If you've never used a modular system for carrying your camera gear, check out this video courtesy of Think Tank Photo and presented by photographer, Photoshop author, trainer and guru of digitalmastery.com Ben Wilmore. Ben explains how you can become more efficient, lighten your load and make taking photos while on the go, much easier. Sweet!
This is a great little tip for viewing your images in Photoshop in a variety of ways, and shows you how to quickly alter your work space and remove all your tool palettes and screen furniture to view or work on your images with little or no clutter. It’s especially good to use if you have a lower resolution screen and find your image is always obstructed.
Editing with minimal screen furniture
Photoshop is, of course, a great tool. But as a photographer wishing to do as minimal editing as I can on my images I find it can be quite easy to over look some of the simple tricks available, in amongst all the complicated menus. Well, this is one of those simple tricks but one that can be of great help when processing. All you need for it is the F and the TAB key, and with them you can do the following…starting from your basic, freshly opened image on your standard Photoshop screen.
Basic image window
Press F to fit the window to your screen…
Image window fit to screen
A second press of F will remove the window, and the title bar at the top of the screen and place the photo on a fully grey background…
Image on grey
Finally, the last push of F will remove the File, Edit etc, and the task bar from the top and bottom of the screen, it will also change the background to black…
Image on black
Hide the tool palettes
You can also hide your tool pallets at any time in Photoshop by pressing TAB. This in conjunction with the above mentioned use of the F key can let you very quickly view your image full screen with no distractions.
Zoom the image in and out
You can now zoom in and out of the image using CTRL and + or - to get as big or small a view as you want.
View image with no distractions
To see your tool bars and edit in this mode, simple move your cursor to the edges of the screen and your tools will pop out from the side, the hide away again when you move off them.
Editing with minimal screen furniture
Moving the image freely around and off the screen
When your in the latter two viewing modes with just a grey or black background you can grab your image and move it around (do it quickly without the grab tool, just hold down space bar and click and drag your image around). Because the image is not inside its own window you can even drag it off the screen. very handy for editing at full res if you need to do fine work in the corners.
Moving the image around or off the screen
So thats it, give it a try next time your editing your photos and see what you think. I always edit with either the grey or black backgrounds so that I can move the image about and quickly view it clean, as then it’s easier to judge how the final image is going to look.
This week we're running a series of workflow tips by pro photographer Richard Peters. Check back each day for a new tip!
When I was taking the shot below I only had my Nikon 200-400 VR with me, which even at 200mm was so long I could only get a section of the scene in frame. So, to solve the problem, I took twelve shots and stitched them together! Lets find out how I turned the mess below into something worth keeping.
12 RAW shots ready to be stitched
Step one: Manual settings for all shots & overlaping each frame
The first step to creating a panoramic image is making sure the camera is set to manual so ALL the photos have the same exposure, aperture, shutter speed, white balance and focus. I have the camera in aperture priority so I can control the depth of field, I then look through the viewfinder at my first shot, use auto focus to get it where I want it (then switch it straight to manual and leave it) and check the shutter speed for my chosen aperture. I then switch to manual metering and dial in the settings the meter reading had given me. You may want to take a test shot and check your histogram to be %100 sure no exposure compensation is needed.
When you take your shots make sure you overlap each frame by around %20-30. The more overlap the more the software will have to work out the joins later, so you can do less or more but I find this amount works well. Also try to take the images in portrait orientation…its quicker to do landscape, yes…but you’ll get a higher resolution capturing the same photos needed in portrait.
You will notice the shots above have a colour miss-match. I did not have white balance set to manual as I put my hand up to being lazy and alter the white balance back on the computer. If you can use a tripod to make sure your images are %100 straight and lined up to each other then do, these were taken handheld so I had to take a mental note when doing the second row of roughly where each overlap should be.
Step two: preparing your images
I then opened my images all at once in CS3 to do the following:
Hit the select all button to highlight all images
Adjust the white balance & exposure if needed so all setting are applied to all images
Hit Save to save these images with the new settings.
CS3 RAW dialogue box
Image stitching software
I now open all the images in my favorite panoramic software, CS3 can do the job but I prefer to use Autopano Pro. This software operates as simply as checking a few boxes and hitting GO for the most part. It will do colour correction and arrange all the images for you at the click of a button…its so self explanatory I won’t go in to detail about operating the software for now, but if anyone has any further questions about this software then ask away.
Step three: editing in photoshop
Once you have run your images through your software you should have something along these lines. The funky square edges are normal as you’ll never get an image where all the shots line up exactly as that’s not how the software works, it will always juggle the image positions slightly to get a perfect alignment. Shots with coastal lines in the distance can be tricky as the contour of the land can mislead what you think is or isn’t straight.
