Photo processing cs5. How to edit a photo in Photoshop. Aligning a face in Photoshop
Hi all! Today I want to tell you how to process photos in Photoshop for beginners or those who have just recently started learning this wonderful editor. It's no secret that sometimes photographs turn out, to put it mildly, not what we expected them to be. Either they are too dull, or too bright, there are a lot of pimples, or the sharpness is not of the best quality. Therefore, today I will try to tell you in an accessible language how to fix this.
Eliminate skin defects
First of all, I recommend looking at people, if there are any in the photo. The first thing that is important during processing is identifying defects. In this situation, I mean acne, scars, herpes (God forbid), from a flare-up, scratches, hair coming out, bruises, etc.
I don’t see much point in writing in detail about this, since I have a separate article for each case. I would just like to list a few tools that usually help eliminate defects.
- Patch. Select this tool and select the problem area of the skin with it, then drag it to a healthy area by holding down the left mouse button.
- Healing Brush - Before using the tool, you need to select the donor area by holding down the alt button. And then you will need to paint over all pimples, blackheads, etc.
- Precision healing brush. This tool is also intended for covering up defects, but differs from its “brother” in that there is no need to select the donor area. It takes information from neighboring areas.
I described all these methods in the article about . You will see for yourself that it is not difficult.
Applying the Camera RAW filter: processing a photo in a minute
This method is insanely simple. Many photographers use the filter. I would even say it differently. They initially shoot in the format CR2, which is essentially higher quality. After that, when you go into Photoshop, this filter is automatically turned on.
But in fact, there is no problem, since starting with the version of Photoshop CS5, filters have been replenished with a new brother. I hope everyone has been using a more advanced version of the editor for a long time.
Main Feature this method is that absolutely anyone can handle it, even a beginner and a complete zero, since everything happens only in one single filter, which only intuitively needs to be adjusted a little. Let's take this photo as an example.
By looking at the stories first, you can see for yourself what wonderful changes have occurred in photography. In my opinion, simply excellent.
Using the Adjustment Menu on a Single Layer
This method of processing photos in Photoshop is quite crude, but for beginners it will do just fine.
Now you can compare the changes. They may not be particularly large, but the processed photo clearly looks better. Of course, the absolute disadvantage of this method is that you cannot return to the previous step and edit it. But there is a way to do this, and I will talk about it below. Well, in general, look at the other functions yourself and twist the sliders. Perhaps you will find something interesting for yourself.
Processing a photo using adjustment layers
This method of processing photos in Photoshop may seem difficult for beginners at first glance, but in fact it is very simple, and any user can handle it.
Adjustment Layers
An excellent photo processing function that does not require any special skills. The essence of this method is that we apply each function on a separate adjustment layer, of which we can have a great variety. And in fact, it is much more convenient than the method we did above.
For example, I took a photo of a girl in rather faded colors. She herself is asking to be made brighter, richer and simply delight the soul.
This completes the work with adjustment layers, but we have to move on.
Selecting an area
Now we have to work with some areas separately, since applying effects to the entire image at once will not end well. For example, we need to make the sky brighter, more saturated and bluer, and if we apply everything to one photo, then our girl will also apply everything to herself. Therefore, let's do the following.
- Select a girl with any of the . I will use , as I think it will work great here. We begin to highlight the girl. Don’t be too keen on accuracy, but the main thing is that the whole body is captured, or rather its naked parts and face.
- Now, be sure to make sure that you are on the background layer with the girl, then right-click inside the selection and select "Copy to new layer".
- After this, the cut out girl will appear on a new layer, which is higher than the background one. Your task is to place it above all others so that adjustment layers do not affect it. To do this, hold down the button on the new layer and drag it above the rest.
- Now go back to the background layer and start selecting the sky. IN in this case I decided to use the . Select a brush, and then click on the quick mask button itself, then start painting over the entire sky, remembering to change the brush size to get into more difficult to reach places.
- After that, click on the quick mask again to deselect it. Next we'll need to invert the selection so that we're working with the sky and not what's around it. To do this, press the key combination SHIFT+CTRL+I.
- Next, you will need to add some saturation. To do this, without removing the selection, press the key combination CTRL+U, then move the “Saturation” slider a couple of tens of units to the right. You can also play with the brightness until you reach the most interesting shade.
- Now let's get back to the girl. It was not for nothing that we endured it. Since we moved it out from under the adjustment layers, it again became pale, as it originally looked. But if this is not done, then on the contrary she will be too dark. And now we can find the right balance. To do this, our copy of the girl needs to reduce the opacity until you think it’s enough. In my case, 33 percent is enough.
