Special Effects

Curves Basics: Opening the Door to Fine Editing

2010-05-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do a "fun" post but I just realized that there can be no fun until I've taught what is perhaps the most important, most-used, and most powerful tool in image adjustment: Curves. Out of the box, this function only works in Photoshop, but Elements users can do Curves adjustments with either Elements+, a third-party patch that unlocks it for a fee ($12) or SmartCurve, a plugin that can be easily installed. Once you've done either, you can join in the fun!

The only prerequisite for this tutorial is Understanding Histograms. However, Understanding Levels will also help.

The image above has been through Photoshop. This is (approximately) the original image:

Curves can tell pixels of any brightness value to turn into another brightness value that you want. Almost all Photoshop image adjustment tools -- Brightness, Contrast, Exposure, Levels, Color Balance -- are really just the Curves tool in disguise. Anything they can do, Curves can do, and usually better (though of course those other tools were programmed to be simpler).

Before anything, let's take a look at the toolbox itself. Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves or press Ctrl-M (Command-M on the Mac). Why "M"? Because it kind of looks like a haphazardly drawn curve! (seriously.)

And we'll take a look at the important functions one by one.

A: The curve. Here is where you will make pretty much all your adjustments in Curves. In later versions of Photoshop there is a histogram of the image behind it for your reference. In summary, you use it by finding a level on the histogram (left to right, black being on the left-most side and white on the right) and dragging it up or down (drag up to increase the level/make it lighter, drag down to decrease the level/make it darker). More on this later.
B: curve/pencil. If the curve is selected, you make the adjustments in area A by dragging points. If the pencil is selected, you make the adjustments by drawing the curve yourself in area A, which is not a really wise way to go about it if you ask me.
C: droppers. Just like in Levels, click on the black/50% gray/white dropper then any point in your image and it instantly becomes the black/50% gray/white point. Useful for quick image editing and white balance correction.
D: hand with arrow. This allows you to click on the image directly to make curves adjustments. I'll tell you more about it in a bit.

Simply clicking on the image when the Curves dialog is open flashes a point on the curve that represents the value of the pixel that you clicked on. No changes are made when you do this - it just helps to orient you. (Give it a try now!)

Ctrl-clicking on the image not only indicates the point on the curve that represents the value of the pixel, but it also anchors it.

This means that if you make a change to the curve in any other part of it, the anchor will always remain the same, until you drag it yourself. When you drag any point on the curve directly, it always becomes anchored.

Notice that even though the point on the curve is anchored, the rest of the curve always moves smoothly around it. The computer draws the curve so there is a smooth transition of values. (That's why it's "curve" and not "zigzag lines.")

To use the hand with arrow, click it, then click and drag a point in the image you want to brighten (drag up) or darken (drag down). No need to return to area A.

Like so. Note that my cursor is still dragging on the image, but the curve follows my mouse movements anyway.

How Curves Work

To illustrate how curves work, I made a simple image with a smooth gradient from black to white. Note that the histogram almost equally represents all the levels.

By clicking on the curve (without dragging), I anchor the points on the curve, so any change I make to one will not affect the others.

Lightening a Level
Drag a point on the curve up.

See how easy that was? Now let's try lightening a low level.

Here's how it looks in an actual photo.

Darkening a Level
Drag a point on the curve down.

And now, on a low level:

And in a photo:

Increasing contrast
If you make high levels (highlights) brighter and low levels (shadows) darker, it increases the contrast.

As a rule, any part of the curve that becomes steeper increases contrast in that region. So as you can see, the midtones (middle levels) are higher contrast -- split more decisively between white and black. Here is the technique used on a photo:

Decreasing contrast
If you make high levels darker and low levels brighter, it decreases the overall contrast.

As a rule, any part of the curve that becomes flatter decreases contrast in that region. So here, the midtones are now lower contrast. Here's that technique in a photo:

Adjusting whites and blacks
The leftmost and rightmost points of the curve represent pure black and pure white, respectively. Dragging them up or down changes black or white into gray.

Meanwhile, moving them left or right increases contrast and makes grays white or black. Note that everything to the right of the white point becomes pure white (it burns out or disappears), and everything to the left of the black point becomes pure black (it disappears into the shadow).

Curves are so flexible that you can tell highlights to turn into shadows and vice-versa.

You can even tell white to turn to black and vice versa!

Why Curves is better than Levels
In this image I've zoomed in on only the lighter gray to white area of the image. Notice the smooth transition of gray to white when I lighten the highlights in curves. The grays may be lighter, but they are still gray (they didn't burn out or turn white).

On the other hand, moving the white slider of Levels to the left turns everything to the right of it in the histogram pure white. It burns out the image and removes subtle grays, turning them all white.

To illustrate this point in an actual image, take a look at my cake before editing:

After applying a curve that lightens the image, you can see that the swirls are all still clearly defined. The grays are still present, though they are lighter.

Making a similar adjustment in Levels doesn't allow for the same amount of fine-tuning. Notice how the highlights of the swirls look harsh, and a lot of detail is lost:

This burn-out effect can also be observed in Curves if you move the white point to the left:

So, that's the basics of Curves. For homework, open those problematic images, press Ctrl-M and play with the curves. Drag points all over the place and see what happens. Next time we'll have a little more fun with Curves and harness their power to make images depict exactly the mood we want.

