Digital Darkroom Assignment for the Week: 5/14-5/21

cletus

This week's assignment: Blending Layers

Use the layer blending features of the photo editing software of your choice to manipulate an image in some way.

Layers are one of the most powerful tools available for image editing. One of the things that makes layers so powerful is the fact that we can control how the different layers of an image interact. Blending modes are one of the controls we have over that interaction. If you want to find out more about blending modes you can look in the help for your photo software, or you can try a search on the 'net.

cletus

Here is one of my favorite things to do with blending modes:

Open up the image you want to work with:

Make a copy of the image on a new layer and blur it:

Now change the blending mode of the blurred copy.

Overlay

Vivid Light

cletus

Here is somthing pretty cool... Photoshop has a Hue blending mode and a Color blending mode. The Color mode effects both hue & saturation, while the Hue mode effects hue only. Here is the difference:

Original:

Blended:

Notice how the Hue text doesn't affect the gray areas as much as the Color text does???

ginger_55

Charleston Row Houses
I almost lost all my memory and almost crashed my computer doing this assignment. I swear I had 5 books out, and I still don't understand what I did, or anything much about layers. I feel like an idiot. This is the before

ginger jones

ginger_55

Charleston Row Houses 2
I still am shaky on memory. I hope to get this on here, it represents 2 hours of work, that I don't understand. What was the point of blurring it? Etc.

ginger jones

cletus

ginger_55 wrote:

What was the point of blurring it?

Blurring gives the image a glowing look. Without blurring the upper layer, you would simply get more contrast and more saturation in the colors.

Layer blending modes can be really tough to get a grasp on. Probably the best way to learn them is just by playing around. Try creating a layer above your image, fill it with a solid color and tryout the various blending modes to see what they do. Start off really simple. Try a layer filled with black, then a layer filled with white, then gray, etc...

Here are some tutorials that I've found helpful:

• http://www.thinkdan.com/tutorials/photoshop/blendingmodes/
• Teamphotoshop #1
• Teamphotoshop #2

Hope this helps!

ginger_55

Soft light, soft vivid light or something
This is the before. The vivid thing that you recommended was horrible. So I tried the same wording, but with soft at the begining. This is the before.

(Oh thanks for the tutorials, I am downloading them.)

But I tried this earlier, I just kept blurring everything, then trying something else, like the vivid or soft lighting.

ginger jones

ginger_55

That was the before, I think
This is what I did tonight. A difference?

ginger jones

ginger_55

OOPS and here it is
With people it seems you have to use the soft lighting.

ginger_55

A Portrait of Skye
in all the people dogs, I had to use the soft vivid. (I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 2, but I went ahead and printed all the info out anyway.) Now that I have spent the afternoon blurring and vividing, I can do that easily, but when you mention starting easily with just putting a layer of color on, I go huh? , I am spoiled as I have been able to make almost everything look acceptable, or good to me, without layers.

In fact, I had thought about so much I was reading about being done with layers, does not need layers. So I can understand about the blurring first.

ginger jones

I don't think I have a before here, so this is just the picture of Skye. I have outgrown my kids, or they outgrew me, so they live elsewhere, and I take a lot of pictures of my dogs.

ginger_55

Do you ever feel like you need to go do everything
over after you learn a different technique? This is the last picture of the dogs, for tonight. This is cropped quite a bit. I like the blur thing.

ginger

ginger_55

But this is another Charleston building, old
original

ginger_55

The original might have been better
This is tonight with the blur and the hard vivid, or whatever.

lynnma

cletus wrote:

This week's assignment: Blending Layers

Use the layer blending features of the photo editing software of your choice to manipulate an image in some way.

Layers are one of the most powerful tools available for image editing. One of the things that makes layers so powerful is the fact that we can control how the different layers of an image interact. Blending modes are one of the controls we have over that interaction. If you want to find out more about blending modes you can look in the help for your photo software, or you can try a search on the 'net.

Nice assignment Cletus..

Here is mine.
Pony Jump the original

lynnma

the revised layered Pony Jump

lynnma

ginger_55 wrote:

over after you learn a different technique? This is the last picture of the dogs, for tonight. This is cropped quite a bit. I like the blur thing.

ginger

Ginger thats lovely...:D

moonjuice

My first time participating.

I'll summarize the steps I took in Photoshop:

Made a duplicate layer then went back to the original layer and upped the contrast to 50.

Then on the duplicate layer I added a gaussian blur and brought the opacity down to about 25 or 30. I merged the layers, then applied the channel mixer to make the image black and white.

Then I created a new layer and filled it with a shade of color from the original rose and blended it in "color" mode.

ginger_55

questions re the rose photo and procedure
then applied the channel mixer to make the image black and white.

