Dopa's Photoshop CS tips (also for Elements)

[dopa73]

Dopa’s Photoshop CS tips.

First of all a bit of background information about myself so you know where I’m coming from.
At the age of 10 I got my first camera. My parents thought it was a toy camera but it actually worked for real. I stayed interested in photography and eventually ended up with a Canon AE1 35mm reflex and a Canon T70 35mm reflex, with different fixed focus and zoom lenses. Subjects: landscapes, portrait and still life etc. I had my own darkroom and developed and printed my own black and white photos and also shot a lot of slides. (Focussing with those cameras was “manually only” btw)

Then I moved house and didn’t have space for a darkroom. I started to play Irish traditional music and needed a lot of time to practise. When I got better I started playing in a band, playing gigs. Photography moved to the background.

I also developed a keen interest in computers and learned to use them for my hobbies.
I followed the digital camera revolution with great interest. I first bought a slide and negative scanner and started fooling around with imaging programs. I bought my first digital camera in 2001 and have continued upgrading since. Now I am the proud owner of an EOS 350D digital SLR camera and am trying to come to terms with auto focus and the possibilities and limitations of a digital SLR. I’m also learning to work with Photoshop by reading books and magazines and trying out tutorials. I also have a few professional photographers as friends (very helpful). They are both “old school” but one of them is a commercial photographer who has turned digital.

Before I forget: Adobe has a cheaper alternative to Photoshop called “Photoshop Elements” which is basically a dressed-down version of the professional product. It is a lot cheaper and is enough for when you just want to do your basic editing. The lay-out is similar to Photoshop and if you ever move on to the full product, you will be familiar with the tools and the lay-out.


I’m not an expert on Photoshop but I have learned a trick or two and would like to pass on my knowledge. I will be updating this thread every now and again.
My Photoshop tips are based on experience on a Windows computer and are not the only way of doing these jobs. They might not even always be the best way. If you know any better ways of doing them, feel free to comment and share. Most of my tips can also be used in Photoshop Elements.
Ok. Enough talk. On to the tips.

Firs of all: why is post-processing so important? It is very hard to get the perfect shot when you can’t control the lighting and shooting circumstances completely. There might be too much shadow on the face, the contrast might be too high or too low, colours might be too saturated or not saturated enough...... Anyway, you get the picture. Even the tiniest bit of post-processing can improve your photo to no end. It sometimes literally takes only seconds.


Tip no.1: Sharpening.

For ultimate control over your sharpening, choose unsharp mask. You get there by clicking on: filter – sharpen – unsharp mask. In the dialog box you will see three sliders: amount, which controls the amount of sharpening, radius, which controls the amount of pixels from the edge the sharpening will apply to, and threshold. In threshold, 0 means the most intensive sharpening, and when you go up in numbers the sharpening will become less intensive.
For shots of people I would use: amount anywhere between 120 – 150, radius of 1 pixel, and threshold anywhere between 3 – 10. These settings are very personal so you might want play around with them yourself and see what you come up with.

Tip no.2: Quick job on brightening up specific areas.

Sometimes you end up with a photo where the subject’s face looks great, only the eyes didn’t catch enough light. It can also happen that there was a window behind her and her face is too dark. Get the lasso tool and draw a selection around the area you want to change (I normally have the feathering in the options box set to 5). In Photoshop CS, go to: image – adjustments – shadow/highlight. Tick the “show more options” box. I normally bring the amount in “shadows” back to 20 or less, and often I bring the tonal width up to 60. Again, these settings are personal and you can play around with them. You can also adjust highlights with this tool. You can correct the color correction so it matches the rest of your photo and the same for midtone contrast. (I often don’t have to bother with the last one because that’s usually fine.) Press: Ctrl+D to deselect and you’re finished.
Unfortunately this tool is not available in Elements. In Elements, draw the selection with the lasso tool, then go to: Enhance – Adjust lighting and choose fill flash for brightening up the shadow area with the top slider and adjust the colour with the saturation slider. For darkening, you go to: Enhance – Adjust lighting – Adjust backlighting.

Tip no.3: dodging and burning.

I used to do dodging and burning in the darkroom, which was a lengthy trial and error process that you could only judge properly after the entire developing process when the paper had dried. It’s so much easier in Photoshop.
What is dodging and burning? It’s very simple: dodging lightens and burning darkens. Sometimes you end up with a nice photo but the poor girl’s nose looks too washed out while the rest of the photograph looks great. Darkening the whole photograph brings back detail in the nose but now the rest of the photo looks too dark. Burning will do the job here.

