How To Fix An Underexposed Photo

The easiest way to avoid underexposed photos is to adjust your aperture settings, your shutter speed and your film speed when shooting. That's sounds pretty easy, right? Forget it. Photoshop was invented for the "I-can't-find-time-to-read-the-manual" photographer. Who cares if it's too dark or too light, we've got Photoshop!

So how easy is it to fix an underexposed photo? Very easy. Open your photo up and choose Image> Adjustments> Shadow/Highlight (CS-only. For pre-CS look below). You'll see an immediate change in your photo and it will probably be too extreme, but don't panic. Photoshop ships with defaults that are often way over the top. Just play with the Amount Slider and the Tonal Width Slider until you find just the right balance. And you're done!






The above photo is underexposed. The chocolate strawberries look like chestnuts. Below is the same photo after applying the Shadow/Highlight filter.






Fixing Underexposed Photos, Pre-CS — The Layer Sandwich Trick
If you don't have CS, then the following trick will help you achieve similar results. I actually find this method produces better results.





Step 1 — New Layer
Open your photo and make a copy of the Background Layer by choosing Layer> Duplicate Layer, or by dragging it to the New Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.


Step 2 — Change The Blend Mode
In the Layers palette change the Blend Mode of the new layer from Normal to Screen. This will lighten the photo uniformly.

Step 3 — Repeat
Now repeat the entire procedure again. Create a new layer, change the blend mode to screen, and then take a look at the result. Continue doing this until you go from "oh-my-god it's almost perfect" to "oh-my-god I've ruined it!"

Step 4 — Lower The Opacity
Now leave that last layer active even though it's taken you too far and lower the Opacity using the slider at the top right of the layers palette. This lowers the intensity of the effect. When you've found the right amount, you can flatten your image.

Step 5 — Flatten And Save
Choose Layer> Flatten or use the palette’s flyout menu and choose Flatten Image. That's it. Save your file (File> Save) and you're done.



taken from:Jennifer Apple

Turn A Photo Into A Sketch For Making Coloring Books

Want to make some nice coloring books? The first step is to turn a photo into a sketch, and that's exactly what we'll do now. This tutorial is fairly easy and consists of just 6 steps.

Start with your selected photo. Prep it so it's exactly the dimensions and resolution you want your final document to be.





STEP 1 - Duplicate The Background Layer
First duplicate the background layer. Go Layer> New> Layer via Copy. Now we have 2 layers, the Background Layer, and Layer 1.


STEP 2 - Desaturate The Photo
With Layer 1 selected, choose Image> Adjustments> Desaturate. This gives us a grayscale version of the photo.



STEP 3 - Duplicate Layer 1
At this point you must duplicate Layer 1. With Layer 1 selected, go Layer> New> Layer via Copy. Now we have 3 layers, the Background Layer, Layer 1 and Layer 2.

Next we'll be working with Layer 2.


STEP 4 - Invert Layer 2
With Layer 2 selected, go Image> Adjustments> Invert. This will make your photo look like a negative.








STEP 5 - Change The Layers Blend Mode To Color Dodge
In the Layers Palette change the Layers Blend Mode for this layer (Layer 2) to Color Dodge. This will make your photo almost completely white, but don't panic! Everything is going to work out just fine.







STEP 6 - Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter
Go Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur. When the dialog box appears start by moving the Radius Slider all the way to the left. Once you've done that you can start to slowly move it to the right.


Now here comes some real Photoshop magic — because as you move the slider your sketch will start to appear.At this point take time to experiment and make sure you are getting the desired effect.


Bigger numbers create a more pronounced effect, but at some point this will turn your sketch back into a photo, which you don't want, so when you reach that point simply nudge the slider to the left just a little and that should do it!


For my apple sketch I used a Radius setting of 9.8 pixels.



Experiment With Settings
This technique will also work with the Motion Blur Filter and the Radial Blur Filter. The reason I mention this is sometimes an image will not work as expected, and so you have to try different methods.


