves, and what I really want to focus on
is two things.
| | 00:29 |
I want to enhance the dynamic range of the
image.
| | 00:31 |
Bringing in the black and white points as
needed, perhaps even clipping a little bit
| | 00:35 |
of the highlight detail in order to really
bring out the white values.
| | 00:39 |
And then I also want to enhance Midtone
contrast.
| | 00:42 |
So, let's take a look at how we'll do
that.
| | 00:44 |
I'll start off with the white point.
I think that's the most critical issue at
| | 00:47 |
the moment for this image, because the
Whites are looking a bit drab.
| | 00:51 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh.
| | 00:55 |
And below the histogram, I'll click on the
White point slider and then drag to the
| | 00:58 |
left in order to enhance the whites in the
image.
| | 01:02 |
You'll notice that with the Clipping
preview enabled, by holding the Alt or
| | 01:05 |
Option key, I can see which pixels are
losing detail.
| | 01:08 |
I'll release the Alt or Option key.
And we can see that we're losing a little
| | 01:12 |
bit of detail, but not too much.
I don't think there are any serious
| | 01:16 |
problems within the photo.
And we've enhanced contrast I think pretty well.
| | 01:20 |
I can also take a look at the black point
in the similar fashion, I'll hold the Alt
| | 01:24 |
or Option key and then adjust that black
point.
| | 01:27 |
I might increase it just slightly but not
too much.
| | 01:31 |
I don't want to lose too much of that
shadow detail and end up with blacked up
| | 01:34 |
areas, but since those dark areas
represent a relatively small portion of
| | 01:37 |
the photo.
I think we'll be okay with the adjustment
| | 01:41 |
as I have it here.
I also want to brighten up the brighter
| | 01:44 |
areas of the image.
And so, I'll click and drag over toward
| | 01:47 |
the right end of the curve, not too close
to the white point, maybe about a quarter
| | 01:51 |
of the way in or so.
And I'll drag that curve upward in order
| | 01:55 |
to brighten the brights.
Then I want to drag the left edge of the
| | 01:58 |
curve downward in order to retain the dark
values in the image as well.
| | 02:03 |
Am I darken up those darks just a hair
more, not too much, but I do like the idea
| | 02:07 |
of having a relatively strong image in
terms of color, contrast and texture.
| | 02:13 |
To be sure, I've made this image much more
dramatic than where it started from.
| | 02:18 |
And in fact a bit more dramatic than the
original scene look.
| | 02:22 |
But to me, the idea of this swirling waves
and the texture that that creates as well
| | 02:26 |
as the colors that I've been able to pull
out really creates an interesting effects.
| | 02:32 |
It's not an image for everyone and
certainly not my best image ever, but I do
| | 02:36 |
like the fact that I was able to bring out
some very interesting textures, contrast,
| | 02:39 |
and colors, in an image that I originally
thought was essentially just a throwaway,
| | 02:43 |
a very drab image.
Now, the result is something that I
| | 02:49 |
actually like.
I think the lesson is to not jump to
| | 02:52 |
conclusions for an image and to not be
afraid to explore the possibilities for a photo.
| | 02:57 |
Even when you think that an image is one
that you might as well just delete, you
| | 03:00 |
might want to play around with it just a
little bit and see what might be possible.
| | 03:05 |
In this case, I like the result.
It's an interesting image that has a lot
| | 03:08 |
of very cool textures and colors going on
in it.
| | 03:11 |
I could even see possibly applying some
artistic filters to the image.
| | 03:15 |
And, therefore, I'm glad that I spent some
time playing with this image and getting a
| | 03:19 |
feel for what might be possible for it.
| | 03:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Empty BottlesBasic raw conversion| 00:01 |
Every now and then in my travels, I
stumble upon a scene, that almost makes me
| | 00:05 |
feel like I've gone back in time, and this
was certainly one of those situations.
| | 00:10 |
You can see that the streets were cobbled,
and we have these crates that look
| | 00:13 |
absolutely ancient, and the bottles sort
of look ancient too.
| | 00:17 |
It looks like I went back in time 100
years or so.
| | 00:21 |
And so I thought it might be appropriate
in this case to think about a black and
| | 00:24 |
white conversion, and maybe even a sepia
tone effect for the photo, but the first
| | 00:28 |
step of course is to optimize my RAW
capture, and that calls for Adobe Camera Raw.
| | 00:35 |
So, I'll go ahead and double click on the
image in Adobe Bridge and that will launch
| | 00:39 |
Photoshop if it was not already running,
and bring up the image in Adobe Camera Raw
| | 00:43 |
so that I can adjust the settings for that
raw conversion.
| | 00:48 |
I'm pretty certain that I'm going to take
this image into a black and white
| | 00:51 |
interpretation, possibly with a color
tint.
| | 00:54 |
And so, I might assume that the color is
just not important.
| | 00:58 |
But I'm not 100% certain about that
decision, so I'm going to treat the image
| | 01:01 |
as though it will remain in color.
And therefore I'll address the color for
| | 01:05 |
the image in Adobe Camera Raw as well as
tonality.
| | 01:09 |
In this case, I think the image is looking
pretty well overall and so I just want to
| | 01:12 |
take some basic steps to ensure I'm
starting with the best image possible.
| | 01:17 |
Since the color seems to be in pretty good
shape, I'm going to start off with tonality.
| | 01:21 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh, and then start
| | 01:25 |
adjusting the white slider so that I can
establish a white point for the image.
| | 01:30 |
I'll increase that value until I start to
see some pixels appear, and then I'll
| | 01:33 |
release the mouse and evaluate the image,
but that looks to be a pretty good result.
| | 01:39 |
I have brightened up the overall image
establishing a white point and in
| | 01:42 |
particular setting that white to a very
bright value so we have better overall
| | 01:45 |
dynamic range.
I will perform a similar adjustment for
| | 01:50 |
the black slider.
I will hold the Alt key on Windows, or the
| | 01:53 |
Option key on Macintosh while I adjust the
slider, and I will take that slider over
| | 01:56 |
toward the left.
Again, until I see pixels starting to
| | 02:00 |
appear, I do want to make sure that I have
at least a few pixels that are appearing
| | 02:03 |
as pure black, so that I'll actually have
a black point established for the image.
| | 02:09 |
And that means that essentially at this
point, I've maximized the dynamic range,
| | 02:12 |
or the tonal range, of this image.
I can also adjust overall contrast by
| | 02:17 |
brightening or darkening the highlights
and the shadows individually.
| | 02:22 |
I'll brighten the highlights a little bit,
you can see that the effect is not to
| | 02:25 |
strong, but it does give me a little bit
more texture, and a little bit more
| | 02:28 |
contrast in the image.
I'll also adjust shadows, I think taking
| | 02:32 |
those values down a little bit to add a
touch of drama to the photo.
| | 02:37 |
I'll also increase clarity just a little
bit.
| | 02:40 |
That will just give me a little bit more
texture which I think will work nicely for
| | 02:43 |
this image especially for the wood grain
for example.
| | 02:46 |
And even though again I think I'm going to
convert this image to black and white,
| | 02:50 |
I'll increase Vibrance just a little bit
to enhance the overall colors, and I'll
| | 02:54 |
take a look at the Temperature and Tint
sliders as well, possibly warming up the
| | 02:57 |
image just a little bit.
