Adobe Photoshop CS4 for photography

Whether you're completely new to photography or have been snapping photos for years, this class will
show you how to create magnificent photos using Adobe Photoshop CS4. You'll get time-saving tips,
understand how to get the most out of the software and learn how to edit and enhance your photos
without compromising image quality.

Lessons
1. Organize, customize and process your photos
After you take a brief tour of the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS4, you'll
start on your photos. This lesson shows you how to use the Bridge and Camera
Raw software integrated with Photoshop to organize and edit your photos.
2. Enhance your photos with light, color and sharpness corrections
Even if you're fairly happy with your photo, chances are you can still improve it
by tweaking the light and color. In this lesson, you'll learn comprehensive, non-
destructive methods for color-correcting, toning and sharpening your priceless
photos.
3. Retouching and restoring your photos
Because people are the focus of many photos, this lesson shows you some
tricks and techniques for retouching your subjects like a pro. Learn how to use
the healing tools, remove red eye, use the selection tools and cosmetically
enhance your subjects.
4. Finishing and sharing your photos
Even when you think you're almost done, there's always something more you
can do with your photos. Learn how to add gorgeous finishing touches to your
retouched photos, and then get some helpful tips for printing and posting your
photos online.

Organize, customize and process your photos

After you take a brief tour of the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS4, you'll start on your photos. This lesson
shows you how to use the Bridge and Camera Raw software integrated with Photoshop to organize and edit
your photos.

Welcome
Discouraged by the Adobe® Photoshop® tutorials that deal mostly with graphic
design? Can't find the correct way to retouch and enhance your photos? This
technique-filled tutorial, aimed at photographers, focuses on the aspects of
Photoshop you'll need to create magnificent photos. You'll learn time-saving
tips, how to get the most out of Bridge, and how to accomplish non-destructive
editing.
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What this class covers

You're about to embark on an incredible journey that will teach you how to
create professional-looking photos in your digital darkroom using Adobe®
Photoshop® CS4. In this course, you'll learn photo editing and retouching
techniques that the masters use in their own studios.
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The course lessons break down as follows: customers — save
US$20!
Lesson 1 reviews the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and explores
the Bridge and Camera Raw software included with Photoshop.
Lesson 2 shows you how to enhance your photos by making light, color, and
sharpness corrections.
 Lesson 3 discusses tips and techniques for retouching your photos to
produce flawless, impressive results.
Lesson 4 teaches you how to apply finishing touches to your photos, and
then discusses some best practices for printing or posting your photos
online.

Because this course focuses on key photographic enhancing and retouching

techniques, we assume that you've used Photoshop before. In addition, we
assume that you know certain photography-specific terms and techniques.

What do I need to get started?

For this course, you should have Adobe Photoshop CS4. If you have an older
version of Photoshop, you'll still be able to follow along for most of the course;
but we do cover some exciting new features that are available only in
Photoshop CS4. Also be aware that there are significant improvements in each
new release, and some of the features and tools may work a little differently if
you're using an older version.

If you don't already own Adobe Photoshop CS4, you can usually download
a trial version from the Adobe Web site. Simply enter Adobe Photoshop in
the search box, and then click Try now.

Now that you know a little about the program and what to expect in this course,
it's time to get started!

New features of Adobe Photoshop CS4

Adobe made some significant changes to Photoshop CS4, but they are subtle.
It's not until you see how some of these changes work that you realize their
importance. In this section, you'll receive a brief overview and then throughout
the lessons, you'll see how the new and improved functions work. Let's get
started on this exciting tour of Photoshop CS4.

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Panels

In all previous versions of Photoshop, Adobe used the term palettes when
referring to the containers on the workspace. In Photoshop CS4, they changed
the name to panels. For example, the Layers palette is now called the Layers
panel. In addition to the name change, Adobe also added two very important
panels: the Adjustments and Masks panels.

Adjustments panel

Adjustment layers are not a new concept in Photoshop, but Photoshop CS4
adds an entire panel dedicated to creating and managing adjustment layers.
You'll be learning much more about this panel in the following lessons.

Masks panel

This is a more advanced Photoshop feature, but the genius of the new Masks
panel is that it gathers all of the tools most often associated with creating and
refining layer masks into one panel location. This panel will come in handy
when you're making targeted enhancements to your photos, which you'll do
later in this course.
New and improved tools

Photoshop CS4 added a fantastic new tool and greatly improved another
classic one.

Target Adjustment Tool

This tool originated in Lightroom, and is now available in Photoshop. This

addition is perhaps one of the most exciting new features available in
Photoshop CS4. It allows you to make specific tonal and color adjustments in
the Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Black and White Adjustment layers by clicking
and dragging your mouse instead of having to use the histograms and sliders.
This tool is invaluable when correcting light and color problems, which you'll
see in further detail in the next two lessons.

Improved Dodge and Burn Tools

Previous versions of the Dodge and Burn Tools were poor at best. In
Photoshop CS4, the toolset has changed with the addition of the Protect Tones
checkbox, which keeps the colors from shifting hue; especially in the skin. No
one used them for correcting photos because they just didn't work. Instead of
increasing or decreasing exposure, they added white or black tones to your
photo. You use this tool to correct exposure in Lesson 2.

Navigation improvements

Photoshop CS4 also contains two notable improvements to how you navigate
through the program.

Zoom

If you have a video card capable of using OpenGL navigation, you'll notice that
your zooming will be smooth compared to the jumpy zoom levels in previous
versions. You'll also have true accuracy at every zoom level, which was a
problem before.

Rotate

The Rotate View tool enables you to rotate your view of an image as you work
on it. The caveat being that it relies on OpenGL navigation to accomplish this
view change. If your computer's video card does not have that capability, you
can't access this feature.

Next up

Now that you're up to speed with the latest improvements Adobe has made to
Photoshop; it's time to dig in to your digital workflow. The next section is a
guided tour through Bridge, which is an essential tool to any photographer;
amateur or professional. You'll see how amazingly easy it can be to review,
rate, and organize all of your photos.

Using Bridge to organize your workflow

The first step in photo editing is to weed out the reject photos. Bridge has been
bundled with Photoshop for several generations, but it's often overlooked.
Using Bridge to rate, review, and organize your photos before editing can save
you hours of Photoshop time later.

You can open Bridge directly from the Photoshop window by clicking the Bridge » HP Photosmart all-in-
icon in the Menu bar. You can also choose to open Bridge by selecting File > ones
Browse in Bridge.

Bridge interface

Figure 1-1 shows the Bridge interface. Let's take a quick tour so that you'll
understand what the program has to offer besides the obvious content
thumbnail and preview panes.

Figure 1-1: The Bridge interface.

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Menu bar

Like most other programs, the Menu bar is at the top of the window. You can
use the menu to select any command available in Bridge.

Shortcuts icons

In addition to this bar, there's a group of icons directly below it that contains
shortcuts to commonly used features. In this shortcut group there are icons you
can use to import photos, switch to review modes, and open the photo in
Camera Raw.

Folders path

Directly below the shortcut icons is the dynamic folders path. This shows the
folder hierarchy that leads to the folder you're currently browsing. You can click
any of the parent folders to take you up one level or more in the folder
structure.

Workspace bar

Beside the shortcut icons and above the folder path is a group of clickable
words, beginning with Essentials. These shortcuts take you to the different
workspaces available within Bridge.
Each one of these workspaces is set up to assist you with specific tasks. The
Keywording workspace, for example, brings up the panels essential to adding
keywords to your images for tagging and search purposes.

Customizing Bridge

In addition to the preset workspaces that are already present, you can use the
frames that separate the panels to maximize or minimize panels. If you want to
resize the preview image, grab the gray bar in between and drag it until the
preview becomes the size you want. If you want even more room, drag the bar
beneath the preview image to minimize the metadata panel. Once you have the
window looking the way you want, you can save your changes by selecting
Window > Workspace > New Workspace. Type a name for it in the Name
field, pick your options, and click Save, as shown in Figure 1-2. You'll notice
that the new workspace name appears in the Workspace bar.

Figure 1-2: Customizing your Bridge Workspace.

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Review mode

Now the actual work begins. You have to get rid of the less than stellar photos
so you can focus on the ones you want to keep and enhance. The easiest way
to review your photos and make decisions is in Review mode. You can open
Review mode by selecting View > Review Mode or using the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+B.

