IMAGE REFINEMENTS
This chapter begins a journey that takes you beyond the basic image corrections to develop your skills in refining your images to enhance their core messages. We’ll begin by working with the selective correction tools in Lightroom, and then we’ll work with Photoshop for additional control over adjusting specific areas within your photos. In the next chapter, we’ll go even deeper into the advanced correction options found in Photoshop.
Ice Climbing, Ouray Box Canyon, Color ado. Olympus E-500, 7–14mm lens, 1/200 second at f5, ISO 200
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Using the Selective Correction Tools in Adobe Photoshop
I’ve already covered the Crop, Spot Removal, and Red Eye Correction tools in an earlier chapter, so I’ll concentrate here on using the Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush tools to correct specific areas within your photos.
Wichita Falls Texas Photography
Graduated Filter
The Graduated Filter tool is one of the most useful features in Lightroom 2. It mimics a traditional, graduated neutral-density filter that photographers place over the front of the lens to darken the sky.
To use the Graduated Filter, create a gradient by clicking and dragging your cursor across a portion of the image. Lightroom will fade the intensity of your correction from 100 percent at the start of the gradient to 0 percent at the end of the gradient. By fading your correction gradually,
it blends with the image naturally.
Since the description sounds more difficult than it
actually is in practice, I’ll walk you through the process with a sample image (shown at right).
This image can be improved by darkening the sky and lightening the foreground sand to increase depth and feature the boats in front of the background.
Step 1 Click the Graduated Filter icon immediately below the histogram, or press m, to open the Graduated Filter panel and activate the Graduated Filter tool.
Step 2 Click and drag from above the horizon line to an equal distance below the horizon to draw a graduated filter across the image. This is the most difficult part of the process, as the length and position of the gradient will vary slightly depending on the content of the image and the intensity of your correction. If your gradient doesn’t look quite right, don’t worry, because you’ll reposition it in the next step.
Step 3 The location midline of the gradient, indicated with a black and gray circle “pin” in the center, is key, because the midline indicates the area where the gradient transitions most sharply from corrected to unaffected. Ideally, this midpoint will land on a horizon or other natural transition in the photo to help disguise your corrections and make them appear more natural.
Adjust the gradient by clicking and dragging the portion of the gradient you want to change.
■ If the midline isn’t along the horizon, click the center pin in the center of the gradient and drag it to a new location.
■ If you want to adjust the “throw,” the length of the gradient, click and drag its start or end points.
■ To rotate the gradient, hover your cursor over the center line until your cursor changes to the double-headed arrow, indicating the rotation tool. The closer the cursor is to the center of the gradient, the more wildly the gradient will rotate. Bringing your cursor out toward the margin of the picture will make subtle rotation of the gradient easier.
Step 4 Once your gradient is positioned correctly, you can begin applying corrections to the gradient using the Effect options.
These corrections function exactly the same as those found in the Basic panel.
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By default, Lightroom gives you control over only one attribute (such as Brightness or Saturation). Clicking the switch to the right of the Effect pull-down menu shows all the Effect sliders and allows you to adjust multiple attributes for each gradient (such as Brightness and Saturation).
Step 5 If you are happy with your adjustments, click Close in the lower-right corner of the Graduated Filter panel to close the panel and accept your corrections. If you’re still not satisfied, you can continue to adjust the sliders to dial in your correction or adjust the positioning and throw of the gradient. If you’d like to discard the gradient and start over, bring your cursor over the center pin and press the delete key.
Use the Effect sliders to perform corrections along the gradient. Toggle the switch at the lower-left corner of the Graduated Filter panel to turn the Graduated Filter preview on and off.
The Gr aduated Filter dar kens the sky, calling attention to the foreground. Settings: Exposure –0.97, Br ightness –21, Contr ast 13, Satur ation 8
Applying Multiple Gradients
I often use two gradients in tandem to make my photos shine. The first, as in the preceding example, darkens the sky. The second lightens the foreground and boosts the color, helping my subjects stand out visually.
To create a second gradient, click New, immediately below the Adjustment Brush icon. This will preserve, but deactivate, your previous gradient, now indicated with a solid gray pin.
Drag your new gradient from the bottom of the image toward the top. Typically, I begin approximately a third of the way up from the bottom of the image and extend the gradient to near the top of the image. Using a longer gradient ensures that the changes between the foreground and the background corrections are subtle enough not to be noticed by the viewer.
Boost the presence of your subject by slightly increasing the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Sharpness. These corrections help your subject stand out from the background and give your photos life.
Lightening the foreground slightly makes the photo appear more three-dimensional and calls attention to the boats and their moor ing lines. Settings: Exposure 0.32, Br ightness 2,
Contr ast 26, Satur ation 24, Clar ity 10, Shar pness 10
Before we leave the Graduated Filter, here are two additional tips for working with gradients:
■ Adjust the length Gradients with a short throw create a hard-edged correction, which is usually not very
natural looking unless it’s along a well- defined horizon, such as those at sea or along a flat horizon line. If your horizon line contains trees, buildings, people, or other variations, increase the length of the gradient. This spreads the transition across a larger distance, making the gradient more difficult to detect.
■ Hide your gradients Whenever possible, hide the midpoint of your gradient in a portion of your image with natural transitions in tone or color.
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Placing gradients along the horizon is successful because a natural gradient almost always appears along the horizon. Positioning your gradients along other transition points, such as shadow changes in subject or distance, will also make your corrections appear more natural.
Adjustment Brush
While the Graduated Filter is ideal for adjusting a large swath of an image, the Adjustment Brush is designed for quickly adjusting smaller areas with great precision. Performing corrections using the Adjustment
Brush is very similar to using the Graduated Filter, except you use a brush to apply your corrections instead of a gradient.
