Photoshop Friday! {Issue #8}

Hello, and welcome to Photoshop Friday!

Today’s PS Friday is useful, functional, foolproof, and easy.

How many things in life can you say THAT about, huh?

Adventures in Black and White (and sepia, too)

We are going to have an adventure in Black and White, as well as in Sepia. And basically this means you’ll learn a great method for GREAT black and white conversion, and for changing that black and white to a sepia, and ALL without touching our original photo. The secret? Adjustment layers.

I should put a disclaimer here that there are a LOT of ways to get a great high-contrast black and white. Some people use curves. Some use levels, some use layer blending modes, some use the channel mixer, and they are all fantastic. Here is one more tool for your toolbelt. I think it creates a very smooth conversion without hotspots, and gives a good deal of control, too.

Let’s get started.

First, I’ll choose a photo that I think would look great in black and white.

Here’s one of my sister at her wedding a few weeks ago. I just love the mill wheel, and her stepping delicately over the stones to get in photo position. She’s beautiful. And this picture really needs to be black and white. And maybe we’ll get crazy and do a sepia too. :)


This photo is pretty dark, so let’s fix that in our black-and-white conversion as well.

1. Open your photo.
2. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map
If you’re in Elements, your whole image might turn white at this point. Don’t panic.
3. Click in the gradient itself to edit. (That’s the big white or gradient bar inside the popup, like this).
The gradient dialog appears.Choose the black-to-white gradient, which is third from the left on the top row. Like this:


Your image turns black and white. (Yay!)But we still have a problem. The image, because it started out dark, is very flat and washed out. Let’s fix it by boosting the white.
4. Drag the bottom right slider (the white one) over to the left. You can see the white in your image brightening, bringing out detail and adding contrast. Slide this slider until you get a result you’re happy with. It’ll differ for every image, but it might look something like this:



5. (If your image started out too bright or you’d like to add some more dark hues, slide the black slider (bottom left) toward the right until you get enough shadow.
6. Click OK in the gradient editor.
7. Click OK in the gradient map dialog.

Here is what my image looked like after applying the gradient map adjustment layer.


The coolest part about this conversion, is that if you aren’t happy, rather than throwing your image away and starting over, you can simply double-click on the gradient map thumbnail in the layers palette to edit the gradient. This is called non-destructive editing, and yay! It saves time and headaches.

(p.s. if you want to see some really funky colors, try applying a few of the other gradients in the editor, or making some of your own. Just for kicks, of course. :))

Okay, on to the next piece. I think Julie’s photo could use the softness of a sepia tone. So we’re going to add that next.

Adding a Sepia Tone

If you are working in Photoshop 7, CS, or CS2, you can change your image mode to Grayscale and then to Duotone and pick from a wide array of pre-made duotones and tritones. It’s a great way to kill an hour or two, and they have some awesome combinations.

This, on the other hand, is the quick-and-easy way to add a sepia tone in any version of Photoshop.

1. Open the photo you’d like to add the sepia to. (You don’t have to convert it to black and white first, but I recommend following the gradient map adjustment layer above to get really nice contrast in the tones.)
If you are working in the photo you just converted, make sure you have the top layer selected in your layers palette before moving on, so you can ensure that the next layer you create goes on top of the stack.

2. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation
3. Click the Colorize checkbox in the popup.
4. Set the top value to 25, the middle value to 15, and leave the bottom value where it is. You can adjust the middle value to anywhere between 4-17 and get a very nice sepia tone.

And that’s it!
Here is my end result, side-by-side with the original.

Photoshop Friday! {Issue #7!}

MAN. I can’t believe we’re already here at 7 Photoshop Fridays. Feels like a day to celebrate, doesn’t it? Yes. Let’s celebrate your awesomeness at photoshop! Yeah YOU! :)

I hope you are enjoying the ideas here, and it’s helping you make cool stuff. I love to look at what you make, so link me up, okay? :) Leave a comment, pass the word along, whatev. Thanks.

Today’s PS Friday is, I think, really cool. So here we go.

Masking Out Text in Photoshop
or
Making it look like text is running behind objects in your photo.

The non-destructive way. ;)

(phew! How’s that for a title?)

Basically it means this:

Looks like my text is tucked back in behind that leaf. Pretty cool effect. I used this effect on one of my Hall of Fame entry layouts, and it turned out great. All the people I showed it to were like, “Whoa! How’d you do that?” And that, my friend, is our goal in Photoshop. ;)

Okay. Today’s instructions split off between Elements/All older versions of PS up to 7 on the one hand, and 7/CS/CS2 on the other. So go down the path for the version you have and we’ll be great. :)

Here goes:

1. Open the photo you’d like to add the text to. Please note that hair and fur make this a little more difficult, so I recommend starting on something that has fairly solid edges. Up to you, though, if you’re a glutton for punishment. :)
2. Add your text. Because part of the text is going to be invisible, people looking are going to have to decipher what your text says based on the visible parts. Because of this, I recommend a big fat font. I used Impact.

