IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(MUSIC).
| | 00:04 |
Hello, I'm Tim Grey, and I'll be your
| | 00:05 |
trainer for this video course aimed at
helping you master at Image Optimization
| | 00:09 |
Workflow in Photoshop.
I believe in a workflow that maximizes
| | 00:13 |
flexibility in quality and that's exactly
what I'll guide you through here.
| | 00:17 |
We'll start off by looking at some of the
overall concepts and workflow
| | 00:21 |
considerations in Photoshop.
We'll then work through the basic
| | 00:24 |
adjustments for improving the appearance
of your photos.
| | 00:28 |
Having built a strong foundation, we'll
then explore advanced adjustment
| | 00:31 |
techniques, including my favorite method
for dodging and burning to apply excellent
| | 00:34 |
control over the lighting in a photo.
I'll also help you truly understand the
| | 00:39 |
use of the curves adjustment to really
take control over the tone and color of
| | 00:42 |
your images.
I'll also introduce you to the use of
| | 00:46 |
targeted adjustments to help you exercise
even greater control.
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Finally, I'll share some creative
adjustments with you which will help you
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explore some additional ways you can
interpret your digital photos.
| | 00:57 |
Along the way, you'll learn a lot and
you'll have some fun too, so let's get started.
| | 01:02 |
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1. Getting StartedConfiguring the Photoshop interface| 00:02 |
When you launch Photoshop for the first
time, the view will look something like this.
| | 00:06 |
Of course you have a Menu bar up at the
top, and you have a toolbox over on the
| | 00:09 |
left side.
We also have the Options bar across the top.
| | 00:13 |
In this case, I have already opened an
image, but what I want to focus our
| | 00:16 |
attention on at the moment are the panels,
which you can find over on the right-hand side.
| | 00:22 |
By default, there are a variety of panels,
but quite frankly, when you're working
| | 00:25 |
with photographic images, you don't need
many of those panels, and there are some
| | 00:29 |
other panels that you actually might want
to have access to.
| | 00:33 |
So one of the first things that I like to
do when I launch a new installation of
| | 00:37 |
Photoshop is to actually rearrange those
panels.
| | 00:40 |
And this is one of the things that I
really appreciate about Photoshop.
| | 00:44 |
I can move these panels around to my
liking, and in fact, sometimes, I'll use a
| | 00:47 |
different arrangement depending on the
particular task that I might be performing.
| | 00:52 |
Let's take a look at how we can rearrange
these panels, and I'll show you the way I
| | 00:56 |
typically configure things when I'm
working with photographic images in Photoshop.
| | 01:01 |
I'm going to start off by removing the
panels that I don't need.
| | 01:05 |
You'll see for example that I have access
to the History panel in this case it is
| | 01:09 |
minimized to a button.
I can drag the tap for that history panel
| | 01:13 |
and just deposit it elsewhere within
Photoshop, to create a floating panel.
| | 01:19 |
I can then move that panel around anywhere
I'd like, and in this case, more
| | 01:22 |
importantly because I don't really feel I
need to have the history panel available
| | 01:26 |
to me at any given moment, I can click the
x at the top right of the panel in order
| | 01:29 |
to close the panel.
I'll go ahead and open up the properties
| | 01:35 |
panel, which you can see is also in an
icon form here.
| | 01:39 |
It is a button that I can click on in
order to access the properties panel.
| | 01:42 |
And once again, I'll drag on the tab and
move that properties panel to become a
| | 01:46 |
floating panel in the middle of the
interface.
| | 01:49 |
I'm actually going to dock the properties
panel, but not just yet.
| | 01:52 |
First, I want to get rid of some of the
other panels that I'm not likely to use.
| | 01:56 |
I'll go ahead and remove the color panel,
for example.
| | 01:59 |
I'll also remove the Swatches panel.
And I'm also going to remove Styles, but
| | 02:04 |
in addition to dragging those panels out
and closing them, I can also go to the
| | 02:07 |
Window menu and choose, for example
Styles.
| | 02:11 |
You'll notice that at the moment the
Styles panel has a check mark to the left
| | 02:14 |
of it.
That indicates that the Styles panel is
| | 02:17 |
currently visible, but I can click on that
option in order to hide the Styles panel.
| | 02:22 |
And you'll notice now that the Layers
panel, which had been docked down below,
| | 02:25 |
has now moved up because there are no
longer any panels docked above the layers panel.
| | 02:31 |
Now I make extensive use of the Layers
panel when I'm working with my images in
| | 02:34 |
Photoshop, and so I always want that to be
readily available.
| | 02:39 |
I also tend to use the channel panel a
fair amout so I leave that available but
| | 02:43 |
docked in the same pallete as the layers
panel so that I can switch between them as needed.
| | 02:50 |
I don't tend to use the Pads panel very
often, and so I'll drag that panel out to
| | 02:54 |
become a floating panel and then click the
X to close that panel.
| | 02:58 |
Now you'll notice that I have only the
channels panel and the layers panel docked
| | 03:02 |
over on the right side of the Photoshop
interface.
| | 03:05 |
And now I'm ready to dock the Properties
panel as well, but I want that Properties
| | 03:09 |
panel to be docked below the layers panel.
In other words, I don't want to have to
| | 03:14 |
switch between the tabs in order to access
layers versus properties, but rather I
| | 03:18 |
want to be able to see both of them at the
same time.
| | 03:22 |
So I'll click on the tab for the
Properties panel and then I'm going to
| | 03:25 |
drag it over to the right side of the
Photoshop interface.
| | 03:29 |
As I move this panel around, you'll notice
from time to time that I have a
| | 03:32 |
highlighted blue bar.
And that indicates where this panel will
| | 03:36 |
be deposited when I release the mouse
button.
| | 03:39 |
So at the moment if I were to release the
mouse, I would have the properties panel
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docked to the left of the layers panel.
I can also docket over on the right side
| | 03:48 |
of the display, or as I want to do in this
case, I can docket down at the bottom, and
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when I release the Mouse then, with that
blue bar visible, you'll see that the
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Properties panel is now docked directly
below the Layers panel.
| | 04:01 |
So, at any given moment, I can access the
layers panel or the properties panel and
| | 04:04 |
that will come in handy, as I'm working
with the various adjustments for my images.
| | 04:11 |
This as you can see is a much more
streamlined and simplified arrangement for
| | 04:14 |
the panels compared to what we have by
default.
| | 04:18 |
And, since this is a work space that I
like to use, most of the time I'm going to
| | 04:21 |
save this workspace.
So, I'll go to the window menu and then
| | 04:26 |
I'll choose work space followed by new
work space.
| | 04:30 |
I'll then get a pop-up asking me for a
name.
| | 04:32 |
I'll just type my own name, and I'm not
going to save keyboard shortcuts or menus
| | 04:36 |
as part of this work space.
In other words, I only want to save the
| | 04:40 |
overall arrangement of the Photoshop
interface.
| | 04:43 |
I'm not changing any of the keyboard
shortcuts or menus in the process.
| | 04:47 |
I'll go ahead and click Save, and now
you'll notice that at the far right of the
| | 04:51 |
options bar on the pop-up that lists all
the work spaces that are available, I have
| | 04:54 |
my saved workspace.
So if I were to switch to a different
| | 04:59 |
workspace, I can then get back to my Tim
Gray workspace quickly and easily.
| | 05:03 |
I can also choose a work space from the
Window Worksapce menu, and if I make a
| | 05:07 |
mess of things.
If, for example, I move some of my panels
| | 05:11 |
around so that it no longer is configured
the way I really intend it to be, I can
| | 05:15 |
simply go to the Window menu, choose
Workspace, and then Reset Tim Gray to
| | 05:19 |
reset my Tim Gray workspace.
And that will put it right back to where
| | 05:24 |
things were when I save that workspace in
the first place.
| | 05:28 |
So as you can see, it's very simple to
reconfigure the Photoshop interface to
| | 05:31 |
your liking, so that it can be customized
to your own preferences and the particular
| | 05:35 |
type of work that you're performing at any
given moment.
| | 05:40 |
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| Opening an existing image| 00:02 |
I certainly appreciate that the notion of
opening a file in any given application is
| | 00:05 |
pretty straightforward, and that's
certainly the case in Photoshop.
| | 00:10 |
Simply opening a file is very easy and
it's a skill that most people probably
| | 00:14 |
already have if they've used any computer
applications at all.
| | 00:19 |
But I wanted to show you a few options
that you might not be familiar with in the
| | 00:23 |
context of both opening files within
Photoshop.
| | 00:27 |
And also your general work as you approach
tasks in Photoshop.
| | 00:31 |
To open a file, of course, we can go to
the File menu and then choose Open.
| | 00:35 |
That's simple enough, but what you might
not be aware of is that the menus used
| | 00:38 |
within Photoshop much like other software
applications.
| | 00:42 |
You can see the keyboard shortcuts for
specific commands right on the menu.
| | 00:47 |
So, here for example, you can see that the
file open command can be accessed by
| | 00:51 |
pressing Ctrl+O on the keyboard if you're
a Windows user or Cmd+O on the keyboard if
| | 00:55 |
you're a Macintosh user.
I'll go ahead and click away from the menu
| | 01:01 |
and I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+O on the
keyboard, again on Macintosh that would be Cmd+O.
| | 01:07 |
And then I can select a specific image
after navigating to a particular folder,
| | 01:10 |
and click the Open button in order to open
that image.
| | 01:14 |
At the moment though, I'm going to click
the Cancel button so that I can show you
| | 01:17 |
an additional option.
Now, this maybe a small little benefit
| | 01:21 |
available to you in Photoshop.
But I use it all the time.
| | 01:25 |
And I feel that it gives me a little bit
of an edge in terms of workflow efficiency.
| | 01:29 |
If you're a Macintosh user, you're first
going to need to enable the application frame.
| | 01:34 |
You can do so by choosing window
application frame from near the bottom of
| | 01:38 |
the menu.
In the Windows version of Photoshop, you
| | 01:42 |
won't find that application frame option.
And that's because the Windows version of Photoshop.
| | 01:47 |
Always includes an application frame and
put simply that application frame is the background.
| | 01:53 |
Its the large gray area that we see here
in the overall Photoshop interface.
| | 01:57 |
So again, on the Macintosh platform you
need to enable that appication frame on
| | 02:02 |
Windows its just always there by default.
And with that application frame available,
| | 02:07 |
you have another nice little option that
can speed up your workflow a little bit in Photoshop.
| | 02:13 |
All you need to do is double-click on that
application frame and that will bring up
| | 02:17 |
the Open dialogue.
So now I can select an image and then open
| | 02:21 |
that image directly within Photoshop very
easily.
| | 02:25 |
Of course, it's worth noting that you can
also open images in Photoshop directly via
| | 02:29 |
Adobe Bridge, or even from other
applications such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
| | 02:35 |
But in this case, I'm simply opening a
file directly.
| | 02:38 |
And that leads us to one other issue that
you'll need to be aware of as you're
| | 02:41 |
working with images in Photoshop.
And that is, if you're taking advantage of
| | 02:46 |
the raw capture capability for your
digital camera.
| | 02:49 |
There's one additional step that is sort
of part of the overall process of opening
| | 02:53 |
an image in Photoshop, if that image is a
raw capture.
| | 02:57 |
I've selected a raw capture here, so I'll
go ahead and click the open button.
| | 03:01 |
So, I simply double-click on the file
itself and you'll notice instead of
| | 03:04 |
opening directly, the image opens in Adobe
camera raw.
| | 03:09 |
So now I can modify the adjustment
settings,fine tuning the overall
| | 03:13 |
appearance of the image.
Before I process that raw image into
| | 03:17 |
actual pixel values, so that I can
continue working in Photoshop.
| | 03:22 |
So that's one additional step you'll need
to perform when working with raw captures.
| | 03:27 |
But overall, you can see that opening
images in Photoshop is relatively straight forward.
| | 03:31 |
And as with so many other options, there
are several ways you can approach it
| | 03:34 |
depending on your own preferences.
I'll go ahead now and click the Open Image
| | 03:38 |
button in this case, and my image will be
opened in Photoshop so that I can continue working.
| | 03:43 |
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| Basic raw conversion| 00:02 |
If you're utilizing the raw capture option
with your digital camera, then the first
| | 00:06 |
step in optimizing the image is actually
adjusting the settings for the raw
| | 00:09 |
conversion in Adobe Camera Raw.
Let's take a look.
| | 00:13 |
I'll start off by choosing file+open from
the menu, and then selecting the raw
| | 00:17 |
capture that I'd like to process.
I'll then click the Open button but rather
| | 00:22 |
than opening directly within Photoshop,
instead I'll see Adobe Camera Raw initially.
| | 00:27 |
I have a nice large preview of my image
and I can adjust the settings as needed.
| | 00:32 |
Let's take a look at just the basic
settings.
| | 00:34 |
There are a wide variety of options
available within Adobe Camera Raw.
| | 00:38 |
For fine tuning the appearance of your
image, but I'm just going to focus on the
| | 00:41 |
basics here.
First, we'll adjust the overall color, and
| | 00:45 |
so I can choose a particular white balance
preset, for example, based on the lighting
| | 00:49 |
conditions when I captured the image.
In this case it was relatively bright
| | 00:54 |
sunlight, so daylight probably provides a
good starting point, I can also choose the
| | 00:58 |
eyedropper from the toolbar and then click
in the image itself.
| | 01:03 |
In order to specify which pixel should be
perfectly neutral gray.
| | 01:07 |
If I click on a yellow pixel I'll end up
with a blue cast because that's the opposite.
| | 01:12 |
But if I can find a pixel that should be
perfectly neutral gray, I'll probably end
| | 01:16 |
up with reasonably good color.
But I can also fine-tune the overall
| | 01:20 |
effect by adjusting the temperature and
tint sliders.
| | 01:24 |
The temperature slider allows us to shift
between yellow and blue, and the tint
| | 01:27 |
slider allows us to shift between magenta
and green.
| | 01:31 |
So, I'll start off with the temperature
slider and try to fine-tune things a
| | 01:34 |
little bit.
Since this image was obviously captured in
| | 01:37 |
relative shade, I might keep the image a
little bit cool, but I can fine-tune with
| | 01:41 |
both temperature and tint until I'm happy
with the overall color.
| | 01:46 |
I can then adjust the overall tonality.
I'll start with the exposure adjustment,
| | 01:49 |
which allows me to brighten or darken the
image.
| | 01:52 |
In this case, I'd like to brighten things
up just a little bit.
| | 01:56 |
I can also increase or decrease contrast
contrast, but I tend not to use that
| | 01:59 |
slider all that often, instead focusing on
the highlights, shadows, whites, and
| | 02:03 |
blacks sliders.
These allow me to lighten and darken
| | 02:07 |
specific toner ranges within the image.
So for example I can brighten or darken
| | 02:11 |
the bright areas of the image, or I can
brighten or darken the darker area of the image.
| | 02:16 |
I can also brighten or darken the very
brightest, the white areas in the image as
| | 02:20 |
well as lighten or darken the darkest
areas of the photo, and then I can adjust
| | 02:24 |
clarity, which is somewhat similar to
sharpening.
| | 02:28 |
Essentially, I can increase the value of
clarity, to reduce the appearance of haze
| | 02:32 |
in the image, or reduce the value of
clarity, to create a more dreamlike
| | 02:35 |
appearance in the photo.
In this case, I think I'll increase
| | 02:39 |
clarity just a little bit.
Then I can adjust vibrance, which is sort
| | 02:43 |
of an intelligent saturation.
If I increase vibrance, then the colors
| | 02:46 |
that are not very saturated.
We'll get more of a saturation boost than
| | 02:50 |
the colors that are already saturated.
And if I reduce the value for vibrance,
| | 02:54 |
the colors that are very saturated will be
reduced in saturation more so than the
| | 02:57 |
colors that are not very saturated.
So, vibrance tends to be a great solution
| | 03:03 |
for adjusting saturation in the image.
And in many cases of course we'd like to
| | 03:07 |
increase saturation.
So, I'll add a little bit of a boost in vibrance.
| | 03:12 |
Saturation applies a more level adjustment
for saturation in the image.
| | 03:16 |
It causes all colors to be increased or
decreased in saturation in a relatively
| | 03:20 |
even way.
So I'll usually not use saturation all
| | 03:24 |
that much.
Maybe a very minor adjustment using
| | 03:27 |
vibrants for most of that basic color
adjustment.
| | 03:30 |
With those basic adjustments applied I'll
go ahead and click on the link for
| | 03:34 |
Workflow Options so that I can adjust the
settings for my image.
| | 03:38 |
I can change the color space for example,
set the bit depth to 16-bit per channel,
| | 03:42 |
adjust the resolution as needed.
And in this case, I'm also going to turn
| | 03:46 |
off the option to open the image as a
smart object.
| | 03:49 |
I'll go ahead and click Okay to accept
those changes.
| | 03:52 |
And then I'll click Open Image and my raw
capture is processed and converted into
| | 03:57 |
actual pixel values so that I can continue
my image optimization workflow in Photoshop.
| | 04:05 |
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| Introduction to adjustment layers| 00:02 |
I'm a huge advocate, of a non-destructive
work flow in Photoshop.
| | 00:06 |
What that means is that with every
adjustment, I'm applying, no matter what
| | 00:10 |
type of adjustment it might be, I'm always
focused on not changing the original
| | 00:14 |
underlying pixel values.
In a general sense, what that means is
| | 00:19 |
that I'm never changing pixel values on my
background image layer.
| | 00:23 |
If I need to work directly on a pixel
layer, I'll either create a new pixel
| | 00:26 |
layer, or I'll make a copy of an existing
pixel layer.
| | 00:30 |
And in the case of adjustments, it means
I'm always going to work with adjustment
| | 00:34 |
layers, whenever that's possible.
Let's take a look at what an adjustment
| | 00:39 |
layer is, and get some sense of why
they're so helpful.
| | 00:43 |
Adjustment layers can be added by clicking
on the Add Adjustment Layer button at the
| | 00:46 |
bottom of the layers panel.
I'll go ahead and click that button, and
| | 00:51 |
you can see we get a pop-up listing all of
the available adjustments.
| | 00:55 |
That can be applied as an adjustment
layer.
| | 00:58 |
I'll go ahead and choose one of these.
I'll just simply choose Hue/Saturation in
| | 01:01 |
this case.
And you'll see that a Hue/Saturation
| | 01:04 |
adjustment layer has been added on my
layers panel.
| | 01:07 |
And I now have a set of controls for that
hue/saturation adjustment on the
| | 01:11 |
Properties panel.
So for example, I could shift the hue
| | 01:14 |
around, which in this case would not be
all that good a result.
| | 01:19 |
It's certainly interesting, but not
something I'm likely to do for a
| | 01:21 |
photographic image.
And I can also adjust the overall
| | 01:24 |
saturation, making the colors more or less
intense for example.
| | 01:29 |
But let's not worry about the particulars
of this specific adjustment, but rather
| | 01:33 |
just the simple fact that I'm applying
adjustments separate of the actual image layer.
| | 01:39 |
In other words, separate of the pixels.
I'm not actually changing the original
| | 01:43 |
pixel values in my background image layer.
But rather, I'm adding a set of instructions.
| | 01:49 |
In this case, for example, I might be
telling Photoshop to shift the hue, and
| | 01:53 |
increase the saturation.
But those adjustments have not actually
| | 01:58 |
affected the underlying pixel values.
They're simply a set of additional
| | 02:02 |
instructions that I've applied to change
the appearance of the image.
| | 02:06 |
To illustrate that, I can turn off the
visibility of my hue saturation adjustment
| | 02:10 |
layer and now you see the original image.
And that's one of the benefits of working
| | 02:15 |
with adjustment layers is that because
we're separating the adjustment from the
| | 02:19 |
pixels, we can turn that adjustment off
and on at anytime.
| | 02:24 |
In order to see a before and after version
of the image.
| | 02:28 |
Before the adjustment was applied by
turning off the visibility of that
| | 02:31 |
adjustment layer and after that adjustment
was applied by turning the visibility of
| | 02:35 |
the layer back on.
The use of adjustment layers also means
| | 02:40 |
that I'm always able to go back, and
refine my adjustment.
| | 02:44 |
So, if I don't like the effect of one of
my adjustments, I can go back and make a change.
| | 02:49 |
And making that change doesn't reduce the
quality of the underlying image.
| | 02:54 |
I can adjust the settings for an
adjustment layer as many times as I want,
| | 02:58 |
and it still only counts as a single
adjustment.
| | 03:02 |
By contrast, if I were to apply multiple
adjustments directly to the pixel values,
| | 03:06 |
over time I'm degrading the quality of the
image.
| | 03:10 |
I'm reducing the level of detail in the
image.
| | 03:12 |
For example, an adjustment layers help us
to prevent those sorts of problems, there
| | 03:16 |
are of course a variety of different
adjustments available.
| | 03:21 |
But the key thing to keep in mind is that
whenever possible if you can use an
| | 03:25 |
adjustment layer to apply a particular
adjustment.
| | 03:29 |
You should do so because it helps to
insure maximum flexibility as well as
| | 03:33 |
maximum image quality as you continue
optimizing your photos.
| | 03:38 |
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| Image evaluation| 00:02 |
When you think of applying adjustments to
a particular image, you probably think
| | 00:05 |
about optimizing the overall appearance of
that photo.
| | 00:08 |
But another use for adjustments is to
actually evaluate the image, and doing so
| | 00:13 |
can give you a much better sense of what
adjustments you might want to apply, what
| | 00:17 |
problems you might run into, and other
issues that are good to know as you set
| | 00:21 |
about working on one of your photos.
Let's take a look at a couple of
| | 00:27 |
adjustments that can be very helpful in
terms of evaluating the overall quality of
| | 00:31 |
and various issues in your photos.
The first is a boost in saturation, and as
| | 00:36 |
it turns out a huge boost in saturation.
Let's take a look.
| | 00:41 |
I could certainly add an adjustment layer,
but in this case I'm only using the
| | 00:44 |
adjustment for evaluative purposes.
And so I'm not actually going to commit
| | 00:49 |
that adjustment to the image, so I'll
simply apply an adjustment directly.
| | 00:53 |
I can do that by choosing image and then
adjustments, followed by hue saturation,
| | 00:58 |
or I could press Ctrl+U on Windows or
Cmd+U on Macintosh in order to bring up
| | 01:02 |
the Hue Saturation dialog.
I'll go ahead and choose that command from
| | 01:08 |
the menu and you can see that I'm
presented with the hue saturation dialog.
| | 01:12 |
I'll move that dialog out of the way just
a little bit, so that I can see the entire image.
| | 01:17 |
And then I'm going to take the Saturation
slider and drag it over to the right, all
| | 01:22 |
the way to the maximum value of plus 100.
You can see of course in the image that
| | 01:28 |
this has created a bit of an exaggerated
effect.
| | 01:31 |
You're not likely to want to apply such a
strong boost in saturation for an image,
| | 01:35 |
but doing so temporarily can help evaluate
the image.
| | 01:38 |
In this case, for example, I notice that
there are some areas of green within the
| | 01:42 |
clouds, especially up here along the edge
of the clouds where the blue sky is
| | 01:46 |
showing through.
There's also some blues, some purples,
| | 01:51 |
some reds, various values elsewhere along
the edge of those clouds.
| | 01:56 |
And I can even see a little bit of yellow
and perhaps a little bit of green in the
| | 01:59 |
water over on the left side as well as the
bottom right.
| | 02:03 |
And these are areas that I might want to
keep an eye on as I'm applying adjustments.
| | 02:09 |
For example, this might tell me that I
want to shift the color away from green
| | 02:12 |
toward magenta just a little bit, in order
to not have those green areas, or perhaps
| | 02:16 |
I might want to de-saturate the greens.
The point is, that boosting the
| | 02:22 |
saturation, in an exaggerated way, gives
us a better sense of what colors are found
| | 02:26 |
in the image and perhaps most importantly,
what colors are found in the image, that
| | 02:31 |
we didn't exactly expect.
Once you've evaluated the image with the
| | 02:37 |
saturation boost, you can simply cancel
the hue saturation adjustment, and so I'll
| | 02:40 |
bring the dialogue back into the view and
click the Cancel button, and that takes us
| | 02:44 |
back to our original image without that
adjustment being applied.
| | 02:50 |
The other adjustment I like to apply is a
levels adjustment, specifically with a
| | 02:55 |
significant boost in brightness.
Let's take a look.
| | 02:58 |
I can go ahead and choose Image >
Adjustments, and then Levels from the
| | 03:02 |
menu, or press Ctrl+L on Windows, or Cmd+L
on Macintosh.
| | 03:07 |
I'll choose that command, and once again
move the dialogue out of the way of it here.
| | 03:11 |
And I want to brighten the image, so I'm
going to click on the mid-tone slider,
| | 03:14 |
often referred to as the gamma slider, the
middle gray slider right below the histogram.
| | 03:20 |
And I'm going to drag that slider over to
the left, and what that's going to do is
| | 03:24 |
brighten up the image.
And in fact, I want to brighten up the
| | 03:28 |
image rather significantly.
Not all the way, because that sometimes
| | 03:31 |
will hide the artifact and noise that I'm
actually looking for as part of this
| | 03:35 |
evaluation, but I'll kind of maneuver it
back and forth just a little bit, going
| | 03:39 |
perhaps all the way to the left but then
moving over to the right from there just a
| | 03:42 |
little bit.
Now you might notice that we have
| | 03:48 |
posterization, or a lack of smooth of
gradiations of tone and color, showing up
| | 03:52 |
in certain portions of the image.
So for example, up in the clouds you'll
| | 03:58 |
see that things start to look a little bit
splotchy.
| | 04:01 |
That's a technical term for posterization,
but in essence what we see is bands of
| | 04:06 |
color, and the transitions are not very
smooth in those areas.
| | 04:11 |
That is indicative of noise.
And you night even be able to make out
| | 04:14 |
just a little, bit some faint lines.
I see some vertical lines up toward the
| | 04:19 |
top right corner of the image, for
example, and that too is evidence of noise
| | 04:23 |
within the photo.
