Friday, July 31st, 2009

Create Silhouettes in Photoshop

One feature you’ll see a lot in advertising is silhouetted images generally of people or recognisable buildings. Here’s how to capture and create a silhouette image:

To capture a photo to use as a silhouette place the subject so they are backlit. You can do this easily by positioning your subject between your camera and the sun.

You’ll need an area that is clear behind the subject so that you can cut the shape from the photo later on. You can do this on the beach in summer or find a location where you can get down low enough to shoot from and so you capture some clear sky behind the subject.

The cleaner the background the easier it will be to isolate the subject.
I shot my image from ground level looking upwards late in the afternoon with my model in shadow but with plenty of clear sky behind her.

To create the silhouette
Step 1
Open a duplicate of your image and double click the background layer to convert it to a regular layer.

Make a selection around your subject using your favourite selection tool such as the Magnetic Lasso or Quick Selection tool.

Choose Select > Invert to invert the selection and press Delete to remove it.
Step 2
Tidy up the selection by removing any remaining background or add missing elements by selecting, copying and pasting pieces in from elsewhere in the image.

Don’t worry about matching colours – just get the outline right.

Choose Layer > Merge Layers to merge the layers. Here I copied and pasted one leg to create the one I was missing.

Step 3
Control + Click on the layer that contains the shape that will become your silhouette.

Set the foreground colour to black and press Alt + Backspace to fill the silhouette shape with black. Add the extra details to finish your image.

In a future post I’ll explain how to create the sunburst shape.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Photoshop: Create an overlay of TV scan lines


Photoshop has a great tool for creating patterns which – on the face of it – is of little use to the average photographer. That is, until you begin to explore its creative possibilities and one of these is creating an overlay of lines on your image, much as you might see on a photo captured from a TV.

I’ll show you how to create a line pattern, how to apply it as an overlay on the image and then how to blend it into your photo for a creative effect.


Step 1
To create the pattern for the lines, start with a new Photoshop document that has a Transparent background and that is, say, 10 by 10 pixels in size.


Step 2
Set the foreground color to black. Zoom in to the image and select the top half of the square. Now press Alt + Backspace (Option + Backspace on the Mac) to fill the selection with the foreground color.


Step 3
Select the image by choosing Select > All – you must select both the black and the transparent portions as together they are your pattern. Choose Edit > Define Pattern and type a name for your pattern – call it TVScanLines or something similar and click OK. Close the image.


Step 4
Open the image to add your scan lines to. Add a new layer for the lines by choosing Layer > New > Layer and click Ok.


Step 5
To fill the layer with the scan lines, choose Edit > Fill and, from the Use list, choose Pattern and open the Custom Pattern swatch. Your pattern will be the last in the list so click it and click Ok to fill the new layer with the pattern.


Step 6
Select a Blend Mode from the Blend Mode dropdown list – something like Overlay or Soft Light generally works well. Reduce the Opacity until you get a result you like.

For this image I chose Soft Light blend mode and set the Opacity to 52%.

Tips
In step 4 you can select an area on the image and then apply the scan lines to only a portion of the image.

While this pattern isn’t so complex that it would be a nuisance to have to recreate it, many of your patterns may be more complex. To save a pattern choose Edit > Preset Manager and select the Patterns from the Preset Type dropdown list. Select the Patterns you have created and click Save Set to save them as a file on disk so you can load them again if you lose them.

Horizontal lines are not the only pattern you can use for this effect – try creating a pattern of diagonal or vertical lines or create a checkerboard one.

This process works exactly the same way in Photoshop Elements.

Ready to learn more? Here are links to two more fun and creative Photoshop tutorials:
Orton Effect in Photoshop

Make your own Photoshop brushes

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Photoshop does Merge to HDR

While Photoshop’s HDR merge tools are not as sophisticated as those of, for example, Photomatrix Pro, if you have Photoshop then you can use the merge to HDR option to create an HDR image from multiple exposures that you have taken of a scene.

You’ll need 3 or more images all at different exposures. I used 5 for the example shown here and all were shot using a tripod with IS turned off!.

Here’s how to assemble the images in Photoshop:

Step 1
Choose File > Automate > Merge to HDR and click Browse and select the files that you want to merge.

Alternatively, if you have the files open already in Photoshop, select this same option and click the Add Open Files button to add the open files to the list.

Enable the Attempt To Automatically Align Source Images checkbox and Photoshop will align the images if they are not perfectly aligned.

To progress, click Ok.

Step 2
When the images are processed you will see your images combined to a single 32-bit image.

You’ll see a histogram in the top right corner which allows you to preview areas of the image. By dragging on the histogram you can see the lights and darks in the image. Drag the histogram to the far right and you’ll see all the shadow detail; drag it to the far left and you’ll see all the highlight detail.

Position the slider at an average position in the image and click Ok.

Step 3
This opens the image as an HDR image at 32-bits per channel inside Photoshop. You can’t actually do anything much with this image as it is so you’ll need to convert it to an 8 or 16-bit image.

To do this, choose Image > Mode > 16 Bits/Channel.