Activate the Adjustment Brush by clicking its icon or by pressing k. As with the Graduated Filter, be sure to show all the effects by clicking the switch to the right of the Effect pull-down menu.
Step 1 Select the appropriate brush size for your correction. Hover your cursor over the area you want to correct, and then use the left and right bracket keys ([ and ]) to make your cursor smaller or larger, respectively.
Step 2 To ensure that your corrections are subtly applied to the image, reduce the Density slider from 100 to between 60 and 80, depending on the intensity of your correction. If you’re making a strong
correction, it’s often a good idea to select a lower density and build up your correction through multiple brush strokes. If your correction is subtle to begin with, you can select a higher Density setting to speed up the correction process.
Step 3 Click and drag over the areas you want to adjust to brush your corrections into these areas. Feel free to brush over
all areas within the photo requiring the same correction. Or you can place a new adjustment pin in areas requiring a separate set of corrections.
For the sample image, I wanted to lighten the shadows on the hull of the boat slightly, so I created a pin near the bow
of the boat and brushed across the hull in fluid, even strokes.
Step 4 Use your sliders to fine-tune the intensity of your correction.
The initial Brightness correction of +62 was too strong. Reducing the Brightness correction to +21 makes the hull of the boat look more natural.
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Tip Click and drag the adjustment pin to adjust the intensity of your correction. Dragging toward the top of the image increases the correction (increases the adjusted sliders), while dragging down decreases the correction.
Step 5 Painting with a mouse or a laptop’s trackpad is an imperfect art. If your brush strokes extend beyond the intended region, click Erase, located above and to the right of the Size slider.
Tip To see a red overlay of your corrected areas, hover your mouse over the Adjustment Brush pin (which you created at the start of your brush stroke).
The center of your cursor will change from a plus (+) symbol to a minus (–) symbol, indicating that you will subtract from your previous brush strokes. Brush along the errant brush strokes to remove them and clean up your correction.
Tip To temporarily transform your brush to an eraser, hold down OPTION (Mac) or ALT (Windows) while working with your initial brush. Release the key to return to normal painting mode.
To set the stage for discussing advanced techniques, I’ll spend the rest of this chapter introducing you to Adobe Photoshop and its correction tools. In the next chapter, we’ll
perform selected adjustments similar to those we performed with the Graduated Filter tool, except we’ll be working on compositing two images instead of correcting portions of a single image.
Should You Use Auto Mask?
The Auto Mask checkbox in the Brush portion of the Adjustment Brush panel (selected by default) restricts your brush strokes to areas of similar tone and color.The intention of the feature is
to reduce the need to have to go back in and erase corrections that stray “outside the lines.” In
practice, I find that using this option slows down the correction process, and the masks it creates aren’t precise. Unless you are performing your adjustments with a trackpad on your laptop, I recommend leaving Auto Mask unchecked and using the OPTION (Mac) or ALT (Windows) key to erase any unnecessary brush strokes quickly.
I’ll reiterate a few key points about working with the Adjustment Brush or Graduated Filter:
■ Delete brush strokes or gradients by hovering your cursor over the adjustment pin and pressing DELETE.
■ Click the switch at the bottom of the Graduated Filter or Adjustment Brush panel to toggle the preview for all gradients or brushes on and off.
■ Click Reset to remove all gradients/brushes.
■ Click Close to close the panel and continue with additional corrections.
The new selective corrections tools are so good, you may never need to venture into Adobe Photoshop except to make the most advanced corrections. I suspect that in coming years, Photoshop will be used more as a program for specialized corrections, while Lightroom becomes the go-to program for the bulk of photographers’ image processing.
Introduction to Photoshop
Until now, we’ve focused our discussion on making image corrections using Adobe
Lightroom. While Lightroom has added tools for performing selective corrections to your camera raw images, it does not have the pixel- pushing power of its older sibling, Photoshop. When you begin making sophisticated selective corrections, you’ll want the full complement of tools Photoshop provides you to take complete control over your photos.
The breadth and depth of Photoshop makes it impossible to provide a comprehensive tutorial on all that Photoshop has to offer. As Photoshop has grown in scope and complexity, photographers have concentrated their efforts on mastering the techniques they use daily. I will follow this strategy. After an introduction to Photoshop, I’ll focus on those core techniques that you need to know to get the most out of your digital photos.
Lightroom with its versatility is like the Swiss Army knife of digital imaging tools that offers a variety of extremely useful tools for managing, editing, keywording, correcting, and printing digital photos. Photoshop, on the other hand, is like a scalpel, capable of dissecting your photos pixel-by-pixel with unmatched control.
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Lightroom and Photoshop, a Symbiotic Relationship
Lightroom and Photoshop are designed so you can work quickly and easily between the two, using Lightroom for its file management capabilities and Photoshop for the selective correction possibilities available through layers. Most often you’ll “round-trip” photos by performing preliminary corrections in Lightroom, performing selective corrections in Photoshop, and then saving a layered master file back into your Lightroom library. As you’ll see, both Lightroom and Photoshop make this easy to do.
To make the round-trip as easy as possible, let’s take a moment to configure Lightroom’s export settings for the best results. You can access Lightroom’s Edit in Adobe Photoshop settings from within Lightroom’s Preferences dialog. For Apple computers,
click the Lightroom menu and then click Preferences. In Windows, click the Edit menu and then click Preferences. Click the External Editing tab in Lightroom’s Preferences dialog.
When Lightroom hands off your photo to Photoshop, it processes your raw file according to the Edit in Adobe Photoshop settings in your preferences. This makes for the most
efficient workflow. Unfortunately, the default settings are designed for advanced users and will make image processing on older machines difficult.
