After reviewing the images from Day 1 last week, I ventured out for another session to improve on the setup and composition. The picture above was my final pick for an April ad featuring the Carousel Quilt Kit.
I have learned just enough Photoshop to get my work done. I learn something new everyday. Today I wanted to share the basic editing I performed to get from the Before photo to the After.
I captured these screen shots after I did all the editing so please disregard that the layers are already showing in the Layers palette on the screen. I use Adobe Photoshop CS2. Click on the photos below to see an enlarged image showing the detail more clearly.
1. Although I’ve shot in RAW in the past, for this session I set the camera to the highest quality level for JPEG images. I shot the photos very early in the morning.
2. The first edit I do on any picture is Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Levels. Bring the left arrow (solid) just under the left-hand side of the ‘mountain’ and bring the right arrow (hollow) just under the right-hand side of the ‘mountain’. This does a very good job of correcting the overall exposure. This is often times the only adjustment I’ll make to an image before posting on my blog. I have no idea what the middle arrow does!
3. I use the Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Saturation to add a little color punch to my photos. A +10 in the Saturation field does a nice shop of making the colors pop.
4. The Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask is a miracle editing tool. It sharpens the edges of the elements in the photo making it crisp for printing and computer screen display. Now, why the sharpening function is called ‘Unsharp Mask’ I have no idea! I think that’s why I avoided it for so long. I’ve played with the other sharpen filters on that menu and haven’t figured them out yet!
5. One final edit I did on this photo is something I only do when making an image ready for an important job like an advertisement or a pattern cover. I did some surgical exposure adjustment on the background because it was too dark overall (see the original photo). The exposure adjustment I did in step 2 did a great job of getting the right exposure on the quilt but not enough for the background. The first step is selecting the background.
I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the quilt (I did a corner to corner lasso, gotta love square objects!). The background is selected by Select->Inverse. Now everything in the photo is selected except for the quilt.
Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Curves will create a new layer that only includes the background. The Layers Palette gives you a little clue by showing the area that isn’t selected as black.
The final step is to do some more in depth exposure adjustment using Curves. I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I just play with it until I get the result I want. Whenever I’m not happy I hit ‘Cancel’ on the Curves dialog box and start over. I included this screen shot so you can see how I moved the diagonal line just a bit upward on the left hand side. That lightened up the background so it matched the exposure of the quilt.
I did a little artistic cropping and that was it! I’m happy with the final result.
2/12/08: Kelli asked what type of camera I have. I use a Canon 40D. When I switched to digital about 4 years ago I started with a Canon Rebel. I love the features on the 40D but I have to say I’m not sure my pictures are any better than what I used to take with the Rebel. I have a large collection of lenses that began when I purchased my first Canon camera in 1990. This photo was taken with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens. I would always spend more on the lens than the camera body.
Thanks for the tips. I’m a “just enough to get in trouble” Photoshopper too. It’s fortuitous that you have a barn that coordinates with your quilt so well
Kristin: Ha! I stained that barn myself and it was a LOT of work. I love the color though and it’s been great for photo shoots!
Thank-you Kathy for the tut. I bought photoshop the end of last year and have focused on graphics but have no idea how to manipulate a photo yet! This will be very helpful!
Nice. You sure demonstrate how important the photo is on the pattern cover, advertisement and on the blog. Thanks for taking the time.
Thanks so much for the great tutorial.
I’ve just had a play with one of my images and it makes SUCH a difference.
My blog is sure to be looking much better from now on.
Andi
Kathy – this is so helpful. I am just get into photography and starting to use Photoshop. Thanks for sharing these tips!! What kind of camera do you use?
Kelli
Me again.
I got so excited about this tutorial I’ve blogged about it.
Come on over and see:
http://patchandi.blogspot.com/2009/02/thankyou-kathy.html
Thanks again,
Andi
Thanks for sharing your tips and tricks with the mighty photoshop monster!
My favourite trick is to go to the Image menu, choose the ‘Brightness Contrast’ option and play with the two slide bars to brighten/darken or sharpen the image.
