Digital Camera World » Tutorials

The Photoshop Family: understanding the Adobe family tree

jmeyer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:50:45 +0000

Let’s face it: there have been a lot of Adobe announcements in the past year introducing new products from Photoshop CC to Lightroom 5, Photoshop Touch, Photoshop CS6, and more. And it can get confusing!

So how do all these platforms sit in the Adobe range of photo editing software? To celebrate the official launch today of Photoshop CC, our friends at Practical Photoshop have put together this brilliant cheat sheet illustrating The Photoshop Family.

In the infographic below we’ve highlighted each of the platforms on the Adobe family tree and identified their pros and cons and the audience its best suited for. What’s more, we’ve also included the price for each platform.

To view the larger version of this cheat sheet, simply click on the infographic or drag and drop it to your desktop.

NEXT PAGE: Official Adobe Creative Cloud press announcement

Photo Retouching: how to give your portraits a professional makeover

jmeyer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:01:11 +0000

Next in our popular Raw Tuesday series we turn our attention to photo retouching. Over the next several weeks, our ultimate guide to photo retouching will show you how to give your portraits a stylish and professional makeover.

We’ll show you a range of key photo retouching techniques you can use to make eyes sparkle, how to make perfect teeth and beautiful lips, as well as sculpt body shape and make amazing hair.

In our first post, however, we examine the different techniques for one of the most important elements of photo retouching: how to create flawless skin.

When it comes to retouching skin, there’s a fine line between flawless and fake. You want to tone down imperfections and get the perfect look, but you don’t want your subject to look too plastic or immaculate.

Professional retouchers spend hours painstakingly working over skin in minute detail to remove flaws in such a way that the subject will not look overly retouched.

For the rest of us, there are a few excellent shortcuts. The key is to smooth over the area you are working on with a touch of blur but still allow the skin’s texture to show through. Also, always work on a separate layer so that you have control over the strength of any alterations.

How to get blemish-free skin

01 Heal spots
Add a new empty layer then select the Spot Healing tool. Check Sample All Layers in the Options bar then start dabbing over any imperfections you find.

02 Lose bags
Add a second layer then select the Clone Stamp tool. In the Options bar, change the Effect Mode to Lighten, set Opacity to 33% and choose Sample: All Layers.

03 Bright eyes
Hold Alt and click on the cheek below the eyes to select a source, then paint over the dark areas beneath the eyes to lighten them and make them look fresh.

PAGE 1: How to get blemish-free skin
PAGE 2: Key Photoshop tools for smoothing out skin
PAGE 3: Smooth skin using the Photoshop High Pass filter

Digiscoping: how to use a spotting scope with your camera for ultra-close images

jmeyer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:00:37 +0000

If you’re struggling to get close enough to your wildlife subjects to create images with any real impact, why not try digiscoping? In this quick guide we’ll show you how to use a spotting scope with your camera to nearly double your magnification.

All images by Chris Rutter

Normal 400mm or 500mm telephoto lenses aren’t powerful enough to get close enough to many wild animals. However, digiscoping, where you attach your DSLR to a spotting scope, can give an equivalent magnification to an 800mm lens or more.

For digiscoping you will need an adapter, which are made by many of the main scope manufacturers. Most digiscoping adapters have a ‘universal’ attachment, known as a T2 mount, that are available in a range of camera fittings.

Spotting scopes don’t offer the automatic functions such as focus or a variable aperture that you’d have with a telephoto lens, and the effective aperture of most is between f/8 and f/16, so you’ll need plenty of light to use them effectively.

You’ll need to use high ISO settings to get shutter speeds fast enough to prevent blur. Despite these limitations, digiscoping offers a relatively accessible way to get huge focal length optics for your DSLR.

Digiscoping step-by step: how to attach your DSLR to the spotting scope and the best settings to use

01 Attach the adapter
Before you can attach your camera to any spotting scope, you’ll need to fit an adapter. There are various types for different telescopes and manufacturers. We used a Nikon for our shoot, and with the Nikon adapters you take off the standard viewing eyepiece and fit the FSA-L2 or FSA-L1.