Calling All Cezannes
Now print out your best sketches and create some nice coloring books, then give the kids some crayons and see what kind of crazy masterpieces they come up with!


references:Jennifer apple of PhotoshopSupport

Use The Displace Filter & Displacement Maps To Make A Realistic Flag

Liquid pixels - wrapping pixels over undulating silkThe layer blend modes are an effective way of merging or blending a pattern or graphic with a three-dimensional form. By using the blend modes the flag in this project can be modified to respect the color and tonality of the undulating silk beneath it.

The highlights and shadows that give the silk its shape can however be further utilized to wrap or bend the flag so that it obeys the material’s shape and sense of volume. This can be achieved by using the Displace filter in conjunction with a ‘displacement map’. The ‘map’ defines the contours to which the flag must conform. The final effect can be likened to ‘shrink-wrapping’ the flag to the 3-D form of the undulating silk.

How it works: The brightness level of each pixel in the map directs the filter to shift the corresponding pixel of the selected layer in a horizontal or vertical plane. The principle on which this technique works is that of ‘mountains and valleys’. Dark pixels in the map shift the graphic pixels down into the shaded valleys of the 3-D form whilst the light pixels of the map raise the graphic pixels onto the illuminated peaks of the 3-D form.

STEP 1

A silk dressing gown was photographed using the available light. For this image to act as an effective displacement map the contrast must however be expanded. An effective way of expanding contrast in Photoshop Elements is to duplicate the layer and set the top layer to ‘Overlay’ blend mode. Note the changes to the histogram by viewing the histogram in the Histogram palette.

STEP 2

Go to the Image menu and from the Mode submenu select ‘Grayscale’. Choose the option ‘Flatten’ when the Warning dialog box appears.

Note > The displacement map must be in Grayscale otherwise the color channels will upset the appropriate displacement effect.

STEP 3

To further improve the effectiveness of the displacement map we must blur the image slightly. This effect of blurring the map will smooth out the lines of the flag as it wraps around the contours of the silk. Too much blur and the undulations will be lost, too little and the lines of the flag will appear jagged as it is upset by any minor differences in tone. Go to ‘Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur’ and start by selecting a Radius of around 10 pixels. Increase or decrease this radius when working with images of a different resolution.

STEP 4

Save the image (displacement map) as a Photoshop (PSD) file. Close the blurred Grayscale file as the map is now complete. You will need to choose this file when the Displacement filter asks for the location of your map, so make a note of where it has been saved to on your computer.

STEP 5

Open or select the RGB silk file that has not been blurred. Also open the flag image. With the flag image as the active window, choose ‘All’ from the Select menu and then choose ‘Copy’ from the File menu. Now make the silk image the active window and choose ‘Paste’ from the File menu. Alternatively you can just drag the thumbnail of the flag image in the Layers palette into the image window of the silk image if you can see both image windows on your desktop.

Set the blend mode of the flag layer to ‘Multiply’. If you are intending to displace a graphic or a texture it is worth ensuring that you have some elbow room (when we displace the flag it will come away from, and reveal, the edges of the background layer if they are the same size). Use the Free Transform command to enlarge the flag layer so that it is a little larger than the background layer.

STEP 6

Go to ‘Filter > Distort > Displace’. Enter in the amount of displacement in the Horizontal and Vertical fields of the Displace dialog box. The size of the displacement is dependent on the resolution of the image you are working on. Choose amounts of 40 for both fields for the Flag.jpg used in this project. Increasing the amount greater than 60 for either the Horizontal or Vertical scale will increase the amount of distortion in this project image, but will also start to break off islands of color from the design of the flag indicating that the limit of the effect has been exceeded. Choose the displacement map you created earlier to complete this step. Your flag should now miraculously conform to the contours of the silk. If you are not entirely happy with the results go to the Edit menu and choose ’Undo’. Repeat the process choosing smaller or greater amounts in the Displace dialog box.

Note > It helps if the graphic or pattern image file you are displacing is slightly larger than the image file you created the map for. This will ensure that no gaps appear between the distorted graphic and the edge of the image window.