We tend to associate noise in a photo with
| | 04:28 |
a high ISO setting, and that certainly is
a factor, because raising the ISO setting
| | 04:32 |
causes amplification to be applied which
can increase noise within the image.
| | 04:38 |
But under exposure also leads to noise.
In other words, when there's not very much
| | 04:43 |
information, we get the opposite of
information, which is noise, and as I
| | 04:47 |
adjust the brightness of this image, in a
rather exaggerated way, I start to see
| | 04:51 |
some of that noise.
Of course, this is not necessarily a
| | 04:57 |
significant problem but it is something to
be aware of.
| | 05:01 |
If I want to open up shadow detail for a
particular image for example, it's good to
| | 05:05 |
know to know how much noise is hiding in
those shadows.
| | 05:09 |
If there's a lot of noise in those shadow
areas then I might mitigate my brightening
| | 05:13 |
of those areas of the photo or apply a
little bit of extra noise reduction.
| | 05:18 |
But the key is to be familiar with the
information that's actually found within
| | 05:22 |
your photo.
And by boosting saturation, or brightening
| | 05:25 |
of the image, both in an exaggerated way,
you'll get a much better sense of some of
| | 05:29 |
the particular attributes of the photo
that you're working on.
| | 05:34 |
And having that knowledge can have a big
impact on how you actually approach the
| | 05:38 |
adjustments that you apply to the images.
So, having evaluated this image and having
| | 05:44 |
a much better idea of the things I want to
keep an eye on, I'll go ahead and cancel
| | 05:48 |
my levels adjustment.
And now I can continue working on this
| | 05:52 |
image, paying attention to those things
that were revealed by that image evaluation.
| | 05:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A basic adjustment workflow| 00:02 |
When you're learning how to apply a
variety of different adjustments in order
| | 00:05 |
to optimize your photographic images,
there is, of course, a natural tendency to
| | 00:09 |
focus on a single adjustment at any given
time.
| | 00:13 |
That makes a lot of sense, of course.
We don't want to overload our brains with
| | 00:16 |
too much information at one time.
And so we want to focus on a single task,
| | 00:20 |
in this case a single adjustment at any
given time as we're learning to make the
| | 00:23 |
most of our photos.
But of course when we're working on an
| | 00:28 |
image, chances are you're not going to
apply just a single adjustment.
| | 00:33 |
And so it can be helpful to take a step
back and recognize the fact that more
| | 00:36 |
often than not you'll apply at least a few
adjustments to any particular photo.
| | 00:43 |
As an example, let's take a look at what I
think of as the most basic adjustments
| | 00:47 |
that you'll probably want to apply to
every single image.
| | 00:52 |
Now our purpose at the moment is not to
learn how to actually apply each of these
| | 00:56 |
adjustments, but rather to get a sense of
that overall workflow in terms of applying
| | 01:00 |
multiple adjustments to a single image.
And to apply those adjustments I'm going
| | 01:06 |
to make use of adjustment layers.
So, let's take a look at a few adjustments
| | 01:10 |
that we might typically apply to a photo.
I'll go down to the bottom of the Layers
| | 01:15 |
panel, and then I'll click on the Add
Adjustment Layer button.
| | 01:19 |
That will bring up the list of available
adjustments and I'm going to start off
| | 01:22 |
with levels.
Now don't worry too much about the
| | 01:25 |
particular adjustments I'm apply to this
image but rather focus on the basic
| | 01:29 |
concept of this workflow involving
multiple adjustments.
| | 01:34 |
I'll go ahead and apply a basic adjustment
with levels here, going to enhance
| | 01:38 |
contrast just a little bit and maybe
darken the image down just a hair.
| | 01:43 |
Next, I'll apply a Color Balance
adjustment, and that will help me make
| | 01:47 |
sure that the color is as accurate as
possible.
| | 01:50 |
So once again I'll go to the Properties
panel and apply some refinements to this
| | 01:55 |
particular adjustment.
That's looking a little bit better.
| | 01:59 |
And then I'm going to add a Vibrance
adjustment, and that allows me to boost
| | 02:03 |
the colors in the image or to tone them
down if I prefer.
| | 02:07 |
But in most cases I like to boost the
colors just a little bit.
| | 02:11 |
And so there you have three basic
adjustments.
| | 02:15 |
In this case I've applied a levels
adjustment, a color balance adjustment and
| | 02:19 |
a vibrance adjustment.
The first, Levels, is focused on overall tonality.
| | 02:25 |
The second, color balance, is focused on
the general balance of colors, in other
| | 02:29 |
words what is the dominant color in the
photo.
| | 02:33 |
And the third, vibrance, allows us to
increase or decrease the intensity of
| | 02:37 |
colors within the image.
Those basic categories, as it were,
| | 02:42 |
represent the most basic adjustments that
you'll probably want to apply to just
| | 02:46 |
about every single image that you're
adjusting within Photoshop.
| | 02:51 |
But perhaps most importantly, we need to
keep in mind that there is an overall
| | 02:55 |
process that we're going through.
Now we don't need to apply a levels
| | 02:59 |
adjustment first or even at all
necessarily.
| | 03:02 |
But generally speaking, I start off with
basic tonal adjustments, then move on to
| | 03:06 |
basic color adjustments, and then continue
from there.
| | 03:10 |
My basic philosophy is to start with the
adjustment that is most necessary for a
| | 03:14 |
given image.
But in my experience I find that that
| | 03:17 |
usually means overall tonality, then
overall color, and then some more fine
| | 03:21 |
tuning adjustments, perhaps some cleanup
work as well.
| | 03:25 |
Whatever it is that the image needs in
order to make it look its best.
| | 03:29 |
But again, the key thing that I want you
to keep in mind is that this is a process.
| | 03:34 |
We'll apply multiple adjustments, we might
even return back to a previous adjustment,
| | 03:38 |
in order to refine that adjustment if we
need to.
| | 03:42 |
But it is an overall process aimed at
making the most of a particular
| | 03:45 |
photographic image at any given time.
So as you're learning to apply various
| | 03:50 |
adjustments to your photographic images,
keep in mind that those adjustments are
| | 03:55 |
part of an overall ecosystem part of an
overall process of multiple adjustments,
| | 03:59 |
all aimed at making the most of a photo.
| | 04:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing, refining, and resetting adjustments| 00:02 |
One of the primary reasons that I prefer
to use adjustment layers whenever possible
| | 00:06 |
to apply adjustments to my photos is that
they provide me with incredible flexibility.
| | 00:11 |
I can always go back and refine my
adjustment.
| | 00:15 |
In this case, for example, I've applied
some adjustments to an image, perhaps I
| | 00:19 |
then saved it and came back to it the next
day, and I realize, it's not looking all
| | 00:22 |
that good.
The colors are too vibrant, I'd like to
| | 00:27 |
tone things down a little bit to give it
an aged look, and I'm just not generally
| | 00:30 |
happy with how things are working out for
this photo.
| | 00:35 |
So, I'd like to go back and make some
refinements to the adjustments that I've applied.
| | 00:39 |
In this case, you can see that I've
applied a curves adjustment layer, a color
| | 00:42 |
balance adjustment layer, and a vibrance
adjustment layer.
| | 00:46 |
And the first step, if I want to make some
changes, is to determine which adjustment
| | 00:50 |
layer is the particular culprit.
In other words, which one is causing the
| | 00:54 |
problems that I'm seeing in the photo.
In this case I suspect it is color
| | 00:58 |
balance, and so I'm going to click on the
eye icon to the left of the color balance
| | 01:02 |
adjustment layer on the Layers panel, and
that will show me the image without the
| | 01:06 |
color balance adjustment applied.
In other words it will hide the effect of
| | 01:12 |
that color balance adjustment.
And I'll go ahead and click again to bring
| | 01:16 |
the adjustment back, and I can toggle back
and forth by clicking on or off that adjustment.
| | 01:21 |
So I'll turn it off, and we see the before
version, and I turn it back on and we see
| | 01:25 |
the after.
And quite frankly the before version seems
| | 01:28 |
to look a little bit better.
So I'll make the adjustment visible again,
| | 01:32 |
and then I'll click on the thumbnail for
the color balance adjustment layer so that
| | 01:36 |
the controls for that color balance
adjustment are visible on the properties panel.
| | 01:41 |
You can see that I shifted a little bit
toward red, a little bit toward green, a
| | 01:45 |
little bit toward yellow, and so, I can
fine-tune those adjustments to try to
| | 01:49 |
improve the overall color in the photo.
In this case though, I actually feel that
| | 01:55 |
the image, before I applied a color
balance adjustment, was actually a little
| | 01:59 |
bit better.
So I think I'd like to reset this
| | 02:02 |
adjustment, so that I can essentially just
start over with it.
| | 02:05 |
So down at the bottom of the Properties
panel, I'm going to click the Reset button.
| | 02:10 |
I'll go ahead and click that button, and
you'll see that we go back to the stage
| | 02:13 |
just before I applied those minor
adjustments.
| | 02:16 |
And then I'll click one more time, and
that will reset all of the controls to
| | 02:20 |
their default values.
So in this case that means 0 values for
| | 02:24 |
all three of my sliders, and so now I can
go back and fine-tune things.
| | 02:30 |
In this case Perhaps not really warming
the image up too much.
| | 02:33 |
Perhaps just a tiny little bit, or even
cooling things down a little bit,
| | 02:37 |
depending on my feelings for the photo.
But in this case, I think warming it up,
| | 02:42 |
shifting toward yellow just a little bit,
and maybe actually shifting toward cyan
| | 02:46 |
just a little bit.
I think that's looking a little bit better.
| | 02:50 |
It was an overcast day, so a slightly cool
appearance I think works nicely.
| | 02:54 |
I'll then go to the vibrance adjustment,
and here we can see that the vibrance and
| | 02:59 |
saturation sliders have been shifted far
over toward the right.
| | 03:04 |
I'm going to take the saturation slider
down just a little bit actually, to get a
| | 03:07 |
little bit more of a faded type of a look
for the image.
| | 03:11 |
If I'm not sure if that refinement was a
good refinement, I'll go ahead and click
| | 03:15 |
and hold my mouse on the Preview button.
That will show me what the image looked
| | 03:20 |
like before my most recent adjustment.
And you can see in this case, the before
| | 03:25 |
version, as it were, is rather saturated.
When I release the mouse I'll see the
| | 03:29 |
effect after I've made that change, and
that is a lot more subdued.
| | 03:34 |
In this case, I think that's a lot better.
I think it works a little bit more for
| | 03:37 |
this specific photo.
But the point is that I can go back and
| | 03:41 |
make adjustments.
I can refine my various adjustments or
| | 03:45 |
even reset them altogether.
It's even possible to remove an adjustment.
| | 03:50 |
If I decide, for example, that maybe the
curves adjustment is not really necessary
| | 03:55 |
or is not accomplishing what I intended, I
can drag and drop that curves adjustment
| | 03:59 |
layer just by dragging on the thumbnail
for the layer Down to the trash can and
| | 04:02 |
that will delete that particular layer.
In this case, my curves adjustment layer.
| | 04:10 |
Perhaps, for example, I feel that I just
made a mess of things with curves and I
| | 04:13 |
just want something a little simpler I
made add, for example, a levels adjustment layer.
| | 04:19 |
Maybe just brightening up the image,
perhaps darkening up those blacks a little
| | 04:23 |
bit, and brightening up the whites to
increase contrast.
| | 04:26 |
The point is that I have a lot of
flexibility, because I'm working with
| | 04:30 |
adjustment layers.
I can turn off the visibility of an
| | 04:34 |
adjustment, I can refine an adjustment,
reset an adjustment, or even eliminate an
| | 04:38 |
adjustment altogether.
So I have lots of flexibility, thanks to
| | 04:43 |
the use of adjustment layers, to apply
changes to the appearance of my photos.
| | 04:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving the master image| 00:02 |
Perhaps it goes without saying, but I
think it is worth repeating, that one of
| | 00:05 |
the most important steps in your image
optimization workflow is actually saving
| | 00:10 |
the image.
And when we talk about saving that image,
| | 00:14 |
what we're really talking about is
preserving all of the changes that you've applied.
| | 00:18 |
And preferably, preserving all the changes
in a way that you can go back with maximal
| | 00:22 |
flexibility, and fine-tune your work.
In other words, if you've added Adjustment
| | 00:27 |
Layers, for example, to change the
appearance of a photo You want to make
| | 00:30 |
sure that those adjustment layers are
saved as part of your master image file.
| | 00:35 |
For example, in this case, I'll apply a
couple of adjustments, maybe I'll increase
| | 00:39 |
contrast using a Levels adjustment,
brightening up the image just a little bit
| | 00:43 |
and overall fine-tuning the tonality.
Perhaps, I'll boost the colors with Vibrance.
| | 00:51 |
The point here is not so much which
adjustments I'm applying, but simply the
| | 00:54 |
fact that I have applied some adjustments
as Adjustment Layers.
| | 00:58 |
So, let's assume that I'm finished working
with this image, and I want to save the result.
| | 01:04 |
Well, actually, I certainly don't want to
wait until I'm finished in order to save
| | 01:08 |
that result.
In fact, my tendency is to save the image
| | 01:11 |
with every update.
So, let's take a look at how we would go
| | 01:15 |
about actually saving the image.
In this case, I've started with a JPEG image.
| | 01:20 |
In most cases, I would actually start with
a raw capture that I convert, for example,
| | 01:24 |
with Adobe Camera Raw.
And then continue adjusting with
| | 01:27 |
Adjustment Layers in Photoshop.
But in this case, I happen to be working
| | 01:31 |
with a JPEG image.
In either case though, I would then go to
| | 01:34 |
the File menu, and in theory, I would need
to choose the Save As option, because I
| | 01:38 |
want to save this file not as a JPEG, but
in a different file format.
| | 01:44 |
The reason for that is that the JPEG file
format does not support Layers, and so I
| | 01:48 |
would need to save this as a different
file type then the original.
| | 01:53 |
If I choose Save initially, Photoshop
recognizes that I have not yet saved this
| | 01:58 |
image with all of the layers intact, and
so, it will automatically invoke the Save
| | 02:03 |
As dialog.
The difference here is that with Save As,
| | 02:08 |
Photoshop will ask me where I want to save
the image, what file name I want to use
| | 02:12 |
and what file format I would like to use
for that file.
| | 02:16 |
If I simply choose Save, under normal
circumstances after I've already saved the
| | 02:20 |
initial image, then I would simply be
updating the file in its location, so for
| | 02:24 |
example, saving whatever changes I've
applied to the file on the hard drive.
| | 02:31 |
I'll go ahead and choose the Save As
command for now.
| | 02:33 |
And you'll see that I'm being prompted to
save this image as a Photoshop PSD, or
| | 02:38 |
Photoshop document.
When I want to preserve layers, which is
| | 02:44 |
essentially always when I'm working on my
original image.
| | 02:47 |
I'll either need to use the Photoshop PSD
file format or the TIFF file format, the
| | 02:52 |
tagged image file format.
Both of these options are perfectly fine.
| | 02:58 |
Both Photoshop PSD and TIFF files can
store Layers, Layer Masks, Channels and
| | 03:03 |
all sorts of other elements of your images
that you can create within Photoshop.
| | 03:10 |
So, on some level you can say that it
doesn't matter which file format you use,
| | 03:14 |
PSD or TIFF.
In most cases, I'll use the Photoshop PSD
| | 03:17 |
file format when I'm saving a layered
image, and there are two reasons for this.
| | 03:22 |
First is habit frankly.
In the old days, we could not save layered
| | 03:27 |
TIFF images.
By definition a Tiff image saved in
| | 03:31 |
Photoshop was flattened with no layers in
tact.
| | 03:35 |
What that means is that, back in those
days, if I saved a Photoshop PSD file, I
| | 03:39 |
would know that it may very well contain
layers, whereas if I had a TIFF image, I
| | 03:42 |
knew that it did not contain layers.
And therefore, I used the Photoshop file
| | 03:48 |
format for my master image containing all
of my layers, and I would use a TIFF image
| | 03:52 |
for flattened files that I was sending off
to someone else, perhaps to be printed,
| | 03:56 |
for example.
Now, we're able to save layered files in
| | 04:01 |
either format, so you can choose either.
But, just because of old habits and the
| | 04:05 |
desire to be able to know which is a layer
versus flattened image just by browsing my
| | 04:09 |
files, I still use the photo shop PSD file
format.
| | 04:14 |
However, there's another reason and that
is, that in most cases, a Photoshop PSD
| | 04:18 |
file will end up being smaller than the
TIFF image, even if you've added
| | 04:22 |
compression to the TIFF file.
And that's because the Photoshop file
| | 04:27 |
format is rather efficient at storing
layers and it does use nondestructive
| | 04:30 |
compression, as well.
With that option selected, I'll make sure
| | 04:35 |
that I'm in the right folder, I could
navigate to a different folder if I need
| | 04:38 |
to, and I'll make sure that the file name
is as I want it.
| | 04:42 |
Note that I have the Layers checkbox
turned on, and I'm also embedding the
| | 04:46 |
current ICC Profile for the image.
That will help ensure consistency of color
| | 04:51 |
and also that those colors will be
interpreted properly when the image is
| | 04:54 |
opened again in the future.
So, with those options established, I'll
| | 04:59 |
simply click the Save button.
And now, I'm being asked another question,
| | 05:03 |
would I like to maximize compatibility?
Now, maximizing compatibility will
| | 05:09 |
increase the file size for your image, but
it will also ensure that other
| | 05:13 |
applications, for example, Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom are able to import and work with
| | 05:17 |
your Photoshop file.
So I do recommend having that option
| | 05:22 |
turned on.
You can set an option in Preferences to
| | 05:26 |
always maximize compatibility for
Photoshop PSD files if you'd like.
| | 05:30 |
But in this case, I've set up the option
to have Photoshop ask me each time, so
| | 05:34 |
I'll make sure that checkbox is turned on.
I could also turn on the don't show again
| | 05:39 |
option, if I don't want to be asked about
this option again in the future.
| | 05:43 |
And then, I'll click the OK button.
And now, my image is saved as a Photoshop
| | 05:47 |
PSD file.
That's the first time I've saved this
| | 05:51 |
image with Layers intact.
In reality, I probably would have saved
| | 05:55 |
this layered image as soon as I created my
first additional layer, the Levels
| | 05:58 |
adjustment layer in this case.
And then I would save again when I added
| | 06:03 |
the Vibrance adjustment and each time I go
back and make changes.
| | 06:06 |
Let's assume that I'm going to increase
Vibrance just a little bit more.
| | 06:10 |
When I apply that change, I'll simply
press Ctrl+S on Windows or Cmd+S on
| | 06:15 |
Macintosh in order to update the Save for
that image.
| | 06:20 |
I could also go to the menu, of course,
and choose File > Save, but generally
| | 06:23 |
speaking, I find the keyboard shortcut is
a little bit faster.
| | 06:28 |
And I'm actually in the habit that after
applying just about any adjustment to an
| | 06:32 |
image, I'll press Ctrl+S or Cmd+S on the
keyboard in order to update the saved file.
| | 06:38 |
But the most important thing is to
preserve all of those layers.
| | 06:41 |
In this case, I have just a couple of
adjustment layers.
| | 06:43 |
But whatever layers I've added as part of
my process for optimizing the image, I
| | 06:47 |
want to preserve those so that I can
always come back and fine-tune the image later.
| | 06:53 |
And saving as either a TIFF or a PSD file
with layers intact ensures that I'm always
| | 06:57 |
able to come back to this image and
fine-tune it to perfection.
| | 07:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Basic AdjustmentsCropping the image| 00:02 |
I actually have slightly mixed feelings
when it comes to cropping, in the context
| | 00:06 |
of my overall image optimization workflow.
On the one hand, I feel like I'd rather
| | 00:11 |
save cropping for later in my work flow,
so that I can process the image, optimize
| | 00:15 |
the image, based on an overall look.
Sometimes I might crop an area out, but if
| | 00:21 |
I had left that area in, while I was
changing the appearance of the photo I
| | 00:24 |
might have changed my mind.
Maybe the texture would have been
| | 00:29 |
enhanced, for example, or there might have
been something else that kind of came out
| | 00:32 |
during that workflow of optimizing the
image that would cause me to want to leave
| | 00:36 |
that in.
And yet, more often than not I find myself
| | 00:40 |
cropping relatively early, in many cases
because I want to fix a problem in the
| | 00:44 |
image that cropping is able to solve.
That might be to hide a distraction from
| | 00:50 |
near the edge of the image, for example,
or straightening a crooked horizon.
| | 00:56 |
With this image, I actually have both.
That horizon looks reasonably straight,
| | 01:00 |
but it's actually off by just a little
bit, and to my eye, the bottom right
| | 01:03 |
corner of the image is a little bit
distracting.
| | 01:07 |
You can see some of the ripples of the
waves here and that just keeps catching my eye.
| | 01:12 |
So, I would like to crop that out of the
image and I might make some other
| | 01:15 |
aesthetic decisions, while I'm cropping,
as well.
| | 01:18 |
But by in large, it tends to be more
corrective in my mindset and therefore, I
| | 01:22 |
like to get it done early.
But I can also crop in a completely
| | 01:26 |
non-destructive way.
Let's take a look at that process.
| | 01:30 |
I'll go ahead and choose the Crop tool
from the toolbox.
| | 01:33 |
I could also simply press the letter C on
the keyboard in order to activate the Crop tool.
| | 01:38 |
And you'll notice that by default I
already have a crop box, a bounding box
| | 01:41 |
around the image.
You can see that I have crop corners at
| | 01:45 |
each of the corners, as well as handles
along the edge.
| | 01:48 |
But I can actually adjust the overall size
and shape of the crop by clicking and
| | 01:52 |
dragging anywhere along that bounding box.
First, though, let's take a look at some
| | 01:58 |
of the settings on the Options bar.
You can see that I can choose a particular
| | 02:02 |
aspect ratio if I'd like from the popup at
the left end of the options bar.
| | 02:07 |
I can retain the original aspect ratio of
the image if I like.
| | 02:11 |
I can choose a 1:1 aspect ratio, in other
words a square image, or a variety of
| | 02:15 |
other aspect ratios.
I can also specify my own ratio.
| | 02:20 |
Maybe I want it to be a 2:1 ratio, for
example, in which case I could load those
| | 02:23 |
values into the available text boxes here.
I can also switch those values.
| | 02:29 |
So, for example, if I enter two to one, I
can reverse or flip those values, so that
| | 02:33 |
the ratio is one to two, and I can click
the Clear button to clear out those
| | 02:37 |
options, and then if I'd like, I can
return back to the original ratio, for
| | 02:40 |
example, to effectively reset that crop
box.
| | 02:47 |
You can also rotate the image as part of
the process of cropping that image.
| | 02:51 |
If you move your mouse outside the Crop
box, you'll notice that there is a curved
| | 02:55 |
double headed arrow for your mouse
pointer, and when you see that you can
| | 02:58 |
click and drag in order to rotate the
image.
| | 03:02 |
And notice, by the way, that it is indeed
the image that is rotating.
| | 03:07 |
The crop box remains as it was, and in
fact, it re-sizes to make sure that the
| | 03:10 |
crop falls entirely inside the image
itself, but it's the photo that's moving
| | 03:14 |
so that I'm getting a better sense of the
actual final effect.
| | 03:20 |
In most cases though, and if I want to
straighten an image, it's because there's
| | 03:23 |
an obvious line, for example a horizon
line or perhaps the side of a building.
| | 03:28 |
And when that's the case, I'll use the
straighten tool.
| | 03:31 |
There's a level button here on the Options
bar.
| | 03:33 |
I can click that button, and then simply
click and drag across the image.
| | 03:38 |
You'll notice that I'm essentially
creating a level line.
| | 03:41 |
And I can use this line to identify which
portion of the image should be perfectly
| | 03:45 |
horizontal, or perfectly vertical.
So, I'll align that level line with my
| | 03:51 |
horizon, and once I have that aligned,
I'll release the mouse and you can see
| | 03:54 |
that the image is rotated automatically.
At this point I can adjust the overall
| | 04:00 |
size and shape of my crop knowing that the
horizon is perfectly straight at this
| | 04:04 |
point but as I'm doing that, I can use an
overlay to help me line things up a little
| | 04:07 |
bit more if I'd like.
In most cases, I use the default, the rule
| | 04:13 |
of thumb thirds overlay, so that I could
see those third lines, and try to align
| | 04:16 |
subjects up with those to the extent
possible.
| | 04:20 |
But I also have a variety of other
options.
| | 04:22 |
I can display a grid, I can display a
series of diagonals, a triangle overlay,
| | 04:26 |
the Golden Ratio overlay, or the Golden
Spiral overlay, and I can also cycle
| | 04:30 |
through those overlays by pressing the O
key on the keyboard, and in addition I can
| | 04:34 |
rotate some of these options.
Now obviously the rule of thirds overlay
| | 04:41 |
will be the same if you rotate it in 90
degree increments, but I'll switch to the
| | 04:44 |
golden spiral, and then we can choose the
cycle orientation option, or press Shift+O
| | 04:48 |
on the keyboard, and you'll see that that
rotates that golden spiral overlay.
| | 04:55 |
In this case though, I think I'll stick
with the rule of thirds overlay.
| | 04:58 |
Notice by the way, that we have several
options in terms of the visibility of that overlay.
| | 05:03 |
I can choose auto, if I only want the
overlay to appear when I'm resizing the
| | 05:07 |
crop box.
I can choose to always show the overlay so
| | 05:10 |
that The overlay is displayed anytime the
crop is active, or I can choose to never
| | 05:14 |
show the overlay if I find it distracting,
for example.
| | 05:19 |
In this case I'll just leave the option
set to always.
| | 05:21 |
And now, I'm ready to fine tune the crop
if I want to make any adjustments here.
| | 05:26 |
I want to make sure, for example, that the
distraction down there at the bottom right
| | 05:30 |
is not included in the final cropped
image.
| | 05:34 |
So, I think right about there, at the
moment I'm preserving the original aspect
| | 05:37 |
ratio, I could change that back to ratio
for example, if I wanted to have a little
| | 05:41 |
bit more flexibility in my overall
cropping, the specific aspect ratio that
| | 05:44 |
I'm cropping to.
