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HINTS
from Members of
The Mindful Eye Community
Page 2
PHOTOSHOP TECHNIQUES
& SPECIAL EFFECTS
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS - CS3
Al Hannigan - keyboard shortcuts CS3: I just upgraded to PS CS3 and have learned some very helpful keyboard shortcuts ... but I won't list them since most folks may already know them.
But it might be useful to have a single list of the most used ones ...
I've also created some of my own for those PS hasn't assigned one already.
If anyone knows where there's already such a list, that would be even better.
Anne Abernathy - keyboard shortcuts CS3: There are keyboard shortcuts at the following site for several versions of PS both PV and Mac.
http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/shortcuts/index.html
http://www.dtptools.com/product.asp?id=ksin: "Every InDesign power user knows the best way to be really efficient in this program is to use keyboard shortcuts. But finding and changing shortcuts can be frustrating. No longer!
"The Keyboard Shortcuts plug-in was designed by David Blatner and DTP Tools to help you find and assign shortcuts quickly and easily. The plug-in is brought to you by InDesignSecrets, and DTP Tools - it is free of charge and works with InDesign and InCopy CS3. Note that both Mac OS and Windows versions are available.
STRAIGHTENING HORIZONS
Beth (caifedubh) - Straighten Horizons: To quickly straighten a horizon in photoshop choose the ruler and draw a line across the crooked horizon (or something you know should be straight).
Then go to image>rotate canvas>arbitrary
The numbers and direction needed to straighten the horizon will be there already so just hit ok.
Wesley Norman (Wes) - More About Straightening: - Also, to add to Beth's suggestions about straightening an image, this can be done in the latest RAW converter by using the straightener tool in the options bar. The difference by doing it here is that the image will be rotated as well as cropped to fill the page. In PS, the straightening tool will rotate the image to straighten it but then it is up to you to do any cropping. Just one more way.
HEALING BRUSH FOR SAMPLING
IMAGE TO IMAGE
AprilS - Healing Brush - Working on the New Year's triptych today, I discovered that you can use the healing brush to sample from one image and apply to another! For example, I wanted to fill the dark areas of this image (Raw file):
Click on images for larger version
With some curlicues from this image:
Which resulted in the final base image:
Procedure:
1. Create a new blank layer in the target image. I titled it "retouching."
2. Use a large Healing Brush (bandaid), Normal mode, to sample from the source image.
3. Switch to the target image and paint.
4. If desired, add a mask to the "retouching" layer, and paint to reveal only as much as you want to see.
Maybe others already know of this feature, but I've not seen it mentioned anywhere before.
THE DAVE HILL LOOK
Alan Young - The "Dave Hill" look:
The main effect is achieved solely in Camera raw 4.3
It is better to start with a high contrast image over exposed by approx 1/3 stop.
Set the sliders to these settings for starters.
Exposure 0
Recovery 100
Fill Light 90
Blacks 50(Leave until last and tweak to taste)
Brightness 0
Contrast 100
Clarity 100
Vibrance 100
Saturation -74(To taste)
Open in PS and adjust curves levels etc
Flatten layers and duplicate layer
Apply high pass to duplicated layer at about 4-5
Change blending mode to overlay.
Tweak as necessary
Flo Deems (tonebytone) - Additional comments: I've tried some other blending modes, and have found that either "soft light" or "linear light" sometimes work better than "overlay." Depends on the image and what effect you like.
And it seems to be the "clarity" setting that really brings out the details.
And if you want a really extreme, bright poster-effect (not "posterized"), try using the "vibrance" slider, too.
Sometimes, when "recovery" at 100 looks too intense and dark, I back that off til I get what I like.
MAKING GLASS ORBS
Click on image for larger version
Jim Kovaks - Making Glass Orb the easy way - Photoshop tutorial
First, make a new doc and have the pixels the same size ( ex - 1000x1000 px) Start off with a new layer and fill the layer black with the paint bucket
Ctrl N (to make a new document)
1000 px wide , 1000 px high. Resolution 300
Ctrl J (to duplicate the layer)
Alt backspace (to fill the layer with black; foreground color must be black)
Now go to Filter > Render > Lens flare. Set the percentage to 120 (or whatever you like) and click on 105 mm Prime.
Now go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and click on "Polar to Rectangular" at the bottom of the screen.
Now go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 180 degrees
Now Return to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and this time,
click on Rectangular to Polar and you'll get the sphere.
Select the elliptical tool and draw a circle as close the edge of the orb as you can.
Select Inverse - Shift+Ctrl+I, then delete.
Now all you should have is a sphere.
To make it different colors, hit Ctrl+U, click on the Colorize box and make the sphere into any color you wish.
This is the extent of the tutorial that I took off the internet; the following is what I have added, which I think improves the image.
Experiment with Edit>Stroke to improve dimensional quality. For the globe presented here I use:
Elliptical tool to draw another circle at the edges of the globe.
Edit>Stroke using 25 px, color Black. Inside location, Overlay blending mode and opacity of 20%
To change colors - Ctrl U and choose colorize
Vary the layer opacity per your vision.
