To learn more tips and tricks, tune into Photoshop Week 2014 this February 24-28 on creativeLIVE. When you RSVP for the event, you’ll receive a coupon for 15% off any purchase at the SLR Lounge store as well as other special offers from the industry’s best brands. Just look for the details in your RSVP confirmation email.

When we speak about “the little details” that make the difference between a good and great image, we’re usually talking about specific techniques. But sometimes it’s about the subject itself, especially in the world of portraits and fashion photography. How do you make those details shine? There are plenty of alterations you can make with your lighting and on-camera, but with Photoshop, there’s very little reason to spend your precious time with a model or client worrying about those intricate details. Some of the trickiest areas to master are those fine, delicate eyelashes.

Lindsay Adler, a portrait and fashion photographer who has spent years experimenting in Photoshop, has learned the quickest and most effective ways for perfecting these details in post-production. Here’s a quick rundown of how she goes about fixing eyelashes:

When smoothing out the areas and applying makeup around the eyes to get that perfect facial color in post, you always run the risk of ruining your model or client’s natural eyelashes. What happens with the blending tool is the skin color erases those beautiful lashes. In the screenshot below, which was taken from her Photoshop Week 2013 course, Lindsay purposefully shows her students how applying black eyeliner can create this negative effect.

There are two ways to remedy this situation. The first involves selecting the smallest brush available and simply drawing them back on manually:

Here, Lindsay in starts the drawing process (right side of the eye)

Lindsay explains that this method involves a bit of cleanup that can be done with the eraser or clone tool. The other option is to visit the brush tool and select a set of bottom eyebrows from the side menu. From there, it’s a matter of using your warp tool and trial an error with settings such as the opacity to make it look as realistic as possible. This process is also highly variant depending on the size of the print. If you are dealing with a large ad, say a billboard for example, the details are that much more visible and important to touch-up correctly.

These images are obviously not final, but they give you a glimpse into the technique Lindsay uses. To watch Lindsay in action, check out this short clip:

Don’t forget to tune into Photoshop Week 2014 this February 24-28 on creativeLIVE.

I have a friend in Toronto who routinely looks to me as some sort of photography oracle, ready to provide her with photo news that hasn’t happened yet, and to provide wise counsel on any photographic procedure. Little does she know how misplaced her direction is. However, from time to time, I’m able to be of some modicum of use.

A few weeks back we posted about a new JPEG update which garnered a lot of attention (read: debate) including hers. She pointed out that she, and others she knew, continuously worked in Adobe Photoshop and saved either their PSD or RAW photo files into JPEG formats, but they were somewhat unsure of what they each were. I realize this is a common occurrence, and I, myself, didn’t understand this until a few years ago. If you’ve worked in Photoshop and hit SAVE AS to JPEG, you’ve seen the options and many may have dismissed them. Here is a short breakdown.
[REWIND: JPEG Gets A Major Update – Now A Rival For RAW & TIFF?]

Getting There

Once you’ve worked on the file and it is ready to be saved, File>Save As

Select JPEG in the Format drop down menu then hit Save

The following menu will be shown with the JPEG saving options.

What Do They Mean?

Most everyone will deduce what the Quality Slider does and how it will affect a photo file, as for the explanation of formats, Adobe’s Acrobat Standard site breaks them down as the following:

Format
Determines how the file is displayed. Available only for JPEG format.
Baseline (Standard)
Displays the image when it has fully downloaded. This JPEG format is recognizable to most web browsers.
Baseline (Optimized)
Optimizes color quality of the image and produces smaller file sizes, but is not supported by all web browsers.
Progressive (3 scans-5 scans)
Downloads the image, first as a low-resolution image, with incremental quality improvements as downloading continues.

What Does that Mean in Practice?

A lot of this will teeter on the line of what the particular file will be used for. In this day of blogging and fleeting attention spans, fast loading web pages are often a major consideration. In fact, slow loading web pages is a primary reason users will abandon their current site. Other than video, photos and imagery are probably the largest consideration regarding improving a page’s data transfer demands. So, to increase turnover and return ‘clients’ to your site, you want it running smoothly.

JPEGs are brilliant because they are highly compressed, yet maintain very good quality, and without them the Internet would be a different, and slower place. In case you were unaware, JPEGs essentially are read in a number of scans. With progressive JPEGs, they will store the scans (usually 3 to 5) and each scan increases in quality when being displayed. Some browsers will display them as such, progressively, so when a page is loading the user will see something, even while there is more to load.

Baseline is going to preserve more, as it’s a full resolution top-to-bottom scan of the image. Therefore, when it’s loading, it’s loading the full resolution in more dense blocks. The standard is going to be just that, and Optimized will be somewhat more compressed, smaller file version of that.

Really the choice of what to use comes down to preference. Most often I find people use Baseline Optimized because it’s a mix of both worlds, but personally I would go with progressive even though they make up something around 10% of all JPEGs online.

During my 15 year graphic design career, I’ve created my share of photo composites using Photoshop. As with anything in Photoshop, there are numerous techniques for achieving the same result, but, since time generally equals money in a creative career these days, I’m always looking to learn more efficient and effective methods.

In this Phlearn PRO tutorial, The Perfect Composite, I learned several new techniques for more effectively scaling the subject, matching lighting and perspective, and creating edge glow. Other foundation concepts covered include creating the perfect shadow and coloring with channels. There’s a bonus action and brush included with the tutorial, which is nice.

Probably the most mind blowing technique I learned in this tutorial was how to use the perspective filter to accurately size your subject in a composite. I had never seen this done before and it really takes the guess work out of how large to make your subject so it looks realistically placed in a new environment.

Many of the concepts covered during this two hour lesson are basics of light, shadow, perspective and color theory I learned in college art classes. Learning how to apply those principles with specific techniques in Photoshop is the key to achieving the perfect composite.

Prepare to take notes, because this thing is jam packed with little tricks. In fact, I would recommend you follow along with the included exercise files so you’ll have some practice using some of the techniques.