Adjustment Layers: Changing Only a Part of an Image and Selective Coloring

2010-05-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the next lesson on image adjustments! Today we'll learn about the basics of adjustment layers. For the full lesson, you'll need the following prerequisites:
1. Layer Masks
2. Levels
because Adjustment Layers are really just a combination of most image adjustments (brightness/contrast, levels, curves, color balance, exposure, etc.) with a layer mask. However, if after reading the Layer Masks tutorial you're still on the fence about using it (or if you didn't get the lesson that well), never fear - adjustment layers are intuitive and easy. This tutorial is applicable in both Photoshop and Elements.

Adjustment layers are a very popular trick in a photo editor's arsenal because 1. they allow selective adjustment of only a certain part of the image, and 2. they are nondestructive, which means they do not change an image permanently - they can be deleted, moved around, the layer mask can be edited, and even the adjustment you make can be edited. For example, if you suddenly decide that the Levels adjustment you made isn't quite right, you can simply redo the adjustment layer over and over as many times as you like and the image under the adjustment layer will be intact and unharmed.

So we'll start with our first lesson, selective coloring. This technique is most useful for when you want your subject to pop out of, say, a particularly busy background like the one I have here. Other applications are for when you want the subject to look "new" among "aged" items, etc.

To begin in either Photoshop or Elements, bring up the Layers window and click on the half/half circle below. Alternatively, you can use the menu and click on Layer > New Adjustment Layer.

In either approach, you get a list of all possible adjustment layers. In Photoshop, this list is obviously much longer. Click on Hue/Saturation....

You get a mini-version of the Hue/Saturation dialog. There are four icons on the bottom in Photoshop Elements (not super-important for this lesson):
Two circles - when selected, the adjustment layer only affects the layer below it. If deselected, it affects all layers below it.
Eye - means the adjustment layer's effect is visible. Click on it and your image goes back to the way it was.
Eye with arrow - press and hold it to see what your image looked like on your last adjustment.
Returning arrow - resets to the adjustment default.

Anyway, drag the slider of Saturation almost all the way to the left, based on your preference. I like to preserve a little bit of the color, just to antique it a little bit but not completely black-and-white.

Click on the brush tool. Make sure the color palette selected is black for the foreground color.

Adjustment layers work under a very simple principle: White areas show the adjustment in the image, while black areas show the image unadjusted. Gray areas show an in-between adjustment (lighter grays are more affected, darker grays are slightly affected).
Paint carefully over the part of the image you want to revert back to its vibrant colors.

Finished painting. The final result (after a few more contrast adjustments to the whole image) is at the beginning of the post.

Well now, that was easy!

Changing the Color of an Object

I don't like pink flowers! I like blue ones! Just bring up the Hue/Saturation... adjustment layer again...

Click on the Colorize checkbox (you may skip this if you think it looks better) and drag the Hue slider around until the object is the color you like. Everything else will change color - that's okay, as you probably have already guessed.

Make sure the thumbnail of the adjustment layer's mask is selected.

Fill the mask with black. In my example, black is my background color, so the shortcut Ctrl-Backspace (Command-Delete on the Mac) will fill it with black. Based on the principle above, the adjustment becomes invisible, so the image goes back to the way it was.

This time, with white as your foreground color, carefully paint over the item in question.

And if you make a mistake...

Just switch to a black brush and paint over the mistake.

Because adjustment layers are nondestructive, they are fully editable. Just double-click on the adjustment layer's thumbnail (in this example, the "Gears" to the left of its mask) and you can move the sliders around or whatever to get the effect you want. If you don't like you adjustment layer anymore, just click on the trash while it's selected and it will go away. Your image will be like it was untouched. You can only save Adjustment Layers if you save your image as a PSD file, however.

Gentle Adjustments of Specific Areas
For our last example, we're going to mix it up a bit. Take a look at this image:

I wasn't comfortable with how pale the left side was. I needed it to be darker and with more contrast. So I made a Levels adjustment (Ctrl-L).

However, fixing that made the right side muddy and gross, because it was sufficiently dark to begin with. Here's where adjustment layers come in. (I canceled this Levels adjustment, of course.)

So, click on the half/half circle again...

Here's what it looks like in Photoshop. (You can also follow along in Elements.) Click on Levels.

Make your adjustment... Oh, there's that grossness on the right side again!

So, making sure the adjustment's mask is selected...

Choose the Gradient tool, and select a linear gradient that changes from foreground to background. My foreground is white and my background is kind of a light gray.

Drag it across your image. You can redo this until you get it right, changing the gray of the gradient, etc. and re-dragging it across the image. As you can see, the thumbnail shows what the gradient looks like. It's white on the left (because that's where we wanted the Levels adjustment to be visible) and gray on the right (because we didn't want it to be severely affected by the Levels adjustment). The image now has great contrast on the left, without making the right side muddy and too dark.

Finished product. If you want to commit to your adjustment and change your image permanently (obviously this is destructive), just click on Layer > Flatten Image. However, in this flattened state, you can now save as a JPG file.

So, the homework is just to play around with any and all the adjustment layers. Try brightness/contrast, exposure, then paint around in the mask using white, black, and varying shades of gray and see what kind of images you can create. But of course, the most fun thing to do would be to "pop" your subjects out of a black-and-white background!

