Photoshop effect and tricks for everyone (Please, contribute )

[serevolution]

Hi there, My name is Juan Santana and I'm not an expert in Photoshop like Ben

Goossens or Patrick Desmet which I consider top of the line on this field and

I'm sure there are way many others in here. I hope that any photographer with PS

knowledge will reveal a little technique to help anyone improve and loose the

fear of Photoshop. (I got Photoshop Element and Cs2. for the beginner, I

recommend Element which is easier to operate)

 

What I know, I had managed to explore and learn all on my own.

Let's start with a simple photo (See attachment) in which, first, from thousands

of picture I shot through the years, got me a background (This time an old ocean

picture and another a bird on the sand) and from Google Image I searched and got

a castle on a rock.

Let's work with "PS Element"

I started with the bird picture: with the magnetic lasso toll, cut around the

bird after magnified as big as possible. once this was done, on the "Edit" menu,

select, cut. now, on the Ocean picture, I went again to the menu and on "Layers"

I click on open a new layer and call it "bird" Paste on the ocean picture. now

the tricky park is to magnify the bird to the max and with the clone stamp toll

on PS menu, then On the top control select it a small size for it, (Depending on

the picture size) I select "7" and went around to clean the borders, once I was

please, did the same with the cloud which I drew it with the brush and white

paint, also in a new layer, "Cloud" for this, I went to the top menu again and

on filter, I selected "Blur" on the open window went down to "Gaussian Blur", a

new window with control open in where you can control it until it look like a

cloud to you. On top of this Cloud I cut and paste the castle on a new layer

called "Castlerock" I did the same cleaning the border with the Cloning stamp

but before I created some shadows for the bird and the rock on another layer and

did the same the Gaussian blur.

It may sound complicated if you are new at this but you'll get the hang of it.

 

So this is the way I created the following pictures, other similar please go to

my portfolio on Digital "alteration"

 

Please pardon my English for any mistake ans e-mail me for any other question.

[mvisionphotography]

so Juan for simple PS work you recomment PS Element.

 

All I have is publishing stuff and Photo stuff for ART. I am looking for a good PS NEW stuff as my computer has really old ADOBE yuck stuff and this computer has great art and publishing stuff.

 

you always do great cloning stuff and I don't have that on this computer.

 

SO...PS Elements...hmmm

[serevolution]

Hi there, I was using My Son Joseph computer who was connected to photonet for the above tread and I realized after it was summited.

Any e-mail directed please to me Juan Santana at:www.photo.net/photos/JuanSant8

Sorry for this big mistake, I'm getting old, lol.

 

Juan

[juansant8]

Dear Micki, I admire what you do with your stuff, just Imagine what you can do with PS if you want to learn.

I love digital photography because with Photoshop, I feel like a painter. lol

I'll recommended to start with "Elements" and feel free to ask me any question.

 

 

www.photo.net/photos/JuanSant8

[mvisionphotography]

Ha ~ I didn't even notice you were Joseph! HA ~ See I have never done the Cropping stuff like you do and cloning (I can do some cloning and erasing) but it would be nice to move into some of these techniques.

 

Publishing is where I have always done stuff so YEP I am ready to move on. I have watched you grow so much over the last six months. So I will check out Elements! ~ And yes I know where to find you ~ your on my favorite list ;)

[stormchaser]

With almost all my photos, I adjust the levels for more dynamic range. I also like just making cool looking animals by changing their eye colour and stuff like that.

[anthonyd]

If you are reading this...."PLEASE CONTRIBUTE!" Like Juan, most of what I learned was by trial and error. I also have Elements & PS7. I highly recommend Elements to the beginner. Don't be fooled, it's a powerful program and will help you understand PS so that it doesn't frustrate you into giving up!

 

I'm going to throw out a couple of fairly easy ones. Easy, but they would have made my life much easier had I known them right away!

 

First: Converting to B&W. I bring this up because there are quite a few ways to do this, some better than others depending on what you're doing next. I prefer to keep my options open to being able to as much as possible to a photo after converting. For me, most of the time, I simply go to the ENHANCE menu, then to ADJUST COLOR and then to Adjust Hue/Saturation. Then I lower the SATURATION to 0. This is not the best way to get the most accurate B&W conversion for a die hard B&W. What it will do is keep all of your filters and effects available to you afterwards. If you go with something like changing the image mode to grayscale, many other options will not be available anymore.

 

How about getting rid of the red in the whites of the eyes. Again, more than one way to do that. I use the MAGIC WAND TOOL to select the area's of the eyes. If you don't already know, when you click on one area it will select it, then if you hold down your shift key while clicking the others it will add them to the selection. Once all of the area's are selected, go to the ADJUST HUE/SATURATION area that I mentioned before. This time just select RED from the drop down box and lower the saturation to 0. This keeps all other colors in play so the eyes tend to still look natural.

 

Easy little things, I know. But I'm still amazed how long it took me to figure them out with no help!

 

Last let me say "Never be afraid to ask questions!" There is so much to know with these things that you could easily be missing a little piece that will make a huge difference in how you do things!

 

Great thread Juan! It's in the true spirit of Photo.net!

[stoatsngroats]

Hi Juan, and others!

 

I'm new to PS Elements 5, highly recommend this for its capabilities, particularly for beginners!

 

I've got a couple of keyboard shortcuts which I use lots, shown below.

