Introduction to Photoshop 3

Tools & terms 3

Layers 3

Cloning tool 3

Healing tool 3

Patch tool 3

Selection tools 3

Levels 3

Dodge and burn 4

Using dodge and burn tools 4

Using the paint brush 5

Black and White conversion 6

Black and White Conversion – Method 1 6

Black and White Conversion - Method 2 (available in newer versions of PS) 6

Black and White Conversion - Method 3 6

Black and White Conversion - Method 4 6

Black and White Conversion - Method 5 7

Black and White Conversion - Method 6 7

Black and White Conversion - Method 7 7

Workflow 8

Actions 8

Droplets 8

Portrait edits 10

Removing hot spots 10

Whitening Teeth 10

Remove wrinkles 10

Miscellaneous Tips 11

Adding contrast – Using levels to set the black and white point levels 11

Miscellaneous Tips 11

To correct a colour cast 11

Links 11

Toolbox 12

Introduction to Photoshop

It takes time to learn photoshop and the best way is to practice, practice and practice some more. The Internet will provide you with 100's of tutorials and examples.

Tools & terms

Layers

Layers can be explained as stacking images on top of other. The opacity of each layer can be lower in allow more of the layer below the current layer to be seen.

Get a photo printed out. Draw an image on a sheet of tracking paper. Place the tracking paper over the original image. You can still see the photo, as the tracing paper has a low opacity. But you will also see the drawing on top of the photo, but it does not effect the original photo.

Cloning tool

The clone tool can be used to remove unwanted objects or to duplicate objects in images.

By holding down the alt key Photoshop will allow you to sample a small part of your picture and transfer those pixels elsewhere in your image. Generally you will be using a small brush size for your cloning work so the operation is best done with your image greatly enlarged.

Healing tool

Similar to the spot healing tool. The spot healing took is used for fixing smaller areas while the healing took is used for fixing medium or large defects.

Patch tool

Used for fixing large defects that contrasts sharply with the surrounding areas.

Selection tools

Rectangular Marquee – select square or rectangle areas. Press Shift to force the selection to a perfect square. Press Alt as you drag to create selection from the center outwards.

Elliptical Marquee – select circular or oval areas

Polygonal Lasso – selects irregular shaped areas made up of straight lines

Magnetic Lasso – selects areas whose edges contract with the abutting area.

Magic Wand – selects areas that contrast with other image areas.

You can modify a selection by adding to the selection, subtracting from the selection or by using the inverse of the selection. These button are on the options bar for the selection tool.

Levels

You can use the levels dialog to change an image's contrast by adjusting it's brightness areas (highlights), darkness areas (shadows) and midtones. These can all be adjusted individually.

Dodge and burn

Dodging and burning is used to correct the exposure of an image. Dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print making them lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print to be darker.

Using dodge and burn tools

There are two tools available in Photoshop the dodge and burn tools.

Create a new layer by clicking on the new layer button at the bottom of the layers palette.

Name the new layer something meaningful by double clicking the “Layer 2” text on the new layer.

Select the dodge tool on the options bar select the air brush option. Change the exposure to 50% as so any changes made are suttel. Change the brush size according to the size of the area you are dodging. The Range is used to specify weather the dodge will effect Highlights, Shadows or Midtones.

Paint on the areas that need to be lightened.

Select the burn tool. Make changes in the options bar as needed.

Using the paint brush

This approach to dodging and burning us a non-destructive using layers and the paintbrush.

Create a new layer as so any changes made do not effect the original image. Click on Layer > New > Layer. This will open the New Layer dialog.

Change the Mode to “Soft Light” and tick the “Fille with Soft-light neutral color (50% Gray)” checkbox and click OK.

A new layer is displayed in the Layer palette.

S
elect the paintbrush and set the opacity to 10%.

Set the foreground to white to dodge. (to lighten areas)

Ensure the new layer of new gray is selected and paint over the areas that need to be lightened.

Set the foreground to black to burn the image.(to darken areas)

P
aint the brush over the over that is to be darkened.

As you dodge and burn, you will see the Layer darken where you have burned in and brighten where you have dodge the image.

At any time, if you want to see the image without any of the dodging and burning, you can turn off the layer, by clicking on the eye beside the layer.

Black and White conversion

There are several ways to convert a colour image to black and white. Some are detailed below others you can find on line. There is no right or wrong way to convert to black and white, it's personal preference as to which you use.

Black and White Conversion – Method 1

1. Open a photo.

2. From the file menu choose Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 2(available in newer versions of PS)

1. Open a photo.

2. Create a Black and White adjustment layer. From the file menu click Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White.

The Black and White dialog appears.

1. Adjust the sliders to brighten or darken particular colours.

Example: To enhance a blue sky from a mid grey to a dark tone, adjust the blue slider.

Tip: Click in the image and, holding the left mouse button, drag left to darken or right to lighten.

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 3

1. Open a photo.

2. Create a new layer. (From the file menu click:Layer > New Layer).

3. Fill layer with black.

The image is hidden by the black layer.

1. With the new layer selected, change the Blend Mode to Colour.

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 4

1. Open a photo.

2. Open Calculations. (From the file menu click Image > Calculations.)

3. Set the source 1 and source 2 channels to: Red*. Set the Blending to Multiply. (*Experiment with different channels and blend modes to get the tones you want).

The image is converted to black and white.

More detail:In this case, Calculations multiplies the pixel values in the two channels selected and divides the result by 255. The resulting color is always a darker color.

