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How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture

14 Oct

The post How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Layering images experimentally in photoshop can be an exciting way to bring a fine art feel to your photography. It is spontaneous and unpredictable, with different outcomes each time.

The layering technique I talk about in this article is a way you can explore and get inspired by the work of Victorian art photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron. They would have used long exposures because of the limitation of their cameras, which added a dream-like quality to their images.

Instead of long exposures, I have used multiple images shot of the same subject, layering them and using Photoshop blending modes. It gives a different kind of ethereal feeling to the images which you can use on any subject, not just portraits.

Start with a portrait

Your portrait doesn’t have to be sophisticated, but it should be able to be repeated over a dozen shots or so. I opted for simple natural window light, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use flash instead.

photoshop-blending-modes-for-fine-art-portraiture

The image I found worked best was one with strong colors and features with a simple background. I opted to take inspiration from Julia Margaret Cameron’s photography by using simple historical clothes, and an instantly recognizable prop.

You want to try to end up with a dozen or so slightly different images of your subject. Take far more images than you need so that you have lots of choices when it comes to selecting images for your layering effect.

Between each shot, ask your subject to move just a small amount – perhaps their head or their hands, but just a fraction. Try to avoid any dramatic pose changes.

Layering the images in Photoshop

When it comes to selecting images and editing them, there are many different software packages and options. I’m going to talk about how I use Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to achieve this effect. Even within these two software packages, there are other ways you can accomplish the same effect. As long as you end up with a photograph that you love, then you haven’t done anything wrong!

I start by importing my images into Lightroom Classic and then selecting the ten or so images that will make up the layers of my final image. At this point, I try to choose a ‘base’ image that will be at the bottom of the layer stack in Photoshop and will show through the strongest. Generally, this is my favorite image out of the set.

How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture

When you’ve got your images selected in Lightroom Classic in the Develop module, open the ‘Photo’ menu and select ‘Open as Layers in Photoshop.’

This will save you having to manually stack all of the images together. You’ll end up with a single file open in Photoshop with all of your selected images placed on layers.

How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture

The next stage is to place your ‘hero’ image (the one that you want to show through the most) at the bottom of the layer stack by dragging and dropping it. Then select all the layers above and reduce their opacity.

Playing with Photoshop Blending Modes

This is when it starts to get interesting. Playing with the different photoshop blending modes for the layers will give you all kinds of different results. Dark images will suit different blending modes to lighter images. You can check out a comprehensive guide to photoshop blending modes here!

You’ll want to turn down the opacity of the layers quite far so that the original ‘hero’ image shows though. The other layers should then become more of a fuzzy halo rather than a focal point for the shot.

photoshop-blending-modes-for-fine-art-portraiture

Once you’ve found a blending mode and opacity that looks good, you can start to fine-tune the image.

Begin by identifying parts of the images that don’t really work, and work out which layer they’re on. Then create layer masks and use a black paintbrush to gently fade those unwanted parts away.

I decided to remove almost all of the layers from the face of my subject since it was a portrait, and I wanted to be able to see her clearly. I also took away some distracting echos of hands, which I felt made the final image stronger. Since you’re working using layer masks, you can always undo any of your choices at this stage – just simply paint over the bits you want to see again on the layer mask with a white paintbrush!

How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture

As you can see from my layer masks, they don’t have to be neat. Just use a fairly large brush with soft edges and a low opacity and you won’t be able to see the brushstrokes of your mask in the final image.

Finishing your image

Once you’re happy with the basic image you’ve achieved through layering, I’d suggest saving a copy of your work. Then you can experiment further with different techniques.

photoshop-blending-modes-for-fine-art-portraiture

Once I’d saved my image in Photoshop, I closed it and went back to Lightroom Classic to work on the shot further. Here, I simply changed the toning of the image slightly with a preset and applied some sharpening to key areas of the picture.

The result was a warmth that always makes me think of Old Masters paintings in galleries. Together with the effect of the layers, it creates a rather painterly fine art image.

photoshop-blending-modes-for-fine-art-portraiture

But, of course, there’s absolutely no harm in processing the same image in a different way. This is one of the reasons I love Lightroom Classic – you can create virtual copies of a single shot and work on them all differently!

photoshop-blending-modes-for-fine-art-portraiture

This variation I processed in Nik Analog Efex Pro 2, which you can use straight from the Lightroom Classic interface in the same way that you can take photos to Photoshop. The software itself is very similar to Lightroom Classic with its adjustment panels on each side but instead specializes in replicating old film effects.

It is a great way to create an image that pays homage to the great Victorian art photographers.

You could get a similar effect by layering wet plate textures and dust and scratch layers in Photoshop before adding a black and white conversion.

There are many ways to get all these different effects – please try some and post your results in the comments. I’d love to see what you did with this technique and how you achieved it!

The post How to Use Photoshop Blending Modes for Fine Art Portraiture appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

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Photoshop Elements 2020 Released With New AI Features and Guided Edits

10 Oct

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Released With New AI Features and Guided Edits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

adobe-photoshop-elements

Adobe has just released its latest iteration of Photoshop Elements: Photoshop Elements 2020, which debuts alongside Premiere Elements 2020.

