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Simulating False-Color Infrared Photography in Photoshop

15 Mar

The post Simulating False-Color Infrared Photography in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Adam Welch.

Simulating False-Color Infrared Photography in Photoshop Featured Image

Let’s get right down to it and say that today, things might get a little weird. The techniques we’re about to discuss aren’t for everyone or every photograph. With that said, I’m about to show you something extremely cool. You’re about to learn how to simulate color infrared photography in Photoshop.

More specifically, I’m going to show you how to approximate the looks of the legendary color infrared film stock, Kodak Aerochrome.

The best part is, this technique is infinitely customizable.

Let’s dive in and enter the overtly surreal world of infrared color photography in Photoshop.

What is false-color infrared photography?

Simply put, infrared photography makes use of wavelengths of light which fall outside the visible spectrum. Specifically, those which range from about 700 nanometers to about 1mm.

Don’t worry, that’s about as deep as we’re going to go into science with this tutorial.

The important thing to note is that while infrared photography stems from this invisible form of light, we can still use it to form photographs – even in color.

This is where the “false-color” aspect comes into play. In particular, the Aerochrome “look.”

The Aerochrome Effect

Kodak Aerochrome is/was an infrared-sensitive, false-color reversal film.

It was specifically produced for practical uses in aerial photography applications for forestry and camouflage detection, as well as other scenarios where specific infrared reflectance photographs could be useful.

For our purposes, it produces some highly interesting effects as far as colors are concerned.

A waterfall of Infrared photography in Photoshop

Primarily, vegetation with high amounts of chlorophyll content appears as pinkish-red instead of the normal green color. This has led some notable photographers and filmmakers to make use of Aerochrome to produce stylistically creative images.

Luckily for us, we can come close to producing this effect with just a few quick tricks inside of Adobe Photoshop.

What images work best?

Naturally, seeing as the original color effects of the false-color Aerochrome worked best with green vegetation containing large amounts of chlorophyll, this is the main subject matter that will work best for our simulation.

However, it’s still fun to experiment with different images ranging from landscapes to portraits, street photography and still life. The results can range from the mundane to the aesthetically startling.

That’s enough of the background. Let’s go through step-by-step and explain how you can produce a digital simulation of the false-color infrared photography effect right inside of Photoshop.

How to simulate false-color infrared photography

The basis of our digital, false-color infrared simulation, centers around switching around the color channels of our photo.

Photoshop allows us to accomplish this switch quite easily using color channels.

Not only that, but we can further tweak the look of our photo to achieve exactly the colorization effects we want. This arguably makes this method more convenient and controllable than its analog counterpart.

To get started, I’ve brought an image into Photoshop that contains a relatively large amount of greens.

Original photo before Infrared photography in Photoshop

The first step is to make a copy of the base layer. With this layer selected, use the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+J’ (Cmnd+J for Mac) to copy the layer.

Next, we’ll invert the layer we’ve just copied by using the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+I’ (Cmnd+I for Mac).

Inverted layer for Infrared photography in Photoshop

Note the readily apparent psychedelic change. We have essentially converted the photo to a negative image.

From here, we’ll change the blend mode to ‘Color’. Alternatively, the ‘Hue’ blend mode will produce similar results.

With the blend mode changed to ‘Color,’ much of the heavy lifting is already done for us. Next, we’ll need to switch around the color channels to make the false-color infrared effect become more apparent.

Remember, we’re looking for a reversal of certain colors; namely blue and red. This is easily done using the “Channel Mixer.”

Select the ‘Channel Mixer’ icon to add the mixer adjustment. This is where the magic happens. And it couldn’t be easier.

Channel mixer selected for Infrared photography in Photoshop

Select the red channel from the drop-down and set that slider value to ‘0.’ Next, set the blue slider to ‘100.’

Red channel swap for Infrared photography in Photoshop

From here, select the blue channel. Set the red slider to ‘100’ and blue slider to ‘0.’

Blue channel swap for Infrared photography in Photoshop

What we’ve done is ‘reversed’ the blue and red channels much the same way as false-color, infrared photography does with infrared color-reversal film.

At this point, our core processing is completed. However, there are other ways to make the effect much more refined depending on your photo.

Fine adjustments of your false-color infrared photography

While we have finished the bulk of the false-color infrared conversion, we can go a bit further and adjust the hues and color temperature of our photo. After all, this effect is not born simply from Aerochrome film but also the filters used during shooting and the subject matter itself.

Hue and Saturation

The greatest control over the effect comes from adjusting the hue and saturation of the false-colors we’ve just created. We can adjust these by creating a ‘Hue and Saturation’ adjustment layer.

Use the hue and saturation to dial in the exact look you like.

Color Temperature

When shooting with true infrared color-reversal film, such as Kodak Aerochrome, you must use lens filters.

Often times these are yellow and orange color filters which generally “cool” the tone of the colors within the image. We can simulate this by adding a “cooling” filter in Photoshop. This is optional, but I find it lends a much more authentic feel to the final photo.

Infrared photography in Photoshop with cooling filter applied

After adding the cooling filter, it’s a good practice to go back and adjust your hue and saturation layer to tweak the resulting balance of the individual colors a bit further.

Final mage after Infrared photography in Photoshop

Parting thoughts on false-color infrared photography

The advice that can be given when dipping your feet into simulating false-color infrared photography in Photoshop is to view true false-color infrared photos made with this type of film.

I suggest the images of Richard Mosse and his work in the Congo to give a great example of the effects of this sort of photography.

Of course, there are many other examples, and a quick Google search will help you immensely. As you move forward, here are a few tips that will aid your image selection and processing for your simulations:

The infrared effect is based on the reflectance of chlorophyll, so choose images that have healthy green vegetation for the best results.
When shooting, go for the brightest lighting conditions possible.
The bright, mid-day sun makes for the best lighting. After you make your base color swaps using the channel mixer, experiment with adjusting the hue and saturation of the individual colors within your photo.
Don’t forget the benefits of creating Photoshop Actions! You can save all the adjustments for easy one-click applications later.

Perhaps the best part of creating the false-color infrared effect is that it preserves the unique effects of this sort of analog film photography, which as of 2007, is no longer produced.

It’s a dying art that we can enjoy for years to come with our digital photography. Again, it’s not for everyone, but it is a great way for you to create stunningly-surreal color images that will stand out from anything else.

Also be sure to check out my very first experience using an infrared-converted DSLR here!

