How to use a Selective Color adjustment in Photoshop to recolor part of an image.
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Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
Use Selective Color to replace a color
Labels: color, Helen Bradley, how to, Photoshop, Selective color, video tutorials, YouTube
Thursday, July 19th, 2012
Trevor’s Tip of the Week – Quick Color Match
photo by: lcrumling via www.sxc.hu)
Want to quickly match a color without disrupting your work flow? Press the I key to activate the Eyedropper tool, then click on the color your trying to replicate to sample it.
Labels: color, color matching, eyedropper, Photoshop, tip, trevor adobe, trevor payne
Categories:photoshop, trevor tip
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
Illustrator – Trace & Color with Live Trace & Kuler
How to use Live Trace to trace an image and how to recolor it once traced and how to harness the power of Kuler to recolor it with a color scheme.
Check out the rest of or tutorials on our YouTube channel.
Labels: color, colour, cs5, cs6, Helen Bradley, how to, Illustrator, kuler, live trace, tracing, Tutorial, YouTube
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 7 Your Digital Workspace
You can learn a lot about black and white photography using your favourite photo editing program as most have tools for converting from colour to black and white.
Avoid the adjustments that do the work for you such as by choosing Image > Mode > Grayscale as you won’t be able to make any creative changes to the image.
Instead, in Photoshop Elements, choose Enhance > Convert to Black and White and experiment with the sliders and options. There are different options down the left of the screen to select from and you can then adjust the red, green and blue sliders to fine tune the result.
In Photoshop, choose Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White and adjust the sliders for the colors – this lets you control how the colours are converted to either black or white. In this way you can separate colors like Green and Red for example making them significantly different to what they would look if you do a regular conversion.
For more information on making a detailed colour to black and white conversion in Photoshop Elements visit this blog post: An Adjustable Black and White conversion http://projectwoman.com/2009/08/an-adjustable-black-and-white-conversion.html
In Lightroom and in Adobe Camera Raw you can convert to black and white and then adjust the color sliders to create a good looking black and white image.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, convert, desaturate, digital SLR, dslr, film, grayscale, greyscale, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
Friday, June 29th, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 6 Filters
Traditionally, when shooting with black and white film, photographers use filters to enhance the colours in the image.
Using red, yellow or orange filters when shooting landscapes or shots where the sky has interesting detail can help darken the blues in the sky giving them more punch than they would otherwise have.
You can purchase coloured filters that screw onto the lens of a digital SLR or which can be placed over the lens of a point-and-shoot camera using an adaptor ring.
The images captured with these filters will show different conversion of colours to black and white than you would see if you were to shoot in regular black and white without the filter.
The image at the top shows two different renderings of a single image the first with a red filter and the second with a blue filter.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, filters, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
Friday, June 29th, 2012
Anchor an Object with a Shadow in Photoshop
When you add an object to another scene you will typically want to anchor it using a shadow.
Here I have an image of a zebra that I want to incorporate in a larger image.
I masked out the zebra to add it to the image and included its own shadow with it.
In place, the result is less than satisfactory.
I would prefer to create my own shadow so the first thing to do is to remove the shadow that I brought in with the zebra which can be done by simply masking it out. With a mask you’ll paint on with white to reveal the layer it is attached to and in black to conceal it. In this case I want to paint in black to remove the shadow.
Once this is done I duplicated the zebra layer to create a second version of it and then dragged this layer’s mask into the trashcan. When you do this you’ll be asked if you want to apply the mask before removing it, and I clicked Apply to do this. This puts one version of the zebra by itself on a layer.
Now Ctrl + Click on the layer thumbnail for the zebra layer to select it. Press Delete to delete the zebra but to leave the selection intact. You’ll still see the zebra but you’re seeing the one from the layer below not the one you just isolated. Make sure that black or a dark gray is selected as the foreground color and press Alt + Backspace to fill the shape with the black color.
Target the Move tool and click on the shape. Choose Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical to turn the shadow upside down and then drag it into position. You will need it to line up correctly with the feet of the animal or with the base of the object that you’re trying to put into the image. In this case it didn’t line up exactly and needed to be rotated to the correct angle. Drag it into position and you can then shrink the shadow by dragging on the sizing handle to make it smaller.
You can also hold the Ctrl key as you drag on the corner handles to skew the shadow into shape. When you’re done, click to confirm the transformation. You can still continue to work on the shadow after this if necessary.