 

 

ctrl+alt+0 = view actual pixel size.

ctrl - = zoom out

ctrl + = zoom in

ctrl D = deselect mask.

 

hope this helps someone!

 

 

best regards to all who manage to not rate 3/3!

 

Shaun

[juansant8]

Anthony, Shaun and all the contributor, Thanks for the help in helping other including me, I didn't know abour this shortcuts. I do have CS2 I'll be getting it update to CS3 but stil Element is less complicated and use it more than any other. and this is true about what PS ia all about... to learn from each other and in the process I learn more also.

 

Hint for a free program. Go to Google.com > select more > select even more and download PICASA2 a great program to classified your picture by date and categories, you can alter any picture leaving the original intact, you can e-mal pictures from inside this program and beside lots of feature to play with any photo, it does have the best and the easier trick to "cure" red eyes.

 

Again, Thanks for your help.

[jan_piller]

Wow! What a great thread to start! Thanks Don! (Yah - I wondered about the Joseph!) I have been planning on getting "Elements". So it's nice to have another opinion!

[silverdae]

In photoshop, go to Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts to see all the nifty shortcuts and to make your own. Best hint I have for workflow. Second best- Once you get all your pallets open and aligned that you normally use, go to Window>Workspace>Save Workspace. This saves your configuration, and if your like me, when the windows get out of whack and your desktop starts getting messy, a simple click at the bottom of the workspace menu puts it all right back. You can also use options in the workspace menu to add highlights to menu items (which I love) that you use often. Cntrl+K brings up a preferences where you can reset transparancy preferences, rulers, grids, all that jazz. Hope it helps someone!

[briany]

Joseph - fun thread. Nice portfolio too! I wish we had more threads like this here. Maybe we need a Photoshop techniques forum, though I guess there are enough of those off Photo.net. For your shot, you may just want to consider flipping the bird (where the sun is coming from high right) or the castle (where the sun is coming from high left).

[chicodovale]

Dear Juan,

I cann't contribute to much for this thread because I am not a PS expert. I am much more familiar with analogic than digital photography, although most of my photos at photo.net are digital. My really passion are B&W and Chromos shoots with my Pentax 67 but I don't have a good scanner so I keep posting the digital. When I use PS I just do the basic (levels, hue/saturation, contrasts, canvas). Probably I am wrong in what I am going to say, but I consider that to learn how to photography you need to start with B&W, to learn how to use the lights. We also need to learn about colors (temperature) and also about the films (latitude). It is very easy to go to the field, as I am just going to do this weekend, with a digital, 2G of memory and stay shooting, shooting and then go back home and stay several hours just selecting and doing photoshop on the best photos. For me it is not photography. Can you imagine going to the field with a Pentax 67 (4 pounds), heavy tripoid, bags, and you have a Provia or Velvia (120mm), with just 10 photos per film. You need to do everything in the field without PS (you need to study the lights, the composition, the best exposition, aperture, angle, etc. And wait one week to have the film developed. You cann't do a mistake. But can you imagine how funny is it? Two days ago I was just travelling for working dealing with my research experiments and shooting some tomato diseases in the field (hundreds of shoots of leaves, fruits, plants, etc) and I was just having a wonderful view of Pedra Azul (you can see this photo at my site in Nature). Of course I did a lot of shoots (hundreds) of a wonderful landscape. I came back home, spent few minutes processing in PS, not to change the original view, to post in PN. Of course I received 3/3, 4/4, and few 5 or 6a. No problem, I am just learning, just sharing with you guys, friends, my experience on photography. I am not photographer, I just like photography. Concerning my trip to the field, and the shoot of Pedra Azul, I am planning something different, for the next month. I am going to invite my wife and my sun (he is a good photographer) and daughter (she is an archtect) and we go for a weekend at Pedra Azul (400 km from my home), with some good wines because we are just entering in the winter. But my planns for photographing there are: to get my Pentax 67 and few rolls of Velvia and Provia. My Nikon D70s (6 megapixels) will be also with me but just for fun. The digital photos I will of course treat using PS CSII, to continue receiving 3/3 rates.

Juan, sorry for not giving my contribution for your question, but I would like to share with you my considerations about photography and living. I love photography and living.

[imberart]

Dear Juan, sorry but I`m not the one who can give any advice, I`m learner as well. I have been learning digital photography and PS and other programs about 10 years, but I`m still not an expert. Keep working and picking up empirism! Best wishes for you, Airi ( sorry about my English)

[juansant8]

Dear Airi,

I have sen your photoshop work and I love it specially the one about global warming "Maybe we still are not to late" I think they are great and inspire by you, I'm goin to start working on images about this Hot subject.

[Mike Gallo]

Hi Juan,

 

I am just a person who likes to try new things in photography, some of which works and some of which doesn't. I started in photography some 30 years ago doing large format B&W. The darkroom end of it was very appealing to me. When I switched to digital a few years ago, the creative aspects of photoshop were very appealing and a lot less work than a wet darkroom.

 

If you want to try new software plug-ins for photoshop, you can get trial versions at a number of sites. I like the flaming pear filters a lot and have incorporated them in many of my images. Go to flamingpear.com and try flexify for sure and any of the others that you have time for. The 30 day trial is free, so indulge yourself. I will add some other fun stuff as I get it together.