STEP 7

Add an adjustment layer and drag the Highlight slider to the start of the histogram to extend the dynamic range and make the highlights and midtones appear brighter. Your dramatic and colorful background is now complete.

TAKEN FROM "MARK GALER"

Adjusting Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw CS3

For those digital photographers interested in the dark side, an old SLR loaded with a fine-grain black and white film is a hard act to follow. The liquid smooth transitions and black velvet-like quality of dark low-key prints of yesteryear is something that digital capture is hard pressed to match. The sad reality of digital capture is that underexposure in low light produces an abundance of noise and banding (steps rather than smooth transitions of tone). The answer, however, is surprisingly simple for those who have access to a DSLR and have selected the Raw format from the Quality menu settings in their camera. Simply be generous with your exposure to the point of clipping or overexposing your highlights and only attempt to lower the exposure of the shadows in Adobe Camera Raw.

STEP 1

The first step is the most difficult to master for those who are used to using Auto or Program camera exposure modes. Although the final outcome may require deep shadow tones, the aim in digital low-key camera exposure is to first get the shadow tones away from the left-hand wall of the histogram by increasing and NOT decreasing the exposure. It is vitally important, however, not to increase the exposure so far that you lose or clip highlight detail.

The original exposure of the image used in this project reveals that the shadow tones (visible as the highest peaks in the histogram) have had a generous exposure in-camera so that noise and banding have been avoided (the tones have moved well to the right in the histogram). The highlights, however, look as though they have become clipped or overexposed. The feedback from the histogram on the camera's LCD would have confirmed the clipping at the time of exposure (the tall peak on the extreme right-hand side of the histogram) and if you had your camera set to warn you of overexposure, the highlights would have been merrily flashing at you to ridicule you of your sad attempts to expose this image.

The typical DSLR camera is, however, a pessimist when it comes to clipped highlights and ignorant of what is possible in Adobe Camera Raw. Adobe Camera Raw can recover at least one stop of extra highlight information when the Exposure slider is dragged to the left (so long as the photographer has used a DSLR camera that has a broader dynamic range than your typical fixed lens compact digicam).

'Exposing right'When the Auto checkbox in the Exposure slider is checked, Adobe Camera Raw often attempts to rescue overexposed highlights automatically. With a little knowledge and some attention to the camera's histogram during the capture stage, you can master the art of pushing your highlights to the edge.

So if your model is not in a hurry (mine is watching a half-hour TV show) you can take an initial exposure on Auto and then check your camera for overexposure. Increase the exposure using the exposure compensation dial on the camera until you see the flashing highlights. When the flashing highlights start to appear you can still add around one extra stop to the exposure before the highlights can no longer be recovered in Adobe Camera Raw. The popular term for this peculiar behavior is called 'exposing right'.

Performance Tip:

If the highlights are merrily flashing and the shadows are still banked up against the left-hand wall of the histogram, the solution is to increase the amount of fill light, i.e. reduce the difference in brightness between the main light source and the fill light. If you are using flash as the source of your fill light, it would be important to drop the power of the flash by at least two stops and choose the 'Slow-Sync' setting (a camera flash setting that balances both the ambient light exposure and flash exposure) so that the flash light does not overpower the main light source positioned behind your subject. The harsh light from the on-camera flash can also be diffused using a diffusion device.

STEP 2

Before we massage the tones to create our low-key image we must first check that our tones are smooth and free from color and luminance noise. Zoom in to 100% magnification for an accurate preview and look for any problems in the smooth dark-toned areas. Setting both the Luminance Smoothing and Color Noise Reduction sliders to 25 (found in the Detail tab) removes the noise in this image. I would also recommend that the Sharpness slider be set to 0 at this point. Rather than committing to global sharpening using the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box, selective sharpening in the main Photoshop editing space may help to keep the tones as smooth as possible.

