Paparazo

Water Colour Effect

2009-05-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

Water color painting use photoshop is easy. Open the image file you want to be a watercolor painting. Here, the image of fish in the aquarium such as the following.

Press CTRL + A in the layer to duplicate the image ... Then click the image> adjustment> desaturate or press CTRL + SHIFT + U to make an image into black and white.

Now press CTRL + A again on the layer image that has been desaturate. Click Image> adjustment> Invert or press CTRL + I

Change the layer effect into Color Dodge in layer that has been the earlier Invert.

Then click Filter> blur> Gaussian blur on the layer that has been given a Color dodge.

Now wiriness results such as the pencil drawing ... Its color in a manner Press CTRL + E on the top layer (combine 2 layer. Top Layer with the layer underneath). Replace a Layer Effect Luminosity.

Click Filter> Artistic> Fresco and settings such as the image below:

The result

So that more fine again, give a little transparency on the effect fresco by click Edit> Fade Fresco or press CTRL + SHIFT + F.

End result:

Happy Testing!

Other examples:

Source : www.ilmuphotoshop.com

Create Your Photo Video Album

2009-04-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

What do you think of when someone says “slideshow?” I bet you think back to the days when your father or grandfather made the family sit in front of a projection screen and watch vacation slides on a Saturday night.

Slideshows seem so 20^th century, so, so like, before you were even born kind of passé. However, there is nothing like a good slide show to really show off a series of photos, but the use of the ancient slide projector is indeed truly passé in this day and age. Today Microsoft PowerPoint is king and so ubiquitous that doing a speech or presentation without it is the exception, slideshows are everywhere.

I had been looking for a good slideshow program for sometime now. I had a big interest a couple of years followed by a lull, but I kept my eye open for applications that had slideshow features to see if any met my requirements. I even bought a little shareware program that produced what I thought were acceptable shows despite it taking an inordinate amount of time to create one, but they turned out to be less than acceptable outside of my closed loop computing environment.

The program I used back then did not have a very good workflow and I had to manually coordinate the slides with an audio track, e.g., if I wanted to use a five-minute song, with a 3 second transition for each slide, that meant in theory, having around 100 slides available to fill the five-minute space. Unfortunately, I literally spent hours tweaking one show just to get the timing right by adding in or dropping slides because the theoretical did not always meet the practical hands on creation of a show.

This was because the transitions between the slides affected the timing and were added onto the 3 second time I set, so I usually had to go with a 2 second display time for the slide, with about a second for the transition. I generally find any longer than 3 seconds and the show appears to drag and any less than 2 seconds and the show zips by too fast for anyone’s comfort.

I put up with the limitations of the US $25 shareware back then not knowing that much about what to look for and what alternatives were available. A friend suggested that what I really needed was video editing software that would allow me to work with a timeline and drop in slides or videos with background music to get around the lengthy workflow.

Other problems emerged with the slideshows created with the shareware. While the timing of the show, worked at length with much blood, sweat and tears…okay, maybe just a lot of caffeine and bleary eyed late nights, would play fine on my own computer, but they were either unplayable or so slow as to be unplayable on other computers.

Back then I was using a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz box to create those slideshows, but played back on anything lesser than this would result in people complaining that while the music played normally, the slides would only transition after about a minute...each! But play those shows back on a faster machine and the slides would transition faster than the music. All of that coffee driven hard work wound up being as valuable as the coffee grinds used to juice me up.

The ProShow Gold interface is quite logical and anyone who uses Photoshop CS’ image browser or some RAW file converters should feel at home. The workflow is little bit like Microsoft’s Movie Maker with a file explorer window, thumbnail view, and large detail window available along with a timeline to drag and drop images into.

Creating a slideshow is just that easy, click and drag into the timeline. If you find yourself out of sequence, you can drag a slide out to another location, or highlight a series of slides and do a Control C and then Control V where you want to insert them. Pretty darn easy.

In between each slide is a transition icon that you can click on to choose from dozens and dozens of different types of transitions. The really cool thing is that there’s a thumbnail view of the image and how the transition actually works on it to transition to the next image.

The really great feature about ProShow Gold is the ability to automatically set the length of the slideshow to be exactly that of the song you want to be played. No fuss, no muss, it just works, but you do have to keep in mind any lengthy fadeouts that your song may have at the end. For example, on a CD, the song’s length may technically be five-minutes, but in actuality it may only be 4:55 minutes with a 5 second fade out to nothing, but ProShow Gold can’t know that and take that fade out into account, so keep that in mind for the songs you choose. One workaround I can think of is to have a custom end slide that has your name, business, contact and copyright information, to appropriately fill the end gap of your song.

ProShow Gold allows you to create auto run CDs, DVDs and files. You can load more than one show in an executable file and have them individually available in an opening menu screen.

You can set a maximum screen size the shows will display in to ensure that those still running 15 inch monitors can still enjoy the shows properly. For the business types, ProShow Gold will even allow you to create password protected executables as well as time limits for how long the slideshows can be accessed by a client. Pretty slick.

For the auto run CD option you can choose to include all the original files if desired, but I doubt I’d ever want to do that. But as hinted at earlier, the executable CD option is not as good as it sounds because it just does not work properly. It may have to do with the slideshow being such a pig of a file that the CD drive cannot access and send data at a fast enough rate to accommodate the show. I’ve created or copied the executable files on three different computers and none will work properly.

Copying the executable file from the CD to the hard drive will alleviate the problem, but it takes one major feature out of the running, the ability to distribute your slideshows on an auto run CD. It mattered little whether the slideshows were high resolution or limited to 800x600 resolution and about the only thing I can think or trying next is setting the audio quality to be less than high quality, but we’re talking about MP3 files, which are already compressed significantly.

I’ve not tried creating a slideshow meant for the web, as that wasn’t my interest in buying ProShow Gold, so no comment about this feature.

For my primary need to be able to create slideshows to show to prospective clients, ProShow Gold fits the bill. In fact earlier today, before writing the review, I was playing back a slideshow created in a bare 20 minutes for a couple that I was the second photographer at.

I had been futzing around until 3 am the night before creating my first show and then I get a call from my friend Larry the next morning to see if I was going to able to come by to meet the clients, and could I bring along my slideshow? The clients were coming by to pick up their albums and we were hoping to present them with a nice little bonus of the slideshows.

As luck would have it, from the time I get off the phone with Larry to the time I arrive at his place to prepare, I had no time to create a new show that would highlight the whole wedding day. The night before I had only time to create a long ceremony show, as well as a short one for the dancing that occurred during the reception using the Bee Gees’ Staying Alive as the music J

I get to Larry’s place at 12 noon. The clients are going to arrive around 12:30 pm. After greetings and then setting up my computer, the time was 12:10 pm before I could get started. I ended up with 90 slides from the digital files of 24 rolls of film and ripped a CD track that Larry wanted to use.