Try out this effect of simulating false-color infrared photography in Photoshop, and please share your resulting images with us in the comments section. We’d love to see them.

The post Simulating False-Color Infrared Photography in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Adam Welch.

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How to Use Photoshop and Capture One Pro Together

11 Mar

The post How to Use Photoshop and Capture One Pro Together appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

using-photoshop-and-capture-one-together

Capture One Pro is a RAW processor with incredible performance and functionality, but it doesn’t completely replace Photoshop.

In order to get the most out of your RAW file, you might want to do as much of your post-processing as possible in Capture One (COP). However, you’ll still need Photoshop for retouching.

COP offers fantastic color management and adjustment tools, but Photoshop allows you to work on the individual pixels in a file via cleaning techniques, cloning, and layers. Photoshop also allows you to create composites.

The process of using Photoshop and Capture One together has been automated since version 10, just like it is between Lightroom and Photoshop.

Instead of having to manually open an exported file into Photoshop and then reimport it back into the Catalog or Session, your file can quickly and easily make a “round-trip”, starting in Capture One.

How to Use Photoshop and Capture One Pro Together

How do Capture One Pro and Photoshop differ?

There is a lot of conversation around which program is better – Capture One or Photoshop? But there’s not much point in comparing the two programs in this way because they’re very different. They’re meant to do different things, as Lightroom and Photoshop are also meant to do different things.

Photoshop is the standard for image manipulation across various disciplines, such as graphic design, graphic art, and, of course, photography. It’s a powerful program for retouching, composting, creating website mockups, and adding effects to images.

On the other hand, Capture One is a RAW editor and asset management tool, such as Lightroom and Camera RAW. It is made by Phase One, manufacturers of medium format cameras.

Because Photoshop and Capture One have their strengths in different areas, you’ll get the most functionality out of using them together. Some photographers and retouchers prefer to focus on Photoshop alone, which is certainly a viable choice. However, there are benefits to using Capture One as an additional software program. It has powerful masking, layer, and color tools.

One of these benefits of using Capture One is the advanced tethering capabilities that the software offers.

If you’re a studio photographer, or otherwise find shooting tethered to a computer indispensable to your workflow, you’ll find Capture One outstanding in this regard.

It allows you to use Live View, artwork overlays, and also offers stability and lightning speed. Capture One technology uses direct access to the camera, which enables Live View and advanced controls. Other tethering programs copy files such as camera proprietary programs save the captures to an SD card and call it “tethered capture.” However, it’s actually a “file copy.”

The steps for using Capture One and Photoshop together

Your photo can make a “round trip” in Capture One and Photoshop.

You can open the image in Photoshop via Capture One, retouch it, and then send it back to Capture One. Lightroom and Photoshop work in tandem the same way.

With Capture One, you can finalize your image within the program and send it to an external editor, like Photoshop.

Capture One is an asset manager, so you’ll probably want to put it back alongside your original file in the Catalog or Session where it’s stored.

You can then refine it further, or create Variants (like Virtual Copies) in black & white, color grading, etc. if you choose.

To initiate the round-trip process, follow these steps:

1. Start with the Basic Tab:

Right-click on the image itself or on the thumbnail. This will initiate a dropdown menu. Choose >Edit With. This will bring up a Dialog Box.

Do not choose >Open With. This function is just for opening up the image in another program, while >Edit With will create a new file and place it next to the RAW file.

If you don’t see Photoshop as an option in the dropdown, just click on >Other and navigate to Photoshop in your applications and click on it.

In the Dialog box, choose >PSD and your desired bit depth – 8-bit or 16-bit.

Choose the desired color profile – sRGB for web use only, or Adobe RGB.

Choose 100% for Scale to the image is full-sized.

2. Under the Adjustment Tab:

Choose to ignore crop, if desired.

Add additional sharpening if you want to do so at this stage.

3. Under the Metadata tab:

Check off any metadata parameters you want included in the file.

Click on >Edit Variants. The image will open up in Photoshop.

“Edit Variants” refers to a single file, instead of batch processing.

Once your image is open in Photoshop, do your retouching as you normally would.

When you’re ready to take your image back into Capture One, close the file and hit >Save.

Note that Maximize Compatibility must be checked to work properly.

Now when you go back to Capture One, you’ll see your PSD file in the filmstrip.

From here, you can make new variants, which work similarly to Lightroom Virtual Copies. You can convert your image to black & white or make variations with different color grading, such as warmer or cooler shadows. This can be handy for showing a client some variations on your work to find out what they would prefer.

Conclusion

Users of Lightroom are often hesitant about making the switch to Capture One or other RAW processors outside of the Adobe suite because of the learning curve associated with a new piece of software. They also worry about having to alter a workflow they may have spent years refining.

If this describes you, never fear. As you can see, your images can make the round trip through Capture One and Photoshop just as seamlessly as they do using Lightroom.

And If this is one of the major reasons you’ve been holding off on a change, you may want to download the free 30-day trial to Capture One and test it for yourself. The best RAW processor is the one that is best for your needs.

Have you tried using Photoshop and Capture One together? What are your experiences and thoughts on it? Share them with us in the comments!

The post How to Use Photoshop and Capture One Pro Together appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

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How to Use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter for Better Photo Editing

09 Mar

The post How to Use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter for Better Photo Editing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

How to Use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter for Better Photo Editing Feature Image

Inside Photoshop, there are an awful lot of tools for you to use to get the very most out of your images. Some of these tools (while not simple) have very specific functions that you use for specific tasks (Unsharp Mask for example). The Photoshop Camera Raw Filter is different.

This filter opens up the use of the (almost) full functionality of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) anywhere in your Photoshop workflow. If you’ve ever used ACR (or Lightroom) to process a raw file, you know exactly how feature-packed this tool is.

Using the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — The Camera Raw Filter is a powerful tool that allows you access to the features of ACR anytime in your workflow.

In normal cases, you would use ACR to process your photos at the beginning of your workflow during raw processing, but the Camera Raw Filter opens up these tools to you anytime you may want them.

This article will outline how to use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter, show you some instances where you might want to use it, and give you some tips to get the most out of it.

What is the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter?

How to Use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter for Better Photo Editing — Lightroom is great for processing your raw files (so is ACR), but what if you could use these tools inside Photoshop?