Now, Photoshop Elements has always been geared toward beginner and amateur photographers, and this year’s release is no exception. Adobe has included new features that ensure it’s easier than ever to produce stunning edits.

Included among these exciting features is Adobe Sensei AI technology, which will drive Photoshop Elements automation. While Sensei AI technology isn’t new, this time it’ll be used to bring photographers options such as:

B&W Selection
Pattern Brush
Painterly
Depth of Field

In all four of these cases, Sensei AI is the driver behind easy-yet-powerful edits. B&W Selection allows you to quickly isolate elements from your photos and portray them in color, while giving the background a black and white look. Depth of Field takes a relatively sharp background and gives it a beautiful blur, making your main subjects pop.

And that’s not all. In addition to these new AI-powered options, Photoshop Elements promises a new black and white editing experience with its Colorization feature. Colorization takes a black and white photo and gives it realistic colors (or, as Adobe promises, you can use Colorization to “give new life to an existing color photo”).

Photoshop Elements also offers a one-click selection of your subjects for easy manipulation, as well as a skin-smoothing effect. And let’s not forget the two brand-new guided edits, which are designed to make post-processing accessible to everyone, as the software walks you through the process of creating patterns or making unwanted items vanish from the frame.

Adobe Photoshop Elements isn’t for everyone. Experienced photographers will likely prefer to work with Photoshop CC or Lightroom, both of which pack some real editing power. But for those who are just getting started with photo editing, Photoshop Elements offers a level of accessibility that its more serious counterparts lack. And the guided edits are a great feature for those wanting to learn while editing.

You can purchase Adobe Photoshop Elements as a standalone piece of software for $ 99.99 USD, or you can get it alongside Adobe Premiere for $ 149.99 USD.

The post Photoshop Elements 2020 Released With New AI Features and Guided Edits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW

05 Oct

The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video tutorial, Nemanja Sekulic will show you how to make some dramatic editing changes to your RAW photos using Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW.

During the process, you will learn the following in Lightroom (which you can also translate to Photoshop Camera RAW):

How to use the Basic Panel including the Exposure Slider, Highlight Slider, Shadow Slider, Color Temperature Slider,
The shortcut for viewing before/after (\)
How to use the Radial Filter tool – how to make multiple radial filter selections, reposition, and make adjustments to the selection.
How to use the Adjustment Brush Tool – including changing your brush size, flow, and feather amounts.
How to use it to make selective adjustments in your image, including color, temperature, exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity, etc. to fine-tune your image.
How to use selective color with your Adjustment Brush.
How to make new Adjustment Brushes to fine-tune the details in the eyes.
How to use Hue and Saturation Panels as well as the Split Toning Panel.
How to add a vignette.
How to go back and readjust any of your Radial Filter, and Adjustment Brush settings.

You can apply these techniques across any image you choose, or you can download Nemanja’s image file here.

You may also find the following helpful:

Photoshop vs Lightroom – the Power of Photoshop
Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos
Lightroom Texture Slider vs. Skin Smoothing
Lightroom Shortcuts Every Photographer Needs to Know
10 Tips to Make Lightroom Classic CC Run Faster

The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 2020 arrive with new AI-powered tools

05 Oct

A sample from Adobe showing off the new One-click subject selection tool.

Adobe has released Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020, adding a number of new features and capabilities powered by the company’s Adobe Sensei AI, including automatic selection, skin smoothing, colorization, new Auto Creations and more, as detailed in an announcment blog post.

Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements are Adobe’s entry-level versions of its products, offering general consumers access to some of the tools and capabilities found in these products, but with less complexity and lower prices at $ 99.99 each for a full software license.

A sample comparison from Adobe showing off the new Sensei-powered auto-colorization tool.

The Photoshop Elements 2020 update brings a number of new features, including new Pattern Brush, B&W Selection, Depth of Field, and Painterly effects for Auto Creations, support for automatically colorizing black-and-white images using AI, automatic skin smoothing, and one-click subject selection.

A comparison from Adobe showing off the skin-smoothing tool.

The updated software also enables users to remove unwanted objects from images, add heart and star patterns to photos, and search for content via Smart Tags. Beyond that, the software has received general performance enhancements, as well as support for HEIF images and HEVC videos. For customers located in the United States, Photoshop Elements now also supports directly ordering prints and other items through the Fujifilm Prints and Gifts service.

A comparison photo set showing the its noise reduction technology.

Joining the big Photoshop Elements 2020 update is the new Premiere Elements 2020, an update that adds simplified noise reduction, a sky replacement tool, support for turning images and videos into dynamic time-lapses, and a tool that replaces the black bars in vertical videos with a fill that matches the video, as seen below.

As with the new version of Photoshop Elements, this Premiere Elements update also adds Smart Tag search and support for HEIF/HEVC formats. The software also supports searching videos for specific people using Sensei’s face-matching capabilities. Finally, Premiere Elements now includes five guided edits that help users modify their videos.