My only complaint about the tutorial itself is that the teacher sometimes talks too fast or goes through a whole series of work and then changes his mind about the technique in a few spots, which I found to be confusing. Luckily, with a video I was easily able to rewind and watch again or pause if needed. Otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of new things I learned and I’m excited to try them out! Click here for more information.

The idea of claiming/protecting your imagery as intellectual property is no new pursuit; there are, in fact, newer countries. Painters and artists have been scribing their names on their works for centuries. If you’re planning on putting any of your images online, or in print, or anywhere at all, you’ve likely meandered down the alley of thought regarding watermarking or name stamping your work. Here I’m going to show you a quick and simple method of using your signature as a watermark. You won’t even need a scanner, a simple digital camera will do the trick, and make the workflow faster. Just a few words first.

The pendulum of opinion swings widely regarding the topic. Some believe in watermarking every image they have and entirely across the image, and some see it as not only distracting, but pointless. Here are a few things to consider regardless of what camp you’re in. If you just want to get to the process then just skim down.

Sharing and Protecting

To all those who believe watermarking will protect your photos from misuse, you’re generally mistaken. Armed with only Photoshop and a glass of burgundy, I can generally manipulate any watermarked image into something useable, especially for small online use – and I’m a Photoshop neophyte. So using a watermark to defend against theft is like fitting an alarm to your car to stop a thief – it won’t stop the good ones. It’s a bump in the road, at best.

There may be some argument that a bold enough watermark will make the time and effort required a big enough deterrent. This is possible. However, consider the effect it has on your imagery and your name. Your imagery is far less desirable and less time is spent viewing it, and there’s a feeling among some that obnoxious watermarks reflect the artist, or at least, one that’s not well informed.

If you really want to protect your images you’re probably best served by posting very low-res versions online that would make printing a non-issue and online sharing somewhat useless. That’s it. And if still you’re concerned, there are many easy and free ways to do Internet reverse image searches to see where else your images may be being used. Mind you, should you find anything, you likely have a battle ahead of you, if recent history is any indicator.

The Better Purpose Of a Watermark

Use it as a tool for promotion and reach. Your watermark, whether it be a name or logo, is likely best understood these days as a way to be positive, and viewed as a tool to inform viewers of the person who crafted this image they’re spending their time on.

Understand that on the Internet, most use of others’ images isn’t for the purpose of stealing, but simply sharing because the viewer has enjoyed some facet of the photo. A watermark then becomes a great way for people of like-minds to learn where to find you, the artisan. That’s great marketing. It would be my humble suggestion to view watermarks as such, and for that reason, have your watermark be a small feature, not the main one. Your name, signature, or even your website are all great watermarks.

Making Your Signature A Watermark

I used a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop to do this. Lightroom is, for me, the preferred tool to keep and organize photos and do most of my editing work. The easy preset system allows for a fast and effective workflow, and if I want something else, it’s easy to drop it into Photoshop. Initially I use LR to tidy up the image and make the subject bolder. If interested, we have a host of free Lightroom tutorials as well as our highly regarded Lightroom products such as our Lightroom Workshop Collection v5.

Step 1

On a bright white piece of paper, scribble your signature as best you can. You may need to do it a few times to choose your favorite. I like to use a Sharpie since it provides a deep black, and defined edges. In this example, I used a fine point because my signature is wispy, but a medium size tends to work best.

Step 2

Take a photograph in good, bright light, of the signature. Be close enough to retain detail, but not at an angle or so close as to have it be affected by distortion. Upload image.

Step 3

Open the image in Photoshop and use Brightness/Contrast & Levels to blow out the background of any shadows and to really highlight the signature.

Step 4

Zoom in on your chosen example, and use the crop tool to crop a box around the signature.

Step 5 (Slightly Tricky)

Select the Magic Wand tool and use it to select the signature. If you have a break in the signature or it has many loops you may find it useful, or need, to hold the Shift key as you select all parts of the signature. Once this is done, make sure the whole crop is selected (usually just by using the wand an selecting outside the signature).

Step 6

With your entire selection made, go to the menu and follow Select>Inverse. Then copy the signature.

Step 7

Without Closing that file, open a new document and make the ‘Background Contents’ set to ‘Transparent’. Now past the signature from clipboard into/onto the new document.

Step 8

Go to File>Save For Web and it’s essential the transparency box is checked and file is a PNG-8. Once done, so are you. You can now stick this onto any image you want, and arrange it in whatever orientation you desire.

Thoughts

I generally don’t use watermarks as I tend to hate things that detract from the image, but a friend wanted to learn how to do this and I figured it would be helpful. I also truly feel if someone wants to steal the image to use as their own, the best defense is a small low-res photo, and to do periodic checks using some reverse image searched like Google Images. Then there are the others that lay it on so thick for advertisement purposes, it appears that’s what is wanted as the focus, and not the picture itself. When I use watermarks, it’s usually something like pictured above, or faint faded text with my name and or website on it.

What are your thoughts on watermarking images?

Growing up with a single mother and lots of aunts, a considerable portion of my childhood was spent around women readying their faces, to face the day. The cycle continued with girlfriends past and present, and images of countertops strewn with all manner of make-ups and God knows what, are all too familiar, and still make me think of an apothecary’s lab. The up-shot? All were beautiful and artistic, some of my aunts were models, and I believe to this day, that watching women and make-up artists apply make-up, is hugely beneficial to understanding retouching.

Recently a friend of mine has gotten into photography and has just spent hours pouring over his photos from Trinidad’s Carnival a few weeks ago, and looked to me for help understanding retouching. Currently, there’s a clothing start-up I’m advising on marketing imagery, who also was requesting some similar advice. My answer to them both was to go spend some time with a make-up artist, or, spend an hour watching some make-up tutorials online.

Youtube is awash with rubbish tutorials, but also flush with some great ones. Watching these instructional videos for women on how to apply their make-up gives a lot of insight into what women are trying to achieve with their looks, how they can change the look of their structure, and in all it can transpose very well into Photoshop and Lightroom editing. They will tell you where to highlight, where to darken, what they look to hide, what they look to accent etc.