To simplify your transition between Photoshop and Lightroom, change your Edit in Adobe Photoshop settings to the following:
■ File Format: PSD
■ Color Space: AdobeRGB (1998)
■ Bit Depth: 8 bits/component
■ Resolution: 240
These settings work well for 99 percent of all the images you will process between Lightroom and Photoshop. In Chapter
17, I’ll discuss in detail the differences between file formats, color spaces, and image resolution. For now, you’ll want to trust my recommendations and exit out of Lightroom’s preferences. You can always alter my recommendations after reading Chapter 17.
After you’ve completed your preliminary corrections in Lightroom, bring your photo into Photoshop for further corrections by clicking the Photo menu, clicking Edit
In, and then Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS4, or by pressing cmd-e (Mac) or ctrl-e (Windows).
Before Lightroom delivers your photo to Photoshop, you’ll be presented with one final dialog box. At this point, Lightroom needs to know whether you want to deliver a copy of the original raw file with your Lightroom
adjustments applied or the original raw file to be processed entirely within Photoshop. Click the top option, Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments, which applies the corrections you’ve already made to the raw file, processes them, and opens the finished image into Photoshop. Be sure to check the Stack with Original checkbox to ensure that Lightroom includes your corrected file from Photoshop
in the Lightroom library. This option makes file management easy, as all of your edited versions will be accessible entirely from within Lightroom.
Navigating in Photoshop
Photoshop is a very different animal from Lightroom. If you’ve been spending a lot of time working in Lightroom, jumping into Photoshop can feel a little overwhelming. Fear not, because here I’ll cover only a few palettes and tools that photographers use most often, and I’ll introduce them in bite-sized segments to make it feel less daunting.
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A
D C
B E
F
Photoshop’s layout. A: Menu bar, B: Toolbox, C: Options bar, D: Application bar, E: Panels, F: Document window
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Let’s begin with a broad overview of Photoshop’s layout. The menu commands sit at the top of the window. These menus help organize Photoshop’s commands by topic. For example, the Image menu contains commands for resizing, rotating, and transforming images and converting
between color modes. Don’t
worry if your menu bar differs slightly from the one shown here. Adobe now offers two versions of Photoshop, a Standard edition and an Extended edition, with additional tools for 3-D illustrators, video producers, and medical and scientific researchers. All of the techniques in this book, save a couple advanced options, use the tools found in the Standard edition.
The Toolbox, or toolbar, as it is commonly called, is on the left side of the window. Most photographers frequently need to use only the Selection, Retouching, and Brush tools, and you can safely ignore the rest for now.
Immediately below the menu bar at the top of the screen are the Options and Application bars. The Options bar contains additional options for the currently selected tool. For example, when the Brush tool is
selected, the Options bar allows you to change the brush size, appearance, or opacity. When the Crop tool is selected, the Options bar allows you to enter your desired crop size.
The Application bar, a new addition to Photoshop CS4, makes many navigational and organizational commands much easier to use than in versions past. This eliminates the need to remember a long list of keyboard shortcuts or dive through a lengthy list of options.
Panels, the heart of Photoshop, are where you will spend most of your time. Photoshop CS4 contains 23 separate panels, each designed around accessing a specific portion of the application. For example, the Adjustments panel contains all of Photoshop’s image- correction tools, from Vibrance to the Black and White correction. Frequently used panels are Adjustments, Layers, Masks, Channels, and Info. Docking or hiding your infrequently used panels will make your Photoshop experience more focused and enjoyable.
The document window, the central portion of the screen, displays your photo and hides the clutter on your desktop. If you have multiple photos open simultaneously, Photoshop creates a small tab for each one near the top of the document window (shown at right). This makes it easy to jump back and forth between multiple photos when you’re compositing images.
Introduction to Layers in Photoshop
Central to compositing and essential to tone and color correction, layers give Photoshop a great deal of its flexibility and power. Once
you learn to use layers effectively, you’ll have a hard time imagining how you’d ever work in Photoshop without them.
The Layers panel is the starting point for accessing, creating, manipulating, and organizing layers. Layers are stacked from the bottom of the Layers panel toward the top, with layers higher in the stacking order obscuring those below. Imagine having two pictures on your desk: The picture on top covers the one below.
As shown next, a photo is seen from three different perspectives: first the finished photo, then the Layers panel displaying the layers used to create the photo, and finally an
exploded view showing the stack of layers used to create the finished photo.
The finished photo
The Layer s panel
An exploded view
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This photo contains the two most frequently used layer types in Photoshop: pixel layers and adjustment layers.
Pixel layers contain the pixels created by your digital camera or scanner and are
essentially what comes to mind when we think of a digital photo. Pixel layers are opaque and they obscure any layers below them in the Layers panel. For example, the topmost layer in the Layers panel, sharpen, is obscuring the four layers below it. Making changes to the Hue/Saturation or Black & White layer would have no visible effect, because the changes are hidden from view by the sharpen layer.
Adjustment layers store the color, tone, saturation, and contrast adjustments you make to your photos. Since adjustment layers are stored corrections, not actual pixels, they allow the underlying layers to show through. Think of adjustment layers as semitransparent sheets with various color tints and densities that
alter the appearance of the underlying photo without actually changing the picture beneath. This image contains three adjustment layers:
a Curves layer to add contrast to the image, a Black & White layer to remove the color, and a Hue/Saturation layer to add the sepia tint that is shown in the final image of the lion.
You’ll become comfortable using adjustment layers as you practice the corrections demonstrated later in this chapter.
Other layer types available in Photoshop are less frequently used by photographers:
■ Text layers Used for adding text to layouts, photos, web designs, or medical illustrations.
■ Shape layers Used primarily in web design, graphic design, and illustration to draw standard geometric shapes such as squares and circles along with more
esoteric shapes such as lightning bolts and arrows.
■ Video layers (Photoshop Extended only) Recent support for editing and retouching video from within Photoshop was added in CS3. As a result, Adobe added video layers to allow users to manipulate and retouch videos.
