Wednesday Photoshop Q&A - How Many Times Can You Go Back & Forth Between Photoshop and Lightroom?

Today's question came from two sources.  A friend asked, basically, the question as written.  The other source is a variety of tutorials I've seen lately.  Many times I see the tutorialist (? - hey, someone has to make up new words) go through a complex operation on a RAW file and then do a Save As when they've finished.  That's actually a little bizarre and totally unnecessary.  If you start with a RAW file, one of the big tenets in using RAW files is that you can't do anything to them.  Short of burning down your computer, a RAW file is always going to be a RAW file.  My normal (constant) workflow is to pull the NEF (Nikon's RAW format) into the computer, do whatever I can in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and, if necessary skip over to Adobe Photoshop CS5 to mess with some pixels.  Anything that was done in LR3 is nondestructive.  It keeps the original file and adds a list of things that are done to it.  You can go back to As Shot today, tomorrow, next week or next year.  The RAW file remains.  Everything done to the image in LR3 is a set of instructions that are applied to the As Shot RAW file.  The reason for sending the image over to CS5 is because there's something you can't do in LR3.  If you have to do anything to the actual pixels you have to go to an image editor.  CS5 or Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 change pixels.  What they do is very destructive.  If you erase something, it's gone.  Once you close out the image you're working on, the History goes.  You can't backtrack like you can in LR3.  So, why is doing a Save As a dumb (or at least unnecessary) step?  Find out once you hit the "Read More" .

Why is it unnecessary?  Because "you can't do anything to a RAW file", period, period, period.  Look at the file you're working on.  I don't care how much pre-work you've done in LR3, the tag will still read NEF (on a Nikon file).  If it's an NEF file it's a RAW file.  When you Save your image after you've done your best to mess it up, it won't overwrite the RAW file.  It can't.  What you get is a file with the same coding as the RAW file (today's original was something like TJP 6140).  You get a new file that is coded "whatever edit".  Today's image would be TJP 6140 Edit. 

Once it's back in LR3 you can do whatever you need to do that can best be done there.  That file gets its own list of adjustments that are nondestructive.  Therefore , you can get back to that state at any time.  It there's more pixel level changes needed the "edit" file can be brought back to CS5 and surgery can be performed.  Once you're done, it Save (not Save As) again.  This time another new file, coded (in out example) as TJP 6140 Edit Edit.

So, the answer to today's question is "as many times as needed".  Just don't do a Save As.  Keep hitting the Save option and you're good to go (back and forth, back and forth) as many times as it takes.

Sorry About Having No Post On Monday. We Had A Bit Of Rain Over The Weekend

We'll be back on schedule tomorrow.  Hurricane Irene buzzed through over the weekend and we've had no power since Sunday morning.  Back on track tomorrow.

Thanks

Tom

Has Photoshop Met It's End?

I saw a note about a software App for the iPad the other day and had to download it to give it a shake.  It's a version 1.0, so there might be a couple of "gotchas" floating around, but I haven't seen any yet.  I figure it was a free App, so what's the worst it could?  Blow up the iPad?  (figuratively) Since it was software , either Apple or the software writer would put up a fix pretty quickly, so why not play.  Today's image comes from playing with just a couple sliders, after choosing what I wanted to work on.  It was free, I was playing and I was impressed.  Today's image was a finished image, having gone through Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and a trip over to Adobe Photoshop CS5 and back, but there's always something more that can be done to an image.  In this case it was taking a fully saturated image, with real good greens and some nice, plugged in clouds and antiquing it.  Sort of takes it out of the modern day New York/Pennsylvania border area and puts in kind of a rural Appalachia locale.  Makes the sturdy barns look a little more weather beaten and the foreground building a share croppers cabin.  It just changes the mood of the image.  To find out what this magical, free, iPad App is, hit the "read more".

The App is called Luminance, from a company named Subsplash, Inc.  It appears to have been released about ten days ago.  Interestingly enough, their other Apps appear to be church related.  Now, that's what I call a "leap of faith", thinking that a church app company could (would) come up with a pretty handy photo enhancement application.  It's different alright.