 Here are a few good videos to get you started.

It’s the ubiquitous photo editing tool that we all know and love or hate. Since inception in 1988 Photoshop has moved from basic grayscale displaying to rendering anything from 3D objects for printing or projection, to manipulating a photo to near perfection, and everything in between. Interestingly enough, with such a broad array of abilities, it’s still the brush and crop tools that are the most widely used, as basic as they may seem.

The crop tool may seem the most basic – section off a frame in an image, crop it, and voila, a new look and scale to your image. But like the landscape of our beloved foray, the crop tool is ever evolving, and there’s so much more to it that you may not know existed. 

I’m going to show you how to make the most of it, and I’m excited to, as I’ve shown a few people who use Photoshop on the regular, who all were as surprised as I was when I was shown.

The How To

Tip 1: Easily fix a tilt/misaligned horizon

This image taken from Sheepstor is a little problematic – namely it’s slanted, and I don’t want that. By selecting the crop tool, the entire image gets selected at the same time. [Immediately you can go to the ‘Ratio’ button and choose a ratio you like. Any preset ratio or one of your choosing. It’s simple and quick.]

To fix the tilt, you can hit the ‘Straighten’ tool and draw a line along the axis that you want to be straight, and once you let go of the button when drawing the line, Photoshop will automatically set the photo to be straight and level. Very quick and no fiddling needed.

note* keep in mind the ‘Delete Cropped Pixels Tool’ – if this box is ticked, once the crop is done, the rest of the image will be deleted. However if you uncheck it, and come back to the crop tool, the full original image before crop will remain.

Tip 2: Make a Landscape oriented image, into a portrait oriented image

In this image I snapped while spending some time with The Thunderbirds,  I want to cut out some of the F-16s in the background, and make the Viper in the foreground more isolated and the focus, and achieve this by changing it to a vertical image.

With the crop tool selected I hit the ‘Clear’ button, which lets me transform the crop to what I want. But instead of staying in the frame, I will extend upwards. Essentially I will be adding to the image. Crop then, isn’t just for taking away.

Once you’ve set the crop with added space, hit the check mark button up top to commit to the action and delete the unwanted parts of the image. You’ll end up with something like this:

Then take the Magic Wand tool, and select the blank area which will be filled. Go to Select>Modify>Expand and hit ‘OK’. Then hit the Delete key, and select ‘Content Aware,’ and the rest of the space should be filled quite accurately. It works wonders with skies, and even complex ones like this.

This is the result and it’s impressive for all of 20 seconds of effort.

Thoughts

There’s so much time that can be saved using these tools, and so much creativity to be born from them. I hope this is of some use and if you have any questions please do give us a shout, or even to share your usage of it. Also if you liked this do check out How To Choose Your Best Images: Top Tips On Culling Your Photos.

We are very excited to announce the addition of the Phlearn Photoshop 101 and 102 courses in the SLR Lounge Store.

This Bundle of PRO Tutorials will make you fluent in the language of Photoshop!

Photoshop 101 covers everything you need to know to get comfortable working in Photoshop. Photoshop 201 picks up where Photoshop 101 left off, going deeper into Photoshop and teaching essential tools and processes for power users.

Check Out the Intro Video

Here’s a brief summary of what is covered in each tutorial:

Photoshop 101 CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING:

• Over 3:30 Hours of Step-by-Step instruction
• Section 1 – Introduction and Optimizing Photoshop
• Section 2 – Tools Part 1
• Section 3 – Tools Part 2
• Section 4 – Tools Part 3
• Section 5 – Layers, Masks, Channels, etc
• Section 6 – The Menu
• Section 7 – Sample Edit and Saving
• Original Images – Follow along with the video

Photoshop 201 CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING:

• Over 2:30 Hours of Step-by-Step instruction
• Section 1 – Introduction and Optimizing Photoshop (Color Space, Settings)
• Section 2 – Retouching Tools (Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, Liquify, Puppet Warp)
• Section 3 – Selection Tools (Channels, Color Range, Masking, Tool Blend Modes)
• Section 4 – Background Techniques (Masking, Curves, Clipping Masks, Blend Modes)
• Section 5 – Coloring Techniques (Curves, Hue Saturation, Colorizing, Adjustment Layers)
• Section 6 – Completing the Image
• Original Images – 23 Images Included in Download

For more details on each of these sections, check them out in the SLR Lounge store! This bundle is only $35, so skip that cup of coffee and stock up on some education today :)

That title may seem a little strange or brash, and by no means am I condoning theft. The point I’m arriving at, is that we can use readily available tools to emulate works we draw inspiration from.

If you’re on Instagram, or follow certain blogs of photographers, you’ll see that they seem to have an almost interminable stream of ‘new’ material that they garnish their sites with. This is great for us the viewer, who get to see more from the people we follow, but it does make you wonder how much shooting these guys do in order to produce content each day. More often than not they will, like a pill, slow release the work they do in pieces, and then they’ll often crop photos down, and manipulate them so they seem ‘new’ and fresh. 

This isn’t a bad thing at all, and one of the methods I actually use is to essentially take a color cast from one photo, and utilize it in another.

With the advent of Instagram and filter sets, photos today can be made to look drastically different and convey different moods, just from filters. But what if you don’t have the precise filter? Or what if you have a photo you would like to transpose a color palette from into another? With Photoshop, of course, it couldn’t be simpler. And it’s also quite brilliant because you can use color palettes from photos of famous paintings in your own images.

How To:

Note* While the process is simple in essence, there may be a level of manipulation you need to do to achieve just the look you want, but we’ll address that here also.

Step One

Open the image you want to take the color cast from, and then the photo of yours you’d like to receive it. (The order doesn’t matter and you can open many images at once if you’d like). In the first scenario We’ll use a photo I took testing out my Sony RX100 firing a Nikon SB700 (which worked easily), and taking the color cast from The Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue commercial, taken by Mario Testino and starring David Gandy and Bianca Balti.

Step Two

Select the photo you want to edit. Then select Image>Adjustments>Match Color.