For Elements and PS 5.5 and 6:
a. Add a Brightness adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast)
b. In the layers palette, drag the adjustment layer below the text layer.
c. Click on the text layer in the layers palette and hit Ctrl-G.
Your layers palette should look like this (minus the black in the mask rectangle. we’ll be adding that):


For Photoshop 7, CS and CS2:
a. Click on the text layer.
b. Click on the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the layers palette.
Your layers palette should look like this (minus the black in the mask rectangle. we’ll be adding that):



3. Select your layer mask thumbnail (the white rectangle) in the layers palette.
4. Choose a small round Brush tool, with the color black.
5. Zoom on in to your photo so you get some nice detail. This is the painstaking part. (tip: you might also want to reduce the opacity of your text layer, so you can see what’s going on beneath it)
   
6. Paint over the text that you would like to mask out. You’ll watch the text disappear. This is because in a layer mask, the color black works just like an eraser.
   

Remember that when you have the brush tool selected, the [ and ] keys will increase and decrease the size of your brush tip. That way you can have a small brush for accuracy and a larger brush for big swaths.

Really cool secret hints:
-Think you can use other cool brushes than a round one? You bet you can. And tons of cool effects can be produced by using brushes and layer masks. It’s mind-blowing, really.
-Remember how black “erases” from a layer mask? White does exactly the opposite. It adds bits of the masked-out object back into view. So if you mess up and cut out too much text, just switch to a white brush and paint it back in. So cool.

To finish off this photo, I changed my text layer (which was black) to Soft Light blending mode, and added in a frame and a couple of brushes on another layer and set them to Soft Light as well.

So you might be asking what the benefit of this method is to simply rasterizing (simplifying) your text layer and erasing bits? Easy. With a layer mask, the entire text layer is still there, but hidden. So if you mess up, or decide to edit that layer, you don’t have to throw anything away, just modify your mask and you’re good to go.

I’ll post a couple more examples later today, but just wanted to get this up there for you. Enjoy! :)

Photoshop Friday! {Issue #6!}

Welcome to Photoshop Friday!

We’re going to talk about photos today. And I’ll share a little eye-popping secret. :)

I received portions of this information from a tutorial over at NOBS photo. Thanks to them. :)

Making Eyes Pop.

*clearing throat* The eyes are the windows to the soul. :)

But wait! It’s true. As humans, we’re drawn to the lightest parts of a painting. And photographers can use the same technique in portraits. The lightest part of a portrait photograph? The catchlights in someone’s eyes. So awesome.

But what if you have so-so catchlights and you want to really help them pop? Here are a few steps to try.

Open the photo you’d like to try the technique on. It has to be someone/thing where you can see eyes, and works better when the catchlights are clearly visible.

I’m going to use this photo of my neice, which I took a couple weeks ago at a park in Utah. I’ve already run Amber Ludlow’s conversion on it to brighten up the whole thing. (BTW, this completely ROCKS and I recommend it to anyone who wants an easy way to really make an entire image pop - just send her an email for more info).

The pic looks pretty good, but I want to really make her eyes shine in this. So we are going to “dodge the catchlights”, a pretty typical professional photographer technique. Dodge, in essence, lightens up specific parts of an image.

1. Pick the Dodge tool. It’s over in the toolbar, hiding in the same menu as Burn and Sponge.
2. Set it to a small round brush. Depending on your image resolution, this might be 3-9 pixels.
3. Set it to Highlights and 100%. (If you want to start out with a subtler effect and build on it, you can set this to 50%)
4. Zoom in on the image (you can use the navigator palette or hit Z and click on the eyes a couple times).
5. (hit o to return to the Dodge tool if you used Zoom). Tap a few times on the very lightest parts of the catchlights. You should see them brighten. *Don’t overdo this. Keep it subtle*

You can zoom back out to 100% to see what the overall effect is going to be, and do it in a cycle like that. You’ll soon become comfortable with what effects you like.

You can stop here if you like, or you can take the additional sharpening step below:

Additional Sharpening for Eyes

1. While you’re zoomed in on the eyes, choose the circular marquee tool (hit M).
2. Select the iris portion of the eye. Use the Shift key while you select to add portions to your selection, and also to select the second eye, like so (hint: the Shift key adds to any selection, and the Alt key subtracts from any selection):




3. When you’re happy with your selection, hit Ctrl-J to copy the selection onto its own layer.
4. Run an Unsharp Mask on the eyes layer. I use Scott Kelby’s default settings to start with: 85%, Radius 1, Threshold 4. *Don’t overdo this. Keep it subtle.*
5. When you’re happy with the sharpness of the eyes, merge the eye layer back onto the photo layer, run an unsharp mask on the whole image, and you’re ready to go!

