Sunday, December 16th, 2007
This beautiful photo was taken at The Opera in Paris. It was early morning and I was walking past as I saw this beautiful statue. There were bars between me and it and the photo isn’t actually in very good focus. But there, a bit of work in LAB and it looks just fantastic.
BTW, as I was working on this image, I encountered a problem – I couldn’t save a copy as a JPEG. Yikes! what is happening here? I thought about it for quite a while, then discovered I hadn’t moved back to RGB from LAB color – can’t save a JPEG image using the LAB color space – so now you know. Switch back to RGB when you’re done and you can save it.
Labels: LAB, Paris, save jpeg, The opera
posted by Helen Bradley @ 6:30 am0 Comments - links to this post
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
This is one of my UK images – it is of the lock area at Camden Town. Right in the middle of London there are waterways and locks, this is one of them. I took a trip in a long boat from here up the waterways and it was just wonderful. This photo, however is taken before the boat trip and it was just after a rain shower.
Often rainy days don’t look great for photography but they can rock like this photo shows. The fact that everything is wet helps boost the color and, with a flash of blue sky behind the buildings, it makes for a great shot of color.
Camden markets are a great place to visit, lots of cute shops selling lots of wonderful stuff. Worth putting on your “must visit” list – but while you’re there, don’t forget to add a trip on Jason’s long boats to the list. Those folk run even at off times of the year, the boats are old and cool and the trip, well, has to be experienced to be believed.
Labels: Camden markets, color, lock, London, long boat
posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:36 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Ok, so there is this really cool place in Paris to shoot from. It’s called the Montparnarse Tower – it’s in Montparnarse (duh) and it’s this big office building. The beauty of it is that it has a rooftop area you can visit and it doesn’t cost a heap. It also has breathtaking 360 degree views of Paris all the way to the Eiffel Tower and across the Seine.
Ok, so they can be breathtaking views if it isn’t foggy and smoggy. Memo to self: don’t go there early in the morning before the wind has blown the mess away.
The Eiffel Tower could be seen, just!
Here is one of the photos I took of the rooftops in Paris from the tower. The poor air quality killed the color so there was precious little to recover and the overall image was muddy. The solution was to duplicate the image a few times and then drag bits and pieces of color and detail back out of it. The light roofs were a big issue, fix the tonal range enough to fix the image and the gorgeous detail in the roofs disappeared.
The solution is to fix the image multiple times on multiple layers. On each layer, focus on a specific detail. Then clobber the whole lot together again using Layer Masks you just paint on the bits you want and paint out those you don’t.
Labels: adjustment layers, layer masks., Photoshop CS3
posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:25 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
I like to look at what users type into Google when they land on my blog. Today, someone wanted to create a monochromatic swatch from a monochromatic image. I don’t have explicit instructions for this, so I thought it a good concept to consider.
To do this, first convert your image to monochrome by choosing Image > Mode > Greyscale and click to Discard the color. If the image doesn’t show the variety of greys you want, use a Levels adjustment to alter the tonal range in your image.
Now choose Image > Mode > Indexed color and then Image > Mode > Color Table. Here is your custom swatch sourced from your image. Simply click Save to save the color table.
Now, you don’t have to make a monochrome swatch. Say you need some lush greens for a project. Grab an image that shows the greens you like. Choose Image > Mode > Indexed Color and, for now, select the defaults and click Ok. Now choose Image > Mode > Color Table and you have a color table created from your image with your lovely greens and you can save them to use any time. If you get too many other colors in the swatch, crop the image to just the green area before making the conversion. Save the Color Table but don’t save the image and you’ll find no photos have been harmed in the process of creating your own custom color swatch.
To add the color table as a swatch, display the Swatches palette (Window, Swatches) click the menu and choose Load Swatches. From the Files of type list choose Color Table (*.act) and then browse to find your saved file and open it.
Labels: color swatch, custom swatch, indexed color, monochrome
posted by Helen Bradley @ 3:06 am0 Comments - links to this post
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
This was one of my favourite shots of the Paris metro stations. It was a throw away shot – I just took it walking past because I loved the bikes around it and there weren’t many people around.
I dumped most of the color in the photo as it just looked so good when you look at the blacks and whites in it.
I duplicated the background layer and turned the top layer into a black and white using the new Photoshop Black and White adjustment layer which lets you select which direction to take each colour into. It’s way more sophisticated than anything we’ve had in the past. Then I adjusted the opacity of the layer a little to show some of the colors from the layer underneath. The result is an almost ethereal photo. I’ve put it on a white tee shirt at CafePress in my store if you like it and want to wear it.