Step 4
When you do this you will see an HDR Conversion dialog.

From the Method dropdown list, select Local Adaptation and make sure the Toning Curve And Histogram chart is shown.

Here you will fine tune the image. Drag the leftmost edge of the curve line in to the right so it touches the beginning of the darks in the image – this ensures you have some true blacks in the image.

Do this also for the highlights so that you get some true highlight areas.

You can then adjust the curve to your own preferences.

For this image, I wanted more lightness in the shadow areas and not so much in the lighter areas so I dragged the curve to give this result. This results in pleasing detail in the hill area as well as in the clouds.

Your artistic requirements for your own images will be different so adjust the curve until you get the detail in the image that you want to see.

When you’re done, click Ok.

Step 5
You now have a 16-bit image and you can go ahead and make the additional adjustments to it.

For example, I added a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to boost the saturation in the image and then flattened the image to a single layer and applied a High-Pass Filter to it at a low radius to sharpen the image. The high-pass filter layer is set to Soft Light Blend Mode to finish the result.

If you want to save the image as a JPEG you’ll need to render it as 8Bits/Channel now to save it.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Monday, July 20th, 2009

5 Lightroom mistakes to avoid

If you are new to working in Lightroom your first few weeks will be a steep learning curve. Here are my top 5 mistakes to be aware of and avoid when you’re starting out. I hope they’ll save you wasting time, getting frustrated and generally tearing your hair out.

1 Think – Navigate on the left – Keyword on the right.
Ok, so this isn’t exactly true but basically, in the Library module, your navigation options are on the left and bottom of the screen and the Keywording options are on the right.

The typical mistake you’ll make is to open the Keywording or Keyword List areas of the panel on the right and click on a checkbox for a keyword or click one of the keyword sets thinking that somehow this will select and display images with those keywords – Not so! Instead you just added those keywords to the selected image or images.


You can filter by keyword using the Keyword list in the panel on the right and you do so by clicking the small arrow to the right of the keyword – that switches to display all the images with this keyword.

2 Don’t move your photos – except in Lightroom.
This is a biggie. Once you bring images into Lightroom, Lightroom tracks where they are on disk. If you delete or, worse still, move the images from one folder to another one, the links inside Lightroom will be broken. If you rename your folders then the links to them and to the images in them will be broken too. In a very short time you can wreak havoc on your Lightroom catalog – this is the voice of experience speaking here! In short, once your photos are in Lightroom, manage them in Lightroom.


If you break the links to your photos, Lightroom will still display the previews and it will tell you the “The file named xxx is offline or missing”. If you moved the image, right click it and choose Find in Explorer and you can then click Locate and browse to locate the folder you moved it to.


When you locate the missing image, click it to select it and also enable the “Find nearby missing photos” checkbox as chances are if this image has been moved other photos in the same area of the catalog will have moved too and Lightroom will now locate and update their details in the catalog too.

3 Don’t by pass a valuable organizing opportunity


When you import images into Lightroom they’re immediately added to a new category called Previous Import. They stay there until you import more images. Having all your newly imported images in a single collection lets you do things with them such as adding keywords, sorting them, moving them into new folders and even preprocessing them as a group and without having to search for them.

However, you’ll need to do some fancy footwork if you want to bring in more than one set of images into Lightroom and to manage them all at once using this temporary catalog. One such situation would be where you capture two or more cards of related images at a time such as a wedding or other event, or photo walk.

In this situation, you can avoid losing the benefits of the Previous Import catalog by dumping all the images from multiple cards into a single folder on your disk outside Lightroom and then import the folder of images into Lightroom. Now all the imported images will appear in the Previous Import catalog and you can organize and pre-process them as a group. They stay in this category even if you close Lightroom and reopen it and only disappear when you import another set of images.

4 Don’t make work for yourself


When you capture a number of images in a single location or with a particular light you can batch process them in Lightroom and save yourself hours of work. To do this, choose one representative image from the group and use either the Quick Develop tools in the Library module or switch to the Developer module and make your initial fixes there. Fixes that you might apply to a sequence of images include White Balance, Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light and Blacks. Remember you don’t have to get it 100% right, just better than it was.

When you’re done, right click this image and choose Develop Settings > Copy Settings and select the settings that you have just made to the image and that you want to copy and click the Copy button. Now select the other images in the sequence, right click and choose Develop Settings > Paste Settings to paste these changes onto all the selected images. These changes give you a starting point for your work in Lightroom.

5 Don’t risk losing your sidecars
If you’re working in Camera RAW (not DNG) any changes you make to an image in Lightroom are stored in the sidecar XMP file for the image – because it is not possible to write data into a proprietary Camera RAW file. So, when you send a RAW image to someone else they can’t see your edits unless they have the sidecar XMP file that goes with it. Long term you need to make sure your RAW files and their XMP files always stay together.

Because of this, many users prefer either to capture in the non proprietary DNG format rather than Camera RAW if their cameras offer this as an option or to convert to DNG as the RAW image files are imported into Lightroom. Converting to DNG rather than working in Camera RAW ensures that changes can be stored in the DNG file making it easier to manage your images now and in the future.