02 Attach your camera
Once the adapter is fitted to the scope, you can attach the camera. With the Nikon versions the camera fits straight onto the adapter, but for other makes of scope and adapter we would have needed to use a T2 adapter in Nikon F fitting to fit the camera to the adapter.

03 Camera settings
With no electronic connections, the range of exposure modes and metering using any adapter is limited. On most cameras you can use manual or aperture-priority modes, and centre-weighted metering. In changing light conditions, aperture-priority mode is best.

04 Auto ISO
You can’t adjust the aperture when using a spotting scope, but the automatic ISO setting allows your camera to adjust the exposure without relying simply on the shutter speed. Limit the ISO to 1600, and set the minimum shutter speed to 1/500 sec to get sharp results.

05 Frame your shot
Using the huge magnifications available with digiscoping, finding and framing your subject can be a challenge. Move the telescope until you spot an obvious feature in the viewfinder, look where it is in relation to the area that you want to shoot, then reframe the image.

06 Focusing
You will have to use manual focus, and this can be difficult to judge due to the limited depth of field and the small maximum apertures of most spotting scopes. Roughly focus the scope on the area you want to be sharp, then fine tune your focusing slowly until it is spot-on.

PAGE 1: Digiscoping step-by-step
PAGE 2: Best digiscoping adapters

Dramatic Lighting: how to create stylish portraits using simple Photoshop effects

jmeyer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:01:55 +0000

In our latest Raw Tuesday tutorial we show you in-depth how to tweak your raw files and use a range of simple Photoshop effects to recreate the look of dramatic lighting in your portrait photography.

Back in 2006, Jill Greenberg’s stunning portraits of crying children attracted plenty of controversy. To provoke the gut-wrenching emotion on display, a lollipop was offered then taken away, which some critics felt was tantamount to child cruelty.

But another thing that stood out about the images was the stylised, intentionally over-the-top enhancements and dramatic lighting.

Here we’ll show you how to give your portraits a similar stylised treatment by using a range of digital techniques to replace the background and enhance the face.

Along the way we’ll learn a host of key Photoshop skills, from selective Raw tweaks with Camera Raw’s Adjustment Brush, to replacing the background with a colourful gradient.

We’ll employ non-destructive techniques with Smart Objects, Layer Masks and Adjustment Layers, so each part of the effect can be tweaked at any time. Don’t worry if this sounds complicated, because the technique is very simple.

If you’re using your own portraits, the effect works well on faces that have been lit with a combination of front and side or back-lighting. We captured this baby with one light behind him to the left, and another in front, above and slightly to the right.

This gives the face depth by creating lots of highlights and shadows, which can then be emphasised in Photoshop with some intensive dodging and burning. Here’s how it’s done…

How to create dramatic lighting in Photoshop: steps 1-2

01 Make Basic tweaks
Open Adobe Bridge and navigate to your raw file, then right-click it and choose Open in Camera Raw. Alternatively, download our raw file used in this tutorial! Now go to the Basic Panel on the right and set Temperature 5200, Tint -9 to correct the White Balance. Next, set Whites +8, Blacks -20, Clarity +9, Vibrance +18.

02 Adjust colour saturation
We can use the Targeted Adjustment tool to lower the dominant yellows. Grab the tool from the Toolbar. Right-click in the image and choose Saturation. Drag downwards on the background wall. The HSL Greyscale Panel shows the colour values as you drag. Set Yellows to about -35 and Greens -24.

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How to process raw images the right way in Photoshop Elements

jmeyer — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 23:01:05 +0000

In our latest Raw Tuesday tutorial on using raw format, we look specifically at Photoshop Elements and show you how to process raw images in Elements’ Adobe Camera Raw editor.

Many photographers prefer to shoot in JPEG format so that they don’t have to spend time processing raw images to get better colours and tones within Photoshop Elements’ standard editor. Because JPEG photos are already processed in the camera, they instantly take on the colours produced by the camera’s picture style and white balance settings.

However, a lot of the colour and tonal information is thrown away when you shoot in JPEG, so you can end up adding noise or blocky compression artefacts to the shot if you do need to edit it later.

You can retain the colour and tonal information that JPEGs discard by switching the file format on your camera to raw, and processing the shots in Adobe Camera Raw.