I'll take a look at Tint now as well, and
| | 03:03 |
Tint looks like I'll probably want to keep
that relatively neutral.
| | 03:07 |
Right about there looks to be pretty good.
Otherwise I think I'm in pretty good
| | 03:12 |
shape, so as far as this RAW conversion is
concerned, a pretty straightforward process.
| | 03:17 |
Just applying basic adjustments to
maximize the quality and detail levels in
| | 03:20 |
the image when I start working on it in
more detail in Photoshop.
| | 03:25 |
So I'll go ahead and click the Open Image
button and Adobe Camera Raw will process
| | 03:30 |
that capture and send it over to
Photoshop.
| | 03:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Straightening the image| 00:02 |
I'm pretty happy with the way this image
turned out right out of the camera.
| | 00:05 |
With some basic adjustments in Adobe
Camera Raw I think I'm off to a great start.
| | 00:10 |
But I would like to straighten the image
out a little bit and that's a little bit
| | 00:13 |
tricky actually in this case because of
the way the crates are sitting, the bottom
| | 00:16 |
crate seems to be leaning to the left a
little bit.
| | 00:20 |
The next one up seems to lean maybe to the
right just a hair.
| | 00:22 |
And the top one seems pretty straight.
But let's take a look with a crop and
| | 00:26 |
rotation, at how we can improve the
overall appearance.
| | 00:30 |
I think I'm going to focus most of my
attention on this lower slat of the crate
| | 00:33 |
at the bottom, because that to me is sort
of a foundational element.
| | 00:38 |
It's the object that catches my eye when I
think about whether or not this image is
| | 00:42 |
really straight.
So I'll choose the Crop Tool from the toolbar.
| | 00:46 |
And then I'll use the straighten options
from the Options bar.
| | 00:50 |
I'll go ahead then and click and drag
along the left edge of this vertical slat.
| | 00:55 |
And then when I release the mouse, making
sure before I do that the line here
| | 00:59 |
perfectly matches the slat, the image will
be rotated so that that line is now
| | 01:02 |
perfectly vertical.
The corners of the crop will also be
| | 01:07 |
brought in.
Inside the image and so now I can sort of
| | 01:10 |
take a step back and think about whether
or not I'm happy with that result.
| | 01:15 |
And I think that will work pretty well.
The slat over on the right here of the
| | 01:18 |
second crate is certainly leaning to the
right but with the other lines in the
| | 01:21 |
image I think that's working out pretty
well.
| | 01:25 |
And it certainly seems to me that the
overall cobbles in the background are not
| | 01:29 |
causing any problems in terms of the
perspective relative to whether it's a
| | 01:33 |
straight image.
So, I think that will work out pretty well
| | 01:37 |
for this photo.
I could always recover these pixels later
| | 01:40 |
of course because I'm going to keep the
delete.
| | 01:43 |
Cropped Pixels check box on the Options
bar turned off.
| | 01:46 |
So later if I decide I want to bring back
those pixels that I've cropped, I can
| | 01:50 |
simply choose Image > Reveal All from the
menu and that will expand the canvas to
| | 01:54 |
reveal those pixels.
but at this point I think I have a good
| | 01:59 |
crop applied.
So I'll go ahead and click the apply
| | 02:01 |
button, the check mark icon on the icons
bar.
| | 02:04 |
I could also double click inside the crop
box or press enter or return on the
| | 02:08 |
keyboard to apply that crop.
But now, I have an image that is
| | 02:12 |
straighten out, I think.
And, again, I think the reference line is
| | 02:16 |
most important that is sort of a central
element in the image, obviously, down
| | 02:19 |
toward the bottom but central in terms of
our focus for evaluating whether that
| | 02:23 |
image is straight.
And so, I think now we have a better
| | 02:27 |
starting point for this photo.
| | 02:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Black-and-white conversion| 00:02 |
Whenever an image seems to harken back to
an earlier time, I tend to think about a
| | 00:06 |
black and white conversion.
I suppose that's just ingrained in my mind
| | 00:11 |
because I think of black and white images
as being older images compared to color photos.
| | 00:16 |
But whatever the reason, I think in this
case, that might work well for this
| | 00:19 |
particular image.
And so I'd like to explore a black and
| | 00:22 |
white conversion.
Possibly applying a color tint as well.
| | 00:26 |
To get started I'll click on the Add
Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of
| | 00:29 |
the Layers Panel and then I'm going to
choose Black and White from the pop up
| | 00:32 |
menu that appears.
I'll adjust the size of my properties
| | 00:37 |
panel here, so that I can see all of the
sliders for the black and white adjustment.
| | 00:42 |
That includes reds, yellows, greens,
cyans, blues, and magentas.
| | 00:47 |
I can adjust each of these sliders in
order to adjust the intensity, or the
| | 00:51 |
luminance values.
For various colors within the photo.
| | 00:55 |
For example, we know that we have a fair
amount of yellow in the image so, if I
| | 00:58 |
drag the yellow slider to the right we'll
see the areas that had been yellow
| | 01:01 |
increase in brightness and if I drag to
the left the areas that had been yellow
| | 01:05 |
will decrease in brightness.
So, I can adjust the brightness of (INAUDIBLE).
| | 01:11 |
Ares of the image that add yellow pixels
with the yellow slider.
| | 01:15 |
I'll move to the greens slider as well and
you can see that there is a bit of green
| | 01:19 |
in those bottles and so the green slider
is predominantly affecting those bottles.
| | 01:25 |
I can brighten or darken the bottles and
any other areas of the image that happen
| | 01:29 |
to be green.
Generally speaking you'll probably have
| | 01:33 |
some sense of which sliders you'll want to
work with but it's not a bad idea to
| | 01:36 |
adjust all of the sliders and get a sense
of which portions of the image will be
| | 01:39 |
most affected by that particular slider
and therefore which value you might want
| | 01:43 |
to use.
For example, if I want to open up the
| | 01:48 |
bottles so that I can see more detail
there.
| | 01:51 |
Since the models were green that means I'm
going to increase the value for the greens slider.
| | 01:55 |
You can see the cyans slider seems to have
virtually no impact on the image at all.
| | 02:01 |
The blues slider, similarly has very
little impact.
| | 02:05 |
There are few areas that are getting
adjusted by that blues slider.
| | 02:08 |
But not all that much and the Magenta
slider also doesn't have much of an impact
| | 02:12 |
on the image.
At this point I think I have a pretty good
| | 02:15 |
starting point for that black and white
conversion.
| | 02:18 |
But I'd like to take a look at the
possibility of adding a color tint, maybe
| | 02:22 |
a sepia tone effect.
So I'll turn on the Tink checkbox on the
| | 02:26 |
Properties panel.
You can see that I have a default tint here.
| | 02:29 |
It's a little bit too strong, and in most
cases, I really prefer to use a relatively
| | 02:34 |
subtle color for the tint.
I just want a little hint of color added
| | 02:38 |
to an otherwise black and white image.
