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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:24 pm 
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Using overlay to enhance colour and produce "dreamy" look on photoshop. We'll concentrate on the hair only since I don't really like overdoing the skin along with hair.

This works best on blonds and red heads since they have actual colour on their hair. Easiest to do on high key shots since background is whited out. So we will use this lovely lady with blonde and green hair as an example, courtesy of Toronto Strobist group.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542058/" title="01 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5265/5858542058_ab55b6fe4c_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="01"></a>

To begin, create a duplicate layer of the source image. Set the layer mode to "overlay" and opacity to about 80%. You can play around with opacity for added brightness/colour. Play around with it during the process to see the difference.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542084/" title="02 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3207/5858542084_9a393ca557_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="02"></a>

Once the overlay is in place the entire image will be affected by the new layer. We'll mask everything but the hair towards the end. I think subtlety is the key in these things so I stopped doing overall effects and ended up enhancing the hair only.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542134/" title="03 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2735/5858542134_7ddd931a47_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="03"></a>

Anyway, to add some colour go to Image > Adjustment > Vibrance and play with the bar until you find what you like. You can do more stuff like play with levels or adjust contrast but this is usually enough for me.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542162/" title="04 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/5858542162_79f6a50130_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="04"></a>

Once the colour is in place, apply tons of blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). We want the enhancement to be smooooooooth.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542206/" title="05 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2795/5858542206_4b98fa5506_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="05"></a>

Now create a mask of the hair. You don't have to be too accurate since the overlay is blurred and opacity is adjustable.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542244/" title="06 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5068/5858542244_7b4240ed66_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="06"></a>

Hair layer will now look like this by itself.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542296/" title="07 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5233/5858542296_c4b6b687f9_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="07"></a>

Now the skin is back to original picture's level and only the hair is affected. But some parts of the hair may seem too bright and you may lose some hair detail. I like hair detail.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5857990745/" title="08 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2651/5857990745_3b44924ecb_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="08"></a>

So what I would do is use the burn tool on the hair on the original base layer to strengthen some of the weakened parts from the overlay. Last pic is repeat of the original so that you can see before & after.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542382/" title="09 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/5858542382_6f266bb4bb_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="09"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madelica/5858542058/" title="01 by madelica, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5265/5858542058_ab55b6fe4c_b.jpg" width="702" height="469" alt="01"></a>

Doing similar effects through brushes in Lightroom is even easier but I find that doing things manually in photoshop gives you more fine control.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:28 pm 
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can anyone decipher PP techniques? I like this guy's work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojo2fast/page2/


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:32 pm 
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Really? I see a bit of contrast too much, a bit of vignette and sometimes maybe a weird white balance. Not much to talk about I think. Some chicks are good though


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:55 pm 
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Delsorbo wrote:
can anyone decipher PP techniques? I like this guy's work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojo2fast/page2/


It looks like his actions can be purchased for $25


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 4:26 pm 
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With the current interest in the Photo Editing & Technique Feeler post perhaps it's worth bumping this?


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:08 am 
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Delsorbo wrote:
can anyone decipher PP techniques? I like this guy's work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojo2fast/page2/


more of photographic technique and style than the actual pp that makes that look. Just adding that pp technique into your existing photos wouldn't yield the same look.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:51 pm 
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ions wrote:
With the current interest in the Photo Editing & Technique Feeler post perhaps it's worth bumping this?

Thanks for bringing up this thread! I wish the CS5 experts here would share their works and techniques as well.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:41 pm 
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what do you want to know?


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:05 pm 
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Change background from one picture to another :)

Something like the original post ions did, but on CS5/Photoshop


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:00 pm 
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Open both files in Photoshop (as tabs or separate windows)
Bring the photo with the item you want to cut out to the front, so it is the active window
To select the object/person you can use a number of different tools. The easiest one is the Quick Selection Tool
All you need to do is paint over the object and make sure you get everything you want within the marching ants selection, and nothing you don't want is inside of it. You can zoom in and out if need be by pressing Ctrl+plus or minus (cmnd on a mac)

Image

Alternatively, for man-made objects I usually use the Polygonal Lasso Tool, which gives me the ultimate precision (man-made objects usually have straight edges rather than fractal nature of non man-made ones). I would suggest setting this tool into additive mode by going into the tool bar on top and selecting Add to Selection mode. To use this tool you need to click on one point along the edge you want to select, release the mouse button and click on the other point along that edge (continue until you come back to the first point and close the selection: cursor turns into a circle), it will automatically drag a line between the two points. The great thing about this tool is you can even make round selections (as everything is made out of pixels-squares-you can always zoom all the way in and gradually click your way into a circle).