Adobe Camera Raw places all the most useful photo-fixing tools close to hand as sliders and icons, so editing is a very simple process – there’s no need to rummage through lots of sub menus hunting for particular commands.

Our before image

In this Photoshop Elements tutorial we’ll show you how to set up Adobe Camera Raw to get the best possible pictures from your raw files.

You’ll learn how to adjust a raw file’s tonal range to give an image more contrast, how to boost the colour saturation of an image without creating over-saturated and unprintable colours, and you’ll also learn how to remove unsightly sensor spots.

And finally, you’ll learn how to give your processed shot more impact by sharpening those delicate details.

How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 1-2

01 Set the depth
In Photoshop Elements, choose File>Open and browse to your start image. The image is a Digital Negative so it will open in Adobe Camera Raw. To squeeze as much colour and tonal information out of the file as possible set the Depth drop-down menu to 16 bits/channel.

02 Set the white balance
The shot’s mountains look a little too warm. Because it’s a raw file you can cool things down easily by dragging the Temperature slider left to 4900. You can counteract the image’s slightly green hue by dragging Tint right to –1. This creates a Custom White balance setting.

How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 1-2
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 3-4
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 5-6
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 7-8
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 9-10
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 11-12
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 13-14
How to process raw images in Photoshop Elements: steps 15-16

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Image sharpening: how to bring out more detail in your favourite photos

jmeyer — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:01:03 +0000

In this Photoshop Elements tutorial we show you clever ways of bringing out more detail through image sharpening, while keeping some of the side effects to a minimum.

When you view a photo on your camera’s relatively small rear screen, it may look crisp and sharp.

However, it’s only when you view the image at actual size on your home computer’s larger display that you realise it’s not quite in sharp focus. This means some key details may look slightly blurred and lack real definition.

The image could also look soft due to your camera’s built-in anti-moiré filter, which is designed to minimise unsightly blocky patterns and false colours caused by complex textures.

Fortunately, Photoshop Elements has a range of effective sharpening tools that enable you to reveal detail in soft-focus areas and create a print with more punch.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to sharpen up JPEGs in the standard Photoshop Elements editor and then move on to teasing out delicate details in a soft-looking raw file using the Adobe Camera Raw editor.

Photoshop Elements enables you to make a soft shot look sharper by increasing the contrast around the edge of objects in the scene. This gives delicate details more definition and impact.

However, by increasing the contrast you can also add unsightly artefacts such as harsh black or white halos around contrasting edges.

This gives the game away that the shot has been artificially sharpened, and you can also end up exaggerating picture noise caused by a high ISO setting when you sharpen your shot.

Here, we’ll show you how to recognise sharpening artefacts and keep them to a minimum.

Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 1-2

01 Open the start file
Open Photoshop Elements, click on the Quick editor tab to explore its sharpening options. Choose File>Open and browse to your start file. Click Open. The compressed JPEG image will open in Photoshop Elements’ Quick Editor.

02 Zoom in
To see how soft your shot actually looks, click on the Zoom tool. Click the 1:1 icon in the top options bar to see the shot’s pixels at 100%. Our image is quite soft, so the delicate details lack impact. Click the Sharpen icon on the right to access a range of sharpening preset thumbnails.

PAGE 1: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 1-2
PAGE 2: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 3-4
PAGE 3: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 5-6
PAGE 4: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 7-8
PAGE 5: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 9-10
PAGE 6: Photoshop image sharpening step-by-step: 11-12

Camera Raw sharpening tools: how to restore fine detail and keep noise at bay

jmeyer — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:40 +0000

In our latest Raw Tuesday series post on editing raw format images we explain a simple technique for using the Adobe Camera Raw sharpening tools. Find out how to preserve fine detail in your raw files while banishing noise.

By shooting in your camera’s raw quality format you have much more tonal and colour information to work with, which enables you to produce better-looking results in your final image.

In our raw start image there are some very delicate midtone details such as the incense sticks and ash that we’d like to subtly sharpen, but this runs the risk of adding more noise to the shot’s soft bokeh. Fortunately, Adobe Camera Raw has some handy additional sliders that will help you to reveal midtone texture and detail while masking out the unwanted noise.

Here, we’ll also show you ways to preview which areas are being sharpened, so that you can get a balance between revealing detail and losing noise.

