Some Basic Photoshop Techniques

Following my previous Newsletter here: [link]
(take a look if you haven’t!) on Photographing Animals, I thought I would put together a very basic article on Photoshop Techniques.

I am currently using Photoshop CS2, however, most of what I cover should transpose to earlier versions, and certainly to CS3.

Some of what I cover may not be the way that many of you carry out your workflow, I would be keen to hear from others in the way which they work, and of course other peoples hints and tips would be gratefully received!

Although I do some work in RAW, for this I am assuming that the initial photograph has been taken in JPEG.

Some basics:

• First of all, I would always advise keeping your unmolested photograph, I never save over my initial photograph so I can always revisit if needs be.
• Its good practice to create a new layer initially to work on, so as during your workflow, you can always revisit the base photograph.

• Workflow:
o Right mouse click your ‘background’ layer, in the layers palette.
o Duplicate layer

Levels:

With almost every photograph, my first port of call, is to ‘tweak’ the levels (unless converting to black and white, see below).
Obviously the amount of which you do this, would very much depend on what photograph you have taken. But in almost every circumstance, it will enhance your photograph, and add a little punch.

• Workflow:
o Image
o Adjustments
o Levels (ctrl+L)

I usually find bringing the left slider (the darks) to the right and the right slider (the lights) to the left by a very small amount. You will find that this will have the effect of darkening the blacks, and lightening the whites.
I then use the centre slider (the greys) to taste.

Another very useful use of ‘Levels’ are the ‘eye droppers’

You will see three eye droppers in the Levels palette. Black, White and Grey . These are very useful for correcting white balance.

• Workflow:
o Bring up the ‘Levels’ palette (ctrl+L)
o Click on the white ‘dropper’ tool
o Click on an area of white in your photograph

You should see the photograph change. If the result is not pleasing, continue to click other area of white within your photograph. There is no need to undo the initial click.

Similarly you can do the same for the black ‘dropper’ obviously clicking areas of black. I have found the black tool particularly useful for taking pictures of the night sky and fireworks with the amount of light pollution around, it illuminates this very effectively to give a nice pitch black sky.

Adding a Vignette:

For those who are not familiar with this term, a vignette is where the extreme edges of the photograph is darkened slightly, it has the effect of drawing the eye into the centre of the picture.

The process is particularly useful for portraiture.

• Workflow:
o Right mouse click the ‘Marquee’ tool (top left tool)
o Select ‘Elliptical Marquee Tool’
o Create a large circle in the centre of your photograph, so the edges of the circle are almost touching the edges
o Right mouse click, select inverse (your ‘marching ants’ should now be all round the edge and the circle in the centre)
o Right mouse click, feather
o Select 250 pixels, click OK
o Right mouse click, fill
o Use – Black, Mode – Normal, Opacity 45% , click OK
o Right mouse click, deselect

I find these amounts most pleasing, however, do change the amounts to your taste.
For a romantic portrait, using white as the fill colour, and increasing the opacity can prove more pleasing.

The ‘feather’ amount can vary also depending on the size of your files.

Examples of Photographs that have been vignetted to draw the eye:



Sharpening a Picture

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to sharpen a photograph. I tend not to over sharpen my photographs, as this can lead to unsightly artefacts, increased noise and thus a less pleasing image.
So the following is what I carry out on pictures which I feel need it.

Sharpening a photograph should always be the last action which is carried out. Its also important to note that sharpening a picture will always increase the file size.

• Workflow:
o Create a duplicate layer, name this sharpen
o Filter, sharpen, unsharp mask
o Select amount 100%
o Select 1 pixel
o Click OK

The amounts above are the maxim amount I normally use for sharpening a picture.
The reason for creating a duplicate layer, is so that you are able to use the ‘eraser’ tool to erase any areas that do not need sharpening, and revealing the background layer underneath as sharpening can accentuate any noise on pictures where a higher ISO has been used, so it is not always desirable to sharpen the whole picture.

Softening a Portrait

Sometimes softening a portrait can give a more ‘romantic’ feel than one which is pin sharp. However, it is always important to have the main feature such as the eyes, nose and lips nice and sharp.

• Workflow:
o Duplicate the background, and rename the layer ‘sharpen’
 Sharpen the image slightly if required using the above technique.
o Duplicate the background, and rename ‘soften’
o Ensure that ‘soften’ the top layer, and sharpen directly below by simply dragging and dropping the relevant layers in the layers palette
o Working on the ‘soften’ layer:
 Click Filter, blur, Gaussian blur
 Blur the image very slightly to soften the skin tones and background, ignoring the main facial features such as eyes nose etc.
 Select the eraser tool
 Using the navigator palette, zoom in so as the eyes are visible.
 Select a suitable brush, ensuring the hardness is turned down to zero. I find a size of about 80 to 100 is just right.
 Change the opacity of the brush in the tool area to about 50%
 Slowly and carefully erase the eye areas.
• What you should see here, is that you are erasing the ‘blurred’ eyes, revealing the ‘sharp’ eyes on the layer below.
 Continue on both eyes, the nostrils, and the mouth.

You should end up with a nicely softened photograph, with sharp eyes, mouth, and nose.

An example of this effect, the skin is almost like porcelain:



Converting to Black and White

There are many different methods to convert to black and white (or mono), below is the method I prefer to use.

• Workflow:
o Image
o Adjustments
o Channel Mixer
o Check the ‘monochrome’ box
o Tweak the outputs as you feel necessary, click OK
o Tweak the ‘levels’ (see above) to taste.

Creating a Duo/Tri/Quadtone

This is very much to taste, and is also great fun for dramatically changing images.

• Workflow:
o Image
o Mode
o Greyscale, Click OK
 An image needs to be converted to greyscale prior to converting to a duotone
o Image
o Mode
o Duotone
 Using the dropdown for type, select duotone
 Now simply have a play with the colours to give a dramatic feel to your image. Also experiment with tritone, and quadtones.

In order to save your photograph as a JPEG, you will need to reconvert your photograph back to RGB, using Image, Mode, RGB.

A couple of examples where this technique has been used:




Adding a simple border

Ton finish off a photograph, adding a simple border makes all the difference, my border of choice is usually a simple black, white, black affair.

• Edit
• Stroke
o Width – 15 pixels
o Colour – Black
o Location – inside
o Blending Mode – Normal
o Blending Opacity – 100%
o Click OK
• Edit
• Stroke
o Width – 10 pixels
o Colour – White
o Location – inside
o Blending Mode – Normal
o Blending Opacity – 100%
o Click OK
• Edit
• Stroke
o Width – 5 pixels
o Colour – Black
o Location – inside
o Blending Mode – Normal
o Blending Opacity – 100%
o Click OK

You should now end up with a nice subtle border. Feel free to increase the size for more drama.


Sign Your Work, the Copywrite sign

I always like to add my signature to work that I feel proud of. To me it just rounds off the picture, and finalises the work.

In order to do this, I use the normal text tool, however, some struggle to work out how to add that ‘copywrite sign’, well, heres how!

• Worksflow:
o Select the text tool
o Hold down the ‘Alt’ key, and type 0169
o You should now see the © symbol
o I generally type my name, and the year:
 ©Ben Durrant 2008
o Once this has been completed, I change the opacity of the text layer to 50%


I really hope you have found some of the above techniques I have detailed useful.

Happy snapping, and happy post processing! 

Best Regards,

Ben