Stitched image ready for editing
I used this image as an example as it shows very nicely what can happen if your not paying attention! The horizon is not straight and, because I decided once I’d taken the shots I wanted to add more to the right, there is a gap between some shots where I got my overlap wrong. You don’t want this to happen as it adds to your editing time…that gap between the images is almost 200 pixels wide and 2500 long! Which brings me to a final point…
Word of warning about computer power
This image is made up of twelve, 12mp Nikon D3 images saved as jpegs (tiff would be larger file size but I did jpeg here for faster editing) so your going to need some pretty good processing power if you want to start combining lots of images together. Of course you can just stick with 3 or 4 images but depending on the scene and what part of it you want to capture more may be required. Here it was my only choice as I didn’t have even close to a wide angle lens with me. Just to give you an idea of the resolution, see the Image Size box below after I had flattened the image to remove my adjustment layers…this is pretty high resolution so if you like to print big, you can print really big!
File sizes can get very big
So that’s it, edit to your normal tastes, crop out the excess area’s that are not required and your left with a beautiful image, and one which in this case, would not have been possible without using this technique. So thats it, 12 Nikon D3 images, taken at 200mm, f8 edited together to give a wide angle view of the lovely coral beach area of the Isle of Skye. To give the shot some scale, you can just make out two people walking over the hill in the middle of the shot towards the sand…
This week we're running a series of Workflow Tips by pro photographer Richard Peters. Check back each day for a new tip!
The perfect mono conversion…its so subjective and down to personal taste does it even exist? Here is my quick 3 step process to having a go.
Before and after mono conversion
Desaturate? Channel Mixer? Greyscale?
Of course there are many different ways to do a mono conversion and none of them are right or wrong. Some of you may have better or faster ways but this is the way that seems to give me the most pleasing results in a reasonable amount of time, especially for portraits.
First things first, we start off with our base image. I always shoot in RAW as it gives you the best recovery options later if anything goes wrong at the time of shooting. I’ve chosen a grab shot of my friends daughter, which is nice enough although a little bright on the highlights and for me there was a little too much going on around her with all the different colours distracting your eye.
Original photo, resized for web
Step 1
My first step when converting to mono is to create both levels and brightness/contrast adjustment layers on the image by clicking the small black and white circle at the bottom of your layers palette in Photoshop, then selecting the two options one after the other.
Levels and contrast layer masks
Step 2
You now want to do the same as step one but this time open a Gradient Map adjustment layer. When you select this you will get the following box appear, click the gradient bar – handily highlighted here with a red X.
Gradient Map box 1
Clicking on this area will open the Gradient Editor box, you want to select the third box along, again very handily conveniently with a red X.
Gradient Editor box
Step 3
Your Layers Palette box will now look as per the image below. From here you simple click on the little black and white circle for each of the Levels and Brightness/Contrast layers and adjust the sliders to get the desired effect in the photo.
The 3 basic layers needed for this mono conversion
If you want more control
The above process is just the quick easy way to get some control over your mono conversions. You can get even more control by adding more layers and/or painting back parts of your adjustment layers…as seen below where I have adjusted the levels for the little girl and then painted back the background so that the levels only effect her.
Painting with the Layer Mask
And that’s it!
Once you get used to doing this method you can convert images very quickly. As you get used to this method you’ll start adding more layers and using layer masks more to really fine tune your conversions. I hope you find that of some use…I know when I first started doing mono conversions I couldn’t get to grips with how best to do it and this method slowly evolved from trying various different methods…I now find it very quick and easy to get pleasing mono images. With this image I wanted to have the little girl pop more from her background and knew the mono conversion would help muffle those distracting colours around her.
This week we're running a series of workflow tips by pro photographer Richard Peters. Check back each day for a new tip!
Another of my quick processing techniques, sharpening for web sized images. Whenever you re-size an image for the web you’ll find it looks a tad soft (if you think your images don’t, apply some sharpening and see how they suddenly seem to pop from the screen more than before), it’s easy to get back that nice crisp, clear look though. As usual there are many ways of doing it…I keep it nice and simple as this article below will show.
No sharpening and selective sharpening
Whilst the image above looks quite sharp to start with, I wanted the fine feather detail and head area to stand out just that little bit more, and this is how I did it. Remember, sharpening should always be the LAST step in your processing!
Step One: Duplicate your layer
You don’t need to duplicate your layer if you want to sharpen the whole image but if you want to selectively sharpen part of it, say the eyes in a portrait or in this case the bird but not the OOF background (sharpening this will potentially increase noise, especially with higher ISO shots), duplicating the layer is a must. To duplicate your layer, right click on it in the layers palette and select duplicate layer. If you wish to just sharpen the whole image, you can just see my sharpening method for web images in step two then skip straight to step five.
To make this tutorial easier to follow, I have renamed the two layers as soft and sharp.
The two layers we need
Step Two: USM filter
Making sure you have your SHARP layer selected go to Filter – Sharpen – Unsharp Mask and the following box will pop up.