12:30 pm the clients arrive and I’m putting the finishing touches to the executable file. 12:35 pm, the clients sit down in front of my notebook and watch the slideshow just completed. At the end of the five-minute show, the bride is tearing up and it becomes a great intro for reviewing their proofs. Mission accomplished.

Some points to keep in mind that are that:

Creating video CDs, VCD, which seemed like such a great idea in the beginning quickly became a limitation and exercise in frustration as VCD format cannot offer smooth or custom transitions from one slide to another. While other types of VCD formats exist and can be created that will allow for transitions, these formats are not likely to be playable on commercial home DVD players, only via computer CD/DVD drives. Not good and not recommended.
Creating DVDs is the best option given the ubiquity of home DVD players and this allows for maximum quality along with transitions to be seen. The tricky thing is to ensure that you set the slides to be seen within a "safe zone" on the TV. ProShow Gold defaults to maximizing the image view over the full size of the TV, but this leads to cropping, especially for portrait mode images. ProShow Gold sets a default of a 10% landscape buffer and 5% buffer for portraits, which may still be too tight for some TVs. I set my shows to 10% and 10% to ensure that the full frame can be viewed. Cheap DVD players might get tripped up over the PBC, playback control, but I had no problems with my Sony DVD player.

After a few hiccups, I have to say ProShow Gold has been worth every last cent I paid for it thanks to the very easy ability to create, edit and tweak slideshows. Recommended!

Some users complained about their DVD burner stalling during a burn session and I found myself experiencing the same problem recently. I thought that maybe the large jobs that the other users were creating might have been a cause, but now I think that there’s an inherent incompatibility issue with certain brands of burners, as my jobs were nowhere as large and complex as some I’ve heard about.

In some instances ProShow Gold apparently does not like seeing multiple burners in the computer and will stall and lockup the chosen burner. I use two burners, an LG and BenQ, so I disabled LG and for a brief minute the BenQ appeared to work, but then it stalled again.

I also thought that maybe my BenQ Lightscribe burner wasn’t compatible with ProShow Gold, but a check of Photodex’s list of compatible burners has it listed. Selecting my other LG burner presented no problems even with the BenQ active. Prior to buying the BenQ, I had another LG DVD burner and having two active LG burners never presented a problem with ProShow Gold.

The only solution is to choose to burn to an ISO image instead of to a DVD burner. This will create a compressed file with all the folders and files necessary to burn to a DVD using your burning software of choice. Using WinRAR, I decompressed the files into a folder and started up Nero for burning.

Nero warns me that if I choose a simple data DVD to burn that my files won’t be video compliant, but this is bunk and if you choose to follow Nero’s instructions for creating a video DVD, you’ll find that you won’t be able to burn all the files and folders that ProShow Gold has created. So, if you use Nero too, just use the data DVD option and all will be find, because I immediately tested the new DVD in my home player and it played perfectly.

It certainly seems to me that ProShow Gold is quite picky about which burners it will play nice with even if those burners are “suppose” to be compatible. Given my good history with LG burners, I’d suggest that brand’s products first if you’re a ProShow Gold user looking to upgrade burners. I would have bought another LG burner if given the choice, but the only LightScribe burner the shop I went to had was the BenQ unit.

One last note about ProShow Gold and burning to an ISO image instead of directly to a DVD. If you burn to an ISO image, you can add more folders and files and top up the DVD's capacity. Adding folders and files to the DVD does nothing to effect the video files, but you'll get added functionality in being able to store all the proof images for example, instead of just the image files used for the slideshow.

For example, if I have 200 images in a folder that I select from for a slide show and if I only used 150 of them, ProShow Gold will allow you to burn the image file content in a "Show" folder on the DVD. But, burning directly to a DVD only gets you the 150 images used in the actual slide show. By burning to an ISO image and then decompressing the files to a burn folder, you can add back the 50 unused image files to the "Show" folder, so that the client has a complete record of all the proof images. It helps the make the DVD a dual purpose disc in being a slide show and your proof file disc, and, you can also add in more content besides just the slide show material.

Get free Proshow Gold

Starburst Effect

2009-03-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

What is a Starburst? I also confused to them. Starburst is the main effect of such sparkling lights, stars or heating effect.

How do I create one? very simple ..!

First create a new document as follows:

Then make the box a rectangle marquee tool in the new layer, give color to the color are. (I'm a Black color)

pressing ALT + SHIFT, Drag / drag while on the click box before the picture to the right, then the box will slide to the right and is automatically duplicated.

after a lot of box... Now click the top layer ... and press CTRL + E a few times, so all the black box is a merge on one layer.

When the boxs still less, please repeat step before duplication ...

Click Filter> Distrort> Polar Coordinate

The result:

Starburst this can be made into 3D. making the initial use the Gradient tool

Repeat steps duplication:

after the polar Coordinate:

Good one ... Happy Testing!

The effect is usually to make this Starburst Poster... as below:

Gold Text Effect

2009-02-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

Design text sometimes useful to create a design, which can create more beautiful design. Following tips to make gold with a simple text effect using the Blending option, just one times to open Blending ...

Open a new document with the size of the image, such as:

gold-1

Write a text that will be created in gold
gold-2

Right-click the text layer> Blending option double click on the text layer .. select color overlay

gold-3

Don't clik Ok ... now click on Bevel and emboss. Setting such as image:

gold-4

Click the contour in the current sub-Bevel & emboss, setting such as a picture:

gold-5

Select again to make a drop shadow behind the shadow of the text as though stick

gold-6

The result is like this:
gold-7

Please try

Resource : Sigit, www.ilmuphotoshop.com

Make a simple Bubble

2009-02-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

Open a new document with size as the image below

Create gradient and Find the color from white to light blue and in order to set the blue color more dominant.

Make a circle with the elliptical marquee tool (note: press SHIFT while you get a circle to its fully rounded)

Create a new layer and use the Brush tool with size 100

Its color with the brush tool before each side of the circle. And give the middle a little color though appear more realistic.

When plasticity is realistic, now press CTRL + A to duplicate layer circle. Then pull the line for the top to bottom to create a shadow.

Now set the layer Opacity just become 50% or 30%. Remove a half circle of the bottom.

In fact this is finish, but can make so great such as this.

Please try

No Smooking... (Logo)

2009-01-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

Finally, I can post the first in 2009. This tutorial for new user with photoshop. How to create a logo design... NO SMOOKING

We starting from the first to create cigarettes image.

first create a document with the size of 400 × 400 px.

On a new layer using the rectangle marque tool and give it the color white. Do not forget to switch off in the first background to wiriness clear white color.