To convert to DNG as you import your files, choose File > Import Photos From Disk and select the folder or files to import. When the Import Photos dialog appears, choose the “Copy photos as Digital Negative (DNG) and add to catalog” command and then choose a folder to store them in. Complete the remainder of the dialog options and click Import to import and convert them in the one step.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Friday, July 10th, 2009

Fixing Blemishes in Lightroom

Spot_before-after.jpg
When you have an image which needs some spot fixing before printing you can often do the work in Lightroom and avoid the necessity of a round trip to Photoshop. Lightroom has both a Clone and a Heal tool available for fixing blemishes and removing problems such as spots caused by dust on your camera’s sensor.

To see how to use these tools in Lightroom, start by selecting an image to fix and select the Lightroom Develop module.

Step 1

Locate the Spot Removal tool which is situated below the Histogram and to the immediate right of the Crop tool. You can also select it by pressing its shortcut key N.

For the brush options, you have the choice of Clone or Heal so select the option to use.

Clone works similarly to the Clone Stamp in Photoshop where you select the portion of the image to fix and then the portion to replace it with. Apart from choosing the Size of the brush and the Opacity Lightroom simply replaces one area of the image with another without making an attempt to blend the fix.

If you choose Heal then Lightroom samples the area you’re trying to fix and attempts to blend in the replacement area so the fix is less apparent.

Step 2

Select Clone or Heal and then adjust the size using the slider or the square brackets [ and ]. Your brush size needs to be large enough to cover the area to fix.

You can click on the area to fix and leave Lightroom to choose the source image data to fix it with or click on the part of the image to fix and continue to hold the left mouse button as you drag to find an area to use to for the fix. You will see a preview of how the fix will look to help you determine a good part of the image to use. Only let go the mouse button when you have your selection in place.

When you have applied the fix you will see two circles on your image – they appear when you hold the Spot Removal Tool over the image. The circle with the thickest edge is the selected area and the circle with the + symbol in it defines the area you are fixing.


If you did not get the fix exactly right you can click inside either of the circles and drag the selected circle to a different position.


You can also select a circle and then position your mouse over the edge till it turns into a double headed arrow and then drag to resize it.

You can change a fix applied using the Heal option to a Clone fix (or vice versa). To do this, select either of the two circular marker and click Heal or Clone in the Develop tools panel to change the fix type. This allows you to experiment to find which gives the better results.

In our example, Heal worked well on the lion’s nose in areas which were all hair and Clone worked along the top edge of the nose where the fix markers spanned part of the nose and part of the background behind.

To see the image without the circular markers, press H to hide them. Press H again to display them.

To see the Before/After results reflecting just the effect of applying the Spot Removal Tool, click the On/Off switch in the Spot Removal tool area of the Develop panel. This works better than the backslash key (\) which toggles on/off all the fixes you have made to the image and not just the most recent one.


If you have problems such as sensor dust that appear in the same position in a series of images, you’ll appreciate the ability to copy the Spot Removal tool fix from one image to others. Right-click the fixed image, choose Settings > Copy Settings and from the Copy Settings dialog enable the Spot Removal checkbox disabling all other options that you do not want to copy. Click Copy to copy the effect and then paste it onto the other images which also suffer the same problem. While this may not be an ideal fix for all of them, it will give you head start on fixing most of them.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Photoshop Creative: Make a Collage Photo Banner


When you’re creating a photo blog or website a photo banner lets you showcase a range of your work. You can create a collage of photos for a banner in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements very easily. Here’s how


Step 1
Start with a new image the size of your banner or a multiple of it. So, for example, if your banner is going to be 1200 pixels wide by 250 pixels you can start with this size image or double it so you have a bigger space to work and size it down as the last step.

Here I’ve created a document 2400 x 500 at a Resolution of 72 pixels/inch, RGB Color and with a Transparent background..


Step 2
Open the photos to work with. These should be fixed and color corrected but they don’t need to be sized. I like to open more images than I will use so I have lots to choose from. A combination of close-ups and distance shots gives your banner a lot of variety. Flatten all the images to a single layer.

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool and drag over an area to use from the first photo. Select a generous portion of the image allowing plenty of room to the left and right of the main portion of the image that you are interested in as you will use this area to blend the layers. Chose Edit > Copy and then switch to the banner image and choose Edit > Paste. Close the original image.

Press Ctrl + T and then Ctrl + 0 and size the image to fit your banner. Use the Move tool to position it in place.


Step 3
Select the next photo to use. Copy a piece from it and paste it into your banner image. Size it and move it into position. Continue to do this until your banner is full. The images should each appear on a separate layer and they should all overlap by significant amounts.

If desired, drag the layers into a different order to position the images where they should appear in the collage.


Step 4
Starting on one side of the image, select the Eraser and select a soft brush or a textured one such as the Chalk 44 pixels brush. Adjust the brush size so that it’s big enough to work with, reduce its Opacity to around 50 percent and click on the layer in the layer palette that contains the image to blend.