But right about there looks to be pretty good.
| | 05:50 |
So conceptually, I'm ready to apply my
crop, but I want to take a lot at one more
| | 05:54 |
very important option on the Options bar.
And that is, Delete Crop Pixels.
| | 06:01 |
In most cases, I will leave this Checkbox
turned off so that the image is being
| | 06:05 |
cropped in a non-destructive way.
Other than of course the fact that I
| | 06:11 |
rotated the image and that does cause some
change in pixels but the actual cropping
| | 06:14 |
is non-destructive.
What that means is that in effect the
| | 06:18 |
image canvas will simply be resized so
that I can only see a portion of the image
| | 06:22 |
but those pixels are still there.
Now, it's important to keep in mind that
| | 06:27 |
this does mean that the file size will be
a little larger than you might otherwise
| | 06:30 |
expect, but it also means that we can get
back to those pixels if we should ever
| | 06:34 |
decide that the crop was less than idea.
With that delete crop pixels checkbox
| | 06:39 |
turned off, I'll go ahead and click the
check mark button on the In the Options
| | 06:43 |
bar in order to commit the crop.
I could also double click inside the crop
| | 06:48 |
box or press Enter or Return on the
keyboard to apply that crop.
| | 06:52 |
But I'll go ahead and click that checkmark
button, and you can see that the image has
| | 06:55 |
been cropped and rotated.
But again that crop was applied in a
| | 06:59 |
non-destructive way.
The pixels outside the crop box were not deleted.
| | 07:04 |
And so, if I later decide that I want to
get back to those pixels, I can simply
| | 07:08 |
choose Image, and then Reveal All from the
menu, and the canvas size will be enlarged
| | 07:13 |
so that I can see all of those pixels once
again.
| | 07:18 |
Note by the way, that there are some
transparent pixels around the perimeter,
| | 07:21 |
because I also rotated the image in order
to straighten out that horizon, but in
| | 07:25 |
this case, I was actually happy with the
crop.
| | 07:29 |
So I'll go ahead and choose Edit Step
Backward in order to get back to the
| | 07:32 |
cropped version of the image, but if I
save this image, as either a Photoshop PSD
| | 07:36 |
file or a TIF image, then I will preserve
those pixels that fall outside the canvas.
| | 07:42 |
So I can always uncrop the image later if
I change my mind about that crop.
| | 07:45 |
But in this case, with the horizon
straightened and that distracting element
| | 07:49 |
removed from the bottom right corner, I
think we're in good shape.
| | 07:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Improving tonality with Brightness/Contrast| 00:02 |
I realize it's a bit of a cliche, but it
is true that photography is all about light.
| | 00:06 |
And that means some of the most important
decisions you make when optimizing a photo
| | 00:11 |
will relate to overall light levels.
In other words, the general brightness in
| | 00:16 |
the image and the overall contrast in the
image.
| | 00:19 |
Let's take a look at the most basic of
tonal adjustments.
| | 00:23 |
The Brightness/Contrast adjustment.
I'll start off by adding an adjustment layer.
| | 00:27 |
So I'll go down to the bottom of the
layer's panel and click on the Add
| | 00:30 |
Adjustment Layer button and then choose
Brightness/Contrast from the popup menu.
| | 00:36 |
That will add a Brightness/Contrast
Adjustment layer on the Layer's panel.
| | 00:40 |
And as you can see, I'm now have the
Brightness and Contrast controls on the
| | 00:43 |
properties panel.
And this adjustment really is that simple.
| | 00:47 |
We adjust the overall brightness with the
Brightness slider and the overall contrast
| | 00:51 |
with the Contrast slider.
You'll notice, however, that there are a
| | 00:55 |
couple of additional controls available.
Let's take a look at those.
| | 00:59 |
The Use Legacy option means that you want
to use the older version of Brightness/Contrast.
| | 01:05 |
Some time ago, Adobe updated Photoshop
with new algorithms for the
| | 01:08 |
Brightness/Contrast adjustment but they
provided the Use Legacy checkbox, so that
| | 01:13 |
if we wanted to use the old algorithm,
that was possible.
| | 01:18 |
Quite frankly, I would never choose to use
the legacy algorithms on a new image.
| | 01:24 |
The only reason you might need this
checkbox is for an older image that had
| | 01:27 |
already been optimized in a previous
version of Photoshop.
| | 01:31 |
So if you're creating a new
Brightness/Contrast adjustment for an
| | 01:34 |
image, you don't need to use the Legacy
option.
| | 01:37 |
So we'll leave that check box turned off.
We also have an Auto button.
| | 01:41 |
Clicking that button, will cause an
automatic brightness and contrast
| | 01:44 |
adjustment to be applied.
You can see in this case, the brightness
| | 01:48 |
was increased significantly and the
contrast was increased to some degree as well.
| | 01:52 |
In most cases, I find that I don't really
care for the automatic adjustment.
| | 01:57 |
It might be a good starting point in some
cases, but more often than not, I prefer
| | 02:00 |
to avoid this option.
So, in this case, I'll just click the
| | 02:03 |
Reset button at the bottom of the
Properties panel in order to reset the
| | 02:07 |
adjustment, so now the brightness and
contrast sliders are back to their neutral
| | 02:10 |
values of zero.
With the brightness slider, we can
| | 02:15 |
increase the value, moving the slider to
the right to a positive number in order to
| | 02:18 |
increase the brightness of the image.
And we can drag it over to the left and at
| | 02:23 |
a negative value, we're darkening the
image.
| | 02:26 |
The Contrast slider, similarly, dragging
to the right will increase contrast and
| | 02:30 |
dragging to the left will decrease
contrast.
| | 02:34 |
Of course, the ideal adjustment will vary
from one image to the next, so we're not
| | 02:38 |
able to really say you should always
increase contrast just a little bit, or
| | 02:41 |
increase brightness just a little bit.
Instead, you'll have to evaluate the
| | 02:47 |
overall image.
With contrast you need to pay attention to
| | 02:50 |
the light and dark areas.
When we increase contrast, we're
| | 02:54 |
brightening the brights.
And darkening the darks, and sometimes
| | 02:58 |
that can cause detail to get lost.
You'll notice, for example, that some of
| | 03:02 |
the darker feather detail seems to have
been lost, and some of the bright
| | 03:05 |
highlights in the white feathers also seem
to have been lost, and that's no surprise
| | 03:08 |
since I've increased contrast so much.
So I might want to tone things down a
| | 03:13 |
little bit.
I also need to be careful.
| | 03:15 |
If I reduce.
Boost contrast too much because the image
| | 03:17 |
will start to look a little bit flat and
muddy.
| | 03:20 |
Generally, I think you'll find that a
little bit of a boost in contrast can be
| | 03:23 |
helpful for an image, but again it's a
decision that needs to be made on an
| | 03:26 |
individual basis for each image.
So pay careful attention to the photo,
| | 03:31 |
think about what you're trying to convey,
and approach contrast accordingly.
| | 03:36 |
Generally I prefer to adjust contrast
first, trying to find the ideal amount of
| | 03:40 |
contrast for the overall photo.
And then I'll go back to the brightness adjustment.
| | 03:46 |
But you can certainly bounce back and
forth between these 2 sliders, fine-tuning
| | 03:49 |
until you're happy with the result.
That's looking pretty good to my eye.
| | 03:54 |
Just a little bit of a boost in contrast
and a little bit of brightening to help
| | 03:57 |
bring out some of those details in the
shadows, and I think we're in pretty good shape.
| | 04:02 |
But, since I've used an adjustment layer
here, I can always come back and fine tune
| | 04:05 |
as needed.
And in many cases, you may find that
| | 04:08 |
applying other adjustments has a little
bit of an impact on overall tonality and
| | 04:11 |
so, you may want to return to this
adjustment later.
| | 04:15 |
But, do bear in mind that the brightness
contrast adjustment is a relatively basic adjustment.
| | 04:20 |
I usually, only use it when I'm just
looking for for a quick boost for the image.
| | 04:24 |
If I want to exercise a little bit more
control over the tonality, then I'll take
| | 04:28 |
a look at either the levels or curves
adjustment rather than brightness contrast.
| | 04:34 |
That said, the Brightness/Contrast
adjustment does make it easy to improve
| | 04:37 |
the overall tonality for a photo.
| | 04:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining tonality with Levels| 00:02 |
I tend to like my images to have a little
bit of contrast, a little bit of pop, that
| | 00:05 |
helps to bring out the drama in the photo,
or at least make a little bit stronger
| | 00:09 |
impact than the image might look coming
right out of the camera.
| | 00:14 |
And that might cause you to think about
the Brightness Contrast Adjustment since
| | 00:18 |
contrast is in the name of that
adjustment, and therefore it makes sense
| | 00:21 |
that you would use the Brightness Contrast
Adjustment in order to enhance contrast in
| | 00:24 |
a photo.
But the problem with a brightness contrast
| | 00:28 |
adjustment, or at least the contrast
slider, for the brightness contrast
| | 00:32 |
adjustment, is that it doesn't allow you
to adjust the bright areas and the dark
| | 00:36 |
areas independently.
Having that extra degree of control can be
| | 00:41 |
very important in many cases and that's
why I will tend to look at the levels
| | 00:44 |
adjustment as my first starting point
when.
| | 00:48 |
When I want to enhance contrast for a
photo.
| | 00:51 |
Let's take a look at that Levels
Adjustment.
| | 00:54 |
I'll start off by adding an adjustment
layer for levels, and so at the bottom of
| | 00:57 |
the Layers panel I'll click on the Add
Adjustment Layer button and then choose
| | 01:00 |
Levels from the pop-up.
That adds a levels adjustment layer and as
| | 01:04 |
you can see, I now have my levels controls
on the properties panel.
| | 01:09 |
Now, you can see right away that the
levels adjustment has a lot going on.
| | 01:13 |
But quite frankly, you really only need
three individual controls within this
| | 01:17 |
properties panel for the levels
adjustment, and those are the white point,
| | 01:21 |
the black point, and the midpoint.
In other words, adjusting the value of
| | 01:27 |
white, the value of black, and the overall
brightness, or the value of middle gray,
| | 01:31 |
within the photo.
There are certainly other options here.
| | 01:35 |
We can use a preset if we want to choose
from one of the available option to apply
| | 01:39 |
essentially an automatic adjustment to the
image.
| | 01:43 |
We can switch from RGB or red, green, blue
to either red, green, or blue if we want
| | 01:47 |
to adjust the individual color channels,
in other words, affecting color as opposed
| | 01:52 |
to just tonality.
We can also set black, middle grey, and
| | 01:57 |
white points using the eye droppers, for
example.
| | 02:01 |
Clicking on the white eyedropper and then
clicking within the image to specify that
| | 02:05 |
I want a particular area to be established
as a white value.
| | 02:09 |
In other words, the pixel that I click on
should be adjusted to equal white.
| | 02:13 |
But I tend to work exclusively with the
slider controls found below the histogram.
| | 02:18 |
So I'll go ahead and click the Reset
button, at the bottom of the properties
| | 02:21 |
panel, in order to reset my adjustment.
And then we can take a look at the
| | 02:25 |
histogram, and this is certainly helpful.
I can see, for example, that there aren't
| | 02:29 |
any pixels in the image that have gone to
a full white value.
| | 02:33 |
There's a gap between white and the first
pixels that actually appear within the photo.
| | 02:38 |
So, I have relatively bright pixels and a
fair number of them, but none of them are
| | 02:42 |
all that close to pure white.
On the black end of things I do have some
| | 02:48 |
pixels, a very small number of pixels,
that seem to be of a pure black value.
| | 02:53 |
We'll explore that more in just a moment.
If I drag the white point inward, what I'm
| | 02:57 |
essentially saying is that I want pixels
in the image to be brighter.
| | 03:01 |
Specifically that I want the brightest
pixels to have a value that's closer to
| | 03:05 |
white, or maybe white altogether.
If I drag that white point slider inward
| | 03:10 |
very far, you'll see that pixels in the
image start to become pure white.
| | 03:15 |
It doesn't take long before you realize
that that means we're losing detail.
| | 03:19 |
In this case, tremendous detail within the
photo, which we obviously don't want to
| | 03:23 |
do, at least not under normal
circumstances.
| | 03:26 |
And so, then the question is, to what
degree should be bring in that white point value?
| | 03:31 |
In most cases, you'll want to brightest
pixel in your image to be pure white or
| | 03:35 |
very close to white.
And because of that the clipping preview
| | 03:40 |
display can be incredibly helpful in
establishing a precise setting for that
| | 03:44 |
white point.
To display the clipping preview, simply
| | 03:48 |
hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option
key on Macintosh.
| | 03:52 |
That will cause the image to become black
or nearly black depending on the specifics
| | 03:56 |
of the overall tonality within the photo,
but then as I drag that white point slider
| | 04:00 |
over to the left, you'll start to see
pixels appearing.
| | 04:05 |
The color indicates the channels that are
losing information, but once you see white
| | 04:09 |
pixels, that means that we have true white
values and we are losing detail within the photo.
| | 04:16 |
So in most cases, for the white point, I
don't want to sacrifice any information
| | 04:20 |
or, at least just very, very little
information.
| | 04:23 |
And so I'll usually bring that white point
in until I can see some pixels, and then
| | 04:27 |
drag back over to the right until the last
of those pixels disappears.
| | 04:32 |
Now if I do want to have some pixels that
are pure white, I'll need to look for
| | 04:35 |
those pure white pixels.
In this case, I have to bring that
| | 04:39 |
adjustment relatively far in before I see
any pixels that are actually pure white.
| | 04:44 |
But if I want to have those whites be
truly bright, truly white, then I do need
| | 04:48 |
to bring the white point in that far.
So, there's a little bit of wiggle room
| | 04:52 |
here, but by and large, by using that
clipping preview, you'll be able to get a
| | 04:55 |
much better sense of where you should
position that white point.
| | 04:59 |
We have a very similar capability for the
black point.
| | 05:03 |
Once again, I'll hold the Alt or Option
key, and then drag that black point
| | 05:06 |
inward, and here you see that we start to
lose shadow detail relatively quickly.
| | 05:11 |
Now, for the shadows, we might be willing
to sacrifice a little bit more detail in
| | 05:15 |
order to enhance the drama in the photo,
for example, and so it's not quite as
| | 05:19 |
clear-cut a decision as it tends to be for
the white point.
| | 05:24 |
But in this case I don't want to have to
much loss of detail in the shadows.
| | 05:28 |
Maybe just a little bit to enhance drama
in the image.
| | 05:31 |
And so again holding that Alt or Option
key while I'm adjusting the black point
| | 05:34 |
slider, so that I get the clipping preview
display.
| | 05:38 |
I'll fine tune, and right about there
seems to be pretty good.
| | 05:41 |
But of course, we want to evaluate the
overall image based on the actual image,
| | 05:45 |
not just based on the clipping preview.
That clipping preview is a tool to help
| | 05:49 |
you establish those black and white
points, but you still need to release the
| | 05:53 |
Alt or Option key and evaluate the image
all on its own to determine whether or not
| | 05:56 |
you've made a good adjustment.
After you have established good settings
| | 06:02 |
for the black and the white points.
You can adjust the overall brightness with
| | 06:06 |
the midtone slider.
It's often referred to as a gamma slider
| | 06:09 |
because it's actually applying a gamma
curve to the photo, but you can just think
| | 06:13 |
of it as a brightness slider.
If you drag over toward the right, you're
| | 06:18 |
darkening the image, because now there are
more pixels that fall between middle gray
| | 06:22 |
and black.
If you drag over toward the left, you're
| | 06:26 |
brightening the image, because now they
are more pixels that fall between middle
| | 06:29 |
gray and white.
Of course, we're not clipping the image
| | 06:32 |
any more.
That was taken care of with the white
| | 06:34 |
point and the black point, and so holding
the Alt or Option key won't have any
| | 06:37 |
effect whatsoever.
So instead, you'll need to simply evaluate
| | 06:41 |
the overall image as you're applying.
Applying the adjustment as you're shifting
| | 06:46 |
that slider back and forth.
And, I think right about there looks
| | 06:48 |
pretty good.
So, there you have it.
| | 06:51 |
A rather sophisticated adjustment, to be
sure, but really, not terribly complicated
| | 06:54 |
once you're familiar with the basic
operation.
| | 06:58 |
You can simply hold the Alt or Option key
while adjusting the white point and the
| | 07:01 |
black point independent of each other, and
then adjust the midtone value in order to
| | 07:05 |
affect overall brightness.
And the result Is a birghtness contrast
| | 07:10 |
adjustment with control, individually,
over the highlights and the shadows in
| | 07:14 |
your photo, and that additional level of
control can make all the difference in the world.
| | 07:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting color with Color Balance| 00:02 |
Like many photographers, I got my start in
black and white photography, but now I
| | 00:06 |
certainly appreciate the importance of
color in a photographic image.
| | 00:11 |
And when a photo is in color, it's
important that that color be accurate and pleasing.
| | 00:16 |
Although I will say that accurate is a
little bit of a subjective term, meaning
| | 00:20 |
we can take a little bit of artistic
licence.
| | 00:23 |
But more often than not, we want the color
to be relatively accurate, and that
| | 00:27 |
usually means a good color balance.
Let's take a look at the color balance
| | 00:31 |
adjustment and how you might use it to
improve the overall appearance of a photo.
| | 00:36 |
I'll start off by adding the color balance
adjustment layer.
| | 00:38 |
So I'll go to the bottom of the layers
panel and click on the Add Adjustment
| | 00:41 |
Layer button, and then choose Color
Balance from the pop-up menu.
| | 00:45 |
And you'll see that a color balance
adjustment layer has been added to the
| | 00:48 |
layer stack.
And I also now have the color balance
| | 00:51 |
controls on the properties panel.
But before we start working with the color
| | 00:55 |
in the image, let's take a quick moment to
understand what we're really doing when we
| | 00:59 |
work with color balance.
I'm going to switch to another image here
| | 01:04 |
of a color wheel of sorts.
I suppose not much of a wheel, considering
| | 01:08 |
it's square, but the idea here is that
we're able to see the range of colors as
| | 01:12 |
we adjust them within Photoshop.
With the color balance adjustment, you'll
| | 01:17 |
recall that we have several sliders.
Those sliders happen to be cyan and red,
| | 01:21 |
magenta and green, and yellow and blue.
Well, returning to that color wheel image,
| | 01:28 |
you'll see that I've put some lines one
that color wheel to indicate exactly those axes.
| | 01:34 |
And in fact, each axis represents opposite
colors.
| | 01:38 |
So we have the cyan red slider, the
magenta green slider, and the yellow blue slider.
| | 01:45 |
And what we're really doing with color
balance is shifting our overall color in
| | 01:49 |
the photo.
We're making the overall image perhaps a
| | 01:54 |
little more green, or a little more
magenta, or a little more red, or a little
| | 01:58 |
more cyan.
Put another way, if we shift in one
| | 02:02 |
direction or the other you can say that
we're making the image perhaps more
| | 02:06 |
yellow, but also less blue.
So, for example, on the blue yellow axis
| | 02:11 |
we're warming up the image towards yellow
or cooling off the image toward blue.
| | 02:17 |
In fact we're adjusting every single
pixel, just shifting it into a particular
| | 02:21 |
direction on that color wheel.
And you can get to any destination on the
| | 02:26 |
color wheel as it were, by manipulating
those various controls.
| | 02:31 |
So let's assume that we want the image to
look a little bit more orange, that means
| | 02:34 |
we want to move toward the upper left
portion of the color wheel, but you'll
| | 02:37 |
notice that there isn't an axis that moves
us toward orange.
| | 02:43 |
But that area is directly between the
yellow and red areas, and so if we shift
| | 02:47 |
the color balance a little bit toward
yellow and a little bit toward red, we'll
| | 02:51 |
end up in the orange area.
In other words, having some understanding
| | 02:57 |
of the color wheel can make your work with
color balance that much easier.
| | 03:00 |
So let's get back to our color balance
adjustment.
| | 03:03 |
I'll return to my landscape image here,
and we'll take a look at those individual sliders.
| | 03:08 |
There are three sliders, we can adjust all
three, and we can adjust them in any order
| | 03:12 |
we want to.
But my general approach is to identify
| | 03:15 |
what I consider to be the biggest color
problem in the image, and start with that channel.
| | 03:21 |
So, for example, if the image seems to be
a little bit too magenta, then I'll use
| | 03:25 |
the magenta green slider first.
But that's just a general guideline to
| | 03:29 |
help you get started.
In this case, I think there may be a
| | 03:31 |
little bit too much magenta, so I'll shift
that magenta slider toward green.
| | 03:36 |
I hear from a lot of photographers that
they feel they just don't have a good eye
| | 03:40 |
for color.
And if you feel that way, one of the
| | 03:43 |
things I recommed doing is swinging these
sliders through their extremes.
| | 03:48 |
This, obviously, looks way too green, for
example, and this looks way too magenta.
| | 03:54 |
But as we swing back and forth, you'll
start to get some better perspective, a
| | 03:57 |
better sense of when the color is
relatively accurate.
| | 04:01 |
So, here for example, shifting relatively
strongly toward green, we see that the
| | 04:05 |
colors look a little bit more natural.
I don't have that sort of pinkish
| | 04:09 |
undertone anymore in the the greens, and
the clouds look a little bit more neutral.
| | 04:14 |
So I'll go ahead and move on to the yellow
blue slider, for example.
| | 04:18 |
And again, swinging through those extremes
with a strong shift toward blue it almost
| | 04:21 |
looks like a moonlit night.
And shifting towards yellow, in the
| | 04:26 |
extreme, things look a little bit odd.
But somewhere in between we'll find a nice
| | 04:30 |
balance for the colors.
And in this case, maybe shifting a little
| | 04:34 |
bit toward yellow, or if I want sort of a
coolish appearance, I might shift toward blue.
| | 04:39 |
But I'll find just the right balance
somewhere in there as I shift that slider
| | 04:43 |
back and forth.
In most cases, I will look at all three of
| | 04:48 |
those sliders.
In some cases, I might end up returning
| | 04:51 |
one of the sliders back to zero, or nearly
zero, but I do like to explore all three.
| | 04:56 |
And in fact, I prefer to go through all
three of those sliders multiple times but
| | 05:00 |
using a little less movement as I get down
to the fine-tuning stage.
| | 05:05 |
In fact, I might even take things a step
further in terms of my precision, and
| | 05:08 |
instead of moving that slider with my
mouse, I might click into the value, in
| | 05:12 |
this case the magenta green value, for
example.
| | 05:16 |
It's currently at plus-28.
If I click in Into that field, and then
| | 05:20 |
press the Up Arrow key on the keyboard, it
will take it up by one value.
| | 05:24 |
In this case, by a whole number, so from
28 to 29.
| | 05:28 |
Or, if I press the down arrow key on the
keyboard, I will reduce that value.
| | 05:32 |
So I can use up arrow in this case to
shift more toward green, and down arrow in
| | 05:35 |
order to shift more toward magenta.
If I need a stronger adjustment, I can
| | 05:40 |
hold the Shift key, and that will increase
that adjustment by a factor of ten.
| | 05:44 |
So, Shift + Up Arrow will increase by ten,
and Shift + Down Arrow will decrease by ten.
| | 05:50 |
And then I can use the Up and Down arrow
keys by themselves in order to fine tune
| | 05:54 |
the adjustment.
So it looks like we have a pretty good
| | 05:57 |
adjustment here.
Let's take a look at a couple of the other
| | 05:59 |
options that are available for us, though.
First we have the preserve luminosity checkbox.
| | 06:04 |
With this checkbox turned on, as we apply
an adjustment Photoshop will automatically
| | 06:09 |
shift the values for the other channels in
order to maintain the same perceived
| | 06:13 |
luminous values, or brightness values, in
the image.
| | 06:18 |
The only time I turn this off is if I'm
trying to achieve a perfectly neutral gray
| | 06:22 |
value for a specific area of a photo.
In that case, the fact that preserved
| | 06:27 |
luminosity causes all three channels to be
adjusted, when I'm only adjusting one
| | 06:31 |
makes it very difficult to achieve a
targeted value.
| | 06:35 |
But more often than not, I'm not trying to
achieve a perfectly neutral grey and so
| | 06:39 |
I'll leave preserve luminosity turned on.
I can also focus my adjustment on
| | 06:44 |
different total ranges, shadows, midtones,
or highlights.
| | 06:49 |
In most cases, while you will see a
difference between each of these different
| | 06:52 |
options, it won't be so significant that
you're able to really achieve a great result.
| | 06:58 |
What I recommend is that if you feel you
need this degree of control, you should
| | 07:01 |
probably explore the curves adjustment
rather than color balance.
| | 07:05 |
So in most cases, I will leave this option
set to mid tones, but if I do want to
| | 07:09 |
focus an adjustment on just the
highlights, I can do that.
| | 07:14 |
I'll go ahead and choose highlights from
that tone pop-up.
| | 07:16 |
But notice, as I apply my shift, in this
case using the yellow-blue slider, that
| | 07:20 |
it's not just highlights that are being
affected.
| | 07:24 |
Those highlights are getting a stronger
impact from my adjustment, but the overall
| | 07:27 |
image is still being adjusted.
So in most cases I'll simply leave that
| | 07:31 |
tone option set to midtones, but you can
switch back and forth.
| | 07:35 |
In other words, you can have one
adjustment for the highlights, another
| | 07:38 |
adjustment for the mid-tones, and yet
another adjustment for the shadows.
| | 07:42 |
And all of those will work together for
the final effect in the photo, but in most
| | 07:47 |
cases working with color balance is
relatively simple.
| | 07:51 |
I'll leave the tone options set to
midtones.
| | 07:54 |
I'll leave preserver luminosity turned on,
and then I'll work with the individual
| | 07:57 |
sliders paying careful attention to the
image as I move those sliders back and
| | 08:01 |
forth trying to find just the right color
for the image.
| | 08:05 |
Sometimes that means creating color that
is as accurate as possible, and in other
| | 08:09 |
cases I might take a little bit of
artistic license, to make the color as
| | 08:12 |
pleasing as possible.