Selection of some of the earlier white rectangle with the marquee tool and give it the color # D79311

It is also a small box in between the white and orange colors give retroactive ... with gray or # b0b0b0

Duplicate layer 1 with CTRL + A, right-click the duplicate layer and click Blending option or double click on the duplicate layer. Gradient overlay settings as below:

Still result in duplicate layer, set opacity to 40%

Combining these two layers. press CTRL + E

So that looks realistic .. give shade .. I make the items in the new layer .. give a black color

Click filter> blur> gaussian blur

Move the reflection layer to the bottom layer before the image of cigarettes.

Then combine the cigarettes image and the shadow by pressing CTRL + E

Duplicate the cigarette image by pressing CTRL + J.. On Layer duplication result click Edit> transform> flip horizontal. and remove some of the images such as the picture below.

Write .. NO SMOOKING!

the results:

Good luck...!

Olympus E30 DSLR Digital Camera: January 2009 !!!

2008-12-31T19:44:00.000-08:00

The details of a forthcoming Olympus digital SLR camera have been released by an online retailer. Although the manufacturer yet to make an official announcement about the camera, photography online retailer Adorama Olympus said announced that the mid-range shooter is called E30 and sports a 12.3-megapixel sensor.

Adorama said that the E30 will use the Four Thirds lens exchange system, like the E3, which began in November 2007 and that the E30 seems destined to replace.

The E30 also feature a 11-point autofocus system, a feature already present in the 10.1-megapixel E3. Image stabilization and face recognition will also be present, although this is not a surprise. There was also mention of a live view shooting mode and 5F / s option to break break.

Adorama said the Olympus E30 will be launched in January and will cost around $ 1300 (£ 820 / € 1000).

Tutorial Photoshop-Photo Retouch

2008-12-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

In this tutorial we will create something like glamour photo retouch tutorial. We will use Adobe Photoshop as our tool of choice for retouching a photo and making almost a ready design out of it. You will have some files for support like some brushes and the initial photo itself to practice on. So let's start out talk on making PS photo retouch.

Here is the photo I found in the internet on Comfight.com, a very useful service if you want to find any photos.

Here it is. A very mystical mood photo but in the same time very bright (the eyes have it).

Now the first thing I'm going to do here is to change my hue to a little bit "into the blue", just a little bit. It's not really necessary for you to do this, depending on the monitor you got and so on, but I feel that it will be better if the picture will be bluer saturated.

I will turn OFF the saturation layer for now. Now if you look and the initial picture you will probably notice that the light on the girls face is too strong, too much white.

I will fix that, I'm going to use a low flow (about 20% flow depending on the tablet and the brush settings) brush. So create a new layer and start. If this is your first tutorial to read it will be a little bit harder. Anyway I'll try to give you the possibility to download this mask, shall we say, file.

Os just watch the pictures now.

also wanted to give a little bit of texture to the face.

And there we go:

So we got rid of this face lighting a little bit. Now we have that face color and form balance. Next step: the background. Let's make ha background a little more artistic. I have a special method for this one. I will use complex brushes for that. Listen to this: for my basic brush I will chose standard PS soft edged brush with all the dynamics possible set to pen pressure.

For the second brush (dual brush) I will take brush 600 that I have in my list. This is a real flat one.

Create a new layer just now.

And here is the amazing effect that my brush does.

The next brush to use will be a little dot scatter brush.

Create a new layer to use a new brush on.

Before using this brush I will apply a layer style to my new balk layer. Outer glow:

And here is my brush with outer glow already. You can now paint with outer glow with any brush. But all we need is little sparkles made with scatter dot brush.

Create another layer.

The idea here is to create a blast of color texture.

Step 1: tap several times with splatter brush.

Warp the whole layer.

Do the same thing on a different layer, oh yea, and do change the brush color to something like skin tone.

Erase the effect around the face on these 2 layers.

Now the final thing we can do here is to pick up a soft brush, set the flow jitter to about 1%, select the Overlay color mode, and to paint over the whole blue on the image.

So this is it on our photo retouch, hope you found out something useful from this tutorial. And remember that such applications as Photoshop offer a wide range of color manipulations. SO practice your color and see you next time.

Digital Cameras - To Click and Pose

2008-12-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

When it comes to the photography field, some years ago, people used bulky cameras to take photographs. Those heavy weight cameras were unable to carry and they did not offer clear and perfect images to their users. To avoid all these inconveniences, digital cameras are introduced in the market with high performance and quality. You can take bright images even in poor light condition with these cameras. As photography is a common hobby for most of the people across the world, the popularity of these innovative devices has been increasing day by day. These sleek cameras offer crystal clear images and are equipped with all the user-friendly multi-functional features like recording videos of moving and still moments, editing and saving images etc. As these sleek devices come with removable storage capacity, you can save thousands of images and video clips on these cameras. You can delete unwanted photos to free the memory capacity. Some of the removable storage technologies that are available in the market are the Multi-Media Card (MMC), Compact Flash (CF-I), Memory Stick, USB flash drive and xD-Picture Card (xD).
The present day market is offering numerous types of digital cameras like digital single lens reflex cameras, compact digital cameras, ultra compacts, line-scan camera, bridge cameras, digital SLRs and compact.
Most of the latest digital cameras come with USB port connectivity that can be used to connect cameras directly to computers to transfer data. Some of the advanced technology cameras have PictBridge standard that enables you to send images directly to a computer printer which is capable of a PictBridge standard without taking the help of computer. To take different types of images depending on the situations, the digital cameras have several mode options to choose from like exposure, light metering, white balance, aperture and focusing. They operate on rechargeable batteries which are small enough to fit in cameras.
Now-a-days, these digital camera features are equipped in most of the mobile phones, which are known as camera mobile phones. They act like digital cameras, but the image storage capacity of these handsets is less than the cameras. Some of the latest electronic devices that come with in-built-camera features are Blackberry devices, camcorders, laptops and PDAs. The common format for most of the digital cameras is JPEG (Joint Photography Experts Group) standard.
The Wespro Digital Camera, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 Silver Digital Camera, Canon Power Shot A590 IS, Fuji film Fine Pix Z20FD and Sony DSC-W110 Silver Digital Camera are some of the cheap digital cameras that are available at affordable prices in the market. These cheap Digital cameras come with high-end technology and offer you great flexibility to carry them with you wherever you go.
To have a close and clear view of all the cheap digital cameras, visiting related websites over the Internet is the best source than the others. This helps you to get the best deal on purchasing the best quality digital camera

Setting Type Around a Circle

2008-11-26T12:44:00.000-08:00

The problem with Bottom Circles... Many times it's difficult getting the type to work on the bottom of a circle। This takes a little patience and careful dexterity. Let's start with the type already set along the circle (as described previously) at the top of the circle. You should now copy that layer and then hide it. This preserves all your hard work on the top circle, which we'll be using again later.