Levels: Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, Contrasty-er Contrasts

2010-04-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the second part of our lesson on making image adjustments! You must be able to understand histograms as a prerequisite for this lesson, so read my previous post about Understanding Histograms here. Don't be put off by the number of images in this post - histograms and levels are really quite easy, and with some practice you should be making your images look better -- in your terms -- in less than 3 seconds.

Why did I say "in your terms"? Well, sure, there are some image editing functions that are "automatic", and they rely on artificial intelligence to determine what makes a picture look good (and it's based on how it thinks a histogram should look). Making your own adjustments allows greater creative control, and can take it from computer-determined "pleasant" to amazing.

This lesson works in both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and for the actions in this lesson, work exactly the same (I'll tell you if something's different). To bring up the Levels dialog in Elements, press Ctrl-L (Command-L on the Mac), or choose Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels.

In Photoshop, press Ctrl-L (Command-L on the Mac), or choose Image > Adjustments > Levels.

What you'll get is this dialog. Let's take a look at its functions:

Preset is only available in Photoshop. You can use several predefined Levels adjustments or save your own. Choosing Default resets the Levels. (In Elements, you can just click the Reset button to do this.)
Channel chooses which base colors you'll be adjusting. For the sake of this basic lesson, we'll just choose RGB.
Input Levels is where you'll do much of the work, as this is where you increase contrast and adjust brightness/darkness. There is a histogram of your current image and three sliders under it. You can move the sliders or enter a number. The Black Slider determines which Level becomes Level 0, or pure black. The Gray Slider determines what point becomes the 50% midtone. The White Slider determines which Level becomes Level 255, or pure white. You'll notice that you can also enter specific numbers below, but that's rarely necessary.
Output Levels is used less because its end result is usually decreased contrast and duller colors. The Black Slider determines how gray you will turn your blacks (lightening the whole image). The White Slider determines how gray you will turn your whites (darkening the whole image).
The Droppers let you pick an area in the photo to specify as the white point, the black point, and the 50% gray point.

Before anything else, take note that Levels is a destructive process. If you make a Levels change and save your image (and close it), you can never get your image back the way it was. So back-up your images or make duplicate layers if you like to keep originals. In the future we'll take a look of how to do this non-destructively.

This is what your workspace will look like. You can open the histogram panel (even while the Levels dialog is on) and you can see how the histogram changes while you're previewing the image changes!

Note: in the histogram pictures, the "before" histogram is below the "after" histogram.)
Making Highlights Brighter

Move the White Slider in Input Levels to the left. Whichever Level or Peak the white slider falls under becomes the new white, and everything to the left of the white slider gets stretched out as the new histogram. Everything to the right of the white slider is discarded and turned into bright white. So use this with caution, as it destroys details in areas with delicate contrast, like the subtle grays that make up swirls in whipped cream. If you take the white slider too far, it will look like a plain (ugly) white mass.

Making Shadows Darker

Move the Black Slider in Input Levels to the right. Whichever Level or Peak the black slider falls under becomes the new black, and everything to the right of the black slider gets stretched out as the new histogram. Everything to the left of the black slider is discarded and turned into pitch black. So use this with caution, as it can quickly make your image look muddy.

Lightening Midtones

Move the Gray Slider to the left. Whichever Level or Peak the gray slider falls under becomes the 50% midpoint, and everything to the right of it becomes lighter than 50% gray, hence the entire image is lighter. If you don't move the white or black sliders, white is preserved as white and black is preserved as black.

Darkening Midtones

Move the Gray Slider to the right. Whichever Level or Peak the gray slider falls under becomes the 50% midpoint, and everything to the left of it becomes darker than 50% gray, hence the entire image is darker. If you don't move the white or black sliders, white is preserved as white and black is preserved as black.

Increasing Contrast

If you make a white whiter and a black blacker, you are naturally increasing contrast. So moving the sliders closer together would increase contrast. In this example, we've moved the sliders closer symmetrically, but in practice, they are rarely moved together symmetrically - blacks and whites need to be adjusted independently based on what you want the image to look like.

... Like so.

Graying Whites

Moving the White Slider in Output Levels to the left makes the white grayer. You'll only need this if the whites in an image are too bright or harsh - it decreases contrast (moves peaks closer together).

Graying Blacks

Moving the Black Slider in Output Levels to the right makes the black grayer. You'll only need this if the shadows in an image are too dark. It also decreases contrast.

Oldest, Neatest Trick in the Book - Choosing a White Point
You'll notice that so far, there has been a bluish cast over my entire photo. Choosing the White Dropper and clicking on the image as to what should be bright white not only does this, but also removes any color cast over the image.

Notice how instantly the image improves! If you chose a wrong area, simply click somewhere else and it will adjust.

All that's left to do is fix my black point and midpoint manually and the image is perfect.

New image, new histogram.

A Final Example

Here's a brief summary of what these levels represent in the image:

Making the uniforms darker:

Overdoing it and making the uniforms pitch-black with no highlights, and the whole image muddier:

Making the lights and white uniforms brighter:

Overdoing it and completely burning out the floor:

Moving the gray slider to the left to make the midtones brighter and pop out:

So, that's a pretty comprehensive look at the Levels tool. Take your low-contrast, color-cast, dull photos and PLAY AROUND! Move the sliders, use the dropper to pick out a white point, a black point, and a 50% gray-point just to see what happens. Pretty soon, using Levels will be pretty intuitive. And that's how you turn dingy into bright!

