Photoshop Fix (July 2004)

18 Pages·2004·2.169 MB·English

$10 US | $13.75 CDN JULY 2004
F E A T U R E D A R T I S T
CREATE DIGITAL MOISTURIZER
Suzette Troché-Stapp (Santa Clarita, Calif.) wanted to hint at the
fl awless retouching style of old Hollywood black-and-white photos.
Her technique of smoothing skin from the Channels palette makes
the often challenging clone stamp tool a breeze to use. It’s ideal for
heavy retouching while preserving an image’s reality.
Working with digital close-ups magnifi es (cid:4) Troché-Stapp selected the Channels
every spot and bump on skin in sharper palette and looked at each channel
detail even more than some types of fi lm. separately to fi nd the one with the most
Although this subject’s white makeup “pixel garbage” in the skin. The Red chan-
was applied very carefully, the digital nel mainly contained highlights, but the
image still revealed plenty of fl aws. Since Green channel revealed a good amount
it was intended to appear as a doll’s face, of muddy pixels clearly exposing where
the skin needed to be perfect. Most the skin texture could be smoothed. She
Photoshop users work with the clone made sure all channels were active with
stamp tool, which can be diffi cult to use. only the Green channel’s visibility turned
Troché-Stapp found a successful way to on, chose Window > Documents > New
utilize it. Window, and positioned the channel im-
age and the full-color image next to each
(cid:1) Troché-Stapp duplicated the other on the desktop.
background layer and retouched large,
distracting imperfections fi rst. To remove (cid:5) She added a new layer at the top of
blemishes, she selected the healing the Layers palette. Selecting the clone
brush tool and pressed Option/Alt to stamp tool, Troché-Stapp chose a soft
sample from similar but clean sections 100-pixel brush, set the Opacity to 20%,
of skin. Then she cloned the more desir- and checked Use All Layers in the Op-
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P able pixels over the blemishes. tions bar. To smooth a bad area on the
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S forehead, she positioned the tool over a
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OT (cid:2) To globally lighten the image after nearby clean area with a similar tone in
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P healing, she created a Curves adjustment the Green channel image and pressed
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N I layer and used the RGB channel to bring Option/Alt to sample. She painted over
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O up the midtone and highlight values, the area, blending the transitions of the
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S concentrating on making changes to grays. She worked her way down the
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GE the highlights and affecting the white face, checking the full-color image for
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M areas of the image. overall results. When done, she reduced
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N the Opacity of the layer to 50% to blend
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S (cid:3) Now Troché-Stapp needed to match back in some of the original skin texture.
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A the body with the white face makeup.
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M She selected the body using the polygo- For darker skin tones, the Blue
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C nal lasso tool, then created a Selective channel is often a better choice than
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E Color adjustment layer. She fi rst cooled the Green when looking for the chan-
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L the skin tones by choosing the Reds nel that reveals the most evidence for
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AN from the pull-down menu and added smoothing skin.
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P more Cyan. She cooled the Yellows with
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H more Cyan and neutralized the Whites Suzette Troché-Stapp
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T by moving the sliders for each color to (aka the Glitterguru)
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PHOTOSHOP FIX 2
3 JULY 2004
F E A T U R E D A R T I S T
COMPOSITE WITH COLOR
Photographer Adam Fish (Dallas) wanted to combine photos but
each had a variety of tones, so simply blending images together
wasn’t going to be suffi cient. Initial color correction was the key.
Fish prepared the images through each color channel in Levels and
Curves before choosing a soft green to unite them.
(cid:1) Although Fish chose three photos (cid:4) Fish selected an image for the com-
from the same shoot, he didn’t have posite’s seam. To extract the fi gure from
consistent color among them. With one the background, he zoomed in 400%,
photo open, he pressed Command/Ctrl-L selected the eraser tool, and set a Hard
to open the Levels dialog box and chose Round 4-pixel brush. He erased a well-
Red from the Channel pull-down menu. defi ned edge around the fi gure, then
He cleaned the image’s whites and blacks used the polygonal lasso tool to select
by moving the outer sliders inward to the the rest of the background, inverse the
beginning of the Histogram’s informa- selection, and delete it.
tion. Fish repeated this with the Green
and Blue channels. Then he moved the (cid:5) He created a 22 x 7¼-inch fi le and
midpoint slider of each channel until the dragged all images into it. Fish aligned
image looked balanced. He chose the the concrete block lines in the back-
RGB channel and moved the midpoint grounds of two images and cropped
slider to globally lighten beyond a natural them as one. Then he selected the ex-
contrast. He repeated this Levels adjust- tracted fi gure, chose Edit > Transform
ment method with the other two images. > Flip Horizontal, and positioned it in
the center.