To change the color for that tint, I'll
| | 02:43 |
simply click the color swatch that will
bring up the color picker.
| | 02:47 |
I'll move the color picker dialogue out of
the way a little bit and I can adjust the
| | 02:51 |
overall hue meaning the color value that
I'm using.
| | 02:54 |
I can have a purple color tint, a blue
color tint, a green color tint, any value
| | 02:58 |
that I'd like, but in this case I think
I'll go with sort of sepia value, a little
| | 03:02 |
bit of a warmish value.
And so I might take this up to oh,
| | 03:08 |
somewhere around 42 degrees of hue maybe.
I can click inside the text box for hue
| | 03:13 |
and use the Up and Down Arrow keys as
needed to adjust that value.
| | 03:18 |
Increasing the value in this case will
make the color a little more green and
| | 03:22 |
decreasing the value will make the color a
little more orange to red.
| | 03:26 |
I think right about there is probably
pretty good for that hue.
| | 03:30 |
Maybe a little closer to yellow.
But the color is still way too saturated.
| | 03:34 |
I an use the larger gradient here.
Dragging over toward the left in order to
| | 03:38 |
reduce saturation.
But I can also click the Saturation
| | 03:42 |
option, the S in.
HSB and then use the vertical gradient
| | 03:46 |
here in order to adjust that value.
And once again I can click in the
| | 03:50 |
saturation field and then use the Up and
Down Arrow keys in order to increase or
| | 03:54 |
decrease the value.
I want to use once again a relatively low
| | 03:59 |
value for saturation.
I think right about there is working
| | 04:03 |
pretty good.
The Brightness value I don't need to worry
| | 04:06 |
about too much.
If I reduce brightness a lot, then I may
| | 04:08 |
end up with a bit more density of the
color, but in most cases it will have a
| | 04:12 |
relatively modest impact on the overall
effect in the photo.
| | 04:18 |
So that's looking pretty good, a
relatively subtle color tint but I think
| | 04:20 |
that works pretty well for this image.
I'll go ahead and click OK, and then I can
| | 04:24 |
toggle that Tint check box off and then
on, and you can see we have a nice warm
| | 04:28 |
effect that kind of adds a sense of age to
the image.
| | 04:33 |
I'll also turn off the visibility for the
black and white adjustment layer.
| | 04:37 |
So that we can see the original color
image and then the sepia tone type of effect.
| | 04:42 |
The black and white conversion with a
little bit of a color dent and I think in
| | 04:45 |
this case that is working very well in
terms of accentuating the particular
| | 04:49 |
subject that I've photographed here.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a faded effect| 00:02 |
I really like how the black and white
conversion that I've applied to this
| | 00:05 |
image, along with a little bit of a color
tint, have enhanced the sort of aged
| | 00:08 |
appearance, this older look for the photo.
I think it really suits the subject quite nicely.
| | 00:14 |
But I'd like to take that a step further
and sort of fade the image a little bit.
| | 00:20 |
Essentially brighten it and maybe lighten
the edges, just giving it a little bit of
| | 00:24 |
a, sort of faded photographic print type
of a look.
| | 00:27 |
I'm going to start off by applying a
curves adjustment to try to achieve that goal.
| | 00:32 |
So I'll go to the bottom of the Layers
panel, and click the Add Adjustment Layer
| | 00:35 |
button, and then choose Curves from the
popup menu that appears.
| | 00:40 |
I'm going to drag the curve upward.
I'm going to focus that adjustment toward
| | 00:43 |
the brighter side of the curve.
So, over to the right of the middle gray
| | 00:47 |
bar, for example.
And I just want to brighten up the overall photo.
| | 00:52 |
You can see this gives us a little bit of
a faded type of effect.
| | 00:56 |
I want to make sure that we have good
density in the dark shadow areas.
| | 00:59 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows, or
the Option key on Macintosh.
| | 01:03 |
And click and drag the black point slider
over toward the right a little bit.
| | 01:07 |
I want to make sure that some of the
shadows are perhaps just a little bit
| | 01:10 |
blocked up.
And that we have a good black value within
| | 01:13 |
the image.
It looks much better, we have good
| | 01:16 |
contrast and yet a sort of faded
appearance.
| | 01:19 |
I might enhance that fading just a little
bit for the photo but I think that works
| | 01:23 |
out pretty well.
I could even enhance the effect for some
| | 01:26 |
of the shadow areas by adding an
additional anchor point.
| | 01:30 |
I'll go ahead and toggle the visibility
for my curves adjustment layers off.
| | 01:34 |
And then on again, and you can see not
only have we brighten up the over all
| | 01:37 |
image, but we've also maintained a black
point while creating this sort of faded
| | 01:41 |
type of effect.
The only problem is at this point with
| | 01:46 |
this particular set of adjustments, the
color is actually looking a little bit too strong.
| | 01:51 |
I'm seeing a little bit too much of the
color effect as oppose to a simple tint effect.
| | 01:56 |
And so I'll go back to my black and white
adjustment and then I'll click on the
| | 02:00 |
color swatch associated with the Tint
checkbox.
| | 02:04 |
I think the only thing I really need to do
is tone down saturation.
| | 02:08 |
So I'll click on the Saturation option and
then drag the slider value downward on the gradient.
| | 02:15 |
I can also simply click in the value for
the saturation and then press the Down
| | 02:18 |
Arrow key to reduce the value.
That looks much better.
| | 02:22 |
So I'll go ahead and click the OK button.
And now I can toggle that curve's
| | 02:25 |
adjustment off and on.
And you see we have a sort of faded type
| | 02:29 |
of effect given the image a little bit
more of an aged look while toning down the
| | 02:32 |
colors as well, so we don't have too much
color in the image.
| | 02:37 |
So I think that improves that sort of
older appearance for this image.
| | 02:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rethinking the crop| 00:02 |
I've spent a reasonable amount of time
working with this image mostly focused on
| | 00:05 |
creating a little bit of an older
appearance in the image, but in the
| | 00:09 |
process I'm starting to rethink my crop.
I think that the rotation in particular
| | 00:15 |
just wasn't quite right, and so I want to
go back and fine tune the result.
| | 00:20 |
This is made possible by the fact that I
made sure, when I crop the image, that the
| | 00:24 |
Delete Cropped Pixels check box on the
Options bar was turned off.
| | 00:29 |
And so now, I can reveal all of those
original pixels by going to the Image menu
| | 00:33 |
and choosing Reveal All.
You can see that now I have all of the
| | 00:38 |
pixels in the image available, and so I
can reapply the crop, possibly changing
| | 00:42 |
the rotation in the process.
So, I'll choose the Crop tool from the
| | 00:47 |
Toolbox, then I'll move my Mouse outside
of the Crop box, then click and drag in
| | 00:51 |
order to rotate.
You'll notice that a grid appears, and my
| | 00:56 |
thinking at this point is that perhaps I
really should focus on that middle box,
| | 01:00 |
and specifically the right edge of that
middle box.
| | 01:05 |
It just seems the more I look at this
image that that's really the point where
| | 01:09 |
I'm going to evaluate whether or not the
image is straight, I could also pay
| | 01:12 |
particular attention to the bottles for
example but I think right about there is
| | 01:15 |
probably the best balance for the image.