A special type of layer called a Smart Object is in a class by itself and is used for advanced corrections. The primary advantage of Smart Objects is that changes such as sharpening or blurring are not permanently applied to the pixels on the layer, only to the Smart Object’s metadata. This makes Smart Objects a powerful tool in your arsenal. We will cover their use in the next chapter.
You’ll also want to be aware of two additional layer properties—namely opacity and the layer’s blending mode, which affect the appearance of layers and the intensity of corrections in adjustment layers. Instead of giving you an academic discussion of these two topics, I’ll revisit opacity and blending modes in context, demonstrating how to use these
features to perform specific image corrections. So without further delay, let’s get started using adjustment layers to correct your photos.
If you’ve used Photoshop for any length of time, you already know that you can access the primary correction tools such as Levels, Curves, and Hue/Saturation in two ways.
You can click the Image menu, then click
Adjustments, and then click the tool name.
The second way to access these tools is by clicking the New Fill or Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers panel.
What you probably don’t know is that a third method for performing corrections is new to Photoshop CS4: the Adjustments panel. This is a quicker method of creating adjustment layers than using the New Fill or Adjustment Layer button, though the net result is identical.
The real difference between the first method (clicking the Image menu and then clicking Adjustments) and the other two options, which create separate adjustment layers, is that corrections made by clicking menu items are immediately applied to the pixels in your photo, limiting your ability to make changes later in the editing process. We’ll avoid this scenario by working exclusively with adjustment layers.
Performing corrections using adjustment layers offers three main advantages:
■ Editability What happens if you decide that the contrast you added three steps ago is too strong? With adjustment layers, you can quickly return to the adjustment and alter it while previewing the effect of subsequent corrections. This is particularly valuable as you develop your skills in the digital darkroom. You can revisit your early work with new skills and a new eye and fine-tune your earlier corrections. This isn’t possible with other
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correction methods. It is difficult to undo corrections without damaging your photo, particularly after you’ve saved the image.
■ Flexibility Adjustment layers are quick to fine-tune at any stage of the image correction process. Often, it is not until you’ve performed several additional corrections that you realize a color correction was too strong or a saturation adjustment too severe. Correcting these minor, and inevitable, mistakes takes seconds instead of minutes or hours.
■ Selectivity Every adjustment layer is accompanied by layer mask, the perfect tool for applying corrections to a selected area instead of the entire image. As you start using the advanced techniques described in this chapter, you will begin to appreciate the power layer masks provide over other selection methods.
Whether you decide to use the new Adjustments panel or the traditional New Fill or Adjustment Layer button to generate your adjustment layers is up to you. What’s most important is that you use adjustment layers to ensure that you are taking full advantage of the tools Photoshop offers.
To help you feel at home using adjustment layers, we’ll get started with perhaps the most essential of Photoshop’s image correction tools: Curves.
Curves
Ask any advanced Photoshop user what one tool he or she can’t live without and the answer will be Curves. Most Photoshop users use Curves on virtually every image. Curves adjustments are used primarily for adding or adjusting contrast in images and performing color corrections. To get the best results from Curves, you’ll need to know how the Curves settings are arranged in the Adjustments panel and how to control the curve effectively.
The curve graph is at the center of the Curves options and is arranged in increasing lightness, beginning with black at the lower- left point of the curve and finishing with white at the upper-right of the curve.
To make the effect of a Curves adjustment easier to see, we’ll use the following example
as a baseline to show an image and grayscale ramp with an unadjusted curve. Compare this graphic to the adjusted Curves image.
Control points can be placed at any area of the cur ve and are used to bend the cur ve and adjust a specific area of the tonal
r ange . Bending the cur ve up and left lightens the cor responding area of the tonal r ange . The far ther the cur ve moves from the
center line , the more pronounced the adjustment’s effects. In this case , the cur ve br ightens the midtones and minimally adjusts the extreme shadows and highlights.
Bending the curve down and to the right darkens the image.
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Adding multiple points to the curve gives you better control and is ideal for performing contrast adjustments.
One of the most important things to remember when adding contrast with Curves is that any area of the curve steeper than the original 45-degree angle will gain contrast, while any sections of the curve flatter than 45 degrees will lose contrast. For every contrast move you make, you add contrast in some areas and remove it from others. This makes it critically important to add contrast in the right places.
The best way of accomplishing this is to click the On-image adjustment tool
(the little hand icon) and drag your cursor, without clicking, over the key areas in the image. The circle on the curve displays the spot that corresponds
to the lightness values of the pixels under your cursor. As you drag your cursor through the image, make a mental note of the range between the lightest and darkest areas of your subject.
For this particular image, I selected the on-curve adjustment and
dragged my cursor over the areas of the rider’s face, legs, and shoes, and then I quickly looked at the background and trail. Since I knew that I’d gain contrast in certain areas and would lose it in others, I wanted to gain contrast on the rider and background and was willing to sacrifice some contrast in the deep shadows of her jersey, shorts, and bike.
This next illustration displays the range of tonal values gathered by dragging my cursor over the key sections in the image. These points help me identify the range of values in the photo to be improved by adding contrast.
You can use the On-image adjustment tool to make adjustments directly on the image, just as you did with the Targeted Adjustment tool in Lightroom. Be careful not to add too many points to the curve, because doing so can create sharp bends and result in unnatural transitions, called posterization, in your image. I recommend trying to place only two points on any curve to preserve the image quality. If need be, you can create a second Curves adjustment layer to perform additional corrections.
By making a mental note of the r ange , I can add two points to the cur ve , lightening the top point and dar kening the lower point to
create the S-cur ve typical for adding midtone contr ast.
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Shar p bends in a cur ve create
unnatur al and abr upt tr ansitions, called
posterization, in tone and color.