It makes a real difference. If a picture needs more than this, I might play with the colours, but generally I decide the picture isn’t worth the fuss!
Great tips there…I sometimes tweak my pictures to make them pop…
To answer your question about the middle arrow in the levels dialog box…it lightens or darkens the mid-tones of the picture.
I was going to tell you about the levels, but someone else already did.
For step 4, if you want to selectively sharpen or blur parts of an image, use the Blur tool, which is a teardrop icon. It’s basically a brush with pressure levels so you can adjust the amount of blur. For the Sharpen tool, hold down Blur tool until you get a triangle icon. Those two tools are accessible by a key command, which is the letter R. Holding down shift as you hit R toggles between Blur and Sharpen.
Love the quilt!
Thanks so much! This a wonderful tutorial.
All I can say is that the “after” shot is wonderful. How you got there is between you and photoshop and a ton more patience than I would ever have.
Love your results.
I’ll be back to read this!
If you look at your original image, you can see that the light meter gave you a reading that averaged for gray in the white areas. Next time try overexposing your shot by one stop and you’ll probably end up closer to your edited image.
In levels, the far left modifies your dark areas, middle the mid-tones and far right your light/white areas.
As a fellow Canon user, I hope you’re aware of POTN (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php) – amazing Canon/photography resource.
Hi Kathy,
I decided to come out of “lurkdom” to save you a bit of time on your edits. You actually don’t need to do a new layer for doing levels, cropping, hue/saturation, etc. Just make sure you do a “save as” so you don’t change the original image.
You can do a “save for web” to get a nice smaller image for uploading.
The middle arrow in “levels” is for adjusting the middle tones. I brighten the lights, then I use the middle arrow to adjust the mid tones (I usually darken them a touch) and then check to see if I need the dark arrow for any further depth. You’ll find you can get quite a bit of depth with the middle arrow.
For simple editing here is my order:
1. Resize: Image—>image size—-> change to 800×600. If you change the largest number to 800, the smaller number will automatically change to 600. The default resize is for the image to stay proportionate. You now have an approximately 25% image size on the screen. Use the “magnifying glass” to enlarge the image to 66% or 100% whatever is easiest for you to use.
2. Crop – The crop tool is a diagonal shape on a 45 degree angle with a line through it. After grabbing the tool, Using the left mouse key, click on the upper left hand corner of the image and drag the box to surround the entire image. Let go of the mouse key to select the entire picture. Now you have a square in the middle of each side of the image that you can move in and out to crop the picture. Once the image is cropped the way you like, double click left mouse inside the image to finalize the crop. It would be good to do a “save as” at this point.
3. Levels – then go to Image—>adjustments—>levels and make your level changes. Don’t forget you can toggle the “preview” box on and off to see the changes that have been made. (I start with the lights, move to the middle tones and finish with the darks, if I need it)
4. Hue/saturation – Image—->adjustments—>and whatever you want to do. Sometimes a dull photo can be brightened with “brightness/contrast” levels, but this is the window for the hue/saturation. You can also play with the color balance, too, and get some wild effects.
5. Unsharp mask – (Which you already discovered) Filter—>Sharpen—>Unsharp mask. Play around with this and make sure that the sharpness doesn’t “hurt” the eye. An image can be ‘too sharp” and become pixelated. I have cat’s whiskers that I need to be careful of. They will lose their smooth line and have pixels if too much unsharp mask is used. It will also look fake if used too much.
5. Final save – File—>Save AS or Save for Web. If you must keep the image size smaller, (use the .jpg file name) change the image options to a lower number to make the file size smaller. If you lower the number, the quality will go down a bit, too, though. There needs to be a balance between size and quality.
All this can be done without layers and save the “bloat” that is the photoshop image file when it has layers. Save the layers for masking and making major changes to the image.
I thought I’d give back a little something for all the joy I’ve received while reading your blog. I have subscribed to both your email and feed. Thank you so much for sharing your journey! I’m not a Photoshop “guru”, but my husband is, so if you need any more help, feel free to email.
Mel
(I’m a female “Mel”)