Adventures in Photoshop, Part __ ?

[red_satin_doll]

Trying to teach myself PS CC is sometimes fun and sometimes sends me screaming into the night. As in last night, trying to correct a photograph of a rose I wanted to have printed and just muffing it up horribly. *le sigh*

The various "sharpen" functions are ones I have not mastered yet at all.  I'm sure I'll love it when I master it but I'm at that stage I was when I transitioned from Photobucket to ipiccy a couple of years ago: "I just want to do this, I just want my little slider bar back, where is the eraser so I can selectively apply this effect?" etc etc etc.  That said I do LOVELOVEOVE the fun effects with fonts - especially drop shadows, contouring and glow effects.

This morning I had a little more luck inmproving contrast, brightness, color, warmth etc on a photo I took yesterday of flowers behind the garage, but it still feels like I'm in the "beginner's luck" stage. I didn't even attempt to sharpen either of these, btw. Baby steps, baby steps.....

Comments

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

You did a great job with the coloring on this. Coloring is very hard master, especially if you are using Selective coloring. I'm still learning and experimenting with color. And as I have said before coloring that is acceptable for fan art isn't always acceptable on RL images.

For sharpening I use two different methods...1st way----- In filters, under sharpen, I use the unsharp mask. I adjust the mask to my liking, without getting the image too pixelated. 2nd way-----Duplicate the image, go to filters, then down to other, then click on high pass. I adjust high pass until it looks like there is a slight film over the image. Then I set the top image (the one with the film) to soft light. Then I adjust the opacity to my liking and merge the two layers.


In the photo studio (before the days of PS) I was taught this mnemonic for coloring.
My - Great (Magenta - Green)
Big - Yellow (Blue - Yellow)
Cadillac - Runs (Cyan - Red)
Which really isn't necessary now with photoshop but it still is fun.

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

You did really great job here, turning night into morning)

And, as a semi-offtopic... Did you know that google turned their Nik Collection photoshop filters into freeware? They could come very handy, especially noise reduction and sharpening filters (cough - early season buffy screencaps - cough).
If you are unfamiliar with Nik Collection, here is a video introduction, explaining them.

[double_dutchess]

Wow, great job on that picture.

I have been working with Photoshop (Elements) for a couple of years now, but much of the time I don't really know what I'm doing -- it's mostly just trial & error for me.

Good luck with your future Photoshop endeavours!

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

It will come. I like what you're already doing very, very much! Looks like some PS vets are giving you excellent advice here.


Gabrielle

[chasingdemons.livejournal.com]

It looks like you're doing a great job based on these pictures! Photoshop takes a lot of time to learn. But the nice thing is there are a lot of people on LJ who are happy to help!

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Really gorgeous work on your coloring!

[nmcil12.livejournal.com]

great discussion everyone - you did a fine job with your PS - and for encouragement my story with PS - I knew zero about PS and digital work when I took it up. My first adventures were like spending six hours trying to learn how to move friggin text and type - my husband walks in and showed me how to do it in minutes. I tried so many different ways and search my book for so long looking for index info on "moving text" Come to find out PS thinks everyone just knew that "nudge" meant "moving"

It's a cheap fix but I also just copy elements from the photos or images I am working on and place them over the super bad spots as cover -

Even after all these years I am still at a beginners level - Just Keep at it and It's just plain great creative life fun.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

For sharpening images, the method I've always used is similar to above, but a little different.

1.) Go to channels and select the most crisp-looking. Usually it's green, especially if you're talking Buffy screencaps. Copy it and paste it to a new layer. Make sure you hit RGB so all channels are visible before going back to layers view.

2.) Select the Green (or whatever layer you copied) and run a high pass filter on it. You want it so just the edges are visible. Typically it's around .8-1.2.

3.) Unsharp Mask filter it. Just enough to make it crisp.

4.) Set the layer to Overlay or Soft Light.

It'll be sharper, but without all the noisiness you get from processing all the layers with the sharpen filter.