At its most basic, the Photoshop Camera Raw filter allows you to use the functions of the ACR interface at any time within Photoshop. This allows you to make any adjustments within ACR at any time during your workflow instead of just limiting its usage to the raw processing stage.

While it would be possible to import your working file into Lightroom to make the same sets of adjustments, doing this in Photoshop saves you from that cumbersome step. It allows you the use of these tools without any extra effort.

Finding the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — You can find the Camera Raw Filter under the filter menu.

To find the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter, simply choose Filter->Camera Raw Filter and the dialog box will pop up.

Before you do this, you may want to stamp all layers by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+e (Cmd+Shift+Alt+e). This will combine all of your layers into a new layer from which you can work.

What it doesn’t allow

White Balance – Because you are not working from a raw file, you lose a lot of the functionality of the white balance setting in ACR. You will still be able to make drastic changes to the coloring of your images with this tool. It will be the same, for example, as adjusting a JPG in Lightroom.

Crop tool – You also lose the crop and rotate tools that you would have access to when working on RAW files.

There are others, but these are the most important to take note of.

Missing options in the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — In the various menus of the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter, you will find there are a few options missing that you would see in ACR.

It’s also important to realize that because you are not working with a raw file at this stage, you won’t have the same versatility that you would with a raw file in ACR.

Instead, the process will be more akin to working on a JPG file in Lightroom or ACR. This means you will have less information to work with, such as, dynamic range.

This is all fine and to be expected. However, it illustrates the importance of getting things as close to right as possible while in the raw stage of post-processing.

How can it be used?

With all of the power of ACR behind the Photoshop Camera Raw filter, there is no way to make anything resembling a complete list of what you could do with it. But here are a few potential uses that I find myself using often.

Fine-tune adjustments after raw
Make certain adjustments easier than in Photoshop
Make quick, extreme adjustments for certain parts of your image
Quick and easy vignetting
Final tweaks before finishing your image

1. Fine-tuning adjustments after raw

Fine tuning adjustments with the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — Once in Photoshop, and after a bit of healing work, I decided that I wanted to make the image a touch cooler and reduce the vibrancy as well. To not lose the healing work, I used the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter to make a quick adjustment.

If you’re like me, you mostly make decisions about adjustments on the spot. This is fine when you process your raw file and move it into Photoshop immediately. However, if you leave it for a day or two before you come to it, you might find that you no longer like the decisions you made.

Of course, you could always go back into Lightroom and start again, but what happens if you have already started making adjustments to your image?

Chances are, you don’t want to lose those. A quick and easy solution is to stamp the layers to a new layer and run the Camera Raw Filter. Once there, you can make any adjustments you might want and click Okay.

This works great if you want to make quick adjustments to things like the overall exposure, contrast or vibrancy in an image. I will often come back to a file after a few days to find that I want to reduce the highlights and whites before I get started properly.

2. Make trickier adjustments

Clarity slider with the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — I find the Clarity tool in ACR tricky to replicate in Photoshop. Here, I darkened the background and cranked up the clarity with the Camera Raw Filter. I also used a Layer Mask to keep the changes off of the subject.

Photoshop might be all-powerful on its own, but ACR (and Lightroom by extension) do make a few things easier. For example, the Clarity slider is a tricky tool to replicate in Photoshop. Using the Photoshop camera raw filter to make these adjustments is easier and can save you a lot of time.

Another example is the use of the Highlights, Whites, Darks, and Blacks sliders to make quick, intuitive global contrast adjustments. Using these tools in this way is useful if you’re not yet fully familiar or comfortable with options like curves adjustments.

3. Local adjustments

Radial filter in the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter. — Here, the shirt sleeve was still to bright for my taste, so I used the radial filter as a local adjustment to bring it down a bit

A common way I use the Photoshop camera raw filter is to make adjustments specific to a target area (such as a background).

After the adjustments are made, you can then use a layer mask to ensure that the adjustments are only affecting the areas that you want.

This method suits textured backdrops well because you can adjust the clarity and contrast to your heart’s content knowing that your subject won’t be affected once you make the layer mask.

4. Vignettes

The vignette tool in the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter — ACR’s vignette tool is easy, fast and intuitive and hard to beat in Photoshop unless you need absolute control.

There are tonnes of ways to create a vignette in Photoshop, but in my opinion, the vignette tool within the ACR is by far the easiest, fastest and most intuitive to use. By doing it this way, you can create a subtle (or extreme if you prefer) vignette in just a few seconds. It is also easy to mask out (as per the previous section) any part of the vignette that might be interfering with your subject.

5. Final tweaks

Another useful trick for the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter is to use it to make a set of final tweaks to your finished images.

Once you’ve completed your image, you can run the filter and see if there’s any further small adjustments you’d like to make. Tiny adjustments to exposure, contrast (via all the sliders) clarity and vibrance can all help to give your finished images just a little more polish.

At this point, your images should be good to go, so do try to keep any adjustments at this stage small and subtle.

Just the beginning

Finishing an image using the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter — With the exception of a bit of skin work (maybe five minutes) and some sharpening at the end, this image’s Photoshop workflow was completed otherwise entirely with the Camera Raw Filter. Hopefully you can see just how useful a tool it is.

With a tool like the Photoshop camera raw filter, there are so, so many options for you to use in your images.

If you can do it in ACR (with a few minor exceptions), you can do it with this filter inside Photoshop. Feel free to use it in any way that you need to that gets the results that you want.

Smart objects

Depending on your workflow and your style of post-processing, using the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter as a Smart Object might be a good choice for you.

Smart Objects allow you to come back to any adjustment you have made (with certain tools) and tweak them.

To work with Smart Objects, right-click the layer that you will run the Camera Raw Filter on and click Convert to Smart Object.

Now run the Camera Raw Filter and make any adjustments that you want to and press okay.

In the Layers Palette, and under the layer that you are working on, you will now see the name of the filter below the box titled Smart Filters. If you double click this, you will be taken back to the Camera Raw Filter dialog box where you can adjust any of the settings that you have tweaked.

This is a useful technique for any time you think you might second guess your decisions a bit later on.

Having said that, Smart Objects won’t suit every photographer’s workflow.

For example, I like to use a lot of stamped layers in my workflow and by the time I might see something I want to modify, I’ve already created and worked on a new stamped layer above it.

Any adjustments made to a Smart Object in this situation, would not be visible.

Overall

I will admit, that the way that the Camera Raw Filter was used in this example was extreme and bit over the top, but by using it in this manner, I hope you can see just how powerful an option it is for various adjustments in Photoshop.