In addition to the individual $ 99.99 license price, Adobe offers Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020 bundled for $ 149.99. Existing customers can upgrade either of the new products for $ 79.99 or both for a total of $ 119.99.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop: Rescue Your Damaged Adobe Photoshop Files

02 Oct

The post Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop: Rescue Your Damaged Adobe Photoshop Files appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Have you ever endured the stress of dealing with a corrupted Photoshop PSD file? It’s not such a common problem, but when it happens it can invoke serious mental and emotional hardship. Let me introduce you to a little software tool that can be of great help to photographers, designers, and anyone else who uses Adobe Photoshop – the Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop.

Fully recovered corrupted PSD file

How PSD files become corrupt

Imagine spending hours post-processing a photo you’ve captured or graphic you have created. It’s one of your best. You’ve worked through some tutorials, and been inspired to create a masterpiece of digital art.

You’ve put the final touches to it and hit Save, and then the power goes out. Your file has not saved correctly. Or you’ve saved it to a hard drive with bad sectors. Even when you revive the drive, the PSD file will not open. These are events that create nightmares.

There are other ways PSD files become corrupted and Photoshop won’t open them. At times, all you’ll see is an error message.

Other times the file will open but will be incomplete. Layers may be missing, or the file may have been flattened. Maybe all you’ll see is digital noise.

Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop: Rescue Your Damaged Adobe Photoshop Files

You may have encountered similar file retrieval problems with bad memory cards or hard drives. These situations require specialized software that can recover files and rebuild them.

Adobe Photoshop Repair Tool

Adobe Photoshop Repair Tool from Recovery Toolbox is specifically designed to reclaim and repair damaged Photoshop PSD files. It’s not a tool you will use every day (hopefully), but when you do need to, it can save you considerable stress and maybe hours of work.

This small piece of dedicated software opens and restores PSD files. Often it will manage to completely restore a file which Photoshop refuses to open. Other times it will work partially. You might get most of your layers back, but not all of them. At this stage, however, it is only available for users of Windows 98 and above.

How it works

Step 1:

Open Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop and select the file you are having issues with. Click ‘Next’.

Step 2:

The ‘View Data’ window will open. Here you have a breakdown of what the Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop can see in the corrupted file. If the file has multiple layers, click on the ‘Layers’ drop-down in the left-hand panel to view them.

In the right-hand panel, there are two tabs. Click on the ‘Picture’ tab for a preview of each layer.

Step 3:

Choose your target file and the layers you want to recover. In this step, you can also select or deselect certain layers you want to recover.

Step 4:

Click ‘Recover’ and the software will work its magic. Once the recovery process is completed, click the ‘Show Result’ button to open the recovered file in Photoshop. It’s as easy as that.

Salvaged

Whether you’re a keen amateur or a professional photographer, this software will help you out when Photoshop fails to open a file. This might mean the difference in saving time rebuilding an image, or it might save your skin and keep a valuable client.

This Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop works on any PSD file saved from Photoshop version three or later, and recovers files with .psd and .8bps extensions.

Working through the easy steps is fast and allows for some control in the layers you choose to repair. I found that when testing this software, it was not necessary to do this, but the feature allows for flexibility with more problematic files.

This software is specifically designed to read, analyze, and recover your PSD files.

When testing this software, I purposefully produced a series of damaged PSD files, corrupting them in different ways. While saving a multi-layered PSD file, I rebooted my computer while the file was in the process of writing to a hard drive. I also saved the file to a thumb drive which I removed before fully saving the image. I did this at various stages in the process of saving. In these instances, the Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop was not able to restore my files even when they’d been nearly through the saving process.

The software was sent to me with a number of test files. Each of these appeared to be corrupted in different ways. Some of them opened with Photoshop, but incompletely. Others failed to open and Photoshop displayed an error message.

Pros

Dedicated to repairing PSD files.
Easy to use.
Well laid out user interface.
Detailed information and controls.
Price.

Cons

Doesn’t repair all damaged PSD files.
Only available for Windows Users

If you don’t like the idea of installing software onto your computer, Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop also has an online repair service where you simply upload your damaged file. The benefits of using the online version include:

Helps to repair Photoshop files on all Operation Systems: macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and so on
Work on any devices: PC, tablet, phones
Affordable price: $ 10
No need to install any software

In this review, the online version was not tested.

Conclusion

Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop is a great tool and will help you out where Photoshop fails to. However, there is never any substitute for having a disciplined backup routine. Saving your work often and backing it up on a separate drive, device or in the cloud is the most sure-fire way to ensure your precious files are safe and usable.

Disclaimer: Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop is a paid dPS partner.

The post Recovery Toolbox for Photoshop: Rescue Your Damaged Adobe Photoshop Files appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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Photoshop Basics: Working with Layers

01 Oct

Photoshop. For photographers, web developers and graphic designers alike, its the go-to program for creating and editing professional grade graphics. And like every beloved piece of software, it has to have a strong foundation to build upon; a base system that supports all other operations. For Photoshop, it’s layers. Operations we describe here are applicable to all Creative Suite versions Continue Reading

The post Photoshop Basics: Working with Layers appeared first on Photodoto.