Regardless of who wrote the app or what they done in other aspects of the creativity, Luminance is pretty slick.  Pick what you want to do (fix white balance, hue/saturation [globally only - no tweaking individual colors], exposure and others and push a couple sliders around.  Or they have some presets.  If the preset gets you close, you can always kick a slider one way or the other to get the image to your liking.

The title of today's post is a bit of a stretch.  I don't think designers and photographers and other creative types will be chucking CS5 in favor of Luminance or Nik Software's Snapseed any time soon, but we're still at the bottom of the hill when it comes to what can be done on any tablet.  

Luminance, and Snapseed and a half dozen other Apps that are either out or on their way are making "instant photo finishing" in the field a real possibility.

Wednesday Photoshop Q&A - What Are Calculations All About?

There were a lot of searches bringing people to the blog this week asking various questions about Adobe Photoshop CS5 (and earlier) Calculations.  But, before we get into it, the most interesting phrasing of a search was "Smart Object rubbish".  I'm not quite sure if the searcher had some extraneous detail within a Smart Object or if he/she thought of Smart Objects as "rubbish".  In either case, the landing page she/he wound up on was one of the several posts I've done about Smart Objects.  Hope it helped.  So what are Calculations in CS5?  First let's get a handle on what it isn't.  It's not CS5's version of a spreadsheet.  Calculations were one of the "go to" methods of extracting a piece of an overall image from, typically, the background.  If you're trying to do something like separate a headshot of a woman with long hair being blown by the wind (a fan) where a new tool that'll do that much easier.  It's the Quick Selection Tool (W).  The woman's head is a solid object and the flyaway hair is usually wispy strands.  Between the Quick Selection Tool and the Refine Edge dialog box short work is made of that type of selection.  The type of selection shown in today's image is a little trickier.  There's a lot of internal structure that makes it more difficult for the Quick Selection/Refine Edge to make an accurate selection.  To find out how Calculations comes to the rescue in this situation, hit the "read more".

Right up front, the Calculations dialog box is scary the first time you look at it.  I've talked to several people that have turned and headed for the hills as soon as they opened it.  It's that bad (at first).  Within the dialog box you're presented with three sub-boxes.  The first two simply ask what you want to base the calculations on.  The first "question" is what is the initial source.  Ninety nine percent of the time the answer the image you opened Calculations for.  The second question is what Layer do you want to use.  Most of the time I know that I'll be replacing whatever (the sky) is the problem area.  The first time I want to do is make a Mask, so the "normal" answer is the Background.  The third question in the first sub-box is what Channel is to be used.  Flip through the Red, Green and Blue Channels to see what gives the best contrast.  If you're trying to mask out the sky, chances are it'll be the Blue Channel. 

The second sub-box asks the same questions all over again.  The second sub-box is asking  what do you want to manipulate the first data against.  Once more the answers typically are:  Source = the open image, Layer = background and Channel = Blue (if working on the sky). 

The third sub-box is where the magic happens.  What Blending Mode do you want to use?  This is simply a case of highlighting the first item in the scroll box and tapping the Down Arrow Key to cycle through the choices.  All you have to do is keep an eye on your image as you cycle through and look at the Blend Mode that gives you the best Blacks and the best Whites.  You can also adjust the Opacity of the upper selection (never happens) and use a Mask if you want (also not happening).  The image to the right in today's post is the Alpha Channel Mask that came out of the Calculations dialog box.  It actually took you longer to read this post than it did to create the Mask.

Calculations are an extremely powerful method of making a Mask.  My first choice is using the Quick Selection Tool/Refine Edge combination, but for things with a lot of complex internal structure (as in a tree), Calculation may be the faster, more accurate way to make the Mask.

Absent Without Leave

Aunt's dress. Minnentonka moccasins. Gap tee. Gifted jewelry.

I've been AWOL for quite a while, but I can honestly say that it has not been by choice. I'm on the Orientation Executive at my University and let's just say that it is A LOT of work. Between my full time summer job, Orientation planning and finding time to see friends not on Orientation Exec, it's hard to find time to sleep, let alone blog. I've worn some pretty wonderful outfits in the last while, and unfortunately have not photographed them. Once school starts I hope to enter a regular blogging period, but until then, I hope all my followers will remain patient as I juggle my last week of work, and two weeks of Orientation.

