Adding Interest With Multiple Images Using Photshop Blend Modes

Where's a couple things "worked" in today's image that add to the interest.  The original shot was taken in a vendor's tent at a (reasonably) local renaissance fair.  In the US we seem to be fascinated with 16th century England and all that was (idyllically) going on during those days of yore.  It is interesting to see 21st century interpretations of what was a pretty miserable time to live.  The character in today's image is a leather smith at one of the fairs.  The sun was bright, basically insuring super contrasty  shots if attempted anywhere on the grounds.  In the shade (any shade) was the place for shooting.

A little "taming" of the tones in the image was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.  Adding just a hint to "complete" the image was done in Adobe Photoshop CS6.  Neither application was a requirement to get similar results, but it was in my personal workflow.  The sun was blasting through the side wall of the tent and had to be reduced.  The other effect was that he was smoking a pipe, but the blazing sun made getting the smoke impossible.

Bring the bright wall down to a manageable tone was an LR4 job.  The new Auto Masking that goes along with the Adjustment Brush is simply great.  With the proper amount of size and feather dialed in it's possible to get very accurate lines between one object and the adjacent form.  The entire back wall was toned down after being selected with the Adjustment Brush.  Another Pin was placed on the wood slats and they were brought down more.  One more Pin for the knife and the background was much less distracting.  The eye is attracted to the lightest portion of an image.  Therefore it's important make sure the subject is the area a person's should be drawn to. 

The PS CS6 part of the finishing of this image was adding the smoke to the pipe.  I recommend everyone shot some smoke trails made by incense.  I have an entire folder of incense smoke.  The shots are all of white smoke on a black background.  I looked around through my "Smoke Folder) and found a trail that seemed to fit the subject matter.  The image was moved around until the smoke appeared to be coming from the pipe.  A simple Blend Mode change to Screen drops out the black background.  You might see the edge of the smoke image.  If that happens, throw a Layer Mask on the smoke Layer.  Take a very soft Brush (B), using black as a foreground color, and sweep around any sharp edges that show.  Bang, You're done.

"Normal" color adjustments were made to reflect the warm light due to the fabric of the tent.

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Add Emphasis Using One Of Photoshop's Oldest Tools

If you see a branch with its arm stretched out wide, with beautiful fall colored leaves on it, do I have to tell you it's from a tree?  We don't have to see the tree to know it's there.  All that's needed is the suggestion to help tell the story.  The same holds true for today's image.  You see the violin, the hand fingering the strings and a piece of the bow.  In your mind you know that the bow isn't magically floating there, gliding across the strings by some celestial force.  There's a hand somewhere below the edge of the image.

One of the most powerful, and least discussed tools in the Adobe Photoshop CS6 (and any number below it) is the Crop Tool (C).  It's a tool for cropping parts of an image, not just "trimming" the excess.  In today's image there was plenty of room in the original frame to include the top of the guy's head, the bottom of the bowl, and the belt he was using to hold his pants up.  The "big deal" is that none of that added to the story telling of the image.

One of the first "cool" images I made was for a holiday card to send to the relatives.  It was of our first born, a son.  It wasn't him standing tall (all 2' 6" of him at the time), showing him from head to foot.  It was his eyes.  Just a swath from the bridge of his nose to the brim of the hat he wore.  It told the complete story.

That was long before Photoshop was ever thought of.  But the "theory" is the same today as it was then.  Crop out whatever doesn't move the "story" of the image along.  Today's image never even got to Photoshop.  It was all done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (or it could have been done, just as easily, in the ACR [Adobe Camera Raw] package that comes with Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements.

I'm a big believer in ruthless cropping.  What more does today's image need to convey the story?  I don't think it needs any more.  Let me know if you think the image would be enhanced by having additional elements.  I'd like to know.

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Adobe Photoshop and Costco, What A Deal

I've fallen in love with the format I've been using in the past three of four posts.  Today's image is a 12" x 36" print that comes from Costco.  (A major "big box" warehouse chain in the US.)  A couple months ago a friend showed me a couple large pano prints.  They looked spectacular and I figured he'd spent some big bucks for the print.  I'd seen them on some of the online sites for about $16.00 each.  Well, when I get hold of something I typically like to push the boundaries and end up with dozens of examples of whatever it is I'm infatuated with at the moment.  $16.00 isn't bad if I were going to play with one image, but the thought of ending up with a stack of 12 x 36's at double digit prices each sort of made me pause.