Most, but not all, images benefit from using this S-curve to add contrast to the midtones. Images with predominantly light or dark tones require special curves to add contrast to the correct areas of the tonal range. In the illustrations that follow, images are paired with their corresponding curve for adding contrast.
Using Curves to
Correct Color in Photoshop
You can use Curves adjustments for more than adding contrast or adjusting tone. Curves is a powerful tool for correcting or adjusting color
as well. You’ll want to perform the majority of your color corrections in Lightroom on your raw files, but you’ll often need to make slight color adjustments in Photoshop to warm up an image or balance a mixed-lighting situation by using Curves to apply color correction to a specific area.
Whenever you make color corrections in Curves, it is wise to use the Info panel to guide your corrections. The Info panel (Window > Info) provides a readout of the RGB color values in your photo that help you diagnose and remove color casts from your photos.
Here’s how the process works:
Step 1 The photo on the next page was taken on a frozen waterfall in the deep shade, and as a result, I expect the color balance to be a little on the blue side. To verify such a hunch, you’d open the Info panel and drag your cursor over any areas of the photo that should be white, black, or gray, taking note of the RGB values listed in the RGB portion of the panel. When
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working in RGB mode, equal amounts of red, green, and blue create a neutral shade of gray. Uneven amounts of red, green, and blue indicate a color cast in the photo.
By examining the RGB values of the neutral areas in the photo (the top of the climber’s helmet, the black gloves and black pants), you can see that all contain a higher blue value than either red or green, indicating a blue color cast throughout the photo.
For performing color corrections, you’ll find it helpful to understand the relationships between red, green, and blue and the respective opposing colors of cyan, magenta, and yellow. Although the readout displays RGB, it is important that you know that a deficiency in red will create a cyan color cast and an increase in red and blue will make green deficient, causing a magenta color
cast. The following image illustrates the key color relationships between red, green, blue, and their opposing colors.
Step 2 Once you’ve determined that a color cast should be removed, place a series of sample points on the key neutral areas in the image to track your corrections, ensuring they are balanced throughout the tonal range.
The Color Sampler tool, hidden behind the Eyedropper in the Toolbox, is the perfect tool for adding color sampler points.
To select the Color Sampler tool, click the Eyedropper Tool, and then slide the cursor over and single-click Color Sampler Tool. You can add up to four sample points by clicking key neutral areas that should be black, white, or gray. The RGB values for each of your sample points appear in the lower half of the Info panel.
Here are a few guidelines for using sample points:
■ In the Options bar, increase the Sample Size setting from the default Point Sample, which samples only 1 pixel, to a 5 by 5 Average, which averages the color values of 25 pixels for better accuracy.
■ Set your sample points on the lit side of your subject or objects in the photo.
The shaded side of an object will almost always be cooler (more blue) than the lit side and therefore will not accurately represent the overall color in the photo.
■ Click and drag a sample point to reposition it. Or hover your cursor over a sample point and press delete to remove it.
■ The primary reason for placing multiple sample points is to look for trends. You want to see the color values throughout
the image, so distribute your points carefully. It’s not uncommon to have one point out of line with the others (a black shirt with a slight reddish tint,
for example). If multiple sample points indicate a particular color cast, you can feel confident in that assessment.
■ For a photo with multiple light sources, such as a room primarily lit by fluorescent lights with daylight coming in through
a window, correct the color in two steps using masks to isolate corrections to a specific light source. For your first round of color correction, place your sample points on neutral areas lit by the primary light source.
For this particular image, I placed sample points on the top of the helmet (1), on a sunlit section of the ice (2), on a point on the back of the climber’s boot (3), and on the lit section of his glove (4).
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Looking at the Info panel, I can see that all four points have more blue than red or green, indicating a blue color cast. While I’m a little suspicious of point 2 since ice is often blue or a little cyan, having points 1, 3, and 4 indicating a blue color cast tells me that this photo requires color correction in Curves.
Setting the sample points correctly is the most difficult part of color correcting. Once the points are set correctly, actually making the correction is easy—use the sample points in the Info panel to guide your corrections. You can use either Curves or Color Balance to perform your color corrections, but I prefer Curves because it
gives me more precise controls and allows me to correct color in highlights, midtones, and
shadows simultaneously. With Color Balance, I’m forced to correct these three regions independently.
Begin by creating a new Curves adjustment layer from the Adjustments panel or clicking the New Fill or Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Unlike your contrast corrections, you will adjust the red, green, and blue components independently. In Photoshop, these three color components are called channels. Photoshop automatically combines the red, green, and blue color channels to display your color image.
The pull-down menu near the top of the Curves settings allows you to select the
channel you’d like to work with. I recommend beginning with the color that’s creating the color cast. For this image, the blue channel is too high and needs adjustment.
Drag the end points of the curve up to add the channel’s color or down to remove it. To remove a blue color cast, drag the highlight and shadow points in the blue channel down slightly. Use the Color Sampler points as your guide to gauge your corrections.
Tip When using a color or tone correction tool such as Curves, the Info panel will display two sets of numbers for each sample point: the left numbers show the original values, and the right numbers show the corrected values.
Adjust each color channel as needed until the RGB values for each sample point are equal or within a point or two of being equal.
You should be able to remove most color casts by adjusting the highlights and shadows. This corrects the color throughout the tonal range. Occasionally, you’ll need to add an additional point somewhere in the midtones to correct a troublesome color cast.
Tip Use the On-image adjustment tool to set control points on the curve by single-clicking key points in your image. Photoshop will add a point to the active curve (RGB—red, green,
or blue) that you can modify by dragging or by using the ARROW keys (up, down, left, right) to make subtle color adjustments.
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When you’re satisfied with your color correction, click the green arrow in the lower- left corner of the Adjustments panel, or click OK in earlier versions to close the dialog.
