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Adobe Photoshop CS Tips and Tricks from the Experts i ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS Tips and Tricks from the Experts Contents F-stop corrections Smoke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Creating Metallic Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Creative Photo Cropping Lightblast! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Digital Light Painting Woodcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Photo Filters to the Rescue Gif Animation: Swipe Effect Working with Lens Blur Looking Through a Glass Rain Drops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 On the following pages, Photoshop experts in photography, graphic design, video, and Web design share some of their favorite tips. To see more Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe ImageReady® tips visit the Photoshop Expert Center: http://studio.adobe.com/expertcenter/photoshop. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Photoshop and ImageReady are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Flash is a trademark of Macromedia, Inc. ©2003 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. 1 ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS F-stop corrections Bruce Fraser Adapted from Real World Photoshop, by David Blatner and Bruce Fraser. Bruce Fraser is coauthor of the award-winning Real World Photoshop series, and of Real World Color Management, all from Peachpit Press. Here is a simple way to adjust exposure in the f-stop increments that is second nature to photographers. The key to this technique is that the Screen and Multiply layer blending modes, at an opacity of 38%, produce an effect very similar to lightening or darkening by one full f-stop. (For half-stop adjustments, use 19% opacity, for one-third stop use 13%, and so on.) In this example, we’ll darken the image by one stop. 1. Create an f-stop correction layer. If you’re working on a ?at ?le, duplicate the Background layer by choosing Duplicate Layer from the Layer menu. If you’re working on a layered ?le, create a new layer by choosing New > Layer from the Layer menu, then press Command-Option-Shift-E (Mac) or Control-Alt-Shift-E (Windows) to merge the contents of all visible layers into the new layer while leaving the underlying ones intact. 2. Apply a global f-stop correction. Select the newly-created layer in the Layers palette, then set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to 38%. This darkens the image globally by one stop. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 2 F-stop corrections 3. Add a Layer Mask. The global correction makes some of the vegetation along the waterline too dark. To back off the correction locally, you ?rst need to add a Layer Mask by choosing Add Layer Mask from the Layer menu. In this case we used the Reveal All option, but choose the option that requires the least amount of painting—if you want to correct a small area, it’s more ef?cient to choose Hide All, and paint the correction in, rather than choosing Reveal All, then painting the correction out. Note that when you add the layer mask, it automatically becomes targeted in the channels palette, and the background and foreground colors are automatically set to Black and White, ready for editing the layer mask. 4. Constrain the correction. With the foreground color set to Black, use the Brush tool set to a soft-edged brush to paint out the correction in the areas where you don’t want it applied. In this case, we painted with an opacity of 33% to reduce the correction along the waterline to 1/3 stop. 5. Experiment. This technique lends itself to numerous variations. Once you’ve constrained the correction to the desired area of the image, you can vary its strength by changing the layer’s opacity—for example, if you decide that you need a two-stop correction, increase the opacity from 38% to 76%. You can also experiment with different techniques for constraining the correction. If the area to be corrected or the area to be protected is easily selectable, you can create the selection before adding the Layer Mask, then use the Reveal Selection or Hide Selection options, respectively. If you want to constrain the correction to a speci?c tonal range, you can use the Blend If options in the Layer Styles dialog box to limit the correction to the desired tonal range. For small local corrections, you can use the History Brush, with the source set to the current image state, and the Brush Mode set to Screen or Multiply—this method is particularly useful for making delicate corrections with the History Brush set to very low opacities in the 3% to 10% range. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 3 Creating Metallic Type Creating Metallic Type Bert Monroy Adapted from Bert’s monthly segment on the TechTV show Screen Savers. Bert Monroy is considered a pioneer of digital art. He is the co-author of the ?rst book ever written on Photoshop. Bert is an accomplished artist, teacher, lecturer and author of many books. The effect in this exercise is as widely used as the drop shadow. Metallic type can be found in car ads, CD covers, and movie logos. A glance through any magazine will produce a myriad of examples. There will be many intermediate steps to this exercise. Keep in mind that the end result is not really what is important here but rather the steps. These steps with a minor alteration—as the use of a different color—will provide the solution to many other situations. 1. Create a new ?le. Create a Photoshop ?le large enough to contain the full logo you are about to create. 2. Add a gradient. Add a linear gradient from top to bottom with the Gradient Tool, using any colors you wish. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 4 Creating Metallic Type 3. Add type. With the Horizontal Type Tool, enter the name you want to use for your logo. 4. Warp text. In the Type Options bar, click on the Create Warped Text icon. Here you can choose whichever effect and amounts you want. I chose the Rise effect with a small percentage for the Bend. Click OK. 5. Create a path. Create a path from the type by going to Layer > Type > Create Work Path. The new path can be found under the Path palette. The original text layer can now be discarded or turned off. Using the Direct Selection tool, the path can be modi?ed to any shape you wish. Additional points can be added to create distortions or mutated shapes as the extended portion of the “C”. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 5 Creating Metallic Type 6. Fill path. Once you have the path completed, create a new layer and ?ll the path with a color. This can be done in many ways. I prefer to simply click on the Fill Path button at the bottom of the Path palette. Which color you use is irrelevant because you will be overriding it later. 7. Add drop shadow. Double click (Mac) or Alt-Double click (Win) on the layer in the Layers palette with your logo to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. Steps 7–10 will be done in this dialog box. In the Layer Style dialog box, choose Drop Shadow. Adjust it however you wish. 8. Add bevel and emboss. Click on Bevel and Emboss. Choose Chisel Hard for the Technique and pump up the Depth. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 6 Creating Metallic Type 9. Add gradient overlay. Select Gradient Overlay. Click on the gradient to bring up the Gradient Editor. Choose the gradient type that looks like the re?ections used in metallic type. When you choose a particular gradient it appears in the Editor box. You can now adjust the gradient in any way you want. Clicking the paint wells below the gradient allows you to move their position or change their color in the settings area. Clicking below the gradient where there is no well will automatically insert a new well. The wells along the top of the gradient control opacity. 10. Adjust the angle. Once you have the gradient you want, click OK to exit the Editor. Back in the Layer Style dialog, adjust the Angle so the gradient intersects the logo at the right angle to simulate the re?ections in the metal. 11. Add Stroke. Finally, choose Stroke to add an edge to the logo. Click OK to exit the Layer Styles dialog. You are now done. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 7 Smoke Smoke John Paul Caponigro Adapted from Adobe Photoshop Master Class (Adobe Press) by John Paul Caponigro. John Paul Caponigro is an internationally recognized ?ne artist. He exhibits, lectures, and teaches workshops extensively. His clients include Adobe, Canon, Epson, Apple, Imacon, GretagMacBeth, Sony, and Kodak. For more information see www.johnpaulcaponigro.com. It’s used in sacred ceremonies. It’s used to cleanse. It’s linked to the spirit world. It makes breath visible. It’s a sign of danger. Fire precedes it. It’s pollution. It stops breath. Smoke is a powerful symbol. Compositionally, smoke is extraordinarily ?exible. It can be thick or thin, heavy or diffuse, contained or scattered, simple or complex. You can draw a line in any direction, linking two objects or creating a new focus of attention. You can literally draw the eye to any point in an image along any path. The complexity and variety found in smoke effects gives you an extraordinary degree of artistic license without compromising realism. That said, if you plan to incorporate the effect into your work, it pays to closely study the appearance smoke in the real world. There’s a logic to the way smoke unfurls. It’s tighter and more energetic closer to the source, more diffuse and calmer when it’s further away. It billows, curls, and twists in undulating arcs, rarely making a sharp turn. While it can drift quickly or slowly, it rarely descends; it usually ascends. It’s amazing to me that something so complex can be so easily rendered by hand, using Photoshop. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 8 Smoke 1. Draw and distort a line. Starting with a Background layer ?lled with black, use the Paintbrush to paint a white line on a new layer in a Layer Set entitled Smoke. Then, distort the line. Use the Smudge Tool to pull through, push out of, wiggle, or twirl portions of the white line until a desired effect is achieved. The more you distort the line the more blurred it becomes. Use the History Brush to selectively undo distorted areas as desired. 2. Re?ne the effect. Use Liquify (Filter > Liquify) to create further distortions. Unlike the Smudge Tool, Liquify will not introduce blurring with distortion. Use Liquify’s Reconstruct Tool to undo distortions selectively. Unlike using the History Brush, the Reconstruct Tool allows you to pick a transitional state between undistorted and fully distorted. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 9 Smoke 3. Build up a more complex effect. Repeat as many times as desired keeping separate elements on separate layers. 4. Reposition the elements. Use the Move Tool to reposition select elements. Use Free Transform (Edit > Free Transform) to scale or distort select elements. 5. Create a halo. Turn off the Background Layer. Create a new layer and place it at the bottom of the Smoke Layer Set. Hold the Alt and Ctrl keys (Windows) or Option and Command keys (Mac OS) and select Merge Visible. This copies all the visible information from multiple layers onto the one layer you have targeted, without ?attening your image. Use the ?lter Gaussian Blur to blur this layer. Lower its opacity as desired. Repeat if necessary. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 10 Smoke 6. Optionally, add noise. At the top of the Smoke Layer Set, create a new layer ?lled with 50% gray, set to Overlay mode, and ?lter it with either Noise or Grain. Reduce Opacity and Saturation as desired. 7. Import the effect into a new destination. Drag and drop the Smoke Layer Set into a new destination. Modify position and opacity as desired. Further distortion may be desired. Elements within a single Layer Set can be shuf?ed and recombined to create multiple effects that have varied appearances. 8. Conclusion. For added realism you may combine these effects along with photographs of smoke. Any ?le of smoke photographed on a black background can quickly generate yet one more element (albeit an element with a great deal of complexity) for your ?nal effect. Starting with the photograph, load any channel of the photograph as a selection (click the selection icon in the Channels palette), using any selection tool drag and drop the resulting selection into a desired destination, create a new layer, Add a Layer Mask, and ?ll the layer with white. Scale, distort, reduce opacity of this layer mask—in short, modify as desired. Experimentation is not only required here, it’s highly enjoyable. You will quickly ?nd yourself enchanted by smoke. While captivated by that enchantment, you may ?nd that new source of power and poetry will enter your images. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 11 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Rick Sammon Adapted from one of the 107 lessons in Rick Sammon’s Complete Guide to Digital Photography, Rick’s 22nd book. Rick Sammon is the host of the Digital Photography Workshop on the DIY network and is a guest host of the Canon Photo Safari on the Outdoor Life Network. Rick also writes the weekly photo column for the Associated Press and teaches digital photography workshops around the world. See www.ricksammon.com. “It’s all done with mirrors” is a popular saying among professional magicians. Well, these days, digital photography artists are using mirrors, of sorts, to create magical effects on their computer monitors. Basically, a mirror image is one in which one side of a frame is perfectly mirrored (re?ected) on the opposite side of the frame—side to side or top to bottom. In Photoshop, we use Canvas Size, Copy and Paste to create the effect. It’s that easy! This mirror image of a sunrise on a mountaintop in China (where there is no lake) is one of many mirror images I have had fun creating. Okay! Let’s take a look at how easy it is to create the magical mirror effect in Photoshop. 1. Start with a vision. The ?rst step is to start with a picture, or perhaps more accurately, a vision of your ?nal mirror image. I started with a picture of a sunrise I took on a mountaintop in China. (I actually used a copy of the image because I never work on my original ?les. A good idea!) 2. Open the Canvas Size dialog box. In Photoshop, we can increase the Canvas size (actual working area) of an image by going to Image > Canvas Size. In this screen shot, we see the actual size of my original image. When we ?rst open Canvas Size, the center box in the tick-tac-toe grid is shaded. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 12 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect 3. Increase Canvas Size. The next step is to increase the Canvas Size (again, the actual working area). We increase the Canvas Size by moving the shaded box into any of the other boxes—and then typing in a new height and/or width dimensions. Because I wanted to increase the height of my Canvas Size on the bottom side of my picture, I moved the shaded area to the top middle box. Then I typed in the new Canvas size—which, for ease of use, was a bit more than double the height of my original photograph. After I approximately doubled the height of my image, my new working area (new Image Size) looked like this. 4. Create a ?ipped image of your original. Creating a ?ipped image of your original is easy. Start by using the Marquee Tool to select the original image area, the sunrise in this case. Then go to Edit > Copy. Next go to File > New. When the new document is created, it will be exactly the same size of your copied image. Now go to Edit > Paste. Your image will be pasted into the new document—on a new layer. To ?ip the image (vertically in this case), go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertically. Now the image will be ?ipped. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 13 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect 5. Create the Magical Mirror Effect. To create the Magical Mirror Effect, use the Move tool and drag your ?ipped image into the blank area of your original image. Now carefully line up both images so they look perfectly mirrored. Next ?atten your image by going to Layers > Flatten. 6. Conclusion. An optional and fun thing to do with some vertical mirror images (you can create horizontal mirror images, too) is to create the effect that your original image is re?ected in water. Here is how it’s done. Select the mirrored part of your image (lower half) using the Marquee tool. Now go to Filters > Distort > Ocean Ripple. Play around with the Ripple Size and Ripple Magnitude until you are happy with the effect. Click on OK. Now go to Select > Deselect to deselect the area on which you have applied the Ocean Ripple ?lter. Finally, use the Crop tool to trim your picture to your liking. Most pros agree that Photoshop has changed the way that we not only make pictures—but the way we see potential images. Now that you know about the magical mirror effect, you may see way-cool potential mirror images in your travels. Good luck! Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 14 Creative Photo Cropping Creative Photo Cropping Ben Willmore Adapted from Adobe Photoshop 7 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore, and from www.digitalmastery.com. Ben Willmore has been involved in digital imaging since its inception. He brings this knowledge to the public through seminars, conferences, books, magazine articles, tips, videos, and CD training products. In this technique, I’d like to show you how I use scanned images or paint with artistic brushes to creatively crop photographs. Warning: This technique is addictive. After using this technique a few times, you might get bored with rectangular photographs. 1. Scan a high contrast image. You can use any image that contains primarily black and white (and not many shades in between). One way of making such an image is to spill ink onto watercolor paper and then scan it. But for my example, I used a large brush, dipped it in black ink and then painted on watercolor paper to create the image. Once the ink was completely dry, I scanned it as a grayscale image. As an alternative, you can paint with one of the creative brushes that appears at the bottom of the brushes palette in a grayscale document instead of scanning an image (although I think it turns out much better with scanned images). Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 15 Creative Photo Cropping 2. Add a layer mask. Now we need to prepare the image we’d like to crop. So, open any photograph you’d like to use, double-click on the Background Layer to change its name and then choose Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All. The layer should now have two preview thumbnails in the Layers palette. The one on the right is the Layer Mask you just created. 3. Paste the image into mask. Now let’s get our scanned image into that Layer Mask. Open the scanned or painted image, choose Select > All and then Edit > Copy. Switch to the image you’d like to crop, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to make it ?ll the main screen and then choose Edit > Paste. If the pasted image is overly large or small compared to the document you pasted it into, then you’ll want to choose Edit > Free Transform and pull on the corners to scale the image. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 16 Creative Photo Cropping 4. Invert the mask. In a Layer Mask, black causes areas of the layer to become hidden and white causes areas to show up, which means that what we have now would hide the majority of our photo. So, choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to make the image a negative, which should cause the layer to only be hidden on the edges. 