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop

29 Sep

The post A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

Picture this if you will: you’re out in nature with your hopes, dreams, and a camera to capture it all. You see the beauty of creation stretching out before you, so you carefully and patiently set up your gear to get the perfect shot. Finally, the sun moves to just the right spot, and you hold your breath while you press the shutter button. Then you realize the clouds are all wrong. You can wait for hours for the ideal opportunity to present itself, or you can do sky replacement using Photoshop to drop in another one. It’s not as difficult as it might seem and can lead to some exciting results.

The building is in Oklahoma, and I combined it with a long-exposure sky I shot in Kansas.

Before you get started with this operation, you will need two pictures: one with a boring sky and one with a breathtaking sky. If you’re just getting started, I recommend using two pictures shot at a similar time of day under similar conditions. If you replace a sunny sky with storm clouds, the lighting will be all different, and the results will look, well, Photoshopped.

A scenic view in the middle of Kansas. The sky could use some clouds though.

After finding a picture with a nice foreground, you need to get another picture with an interesting sky.

Image: I shot this in the Tallgrass Prairie Nature Preserve in another part of Kansas. These clouds...

I shot this in the Tallgrass Prairie Nature Preserve in another part of Kansas. These clouds would look great in the first image, and Photoshop can help.

The plethora of screenshots below might seem overwhelming, but this entire process is quite easy and a lot less complicated than it seems. Fire up Photoshop, follow along carefully, and you should have some good results in no time at all.

Step 1: Get rid of the boring sky

Open your picture with the sky you want to replace in Photoshop. If you’re not familiar with Photoshop, you’ll see that the Layers panel on the right side has your picture as the Background layer. It’s locked, meaning you need to unlock it or make a copy. Go with the latter route by right-clicking and selecting Duplicate Layer.

Always work on a copy of the background layer so you can revert to it if you need to.

Click the new layer in the Layers panel to make sure it’s actually selected. You will know it’s selected by the outline that you can see around each corner of the layer thumbnail.

Image: The currently selected layer has white borders around each corner of its thumbnail. Make sure...

The currently selected layer has white borders around each corner of its thumbnail. Make sure the original Background layer is hidden by clicking the eye icon to the left of its thumbnail.

Click the eye button next to the original Background layer to make it invisible. It’s still there if you need it for any reason, but if all goes well, you should be able to do the rest of this entire process using the duplicated layer.

The next thing you need to do is remove the sky, which you can do with a technique known as layer masks. Start by clicking the Selection tool and holding it down until the pop-up menu appears. Click “Quick Selection Tool.” While not perfect, this is a great starting point for people who are new to sky replacements. You can do some fine-tuning to get things just to your liking.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop

Now click and drag in the sky and watch the selection grow until it covers your entire sky.

Use the Selection tool to create a selection around the sky in your original image.

This selection isn’t going to be perfect, but it’s a good place to start. You can refine things once you create your layer mask. As long as you have most of the sky selected, you’ll be good to go. You can also use the Magic Wand tool to select portions of the sky, and hold [shift] to keep adding new parts to the selection. This works well if you have clouds or other elements besides just the color blue in your sky.

With the sky selected, click the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Image: Click this button at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a Layer Mask. This lets you sho...

Click this button at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a Layer Mask. This lets you show and hide different parts of a layer.

The result might surprise you – everything in your picture is now gone except for the sky! (If you still see the original image, remember to click the eye to the left of the Background layer. This will make it invisible, but not remove it from Photoshop.)

The initial layer mask shows the sky, which is not exactly what you want for this operation. It’s a good starting point though.

Removing everything but the sky is the opposite of what you want to do! The fix for this is simple: invert your layer mask. Select your new layer mask by clicking on the black-and-white thumbnail in the duplicated background layer.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop

Now invert the mask by pressing Control-I (Command-I on a Mac) or choosing Image -> Adjustments -> Invert from the menus at the top of your screen. Now we’re really making some progress since the sky is gone but the foreground remains intact.

Invert the layer mask to show only the foreground. With the sky out of the way you can now insert a new sky into the background.

If clouds, birds, or other elements of the original sky are still intact, you can remove them by using the Brush tool on your layer mask. (See Step 3 for details on how to do this.)

Step 2: Insert a better sky

There are a couple of ways to do this next step, and I’m sure you will probably develop your own workflow over time. Since this is just a tutorial to get you started though, it should work for most basic sky replacement.

Choose the File menu and then select Place Embedded. Navigate to the folder on your computer with the image you want and double-click on it. This loads the replacement sky picture into your current Photoshop document. You can then tweak the results to get just the right image you want. The image will load on top of the previous image, and you’ll see it at the top of your Layers panel.

Image: When you place a new image into your Photoshop document it will appear at the top of the list...

When you place a new image into your Photoshop document it will appear at the top of the list of layers, which means it’s the only thing you will see in the main image editing screen.