Take that Direct Select tool (sometimes called "path selection tool") and
hover at the origin point until you see the cursor with the black arrow.
Click and drag the type down.
Don't release the mouse until the text is where you want it.
Go ahead। Move it around. You'll see you can get all kinds of results just in the way you drag it.

If a portion of the type goes beyond an anchor, you'll need to move that anchor. (See that dot? That's it!)
Release the mouse and move the cursor to the END of the type.
Drag away from the type and you'll see the rest of it appear.

Now, you have type at the bottom of a circle.

At this point you can select the type and key in the legend for the bottom of your circle. This leaves us with a layer for the type on the top, and a layer with the type on the bottom.

Fine-tuning Circular Type & the layout

Your bottom type may have become scruntched. (Slang term for "squeezed together.") So you'll need to select it with the Text Tool, and on the Character Palette, adjust the letter spacing or Tracking.

I've had to go all the way to 100 because the slab serifs in the Rockwell font are very unforgiving. With some more rounded fonts you may not have as much of a problem.
Tip: Tracking adjusts Letter Spacing across a string of characters... not to be confused with Kerning which only affects the space between two characters!

To finish, you can use the Direct Select tool once again to shift, stretch and adjust the circles to fit your needs. In this simple example, I've had to slightly stretch the circle to get a better visual fit with the photo. Here, I'm adjusting the left anchor of the circle -- pulling it out for a better fit.

I use the "nudge" technique... .
Click once on an anchor point with the Direct Select pointer
Tap Arrow keys on the keyboard "Nudge" the anchor in the direction desired
Remember to count your taps on the arrow key. Use the same number of arrow-key-taps for the right side.

Note that the path and anchors will move, leaving the type where it was. If you'll pause at the destination, the type will snap into position.

Membuat obyek sederhana

2008-11-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

Membuat segi empat

1. Pilih Rectangle Marquee Tool.
2. Drag-lah sehingga membentuk segi empat.

3. Untuk mewarnai segiempat tersebut gunakan Paint Bucket Tool. Caranya klik Paint Bucket Tool, lalu klik pada area segi empat tersebut (ditandai dengan garis putus-putus).

4. Untuk membuat gambar seperti di bawah ini, caranya : seperti langkah 1 dan 2 di atas. Setelah itu klik menu Edit > Stroke. Pada text box Widt Isi dengan (misalnya) 3. Klik OK.

Membuat bujur sangkar

Untuk membuat bujur sangkar (segi empat dengan panjang sisi sama), caranya seperti membuat segi empat biasa. Hanya saja saat melakukan drag (dengan Rectangle Marquee Tool), tekan tombol Shift.

Membuat elips

Untuk membuat elips gunakan Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Membuat lingkaran

Untuk membuat lingkaran gunakan Elliptical Marquee Tool. Hanya saja saat melakukan drag, tekan tombol Shift.

Mengenal Toolbar pada PhotoShop

2008-11-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

Saving Bad Photos: Badly Underexposed

2008-11-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

Quite frankly, I would much rather have a dark, under exposed photo then an overly bright over exposed photo. With a dark photo, at least there's a chance that there will be enough color data and detail to save the shot. When they're blown away and too bright -- there's little you can do to put pixels where none existed before.

Sad to report however -- so many variables come into play that sometimes the shot cannot be saved no matter what techniques you use।

One reader who enjoys photographing food on trips sent this photo of the appetizer at the Kia Lodge restaurant at the foot of Kilimanjaro, Tanz ania. This was a shrimp and cucumber moose, and it looks delightful. Too bad we really can't see it. Yes, I would certainly try to save that shot because you might not be going back too often!

Fixes in Layers: The next series of shots will progressively show the layers I added, and their results. After that, I'll walk through some "auto" fixes provided in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

My first attempt will be to SCREEN the photo over top of itself.
Drag a copy of the layer to a new layer and set the Blending mode to SCREEN। But the results are still wanting... so I'll just drag that same layer to the "New Layer" button and screen it again...

Once again, the image lightens, and we're a little closer to where the photo looks somewhat realistic. To kill much of the incandescent lighting effects -- making the shot too yellow and warm, next, I'll try a cooling filter...
Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter > Cooling

This is going in the right direction, however it needs more। There is a slider in the cooling filter which applies more or less of the effect, but I'll leave well enough alone, and simply duplicate this Adjustment layer as well.

At this point the color seems close, but the shot is still murky and dark. Now it's time for LEVELS

LEVELS are your "all purpose" adjustments, second only to Curves as the real power adjuster. As you can see from this shot, by tightening the RIGHT slider toward the middle, and the MIDDLE slider toward the left, the photo now looks comfortable and realistic. Let's compare:

The photo is still a little warm -- evidenced by the lack of 'whiteness' in the plate, but it probably approximates what the diner saw that evening. The photo still has major problems:
It's not sharp, probably due to the low lighting and slow shutter
It's probably also suffering from some hand-held camera movement

Before throwing away a shot that really looks too bad to save, try levels and the assortment of adjustment layers available under the Layer menu. With some experimentation you can save the photo without learning hundreds of pages of Photoshop training material.

Cutting type into wood

2008-11-12T20:07:00.001-08:00

The first thing we think about in such a scenario is the old-fashioned tradition of carving your girlfriend's name, or your initials into a tree. This technique is fine for the effect, however for buttons at a web site, they would be much more legible if you simply nail sign boards to the tree. Tilt and cock them to look home made, and even have a bent nail here and there to drive home the concept.

FIRST: For this effect you need a chunky, poorly designed font because most of these kinds of signs are routed into wood either by hand, or using lettering patterns made for router use. I'll approve the use of the world's most stupid font -- just this once -- "Comic Sans" because it's a uniform thickness font, and it does look like an amateur wrote the letters with a router.

If you have a lot of signs to do, I recommend stepping the wood background enough times, in a file large enough to accommodate all the buttons you'll be needing. This way you only have to do the processes once.

The wood we selected has a nice dark, aged look to it, much like one might find in the Ozarks lodges.

Once we have our lettering, we'll keep that layer for safety -- but we won't actually be using that layer. Now we'll make a selection of the type, move to the wood grain layer and then pick up a copy of the wood grain into the selection and move or "float" it to its own layer. Then we'll adjust the color so it's lighter -- like freshly cut wood.

1) Select the Type: Command (Ctrl) Click the type layer
Then turn it off by clicking its "Eye" icon
2) Select the Wood Layer by clicking it in the Layer Palette
3) "Float" a copy: Command (Ctrl) J copies to a new layer
4) Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command or Ctrl L)
now pull the right-hand slider toward the center and watch carefully as the type lightens.