Labels: adjustment layers, black and white, Metro, Paris
posted by Helen Bradley @ 12:33 am0 Comments - links to this post
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Ok, here’s the dilemma. You have two images open in Photoshop and you want to add one image as a layer mask into the other.
One solution is to copy the first image, then switch to the second. Click the layer mask and switch to the Channels palette. The layer mask appears as a channel. Select the channel’s visibility icon to make it visible, select the channel to make it active, and click Edit, Paste. Deselect its visibility, reselect the RGB channel to make that one active, switch back to your Layers palette and the pasted selection is in your layer mask. This solution has the advantage that the copied/pasted piece doesn’t have to be the same size as the layer mask.
The alternate solution if the two images are the same size, is to use Apply Image. Select the target layer mask, choose Image, Apply Image and, as the Source, select the image to copy from, the layer to copy and click Ok. Now the selected layer (or the merged source) is pasted into the Layer Mask.
Two alternatives, the second is easier to use but it does require two same size images.
Labels: Apply Image, layer mask, Photoshop CS3
posted by Helen Bradley @ 12:21 am2 Comments - links to this post
Monday, November 19th, 2007
I was looking for an image to put on a t-shirt for a friend for Christmas. Let’s say, he’s a bit out there and pretty just won’t cut it.
I had two good photos of this graffiti covered wall so the Photoshop Automate > Photomerge tool put them together into a panorama. I used the clone and copy and paste to put back the missing bits as it was shot from a moving boat – a far cry from the ideal for shooting a panorama.
Color fix was an issue. I needed a channel to blend back into the image to boost the color and contrast. Problem was, the red killed the blue and the blue killed the red. Solution was to use both.
Duplicate the background layer twice. Select the first copy, choose Image > Apply Image and apply the red channel to the image. Then use the second copy and apply the blue channel to the image. Use the lighten blend mode on the top layer to blend the two together. You can use a Layer mask on the top layer if necessary to bring back detail from the layer underneath.
The grunge details are an image/edge from a set of grunge images from Graphic Authority applied as a layer mask with a black background layer put behind everything.
Labels: Apply Image, edge effects, graffiti, Paris
posted by Helen Bradley @ 5:58 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Friday, November 9th, 2007
When I was in Brighton we had one beautiful summer like Sunday when everyone was walking along the beach and it was all so gorgeous and then, next day, it rained cats and dogs.
Here’s a photo I took from my hotel room window across the roofs of Brighton the day it rained. I don’t think the windows of the Queens Hotel had been washed since good ol’ Queen Vic gave her name to the hotel so they were pretty interesting to shoot through and, of course, they only opened 6in from the bottom so shooting through the gap was impossible.
The original was flat and lifeless as one might expect. A Levels adjustment is a great starting point for a photo like this. Simply choose Layers, New Adjustment Layer and then choose Levels. Drag the little triangle sliders in from the left and the right till they are just under the places where the chart data begins and ends. This darkens the darks and lightens the lights and instantly boosts the tonal range in the image and gives it more contrast and life. The middle slider handles the midtones so you can drag it to the right or left as required for your image.
For the rest of this image I worked hard to get the colour and detail back. The cream buildings in the background were treated independently of everything else as they just kept getting lost in every solution I tried. Masks are great for this, fix one part of the image with adjustment layers, then hide the adjustment layer and work with another one focusing on the other part of the image. Then, use the mask on each adjustment layer to paint in or remove the fix from areas of the image. When I want most of the fix I just paint in black over the areas that I don’t want the fix to be applied to. When I only want little bits affected by the mask, I fill the mask with black (white reveals, black conceals), then paint with a low opacity, soft white brush to bring back the fix in the small areas that it is needed.
I also used the Selected Color adjustment on this image, I’ll talk more about it in a future blog post.
Labels: adjustment layers, layer mask, levels, Photoshop, Photoshop CS3
posted by Helen Bradley @ 5:24 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
Often you’ll need to copy a layer mask from one layer to another so you can mask out the same area on two layers. I do this when I mask the hightlights highlights in an image to protect them from being blown out.
Copying a layer mask doesn’t look easy or intuitive – there’s no menu command for it. However it can be done very simply. Hold the Alt and Control keys at the same time and drag the layer mask from one layer and drop it onto another. If there is already a layer mask on that second layer you’ll be prompted to replace it, answer Yes to the prompt.