The bottles appear relatively straight,
| | 01:22 |
this right edge of the middle crate
appears relatively straight, the bottom
| | 01:26 |
crate doesn't look straight but I think
that's okay especially since the ground
| | 01:29 |
here is obviously slope.
So that looks to me to be a much better
| | 01:34 |
rotation, and so once again, with that
delete crop pixels check box turned off on
| | 01:38 |
the Options bar, I'll go ahead and click
the Apply button In order to apply that effect.
| | 01:44 |
And, to me, that looks to be much better,
a big improvement.
| | 01:48 |
I think I just wasn't thinking clearly
when I thought that, that bottom crate was
| | 01:51 |
the crate that I should align vertically.
And I think it's important to keep in mind
| | 01:56 |
that at any time we can reconsider the
various adjustments that we've applied.
| | 02:00 |
This is part of the reason that I
encourage a non-destructive workflow, a
| | 02:03 |
workflow that utilizes layers and other
non-destructive techniques, so that you
| | 02:07 |
can always take a step backward or make
changes to the adjustments you've applied.
| | 02:12 |
So, don't be afraid if something isn't
looking quite right to revisit some of the
| | 02:16 |
changes you've made to your images,
whether that means modifying one of the
| | 02:19 |
adjustment layers or even as we've seen
here changing the crop.
| | 02:24 |
It's worth revisiting those things if you
don't feel they're quite right so that you
| | 02:28 |
can help ensure you're producing the best
image possible.
| | 02:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a lightening vignette| 00:02 |
I'm feeling pretty good about the
adjustments I've applied to this image so far.
| | 00:05 |
I have a little bit of a subtle sepia tone
effect that is part of my black and white
| | 00:09 |
conversion and I've also sort of faded the
image a little bit, but I'd like to take
| | 00:13 |
that fading just a little bit further by
applying a lightening to the edges of this image.
| | 00:19 |
I can use the lens correction filter for
that purpose.
| | 00:23 |
And, since I only have a single image
layer in this particular photo, I can just
| | 00:27 |
create a copy of that image layer, and
work from that.
| | 00:31 |
So, I'll click on the thumbnail for my
image layer and drag it down to the Create
| | 00:34 |
New Layer button, the black sheet of paper
icon at the bottom of the layers panel,
| | 00:38 |
I'll then rename that duplicate layer so I
know why it's here to do so.
| | 00:44 |
I'll simply double click on the name of
the layer and then I'll type vignette in
| | 00:48 |
this case, and then press enter or return
on the keyboard in order to apply that change.
| | 00:53 |
Then I'll go to the filter menu and choose
lens correction.
| | 00:57 |
That will bring up the lens correction
dialogue, I'll make sure that there aren't
| | 01:01 |
any automatic adjustments being applied
and then I'll go to the custom tab and
| | 01:05 |
I'll increase the value for amount.
I can also adjust the degree to which that
| | 01:11 |
vignette comes into the center of the
image and what I'm going to do in this
| | 01:14 |
case is apply an exaggerated vignette
effect.
| | 01:19 |
I'll be able to tone that down in just a
moment.
| | 01:22 |
I'll go ahead and click the Okay button,
and you can see we have a rather dramatic effect.
| | 01:26 |
A little bit too dramatic perhaps, and so
I'll reduce the opacity for my Vignette
| | 01:30 |
layer so that I have just a little bit of
a fading of those edges.
| | 01:35 |
I'll turn off the visibility for my
Vignette layer and then turn it back on again.
| | 01:39 |
And you can see I've just applied a little
bit of a lightening around the edges of
| | 01:42 |
the image to help enhance this sort of
faded appearance of the photo.
| | 01:47 |
And I think the effect is working pretty
well.
| | 01:50 |
I'll scroll down to the bottom of the
layers panel and then I'll hold the alt
| | 01:53 |
key on windows, or the option key on
macintosh, and click on the eye icon for
| | 01:56 |
my bottom most layer.
That will hide all layers except this one
| | 02:01 |
and you can see my initial image based on
the raw conversion.
| | 02:05 |
I'll then hold the Alt or Option key, once
again and click on that Eye icon in order
| | 02:08 |
to make all of the layers visible and now
you can see I have this old looking, faded
| | 02:12 |
image with just a hint of color.
And I think that is well suited to the
| | 02:17 |
subject, as it was originally
photographed.
| | 02:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Bratislava SceneSimple raw conversion| 00:02 |
When I'm wandering around a new location
with my camera, I'm typically thinking of
| | 00:06 |
a way to try to capture an image that
represents the mood of that place or at
| | 00:09 |
least my perception of that mood.
And such was the case on a recent to
| | 00:15 |
Bratislava in Slovakia, there were a fair
number of relatively old buildings in the
| | 00:19 |
area that I was walking around, mostly
apartment buildings.
| | 00:25 |
Some of them with businesses on the ground
floor.
| | 00:28 |
And I was fascinated by how much character
those buildings had.
| | 00:32 |
They were weathered quite a bit.
There was dirt and soot along the sides of
| | 00:36 |
some of them.
The paint was peeling in many cases, and
| | 00:39 |
in some cases there was graffiti on the
walls as well.
| | 00:42 |
And this scene was sort of interrupted by
trains traveling up and down the main roads.
| | 00:48 |
And so you'd have this scene of a somewhat
modern train traveling in front of this
| | 00:51 |
fairly old looking apartment building.
And so I tried to capture some images that
| | 00:57 |
conveyed that sense of an old building
that seems to have been there forever with
| | 01:01 |
relatively modern form of transportation,
sort of contrasting with that.
| | 01:08 |
When I reviewed the images, I didn't feel
that I had an image that quite conveyed
| | 01:11 |
exactly what I was looking for.
I felt that I needed something a little
| | 01:15 |
more grungy, a little more moody.
And then, I realized that there was some
| | 01:19 |
potential in one of the images.
This one in particular, and so I decided
| | 01:23 |
to explore some possible options for
creating a bit of a look that accentuates
| | 01:27 |
the grunge, the grit, the grime that's
already here.
| | 01:32 |
Let's take a look at the basic Raw
Conversion settings to give us a basic
| | 01:35 |
starting point for this photo.
I'll go ahead and double-click on the Raw
| | 01:39 |
Capture in Adobe Bridge in order to open
the image in Adobe Camera Raw via Photoshop.
| | 01:45 |
And I'm just going to perform a very basic
Raw Conversion here.
| | 01:49 |
I have a sense of what I want to
ultimately do with this image.
| | 01:52 |
I anticipate fading back the color, and
perhaps enhancing the drama a little bit,
| | 01:56 |
but I want to start off with just a basic
processed image.
| | 02:01 |
So I'll just maximize the overall tonal
range in the scene.
| | 02:04 |
I'll increase the exposure just a little
bit.
| | 02:06 |
I'd like to brighten the scene up just a
hair.
| | 02:08 |
And, I'm also going to make sure that I
have a good black.
| | 02:12 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh, and drag the
| | 02:15 |
Blacks slider over toward the left until I
see pixels start to appear.
| | 02:20 |
I'd like to have at least a little bit of
an area that's going to be essentially
| | 02:23 |
pure black.