Making the Cut

Now we make the cut by using the Bevel & Emboss layer style.

At the bottom of the layers palette, with the floated layer selected, choose the "f" button, pull-out menu and select Bevel & Emboss
Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Chisel Hard
Direction: Down
Here's the way my Bevel & Emboss Settings turned out

All the other settings, depend on the size of the type and the finished art desired. For Depth, you want the edges of the cut to almost meet in the center of the letter. You'll also want to back off a bit on the opacity of the shadow areas do they're not so black, and a bit of the wood shows through.

To complete the effect, make sure the sign board has some dimensionality as well. These nailed to a tree could be quite nice.

If you want to see the lettering cut into the side of a tree, let us know, or send the tree we're to use. But for the sake of web site buttons -- the roughness of the bark will cause the lettering to be difficult to read.

There are lots of other ways to do this technique. In Photoshop CS, CS2 and CS3, using the Type Mask tool directly on the wood plank would do the same in a single step.

However, this method allows us to keep editable type, and to adjust the "floated" layer color-wise until we had the effect perfect. This method works in virtually ALL image editing programs on ALL platforms which support layered art.

Working With Shadows In Photoshop

2008-07-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Learn the fine art of isolating and preserving delicate and complex shadows for transplantation to exotic new backgrounds. Mark Galer reveals how to introduce a world of exciting textures to your ever so subtle... not... studio tabletop.

Desert Camelia

Humble beginnings – take one flower, a desk lamp and some white paper.

The flower for this tutorial was photographed (using a Fuji FinePix) on a cold winters morning in Victoria whilst the sand (shot on Kodachrome film) hails from the Great Indian Desert in Rajasthan. Unlikely bedfellows, but with a little craft the two can lie together comfortably within the same frame – but only if the subtle shadow (created by a not-so-subtle 75 watt globe and a couple of pieces of white paper) is captured with all of its subtlety and delicately transplanted to its new home in the desert. This is how...!

Botanical Health Warning: The delicate petals of the flower can be cooked, frazzled or fried by the heat of a tungsten lamp in just a few minutes. Be prepared to work quickly or use soft window light as a low-temperature alternative.

Duplicate the background layer.

Step 1
Duplicate the background layer by dragging the layer to the ‘New Layer’ icon in the layers palette. Don’t worry if the edges of your white paper are in the frame. Just be sure to capture the subject and its shadow.

Note: The surface used does not have to be white, but should be relatively texture-free. This will avoid mismatched textures when the shadow is transported to its new home.

Use the gradient tool in Quick Mask mode.

Step 2
The initial steps in this tutorial aim to reduce the background tone to white and leave the shadows intact. The fall-off of light from the directional light source (the white background gradually becoming grey on the side furthest from the light) can be balanced using an adjustment layer. Select the ‘Default Foreground and Background Colors’, ‘Quick Mask Mode’ and the ‘Gradient Tool’ in the ‘Tools Palette’. Select the ‘Linear Gradient’ and the ‘Foreground to Transparent’, or ‘Foreground to Background’ option in the ‘Options’ bar. Drag a gradient from the brighter side of the image to the darker side of the image. A gradient in the default masking color will appear. Exit Quick Mask mode to reveal the resulting selection.

Alternative approach for Photoshop and Elements users > Adobe Elements users should proceed to the next step and create a gradient directly in the Layer Mask.

Use a levels adjustment layer to balance the background tonality.

Step 3
From the base of the layers palette select a ‘Levels’ adjustment layer. The active selection will create a layer mask for the adjustment layer. Move the central ‘Gamma’ slider and/or highlight slider to the left to brighten the background so that both sides of the background are of a similar tone. Be careful not to loose the shadows in this process. Select ‘OK’ when a satisfactory balance has been achieved.

Select the subject without its shadow. A graphics tablet can help to make light work of this task.

Step 4
Use the painting tools in ‘Quick Mask Mode’ to make a selection of the flower on the background layer (Elements users should use the ‘Selection Brush Tool’ and select the ‘Mask’ mode in the options bar). Remember to feather the selection appropriately or apply a small amount of ‘Gaussian Blur’ to the mask. Click on the layer mask icon in the layers palette to apply a layer mask to the background copy layer (if using Elements the selection can be used to delete the background on this layer).

Note: A graphics tablet can be used to make light work of tricky selections such as the one performed in this demonstration tutorial.

Drag the background copy layer to a position above the levels adjustment layer.

Step 5
Drag the background copy layer to a position above the levels adjustment layer. This will ensure the adjustment layer created in the previous step does not affect your subject.

Use a ‘Threshold’ adjustment layer to render all pixels below the flower black.

Step 6
From the ‘Create new fill or adjustment layer’ menu in the layers palette select ‘Threshold’. This threshold adjustment layer will help in the process of isolating the subtle shadows and enable us to drop the remainder of the background to pure white (255). The first step is to temporarily render all of the pixels below the flower on the top layer black. This is achieved by dragging the slider all the way to the right – a threshold level of 255. Select ‘OK’ to exit the threshold dialog box.

Note: Check the positioning of the layers in the layers palette if your own result does not match that achieved in the tutorial.

Move the Gamma and Highlight sliders to render the grey tones of the background paper white.

Step 7
Move the ‘Gamma’ and ‘Highlight’ sliders to render the grey tones of the background paper white. The shadows should now appear clearly defined. Unless the background is blemish free and very evenly lit not all of the background will be rendered white by this step. Have no fear the whitewash step follows.

Paint out any remaining dark areas that are not part of the subjects shadow.

Step 8
Select the ‘Paintbrush’ in the ‘Tools Palette’ and click on the ‘Switch Foreground and Background Colors’ icon so that White is now the foreground color. Now paint out anything that is not a shadow.

Note: If the thought of painting directly onto the background layer is not something you are comfortable with then either duplicate the background layer again or take comfort in the fact that you already have another ‘unadjusted layer on top’ as your insurance policy.

Import a new background.

Step 9
The threshold layer has now served its purpose and its visibility can be switched off, or the layer deleted by dragging it to the trash icon in the layers palette. When the threshold is removed from the equation the background will appear white and the subtlety of the shadows will reappear. The coast is now clear for the introduction of the new background. Open the new background file and drag its thumbnail from the layers palette into the window of your work-in-progress file. Hold down the Shift key as you let go of the file to centre it in the host canvas. The new background will appear above the modified background layer for the moment.

Link the background layer and its associated adjustment layers to create a ‘clipping’ group.

Step 10
The next step involves moving the old background to a position above the new background. Start by linking the old background layer with its associated adjustment layers (click on the boxes next to the eye icons on each of the layers). Then go to the Layer menu and select ‘Create Clipping Mask From Linked’ command (‘Group Linked’ in Adobe Elements). This action will ensure the new background remains unaffected when the adjustment layers are moved up in the layers palette in the next step.

