How to be Selective with Color: An Expert’s Photoshop Adjustment Secret
Vibrant color is one of the most important trademarks of my photography. I love viewing the lush variegated green tones of forest scenes, the luminescent red clouds in a sunset sky or the piercing blue eyes of a portrait subject. I’d like to share my favorite Photoshop secret for enhancing the color of my images. In fact, I use this adjustment on almost all of my photos before uploading them to the Web or making prints.
read moreCreative Photo Editing: Antiquing
Last time, we explored the steps needed to achieve the effect of the famous Holga camera of the 1980’s and, if you remember, it is quite a hefty tutorial! So this week, we’re going to learn a very simple and highly applicable technique that only takes three steps: the antiquing (or aging) process. Our slick and modern digital photography may excel in capturing sharpness, detail, and color balance, but there is a growing movement to revert back to some of the images of old. Everything vintage, antique, and rustic is making a serious comeback, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t add this technique to your photo-editing arsenal!
read moreHow to Create the Perfect Photo Panorama Using Photoshop
When was the last time you had the pleasure of standing in a truly expansive and breathtaking place? Where the horizon stretches out for miles and every inch of your vision is saturated in beauty? Now try to describe that view. It’s pretty hard isn’t it? There aren’t enough of the right words to convey the sights and feelings in that moment, and most of the time, snapshots aren’t going to do it justice either. Most cameras can only capture one quarter of what our eyes can, and here is where a panorama comes in! We humans take in our world in a panorama fashion: we scan the horizon line and spend most of our time looking at what is around eye-level. You can take advantage of this by creating a panorama image in Photoshop: one that is balanced, pleasing to look at, and contains more visual “punch” that a single shot can. So, here’s how to create the perfect photo panorama using Photoshop in 6 easy steps: 1. Shoot Smart There are a few techniques you can use while shooting to set yourself up for success later on. Now I know for some of you, it may be too late for these tips, but fear not! We will work with what you have. But if you haven’t shot yet, pay attention to these few ideas. First off, choose a point of view and stay there. It’s important that the camera stays stationary while taking photos for a panorama. Secondly, pan across the view steadily, finding visual cues to help guide your way. For example, that large rock in front of you can serve as the boundary between shots 2 and 3. Thirdly, leave a little overlap between each shot- it’s easier to erase redundant content than create something from nothing. Give yourself more images to work with in the end (within reason) and you will produce a better panorama! 2. Prepare Your Software Open up your preferred Adobe Photoshop program (this tutorial uses Elements 12) and choose the Photomerge Panorama option. This is a handy and highly intelligent tool that will patch separate images together to make one nice cohesive image. Up at the toolbar, go to Enhance > Photomerge > Panorama. 3. Choose Your Image Files Here’s the hard part. Now, hopefully you’ve already gone through your photos and chosen the best set based on the tips mentioned in step 1. You should have between 3-6 separate shots to work with. In your window, for the purpose of this tutorial, choose the Auto layout option. Upload your desired images and make sure that the Blend Images Together option is checked (it usually automatically is) along with Vignette Removal. The former tells Photoshop to not only merge the images, but to blend colors and tonalities as well, and the latter makes sure that the natural darkness in the corners of the images is lightened. This way you don’t end up with alternating light and dark patterns across the expanse of the final panorama. There is a third option, Geometric Distortion Correction, that is helpful if you shot using a very wide-angle or fish-eye lens, as these lenses create a warping effect around the edges of the frame. I was using a normal lens, so this option is not checked. 4. Clean Up Your Edges After you click OK on the Photomerge program, it will work its magic for you. It will patch together your photos using advanced color and pattern recognition software, but there will always be empty space around the edges after it...
read moreSimple Adobe Photoshop Effects: Black & White Photos – Part II
After reading through Part I of our black and white series, you should know the basics of how to use the Channels panel to create a black and white image in Photoshop. If you enjoyed reading Part I, we would like to offer you a second helping of black and white tutorials. This time, we’re going the extra mile, giving you even more control over the black and white levels of your image.
read moreFor Intermediate Photographers: The Smart Way to Transform Color Photos to B&W
A couple of weeks ago we talked about the better way to get a black and white image using the Graduate Layer adjustment layer. In both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, there are even better ways to do this. These methods give you a lot more control over the look of the image because they modify the underlying color image, rather than using a separate gradient map.
read moreDWC & Adobe
Digital Workshop Center is the ONLY Adobe Authorized Training Center in Northern Colorado and second in the state.
Technical Support