Figure 1-3 shows Review mode. You can navigate through the thumbnails
using the arrows in the bottom left corner, or by clicking the thumbnail you wish
to view larger.

To bring up a menu of commands available in Review mode, press H on

your keyboard. Press H again to hide the menu.

If you want to check the sharpness of the image, Ctrl+click the portion of the
preview image you want to sample and the Loupe appears, showing that part of
the image at 100 percent of the image size.
Figure 1-3: Review mode in Bridge.

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While in Review mode, you can label the photos that you approve as Selected.
The keyboard shortcut for selecting a photo is Ctrl+6. When you apply this
label to a photo, a red bar appears beneath the photo. You may also use the
Delete key to mark a photo as Rejected.

You can modify the labels, colors, and shortcuts in the preferences file,
which you can access from Edit > Preferences or by the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+K.

If you prefer to use a star rating system, the keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+1-5
for 1 to 5 stars. The Label menu in the Menu bar shows all of the rating
options.

Collections

Once you have all of the best photos selected, you should keep them
separated from the rest. Bridge now offers the ability to create collections.
Collections are groups of photos that you place together for easy access. The
best part of creating collections is that the file overhead is very small. When
you create a collection, you're not copying the photo or moving it. You're simply
adding a tiny metadata tag in Bridge. Because it's also non-destructive, you
can create as many collections as you want.

In Review mode, there's actually a Create Collection button that places all of
your selected photos into a new collection.

If you decide that you want to create a collection at another time, you can do
that also. Exit out of Review mode using the X in the bottom-right corner.
Figure 1-4: Creating collections.

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Let's say that you want to create a collection of just the photos of the little boy
in the field of flowers. Ctrl+click the thumbnails in the Content panel and then
click the Create Collection button at the bottom of the Collections panel.
Figure 1-4 shows the dialog that appears asking if the selected photos should
be added to the collection. Click Yes and then rename the collection.

If your Collections panel is not showing, click the name Collections beside
the Filters panel to bring it to the front.

Keywords

If you're familiar with Photoshop, you may already be utilizing this feature, but if
you're not doing this, another powerful way to organize your photos is to add
keywords. Keywords allow you to filter, sort, and do searches. For example, if
you add a person's name as a keyword to all of the photos that you take of that
person, you can search for that name. Bridge will then find and display all of the
photos with that keyword, no matter where they are on your hard drive. Figure
1-5 shows the Keyword workspace with one of the photos selected. Notice that
the assigned keywords are checked in the keyword panel on the left side.

Figure 1-5: Adding keywords to photos.

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Adding keywords is simple. Select a photo or a range of photos using

Ctrl+click, and then check the checkbox in the keywords panel. To add a new
keyword to the panel, simply click the New Keyword icon at the bottom of the
panel.

You can add as many keywords as you would like to fit your catalog of photos.
Be creative and make sure that you take the time to add the keywords.

Tool menu

You have two more tools to learn about in Bridge. One of them is a great way
to create panorama photos and the other is a huge time-saver for batch
processing images.

PhotoMerge

Creating panoramic photos has never been easier. Browse to the folder
containing the images to stitch together, and then select the range of photos.
With them selected, navigate to Tools > Photoshop > Photomerge. Figure 1-
6 shows the dialog box that appears. Make sure all photo names are selected,
and then click OK.

Figure 1-6: Photomerge dialog box.

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The process takes a few minutes as the photos are aligned and merged
together. The result is a gorgeous panoramic photo, as you can see in Figure
1-7.

Figure 1-7: Completed panorama.

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Image Processor

The image processor is a tremendously powerful tool found in Bridge. It has a

multitude of options and you can use it to do almost any automation task.

As an example, you can create Web-sized versions of your photos so that you
can post them online. Simply select Tools > Photoshop > Image Processor
to open the Image Processor dialog box.

Change the destination folder to prevent overwriting original files and change
the other options according to the settings shown in Figure 1-8. Select Run and
it automatically resizes your photos and saves them to a new folder.

Figure 1-8: Image Processor dialog box.

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Next up

Now that you've mastered Bridge, you'll begin the editing process in the
phenomenal Camera RAW interface. Adobe integrated this software into
Photoshop generations ago to handle the still new RAW file formats. By the
end of this lesson, you'll realize how much editing time you can save by using
Camera RAW.

Process photos in Camera Raw

Camera Raw is a powerful editing tool. You can accomplish many of your color
and tone edits before you even open the file in Photoshop. Camera Raw has
been around for several versions of Photoshop, but it contains some amazing
new features that are highlighted in this section. Camera Raw was created to
handle RAW file formats.

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RAW files are essentially the equivalent of negatives in film photography.

They contain raw, untouched pixel information from the camera's sensor.

When you edit using Camera Raw, it's non-destructive editing because you
make the changes to the RAW instructions, not to the actual file.

If you're familiar with Adobe's Lightroom program, Camera Raw looks very
familiar because it's very similar to the Develop window in that software.

If you only shoot jpgs, you can still open any image in Camera Raw. Simply
select the file the same way as you would a RAW file. With the file or range of
files highlighted in Bridge, simply select the Open in Camera Raw icon in the
shortcuts bar. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+R or select File >
Open in Camera Raw.

Figure 1-9 shows the Camera Raw workspace. The basic functions of the
program are called out to give you a quick lay of the land.

Figure 1-9: Brief visual tour of Camera Raw.

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Basic functions

Because Camera Raw has such a vast array of tools and options, this will not
in any way be a comprehensive overview. Instead, you'll learn predominantly
about the new features available. The best way to become familiar with its
capabilities is to explore and experiment. Open a photo and try all of the sliders
and tools until you get a good feel for how each of them works.

Toolbox

The row of icons at the top of the workspace is similar to the Toolbox panel in
Photoshop. This is where you can select the tool you want to use. Hover over
an icon with your mouse to see the tool name and keyboard shortcut. Some of
the options are the White Balance tool, the Straighten tool, and even Red Eye
Correction.

Panels

To the right of the workspace is a large panel with a row of icons at the top.
Those icons change the active panel. As you can see, there are several of
them and they allow you to edit tone, color, and even sharpening.

In the Basic panel, there's an Auto option that can give you a great starting
point to correcting basic exposure and white balance issues. Using that option
and then adding just a bit of contrast and vibrance makes the image in Figure
1-10 almost ready for print.
Figure 1-10: Using Camera Raw to enhance tone and color.

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What's new

There are two fabulous new tools in the Camera Raw toolbox, which you
explore in this section. The first one is the Graduated Filter tool.

Graduated Filter

Figure 1-11 shows a landscape photo open in Camera Raw. It's a beautiful
photograph, but it could benefit from a deeper blue sky and more vivid oranges
in the rock formation. This is exactly what the Graduated Filter tool can do.
Select the tool from the toolbox above the workspace or simply press G on your
keyboard.

Figure 1-11: A Candidate for the Graduated Filter.

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To create a deeper blue sky, click the image at the top and drag down until you
see the selection area like that in Figure 1-12. This is the area that will be
affected by the filter. Now you can adjust the sliders in the panel to the right
until you like the look of the sky.
Figure 1-12: Using the Graduated Filter to deepen the blue of the sky.

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Once you're satisfied, select the New radio button at the top of the panel to
begin working on the ground and rocks. This time, click and drag up to cover
the bottom portion of the photo. Click the color swatch in the panel to select an
orange color that gives the photo a warm tone. You can see the selection in
Figure 1-13.

Figure 1-13: Using the Graduated Filter to enhance the ground.

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If the overlays make it difficult to judge the enhancements, press H on your

keyboard to temporarily hide them. Press H again to bring them back if you
need to adjust them.

Figure 1-14 shows a before and after comparison of the photo without and then
with the Graduated Filter. It's amazing what a dramatic difference it can make.
Figure 1-14: Before and after the Graduated Filter.

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Adjustment Brush

The Adjustment Brush is an unbelievably useful tool. You can use it to precisely
adjust almost anything in your photo.

Figure 1-15: A photo that needs the Adjustment Brush.