Rename the background layer and move to a position above the imported background.

Step 11
Double-click the background layer to change its name. When the layer no longer carries the name ‘background’ it can be moved up the layers stack by clicking and dragging it to a position the new background. The linked layers should accompany it on its travels. The new background will momentarily be replaced with the old white background once again.

Adjust the blend modes for the old background layer and the adjustment layers.

Step 12
The final step merges or blends the subtle shadows into their new home. Select the old background layer and change its blend mode to Multiply (click on the blend mode menu in the layers palette next to the opacity control). Set the adjustment layers to Luminosity mode if you need to reduce any color that has been introduced from the old background. Add a further Hue/Adjustment layer to this clipping group if additional desaturation is required.

Fade the background and/or create a subtle vignette using adjustment layers and the gradient tool to complete the project.

Step 13
Finishing touches to this project could include the addition of a very subtle vignette, lightening the background as it fades into the distance and the usual sharpening process prior to printing. If an additional adjustment layer gets accidentally grouped with the Clipping group go to the layer menu and select ‘Release Clipping Mask’ command.

How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

2008-06-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

Step 23

Click the “Add layer mask” icon that you see in the layers palette.Next make the foreground color white and the background color black by pressing the “D” key.

Figure 23.

Step 24

Next, switch the fore and the background between them by pressing the “X” key.Next select the “Brush Tool” and set the following settings: size 50 pixels, set the hardness to 100%. When using the brush you must check to see that your mask is active. All you have to do next is to “paint” the areas that are blurred and that must remain sharp. In the “Layer Mask Display options bar” you can select the color you will paint the areas with and the transparency of the mask.

Step 25

There are several things you must take into consideration when creating a clean mask. First, change the brush’s size frequently (use the “[” and the “]” keys to decrease or to increase the brush’s size).

Step 26

When using a clean mask on large area, use a large brush at maximum hardness (and when masking a smaller area, set the hardness to 0% and use a smaller brush). Always zoom in to see exactly what you are doing and to make sure you do not miss a spot or over-edit the image.

Figure 24.

Step 27

When using Photoshop to smooth a person’s skin, one of the most important things is not to forget to mask the areas that must remain sharp (the person’s mouth, eyes, hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, the contour of the nose). When masking these areas, always use a smaller brush, with a low opacity level.

Figure 25.

Step 28

You are now finished. If you have followed carefully the steps, you should see the differences between the initial and the resulting image. Every problem of the skin should have disappeared and it should have a beautiful, smooth appearance.

Step 29

You can play around with different values for different settings, as you may need to change some of the above presented values when working with pictures in which the face occupies a larger or a smaller part of the screen.

Figure 26.

Step 30

When you are satisfied with the results, you can save the final image. Go to the File menu > “Save As…” and enter the file’s desired name and file format (.jpeg if you are done with it, or .PSD if you want to save an editable version of it that Photoshop can later open).

Figure 27.

How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

2008-06-08T05:17:00.000-07:00

Step 17

Once you have set a source area, you can start eliminating the blemishes from the picture. Do this by moving the cursor over the areas that need corrected. If some areas have a different aspect, you can change the source area by following the steps above.

Figure 17.

Step 18

After you have eliminated all the blemishes, you can proceed to the next step: smoothing the skin’s overall aspect. It is recommended to create a separate layer to work on. Click the Create New Layer option (you will find it in the Layers Palette) and name it “Smooth Skin”. By giving each layer a different name, you will differentiate between them and you will always know on what layer you are working on at that moment.

Figure 18.

Step 19

Merge all visible layers on the active one (do so by holding down the Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E key combination). By merging all layers, you will have also included in the image you will be working on the layer you used when you have eliminated the blemishes. So you will be working on the edited version and not the initial picture.

Figure 19.

Step 20

In order to proceed to smoothing the skin, you have to use a Median filter (you can also use the Gaussian Blur filter. But using the Median is more recommended because the edges are better taken care of. Using the Gaussian Blur filter will fog all the skin’s edges, making the final picture look less sharp).

Figure 20.

Step 21

Select the “Median” filter by selecting it from the Filter gallery > Noise > Median. After you have selected it, set a value of 50% to “opacity” and a “radius” of around 10 pixels.

Figure 21.

Step 22

You can see that the skin begins to look way smoother then before, but there still are some blurred areas around the eyes, lips, hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, as well as the edges of the nose. These margins must be sharp (you only want to smooth the skin and not to blur the image away). Using a mask will allow you to ignore those margins.

Figure 22।
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How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

2008-06-08T05:15:00.000-07:00

Step 11

Set the Source option to “Sampled” and be sure to have selected the “Aligned” check box that follows (this option allows you to have a source area that follows the mouse cursor when you select an area on the picture).

Figure 11.

Step 12

Here is how the “Aligned” option works: let us assume you have selected an area in the image as source. When you click in the picture to remove a blemish, the program remembers the distance it first used (between the source and the removed blemish) and it will use the same distance (calculated in pixels) and the same angle the next time you use the “Healing Brush Tool” to remove another blemish. Using the “Aligned” setting allows you to take samples for the retouch from nearby, so the final outcome will look more natural.

Figure 12.

Step 13

There is one more check box you need to enable: “Use All Layers” (having it enabled means that the source can be from different layers as well and not necessarily the same layer you are working on). In the same time, the result of this action will take effect on the active layer (in this case, the layer entitled “Blemishes”).

Figure 13.

Step 14

Now get back to the beginning of the Healing Brush Tool’s option bar and you will notice a small black triangle. By clicking it, you will have access to other settings for the selected brush.

Figure 14.

Step 15

In the window that has appeared once you clicked the little triangle go ahead and set the brush’s size to a value around 20 (18 or 19 are also good depending on your picture). Also, select “soft edges” (so the corrections will be finely done) and a Hardness value of 0%.

Figure 15.

Step 16

Before starting to eliminate the blemishes from the image, you must select the source area. It is best if you select a different source area for each blemish you want to cut out. In order to mark the source area, move the cursor next to an area you can use as source and hold down the Alt button while pressing the left mouse button.

Figure 16।

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How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

2008-06-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Step 4

Now that all preliminary preparations are done, it is time to open the image (if you have saved it after the initial editing) or to start with an image you already have opened in Photoshop.

Figure 4.

Step 5

Go to the File menu and select “Open” to browse your hard drive in search for the picture you want to edit.

Figure 5.

Step 6

First of all check to see if the face in the picture has any imperfections that require editing. You will deal with the blemishes first (if your portrait is clean of imperfections, such as blemishes, the smoothing process is going to be easier and with better results). In order to clear the blemishes away, you will need to work with the “Healing Brush Tool” (you can find in the Tool bar and it has a patch icon).