But regardless of my goals for a
| | 08:16 |
particular image, I'm able to achieve good
color, with the help of color balance.
| | 08:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Boosting colors with Vibrance| 00:00 |
The Vibrance adjustment in Photoshop is
easily one of my favorite adjustments.
| | 00:07 |
And that's actually saying a lot because
it's a very simple adjustment and yet the
| | 00:11 |
results it enables can be very, very
impactful on a photo.
| | 00:15 |
The Vibrance adjustment has the
sophisticated and elegant approach to
| | 00:19 |
improving the overall intensity of colors
in your photo.
| | 00:24 |
And all the while, it actually helps to
protect skin tones as well.
| | 00:28 |
In order to really appreciate just how
much vibrance can help your photographic
| | 00:32 |
images, let's take a look what had been
the previous alternative; the Saturation
| | 00:35 |
adjustment, specifically the hue
saturation adjustment.
| | 00:40 |
I'll go ahead and choose Image >
Adjustments > Hue Saturation, just to
| | 00:44 |
apply a temporary adjustment of
saturation.
| | 00:47 |
I'm going to cancel this adjustement in
just a moment.
| | 00:50 |
But I'll go ahead and increase the value
for saturation all the way to its maximum
| | 00:54 |
and you can see, things look al ittle bit
silly.
| | 00:57 |
What's happened here is that we've boosted
saturation equally for all colors in the photo.
| | 01:03 |
And that means that colors that were
already saturated get oversaturated very,
| | 01:07 |
very quickly.
The artist's hands are looking rather kind
| | 01:11 |
of reddish orange, not natural at all.
Obviously, this is an extreme adjustment
| | 01:16 |
for saturation.
Under normal circumstances you would never
| | 01:19 |
take that adjustment that far.
But the extreme adjustment does help to
| | 01:23 |
illustrate some of the shortcomings of
that Hue saturation adjustment.
| | 01:28 |
So, let's turn our attention to the
Vibrance adjustment.
| | 01:32 |
I'll go ahead and click cancel in the Hue
Saturation dialogue.
| | 01:35 |
And then, at the bottom of the Layers
panel, I'll click on the Add Adjustment
| | 01:38 |
Layer button and choose Vibrance from that
popup menu.
| | 01:42 |
That will add a Vibrance Adjustment layer.
And, as you can see on the properties
| | 01:46 |
panel, I now have the vibrance controls.
And those are, quite simply, vibrance and saturation.
| | 01:52 |
Now, the first thing we should address is
that Saturation slider because we just saw
| | 01:57 |
a Saturation slider that didn't produce
the best results, bu, this Saturation
| | 02:01 |
slider is actually a bit different.
If I increase this Saturation slider to
| | 02:07 |
its maximum value, certainly the colors
get rather vibrant.
| | 02:11 |
But notice that they're not problematic
the way we saw with the Hue Saturation adjustment.
| | 02:17 |
The reds for example are certainly a
little bit overdone here.
| | 02:21 |
And the hands got a little bit intense in
terms of the color, but.
| | 02:25 |
Not too terrible.
Not anything like what we saw with the Hue
| | 02:28 |
Saturation adjustment, but still a bit of
a strong adjustment, but of course, that's
| | 02:32 |
at maximum intensity.
We wouldn't usually increase saturation
| | 02:36 |
that much for an image.
I'll go ahead and reset that saturation
| | 02:40 |
value back down to zero and then we'll
take a look at the Vibrance slider.
| | 02:45 |
Once again, I'll increase that value all
the way to its maximum.
| | 02:50 |
And you almost don't even notice an effect
within the image and yet, there has been
| | 02:53 |
an effect.
I'll go ahead and turn off the visibility
| | 02:57 |
of the adjustment and then turn it back on
and you'll notice that none of the colors
| | 03:01 |
have gotten overdone.
Even the paint, down here on the palate,
| | 03:05 |
that sort of reddish orange paint.
Has not gone extremely intense as we saw
| | 03:10 |
even with the vibrance version of the
Saturation slider.
| | 03:14 |
In other words, we've boosted colors, but
we haven't created any problematic colors.
| | 03:19 |
And the reason for that is two-fold.
First off, as I mentioned, the Vibrance
| | 03:23 |
adjustment protects skin tones.
So you'll notice that the skin tones got
| | 03:27 |
very little adjustment, where as other
colors got a relatively strong adjustment.
| | 03:32 |
At least strong in the context of
vibrance.
| | 03:35 |
But perhaps more importantly we've also
applied an adjustment that is not linear,
| | 03:39 |
in other words, we didn't boost the
saturation of colors Equally for all color
| | 03:43 |
values within the photo.
Instead we took the colors that were not
| | 03:49 |
very saturated at all and brought them up
more than the colors that were already saturated.
| | 03:56 |
So we're boosting saturation for the
colors that really need it.
| | 03:59 |
Colors that are not that saturated, and
only applying a modest adjustment to the
| | 04:03 |
colors that were already saturated so that
those colors don't get overdone.
| | 04:09 |
When we reduce saturation, we have a
similar effect sort of in reverse.
| | 04:13 |
I'll go ahead and reduce the value for
vibrance.
| | 04:16 |
And what you'll notice here is that the
colors that were already strongly
| | 04:20 |
saturated are being desaturated a lot.
Whereas the colors that were relatively
| | 04:25 |
subtle Are not being reduced in saturation
and so we end up with a relatively muted
| | 04:29 |
color overall within the photo.
The highly saturated colors have been
| | 04:35 |
toned down but the colors that were not
very saturated have not become gray.
| | 04:39 |
And so we get, in effect, an evening out
the color values, whether we're increasing
| | 04:44 |
vibrance or decreasing vibrance.
What we're essentially do is evening out
| | 04:49 |
the overall saturation for colors within
the photo.
| | 04:52 |
In other words, the Vibrance slider has a
variable effect on different colors within
| | 04:56 |
the image, whereas the Saturation slider
has a more even effect.
| | 05:01 |
And so, very often for example, you might
reduce vibrance in order to even out the
| | 05:04 |
colors and tone down some of the more
intense colors, but then increase
| | 05:08 |
saturation in order to bring some of that
color back into the overall photo.
| | 05:14 |
Or you might increase vibrance in order to
bring up the saturation of colors that are
| | 05:18 |
not very saturated.
But then tone down the overall image by
| | 05:22 |
reducing the value of saturation.
And of cours ein many cases you may find
| | 05:27 |
that you leave saturation at zero and only
adjust the vibrance slider in order to
| | 05:31 |
fine tune color to add a little bit more
impact within the image.
| | 05:37 |
So clearly, the Vibrance adjustment is a
bit more sophisticated than it might look
| | 05:41 |
at first glance.
We have two simple sliders, vibrance and
| | 05:45 |
saturation, and yet these two sliders are
tremendously helpful, in terms of really
| | 05:49 |
improving the overall quality of color
within our images.
| | 05:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining colors with Hue/Saturation| 00:02 |
It seems to me that the hue saturation in
the adjustment doesn't get nearly as much
| | 00:06 |
attention as it used to, now that we have
a Vibrance adjustment in Photoshop.
| | 00:11 |
Vibrance simply provides a better approach
to increasing or even decreasing
| | 00:14 |
saturation in an image and, of course,
saturation was one of the key reasons that
| | 00:18 |
you would use the Hue Saturation
adjustment in the first place.
| | 00:23 |
But there is a very important capability
for the Hue Saturation adjustment that
| | 00:27 |
makes it very useful in a variety of
situations.
| | 00:31 |
Let's take a look at what Hue Saturation
has to offer.
| | 00:35 |
I'll start off by going to the bottom of
the layers panel and clicking on the Add
| | 00:38 |
Adjustment Layer button.
And then, I'll choose Hue Saturation from
| | 00:42 |
that popup menu that will add a Hue
Saturation Adjustment layer and provide me
| | 00:46 |
with the Hue Saturation controls on the
Properties panel.
| | 00:50 |
While there's a lot going on for the Hue
Saturation adjustment, really, it boils
| | 00:54 |
down to a Hue slider, a Saturation slider,
and a Lightness slider.
| | 01:00 |
The Hue slider allows you to shift the
colors in the image.
| | 01:04 |
Essentially, moving all those colors
around the color wheel.
| | 01:07 |
It's sort of like a color balance
adjustment except that we're literally
| | 01:11 |
spinning the color wheel.
We're shifting all colors toward some
| | 01:15 |
relatively random combinations, you might
say.
| | 01:18 |
They're not actually random, because it's
literally just degrees around the color wheel.
| | 01:22 |
But things can look pretty weird, pretty
quickly if we adjust that hue.
| | 01:26 |
And so, for a typical photographic image,
you would not adjust the hue for the
| | 01:30 |
overall photo.
Saturation allows you to boost the
| | 01:34 |
intensity of colors or reduce the
intensity of colors, but generally, I
| | 01:38 |
would use the Vibrance adjustment in place
of the Saturation slider here in Hue Saturation.
| | 01:45 |
And the Lightness slider, I really just
don't care for in terms of a normal
| | 01:49 |
Photographic image.
It either washes out or muddies up the
| | 01:53 |
image in the process of lightening or
darkening, and so you're generally better
| | 01:56 |
served by, for example, a levels
adjustment or a curves adjustment, rather
| | 02:00 |
than even thinking about the Lightness
slider.
| | 02:05 |
So, all this might cause you to believe
that the hue saturation adjustment really
| | 02:09 |
is not all that useful.
But, there's one other feature that's
| | 02:13 |
very, very helpful in the context of a
photographic image, and that is the
| | 02:17 |
ability to adjust color for a specific
range of colors.
| | 02:23 |
So, for example, with this image, maybe I
would want to adjust the blues in the sky,
| | 02:27 |
or the greens in the Foliage, or the sort
of reddish tones in the sand.
| | 02:33 |
And we can do that adjusting individual
colors individually with hue saturation.
| | 02:38 |
To start with, instead of working on the
Master channel, which affects the overall
| | 02:42 |
image, all colors throughout the photo, I
want to choose a specific range of colors.
| | 02:49 |
Essentially a starting point for my
adjustment.
| | 02:51 |
Let's assume for example that the sand is
mostly red, and I want to adjust the
| | 02:55 |
appearance of that sand.
So I'll start off by choosing reds from
| | 03:00 |
that pop-up.
I can then adjust the Hue or Saturation or
| | 03:04 |
Lightness for just the reds.
But first I'll want to consider whether or
| | 03:09 |
not I have the right range of colors.
I'll go ahead and adjust the Saturation
| | 03:14 |
slider for example.
And as I increase saturation you'll see
| | 03:17 |
that I'm affecting not just the sand, but
also portions of the foliage.
| | 03:22 |
And that just means that the color that
appears in the sand, also appears elsewhere.
| | 03:27 |
So that may or may not be something we can
avoid we'll have to explore that in a moment.
| | 03:32 |
But as I reduce the saturation even taking
the value all the way down to minus one
| | 03:36 |
hundred the minimal value, meaning I don't
want any color at all I'm still seeing
| | 03:40 |
some color in that sand and that indicates
that the range of colors, the reds that
| | 03:44 |
I've chosen, is not a perfect match for
the specific color values within the photo.
| | 03:52 |
So, let's take a look at how we can refine
that range of colors.
| | 03:56 |
At the bottom of the properties panel,
you'll see that we have a couple of color
| | 03:59 |
gradients, and those are essentially a
before and after preview, as it were.
| | 04:04 |
The top gradient being the before values
and the bottom gradient being the after
| | 04:08 |
values, and so as I've reduced saturation,
you'll see that that after color gradient
| | 04:12 |
is grey in the range of colors being
affected.
| | 04:17 |
In between the two gradients, you'll see
that there is a light gray area, and then
| | 04:21 |
dark gray areas on either side of that
light gray, and a handle out to the outside.
| | 04:27 |
The middle area, that lighter gray area,
represents the range of colors that are
| | 04:31 |
being completely affected by my
adjustment.
| | 04:35 |
The darker grey area is to either side
indicate the degree of transition.
| | 04:40 |
In other words these colors, the reds are
being completely affected by my adjustment.
| | 04:45 |
But as we taper off toward the orange
values, we're seeing less and less of an
| | 04:49 |
impact until once we get outside that
handle marking the limit of that transition.
| | 04:55 |
There is no longer any effect.
So, for example, the green values in the
| | 04:59 |
image are not being affected by this
adjustment.
| | 05:02 |
Not only can we evaluate which range of
colors is being affected, we can also
| | 05:06 |
adjust the range.
So, for example, if I need to expand out
| | 05:10 |
more into the reds and magentas, I can
point my mouse in the gray area, the
| | 05:14 |
darker gray area, and drag towards the
left, and that will enlarge the range of
| | 05:18 |
colors that I'm affecting, while keeping
the same degree of transition.
| | 05:26 |
If I want to shorten the transition, I can
grab the handle.
| | 05:29 |
And drag that inward or outward as
appropriate.
| | 05:33 |
In this case, though, I need to expand out
over toward the oranges.
| | 05:36 |
So, I'll point over on the right-hand side
and click in that gray area.
| | 05:40 |
And then drag over toward the right.
Once again, I can also adjust the degree
| | 05:45 |
of transition by dragging that handle
either inward or outward.
| | 05:49 |
And I can also directly adjust the range
of colors being completely affected by
| | 05:53 |
this adjustment without changing the
position of that transition limiter, so I
| | 05:57 |
have a good degree of flexibility here.
But ultimately, I want to try to make sure
| | 06:03 |
that I'm adjusting the correct range of
colors within the photo.
| | 06:08 |
It's looking pretty good, but I'm going to
increase saturation again so we can get a
| | 06:11 |
sense of if there are other areas of the
photo that are being affected that should
| | 06:15 |
not be.
And you can see, sure enough, I'm
| | 06:18 |
affecting some of the yellows that I
really don't want to effect.
| | 06:22 |
So I'm going to start off by reducing the
degree of transition, and you can see
| | 06:25 |
that's allowing me to remove the yellows
from that range.
| | 06:30 |
And that's helped a fair amount, but I
think I'm also going to shift the overall
| | 06:34 |
balance inward just a little bit, trying
to really eliminate all of those colors
| | 06:37 |
that I don't actually want to manipulate.
In other words, I'm trying to only affect
| | 06:44 |
the sand, and I'm trying to do so by
identifying a specific range of colors.
| | 06:49 |
That represents that sand.
Now in this case I'm not going to be able
| | 06:52 |
to get that perfect because there some of
those red and orange tones found in the foliage.
| | 06:57 |
Quite possibly there's some sand stuck to
the foliage from the wind blowing around.
| | 07:02 |
So it may not be all that problematic that
I'm affecting that portion of the image as well.
| | 07:07 |
But the point is that I can continue
manipulating this range of color until I
| | 07:11 |
found just the right range.
In other words, just the values within the
| | 07:16 |
photo that I actually want to adjust.
Once I've identified that range, now I can
| | 07:21 |
make my actual adjustment.
Perhaps I wanted to tone down saturation
| | 07:25 |
just a little bit, or give it a little bit
of boost and maybe I even want to shift
| | 07:29 |
the hue around.
And notice now, while I'm making some very
| | 07:33 |
interesting colors in the sand.
I'm only affecting the sand, and so I'm
| | 07:37 |
not affecting, for example, the sky or the
greens in the foliage, which means that
| | 07:41 |
I'm effectively adjusting the color
balance for the specific range of colors
| | 07:46 |
found in the sand.
So if I want to make it a little bit more
| | 07:51 |
yellow or a little bit more magenta.
I can do that just by shifting that Hue
| | 07:55 |
slider back back and forth.
In this case, I think the hue was just
| | 07:59 |
fine, but I do want to boost that
Saturation for the sand just a little bit,
| | 08:03 |
not too much.
But you can see I've identified a specific
| | 08:07 |
range of colors that I want to effect, and
then I can use the Hue and Saturation.
| | 08:12 |
And in some cases, Lightness sliders In
order to fine-tune just those colors
| | 08:16 |
within the photo.
And turning off the Visibility for that
| | 08:20 |
Hue Saturation Adjustment Layer and then
turning it back on, you can see it's a
| | 08:23 |
subtle difference but I think a good
adjustment for the photo.
| | 08:28 |
And it's an adjustment that has only
affected a specific range of colors within
| | 08:31 |
the image.
And what all that translates into is that
| | 08:35 |
the Hue Saturation adjustment is still
tremendously valuable for applying focused
| | 08:39 |
adjustments, even if you prefer to use
Vibrance for your more general adjustments
| | 08:43 |
to the intensity of colors in a photo.
| | 08:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a tint with Photo Filter| 00:02 |
If you're like me, when you think about
color adjustments for a photo, the first
| | 00:05 |
things that come to mind are probably
color balance for shifting the overall
| | 00:08 |
appearance of colors within the photo, and
perhaps vibrance or hue saturation for
| | 00:12 |
adjusting the intensity of colors within
the image.
| | 00:17 |
But there's another adjustment that's
often overlooked and yet can provide just
| | 00:21 |
what an image needs in a variety of
situations.
| | 00:24 |
Specifically, I'm referring to situations
where you feel that a photo needs just a
| | 00:29 |
certain amount of a specific color, for
example you need to warm up the photo or
| | 00:32 |
cool down the photo.
The photo filter adjustment is a great fit
| | 00:38 |
for exactly those types of situations.
Let's take a look at the photo filter
| | 00:42 |
adjustment, I'll start off by going to the
bottom of the layers panel, and clicking
| | 00:45 |
on the Add Adjustment layer button.
And then I'll choose Photo Filter from the
| | 00:50 |
pop up menu.
And you'll see right away that a hoto
| | 00:52 |
Filter Adjustment layer has been added.
And on the Properties panel, you'll see
| | 00:57 |
that I have some adjustments that allow me
to control the effect.
| | 01:01 |
By default, we'll get a Warming Filter
effect and you can see the image has been
| | 01:05 |
warmed up.
A little bit of an orange-ish, yellow type
| | 01:08 |
of a color tone.
If I turn off the visibility for that
| | 01:11 |
Photo Filter adjustment you'll see the
before version of the image.
| | 01:15 |
And then I'll turn that layer back on and
you see the after version, and the image
| | 01:18 |
has certainly been warmed up a bit.
But, I think it's a little bit too much,
| | 01:22 |
and that either means that I've chosen the
wrong color or I need to tone down the
| | 01:26 |
intensity of the effect.
So from the filter popup, I can choose
| | 01:31 |
another option, maybe using an 81 Warming
Filter instead of an 85 Warming Filter.
| | 01:36 |
You can see that's a little more yellow, a
little less orange and less intense overall.
| | 01:42 |
I can also cool off the image, so if I
want to take this sort of dreary photo and
| | 01:46 |
and make it seem even more dreary, I can
cool down the overall colors within the photo.
| | 01:52 |
Once I've chosen a particular filter
effect, I can also adjust the density, in
| | 01:56 |
other words the intensity, of that effect.
A lower density means that I'm adding less
| | 02:02 |
of that color to the image, and a higher
density means I'm adding more of that
| | 02:05 |
color to the image.
While there are a variety of options
| | 02:10 |
available to you from that filter pop-up,
including colors that you might not
| | 02:14 |
normally think of adding to a photo, such
as a magenta color cast, for example.
| | 02:20 |
There is an additional way that you can
exercise some control and that is by
| | 02:24 |
choosing a specific color.
I'll go ahead and turn on the color option
| | 02:29 |
and the I'll click on the color swatch to
bring up the color picker.
| | 02:32 |
And here you can see that I can choose any
color of the rainbow.
| | 02:36 |
And, in fact, adjust the overall intensity
of that color, the saturation and
| | 02:40 |
brightness of the color.
Once I'm happy with the specific color
| | 02:44 |
that I've chosen, then I can click OK in
order to apply that effect.
| | 02:49 |
And again, fine tune that density.
All the while, I also have the option to
| | 02:54 |
preserve luminosity.
In other words, as I apply a color change
| | 02:58 |
in the image, do I want Photoshop to work
behind the scenes to automatically
| | 03:01 |
maintain the perceived luminosity values,
the perceived brightness values throughout
| | 03:06 |
the photo?
This stems from the notion that different
| | 03:11 |
colors are perceived as having their own
inherent brightness effect, and when the
| | 03:14 |
preserved luminosity checkbox is turned
on, Photoshop will compensate for that effect.
| | 03:20 |
So, whether I'm choosing a specific option
from the filter popup, or, choosing a
| | 03:24 |
specific color using the color picker, I
can find just the right color for the photo.
| | 03:30 |
And then adjust the density, the strength
of that effect, giving me a very easy way
| | 03:34 |
to achieve a specific goal for the color
in a photo.
| | 03:39 |
So, instead of chasing around three
sliders in a color balance adjustment, I
| | 03:42 |
can choose a specific color and adjust the
intensity of that color that is being
| | 03:46 |
added to my image.
| | 03:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Advanced AdjustmentsIncorporating Camera Raw| 00:00 |
Photoshop obviously includes a wide
variety of adjustment options to help you
| | 00:04 |
optimize the appearance of your image, and
that means you have some choices to make
| | 00:08 |
in terms of which specific adjustment
you'll use for a particular task.
| | 00:14 |
In some cases, you may find that you
prefer the approach taken in adobe camera
| | 00:17 |
raw, in terms of the adjustments that are
available, and if that's the case.
| | 00:22 |
Even if you're not working with a raw
capture, you can utelize Adobe Camera RAW.
| | 00:27 |
In fact you can apply Adobe Camera RAW
adjustments as a filter.
| | 00:30 |
Let's take a look at how it's done.
I'll start by creating a copy of my
| | 00:34 |
background image layer, in order to
preserve the original values in the image.
| | 00:38 |
I'll make that copy by dragging the
thumbnail for the background image layer
| | 00:41 |
down to the Create New Layer button, the
blank sheet of paper icon at the bottom of
| | 00:45 |
the Layers panel.
Then, I'll go to the Filter menu and
| | 00:49 |
choose Camera Raw Filter.
That will bring up the Adobe Camera Raw
| | 00:53 |
dialogue, but I'm actually not processing
a raw capture.
| | 00:57 |
I'm just applying Camera Raw as a filter,
so I can use this approach with any image
| | 01:01 |
I'd like.
So for example, in this case, I might like
| | 01:04 |
to cool down the color temperature a
little bit.
| | 01:07 |
Maybe I'd like to boost vibrance just a
little, bring up the clarity a little bit
| | 01:11 |
and otherwise take advantage of the
various options that are available within
| | 01:14 |
Adobe Camera Raw.
I can bring the black point down just a
| | 01:18 |
little bit.
Maybe I'll increase the brightness for
| | 01:21 |
highlights, and you get the basic idea
here.
| | 01:23 |
I can take advantage of all of the various
options that are available, for adjusting
| | 01:27 |
my image in Adobe Camera Raw.
Once I'm finished with that process, I can
| | 01:31 |
simply click the Okay button and the
adjustment is applied.
| | 01:35 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the visibility
for my background copy layer, and you can
| | 01:39 |
see the original image before the
adjustments applied with Adobe Camera Raw
| | 01:42 |
And I'll turn the visibility of that layer
back on, and we can see the final effect.
| | 01:48 |
So even if you're not working with a raw
capture, or if you've already processed
| | 01:51 |
that raw image, you can still take
advantage of the adjustment options
| | 01:54 |
available in Adobe Camera Raw by applying
it as a filter.
| | 01:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Basic perspective correction| 00:02 |
The position of the camera relative to the
subject you're photographing can create
| | 00:05 |
some perspective distortion issues.
In other words, the angle that you're
| | 00:10 |
looking at the subject has an impact on
how that subject is rendered in the final frame.
| | 00:15 |
Here, for example, we see a classic
example photographing the building from
| | 00:19 |
down below.
Below, and you can see, in this case, the
| | 00:22 |
church spires seems to lean inward a
little bit or seem like they're leaning
| | 00:25 |
away from us and that's simply a matter of
the perspective from the viewer, the
| | 00:29 |
photographer, to subject itself, to the
scene that is being photographed.
| | 00:35 |
In many cases, you don't even notice that
perspective issue because the subject
| | 00:38 |
doesn't make it obvious.
But with something like architectural
| | 00:42 |
photography, where we have straight lines
and relatively tall subjects, those
| | 00:46 |
perspective issues can be a real
challenge.
| | 00:49 |
Fortunately, it's relatively easy to fix
these sorts of issues by applying a
| | 00:54 |
perspective correction.
And one of the ways we can accomplish that
| | 00:58 |
is with the Lens Correction filter in
Photoshop.
| | 01:02 |
Because this filter will actually adjust
the pixels, stretching and skewing the
| | 01:06 |
image around, I want to work on a copy of
my Background Image layer so that I can
| | 01:09 |
always get back to my original pixels if I
need to for any reason.
| | 01:15 |
And so my first step will be to make a
copy of my Background Image layer.
| | 01:19 |
To do so, I'll simply drag the thumbnail
for that Background Image layer down to
| | 01:23 |
the Create New Layer button the blank
sheet of paper icon at the bottom of the
| | 01:26 |
layers panel.
And then I'll drop that layer there.
| | 01:31 |
And we now have a Background Copy layer an
exact duplicate of the Background Image layer.
| | 01:37 |
I'll apply my lens correction to this
Background Copy layer, so making sure it
| | 01:40 |
is the active layer on the Layers panel.
I'll go to the Filter > Lens Correction.
| | 01:48 |
That will bring up the Lens Correction
dialogue and you'll notice that we start
| | 01:52 |
off on the Auto Correction tab.
Based on the metadata in the image,
| | 01:56 |
Photoshop has automatically figured out
what lens was used, for example.
| | 02:01 |
And, therefore, is able to apply a
geometric correction to the image, based
| | 02:04 |
on the behavior of the lens.
We can also apply chromatic aberration
| | 02:09 |
correction and vignetting correction if
we'd like.
| | 02:12 |
And we can even auto scale the image.