5. Adjust the mask. Next, lets make sure the primary areas of this image are pure black and pure white, otherwise you’ll be able to see through the image in the middle (grays=semi-transparent). To do that, choose Image > Adjustments > Levels and pull in the upper left and upper right sliders until the middle of the scan is solid white and the edge of the image is solid black. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 17 Creative Photo Cropping 6. View the result. Now to see how all this has affected your image, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) on the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to hide the mask and show your image. It should be cropped so that it only shows up within the shape of the ink that was in our scan. 7. Create texture. I think we could make it look even more interesting by adding texture to the photograph. Since the last thing we copied was the scan of that paint, you should be able to just choose Edit > Paste to get a new layer that contains the original scan. If you ended up scaling the image the ?rst time you pasted it in, then you can choose Edit > Transform > Again to scale this version the same amount. After doing that, choose Filter > Stylize > Emboss, use the default settings, and click ok. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 18 Creative Photo Cropping 8. Apply texture. Now to apply the texture that the Emboss ?lter pulled out of the image, change the blending mode menu at the top of the Layers palette from Normal to Hard Light and then choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask. If that doesn’t add enough texture, then try choosing Filter > Texture > Texturizer to the layer you embossed. 9. Spice it up a bit. If you’re still hungry for more effects, then click on the layer that contains the photo (not the texture) and experiment with the choices found in the Layer > Styles menu (I like Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss). All it takes is about an hour of free time and a quick visit to the art supply store to create literally dozens of creative crop shapes. You don’t have to be an artist, heck, just spill paint on the paper—it will look more interesting than a rectangular crop job. I can barely draw a stick man and look what I came up with. And since the Photoshop creative brushes can be used as a substitute for all those art supplies, your possibilities are truly endless. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 19 Lightblast! Lightblast! Richard Harrington Excerpted from “Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors”, ISBN 1-57820-209-4, Copyright © 2003, CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved. Richard Harrington is an experienced Editor and Motion Graphic artist and the owner of RHED Pixel (www.RHEDPixel.com) a visual communications company. Harrington has several industry certi?cations including: Apple Certi?ed Trainer, Avid Certi?ed Instructor, and holds two Adobe Certi?ed Expert certi?cates. Looking for a way to give some extra “life” to a logo or type treatment? The two most common techniques to help a logo standout are a glowing edge or a drop shadow. This is based on the principle of type on pattern, which says that a contrasting edge makes it far easier to see something when it is positioned over a busy or moving background. But why be ordinary? By backlighting an image, we can dramatically offset it from its background. This technique works with almost any logo or type treatment. 1. Position the logo. Position the logo where you want it on screen. Be sure to use a safe title area document if you are working in video. Use alignment tools to center the logo if needed. Note: You can open a new document with title safe and action safe guides showing. Choose File > New, and then choose a preset video document that matches the standard used by your video editing system. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 20 Lightblast! 2. Duplicate the logo layer. Make a copy of the logo by duplicating the layer: choose Layer > Duplicate Layer. Name the duplicate layer Light 1. Place the copy above the original logo. 3. Blast it! Apply the Radial Blur on the duplicate layer (Filter > Blur > Radial Blur). Set the amount to 100, the Blur Method to Zoom, and the Quality to Good. Click OK. 4. Fill it. Load the default colors by pressing D. Load the layer named Light 1 by Cmd + clicking (Mac OS) or Ctrl + clicking (Windows) its thumbnail in the layers palette. Fill the selection by pressing Option + Delete (Mac OS) or Alt + Delete (Windows). Deselect the layer by choosing Select > Deselect. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 21 Lightblast! 5. Extend it. Repeat the blur/load/?ll cycle until your rays are the desired length. You can run the last ?lter again choosing Filter > Radial Blur (the top menu item), this applies the last ?lter with its last previously used values. In the example (which is for a video) I repeated the cycle three times to achieve my look. Depending on the resolution of your composition you may need to run the combination more or less times. 