I'll release the Alt or Option key, and
| | 02:27 |
evaluate the image.
And, that looks to be pretty good.
| | 02:30 |
I have relatively dark black detail now,
so I've essentially maximized at least
| | 02:34 |
that end of the tonal range.
Next I'll take a look at the Whites value.
| | 02:38 |
Once again, holding the Alt key on Windows
or the Option key on Macintosh, as I
| | 02:41 |
increase the value.
And increasing until I see pixels appear,
| | 02:45 |
then I'll release the Alt or Option key
and evaluate the image and bring back the
| | 02:49 |
Alt or Option key for that clipping
preview.
| | 02:52 |
I'll tone down the adjustment just a
little bit and I think right about there
| | 02:55 |
works pretty well.
So, I'm essentially just maximizing the
| | 02:58 |
tonal range within the image.
I'm not going to worry about the color
| | 03:03 |
temperature because, frankly, I think the
color looks pretty accurate.
| | 03:06 |
It's a little bit drab, and I plan to make
it more drab, and it's also slightly cool,
| | 03:09 |
but it was an overcast day and so this is
relatively true to the accurate colors
| | 03:13 |
that I saw there.
So, I'll leave those colors as they are
| | 03:17 |
for the time being.
I'm also going to leave clarity.
| | 03:20 |
And so since I don't have any other issues
with the image at the moment, I'll simply
| | 03:23 |
click the Open Image button in Adobe
Camera Raw.
| | 03:26 |
That Raw Capture will then be processed
and opened in Photoshop, so that I can
| | 03:30 |
continue applying other adjustments in
order to achieve my goal for this photo.
| | 03:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting perspective with Transform| 00:02 |
While I want to create a fairly dramatic
interpretation of this image.
| | 00:06 |
I was, overall, happy with the basic
result in the initial capture.
| | 00:09 |
And therefore, my raw conversion didn't
call for any signifigant adjustments.
| | 00:13 |
However, there is a somewhat signifigant
issue with this image.
| | 00:17 |
And that is that it's a little bit
crooked.
| | 00:20 |
It's not just that the horizon so to speak
isn't straight.
| | 00:24 |
And in fact, I think it may be that this
building is sagging just a little bit.
| | 00:27 |
But the roof line up at the top is
crooked.
| | 00:30 |
It's not straight.
The line here in the center looks to be a
| | 00:32 |
little bit more straight.
And then this additional line here looks
| | 00:36 |
like some siding toward the bottom of the
building, is actually going in the
| | 00:39 |
opposite direction.
It's going downward from left to right,
| | 00:42 |
whereas the roof line is going downward
from right to left.
| | 00:46 |
So, I'd like to apply some transofrmations
to straighten out the image just a little bit.
| | 00:50 |
Even if the roof line really was sagging I
want to have that line straight because
| | 00:54 |
frankly it's a little bit distracting to
have it appear crooked, especially so
| | 00:57 |
close to the edge of the image.
So I'm going to create a copy of the
| | 01:01 |
background image layer because of course
transforming the image in order to
| | 01:04 |
straighten that out is a destructive
process.
| | 01:07 |
It's actually altering pixel values and I
want to preserve my original pixels just
| | 01:11 |
to be on the save side.
So I'll drag the thumbnail for the
| | 01:14 |
background image layer down to the Create
New Layer button The blank sheet of paper
| | 01:18 |
icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
I'll go ahead and rename that background
| | 01:23 |
copy layer so I know exactly why I created
it.
| | 01:25 |
So I'll double click on the name and I'll
just call this transformation.
| | 01:29 |
And then press Enter or Return on the
keyboard in order to apply that name change.
| | 01:34 |
And then I can choose the free transform
command, I can go to the edit menu and
| | 01:38 |
choose Free Transform or I can press Ctrl
+ T on Windows or Cmd + T on MacIntosh.
| | 01:45 |
I'll go ahead and choose the menu command
here and you'll see that gives me a
| | 01:49 |
bounding box, similar to a crop box, but
in this case I'm able to resize and
| | 01:53 |
stretch and scew the image.
Before I actually get started making those
| | 01:59 |
changes though, I want to display a grid
so I know exactly when I have everything aligned.
| | 02:04 |
So I'll go to the View Menu and then
choose Show followed by Grid.
| | 02:08 |
You can also press Ctrl + Apostrophe on
Windows or Cmd + Apostrophe on Macintosh
| | 02:12 |
in order to bring up that grid.
With that grid displayed, I can now see
| | 02:17 |
exactly where in the image things are out
of alignment, and more importantly, I can
| | 02:21 |
use that grid as a reference, as I improve
the overall alignment of the image.
| | 02:27 |
Most of the issue I think has to do with
that top-left corner, I need to drag that
| | 02:31 |
upward, and possibly outward just a little
bit.
| | 02:35 |
So I'm going to drag that corner, but I
want to skew the overall shape of the
| | 02:38 |
image, so I'm going to hold the Ctrl key
on Windows, or the Cmd key on Macintosh,
| | 02:42 |
while I drag that corner away.
(INAUDIBLE) And now I can drag that corner
| | 02:48 |
in a direction other then just straight up
an down, or left and right.
| | 02:52 |
I'm actually stretching that corner away
from the image.
| | 02:55 |
As I do so you can see that I'm able to
straighten out that roof line.
| | 02:59 |
So referencing the grid line that I have
displayed here, I'll get that as straight
| | 03:03 |
as possible, and then I'll pay attention
to the bricks over the far left.
| | 03:09 |
Now you may notice that some of the window
lines are not perfectly parallel to other
| | 03:12 |
lines within the image but my sense is
that especially in this case with the
| | 03:15 |
bricks to the left and the roof line at
the top being both relatively dominant
| | 03:19 |
structures and also being close to the
edge of the image that I need to make sure
| | 03:22 |
that those areas are straight first and
foremost.
| | 03:28 |
So, I'll focus my attention there.
Adjusting the position of the corner as
| | 03:32 |
I'm dragging it until everything lines up
perfectly.
| | 03:36 |
So I'll make reference to both horizontal
and vertical lines in the image and with
| | 03:40 |
the grid, and make sure that we have good
alignment and that's looking pretty good.
| | 03:46 |
Again you can see that some of the windows
won't line up perfectly because the
| | 03:49 |
windows aren't exactly squared.
I might try to see if I can get this drain
| | 03:54 |
pipe to go absolutely vertical.
So I'll hold the Ctrl key on Windows or
| | 03:58 |
the Cmd key on Macintosh once again.
Drag that top right corner of the image of
| | 04:03 |
that transformation box.
And this time, I'm just going drag
| | 04:07 |
directly to the right, directly outward
because I don't want to take that corner
| | 04:10 |
up or down.
At least, I don't think I do.
| | 04:13 |
I'll of course reference the grid to be
sure.
| | 04:15 |
I just want to drag outward to straighten
out that pipe.
| | 04:19 |
And that looks to be pretty good.