Understanding Histograms

2010-04-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, Susan was asking me why the supposedly white areas in her photographs were dingy. Actually, I thought her photos were beautiful and didn't look dingy or off-white, but it can't be denied that making adjustments in the brightness, contrast, exposure, and colors of an image can make or break it. And being able to control these adjustments in a deliberate, precise manner can only be achieved by understanding histograms. Though the term seems a little intimidating (it shares a root with "history" (yuck) and "histology"), it's really, really not.

A Histogram is a graph that represents all the pixels in an image, mapped out into an axis that goes from dark to light (or sometimes, light to dark, though that's not how Photoshop does it). Many cameras can show you a histogram as you're making a shot (at least my Canon Powershot G7 does) to tell you if it's looking very bright or very dark or just right. In the example above, you can see that there's a huge peak in the shadows -- that's where most of the pixels are -- then another one in between midtones and highlights, then another small one at the far end of the highlights. Pure black is represented in Photoshop as "Level 0" and Pure white is "Level 255".

However, the best way to learn about histograms is to see how different images have different histograms. To bring it up in Photoshop, just click on the Histogram icon, or select Window > Histogram.

To bring it up in Photoshop Elements, it's... the same thing. All actions here, by the way, can be done in both programs.

You'll notice that the histograms look kind of psychedelic, at least in Photoshop CS4. To bring it to "classic style", just click on the drop-down next to Channel: and choose RGB. On to the examples!

This is an image with very bright values. The stark white background, pale cake, whipped cream, pale yellow pastry cream -- they are all in the "highlights" region on the far right of the histogram. The only kind of dark spots are the strawberries, so there's a few pixels on the far left.

This is an image with very dark values. The dark brown tablecloth, chocolate pots de creme, dark shadow overhead -- they form a sharp peak in the "shadows" region on the far left of the histogram. You'll notice there is a short peak on the far right also, though not as tall as the one on the left. These highlights are the highlights on the white ceramic pots.

This is a balanced image with an almost-equal distribution of shadows, midtones, and (to a smaller extent) highlights. It's important to note that there aren't necessarily any "good" or "bad" histograms. Just because the histogram is flat with no sharp peaks doesn't make the image nice to look at (or vice versa). It all depends on what mood you want to portray.

But speaking of bad images, take a look at this underexposed one. There are no shadows or highlights -- all the pixels are sort of gray, and a picture that lacks contrast has this histogram: a single peak in the midtones. This can still be a good histogram, if for example you fancy those kind of low-contrast polaroid shots that have an "aged" look.

Everyone has their own taste, but I like some contrast in my images. In this travel photo we have a peak in the shadows, a peak in the lighter midtones, and a short peak in the highlights.

To get the histogram of only isolated areas of the image, simply select an area and the histogram will automatically reflect that (this also works in Photoshop Elements). As you can see, the background of the image is mostly highlights.

The gate is mostly shadows...

... and the woman has a good distribution of highlights, midtones, and shadows.

To view the histogram of only a single layer, just choose from the Source: drop-down (in the examples you'll see it just says "Entire Image").

In our next lesson you'll learn that making image adjustments alters the histogram in specific ways. Here is the same image, but with greater contrast: notice that the peaks in the histogram spread wide open into the shadows and the highlights.

Assignment! Keep a folder of saved (scanned or picked off the internet - just don't republish them, lol) images that you like and look at their histograms in Photoshop/Elements. Can you see how good lighting and contrast translates to the histogram? Can you pinpoint peaks and low areas in the histogram and find what areas of the image they refer to? Now look at some images, either your own or other people, that could use a little work on the lighting, exposure, and contrast, and what their histograms look like. How do they compare to histograms of images that you do like?

And a final note, just in case you were wondering: what is that exclamation point (!) that sometimes shows up on the histogram? Well, in the interest of faster performance, Photoshop makes a new histogram all the time by getting a quick sampling of small areas of your image instead of the whole image. It's just a warning that's saying the histogram may not accurately represent the whole image. Clicking on it refreshes the histogram and makes a perfect representation of the whole image, but usually the difference is not really that great.

Making Life Easier: Automatic Processing of Multiple Files

2010-03-08T03:16:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I'll hear the problem over twitter: "I need to (something) (a big number of) files!!" Thankfully, both Adobe Photoshop (CS2 and above for this tutorial) and Photoshop Elements have built-in commands that enable you to automatically process a big (or even small) batch of files so you can do more important things than sit in front of a computer all day. I'll walk you through the easiest ways to do this. Take note that in Photoshop, there are more advanced ways to batch-process files, but for now we'll use the one that takes the least effort for basic tasks. Click here to go to the Elements tutorial.

Photoshop: Using the Image Processor

The Image Processor is a script included with Photoshop that enables you to automatically resize and save multiple files, with additional options if you want to make small adjustments. For this lesson, I'm going to process the folder I have above, containing large pictures of Prague.

On the menu select File > Scripts > Image Processor...