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Take the example photo in Figure 1-15. If you want to add increased exposure
to the faces of these little girls, simply select the Adjustment Brush from the
Toolbox, or use the keyboard shortcut K. Now, make the change to the
exposure slider from the panel and brush the exposure adjustment just to the
faces. If you want to add or alter the adjustment, you can do it dynamically.
Figure 1-16 shows the image after the exposure adjustment.
Figure 1-16: Drastic results from the Adjustment Brush.

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This is another tool that you could lose yourself in exploring. The Adjustment
Brush could be the perfect solution to any photo that needs an adjustment
applied to one small area.

Moving on

In this lesson, you learned about Photoshop CS4's new features as well as how
to integrate Bridge and Camera Raw into your editing workflow. You learned
the value of rating your photos and making collections of the "keepers." You
also became familiar with the incredible time-saving Camera RAW interface.
Before moving on, complete the assignment and quiz for this lesson.

Assignment #1
In Lesson 1, you learned how to use Bridge to get your photos organized, review and rate your
photos, and put your favorites into Collections. You also learned how to add keywords to the photos
in your collections so that you can do intelligent searches quickly.

Your assignment is to select a group of photos to review, rate, put into a collection, and then add
keywords to. If you need to start with a small collection of photos, select a folder of photos. You
have to start somewhere. If you're feeling a bit more ambitious, try an entire month or year's worth
of photos. Follow the steps outlined in the lesson and organize your photos.

You'll be surprised by how much fun this task can be. Just flipping through old photos brings back
so many marvelous memories.

Quiz #1
Question 1:
True or False: You can only open RAW files in Camera Raw.
A) True
B) False

Question 2:
Which of the following are tasks you can complete in Bridge? (Check all that apply.)
A) Review photos
B) Create collections
C) Create adjustment layers
D) Make a panoramic photo
Question 3:
Which of the following are new features in Photoshop CS4? (Check all that apply.)
A) Adjustments panel
B) Camera Raw
C) Masks panel
D) Graduated Filter tool

Enhance your photos with light, color and sharpness

corrections
Even if you're fairly happy with your photo, chances are you can still improve it by tweaking the light and color.
In this lesson, you'll learn comprehensive, non-destructive methods for color-correcting, toning and sharpening
your priceless photos.

Light and tone adjustments

Because there are several tools and techniques that you can use together to Customizing
accomplish tonal and color corrections, there's no standard way to enhance workspaces
your photos. Even professionals disagree as to what the best way is to white
balance and boost color vibrancy. The techniques you'll learn in this lesson
take advantage of the latest features of Photoshop CS4 to produce the most Photoshop is incredibly
flexible, non-destructive improvements. flexible. You can add and
remove panels as well as
arrange them in different
In this lesson, you'll become familiar with three of the most important concepts groups that make sense to
in Photoshop: layers, adjustment layers, and masking. If you're already familiar you. To separate nested
with these features, read on. You may learn something new. The techniques in panels; click and drag the
this lesson are almost exclusively based on combinations of these ideas. You panel name and then click
may not thoroughly understand layer masking the first time you see it, but with the X to close it. To nest
exposure, you certainly will. separate panels; simply click
and drag the panel by the
name until you see a blue
Levels adjustment line appear at the top of the
panel group.

Even the most brilliant photographers fall victim to bad lighting. It's inevitable
that you see the perfect subject for a photo, but the light is all wrong. Once you have the panels
Unfortunately, it's just impossible to swing the sun around in the sky to light and groups arranged to your
your subject the right way. So, you either miss the photo or you fix it later in satisfaction, you can save
Photoshop. That is what we are going to do with Figure 2-1. The sky in the the workspace by selecting
background is beautiful, but obviously the giraffe was in the shade. To correct Window > Workspace >
the light in this image, you need to apply a Levels adjustment layer. Save Workspace.

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Figure 2-1: The subject is too dark.

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Make sure that you have the Adjustments panel open. You'll use it frequently
while editing photos. In the Adjustments panel, there are numerous icons. Until
you become familiar with them, use your mouse to hover over them. The name
appears above the icons in the panel. Click the icon for the Levels adjustment
layer. Two things happen: the Adjustments panel becomes the Levels dialog
box, and a new layer called Levels 1 is created in the Layers panel. You can
see these changes in Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-2: Adding a Levels adjustment layer.

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Using the Levels histogram, pull the gray slider arrow toward the black until you
like the brightness. You can adjust the other sliders as well. Moving the black
arrow toward the right increases the contrast.

Figure 2-3: The global correction brightened too much.

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The problem with this correction is that it's global. The subject is lit correctly,
but now the beautiful blue sky is washed out, as you can see in Figure 2-3.
Fortunately, there's a way to apply this light correction to only a portion of the
image. If you remember back in Lesson 1, the Adjustment brush in Camera
Raw allows you to paint on different tonal corrections. We will do something
similar here.

Layer masks

Let's focus on the Layers panel for a minute. The Levels adjustment layer looks
different from the photo layer that sits directly beneath it. The Levels icon, a
black and white circle, is linked to a white rectangle by a chain link icon. The
white rectangle is a blank layer mask and the link icon means that the layer
mask is linked to the layer.

The simplest way to explain a layer mask is to think of it like a stencil. When
you place a stencil on a wall and paint over it, the paint only touches the wall
where the stencil is cut away. The solid part of the stencil masks away the rest
of the paint. Layer masks work much the same way.

To create a stencil, you must block the levels adjustment from certain areas of
the photo. You do this by painting in black on the mask. Let's walk through the
steps first using your own photo and then you'll revisit this concept in a
moment. First choose a photo with a similar lighting issue as our giraffe photo.
Then use Figure 2-4 to help you follow along with your own photo.

Figure 2-4: Layer masking technique

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1. Make sure that the layer mask in the Levels 1 layer is active. You can
make it active by clicking the white rectangle thumbnail in the Layers
panel.
2. Select the Brush tool by clicking the icon or using the keyboard shortcut
B.
3. Set your foreground color to black. Use the foreground/background color
paint chips at the bottom of the Toolbox. Press D on your keyboard to
revert back to the default colors and then use the X key on your
keyboard to switch back and forth between black and white.
4. To fill the entire layer mask with black, press Alt+Backspace. It will
appear that the entire Levels adjustment is hidden.
5. Switch the foreground color back to white using the X key on your
keyboard.
6. Make the brush size small enough to paint only on the subject. You can
use the drop down brush size menu in the options bar above the photo
7. Paint over the subject until you're happy with the results.

This may seem like a long process now, but with time it will become almost
second-nature.

Now that you've seen the entire technique, let's examine what actually
happened. Notice that instead of being a solid rectangle, the layer mask is now
black with a white cutout of the giraffe. Remember that this is our digital stencil.
Where the "stencil" is black, it's hiding the Levels adjustment. White "paint" on
the layer mask works like the cut out portion of the stencil. It allows the lighting
correction to appear on the subject.

Having the ability to make such precise corrections is amazing, but it gets even
better. Because the levels adjustment and the layer mask are separate from
the actual photo layer, you can go back to them at any time without affecting
any other layer. If you make some color corrections later, you might decide that
you wish you hadn't lightened the subject so much. No problem. Simply double-
click the levels adjustment layer, make the change, and close it.

The layer mask is also dynamic. If you happen to make a mistake and paint too
much white back in on the subject, simply switch your foreground color back to
black and paint in black. That is the true power of layer masking and
adjustment layers. It's called non-destructive editing because you can make
precise, dynamic changes that sit on a separate layer so that they do not
directly affect the photo's pixels.

Curves

You dealt with a great deal of information in the last technique, so this tone
correction technique reviews the previous concepts to help you have a firmer
grasp of them.

The curves adjustment layer is historically a scary one for new Photoshop
users, but if you're familiar with Photoshop, you should have no problem with
this. The results from using the histogram can be terrible if you make large
adjustments. It is, however, the most powerful way to make tonal corrections in
your photos.

After you get a feel for how to use this robust tool, you'll learn about a fabulous
new tool in Photoshop CS4 that makes using Curves incredibly easy.

Understanding the histogram

Let's look at the diagram in Figure 2-5. It shows the Curves dialog box from the
Adjustments panel.

Figure 2-5: The Curves adjustment dialog box.