Figure 6.

Step 7

Before you start editing the blemishes away, create a New Layer to work on (click the Create a New Layer icon in the layers palette). Rename this layer “Blemishes”.

Figure 7.

Step 8

Now select the “Healing Brush Tool” and open its settings (you will see the Healing Brush Tool’s option bar).

Figure 8.

Step 9

For removing blemishes out of am image having a human face occupying most of its center, you will need the brush’s size set to around 18 or 20 pixels and the brush to have a hard edge (represented by a black dot with a sharp edge in the healing brush’s option bar).

Figure 9.

Step 10

Next you will notice a drop down menu containing several “Blending Modes” for the brush: use the “Normal” setting. Next you will see another option called “Source”: leave it to Sampled, as it is the most frequent used (it will use the initial image a source, whereas the “Pattern” setting will require an external pattern).

Figure 10

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How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

2008-06-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Portraits are some of the most common type of pictures, because lets us face it, people are all around us and it is very easy and convenient to take photos of them. When you first buy a new camera, you generally take pictures of those around you, family, friends, or even unknown people on the street. Also you can take your camera to all sorts of social events, anniversaries, friendly meetings or even in school. However not all portraits are as they should be. This happens for two main reasons: technical and subjective ones. You may not always be able to take a photo under ideal conditions (with the right light amount, with the best available lens). In the same time, not everybody has a perfect face or you happened to photograph them after a hard day when the tiredness is visible on their faces. Do now worry, as Adobe Photoshop has some powerful tools to help you correct minor problems in portraits. Everybody wishes a smooth skin and this tutorial will show you just how to edit photos in such a manner.

Step 1

First, you have to open Adobe Photoshop and load the image you want to modify. If you were new to Photoshop, you would better start working with an image that has a face in its center. It is best if the face occupies a large portion of the screen so that all details are visible (do not start editing small faces of people in the background – they are distant enough from the camera that you might not need to do this).

Figure 1.

Step 2

It is best if you start editing the image after you have performed all other modifications to the picture (resizing, cropping, etc).Also be sure you have a correctly exposed portrait to work on (chose a portrait in which face details are visible and hot hidden completely in shadows or in overexposed areas).

Figure 2.

Step 3

If you have a slower machine, you may want to work with smaller images (a reduces resolution), as Photoshop requires quite a few hardware resources. But do not make the image too small, as a larger image contains valuable pixel details. Always keep a balance between size and the desired work speed.

Figure 3

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Add Rain Effect to your Photo

2008-05-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

This Tutorial will show you how to add realistic rain to your photo. you will do that using Photoshop And ImagReady.

STEP 1 :

Open an image and create a new layer and place the new layer over the image layer in the layer palette .

choose paint bucket tool and fill the new layer with black.

choose filter>> noise >> add noise and adjust settings as follow.

choose filters >> blur >> motion blur and adjust settings as the following:

STEP 2:

create anew layer and place it over the other layers in the layer palette and fill it with black as we do before in the other layer.

Also Apply the add noise filter but increase the amount to "61" instead of "60" and then apply the motion blur filter with the same previous settings.

try this step 2 times but when u apply the noise filter you must increase "1" to the amount (i.e. the 3rd layer "62" and the 4th "63".

Now change the mode of all 4 layers to screen and then change the fill of all layers to 60.

you should see you project like this image:

STEP 3:

select file >> Edit in ImageReady .

in the imageready show the animation palette and layers palette if they are invisible:

To do that :

choose Window >> Timeline

Window >> Layers.

in the animation window at the first frame go to the layer palette and make all layers invisible except the basic image layer and one layer.

After that create a new frame in the timeline. by clicking the "Duplicate current frame" button which is surrounded by a circle in the following image:

Select the new frame and go to the layer palette and hide the already visible layer and make another one visible. as you see in this image.

Repeat this process until you have 4 frames each one contains the basic image layer with only one rain layer.

After that set the time of the frames to 0.1 second

Select file >> Save optimized as .

This is the Final result:

The different stages of photo printing

2008-05-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Both film photos and digital photos can be printer on special photo paper. Printing on photo paper is a process that involves a few stages and is for example very different than printing documents on your printer.Film photos can be printed on photo paper in two stages. The first stage involves developing the film itself into what is known as a negative. The negative is then printed on a special photo printing paper in a process that involves a few chemicals and a few stages. Digital photos on the other hand can be directly printed on photo paper as there is no film to develop and there is no need to create negatives. Printing photo prints on special photo paper involves five stages:Developer. In this stage the photo paper goes through a bath of a chemical that is sensitive to light. Once the photo paper is soaked with this agent and a consistent layer is present on the paper the paper can be exposed to the photo. This is done by using a very high intensity light projector that projects either the negative or directly the digital photo on the paper. The developer chemicals captures the projected photo.Stop bath. In this stage the photo paper goes through a bath of a special chemical that stops the developer chemicals reaction. In other words the stop bath is a chemical that negates the developer chemical characteristics. This is done by the stop bath chemical washing away the developer chemical. Once soaked on the stop bath the developer agent on the photo paper loses its light sensitivity and no longer changes when exposed to light.Fixer. In this stage the photo paper goes through a bath of a special chemical that fixes the captured photo. Although the stop bath stopped the developer chemical from reacting to light the photo is still not stable and not fixed in place. The fixer chemical bath basically washes any residue of unexposed or undeveloped material making the photo paper completely insensitive to light.Washed. In this stage the photo paper is thoroughly washed removing any previous chemicals from it. This stage is very important since any residue of non developer material or other chemical can result in imperfections in the final prints.Dried. This is the last stage. After the photo paper print is washed it is still moist from the chemicals it went through and from the washing agent. The last stage does not involve soaking in any chemical. It is simply implemented by placing the fresh photo prints in an over to dry out. Once dried the photo prints are ready to be used. The different chemicals used are usually reused over and over again. The longer a chemical is used the less effective it is and the more time it needs to complete its job. For that reason for example a fresh developer agent needs to be exposed to light for a shorter time than an older reused agent. At some point the chemicals efficiency is too low to be used anymore and they are safely discarded.

Photoshop's Artistic Watercolors

2008-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Watercolor has long been a defining Photoshop filter, though the crucial illusion of one color running into its neighbor is only partly achieved. Use the Smudge or Healing Brush tool to help the illusion.
If you're looking to imitate gouache painting, however, search no further -- the slight darkening around the edge of each patch of color perfectly reproduces the effect of this more opaque pigment.
How it works

1 The dialog box offers three sliders. Though Brush Detail can be invoked across the whole scale, the remaining controls usually make a color image impossibly dark once pushed past the halfway mark.