This dress used to be my aunt's but she didn't like it, so I kindly welcomed it into my closet. It bunches up awkwardly at the stomach which is rather a shame and I can see why my aunt did not want it anymore, but sometimes, I don't care about wearing flattering clothes.

Have a wonderful week!

The Trouble With Plug-ins In Adobe Photoshop CS5

I was watching the latest episode of Scott Kelby's talk show, "The Grid" late last week and was real interested in the topic.  Basically it was "is it alright to use plug-ins with Adobe Photoshop CS5"?  Scott's sidekick, Matt Kloskowski and guest Rich Harrington had a lively discussion about the topic, with lots of tweets coming in either defending the use of plug-ins or saying it was cheating.  Scott and Matt both said, when they're out teaching, they show the step by step "how to do it in CS5" method and then say "but here's how I really do it using plug-ins".  Let me make sure I say upfront that "I have nothing against plug-ins".  As Rich Harrington said on the show, "if they save you time and make you money they're fair game".    I absolutely agree, but there is a telling point in what Scott and Matt said.  They said they first demonstrate the straight out of the box method before going into plug-ins.  To find out why that statement is so important, hit the "read more".

The big thing they mentioned was that they show how to get the effect they're going after without the use of plug-ins.  They understand how CS5 (and earlier versions) work and what steps need to be taken to get to a final product.  This is where too many people skip a step and go directly to plug-ins.  I'd dare to say that there isn't a plug-in out there that does something that can't be done manually in Photoshop.  Think of Photoshop as a box.  Everyone gets around the center of the box with some degree of competence.  The further out from the center you push the hairier it gets.  The number of people who can reach into the far corners of the box is very low.  The plug-in manufacturers take the user out to the scary places with little distress on the part of the user.

Scott and Matt know how to get to the edgy places on their own.  The reason for using plug-ins is for their convenience.  Click and they at a place that might have taken them five or ten minutes to get to.  The same trip, without the use of plug-ins, might take a relatively proficient user a half hour or more and an average user might never be able to get there. 

The point I'd like to make is that the average user is missing something by using plug-ins.  It's the knowledge of the journey.  Rather than clicking a plug-in preset and saying wow, I'd like to see more users say what I think Scott and Matt might say.  "Cool" and not only do they choose wisely but also know what went into getting them there.  To use another analogy, taking a shortcut going to granny's house is very useful, but only if you know how to drive.

BTW:  I do use plug-ins but,  in my free time, I try to figure out how to get to the place the plug-in took me to in one click.

Wednesday Photoshop Q&A - Printing From Lightroom 3

Today's question comes from several keyword searches I've seen bringing people to the blog asking about printing from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.  I have to admit, since I use both Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, I print, almost exclusively, from LR3.  I find I get more control from LR3 than I do from CS5.  It may be a psychological thing and there may be no real benefit of one over the other, but I just print from LR3.  Today's image is a "Print to File" image directly out of LR3 showing the base image in a Fine Art Matt mode.   Printing in CS5 gives you one dialog box and says here are the four or five options you have.  You can click a button that'll take you out to the printer setting, but that's about it.  The print module in LR3 gives six different Panels, plus a Page Setup dialog box and another Panel with more than twenty five presets.  To go through each of the panels, hit the "read more".

As is typical in Lightroom there are retractable frames on each side of the viewing panel.  The frame on the left has three options.  The Presets, you can get to your Collections and you can do your Page Setup.  Page Setup is where you select you sheet size and if you're going for landscape or portrait orientation.  You have all the same dialog box controls you find in printing from anywhere. 

Being able to get to your Collections is fairly important.  You don't have to create a separate file of selected image .  Just define what it is you want to print and let the computer find you images.  The big deal in the left side frame, as far as I'm concerned, is the Presets.  There's almost anything you'd want and if you don't see the layout you want you can create your own and save that as a User Preset.  That way you have infinite possibilities for layouts.

Now: on to the right side.