So, evaluating several areas of the image.
| | 04:23 |
I'll take a look, for example, at the
windows of the train car here.
| | 04:26 |
And at the edges of the various window
frames and other structures.
| | 04:30 |
And just make sure that everything seems
to be nice and straight.
| | 04:34 |
And at this point, I think we're in good
shape.
| | 04:36 |
So I'll go ahead and click on the Apply
button.
| | 04:39 |
That Check Mark button on the options bar.
I can also double click inside that
| | 04:43 |
transformation box or press Enter or
Return on the keyboard in order to apply
| | 04:46 |
the transformation.
And then I can press Ctrl + Apostrophe or
| | 04:51 |
Cmd + Apostrophe con Macintosh.
In order to hide that grid display, and
| | 04:56 |
now we have an image that appears much
more aligned.
| | 04:59 |
All of the horizontal and vertical or at
least the most important ones now appear
| | 05:03 |
to be perfectly horizontal or vertical.
So, at this point I have a well-aligned
| | 05:08 |
image that I think is ready to apply some
interesting effects to.
| | 05:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjustments to create a dreary effect| 00:02 |
My real aim for this particular image is
to make it look a bit more dreary.
| | 00:06 |
And to accomplish that, I think I'd like
to tone down the colors, and also enhance
| | 00:10 |
the sort of darker tones within the image.
Especially trying to bring out some of the
| | 00:16 |
detail on the building, so that we see a
lot of that dirt and grime that's built up
| | 00:19 |
over the years.
I'm going to start off by reducing the
| | 00:23 |
overall saturation for the image, and so
I'll click on the add adjustment layer
| | 00:26 |
button at the bottom of the Layers Panel,
and I'm going to choose Hue Saturation.
| | 00:32 |
This will allow me to apply a very basic
reduction in overall saturation, and I'm
| | 00:36 |
going to apply a relatively strong effect.
I'll move down to a negative value with
| | 00:41 |
the Saturation slider, and I think right
about there will work pretty well.
| | 00:46 |
I want the colors to still be there, but I
want them to be relatively subtle.
| | 00:50 |
I feel that this will help add to the
grungy look that I'm after for this photo.
| | 00:54 |
I also want to darken up portions of the
image focusing on specific tonal values
| | 00:58 |
and so I'll use the curves adjustment for
that.
| | 01:02 |
I'll add another adjustment layer and
choose Curves this time, and then I'll
| | 01:05 |
darken up the darker areas of the photo.
So, I'll start down toward the left end of
| | 01:11 |
the curve and I'll click on the curve and
drag downward, and I just want to find an
| | 01:15 |
adjustment that will not block up the
shadows too much, but it will add a little
| | 01:19 |
bit to the sort of grungy effect in the
photo that I am looking for.
| | 01:26 |
I'll also move a little bit higher up on
the curve and try to find another anchor
| | 01:30 |
point position that will enable me to sort
of tone down the result a little bit.
| | 01:36 |
Essentially, brightening up portions of
the image so that those dark values don't
| | 01:41 |
overtake the final result.
I'll add one more anchor point and just
| | 01:46 |
pull that up a little bit, perhaps taking
this portion of the curve almost up to its
| | 01:50 |
original starting value.
And maybe even a little bit brighter.
| | 01:55 |
I want to have a reasonable amount of
contrast in the image, and so I'm just
| | 01:58 |
trying to fine tune the overall effect
within the photo, trying to create a
| | 02:02 |
little bit more drama.
A little bit more of that kind of grungy
| | 02:07 |
effect within the image, essentially, I'm
enhancing midtone contrast.
| | 02:12 |
I've darken down the darkest values in the
image and I've somewhat normalize and even
| | 02:16 |
slightly brighten the brighter values
within the image.
| | 02:21 |
I'll go ahead and turn off both of these
adjustment layers by clicking on the eye
| | 02:24 |
icon to the left of each of them on the
layers panel.
| | 02:28 |
You can see the before version of the
image, which now seems to be rather bright
| | 02:31 |
and colorful.
Then, I'll bring back those two adjustment
| | 02:35 |
layers and you can see that we have a much
more dreary result.
| | 02:39 |
Not yet a final result, I think, but
certainly heading in the right direction
| | 02:42 |
in terms of creating the mood that I felt
existed when I captured the image.
| | 02:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enhancing detail with high pass| 00:01 |
I've applied some adjustments to try to
enhance the overall sort of dreary grungy
| | 00:05 |
look for this photo that I'd like to
achieve in the final result, but I think I
| | 00:09 |
need a little bit more drama, a little bit
more of an effect here.
| | 00:15 |
And so I want to apply essentially
something of sharpening effect, it's
| | 00:18 |
really a local contrast enhancement, but
it's very similar to a sharpening effect
| | 00:22 |
that's applied over a broader area.
When we sharpen an image, we're
| | 00:27 |
essentially enhancing contrast among very
fine edges.
| | 00:31 |
In other words, where there's a difference
in pixel values we're adding contrast but
| | 00:35 |
just in a very small area.
When we apply a local contrast
| | 00:38 |
enhancement, we're essentially doing the
same thing Just over a larger area.
| | 00:43 |
So each area that has some level of
contrast will enhance contrast but that
| | 00:46 |
transition in terms of the area where the
contrast is being enhanced will be
| | 00:50 |
significantly larger.
Lets take a look at the technique that
| | 00:54 |
we'll use here.
I'm going to start off by going down to my
| | 00:57 |
transformation layer.
That's a layer that I used in order to
| | 01:01 |
straighten out the image, and I'm going to
create a copy of that layer.
| | 01:05 |
That essentially is the actual image at
this point.
| | 01:08 |
I still have my background image layer,
which contains the original capture
| | 01:12 |
without the transformation, but
essentially, the transformation layer now
| | 01:15 |
replaces it.
So I'll go ahead and drag the thumbnail
| | 01:18 |
for the transformation layer down to the
Create New Layer button.
| | 01:22 |
The blank sheet of paper icon at the
bottom of the Layers panel that will
| | 01:25 |
create a new copy, and I am going to
double-click on the name of that layer and
| | 01:28 |
type a new name for it.
I will call this Local Contrast and then
| | 01:33 |
press Enter or Return on the keyboard to
apply that name change.
| | 01:38 |
Next, I am going to change the blend mode
for this local contrast layer from the
| | 01:42 |
default of normal to overlay using the pop
up at the top left of the layers panel.
| | 01:48 |
That will give us a bit of contrast but
this isn't the final effect that I'm after.
| | 01:53 |
To achieve that result I'm going to go to
the filter menu and then choose other
| | 01:57 |
followed by high paths.
And this filter will apply essentially and
| | 02:02 |
emboss effect to the image.
Most of the pixels will become very close
| | 02:06 |
to middle gray which means they'll have no
effect on the image since So we're using
| | 02:09 |
the Overlay blend mode.
And 50 percent gray is the neutral color
| | 02:14 |
or the color that has no effect when it
comes to using the Overlay blend mode.
| | 02:19 |
But the pixels that are lighter or darker
based on that embossing effect will become
| | 02:23 |
lighter or darker in the actual image, so
I'll go ahead and chose High Pass from the menu.
| | 02:29 |
That will bring up the High Pass dialog.