But, I'm going to focus on custom adjustments.
| | 02:18 |
In fact, I'm going to turn off geometric
distortion correction altogethe.
| | 02:22 |
And instead focus on the custom controls,
so that I can really improve the image,
| | 02:26 |
not just based on the behavior of the lens
but also based on the perspective issues.
| | 02:31 |
So, I'll switch to the Custom tab, and
I'll start Start off by correcting the
| | 02:35 |
biggest problem.
In this case, vertical perspective, in
| | 02:39 |
other words, that building seems to be
sort of leaning away from us.
| | 02:43 |
And so, I'll go down to the Vertical
Perspective slider, and then I can drag
| | 02:46 |
toward the left to lean the building
forward.
| | 02:50 |
I could also drag to the right to lean the
building further away if I needed to for
| | 02:53 |
any reason.
But in this case I need that building to
| | 02:56 |
come forward just a little bit.
And right about there seems to be an
| | 03:00 |
appropriate degree of adjustment.
But to get a better sense of whether or
| | 03:04 |
not that is, in fact, a good adjustment.
I'll turn on the Show Grid check box.
| | 03:09 |
And I'm going to change the size of that
grid to a smaller grid.
| | 03:12 |
So that I can work with a little more
precision.
| | 03:15 |
And now I can see that I'm reasonably
close.
| | 03:18 |
I've got the vertical lines in the
building pretty close to being truly vertical.
| | 03:22 |
But I notice that the outer edges of the
building are sort of bowed out just a
| | 03:26 |
little bit.
And so I need to apply some distortion correction.
| | 03:31 |
I can bulge the image outward by dragging
to the left or pinch it inward by dragging
| | 03:35 |
to the right.
In this case, I need to pinch the image
| | 03:39 |
inward just a little bit so Right about
there looks to be pretty good.
| | 03:43 |
Once again I'm focusing my attention on
those verticle lines in the building, and
| | 03:47 |
makiung sure that they follow along with
the verticle lines in the grid.
| | 03:51 |
And that looks to be pretty good.
I can now come back to that verticle
| | 03:54 |
perspective adjustment, and perhaps fine
tune it just a little bit.
| | 03:58 |
I think right about there is looking
pretty good, and I can continue going back
| | 04:02 |
and forth between these adjustments as
needed.
| | 04:06 |
I can also adjust horizontal perspective,
so if I was to one side of that subject,
| | 04:09 |
for example, and I want to essentially
twist the image just a little bit to
| | 04:13 |
correct that horizontal perspective, I can
do that.
| | 04:18 |
Dragging over toward the right so that I'm
twisting the image around, you might say
| | 04:22 |
counterclockwise relative to the position
from which the image was captured, and
| | 04:26 |
dragging toward the left in order to
rotate that view clockwise.
| | 04:31 |
But in this case I think the horizontal
perspective is not an issue, so I'll leave
| | 04:35 |
that value set to zero.
If needed, I can also rotate the image a
| | 04:39 |
little bit.
In this case, I think we are in good
| | 04:42 |
shape, but let's take a look anyway, at
the angle control.
| | 04:45 |
You'll notice that we have the ability to
set and angle, but what I find, by using
| | 04:49 |
the circular angle control, I can't get a
very accurate adjustment.
| | 04:54 |
So, instead, I generally bypass this
control all together and instead, simply
| | 04:58 |
click inside the value.
Inside the text box for that angle and
| | 05:02 |
then, I'll use the Shift, Up and Down
Arrow keys.
| | 05:06 |
To rotate clockwise or counterclockwise,
Up Arrow will rotate clockwise, Down Arrow
| | 05:10 |
will rotate counterclockwise and holding
the Shift key, causes the degree of
| | 05:15 |
rotation, to increase by a factor of 10.
In other words, if I use just the Up and
| | 05:21 |
Down keys, I'm rotating by a 100th of a
degree, at a time.
| | 05:24 |
If I hold the Shift key, while pressing
the Up or Down Arrow keys, I'm adjusting
| | 05:28 |
by tenths of a degree, at any given time.
But again in this case, I don' t think we
| | 05:33 |
need any angle adjustment at all.
I think the image itself.
| | 05:37 |
Was properly oriented relative to the
horizon, we just had some perspective
| | 05:40 |
issues that we needed to correct for.
Now that I have those perspective issues
| | 05:45 |
corrected I can adjust the scale which
allows me to effectively crop the image
| | 05:49 |
right here in the lens correction
adjustment.
| | 05:53 |
I'll go ahead and increase that value
until the image is appropriately cropped.
| | 05:58 |
Right about there looks pretty good.
And now that I've essentially zoomed in a
| | 06:01 |
little bit.
I can get a better sense of the effect of
| | 06:04 |
my adjustment.
And just double check to make sure that
| | 06:07 |
all of those vertical lines do indeed seem
to be perfectly vertical.
| | 06:11 |
But I think we're in pretty good shape
here, so I'll go ahead and click the OK
| | 06:14 |
button in order to apply that correction.
Now at this point,you'll notice for
| | 06:19 |
example that the line in the foreground is
curved where I believe that was actually
| | 06:23 |
straight in the original.
I might want to crop that out, or
| | 06:27 |
otherwise apply some adjustments.
Maybe mitigate the adjustment, so that I
| | 06:31 |
maintain a straight line down below.
As well as relatively straight lines up above.
| | 06:36 |
There are a variety of ways I could
approach that of course, but in this case,
| | 06:39 |
I think it's more important that the
building appear straight than that the
| | 06:42 |
foreground appear straight, so I'll leave
things as they are.
| | 06:46 |
But I'm going to turn off, for a moment,
the visibility of that background copy so
| | 06:50 |
that we can see the original image.
And, what I'd like you to notice, is that
| | 06:55 |
the image was not tightly cropped in the
camera.
| | 06:59 |
In other words, I didn't zoom so that the
building would fill the frame.
| | 07:02 |
I left a little bit of extra space.
So much so that you can see a little bit
| | 07:06 |
of a building over on the left hand side
of the frame.
| | 07:09 |
That's because I knew I was going to want
to apply a perspective correction.
| | 07:14 |
And when you're in a similar situation, I
suggest that you zoom out a little bit,
| | 07:17 |
that you take a wider view of the scene so
that you'll have some room for cropping.
| | 07:22 |
I'll go ahead and turn on the background
copy layer once again, and you can see
| | 07:25 |
that I've applied that correction to the
image, but I've also cropped the image.
| | 07:30 |
And I had room for that cropping, because
I left room in the original capture.
| | 07:35 |
But as you can see, that basic perspective
correction is relatively straightforward.
| | 07:39 |
Just a few minor adjustments, and you're
able to straighten out a subject.
| | 07:43 |
That wasn't quite square in your original
capture.
| | 07:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shadows/Highlights adjustment| 00:02 |
Any time you photograph a subject in
relatively strong lighting conditions,
| | 00:05 |
you're likely to run into issues with
overall contrast or dynamic range within
| | 00:09 |
the scene.
In other words, you might risk losing
| | 00:13 |
highlight detail, or shadow detail, or
possibly even both, depending on your
| | 00:16 |
particular exposure settings.
Fortunately, there's an adjustment in
| | 00:21 |
Photoshop that makes it relatively easy.
To maximize the degree of detail in those
| | 00:25 |
highlights and shadows.
Let's take a look at the shadows
| | 00:29 |
highlights adjustment.
This is not an adjustment that's available
| | 00:32 |
as an adjustment layer, and so I'm going
to need to work directly on pixel values.
| | 00:37 |
Because I always want to work in a
nondestructive way, that means I'm going
| | 00:41 |
to need to create a copy of my background
image layer.
| | 00:44 |
And so I'll drag the thumbnail.
For the background image layer down to the
| | 00:48 |
create new layer button the blank sheet of
paper icon at the bottom of the layers
| | 00:51 |
panel so that I can create a background
copy.
| | 00:55 |
With that Background copy layer active,
I'll then go to the Image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights.
| | 01:04 |
That will bring up the shadows Highlights
dialog and as you can see, it's a very
| | 01:08 |
basic dialog, at least to begin with.
I'll go ahead and drag that dialog out of
| | 01:13 |
the way so that we can see more of the
image.
| | 01:16 |
And you'll see that the shadows have been
brightened up a little bit, and that's
| | 01:20 |
controlled by the Amount slider.
I can increase the amount of detail that I
| | 01:25 |
want to see in those shadow areas.
In other words, brightening up the shadows
| | 01:30 |
I can also adjust the amount for
highlights as I increase the value for
| | 01:34 |
highlights I'm toning down the highlights
in the image.
| | 01:39 |
In other words I'm able to brighten
shadows and darken highlights.
| | 01:44 |
This creates something of a high dynamic
range effect in the image where we have a
| | 01:48 |
little bit of hyper realistic result.
Lots and lots of detail.
| | 01:53 |
Of course, as you can see here, it's also
possible to make an image that doesn't
| | 01:57 |
look even remotely realistic, even if we'd
used a Fill Flash, for example, to retain
| | 02:00 |
shadow detail.
This is not the result that we would have
| | 02:05 |
gotten, and it's certainly not a result
that I would consider all that good.
| | 02:09 |
And that's because our adjustments are
both too strong and not fine tuned enough.
| | 02:14 |
So let's take a look at some of the
additional options that are available that
| | 02:17 |
really allow us to maximize the control we
can exercise over our photos.
| | 02:22 |
I'll start off by toning down these
adjustments.
| | 02:24 |
I'll just take both the highlights and
shadows amount down to a more modest
| | 02:28 |
value, and then I'm going to turn on the
show more options check box, which will
| | 02:32 |
enlarge the size of the shadows Highlights
dialog.
| | 02:37 |
So that we have some more control
available.
| | 02:38 |
To begin with, instead of just having an
Amount slider for shadows and highlights,
| | 02:43 |
we have a tonal width slider as well as a
radius slider.
| | 02:48 |
So let's exaggerate the adjustment.
I'll go ahead and crank up the adjustment
| | 02:52 |
for Shadows, taking the amount all the way
up to 100%, and then we can adjust the
| | 02:56 |
Tonal Width.
Now obviously we're affecting the shadows.
| | 03:00 |
Shadows are affecting the darkest areas of
the image, but I can specify exactly what
| | 03:05 |
range of shadows I want to affect.
If I reduce the value for tonal width, I'm
| | 03:11 |
reducing the range of dark values that I'm
going to affect.
| | 03:15 |
So, down at a 20% value or so, you'll see
that I'm not affecting as much of the image.
| | 03:21 |
Only those really dark shadows are being
affected.
| | 03:25 |
If I increase that value, you'll see that
I'm expanding out into, noit just the
| | 03:28 |
shadows anymore, but even some of the
mid-tones within the photo.
| | 03:33 |
I'll go ahead and reduce that total width
value, and as I do so I'm paying attention
| | 03:37 |
to which portion of the image is actually
being affected.
| | 03:41 |
I can then test the result by shifting
that Amount slider up and down, and at
| | 03:45 |
this point I think I have a good range of
total values that are being affected.
| | 03:51 |
I'll go ahead and tone down that Amount
slider.
| | 03:53 |
I want to bring out a little bit more
shadow detail, but I don't need to go too
| | 03:56 |
far with it.
Once I've defined those adjustments I can
| | 04:00 |
also fine-tune the radius.
And this gives us a Feathering for the adjustment.
| | 04:05 |
So let's go ahead and exaggerate the
adjustment again by increasing both amount
| | 04:09 |
and total width.
You'll notice that we now start to see
| | 04:12 |
some halos showing up in certain areas of
the photo, but as I adjust that radius I
| | 04:16 |
can blend the adjustment in a little bit
better, helping to eliminate that effect
| | 04:20 |
of a halo or the sort of odd tonalities
that we'll see in certain areas.
| | 04:27 |
So I might, in this case, if I really did
want that extreme adjustment, need to
| | 04:31 |
increase that radius somewhat
significantly.
| | 04:35 |
In most cases though I'll try to work on a
relatviely modest tonal range by taking
| | 04:38 |
that tonal width down to a moderately low
setting.
| | 04:42 |
And then I'll try to make sure that I'm ot
being too agressive with the Amount slider
| | 04:46 |
and then finally I can adjust that radius
as needed in order to blend the result in.
| | 04:53 |
So, that takes care of those shadows
pretty well and we have a similar
| | 04:56 |
capability for those highlights.
I can tone down the highlights by
| | 04:59 |
increasing the amount, but then may be
zeroed in to only the brightest highlights
| | 05:03 |
by reducing the value for tonal witdth,
and once again, adjust that radius so that
| | 05:07 |
we can blend the effect into the rest of
the image.
| | 05:12 |
So, now I've made some adjustments that
will help to preserve as much detail in
| | 05:15 |
the shadows and highlights of the image as
possible without creating an artificial
| | 05:19 |
appearance, so now I can turn my attention
to the adjustments sections.
| | 05:24 |
Here, we can adjust the Color Correction
slider, and this is, essentially, just a
| | 05:28 |
saturation adjustment.
As you open up the Shadows or tone down
| | 05:32 |
the Highlights, you'll also tend to reduce
the overall saturation of colors in the photo.
| | 05:38 |
An increase in color correction can help
to compensate for that.
| | 05:42 |
So, reducing the value for color
correction will tone down those colors and
| | 05:46 |
increasing the value will boost them just
a little bit.
| | 05:50 |
In most cases, I think you'll find that
you want to boost the saturation just a
| | 05:53 |
little bit for the image and so, I'll
usually use a positive value for color correction.
| | 05:59 |
We also have a slider for midtone
contrast.
| | 06:01 |
And in most cases I would say that if
you've opened up shadow detail and toned
| | 06:05 |
down those highlights.
You're probably going to need to boost
| | 06:09 |
contrast for the midtones at least a
little bit.
| | 06:13 |
If we take that value to a negative
number, you'll see that we a very.
| | 06:16 |
Flat result.
Lots of shades of grey essentially in
| | 06:19 |
terms of luminance values.
And with a high value we get a bit too
| | 06:22 |
much contrast, but with taking it up just
a little bit we'll get a boost in overall
| | 06:26 |
contrast without blocking up that shadow
of highlight detail.
| | 06:32 |
And speaking of losing details, we can
also adjust the clipping points for black
| | 06:36 |
and white.
By default, they are set to 0.01%, and
| | 06:40 |
frankly I consider that to be a pretty
good value.
| | 06:44 |
And so, I leave those at their defaults.
But if for any reason you wanted to clip a
| | 06:48 |
little bit more at those extreme ends, you
could increase those values.
| | 06:51 |
But in this case, I think we have a good
result.
| | 06:54 |
I'll turn off the Preview checkbox so I
can see the before version of the image,
| | 06:57 |
and then turn on that Preview checkbox.
And you can see that we now have much more
| | 07:02 |
suttle detail in the darkest and brightest
area of the photo.
| | 07:07 |
That's looking pretty good, so I'll go
ahead click the OK button in order to
| | 07:10 |
finalize the effect.
| | 07:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dodging and burning| 00:02 |
I have fond memories of making my own
photographic prints in the wet darkroom
| | 00:06 |
many, many, years ago, before the advent
of digital.
| | 00:10 |
But one thing I don't miss is dodging and
burning.
| | 00:13 |
Don't get me wrong, I loved to dodge and
burn my images in the wet darkroom.
| | 00:17 |
The problem is, that in the wet darkroom,
it's nearly impossible to create a
| | 00:21 |
reproduceable result.
You can dodge and burn an image and be
| | 00:25 |
very happy with the result, but then it's
difficult to recreate the exact same
| | 00:29 |
result when you're making another print of
the same image.
| | 00:33 |
With digital, we don't have that problem.
And so we can dodge and burn an image and
| | 00:38 |
we have a result that will appear exactly
the same way every time we print that photo.
| | 00:44 |
There are actually Dodge and Burn tools in
Photoshop, but I prefer not to use them in
| | 00:48 |
large part because there's another
technique you can use that I think is a
| | 00:51 |
little bit more flexible and a little bit
more efficient.
| | 00:55 |
So let's take a look at that technique,
which enables us to essentially paint with light.
| | 01:00 |
We can selectively lighten and darken
specific areas of our photo.
| | 01:05 |
Because I'm going to be painting the
effect into the image, I'll need to work
| | 01:08 |
on a Pixel layer, and that means I need
another layer.
| | 01:12 |
I don't want to work directly on the
Background Image layer because I want to
| | 01:15 |
work non-destructively.
But I don't need a copy of the entire
| | 01:18 |
Background Image layer.
Rather, I need a new layer with some
| | 01:22 |
special properties.
So I'm going to hold the Alt key on
| | 01:25 |
Windows or the Option key on Macintosh
while clicking on the Create New Layer
| | 01:29 |
button, the blank sheet of paper icon at
the bottom of the Layers panel.
| | 01:34 |
Because I'm holding the Alt or Option key,
instead of simply getting a new empty
| | 01:38 |
layer, I'll be presented with the New
Layer dialog, so I can specify the
| | 01:41 |
attributes for this layer.
I'll start off by typing the name for the
| | 01:47 |
layer, so I know exactly why that layer is
on my Layers panel.
| | 01:51 |
And, since I'm dodging and burning with
this layer, I think Dodge & Burn is a
| | 01:54 |
perfectly good name for the layer.
I also want to change the blend mode, and
| | 01:59 |
this is actually the most important
element of this technique.
| | 02:04 |
I want to use, in this case, the Overlay
blend mode, which is one of the contrast
| | 02:07 |
blend modes.
In other words, it's able to both lighten
| | 02:11 |
and darken various areas of the image.
You could also use Soft Light, which
| | 02:15 |
produces a similar effect to overlay with
just a little bit more subtlety.
| | 02:21 |
But I prefer to use overlay because it
provides the potential for a stronger
| | 02:24 |
effect, which means we have a little bit
more latitude in terms of the adjustments
| | 02:27 |
we're able to apply.
So I'll choose Overlay, and then I'm going
| | 02:32 |
to turn on the Fill with Overlay-neutral
Color checkbox, and that will fill this
| | 02:35 |
layer with 50% gray, which just makes it a
little bit easier to evaluate the results later.
| | 02:42 |
With those options established, I'll go
ahead and click the OK button.
| | 02:46 |
And you can see a new layer has been
created.
| | 02:49 |
It's called Dodge & Burn.
It's filled with grey and the blend mode
| | 02:52 |
has been set to overlay.
And because the blend mode is set to
| | 02:56 |
Overlay, that grey does not appear in the
image.
| | 02:59 |
And that's because middle grey is the
neutral color, meaning, the color that has
| | 03:03 |
no impact for the Overlay blend mode.
But, if we paint with anything lighter or
| | 03:09 |
darker, we will lighten or darken areas of
the image, and that's where the real fun begins.
| | 03:16 |
I'll go ahead and choose the Brush tool
from the toolbox.
| | 03:19 |
I could also press the letter B on the
keyboard to activate the Brush tool.
| | 03:23 |
And then, up on the Options bar, I'm
going to make sure that I'm working with a
| | 03:26 |
soft-edged brush.
I'll set that hardness to 0%.
| | 03:30 |
I'll also make sure that I'm working with
a typical round brush.
| | 03:35 |
You'll notice that there is a mode popup,
that is the same as the blend mode.
| | 03:40 |
But the key here is to have the blend mode
set to Overlay for the layer on the Layers panel.
| | 03:46 |
The mode for the brush should remain at
Normal.
| | 03:48 |
We also want to adjust the Opacity.
And in most cases, I'll work with about a
| | 03:54 |
10 to 15% value for Opacity.
Here, I'm going to work at 20% just so
| | 03:58 |
that you can see a little bit more clearly
the effect that I'm having.
| | 04:02 |
We can adjust the Opacity for the Brush
tool just by pressing a number on the keyboard.
| | 04:07 |
I can press 1 for 10%, or 2 for 20%, or a
quick 1, 5 for 15%.
| | 04:14 |
But again, I'll set this to 20% so that
the effect is a little bit stronger for
| | 04:17 |
our purposes.
We don't need to worry about the tablet
| | 04:20 |
settings or the flow control since we're
not using the airbrush feature.
| | 04:24 |
So, we're all set as far as the Options
bar is concerned.
| | 04:28 |
But there is one more thing I want to
adjust, and that is the color values that
| | 04:31 |
I'm painting with.
Those are found at the Color Picker on the toolbox.
| | 04:36 |
You can press the letter D as in default
colors to reset those colors to black for
| | 04:40 |
the foreground and white for the
background.
| | 04:43 |
You can also switch between those colors
by pressing the letter X on the keyboard.
| | 04:49 |
I'm going to start off with lightening the
image, so I'll press X to switch the
| | 04:53 |
foreground and background colors, so that
white is set as my foreground color.
| | 04:57 |
And then, I'll move my mouse out over the
image, and I can use the Left and Right
| | 05:01 |
Square Bracket keys on the keyboard to
adjust the size of the brush.
| | 05:06 |
The Left Square Bracket key will reduce
the brush size and the Right Square
| | 05:09 |
Bracket key will increase the brush size.
I'll go ahead and use a relatively large brush.
| | 05:14 |
And, I want to start off by brightening up
the spires of this church here.
| | 05:19 |
I'll fine-tune the size of the brush, and
then I'll click and hold the mouse button
| | 05:23 |
down and paint over the entire area that I
want to lighten.
| | 05:28 |
And it's important that I keep that mouse
button held down the entire time I'm
| | 05:31 |
painting, so that I get an even result for
the entire portion of the image, that in
| | 05:35 |
this case I want to lighten.
I'll go a head and turn off the visibility
| | 05:40 |
of that Dodge & Burn layer and you can see
that I have brightened the image by
| | 05:44 |
painting with white, at a reduced opacity
in that portion of the photo.
| | 05:50 |
I'll go ahead and press X to switch the
foreground and background colors, so that
| | 05:53 |
I'm painting with black and, therefore,
darkening the image.
| | 05:56 |
And then, I'll paint over on the
right-hand side here to darken up some of
| | 05:59 |
the details in this building on the right
side.
| | 06:02 |
You can see in the thumbnail that I have
areas that are lightened and areas that
| | 06:06 |
are darkened on my Dodge & Burn layer.
Any area that is lighter than middle gray
| | 06:11 |
reflects an area of the image that is
being lightened.
| | 06:14 |
And any area that is darker than middle
gray represents a portion of the image
| | 06:17 |
that is being darkened.
And if I want to see exactly where I've
| | 06:20 |
affected the image, I can turn off the
visibility for my background image layer.
| | 06:25 |
And this can be very helpful for
troubleshooting.
| | 06:28 |
If you have an area of the image that
looks a little bit off, maybe a little too
| | 06:31 |
bright or a little bit too dark, you can
turn off the visibility of the Background
| | 06:34 |
Image layer in order to see just the Dodge
& Burn layer, so you get a better sense of
| | 06:37 |
where you've lightened and darkened and
then apply some corrections.
| | 06:43 |
So, for example, you could change your
Foreground Color to 50% gray just by
| | 06:46 |
clicking on the color swatch for the
Foreground color.
| | 06:50 |
And, that will bring up the Color Picker.
We can, then, set the brightness value to
| | 06:55 |
50%, then I'll go ahead and click OK.
And I'll bring my Opacity back up to 100%.
| | 07:01 |
So now I'm actually painting with 50%
gray, which means, in effect, I can erase
| | 07:06 |
the effect of my dodging and burning in
specific areas of the image.
| | 07:13 |
I'll go ahead and bring back our
Background Image layers, so that we can
| | 07:15 |
see the effect in the image.
And you can see now, that I've erased that
| | 07:19 |
brightening for the church spire and, of
course, I can continue lightening and
| | 07:22 |
darkening specific areas.
I'll press the letter D on the keyboard to
| | 07:26 |
revert to the default colors and I'll
press 2 to set my Opacity back to 20%.
| | 07:31 |
Then I'll press X to switch foreground and
background colors, so that white is my
| | 07:35 |
foreground color.
And I'll adjust my brush size and I'll
| | 07:39 |
paint to brighten up that spire once
again.
| | 07:42 |
This time using a smaller brush because I
had noticed I was getting a little bit of
| | 07:45 |
a halo effect, because I painted out into
the sky just a little bit the first time I
| | 07:49 |
applied that adjustment.
And I can continue in this way, lightening
| | 07:53 |
and darkening specific areas of the photo.
I'll go ahead maybe and darken up the
| | 07:58 |
shadows over on the left-hand side in
order to increase the drama in the photo.
| | 08:03 |
And I can continue painting light and dark
into the image.
| | 08:07 |
So by using the Overlay blend mode on a
new layer I'm able to lighten and darken
| | 08:11 |
specific areas of my photo just by
painting with white or black at a reduced opacity.
| | 08:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introduction to Curves| 00:02 |
The Curves Adjustment in Photoshop is one
of the most powerful tools for adjusting
| | 00:05 |
the overall appearance of your images,
both in terms of tonality and color.
| | 00:10 |
And yet, the Curves Adjustment can be a
little bit intimidating.
| | 00:14 |
It's not exactly the most intuitive tool,
and so it does take a little bit of
| | 00:17 |
practice to get comfortable working with
it.
| | 00:21 |
Let's take a look at some of the basic
concepts behind curves.
| | 00:24 |
I'll start off by adding a Curves
Adjustment layer, and so I'll click on the
| | 00:27 |
Add Adjustment button layer at the bottom
of the layers panel, and then choose
| | 00:31 |
Curves from the pop-up menu.
That adds a curves adjustment layer, and
| | 00:36 |
it also brings up the curves control on
properties panel.
| | 00:40 |
Of course the first thing you might notice
about the curve is that it's not a curve
| | 00:43 |
at all.
You can see that we have a straight line
| | 00:46 |
going from the bottom left corner to the
top right corner of the histogram display,
| | 00:50 |
and that is our curve.
By default, the curve is not curved at all.
| | 00:57 |
But we can bend that curve and in so doing
adjust the overall appearance of the image.
| | 01:02 |
Let's focus on tonal adjusments and just
take a look at the overall behaviour of curves.
| | 01:08 |
In other words how the shape of the curve
effects the image itself.
| | 01:12 |
To begin with, our curve is configured so
that up, is brighter, you can see the
| | 01:17 |
gradient over on the left hand side
indicating that the top is white, and the
| | 01:21 |
bottom is black, meaning higher is
brighter.
| | 01:27 |
You'll also notice that there is a
gradient along the bottom, going from
| | 01:30 |
black at the left, to white at the right.