Notice the center line that divides the graph from the top-right to the bottom-left
corners. Above the line, colors are light and less saturated. Below the line,
colors become darker and more saturated. The range of colors, represented in
grayscale, also follows that line from white at the top down to black at the
bottom.

If you want to brighten your photo, you could click that line and pull it up slightly
to make the colors lighter. Notice that it also desaturates the colors. If you pull
the line down instead, notice that the colors darken and become more
saturated, and contrast is added.

Using presets
Thankfully, the Curves adjustment layer contains a drop-down list of preset
curve values, as you can see in Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-6: Curves presets.

These presets are a great starting point. Select one of the presets and watch
what happens to your photo and the curve. Once you see a few of the curves,
you'll get a feel for what areas need to be adjusted to make the corrections you
feel are necessary. Keep in mind that presets are just an automatic setting and
will probably need a little tweaking to make the best corrections.

Target Adjustment Tool

The Target Adjustment Tool is a brand new feature in Photoshop CS4. In the
top corner of several adjustment layer dialogs, there's an icon that looks like a
pointing hand. This turns the tool on and off. When it's on, your mouse cursor
becomes an eyedropper. Click in any area of your photo that needs adjustment
and drag up for lightening, or down for darkening. You can watch the progress
on the Curves histogram. As you can see, there's no need to guess which point
on the curve corresponds to the tone you need to adjust on your image. You
can select the exact tone and modify it. You can keep clicking and correcting
until you're satisfied with the changes.

Multiple curves adjustments

One of the most common errors people make is trying to make all of the
photo's tonal corrections in one single adjustment layer. Remember back to the
giraffe photo at the beginning of this lesson. The background and foreground
had very different light and tone values. Most photos will have areas that need
to be treated individually. Therefore, it makes sense to devote an adjustment
layer to each distinct area and mask out what that layer should not affect.

Let's take a look at our next sample photo in Figure 2-7. Overall, it's a good
photo, but it needs a few improvements.
Figure 2-7: A photo that needs tonal corrections.

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It's fairly flat and gray and needs contrast. The whites need to be brightened as
well as the water. The sky could also use darkening and saturation. We'll fix
these issues using two separate Curves adjustments. This process will make
more sense to you if you follow along with your own photo. To fix these issues:

1. Click the Curves adjustment icon in the Adjustments panel.

2. Either select one of the presets, or manually adjust your photo, focusing
only on one area. In Figure 2-8, the tone was corrected for the boat and
water.

Figure 2-8: Half of the photo is corrected.

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1. Select the back arrow at the bottom of the Adjustments panel.

2. Click the Curves icon again. This creates a new Curves adjustment
layer. In this layer, focus only on the sky. Deepen the color until you're
satisfied with it, but don't adjust any of the rest of the photo.
3. In the Layers panel, select the layer mask of the top Curves layer. An
outline surrounds the thumbnail when it's active.
4. Instead of using the Brush tool to paint away a part of the adjustment,
use the Gradient tool (press G on your keyboard to access). Make sure
that your gradient is set to black and white. Use the drop-down menu in
the options bar to see which gradient is active, as shown in Figure 2-9.
Figure 2-9: Adding a gradient to a layer mask.

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1. Click in the middle of the photo and drag down. This creates a gradient
in the layer mask, which keeps the bottom half of the sky adjustment
hidden.

This technique for correcting light problems is similar to the one you learned at
the beginning of this lesson, but it's used differently. If the concept of layer
masking is not comfortable for you, keep practicing. Work with several different
photos that cover a broad array of subjects and lighting conditions. It takes a
little practice, but the results are definitely worth the effort. Figure 2-10 shows a
comparison of the photo before and after the Curves adjustments.

Figure 2-10: Before and after Curves adjustments.

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In the next section, you'll see how Adobe breathed new life into an old toolset:
dodge and burn.
The much-improved Dodge and Burn Tools
If you ever spend time in a film darkroom making enlargements of your
negatives, you'll recognize the terms dodge and burn. In that environment, the
only control you have over exposure is to add and subtract exposure time. If
only one area needs exposure work, you hide the rest of the photo while letting
additional light fall on your targeted area to darken or burn that exposure in.
Dodging is the opposite process, where you cover an area to prevent it from
becoming overexposed. » HP Photosmart all-in-
ones

The dodge and burn tools have been with Photoshop from the beginning, but
unfortunately, they never worked well. Instead of deepening the colors and
tones that were inherently in the image, they instead added either white to
dodge or black to burn. This resulted in muddy colors and a poor light
correction, as shown in the before and after photos in Figure 2-11. Notice the
gray that is added when the highlights are burned, and the change in skin tone
when the shadow side of the face is brightened.

Figure 2-11: Poor quality of legacy dodge and burn tools.

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Photoshop CS4 breathes new life into the dodge and burn tools. Press O on
your keyboard to select these tools.

To switch between the dodge, burn, and sponge tools, right-click the
toolbox icon. All of the tools are nested together.

There are a few options that you need to use to get the most out of these tools:

Range: You must pick shadows, midtones, or highlights, depending on

which tone range you want to affect. Most skin and clothing falls in the
midtone range.
 Exposure: Percentage of total exposure. Keep this number low and make
several passes so that the effect doesn't get too strong.
Protect Tones: When checked, Photoshop keeps the colors from shifting
hue while they're being darkened or lightened. This option preserves skin
tones and avoids unnecessary highlight and shadow clipping.

Use the brush size drop-down menu to change the brush size depending on
what you're working on. For detail areas, make sure that you use a small, soft
brush. The brush hardness setting in the drop-down menu controls whether the
brush tip is a solid edge or feathered.

Make sure that you duplicate the layer before you start editing and make all
of the changes to the copy layer.

With the Protect Tones option, the shadows in the skin brighten nicely and the
highlights are pulled down without adding muddy gray. The results are shown
in Figure 2-12.

Figure 2-12: Completed dodge and burn corrections.

Enlarge image

In the first sections of this lesson, you gathered an arsenal of techniques for
correcting light and tone issues in your photos. The next sections focus on the
colors in your images.

Correct and enhance colors

One of the biggest issues digital photographers have to deal with is color casts
in their photos. It can happen when the white balance setting is incorrect for the
environment, when the lighting actually has a hue to it, or even when shooting
early or late in the day when sunlight carries a little color.

Remove color cast » HP Paper

There are numerous methods to remove an unwanted color cast in a photo. We

cover one in this section, but there are some variations you can use for
troublesome photos scattered throughout this section as well.

At first glance, the photo in Figure 2-13 looks fine. It has several bright colors
against a white background. The human eye tends to see what it expects,
however. If you look carefully at the white, you'll see that it has a fairly strong
reddish cast to it. This happens with skin tone in photos as well. You see the
skin the way you know it should look. It isn't until you set the white point in your
photo that you recognize what a drastic color shift existed.

Figure 2-13: The white background has a color cast to it.

Enlarge image

You'll understand this process much better if you follow along, so take a minute
and select a personal photograph that contains a color cast.

To remove a color cast from your photo:

1. Select the Curves adjustment icon from the Adjustments panel.

2. In the Curves dialog box, there are three eyedropper icons on the left
side: black, gray, and white. Because you're sampling the white in the
background, select the white eyedropper.
3. Pick a spot on your photo where the white is fairly clear, without it being
a reflection or highlight, and click it once. You never want to select a
bright, blown-out highlight as your white point. It will shift the colors too
far.

If a person is in your photo, you can use the whites of their eyes as a
sample point. If you don't have any visible white in your photo, use the
black eyedropper to set the black point.

1. You've sampled a spot in the photo to be your new white point, which
shifts the rest of the color spectrum into alignment. As you can see from
Figure 2-14 and your own photo, setting the white point removes a color
cast.

Figure 2-14: Corrected color cast.

Enlarge image

Not all of your photos will be that easy. Figure 2-15 is an example of a more
troublesome photo.

Figure 2-15: Before and after of more difficult color cast.

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1. The original has a pronounced green color cast to it and the white point
technique just didn't pull out all of the extraneous green. Let's continue
from where we left off above.
2. Select the back button on the Adjustments panel. Add a Selective Color
adjustment layer. The icon is on the bottom row in the far-right corner.
3. In the Selective Color dialog box, select green from the drop-down
colors menu and then adjust the sliders until you like the color.