Photoshop layers work like a stack: whatever is on top is, literally, whatever you see on top of your picture. If you want something to appear underneath something else, just click and drag the layers to your liking. In fact, that’s what you have to do with your replacement sky. Click the layer you just inserted and drag it below the duplicated background layer.

Click and drag the sky replacement layer so it’s beneath the copy of your background.

Now look at your sky picture! Just like magic, the original sky has gone and the new sky shows up in its place.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop

Step 3: Clean things up

At this point, there are two common issues that generally need fixing. One is that the foreground has some errors that need correcting, like trees or other objects that are cut off or otherwise not showing up properly. The other is that the replacement sky doesn’t quite fit the empty space.

You can harness the power of Layer Masks to fix the first issue. Tap the Z key to switch to the Zoom tool, and click on your picture a few times to zoom in for a close-up view. Hold the space bar to switch to the Hand tool, and click-and-drag the picture to see the spots that need fixing.

These trees don’t really need fixing, but I want to remove them for a cleaner horizon.

Make sure you select your Layer Mask and tap the B key to switch to the Brush tool. Right-click to adjust the size of your brush and other parameters like hardness and shape.

Using the brush tool on the Layer Mask will show or hide specific parts of the layer.

Now click on the parts of the foreground you want to either remove from the picture or add to the picture. (Press the X key to switch between remove and add mode.) What you’re actually doing is painting white or black on the layer mask: everywhere you paint white is shown, and everywhere you paint black is hidden. You don’t actually see the white or black colors, just the results of painting them onto the image.

A few clicks on the Adjustment Layer and the trees have gone!

If you find that your sky doesn’t quite fill the empty space, you can solve that by just adjusting the size of the sky layer. Click the top layer, the one with the foreground, and adjust the opacity to 30%. That way you can see the background layer, the one with the sky, along with the foreground layer.

Set the opacity of the duplicate background layer to 30%.

The result looks like some kind of weird double-exposure error, but it will look fine once you finish the operation.

Image: You can now see the replacement sky and the foreground. This will help you adjust the replace...

You can now see the replacement sky and the foreground. This will help you adjust the replacement sky size and position to your liking.

Select the layer with the replacement sky and choose Edit -> Free Transform, or press Control-T (Command-T on a Mac). Then use the handles at the corner of the sky layer to enlarge it until it fills the empty space.

After pressing Transform, click and drag on the squares in the corner of the layer to change its size. Click and drag in the middle of it to change its position.

After you have resized the sky layer, press the [return] key to lock in the transformation. Then go back to the foreground layer and increase its opacity to 100%. This same process is also a great way to adjust the sky in the background even if there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with it. One example of this is if you want to adjust the sky to emphasize a certain portion where the clouds happen to be more interesting.

The same image as before, but with the sky zoomed in (i.e. Transformed) to create a more interesting picture.

Once you get the hang of this process, it’s pretty simple. You can do a lot of custom work simply by editing the layer mask you create in the first step. You can also do this just for fun, like the picture below where I replaced the blue sky behind this building with a giant squirrel. If you have kids, or if you just want to have some fun experimenting on your own, this is a great way to explore some of the capabilities of Photoshop.

Attack of the Giant Mutant Killer Squirrels!

Once you try sky replacement using photoshop on your own, I’d love to see some examples of your work. Leave the results in the comments below!

The post A Step-by-Step Guide to Sky Replacement Using Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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Adobe previews improved Photoshop Content-Aware Fill capabilities that are coming ‘soon’

28 Sep

Adobe has offered a sneak peek look at the Content-Aware Fill update it will be bringing to Photoshop in the near future. The changes are introduced by Photoshop Product Manager Meredith Stotzner, who explains that Adobe plans to add new ‘Auto’ and ‘Custom’ sampling area options to the tool when it is opened using the application’s Edit menu, these joining the existing ‘Rectangular’ option.

By tapping its Sensei AI technology, the Content-Aware Fill’s new Auto option will analyze the image, find the pixels immediately bordering a selection and then apply the fill using those pixels for an improved final result. The Custom option, meanwhile, gives users complete control over the sampling area selection so that users can ‘brush [their] sampling area from scratch,’ according to Stotzner.

A demonstration of both of these new capabilities have been shared by Adobe in the video above. The company says it will be introducing Auto and Custom to Content-Aware Fill soon, but it hasn’t provided a specific release date at this time. The video indicates the update will arrive before the end of the year.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Make a Cool David Hockney-Inspired Photomontage in Photoshop

27 Sep

The post How to Make a Cool David Hockney-Inspired Photomontage in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

David Hockney’s approach to art has made him one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. Exploring the nature of photographic representation, Hockney’s distinctive method of photography is both thought provoking and physically engaging. In this tutorial, we’ll have a look at creating a simple David Hockney-inspired Photomontage in Photoshop.

photomontage-in-photoshop

The photography of David Hockney

David Hockney once said, “photography is all right if you don’t mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops-for a split second.”

However, in the 1980s, Hockney began to experiment with the photographic medium. Taking numerous Polaroid or 35mm photographs of a scene from a variety of perspectives, Hockney would then arrange the collection of images into a cohesive body, creating an almost Cubist rendering of visual reality. He called these collages and photo montages joiners.