You’ll then be presented with the following screen.

From here select ‘Source’ and choose the other photo you are taking the cast from.

Upon arriving here, your photo may not look just as you’d like it, but you’ll actually be quite close to the original, and testing out and playing with the three sliders present an ability to fine tune it as you would like.

As another example I took an image of me and my dog Walter, and took the caste from the famous painting, “Liberty Leading The People,’ and the results are interesting, and pleasant.

=

Thoughts

We recently spoke about culling your photos and how necessary it is. Doing this presents a fun, simple, and effective way to take some of those culled photos, if you like, and make them into something different. Something more. And there’s just so much more you can do with Photoshop.

To understand it can take time, which is why we try to bring you the best in simple effective steps. If you’d like a comprehensive breakdown, do check out the Photoshop 101 and 201 by Phlearn, which became available in our store just today!

Doing a photo shoot, no matter how hard you try to control it, is always going to have variables. Any photographer and retoucher knows that getting it right during the picture making process is key, and that making sure make-up and hair is done to the best of ability will prove a tremendous help. That being said, there’s usually still room for improvement, and room to impose your artistic flare. Hair, as it turns out, is an ideal candidate for both of these, as there’s usually strays, fly-aways, or symmetrical imbalance to it that needs be sorted out.

I’m going to show you a way to use an inbuilt filter in Photoshop to smooth hair, which also can have the effect of making it more orderly, and less distracting. If you’re going for a very high fashion, commercial look, something perhaps like what you’d see in a perfume or fashion editorial, then you can use this to give the photo a very polished finish. It is, however, very useful to use in even more casual photos. If you’re familiar with frequency separation, you’ll find much of this very familiar, and if you’re not, you’ll see just how easy and superb this can be.

How To: Oil Filter

1. Create 2 duplicates of your chosen image. (Command J on MAC, Control J on PC). Then you’re going to name the one on top ‘High’ and the one below ‘Low.’

2. Then, select the ‘Low’ layer and go to the Menu bar and select Filter>Oil Paint. A window will come up with your image and it’ll likely look like it’s been retouched by Van Gogh. Don’t worry, the sliders on the side we’re going to use to sort that.

3. We don’t want the swirl effect, but we do want the blur/smooth effect. Take the ‘Shine’ slider and bring it to nought. The swirls should now be gone. I then suggest playing with the ‘Stylization’ and ‘Cleanliness’ sliders to see their effect. Both of these will be kept rather high, as we do want a smooth effect which we can tone down if warranted later in the process via opacity, etc.

4. Next select the ‘High’ layer, and we’re going to use the Apply Image option from the ‘Image’ menu. This is almost going to negate the oil paint effect on the ‘Low’ layer, but that’s fine. This is the most detailed section, so ensure you get the following settings correct. Select ‘Add’ from the Blending drop down list, and your Scale should be set to 2, Offset to 0, and Opacity to 100%. Then Select ‘Low’ from the Layer drop down menu, and ensure the Invert box is checked. Your screen should look similar to the one below.

5. With the High layer still selected, change the blending to ‘Linear Light’ and your image will look as the original.

6. Then, we will use the High Pass filter to remove some of the harder, areas. Go to Filter>Other>High Pass. Then a window till pop up and you should move it around to see its effect. The higher you go the more normal your photo will look. Lower the slider, and the oil filter look will be more apparent. We’re going for smoothness and I find most of the time I choose between 1 and 2, so for today we’ll go with 1.5, but use your own discretion. Again, I say err the side of too much, as we can lower it later. You can then smoothen the layer more by changing the opacity of the High layer. I’ll go down to about 80%.

7. Now, we just want this to apply to the hair. So we’re going to Group the images. Hit the ‘Create New Group button,’ then select both the High & Low layers and drag them to into the Group folder. Next. Select the Group folder and add a Layer Mask. Then invert that mask. Your image should look original again.

8. Select the brush tool, and brush over the area of hair you want smoothed until it’s to your liking. You can alter the opacity of the brush to suit different areas of the hair, and the opacity of the High layer to alter the over strength of the look. Here is the finished image and a comparison. These are subtle, but you can do what you’d like.

Apologies, I understand I generally work very subtly. It is hard on here to really see the difference, so here is a closer crop and I’ve upped the effect so you can have a better idea. I wouldn’t usually do it this much but, it’s for highlighting purposes. Again, use discretion here, and when hair is less windswept this can be used to greater effect. Though I do like it like this.

Thoughts

The steps may seem to be a lot. I guarantee you that after doing this once or twice, you’ll be able to to go from step one to nine in less than 30 seconds. I also find it helpful to record these into my own actions so I can apply them with a single click (it will take you to step 9, so you can then make the fine adjustments). I find it can look really brilliant in fashion photography, and high contrast situations, but as you can see from here, the results can be beautifully subtle even in casual portraits. One small tip, I wouldn’t smooth the tips too much, and beware of overly smoothing highlighted areas.

If you like this, and would like to become quickly adept at Photoshop, I might suggest having a look around our site as we generally post tutorials like this often. And to have a look at the Phlearn Photoshop 101 & 102 as they are comprehensive and will have you doing things with Photoshop you may have otherwise thought too complex, or didn’t even know you could do.

Via: Creative BLoq

It’s Coachella, again, so our Instagram feeds, Tumblr rolls, and Facebook pages are just flourishing with vintage hipster cool. Or uncool. I forget which. So it seems only fitting to share something many of a Coachella persuasion will love. But to be fair, so will many others, who will likely use it with prudent discretion. I’m talking about film burns.

No doubt many of you are familiar with VCSO filters and presets, those on apps like Snapseed and Instagram, and many of which can really deliver some surprisingly artistically pleasing effects. The only problem is, they do seem to be a bit cookie cutter. You can add a similar look to your photos, and have them be entirely original, and each unique. I’ll show you a very simple and effective way to add an edge burn to your photos using Photoshop’s Quick Mask.

Without further ado.

How To:

Open Photoshop and open an image of your choice. In my experience this work on any photo, but it tends to favor photos that have an area already with a brighter, to blown out side. I’ll show you a few examples.

