Photoshop. Part 1. A few tips and hints before we get started.

Transcription

1 Photoshop Part 1 A few tips and hints before we get started. In focus: In this class, we will work with digital and scanned images. The better the original picture, the easier it will be for you to get the output you are after. Most digital cameras focus when you depress the shutter halfway. This feature trips up many a photographer and often produces funny results. The key to success is to press the shutter halfway until the blinking light in your viewfinder turns into a steady light. Then press the shutter the rest of the way down. Your picture will be in focus, and the subject will be what you intended. Properly exposed: While Photoshop can work wonders with under- and overexposed pictures, it still takes a lot of time and skill to fix a poor picture. If you read nothing else in your cameraʼs instruction manual, read about its flash settings. Most cameras will allow you to set your camera to force the flash or to pick a fill (softer) flash. There may be other times when you want no flash at all. It is important to know how to change your cameraʼs flash settings.

2 Photoshop Tools Go to Adobe Online Rectangular Marquee Tool Lasso Tool Crop Tool Healing Brush Tool Clone Stamp Tool Eraser Tool Blur Tool Path Selection Tool Pen Tool Notes Tool Hand Tool Set Foreground Color Default Colors Edit in Standard Mode Standard Screen Mode Move Tool Magic Wand Tool Slice Tool Brush Tool History Brush Tool Gradient Tool Dodge Tool Horizontal Type Tool Rectangle Tool Eyedropper Tool Zoom Tool Switch Foreground & Background Color Set Background Color Edit in Quick Mask Mode Full Screen Mode Jump to Image Ready Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar 2

3 Setting up Photoshopʼs Defaults When you first print from Photoshop, you will probably not be pleased with the results. Photoshop is set to print to some rather old Web-based standards. Since most of us will be using a color inkjet printer for our final output, we will need to make some changes. Press the following keys: Shift+Command+K (alt on the PC). Before In the section titled Working Spaces, click on the up/down triangles and change the setting to Adobe RGB. After Next, go to the Eyedropper tool and look up on the toolbarʼs left-hand side. Change the Sample size from Point Sample to 3x3 Average. This will give you more accurate color samples. 3

4 Getting Picture Information Photoshop automatically adjusts the picture size depending on the size of your display. This can be a bit deceptive at times, leading you to think a picture is much smaller that its actual size. Here is how to get information on your picture: Open the picture titled Kids.in.Car.jpg Press the following keys: Apple+R (alt on the PC). Are you surprised? Look in the lower, left-hand corner of the picture. You will see a number followed by the % sign. Next, go to the Image menu and pull down to Image Size. This picture was taken with a 5-megapixel, digital camera. Would you be able to print it the way it is? Could you save this picture on a diskette? Click the OK button because we will use this picture in our next lesson. 4

5 Rotating a Picture If your camera was quarter-turned while taking a picture, you will need to use Photoshopʼs rotation feature. Open picture pettingcat.tif Before Go to the Image menu and pull down to Rotate Canvas. Slide over to 90º CW After 5

6 If your picture needs only a slight change, choose Arbitrary and enter the number of degrees of rotation. Choose CW or CCW. Open picture alanjackson1.tif Go to the Image menu and pull down to Rotate. Choose Arbitrary... Rotate the picture 10º Clockwise (ºCW). Before After 6

7 Cropping a Picture Occasionally you will want to crop out some parts of a picture. In this exercise, we will pretend we want to crop a picture and have the output be 7 x 5 and 150 ppi. Hereʼs the drill... Open picture crop 7x5.jpg Press the c key to select the Crop tool. Go to the Option Bar and enter in the dimentions 7 x 5 and 150 ppi. Use the tab key to navigate. Go to the Window menu and pull down to Tool Presets. Click the New Tools Preset icon. Name it Crop 7in x 5 150ppi. Click OK. You may wish to create additional presets for other sizes you will use. 7

8 To use: Type the c key to get the crop tool. Go to the far left icon on the Option Bar. Click the down-pointing triangle to see the menu. Drag out the cropping marquee. It will be fixed to the exact dimensions you set for the tool. Press the return key. Before Selection Cropped 8

9 Open cropped 5 x 7id.jpg Straightening Crooked Pictures Click on the eyedropper tool and slide over to measure. Find an object in the picture that you think would be straight, for example, a window ledge. Draw a line from left to right or top to bottom. Photoshop will make note of this angle. In this picture, draw a line down the leg of the wooden crate. Go to the Image menu and pull down to Rotate Canvas. Choose Arbitrary. Photoshop has set corrections based on your measurement. Click OK. You may need to crop the image to remove unwanted white spaces. 9