Color channels work in pairs of opposites:

Red/cyan
Green/magenta
Blue/yellow

To remove green from the photo, add magenta. To add cyan, lower the red
level. Always keep these pairs in mind as you work with color.
Figure 2-16: Final color cast removal.

Enlarge image

In Figure 2-16, the green cast has been removed from the compass and only
shows in the appropriate places on the map. This is a definite improvement
from the starting image.

Boost colors

In previous versions of Photoshop, the only way to boost color was to add
saturation. Unfortunately, it was too easy to oversaturate color and add
unnecessary color noise. Saturation is particularly damaging to skin tones.
Vibrance is a color adjustment that adds color variety without oversaturating.
Vibrance is a Lightroom and Camera Raw setting that has finally arrived in
Photoshop CS4 as an adjustment layer.

Figure 2-17: The photo lacks vivid colors.

Enlarge image

The photo in Figure 2-17 contains a good number of different hues, but none of
them is as vivid as they could be. To fix this color issue, add a Vibrance
adjustment layer. Its icon is in the middle row on the far left in the Adjustments
panel.

The Vibrance dialog box is straightforward. Typically, when you add a lot of
vibrance to an image, the saturation may need to be decreased a little to keep
the colors looking real.

Figure 2-18: Vibrant colors without oversaturation.

Enlarge image

Figure 2-18 shows the image with a Vibrance adjustment added. Notice that
the colors still look natural, even though they have received quite a boost.

Now that you've learned techniques to make your colors pop, the next section
shows you how to properly convert your photos to black and white.

Breathtaking black and white conversions

There's a lot more to making black and white images than simply desaturating
the color to grayscale. The black and white version of the photo in Figure 2-19
is adequate.

» HP Printer accessories

Figure 2-19: Desaturating a color image.

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Simply add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and drag the saturation slider
down to -100% to achieve this look.
Black & White Adjustment layer

Fortunately, there's a better way. If you look back at the original color version of
the photo, you see many colors and tones. They're all lost and flattened when
the photo is simply desaturated. However, if you add a Black & White
Adjustment layer, you can dial in exactly how each of the original colors maps
to a grayscale equivalent.

Create a Black & White Adjustment layer from the icons in the Adjustments
panel. Remembering the original colors in the photo, use the color sliders to
lighten or darken those tones in the photo. If you would rather use the Target
Adjustment tool to click and drag tones up or down in the photo, you can select
that as well.

Figure 2-20 shows an amazing before and after composite. There's not only
more depth, texture, and light contrast in the final product, but it also captures
the emotion and drama of the original image.

Figure 2-20: Excellent black and white conversion.

Enlarge image

The final section of this lesson focuses on getting sharper photos. There are an
abundance of techniques for sharpening, but you'll learn the most effective
one.

Sharpening technique
There are several schools of thought on sharpening your digital photos. Some
say that it should be done only to the final photo just before you print. Others
say that you should sharpen in stages: once when you begin editing and then
again before printing. However you choose to add the procedure into your
workflow, you absolutely should add it. Digital photos, no matter how clear and
in focus, can almost always use a little sharpening to keep the final prints from
looking soft. » HP Original ink & toner

Smart Sharpen

The Smart Sharpen filter has been around since CS2 and it's still one of the
best ways to add sharpness to your images. The filter looks for areas of
contrast. The more contrast there is, the more sharpening is applied.

With your photo open and ready, simply select it from the filter menu by
selecting Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. The dialog box is a little
intimidating, but once you understand how each of the settings works, it's fairly
simple. The settings are shown in Figure 2-21.
Figure 2-21: Smart Sharpen dialog box.

Enlarge image

The Smart Sharpen settings are:

Amount: This is the amount of sharpening to apply. For printing, the typical
range is between 100% and 200%. This is completely photo-dependent so
watch your preview image closely.
Radius: This is the reach of the sharpening effect. The number will most
likely stay under 3.
Remove: This will stay on Lens Blur for photographs.

In Figure 2-22, you can see the same small detail of the photo before
sharpening and then after. The difference is quite stunning.

Figure 2-22: Detail views of sharpening.

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Moving on

In this lesson, you learned how to correct just about any light or color problem
you might encounter in your photographs. You learned the complex, yet
amazingly flexible techniques of layer masking and adjustment layers. You
even learned how to create the best black and white photos possible and how
to sharpen your masterpieces for print.

In the next lesson, you'll gain an arsenal of retouching techniques, including

removing distracting elements, brightening teeth, and softening skin. Before
moving on, complete the assignment and quiz for this lesson.

Assignment #2
In Lesson 2, you gained a whole bag full of editing tricks. You know how to accomplish the
most flexible and non-destructive corrections on your photos.

Your assignment is to pick a photo that needs a little light and color adjustment. Follow the
techniques you learned in the lesson, using at least one layer mask technique.

Once you start working with the layer masks on your own photos, they'll become easier for
you. Soon, you'll be masking every layer of every photo.

Quiz #2
Question 1:
True or False: The best way to convert a photo to black and white is to desaturate with a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer.
A) True
B) False

Question 2:
Which color in a layer mask hides the adjustment from the photo?
A) Black
B) White

Question 3:
Which of the following are adjustment layers you used in Lesson 2? (Check all that apply.)
A) Photo Filter
B) Vibrance
C) Black & White
D) Curves

Retouching and restoring your photos

Because people are the focus of many photos, this lesson shows you some tricks and techniques for retouching
your subjects like a pro. Learn how to use the healing tools, remove red eye, use the selection tools and
cosmetically enhance your subjects.

Using healing tools

The healing tools make retouching and restoration of your photos much
simpler. They allow you to remove pixels and replace them with others. The
two tools you'll use in this section are:

Clone Stamp tool: Samples pixels from one area and copies them directly
to another area.
 Healing Brush: Samples pixels but then blends the new pixels into the » HP Photosmart printers
surrounding pixels.

These two tools usually work in tandem.

Get rid of extraneous items

In the photo in Figure 3-1, it is obviously a windy day. The little girl's hair is
blowing around quite a bit.

Figure 3-1: Distracting hair in eyes.

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Unfortunately, some of it crosses her face in a distracting way. Let's zoom in to

start correcting this photo.

Clone Stamp tool

The Clone Stamp tool resides near the other healing tools and its icon looks
like an old-fashioned rubber stamp. Its keyboard shortcut is S. You use this tool
on the eye because you don't want any blending of the pixels; you want pixel
replacement. The first step to any retouching technique is to copy the layer and
make all changes to the copy.

Copy the layer with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J.

1. With the Clone Stamp selected, zoom in tightly on the affected area.
You should be close to the pixel level. Select a brush size from the drop-
down menu in the options bar. Keep the brush size very small so you
can make little corrections, as shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Zoom in tightly and use a small, precise brush.

Enlarge image

1. Find a spot in the eye that contains the pixel information you want to
copy over the distracting hair. Look at the tones and colors and make
sure that they match. If you're working with an edge, such as the lid of
the eye, make sure that you sample that lid to copy over.
2. While holding the Alt key, click the sample spot. You'll notice that the
inside of your brush circle now appears to carry that sample point.

This sample preview is a new feature in Photoshop CS4 and really helps to
ensure that you're sampling the correct areas.

1. Click and drag over the area you want to cover. The pixels are pulled
directly from the sample point.
2. Resample using the Alt+click method frequently. Any time the color,
light, or texture changes, you'll need to resample.

The before and after eye photos in Figure 3-3 show what you can accomplish
in just a minute or two of cloning.
Figure 3-3: Before and after using the Clone Stamp tool.

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Remove dark circles

Retouching on skin is a little trickier. Even though your skin appears to be one
continuous color, it isn't. Skin is a hodgepodge of many different shades that
make up an overall color. Using the Clone Stamp tool on skin results in blotchy
areas and repeating patterns that are a dead giveaway that the photo has been
retouched.

Figure 3-4 shows a young man with dark circles under his eyes. We will use
the Healing Brush to correct this problem:

1. Copy the layer using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J and select the top
layer as your working layer.
2. Select the Healing Brush from the toolbox or access this tool by
pressing J on your keyboard.
3. In the options bar above the photo workspace, select Lighten from the
Mode drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 3-4. Because you want to
make the dark circles lighter, you switch the mode so the correction will
affect primarily the dark pixels to make them lighter.
Figure 3-4: Blending mode drop-down menu.