The Photoshop camera raw filter is a very powerful tool that you can use while post processing your images for a great many different effects. Add to that the fact that anyone who shoots in raw format is already familiar with the interface, it makes using the filter quick and painless to make any number of adjustments. I have discussed only a few ways that you can use this filter in your images, but if you have any other suggestions on how you use it, please leave it in the comments below for other readers to benefit from.

The post How to Use the Photoshop Camera Raw Filter for Better Photo Editing appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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Why Your Photoshop Keeps Crashing and How to Fix it

05 Mar

Photoshop can do amazing things with images. It can also make you want to pull your hair out in frustration. Photoshop constantly crashing while you work is one such frustrating problem. Why does it crash? What can you do to fix it? Your computer may not have enough memory, or it may not have enough space to run Photoshop, causing Continue Reading

The post Why Your Photoshop Keeps Crashing and How to Fix it appeared first on Photodoto.

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Video: Photographer Sean Tucker on recoloring images using Photoshop

22 Feb

Photographer and filmmaker Sean Tucker has published a new video teaching viewers how to accurately recolor their images using Gradient Maps in Adobe Photoshop. The process involves selecting the objects to be recolored using the Pen Tool, then using the Gradient Maps to choose the target colors and transform the selections.

The new tutorial, which is approximately 20 minutes long, joins Tucker’s other videos, which include everything from discussions on ‘law and ethics in street photography’ to tutorials related to street photography, editing portraits in Photoshop, color grading footage and more.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop

21 Feb

The post DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

As a kid, I remember coffee-staining scrap paper to create ancient maps that marked out treasure in the backyard. Nowadays, I’ve discovered that the same process can be great for photography projects too. With help from Photoshop, experimenting with textural layers is a great way to introduce an aged look to your images. But sometimes it can be hard to get a hold of quality textures on the internet. That’s where a bit of DIY comes in. By making your own coffee-stained texture, you can create seemingly aged canvases, which can then be applied to your images.

coffee granules

What you’ll need:

1/4 cup of instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon
a damp cloth, sponge or paper towel
a few pieces of white paper (I use plain old sheets of A4 copy paper. While copy paper does pucker when water is introduced to it, I think it adds to the overall aged effect. Plus, it’s less expensive than good art paper!)

How to coffee-stain paper

First, lay out your sheets of paper on a wipeable surface. I prefer to work on the kitchen bench.
Sprinkle some instant coffee on your sheets of paper – about a teaspoon per sheet.
With a damp cloth, sponge or paper towel, begin to press the instant coffee granules into the paper. As the coffee moistens, you can start to spread the granules around the paper with broader strokes. The more varied the strokes, the rougher the effect will be.
You can add more coffee and a little water if you need it. The more coffee you add, the darker the coffee-stained paper will turn out. You can even leave some partially-dissolved coffee granules on the page.
Once you coat the paper, place the sheets somewhere safe and leave them to dry for a few hours.
Sometimes the drying process can lighten the stained effect somewhat. If this happens, add more coffee and water to darken the paper further.

Here’s my result:

coffee stained texture paper

How to apply coffee-stained textures in Photoshop

Once your coffee-stained paper is dry, scan or photograph the page/s and save the files somewhere handy on your computer.

Next, open an image in Photoshop. This will be the image we’ll apply the coffee-stained texture to. I went with the image below:

1/100 of a second f/4.5 ISO 100

With your chosen image open, add a Black & White Adjustment Layer by clicking the Black & White icon in the Adjustments panel (the names of the icons appear when you rest your mouse on them).

If you can’t see the Adjustments panel, select Window from the top toolbar and then click on Adjustments. The Black & White Adjustment Layer will non-destructively convert your image to black and white.

black and white

black and white adjustments

Toggle the Black & White Adjustment Layer settings until you are satisfied with your image.

Next, with the Black & White Adjustment Layer selected in the Layers panel, click File from the top toolbar. Then select Place… and locate and select the coffee-stained image file.

The coffee-stained texture layer will be imported over your original image.

placing coffee-stained texture

If needed, adjust the dimensions of the coffee-stained image by dragging its corners to completely cover the entirety of the canvas.

With the coffee-stained texture selected in the Layers panel, click on the Blending Modes drop-down menu located within the layers panel. Set the Blending Mode to either Overlay or Soft Light. Overlay is a bit harsher in contrast than Soft Light, so test out both options before settling on one.

blending modes panel

coffee stained texture overlay blending mode

Next, select the coffee-stained texture layer and click on the Curves icon in the Adjustment Layers panel. Adjust the Curves settings until you are happy with the overall contrast of your image.

coffee-stained texture curves adjustment

At this point, you can refine the Black & White Adjustment Layer further or even add additional coffee-stained layers to increase the intensity of the aged effect.

This is my finished result…

coffee-textures overlay final result

Here are two more images I’ve attempted to age a little with the same method…

coffee-stained textures travel landscape

coffee-stained texture aircraft stearman

What do you think? Up for a cuppa? If you’ve given the coffee-stained texture method a try, be sure to share your results in the comments!

The post DIY: How to Create a Coffee-Stained Texture for Aging Images in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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Adobe releases substantial update to the desktop and mobile versions of Photoshop for its 30th birthday

20 Feb

Today, on the 30th anniversary of Adobe Photoshop launching, Adobe has released an update for its desktop and iPad app, bringing substantial improvements to a few key features, as noted in its announcement blog post.

Adobe Photoshop CC 2020 (Desktop)

Adobe kicked off the updates with an impressive improvement to its desktop iteration of Photoshop with an improved Content-Aware Fill workspace, updates to the Lens Blur tool, a slightly updated UI and a number of bug fixes. We’ll take a look at the details of the updates in the sections below.

Content-Aware Fill

Previously, if you needed to make multiple Content-Aware Fill edits, Photoshop required you to make the edits one at a time. Now, with this new update, you can make multiple selections and apply multiple fills within the Content-Aware Fill workspace without needing to exit every time. This not only reduces the number of clicks, it also allows you to preview edits in real-time when more complicated scenes require multiple edits at once.

Lens Blur

Another major improvement in this update is to the Lens Blur tool, which now relies on the GPU of your computer, rather than the CPU. As seen in the comparison images below, offloading the processing of the Lens Blur tool to the GPU dramatically improves the realism of the edit through more refined edges, more accurate bokeh (thanks to specular highlights) and an overall sharper image that looks more pleasing than edits process with the CPU.