Layout Style:  Pick the general idea of what you're going for.  You have the ability to make a Single Image, a Picture Package or some sort of Custom Package.  A single image is what you see in today's image.  A Picture Package is good if you're doing school, sports team, children's or any sort of group shots.  You can do a 4 x 6, and six 2 x 3s (wallets).  If you're selling packages, this makes it simple.  In addition to a half dozen of the same image, you can do a different image in each opening. 

Image Settings:  Here you have four choices to mix and match.  You can zoom to fit, rotate the image, put a border and/or stroke and modify the settings for both.

Rulers, Grids & Guides:  This is pretty self explanatory.  You can move and position your custom layouts, align images, offset image by specific amounts.  Using your arrow keys can make precise movements.  I seen some stunning groupings by doing very careful movements.

Cells:  Here's the meat and potatoes of making the custom package layout.  Start with a blank sheet and start clicking.  Add two 3 x 7s, click, click.  Add two more 2 x 3s, click, click.  Fill up one sheet, keep clicking and a new sheet will start.  You can offer a mom and pop exactly what they need to satisfy the whole family and all it is is take the custom order and click through it.  On to the next family and build them a custom package.  Workflow is the key to the Cells Panel.

Page:  This is the place to add drama to the print.  You can select your Page Background Color.  In today's image a true black color was selected to give the image a very cool effect.  The Name Plate can be added.  In addition to a straight text Name Plate a graphical type Name Plate can be used.  Name Plates can be saved and used in different circumstances.  One of the custom graphical Name Plates I use has a code Tag to it.  Anyone with a smart phone and the proper app can scan the tag and be taken to this blog site. 

Print Job:  This is the last Panel and gives options of where you want to print the image.  What's the purpose, how it should be sharpened, what resolution to print at, what the intent is, etc.

The amount of control you have printing from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is outstanding and is my default method of printing.  Even when the image is taken to its conclusion in CS5 I'll bring it back to LR3 for printing.  It's just that good.

Make Your Own Poster With Adobe Photoshop CS5

This was the summer of trains for recreational shooting for me and I figured I might like to try something a little different from the typical image.  What are you going to do when you have hundreds of images and want to play.  In the old movies you might find Mickey Rooney saying "hey gang, let's put on a show".  Well, it's a little hard to put on a show on a blog that doesn't do video.  Maybe one day...  For right now we'll have to be satisfied with doing a movie poster.  We're a couple who adds to the coffers of the movie companies several times a month.  We always checkout the posters on the way down to the auditorium showing our choice of the week.  The comedies are light and airy, the shoot 'em up blockbusters are bright and super colorful and the serious dramatic movies are very dark and make you come closer to see all the detail.  One thing they have in common is that they seem to want to give you multiple vignettes of what's going on in the film.  If there's a big name star involved he/she will be featured on the poster.  If, like in today's image, the featured player is an unknown or slight star, the face will recede into the background.  To find out how today's image was created, hit the "read more".

The first things is to select the images.  Today's all come from the same outing.  There have been several "straight" posts about the Roanoke Virginia night shoot and the Thomaston Connecticut steam shoot.  All of today's images come from the Thomaston shoot.  They were shot at three different locations.  The "star" was shot from the station platform.  The close up was shot down the track and the bottom image came from a little road trip down along the tracks. 

The "star" image was converted using a Black & White Adjustment Layer.  To add just a touch of drama a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer and the brightness and the contrast were both increased.  This made the image look much more like a graphic rather than a photograph.  A Layer Mask was put on the Layer and a Foreground to Transparent Gradient applied.  Foreground to Transparent was used because multiple gradients can be applied to a single image.  Other softening techniques could be used, but I find the Background to Transparent to be very easy to control.  Try a gradient, step back (CTRL Z), try another one, keep cycling until you're happy with the result and go on to the next area to be softened.  All three major areas of the poster were treated in this manner.

A couple different types of Type Layers were used.  Both spot text and paragraph text layers were applied.  For the movie title a nice large font size was selected.  You can start with any font.  Once the text is nearly in place, the font name can be highlighted and you can see how individual fonts will look on your specific text by using the Up and Down Arrow Keys.  With the font name highlighted your text will change with every Arrow Key click.  Once the font is found it can be "enhanced" by double clicking on the Layer box (not the thumbnail).  This open the Layer Effects Panel.  Today's title has a Drop Shadow, an Inner Glow and a Bevel and Emboss addition.  The Layer Effects Panel has so many choices that it gets hard to limit the playing around you can do.