1. Alt+click a light area on the cheek to use as your sample point. The
apple of the cheek is a good spot because there aren't a lot of pores in
that area to interfere with the smooth skin under the eye.
2. Click and drag over the darkened areas to make them lighter. Use small
passes and go slowly so that you don't make too drastic a change.

Figure 3-5 shows the completed Healing Brush technique. Notice that the smile
lines around the eyes were not removed. This is intentional because removing
wrinkles is the next technique.

Figure 3-5: Completed Healing Brush on dark circles.

Enlarge image

Soften wrinkles and brighten skin

Wrinkles in a person's skin are handled differently than a blemish. You might
remove the entirety of a blemish, but wrinkles show character and our eye
expects a certain amount of them in a face. Instead of removing wrinkles, the
technique is to soften and minimize them. To do this:

1. Create a separate layer using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J.

2. Select the Healing Brush and set the Mode to Normal.
3. Alt+click a smooth area of the skin and then click and drag the sample
area over the wrinkled area of the skin. So far, this should look almost
identical to the previous technique. Don't worry about the severity of the
wrinkle removal. You'll soften it in a moment.
4. Copy this layer using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J. You should now
have your original photo as the bottom layer, the layer you did
retouching techniques on in the middle, and then a copy of that layer on
 the top.
5. At the top of the Layers panel is a drop-down menu for blending modes.
It should be currently set on Normal. It's similar to the mode menu in the
options bar, but has many more options. Select the Soft Light blend
mode. This blend mode provides a lot of contrast and luminance to the
skin. If it's too drastic, you can lower the opacity with the opacity slider
next to the blend modes in the Layers panel.
6. Click the Opacity slider and drag the pointer to the left to lower the
opacity number. The opacity is how opaque the layer is. As you lower
the opacity number, the layer becomes more transparent.
7. On the middle layer, also drop the opacity so that some of the original
wrinkles' begin to show through. You want to bring character back into
the face so that it doesn't look unnatural, as shown in Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6: Completed wrinkle removal.

Enlarge image

The final image shows the culmination of all three techniques: dark circle
removal, wrinkle removal, and skin brightening.

The next section of this lesson will focus on a healing tool that can fix one of
the most common problems in photography; red eye.

Removing red eye

Because the people in your photos are typically your subjects, the camera is
most likely pointed directly into their eyes. This is why you get those lovely red
eyes. The light from the flash bounces into the eye and reflects off of the retina,
which gives the red color. You can prevent this by using a flash that's higher
than the camera's lens, or one that can be tilted up and away from your
subject. This fixes any future instances of red eye. But what can you do about
the photos that already have this problem? » HP Photosmart all-in-
ones

Photoshop's Red Eye tool is remarkably easy to use and it works brilliantly.
The photo in Figure 3-7 may look a bit soft because it's zoomed in at 150
percent. One of the most important steps in using the Red Eye tool is to start
very closely to the eyes.
Figure 3-7: Zoom in close to your subject's eyes.

Enlarge image

To use the Red Eye tool:

1. Select the Red Eye tool from the toolbox. It's nested underneath the
other healing tools. Right-click the icon for the Healing Brush and select
the Red Eye tool at the bottom of the list. The keyboard shortcut for this
tool group is J.

To scroll through the available tools in a nested group, hold the Shift key
down while selecting the keyboard shortcut. For example, hold Shift while
selecting J until the Red Eye tool becomes the active tool.

1. Use your mouse and click just above the iris of the eye and drag to draw
a small box around it. When you release your mouse, the tool corrects
the red eye problem.
2. If the correction needs to be smaller or the pupil should be darker, there
are options in the tool's option bar to adjust the amount of the
correction. Simply press Ctrl+Z to undo the correction, adjust, and then
reapply.

Figure 3-8 shows the corrected photo. Notice that the algorithm is so brilliant
that it doesn't affect the catch lights in the eyes, only the color.

Figure 3-8: Corrected red eye photo.

Enlarge image

In the following section, you'll find out how to use selection tools.

Using selection tools

What happens when you need to remove or replace a large part of a photo?
The finesse tools like the Clone Stamp or Healing Brush are not designed for
large work. Instead, you can use the Patch tool and the Quick Selection tool,
which are designed for large work.

Patch tool » HP Paper

The Patch tool is still considered a healing tool because it samples an area and
blends it into a new area.

For this technique, the sample is the full-sized version of the photo used for the
Red Eye tool. It has one other flaw: there's a video game lying on the floor. It's
not surprising in a house full of children, but it's distracting in a photo. You
might want to choose a photo with a similar problem to follow along with. To
remove a large object, you employ the Patch tool. To do this:

1. Select the Patch tool from the nested healing tool group. Press Shift+J
to scroll through the tools.
2. Click and drag an outline around the object you want to remove, as
shown in Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9: Select area to remove.

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1. Drag that outlined area over to a clear patch of the photo that you want
to duplicate.

Figure 3-10 shows the result of the Patch tool. It copied and blended the patch
over the area to be removed.
Figure 3-10: Patched photo.

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Quick Selection tool

Heritage family photos are certainly a treasure. Unfortunately, past generations

did not know how to care for these heirlooms and they are frequently badly
damaged. Such is the case with the picture in Figure 3-11. This is a high-
resolution scan of the original photograph.

Figure 3-11: Badly damaged vintage photo.

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After learning the Patch tool technique, you're probably thinking that it's a great
way to handle the ripped areas of the photo. If there were only one or two
areas, it would probably be the best solution. Unfortunately, there are also
numerous tears, folds, and damaged areas. This photograph is in such poor
shape that moving the subject onto a clean background is much simpler. It will
save countless hours of restoration.

1. The first step in this process is to remove the yellow from the entire
image. You can use the white point technique you learned in Lesson 2.
Merge the two layers together by selecting Layer > Merge Layers.
2. Now you need to create a white background to move the little girl onto.
Select File > New and choose an appropriate size. The original file is 8"
x 10", so that would be a good choice. Make sure that the new file is
white.
3. Switch back to the photo file. Select the Quick Selection tool, which is
nested with the Magic Wand tool. The keyboard shortcut for this tool is W
or Shift+W. Click and drag to select all of the background areas. You
may need to use the add to selection and subtract from selection
settings in the Options bar until you get a good selection. See Figure 3-
12 for an example of the selection.

Figure 3-12: Selection using the Quick Selection tool.

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1. Switch to the Move tool, which can be accessed by pressing V on your

keyboard. This allows you to click and drag your selection onto the new
background. Drag the selection to the background's file name at the top
of the workspace. Don't let go. Wait until the background becomes the
active, front file and then drop your selection in that file. You may need
to adjust your selection on the page. If you look in the Layers panel,
you'll see that the selection was brought in as a new layer sitting on top
of the background.
2. Now that the background is cleaned up, you can focus on using the
Healing Brush and Clone Stamp to correct the rips and folds in the
subject. After a few minutes, your photo should look something like the
one in Figure 3-13.
Figure 3-13: Final restored photo.

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Next, you'll learn how to make cosmetic enhancements to your photos.

Create cosmetic enhancements

The last section of this lesson is not concerned with removing distractions or
restoration. The last few techniques give you a new skill set. At the end of this
lesson, you'll be able to make the people look even better than real life.

Whiten teeth
» HP Original ink & toner

This is a quick and easy technique that can benefit almost any smile. There's
an amazing number of poor teeth whitening techniques. They usually look fake
and painted on. The method you'll learn here is the professional way to create
gorgeous smiles.

Figure 3-14: Model needs teeth whitening.

Enlarge image
The woman in Figure 3-14 is a professional model, but even models can use
this technique. To whiten teeth:

1. Use the Quick Selection tool to select the teeth and only the teeth. This
may take a minute to create a good selection. See Figure 3-15 for a
good example.

Figure 3-15: Teeth selection.

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1. Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer from the Adjustments panel.

Target the Yellow channel from the drop-down menu. Drop the
saturation down and bring lightness up.
2. Duplicate the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and then switch the blend
mode to Soft Light. You might need to drop the opacity down a little to
make it look natural.