STEP 3

Create the low-key look by moving the Exposure and/or the Brightness sliders to the left in the Basic tab. You can continue to drop these sliders until the highlights start to move away from the right-hand wall of the histogram. Select the 'White Balance Tool' and move your mouse cursor over the deeper shadows – this will give you an idea of the RGB values you are likely to get when this image is opened into the editing space. Once you approach an average of 15 to 20 in all three channels the low-key look should have been achieved.

TAKEN FROM "MARK GALER"

Selecting & Extracting Hair - Masking Tutorial - Extraction Tips

One of the most challenging montage or masking jobs in the profession of post-production editing is the hair lift. When the model has long flowing hair and the subject needs to change location many post-production artists call in sick. Get it wrong and, just like a bad wig, it shows. Extract filters, Magic Erasers and Tragic Extractors don’t even get us close.

The first secret step must be completed before you even press the shutter on the camera. Your number one essential step for success is to first shoot your model against a white backdrop, sufficiently illuminated so that it is captured as white rather than gray. This important aspect of the initial image capture ensures that the resulting hair transplant is seamless and undetectable. The post-production is the easy bit - simply apply the correct sequence of editing steps and the magic is all yours. This is not brain surgery but follow these simple steps and you will join the elite ranks of Photoshop gurus around the world. Celebrity status is just a few clicks away.

Step 1

The initial steps of this tutorial are concerned with creating a mask that can be used in the final montage. Start by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon to duplicate it. Choose ‘Remove Color’ from the Adjust Color submenu found in the Enhance menu (Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove Color). Drag this desaturated/monochrome layer to the New Layer icon in the Layers palette to duplicate it. Set the blend mode of this new layer (now on top of the layers stack) to ‘Overlay’ mode.

Step 2

From the Layer menu choose ‘Merge Down’ to create a single high-contrast monochrome layer. Select ‘Black’ as the foreground color and the ‘Brush tool’ from the Tools palette. Choose a large hard edged brush and 100% opacity from the Options bar and set the mode to ‘Overlay’ (also in the Options bar). Painting in Overlay mode will preserve the white background and darken the rest of the pixels. Accuracy whilst painting in Overlay mode is not a concern when the background is white or is significantly lighter than the subject. Avoid going anywhere near the tips of the hair at this stage.

Step 3

Even the bright tones of the white shirt can be rendered black by repeatedly clicking the mouse whilst using a large brush in Overlay mode. Again it is important to avoid going anywhere near the hair.

Step 4

Darken the body of the hair near the scalp but avoid the locks of hair that have white background showing through. Painting these individual strands of hair will thicken the hair and may lead to subsequent halos appearing later in the montage process.

Performance Tip

Switch the blend mode of the brush in the Options bar to ‘Normal’ mode when painting away from the edge of the subject. This will ensure a speedy conclusion to the mask making process. The mask is now ready to use in the montage.Note > If any of the background has been darkened in the process of creating a black and white mask switch the foreground color to ‘White’ and choose ‘Overlay’ in the Options bar. Paint to render any areas of gray background white. It is again important to avoid painting near the edges containing delicate hair detail.

Step 5

With the Remove Color layer selected add a Levels adjustment layer. Without making any adjustment simply select OK. This Levels adjustment layer has a layer mask that we can use to house the mask that we have created in the previous step.

Step 6

The next step relocates the mask you have just created into the layer mask of the adjustment layer. From the Select menu choose ‘All’ and from the Edit menu choose ‘Copy Merged’. Hold down the Alt key and click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. The image window will momentarily appear white as you view the empty contents of the layer mask. From the Edit menu choose ‘Paste’ to transfer the contents of the clipboard to this layer mask. Click on the layer below to select it and then click on the Visibility icon of this layer to switch it off. This mask layer serves no purpose now that it has been successfully transferred to the adjustment layer mask.

Step 7

The new background is placed on its own layer above the figure and mask layers. Drag the thumbnail of this new file into the image window of your project file from either the Photo Bin or the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette. Group this new background layer with the adjustment layer beneath (Layer > Group with Previous). Alternatively you can hold down the Alt key and click on the dividing line between the two layers to group them.