Erase over the edge of the image to reveal the layers below. As you work, give some consideration to how you want the images to blend together. In some instances, simply softening the hard edge of the image will be sufficient. However, if there are significantly different colors on each layer you may want to be more creative about how you blend the layers together.


Step 5
If you’re familiar with using masks you’ll find that you’ll get better results with a mask than you do with the eraser as the blending can be easily undone.

To use a mask, add a mask to the layer that you’re working on and then paint over the mask in black to remove the image from this layer. If you make a mistake, paint in white. To add a layer mask, click the Add a Layer Mask icon at the foot of the Layer palette.

Work across the image softening the edges where the images overlap. It’s at this point that you will see the benefits of having plenty of overlap between the images as this will give you plenty of room to blend the images together.

Some layers may lend themselves to being used as overlays rather than a part of the image. For example, a photograph of text can be placed over another image with its Blend Mode set to Multiply and its Opacity lowered so you get a layering of photos.


Step 6
Finish your banner by adding some text. Click the Text tool and click on the banner and type your text. Use a Drop Shadow layer style to make the text rise above the background so it will be more easily read.

Ready to learn more? Here are some more creative Photoshop tutorials from my blog:

Photoshop: Fold a photo

Photoshop: Turn daylight into sunset in one easy step.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Creating a Triptych in Lightroom


When presenting your photos you will sometimes want to create and print them as a series of three images on a single sheet of paper rather than a single image. You might want to do this, for example, to use to decorate a gift card or for framing.

Using Lightroom you can assemble multiple images ready to print and a triptych or series of three images is one way to do this. Here’s how to use the Lightroom Print module to assemble a triptych for printing and how to save it as a reusable preset:


Step 1
You can create a triptych for any images that you have in Lightroom so begin by selecting the folder or collection which contains the images in the Library Module.


Step 2
Switch to the Print module and from the Layout Engine options in the top right corner of the screen, select Contact Sheet/Grid.

In the bottom left of the window click Page Setup, select your printer and select the paper size to print on. Lightroom uses the paper size you select as the paper size for your contact sheet. Select Portrait or Landscape orientation as desired (I chose 4 x 6 in Landscape), and click Ok.


Step 3
Use the layout options on the right of the screen to configure the output image to show three images.

Set the Layout to 1 Row and 3 Columns. Set the Width and Height of the cells using the sliders and the Top and Bottom margins to your desired values. I like to add more space below the images and less above them.

To fill the three slots with images, select three images in the filmstrip by Shift + clicking on them.

To display or hide the guide lines, enable or disable the Show Guides checkbox in the Guides area of the panel.


Step 4
In the Image Settings area at the top right of the screen, enable the Zoom to Fill checkbox and disable both the Rotate to Fit and Repeat One Photo per Page checkboxes. Use your mouse to drag each image around in the cell to find the best position for it.

To add a space between the images either adjust the Cell Spacing: Horizontal value or if you don’t plan to use a contrasting border, enable the Stroke Border checkbox and add a white border around the images.


Step 5
The images appear from left to right in the order they appear in the film strip. To change the order in the triptych, drag them into the desired order in the film strip.


Step 6
To add an overlay, open the Overlay group and enable the Identity Plate checkbox. Where the identity plate shows Lightroom, click the down-pointing arrow and click Edit.

Type your name or other information into the identity plate area, format the text and click the Custom dropdown list and choose Save As to save it so you can use it again in future. Click Ok.

Adjust the Opacity slider to make the Identity plate more transparent and use the Scale slider to scale it to size.

Opposite the Identity Plate checkbox is an indicator that probably reads -90 degrees. It is a dropdown list so click it and choose an alternate rotation for the identity plate, if desired. You can also drag the identity plate into position using the mouse.


Step 7
To print the finished image, click the Print button at the foot of the panel.

You can also save the image as a JPEG file by selecting Print to JPEG file. Select the file resolution and the JPEG quality and click the Print to File button to create an image that you can print later on or send to a commercial printer.


Step 8
To save your new design, from the left of the screen click the + symbol adjacent to the words Template Browser and type a name for the template and click Create. You can then use it at any time by selecting it and selecting the three images to add to it.

Ready to learn more about Lightroom? Here are links to two of my other Lightroom tutorials:


Sharpening in Lightroom 2


Lightroom: Spot fixing with the Adjustment Brush

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Lightroom: More Adjustment Brush techniques


You just gotta love the Adjustment brush in Lightroom 2. It makes Lightroom a great tool for quick fixes and, honestly, I’ve used Photoshop a lot less since I started using Lightroom. I love the combination, Lightroom is fast and so smart and Photoshop is there for when I need specialist effects. So, on to today’s post…

In an earlier post I talked about using the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom 2 at a simple level – sort of Adjustment Brush 101. In this post I’ll show you some advanced features of the adjustment brush which help you make multiple adjustments to the image at one time and to do so more easily. Consider this Adjustment Brush 102.


In the Develop module, when you have the Adjustment Brush selected there is a switch that you can click to switch between Button and Slider mode. In button mode you can adjust one of the Exposure Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity and Sharpness settings at a time. In Slider mode, you can adjust any one or more of these options.