This is what the dialog box looks like. Let's go over the options and explain them:

1. Select the images to process. You can use either the images already open in your Photoshop window, or select a Folder full of images that Photoshop will open for you. You can even check the box above to include sub-folders, if you want Photoshop to open them and process them as well. You can check Open first image to apply settings if you use a DSLR and have a folder of images in the RAW format. It will open the first image, and you can change the exposure or whatnot, and Photoshop will apply the same changes to the rest of the files automatically. Unfortunately I don't have a DSLR so I can't show this feature to you.
2. Select location to save processed images. I've checked Save in same location, but actually, Photoshop will automatically make a sub-folder with another name so you don't get confused. Image Processor will never overwrite files (it will rename your new files), so you can breathe easily if you make a mistake. If in Step 1 you've chosen to process files already open in Photoshop and they all come from different folders, checking Keep Folder Structure will make the new files in their respective folders. You can also check Select Folder if you want to decide for yourself where the new files will go.
3. File type. Photoshop gives you 3 formats you can choose to save as. You can even choose all 3 of them and Image Processor will make a new folder for each one. We'll look into this a little more in-depth later.
4. Preferences. These are advanced options I haven't taught yet, but for now we can leave this alone. Include ICC Profile is of interest to designers and photographers who want to preserve accurate color profiles, but for now we'll leave it checked.
Load/Save. If you frequently use particular settings in Image Processor, you can save them for loading later so you don't have to keep putting in the same values again and again.

So let's begin. In Step 1, choose the folder you want to process.

In Step 2, we'll just save at the "same location".

In Step 3, I'm going to use the JPEG format to save. Of course, because it's the format that's actually useful on the Internet. You can choose a Quality of 0 to 12, 0 being absolute compressed crap with a teeny-tiny file size and 12 being an almost-faithful reproduction of your original image at the cost of a massive file. There is no way to really tell using the Image Processor how big your files are going to be or how good they will look at a given number, so just go by feel and if you don't like it, just do over at a higher or lower quality.

If you leave Resize to Fit unchecked, your images are going to be as big (width and height) as the originals. For blog purposes, the concern is usually a particular width (up to you: mine are 500 pixels wide). Image Processor does not distort or crop images. You must put a value for both width and height. Image Processor will just ensure that the image will fit an imaginary box of these dimensions while maintaining the image's correct proportions. Because I really don't care how tall my images will be (I just want them to be 500 pixels wide), I put 500 in width and a big number (1000 in this case) for height. Image Processor will scale your images so that 500x1000 will be the maximum dimensions. (So, if my image is more than 2 times high as it is wide, it will be less than 500 pixels wide, unfortunately, if I leave the height value at 1000. Put it at 100000 if you want to be sure everything will be 500 pixels wide.)

Click OK. After a while, Photoshop will be done and you have a new sub-folder in your original folder.

As you can see, the dimensions of the newly created files don't exceed 500x1000.

Elements: Using Process Multiple Files

Elements has only one function to do this, and it is actually much more powerful than Photoshop's Image Processor feature. On the menu, select File > Process Multiple Files...

The dialog box that pops up looks much more frightening than Photoshop, but it's really not complicated. We'll go over each of the options.

Process files From. You can specify a folder, which is usually the easiest thing to do. You can also choose whatever's currently opened in your Elements window, or an attached device like a scanner (Import).
Source. Choose the folder that contains all the files you want to process. You can check Include Subfolders if you like to process everything under it too.
Destination. For Elements, it is advisable to specify your own folder and NOT to check "Same as Source". This is because it will overwrite your files if you're not careful.

So that's what we'll do. Uncheck "Same as source" if it's checked and choose your destination folder. We'll create a new one called "Blog-resized".

File renaming. If you click on the drop arrows, you'll see a lot of fun ways to automatically name the files Elements will create. I find that the simplest way is just to add a suffix. For this example, I just typed in "-blog" and my new files will just be called "prague-1-blog.jpg" and so on.

Image Size. You'll nearly always want to make sure Constrain proportions is checked, because Elements can distort your images. If it's checked, just name either the exact width (or height) that you want for all your images and Elements will automatically calculate the proportionate other dimension. If it's unchecked, you have to specify both a width and a height and Elements will stretch or shrink your images to fit that exact box, which can result in fat or thin images if you're not careful. For internet purposes, Resolution does not matter. It only matters if you're printing them.

File type. Choose from a menu of predefined specifications. For blog purposes, JPEG Medium or High should suffice (you don't want your website to be a pain to load, or a pain to look at).

So, almost done. Let's look at the rest of the options:

I haven't taught what these mean yet, but you can check Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, Auto Color, and/or Auto Sharpen if your original images are dull and/or kind of blurry and you want Elements to automatically fix them to you based on its artificial intelligence. Up to you. If you want your images exactly as they are color and contrast-wise, leave these boxes unchecked.
Labels allows you to put a Watermark or a Caption. Leave the text box blank if you don't want a watermark, but if you do, you can specify what text appears (maybe "(c) Mark Manguerra" or something), where it appears (center/bottom left/bottom right), the font, color, size, and opacity. There are some neat options for Caption too, like putting the file name, description, and/or the date the image was modified.

Click OK.
In your specified folder ("blog-resized" in my example), you'll find all the new files, resized, watermarked, compressed, and a suffix added to the filename.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a comment. I hope this feature comes in very handy.