Step 8

Grouping the new background with the adjustment layer will mask the background in the region of the figure but the quality will not yet be acceptable. Setting the blend mode of the adjustment layer to ‘Multiply’ will bring back all of the fine detail in the hair. The background will be not darkened by applying the ‘Multiply’ blend mode as white is a neutral color. The subtle detail in the fine strands of hair will however be preserved in all their glory.

Step 9

The accuracy and quality of the edge of the mask will usually require some attention in order for the subject to achieve a seamless quality with the new background. Make a selection of all of the edges that do not include any hair detail using the Lasso tool with a small amount of feather set in the Options bar. With the adjustment layer mask selected choose the ‘Gaussian Blur filter’ (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and apply a 1- to 2-pixel Radius Blur to the mask. Click OK and then from the Enhance menu choose a Levels adjustment from the Adjust lighting submenu. Move the central Gamma slider underneath the histogram to realign the edge of the mask with the subject edge (no dark or light halo should be visible).

Performance Tip

If the mask is too soft the edges can be sharpened by moving the black and white sliders in towards the central Gamma slider a little. Select OK when perfect alignment has been achieved.Zoom in to 100% Actual pixels whilst working to accurately assess the quality of your mask.

Step 10

In most instances the hair is already looking pretty fabulous but to modify and perfect the hair even further you will need to inverse the selection (Select > Inverse). Choose ‘Levels’ once again and move the central Gamma slider to the left to increase the density of the hair and eliminate any white halos that may be present. Moving the White slider to the left a little may help the process of achieving a perfect blend between subject and background. Select OK and choose ‘Deselect’ from the Select menu.Performance TipAny localized refinement of the mask can be achieved manually by painting with a small soft edged brush directly into the layer mask. Paint with white at a reduced opacity (10-20%) to remove any fine halos present in localized areas. Several brush strokes will slowly erase the halo from the image.

Step 11

The true test of an accurate mask for a subject that was photographed against a white background is when you place the subject against a very dark background. Grouping a Levels adjustment layer with the new background layer can darken the background image used in this project. Hold down the Alt key when you select a Levels adjustment layer from the Layers palette. Click on the Group with Previous box in the New Layer dialog box and then select OK to open the Levels dialog box. Move the Gamma slider to the right in order to preview your subject against a darker background in the image window.

Remove Red Eye in Photoshop CS3

Adding Light To A Photo

Lighting is one of the most important techniques a designer must use frequently, so in this tutorial I decide to write a tutorial showing how to play with lighting effect. First we will add light on a black and white photo and at the end I will show you a simple way to bring a little color to your light.


Step 1: First we need a background, I use this beautiful back-and-white photo, which has inspired me a lot: Go to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance or press Ctrl-B to bring up the Color Balance box, adjust only Midtones settings to bring our photo a little color
Step 2: Reset your foreground and background colors by pressing D. Create a new layer and go to Filter > Render > Clouds to create some clouds
Go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds and repeat this effect some times (by pressing Ctrl-F) until you get an image like this

Notice that we should have some white clouds on the left because they will transfer into light in a next few steps

Step 3: Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness / Contrast and use the following settings:
Increase the black and white areas by going to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Ctrl-L), move the black and white points to the center

Step 4: Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and use these settings:
Change the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light
If the light is still too sharp, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, adjust it to make the light blur enough

Step 5: In this step, we will make the light more realistic. Create a vector mask on the current layer (by pressing the Add vector mask at the bottom of Layers tab) and use the Gradient tool with White to Black and Radial Gradient options to draw a line from the top-right to the bottom-left corner
Now our light had the gradient effect! Press Ctrl-J to duplicate this layer, our light will become brighter.

Step 6: Bring a little color to our light! We can't apply color directly to the white light we has created with Hue/Saturation or Color Balance so we will use a little trick here. Create a new layer and use the Brush tool with a soft brush and orange foreground (#ffa800). Now paint your photo like this:
Change the Blending mode to Soft Light and ...wow, our light is awesome