At the bottom of the image a Paragraph Text box was opened.  It's a little surprising how many people I run into who don't know "the trick" to the Paragraph Text box.  Simply select the Text Tool (T) and drag out a box rather than clicking on a point in the image.  You can either start typing or do a cut and paste of text from another source.  Paragraph text is easy to control to limit the text to conform to shapes around pictorial pieces.  The outline can be effected by any on the "normal" Selection Tools. 

Playing in Adobe Photoshop CS5

Old trains, if you ask the folks who work on them, are living, breathing beasts that require constant tweaking, touching, twiddling, poking and prodding.  Also, if you ask, they'll tell you that that's nothing new.  It's not that they're old and breaking down.  Steam trains needed the same tender (bad pun) loving care in their heyday.  I wanted to show some of that care in today's image.  The train probably doesn't look quite as bad in reality as it does in the HDR enhanced (??) version depicted today, but the color, although exaggerated, were all there.  No color has been added on the train itself, only maximized.   The one place the color was changed was on the dumpster to the left of the engine.  It was originally sort of a bright blue and grabbed the eye as soon as you looked at the shot.  A simple Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer that changed the Hue from blue to a rusty looking brown subdued the glare of the out of place color.  I don't mean to say that was the only modification made to the image.  To learn what the other changes are and how they were done, hit the "read more".

Most of the "distractions" were removed from the image.  Several sets of over head wires really cluttered up the scene.  They were removed using a couple different techniques.  One was the Clone Stamp Tool (S).  Anywhere that the wires got close to a defined change in shape or texture is where the Clone Stamp Tool.  The preview available in CS5 makes accurate placement of the cloning easy.  A good example would be along the roofline of the building . 

Another technique was to use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) again along some of the wires and take out sections at a time by laying down a point, going to the other end of a straight line, holding down the Shift Key and clicking at the end of the stretch.  Often a little touchup was needed to break up the lines. 

Content Aware Fill (Edit/Fill or Shift F5) was used along the wires also.  The biggest use of CAF (Content Aware Fill) was taking out a car that was crossing the tracks to the right of the scene.  Just using the Loop Tool (L) with no trickery resulted in parts of the engine showing up in the woods.  Not good.  An easy way to control where CAF uses to make its calculations is to use a Layer Mask.  Select (how to make the selection is up to you) anywhere you don't want used.  Make it a Layer Mask and then do another selection, with the remaining piece of the image and tell CS5 to do a Content Aware Fill there.  Content Aware Fill will only take information from the area it can see.  It will not use the area under the Layer Mask.  Once the fill is accomplished, discard the Layer Mask and continue working on the iamge as you would normally. 

After the image was pretty much maxed out the barrel of the engine looked a little bit (a lot) green.  A Black & White Adjustment Layer was added and the accompanying Mask filled with black.  That hides whatever the Adjustment Layer was doing.  Printing on the Mask with a white Brush (B) made the barrel shades of gray while allowing the rest of the scene to be in color.

The image was Sharpened and a Layer Mask took out the sharpening from the sky.  The last step (always the last step) was to apply a vignette to hold the viewers eye into the image.

Shoo-bop sha wad-da wad-da yipp-it-y boom de boom

H&M top, Forever 21 skirt, Geox flats, Hat from the Bay, gifted jewelry.

I think the colours in this outfit describe my life very well at the moment; bright, loud, and busy! I thought the summer would mean more blog updates, but I think that the school year will prove to be better at my updating.

I got a of compliments on this shirt. It's so much fun, especially since the front reminds me of fish scales, but the back is just mesh. This whole outfit just makes me want to go and sing Grease songs and dance. There's something about wearing bright colours that just puts me in such a good mood!

Have a great day everyone!