Lens Blur tool processed using CPU	Lens Blur tool processed using GPU

‘The results are created by an algorithm the [Photoshop engineering] team built by studying first the principles of physics and how light interacts with objects in the real world,’ says Photoshop Project Manager Pam Clark in the announcement post. ‘It is carefully tuned to simulate a 3D environment to create the most realistic results possible, while also consuming the least amount of computing power so you don’t burn up your machine.’

UI and Performance

Adobe has also added support for the new dark mode in macOS Catalina, with all of the new system dialogs matching the light/dark mode settings you have turned on at the system level.

Other improvements throughout Photoshop CC 2020 include improved mouse control, with better responsiveness when panning and zooming across an image, particularly with larger documents.

Photoshop for iPad

Moving onto the more mobile version of Photoshop, Adobe has brought its Object Selection tool and improved Text settings to Photoshop for iPad. Above is a quick promo video shared by Adobe alongside the update.

Object Selection

The Object Selection tool, which was first released for the desktop version of Photoshop, makes it easier to select multiple objects within an image to isolate them. Unlike the Select Subject tool, which is meant for images where there is a single, large subject, Object Selection is refined for more precise edits where multiple, smaller objects need to be isolated.

Type settings

Adobe has also updated the Type settings within Photoshop for iPad, bringing a number of controls over from the desktop version. Specifically, Adobe has added type layer, character and options properties within the Type settings. ‘This includes tracking, leading, scaling, and formatting things like all/small caps, super/subscript,’ reads the announcement. Adobe says Kerning will ship in a future update.

The updated versions of Photoshop should be live for Creative Cloud subscribers. If you’re not seeing the updates, try restarting your device and checking for updates again within the Creative Cloud app or iOS App Store.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know

16 Feb

The post Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

When it comes to retouching skin in Photoshop, there are a lot of tools and techniques available to you. Some of these are fairly easy and self-explanatory, like the Healing Brush. Others, like frequency separation, are complicated multi-step processes. They involve such obscure features of Photoshop that you would never be able to figure it out on your own. Many of the skin retouching techniques are useful and work well when used together with one another.

This article will provide you a set of tips to get the most out of some of the most common and most useful (read: my opinion) of these techniques. It assumes you have a basic understanding of how to use them. If you don’t, there are a myriad of good quality tutorials available.

Tips for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Tutorials

Here’s a short list of tutorials for all of the techniques listed in this article:

Healing Brush
Patch Tool
Clone Stamp
Frequency Separation
Dodging and Burning

Healing Brush

The Healing Brush is probably going to be the first thing you reach for when you are retouching skin in Photoshop. It’s a somewhat intuitive tool, that doesn’t take that long to figure out and it is very effective at what it does.

To get the very best results from using the healing brush:

1. Work on a new layer

When working with the healing brush, be sure to work on a new blank layer. That way, you can be sure that you are not altering your original image. This also allows you to make changes later.

To do this, press the New Layer button on the Layers palette or press Ctrl+Shift+n (Cmd+Shift+n Mac). With the new layer set up, be sure that the drop-down box for the Healing Brush labeled “sample” is set to Current and Below.

Using the healing brush for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Working on a blank layer will ensure you can undo any changes you make should you decide to later.

2. Use as small of a brush as possible

You can quickly change your brush size with the bracket keys ( { and } ). Try to keep the brush just big enough to cover only the blemish that you are trying to remove.

Image: For the best results, use a brush size that is just bigger than the blemish you are trying to...

For the best results, use a brush size that is just bigger than the blemish you are trying to remove. This ensures that you don’t make too many alterations to the natural pattern of the skin.

3. Sample often

Don’t make a sample selection just once – do it often. Do it between every blemish if you can. This may seem like a lot of effort, but with practice, it’s really not. Your images will be better for it too.

4. Zoom in

To make sure that you are only trying to heal blemishes, and not the area of skin around them, zoom in as far as you need to.

I understand some photographer’s reticence to zoom in to 400% to 500% for the sake of retouching, but doing so will make sure that you only affect the areas of your subject’s skin that need it.

This tip (and the next one) doesn’t just apply to the Healing Brush. Do this with every skin retouching technique listed here.

Image: Zooming in allows you to be more precise with your adjustments and leads to more natural-look...

Zooming in allows you to be more precise with your adjustments and leads to more natural-looking results.

5. Zoom back out

When you are very zoomed in on your subject, you can get lost in all of the details that you can now see. Make it a point to zoom back out frequently so you can make sure that the changes you are making are actually affecting what you can see on the image at 100%. This can save you hours.

6. Don’t paint

Instead of painting with the Healing Brush, just press once (or click with a mouse) over the blemish you are trying to remove. This will limit the alterations to the surrounding skin.

Using the healing brush for skin retouching in Photoshop.

Painting with the healing brush leads to weird artifacts. To avoid these, simply click on the blemish you want to remove and nothing more.

Patch tool

The patch tool is a powerful utility that allows you to select an area that you want to retouch with a lasso and then drag that over to a sample area that you want to use to fill that first area in. It’s fairly easy to use, but it can be tricky at first.

1. Work on a new layer

You can use a copy of your background layer.

If you’ve already created and worked on a few layers at this stage, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E (Cmd+Alt+Shift+E – Mac) to create a new layer with all of those adjustments merged into it.

This will allow you to reduce the opacity of what you’ve done with the patch tool in case you go too far. It will also make it easy to delete the layer and start from scratch if need be.

Image: The patch tool can’t be used with an empty layer. Instead, duplicate your background la...

The patch tool can’t be used with an empty layer. Instead, duplicate your background layer and work on the copy. If you’re later on in your workflow, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+e (Cmd+Alt+Shift+e) to stamp all existing layers into a new one above the rest.

2. Avoid the content-aware fill

In terms of skin, the Content-Aware Patch Tool never seems to perform very well. Instead, leave the mode set to normal and use the Patch Tool that way. For things like backgrounds, by all means, use content-aware; just avoid it for skin retouching.

Image: Content-aware fill, as it works with the Patch Tool, is great for many things, but skin is no...

Content-aware fill, as it works with the Patch Tool, is great for many things, but skin is not one of them. Although this was sampled from a very similar part of his face, content-aware has made a mess of it.