10 Straightening Using a Grid Open room.jpg Go to the View menu. Make sure Extras is checked. Return to the View menu. Pull down to Show and across to Grid. Grab the lower, right-hand corner of your image window and drag outward and downward to add gray canvas around your photo. Press Command+A (PC Control+A) to select the picture. Press Command+T (PC COntrol+T) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. Move the cursor outside the bounding box and draw upwards or downwards to rotate the image. Go back to the View menu so Show and slide over to deselect the Grid. You may now crop and press the return key to complete the straightening operation. 10

11 Resizing Digital Camera Photos Open gaye.jpg Press Command+R to show rules. Notice that the picture is 36 wide. Letʼs get more information. Go to the Image menu and pull down to Image size. Note that the resolution is 72 ppi. This is the resolution at which all digital cameras operate. This is ideal for photos that will be viewed onscreen, Web graphics, , and slideshows. This is too low to get quality results from a color printer. 1 Just changing the resolution number will often give blurry and pixelated results. Turn off the Resample Image box. Change the Width or the Height to the desired size. Note that the resolution goes up as the size goes down. Best of all, there is no loss of quality. 150ppi is about right for regular-quality copy paper. 300 or more can be used with special paper. 2 Deselect 3 11

12 Cool Trick for Enlarging Small Photos At times, someone may hand you a photo from your past. The negative, no doubt, is long gone. Using the technique described below, you can enlarge a small photo to poster size with little loss of quality. Scan the photo at 300 or more ppi. Open Anne_scan.jpg in Photoshop. Go to the Image menu and pull down to Image Size. Make sure that Resample Image is turned on. Switch the unit of measurement to % and type in 110. Click the OK button. For some reason, increasing the image in 10% increments doesnʼt soften or blur the image. I canʼt explain why it works, but it does. If you only needed to enlarge this photo a bit, you could repeat the above direction several times; if you want to get a snapshot up to poster size, you will want to do the shortcut mentioned below. Go to the Window menu and pull down to Actions. Click the Create New Action button at the bottom of the palette. Name your action Upsize 110% and choose a function key that you want to assign to this action. Stop button Click the Record button and repeat step 2. After youʼve increased 110% and clicked the OK button, click the square Stop button to complete the recording process. Now, every time you press the assigned F-key, your current image will be increased by 10%. 12

13 Fixing Underexposed Pictures So you didnʼt take my advice to read about your new digital cameraʼs flash settings seriously, and now the picture that you want is massively underexposed. Roll up your sleeves...hereʼs the big fix... Open sad.jpg Press Command+J (PC Control+J) to duplicate your Background layer. On the new layer, change the Blend Mode in the Layers palette from Normal to Screen to lighten the entire photo. If the photo is still too dark, press Command+J and duplicate the screen layer again. If you duplicate the layer to the point where one more time is too much, lower the Opacity on the final layer to dial in the perfect amout of light. Once the photo looks perfect, choose Flatten Image from the Layer menu. Save your picture. 13

14 Fixing Overexposed Pictures Okay. So this time you listened a little. You remembered something about using the flash and that it was important, but you still havenʼt quite gotten around to reading your new billion-megapixel, Terminatorʼs camera manual, and your default flash setting is set to STUN. Now your family and even your dog run when you reach for your camera. Weeks after your last family photo shoot, they are still applying sunburn ointment. I could go on, but follow the directions below to salvage what is left of your reputation. Open washout.jpg Make a copy of this photo by pressing Command+J. Change the Blend Mode of Layer 1 from Normal to Multiply on the pop-up menu. This multiplier effect will bring back a lot of the original detail the flash blew out. If the photo still looks washed out, duplicate Layer 1 again, Command+J (PC Control+J). You can lower the Opacity setting of a layer to achieve the perfect look. Remember to go to the Layer menu and pull down to Flatten before you save your image. 14

15 Sharpening an Image For best results, always sharpen photos in 100% view. Double-clicking on the Zoom Tool will jump your photos to 100% view. Open GQ.jpg Go to the Filter menu and pull down to Sharpen. Slide over to Unsharpen Mask... This choice gives you the most control. You will see three sliders: Amount This determines the amount of sharpening applied to the photo. Radius This determines how many pixels out from the edge the sharpening will affect. Threshold The lower this number, the more intense the sharpening effect. Threshold determines how different a pixel must be from the surrounding area before itʼs considered an edge pixel and is sharpened by the filter. For people, puppies, rainbows, and flowers: A=150 R=1 T=10 Max setting: A=65 R=4 T=3 All purpose setting: A=85 R=1 T=4 (can be applied twice) Web: A=400 R=.3 T=0 Experiment: A from 50%-150% R 1-2 pixels T 3-20 (3 being most intense, 20 being much more subtle) 15

16 Notes: 16