Wednesday Q&A - The "Dave Hill" Effect

The Wednesday Q&A is a response to keyword searches that bring people to The Kayview Gallery.  In the past couple of months, not a day has gone by without one (or several) entry point to the gallery being something to do with "the Dave Hill Effect".   I've done a couple of posts about it in the past and there are photographers (or finishers) who do it much better than, but one thing I've noticed is that everyone has their own spin on it.  A simple search on YouTube comes up with more than 100 videos that refer to the effect.  Looking down through the list I see "my version", "slightly modified", "similar to", "my way" and on and on.  Seems like everyone has their version of what Dave Hill has made "famous".  If you're unfamiliar with Dave's work - follow this link to his site.  You won't be disappointed and you may just catch the Dave Hill bug yourself.  To get an idea of what I did to get "my version" of the Dave Hill Effect, hit the "read more".

One of the things I noticed in doing a little "research" for this post was that a lot of the folks doing their version of the "Dave Hill Effect" do (IMHO) way too much merging down the Layers of the image to go to the next step.  Since everything that goes on to create the effect is either a Filter or Blend Mode change I really don't understand why anyone would put up road blocks to making changes.  Every time you either Merge Layers or use the CASE (CTRL/ALT/Shift/E) method of producing a composite of the Layers you already have you make a point of no return.  You can't make a fundamental change without throwing away everything above the composite Layer.  Again, I my humble opinion, it's dumb. 

There's a reason Smart Objects are called Smart Objects.  It's a much more flexible way to work.  One of the examples I use to teach and that I've posted before is making an obvious mark (an "X" or the word "Mistake" on a Layer above the Background Layer and then finishing the image to the point of being ready to print.  It typically involves several Smart Objects consisting of everything I've worked on in a phase of working on the image.  It could be four or five Smart Objects nested one in another.  By having the end points be Smart Objects rather than composites of previous Layers I have the ability to go back to the original Background image, make any changes along the way and not disturb work that's been done anywhere up to the final "ready for print" image.

One thing I do is make many of my "Dave Hill" type images a little grittier by doing some Sharpening after applying the DH Effect.  It just makes it "my version", "slightly modified", "similar to", "my way".  I'll leave it up to you to take a look at a few of the YouTube tutorials about the Dave Hill Effect and come up with his unique method of achieving "the look". 

No Flowers For Fred

We were out on Sunday, walking around with cameras in hand and came across an almost abandoned cemetery.  It appeared that it was semi maintained by a nearby church.  The grass, although mowed, looked like that was the only thing it had going for it.  It was patchy and burnt mostly, with a island of green every once in a while.  The stone in today's image is that of Frederick and Mary Callendar.  It was a little strange.  Mary's "dash" dates were 1865 and 1948.  Fred's were 1873 and a blank.  Now, either Fred is still alive and kicking at the ripe old age of 138, or there must be some sort of story about the blank.  Three quarters into the 19th century families were typically still fairly large.  The first thought that came to mind about Fred was that he may have been the youngest or near youngest child in the family.  He certainly outlived Mary.  He was most likely the one responsible for seeing to the headstone and proper dates of Mary's birth and death.  But what about Fred.  He was 75 when he buried Mary, a reasonable long life for the times.  Perhaps they never had children or might have lost sons in the war.  At 75, Fred might have been the last surviving of his brothers and sisters and had fallen out of contact with any nieces or nephews.  So Fred died with no one to have his rest date put on the stone and no one to put flowers by the grave.  Think of Fred and read the poem "The Dash" by Linda Ellis.

Today image is pretty straight, with no tricks or gimmicks.  It stands on its own, so today the only "read more" is to follow this link and read the poem.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill and Pulling Color Out Of A NEF

Today we have a before and after (actually, for folks who typically read English, an after and before) of a stream in Vermont.  I invite everyone to take a close at the two images. The one on the right is (hopefully obviously) the before.  There's a couple things about it.  One is that it has a different aspect ratio than the finished image, yet nothing has been cropped away.  The second thing to looked at is the angle of the water flowing through the scene.  The white falls drop in just about the center of the image was used to correct the unfortunate tilt of the camera when the shot was taken.  To find out how the image was straightened without anything being cropped away, hit the "read more".