3. Patch small areas

It’s tempting to just select a large area of skin and try to work that way. However, this will only serve to create a bunch of artifacts on your subject’s skin. Keeping your selections small allows you more control over the end result and will result in fewer problems down the line.

4. Use similar tonal areas

When possible, use a sample area that’s similar in tone to your selection area. This will reduce the chances of creating problematic artifacts and blur.

Using the patch tool for skin retouching in Photoshop.

Here, you can see the various areas of similar tonality circled in red. When using the Patch Tool, try to sample from similar areas of tonality.

5. Reduce opacity

Once you’ve done the work that you want to with the patch tool, feel free to reduce the opacity of the layer that you are working on. This can help to hide a heavy handed approach and help to give more natural looking results. This tip applies to pretty much every other skin retouching technique as well.

Clone stamp

When you are retouching skin in Photoshop, the clone stamp tool will probably be one of your least used tools. It’s tricky to use and it’s often easier and faster to get similar results with other techniques. The one notable exception is when you are using frequency separation (covered below).

1. Use a soft brush

This may be a preference, but the Clone Stamp is a heavy-handed tool that makes drastic changes with a single click. By using a soft-edged brush, you will reduce the impact of the area of skin around the blemish you are removing.

To get to your brush menu, just right-click.

Image: This may be preference, but for the most part, you will want to use the softest brush possibl...

This may be preference, but for the most part, you will want to use the softest brush possible when using the Clone Stamp. The Clone Stamp is a very aggressive tool that can affect skin patterns in an undesirable way if used without care.

2. Do not paint

As with the Healing Brush, do your best not to paint an area of skin with the Clone Stamp. Try to keep the affected area limited to an individual blemish, pore or other marks.

Using the clone stamp for retouching skin in Photoshop.

Even though the sampled area was identical in tone, you can see the results of painting with the clone stamp tool in one large stroke.

3. Use sparingly

Again this may be personal preference talking, but try to resort to the Clone Stamp when it’s the only tool left for the job, at least in terms of skin retouching. The problems this tool can create with odd aberrations in skin texture patterns are hardly worth the risk.

Frequency Separation

Frequency Separation is one of those techniques that appears as overcomplicated sorcery at first glance. Once you’ve learned the fundamentals of the technique and how to set it up, it’s actually quite easy. It’s also a very powerful technique that can transform your skin retouching workflow. It is; however, very easy to go overboard with this technique and a heavy hand will result in less than ideal results. Once you’ve got the implementation and the basics of frequency separation down, there are a few tips to help you get the best results.

1. Gaussian Blur settings

When setting up your frequency separation layers, keep the Gaussian Blur settings to the lowest possible number while it is still obscuring all of the detail in your subject’s skin.

“4” is a good number to start with, but it might vary depending on the resolution you’re working with and how much of the frame your subject’s face fills.

Image: When setting up your Low-Frequency layer, use just enough blur to remove all of the skin text...

When setting up your Low-Frequency layer, use just enough blur to remove all of the skin texture in that layer. Here, Gaussian Blur was set to 2.

2. Blur

When applying Gaussian Blur to your Low-Frequency layer, keep the amount of blur to either equal or less than the amount that you used when setting up the layer in the first place.

3. Blur – Tones

Only blur areas of skin that are a similar tone. Blurring midtones and highlights (or shadows and midtones, or any other combination) can result in muddied tones that often don’t look good. Keep your selections to areas of similar tonality to avoid these muddied tones.

Using frequency separation for skin retouching in Photoshop.

When applying blur to sections of your Low-Frequency layer, try to make your selections in areas of similar tones. This will still help to smooth the tonal transitions without muddying them.

4. Zoom in

Ensure that you are zooming in to at least 100% on your images to watch for any hard edges that may appear while applying blur.

This can happen as you get close to hard edges within your frames, such as lips and eyes. If they do start appearing, you can reduce the amount of blur you are using, or you can make a new selection farther away from the areas causing you trouble.

5. Clone Stamp

For the High-Frequency layer, you just need to be careful with how you use the Clone Stamp. As above, the Clone Stamp is best used on very small areas with a single click. Sample often and don’t paint with it and you should be fine.

Dodging and Burning

Probably the most powerful and versatile of the techniques listed in this article, Dodging and Burning might as well be considered an essential tool for anyone that expects to be doing a lot of skin retouching. There are a lot of ways to do dodging and burning, but for the sake of these tips, I am going to refer to the method that involves using a 50% gray layer set to Overlay that you then paint on with the brush tool with white to lighten the tones and with black to darken them.

1. Keep the brush flow at 1%

Like all skin retouching techniques, subtlety is the key, and with the brushes flow at 1%, you can slowly build up any alterations that you are making.

Dodging and burning for skin retouching in Photoshop.

When dodging and burning on a grey layer, set the flow of your brush to 1%. This will allow you to build strokes slowly for more natural results.

Using dodging and burning for skin retouching in Photoshop

Circled at the top: The flow for the brush was set to 10%. Circled at the bottom: The flow here was 1% You can see the drastic difference just 9% makes on the flow settings.

2. Try to avoid broad strokes

Instead of trying to alter large aspects of your image at one time (for example, lightening an entire forehead in one go), zoom in on the area you want to work on and work on areas of a similar tone. By working with smaller areas, you will get more natural results.

3. Use multiple layers

If you are using broad strokes and working on finer detail with dodging and burning in the same image, do both of these on separate layers. Dedicate one to each layer.

With the large brush strokes, you will likely be more concentrated on overall contrast. You will often want to use a Gaussian blur on your brush strokes to even them out too.

This is not the case with fine detail where your brushstrokes should only deal with tiny, precise areas.

For very fine control over your image, use a different layer for dodging and burning all of the sections of your image. This will allow you to alter, or get rid of any changes you might change your mind about later on without undoing all of your work elsewhere.

4. Use a small brush

Skin has a lot of fine detail in which the light in your scene passes over and creates contrast. It’s this contrast on the skin that creates the appearance of blemishes in your photos.

Because these blemishes are often small, you want to try and use a brush that is at least as small as the area you are working to lighten and darken with dodging and burning. This will ensure that you are lowering the contrast – therefore lowering the visibility of the blemishes – rather than adding it where you don’t want to.

5. Use Ctrl+z (Cmd+z) often

When you’re using a technique like dodging and burning for retouching skin in Photoshop, you are using a lot of little adjustments, maybe even thousands of them, to build up to a finished result. You will get some of these wrong. Don’t be afraid to undo anything you’ve done if it isn’t right.