If I use a low radius, you'll see that we
| | 02:33 |
essentially get just a very subtle
sharpening effect.
| | 02:36 |
If I drag up to a really large value, I'll
get essentially an exaggerated contrast
| | 02:40 |
effect in the image.
What I want is a somewhat moderate effect,
| | 02:45 |
I'll go ahead and drag around this preview
and you can see that we're getting an
| | 02:48 |
embossed effect, at this level, it's not
very obvious in this preview.
| | 02:54 |
I'll go ahead and reduce the values so
that you can see it a little more clearly
| | 02:57 |
that overall the pixels appear medium
gray, but some appear lighter and some
| | 03:00 |
appear darker Based from where the edges
are.
| | 03:04 |
So this would be the equivalent of a very
basic sharpening effect but instead we're
| | 03:08 |
going to take that radio sub to a somewhat
high value or a moderate value, in this
| | 03:11 |
case that will create a result that's
closer to the original image but with a
| | 03:15 |
bit of contrast and you can see that in
the photo That's giving us this sort of
| | 03:18 |
stylised local contrast effect, almost
like sharpening but really just enhancing
| | 03:22 |
some of those details and giving us a
little bit more drama.
| | 03:30 |
I'll go ahead and click okay in order to
apply that effect, and then I'll turn off
| | 03:34 |
my local contrast layer and turn it back
on again.
| | 03:37 |
And you can see that we've achieved quite
a bit more drama within the image.
| | 03:41 |
And more important in my mind, we've
achieved a result where some of that
| | 03:44 |
grunge on the building, some of the
accumulated dirt and soot, is darkened up
| | 03:47 |
a bit.
The contrast has been enhanced so that
| | 03:51 |
those areas appear a little more clearer
in the image.
| | 03:55 |
So at this point I have a pretty good
effect, still not quite the final result
| | 03:58 |
that I'm looking for in this image, but
getting much closer compared to the
| | 04:01 |
original photo.
| | 04:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying HDR tone mapping| 00:01 |
When I initially started working with this
image knowing that I wanted to create
| | 00:05 |
something of a kind of grungy look for the
photo, I knew there was an adjustment I
| | 00:09 |
was going to probably need to apply.
And I sort of tried to work around that,
| | 00:14 |
because of one of the side effects of that
adjustment.
| | 00:18 |
But I really don't think that's possible.
In order to achieve the result I'm after I
| | 00:22 |
really need to make use of the HDR toning
adjustment available within Photoshop.
| | 00:27 |
The problem with that is that HDR toning
does not work with layered images and so
| | 00:31 |
I'm going to need to create a flattened
copy of my image.
| | 00:36 |
Because I prefer to preserve all of my
layers when I'm creating an image, I'm
| | 00:39 |
really not interested in flattening the
image and so what that means is I'm going
| | 00:43 |
to have to have two images.
And I also don't like the clutter that
| | 00:48 |
comes from having those two images but
I'll preserve this image as a layered
| | 00:52 |
version and then I'll create a new file
that will represent the HDR toning version
| | 00:56 |
of the image.
This way I'll have maximum flexibility in
| | 01:01 |
case I ever change my mind in the future.
Hopefully I'll never have to go back to
| | 01:05 |
the non HDR tone version of the photo but
at least I'll preserve it just in case.
| | 01:11 |
So having saved this image I'll create a
copy of the image by going to Image > Duplicate.
| | 01:18 |
In the duplicate image dialog I'll change
the name to reflect a little bit better
| | 01:22 |
what I'm doing here.
Instead of copy I'll say HDR toning for
| | 01:27 |
the filename.
That will give me a better sense of which
| | 01:31 |
version of the image this is, and because
I need to flatten the image anyway in
| | 01:34 |
order to use the HDR toning adjustment.
I'll go ahead and turn on the duplicate
| | 01:40 |
merged layers only check box.
What that really means is that the
| | 01:44 |
duplicate version Will be flattened.
I'll go ahead and click the OK button and
| | 01:48 |
you'll see that I now have an additional
copy of my image and it's a flattened version.
| | 01:54 |
At this point I can close the original
image that I used as a source here since I
| | 01:57 |
no longer need to access it and I want to
make sure not to inadvertently switch back
| | 02:01 |
to that image and apply adjustments there.
And now, I'm ready to apply the HDR toning effect.
| | 02:09 |
So I'll go to the image menu, and choose
adjustments, followed by HDR toning.
| | 02:13 |
That will bring up the HDR toning
dialogue.
| | 02:17 |
Where I have a variety of adjustment
options available to me.
| | 02:20 |
I'll start off with the edge glow.
Low setting, this is something along the
| | 02:25 |
lines of a sharpening adjustment or a
local contrast enhancement.
| | 02:29 |
It literally creates a little bit of a
glow at high contrast edges within the image.
| | 02:34 |
In this case I want that glow to be
relatively subtle so I'll turn down the
| | 02:37 |
strength a little bit.
Right about there looks to be pretty good,
| | 02:42 |
and then I'll adjust the radius.
In this case I want that radius to be a
| | 02:45 |
little bit larger.
Right about there will work pretty well.
| | 02:48 |
You can see that if I increase the value
for radius, I'm getting a more boradly
| | 02:52 |
based effect.
I'll go ahead and increase the strength so
| | 02:55 |
that you can see the effect a little more
clearly, and then I'll reduce the radius
| | 02:58 |
as well.
And you can see, we get an effect That's
| | 03:01 |
similar to sharpening with a low radius
value and similar to a local contrast
| | 03:04 |
enhancement with a higher value.
So, I'll bring that strength back down a
| | 03:09 |
bit, right about there will work pretty
well and then I'll bring the radius back
| | 03:13 |
to a more moderate value as well.
I think that will work pretty well.
| | 03:19 |
Keep in mind that once you start adjusting
a slider the value for that slider will be
| | 03:22 |
highlighted and you can use the Up or Down
Arrow keys on the keyboard to increase or
| | 03:25 |
decrease the value for that slider.
Next, I'll move down to the tone and
| | 03:32 |
detail section.
I'm going to adjust the gamma, which
| | 03:35 |
essentially adjusts mid-tone contrast and
I want to enhance that contrast a little.
| | 03:40 |
So, I'll take the slider toward the left,
increasing the value.
| | 03:44 |
I don't want to take it up too much.
I think, right about there will work
| | 03:47 |
reasonably well.
At this point, I'm happy with the overall
| | 03:50 |
mid-tone contrast, but I think the image
is appearing just a little bit too bright,
| | 03:53 |
and so I'm going to darken down the image
a little bit, and that'll enhance that
| | 03:57 |
sort of grungy appearance, I think.
And speaking of grungy appearance, I want
| | 04:02 |
to really enhance detail in the image.
Every nook and cranny I want to sort of
| | 04:06 |
pop a little bit, especially when those
nooks and crannies represent grime and
| | 04:10 |
dirt in the image, so I'm going to
increase the Detail Sliders value.
| | 04:15 |
In fact I'm going to take it all the way
up to its maximum value.
| | 04:18 |
And now you can really see that grit and
grime in the image.
| | 04:21 |
And this I think is probably the most
important piece of the HTR toning
| | 04:25 |
adjustment for this particular image.