In the Brush area of the panel you will see an AutoMask option. When this is enabled, you can paint around the inside edge of an area and the AutoMask feature will mask the area ensuring your brushstrokes don’t go over the edge. This works best on areas where the edge is distinct and recognizable. When you paint, make sure you have the main part of the paint brush inside the area you want to effect.

To toggle between AutoMask being on or off as you paint, hold the Control key as you paint (Command on the Mac).


In the Brush area you will see two brushes, A and B. You can switch between the two by clicking on the A or B indicator. Each brush has its own Size, Feather, Flow and Density settings, and AutoMask can be enabled for either or both of the brushes. Having two brushes lets you configure each differently and switch easily between the two.

Each brush can be switched into the third brush mode – Erase mode by holding the Alt key (Option on the Mac) as you paint with either brush.


Setting the brush size defines the area of the brush and it is the central circle which you see when you are painting. The Feather amount adds an additional softness to the brush which is shown by the second outer circle. A hard brush has a Feather of 0 and it shows as a single circle.

Flow specifies the flow for the brush which can be set to less than 100 so you can build up an effect gradually by painting over an area multiple times. The Density slider adjusts the opacity and controls the maximum opacity of the brush strokes. So, if you have Flow set to a low value and Density to 50, the maximum opacity that the brush can reach regardless of how many times you paint over an area is 50.


In the Effect area is a Color option which allows you to paint over an image with a color of your choice. To do this, select the color to use and then paint over the area to apply it to. You can use this to colorize a black and white image or, as I’ve done here, paint over a dark blue area with yellow to make it dark green.

Tip: Interested in learning more about Lightroom? Check out my post on understanding Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation in Lightroom 2.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Photoshop Elements: Spot sharpening with a faux layer mask

One of the features on the wish list of most advanced Photoshop Elements users is Layer Masks. It is one of the key features that separates Photoshop Elements from Photoshop – but it doesn’t have to be that way. It is possible to create faux layer masks in Photoshop Elements if you know how – and today, I am going to show you how.

One of benefits of this approach to creating faux layer masks in Elements is that it uses features built into Elements and it doesn’t rely on a third party plug-in so it works with most versions of Photoshop Elements.

A bit of background
While Photoshop Elements doesn’t support layer masks for regular layers, it does provide them for all its adjustment layers. This faux layer mask solution takes advantage of this by forcing an adjustment layer’s layer mask to behave like a layer mask on a regular layer just as it does in Photoshop. The trick is to apply an adjustment layer to the image which does nothing to the image at all – so you get the benefit of the layer mask but without forcing any unwanted change on the image. Once you’ve done this you have a layer mask you can borrow.

In this step by step example, I’ll show you how to use the mask to paint some additional sharpening onto an image. What I’ll do is oversharpen an image – well beyond the level of sharpening which the image should have and then I’ll remove the sharpening with the mask and paint is back over selected parts of the image – again using the mask.

While this technique is shown using Photoshop Elements you can use the same technique in Photoshop – only in Photoshop you won’t need to use the fake mask as you can add a layer mask to the oversharpened layer itself.


Step 1
Finish editing your photo. If you have multiple layers, create a flattened version of image by selecting the topmost layer and press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E (Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac). This creates a new composite layer without flattening the layers.

Duplicate this layer by right-clicking it and choose Duplicate Layer. You should now have two identical image layers at the top of the layer stack.


Step 2
Select the topmost layer and choose Enhance > Unsharp Mask and apply excessive sharpening to the image. What you want is an extremely oversharpened image. You don’t want halos, just very heavy sharpening. In this example, I’ve used a radius of 2, a threshold of 0 and the full amount of 500. Click Ok.


Step 3
Add an adjustment layer by choosing Layer > New Adjustment Layer and choose either Levels or Brightness/Contrast or Hue/Saturation – you need an adjustment layer that doesn’t do anything to the image if you don’t alter its settings. Click Ok and don’t make any changes to the adjustment layer settings. Drag the adjustment layer so it sits between the two image layers.


Step 4
To create the fake layer mask, select the topmost oversharpened layer and choose Layer > Group with Previous. This attaches the oversharpened layer to the adjustment layer below limiting the effect of this layer to the area that is white in the adjustment layer mask – right now that is all the top layer.


Step 5
Click on the adjustment layer and click on the layer mask thumbnail which is the white box on the right side of the layer in the Layers palette. You should see a double border around it indicating that it’s selected. Fill this mask using the paint bucket tool with black. The entire oversharpening effect is immediately removed from the image.


Step 6
Select the brush tool and select a soft round brush. Adjust the opacity to around 25 percent and select white as the foreground color. With the layer mask thumbnail still selected, paint over the areas of the image that you want to apply additional sharpening to. In my case, I wanted to oversharpen the eyes on the orangutan.


Step 7
As you paint, the sharpening effect will built up – if you paint somewhere by mistake, set black as the foreground color and paint out the mistake. This is how a mask works – you paint with black to remove the effect on this layer (in our case you paint in black to remove the sharpening effect form the layer above because the two layers are grouped together) and you paint with white to reveal the effect.