This distinctive approach to image making was a reflection of Hockney’s dislike for photographs executed with a wide-angle lens. By creating his joiners, Hockney sought to reflect the process of seeing, creating a narrative based around visual experience.

How to make a simple Hockney-inspired Joiner

Step 1: Select an image

Our source image

For this tutorial, I’ll be using a photo I took of clouds. The photo is made up of strong shapes, forms and tones. When converted into a joiner, these elements are pulled apart to create a mangled scene that is consolidated by the overall character of the source image.

Step 2: Cutting

With your chosen image open, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the left toolbar (or type the letter M).

Select a small section of your image and right-click within the selected area.

Click on Layer Via Cut. The selection will be severed from the source image to create a new layer.

Use the rectangular Marquee Tool to select and cut portions of your image

Step 3 – Open a New File

Open a new file by selecting File -> New. Name the new canvas Joiner and select an image size that mirrors the dimensions of your source photograph.

Click OK, and a new canvas will open. This is the canvas we will create our joiner on.

Opening a new canvas. Set the height and width to the same dimensions of the source file.

Step 4: Drag and drop

Return to your source image.

With the Move Tool (V), select the recently cut section of the source image and drag it onto the tab of Joiner. The Joiner canvas will open.

Drag the cut selection onto the Joiner canvas. Place the selection in roughly the same location that it is on the source image. It doesn’t need to be exact.

Image: Dropping portions of the source image onto the Joiner canvas. Feel free to overlap the differ...

Dropping portions of the source image onto the Joiner canvas. Feel free to overlap the different layers, as this will contribute to the joiner aesthetic!

Step 5: Creating the Joiner Effect

Continue to cut selections from the source image, dragging and dropping them onto the Joiner canvas. You can cut similarly or randomly sized pieces – it’s up to you.

Once you’ve cut and transferred most of your source image to the Joiner canvas, it’s time to emphasize the joiner effect.

You want to cultivate a disjointed aesthetic, like misaligned puzzle pieces.

You can overlap, duplicate, stretch and rotate each piece to exaggerate this disjointed effect.

Make the edges of the joiner correspond, or allow components to poke out of the overall composition like a messy collage.

Be expressive with your perspectives, experiment with different combinations and don’t worry too much about neatness.

You can even place Curves adjustment layers among the image layers on Joiner to alter the exposure of individual pieces.

And that’s it! Once you are happy with your joiner, make sure to save it as a .PSD file in case you want to alter the arrangement later.

A simple joiner effect created by overlapping the segmented portions of the source image.

When you’ve got the technique down, the sky’s the limit! In the image below, I cut my source image into much smaller pieces before placing them on the canvas. I also duplicated a lot of the layers to create repetition within the layout. The smaller the pieces, the more disjointed the image becomes, creating a greater sense of movement and altered perspective.

photomontage-in-photoshop

Conclusion

David Hockney is a man of many artistic talents. As a photographer, Hockney developed a distinctive style that plays with our sense of narrative and perception.

Experimenting with the joiner effect to create a Photomontage in Photoshop isn’t quite the same as taking a whole bunch of photos and arranging them together manually.

However, with a basic process that involves cutting, pasting, arranging and a little experimentation, we can get close to a Hockney-inspired effect.

Here is another of my own creations – I’d love to see yours! Post them in the comments below! photomontage-in-photoshop

The post How to Make a Cool David Hockney-Inspired Photomontage in Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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Review of PaintShop Pro 2020 Ultimate: A Photoshop Contender?

26 Sep

The post Review of PaintShop Pro 2020 Ultimate: A Photoshop Contender? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

Not for nothing is Photoshop called the “industry standard” for graphic design and photo editing. The moment you defect to another product, you start missing stuff. Can Corel Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate do the job just as well? It’s a comprehensive standalone program with lots of extras thrown in for free.

New stuff

This edition of Paintshop Pro (PSP) introduces several new features, including a touch-ready Photography Workspace, a SmartClone Tool, and a Refine Brush for ultra-precise selections. There are improvements to existing tools, too. We’ll cover these things during this review as well as looking at preexisting features.

The new touch-ready Photography Workspace may not suit everyone, but it’s uncluttered and armed with enough tools to rifle through many pictures.

Raw processing in Paintshop Pro

Paintshop Pro Ultimate comes with Corel Aftershot 3 raw processing software as well as its own in-built raw conversion. Since many of our pictures start out as raw files, it seems apt to look at these facilities first.

Aftershot 3

Aftershot 3 is a pared-down version of Corel’s Aftershot Pro, which you can upgrade to for a modest sum. The latter lets you create Lightroom-style catalogs, so all changes to images are stored inside the program instead of in separate XMP sidecar files. Although not as sophisticated as the pro version, Aftershot 3 Standard offers much more than the in-program raw conversion tool of PSP 2020. A notable exception to this is DNG support, but it does have lens corrections, layers and Perfectly Clear auto image enhancement. The latter works well with layers since you can adjust the opacity to achieve optimum results.