I also would like to darken down the
| | 04:31 |
shadows just a little bit, mostly just to
add a sense of drama, just to give the
| | 04:34 |
image a little bit more impact right about
there, it looks pretty good, to help
| | 04:38 |
compensate for that and enhance over our
contrast, I'm going to increase the value
| | 04:42 |
for highlights, not by too much but just
enough to give the image a bit more pop.
| | 04:49 |
And I'm going to take the vibrance down, I
had already previously reduce the over all
| | 04:53 |
saturation but I'd like to take the colors
that are relatively vibrant, relatively
| | 04:57 |
saturated and tone those down.
And with the vibrance adjustment When you
| | 05:03 |
reduce vibrance you're reducing the
saturation for the highly saturated
| | 05:06 |
colours more than you're reducing the
saturation for the not so saturated colours.
| | 05:12 |
So essentially, we're toning down the
colours that have a lot of saturation but
| | 05:15 |
leaving the colours without too much
saturation essentially untouched.
| | 05:20 |
That adjustment is helped to equalize the
result, but I also would like to tone down
| | 05:23 |
the overall color, and so I'll bring the
Saturation Sliders value down as well.
| | 05:29 |
Right about there looks pretty good.
To me, this is really the effect I was after.
| | 05:34 |
I really wanted to create this sort of
muted, dreary, grungy type of effect for
| | 05:38 |
this image, because that's really the sort
of sense I got from these old buildings in Bratislava.
| | 05:44 |
So, with those settings established for
HDR toning, I'll go ahead and click OK.
| | 05:49 |
And that puts me very close, I think, to
the final result that I'm after for this
| | 05:52 |
particular photo.
| | 05:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a custom vignette| 00:02 |
I'm very happy with how my images are
turning out.
| | 00:04 |
It took a variety of adjustments to start
off with the effect and really the most
| | 00:08 |
important thing was applying HDR toning.
That adjustment really put the finishing
| | 00:13 |
touches on the basic effect that I was
after and at this point, I feel that I
| | 00:17 |
have a.
Pretty much finished image, but I would
| | 00:20 |
like to add one additional detail.
I want to add a little bit more drama to
| | 00:24 |
the image, and also help to sort of frame
up the photo, by adding a vignette effect.
| | 00:30 |
But not just a typical vignette, where
mostly the corners get darkened, and the
| | 00:33 |
edges of the image don't get darkened all
that much.
| | 00:37 |
Instead I'm going to create, essentially,
a rectangular vignette, so that I'm adding
| | 00:41 |
something of a dark frame around the
photo.
| | 00:44 |
I'll blend that in, of course, but that's
the basic idea that I'm after.
| | 00:47 |
So I'm going to start off.
By creating a selection that will define
| | 00:50 |
the area of the image that I want to
darken.
| | 00:53 |
I'll go to the toolbox and choose the
Rectangular Marquee tool, and then I'll
| | 00:57 |
create a selection that's just inside the
edge of the image essentially defining the
| | 01:01 |
boundary between the area that I want to
darken and the rest of the photo.
| | 01:07 |
Right about there looks to be pretty good.
But I'd actually selected the central area
| | 01:11 |
of the image, not the edges, and so I need
to invert this selection.
| | 01:15 |
To do that I can go to the select menu and
then choose inverse, you can also press
| | 01:19 |
Ctrl-Shift-I on Windows or Command-Shift-I
on Macintosh to apply that inverse command
| | 01:24 |
for the selection.
Once I choose that command you'll see that
| | 01:29 |
I now have that border area selected in
the image.
| | 01:32 |
At this point I can apply my adjustment in
order to darken up that edge.
| | 01:36 |
I'll go ahead and just use a levels
adjustment.
| | 01:39 |
I'll go to the bottom of the Layers panel,
and click on the add Adjustment layer
| | 01:43 |
button, the half black, half white circle
icon, and I'll choose levels.
| | 01:48 |
And because I have a selection active
while I'm adding this adjustment layer,
| | 01:52 |
the adjustment layer will automatically be
masked so that it only effects this
| | 01:55 |
specific area.
You can see that I have a new Layers mask
| | 02:00 |
attached to my Levels adjustment.There's a
white border around the edge of the image.
| | 02:04 |
And with a Layer mask, white means reveal.
In other words, reveal the Levels
| | 02:09 |
adjustment in that area.
The central portion of the image is black.
| | 02:12 |
And that means block the adjustment.
So as I apply a Levels adjustment you'll
| | 02:16 |
see I'm only affecting that.
The outer edge of the image.
| | 02:20 |
I'm going to start off with a fairly
dramatic darkening effect, I'll be able to
| | 02:23 |
tone this down a little bit as needed in
just a moment, and then I'm going to
| | 02:27 |
switch to the Masks section of the
Properties panel so that I can apply some feathering.
| | 02:33 |
You can see that because my selection was
not feathered I have a very crisp
| | 02:36 |
transition between the area that I'm
darkening.
| | 02:40 |
And the rest of the image.
So, I'll increase the value for feather in
| | 02:43 |
order to blend that area in to the rest of
the image and I need to use a relatively
| | 02:46 |
high value here so that I get a good
degree of blending otherwise there will be
| | 02:50 |
an obvious indication of that vignetting
effect.
| | 02:55 |
At anytime I can switch back to the actual
adjustments and fine tune that vignette
| | 02:59 |
but I do want to keep it relatively
strong.
| | 03:03 |
Because of the feathering it sort of
blends in and it might seem like I've lost
| | 03:06 |
the feathering effect but I'll go ahead
and turn off the visibility for that
| | 03:09 |
layers adjustment level and then turn it
back on.
| | 03:13 |
And you can see it's a rather dramatic
effect.
| | 03:15 |
I think at this point it's still a little
bit too dark so I'll tone that down just a little.
| | 03:19 |
And I think that one of the key lessons is
that with many adjustments It might seem
| | 03:23 |
okay at first, but then when you toggle it
off and on, you'll realize that the
| | 03:26 |
adjustment was a little bit too
aggressive.
| | 03:30 |
I do want to feather the layer mask a
little bit more as well.
| | 03:34 |
I think, right about there will work
pretty well.
| | 03:36 |
I'll toggle the visibility for that levels
adjustment layer off and then on again.
| | 03:40 |
And you can see, we just have this sort
of.
| | 03:42 |
Framing effect around the edge of the
image and I think that really helps add to
| | 03:46 |
the drama and also keeps your view inside
the image so you don't drift off outside
| | 03:50 |
of the photo.
With that I think I have my final result.
| | 03:55 |
This was an image that quite frankly I
didn't think much of when I saw it on the
| | 03:58 |
back of my camera.
And I still didn't think all that much of
| | 04:02 |
it when I downloaded it to my computer and
reviewed it.
| | 04:05 |
But the more I thought about the mood I
was trying to create in terms of the
| | 04:08 |
photographs I was capturing in Bratislava,
the more I realized that this image could
| | 04:11 |
work very well.
And after exploring it just a little bit,
| | 04:15 |
I've come away with a result that I'm very
happy with.
| | 04:18 |
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