When you are done, you can flatten the image or save it as a layered PSD file.

In future whenever you need to use a layer mask in Photoshop Elements, simply apply an adjustment layer to the image, drag it under the layer it should control and group the layers together.

Learn more: If you’re interested in learning more about sharpening, check out my very popular post on Understanding the basics about Sharpening.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

10 Ways to Create, Copy, Blend, Merge and Save Photoshop Layers


Layers are a key tool to working successfully in Photoshop. Here are my 10 best tips for working with them:

1 Create a layer in Photoshop
To create a new layer in Photoshop, choose Layer > New > Layer or, better still, click the Create a New Layer at the foot of the Layer palette.

2 Display the Layer Palette in Photoshop
Ok, let’s go back a step first. If you can’t see the layer palette choose Window > Layers and it will show on the screen. Pressing F7 does the same thing.

3 Save Photoshop layers
Layers are saved in Photoshop when you save the Photoshop file in a format that supports layers. The simplest format to use is the PSD format. Choose File > Save As and choose PSD from the Save As Type dropdown list.

4 Merge layers in PS
When you have multiple layers in a Photoshop imager you can merge them to flatten the file in a number of ways. You can save the image using a file type that does not save layers such as JPG. You could also use Layer > Flatten Image to flatten the image to a single layer or you can select all the layers by Control + Clicking on them (Command + Click on the Mac) and then choose Layer > Merge Layers to merge them all to a single layer but retain the layer opacity. In this case, you should save your image as a PNG or PSD file or some other format that saves transparency if you want to keep this.

5 Blend layers
You can blend one layer into the layer below by using the blend modes in the layer palette. Select a blend mode from the blend mode dropdown list to change the way the layer interacts with those below. Some blend modes work when the two layers are the same and some don’t. They also work if you have two different layers.

6 Rotate a layer
You can rotate a layer inside a Photoshop image by Ctrl + Clicking on the layer thumbnail to select the layer itself (use Command + click on the Mac). Choose Edit > Transform > and choose Rotate 180, Rotate 90 CW or Rotate 90 CCW to rotate in a fixed rotation. Alternatively, select Edit > Free Transform and you can rotate the layer by dragging on it. When you’re done, press Enter to confirm the rotation. To turn off the marching ants, press Ctrl + D or choose Select > Deselect.

7 Unlock a layer
To unlock a layer (provided it is not the background layer) select the layer and click the Lock all Icon in the layers palette – if the layer is locked, this unlocks it.

To unlock the background layer, double-click the layer and press Ok to turn it into a regular layer which unlocks it automatically.

8 Copy a layer
To copy a layer in Photoshop, select the layer and choose Layer > Duplicate Layer and press Ok. Alternatively, working in the layer palette drag and drop the layer onto the Create New Layer icon to create a copy of it.

9 Select a layer
To select a layer in Photoshop, hold the Ctrl key on a PC (Command on the Mac), and click on the layer thumbnail in the layer palette. This selects the layer. You will see the marching ants around the layer.

10 Flatten layers and still keep them
I call this my “have your cake and eat it too” tip. To flatten all the layers in an image to one layer but still keep all the layers intact, click on the topmost layer in the Layer stack and press Control + Alt + Shift + E on the PC or Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Photoshop – keep a log of everything you’ve done

How many times have you created a neat effect on an image using Photoshop and then wanted to duplicate the effect on another image? The problem is that unless you’ve taken notes about what you’ve done, it is often difficult if not impossible to remember exactly the steps you took to get the final image.

While Photoshop has a History feature this is of limited use. One problem is that, by default, Photoshop only stores 20 history states so, if you’ve performed a lot of steps they may not all appear in the list. The second problem is that, even if you have configured Photoshop to store a large number of history states, all you see in the History panel is a brief description of what you did to the image such as Gaussian Blur, Apply Image, Blending Change and you don’t see the actual settings used.


The History panel in Photoshop lists the basics of what you’ve done but not the detail.

Here are some ways to improve on the basics and keep a log of your work:


Step 1
Before you start work on an image choose Edit > Preferences > General and select the History Log checkbox. You can select to save log items to the image Metadata, to a separate text file or to both. If you select either Text file or Both you’ll be prompted to enter a file name and a location to save the file to. Do this and click Save.

From the Edit Log Items dropdown list select Detailed. Sessions records only the time you spend working on a file, Concise records the Sessions information and the detail from the History palette and Detailed records the detail about the changes – it’s Detail you need.


Step 2
Now, when you work on an image, the detail is stored in the text file, the Metadata or both, depending on the setting you chose.

If you chose to store the data in a text file you can later open the text file with a word processor or a text editor such as Notepad on the PC.