Bottom line
Having studied several in various ways, I came to the conclusion that if you want to make quick and high-quality processing, then it will be enough to use the Camera RAW filter in Photoshop. It showed itself to be excellent, and the time it takes to process a photo, even for novice users, actually takes 1-2 minutes.
The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is creating an action for this and letting the photos change in a stream. Even if the pictures were taken by one photographer on the same day, the settings that you made for one picture may not be suitable for them. I know that many unscrupulous wedding photographers do exactly this to save time. You see, they don’t want to process 300-400 photos one at a time.
But if you really want to engage in high-quality photo processing, because you are drawn to it, then I highly recommend checking out these cool video tutorials, which clearly explains how to use Photoshop for awesome photo processing.
And if you are new to Photoshop, then the first thing I recommend is to study this course. Everything is chewed literally down to the smallest detail and looks simply in one breath. . And the main thing is that everything is told in human language, so you don’t even want to be distracted.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated. Therefore, no one should have any questions about how to process photos in Photoshop for beginners. At least I am sure that these tools will be enough for you.
Well, this is where I end my article. I hope you liked it. Don't forget to subscribe to my blog updates, and also follow the news in my public pages. Good luck to you. Bye bye!
Best regards, Dmitry Kostin.
We take photos every day, especially selfies or portrait shots with the main camera. Some photos turn out perfect right away, while others just beg for improvement. For example, pronounced problem areas of the skin in ordinary life They can be almost invisible, but in the photo they are striking. Also, in most cases, the photos turn out faded and don’t seem as cool as they were intended. In this article we will tell you how to improve your photography using retouching and color correction. To do this, we will use the Movavi photo editor program.
Salute to everyone, dear subscribers and readers of PhotoCASA magazine! My name is Pavel, in this article I want to talk about the principle of processing a “lamp” portrait indoors without the use of studio equipment. Before I begin describing the processing, I would like to say a little about the process of obtaining the source. The shooting took place in the library, where almost all the halls did not have the amount of natural light necessary for a portrait, which I prefer.
This photo was taken on a Nikon D610 camera with a Sigma 35 mm f/1.4 Art lens. This was the very first shoot after purchasing my first DSLR camera. Before this I shot with an Olympus OM-D E-M5 mirrorless camera. I use Adobe for cataloging and initial color correction of photographs.
Lightroom, then I retouch and do more detailed color correction in Photoshop. I open the photo in Lightroom and get started.
Good afternoon friends! My name is Valentina Tsvirko, and I am an amateur photographer from Belarus. A few years ago photography came into my life and enriched it with new colors! At first I photographed landscapes and city views, but about a year ago I tried my hand at portrait photography, and this photography really fascinated me. I prefer taking portraits close-up, show the inner world of a person, his soul. I learn from lessons from the Internet and books on photography and try very hard to improve my level of knowledge. Many thanks to PhotoCASA magazine for the opportunity to publish this article and please do not judge me harshly: I’m still learning)…
Thanks to digital photography, we bring back hundreds of photographs from our trips, but some of them are mercilessly deleted due to their Bad quality. They turn out blurry, with a blocked horizon, or simply not effective enough. And we usually discover this only when we return home.
Don’t rush to get rid of seemingly damaged photos. They can still be saved in a simple photo processing program - such as Movavi Photo Editor.
Greetings, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine. In this article I will show how to make a rather interesting picture from a source file that most would move to the trash. I open the source in Camera Raw. I do the standard operations: exposure, calibration, sharpness (the bare minimum).
Next, I open the photo in Photoshop. I set a black point and make the photo lighter with another layer of curves. Next, I copy the layer (Ctrl+J), selecting the desired areas on it with the Lasso tool (L), and in several approaches I do a “content-aware fill” (Shift+F5). I mainly cleaned areas with gaps in the shadows.
Hello everyone, my name is Vlad Nelyubin. I'm a wedding photographer, and I want to tell you about a little trick that helps me in my work.
There are a lot of wedding photographers now, and you need to be able to always stay in the mix. That's why I give my clients small gifts that cost me little, but give the newlyweds pleasant memories that will last a lifetime. This is creating a picture from a wedding or any other joint photograph.
Hi all! My name is Dima Begma, and today I will talk about the processing of one of my photographs.
A little about the photo itself. A Nikon D 610 camera and a Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8 lens were used for photography. The picture was taken in Dnepropetrovsk in cloudy weather with strong winds. Since we were filming on a pedestrian bridge, random passers-by often got into the frame. As a result of this, when processing the photo, I will need to replace part of the image with people with a similar empty area from another image. All photos
made with the same camera settings.