6. Color it. On the blurred layer named Light 1, apply the Color Overlay layer style by choosing Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay. Select the desired color and adjust opacity to taste. You should get a real-time preview of your work if the Preview box is checked. Click OK. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 22 Lightblast! 7. Build it. Move the glow layer, light1, behind the logo by dragging it below the logo layer in the Layers palette—so the beams shoot past. You may choose to place a background image behind the logo. Optionally, you may also choose to place an additional copy of the beam layer on top. Adjust the opacity to make the color look like it has wrapped around the logo. 8. Composite it (optional). If you want to key the image in a video application you will need to create an alpha channel to store the transparency of the glow: Turn off the visibility icon for all layers that you don’t want included in the alpha channel. Then make a new (empty) layer and make sure it is selected. Choose Merge Visible from the Layer’s palette submenu while holding down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows). The resulting layer contains all of the merged elements while leaving the originals behind. Cmd + click (Mac OS) or Ctrl + click (Windows) this new layer’s thumbnail to load the selection, and then turn this layer’s visibility icon off. Switch to the channel’s palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. Once the alpha channel is created, you can release the selection by choosing Select > Deselect. In the Layers palette, turn the background layer on and ?ll it with the same color as your glow. This will ensure that you have clean edges in your alpha channel by avoiding any stray color data in the glowing areas. Be sure that you have only one alpha channel in your document. Then choose File > Save As and save a copy of the ?le in a format your NLE system recognizes such as PICT or TARGA. Make certain that the Save Alpha Channels box is checked so the alpha channel will be embedded. 9. Conclusion. This is one of several techniques for enhancing logos and type for video that can be found in the book entitled Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors by Richard Harrington. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 23 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Total Contrast Control Using Two Images George DeWolfe Adapted from The Digital Fine Pint Workshop by George DeWolfe. www.georgedewolfe.com. George DeWolfe is Senior Editor for Camera Arts and View Camera magazines and teaches digital photography workshops worldwide. He studied with Ansel Adams and Minor White and holds an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. His prints are in major national and personal collections. Contrast is the supreme technical problem in photography. In traditional print photography the major limiting component is the range of the paper, or 5 f/stops of detail from highlight to shadow. It was for this reason that the Zone System was invented—to manipulate the exposure and development of the negative to ?t the print. In the darkroom there are also different contrast grades of paper or different variable contrast ?lters to adjust contrast. In Photoshop, I use the following technique to correct and adjust the overall contrast of digital images. The technique uses 2 digital ?les from a digital camera mounted on a tripod, one of which has been taken for the highlights and the other that has been taken for the shadows. The 2 images are combined together in Layers using a Layer Mask and Curves into one seamless image containing the highlights of one, the shadows of the other, and a good blend of midtone values. 1. Combine the 2 images and crop. Open both underexposed and overexposed images into Photoshop. Click and drag (using the Move Tool while holding down the Shift Key) the underexposed image on top of the overexposed image. This puts the underexposure on a layer on top of the overexposure (which becomes the Background). In the Layers palette, select Layer 1 and set the Blending Mode to Difference and align the 2 images with the Move Tool, if necessary. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 24 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Crop the images here. (Cropping the image here at the ?rst step keeps the images aligned if you have moved Layer 1 even the slightest amount). Save the image (File > Save As) as Combo and close the 2 original images without saving them. Return to Normal Blending Mode. 2. Make a Layer Mask and paste the background layer into it. On Combo make a Layer Mask (Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All) on Layer 1. Select the Background Layer (Select > All) and Copy (Edit > Copy). Hold down the Option/Alt key and click on the Layer Mask (the document window should turn white). Paste the Background Layer (Edit > Paste) into the Layer Mask (it will be pasted as a Black & White mask). 3. Make a new window. Go to Window > Arrange > New Window for Combo.psd to see th

 

 
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