If you chose to record the history in the image metadata choose File > File Info > History and you can read details of the edits you made to the image in the dialog. Use this information to perform the same steps on another image


Tip
To configure Photoshop to store more than the default 20 history states, choose Edit > Preferences > Performance and set the History States value to a higher number. You should note that this History information is available in the History palette and only while the image is still open – it is lost when the image is closed – unlike the Log data which is stored permanently.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Sunday, June 14th, 2009

Orton Effect – Photoshop


Photoshop gives us tools we can use to create effects which previously could only be obtained in the darkroom using images which were captured specially. One such process is the Orton effect named after photographer Michael Orton. This process results in a somewhat surreal image which has a slightly out-of-focus look while retaining lots of edge detail.

In the darkroom this effect is created using two images one of which is slightly out of focus and both of which are slightly overexposed. Sandwiching these together and taking a print yields a photograph similar to the one above.

Thanks to Photoshop we can create this effect from a single well exposed image and create the overexposed and soft focus looks digitally.

Here is how to create this Orton effect on an image from your collection:


Open the image, right-click the background layer in the layers palette and select Duplicate layer. With the duplicate layer selected choose Image > Apply Image, select the Screen blend mode and click Ok. This applies the image to itself in screen mode which is the same as creating an additional duplicate layer, setting this layer’s blend mode to Screen and then merging the two layers. The benefit to using Apply Image is that you do it all in one step.


Duplicate this layer and set its blend mode to Multiply. This has the effect of cancelling out the lightening effect from applying the Screen mode.


With this topmost layer still selected apply a blur to it using Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Select the Preview checkbox so you can see the result on the image. Adjust the blur Radius to your choice of value – I used 4.5 but choose the best for your image. Notice that, if you create a very large small or very large blur, the effect all but disappears.


If the image isn’t light enough, return to the middle layer and repeat Step 1 to apply the image to itself again in Screen mode.

Then, if desired, add some noise to the image to give it a grainy look. To do this, choose Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Disable the Monochrome checkbox, click Gaussian and adjust the amount till you get a slightly grainy feel to the image.

The result is a soft focus image which still has lovely detail in the edges and it is a process well suited to being used with portraits as well as landscapes and cityscapes.

Using Photoshop Elements?
The same effect can be achieved in Photoshop Elements but you will need to perform step 1 the long way. To do this, duplicate the Background layer twice, set the top layer’s Blend Mode to Screen then choose Layer > Merge Down to merge it to a single layer. There is no Apply Image command in Photoshop Elements.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Monday, June 8th, 2009

Understanding the basics of Sharpening in Photoshop

Sharpening is one of those everyday tasks that most photos can benefit from. In this post I’ll explain what sharpening is, when you should perform it and how to do it. The information here, although it is explained using Photoshop, is relevant to all photo editing programs.

Sharpening does as its name suggests and sharpens the image making it look crisper and making the edges in the image more distinct.

In the darkroom the process is achieved by taking one negative and a slightly blurred positive image, sandwiching these together and making a very quick exposure of this sandwich. Then the exposure is completed using the negative. The resulting image has sharper and crisper edges than it would have had if the blurry (unsharp) mask image had not been used. The typical sharpening tool used in Photoshop and other graphics programs is named after this traditional darkroom process and is called the Unsharp mask.

In a graphics editor the Unsharp mask works by creating small halos along the edges in the photo. These halos enhance the contrast between the edges and the surrounding pixels making the edges look more obvious and giving the image a crisper and sharper look.

Here’s how to sharpen an image using the Unsharp mask:


Step 1
Sharpening should be done at the end of the editing process so finish doing all your edits to the image before you sharpen it.

Now create a flattened version of the image either by flattening or merging all the layers or press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E (Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac) to create a flattened layer at the top of the image. The Unsharp mask works only on the current layer so you need to have the image on a single layer for it to do its work.


Step 2
Choose Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Set the Radius to somewhere between .5 and 1. This sets the width of the halos which are applied along the edges in the image – the smaller the radius, the smaller the halo and 0.5 – 1 is ideal – this is not always a situation where the more is better!

Set the Threshold to around 10. The Threshold value determines how edges are found – the higher the value, the more different adjacent pixels must be to be considered an edge so less of the image will be sharpened. A small value means that smaller differences in pixel values are considered an edge so more of the image is sharpened. The risk with a small Threshold value is that it can add noise to the image by enhancing edges in places where you don’t want to see them.

The Amount setting controls how much contrast is added to the edges – a higher value means more contrast and a more obvious sharpening. Start by setting this value to around 150.


Step 3
Take a look at your image and adjust the sliders from this starting point until you see more detail in the edges in the image but not so much that you see unattractive halos around the edges.

Typically, if you have an image with a lot of very fine detail you can use a very small radius value (so the halos are small) and a correspondingly high Amount value (so that the halos can be seen to sharpen the image). On the other hand, if you have an image without a lot of fine detail can use a larger radius say, 1 – 1.5 or more (which gives larger halos), and a smaller Amount setting because the halos will be bigger and more visible anyway.

Adjust the Threshold value so you get sharpening in the areas you are interested in being crisper but not so that it results in unwanted noise in the image.


This image is nicely sharpened – you can see the crisper edges.


This image is over sharpened – notice the unsightly halos around the edges.