My name is Anton Montbrillant, and I would like to talk about how I process my portrait photographs.
I do the most natural processing without any complex tinting or painting, and I try to do it with fairly simple tools, which allows me to preserve beautiful and natural colors. So let's look at the original image. Photo taken on camera 645D and lens smc -D FA 645 55mm f/2.8 AL
Let's figure out what “High End Retouch” is. Retouching (French retouch – to paint on, correct).
Changing the original, editing the image. The purpose of editing is to correct defects, prepare for publication, and solve creative problems.
Hi all. My name is Ruslan Isinev. I'll show you how this photo was processed.
I'm using Photoshop CC2014.
I open the photo in Camera RAW. I do all the main work here, this is for me one of the most important tools in Photoshop.
We darken the background, lighten the model, thereby selecting the object we need. In this photo I’m already happy with everything, click “open”.
Hi all! My name is Dima Begma and today I will talk about the processing of this photo. I have quite a few 1:1 aspect ratio photos in my portfolio, and this shot was no exception.
In order not to lose the quality and resolution of the picture when cropping, I prefer to take such photos by gluing two or three photographs into one. All photos were taken with the same settings and the same focal length, I just moved the camera along the axis.
The ultimate goal of processing is to get a picture that will convey the atmosphere of the sunset as much as possible.
Hello, dear friends! My name is Dmitry Fevralev, and I am interested in artistic photography. What I'm most interested in is the atmosphere and subtext in a frame that can provoke thoughts, emotions, and perhaps even ideas in the viewer. That's why I love psychological facial portraits,
which can tell us much more about ourselves than might seem at first glance. Let me make a reservation that I am self-taught in photography.
Hello, dear readers! My name is Karina (Kerry Moore), and I do artistic and fashion photography. These two styles were assigned to me by the Internet audience. All my works were shot on Nikon D90 and Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 G. Photography is both work and hobby for me. And today I will talk about my most famous work - a series of photographs “Azure” especially for PhotoCASA magazine.
Hello, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine!
Today I am with you, Anna Zadvornova, with a new lesson in which I will tell you how to draw a portrait. So, let's begin!
First, open the original image.
Let's go to Curves.
Next Selective color correction, set the values:
RED: Cyan +4, Magenta –9, Yellow +7, Black –2.
YELLOW: cyan –13, magenta –3, yellow +3, black +3.
Hello. Today I will talk about processing one of my photos.
This photo was taken with a Canon 6D and a 135 mm lens, with a shutter speed of 1/1250 sec, an aperture of f/ 2 and ISO100, the time was before sunset.
Initially, I was faced with the task of making the photo warmer, making the girl’s dress blue, and also emphasizing the soap bubbles and rays of the sun.
Work began in Camera Raw. On the Hue-Saturation-Luminance (HSL) tab, the main task was to use color to make the picture more voluminous and change the turquoise color of the girl’s clothes to blue. To do this, in the Luminance tab I moved the orange slider to the right, separating the girl from the background, and in the Hue tab I changed turquoise shade to blue.
Hello, dear PhotoCASA readers!
My name is Maxim Guselnikov and I would like to talk about how I process my photographs.
I prefer natural processing, without any complex special effects or collaging, while I try to use fairly simple techniques that, nevertheless, make the photograph more expressive.
Greetings, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine! I want to tell you how the presented photo was processed.
1. Open the photo in Lightroom. We correct exposure, light and white balance.
2. Using color correction tools, remove redness on the face and hands.
3. Set the following parameters in calibration
Good day, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine!
This time I want to talk about processing one of my photographs.
When processing, I use a single algorithm, but I never make the series identical, choosing my own colors for each shoot and placing emphasis on the most significant elements of the image.
My processing is always divided into two parts: color correction in Lightroom and retouching in Photoshop.
First of all, an analysis of the source code.
Hello, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine! My name is MarinaPolyanskaya, in this article I will talk about the processing of this photo.
This photo was taken during a March trip to St. Petersburg. The inspiration and muse of the photo was the stunning model Anya Kubanova. It was decided to take the cat to emphasize natural beauty Ani. Early in the morning we went to shoot on one of the St. Petersburg roofs. It was cloudy, very cold and windy, but both the model and the cat bravely held on, for which many thanks to them.
So, open the RAW file in Lightroom...
Hello, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine, I am Stanislav Starchenko, photographer and retoucher. My specialization is collages, photo manipulation, the implementation of both my own ideas and orders from other photographers.