Photoshop does have a dodging and burning tool but strangely enough these tools are not great. According to Scott Kelby, a photographer who wrote books on Photoshop, using these tools on your originals will “bruise” your pixels. You don’t have that much control either.

There is a better way that will give you greater control and a better outcome by working on a layer.

Go to: layer – new – layer (or press Shift+Control+N on a Windows computer)
A layer dialog window will appear with Name, Color and Mode. Click on mode and choose Overlay. Tick the box “fill with overlay-neutral color (50% grey)” and click on “OK”. You then choose a soft edged brush from the brush tool. Make sure you then go to the option bar and set the opacity to maybe 15 or 20. (Again: you can play around with these settings) If you want to darken, press d on your keyboard to set your foreground colour to black. If you want to lighten, press x on your keyboard to set your foreground colour to white. You then start painting over the areas that you want to change, adjusting the brush size where necessary. When you’re happy with the result, go to: layer – flatten image and you’re done. If you mess it up, before you flatten the image, you just trash the layer and no harm done. You can then start again.

Tip no.4: easy and fast red eye removal.

When you take flash photos, red eyes can be a real pain in the butt. Elements has a red eye removal tool but it doesnt give great control. Photoshop CS doesn't have a red eye removal tool anyway. There is a better way of doing it, which will also let you control the replacement colour and darkness better.

Choose the lasso tool to select the red area. Make sure the feathering is on at about 2 pixels. In Elements, go to Enhance - adust color - hue/saturation. With the sliders you can adjust colour, saturation and lightness. In CS you go to image - adjustments - hue/saturation. The shortcut in both programs is Ctrl+U Again, use the sliders to influence colour, saturation and lightness.

Thanks for the great write up dopa. I am always learning something new
about post processing in PS. It's without question the most sophisticated and
complex application I have ever used. Any tips or suggestions in its use are
always a welcome read. I appreciate your "fill overlay" dodging and burning
technique. My beginings with PS have relied mostly on brute-force methods.
As I learn more I figure out more elegant ways of doing things like your
dodging and burning.

Another method for selective processing of specific regions in an image relies
heavily on the use of layers. These layers are blended by using a soft edged
eraser. For example if you have a shaded face you would make a second
layer, hide the top layer, and adjust the lower layer to make the face look
good, ignoring what the rest of the image on that layer looks like. Then you
would make the top layer visible again and use a soft edged eraser to expose
regions of the face in next lower layer. Finally you would merge the layers.
Using layers this way can be done to apply selective sharpening or noise
reduction. While not as elegant as other solutions, chiefly those that utilize
layer masks, this is certainly simple to understand and execute.

[dopa73]

Another method for selective processing of specific regions in an image relies
heavily on the use of layers. These layers are blended by using a soft edged
eraser. For example if you have a shaded face you would make a second
layer, hide the top layer, and adjust the lower layer to make the face look
good, ignoring what the rest of the image on that layer looks like. Then you
would make the top layer visible again and use a soft edged eraser to expose
regions of the face in next lower layer. Finally you would merge the layers.
Using layers this way can be done to apply selective sharpening or noise
reduction. While not as elegant as other solutions, chiefly those that utilize
layer masks, this is certainly simple to understand and execute.

Thanks for your addition DP. The method I mentioned for selective brightening is a fast one but yours is definitely the more elegant one. I use layers in combination with the eraser for sharpening, softening, selective colouring etc. It's often the way to go because you don't mess up your original.

[archman]

Thanks, Dopa! Please feel free to add as much as you want. Photoshop has so many great things, it's easy to miss something.

I have Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS2 For Digital Photogaphers" sitting right beside me. I'd highly reccomend it to anybody who needs a few tips with PS--whether you're a newbie or an expert. It's become my "bible" for post processing.

Thank you again for the tips!

[Gramps]

Thanks Dopa...DP, I am a photoshop dunce but I have been getting better through people putting down stuff like this for us novices

[FvS]

Great tips dopa

[Vitahappy]

this is some good stuff. i can do stuff on PS but just not with editin my pics. maybe some1 can 'sticky' this?

[Thunder Pixx]

Thanks Dopa. i always learn something new from these types of threads.

i usually use the burn and lighten tools on a separate layer (copy of photo) and then merge the layer at a lower opacity with the original image. i think it was olympus that gave us that trick.

keep the tricks coming!!

[opqph]

Greatly appreciated, I like reading articles like this (and I do like your pics )

It'd be cool if you could post some sample images (before, after) along with the steps you took.

[uplooker]

thanks now i know what im doing for the unmask sharpening