(cid:2) Fish opened the Curves dialog box
(Command/Ctrl-M) from one image and (cid:6) He Command/Ctrl-clicked the center
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P placed two points on the RGB channel. fi gure layer, added a Curves adjustment
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S Boosting contrast, he set the black point layer, and fi ne-tuned the color from the
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OT to deepen the shadows and the white previous Curves application. He added
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P point to increase highlights. Then he Curves adjustment layers to the other im-
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N I experimented with the channels to fi nd ages to match the center fi gure’s tone.
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O an overall color to use. Fish adjusted each
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S color channel for a green tone by lower-
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GE ing the Red, increasing the Green toward
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M the highlight side, and slightly increasing
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N the Blue. He applied the Curves adjust-
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S ment to the other images to cast the
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A green tone on them.
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CO (cid:3) For each image, he chose Filter >
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E Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and set the
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L Amount to 55% and the Radius to 1 pixel.
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AN Fish zoomed in and used the healing
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P brush to spot-clean image fl aws. If he
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H retouched hard-edge areas with dis-
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T similar neighboring colors, he avoided Adam Fish
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H blending color with the healing brush Fish Fotography
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O and switched to the clone stamp tool. www.fi shfotography.com
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PHOTOSHOP FIX 4
5 JULY 2004
E S S E N T I A L S
BY RICH HARRIS
PRACTICE THE ART OF DECEPTION
Although layer masks are one of the most essential Photoshop features, they can be a bit perplexing.
You know they can be used to modify and blend images for complex composites, but if you aren’t at
ease with the basic utilities, you could hold yourself back from true image creativity and quick fixes for
changing color.
DOWNLOAD “LAYERMASK.PSD” FROM WWW.PHOTOSHOPFIX.COM, JULY 2004 ISSUE.
(cid:1) Open “LAYERMASK.PSD” and select
the pen tool. Click the Paths icon (not
Shapes) in the Options bar and draw a
path around the profile. Zoom in and do
a little detail work around the eyebrows.
(cid:2) Select the Paths palette, then your
work path. Drag the path to the Load
path as a selection icon. Select the Head
layer in the Layers palette and click the
Add a mask icon at the bottom of the
palette to mask everything in the image
except your selection.
(cid:3) Choose a Soft Round 200-pixel brush
(an airbrush works well, too), and set the
brush Opacity to 20%. Make sure the
Foreground Color is set to black and the
layer mask thumbnail is selected, then (cid:5) Click the Create a new fill or adjust- green. (Don’t worry that the entire im-
7. paint on the face to begin to hide it. The ment layer icon at the bottom of the age changes color.) I clicked the mask
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HO more you click and paint, the more you Layers palette, choose Hue/Saturation, thumbnail, filled it black, and painted
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O fade the head image. The beauty of layer and set a Hue to complement the image. with white to reveal only the green on
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H masks is their forgiving nature, so if you Fill the layer mask with black. Option/Alt- the irises. The green isn’t visible else-
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N hide too much, switch the Foreground click the adjustment layer’s mask thumb- where because of the black mask!
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W Color to white and paint to reveal the nail and paste the copied mask into this
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H image. To adjust a mask later, be sure mask. Your chosen hue appears only in View mask = Option/Alt-click
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S to save the file as a PSD or TIFF with the the copied mask selection. And since it’s Toggle mask visibility = Shift-click
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A layers intact. an adjustment layer, you can change the Select mask = Command/Ctrl-click
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AN (cid:4) A layer mask is actually a Grayscale
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ND channel, and like any channel, you can When you create an adjustment Rich Harris served as Creative Director
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M copy and paste it from one document to layer, you get a built-in layer mask. of Wacom Technology, and has more
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O another, then use it to apply color selec- Use a Hue/Saturation layer mask than 20 years’ experiencein digital
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R. tively. Option/Alt-click the profile mask to selectively change color. In the design, digital illustration, and pre-
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AT thumbnail to view the mask by itself. eye image, I wanted to replace the press. He writes onsoftware solutions
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D Command/Ctrl-click the mask thumb- brown iris color with green. I added for national publications and teaches
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5 nail, and copy it. Open another image for a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer classes in Photoshop. Contact him at
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P a background; I chose a beach scene. to the image and shifted the Hue to [email protected].
