tinysmall
13th October 2008, 06:30 PM
Sorry, originally posted in the wrong bit so I've moved it. Thought I would share a few tips with anyone who might be interested on the way I do some of the stuff I do. These are for pc users running photoshop. I don't know how you would do this in elements or on a mac.
Hope these help a few of you and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask me
NON DESTRUCTIVE DODGING AND BURNING:
This technique doesn’t work in the same way as normal dodging and burning where you can select highlights or shadows, but affects the whole area you apply it to and is therefore designed to be used selectively.
First create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer) and before hitting ok, select the blending mode drop down box and select Soft Light. Hit Ok.
Select the brush tool with a soft edge (the size depends on the area to be painted) and hit D then X on the keyboard. This ensures that you are using black and white. White is for dodging and black is for burning. Set the brush opacity to somewhere between 10% and 30% (depending how strong you want the effect) and paint over the areas to be dodged or burned. You can switch between black and white by hitting the X button. Now just paint over the areas you want to be affected. When you are done you can flatten the image or merge layers or what ever. This technique works well on things like irises and stuff where you don’t want to change the colour but you do want them to stand out a little without damaging the integrity of the pixels.
USING A LAYER MASK TO ADD OR CHANGE SKY’S AND BACKGROUNDS:
This is a great technique for adding something from one image to another, like the sky or a background.
First, open the image you want to work on and open the image with the sky or whatever that you want to add. With the sky (or whatever) image open, press ctrl+A to select the whole image, then ctrl+C to copy it. Close this image down and click on the main image then press ctrl+V to paste the sky image onto the main image. Now look in the layers palette and click on sky image to turn it blue. Now look at the bottom right of your screen and you should see seven clickable icons. You need to select the one that looks like a rectangle with a circle in it (probably the third one in). This is the layer mask icon and adds a mask to the selected layer. Now select a large soft brush with the opacity set to 100% then hit D then X to make sure you are using black and white. You can switch between black and white by hitting X. With black selected start to paint over parts of the image you want to get rid of to show the main image below. If you make a mistake hit X (to select white) and paint over it again. You will see the detail being painted back in. Hit X again to resume erasing the added image. When it comes to erasing detail around an edge or along a skyline, enlarge the image to between 200% and 500% so you can see pixels and drop your brush size to about 2 or 3 pixels width then paint round the edge. If you make a mistake, switch to white (X) and Paint the detail back in. When you are finished doing this there are a number of things you can do. If you want to soften the edge a little (this is not always needed) you can set a large soft brush size at about 5% to 10% opacity with black selected and make a couple of passes along the join. Don’t do this if the layers have very different colours though.
If the light is different in both images you can adjust it with curves, levels and hue/saturation layers (making sure you use layers to do this and not doing it to the image. Do this by going to Layers > Adjustment Layer > then the type of adjustment layer) until the image looks more natural. You can also select the blur tool at a low to medium opacity and just run it along the join. It’s up to you how you do this but a lot of the time, if you have done the first part well, you won’t need to do anything else.
DUOTONING:
Here’s a good way to duo tone an image.
Open the image you want to tone and convert it to black and white by one of the many methods (everyone usually has a favourite way to do this) then go to Layer > Adjustment Layer > Curves. When the curves window opens up go to the drop down menu at the top where it says RGB and select the red channel. Create an S shape by clicking and dragging the red line. Then you need to go to the drop down menu again and select the blue channel. This time create a backwards S shape. You should now see a duotone image in front of you. Have a play about with the S shapes you have created to get different effects. When you are done, just hit Ok.
I hope a few of you can use this.
Ta: Matt
Hope these help a few of you and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask me
NON DESTRUCTIVE DODGING AND BURNING:
This technique doesn’t work in the same way as normal dodging and burning where you can select highlights or shadows, but affects the whole area you apply it to and is therefore designed to be used selectively.
First create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer) and before hitting ok, select the blending mode drop down box and select Soft Light. Hit Ok.
Select the brush tool with a soft edge (the size depends on the area to be painted) and hit D then X on the keyboard. This ensures that you are using black and white. White is for dodging and black is for burning. Set the brush opacity to somewhere between 10% and 30% (depending how strong you want the effect) and paint over the areas to be dodged or burned. You can switch between black and white by hitting the X button. Now just paint over the areas you want to be affected. When you are done you can flatten the image or merge layers or what ever. This technique works well on things like irises and stuff where you don’t want to change the colour but you do want them to stand out a little without damaging the integrity of the pixels.
USING A LAYER MASK TO ADD OR CHANGE SKY’S AND BACKGROUNDS:
This is a great technique for adding something from one image to another, like the sky or a background.
First, open the image you want to work on and open the image with the sky or whatever that you want to add. With the sky (or whatever) image open, press ctrl+A to select the whole image, then ctrl+C to copy it. Close this image down and click on the main image then press ctrl+V to paste the sky image onto the main image. Now look in the layers palette and click on sky image to turn it blue. Now look at the bottom right of your screen and you should see seven clickable icons. You need to select the one that looks like a rectangle with a circle in it (probably the third one in). This is the layer mask icon and adds a mask to the selected layer. Now select a large soft brush with the opacity set to 100% then hit D then X to make sure you are using black and white. You can switch between black and white by hitting X. With black selected start to paint over parts of the image you want to get rid of to show the main image below. If you make a mistake hit X (to select white) and paint over it again. You will see the detail being painted back in. Hit X again to resume erasing the added image. When it comes to erasing detail around an edge or along a skyline, enlarge the image to between 200% and 500% so you can see pixels and drop your brush size to about 2 or 3 pixels width then paint round the edge. If you make a mistake, switch to white (X) and Paint the detail back in. When you are finished doing this there are a number of things you can do. If you want to soften the edge a little (this is not always needed) you can set a large soft brush size at about 5% to 10% opacity with black selected and make a couple of passes along the join. Don’t do this if the layers have very different colours though.
If the light is different in both images you can adjust it with curves, levels and hue/saturation layers (making sure you use layers to do this and not doing it to the image. Do this by going to Layers > Adjustment Layer > then the type of adjustment layer) until the image looks more natural. You can also select the blur tool at a low to medium opacity and just run it along the join. It’s up to you how you do this but a lot of the time, if you have done the first part well, you won’t need to do anything else.
DUOTONING:
Here’s a good way to duo tone an image.
Open the image you want to tone and convert it to black and white by one of the many methods (everyone usually has a favourite way to do this) then go to Layer > Adjustment Layer > Curves. When the curves window opens up go to the drop down menu at the top where it says RGB and select the red channel. Create an S shape by clicking and dragging the red line. Then you need to go to the drop down menu again and select the blue channel. This time create a backwards S shape. You should now see a duotone image in front of you. Have a play about with the S shapes you have created to get different effects. When you are done, just hit Ok.
I hope a few of you can use this.
Ta: Matt