USM box
The settings you use here can be adjusted to your taste and/or the specific image you use as not all photo’s will require the same settings. Personally I always use a RADIUS of either 0.2 or 0.3 for web and always leave the THRESHOLD at 0. Simply slide the AMOUNT adjustment left and right until you get the look you are after. If you make sure the preview box is ticked you can see how your settings will look. If you find your sliding all the way to the right and it’s not sharp enough, that’s when you need to up the radius to 0.3 and adjust the slider again, this time adjusting the AMOUNT slider will increase in strength faster.
*A quick tip here, as soon as you have applied your USM, go to edit – fade unsharp mask, a pop up box will appear, keep the opacity at %100 but change the Mode from normal to Luminosity in the drop down menu.
Step Three: Create a layer mask
Because we don’t want the whole image sharpened the next thing we need to do is create a layer mask on your sharpened layer. This is done by making sure your SHARP layer is selected then simply clicking the layer mask button in your layer window, marked with the Red 1 in the image below. This will in turn create your mask, marked with a Red 2.
Creating a layer mask
Step Four: Painting out the areas we DON’T want to be sharp
Because we now want to paint out the parts to the image we do not want to be sharpened, we need to select the paint brush tool and make sure our colour is black. A good tip I have is to make your SOFT layer invisible at this stage, you’ll see why in a minute. Click the little eye icon on your SOFT layer, marked with the Red 3, to make the eye disappear…your bottom layer is now invisible.
Hiding the soft layer
And here is the reason why I do this…now, select your brush tool with the colour set to black, make sure you are clicked on the layer mask for your SHARP layer, and begin to paint out the areas on the image you do not wish to be sharp…you’ll notice as you paint the image is disappearing. This is because the layer underneath is invisible. The reason for doing this is so you can see more clearly the areas you have masked off.
Masking off the coot
Now, don’t worry if you paint over an section that you wanted to remain sharp – simply change your brush colour to white, this will then allow you to paint back areas of the SHARP layer. So, black is REMOVING the sharp layer and white is BRINGING IT BACK. If you look at the layer mask in your layers palette you will see the area that you have been painting out (marked with the Red 4) but it’s quite small, again this is why I hide my soft layer, so that I can see more clearly where I have gone over with the brush on the main image.
Layer mask after masking
Step Five: Save!
That’s pretty much it, all you need to do now is click that little eye icon for your bottom layer to make it visible again, flatten the image and go save it!
No sharpening and selective sharpening
A couple more examples
Below are a couple more images to show the before and after effects. I usually tend not to go to over the top with sharpening so not to create any nasty artifacts around edges, sometimes I just add a touch to remove the slightly out of focus look and others I add quite a bit to really pop the image – it all depends on the photo as every one is different.
Heron before and after
The image below I have done twice, the first time with just the babies eyes sharpened…
No USM & just eyes sharpened
And finally, the second one to show no USM and the whole image sharpened…
If there is one thing I like, it’s to spend more time taking my photo’s than editing them. Of course some degree of processing IS part of the workflow that can’t be avoided…but…you can decrease your time sat in front of the PC by using a few keyboard shortcuts to speed up your Photoshop operation. And what better way to fully show these in operation than a video tutorial!
Less Is More
I try not to do too much editing to my images, with the thought process that if an image requires too much work to get it looking good, I should just go and shoot it again. However when using Photoshop, one of the things that I quickly learned was this…shortcuts make editing a much faster process. There are however MANY to be learned, so I thought I’d go back to basics with a video to show a few of the more commonly used ones as a beginners guide. They may be simple, but once learned, I guarantee they will speed up your editing.
Further down you can see a brief list of what is covered in the video for quick reference. However do check out the video to see examples of them in action, as well as a couple of extra tips that show examples of how you can really use them to your advantage.
In a nutshell
The video above talks about and demonstrates the following basic functions amongst other tips:
Bto select the paintbrush Sto select the clone stamp Cto select the crop tool
Change brush size with[ and ] Change brush hardnessSHIFT and [ or ]
Zoom in and out withCMD + and - (CTRL + and - on a PC)
TABto hide/show palettes Fto cycle through screen modes
SPACE BARto select hand tool
Also shown is the difference between Undo (Command Z) and Step Backward (ALT Command Z)
Give it a go
I can guarantee though basic, once you get used to using the shortcust Photoshop has to offer (of which there many many more than I have listed) your workflow process will speed up and you will get through your images faster. You may only save a second here and there every time you use a shortcut but if you are editing a lot images you’ll be surprised how quickly that saved time adds up.
Add your own
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, this video and article is just to show some of the more commonly used basic functions of Photoshop when editing an image. In future I’lI talk about more advanced tools and workflows but for now I want to keep it simple…so with that said, there are obviously quite a few extra tips and tricks out there, so, if you have any good ones that you use when doing basic editing why not share them below for other less experienced users to learn from.