The Powerful Layer Mask Tool

2010-02-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

Next to adjusting colors and contrast, the most-used tool for me would probably be the Layer Mask Tool. The Layer Mask is a method for making areas of a layer selectively transparent or opaque (and varying degrees of transparency in between). It's the tool that finds use for very fine adjustments to small areas of your image, to making composites of images -- everything from cheesy portraits inside a brandy snifter to amazing image transformations). Right now we'll deal with everything you need to know about the Layer Mask Tool. It's so threaded into the image-editing process that it has to be taught, I feel, before most anything else.

I'll start with an image with two layers. (Feel free to follow along or experiment by creating an image with any two layers you want to combine.) Here's the bottom layer:

and here's the top layer:

(You already know this is going to be cheesy.)

There are two ways to create a layer mask. The faster way is to simply select the top layer and click on the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel:

The second method is to select the top layer and on the menu choose Layer > Layer Mask > and either Reveal all or Hide all.

The only principle of the Layer Mask is this: Whatever is pure white on the Layer Mask is 100% opaque on the layer, and whatever is pure black on the Layer Mask is 0% opaque on the layer. A pixel on the layer mask that is 20% gray will be 80% opaque on the layer, and so on. Can you envision its uses now?

Anyway, before anything else, there is a way to define the Layer Mask transparency before creating it. Simply make your selection using any of the tools (here I use an elliptical marquee)...

... and use either the first method (or Reveal All from the second method) above.

Your selection will automatically be white and the rest is black in the Layer Mask.

On the other hand, if you want what you've selected to be transparent instead, hold down ALT (Option on Mac) while clicking the Layer Mask button (or use Hide All) and it will be punched out.

You may be wondering, what is the point of the Layer Mask? Couldn't I just have used the Eraser tool to punch a hole out of my layer or remove unwanted areas? Layer Masks are special because they are Nondestructive. This means that all the original pixels of your layer are intact when you save the file. When you erase part of a layer with the Erase tool and save/close the image, it's gone forever. If you make mistakes on the Layer Mask, you can paint over it with either white or black or gray to bring your image back or hide more of it.

Anyway, let's continue with the demo. With the thumbnail of the Layer Mask selected, run a black-and-white gradient through it any way you like (play around). (It's important to note that the thumbnail of the Layer Mask is selected and not the thumbnail of the layer it's attached to, because you might paint a gradient over your original image!)

Here I've opted to do a straight gradient across the Layer Mask, black on the left and white on the front (hold SHIFT as you drag the gradient tool to make it perfectly straight).

Voila. Instant cheese effect.

Select the Brush tool colored black, and paint softly over areas that are still visible but you want to render transparent. (Like our model's background, that is still visible above.)

Unlinking the Layer Mask
When you try to move or resize the Layer or the Layer Mask, you may notice that they move as one. What if you've punched a hole like in the example above but decide later that the hole isn't in the right place? Unlinking the Layer Mask allows you to make transformations in either the Layer or Layer Mask without affecting the other. To do it, simply click on the "chain" between the two thumbnails:

Now with the thumbnail of the Layer Mask selected, try moving it.

The image remains in place but the mask reveals and hides new areas.
Now click on the thumbnail of the Layer instead:

When you move the layer, only the image moves but the Layer Mask stays firmly in place.

You can also transform the image (here I am resizing it using CTRL-T (Command-T for Macs)) and the Layer Mask will not budge (check out its thumbnail on the right).

When they are linked again, try resizing the layer. Both the image and the Layer Mask follow suit.

A few more things that may come in handy:
SHIFT-click the Layer Mask thumbnail and it will disable the Layer Mask. It's still there, but you can take a look at what the layer would look like without it. Click it again to bring it back.

ALT-click (Option-click for Macs) the Layer Mask thumbnail and it will show the Layer Mask instead of the image. You can inspect the layer mask for problem areas (abrupt changes from black to white) or maybe you just want to see how the layer mask works. ALT-click the thumbnail again to bring it back.

CTRL-click (Command-click for Macs) the Layer Mask thumbnail and it will create a selection based on the Layer Mask.

If you're committed to a Layer Mask's perfection and you want to knock out all transparent pixels, right-click on the Layer Mask thumbnail and select "Apply Layer Mask" and Photoshop will cut them out for you. Warning: this step is destructive. Once you Apply the Layer Mask and save, there's no turning back.

If you drag a Layer Mask thumbnail to the trash, it will ask you if you want to Apply it, or forget it ever existed.

Some Fun with Layer Masks
Here I'm going to apply everything above to make an image composite. Here is my bottom layer:

and here is my top layer:

Hide the top layer (click on the eye to the left of its thumbnail on the Layers panel). Create a marquee using the polygon lasso tool:

Finished marquee:

Un-hide the top layer:

Click on the Layer Mask button:
Unlink the Layer Mask and the Layer:

Press CTRL-T to shrink and slightly rotate the image so it fits into the DVD cover mostly.

You'll notice that her thumb is behind the top layer, of course.

Using a soft-edged brush colored black and making sure the Layer Mask thumbnail is selected, paint over where the thumb would be:

Oops! I've overshot. No worries. (Actually this is necessary so we know where the thumb ends naturally instead of painting blindly.)