2 Settings of 14, 14, and 1 will produce a reasonably painterly result

3 On a monochrome image a "stippled" appearance results from setting Brush Detail at 14, and both Shadow Intensity and Texture at 3. (Click the image above for the before/after enlargement।)

Using the Watercolor Filter
Although it's tempting to be gentle with this filter, often what's required is bravura painting.
1 The ocean scene and distant prospects provide scope for brushwork. (Click to see original)
2 Testing: Apply the filter to test the waters. Here, we've used Brush Detail 14, Shadow Intensity 1, Texture 1.

As you can see, the initial application is excessively dark.
३् another approach
It's a good moment to retreat and try another approach.
Go back to the original, and this time use Blur > Motion Blur with a Distance of 6 pixels to break up the image details।

4 Continue with the Diffuse filter from the Stylize menu।

Choose Lighten Only and apply the filter several times in succession by selecting Filter > Diffuse (or Ctrl/Cmd+F).
5 Apply Filter again
View the final masterpiece!
Finally, apply the Watercolor filter again but with Brush Detail 14, Shadow Intensity 0, and Texture 3.
The result is not a bad approximation of a watercolor painting.

Photoshop gradient map uses...

2008-01-31T00:17:00.000-08:00

As you can see, these examples were toned down, or "tinted" as we called it in the old days। The technique de-saturates color until the image is almost grayscale। Rather than desaturating using the Hue/Saturation functions, the Gradient Map has a much softer hand, and I think does a better job।

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map... You can simply hit 'okay' to dismiss the opening dialog, or play with the settings। The Mode should be set to normal, so if the image looks like a negative, then reset that pull-down. Leave it set to 100% and do nothing else.

Now, use the Opacity slider to adjust the effect of the Map। At 100% the image will be grayscale. I have found this to be the best method of converting color photos to grayscale for newsletters and other print projects that use a PDF to print to a Duotech or other "rapid" on-demand printing process.

Here's the final compare. I've also posted another comparison just to show flesh tones in a natural "green" setting... which looks almost like an old fashioned hand color tint photo.

Use Photoshop Match Color to match colors of two files

2008-01-30T02:19:00.000-08:00

The Match color command in Photoshop is probably one of the more misleading and seldom used functions we see. It's actually quite simple, and can go a long way to changing images. Photoshop attempts to evaluate and then match the general color and contrast of one image, and then apply it to another. Actually, it's a very powerful function and can work on photos with a lot more difference than this one. It also has a lot of potential as an "artistic" tool, because changing the settings can result in some spectacular images.

Well, it's not always perfect. In fact, it's almost NEVER perfect. Adobe and the book authors make you think it's perfect so you'll buy the product. But it's been my experience that you really have to tweak it a bit to get it working properly.

You can help along by choosing sections of the image most representative and try again...
Well, the second try is not quite getting it either. We selected a good cross section of the image, but as you can see the little dress, as well as the ground area went way too much red -- while the sky STILL didn't make it to the intensity of the other shot.
We played with the settings and no matter what we tried, the color could not be matched. Why? This kind of shot is almost impossible to match. Both photographs are nearly perfect, but they're different because of the metering system in the camera. By taking a reading of the intense, close up subject, the shot was captured with a misleading richness. So, when trying to match it in the second shot, which is probably the more accurate of the two, Photoshop wants to enrich everything, where only the sky is necessary.

Yes, there must be an easier way.
Grab the Eyedropper, (tap "i") and sample the rich sky at the very top (1), and then hit "x" to reverse the foreground and background colors -- sample again at the very bottom (2). This 'loads' the color palette.
Now make a selection in your image to cover just the area which would be the "sky" ... you'll need to include some of the trees in this scenario -- or else create a good, accurate selection of those trees to mask only the sky with a selection. I used a regular rectangle marquee because a blending mode will knock out the rest...
Now set the Gradient tool (tap "g") and make sure the gradient settings are for "Foreground to Background colors" -- which you'll find in the Gradient tool options bar. Then drag from the top to the very bottom (#3 to #4) and presto, a great sky.

Here you see the photos are now very much matched. By setting the blending mode to "Darken" I avoided having to outline the trees. The layer was "darkening" only lighter colors -- which was the sky and not the trees. The child, dress, dirt and overall luminosity of the two are nearly identical. I did go in and lighten just a slight amount using Levels -- simply because I feared the richness of the sky would look artificial.

Creating Black & White from Color

2008-01-27T09:56:00.000-08:00

Black-and-white photography is as powerful today as it was when color photography was just a distant dream. A different set of skills is required when working with black and white, as the absence of color means the interplay of shape and contrast must work harder to tell the story or set the mood, but when it works, it's very effective.
Some cameras have a dedicated black-and-white mode, but even if yours doesn't, you can still work in black and white. In fact, it often works better to shoot in color and convert later on. Photoshop offers a breathtaking array of techniques for converting color to black and white (or more correctly, grayscale), and these enable you to control the process with a degree of finesse that would be difficult to match in the field.

Method 1: Desaturation
This shot was taken early one winter's morning in New York. The sky had a dramatic quality and there was a fine haze rising to meet the colder air at higher altitudes. The image works well in color, but it also has potential for a striking black-and-white impression of the city.
The most obvious way of converting color to black and white is to convert the mode to grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale). This is okay, but there are better alternatives.
The first is desaturation -- removing the visible color information but maintaining the RGB status of the file. This means that if you wanted to add a tint later you could do so without having to change color mode again.
Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (or press Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + U).

The problem with desaturation is that it often delivers a flat, uninspiring rendition. We can improve this, however. Analyzing the photo, we need to strengthen the texture in the sky by darkening the shadows and midtones, but the buildings below need a general increase in contrast to remove the haziness. It's best to treat the sky and the buildings as separate entities. Make a feathered selection of the sky, using the natural division of the rising dark haze as a guide

Press Ctrl/Cmd + J to copy and paste the selection to a new layer, and rename it "sky."
Add a Levels Adjustment Layer to it, making sure the two layers are combined as a clipping mask.
To bring out the sky texture, drag the Black and Gray point markers to the right as shown.
Here are the Before and After images, which will pop open in a new browser window.
Depending on the amount of feathering and the position of your selection, you may see a dividing line after the Levels adjustment has been made. This is easily removed by adding a layer mask to the sky layer (set to Reveal All) and painting on the mask in black until the edge disappears. Work carefully with a soft brush at a low opacity and the result should look something like this.

We could use a Levels adjustment layer to add contrast to the buildings, but there is an alternative route. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves to add a Curves adjustment layer to the background layer.
Applying the curve shown increases midtone contrast, at slight expense to the highlights and shadows. This diminishes the haziness in the area of the buildings.
The final image is far more striking, and much closer to what the photographer originally envisioned.