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PHOTOSHOP FIX 6
7 JULY 2004
T O O L S
BY ROGER HUNSICKER
MAKE EXTRACTIONS IN MINUTES
The background eraser tool is a handy alternative to selection tools when you want to isolate part
of an image that blurs into its background. It erases the background using sampled color, leaches
color from the extracted object, and removes background hues that bleed into transitions. Use it for
blow-away hair or out-of-focus objects prone to picking up color from their background.
DOWNLOAD “MILITARY.PSD” FROM WWW.PHOTOSHOPFIX.COM, JULY 2004 ISSUE.
(cid:1) Open “MILITARY.PSD” and look at both
layers. You are going to incorporate the
barbed wire into the composite beneath
it. A quick assessment tells you the wire is
set against a blue sky, and it quickly goes
out of focus on either side of its central
support post. When extracting the wire,
any blue inadvertently picked up from
the sky will contrast badly with the reds
in the composite, so it’s important to re-
move all traces of blue. It’s also critical to
erase the background while keeping the
edges of the wire sharp. Keep all layers
visible and select the wire layer.
(cid:2) Press Shift-E until you’ve selected the
background eraser tool from the toolbox,
then choose a 150-pixel brush from the
Options bar. (Always use the background
7. eraser at the largest size that will maneu- (cid:4) Make a full stroke to the left, cross the you’ve erased a wide swath of back-
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HO ver around the object.) Set the Hardness wire, and fi nish just below your starting ground from all edges of the wire and
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O to 60% to soften the brush edge’s color- point to erase the blue pixels. The back- metal. You may need to zoom in and click
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H leaching attribute. Set the Limits to Find ground eraser samples any blue in the inside isolated pockets of blue to erase
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N Edges to preserve edge sharpness. Since crosshair with each mouse-click, so when them. If you erase a portion of the fence
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W the background is primarily blue, set the you drag the tool, it deletes the sampled post while doing this, undo the stroke
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H Sampling to Once for each stroke instead blues and similar blues within its toler- (Command/Ctrl-Z) and lower the Toler-
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S of continually sampling as you drag. ance wherever they appear inside the ance setting or decrease the brush size to
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A This allows you to drag the background brush. Since you’re only sampling one erase a more refi ned color selection.
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D I eraser over the wire without erasing it. point per stroke, keep the stroke within
AN However, this means you must make similar shades of blue to prevent creat- (cid:6) Once the intricate details have been
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ND smaller strokes to keep the brush within ing a ghosted remnant of color outside erased, you can use the polygonal lasso
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M similar shades of blue. Set the Tolerance the tool’s tolerance. The brush is set to tool or any other selection tool to quickly
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O factor to 75% to compensate for this feather the removal of blue at its edges, select the remaining sky and delete it.
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R. single-source sampling. so you may need to scrub back and forth With all layers still visible, verify no blue
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AT while clicking to remove all the blue. remains on the wire. I did this extraction
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D (cid:3) Situate the background eraser at the in less than three minutes!
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5 A top strand of wire near the blurry left (cid:5) Always start each stroke with the
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P edge of the image. Zoom in to note any crosshair positioned on an unerased part
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H background blue over the wire. Make of the background near the object to be Roger Hunsicker is Advertising Coor-
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T sure the center crosshair is over the blue extracted. If you begin the stroke over a dinator for Caterpillar, Inc., in Peoria,
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H area directly above the wire; this will be previously erased area, the background Ill., and president of Proof Positive
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O your sample point. eraser will sample color from the layer Design Group, a web hosting and web
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R below. Continue with small strokes until design fi rm.
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PHOTOSHOP FIX 8