Reducing the opacity of Perfectly Clear on an adjustment layer often gives a nice result.

An early problem I had with Aftershot and Paintshop Pro 2020 was that neither liked my custom monitor profile, so I had to switch to a generic Adobe RGB profile to make the color look acceptable. It took some head-scratching before I realized why raw previews looked so bad.

With that problem temporarily solved, I found the software eminently usable, though I think Corel should include a histogram in the standard Aftershot version. The pro version has enough to commend it without cutting essentials from its little sibling.

Adjusting perspective in Aftershot 3 using the zPerspector plugin.

Aftershot is rebranded Bibble software, which was highly rated in its time. It includes access to many plug-ins, such as the Wavelet Sharpen plug-in and the zPerspector perspective correction plugin. These are useful add-ons. I’d recommend that you trial Aftershot thoroughly before buying or upgrading. Remember, the Pro version won’t catalog your DNG files if you use them. You need proprietary raw files. As well, Paintshop Pro doesn’t like Adobe’s enhanced DNG files.

Working in Paintshop Pro 2020

The first thing to do in Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate is to choose from three workspaces: Photography, Essentials and Complete. The new “touch-ready” Photography workspace is inviting since it doesn’t distract you with a bewildering set of tools. It’d be a good place to start for beginners. But if you’re coming from years in Photoshop, you’ll probably skip to the Complete workspace where all things are possible.

Adjustment Layers

Just like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro 2020 gives you the choice of editing photos on adjustment layers or independently. Some of the editing choices are not available as layers, though you can always apply these to a duplicate layer. All adjustment layers have built-in layer masks for selective editing.

Color and Tone

Paintshop Pro offers most of the features you’d expect in an advanced pixel editor when it comes to correcting color and tone. There are a few things you may not have seen before. For instance, the “Histogram” adjustment layer is a kind of advanced blend of Levels and Curves.

The “Histogram Equalize” adjustment in PSP 2020 evens up the tonal range of the image, often brightening it. You need to be careful with this if you don’t want to blow highlights. More useful, I think, is “Local Tone Mapping” at its default low settings. It seems to have a very subtle HDR effect that perks many photos up.

Smart Photo Fix lets you alter the software’s One Step Photo Fix adjustment, and as an alternative starting point, it’s pretty good. PSP did a decent job with the photo in the screenshot, though it could still do with brighter whites.

Conspicuous by its absence in Paintshop Pro is any form of clipping display or exposure warning. If it’s there, I never found it. To me, this is a must-have feature, since it shows you what you’re losing with tonal or color adjustments and whether it’s likely to matter. I don’t expect it to be missing in a wide-ranging package like Paintshop Pro.

Correcting perspective

I’ve gotten used to being able to correct perspective in architectural photos, so I was keen to see what Paintshop Pro offers in this respect. In fact, the Perspective Correction tool in PSP is very good, albeit without the full-auto option of ACR or Lightroom. It’s the work of a few seconds to correct most photos, and that’s good enough for me.

This is all you need do to correct verticals in Paintshop Pro. Not automated like Adobe’s solution, but easy.

Cloning (& the new SmartClone tool)

The regular cloning tool in Paintshop Pro is fine for most cloning work, but now we also have the SmartClone tool. This is useful if you want to lay textures or patterns over another area of a photo or even a different photo. Three blend modes are available for different effects: Original, Blend, Black and White. The first gives you regular-type cloning, the second tries to blend color and texture by reducing opacity, the third clones only texture by desaturating the selected area.

smart clone tool and paint brush - Paintshop Pro 2020

I used the SmartClone tool to superimpose Proust’s face onto a separate image of the beach at Cabourg – a scene he’d have known well. By placing the clone onto a duplicate layer with a layer mask, I was able to refine the original rectangular selection using the Paint Brush with “Smart Edge” tool.

A neat feature of the SmartClone tool is the ability to save selections as presets, so you can use them with future images. This tool is not an equivalent to content-aware fill in Photoshop. It has its own uses and controls. Paintshop Pro offers Object Remover and Scratch Remover tools to intelligently fill in areas of an image, though you have to be reasonable in your expectations as to what these things can do.

Selection Refine Brush (new)

I never need to make intricate selections in my day-to-day photography, but perhaps that makes me a good candidate for testing the new Selection Refine Brush in Paintshop Pro 2020. I had trouble even accessing it at first until I realized the chosen selection tool must be docked for the button to appear. Despite this shaky start, I was soon impressed.

I started with a quick freehand selection around the edge of the subject and well within the hairline so that any intricate hairs could be selected later with the refine brush. The brush does such a good job at picking out fine detail that it’s a waste of time to attempt precision yourself. You can further refine the end result with global corrections such as smooth edge or feathering.

Image: In this photo, everything not in red is selected. You can see the Selection Refine Brush has...

In this photo, everything not in red is selected. You can see the Selection Refine Brush has done a very good job of selecting strands of hair. This was the work of just a few minutes, and I’m a novice at selections. (Photo: Pixabay)

Once you’re happy with the selection, you can output it in various ways. It’s easy to copy and paste the selection with transparent background onto a new image if you want, or you can edit it further on a new layer. Whatever your aim, it’s hard to imagine other software doing a much better job in getting you to that point.