Press (Q) to enter the Quick Mask mode and you’ll see a shift in screen on the bottom left. Select the Brush tool and engage a round brush, and typically larger works best, though for small areas, a smaller size is fine.

Next, exit Quick Mask but hitting ‘Q’ again, and then invert your mask by pressing Command, Shift, and ‘I’ together. Your selection will now have an ant-line.

Add a ‘Curves’ layer and highlight, and adjust, all four settings; RGB, RED, BLUE, GREEN separately. Sometimes, just using red will be enough. Typically you want the red, orange, yellow hues to be more apparent, which would suggest lowering the output of the Blue and Green, but sometimes a nice effect can be had by leaving them level, or even mildly bumping them up. 

This is really it. You can fully adjust the layer which is nice, and if you wanted to you could add another Curves layer, or Hue Saturation layer, or even a Levels layer to fine tune it even more.

Here is the finished example, and another I did which took no time at all.
[REWIND: Getting The Commercial Editorial Smooth Hair Look Is Easier Than You Think]

Thoughts

I’ll fully admit I don’t favor doing this often, but when timed right and done to the right degree, it’s hard to argue with the result. As I always do in Photoshop, I usher caution and to use this tool moderately. Too much and it will look very off. People will know it’s added, usually, but they won’t mind if it’s done well. If you really want to up the ante, add some film grain to it, and hipster it up.
PS – Ill timed hipster joke: q) How do you drown a hipster?

a) In the main stream

We do our Adobe products over here at SLR Lounge. Actually, who in their right mind wouldn’t? Photoshop and Lightroom are the usual culprits when it comes to editing. Lightroom tends to be the simpler, yet highly effective tool to do most edits, and organization and such, hence it’s our primary.

However, I’m always using Photoshop to do tweaks, and when I need to ready an image for publishing online, weather here at SLRL, my website, Facebook, or a blog, it can be a bit of a process, with a few steps I’d rather not go through on each photo. There’s a simple way to automate it, however, and this is what I’ll show you; how to simply make a Photoshop action that will allow you save and export images in the format of your choosing in the size you’d like.

How To:

1. [I always do my edits to the image first to the point of completion. That being said, you can automate some edits to be done in the action as well. Adding vignettes, and sharpening are just a few.] Open up the Actions menu and create a folder. Name this as you’d like. ‘Blog’ for example. Then click on the button next to the trash can, ‘Create New Action,’ and name it. You can also select a hot key to further quicken the process.

2. With that selected. Hit ‘Record,’ and the button should turn red. Just as a heads up as I’ve been asked before, the time it takes you to do the steps will not reflect in the action, as it will simply do them back to back. You could take an hour between steps and it wouldn’t translate that time into the action.
Ensure your image is in one ‘flattened’ layer. You can just right click and select flatten.

3. You’re now primed. Select Image>Image Size> and set the parameters for the sizing you’d prefer. Depending on your version of Photoshop you may be presented with a Constrain Proportions option, which should be engaged. Once you are satisfied, click save/ok.

4. It is at this point that you can edit your photo or apply a standard filter or something as mentioned above. I’ve shown in the image below, just as an example of where you can find easily automated and applied edits.

5. Look at the Action bar and ensure that the red circle, indicating you are still recording is still there, and red. We now want to save the image. Go to File>Save As and choose the appropriate quality standard you’d like to adhere to. This, as with all other steps, will be applied to all images subject to this action.

6. Hit the Stop button next to the ‘record’ and that’s it.

Notes

Once you have this action sorted, you’ll be easily able to use either the hot-key/function assigned key to engage it, or simply go to the actions menu, select it, and hit the play button. This should free up a significant amount of time all while making sure your images are all formatted to fit the size you want.

If you do make an error, no need to panic. Simply hit the stop button, go and delete the misstep, then hit record again. Your action recording should remain in tact and as you want it.

If you like this, and would like to become quickly adept at Photoshop, I might suggest having a look around our site as we generally post tutorials like this often. And to have a look at the Phlearn Photoshop 101 & 102 as they are comprehensive and will have you doing things with Photoshop you may have otherwise thought too complex, or didn’t even know you could do.

I feel it prudent to start off by suggesting that when it comes to DOF, it’s going to be better getting it right in camera. However, not getting it quite right, or deciding after the fact, shouldn’t stop you from turning a good or mediocre photo into a better, more pleasing one. I see people adding DOF in post processing all the time, but it’s usually done terribly, hence I can easily spot t. Done well, on the right photo, it can actually be very effective, and you likely have the tool to do it – Photoshop.

We are going to be using the depth map feature, which is going to allow us to add a gradient of defocus areas. Essentially allowing for varying levels of defocus to various parts of the photo giving a much more natural and realistic effect.
Note* – for the duration of this keep black as your foreground color, and white as the background. You can also name the layers anything you like, just keep track of what’s what.

How To:

1. Open chosen photo and duplicate it. Then add a new layer. You can hit the button or hit Shift+Cmnd+N on MAC, or Shift+Ctrl+N on PC. Name that layer Defocus Map, and set the opacity to 70%. Select the Gradient Tool (shares a tab with the Paint Bucket in your tool bar). For this I’ll be using the Linear Gradient as found in your Gradient options bar, but there are others depending on what you’re going for and the photo in question.

2. I want me on and the rocks here in the foreground to still be in focus and the background to fall more out of focus. With the gradient tool selected, click from the bottom to the top of the photo to draw a line that is the basis of the gradient. Your photo should look like the one below. The darker areas will be more in focus, and the lighter areas less so. Then change the opacity of that layer to 100% and hide it (click the eye symbol next to layer name).

3. Add another new layer which we’ll call ‘Focal Subject.’ The point of this step is to highlight the primary focus.



4. Select the duplicate background layer. Using the Quick Selection Tool, select the main focus of the photo aka the area to keep most in focus. Once you have an ant line drawn around the subject, go back to the ‘Focal Subject’ layer and select the brush tool. Color over the area within the ant line entirely – don’t worry the ant line will not allow any overspill.