Change the color of the brush to white and making sure the Layer Mask thumbnail is selected, paint over the dvd cover just to the edge of the thumb:

Voila, not that cheesy but kind of fun.

Emulating the Layer Mask effect in Photoshop Elements
Unfortunately, Photoshop Elements strictly does not have a built-in Layer Mask function. However, you may still cheat and emulate the effect. It takes a step or two more and it's not as flexible as Photoshop's Layer Masks, but it will still enable you to make image composites and blends like a pro.

Here we have my image, with a woman on top and Prague on the bottom layer:

Select the bottom layer and click on the Adjustment Layers button (the half-black-half-white circle). Choose "Levels" or "Brightness and Contrast" (doesn't matter for now).

This is what you'll see. Ignore this for this lesson and click on "Layers" on the right instead.

Hover your mouse in the line between the top layer and the Adjustment Layer, and ALT-click it (the mouse pointer will look like merging circles).

If you've done it correctly, there will be an arrow to the left of you top layer and it will be indented.

Click on the thumbnail of the Adjustment Layer and paint on it like you would a Layer Mask. Here I've used a radial gradient to give my woman a vignette, but you can use paintbrushes, fill large areas with the paintbucket, go crazy. Just remember: black on the adjustment layer will be transparent and white will be opaque.

The Layer Mask tool will come in handy in a bunch of future lessons, so I advise you to play around with them till you are comfortable, and I'll show you how to maximize its potential later on. If you've any questions, just shoot me a comment.

Removing Dust and Scratches Correctly (Part 1)

2010-02-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day has me going through family albums, looking at my parents' wedding pictures. Unfortunately, for older prints, the lamination isn't that sophisticated and time has scratched their surfaces so they are, on close inspection, quite dirty. Even for newer prints not taken with a digital camera, careless handling and storage adds clingy, practically permanent dust. Fortunately, Photoshop and Elements has a tool for easy removal of these artifacts - the Dust and Scratches Tool. Today I'll show you the correct way to use the tool on a basic level (I'll need to teach another basic skill - Layer Masks, coming soon - to show how to use it on an intermediate level). Hopefully this way you can breathe new life into your old pictures (with the help of a scanner, of course).

Click on the image to see the dust and scratches in all their glory. By the way, that is my aunt, not my mum. I'm using Elements here, but the instructions for Photoshop are exactly the same.

Go to Filters > Noise > Dust and Scratches. I've already witnessed somebody attempt to use this Filter to ADD Dust and Scratches. Nope, sorry. The only filter that does not have a reparative function on this menu is Add Noise. To make a photograph dusty and grungy, you will need a whole set of new skills!

Anyway. You start out with this dialog box. The mouse pointer turns into a square. You can use it to change the image area that is shown on the preview box. The preview box will always show the result of the Dust and Scratches process, even when the Preview checkbox (on the right) is turned off. When it's turned on, the main image behind the dialog box also shows what will happen after the process. Always start with both Radius and Threshold turned all the way to the left.

What does Radius and Threshold mean? Radius is essentially the strength at which Photoshop rubs out the specks. Threshold is the level at which Photoshop determines whether or not a speck is considered noise or not (at which point, it will ignore it and not try to rub it out). A value of 0 means it will consider most specks as noise, and the higher the number, the more forgiving it is of little specks.

(1) Turn up Radius until the specks that bother you disappear. Already at Radius 1, I'm satisfied with the cleanliness of the image (you'll see why you don't turn it up all the way in a bit). (2) Turn up Threshold until just before the specks make their comeback on the preview window. I reached a Threshold of 5 for this image. Any higher and too many of the specks come back.

Click on the image to enlarge.
Why didn't I crank up the Radius and keep the Threshold low so that the image is totally spotless? Photoshop makes no distinction between scratches and fine details that might be considered important to the image. For example, you can see that it thinks the highlights in my aunt's eyes are dust particles, and it rubs them out. Depending on how much you want to preserve the image (which I think is the most important part of all), it's always better to under-correct than overdo it and lose data forever. By keeping the Dust and Scratches at a low Radius and high Threshold, it leaves big dust particles and scratches intact, but you can use other tools (in future tutorials) to erase them without sacrificing the fine details of the image. However, if the image is extremely dusty and there are few fine details, Part 2 of this tutorial will discuss how to easily clean up the image.

Click on the image to enlarge and see the improvement.
The finished product, after clicking OK. Notice that I left the big scratch on the left. It's even smaller than the highlights in my aunt's eyes, so any use of the filter to erase it will also erase my aunt's highlights. We'll use other tools to remove these, in future tutorials.

Straightening Out Pictures

2010-02-01T16:32:00.000-08:00

When you process plenty of photographs, it's useful to have a workflow to make the work systematic and therefore, faster. Also, it ensures that you don't forget to do something to your images before you send them out. There's many ways to go about it and I confess that I don't have a set one. Often the recommended sequence will be something like 1) indexing the images (adding tags for easy searching), 2) initial cropping and cleaning up the image, 3) image adjustments, 4) sharpening, 5) final cropping, and 6) compressing and saving. These steps are highly condensed and vary widely among Photoshop users. Today we're going to tackle something that belongs to step 2: straightening out a picture.

You could very well straighten out a picture after you've done everything else, but I like to do it first because it helps to orient your mind properly as to what the picture should look like. Looking at a crooked picture for too long gives you a pervasive feeling that something is wrong with the picture, and it's bothersome.