In this article I want to show the main stages and some secrets of creating my photo story “Adulthood”. The plot was based on a theme from the history of the Spanish noble family of the Borgia from the 12th to the 18th centuries. The picture shows a girl. Or already a girl? Sensual
a modest portrait on the wall reminds us of her innocence and purity, toys in the right corner remind us of her recent childhood and upbringing. But what about her look? What was she thinking about? Did she really feel the change and nostalgia for her childhood?
Yes: she turned 16. Fire in the fireplace, sparks... Transitional age!
The project of the work created in Photoshop includes more than 200 layers, so I will not dwell on each layer separately. I divided all the work into 10 main parts.
Since I grew up in a village, this topic is very close to me.
I like everything antique, imbued with the spirit of old age.
Before we start processing the photo, let's figure out what we want to do. Convey the atmosphere of the village and old age. Decide on a colorist for the photo. There are many color combinations, but I prefer the harmony of opposites. In our situation there will be light
in yellow-orange shades, and the shadows in blue-blue.
First, I open the RAW file in Lightroom.
Step 1: Basic Settings
Since the photo is very dark and cold, we make it warmer. To do this, I adjust the white balance. Next, I remove the contrast, move the Highlights down, and increase the Whites. I pull out the shadows a little and increase the clarity (Clarity) to add volume to the photo.
Now I lower the Saturation, and, on the contrary, increase the Vibrance. Vibrance - very useful feature when working with portraits: it protects flesh tones from oversaturation and loss of shades.
Of course, a job as professional as that busconductor , requires high level skill, long practice and great talent. Fortunately, you don’t need such tricks to process product photos. Moreover, they may be unnecessary. If you “correct” uneven seams, enlarge the beads, retouch the flaws, perhaps you will attract more buyers. But you will also ruin your reputation if your actual product disappoints buyers.
But Rezza talks about basic photo processing very simply.
"Why are people afraid of Photoshop? One of the reasons is communication with “experts.” Unfortunately, having gained a certain amount of knowledge, some citizens become arrogant, arrogantly put their hands on their hips and arrogantly stick out lower lip. By asking a question about basic photo processing, an inexperienced user risks receiving jokes and mockery from such a “specialist” instead of a clear answer. And demonstrating inept work can provoke boorish criticism.
You can, of course, sign up for special courses or study textbooks, but not everyone has the time, especially since To process a product photograph, only a minimum set of techniques is required.
Now I will tell you about them. There are no magical secrets, except for one thing - there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of here.
There is nothing to be afraid of.
Now you look at this bunch of screenshots with incomprehensible inscriptions and, of course, you will still begin to be afraid. ;) Don't be scared. I made a lot of illustrations to explain each action in detail. In fact, everything will take about ten minutes, and this is out of habit. Then, when you learn, you will cope in one and a half hours. Turn on Photoshop, open the desired photo, and go ahead.
So, here is your photo, taken in accordance with the recommendations from the articles on product photography. The frame is not bad, but there are a number of significant shortcomings: the picture is dark, there are dust specks on the white cardboard, the color of the pendant is not bright enough, the photo is large, there is a lot of empty space. And there is no copyright.
So, we need to take 8 steps to a great photo:
1. Lighten the photo and correct the tone.
2. Perform proper framing.
3. Remove dust particles from the background.
4. Adjust brightness and contrast.
5. Put "copyright".
6. Make the photo smaller.
7. Increase image sharpness.
8. Save for publication on the Internet.
Step 1. Color and tone
Here Artificial intelligence the program itself comes to the rescue. Go to the Image menu and click on the line Auto Color
And Auto Levels/Auto Tone
Important: in different versions program instead of Auto Levels there may be Auto Tone (as in the picture above). In some versions, the Image menu looks like this:
To get to Auto Levels and Auto Color, click on the Image menu and then on the Adjustments line.
If you don't really like the result, open the Edit menu and click on the Fade line.
This tool allows you to reduce the effect of the previous tool (for example, Auto Color). Move the slider (that blue “drop”, in your version it may look a little different, but the essence does not change)
If you don’t like the result at all, there is a magic Undo button. It cancels the effect of the previous tool. Made a mistake? Click Undo, and the erroneous action will be canceled.
Step 2: Framing
Click on the tool Crop. The cursor changed to a frame. Press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, stretch the frame around the picture, cutting off all excess. Release the button. The picture is surrounded by a frame, behind which what will be cut off remains - it is darkened.
You can change the size of the frame by clicking on the square on the frame and dragging it in the desired direction.
If you are satisfied with the result, click on the checkmark. If you are not satisfied, cancel it by clicking on the icon next to the check mark (crossed out circle).