5. While still on the Focal Subject layer, change its opacity to 100%. Then unhide the Defocus Map layer. Next select the Focal Subject layer and ‘Merge Down’ into the Defocus Map layer (right click and hit ‘Merge Down’).

6. Select the entire image in the merged layer by hitting Cmnd/Cntl+A, then Cmnd/Cntl C, to copy the whole thing. Then hide the layer.

7. Switch to the Channels tab next to the Layers tab. Hit the button at the bottom to crate a new channel. Once done, hit Cmnd/Ctrl+V to paste the copied merged layer. A selection called ‘Alpha 1’ should appear. When it does, hide it, and go back to the layers tab.

8. In the Layers tab select your background duplicate layer, and duplicate it again via right click. Title it something like Focal Filter or Lens Blur. then wight that new layer selected go to Filters>Blur>Lens Blur. This is where you alter all the real bokeh parameters. In the Depth Map box drop down menu select ‘Alpha 1,’ and the depth will be applied. Your focal subjects should remain crisp. You can play around with the settings to see what suits best. I upped my radius really high, and chose a triangular shape iris. I also select ‘More Accurate’ from the preview box.

Here is the before and after:

I see in color, but I like to shoot black and white. Strangely, what I’ve found is to improve the color photography, I actually think in black and white. I posted a while ago about how to dive deeper into the black & white/monochrome settings in camera to truly get the most striking images. In that menu, you would really start to wield your b&w images by delving into toning. It’s that same principle that I’m going to discuss here, but instead of keeping the photo in black and white, I’m going to show you how using tones in a black and white filter in Photoshop can actually make a tremendous impact on your images.

If you want to make your skies pop, your oceans prettier, or want to manipulate tones in an image without too much disturbance of other colors and tones, this is a very simple, effective way to go. It’s effective, too, for bringing the subject out from the background.

Note: The one thing I’ll utter before the breakdown, and this is important, is that it works best with RAW files (no surprise), or high quality jpegs with little noise. As you are all aware, noise is like a monster – it lives in the dark, so deepening a sky will bring out noise you may not have thought was there.

How To

Step 1: The steps are very simple. Open a photo you want to manipulate and create a black and white adjustment layer. [You actually can do various forms of edits first if you like. I usually use levels, sometimes curves and vibrance. Levels and vibrance I find very useful for skies, yes levels can have a bit too much of a saturating effect on the other tones in the photo.]

Step 2: Your photo will now look black and white, and the b&w properties tab with sliders will appear. You can use these at this point to alter those tones in that image. You will still see a difference even though you are viewing b&w. However, to make it easier to judge, change the blending mode of that layer to luminosity and your photo will appear in color.

Step 3: In the b&w tab, you’ll be focusing mainly on the cyans and blues. pulling them down (to the left) will usually intensify the blue hues of your photo making your skies pop.

Step 4: That is essentially the last step. However, if your photo has had changes in parts you want untouched, select the editing layer that made those changes, mask it, and then paint over the areas to render them as original as you’d like.

Here are two examples. Photos on the bottom are retouched. These are actually both old photos I’m using for the sky and  wanted to give some more punch to, and this is a nice way to take something old and give it a make over, and perhaps make it more useable and or relevant.

It doesn’t matter if you’re shooting outdoors or indoors, you can’t really escape certain limitations of your camera sensor. High contrast situations are an example of scenarios which aren’t the easiest for camera sensors to deal with. It is difficult for them to record the broad spectrum of dynamic range and tones that are found in the brightest highlights to the absolute darkest shadows. Phlearn’s Aaron Nace teaches you a good way to deal with this in post.

It’s often very obvious outdoors in bright noon-time sunlight that casts hard shadows, whether on a face or structure, but also indoors, let’s say in a studio, with bright focused light on a subject where the rest of the photo falls away. As always though, the devil is in the details, and we want to be able to extract all we can from those shadowed areas, which, on many an occasion, can be quite a lot, especially if you’re shooting RAW. Sometimes a little tonal adjustment can suffice, but Aaron goes deeper to show you a relatively easy way to recover detail hidden in the shadows.

As a bonus, Aaron shows a pretty slick way to add a light flare to pin some more artistic quality to your shots. Using the gradient tool and Apply Image function, the results are actually pretty good. Check it all out here:

Thoughts

Phlearn is continually pushing out some pretty great stuff. Their tutorials are specific, and useful. I’m happy to see the Apply Image function being used more and more. A few months ago, I featured a skin editing tutorial which is my Go-To method which involved the same function. I find Apply Image to be one of the most useful, yet unused tools in Photoshop for photographers. I may cover it in more specific detail soon if that’s something you would all like to get a full understanding of.

In the meantime, if you’re looking to up your skills, and really plunder the depths of what Phlearn has to offer, then their Photoshop 101 and Photoshop 201 by Phlearn program is something worth checking out, and it’s a great deal at that price point.

Here’s a quick example I used from a wedding of my bro in Delhi.

There’s a manipulative beast living within your editing software and there’s a decent chance you’re not fully aware of what it can do. Now, I’ll come straight out and say that the majority of you are somewhat familiar with the flexibility and power, and all other merits associated with a RAW file. Furthermore, you are likely familiar with Adobe Camera Raw. Surprisingly, I see people open up RAW images in Photoshop and do the most minor adjustments in Camera Raw, then get to applying whatever other adjustment layers and such within Photoshop itself. This is, in my opinion, something to reconsider.

[REWIND: Great Tip To Recover Shadow Detail In Photoshop]

Camera Raw’s interface looks somewhat archaic compared to Photoshop’s aesthetic, and I think it’s a reason it often gets overlooked – people associate it with being very technically demanding. It shouldn’t be so. I do a lot in Camera Raw – it’s powerful and actually easy to use. If you’re somewhat versed in editing in Photoshop anyway, you’re already familiar with the processes presented in Camera Raw. From brushes, to graduated filters, to white balance adjustments…it’s all there, and easy to do. So yes, use it. However, there’s something I’ve used for the past while which a friend of mine showed me when I was on one of my rants about Camera Raw, which has fundamentally altered how I adjust my images, and how I view JPEGs.