Now, people who work with tripods (and you should really, at least for food pictures) don't usually have this problem, but if you don't have a tripod or if you take travel pictures, it can get frantic and the pictures don't come out straight. Fixing it is extremely easy in Photoshop.

Hold the mouse button down over the Eyedropper Tool so the panel flies out. Select the Ruler Tool. (Take note that any of these tools in the panel can take the place of the Eyedropper Tool in the Toolbox, so don't panic.)

Drag the ruler tool along a supposedly perfectly horizontal line (or a supposedly perfectly vertical line can also work) in your image. It should be as close to the proper horizon as possible. See those beams in the ceiling in the original picture? If I had used them, the picture would not straighten up properly, as my camera tends to distort lines the further they are from the center of the lens. To make the line as accurate as possible, I recommend choosing two points that are far away and well-defined. If they're too close together, small slips of the mouse mean a big change in the angle.

Select Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary...

The correct angle and direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) will be determined for you. Press OK.

Voila! Perfectly straightened picture. You may want to crop out the useless white areas, but that also means cropping out areas of the image, which may be useful for later. So that will be one of the last steps in the workflow (more on this much later).

Photoshop Elements
This is also possible for not much more effort in Photoshop Elements.

Select the Crop Tool.

Drag it over the image, with one of the edges of the formed box close to the line which is supposedly perfectly horizontal.

Hover your mouse pointer just outside one of the corners of the box until it turns into the rotating pointer.

Rotate the box until the top edge aligns with the line you want to be horizontal. You can pull on any of the 8 handles to help you guide the lines correctly and exactly to the desired horizon. When you've got the right angle...

... Move the mouse pointer away from the area outside the corners so it turns from the rotating pointer to the resizing pointer. Pull on any of the 8 handles of the bounding box so the boundaries of the box extend beyond the original image. If you don't do this, part of your image will be cut off, though if you want to skip to your final crop already, you might want to take the shortcut and chop off areas of the image already.

Click on the green check mark below the bounding box to set the crop, and the image will automatically rotate to the correct angle. Yay!

As always, if you're getting familiarized with these tools, just play with your images (feel free to download my first image of the grocery above). Use vertical lines as your guide. Or maybe turn correct images into lopsided ones. Just get a feel for the tools until it becomes natural!

Special Effects

2010-01-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted to set up a blog that educates people on how to use Photoshop effectively. When my friends Todd and Diane set up their photography blog, it resurfaced in my consciousness, but I always feared, like I told them in the comments, that food bloggers would come knocking on my door with pitchforks.

Somehow the idea is that photographs that have been through Photoshop are less genuine. It's a stigma that Kate Winslet and faithful readers of Photoshop Disasters know very well. My fear is also that accomplished photographers would feel cheated at the idea that people who don't work as hard to get perfect photographs make the grade by altering their pictures to look like they were better photographers.

I really don't have anything to refute that, but let me just share my experience. I work with Photoshop all the time. I have been since third year high school: 13 years as of today. It's a very powerful program that's allowed me to feel comfortable displaying my food photographs, which have all been taken with a point-and-shoot camera. But there's only so much I can do with it, and only so much I allow myself to do with it. It's helped bring out the sunshine when it refused to come out, but I really wanted to eat my dessert already. It removed that distracting spot of grease on my tablecloth, which I only use because I don't have a ton of tablecloths. It helps me emphasize what looks good about my dish and de-emphasize what I'd rather you not focus on. And of course, there are the more common but no less important tasks to use Photoshop for: cropping, making diptychs, adding text, compressing photos, and straightening out crooked photographs, among others.

What I don't do: fool you into thinking that my dish isn't burned: if it's burned, it's burned. Add things: if I forgot to garnish it with star anise, it's never coming back. Because people can tell it was never really there, no matter how hard you try to hide it. And more importantly: you will always know that it wasn't there. But I must confess, I have used Photoshop to add a tablecloth where there wasn't any. It was a beautiful pattern and I had to have it!

Just ask yourself this question: are films less masterful because they needed editing to get rid of the crap? There's no question that a great film made without any cuts is a rare and impressive feat. It's still the director's job to make a film tell a great story well, not the editor's or special effects dudes. And we know how corny and terrible a film that is all special effects is.

What I'm going to do is take you through some useful skills in Photoshop (and might be useful in other photo-editing applications as well, though I don't own any other). It's not always going to be food photographs. We'll make it useful and fun. With each lesson I'll walk you through a basic skill and we'll integrate the skills and apply them to a photo that could use a little oomph. There'll be no wacky stuff like Making Horror Text or Psychedelic Photos, but every now and then we'll put something cute out there. Maybe eventually I'll make videos so you can hear my weird voice, but we'll see how much time I have.

What you need to know before starting: absolute basics of: Using layers. Using brushes. Using the move tool. Zooming. Using the text tool. Using the selection tool. You don't need to be good at any of these (uh, even zooming), but just know how to use them.

If there's anything you want to learn specifically, just leave a comment below and I'll put something together for all of us. If I don't even know how to do it, I'll try to research it and present it in a way that's easy to understand.

Also, if there's a site that educates people on taking good photographs you want to include in the sidebar, just tell me and I'll check it out.