You can reopen the Curves adjustment settings to make additional changes by double- clicking the Curves icon in the Layers palette.
After exiting the Curves settings, be sure to toggle the layer visibility on and off for a “before and after” preview. This is a helpful
habit to get into with any correction to ensure that the correction
you’ve made improves the photo’s appearance.
Tip If you find your correction is too strong, you can quickly reduce the intensity of the correction by reducing the layer’s opacity using the Opacity slider at the top of the Layers palette. This is faster than going back and adjusting the curve and achieves the same effect.
In a raw workflow, such as the one we’re using in this book, you’ll want to perform the bulk of your color correction using the tools found in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) instead of using Curves. Using ACR allows you to make corrections to the unprocessed raw information, which will give you better image quality. You will most often perform
color corrections using Curves when you need to color correct a portion of an image, which is relatively difficult to do in Lightroom. The principles for correcting a specific area are the same as those in place when you’re performing global corrections such as those described here. I’ll go deeply into correcting specific areas of your photo later in this chapter and in most
of the next chapter. Whether you are working globally on the full image or locally on a specific portion of your image, you can use sample points whenever possible and let the Info panel guide your corrections.
While Curves is the most important adjustment tool, it is by no means the only tool available for you to use. Other adjustments, such as Hue/Saturation,
Vibrance, and photo filters, are covered later in the book when we put the techniques into practice to solve real-world problems.
Before moving on, I’d like to add two final tips for you to keep in mind when working with adjustment layers:
■ Create a new adjustment layer for each correction. This keeps your corrections separate from one another, allowing you to make changes more easily.
■
When creating a new adjustment layer, add your new layer at the top of the Layers palette. This way, your Layers palette always contains the newest corrections on top and the oldest at the bottom. This is important, because the stacking order of the layers affects their appearance, and it is an effective organizational tool to help you change layers quickly.
Photoshop will always insert the new adjustment layer above the currently active, or targeted, layer. The targeted layer is designated with a blue highlight in the Layers palette.
Single-clicking the topmost layer in the Layers palette before adding a layer will ensure that your newly created layer is always on top.
Adjusting Specific Areas in Photoshop
The majority of your global corrections, corrections applied to the entire image, will be completed in Lightroom to your camera raw file. This will give you the best quality, because these changes are made to the unprocessed file, whereas corrections made in Photoshop are always made to a processed file and cause some degradation in image quality. The amount of quality loss is determined by the quality of the original and the severity of the correction.
Nevertheless, the key point to remember is that you want to perform as many of your corrections as possible within Lightroom, using Photoshop primarily for adjusting localized areas within the photo, compositing images, or performing other advanced multi-
image techniques such as extending the dynamic range, creating a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image, or building a panorama. These are the areas in which Photoshop excels, and one of the fundamental skills common to Photoshop’s advanced techniques requires the use of layer masks.
Masks and Selections
The key to isolating individual elements of your images is the effective use of selections and layer masks. These allow you to use any of Photoshop’s adjustment tools including Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Vibrance with exacting precision to adjust the color of a flower, brighten a smile, or soften harsh shadows.
The traditional method of adjusting a specific area, such as lightening a foreground, was to use the Lasso tool or other selection tools to select the foreground, and then use the tools found by clicking the Image menu and clicking Adjustments to lighten the selected area. This workflow was simple and quick, but it left no room for error since these changes were difficult to undo without losing a lot of work. If the edge of the selection was visible
in a finished print, the photographer would either repair the area or have to go back to the original image.
Fortunately, this workflow has given way to the use of nondestructive layer masks, allowing you more flexibility and “correctability” than selections alone. Masks are quicker to create, easier to apply to multiple layers, and, unlike selections, saved
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with the document so you can go back to a mask again and again. In today’s workflow, photographers rarely need to make selections, unless
■ the selection forms the basis for an eventual layer mask, or
■ you’re removing an object from a background, a process called clipping.
For these reasons, we’ve elected to concentrate our discussion on layer masks, which you can use to create and use both simple and complex masks.
Since selections still play a role from time to time in a
Layer Masks 101
A layer mask is a means of limiting a correction or hiding a portion of a pixel layer. Layer masks are used to apply image corrections to a specific area within an image or for compositing multiple images together.
On the Web
photographer’s workflow, we’ve posted a detailed article on
Photoshop’s selection tools and selection techniques online at www
.perfectdigitalphotography.com/ selections-masks.php.
From Selections to Masks
Many Photoshop users never venture into the world of layer masks. This is unfortunate, because layer masks are key to unlocking
the full potential Photoshop offers digital photographers. I encourage you not to be intimidated by layer masks. The fundamentals of layer masks are simple, and potential uses are endless.
Before we get too involved in the terminology associated with masks, let’s take a look at what a mask is and what masks are used for.
When an image (top) has a layer mask
(center) applied, the black areas of the mask hide the pixels on the layer, resulting in the image at the bottom.
Layer masks are also applied to adjustment
layer s to restr ict their cor rections to specific areas within a photo. Here , a Hue/Satur ation adjustment layer is used to desatur ate a
por tion of the image . The layer mask (top) hides the cor rection, preser ving the or iginal color in the center of the photo (bottom).
Masks can contain not only black and white, but also shades of gray. This allows you to feather your mask to hide your corrections more effectively or make the transitions between composited images seamless.
Applying the gr adient at top as a layer mask to a Hue/Satur ation cor rection creates
a smooth transition from color to black
and white . The black areas of the gr adient hide the desatur ation applied by the Hue/
Satur ation layer, while the white area allows the cor rection to be applied fully. The gr ay
areas in the transition allow a por tion of the cor rection to be applied to the image .