I ran into the same friend a couple weeks ago and he said his prints had not been expensive.  In the discussion he mentioned he'd had them done at Costco.  I told him I'd never seen that offering on Costco's website and asked what was up.  He said he'd discovered it quite by accident.  It's only available (at this time) in store.  That does make it a little more of a hassle, but I've tried to time getting the prints to the times when we actually "needed" something there.

So what's the "deal"?  A 12" x 36" print at Costco is $4.99.  With tax it's a few cents above $5.00.  I can't print it at the gallery for anywhere near that low a cost.  It's more than $125.00 for the ink to feed the 13" wide printer.  Three feet of paper probably runs me $6.00 plus.  (A 32' roll goes for about $63.00.)  If the printer screws up or I don't like the look of the print I'd be multiplying the cost by however many times I want to run a sheet through the printer.  Yikes!  If Costco's printer throws up, or the print looks too magenta, I don't care.  With the printer hiccupping they'll reprint it automatically and I'll never even see the goof.  If the color's off, or the paper has a ding in it, or any other "store error", I can point it out to the folks running the machine and they'll try to fix whatever was wrong.    (Within reason I'm sure, but friends have said they have had things reprinted two and three times before they got the "perfect" print.)

A five dollar print is nice, but something to keep in mind is that a frame for a 12" x 36" print will set you back anywhere from $40.00 to a couple hundred dollars.  Something to keep in mind for the next show you'll be in.

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A Little Trick Scott Kelby Taught Me Using Adobe Photoshop Curves

Okay, so Scott Kelby didn't single me out and teach me this technique.  I saw him discuss it on one of his Photoshop based shows.  Probably on Photoshop User TV.  His demonstration involved using Curves to sculpt a model's face.  I watched, tucked in away in the back of my mind and thought I might be able to use it for other "stuff".

Today's image is an example of  an "other stuff" application.  Scott showed that by using Curves to increase the depth of the shadows and increase the heights of the highlights you could use the tones inherent in the image to add drama.  I took it and applied it to the folds and creases of the batter's shirt and pants.

It's really quite simple (and pretty foolproof).  Set up two Curves Adjustments Layers.  Tag one as Shadows and the other Highlights.  In the Shadows Curve bring the upper right end of the linear Curve (straight line) to the left until you just touch the edge of wherever the tone Curve ends.  Eyeball a point on the Curve about three quarters of the way "up" the straight line.  Drag it up so the Curve is now steep and almost to the top of the box.  Invert the Mask that goes with the Adjustment Layer.  The Mask should now be black.

Do just the opposite to the curve tagged as Highlights.  Bring the right side of the linear Curve to the tip of wherever the tone Curve ends.  About one quarter in from the left side of the Curve, drag the Curve down to brighten the image.  Invert that Mask to black.

Make the Foreground color White.  Select the Brush Tool (B).  Make it hard, at least 95% hard.  Make it small.  Depending on the resolution of the image, somewhere around 3 to 6.

Click on the Mask named Shadows.  Everywhere you see a shadow line, paint a line all the way down the shadow.  Click on the Mask named Highlights.  Everywhere  you see a highlight, paint a line all the way down the highlight.  As a hint, where's a highlight next to every shadow.  You'll see that, even though you painted the shadow with a white paint brush, every shadow becomes darker.  Not only does it become darker, but it gets darker by different amounts.  In the areas with lighter shadows you'll see "less dark" lines.  In the areas of darker shadows you'll see "darker" lines.  Same (just the opposite) goes for the highlights.  (One hint, highlights and shadows never cross.  They should be parallel to each other.)

Now you'll have all these lines all over your image.  In Adobe Photoshop CS6 you have a Properties dialog box that goes along with each Adjustment Layer.  Open it.  Move the Feather Slider to the right.  Keep an eye on your Shadow (or Highlights) and watch them spread out and become soft.  You can go as far as you feel is necessary.  At some point it will become too soft and you won't see the effect.

The idea is to emphasize the differences by putting a highlight next to a shadow.  It becomes rather Rockwellesque (Norman Rockwell like) and makes the details jump out of the frame.

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125 Years Of Baseball Thanks to Adobe Photoshop "Auto Align Layers"

Today's "trick" is pretty easy.  I went to two different baseball games a week or so ago.  One was a "vintage" game, played with rules from 1887 and the other was a game for the NECBL (New England Collegiate Baseball League). 