6. Reduce the Layer Opacity

Once you’ve done any adjustments that you are going to make with dodging and burning, try reducing the opacity of the layer(s) to see if you can get a better result with less of an effect.

With a time-consuming technique like this, it is easy to get lost in it and go overboard. Sometimes reducing the effect at the end is just what is needed for a more natural result.

When you’re finished with your dodging and burning, you can always turn the opacity of the layer down to see if you might have gone too far. It’s a good idea to always at least look, even if you don’t decide to lower the opacity in the end.

7. Zoom way in

Unless your image will never be printed and only viewed in a small resolution, zoom as far into your images as you dare while retouching skin in Photoshop (this applies to all of the techniques here) to achieve the absolute best results.

Sometimes, you will find that you need to be zoomed in at 300-500% to see all of the detail that you need to work with. Sure, working this way takes a lot longer and is intimidating to think about, but putting that amount of effort in will help you to achieve better results.

The end

There are, of course, many other techniques available for retouching skin in Photoshop, but these are the ones that I use the most often.

If you’re new to these techniques, you now (hopefully) have a few tips to help you figure out how to make the very most out of them.

Of course, with techniques like these, there are always more ways to do things. If you have any tips of your own on retouching skin in Photoshop, please feel free to share them below.

The post Tips for Retouching Skin in Photoshop That You Need to Know appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it

16 Feb

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

You’ve likely faced that frustrating moment when you can’t get kids or families to smile for a portrait. Maybe it’s even worse and you make people grumpier when you try to take their picture. If you look through your photos and wish there were more smiles, the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool can help with that.

You can retouch facial expressions and not have to be intimidated by the process anymore. Photoshop Elements 2020 (a simplified version of Photoshop) allows you to put a smile on faces using a simple slider tool.

Let’s look at how this tool works and the best situations to use it.

Photoshop Elements claims that the Smile Tool can turn a frown upside down. Let’s see if it really works that well.

What is the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool?

Photoshop Elements is a simplified version of Photoshop. Adobe has introduced many automations that make Photoshop’s essential tools easier to use. Photoshop Elements gives you the power of Photoshop without the overwhelming number of complicated features found in the full Photoshop program.

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool allows you to easily put a smile on your subjects face using a slider rather than the usual complicated tools.

So, if you’ve made a mess of faces with the liquify tool, this will give you better results!

Before and after editing portrait facial features

It took less than 10 seconds to enhance his smile.

Who is the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool for?

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool is for you if you want the power of Photoshop to retouch smiles without the learning curve of Photoshop’s many tools.

If you’re hoping that you won’t have to make people smile anymore because you can “just fix it in post,” this tool isn’t for you.

Think of this tool as an insurance policy. If you fail to make your subject smile for real, there is hope that this tool can help. But you should try your best to get a good smile in the first place.

How does the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool work?

This tool is very simple to use.

Open your photo in Photoshop Elements 2020.
Go to the Enhance dropdown menu.
Then go to Adjust Facial Features.

Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool

Photoshop Elements will auto-detect your subject’s face.

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool is now available as a slider on the right-hand panel.

You’re ready to adjust the overall smile and even make fine detail improvements to the lips, eyes, nose, and face shape.

But before you get too excited, you should keep your adjustments as small and subtle as possible. You can too easily distort a face.

photoshop elements smile tool auto detect

The tool has no problem detecting a face that takes up a significant portion of the frame. But it does have trouble detecting small faces, especially in a group photo.

How well does the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool work?

Adobe claims that you can transform frowns into smiles. Will it really work that well for you?

Let me give you a spoiler. No, the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool won’t transform a frown into a smile. At least I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

I brought up the corners of his lips, which produced only a hint of positivity in his mouth. His eyes have also been enlarged. But how do you remove the furrowed brow? You can’t. It’s too late to fix this smile in post-production. The right moment to fix this smile was the moment the photo was being taken.

Again, even after extensive use of the tool, there is very little difference between these two photos. It takes more than upturning the mouth to make a frowny face look happy.

What if you start with a neutral face?

You can not fix a frown with the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool. But when you begin with neutral emotion the results are more impressive.

The first photo looks more serious, while the second has a small smile. Moving the slider too far seemed to produce a very fake-looking smile.

Before and after editing a head and shoulders portrait

Again, the tool works well when beginning with neutral emotion and adding a subtle smile.

Sometimes it won’t detect a face

While experimenting with different photos, I discovered that Photoshop Elements will often fail to detect all the faces in group photos. But I found that when I cropped in closer and the faces became more prominent, they could then be detected.

I had to rotate a newborn photo so that Photoshop Elements would detect the face.

Perhaps the program can only detect a face when a person is sitting upright.

Rotating the photo allowed the program to detect the face.

But upturning the lips and enlarging the eyes only produced an awkward expression.

Begin with a photo that has potential

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool will not turn a frown or awkward expression into a smile. You need to begin with a neutral expression or a small smile if you want the tool to works it’s best.

The human face is too complex and meaningful to transform a deep expression with a simple slider. When it comes to scowls and frowns, the entire face is involved.

Perhaps someday the tool will be able to detect the unique contours and subtleties of the emotions written on our face. But for now, you’ll need to use other magical powers to manipulate the human face.

Yes, you can manipulate the human face without needing Photoshop or any other post-processing software.

How to make people smile for real

Your goal is a portrait of smiling people. You need a plan in order to make that happen.

For most photographers, the plan is to just tell their subject to smile. That’s an okay place to start, but that doesn’t always work.

You may have to confront the fact that you don’t always know how to make people smile or bring out the best in them. Perhaps you even upset people when you’re trying to make them smile.

Here are three ways to help people smile for their photo without simply commanding them (or using Photoshop later on):

Energy
Comedy
Praise

The amount of positive energy that you bring to the session will be reflected back at you. Negative energy will always come back worse, positive energy will always come back better. Do not bring harsh tones and negative energy to your photo sessions.

Comedy makes people laugh. Notice that comedians don’t tell people to laugh, they just say funny things and (most) people laugh spontaneously. Be funny for the people you’re photographing and they will smile.

People normally have a nice smile in real life but a fake smile for the camera. They need to be praised and told whenever they are showing a good natural smile. That way they know how it feels when they have a natural smile and can produce it for the camera. Also, praise will make them smile even more. Eventually, they’ll smile just because you tell them they have a nice smile.