Under the Filter menu, there’s an option for Camera Raw filter. This is probably my dirty little secret tool (yes yes, not a secret, but I know a lot of people don’t use it), and what this allows me to do is re-open a Camera Raw window with whatever file I’m working on. 

Why would you need this? Sure, you may have just edited in Camera Raw when you imported your RAW files – but it allows you to use Camera Raw on even JPEGS. Not only that, it allows you to pull detail out of JPEGs to a level I never knew was possible until someone showed me. Understand this key point, that Camera Raw uses entirely different algorithms to manipulate a file than Photoshop, and it’s those differences which make it possible to take a JPEG to a new level. This is an example of before and after in Camera Raw from a video (below).

My post yesterday was on a Phlearn tutorial on how to pull hidden detail out of the shadows and it’s effective. The same friend of mine who taught me about this filter told me I should’ve mentioned it, so here it is. I was going to put together a whole slew of images and explanatory examples, but I think this video I found does a beautiful job showing you just what’s possible.

Lastly:

There’s not much to really say or add to this. I should interject however, and stress, that a good edit does not a good photo make (necesssarily); I’m not advocating this be used in a cavalier manner to replace good shooting. No. Get it right in camera whenever possible as there’s no substitute for that. Oh, and shoot RAW. Really.

Being able to control where the viewer’s attention is focused is something that’s a great skill to have as a photographer. You can easily blur out distracting elements of your photograph by using Radial Focus blur, a quick technique that the folks at Phlearn demonstrates in the video below. The effect is achieved using the “Step and Repeat“ technique.

You simply start of by duplicating your background layer by hitting CMD+J.

After you have done that, you hit OPTN+CMD+T to transform your layer. While you are in Photoshop‘s transformation mode, move the little anchor point of your layer that is by default in the center of the frame, between your subject’s eyes.

This step is very important, if you leave the anchor point in the middle, you will end up with an image that’s just sharp in the center.

After moving the anchor point continue by scaling your layer up just a touch and then rotating it slightly clockwise.

Depending on how slight these transformations are being performed, you either end up with a more or less blurred picture.

Now this is the step where the magic happens: you use the REPEAT command by hitting SHIFT+OPTN+CMD+T 5-10 times.

When you are done with creating your layers by using the REPEAT command just simply play around with different opacity settings until you get something you like.

An easy, yet powerful technique to improve your pictures in Photoshop and maybe even draw attention away from mistakes you made shooting them in the first place.

If you want to learn more about Photoshop and how to use it to its full potential, make sure to check out Phlearn’s Photoshop 101 and Photoshop 201 tutorials in the SLR Lounge store.

Post Processing using Lightroom Presets or Photoshop Actions?

Like most photographers, I use both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to post process my photos, and I use presets and actions on almost every photo that goes out the door.

How I Shoot

I predominantly shoot RAW with all my cameras, as I like to get the very most out of each pixel. This generally means the pictures look a little flat when you import them into Lightroom or open them up in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR from here on in) for the first time.

My general workflow is to import everything into Lightroom and apply an import preset from the SLR Lounge Lightroom Preset System on import. This saves a ton of time as it makes a few basic adjustments to all the photos at once on the way into Lightroom.

[REWIND: Lightroom Preset System From SLR Lounge]

Things like sharpness, detail, and color are all given a subtle boost to give you a good starting point. You can create your own import presets too and adjust ones you might already have and save them as new ones, which is what I have done.

Once my images are imported into Lightroom, the fun begins. Over the years, I have collected quite a few different Lightroom preset packs but my go to ones that I use on almost every single photo are from SLR Lounge, Red Leaf Boutique, VSCO Film and Rebecca Lily. Which ones I use, very much depends on the image I’m editing, but these all give me a certain look that I love. Most of the time, I’m going for a look similar to film, like this picture of my daughter below. Original left, edited right, obviously.

First Pass

I generally do most of my first round of edits in Lightroom and usually try out a few different presets that I know and love first to get me 90% of the way there. I have also customized a lot of my own presets to my liking.

When I’m happy with the edit in Lightroom and if I feel it needs a little more, I will take it into Photoshop to give it the finishing touches. From within Lightroom, I would just right click the image and select ‘edit in Photoshop’. This will bring you into Photoshop to begin your final tweaks.

Adding the finishing touches

This is where my final finishing touches are added and where I use a variety of different Photoshop actions to achieve the look I like. Some of them I have set up myself, and others I have purchased. My go to Photoshop actions are from, Red Leaf Boutique, Lily Blue, My Four Hens and Paint The Moon.

Once I’ve finished in Photoshop, I flatten the image, hit save and it automatically brings it back into Lightroom as its own tiff (if you have it set up as a tiff) right next to the original one, perfect, simple and convenient.

[REWIND: LIGHTROOM STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS]

So What’s the Difference Between Lightroom Presets and Photoshop Actions?

1.  Lightroom presets are faster, you can apply them to all your images on import. You can do something similar in ACR and then open all the images in Photoshop, but if you have 1000 or more images from a wedding, this is not a good idea as you will be waiting a very long time.

2. You can quickly and easily see what effect a preset has in Lightroom by simply hovering over it with your mouse and looking at the navigator pane in the top left. Photoshop actions require you to run the action to see the effect and then delete it manually if you don’t like it or cycle through the history panel.

3. I find presets a little bit easier to customize, edit and save. Once you have saved them, you can very easily add the effect to other images by a simple copy and paste method.

4. Photoshop actions give you far greater control over the effect; for example, you can use a layer mask to apply the effect only to certain areas. This can be invaluable when editing people and you want to preserve skin tones, etc.

5. One of the biggest reasons to use both is that you cannot combine presets like you can actions. A Lightroom preset adjusts certain sliders in the develop panel and there is no way to flatten the image to apply a different amount over the top. Some preset systems like the one from SLR Lounge cleverly adjust different modules of the develop panel giving the effect of combining different presets, but if another preset uses the same slider, then it will change with each preset you click on.