Here are the two images side-by-side:



Here’s a quick layout I did with the photo:


Supplies:
Katie Pertiet’s Cabana White
Kate Teague’s Boogie Star stripes (love this kit!)
Katie Pertiet’s Sun Print Stamp
Katie Pertiet’s Snap Frame Brush
Rhonna Farrer’s Peachy Keen Brush
Rhonna Farrer’s Chick Peas Brush

Have fun! Link ‘em up when you’re done!!

Photoshop Friday {Issue #5}!

Yeah! Welcome to PS Friday! I hope you like this week’s edition.
Today you’ll add a cool dream-i-fied/handtinted look to a photo, like this:

Cool, huh? But wait, here was my original, totally unedited except scaling and saving for web:

And I need to mention that I adapted these instructions from a tutorial over at PSDTuts.com, and I owe them some thanks for this. :)
Ready? Here we go:

Creating a Dreamy/Handtinted effect on a Photo

1. Open your photo.
2. Duplicate your photo onto a new layer and hide the original.
3. Click on the layer with the duplicated photo, and change the blending mode to Soft Light (this is located in a dropdown at the very top of the layers palette).
4. Duplicate the photo again.
5. Click on the lower of the two photo copies. Desaturate this layer (Image > Adjustments > Desaturate OR in Elements - Enhance > Color > Remove Color).
6. Copy the desaturated layer two more times.

Your layer stack should now look like this:




From top to bottom, the layers are:


Color photo, soft light blend


Desaturated copy, soft light blend


Desaturated copy, soft light blend


Desaturated copy, soft light blend





Okay, a couple more steps to really dream-i-fy the photo.


7. Change the second layer to Screen blend
8. Now, choose layer 2 and do a Gaussian blur (start out with 10 px and see where that takes you � go more or less depending on whether you�re working with a 300 dpi photo)
9. Choose layer 3 and do a Gaussian blur of slightly more than you did in layer 2. (Just play with the slider until you get an effect you like)
10. If you want to create a layout from here, simply link all your layers together and drag them onto your layout.
    OR
11. If you want to add the grunge mask, flatten all the visible layers (Layer > Merge Visible).

Now you can open up my grunge mask from Photoshop Friday #3 and apply it to the photo. I also filled in a bottom layer with black before saving.
Here’s another example:

Okay, little birdies! Fly free! Make dreaminess! Link me up when you create something! I can’t wait to see. :)

Oh, and let’s seeee…. freebie freebie freebie..

Here’s a great one, from the Dover 1500 Decorative Ornaments book/CD again.

Remember, when you have your brush tool selected you can choose the [ and ] keys to make your brush larger or smaller before you stamp it down.

Have fun!

Photoshop Friday {Issue #4}

Welcome to Photoshop Friday!

This week I’ve been working on assignments, so my PS Friday stuff has had to get pushed back. And we’re leaving tomorrow to attend my sister’s wedding in Utah, so I’m running right down to the wire here. :)

But I have noticed that a lot of digital scrappers have questions about the best way to resize their layouts for web display. So I would like to share with you my method for preparing your layout to post online.

To Prepare a Layout to Post Online

1. Make sure you have saved your final .psd. You’ll have to go through all these steps again every time you save for the web. Oh, and make SURE you have this original saved in a safe place. :)
   
2. Change the image size from 300 to 72 dpi (Image>Image Size). Be sure to uncheck the resample image box. Your layout dimensions will change to something like 50 x 50 inches, but we’ll take care of that in a second.
   
3. Flatten the image. (Layer>Flatten Image)
4. Hit Ctrl-A to select all.
5. Go to Edit > Transform > Scale. Choose 25% for height and width. Always use the scale rather than just changing the image size using Image Size. The algorithm Adobe uses for scaling is just a lot better. A lot clearer. A lot more accurate.
   
6. Run an unsharp mask to sharpen. I usually use 85%, radius 1, threshold 4 (this is the “All-purpose sharpening” recommended by Scott Kelby). You can run this twice if you need a little extra sharpening boost.
   
7. Save for Web. (File > Save for Web) There is a slider that allows you to determine the compression level, and thus affect your file size. I can usually get a 12x12 layout in the 150-250K range at about 60% quality. If you have a file size requirement that is smaller than this, go back and scale your layout down a bit and try it again.
8. Hit OK. Now back at your layout, go back in the History palette and click on the step just BEFORE the Image Size step to keep working. Or if you’re all done with this layout, close it without saving (assuming you remembered to save right before the web-prep steps). DO NOT save your flattened layout, or you will be very sad later on. Trust me on that one.
   

And there it is. A lot of steps, but your layouts that look awesome at full resolution can now be shared online and look just as awesome. :)

If I can grab some more time tonight I’ll post a little freebie. If not, then you’ll know we are off to Utah! :)