Dealing with Chromatic Aberration

Fixing chromatic aberration, even in its most common purple fringing form, is one of the great strengths of Photoshop. Other programs struggle to compete. Paintshop Pro’s “One Step Purple Fringe Fix” introduced an artifact the first time I used it and didn’t completely remove the fringing. On the other hand, “Chromatic Aberration Removal” in PSP 2020 gave a good result. Taking as small a sample as possible seemed to help. Based on this, it might be better to leave chromatic aberration in a raw image and fix it in the rendered version, unless you have advanced raw conversion software on your side.

Image: Using the Chromatic Aberration Removal tool in Paintshop Pro to remove green fringing. Radius...

Using the Chromatic Aberration Removal tool in Paintshop Pro to remove green fringing. Radius and color range settings help to fine-tune the correction. (You may need to view this full size to see the difference.)

Sharpening

Paintshop Pro offers four sharpening methods: Sharpen, Sharpen More, Unsharp Mask, and High Pass Sharpening. These are familiar choices. Unsharp Mask lets you choose radius, strength and clipping settings. It also includes a set of presets you can pick from according to your intended use for the image.

High Pass Sharpening focuses sharpening on edges. Most programs give you a grey overlay with this feature so you can clearly see the effect of your edit, but that’s not possible in Paintshop Pro. Instead, you have to eyeball the image directly.

There is another route to high-pass sharpening in PSP where you do get the grey preview: create a duplicate layer and go to Effects->Edge Effect->High Pass. Choose an Overlay, Hard Light or Soft Light blend mode.

You get this useful preview if you sharpen your photos using Edge Effects->High Pass in PSP 2020. It’d be nice to see this in the High Pass Sharpen tool, too, but you get a regular preview there. As you can see, the grey overlay makes it easy to see what your sharpening settings are doing.

The noisier your photo is to begin with, the wiser it is to avoid global sharpening. If you have a clean file to work with that you want to quickly publish online, a simple Sharpen or Sharpen More adjustment will often look fine.

Plugins

A great feature of Paintshop Pro is its compatibility with Photoshop plugins (those with 8bf, 8be, 8bi, and 8ba extensions). A lot of the time they work fine, though I noticed the color goes flat in my Nik Collection Viveza 2 plugin if the preview is small. This is a known problem with other Photoshop alternatives.

Paintshop Pro’s compatibility with PS plugins is not an insignificant factor when weighing up the software. In fact, a range of downloadable plugins and scripts is available as soon as you buy the product – some of them free.

Time Machine

Paintshop Pro also offers the fun “Time Machine” photo effect. This teaches you something about photographic history and attempts to replicate photos from different eras, ranging from the daguerreotype in 1839 to the cross-processing look discovered in the late 1950s to early 60s. You can add appropriate borders to each effect if you want. Below is the “Early Color” preset in action with James Joyce obliging as the subject.

Review of PaintShop Pro 2020 Ultimate: A Photoshop Contender?

Extras

As well as Corel Aftershot 3 raw conversion software, Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate comes bundled with a host of other goodies. Here’s the full inventory:

GRFX Studio: gives access to 1000s of photo effects.
Parallels Toolbox: a suite of tools to keep your computer running smoothly.
PhotoMirage Express: turn stills photos into eye-catching animations.
Painter Essentials 6: lets you paint, draw and sketch as well as automatically adding painting effects to photos.
Aftershot 3: raw conversion software (good, but lacks some of the near-essential features of the pro version).
Creative Collection: free pack of many extras available for optional download.

As well as letting you create original artworks, Painter Essentials 6 can generate “paintings” from your photos.

Other new features of PSP 2020 include copy-and-paste layer styles; quicker text rendering, editing and text wrap; faster Pic-to-Painting transitions; and an improved depth-of-field effect.

shallow depth of field - flower photography

Paintshop Pro lets you apply arty shallow-depth-of-field effects with the improved Depth of Field tool.

Conclusion

Corel Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate is a vast photo-editing package that doesn’t leave you wanting for much. But it’s lacking in places. The absence of a clipping display or exposure warning that I could find is almost a deal-breaker for me. I use that all the time when adjusting color and tone. Also on my wants list would be gradient maps. There are surprising omissions and inconsistencies in Paintshop Pro. That aside, it’s not unlovable.

black and white conversion - GRFX Studio

The Classic B & W effect in GRFX Studio creates some pleasing black and white conversions and gives you plenty of control over the result.

Some of the tools in Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate are exceptional. My new-found ability to make complex selections with the Refine Brush was a bit of a revelation. And there are tons of special effects, so there’s no excuse not to be creative. Paintshop Pro seems to lean that way – towards the visual editor who doesn’t care so much about the math and more about how the photo just looks. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Have you used Paintshop Pro 2020 Ulitmate? What are your thoughts? Share with us in the comments!

The post Review of PaintShop Pro 2020 Ultimate: A Photoshop Contender? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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