I’ve learned all this the hard way. As a family photographer, I could make other people’s kids smile but not my own. I made my kids miserable by becoming a dictator when I wanted a photo. Very few people smile when being bossed around by a dictator.

I realized they will smile naturally if I stop barking orders and turn the photo session into a comedy routine. I got far better results as an engaging person.

Dealing with grumpy kids during photo sessions

The result of commanding them to smile.

The result of being a comedian.

Use it sparingly

The Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool will help put a smile on your subject’s face, but it won’t help you to become a better photographer or the sort of person that makes others happy.

This tool is not for you if you consistently miss smiles and hope to fix them in post-production. I think the solution for all of us is to learn to engage other people and bring out the best in them.

Be thankful for the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool, but plan to use it in case of emergency. You’ll feel really good letting people know that you don’t have to “Photoshop” the smiles in your photos.

Have you used the Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool? What are your thoughts? Share them with us in the comments.

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Smile Tool – What it is and How to Use it appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Mat Coker.

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How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types

10 Feb

The post How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

Your portfolio is your presentation card. It should always be current with your latest works, coherent with your style and accessible to your clients. Perhaps there’s one on your website, another one printed, and one for pitch presentations. All of them need to be up to date. So, how do you keep up with that? Create a portfolio template that is easy to update that you can scale to different formats.

Keep reading to learn how to create a portfolio template in Photoshop.

Create a Portfolio template examples

While Photoshop is a fantastic photo editing software, it does have some tools that are useful for graphics work too. This will relieve you of the task of having to learn another program like Illustrator. One of the best things for creating a portfolio template is profiting from the characteristics that each type of layer can offer. You can use Vector Layers for your design and logos, Text Layers for all the information, and Smart Objects for your images.

Let’s go through it step by step.

The fundamentals

First of all, what is a Layer?

When you open a new project, whether this is a blank canvas or a photograph, it opens as an image layer by default. This is the base that you build upon. You can then add as many layers as you need.

Imagine that the Layers are paper sheets that you can stack. Each one will then modify, add or block the content of the ones below. The properties of each layer depend on the type of layer it is.

Photoshop Layers in Perspective

Layers are one of the most versatile and useful tools in Photoshop.

There are many types of layers, some are stand-alone layers like images or vectors. Others work only in combination, as Adjustment Layers.

The important thing to understand is that each one has different characteristics that can be used to simplify your life. Here I’ll discuss the ones I find most useful to create a portfolio template.

The template

Designing your template

The first thing you’ll need is to draw the design of the template. Here, you can decide the elements and colors you want to use. Because this is a template, it should be able to fit most images and situations. So, you might want to keep it simple, but this is up to you.

In any case, every element that you design is best drawn with the Shape tool. Doing this creates a vector layer by default. To make sure of this, check that the menu in the options bar is set to Shape.

Create a Portfolio Template with Shapes

This is important because, unlike images, vectors are independent of resolution. This gives you the advantage of modifying the elements without losing quality, as you would do with pixels. This is why most graphic programs, like Illustrator, work with vectors. Shapes and vector layers are also great for creating your logo.

Adding a logo

If your logo consists of many shapes, select all of them and turn them into a Smart Object by right-clicking on top and then choosing Convert to Smart Object from the menu.

This is a different type of layer, not only can you scale it as many times as you want – just like the vectors – but you also retain the source data so that you can work non-destructively.

Because of this, every time you open your Smart Object, you’ll still find all the original shape layers to work on them independently.

Create a portfolio template with smart objects

Another cool feature from smart objects is the possibility to link one or more copies.

This means that every time you modify your logo, it will automatically apply the changes to all the copies. This is useful if your design includes more than one logo. To do this, create a copy of the layer by dragging it to the Duplicate Layer button at the bottom of the panel.

Create a logo with smart objects

If you want to keep your copies working independently from each other, you can create a copy of the smart object that it’s not linked. Do this by using New Smart Object via Copy. You can find it in the menu that pops up when you right-click on the layer.

Create a portfolio template with logo

Adding text

This is as straightforward as it sounds. When you use the Text tool, it creates a Text Layer. Keep in mind that because it’s a different kind of layer, not all the tools are available for use. For example, you can’t use the filters.

If you want to use them, you will get a prompt asking you to “rasterize the layer.” This will turn it into an image (a pixel layer). You shouldn’t do this if you want to be able to edit the text in the future. If you do want to rasterize your layer, make a copy of it first and turn off the original by clicking on the “eye” next to the layer in the Layers panel.

Create a Portfolio Template Rasterize Layers

Another useful tip when designing your template is to confine the space for your text, so it doesn’t ruin your design if you change or add content later.

Instead of just clicking and typing, click and drag a rectangle text box where you want the text to be. That way, whatever you type adjusts to that space. I usually put one next to the image to add all the information like title, technique, and project. Then I can update it for every image.

Create a portfolio template

Adding images

The photos are the stars of your project, so you want to make sure to work non-destructively on them. The best choice for this is the Smart Object.

To add your photo as a Smart Object layer, you have to go to Menu->File->Place. Because in my design, I added a rectangle to serve as a frame for my images, I can now add a Layer Mask to fit it inside without losing any information.

create a portfolio template for your photography

You can do this by placing the smart object directly on top of the rectangle shape designed at the beginning. Now create a Clipping Mask by pressing Cmd+Alt+g (Ctrl+Alt+g on PC). The Mask will reveal the image through the frame without cutting it or changing any of it.

Create a portfolio template

To update the images, you can open the Smart Object and place the new one there so that you don’t change the Layers or Masks of the template.

Save and close

Because you used Vectors, Texts, and Smart Objects, you can change the resolution from web to printing as many times as you want while keeping the quality of it. Just be sure to save each page of the portfolio separately, so you don’t overwrite your template.

Conclusion

I hope that you have found How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types useful for creating your own portfolio templates.

Remember, save each template as a PSD file so that you can go back and utilize them again when you want to update your photos or text. Saving as a PSD file retains all of your layers so that you can access them and change them easily. If you save it as a JPG or another lossy format that flattens the layers, you will no longer have the ability to edit them.

If you have any other tips for creating a portfolio template, please share them with us in the comments below.

The post How to Create a Portfolio Template in Photoshop and Profit from Layer Types appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Ana Mireles.

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