I think of these as the before and after gradients.
| | 01:36 |
The before values are shown at the bottom
and the after values are shown at the
| | 01:40 |
left, and so for example a before value of
middle gray can be read on the curve by
| | 01:44 |
following from middle gray straight upward
until we reach the curve and then going
| | 01:49 |
directly over to the left to see what
value we end up with.
| | 01:55 |
When we have a curve that is a straight
line going from bottom left to top right,
| | 02:00 |
that means that we have a curve where
there is no change in the image at all.
| | 02:05 |
But if we change the shape of the curve,
we change the appearance of the photo.
| | 02:10 |
And if we drag that curve upward, for
example, we'll see that we are brightening
| | 02:13 |
the image.
And that's becausse all of the points on
| | 02:17 |
this curve, are now higher than they
originally were, or brighter than they
| | 02:20 |
originally were.
So, if we follow from middle gray on our
| | 02:24 |
before gradient, going straight up until
we intersect the curve, and then moving
| | 02:28 |
directly to the left.
We'll see that our after value is a
| | 02:32 |
brighter shade of gray than our before
value.
| | 02:36 |
Conversely if we drag that curve downward,
we are darkening the image.
| | 02:41 |
If we have a curve that is steeper than it
originally was we'll get more contrast.
| | 02:47 |
I'll go ahead and drag the bottom left
endpoint inward and the top right endpoint
| | 02:51 |
inward as well.
And now you can see that we have extreme contrast.
| | 02:57 |
We've essentually compressed tonality.
We've brought the black and white points inward.
| | 03:02 |
And so we're compressing the range of
tonal values available in the image, so we
| | 03:05 |
have more dark values, and more light
values.
| | 03:09 |
But you can just look at the curve and see
that, that curve line is steeper than what
| | 03:13 |
it originally started as.
And therefore we know there's more
| | 03:17 |
contrast for that portion of the curve.
If we have a curve that is less steep than
| | 03:22 |
it originally started out as, we have less
contrast.
| | 03:26 |
So here for example, you see that I've
shifted that curve so that it is now a
| | 03:30 |
very gentle slope, less steep than the
original line, which you can see displayed
| | 03:34 |
in the background, and that means we've
reduced contrast.
| | 03:40 |
Taking things to a bit more of an extreme,
if we have a curve that goes downhill,
| | 03:44 |
we've essentially inverted the image.
As I'm making these adjustments with
| | 03:49 |
curves, I'm essentially utilizing anchor
points.
| | 03:52 |
In other words, I'm using handles that
allow me to move that curve around.
| | 03:57 |
I'll go ahead and reset the curve, and
then I'll click on the curve and drag
| | 04:00 |
downward in order to darken the image, and
then I'll click elsewhere on the curve,
| | 04:04 |
and that will add an additional handle,
and I can then adjust the position of that handle.
| | 04:11 |
So, for example, if I drag the darker
portion of the curve downward, and the
| | 04:14 |
lighter portion of the curve upward, I'm
enhancing mid tone contrast, and then
| | 04:18 |
having that effect taper off toward the
black point and the white point.
| | 04:24 |
So, you'll see that the mid tone range
here is steeper Meaning more contrast.
| | 04:29 |
But then it tapers off and is less steep
until we reach the white point, or, at the
| | 04:32 |
lower end of curve, reach the black point.
So, you can see that conceptually, Curves
| | 04:38 |
is relatively straightforward.
We move a portion of the curve upward to
| | 04:42 |
brighten specific tonal values within the
image, and we move a portion of the curve
| | 04:46 |
downward to darken certain portions of the
image.
| | 04:49 |
Of course, in actual practice, things can
be a little bit more tricky, so it does
| | 04:52 |
take a little bit of practice.
But by understanding the key concepts
| | 04:57 |
behind Curves, you'll be better able to
apply those adjustments to produce the
| | 05:00 |
best image possible.
| | 05:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Tonal adjustments with Curves| 00:02 |
The curves adjustment is easily the most
powerful tool for tonal adjustments within Photoshop.
| | 00:07 |
Let's take a look at the basic process of
applying the tonal adjustment to an image
| | 00:11 |
utilizing curves.
I'll start off by adding a curves
| | 00:14 |
adjustment layer.
So at the bottom of the layers panel, I'll
| | 00:17 |
click on the add adjustment layer button
and then choose Curves from the popup menu.
| | 00:22 |
That will add a curves adjustment layer
and also give me the controls for curves
| | 00:26 |
on the properties panel.
I generally use a consistent approach to
| | 00:30 |
working with curves on an image.
I'll start off by adjusting the black and
| | 00:34 |
white points in the image.
In many cases, I may have already adjusted
| | 00:38 |
the black and white points during the raw
conversion process, but it's still a good
| | 00:42 |
idea to revisit those adjustments in the
context of curves.
| | 00:47 |
So, I'll adjust the black and white
points.
| | 00:50 |
If I pull the white point inward, for
example, I'm adjusting the value for white.
| | 00:55 |
In this case for example, applying an
adjustment where any pixel that has a
| | 00:59 |
tonal value that is equal to or greater
than, in other words, brighter than a
| | 01:03 |
value of middle gray, will become white.
Obviously, I don't actually want to
| | 01:09 |
sacrifice that much detail in the image.
And so, I'll generally take advantage of
| | 01:13 |
the clipping preview when I'm adjusting
the white point and the black point.
| | 01:18 |
To do so, I'll hold the Alt key on Windows
or the Option key on Macintosh, while
| | 01:22 |
dragging the white point, in this case,
inward.
| | 01:26 |
And that will give me a preview of which
areas are losing detail within the image,
| | 01:30 |
and which specific channels are losing
detail.
| | 01:34 |
When you see white pixels, that indicates
that the values are being clipped to pure white.
| | 01:39 |
In other words, we're losing all detail in
that portion of the image.
| | 01:43 |
Generally speaking, I want to preserve
most, if not, all of the detail in the highlights.
| | 01:48 |
And so, I'll usually just bring that white
point inward until I start to see just a
| | 01:51 |
few pixels appearing, and then, I'll
release the mouse and evaluate the image.
| | 01:57 |
I, then, adjust the black point once
again, holding the Alt key on Windows or
| | 02:00 |
the Option key on Macintosh.
And here we have a little bit more leeway.
| | 02:05 |
I might want to intentionally block up the
shadows, for example, in order to produce
| | 02:10 |
a more dramatic result.
But in this case, I think I'd like to
| | 02:14 |
retain a fair amount of detail, so I'll
back off on that adjustment allowing just
| | 02:18 |
a relatively small portion of the image to
go to pure black.
| | 02:22 |
Of course, while that clipping preview is
certainly helpful for determining how you
| | 02:26 |
want to establish the black and white
points for the image, it doesn't replace
| | 02:30 |
evaluating the image itself.
So you definitely want to take a look at
| | 02:35 |
the photo itself to determine whether or
not you've established good black and
| | 02:38 |
white points.
In other words, is the overall tonal range
| | 02:41 |
or the overall contrast looking pretty
good?
| | 02:44 |
I think we're off to a good start here.
So I'm ready to apply some additional adjustments.
| | 02:49 |
And for the most part I want to enhance
contrast, but I want to emphasize that
| | 02:52 |
contrast adjustment on the darker areas of
the images.
| | 02:57 |
Essentially, the shadow portions of the
photo.
| | 02:59 |
In other words, I don't want to brighten
up the highlights, I just want to darken
| | 03:01 |
the shadows.
And the result will be more contrast.
| | 03:05 |
I can work directly on the curve in order
to do that.
| | 03:09 |
I can, for example, go up the curve a
little distance maybe about a third of the
| | 03:13 |
way up from the black point.
And then, click and drag downward.
| | 03:17 |
And that will cause a darkening
adjustment, but one that is emphasized,
| | 03:21 |
that is really focused on the specific
toner range that I identified.
| | 03:26 |
In this case, somewhere not too much
darker than a middle grey value.
| | 03:30 |
I can then also click and drag elsewhere.
For example, taking those brighter values
| | 03:33 |
and brightening them up a little bit or
perhaps just taking them back, essentially
| | 03:37 |
to where they started.
So, in this case, the brightest values are
| | 03:41 |
essentially unchanged or changed very
little, whereas, the darker values, those
| | 03:45 |
extending from just a little bit brighter
than middle gray all the way down to
| | 03:49 |
black, are getting darkened a little.
Of course, I can also work directly on the image.
| | 03:56 |
In other words, I don't have to try and
figure out where on the curve I should
| | 03:59 |
place an anchor point.
But I can use the image to give me that
| | 04:03 |
information automatically.
I'll go ahead and drag my anchor points
| | 04:06 |
off of the curve, I'll just simply point
and click at those anchor points.
| | 04:10 |
And then, drag them all the way outside
the curved area in order to throw away
| | 04:14 |
those anchor points.
And now, I'm going to work directly on the image.
| | 04:19 |
I'll turn on the on image adjustment
capability and this is a feature that is
| | 04:22 |
available with a variety of different
adjustments.
| | 04:26 |
The hue saturation adjustment, for
example, includes this capability.
| | 04:29 |
It allows me to work directly on the
image.
| | 04:32 |
So, now that I've turned on the on image
adjustment option, I can move out into the image.
| | 04:38 |
And as I do, you'll notice that on the
curve, we see a circle indicating the
| | 04:42 |
tonal value that falls underneath my
mouse.
| | 04:45 |
So, at the moment here, for example, we
see that we have a value of about 25% of
| | 04:50 |
brightness or nearly black, as the
position of the mouse.
| | 04:55 |
In other words, we see the circle and its
positioned on the curve.
| | 04:58 |
And you can follow straight down to see
exactly which tonal value falls beneath
| | 05:02 |
the mouse.
More to the point, I can click in the spot
| | 05:05 |
on the image and then angle point will be
added to the curve.
| | 05:11 |
Taking it a step further, I can click and
drag to adjust that angle point.
| | 05:15 |
So I'll go ahead and hold the mouse button
down here for a moment and you can see
| | 05:19 |
that on the curve instead of just a
circle, I now have an angle point.
| | 05:24 |
If I drag my mouse directly on the image
downward.
| | 05:28 |
I will move the anchor point downward,
darkening the dark values in the image.
| | 05:33 |
And if I drag upward, I'm moving that
anchor point upward.
| | 05:36 |
So I can point to the image, essentially
saying, hey Photoshop, I want to apply an
| | 05:40 |
adjustment that is focused on this
specific tonal value.
| | 05:45 |
Whatever object it is I'm point to with my
mouse, I want you to focus the tonal
| | 05:49 |
adjustment, my curves adjustment, on
whatever tonal value that object happens
| | 05:52 |
to be.
So again, I can simply point to an area of
| | 05:56 |
the image, and click and drag upward to
brighten the image, or downward to darken
| | 06:00 |
the image.
Again, focusing that adjustment on the
| | 06:04 |
tonal value that I clicked on in the first
place.
| | 06:07 |
So whether you prefer to work directly on
the image, or if you prefer to turn off
| | 06:11 |
the on image adjustment capability and
adjust the curves anchor points manually
| | 06:15 |
or even add you own curve anchor points as
you see fit, either approach is perfectly fine.
| | 06:23 |
But the bottom line is that you want to
start with those black and white points,
| | 06:27 |
establishing the overall tonal range in
the image.
| | 06:31 |
And then, adjust the curve up or down in
various areas to emphasize a brightening
| | 06:34 |
or darkening adjustment on specific tonal
value ranges within your photo.
| | 06:40 |
It can certainly take a little bit of
practice to get comfortable using curves,
| | 06:43 |
but once you do I think you'll find that
this really is the most powerful tool for
| | 06:46 |
tonal adjustments that's available.
| | 06:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Color adjustments with Curves| 00:02 |
The curves adjustment is a very powerful
tool for applying tonal adjustments to
| | 00:05 |
your images, but it's also helpful for
color adjustments.
| | 00:09 |
Specifically with the curves adjustments,
we're able to focus color adjustments on
| | 00:13 |
the brightest or darkest areas of a photo.
Here for example, I have an image where
| | 00:18 |
the darker areas appear a little bit to
magenta, whereas the brighter areas have a
| | 00:22 |
little bit to much green.
As you may know, magenta and green are
| | 00:28 |
opposite colors.
So if we use color balance to shift the
| | 00:31 |
balance toward green, in order to try to
get rid of the magenta in the dark areas,
| | 00:35 |
we would be adding green to the brighter
areas.
| | 00:39 |
With color balance you can certainly focus
your adjustments on the brightest or
| | 00:42 |
darkest areas of the photo, but it doesn't
give you much control over the process.
| | 00:47 |
Curves does give you that control, so
let's take a look at how we can use curves
| | 00:51 |
to adjust the color in our photos.
I'll start off by adding a curves
| | 00:55 |
adjustment layer.
So I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer
| | 00:58 |
button at the bottom of the Layers panel,
and then choose Curves from the pop-up menu.
| | 01:03 |
That will add a curves adjustment layer,
and provide me with the Curves controls on
| | 01:06 |
the properties panel.
By default, Curves is working in RGB.
| | 01:12 |
In other words, we're adjusting the
overall luminance values within the photo.
| | 01:16 |
Taking into account all 3 channels, red,
green, and blue, all at the same time.
| | 01:22 |
But we can also click the pop up and
choose to work directly on the red, green,
| | 01:26 |
or blue channel.
Now, you do need to have some
| | 01:29 |
understanding of color here in order to
work effectively.
| | 01:32 |
For example, since I want to focus my
attention on the magenta values in the
| | 01:35 |
image, it.
It would be helpful to know that magenta
| | 01:39 |
and green are opposites, and therefore I
want to work on the green channel since
| | 01:42 |
green is where I can adjust the overall
magenta levels or green levels within the photo.
| | 01:49 |
So I'll choose green, and then I will
simply click and drag on the curve so that
| | 01:53 |
we can see the basic effect of a color
balance adjustment using curves.
| | 01:58 |
As I drag upward I'm adding more green and
as I drag downward I'm adding more magenta
| | 02:03 |
or subtracting green.
In this case though, I want to add green,
| | 02:08 |
focusing it on the shadow areas.
And so instead of adjusting the curve at
| | 02:13 |
the center, I'm going to move down the
curve a little bit into the shadow areas,
| | 02:16 |
and then I'll move the curve upward.
Now you'll notice of course that while my
| | 02:22 |
adjustment is focused on that darker
range, it is not exclusively adjusting the shadows.
| | 02:27 |
I'm actually adjusting, for all intents
and purposes, all tonal values, or all
| | 02:31 |
pixels within the image.
And so, what I need to do is have the
| | 02:35 |
curve moved upward only for the darker
range, but then left alone or maybe even
| | 02:39 |
moved downward a little bit for the
brighter range of tonal values.
| | 02:44 |
So now that I've placed an adjustment that
seems to be doing a pretty good job
| | 02:47 |
getting rid of the magenta in the shadows,
I can create another anchor point up near
| | 02:50 |
the highlights and drag that down a little
bit.
| | 02:55 |
If I just drag the anchor point down to
the original starting position for the
| | 02:58 |
curve, what's happening is that I'm adding
green, compensating for the magenta in the
| | 03:02 |
shadows, but I'm leaving the highlights
alone.
| | 03:06 |
But I could also take that a step further
and add more magenta for the highlight areas.
| | 03:12 |
While removing magenta in the shadow
areas.
| | 03:15 |
So I can take different areas of the image
in different directions, based on their
| | 03:18 |
tonal value.
At the moment, I have I think a little bit
| | 03:22 |
too much magenta in those highlights.
So I'll take that upper anchor point
| | 03:25 |
upward a little bit, and right about there
looks to be pretty good.
| | 03:29 |
I can also fine-tune my anchor point for
the shadows, trying to find just the right
| | 03:33 |
amount of magenta versus green, but that's
looking pretty good.
| | 03:38 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the visibility
for the curves adjustment and you can see
| | 03:41 |
we start off with lots of magenta in the
darker areas of the image.
| | 03:46 |
And a fair amount of green in the brighter
portions of the image, but after applying
| | 03:49 |
that curve's adjustment, I think we have a
much better balance for this photo.
| | 03:54 |
And of course I can also switch to the
other color channels.
| | 03:57 |
Red will allow me to shift between red and
cyan.
| | 04:00 |
Green, as we've just seen, allows me to
switch between green and magenta, and blue
| | 04:04 |
allows me to shift between blue and
yellow.
| | 04:07 |
So I can use any combination of the RGB
channel for tonal adjustments, and then
| | 04:11 |
the red, green and blue channels for color
adjustments that affect specific tonal
| | 04:16 |
ranges within the image.
| | 04:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Basic targeted adjustments| 00:02 |
When you apply an adjustment in Photoshop,
by default, that adjustment will effect
| | 00:06 |
the entire image.
But you can actually constrain any
| | 00:09 |
adjustment, so that it only affects a
specific portion of the photo.
| | 00:14 |
In this case, for example, perhaps I would
like to remove any color.
| | 00:18 |
There's not much but I can remove what
color there is from the water in the
| | 00:21 |
background, so that it really emphasizes
the color of the ice in the foreground.
| | 00:26 |
To do that I'll want to apply a targeted
adjustment.
| | 00:29 |
And one of the ways that we can focus an
adjustment on a specific area of the photo
| | 00:33 |
is to utilize a layer mask, painting the
effect into specific portions of the photo.
| | 00:39 |
Let's take a look at what that process
looks like.
| | 00:42 |
I'll start off in this case by adding a
Hue Saturation adjustment.
| | 00:45 |
So at the bottom of the Layers panel, I'll
click on the Add Adjustment Layer button,
| | 00:49 |
and then chose Hue Saturation.
At this point, I'll apply an exaggerated adjustment.
| | 00:56 |
And this is important, because it makes it
much easier to see exactly where I'm
| | 00:59 |
painting the effect into the photo.
I'll be able to come back and mitigate the
| | 01:03 |
adjustment a little bit later.
In most cases, I'll either increase the
| | 01:07 |
saturation significantly or decrease it
significantly, depending on the image.
| | 01:13 |
In this case, though, the water in the
background doesn't really look all that
| | 01:16 |
colorful, so I think it'll be more obvious
if I increase saturation significantly for
| | 01:20 |
this adjustment.
Of course, as you probably would have
| | 01:24 |
expected, this exaggerated adjustment is
effecting the entire image.
| | 01:29 |
The reason for that is that the adjustment
has a layer mask that is filled with white.
| | 01:34 |
You can see on the Layers panel, my Hue
Saturation adjustment layer has a white
| | 01:39 |
thumbnail, that is the layer mask.
And in the context of a layer mask, which
| | 01:44 |
you need to keep in mind is, that black
blocks and white reveals.
| | 01:49 |
In other words, anywhere that the layer
mask is black.
| | 01:52 |
The effect of that adjustment will not be
visible in the image.
| | 01:55 |
And anywhere the layer mask is white, the
adjustment will be visible.
| | 01:59 |
Since this layer mask is entirely white,
the adjustment is affecting the entire image.
| | 02:04 |
But I can paint with black to block the
adjustment from specific areas of the photo.
| | 02:10 |
I can also paint with white to reveal the
adjustment.
| | 02:13 |
My personal preference is actually to
start with an all black layer mask, so
| | 02:16 |
that I'm painting the effect into the
image, rather than blocking the effect
| | 02:20 |
from the image.
So I'm going to start off by going to Edit
| | 02:25 |
> Fill, setting my Use popup to Black, and
then click OK.
| | 02:31 |
And that will fill my layer mask with
black, so now the adjustment is being
| | 02:34 |
blocked for the entire image.
In other words, I don't see the adjustment
| | 02:39 |
anywhere within the photo.
At this point I'll choose the Brush tool
| | 02:44 |
from the toolbox.
I could also just press the the letter B
| | 02:47 |
for brush on the keyboard.
And then, I'm going to press the letter D
| | 02:50 |
on the keyboard to get the default colors
of white and black.
| | 02:55 |
At anytime I can switch those foreground
and background colors by pressing the
| | 02:59 |
letter X on the keyboard.
I'll then go up to the options bar and, in
| | 03:04 |
this case, I'm going to use a soft edge
brush.
| | 03:07 |
So I'll set the hardness at a value of 0%,
so that the edge of the area that I'm
| | 03:10 |
painting has a little bit of transition.
I'll make sure the Blend Mode is set to
| | 03:15 |
Normal and the Opacity should be at 100%
because I want to completely block or
| | 03:19 |
reveal the adjustment based on where in
the image I paint with black and white.
| | 03:26 |
But, again, it is very important to keep
in mind that we're painting not on the
| | 03:30 |
image but on the layer mask.
And, in fact my, preference is to click on
| | 03:34 |
that layer mask in order to make sure that
it is active before I start painting.
| | 03:39 |
I can then move my mouse out over the
image and simply start painting within the photo.
| | 03:45 |
In this case, bear in mind my aim is to
reduce the saturation eventually for the
| | 03:49 |
water in the background, so that the only
color we see is the ice in the foreground.
| | 03:54 |
In other words, I only want the adjustment
to be visible in the water, and so I'm
| | 03:58 |
going to paint with white over the water.
I'll go ahead and just click for moment
| | 04:03 |
into the water area of the photo.
And you can see that I've now placed an
| | 04:07 |
area of white on my layer mask, therefore,
revealing the adjustment.
| | 04:11 |
At the moment, that adjustment is an
extreme increase in saturation.
| | 04:16 |
That's obviously not the adjustment I
really want to apply.
| | 04:19 |
But this makes it very easy for me to see
exactly where in the image I'm adjusting.
| | 04:24 |
I'll go ahead and adjust the brush size
using the Left and Right Square Bracket
| | 04:27 |
keys on the keyboard.
The Left Square Bracket key will reduce
| | 04:30 |
the brush size and the Right Square
Bracket key will increase the brush size
| | 04:33 |
and, generally, the approach I would take
would be to paint along the edge that I
| | 04:37 |
want to define.
So in this case the edge between the ice
| | 04:42 |
and the water using a relatively small
brush, probably even zooming in a little
| | 04:46 |
bit so that I can get a closer look while
I'm working, and painting very carefully
| | 04:50 |
along that edge.
Now for our purposes, I'll work a little
| | 04:56 |
bit quickly here and not worry about
getting it absolutely perfect.
| | 05:00 |
I just want to illustrate the concept
involved.
| | 05:03 |
And once I've defined that outer boundary,
that transition zone between the ice and
| | 05:07 |
the water.
Then, I can use a little bit larger brush
| | 05:10 |
and fill in all of those additional areas
of water, and I'll go ahead and paint
| | 05:14 |
these areas.
And because I have that exaggerated
| | 05:18 |
adjustment applied, we can see very
clearly exactly where in the image is
| | 05:22 |
being affected and where is not being
affected.
| | 05:26 |
At this point, I think I'm pretty much
done.
| | 05:28 |
In reality, I would need to zoom in, get a
closer look, and fine tune all of my work,
| | 05:32 |
painting in white where I want the
adjustment to be visible, and with black
| | 05:35 |
where I want the adjustment to not be
visible.
| | 05:39 |
But let's just assume that I've done a
perfect job here painting, and we'll take
| | 05:43 |
a look at the actual adjustment.
I'll click on the thumbnail for my Hue
| | 05:47 |
Saturation Adjustment layer.
And then on the Properties panel, I'll
| | 05:51 |
bring that saturation back down.
And, in fact in this case, I want to take
| | 05:55 |
it all the way to a negative 100.
In other words, I am reducing saturation
| | 06:00 |
completely for that water so that the
water has no color at all, it's just
| | 06:03 |
essentially a black and white portion of
the image.
| | 06:08 |
An the only color we see, therefore, is in
the ice in the foreground.
| | 06:13 |
Now one thing to keep in mind is that with
painting like this it's very easy to not
| | 06:16 |
be very precise, and so you might for
example not overlap in all areas that you
| | 06:20 |
need to clean up.
And so, it's a good idea to take a close
| | 06:25 |
look at the actual layer mask.
So as much as you'll want to zoom in on
| | 06:28 |
the image itself and make sure that your
work is of the best quality possible.
| | 06:33 |
It can also be very helpful to look at the
actual layer mask.
| | 06:37 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh and click on the
| | 06:40 |
thumbnail for that layer mask.
And sure enough, you see that my work was
| | 06:45 |
less than perfect.
So I'll come back out into the image while
| | 06:48 |
I'm in this layer mask view.
And I'll paint with white to clean up some
| | 06:52 |
of those areas that I missed when I was
painting over the image.
| | 06:56 |
That looks much better.
Just be sure to clean up all of those areas.
| | 07:00 |
And then I can hold down the Alt or Option
key and click one more time on the
| | 07:03 |
thumbnail for the layer mask to get back
to the normal image.
| | 07:08 |
So in this way, I can continue to work on
my layer mask, making sure it is as
| | 07:11 |
perfect as possible.
And even refining my adjustment if I
| | 07:15 |
decide that I want to take a different
approach to adjusting this particular image.
| | 07:20 |
Maybe, for example, I don't want to
completely desaturate the water.
| | 07:24 |
I just want to tone it down a little bit
so that it's not competing with the ice.
| | 07:27 |
But, whatever adjustment it is that I'm
trying to apply, I can focus that
| | 07:31 |
adjustment on a specific portion of the
image by utilizing the layer mask in
| | 07:34 |
conjunction with my Adjustment layer.
| | 07:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making a targeted adjustment from a selection| 00:02 |
More often than not, I find that when I
want to apply an adjustment that affects a
| | 00:05 |
specific area of the photo, that area of
the photo is pretty well defined.
| | 00:10 |
For example, here I might want to apply an
adjustment that only affects the sky, not
| | 00:14 |
the rock in the foreground.
The distinction between the two is pretty
| | 00:19 |
clear, and in those types of situations I
can create a selection as the basis of my
| | 00:23 |
targeted adjustment.