For example, you can also use Edit > Transform > Warp if you really need to bend the shadow into position. If the animal’s feet are on the ground the shadow should be attached to the bottom of the foot. Legs that are in the air like the rear leg of this zebra can be left floating.
Another tool that can be used is the Puppet Warp tool if you are using Photoshop CS5. You can also use the Liquify filter and use the Forward Warp tool to push the shadow around so that it matches the feet.
When you’re done blend the shadow into the underlying image using a blend mode. Modes such as Multiply and Overlay are good choices. Reduce the Opacity of the shadow layer until you get a blending of the shadow into the underlying image.
To move the shadow and the animal together make sure that you select both layers in the layer palette before moving them so that the two travel in unison.
For this image I finished off by cropping the image to remove the bottom part of it leaving just the zebra on the blue background.
Labels: changing shapes, color, Helen Bradley, how to, photo editing, Photoshop, shadow, shape, tip
Categories:photoshop
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 5 Composition
The same rules for composing an image in colour apply when you are shooting in black and white. Make sure the subject of the photo is placed in an interesting position in the shot, make sure the camera is square to the horizon and that the subject is in focus.
When you are photographing in black and white pay attention to how the colours are converted.
Some colour pairs like green and red which contrast so strongly in colour photos convert to the same shade of grey in a black and white image. Depending on what you are shooting this can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
In the image above the solid black of the nuns’ habits ensures that the image will be a strong one and placing the subjects off center makes the image more dynamic.
If you are unsure how the image will convert, check the camera’s viewfinder or on a digital SLR take a reference shot and look at the result in the LCD screen to evaluate the composition and to check that what you are seeing in the scene will render well in black and white.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, composition, digital SLR, dslr, film, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography
Friday, June 22nd, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 4 Light
When the light is lacklustre because the weather is overcast it is often a bad time to shoot in colour because the colours are bleak and uninteresting.
These are times when black and white works particularly well because, by removing the colour problems, you can focus on the interesting things in the scene.
If the scene is monochromatic anyway and even flat but shooting it in black and white you can reinforce the desolation and age of the scene.
However, that’s not to say that a sunny day or sunrise and sunset is not also a good time to capture photos in black and white – when the sunlight is strong, the contrast between areas of light and shadow become very obvious and black and white is a wonderful way to capture this.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, full sun, Helen Bradley, light, monochrome, sunrise, sunset
Categories:photography
Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 3 Portraits
Black and white is particularly attractive for use in portraits photography. You can use it when your subject is dressed in or surrounded by colours that are not complimentary to them or which are distracting to the eye.
By shooting in black and white, you remove the impact of the clashing colours allowing the subject to become the focus of the image and not their clothes or, worse still, the background.
Bathed in soft light, babies captured in black and white look wonderful and the impact of jaundiced skin or blemishes is reduced.
For subjects that have facial details that can handle harsh light, try capturing your portraits with strong side lighting such as sunlight pouring in through a window. The dramatic contrast between light on one side of the face and shadow on the other can bring a portrait to life.
This type of setup is best used for a subject who has very strong facial features such as older subjects with lots of wrinkles or for subjects who live life hard as it reinforces their personalities and lifestyle.
Children’s and baby’s portraits captured in black and white do away with distracting colours and blemishes and allow you to focus on the child.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, baby, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, child, children, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, Helen Bradley, kid, monochrome, skin tone
Categories:photography
Friday, June 15th, 2012
Photographing in Black and White Part 2
What to capture?
When you remove the colour from an image, you are left without one of the key elements that attracts the eye to an image – the differing colours in it.
However, colour is also distracting so removing colour removes a distractive element allowing the eye to focus on other elements in the image.
This image isn’t a good one to shoot in black and white as most of the interest in it is colour:
As photographer it’s your job to find other elements of interest to capture.
Look for different shapes, textures, tones and contrast in the scene that will be visually interesting and make these your subject matter.
For example, one element that works particularly well in black and white is repetition.
When you capture a series of repetitious elements such as trees, fence posts, light poles; then by removing the colour, you’ll be able to focus the viewer’s eyes on the repeated elements.
Labels: b & w, b and w, B&W, black and white, Camera Raw, camera settings, capture, color, colour, digital SLR, dslr, film, Helen Bradley, monochrome
Categories:photography