Correcting the lean was the easy part.  The Ruler Tool (i [eye]) was used to stretch a line across what I think should be a horizontal section of the image.  With Adobe Photoshop CS5 there is a Straighten button that shows up when using the Ruler Tool.  Clicking on that button will Straighten and Crop an image based on the line drawn using the Ruler Tool.  Holding down the ALT key when clicking on the Straighten button will Straighten the image without Cropping.  This Straightens along the line, but makes the image sit in the work area skewed to the degree of the fix.  Blank triangles are formed around the image indicating empty canvas.  Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to make a Selection around one of the triangles.  Dig into the image slightly when making the triangle.  Use the Fill dialog box (Select/Fill or Shift F5) and set the fill to Content Aware.  By digging into the image by a few dozen pixels you give the program some idea of what it should be attaching things to.  The first triangle formed in today's image was at the top.  Content Aware Fill correctly figured out the leaves and trunk of the tree on the far left.  The piece I thought was the most amazing was the right side triangle.  Rather than extending the rock at just about the center height of the image, it ended the rock very naturally and put some leaves on its right flank.  All in all, Content Aware Fill did a great job on the image, adding about 10% to the content.

There are no false colors in today's image.  I typically use individual Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Magenta) to bring out the colors.  The Saturation slider is brought to 100% and then brought down in 10 point increments (hold down the Shift Key as you either roll the scroll wheel on your mouse or tap the Down Arrow Key).  Today's image has nine, rather than six, Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers.  In addition to the normal six, it has one each additional Red, Yellow and Green Adjustment Layer.   Different parts of the image needed different amounts of Saturation increase.  Rather than painting with shades of grey or lowering the Opacity of the Brush Toll (B) I find it easier to use more Adjustment Layers and localize the areas needing different amounts of adjustment.  That's just the way I find it easy to work.  Masks are Black and White with no gray tones.  As many Adjustment Layers as is required to create the vision you have can be employed and each is finitely adjustable.

Once all necessary changes were made to the scene all the Layers were selected (Shift Click on all Layers) and made into a Smart Object.  Two copies of the Smart Object were made (straight copies, not New Smart Object via Copy).  Copy one was used to Sharpen the image and copy two was used to put a vignette round the edges.

jar of hearts

UO skirt. Levi's jacket from UO. Gifted jewelry. Club Monaco blouse. Geox flats. MAC lipstick.
I'm finally caught up with my backlogged posts. Yay!

I love this colour combination. Pink and coral really are lovely together. This Levi's jacket is my current favourite summer jacket to wear on cool days. Not only is it a beautiful colour, but the shorter length makes it perfect to wear with high waisted skirts and shorts.

The day I wore this outfit, it was incredibly humid, hence my wild hair. I'm really loving today's weather though. Nice and cool with the perfect breeze; it's really beginning to feel like the end of summer, and while some frown at that, I'm rather glad because I'm excited to start the new school year.

Hope you're all having a fantastic week!

Wednesday Photoshop Q&A - Dramatic Skies

 A lot of keyword searches that have brought people to the gallery in the past month have been about skies.  Typical searches were "how to replace a bald sky", "how to create a dramatic sky", some asked about "HDR skies" and a few just wanted to be able to get better skies in their shots.  Today we have two images being used as examples.  Both can be considered "dramatic" skies, depending on the image they're paired with.  I'd guess they are pretty much mutually exclusive.  I can't see both being choices for the same picture.  We'll go through the four basic questions after the "read more".

1.  Replacing a bald sky.  This sort of depends on your definition of a bald sky.  If you run your cursor up through the sky and you have values in the Info Panel of 240 and above, you definitely have a bald sky.  This is an easy one to fix.  You don't have to make an intricate mask or do anything fancy.  First thing to try is to change the Blend Mode to Darker Color.  That may be the only thing needed.  The first couple of times you try it you may bounce back in your seat at how well it works.  There'll be no ghosting around the fine details of trees, bushes or buildings.  If you do have very light parts of the primary image and the sky shows through (I've had one image like that), you may have to add a Layer Mask and paint out the sky showing through unwanted areas.  It'll most likely be very minimal areas.