Result: the most important thing remains in the frame - the product. It is best to place the product horizontally in the frame. Sometimes a vertical frame does not “fit” into the screen - you have to scroll to see the entire object.
Step 3. Specks of dust
There are specks of dust on the white cardboard that I didn't notice while shooting. This is where the tool comes to the rescue Spot Healing Brush.
Choose the appropriate brush size - so that it extends slightly beyond the edges of the dust particles. Click on each speck of dust.
Result: the cardboard is clean again. By the way, this tool will help not only remove dust particles from cardboard, but also retouch pimples in your boyfriend’s photo;)
Important: do not forget, if the tool did not work the way you wanted, click the Undo button.
Step 4: Brightness and Contrast
Here you have a whole arsenal of tools.
First of all Levels. Using the Levels tool, you can make light colors even lighter and dark colors darker.
The middle slider, moved to the right, will lighten the shadows.
If the colors in the picture are not bright enough, use the Hue/Saturation.
Pull the middle slider slightly to the right - Saturation. 
And finally, the tool Brightness/Contrast.
If the photo still doesn't have as much contrast as it should, move the Contrast or Brightness sliders slightly to the right.
Important: these three tools must be used very carefully, in moderation. Overdo it and the photo will no longer look realistic. The buyer will suspect deception and decide that the product actually looks worse. Photos that are too contrasty or too bright can look tacky.
Congratulations, you're halfway through, and it was the HARD half. Then it will be much easier.
Step 5. Copyright
Surprisingly, what prevents many from copyrighting is not so much laziness as false modesty. “I’m not Christian Dior, just think, I sewed a dress.” Great attitude if you want to amuse your competitors. And let them make money from your ideas. A photo of a dress or beads can go “for a walk” on the Internet and one day end up in the hands of a potential client. Without knowing who the author of the product shown in the photograph is, a potential client will not surf the Internet in search of the creator, that is, you. He will go to a friend who also sews/weaves/knits/sculpts, etc. And a friend, looking at a photo of your product, will make exactly the same and earn money that could have gone to you.
And no one is to blame for this but you. Neither the potential client nor his friend knows that the anonymous “rootless” photo shows your unique author’s design.
So open the tool Text(indicated by the letter T on the side toolbar).
Choose a place for the copyright - and then as with the Crop tool - press the left mouse button and move it over the picture. You will get a frame inside which you can write the blog address. In the font window in the top toolbar, you can select the desired font (see the following illustration).
The result: a font that is simple and stylish.
Letters with curls and vignettes most often look clumsy.
The color of the inscription should not be too contrasting or bright, otherwise it will distract the eye from the product. Let's try another one. Select your text with the mouse. Click on the color box, a palette will open where you can select the desired color for the inscription.
Result: yes, this color is more suitable.
Adjust the letter size. Select the text with the mouse again and open the dimensions window. Choose the right one. If you are satisfied with the result, click on the checkmark (again as with the Crop tool) 
The result: noticeable to the eye, but not pretentious or too bright copyright.
Now the potential buyer will know where to go for your wonderful product. Over time, it will be possible to develop a “corporate” logo style, but it should always have an address - a nickname or first name with a last name is not so effective.
Step 6. Making the picture smaller
Typically cameras, even the simplest ones, take fairly large photographs. This is necessary for printing photos onto paper, but A small image is enough for the Internet. Open the Image menu and click on the Image Size line.
Replace the numbers. For the buyer to have an idea of the product, 600-800 pixels on the larger side are enough. Please note that there must be a checkmark in the "Constrain Proportions" box.
Result: now your photo will not tear apart friends’ feeds and will not force the viewer to click on the arrows, scrolling kilometers of extra pixels to the sides and up and down.
Step 7: Sharpness
Making a photo smaller results in less sharpness. But this can be fixed. There are many ways to increase sharpness. I'll tell you the simplest one.
When you made a copyright inscription, the program saved it in a separate layer. Now you have two layers of the picture - the “bottom” layer with the photo and the “top” layer with the inscription. Before increasing the sharpening, first we “slush” both layers – the photo layer and the copyright layer – into one. Open the Layer menu and click on the Flatten Image line.
Result: You now have a single-layer image. You can start increasing the sharpness.
Go to the Filter menu, select the Sharpen line, then Unsharp mask.
Very moderately, without fanaticism, move the sliders to the right.
Result: the sharpness lost during reduction has returned.
Important: with this tool you also need to know when to stop. If you make the picture too sharp, it will be unpleasant to look at and will spoil the impression of the product.
Step 8. Save the photo for publication on the Internet
Open the File menu, click on the Save For Web line.
