perspective

This is the final installment in this series of tutorials. Here we are going to put to use all of the things we have learned so far and go way beyond sharpening. We are still using the overlay modes, and the high pass filter, but this time we are using them for a creative effect instead of simple sharpening.

This is also a perfect example of my general approach to photoshop. Lots of people use photoshop like a glorified plugin gallery. They have a few techniques that they know how to apply… kind of like being able to cook from a recipe. Others are even more hands off, having a large set of actions at their disposal. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this approach, but it is limiting and will produce vastly different results with different images. A good photoshop user can visualize the finished product before even starting. Only once you know where you are going then you can decide how you are going to get there.

I knew exactly where I wanted to take this photo before I started, and I knew that the high pass filter would be the building block of the effect. But, along the way I hit a few bumps that kept pushing the image away from what I had visualized. That is what I think should be most informative about this video: how to problem solve in photoshop. Never let the technique take control of the image and make it something you didn’t want.

View hi-res version here.

Sharpening is a crucial technique for any photographer to master.  Almost any digital image (and most film images as well) looks better with some amount of sharpening.  But unfortunately sharpening often involves adding artifacts as well as sharpness to the image.  Here we will discuss a technique that allows the photographer ultimate control of their sharpening process, allowing him to fine tune the sharpening process in ways not available with other sharpening methods.

Click here to view hi-res version.

The next tutorial in the series will use the same high pass filter to create dramatic contrast effects used frequently in commercial photography currently.

-Chad

This tutorial is going to be the first in a series of tutorials exploring the layer blending modes in the overlay group. It is a little more advanced than my other tutorials, so before you tackle blending modes make sure you have a grasp of most of the basic tools. This first installment is an intro, it really doesn’t get into how to use the blending modes. The idea is to give you a firm grasp of what the modes do before you start using them so that it isn’t just a recipe that can be used to do one thing, but a technique that can be applied to many problems you encounter.

View Hi-Res version here.

The next installment will use these blending modes to sharpen your images, so check back soon.

-Chad

I am always amazed at what photoshop can do. The possibilities are truly endless. Just when I feel that I have a relatively good grasp of how to accomplish something I bump into something like this: A Cool Lighting Effect In Photoshop. This is just one tutorial on a site just chock full of them. Most of them are graphic design type things, which is what I think makes it so foreign to me. I think we photogs stick to ourselves, and only trade tips with other photogs and only look for help from other photogs. The graphic designers of the world also rely on photoshop, and they have their own tricks and techniques. I wonder if it is actually possible to know everything photoshop is capable of doing? Well even if it isn’t that doesn’t stop us from tryin… right?

oh… btw, here is my first attempt at the effect. Not quite as good, but I’ll work on it.

I have already shown you a useful way to brighten/whiten eyes, but on many images that is only half the story. Many images benefit from an adjustment of the eye color itself. This can be an enhancement of the natural eye color, or a completely new color… the technique is the same. As always, my techniques are aimed at creating realistic results, but this technique in particular can be used to create very dramatic results if that is what is desired.

Click here to view hi-res version here.

On the left is the corrected image, the right is the “before.” As I said, if the result is too subtle, it can be easily enhanced… just use a higher opacity on the adjustment layer. Hope you found it useful!

-Chad

The eyes are one of the most important aspects of any portrait. There are lots of different techniques for brighting and whitening eyes, some of them are easier than others, and some are more effective than others. Here I will show a technique I use on many portraits that is very simple and can be very realistic. It can add drama and contrast to the eyes, without making them look pure white and fake (like in most magazines these days). It is easy to do, even for photoshop beginers and can make a very big improvement in a wide range of photographs. I hope you like it:

And here is a hi-rez version: Photoshop Tutorial: “Eyes”

Here are the before and after images from the photo used in the tutorial:

Thanks for looking,

-Chad

That last post about the berry photo was perhapse a little vague on the actual techniques used to create the image. So… just in case anybody is interested, I went ahead and prepaired a short video tutorial about the technique I used to splice the images together. It isn’t earth shattering, but I am sure some people will find it informative.

Download the high-rez version here: Photoshop Tutorial: Composite Image “Berry Splash”

And finally the finished image:

Thanks for looking!
-Chad

It can be assumed at this point that any image you see in a magazine or commercial has been somehow processed in photoshop. Still, even with its ubiquitous presence, I am sometimes shocked by the possibilities available to a photographer or retoucher on the computer that were never available before. Check it out:

No matter how many times you drop a raspberry into a glass it will never look quite perfect. Here are two shots:

Not bad if I do say so myself, but neither one perfect. The first has very little splash, but a great looking berry. The second has a great splash, but the berry has drifted so close to the side of the glass that it is very distorted and not very legible. To get a great final image, you have to start with quality in the first place… remember, you can’t polish a turd, even with photoshop! This image was shot with only one light, placed above the table angled slightly forward toward the camera. The gradient was created using only the white background where the light falls off as the background sweeps upward. Looking at the finished image I might shift the gradient down in the composition, but hindsight is 20:20. It could be moved in photoshop, but then the entire thing would have to be replaced in photoshop, the way I did it, the bottom was lightened and evened out, but not actually replaced with a fake background. I just think the more real photo we can keep the better the final product.

It may seem backward, but I actually found it much easier to put the splash on the glass with the good berry, as opposed to the good berry in the glass with the good splash. I will try to find time to do a proper tutorial on how I combined the images, but the basic idea is easy. Loosely trace the splash area and paste it on the background. Each time I dropped the raspberry I needed to clean the glass and area, so careful resizing and aligning is needed to get the splash to line up perfectly with the background image. But after that I just used a quick mask to blend in the edges of the copied splash and voila:

Ok, ok… there were a few other steps as well. I used a multiply layer to boost contrast, deepen the color and blacken the top of the gradient. I used a gradient and a clipping path to bring the bottom of the image to 255, 255, 255. I even added a little reflection, but I am not totally convinced that it adds to the image, but I can turn it off if I don’t want it.

Hopefully this has been a slight inspiration to you. I realize that it in no way plumbs the depths of what photoshop can do, but this image would have been much more difficult to create only a few years ago that I could not resist showing it off!

-Chad