How to use the Adobe Camera Raw sharpening tools

Zoom in
Go to File>Open and go to your start image. It will open in the Adobe Camera Raw editor. To sharpen, grab the Zoom tool and right click. Choose 100%. Much of the shot is deliberately soft due to a shallow depth of field. Use the Hand tool to view the foreground incense stick.

Adjust Amount
Click on the Detail tab. Drop the sliders to 0 and drag Amount to 91 to increase the contrast around the edges. Increase the spread of the edge contrast change by setting Radius to 2.0. Click the Preview box to compare the before-and-after versions.

Restore detail
The change is very subtle. To reveal more of the delicate texture on the ash and incense sticks, drag Detail to 45. If you Alt-click as you drag this slider you’ll see a greyscale preview. The darker areas will become sharper and the grey areas will remain unsharpened.

Mask out noise
To prevent the soft background bokeh (and its picture noise) from being sharpened, Alt-click as you drag the Masking slider. Now only the lighter areas in the preview will become sharpened, leading to less noise. A value of 65 produces a good compromise.

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Focus Stacking: how to extend depth of field when shooting close up

jmeyer — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:59 +0000

Shooting anything up close requires incredible patience and extreme precision. If your close-up photography isn’t sharp then you’re not only wasting pictures, but you’ve wasted hours of your time. In this in-depth tutorial we’ll show you how to use one of the most amazing Photoshop effects macro and close-up photographers can use: focus stacking.

Below we’ll show you step-by-step how to extend depth of field when shooting close-up by shifting your point of focus in multiple images, which you’ll later stitch together so you can produce images that are sharp throughout the frame.

One of the best things about close-up photography is the wonderful softness that results from working with such a shallow depth of field.

Even at the smallest apertures the plane of focus will stretch to a couple of centimetres at most, and anything outside this range will fall off into beautiful bokeh.

At times, however, this can be a problem –especially if you’d like a completely sharp subject. Stopping down the aperture will increase depth of field, but sometimes this simply isn’t enough to achieve sharpness across the subject from front to back.

The solution: fix the camera to a tripod and shoot several frames, each with a small shift in focus, then use Photoshop to combine the sharp areas to create a single pin-sharp image.

We’ll begin with a series of shots of a flower, captured with tiny incremental shifts in focus. We’ll make global adjustments to all the images at once in Camera Raw, then combine the sharp parts using the Auto-Blend command in Photoshop CS.

Macro subjects usually look best against clean uncluttered backgrounds, but this isn’t always easy to achieve when searching for the best angle.

We’ll neaten up our finished flower by creating a new colour co-ordinated background, then use the Clone tool to remove a few messy areas. Finally, we’ll utilise the High Pass filter for a great sharpening technique that works wonders on edges.

How to create a focus stacking effect: steps 1-2

01 Open in Camera Raw
Copy your start files into a folder on your hard drive, then open Adobe Bridge and go to the folder. Highlight the first image, then hold Shift and click the last one to select them all. Right-click over them and choose Open in Adobe Camera Raw to open the whole batch.

02 Remove the sensor mark
Click Select All at the top left. Now any changes will affect all the images. First let’s deal with the sensor mark on the left. Grab the Spot Removal tool from the Tools palette, set Type to Heal and Opacity to 100%, then drag a small circle over the mark to remove it.

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Adobe Lightroom tutorial: 6 fundamental Develop module edits for your raw files

jmeyer — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:43 +0000

Adobe Lightroom has quietly become one of the best photo editing software options for photographers thanks to its easy-to-use interface and extensive range of tools and controls. In our latest Raw Tuesday post, our Adobe Lightroom tutorial shows you how to use Lightroom’s Develop module for perfect edits.

Lightroom 4 is far more than just an image organiser. Its Develop module houses a set of tonal controls that at least match, and arguably surpass Photoshop stalwarts like Levels and Curves.

These tools enable you make a range of useful edits – from basic tonal tweaks to more creative effects. If you’re used to Photoshop’s Camera Raw plugin you’ll find a near-identical set of controls on the right of the Develop Module’s interface.

Whether you want to make basic exposure tweaks, correct lens distortion, crop in tighter or remove spots, the Develop Module is the place to begin.