Figure 3-16: Final whitened teeth.

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The final image is Figure 3-16. The teeth are beautifully white and it still looks
incredibly realistic.

Brighten eyes

Eyes are the windows to the soul. In this technique, you'll learn to brighten up
your subjects' eyes. This is a slightly more complicated technique, but it uses
concepts you have used throughout this course. Figure 3-17 shows the photo
we will enhance in this section.

Figure 3-17: Eye to be brightened.

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To brighten eyes:

1. Using the Lasso tool or another selection tool such as the Quick
Selection tool, select the entire eye without getting any of the eyelid
area.
2. Copy your selection to a new layer above the photo using the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+J.
3. Change the blend mode of the eye layer to Screen. It will look really
strange at this point, as you can see in Figure 3-18.

Figure 3-18: Your correction should look awful at this point.

Enlarge image

1. The next step is to add a layer mask filled with black. Add a layer mask
using the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. To fill it with black as
you add it, hold down the Alt key while you click the layer mask icon.
2. Switch to the Brush tool and set your foreground color to white.
3. Make sure that the layer mask is selected and then paint with white over
the iris of the eye only.
4. Decrease the opacity of the layer until you like the effect.

Figure 3-19: Final eye brightening.

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You can see the final result in Figure 3-19.

Slim down

This effect is incredibly simple. It takes just a few easy steps. The first step in
making your subjects slimmer is to make sure that your photograph is a layer.
Look in the Layers panel at the thumbnail. If there's a lock icon next to the layer
thumbnail, it's not a layer. You can see this represented in Figure 3-20.

Figure 3-20: Background layer locked.

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To make your photo into a layer, double-click the layer and then click OK on
the dialog box. Now the layer is called Layer 0, unless you renamed it in the
dialog box.

Select Edit > Transform > Scale from the Menu. Click and drag the side
transform handle in until the width is at about 90%. You can follow the
percentage in the options bar. Figure 3-21 shows the completed
transformation.
Figure 3-21: Slimmed down photo.

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Don't be tempted to push the transformation past 90%. In most cases, your
subject will end up looking like they have a banana head if you get carried
away.

Make sure that you crop out the blank area that you left when you pulled
the edge in. Clear the Crop tool's previous settings in the Options bar so
you can crop without constraining proportions.

You won't be able to use this technique on every photo, but it's an excellent
trick to have up your sleeve.

Moving on

In this lesson, you learned how to employ a multitude of tools and techniques
to take care of almost any retouching and restoration need.

In the last lesson of this tour through Photoshop CS4, you'll learn to create
amazing borders for your photos. You'll create art from your photos using
smart filters and even create a Web gallery. To finish up, you'll learn a few best
practices for printing. Before moving on, complete the assignment and quiz for
this lesson.

Assignment #3
In Lesson 3, you learned a lot about photo retouching, from removing red eye to removing a
subject from a damaged background.

Your assignment is to select a photo that needs one of the retouching techniques you
explored in Lesson 3. Try to use at least one healing technique and one selection
technique.

Quiz #3
Question 1:
True or False: You should use the Healing Brush to correct problems on skin tones.
A) True
B) False

Question 2:
True or False: The Healing Brush tool copies exact pixel for pixel from the source to the destination
points.
A) True
B) False

Question 3:
Which of the following are healing tools? (Check all that apply.)
A) Healing Brush
B) Clone Stamp
C) Gradient
D) Patch

Finishing and sharing your photos

Even when you think you're almost done, there's always something more you can do with your photos. Learn
how to add gorgeous finishing touches to your retouched photos, and then get some helpful tips for printing and
posting your photos online.

Finish with flair

In the past three lessons, you have organized your photos, corrected light and
color, created breathtaking black and whites, retouched and restored your
images, and added some professional cosmetic enhancements.

The last step is to embellish your photos with some gorgeous finishing touches.
When your masterpieces are ready to share, you'll learn the best practices for » HP Photosmart printers
printing and how to put your photos online.

The most important idea to glean from this entire lesson is that you must
devote time to experiment in Photoshop if you hope to come up with truly
phenomenal results. Explore all of the blending modes. Blend photos together
in fun ways. Play with different brush tips. Add color overlays and filters. There
literally isn't a limit to what you can create with this amazing program.

Finish your photos with borders, frames and edges

There are countless ways to add finishing touches to your photos.

In this lesson, you'll learn two framing techniques. They're traditional, but very
important and elegant framing techniques.

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Gallery print ones

If you've ever been to an art gallery, you know that many of the pieces on
display are matted, usually with black or white with a thin border and the gallery
or painter's name beneath it. This style is called a gallery print and is a formal
way of presenting a photo. To create a gallery print, follow these steps:

1. Make a duplicate layer of your photo with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J.
2. With the bottom layer active, select Image > Canvas Size from the
menu.
3. In the dialog box, check the Relative option, and then add 2 inches for
 width and 5 inches for height. These numbers are just one example.
You can add as much space around the photo as you would like.
4. Your canvas should expand with transparent pixels.
5. Select black as your foreground color and fill the bottom layer by
pressing the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace. Your top layer should
be the photo copy and the bottom layer should be solid black.
6. Create a new blank layer from the menu by selecting Layer > New >
Layer.
7. With the new blank layer active, use the Marquee tool to drag an outline
around the photo.
8. Create an outline on this selection by selecting Edit > Stroke. Use the
settings in the Stroke dialog box shown in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: Create thin frame with these Stroke settings.

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1. The last step is to add text. Use the Text tool and select a font you like.
2. Click the photo and type your message.
3. Arrange the text by switching to the Move tool and dragging it into
position. The final project is shown in Figure 4-2.

Figure 4-2: Final gallery print.

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Deckled edge

A deckled edge is another traditional treatment. It starts out similarly to the

previous technique because you must expand the canvas before you do
anything else. To extend the canvas:
 1. Select Image > Canvas Size and expand your photo's canvas by 10%
in both directions. Fill with whichever color you decide to use.
2. Use the Marquee tool to draw a selection outline just inside your photo.
3. Choose Select > Inverse to switch the selection to the outside portion
of the photo. Make sure that it looks like the selection shown in Figure 4-
3.

Figure 4-3: Select outside edge of photo.

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1. Next, you'll add a filter to the selected area. Select Filter > Distort >
Ocean Ripple. Play with the settings and click OK once you like the
results in the preview pane.

This is such a quick and easy edge, but it really adds a lot of drama to the
photo, as you see in Figure 4-4.
Figure 4-4: Finished deckle edge.

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In the next section, find out how to use smart filters.

Use Smart Filters to make art from your photos

Filters have been a fun part of Photoshop from the beginning, but in the last
two versions they've become even better. Smart filters bring a lot more
flexibility to filters. Previously they had to be applied globally, but now they can
be used like adjustment layers. They have layer masks that can be modified
and the filter is fully editable. This means that you can re-open the filter at any
time and change its settings.
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Diffuse glow

The diffuse glow filter is magical. It creates a dreamy, glowing work of art out of
your photographs. The photo in Figure 4-5 is perfect for this filter. It contains
light, bright colors that will translate well. Find a photo of your own that might
work well for this effect.
Figure 4-5: Starting portrait.

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To add a Smart Filter to your photo:

1. Convert the photo to a Smart Object. Select Filter > Convert for Smart
Filters. Click OK.
2. This filter works a little differently than most, and requires the
background color to be set to white. Use the Foreground/Background
color chips in the Toolbox to set the color.
3. Next, you must select a filter to add. Select Filter > Distort > Diffuse
Glow. The dialog box allows you to preview the settings as you adjust
them. Each photo will use different settings, so play with them until you
like the results.

Figure 4-6 shows the diffuse glow filter applied to the whole image. Because
this filter has been added as a smart filter, you can use the layer mask to apply
it to any portion of the image and remove it from the rest.
Figure 4-6: Global diffuse glow filter

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Figure 4-7 shows an example of masking away part of the filter so that it is only
applied to the subject.

Figure 4-7: Diffuse glow added to subject only.

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Adding texture

There are a number of filters you can add to your photos to create texture. This
is a great way to make your photo look more like art. The crosshatch filter
creates an excellent almost canvas-like texture.