In other words creating a selection of the
| | 00:27 |
sky and applying an adjustment to that
selected area, rather than painting the
| | 00:31 |
adjustment into the photo.
I'll start off by creating a selection,
| | 00:36 |
so, from the toolbox, I'll choose the
quick selection tool, in this case.
| | 00:40 |
So, I'll go ahead and choose the quick
selection tool from the toolbar, I'll make
| | 00:43 |
sure that the sample all layers checkbox
is turned on, so that even if I'm working
| | 00:47 |
with a layered document I don't need to
worry about which layer is active.
| | 00:52 |
And I'll also turn on the Auto Enhance
option, and then I'll move my mouse out
| | 00:56 |
over the image.
I can adjust the brush size with the left
| | 00:59 |
and right square bracket keys, using the
left square bracket key to reduce the
| | 01:02 |
brush size and the right square bracket
key to increase the brush size and then
| | 01:06 |
I'll simply click and paint throughout the
sky in order to create a selection of that sky.
| | 01:14 |
Now, in this case obviously, the selection
was pretty easy to create.
| | 01:17 |
In some cases, it won't be quite so easy,
but very often, I think you'll find that
| | 01:21 |
creating a selection, even in tricky
situations, is easier than painting
| | 01:24 |
manually into the area of the image, that
you want to adjust.
| | 01:30 |
Now that I have my selection I can apply a
targeted adjustment that will only affect
| | 01:34 |
this area of the photo.
And that is the easy part.
| | 01:38 |
I've created the selection, the selection
is active, so on the layers panel I'll
| | 01:42 |
click on the add adjustment layer button.
In this case I'll apply a hue saturation
| | 01:47 |
adjustment, and you'll notice that the hue
saturation adjustment is created.
| | 01:52 |
And of course I have the appropriate
controls on the properties panel, but the
| | 01:56 |
layer mask for that hue saturation
adjustment layer reflects the shape of my selection.
| | 02:02 |
The area that was selected, the sky,
appears white in that layer mask, and the
| | 02:07 |
area that was deselected, the rock, is
black in that layer mask.
| | 02:12 |
In the context of a layer mask, black
blocks and white reveals, which means this
| | 02:16 |
hue saturation adjustment Will only be
visible in the sky.
| | 02:20 |
And sure enough, if I adjust the hue for
example, you'll see that I'm only
| | 02:24 |
affecting the sky.
Now, obviously I don't want to create a
| | 02:28 |
purple sky or an orange sky, but I might
want to shift that sky toward a little bit
| | 02:32 |
more a cyan or a little bit more of a blue
color.
| | 02:36 |
So I'll go ahead and fine tune that a
little bit, maybe boost the saturation a
| | 02:40 |
little bit.
Perhaps darken just a hair with the
| | 02:43 |
lightness slider.
The point is that I can take full
| | 02:46 |
advantage of the hue saturation
adjustment, in this case only effecting
| | 02:50 |
the sky.
Of course, one thing to keep in mind is
| | 02:54 |
that the selection I created was not
feathered.
| | 02:57 |
In other words, there's a harsh transition
between areas of the image that were
| | 03:01 |
selected versus those that were not.
Because of that, I'll want to feather my
| | 03:06 |
layer mask at least a little bit.
So I'll go ahead and choose the Zoom tool,
| | 03:10 |
and then I'll click and drag to zoom in on
the image, and in this case, I don't even
| | 03:14 |
think you can really see much evidence of
that harsh transition, but we'll make
| | 03:18 |
things a little more obvious by
exaggerating the feathering.
| | 03:24 |
On the Properties panel, I'll choose the
Masks option, and then I'll increase the
| | 03:27 |
value for Feather.
And you'll notice that as I do so, we'll
| | 03:31 |
see a little bit of a shift within the
image.
| | 03:34 |
Then I'll switch back to that mask and
adjust the Feather amount, and you can see
| | 03:38 |
how we transition from an abrupt change
between affected versus not-affected
| | 03:43 |
areas, versus a more gradual transition
and perhaps even a very strong transition
| | 03:47 |
where we're blending into other areas of
the photo.
| | 03:53 |
In most cases, you'll want a very low
amount for feather, but you will want at
| | 03:57 |
least a little bit.
Generally speaking, I would say the
| | 04:00 |
minimum value should be one pixel, but
that will vary a little bit depending upon
| | 04:04 |
the specific image.
I'll go ahead and zoom out and then switch
| | 04:08 |
back to my adjustment controls, and of
course, bring that hue value in a little
| | 04:12 |
bit more appropriate.
Something like that perhaps will work out nicely.
| | 04:17 |
And now as I toggle the visibility of that
hue saturation adjustment layer off and
| | 04:21 |
on, you can see that I am only affecting
the sky thanks to that layer mask which
| | 04:25 |
was based on a selection.
So create a selection, add an adjustment
| | 04:31 |
layer and you have a quick and easy
targeted adjustment.
| | 04:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Creative AdjustmentsCreating black and white from color| 00:02 |
I enjoy creating black and white
interpretations of my photos, but I really
| | 00:05 |
like to exercise a huge amount of control
over that process.
| | 00:10 |
And as a result, I never simply convert
the image to black and white, for example,
| | 00:14 |
by desaturating or converting the image to
the grayscale color mode, and instead,
| | 00:18 |
utilize a black and white adjustment
layer.
| | 00:23 |
The reason the black and white adjustment
layer is so helpful is that it allows us
| | 00:27 |
to adjust the overall brightness values
for specific colors within the photo.
| | 00:32 |
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
I'll start off by adding a black and white
| | 00:36 |
adjustment layer.
So at the bottom of the layers panel, I'll
| | 00:39 |
click on the add adjustment layer button,
and then choose black and white from the
| | 00:43 |
pop-up menu.
You'll see that I have a Default Conversion.
| | 00:47 |
In other words default settings for that
Black and White Adjustment and the image
| | 00:50 |
no longer appears to be in color.
But that's just the beginning.
| | 00:55 |
I can also adjust the Luminance values
based on the original color.
| | 01:00 |
So for example, this image consisted of a
fair amount of green, and so if I adjust
| | 01:04 |
the green slider, you'll see that all
areas that had been green can be lightened
| | 01:09 |
or darkened.
If I drag the slider to the right,
| | 01:13 |
increasing the value for greens, the
greens get brighter, and if I move to the
| | 01:17 |
left, the greens get darker.
Of course, in most cases, what we think of
| | 01:22 |
as green actually contains a lot of
yellow, and so I'll probably get a better
| | 01:26 |
result with the yellow slider.
And sure enough, I'm able to really open
| | 01:32 |
up those yellows, brightening up the
forest.
| | 01:35 |
In this case, the areas that contain the
most yellow.
| | 01:38 |
I could also darken those values if I
wanted to, but in this case, I think I'll
| | 01:42 |
apply a rather strong brightening of those
yellows.
| | 01:46 |
And I'll also brighten up the green
values, because even though the forest, in
| | 01:50 |
this case, mostly has yellows, there is a
fair amount of green in there as well.
| | 01:55 |
Now, I can continue in this way,
lightening and darkening specific areas of
| | 01:59 |
the photo based on the original color
value.
| | 02:03 |
But what if you don't remember what color
something was?
| | 02:06 |
Well, I can certainly turn off the
visibility for the black and white
| | 02:09 |
adjustment layer so that I can see the
original full color image.
| | 02:13 |
But there's another trick you can use to
make it even faster and easier to focus
| | 02:17 |
your adjustments on specific areas, and
that is the on image adjustment feature.
| | 02:24 |
I'll go ahead and click on the on image
adjustment option up toward the top left
| | 02:27 |
of the properties panel and now, I can
move my mouse out over the image and then,
| | 02:30 |
let's assume for example, that I'd like to
brighten the hull of this boat.
| | 02:36 |
I can click and you'll see that the cyan's
value on the properties panel has lit up.
| | 02:42 |
That tells me that cyan is the dominant
color in this area.
| | 02:46 |
But I don't even have to move over to the
Properties panel to make an adjustment.
| | 02:50 |
With my mouse button still held down, I
can drag over toward the right in order to
| | 02:54 |
move the slider to the right so that I'm
brightening the cyans.
| | 02:58 |
And I can drag over toward the left if I'd
like to darken those values.
| | 03:02 |
In this case, I think I'll open up the
cyans just a little bit just so that we
| | 03:05 |
can make out that hole a little bit
better, maybe right around there, but I
| | 03:09 |
can continue, in this way, adjusting
specific areas of the photo simply by
| | 03:12 |
clicking on those areas and then dragging
left to darken or right to lighten.
| | 03:20 |
When I'm working in this way, I try to pay
attention to which sliders are being
| | 03:23 |
affected, and which are not being affected
by the adjustments, and then, when I feel
| | 03:26 |
that I'm just about finished, I'll turn
off the on image adjustment feature, and
| | 03:30 |
then take a look at the sliders that were
skipped.
| | 03:35 |
For example, I don't think I adjusted reds
at all.
| | 03:38 |
So I'll swing the red slider all the way
through its extremes, and it's not
| | 03:41 |
affecting much of the image but, there are
some areas and I think it's better off
| | 03:44 |
with a little bit of a lightening effect.
I'll also take a look at the magentas, and
| | 03:50 |
there, I don't actually see any portion of
the image being affected, so I'll leave
| | 03:53 |
that at a moderate setting.
But as you can see by utilizing the black
| | 03:58 |
and white adjustment layer we're able to
really fine tune the effect that
| | 04:02 |
transition from color to black and white
by adjusting the luminance values of
| | 04:06 |
specific colors from within the source
photo.
| | 04:10 |
But its also important to keep in mind
that just because you've utilized the
| | 04:13 |
black and white adjustment layer and
you've manipulated the values in terms of
| | 04:16 |
luminance for all these different colors.
It doesn't mean that your work isn't
| | 04:21 |
necessarily done.
You may also want to add a levels
| | 04:24 |
adjustment or a curves adjustment, for
example, in order to fine tune the overall
| | 04:28 |
luminance values in the photo.
But the black and white adjustment layer
| | 04:33 |
can be a great start to producing a black
and white photo from a color original.
| | 04:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a tint to a black-and-white image| 00:02 |
When you convert an image to black and
white.
| | 00:04 |
Of course, you're removing all of the
color in the process, but sometimes you
| | 00:07 |
might want to add a little bit color back
in.
| | 00:11 |
Specifically, a single color that adds a
tint to an other wise black and white photo.
| | 00:17 |
Let's take a look at how you can add a
color tint to a black and white image.
| | 00:21 |
I'll start off of course by converting
this image to black and white.
| | 00:24 |
So I'll add a black and white adjustment
layer by clicking on the Add Adjustment
| | 00:27 |
Layer button at the bottom of the Layers
panel, and then choosing Black and White
| | 00:31 |
from the pop-up menu.
I can go ahead and adjust any of the
| | 00:35 |
sliders here.
Now of course this particular image
| | 00:38 |
doesn't have a huge amout of color to
begin with, but I can refine the overall
| | 00:42 |
adjustment to my liking.
And then once I'm happy with the basic
| | 00:46 |
black and white conversion, I can add the
color tint.
| | 00:49 |
And that is done by simply turning on the
Tint check box on the Properties panel for
| | 00:53 |
the black and white adjustment.
And as you can see, I now have a color
| | 00:58 |
tint added to the image, specifically
something along the lines of a sepia tone effect.
| | 01:04 |
A little bit of a yellowing of the image
as it were, but I can also adjust the
| | 01:07 |
specific color that is being added as part
of this process.
| | 01:12 |
I'l go ahead and click on the color swatch
associated with that tent check box, and
| | 01:16 |
that will bring up the color picker.
Here, I can specify that I want to adjust
| | 01:21 |
the hue, first and foremost, and then
choose any color of the rainbow that I
| | 01:25 |
would like to add to this image.
In this case, maybe I'll go with something
| | 01:31 |
along the lines of sort of, redish tone.
And then once I've adjusted the basic
| | 01:35 |
color, the hue, I can adjust the overall
saturation, as well as the darkness or
| | 01:39 |
lightness of that color.
And so, for example, I can create a very
| | 01:44 |
saturated effect, or a very muted effect.
In this case I think I'll keep things
| | 01:49 |
rather muted.
So I'll go with this shade of a sort of
| | 01:52 |
slightly orange-ish red, but one that's
very very muted, not very saturated at all.
| | 01:59 |
And then I'll go ahead and click the Okay
button.
| | 02:01 |
And now if I turn the tint check-box off,
and then on again, you can see very
| | 02:05 |
clearly that I've added that color tint to
the photo.
| | 02:09 |
And of course, I can continue fine-tuning
the overall black and white adjustment,
| | 02:13 |
adjusting the luminance values for the
different colors that appear within the photo.
| | 02:19 |
And let's say right about there looks to
be a pretty good starting point for that
| | 02:21 |
black and white conversion.
If at any time I want to change the color
| | 02:25 |
tint, I can just click on the color
swatch, to bring up that color picker once
| | 02:29 |
again, and then choose a different color.
And then when I'm happy with that
| | 02:34 |
particular color, once again, I'll click
the Okay button, and I do, as always, have
| | 02:38 |
the ability to turn off that Tint
checkbox.
| | 02:42 |
Both to perhaps disable the tint
altogether, if I've changed my mind or to
| | 02:45 |
get a better sense of the effect.
And I do strongly encourage you to turn
| | 02:50 |
off that tint checkbox and turn it back on
again, so that you can get a better sense
| | 02:53 |
of the real strength of that color.
In most cases, I think that you'll find
| | 02:58 |
that less in more.
In other words, that a more subtle color
| | 03:01 |
will give you a more pleasing effect in
the final photo.
| | 03:05 |
So as you can see, adding that color tint
through the black and white adjustment
| | 03:08 |
layer is an incredibly simple process.
| | 03:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a gradient map| 00:02 |
When an image strikes me as being
something of a sort of classic scene, my
| | 00:05 |
mind usually drifts toward a black and
white interpretation or maybe a color tint
| | 00:09 |
such as a sepia tone added to a black and
white image.
| | 00:14 |
But sometimes I want to exercise a little
bit more control over that process, and
| | 00:19 |
for that I'll utilize a gradient map
adjustment.
| | 00:24 |
This is an adjustment that I think is not
all that widely known, and yet is
| | 00:28 |
incredibly powerful for creating
interesting interpretations of your photos.
| | 00:33 |
Let's take a look at how we can use the
gradient map adjustment to exercise a huge
| | 00:37 |
amount of control over how we interpret
the tones within an image.
| | 00:42 |
I'll start off by adding a basic gradient
map adjustment.
| | 00:47 |
I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer
button, but it's very important that I not
| | 00:50 |
choose Gradient up at the top of the list
but rather go down to the bottom of the
| | 00:54 |
list and choose Gradient Map.
These are two very different adjustments
| | 01:00 |
and what we want is the Gradient Map.
So I'll choose that option and that will
| | 01:04 |
add a Gradient Map adjustment, and as you
can see that gives me a black and white
| | 01:07 |
version of the photo.
Specifically this is a black and white
| | 01:12 |
version of the image where I've mapped
tonal values based on tonal values.
| | 01:17 |
In other words, black has been made black
and middle gray has been made middle gray,
| | 01:21 |
and white has been made white, but what I
mean by that is that based on the color
| | 01:25 |
values, each pixel in the image actually
has an overriding luminance value.
| | 01:32 |
So, this is your very basic black and
white conversion.
| | 01:36 |
This doesn't even give us the amount of
control that we have with the black and
| | 01:38 |
white adjustment.
And so you may be wondering why we would
| | 01:41 |
even use the gradient map in order to
achieve such an effect.
| | 01:45 |
Well, there are more options available.
Let's take a look at some of the other
| | 01:49 |
gradients for example.
Now, these options are a little bit wild,
| | 01:52 |
I'll warn you, but they can be interesting
and a little bit of fun.
| | 01:56 |
For example we have a red to green
gradient, where a red value is assigned to
| | 01:59 |
all of the dark pixels in the image, and a
green value is assigned to all the bright
| | 02:03 |
pixels in the image.
And of course we have a smooth transition
| | 02:08 |
between those colors based on the original
luminance values in the photo.
| | 02:13 |
So exploring some of these other options
you can see they're certainly interesting
| | 02:16 |
and a little bit wild.
And you certainly could have a little bit
| | 02:20 |
of fun with these but generally speaking,
for photographic images, I would say these
| | 02:24 |
are sort of over the top.
But let's take a look at how we can
| | 02:28 |
customize things here in order to produce
a really interesting result.
| | 02:33 |
I'll go ahead and choose the black to
white version to give us a real basic
| | 02:37 |
starting point and then I'll click to
close the pop up and now I want to modify
| | 02:41 |
this black to white gradient.
I'm going to perhaps adjust the
| | 02:46 |
transitions, or add a little bit of color
here and there.
| | 02:50 |
In order to modify this gradient I'll
simply click on the Gradient Preview itself.
| | 02:56 |
In other words I'm not going to click the
popup but rather on the preview of the
| | 02:59 |
gradient, and that will bring up the
gradient editor.
| | 03:03 |
I'll move that dialog a little bit out of
the way so we can see the image.
| | 03:07 |
And then, just to give us a basic starting
point, I'm going to click underneath the
| | 03:11 |
gradient in order to add a gradient stop.
You'll see that this stop is black, so if
| | 03:18 |
I were to drag this over to the left, I
can have a gradient that transitions from
| | 03:22 |
black to black, and then to white.
But I have a very short transition from
| | 03:28 |
black to black, meaning I'm keeping a lot
of dark values as pure black, and then
| | 03:33 |
transitioning into white, but I can change
the color of that stop.
| | 03:38 |
So I'll click on the stop that I want to
change and then click on the color swatch,
| | 03:42 |
and I'll set the brightness value perhaps
to 50%.
| | 03:46 |
That gives me a middle gray value.
I'll go ahead and click Okay to change
| | 03:50 |
that gradient stop to be grey.
And if I move that gradient stop to the
| | 03:55 |
middle of my gradient then I'll get a sort
of normal transition from black to middle
| | 04:00 |
grey to white.
But I can also adjust the transition
| | 04:05 |
between those values.
So, having more light values, more values
| | 04:09 |
that are lighter than middle grey for
example, or more dark values, just by
| | 04:14 |
shifting that gradient stop left or right.
But it can get even more interesting than
| | 04:21 |
that because as we've already seen, we can
also incorporate color into the gradients
| | 04:25 |
that we use to map the values within our
image.
| | 04:29 |
I'll go ahead and move my gradient stop
over to the left here, for example, and
| | 04:32 |
then I'll click on the color swatch to
bring up the color picker.
| | 04:36 |
And I'll move this dialogue out of the way
so that I can see the image as I'm working.
| | 04:40 |
I'll start off with the Hue option and
maybe I'll specify a particular shade of
| | 04:44 |
essentially orange, but I'm going to use a
desaturated version of that orange so that
| | 04:49 |
we get more of a kind of brownness tone.
And I also want to make sure that I'm
| | 04:56 |
choosing an appropriate brightness value.
And so in this case I'll stay over toward
| | 05:00 |
the left of the larger gradient here so
that I'm getting a relatively de-saturated
| | 05:04 |
color, but I also want to move down so
that I'm getting a relatively dark value.
| | 05:10 |
So I can click around in the various areas
to try to find just the right value.
| | 05:15 |
That looks like it might work out pretty
well.
| | 05:17 |
I'll go ahead and click Okay, and now I
can fine-tune the position of that
| | 05:21 |
gradient stop, in order to improve the
overall appearance of the photo.
| | 05:26 |
To make things a little more obvious here
I'll work on the brighter areas in the photos.
| | 05:30 |
So I'll click to add a gradient stop, over
toward the right side of the gradient.
| | 05:35 |
And then click the color swatch to bring
up that color picker, and maybe I'll go
| | 05:39 |
with a little bit more of a yellowish tone
for those highlights.
| | 05:43 |
And in this case I'll want something
relatively bright, and still not too saturated.
| | 05:48 |
I'll leave it a little bit saturated so
that we can see more readily here.
| | 05:52 |
Maybe shift that hue down a little bit so
we don't get too much of a greenish tone
| | 05:55 |
get a little bit more sort of pure yellow
almost bordering on orange to red.
| | 06:01 |
That looks to be pretty good, I'll go
ahead and click Okay, and now I'll adjust
| | 06:04 |
the position of that stop as well.
And you can see that I can affect the
| | 06:09 |
overall transition of tonal values within
the image by shifting that gradient stop around.
| | 06:15 |
Just to exaggerate things a little bit so
we get a better sense of the
| | 06:18 |
possibilities, I'll choose the prior
gradient stop and then click the color
| | 06:21 |
swatch in order to bring up the color
picker, and now I'll just choose some
| | 06:23 |
shade of green.
Not because that's a color I really want
| | 06:28 |
to use in this case, but just so that we
can get a better sense of some of the possibilities.
| | 06:32 |
As I shift around through different
colors, you'll see that the images updated
| | 06:36 |
accordingly and so I have all sorts of
creative potential for interpreting the image.
| | 06:42 |
In this case, I do think that sort of a
sepia tone type of effect is probably
| | 06:45 |
going to work best and so I'll probably
end up with something that's a little bit
| | 06:49 |
more toward that range.
Maybe a little bit more of the sort of
| | 06:53 |
reddish tones.
That looks like it's working out pretty
| | 06:56 |
nicely, actually in this case, maybe give
it a little bit more saturation but a
| | 06:59 |
little darker.
The point is that we can continue
| | 07:03 |
tinkering with each of these gradient
stops in order to exercise great control
| | 07:07 |
over the photo.
So, we're really going beyond a basic
| | 07:11 |
black and white conversion and even beyond
a simple color tint.
| | 07:16 |
Because we can have different tonal values
at different positions along this
| | 07:19 |
gradient, and also different color values
along that gradient.
| | 07:24 |
So that we have for example one color in
the shadows and a different color in the
| | 07:27 |
hightlights potentially even a completely
different color in the midtones.
| | 07:31 |
There are all sorts of possibilities, and
I encourage you to experiment around with
| | 07:35 |
those possibilities.
I do suggest that having a true black for
| | 07:39 |
the black point, and a true white for the
white point, probably makes the most sense.
| | 07:45 |
But then you can play around with all the
points in between to determine what's
| | 07:48 |
going to work best for your image.
In addition to being able to move those
| | 07:54 |
gradient stops, you can also shift the
transition between gradient stops.
| | 07:58 |
In other words, in the mid-point of that
transition, this'll be more obvious with
| | 08:02 |
some of the brighter values, for example.
You can see that by shifting the
| | 08:06 |
transition point over, I'm getting more
bright values in those brightest portions
| | 08:10 |
of the image, and I can also shift them
toward darker values.
| | 08:15 |
So, we can adjust the color of each
gradient stop, the position of each
| | 08:19 |
gradient stop, as well as the transition
between each of those gradient stops, and
| | 08:23 |
that all adds up to a huge amount of
control that we can exercise in the
| | 08:26 |
creative interpretation of a photo.
And once you're happy with the effect, you
| | 08:33 |
can also save the results so that you can
use it on other images.
| | 08:37 |
I'll just call this Warm Sepia, for
example.
| | 08:43 |
(NOISE) And I'll click the New button in
order to create that new gradient preset.
| | 08:47 |
So that in the future I can simply chooose
that preset from the pop-up for my
| | 08:51 |
gradient map adjustment layer.
But at this point I'm happy with this
| | 08:55 |
image, so I'll go ahead and click the Okay
button to finalize the effect.
| | 09:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a vignette effect| 00:02 |
A vignette is a darkening or even
lightening of the edges of the frame of a
| | 00:05 |
photograph, and that does serve as
essentially a visual frame.
| | 00:10 |
It can help constrain the viewer's eye,
essentially causing you to stay inside the
| | 00:14 |
image a little bit more than you might
otherwise, especially in the case of a
| | 00:18 |
darkening vignette.
And when that vignette is a lightening
| | 00:22 |
vignette you can actually add to a sense
of infinity as it were for an image.
| | 00:28 |
In other words it just seems to fade off
into oblivion rather than being
| | 00:32 |
constrained by the borders of the photo
itself.
| | 00:36 |
Let's take a look at a simple approach to
adding a vignette, whether a darkening or
| | 00:39 |
a lightening, to an image.
Because I'm going to apply what is
| | 00:43 |
essentially a destructive adjustment, I'll
start off by creating a copy of my
| | 00:47 |
background image layer.
And so I'll drag the thumbnail for that
| | 00:51 |
background image layer down to the Create
New Layer button, the blank sheet of paper
| | 00:55 |
icon at the bottom of the layers panel.
And then, with the background copy created
| | 01:00 |
and with it, the active layer, I'll go
ahead and choose filter and then lens
| | 01:04 |
correction from the menu, and that will
bring up the lens correction dialog.
| | 01:10 |
At the moment, I have the grid turned on,
so I'll go ahead and turn off the Show
| | 01:14 |
Grid check box.
So, that I can better see the image and
| | 01:17 |
then, I'll go to the Custom tab and I'll
adjust the Vignette settings.
| | 01:22 |
If I drag the amount slider to the left, I
will darken up the edges of the image and
| | 01:26 |
if I drag it to the right, I'll lighten up
the edges of the image.
| | 01:31 |
And then once I've established an
adjustment for lightening or darkening the
| | 01:35 |
edges, I can also adjust the midpoint.
In other words, I can pull that vignette
| | 01:40 |
effect further to the center of the image
or keep it constrained to just the outer edges.
| | 01:45 |
If you set the mid-point to a relatively
high value, then you're really just going
| | 01:49 |
to be affecting the corners and then you
might want to exaggerate the effect in
| | 01:52 |
order to create more drama in the image,
or tone things down so that you're just
| | 01:56 |
evening out the lighting for example.
But in this case, I think I'll keep things
| | 02:02 |
somewhat dramatic.
I might pull the effect a little bit
| | 02:05 |
further in toward the center of the image
in this case, bringing that mid point down
| | 02:09 |
to a lower value.
Right about there looks to be pretty good,
| | 02:13 |
and then I'll fine tune the amount.