Image

This tool doesn't work very well for natural objects though, like our subject here!

Once you have your object/person selected completely, go into Select menu and click on Modify then Feather.

Image

Enter a radius amount (1 is usually good for hi-res imagery, hair might require more). Click OK

Image

If you feel like your selection is not close enough to the object/person, you can go into Select menu and click on Modify then Contract and enter the amount you'd like to decrease your selection by. (mind you, if you are selecting the background rather than the object/person, you will need to choose Expand and not Contract)

Now you have a number of choices: either delete the background (invert selection and click delete-Select menu then Inverse), cut out/copy the selection-Edit then Cut or Copy and paste it into the new file, or practice safe close cropping and create a mask, which is what I'm gonna do:
Double click the background layer in the layers tab to unlock it and then click on the mask button below.

Image

Image

This will create a mask and hide the background (note that it doesn't delete it, just hides it in case you need to go back and adjust selection)

Now you can bring the other window up (with the background you want the object/person to be pasted on to), make sure the active file is the one with the cutout object/person and drag and drop the layer over into the background file window.

Image

It will bring over your masked selection as a new layer. You can now enlarge the background+object/person window and forget about the other one (either save it or close it).

Now you need to position the newly brought in object/person to make the image believable. This begins with choosing the right background and keeping in mind perspective rules etc. You cam move your object/person by choosing the Move tool from the tool palette and making sure you have the right layer selected in the Layers panel. You can also make it bigger or smaller by pressing Ctrl+T for Free Transform and click and dragging the corners while holding Shift (if you don't hold Shift your object will get distorted - shift keeps the aspect ratio unchanged)

Image

Once you are satisfied press Enter

Image

At this point, if you're satisfied with the results you can flatten your file by right clicking on any of the layers in the Layers tab and choosing Flatten Image then Saving the new file.

In my case I wasn't satisfied as the person was shot with a shallow depth of field, thus the background needs to be blurred to make the image believable. You can do this by selecting the Background layer in the Layers tab, then click on Filter menu, choose Gaussian Blur and move the slider to the desired position. Click ok.

Image

After this I noticed the person was a bit brighter than I would have wanted to be believable on the new background.
To fix this you can use a number of methods, the easiest is going to adjustments tab and choosing Curves adjustment. At this point the Curves adjustment will be applied to all layers, you can solve this by Alt+clicking in between the Curves layer and the object/person layer in the Layers tab. The effect will be limited only to the underlying layer and not all layers (shows up as an arrow pointing down). You can add points to the curve by left clicking on it. Drag them around for the desired effect.

Image

Once satisfied you can then flatten the file and save.

Image

Click on the screenshots to see bigger version :wink: Enjoy :D


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:10 pm 
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Wow, thanks PotatoEYE! Great job!

1 question for now.

Can you show me how to change the colour of the t-shirt inside (the little grey area around the neck) to black?


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:17 pm 
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Coming soon :)


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:35 pm 
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ions wrote:

Image


I have 2 images (similar to the above images), 1 at regular exposure with dull sky and another 1 underexpose with beautiful blue sky. I want the beautiful blue sky on the regular exposure.
Could someone (or PotatoEYE if you have time :) ) show me how to stack the 2 images in CS5/Photoshop to erase the dull sky so that the beautiful blue sky from the other image shows on the regular exposure image?


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:56 pm 
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Alice, that example is not two stacked images, it is one exposure. Just FYI.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:02 pm 
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How to change the shirt colour to black

Here's the original image I used

Image

Changing a shirt without a hue is a bit more complicated than the coloured one, however, nothing is impossible.

Start of by selecting the shirt you want to change: in this case it's the undershirt (as requested by Alice)
Choose the selection tool you like to use...I prefer the Polygonal Lasso Tool, make your selection as perfect as possible, zoom in if necessary.

Image

Once done, while having your selection active, click on the Levels adjustment layer in the Adjustments panel. This automatically creates a mask with everything but your selection hidden. In the Levels window drag the lower white slider to the left until your shirt darkness looks like what you had in mind, also adjust the upper white slider (highlights) to the left until it touches the histogram's right edge (this adds more highlight definition to the shirt).