I stood in about the same spot for a portion of each game, shooting a combination of batter, catcher and umpire.  When I noticed the similarity between the shots of each game I knew I had to play.

Adobe Photoshop CS6's Auto Align Layers made the basic job easy.  From Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4, Photo/Edit in/Load As Layers in Photoshop was used to get the two images over to CS6.  The next step was to select both Layers in the Layers Panel.  (Choose one and Shift Click the other Layer.)   Then it's a simple matter of using Edit/Auto-Align Layers to get everything squared up.

Once both Layers are aligned, put a Layer Mask on the uppermost Layer.  Then grab the Quick Selection Tool (W).  Click and hold while running the QST down the players of the top Layer.  Clean up the Selections in any way you're comfortable.  The most accurate method (IMHO) is using the Refine Selection dialog box.  What I did was Save Selection for each player on the top Layer.  Once the Selections are made, highlight the Layer Mask and add each selection to the Mask.  Invert the Mask if necessary to have the players show through.

Match up the colors in various parts of the scene and you're done (if you want to be).  I did one more step and took out all the fence poles and posts using Content Aware Fill.  Just as a note:  I've seen a lot of blogs and websites talk about the improvements in CS6.  I haven't seen anyone comment on the improvement made to Content Aware Fill.  In the CS5 version, if your selection was near something totally different from what you were trying to fill you'd end up with a strange fill.  In CS6, you can bring the edge of the selection right up to something with some contrast and CS6 figures out that the "foreign object " should not be included in the Fill.  Pretty amazing.

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Stretching The Truth With Adobe Photoshop CS6's "Content Aware Scale"

We're going to start a new format for the blog today.  Rather than giving the background about the day's shot we'll be giving a short explanation of what was done and anyone interested in specifics can leave a comment and I'll send along the details.  Let's get started.

The big deal with today's image is that it can't be.  A pitch leaves a pitcher's hand at slightly past the top of the rotation he goes through.  It can't be that low at that point in its flight.  The format of the shot isn't realistic either.  Believable, yes: real, no.

The first bit of playing around was to get the shot into a 1 x 3 ratio.  (The final print is 12 x 36.)  Canvas was added at a specific size (in this case 36") to the left side that gave more than enough room to produce the lengthened format.  A Rectangular Marquee (M) was use to enclose the right side of the image to just to the left of the pitcher.  This was saved as an Alpha Channel.  (If you're using Adobe Photoshop Elements, don't worry.  You do have access to Alpha Channels, they just don't tell you you do.  Use Select/Save Selection and you've just produced an Alpha Channel.)  Once saved, hit CTRL D to deselect.

Next, the entire image was selected (use the Marquee Tool (M)  to select only the portion of the canvas that has the actual image on it.  From the Edit dropdown, choose "Content Aware Scale".  On the Context Aware Options Bars you'll see an option that says Protect.  Click the dropdown and you'll see your saved Alpha Channel.  Select it.  The pitcher is now "protected".  Any stretching done along the left side will have no effect on the pitcher.  Grab the center handle on the left side of the image and stretch the non critical portion of the image over to the full width.  The dirt of the pitcher's mound stretched, but it still appears "real".

A baseball in motion was added.  Without it the image would have no context.  The ball was found in another shot from the same game.

I saw a comment on Jack Nack's blog where the commenter said McDonald's was "cheating" because they idealized a burger for an advertising shot.  All photography is "cheating" once the shutter is clicked.

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A Little Birdie Told Me About Adobe Photoshop CS6

First, a word of explanation.  Back in February I did "something" to my right wrist.  Using the mouse, the pen and tablet or just typing was so painful it would bring tears to my eyes.  I thought I'd give it a little rest and not blog for a few days.  Well, "a few days" trued out to be a few months.  Just this little bit has caused me to start rubbing my wrist just to get it working a bit, but nowhere near the pain I would have had eight, or six, or four weeks ago.

That said, it's time to break out the bubbly.  Adobe Photoshop CS6 was announced today.  No more Beta.  No more guessing if the Adaptive Wide Angle filter is going to make the final cut.  I have a few (five) things I really like about CS6 and a couple that are sort of take it or leave type of things.   Today's image was tweaked in the Beta version of Photoshop CS6, but 90% of the work was done in the "not so Beta" of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.  In fact, the only trip to PS CS6 was to put the catch light in the bird's eye.

For my top five fun things to do with Adobe Photoshop CS6, hit the "Read More".

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