2.  Well, the easiest way to create or improve a sky would be to get it in the camera.  If you're going out to shoot landscapes, bring along a couple graduated neutral density filters.  The Cokin P series (if you're using a DSLR) will cover -in almost any lens.  You can get a screw-in adapter for each of your lenses and then get a filter holder and slide the filter in.  Or, you can just hold the filter by the edge and put it, hand held, in front of the lens.  Cokin filters are rectangular, so there's always a little piece that's out of the way of the circle of the lens.  Holding it doesn't have to be rock steady, you're trying to blur the line between sky and land anyway, so a little movement is no problem.  Typically you want to remove the lens hood and rest the filter on the ring of your protective filter.

If you take the shot without the graduated neutral density filter, all is not lost.  Both Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 (and other versions) have graduated filters.  They can't create the same separation between clouds and deep blue skies in the upper part of an image, but they can make a big difference in a so-so sky and a very decent sky.  In LR3 the graduated filter is in the tool bar along with the spot removal, red eye and adjustment brush.  It can be dragged in any direction.  To pull straight, hold down the Shift key.  In CS5 there are several ways to apply a GND filter.  It can be used on a separate Layer with a dark blue as the foreground color and a lighter blue as the background color.  Change the Blend Mode to either Overlay or Soft Light to apply the effect.  Another method is to put a solid color on its own Layer and use a Layer Mask.  Use the Black to White filter to control the amount of color showing through.

3.  HDR skies!  If you're a frequent reader of this blog you'll already know I'm not a huge fan of HDR skies.  I'll typically make an HDR image and bring back the natural sky.  Most (not all) of the HDR I do is of the enhanced, natural nature rather than what's become known as the "Harry Potter", more illustrative style.  If you like the "in your face" style then cranking up the detail while making the HDR image should produce the type of sky you're looking for.

In any case, I'm a big advocate of having a folder of cloud images.  Some of the more successful images I've created have had random skies put in to improve what was there when I took the shot.  As long as you're creating art rather than shooting photojournalistic images, why not.  Not all images fit neatly into a Cloud folder.  I also use Keywords to be able to quickly find clouds.

Isolating The Subject With Adobe Photoshop CS5

You've got three similar objects in the frame.  One has to be more dominate than the others.  Today's image shows one way to put the emphasis on the one element you want to draw the viewer's eye toward.  One way might be to fade the back two riders into either a ghost style or drain them of color.  Both have been done before.  They work, but are so obvious that it would be expected.  Today's image has something that's not as cliché as other methods and as a little harder to do effectively.  The colors have been brightened up on all three riders, but the focus has been heightened on the lead rider and toned down on the followers.  The placement of the lead rider also adds impact due to his position in the frame rather than his position on the track.  Since today's image is in a basically square format it's easy to guess that there's been some cropping.  It find out about the three things that were done to finish today's image, hit the "read more".

One of the first things was isolating the lead rider.  The Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) was used to select the rider.  Then the Shift F6 keys were pressed to bring up the Feather Selection dialog box.  The Feather was set to the max of 250 pixels.  (This will be different depending on the resolution of the image being worked on.)  How there's a rectangle with rounded corners.  With the Selection active a Layer mask (Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel) was added.  This automatically produced a Mask.  (Depending on how [or what] the Mask is applied it may have to be Inverted (CTRL I {eye).)  The Link between the Layer and the Layer Mask has to be broken.  This is simply done by clicking on the Link icon between the Layer and the Layer Mask.  With the Link broken the Mask can be treated as a separate object.  Pressing CTRL T will put a bounder box around the Layer Mask.  With the cursor outside the box the cursor will become a semi-circle with arrows for ends.  This allows the Mask to be spun on its axis.  With today's image to only takes a slight turn to match the angle of the rider.

With the Mask set, change the Blend Mode to Multiply.  This will maintain the colors of the image and just darken them.  I'll use this, rather than just using black so the tones stay the same, just in a darker state.  It'll most likely be too dark, so lower the Opacity to taste.

The same Mask can be used to Sharpen the front rider.  The riders in back are slightly out of focus to start with, so this pushes them back further in the image and brings the front rider forward.  A normal vignette finishes work on today's image.