And because Lightroom allows you to make these changes non-destructively to raw files, you can work on your images while retaining the highest possible quality.

In this tutorial we’ll start by making a few fundamental tweaks to exposure and tone in the Basic Panel, which is the best place to begin editing your raw files. We’ll go on to use targeted tools to lighten eyes and darken the corners.

One of the main reasons to work in Lightroom is that every single edit you make is completely reversible and editable at any time. So not only can you undo or tweak anything at any stage, you also have the freedom to try out different effects and treatments.

The Develop Module isn’t just essential for basic enhancements, it also lets you take your images in interesting and unexpected directions.

6 fundamental edits for raw files in the Adobe Lightroom Develop module

01 Make Basic Tweaks
Open Lightroom and click the Library Module, then hit the Import button and import develop_before.dng. Next, click Develop. Go to the Basic Panel on the right of the interface and use the sliders to improve the tones. Set Exposure +0.35, Contrast +7, Highlights +20, Shadows +49, Whites +18, Blacks -7, Vibrance +29.

02 Curves and vignette
Scroll down the set of controls on the right until you come to the Tone Curve. Either drag the line, or input these settings to create an S-shaped curve line: Highlights +15, Lights +5, Darks -9, Shadows -17. Next scroll down to the Effects Panel and set Post crop vignette, Style: Highlight Priority, Amount -20.

03 Crop in tighter
Go to the tools below the histogram and click the Crop tool. Now scroll up to the top of the right-hand settings to find the Crop options. Click the Lock icon to lock the aspect ratio, then crop in to the top and right. Next, click the Adjustment Brush and hit Z to zoom in to the eyes.

04 Paint in adjustments
Check Show Selected Mask Overlay, then set Brush size to 14 in the settings on the right. Click over Iris to set a pin, then paint over both irises. Hold Alt and paint to erase if you need to. Hide mask overlay, go to settings and input Exposure +0.94, Contrast +51, Clarity +48, Saturation +51 to boost the iris.

05 Reveal highlight details
Click New at the top right of the screen, then click on the bright white flower to set another pin. Paint a new mask over the flower, as well as some of the brighter parts along the arm, then set Highlights -26 to reveal more of the detail in those areas. Next you need to grab the Graduated Filter tool.

06 Remove the flower
Drag in from the edges to create several gradients, each with Clarity set to -71, to create a soft blur around the edges. Grab the Spot Removal tool. Set Spot Edit: Heal, Size 79 then zoom in to the flower under the arm. Click over the flower and drag to the left to remove it.

Photoshop CC: the 10 most important features in Adobe’s new software

jmeyer — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:01:11 +0000

The next version of Photoshop has been announced – dubbed Photoshop CC – and its pricing model is already causing some controversy. However you look at it, Creative Cloud and Photoshop CC is here to stay. So here are the 10 most important features this new Adobe software has to offer.

Words and images by Steve Caplin

A new version of Photoshop is always cause for celebration, as users look forward to new features and enhanced workflows. This time, the usual 18-month to 2-year cycle has been cut to just a year, as Adobe feels pressured to deliver more frequent updates to its Creative Cloud members – and it shows.

There are few major new tools in Photoshop CC, although there are some useful new ways of working.

The biggest fuss has been caused by Adobe’s branding of this version not as CS7, but as Photoshop CC, which is their way of moving all users away from outright purchase and onto a monthly subscription model.

The Photoshop community has been up in arms about the cost implications – although, as we see it, it can work out to be a very cost-effective way to get Photoshop. See the Subscriptions Info panel at the end of this feature for details on how the costs pan out.

Click below to watch our in-depth video discussing these 10 important features in Photoshop CC; alternatively, scroll through this post to read about each Photoshop CC feature individually.

Photoshop CC Key Features: 1. Shake Reduction

The “deblur” filter, which caused so much fuss when it was leaked, is now included in Photoshop CC – to an extent.

Given the right starting image, it can go a long way towards reducing a very particular kind of blur: but it doesn’t like noisy images, or motion blur.

It works by tracing ghosting and calculating the blur path.

You can set up multiple blur paths for different regions, and even draw your own; Photoshop will blend all the regions together smoothly.