Tip: If you choose New Document as the Result you can create a open a new document with the image resulting from the calculation.

Black and White Conversion - Method 5

1. Open a photo.

2. Change the colour mode to LAB mode (From the file menu choose: Image > Mode > Lab Color).

3. In the Channelspalette, choose lightness layer. (Turning off channels A and B.)

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 6

1. Open a photo.

2. Open Channel Mixer. (From the file menu choose: Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer.

1. Tick the Monochrome box (to set the output).

The image is converted to black and white.

Black and White Conversion - Method 7

1. Open a photo.

2. In the Channels palette, show and hide each of the red, green and blue channels. Choose one.

3. Copy the colour channel (red, green, or blue) into a new layer.

Tip: Click Ctrl+Shift+N (Windows) to open a new layer.
The image is converted to black and white.

Workflow

Once you have defined a workflow of how all images are process i.e adding signatures etc, you can create actions and droplets to automate as much as possible.

Actions

Actions are saved sequences of events that can be applied to any image and save time by letting Photoshop automatically apply changes specified in the action. They can be used to speed up repetitive tasks such as adding watermarks to all images.

To demonstrate this we will by resize images for the web.

Select the Actions palette and create a new action.

The new action dialog will open. Name the action something meaningful and click Record.

Create a new folder on your machine and name it web images. Back in photoshop click on Image > Size. The image size dialog will open. Enter the new values and click OK. Click on File > Save As. The Save As dialog will open, select jpg for the format and click OK. Click the stop recording icon in the Action palette.

The action is now saved and can be accessed from the actions palette for when you want to resize any other images.

Droplets

A droplet is a small application generated by Photoshop or ImageReady that you can store on your desktop or any other location on your computer. You can drag image files or a folder containing files to a droplet to perform a batch process on the images.

After creating an action you can create a droplet for the action. Once a folder is dropped onto the droplet to apply that action to all images in that folder.

Click on File > Automate > Create Droplet.

The Create Droplet dialog will open. Click on the Choose button to select the folder to save the droplet to. In the Play section select the group in which the action is saved. Select the action from the Action drop down. If you want to override the save as in the action select Save and Close or Folder from the Destination drop down. Tick the Override Action “Save As” Commands. You can choose the folder by clicking on the Choose button.

Click OK when your finished. Navigate to the location where you saved the droplet. You will see an .exe file.

Locate a folder which contains files you want to resize. Select the folder and drop it on the exe file. The action will create the smaller images and save them in the specified folder.

Portrait edits

Removing hot spots

1. Open the image.

2. Duplicate the background layer.

3. Select the Clone Stamp tool in the Toolbox.

4. Up in the options var, change the blend mode toe Darken, this will ensure that only pixels lighter than the sample select will be effected.

5. Change the opacity to 50%.

6. Select a large soft edge brush.

7. Press and hold the Alt key and click once in a clean area of skin. This will be the sample.

8. Release the Alt key

9. Paint over the hot spots, area of shine on the skin.

10. You will need to re-sample as you work. Taking a sample from the nearest correct colour to the hot spot.

Whitening Teeth

1. Open the image.

2. Duplicate the background layer.

3. Select the Lasso tool.

4. Carefully select around the teeth.

5. Click on Select > Feather on the menu bar.

The Feather selection dialog will open.

1. Enter 1 pixel and click OK.

This will smooth the edges of the selection.

1. Click on Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to open the dialog.

2. Ensure the preview option is selected.

3. Choose Yellows from the Edit drop down menu.

4. Drag the saturation slider to the left to remove the yellowing fro the teeth.

5. When finished editing the yellows, choose Mater from the Edit drop down menu at the top of the dialog.

6. Drag the Lightness slider to the right to whiten and brighten the teeth. Be careful not to drag it too far.

7. Click OK on the dialog box when finished and press Ctrl D to de-select the section.

Remove wrinkles

1. Open the image and duplicate the background layer.

2. Choose the healing brush.

3. Hold the Alt key and click on an area of smooth skin. This will create a sample.

4. Paint over the wrinkles. Give Photoshop a second to do it'd thing.

The wrinkle will be remove using the sample selected area.

1. This can also be achieve using the Patch tool.

2. To make the picture more believe you can reduce the opacity on the layer to bring back a little of the wrinkles

Miscellaneous Tips

Adding contrast – Using levels to set the black and white point levels

With an open photo

1. Open the Levels dialog. (From the file menu choose Image > Adjustments > Levels)

2. Move the left marker to the start of the histogram, and the right marker to the end.

1. Adjust the center marker to lighten or darken the midtones.

Tip: Hold down the Alt key (Windows) while adjusting the levels markers, to show the any clipped highlights or shadows.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Use Adjustment Layers to separate your edits from the original photo layer, to allow for easy tweaking.

• If you are creating a black and white image from a raw file, open a 16bit image (rather than 8bit) to retain much more dynamic range when the colour data is flattened to greyscale.

• Also create a new layer for each new action you are carrying out on an image. This will allow to turn layers on and off, to edit them easier and keep tack of the work carried out on an image.

• Duplicate the background layer before making any changes to the image and make any changes to that layer or new layers that you create.

To correct a colour cast

1. Open an image.

2. Choose Image > Adjustments > Photo Filter.

3. Choose the opposite colour on the colour wheel as the Filter. Example: to correct a green cast, choose a magenta filter.

Links

http://simplephotoshop.com/photoshop_tools/index.htm

http://blog.dpboards.com/?p=17

http://digital-photography-school.com/ - general photography and photoshop

Toolbox