It's important to keep in mind that
| | 02:17 |
generally speaking less is more when we're
applying a vignette effect, but I'm going
| | 02:20 |
to keep the effect a little bit strong in
this case, and then I'll show you how I
| | 02:24 |
can mitigate things after the fact.
I'll go ahead and click the Okay button in
| | 02:29 |
order to apply that vignette effect, and
now you'll notice that I have a darkening
| | 02:33 |
of the edges, just as we saw in the
preview of the effect a moment ago.
| | 02:38 |
I'll turn off the visibility for the
background copy layer so that we can see
| | 02:42 |
the image without that vignette effect.
And then I'll make the layer visible again
| | 02:47 |
so we can see the vignette effect, so I
can toggle back and forth between the
| | 02:50 |
before and after view.
But if I decide that this effect is a
| | 02:54 |
little bit too strong, bear in mind, that
I am working on an exact copy of the
| | 02:57 |
background image layer.
And so if I reduce the opacity for this
| | 03:02 |
background copy layer I'll be seeing the
original image, in other words, I'll just
| | 03:06 |
be toning down the effect of my vignette.
So up at the top right of the layers
| | 03:12 |
panel, I can reduce the opacity, and
you'll see that that tones down that
| | 03:15 |
vignette effect.
At a value of 0% we have no vignette
| | 03:20 |
effect at all and at 100% we have our
original effect maybe in this case I'll
| | 03:24 |
tone things down just ever so slightly.
And then once again toggling the
| | 03:30 |
visibility, you'll see that even with a
relatively subtle vignette effect I do
| | 03:34 |
have a somewhat strong impact on the
overall photo.
| | 03:38 |
So that's just one way that we can add a
darkening or lightening effect to the
| | 03:41 |
edges of the image and as you can see it
can really have a subtle, yet significant,
| | 03:45 |
impact on the image.
| | 03:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating film grain| 00:02 |
Whenever I contemplate adding a film grain
effect to a photo, I can't help but laugh,
| | 00:06 |
at least just a little bit, because I
remember all my years photographing with
| | 00:09 |
film, when I would try to avoid film grain
at all costs.
| | 00:15 |
I would try to use the slowest speed film
possible to ensure a minimal grain
| | 00:18 |
structure so that the images appeared as
smooth as possible.
| | 00:23 |
And yet sometimes I like to add that film
grain effect to my images, in large part I
| | 00:27 |
would say because it's sort of a nostalgic
effect.
| | 00:32 |
So here, for example, I have a photo that
has a sepia tone type of effect and also a
| | 00:35 |
little bit faded, so it looks like an
older photo.
| | 00:40 |
So perhaps I'd like to add some film grain
to take that a little bit further.
| | 00:43 |
Let's take a look at one of the ways you
can add a film grain effect to a image.
| | 00:48 |
I'll start off by creating a new image
layer, but this is going to be an image
| | 00:51 |
layer with specific properties.
So instead of simply clicking on the
| | 00:56 |
Create New Layer button, I'm going to hold
the Alt key on Windows or the Option key
| | 00:59 |
on Macintosh, while clicking that button,
and that will bring up the new layer dialog.
| | 01:05 |
I'll go ahead and give the layer a name.
We'll just call it Film Grain, and I'm
| | 01:09 |
going to change the Blend mode.
And this is the key setting here, to Hard Light.
| | 01:15 |
I want a very strong contrast blend mode
to create the effect that we're going to
| | 01:19 |
work on here.
So I'll choose Hard Light from that pop
| | 01:22 |
up, and then I'm going to turn on the Fill
with Hard Light Neutral Color check box,
| | 01:26 |
so that this new layer will be filled with
50% gray.
| | 01:31 |
I'll go ahead and click Okay, and that new
layer is created.
| | 01:34 |
It's called Film Grain, it's filled with
50% gray, and the blend mode is set to
| | 01:38 |
hard light.
Next, I'll go to the menu and choose
| | 01:42 |
Filter, Noise, and then Add Noise, so that
I can add noise to this image.
| | 01:47 |
I'll choose the Gaussian option so that
that noise is a bit more random.
| | 01:53 |
And then I'll also turn on the
Monochromatic check box so that there is
| | 01:56 |
not a color element to this noise.
I'll then increase the amount, which you
| | 02:01 |
can think of as roughly corresponding to
the overall grain structure, or the size
| | 02:05 |
of that grain.
Now you can see the effect is very, very
| | 02:09 |
strong at the moment.
But that's okay, we're going to mitigate
| | 02:13 |
this effect in just a moment.
For now I just want to define the basic
| | 02:17 |
grain structure.
So, that looks pretty good.
| | 02:20 |
I'll go ahead and click Okay, and you can
see we have grain, all right, a very
| | 02:24 |
significant grain structure in the image.
What I want to do now is to tone this down
| | 02:29 |
so that it is not quite as strong, not as
visible, and for that I'll go to the
| | 02:33 |
opacity control at the top right of the
layers panel and I will reduce that
| | 02:36 |
opacity significantly.
I actually don't need very much opacity at
| | 02:43 |
all in order to see a strong effect in the
image.
| | 02:47 |
And more often than not, a lower value, in
other words, less visible grain, is better.
| | 02:52 |
We're really, in most cases, just trying
to add a little bit of texture to the image.
| | 02:57 |
I'm not trying to make a noisy photo.
So even this is a little bit strong, but
| | 03:01 |
I'll keep it right at about that value.
Just because I'd like to have a little bit
| | 03:05 |
stronger grain effect in this particular
photo.
| | 03:09 |
Then there you have it.
That's also just by creating noise on a
| | 03:12 |
new layer and utilizing that hard light
line mode, we're able to add grain, which
| | 03:16 |
we can fine-tune using the opacity
control.
| | 03:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding an HDR toning effect| 00:02 |
High Dynamic Range Imaging or HDR has
become increasingly popular recently.
| | 00:06 |
And it allows you to create some very
interesting results in your photographs.
| | 00:11 |
The process involves capturing multiple
exposures, and then blending them together
| | 00:15 |
with special software.
However, even if you only captured a
| | 00:20 |
single image, you can reproduce an HDR
type of look in the image using HDR Toning.
| | 00:26 |
Let's take a look at how this process
works.
| | 00:29 |
The first thing to keep in mind is that
the HDR Toning adjustment can only be
| | 00:33 |
applied to a flattened image.
So if you're working with an image that
| | 00:37 |
includes layers, you'll want to make
another copy of that image, so that you
| | 00:41 |
can have a flattened version that you'll
apply the HDR Toning effect to.
| | 00:46 |
To do that, you can simply choose Image >
Duplicate from the menu.
| | 00:50 |
And then, make sure that the Duplicate
Merge Layers Only checkbox is turned on,
| | 00:53 |
so that the duplicate you're creating will
be a flattened version of the image.
| | 00:59 |
In this case, I'm already working with a
flattened copy of my photo, and so I can
| | 01:02 |
just click Cancel.
But, otherwise, you can click OK and then
| | 01:06 |
work with that second copy of your image
to apply the HDR toning effect.
| | 01:12 |
The next step is to go to the Image >
Adjustments > HDR Toning.
| | 01:18 |
That will bring up the HDR Toning
dialogue.
| | 01:20 |
I'll go ahead and move this out of the
way, so that we can see more of the image.
| | 01:25 |
And the first thing I recommend doing is
to take a look at the various presets.
| | 01:30 |
I'm looking at the default setting right
now, but I can look at all of these other options.
| | 01:35 |
Here's city twilight, which is obviously a
little bit wild for this image.
| | 01:39 |
We also have a Flat option, we have a
Monochromatic Artistic option, and a
| | 01:43 |
variety of other options.
And I encourage you to go through these
| | 01:47 |
various options, these various presets, to
find the one that seems to be the best
| | 01:51 |
starting point for the image.
That doesn't necessarily mean that it's
| | 01:57 |
perfect, just that it represents a good
starting point, and then you can continue
| | 02:01 |
adjusting the various settings to finalize
the effect.
| | 02:07 |
In this case, for example, I might opt for
one of the more photo realistic options,
| | 02:11 |
and then I can take things forward from
there.
| | 02:14 |
Let's take a look at the various options
that are available in terms of actually
| | 02:18 |
adjusting the HDR toning effect.
We can choose a method, but generally
| | 02:22 |
speaking I would say that you always want
to use the local adaptation option here,
| | 02:26 |
so that you can actually have access to
all of these various controls.
| | 02:31 |
We can then adjust the edge glow setting,
and that determines, as the name implies,
| | 02:35 |
how much of a halo effect we're going to
see around high contrast areas in the image.
| | 02:40 |
I'll go ahead and increase the radius as
well as the strength, so that we can get a
| | 02:44 |
better sense of that.
You'll notice that at relatively moderate
| | 02:48 |
settings, it almost looks like a
Sharpening effect, but it can get really
| | 02:52 |
wild as we continue to apply different
adjustments to that edge glow.
| | 02:57 |
I'll reduce the size of the glow, for
example, and make it especially strong and
| | 03:01 |
you'll start to see a little bit more of a
haloing type effect.
| | 03:06 |
Especially, as we continue adjusting other
settings in the HDR Toning dialogue.
| | 03:11 |
Next, I'll move down to the Tone and
Detail options.
| | 03:13 |
And here, we have Gamma, which allows us
to adjust overall mid tone contrast.
| | 03:19 |
We can also adjust Exposure, which
essentially allow us to adjust overall brightness.
| | 03:23 |
And we can determine how much detail we
want to emphasize in the image.
| | 03:28 |
And with details set to a high value,
you'll see that we're really now seeing
| | 03:31 |
the effect of that edge glow.
I'll go ahead and reduce the strength, for
| | 03:35 |
example, so that we can see the affect.
And you'll notice that we get a little
| | 03:39 |
less crunchy appearance, as it were with a
lower strength value.
| | 03:43 |
And so the key thing to keep in mind is,
that many of these controls are
| | 03:46 |
inter-related, meaning that as you adjust
one, it will impact the other.
| | 03:51 |
I'll go ahead and increase that Strength
value, a little bit, so we can.
| | 03:54 |
Can see a more dramatic effect?
Maybe tone down detail, just a little bit.
| | 03:59 |
We can also adjust the overall tonality
and color, in the image and this is in the
| | 04:03 |
advanced section.
I can adjust the lightness of the shadows,
| | 04:07 |
so if I want to brighten up the shadows to
see maximum details or darken up the
| | 04:11 |
shadows, to add a little bit of drama to
the image.
| | 04:15 |
I can also adjust, the highlights, either
brightening or darkening, the highlights
| | 04:19 |
within the image.
I can increase vibrance, which essentially
| | 04:24 |
increases saturation for the colors that
are not terribly saturated to begin with.
| | 04:29 |
Or I can reduce vibrance, which will
reduce saturation for the most strongly
| | 04:33 |
saturated colors.
In this case, I think I'll boost the
| | 04:37 |
saturation just a little bit with
vibrance.
| | 04:39 |
And then we have the actual Saturation
slider, which is a more linear adjustment,
| | 04:43 |
and that tends to produce a stronger
effect.
| | 04:46 |
Right around there is looking kind of
interesting.
| | 04:49 |
We also have the Toning Curve and
Histogram section.
| | 04:52 |
And here, we can apply a tone curve, so
that we can really start to exercise a bit
| | 04:57 |
more control over the tonality in the
image.
| | 05:01 |
Now, of course, I'm making a little bit of
a mess here out of the image.
| | 05:05 |
And so, I'm going to want to go back and
fine tune things a little bit.
| | 05:08 |
But that's going to be part of the
process.
| | 05:10 |
Once you've defined a preset that you'll
use as a starting point, you'll really
| | 05:14 |
want to start working with the various
controls and go back and forth through all
| | 05:17 |
of the various sections.
Because, again, each adjustment you'll
| | 05:22 |
apply will impact all of the other
adjustments you've already applied.
| | 05:26 |
So the more you play around with the
various options that are available here,
| | 05:29 |
the more interesting possibilities you'll
create for the image.
| | 05:33 |
I'll go ahead and continue playing around
here just a little bit.
| | 05:37 |
Mostly looking for something with a little
it more drama, a little bit more
| | 05:40 |
saturations, more contrast.
Just a really strong impact compared to
| | 05:44 |
the original image.
I'll turn off the Preview check box and
| | 05:48 |
you can see we've really had a huge effect
on the image here.
| | 05:52 |
And I think it's looking kind of fun.
So I'll continue playing with the various
| | 05:56 |
settings here.
You're trying to find just the right
| | 05:58 |
results for this particular image.
Once I'm finished, I'll go ahead and click
| | 06:03 |
the OK button.
And the effect will be applied to my image.
| | 06:07 |
So you can see, there are all sorts of
creative possibilities with the HDR toning
| | 06:11 |
adjustment in Photoshop.
It really enables you to have a bit of fun
| | 06:16 |
and create a very interesting image, even
out of a relatively pedestrian subject.
| | 06:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting creative with Curves| 00:02 |
I think the Curves adjustment in Photoshop
is generally regarded as a somewhat
| | 00:05 |
professional tool.
It's a very powerful adjustment that
| | 00:08 |
allows you to fine tune the overall
tonality and color in your images.
| | 00:13 |
And so understanding Curves can really pay
dividends when it comes to producing the
| | 00:17 |
best results with your photographic
images.
| | 00:21 |
But you can also have a bit of fun with
Curves and produce some very interesting
| | 00:25 |
and creative results.
Let's take a look at how we can use curves
| | 00:29 |
for an interesting, creative effect.
I'll start off by adding a curves
| | 00:33 |
adjustment layer.
So, at the bottom of the Layers panel,
| | 00:36 |
I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer
button, and then I'll choose Curves from
| | 00:39 |
the pop-up menu.
That will add a Curves adjustment layer,
| | 00:44 |
of course, and now we see the Curves
controls on the properties panel.
| | 00:48 |
Now, the normal method of working with
curves is to define anchor points.
| | 00:52 |
I might add an anchor point down toward
the shadows and darken up the shadows, or
| | 00:56 |
add another anchor point in the highlights
and brighten up that portion of the image,
| | 00:59 |
in the process enhancing contrast, for
example.
| | 01:04 |
But in this case, I'm going to take things
a bit further.
| | 01:07 |
Actually, a lot further.
I'll go ahead and reset the adjustment
| | 01:11 |
here, and instead of working with anchor
points, I'm going to work with the Pencil tool.
| | 01:16 |
I'm going to draw my own curve, and it's
going to be a wild curve.
| | 01:21 |
I'll go ahead and choose the Pencil tool
within the Properties panel, and then I'm
| | 01:24 |
going to start off down at the bottom left
corner in the shadows area, and then I'll
| | 01:28 |
zigzag up and down, up and down, up and
down.
| | 01:32 |
Basically making the equivalent of a saw
tooth pattern here.
| | 01:36 |
Lots of up and down zigzagging, and what
that's doing is enhancing contrast for a
| | 01:40 |
short range of tonal values and then
inverting the image for a short range of
| | 01:45 |
tonal values.
And it repeats that process over and over
| | 01:50 |
and over again and I get this sort of
interesting and yet somewhat subtle
| | 01:54 |
posterization effect within the image.
But of course, we can take things way
| | 02:00 |
beyond this as well.
This time I'm going to draw a similar
| | 02:04 |
pattern, but with a much bigger shape.
I'm going to go way up and down and up and
| | 02:09 |
down, not making quite as many dips and
dives as I make my way from the bottom
| | 02:14 |
left to the top right.
And now I have the sort of metallic
| | 02:20 |
extremely posterized and extremely
saturated version of the image.
| | 02:25 |
A very interesting effect and I think the
best part is that you never know what
| | 02:29 |
you're going to end up with, and there are
seemingly infinite possibilities.
| | 02:35 |
So as I continue zig zagging around, I can
start off with small zig zags and
| | 02:38 |
transition to big zig zags and then back
into small zig zags.
| | 02:43 |
I can make all sorts of random shapes as I
zigzag my way up and down the curve line
| | 02:47 |
in order to produce an interesting
interpretation of the photo.
| | 02:52 |
To be sure, not every effort you make with
this approach is going to work out great,
| | 02:56 |
but that's part of the fun, is just
experimenting and seeing what you end up with.
| | 03:02 |
And, when you find one you like, you save
it.
| | 03:05 |
And if you find one, you don't like, you
just start over and replace it with a
| | 03:08 |
different shaded curve, but by using that
pencil, we can create some very dramatic
| | 03:12 |
and interesting interpretations, of our
images.
| | 03:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using filter effects| 00:00 |
Photoshop includes a wide variety of
filter effects that allow you to create
| | 00:04 |
very interesting interpretations of your
images.
| | 00:09 |
There are some limitations though, in most
cases the filter effects that you'll be
| | 00:13 |
most interested in will only work in eight
bit per channel images.
| | 00:18 |
And so if you're working with perhaps a
layer-based image that is in the 16 bit
| | 00:21 |
per channel mode, I recommend that you
make a copy of that image that is flattened.
| | 00:26 |
You can do that by choosing Image
Duplicate, turning on the Duplicate Merge
| | 00:30 |
Layers Only check box, and then clicking
Okay in order to make that copy.
| | 00:36 |
And then, once you've created that copy,
you can go to the image menu and choose
| | 00:39 |
mode followed by eight bits per channel to
convert the image to eight bits.
| | 00:45 |
In this case, I have an image that's
already flattened and in the eight bit per
| | 00:48 |
channel mode so I'm ready to start
applying some creative filters.
| | 00:52 |
To get started I'll go to the filter menu
and And you'll notice that there are a
| | 00:55 |
variety of filters available, but I want
to start off by going to the filter gallery.
| | 01:00 |
The primary reason for that is that it
makes it easier to navigate among the
| | 01:04 |
various filters.
And we can stack multiple filters on a
| | 01:08 |
single image, if we'd like to.
I'll start off by zooming out so we can
| | 01:12 |
see a little bit more of the image here.
And then we can expand each of the
| | 01:16 |
individual sections of filters, and when I
see something I like based on the preview,
| | 01:21 |
I can just click on the thumbnail and then
I'll see the effect in my image.
| | 01:27 |
Notice by the way, that that effect, in
this case paint dobs, appears as the
| | 01:31 |
filter layer.
And this is actually a stack, meaning I
| | 01:35 |
can have multiple filter effects.
I can also adjust the settings for the
| | 01:39 |
current filter.
So for example, in the case of paint dobs,
| | 01:42 |
I can adjust the brush size, I can adjust
the sharpness, and I can also choose a
| | 01:46 |
particular brush type.
Maybe trying out the sparkle effect for
| | 01:51 |
example, and if I decide that I'm not
really crazy about that effect, I can
| | 01:55 |
chose a different filter effect if I'd
like.
| | 01:59 |
Let's start off with this one for example,
but now, I'd like to add another effect on
| | 02:03 |
top of this one or perhaps, below this
one.
| | 02:07 |
I'm going to start off by creating a copy
of the current filter effect so I'll just
| | 02:10 |
click on the new layer button down at the
bottom of the list here and then I can
| | 02:14 |
switch back and forth between these two
options.
| | 02:18 |
You'll notice that initially, I get a
duplicate of the currently selected layer.
| | 02:22 |
But now I change that.
I'll go ahead and select Underline option
| | 02:25 |
here, and then I'll take a look at poster
edges or perhaps rough pastels.
| | 02:30 |
I can also look at all the other sections
of creative filters here until I find
| | 02:34 |
something that suits me or more to the
point that seems to suit the image.
| | 02:40 |
You'll see that there are a wide variety
of effects to choose from, and of course
| | 02:43 |
we have the ability to manipulate each of
those filters, adjusting the various
| | 02:47 |
settings that are specific to that
particular filter.
| | 02:52 |
We can also turn off one or more of the
filter effects of we like.
| | 02:56 |
And even change the order of those filter
effects since how we stack those effects
| | 02:59 |
does have an impact on the final result.
In this way, you can continue playing with
| | 03:05 |
all of the various filter effects,
changing from one filter effect to
| | 03:08 |
another, adjusting the settings for that
filter effect, adding additional layers if
| | 03:12 |
you'd like, or even removing layers.
You can select a layer and click the trash
| | 03:18 |
can button, for example, if you'd like to
remove one of those filter layers.
| | 03:23 |
In this case, let's just assume that I'm
happy with this result though.
| | 03:25 |
I can go ahead then and click the Okay
button, and in order to apply that set of
| | 03:29 |
filters to the image.
So you can see there are a wide variety of
| | 03:34 |
different creative effects that you can
choose from, and you can stack them all up
| | 03:39 |
creating a huge range of possibilities.
| | 03:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Oil Paint filter| 00:02 |
When I want to apply a creative effect to
an image, I'll usually start off with the
| | 00:05 |
filter gallery.
But, there is a filter that I really like
| | 00:09 |
for certain images that is not found in
the filter gallery, and that's the Oil
| | 00:12 |
Paint filter.
The oil paint filter can work with eight
| | 00:17 |
bit or 16 bit images, so it's unique in
that sense as filters go.
| | 00:21 |
But it is destructive by virtue of the
fact that I'm working directly on pixels
| | 00:25 |
unless I'm using a smart filter on a smart
object.
| | 00:29 |
And so my typical approach is to create a
copy of my background image layer before
| | 00:33 |
applying this filter effect.
So I'll go ahead and drag the thumbnail
| | 00:37 |
for my background image layer down to the
Create New Layer button at the bottom of
| | 00:41 |
the Layers panel, and then with that
background copy active, I'll go to the
| | 00:44 |
Filter menu and choose Oil Paint.
That will bring up the Oil Paint dialog,
| | 00:51 |
and you can see we have an oil paint type
of effect here.
| | 00:54 |
Let's take a look at how we can control
the affect here.
| | 00:57 |
In the brush section, the first slider is
stylization, as I increase stylization,
| | 01:02 |
you'll see that the image starts to get
less and less detailed.
| | 01:07 |
In other words, it's more stylized.
If I move that slider over to the left,
| | 01:11 |
you'll see that I have much less of the
creative effect.
| | 01:14 |
In other words, the details are retained a
bit more.
| | 01:17 |
So, if you're looking for an image that
looks a bit more creative, a little bit
| | 01:21 |
more stylized, and less like a
photographic image, then you might want to
| | 01:24 |
use a relatively high value for
stylization.
| | 01:29 |
In this case, I think I'll stick with a
high value.
| | 01:31 |
We can also adjust the cleanliness of the
effect, in other words, how smooth will
| | 01:35 |
the image be or how much detail will be
retained between brush stokes.
| | 01:40 |
And you can see again if I move towards
the left, we have a little bit more
| | 01:43 |
texture and detail, and if I move to the
right we have a bit smoother effect within
| | 01:47 |
the image.
We can also adjust the scale.
| | 01:51 |
Now the scale is limited a little bit, and
in particular I tend to work with the oil
| | 01:55 |
paint filter on relatively small images.
In other words not for huge prints, but
| | 02:01 |
especially for images that I might share
online, and that's because we can only
| | 02:04 |
take the scale so far.
We can't scale the effect to a huge image
| | 02:09 |
of very high resolution, and so that is
something you'll want to keep in mind if
| | 02:13 |
you're going to utilize the Oil Paint
filter.
| | 02:17 |
In this case though, as is often the case,
I'll use a relatively low setting for
| | 02:20 |
scale, so that we have some more
interesting texture throughout the image.
| | 02:25 |
Next we can take a look at bristle detail,
and of course as the name implies that
| | 02:29 |
determines how much detail you're going to
see for each of the brush strokes.
| | 02:35 |
I'll go ahead and leave this set to its
maximum value because now I'll move into
| | 02:38 |
the lighting section.
I'll increase the value for shine, and you
| | 02:42 |
can see that we have a lighting effect.
We have this sort of three-dimensional
| | 02:47 |
effect that really makes the image start
to look a bit more like a painting.
| | 02:50 |
We can also determine the angle of the
light, and that can have a tremendous
| | 02:54 |
impact on the image, in terms of the
direction of the lines for all those paint strokes.
| | 03:01 |
And whether the lighting is adding a
dimension to the image or keeping it
| | 03:04 |
relatively flat, so the angle is almost
more important.
| | 03:09 |
And I usually start off by setting a
relatively high value for shine, and then
| | 03:12 |
adjusting angular direction to find
something that I like.
| | 03:17 |
And then, I'll return to shine and tone it
down just a little bit.
| | 03:20 |
That's looking pretty cool.
And now, we can also get a better sense of
| | 03:24 |
that bristle detail.
In fact, I'll zoom in a little bit so that
| | 03:27 |
we can better see that bristle detail, and
for the moment, I'll exaggerate the shine.
| | 03:32 |
And now, as I reduce bristle detail,
you'll see that the fine detail is reduced
| | 03:36 |
within the image, and if I increase that
value, you'll see that we have a lot more texture.
| | 03:42 |
I'll zoom out so that we can see the full
photo once again.
| | 03:45 |
And I'll reduce the shine just a little
bit, and you can continue to play around
| | 03:49 |
with all these various settings to find
just the right result for the particular
| | 03:53 |
image that you're working with.
That's looking kind of cool though.
| | 03:58 |
I like the effect that I'm getting here.
I might tone down that bristle detail just
| | 04:01 |
a little bit to smooth out the image.
That's looking rather interesting, so, I
| | 04:06 |
think I'll go ahead and call that good.
I'll click the Okay button in order to
| | 04:10 |
finalize the effect, and then I turn off
the visibility for that background copy so
| | 04:14 |
we can see the original image and then the
oil paint version of the image.
| | 04:19 |
I can even blend these two together by
reducing the opacity for the oil paint
| | 04:23 |
layer that I created so I can add just a
little bit of texture, for example, a
| | 04:27 |
little bit of that painterly feel and so
the viewers left perhaps even just a
| | 04:31 |
little bit confused, not sure if this is a
photograph or a painting.
| | 04:38 |
But as you can see the Oil Paint filter
can be a lot of fun.
| | 04:41 |
It's not something you're likely to use on
a huge number of images, but when you find
| | 04:45 |
just the right image for it, it can be fun
to work with and produce a very
| | 04:47 |
interesting result.
| | 04:50 |
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