Image

When you're satisfied with the darkness add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. To make sure it only applies to your selection and not the whole image you can either 1. click in between the Hue/Saturation and Levels layers and make sure the Underlying layer arrow is showing, or 2. copy the mask from Levels adjustment layer to the Hue/Saturation layer by Alt+clicking and dragging it. Then adjust the Lightness slider in the Hue/Saturation adjustment window to your liking. Make sure it is believable, most of the time the shirts come out slightly lighter than black, this way you can also retain the texture of the fabric.

Image

Voila! Flatten if needed and save.

Image


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:13 am 
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Thanks PotatoEYE!


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:48 pm 
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Here's a tutorial on how to process HDR images with the new LR 4.1 and Photoshop CS5

We start of by selecting the 3 or more frames that you did of the same subject or scene

Image

Next, we go to the menu Photo-Edit In-Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop...

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This will launch Photoshop and automatically merge your exposures giving you the following screen

Image

At this point, all you have to do is choose 32bit in the drop down menu next to the label Mode
check off Remove ghosts (optional; if you do, you need to choose the exposure that you want to use as source down at the bottom)
Don't worry about the Set White Point Preview slider, it's only for your review of the dynamic range of your combined file, it doesn't affect the final image in any way.

After that just click OK and save and close the file. It automatically shows up in Lighroom next to your multiple exposures you chose to combine. (this whole section above takes me about 1-2 minutes to do)

Image

After this comes the magic...here's where your standard raw processing workflow comes in. Just do whatever you are used to do with your raw files in the develop module.

And here's the unprocessed middle exposure shot vs the processed 32bit HDR file

Image

And here's a bigger version of the final HDR exported as jpeg from Lightroom

Image


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:50 pm 
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Excellent how-to! Great info. Thank you.


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:07 am 
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PotatoEYE wrote:

Image

Once satisfied you can then flatten the file and save.

Image

Click on the screenshots to see bigger version :wink: Enjoy :D

lighting doesn't look matching imo, and the hair selection is kinda rough, you need to use a blank backdrop for the head at least for easy photoshop selection... And never flatten image since u can't go back if u made mistakes

I prefer the original shot.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:03 pm 
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^I'm pretty sure that was a joke post-processing.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:07 pm 
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wpf1s9 wrote:
^I'm pretty sure that was a joke post-processing.


That's what makes StE823's post amusing.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:06 pm 
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Hello,
I'm looking for advice on how to achieve this sort of blue-ish, yellowish tone in photos. Any advice on post-processing techniques?

Heres some examples...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lychee_alo ... hotostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lychee_alo ... hotostream


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:37 pm 
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It depends on your tool set
in Lightroom:

Adjust tint and colour temperature sliders off neutral
Add a slight colour cast using the split toning tools
Lastly add some vignetting using the post crop vignetting tools


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:00 pm 
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sorry should have specified I use photoshop cs5.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:19 pm 
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The concepts remain very similar in CS5.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:11 am 
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The Vignette and decreased saturation are dominant tactics on those images.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 5:26 pm 
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Hi,

In reference to thread: http://www.tpmg.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21259#p201148, i am creating this new thread, so that people can share/discuss post-processing techniques .

Making colours pop, i do not know the technical term for this. Most of my pictures look flat and colours do not stand out. To achieve this what are steps to follow while shooting a picture and while post processing it ?


Any suggestions in this regard will help me a lot. Thanks a lot guys for all the good work you people are doing here.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 5:47 pm 
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A quick tip to get you started on this article/tutorial... then you can be a bit more specific about "popping" your images with colour

A bit lengthy but has good structure...Hope this helps
Cheers!


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:35 pm 
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First off, when shooting try to place the colored subject on a contrasty colour background or darker tonal value. Under exposing the subject a little (1/3-2/3) will help retain more colour.
As processing goes, main tip is keep it real. Do not overdo it. The best way is to separately apply a bit of saturation to the subject without affecting the background.
Now, this works great for non-landscape shots, but for landscape you want to affect most of the colours. I can show some techniques if you tell me what you are using to process the photos.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:16 pm 
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You might find this useful:
http://digital-photography-school.com/v ... in-english


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