Layer masks, by themselves, don’t apply any particular effect to an image. Instead, they are an attribute of the layer to which they are connected and show or hide portions of that layer. This is the most difficult concept to grasp, and the best way to understand layer masks is to begin working with a few of your own.
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On the Web
For more on layer masks, view the Layer Mask tutorial video online at www.perfectdigitalphotography.com/ selections-masks.php.
Step 3 Press d on your keyboard to return to the default paint colors (white and black), and then press x to exchange the foreground for background color.
Try following along with this example:
Step 1 Open a digital photo in Photoshop and create a Hue/Saturation adjustment through the Adjustments panel. Reduce the Saturation to –100 to pull all the color out of the image.
Step 2 Click the Brush Tool in the Toolbox and select the Airbrush Soft Round 50% flow preset from the Tool Preset picker in the Options bar.
Step 4 Paint on the image to begin returning the color to your black and white image. Change the brush size as needed by using the Brush Preset picker located just to the right of your Tool Preset picker in the Options bar.
Step 5 If you make a mistake, you can brush out your corrections by pressing x to reverse your foreground and background colors and paint over your mistake.
Congratulations! You’ve created your first layer mask. Pretty easy, isn’t it? To learn more about layer masks, let’s look at exactly what you did.
How Do Layer Masks Work?
When you create an adjustment layer in Photoshop, a layer mask is automatically added to your correction. The layer mask is the white rectangle icon to the right of the adjustment icon in the Layers palette.
An important rule to remember with layer masks is white reveals, black conceals. Since
the layer mask is white by default, it reveals the change created by the Hue/Saturation adjustment. In this case, it removed all the color from the image. When you began brushing with black on the layer mask, you began selectively removing the Hue/Saturation correction from the picture, causing the original color to return.
If you look at the layer mask separate from the image, you can see that any area on the mask that is black has returned to its
original color. Areas on the mask in gray have returned a portion of the original color.
The purpose of this illustration is not to teach you how to hand-color all your photos, although that is one common use of layer masks. Instead, it is to reinforce the notion
that the black portions of the mask hide your corrections (or pixels) and white portions reveal your changes. Once you have this concept down, using layer masks is really easy. The difficulty arises when you want to apply layer masks to a complex or heavily detailed portion of the image. Don’t worry, though, because we’ll start simple and once you get the hang of using layer masks, I’ll offer several tips for making complex masks in the next chapter.
For another example, we’ll use a common scenario: You apply an S-curve to increase contrast in the midtones. While this change benefits the image as a whole, it negatively impacts a small portion of the photo, such as the foreground ice in this photo.
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brush opacity to 40 to 60 percent;
this allows you to paint out the contrast in the negatively impacted area. This image shows a black overlay on the painted areas of the mask.
Note When painting on the layer mask, you should not see the addition of black or white; you will see only the adjustment layer’s change added or subtracted from the photo.
The image with a black over lay added to indicate the painted area of the layer mask
Tips for Working with the Brush Tool
Many of the layer masks you’ll use are so crude, you won’t need to create a selection before building your mask. For these masks, you’ll use the Brush tool to target a specific region of your photo. Since you’ll be spending a lot of time using the Brush tool, I’ll arm you with several tips for using the tool when creating masks.
Although Photoshop comes with dozens of brushes in all shapes, sizes, and textures, you really need to use only two brushes for your work: a soft-edged brush for gently applying color and contrast corrections and a hard- edged brush for making changes along well- defined edges or lines.
The brush size, shape, and intensity are determined by three controls in the Brush Preset
picker and Options bar: Brush size, Hardness, and Opacity. The Brush Preset picker is displayed only when the Brush tool is selected, so be sure you’ve selected the Brush tool.
The Master Diameter slider controls brush size (in pixels). It can be difficult to select an appropriately sized brush using the Master Diameter slider because the effective brush size is relative to the overall image size. This means a 100 px brush will appear tiny when working on a 3000-pixel–wide digital photo and will appear quite large when working on a small web graphic. Instead of setting your brush
size in the Brush Preset picker, set your brush hardness and use keyboard shortcuts.
The Hardness slider setting determines how well defined the edges of a brush stroke are. A low Hardness setting creates a soft brush, ideal for making subtle changes to a mask. A high Hardness setting is often used in compositing, where a precise edge is essential.
The Hardness deter mines whether the paint strokes have soft or hard edges. Both br ush strokes use a 60-pixel br ush, but the top
stroke uses a Hardness setting of 0 while the bottom uses a Hardness setting of 100.
Tip Use keyboard shortcuts. The easiest way to choose the correct brush size for all your painting needs is to hover your cursor over the image you’ll be painting on and use the right bracket (]) and left bracket ([) keys to increase or decrease the brush size,
respectively. This allows you to set your brush size visually relative to your photo.
The third important brush attribute is the brush Opacity, controlled by the Opacity slider in the Options bar.
Reducing the opacity helps your brush strokes blend in your changes more naturally. When applying subtle contrast or color changes, set your brush Opacity between 40 and 60 percent with a soft brush. This masks any imperfections in your brush strokes and allows you to build up your correction in several steps.
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The topmost br ush stroke uses a soft br ush set to 100 percent Opacity. The remaining
three strokes show the effect of painting
using multiple passes at a decreased Opacity setting, from a single pass at 50 percent, to
four passes at 50 percent.
Tip You can adjust the brush Opacity using the number keys on your keyboard when the Brush tool is active. Press 5 for 50 percent,
9 for 90 percent, and so on. Pressing 0 (zero) will return the brush to 100 percent.
Now that you feel comfortable using Photoshop’s brushes, it’s time to put your newfound skills to work modifying layer masks with the Brush tool.