For example, you apply a simple curve preset to give you a slightly washed look. We’ll call this preset ‘Faded’. You then add some color adjustments from a preset called ‘Pop’. After the color adjustments, you then feel it needs to be even more faded, so you click on the ‘Faded’ preset again, but it doesn’t do anything because it’s already made the adjustment to the curves slider earlier.

You can make your own adjustments to the curves slider now to add more, but the preset is done, it’s finished. When using actions in Photoshop, you could now flatten the image and then add the same action over again and get an even more faded look. One way around this is to open the file in Photoshop, hit save so it brings a tiff back into Lightroom and then apply more presets, but it doesn’t seem to work that well in my experience.

Generally, for most people, the presets and a bit of tweaking in Lightroom by the user will produce amazing results and it’s only certain looks that require the combining of actions in Photoshop.

This is a very simple example, but hopefully, it gives you an idea of why I think presets and actions work well together and why I believe one is not better than the other. They compliment each other very well.

When it comes to doing more than just editing the look and feel of an image, Photoshop actions walk all over Lightroom presets. You can do nearly anything you can imagine with a Photoshop action, from re-sizing to optimizing for the web or creating print ready images. You can create an action for exporting, duplicating, watermarking and an action that does 10 different things in a sequence and then spits it out ready for your needs. Lightroom can do all of this too, but in a different way, via different modules and export presets, but that’s a whole different story.

As you can see, they each have their strengths and weaknesses and I think they are both invaluable tools in any photographer’s toolbox. Learning what each of them do and getting the most out of them is an essential part of a highly successful photography business. Time is money and all that.

I’m interested to hear what you guys think. Do you combine them both or stick to just one method? There are also plugins like Exposure and Perfect Effects, which help to achieve similar looks. What are you using?

I have little use for a tilt-shift lens, and the likelihood that I’ll need to include one in my permanent stable of lenses is quite slim. That being said, I do tend to move around quite a lot, and the places I’m in often have some remarkable architecture. So it’s very common I’ll be directly photographing buildings, or indirectly as they fall into view.

Perspectives can become somewhat oddly defined depending on the composition you choose to create, the angle you’re shooting from, focal length etc., and while I generally don’t mind this, there are times I wish I could make the look a little less obvious, or even, more exaggerated. Now I can, relatively well at that, in Photoshop.

Again, I’m not saying Photoshop is a true supplement for a tilt-shift lens, but the Perspective Warp tool is so deceptively simple and effective to use, that it’s a shame more people don’t use it. It’s as easy as drag and drop, and a little rotation. I’ve included a video which does a very good job showing you just how it’s done. I can see this being entirely useful for landscape photographers, real estate photographers and architectural photographers/students.

[REWIND: Why You Should Multiply Aperture By Crop Factor When Comparing Lenses]

Thoughts

As the tool does actually warp the entire photo to keep things in “proper” perspective there are often crops that need to be made the shot – but this is to be expected if it is not to actually create/add new material to the photo. Just keep that in mind as you go. Incidentally, I’ve actually tried using this on landforms and not just buildings and the effect can be surprisingly nice. In a way you can sometimes get away with more since landforms tend to be less rigid in structure with else defined lines.

Source: Howard Pinksy YouTube

If you’re a fan of ABC’s The Bachelor franchise, you’ll love this one. Well, even if you’re not a fan of the show, hopefully you’re a fan of Photoshop fails, because this one is good for a chuckle. Personally, I don’t watch the show, but I am definitely a fan of Photoshop blunders.

[REWIND: CONGRESSWOMAN INTRODUCES BILL TO REGULATE EXCESSIVE PHOTOSHOP USE]

The newest Bachelorette, 26 year old lawyer, Andi Dorfman had her heart broken by what I hear was one of the most controversial and most despised bachelor of all time, Juan Pablo. (Oh, the drama). Now, she’s back, and “looking for the right Juan one,” in ABC’s clever play on words. Unfortunately, their Photoshop skills needs some work, as in the ad, poor Andi has lost her right shoulder.

Now, I don’t want to give away any spoilers for those of you anticipating the 10th season of the show next Monday, May 19th, but Andi does, indeed, have two shoulders, it was not lost between this season and the last. Though I can’t say for certain the same about her hands which seem to be oddly attached, but I guess, no shoulder might make your hands look wonky.

For those at ABC’s marketing department, might I introduce you to Phlearn’s Photoshop 101 tutorial? It may help with embarrassing blunders such as this.

As for Andi, I hope she does end up finding true love, securing the final rose and getting that shoulder reattached.

Once you’ve begun to dabble in the Photoshop world, or learn how to incorporate its abilities into your work and workflow, a venerable cornucopia of options awaits. The changes can be major and appear subtle, or subtle and appear major, or any combination of the sort. One such area of manipulation is color alteration. Anything from clothes, to skies, to eyes, and any object in between can effectively have it’s color completely changed and or adjusted. The team at Phlearn has once again broken this process down for us and Aaron Nace walks you through it in this free tutorial.

[REWIND: Change Perspective With This Highly Underused & Easy Photoshop Tool ]

Rather than just giving the object a painted look, Photoshop is able to change the base, shadow, and highlight colors, and this video illustrates a method of doing so. The example used by Nace is a car, and he actually goes beyond just changing the color of its coat and adds some more punchy effects like a lens flare and shadow gradient, and the end result is significantly more intense than the original. That being said, the steps are broken down in such a way you’re able to omit or adjust each of these steps at will.

Thoughts

I generally don’t do this sort of manipulation in Photoshop because, well, I’m too damn boring and old school, and am much more subtle. The likelihood that I’ll be adding lens flares all the time that Aaron is so fond of is unlikely, and I don’t really shoot the subjects that would require this. I did try it on a car by the way and it works brilliantly. The premise however, is sound, and I used it as an alternate method to change eye color to great effect. You can find that example below.

In other news, Aaron shaved his beard. Whoa. I did a double take…or triple take…

Source: Phlearn