Check the quality – Quality (High is usually enough) and save the file (Save button).
What happened?
So, the photo is light, bright, sharp, normal size and with copyright. All these steps are very simple and clear. Don't be afraid to make a mistake - you're not in the exam. Plus you have an Undo button ;)
Take good photographs - first of all, you need it yourself. But those around you (including your potential clients) also prefer to look at beautiful pictures. :)
Good luck,
Rezza
"
Inspired by another brilliant idea and want to quickly bring it to life with the help of a camera? If you are just starting your journey in photography, don’t rush! First, learn the basics of this art. In this article we will tell you what problems beginner photographers most often encounter. You will also learn how to process photos in the PhotoMASTER editor and get rid of most defects.
Mistake #1. Incorrect frame composition
Having studied the rules for constructing frame composition, you will know that placing the subject strictly in the middle will make any photo boring and lifeless. To get a dynamic and interesting photo, mentally divide the future frame into 9 parts. Place everything important next to the lines or at the intersection points:
Have you already taken a photo and forgotten about the rules of composition? All is not lost yet! Our “PhotoMASTER” will quickly correct the situation. Use the crop function. Turn on the grid, and then adjust the size and position of the frame over the photo. Click “Apply” and all changes will be saved.
Mistake #2. The horizon is littered
You can see this defect even with the naked eye. The horizon line in the photograph does not run parallel to the bottom and top borders of the frame, but goes up or down:
To fix the horizon, go to Composition > Geometry. Check the boxes next to “Crop automatically” and “Show grid”. On the Rotate scale, straighten the photo. If necessary, adjust the “Vertical” and “Horizontal” parameters.
Mistake #3. Lighting problems
Shooting against the sun, an unadjusted camera, a disabled flash in the dark... All this leads to one thing - problems with exposure. The photo becomes too overexposed or dark:
Photo processing will help solve the problem. In “PhotoMASTER” and adjust the tone of the photo. Move the slider to the right on the Exposure scale to lighten the photo, and to the left to darken it. If necessary, adjust the dark and light tones in the photo, as well as shadows and overly highlighted areas.
Mistake #4. Red eye effect
A similar defect occurs due to the use of flash. But you can try to prevent it from appearing in the photo in advance: to do this, ask the “model” not to look directly into the lens when shooting.
You can get rid of red eyes using a corrector. You will find it in the “Retouching” section. Set up a brush and select one of the problematic pupils. Turn down the saturation and experiment with tone. Then edit the second eye in the same way and evaluate the result in the preview window.
Mistake #5. Blurred photo
If the photographer is in a hurry to press the shutter button while shooting, the camera will not have time to focus. When viewing a photo on your PC screen, you will notice that the photo has become blurry:
The problem can be corrected in the editor in several ways. For example, if the entire photo requires adjustments, then in the “Enhancements” section, go to the “Sharpness” tab and select the optimal parameters for the image by adjusting the strength, radius and sharpening threshold.
If you only need to improve a fragment, then use the adjustment brush (Retouch > Corrector). Highlight the area that needs to be corrected. Then click on the “Sharpness” button and adjust the clarity of the area.
Mistake #6. Extra objects in the frame
Captured a landscape, but a shadow got into the frame? Have portrait photographs spoiled acne, flaking and redness on the skin? Don't rush to delete pictures! Use the Stamp tool. With it you can remove all unnecessary elements, and much more. For example, in this photo we got rid of the shadow:
Adjust the brush settings and select the element in the photo that you want to mask. Then specify the location where the editor needs to copy pixels to fill the selected area. Ready!
Mistake #7. Geometric photo distortion
Another problem that beginner photographers often encounter. Such defects arise due to shooting objects, buildings or people from a lower or upper angle, and sometimes simply due to lens errors. This leads to the appearance of “falling buildings”, distortion of figures and other unpleasant consequences.
Alas, not all geometric distortions can be corrected. But it's always worth a try! In the PhotoMASTER program, go to the Composition > Geometry menu. Turn on the grid and try to straighten the photo using the Distortion, Horizontal, and Vertical scales.
Let's sum it up
We've looked at the most popular mistakes that novice photographers make, which means you can avoid them. If unsuccessful shots still take you by surprise, it doesn’t matter! After all, you know how to process photos correctly. Install “PhotoMASTER” on your PC and say goodbye to bad photos forever!
From this issue we begin a detailed acquaintance with the best graphics package for photo processing - Photoshop CS. Let's start with the fundamental points, knowledge of which will guarantee your success in photo processing. Unfortunately, many photographers neglect these features, which leads to a significant waste of time and effort on work that could be done much easier and faster. This issue will be some introduction to the fascinating world of Photoshop and will allow you not to get unnecessary bumps along this long path.