Tips for Working with Masks
To review what we’ve covered so far, every Curves, Levels, or Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is accompanied by a white rectangle in the Layers palette. This rectangle is a layer mask for the adjustment layer. Since the
layer mask is filled with white by default, any changes you make to the adjustment layer are applied to the entire image. Using the Brush tools on a layer mask, you can
isolate your changes to a specific region of the image without affecting the rest of the image. Furthermore, you can adjust, scale, blur, and sharpen the layer mask to achieve very exacting results. Layer masks give you
flexibility unmatched by traditional darkroom techniques.
To help you get up to speed quickly with layer masks, I’ve compiled a list of helpful tips. Use these to supplement the fundamental techniques discussed so far:
■ When making a change adversely affecting one portion of an image, simply mask it out using the Brush tool and paint black on the layer mask.
■ When you need to apply your correction to a small portion of the image, invert the layer mask from white to black by pressing cmd-i (Mac) or ctrl-i (Windows). Then brush in your correction by painting white on the layer mask.
■ Use any of the selection tools to select a portion of the image, and then create
your adjustment layer. Your selection will convert automatically to a mask and be applied to the new adjustment layer.
■ Copy layer masks from one layer to another by holding down the option (Mac) or alt (Windows) key while clicking and dragging the layer mask to the new layer. When prompted, click Yes to replace the existing layer mask.
■
Navigating in Photoshop
Unlike Lightroom, you can’t zoom in while using Photoshop to check the detail of a section by clicking the main image. Instead, you’ll need to use the Zoom tool, either directly by clicking the Zoom tool at
the bottom of the Toolbar or indirectly by using a keyboard shortcut, which is much faster.
Two sets of keyboard shortcuts are available for zooming. Use the one that is most comfortable for you:
Set 1
Zoom in CMD-+ (Mac), CTRL-+ (Windows)
Zoom out CMD - – (Mac), CTRL - – (Windows)
Set 2
Zoom in CMD-SPACEBAR-click (Mac), CTRL-SPACEBAR-
click (Windows)
Zoom out OPTION-SPACEBAR-click (Mac), ALT- SPACEBAR-click (Windows)
With either set, you don’t immediately zoom in to 100 percent Actual Pixels view as you do in
Lightroom. Instead you incrementally zoom through the zoom percentages, from 25 to 33, 50, 66, and then finally 100 percent.
If you want to jump to 100 percent view quickly, as you’re accustomed to doing in Lightroom, press CMD-OPTION-0 (zero) (Mac) or CTRL-ALT-0 (Windows).
To see the full image in the document window, press CMD-0 (Mac) or CTRL-0 (Windows).
Use the backslash (\) key to show your mask as a colored overlay on the image. The default color is red, but you can change this by double-clicking the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette.
Tip When using the backslash shortcut, be advised that Photoshop sometimes switches your foreground and background colors as it toggles between the mask preview and the original image.
Temporarily disable the layer mask by holding the shift key and clicking the
layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette.
I frequently use this to locate errant brush strokes or halos around the masked areas while zoomed in to a detailed section of the photo. (See the “Navigating in Photoshop” sidebar for additional information.)
Now that we’ve covered the basics for working with layer masks and adjustment layers, let’s look at how you can apply a layer mask to your pixel layers to begin compositing multiple images. I’ll address compositing along with many more advanced corrections in the next chapter.
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H OW T O : M AKING S ELECTIVE A DJUSTMENTS IN L IGHTROOM AND P HOTOSHOP
The more you work with Lightroom and Photoshop, the more you’ll see opportunities to improve specific areas within your photos for maximum impact. The techniques covered in this chapter have shown you how to use the selected correction tools in Lightroom and create selections and layer masks in Photoshop for precise control. This How To will give you insight into the thought process behind assessing and executing these corrections.
This image has been corrected using the basic suite of tools found in Lightroom’s Develop module. Overall, the color balance, exposure, and contrast are correct. Many photographers would be happy with the image as is.
Given the selective correction tools, however, I think it can be made even better.
Looking at the image, the cyclist doesn’t have enough contrast to stand out sufficiently from the background. Because the detail on the cyclist falls on the shadow end of the spectrum, adding contrast to these areas is best done in Photoshop using Curves instead of in Lightroom. While Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush is an excellent tool, it doesn’t provide the fine control over shadow detail and contrast that Curves provides.
Press cmd-e (Mac) or ctrl-e (Windows) to open the image into Photoshop CS4. If prompted, click Edit
a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments and check the Stack with Original checkbox. This will bring your corrected file back into the Lightroom library.
Once in Photoshop, I’ll create a Curves adjustment layer. Using the On-image adjustment tool to assess the range of tonal values on the rider, I create a steep curve to lighten and add contrast to the shadows and dark midtones.
Pressing cmd-i (Mac) or ctrl-i (Windows) inverts the mask, filling it with black and hiding my correction.
Using a soft brush with the Brush tool set to 50 percent opacity, I paint with white over the key lines in the rider’s jersey, helmet,
face, and bike. Instead of painting completely over the rider, I’m painting along key lines that I want to bring forward. For example, I’m painting over the rider’s
left arm, but not his torso, to create visual separation between the two elements.
Next, I switch to 30 percent opacity and paint with white over the bike tire, hub, fork, shoe, and highlight in the front wheel. These are all key portions of the bike and rider, and I want them to stand out.
Choosing a lower opacity ensures they do so, but it does not call attention from the rider.
I’m happy with the correction and can now turn my attention to secondary elements within the photo, namely the road. I feel the road could use more contrast to enhance the appearance of the motion blur in the
foreground and emphasize the dappled highlights.
I create another curve and boost the shadows in this one as well. I’ll also slide the shadow point slightly from left to right to deepen the shadows.
This improves the road but adds too much contrast in the rocks behind the rider, so I’ll apply a quick gradient mask using the Gradient tool to remove this
contrast adjustment from the top half of the image.