Try this as a start and let me know if you have any problems.
Good Luck,
Jim
NON-DESTRUCTIVE DODGE & BURN
Jackie (jaxart;353667): - There is a nondestructive way to dodge and burn that I recently learned in Photoshop. These instructions are for a Mac:
1. While on the layer you want to affect, click Opt + new layer icon (next to trash can).
2. You'll get a "new layer" popup window. You can name this "dodge and burn" if you wish, then select Mode "soft light" which activates the item below it... "fill with soft light neutral color (50% grey). Check the box then click OK.
3. Now you've got a 50% grey layer, soft light mode, use your paintbrush on that layer with black to darken, white to lighten the layer under it. Play with the opacity level of your brush (I start out at 10%) and size of your brush to get the effect you want. I used it on this image to brighten the candles.
GETTING SPARKLE IN
BLURRED LIGHT TRAILS
Flo Deems (tonebytone) - Making Deliberately Blurred Lights Sparkle: - When I looked at my images of night time holiday lights taken with slow shutter speeds and deliberate camera movement, I felt they looked okay, but a little flat and unexciting. So I started diddling to see if I could put back some sparkle into the streaky lines. Here's what I came up with. Please click on images for larger versions:
Procedure: Open in Camera RAW (these are jpegs). "Clarity" - from 50-100% and "Fill" - around 50% or less, sometimes they haven't needed the Fill.
Then open in CS3. Adjust "Levels," usually just the middle slider.
Duplicate layer. "High Pass" filter (Filter>Other) at 3.4. "Blend" mode - "Linear Light" and "Opacity" at 100%.
It's the Linear Light that really makes the light streaks sparkle. Then flatten layers and save as - whatever.
You might try this if you have streaky lights, lol. And come to think of it, this technique just might work with fireworks images.
HDR, PANOS, ETC
April (AprilS) - Blank Image Between Series for Compositing, etc: - In a recent Workbench, Mark mentioned a tip that I've just begun to incorporate while shooting. It's applicable to all kinds of multiple exposure situations, e.g., Orton Effect, split focus, panoramas, etc.:
Between each series, cover your lens and shoot a blank frame.
That serves me as an instant reminder of the start of a new approach, instead of having to examine the metadata of umpteen shots hours after the shoot.
Steve Weeks (Steve Weeks) - Blank Images and SJPG: - The blank exposure space is a must in HDR work and when I do them, I shoot with a RAW+sjpg setting. After uploading from the camera, I delete the RAW spacer file to save disc space. I also use the sjpg files to run through HDR combine routine as it goes very quick and if I want to make a nice big image of that set I use the RAW files. I know that sounds like double work, but you don't know how many times I have waited for a number of RAW files to be processed only to find out it wasn't what I wanted.
ADJUSTING LOCAL COLORS - CS3
Beth (caifedubh) - Using Masks To Adjust Colors Locally:
Original by Flo Deems (tonebytone). Shot at a restaurant near a magenta neon sign.
Beth's (caifedubh) "Fix":
1. Made a hue/sat adj. layer, decreased some of the reds and magentas. I based the adjustment on the whole face and left the strong magenta on the side alone in this layer.
2. Created a second hue/sat adj. layer to address the extra magenta color on the face (and a bit in the hair). Added a mask, then filled it with black. Used a low opacity (20%) white brush to blend the desaturated magenta area back into the photo.
3. Added a third hue/sat adj. later. Same thing as above, but this time to address the yellow on the shoulder/neck. Again, black mask, low opacity brush to blend the adj. layer in.
4. The yellow hue/sat adj. layer didn't blend right, so I used the eye dropper to sample the skin color on the neck, created a blank layer and painted (15% opacity) the color over the formerly yellow area. This blank layer was set to blending mode color.
5. Levels adj. layer. set to blending mode luminosity. I hit auto then moved the grey slider around a bit to get the tones I wanted. I use auto alot, but if it doesn't work, then I do it manually instead of using the auto button.
6. I did a copy merge (select>all, then edit>copy merged, then edit>paste). Masked out everything but the eyes, set the blending mode to screen, adjusted the opacity until the darker of the two eyes looked right then used a low opacity black brush to get the brighter eye right.
I ended up using 6 extra layers, flattened and saved in less than 10 minutes....
because the color isn't across the whole photo its not possible to fix in a raw editor.. you need to be able to only fix certain parts of the photo at a time.
My advice, don't try to memorize exactly what I did because each photo is different. Just keep in mind that you can use hue/sat and a mask to selectively change parts of an image. And you don't have to do everything in one layer, tackle one problem at a time.
Screen shot of Beth's Layers Pallette
GRAY SCALE
Flo (tonebytone) True gray scale:
Original by Flo Deems (tonebytone).
Please feel free to "snitch" either size (click on image for larger size). With this gray scale, which I created in Photoshop CS#, you can check your monitor's luminance and color calibration. You should be able to see 11 distinct values from pure black to pure white. The grays should look neutral and not have a color cast.
Hints pg 1, shooting ~ pg 2, post processing
pg 3, gear ~ pg 4, on locations
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