Tips
It is generally advisable to view the image at 100% when you are sharpening it so you can see the effect on the image. You can do this by sizing the image to 100% before launching the Unsharp mask tool. Alternately, use the 100% preview in the Unsharp mask dialog –click on the preview to see the unaltered image so you can compare it with the preview..

When you are sharpening for printing you can generally sharpen more heavily than you should do for onscreen viewing.

There are other sharpening tools available in Photoshop CS2 and later which do an even better job of sharpening than the Unsharp mask. I’ll look at these tools in a future post. For now, regardless of which graphics editor you use, you should have an Unsharp mask tool and it should work in a similar way to the Photoshop Unsharp mask shown here.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Rsizr – Image scaling on steroids

While Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements can resize images for you, only Photoshop CS4 supports content aware scaling. I’ll talk about this new feature in Photoshop in another post but if you’re interested in playing with content aware scaling and you don’t own Photoshop CS4, check out Rsizr.com

Rsizr resizes images by removing the unnecessary content from them or by stretching neutral areas of the image to make the picture bigger. It’s worth a visit just to see it at work.


Start by uploading an image that you want to resize. This should be a JPEG, .PNG or GIF file with a height and width of less than 2,880 pixels – in practice, so you can see what’s going on quickly, upload an image sized smaller than this.

Once the image appears in the dialog you will see tabs with buttons for various functions including the File Function tab, View functions, Resize and Retarget functions.


The program uses a seam carving technique to remove portions of the image. To get started drag the horizontal slider in the top of the window in to the size you want the image to be resized to. Click the Retarget button and watch as the seams are created (they’re the red marks you can see in the image) and the file shrinks in size.


Once the seams have been created, you will see a set of sizing handles around the image which you can use to resize the image either to make it wider or narrower.


You can protect areas of the image or mark them for deletion by clicking the Preserve or Remove indicators on the retarget functions tab and paint over the area to keep or remove.


You might do this, for example, if you see some distortion in the resizing process and want to protect key portions of the image.

The rescale and crop tools are similar to what you’re used to using in your photo editing software – it’s the retarget option which is unique.

If you’re interested in learning more about seam carving technology, visit: www.seamcarving.com to see a video describing it.

Stop Press! There is a cool plug-in available for the Gimp which brings content aware scaling/seam carving to the Gimp. For more information and to get the download, check here: http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/ and note that the Gimp version is called Liquid Rescale! Just in case you thought there weren’t enough ways to refer to the same thing.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

CD Inspiration – Police’s Synchronicity album cover

I love to browse the CD covers at my local secondhand music store – the cover images are a great resource when I’m looking for new ways to showcase my photos. As an added bonus, when you copy an effect you’ll find yourself developing new Photoshop skills along the way.

One recent burst of inspiration came from the album Synchronicity by The Police. The album shows three black and white collages stacked down the cover each covered with a splash of paint. Check it out here so you know what we’re aiming for:

While my solution does away with the collages – they really deserve a post of their own – it does mimic the basic design philosophy of the CD cover. Here’s how to create this effect – the key to getting the project done fast is some smart cropping, some layer alignment tricks and the Multiply blend mode.


Start by creating a square image the size of the final project. Mine is 1800 pixels x 1800 pixels at 300 pixels per inch in resolution and it has a transparent background.


Open the three images to use. You want photos that you can crop to a wide rectangle and which have good detail in the cropped area. Convert your images to grayscale using your favorite tool – I used the Black & White adjustment in Photoshop CS3 – in earlier versions use the Channel Mixer – enable the Monochrome checkbox and adjust the sliders to get a good grayscale.


Instead of simply cropping the images to size, we’ll adjust the cropped image resolution to match the final image at the same time. To do this, click the Crop tool and set the width to 5 inches, the height to 1.5 inches and the resolution to 300 pixels per inch. Drag a crop rectangle over the area of image to use and double click to crop it. Repeat for the other two images.


Flatten each image if it is not already flattened. Then drag and drop the three image layers into your main image. Position the layers in roughly in position. Add a new layer, fill it with white and drag it below the image layers.


Control + Click (Command + Click on the Mac) on the layer thumbnail for the white filled layer so its contents are selected. Control + Click on the other three layers (not the thumbnails, just the layers) so the layers are selected and not their contents. Choose Layer > Align Layers to Selection > Horizontal Selection – this aligns the layers with the images on them so they are centered in the image.


To distribute the layers vertically, select all three layers that have the images on them and choose Layer > Distribute > Vertical Centers so the spacing between the images is evened out.


Add a new layer (or drag the empty one from the bottom of the layer stack to the top). Select a bright yellow as the foreground color. Select the Brush too, add the Wet Media brushes and select the Oil Heavy Flow Small Tip brush. Adjust the brush size to around 400 pixels, set the Flow and Opacity to 100 each. In the Brushes palette, adjust the angle of the brush using the Brush tip shape options so it is aligned vertically and not at an angle.

Paint unevenly over the middle image. Repeat and paint cyan on the top image and red on the bottom one.

Set the blend mode for the paint layer to Multiply so you can see the image under the paint. Add some text using the same blue and red colors and you’re done.

For more Photoshop tutorials and techniques visit www.projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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