The first axiom is working with adjustment layers.
What are they, what are they for and where are they located?
The fact is that photo processing (brightness, contrast, saturation and other adjustments) can be carried out directly on source material, which is what many amateur photographers do. But if you do not use adjustment layers, the following problems arise:
1. During the work process, you cannot go back to previous adjustments and make any amendments to the changes you have made (and this is almost always necessary, especially if it is a large and complex job).
2. Even if you manage to return to this step (you have a lot of computer RAM, and the history palette is set to a large number of steps), then you will thereby undo all subsequent changes you have made with such difficulty.
3. You cannot change in a wide range the strength of the impact of the settings you have made for applying any filters. Applying adjustment layers eliminates all of the above and turns your work into fun. Therefore, accept the first rule for yourself - the original photo must remain untouched until the very last moment!
There are two ways to access the adjustment layers menu. Layer/New Adjustment Layer/desired layer or, more simply, a pictogram Create New fill or Adjustment Layer (see photo 1). Now let's take a closer look at the main representatives of this glorious instrument.
Levels
Photo processing begins with this layer. For example, let’s open in Photoshop a frame with a meadow stonechat sitting on a melilot stem (see photo 2).
Let's face it - the frame is very inexpressive. There may be many reasons for this, but we will not dwell on them, since we are unable to change them. We will work with the investigation. It is clear that the image has a very narrow dynamic range, which is clearly visible from the histogram of the tool Levels(levels). Let's expand our range in order to give our photo more richness. To do this, you can simply click on the button Auto and... get a completely “unexpected” result (see photo 3).
Photography has become creepy purple tint. In fact, nothing unexpected happened, you just need to enable the histogram in the panel first Histogram by checking the boxes opposite All Channels View and Show Channels in Color (see photo 4).
From the histograms it is clear that Blue colour significantly shifted relative to red and green, so when expanding the dynamic range the program will try to align them, which will lead to the following consequences. This does not mean that you cannot use auto-correction at all. On well-balanced shots it often produces excellent results. Therefore, it is best to use manual adjustment in difficult cases. To do this, we will simply move the black and white level sliders to the beginning of the main histogram (see photo 5).
At the same time, we lost a small part of the information in the highlights (to the right of the white level slider), but this is not a problem, since we will return to them a little later (now, with the use of adjustment layers, this is not a problem for us). Our picture has already begun to acquire more beautiful view, but we still have to work...
Selective Color
To do this, enable and edit the Selective Color layer. In this layer we can selectively adjust the components of the primary colors and the color components of neutral shades (black, gray and white). To make it easier, I will post all the adjustments made separately in a layer Selective Color (see photo 6).
The remaining colors were left unchanged. The result is the following picture (see photo 7).
Of course, the strength of influence on a particular color depends on you and your tasks. If it seems that the saturation of the picture is too high, then you can apply a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
Eliminating overexposure
Now let's get back to recovering lost information in the lights. The enlarged fragment clearly shows that the throat area is overexposed, let's restore it in a form close to the original one. To do this, select the layer with levels, turn on the Brush drawing element (brush) with the B key, adjust the brush size with the [ and ] keys, and the hardness (blurring of boundaries) with the keys Shift + . Set the transparency of the brush to 30 percent by simply pressing the 3 key on the keyboard, and the painting color is black (see photo 8).
With light movements of the brush (it is very convenient in such cases to work with the pen of a Wacom graphics tablet), we will restore this fragment to the state we need. Each brush pass over one spot will return 30 percent of the original condition.
Cleaning the memory
Our history palette and RAM are quite full and need to be cleaned. It is advisable to have surgery before doing this. Snapshot(state snapshot), to do this, in the history palette, on the last operation, click the right mouse button and select from the pop-up menu New Snapshot. After creating a snapshot of the state, you can right-click and select Clear History. Is it possible to completely clear the RAM more radically and correctly? Edit/Purge/All.
Sharpening filters
Now you need to add clarity to your photos. Since sharpening cannot be applied to adjustment layers, and, as we already said, we are not working with the main image, we need to create a copy of our original image. This can be done in different ways. For example, selecting our original drawing in the Layers palette is always the bottom layer Background, then just click Ctrl+J or drag this layer to the icon with the mouse (see photo 9).
In general, the topic of increasing image clarity is a topic for a separate issue, since there are many methods for solving this very important issue. For now, I will tell you about the simplest photo processing techniques.