Crosshatch filter

Once you duplicate your photo layer, follow the previous process for converting
your photo for a smart filter. To apply the crosshatch filter, select Filter >
Brush Strokes > Crosshatch. Let the effect get a little stronger than you
would like because you'll soften it later.

Once you apply the filter, choose the Soft Light blend mode on the top layer
with the smart filter applied. This softens and blends the texture down into the
photo, as shown in Figure 4-8.
Figure 4-8: Blending the crosshatch filter as a texture.

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Blending mode technique

Another way to add texture to your photos is to blend a photo texture into a
photograph. If you look around in your day to day life, you'll start to see texture
everywhere. Photograph interesting textures and use them to create art with
your photos.

Figure 4-9: The starting studio shot.

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Figure 4-9 is a studio image of a skateboarder, but the photo needs a little
more grunge to it. Let's add a graffiti wall texture to it. You can see the photo
texture in Figure 4-10.
Figure 4-10: Blending the crosshatch filter as a texture.

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To add a graffiti wall texture to your photo:

1. Move the texture onto the photo using the Move tool.
2. Change the blend mode to Overlay. The texture now covers the entire
photo, but it shouldn't cover the subject. Use the layer mask to paint
over the subject so it's hidden from the texture.
3. If you want to alter the color of the graffiti wall, add a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer, select the color you want, and then select the
Colorize checkbox. Again, you don't want the color on your subject, so
hold the Alt key down while you drag the mask you previously created
down onto the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click OK to accept
replacing the layer mask.

The finished textured photo is shown in Figure 4-11.

Figure 4-11: Completed grunge texture.

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If this seems like an advanced technique, go back and review the previous two
lessons to refamiliarize yourself with the underlying concepts.

Learn the best printing practices

Printing at home can be frustrating if your photos aren't printing with good
color. In this section, you'll learn how to avoid several of the pitfalls that cause
bad prints.

Photoshop's print dialog box

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Most printing problems arise when you don't understand and adjust your print
settings for your particular print. Figure 4-12 shows the complex dialog box that
Photoshop presents when you select File > Print. Let's walk through this
dialog box and address each setting that you need to adjust.

Figure 4-12: Photoshop's print dialog box.

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Page Setup dialog box

When you select the Page Setup button in the Print dialog box, a new dialog
box appears. This dialog box, called Page Setup, is extremely important
because this is where you tell the printer what size, orientation, and paper
finish to expect. Your Page Setup box may look different depending on the type
of printer you're using, but the basic information will be the same. Figure 4-13
shows a Page Setup dialog box.

Figure 4-13: Printer-specific page setup dialog.

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Paper Type: Printers lay down ink on paper according to the paper's finish.
If you leave the Paper Type setting on plain paper when you're using a
luster paper, the results won't be good.
Orientation: Depending upon the layout of your photo, select portrait or
landscape.
Print Options: These options vary by printer. High speed is never a good
option unless you're in a hurry. Make sure you turn Print Preview on—it
prevents a huge waste of paper and ink if you catch your mistakes on-
screen.
Color Management: The printer should not handle any color management.
It should only accept the profile information from Photoshop. Make sure that
ICM is selected and No Color Management is checked.

Color management

Returning to the main Print dialog screen, notice that there's a great deal of
space devoted to color management. You turned color management off at the
printer level in the Page Setup dialog box, so now you must tell Photoshop how
to communicate color to your printer. Notice that the dialog box reminds you to
turn off printer color management, so you always have a built-in reminder.

Color Handling: This setting dictates how Photoshop handles color.

Printer Profile: Photoshop carries color profiles for most printers and their
papers.

Color management tips

Don't be intimidated by the concept of color management. For the amount of

books, equipment, and software available to help color manage your system,
it's actually a very simple idea.

Your monitor creates colors with light. A printer creates color with inks. Your
monitor may tell your printer to print red, but your printer's idea of red might be
very different. So, somehow an interpreter needs to get involved. In this case,
the interpreter is called a profile. The profile maps the colors your monitor sees
to match what your printer will print.
It can get much more complex from there. For example, your monitor displays
a much different gamut of colors than a printer can print. The human eye is
also a limitation. So, how do you need to color manage your system? It
depends on how involved you want to get and how accurate you need your
print colors to be. You can get pretty precise results by following a few
suggestions:

Calibrate your monitor: Whether you use a Mac or a PC, you have
calibration wizards available either in System Preferences or Control
Panel under Displays. You should calibrate it once a month.
Color space: Use the largest working color space that your photos will
allow. ProPhoto RGB is recommended, but only if you shoot in RAW. JPG
photos are compressed down to 8 bit and look posterized in the 16 bit color
space. Adobe RGB is the best choice for JPGs.
Printer management: Let Photoshop handle color management. In your
printer dialog box, choose this option and select the printer profile that
matches your printer and paper type. You'll explore this in much greater
detail in Lesson 4.
Web colors: Before posting a photo on the Web, the color space must be
converted to sRGB. Again, you'll learn the exact process later when we
discuss building a Web gallery.
Print options: If you're printing at home, make sure that your paper and ink
are the same brand as your printer. No amount of color management is
going to fix a physical incompatibility in the materials you use to print.

Color management doesn't have to be difficult. With the calibration and printing
tips you learned here, your prints should look very close to what you see on the
screen.

No amount of software fine-tuning can make up for issues caused by a bad

printer. For best results, use a high-quality inkjet photo printer with the
correct ink and paper. Consult the HP Photosmart photo printer buying
guide to find the perfect photo printer for your needs.

In the last section of the course, you'll learn how to create a Web gallery for
your gorgeous, retouched photos.

Create an online gallery

Remember back to Lesson 1 of this course. When you learned all about
Bridge, you toured briefly through the different workspaces. We purposefully
overlooked one of them, which is the Output workspace. This is where you can
create web galleries to put online.

To access the Output workspace: » HP Original ink & toner

1. Open Bridge.
2. Select the folder of photos you would like to use for your gallery.
3. Select the Output workspace. It should look like Figure 4-14.
Figure 4-14: Bridge's Output workspace.

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Select Web Gallery in the Output pane to the right of the preview. Make sure
that all of the photos in the folder are selected so that they will appear in the
preview. The following list covers some of the various settings that you might
want to change as you create your web gallery in the Output pane.

Template: There are several templates to choose from, including an HTML

gallery and a flash gallery.
Style: This controls the appearance of the gallery. Remember to refresh the
preview each time you make a change.
Site Info: This section contains all of the display information, such as the
title and contact information.
Color Palette: Even though you selected a style, you can modify the color
scheme of that style in this section.
Create Gallery: Once you're happy with your gallery, you need to save it.
You have the option of saving it to disk, which is always a good idea. You
can also upload the gallery to your Web server, directly from Bridge.

Figure 4-15 shows a preview of an online gallery that is ready to upload.

Creating Web sites couldn't be easier with this amazing output workspace.

Figure 4-15: Online gallery preview.

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Moving on

In this tour through Photoshop CS4 you've learned everything from rating your
photos to fixing light and color problems. You now know how to retouch like a
pro and create artwork from your photos.

Even though you've learned just about everything you absolutely need to know
about Photoshop for photography, you've barely scratched the surface of
what's possible. Explore and experiment with what you've learned. Don't worry
about making mistakes. There are no mistakes in Photoshop, only creative
opportunities. If you don't like the direction an experiment is taking you, you
can always use the trusty keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z to undo your changes. Just
remember to only work on copies of your photos, not the originals.

We hope that you're inspired by what you have learned here. Keep asking
questions and seeking knowledge. Before you go, be sure to complete the
assignment and quiz for this lesson.

Assignment #4
Lesson 4 was filled with incredible techniques to finish your masterpieces. Your assignment is to
select one of the finishing techniques you learned in Lesson 4 and apply it to a photo of your
choice. You may certainly choose to do several of them if you wish.

Quiz #4
Question 1:
True or False: You can create Web galleries in Bridge.
A) True
B) False

Question 2:
True or False: Smart Filters are exactly the same as regular filters.
A) True
B) False

Question 3:
Which are some of the settings you need to manage before you print a photo at home? (Check all that
apply.)
A) Paper Type
B) Color Management
C) Orientation
D) Print Preview

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