Labels: layer mask, Photoshop CS3
posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:29 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Friday, November 2nd, 2007
This bookshop in Paris is so wonderful jammed as it is with books and people browsing. It just begged to be converted to black and white. There’s even a small child in the foreground who is banging away at a book on the pavement. You can double click the image to enlarge it to see him.
Of course, you need to look closely too to see Mona Lisa herself in the photo.
Labels: Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 6:41 pm1 Comment - links to this post
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
I fell in love with Brighton and Brighton Pier. The day I had to photograph it the rain nearly put an end to my photoshoot. However, I managed to get some great images. This is of the pier looking back to Brighton, the only real colour is in the life preservers and I love that you can see some of the Brighton buildings through the water pouring down the window. The repeated elements really work in this image.
The photo needed a bit of a levels adjustment, I use this to punch the contrast up a bit more than I get from the camera. The crop makes the image look so much more interesting than the size that it came out of the camera.
Labels: levels, Photoshop, repeated elements
posted by Helen Bradley @ 6:23 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Monday, October 29th, 2007
This photo of a bridge over the Seine shows one of the wonderful doors at river level. You have to wonder where they would have lead to?
It was a beautiful time of the year to be there. The trees were just turning and the weather was wonderful. I have a series of people sunbathing along the Seine to come, they’re great images and so Parisienne.
Labels: Paris - the Seine in Autumn
posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:12 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Friday, October 26th, 2007
I went on a lot of boat rides in my 10 days in London and Paris. My dad was a sailor and a love of water flows in my blood alongside the bits and bytes. This photo is from one of the trips in Paris, the horror ride in the boat on the Seine (see below for more details).
This image nearly defeated me. It is a big crop – what is left is under a quarter of the original image. It wasn’t particularly in focus and the color was awful – for this read dirty grey – the boats had the sun hitting their sides so the color is washed out.
I did some fancy work with Curves to get the color out of the image. I over adjusted the colours very harshly and then blended a couple of versions of the image back into itself. The result is pretty good and I think the image has some charm and that’s why it’s here.
It really was a beautiful afternoon in Paris.
Labels: boats, curves, Paris, Photoshop, Seine
posted by Helen Bradley @ 2:25 pm0 Comments - links to this post
Friday, October 26th, 2007
I just adored Paris. I recognised my love of the city as I flicked through the photos I had taken there – at least some of them – there are thousands.
This is one of them. The sculpture itself isn’t notable, it’s just a small piece from above a doorway in some Parisienne backstreet. Yet it’s part of what is magic about Paris – there is so much there – more than you could take in in a lifetime.
This picture underwent a simple Levels adjustment to bring up some of the contrast and then a huge Curves attack to bring some colour into it. I totally abused the Curves dialog and the image gave up its magic. I actually blame Dan Margulis for this. Yesterday I watched one of his Man from Mars videos and I just couldn’t resit applying the technique to this image and it gave wonderful results. Thanks Dan!
You can find Dan’s video at Peachpit (along with some of my own Photoshop articles and videos). It’s a huge download – around 90Mb but, believe me, it’s worth every bit of it. Don’t blame me if you fall in love with the Curves adjustment as a result of watching it. Then, when you’re done, treat yourself to one of his LAB colour videos – it’s almost better than chocolate! And, add to your Christmas wish list his wonderful book Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace.
Labels: curves, Dan Margulis, LAB, Man from Mars, Photoshop
posted by Helen Bradley @ 1:09 am0 Comments - links to this post
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
We visited the Port de Vanves market in Paris. This funky market only happens on a Saturday and Sunday morning from 7:30am till around 1:30pm. It is really near a Metro station (tell me what isn’t in Paris!) and it’s not on the tourist beat so it’s more French than you might expect. It was so much fun and I bought lots of little bits and bobs for my artwork. My mum bought me this cute paper mache horse which is hand made and which is on little wooden wheels – way too cute.
These five guys were stall holders who were taking time out to grab some lunch. They were so wonderful and kind to let me capture this photo.
This photo is a compilation of two I took. I aligned them using the new Photoshop Auto Align layers command and then masked out the bits I didn’t want from the top layer. This let me use the best facial expressions for each person. I used the – new to Photoshop CS3 – Black and White adjustment layer to mix the black and white because this gives you the ability to select colours in the image and take them to black or white. The result is much richer image than I could create with, for example, the Hue/Saturation tool or even the Channel Mixer.
Labels: adjustment layers, auto align layers, Photoshop CS3
posted by Helen Bradley @ 10:17 pm0 Comments - links to this post