So, we have with you a copy of the main image called background copy, We will work with him. Photoshop has a special tool for sharpening - Unsharp Mask. It's on the menu Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask. Let's open this filter (see photo 10).
This filter has three adjustment sliders.
Amount(impact strength) - set in the range from 0 to 500 percent.
Radius(radius) - set in the range from 0.1 to 250 pixels. This is the radius of effect of your filter. As a rule, you should not set its value to more than 5 (usually 1-3). Ultimately, it all depends on specific tasks. You can see the effect for yourself.
Threshold(threshold) is a very important parameter that sets the brightness threshold of the filter’s effect (the effect will be applied to all adjacent pixels that have a brightness difference threshold greater than or equal to the set one). The lower this number, the more image elements will fall into the filter's area of influence. Typically set in the range 1–10.
You can see the effect of applying this filter in the picture. In this case, the picture looks a little overdone. This is also not very good. Basically, the effect of “sharpe” is very noticeable on the contours of the object in relation to the background. To eliminate the “oversharpening” effect, simply take the eraser (E key) and erase the outline in the image in those places where it is most noticeable (the lower part of the beak and the dark outline on the white neck in the previous image) (see photo 11).
In the same way, you need to carefully go through the entire image, if necessary, changing the transparency of the eraser in specific places.
Personally, I don’t really like this filter for subjective reasons, and I want to talk about another method. It's called High Pass(high pass filter). In my opinion, the effect of this filter is more intelligent in relation to photography and has more opportunities for creativity.
So, Filter/Other/High Pass. Set the parameter Radius in the range of 1.5–2.5. What happened to our picture? (See photo 12.)
Do not worry, everything will be OK! ...Or bad. This is dialectics! Let's change the blend mode from Normal on Soft Light. Oh miracle! I told you everything would be fine! (See photo 13.)
In this case, the strength of the filter can be smoothly changed using the Opacity slider. If you want to further enhance its effect, change the blending mode from Soft Light to Hard Light. Next we use the eraser as described above. We will return in more detail to the use of this and other sharpening filters in another issue of the magazine.
Blur filter
Another important and frequently used filter for photo processing, which I would like to talk about at the beginning of our journey, is Blur(blur). There are several varieties of this filter, but I want to focus on Gaussian Blur(Gaussian blur). Often this is enough simple tool gives a very good effect when you need to smooth out background elements, for example. They can mask “noise” in a photograph, add softness and mystery to the picture, and much more. To begin with, we’ll just get acquainted with its work on our bird. So, Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur.(Did you remember to create a copy of our main image again? Well done!) (See photo 14.)
Set the blur radius to 3 pixels. In general, in this filter this parameter can be set within very wide limits, depending on the required task. As you can see, the background has acquired a more even and beautiful appearance, although looking at the bird makes you want to wipe your glasses. So let's wipe them down. We take our familiar eraser and start wiping. In the center of the bird, you can set the size larger and the opacity to 100 percent, and as you get closer to the edges, reduce the size and set the transparency to about 30 percent. Make the eraser hardness (blurred boundaries) minimal and move on. There is no need to exactly repeat the contours of the object; it is advisable to slightly capture the background area at the transition border, then the picture will be more natural (that’s why we make the border more transparent). Then we will learn how to make a layer mask, which will make our work easier, but not all at once! And here is the result (see photo 15).
It’s quite good for a start, but imagine what it will be like later! Now we need to frame our picture correctly to improve its composition. If we have finished our photo processing, then all layers can and should be combined into one. Press Shift + Ctrl + E or Layer-Merge Visible (merge visible layers). Turn on Crop (trimming) with the C key on the keyboard and stretch the “elastic band” from the upper left to the lower right corner (see photo 16). If necessary, adjust the cropped fragment in accordance with our desires and preferences and press Enter.
Change of size
The physical size of the photo has been reduced. We need to enlarge it to the size of an A4 printed sheet (for example).
Choose Image/Image Size. Most the best option The image resolution can be considered 300 dpi (dots per inch), which is perfect for printing in a minilab and for printing on a home printer. Next we set the size of our image. For A4 format, this, taking into account the margins, is approximately 20x28 cm. Therefore, depending on the aspect ratio of your photo, set one of the parameters (width or height), and the second will be set automatically. In this case, the Constrain Proportions checkbox must be checked (preserving proportions), and the Resample Image conversion method must be set to best quality Bicubic (bicubic) (see photo 17).
Sometimes, after resizing the image, it is desirable to perform a second sharpening operation, but its strength and necessity must be determined in each specific case. At this point, the lightweight version of photo processing can be considered complete. For most cases this is quite sufficient.