Then I created a new layer and filled it with a shade of color from the original rose and blended it in "color" mode.
___________________________________

What and where is the channel mixer to make the image blk and white?

How do you fill a layer with color?

Maybe I can find the color mode easily.

ginger

ginger_55

question on the great horse picture
Did you do the blur then blend vivid light............. or ????

How did you keep the horse and background blurred with the head and neck of the horse in focus.

Did you blur a duplicate layer, then use the elliptical tool, or did you use that first.

I am tired, here, but when I first saw that picture, which I really like, I wanted to ask how you did it.

Is there an easy series of events?

ginger

moonjuice

ginger_55 wrote:

then applied the channel mixer to make the image black and white.

Then I created a new layer and filled it with a shade of color from the original rose and blended it in "color" mode.
___________________________________

What and where is the channel mixer to make the image blk and white?

How do you fill a layer with color?

Maybe I can find the color mode easily.

ginger

If you're using Photoshop (and it sounds like you are) in your layers pallet there is a small circle. Half of it is grey, and half of it is black. If you click on it it will bring up a menu. From the menu you choose "channel mixer". This will bring up a window with three slide controls one for your red, green and blue channels.

Check the box at the bottom to the left that says "monochrome" - then I always bring my green channels up to about 100 while bringing the red and blue down to zero or slightly above. YOu just have to play with it to see what looks best to your eye as far as the light goes.

The tutorial I lreaned this from explained that you bring the green up so much because the green channel holds the most detail.

A color layer - note if you're doing this after using the channel mixer to get black and white, you'll need to merge the two layers other wise it will be in greyscale mode and you won't have any colors show up.

To get the layer. Just choose a color that you want to use then in your layers pallet click the "new layer button" and create a new - empty - layer. Then take your paint bucket tool and fill the image with the color, then play around with the blend modes. It's fun to see what effects you get with the different modes.

gubbs

lynnma wrote:

the revised layered Pony Jump

Lynn, that really gives an impression of speed and concentration...

digismile

Emboss Blending Layer
This is my first posting. I love using photoshop blending layers, as it let's you try things without permanently changing the original. In the photo below, I used a number of blending layers which I will briefly highlight.

The original (slide) image is of 3 family pets taken about 27-28 years ago. I thought it would bring back great memories for my brothers and parents. The resulting scan was a bit washed out and very soft.

To build up density I copied the original layer and changed it to "Multiply" with opacity set at about 30%. I duplicated this layer a second time and set the opacity to about 25%.

An adjustment layer (curves) was added to adjust the color and tonality. Although the color looked much better, the picture was just way too soft. As many of you know, sharpening an out of focus image doesn't really help. However, I wanted to give this as a gift, so was determined to make it more acceptable.

The final photo used one more blending layer. I created a flattened layer of the work to that point, then made a copy. On the copied layer, I ran Filter->Stylize->Emboss. Height was set to about 2 pixels and amount about 148%. You need to experiment with angle and amount, but I found that keeping the height to 1-3 pixels worked best for me.

Then I changed the blending mode for the embossed layer to Overlay, and voila, a "sharper" image than before.

I added a frame for style and the final image printed very well.

Hope this of interest.

Brad

Original Image:



Final Image:

cletus

Nice work Brad

lynnma

digismile wrote:

This is my first posting. I love using photoshop blending layers, as it let's you try things without permanently changing the original. In the photo below, I used a number of blending layers which I will briefly highlight.

The original (slide) image is of 3 family pets taken about 27-28 years ago. I thought it would bring back great memories for my brothers and parents. The resulting scan was a bit washed out and very soft.

To build up density I copied the original layer and changed it to "Multiply" with opacity set at about 30%. I duplicated this layer a second time and set the opacity to about 25%.

An adjustment layer (curves) was added to adjust the color and tonality. Although the color looked much better, the picture was just way too soft. As many of you know, sharpening an out of focus image doesn't really help. However, I wanted to give this as a gift, so was determined to make it more acceptable.

The final photo used one more blending layer. I created a flattened layer of the work to that point, then made a copy. On the copied layer, I ran Filter->Stylize->Emboss. Height was set to about 2 pixels and amount about 148%. You need to experiment with angle and amount, but I found that keeping the height to 1-3 pixels worked best for me.

Then I changed the blending mode for the embossed layer to Overlay, and voila, a "sharper" image than before.

I added a frame for style and the final image printed very well.

Hope this of interest.

Brad

Original Image:



Final Image:

Hi Brad welcome to the forum.. nice job on the restoration
Lynn

lynnma

gubbs wrote:

Lynn, that really gives an impression of speed and concentration...

Thanks gubbs... by the way.. I love the sheep picture on you avator

Shakey

This thread is great since I now have PS7 I can follow tutorials and the such.


Without blending



Then with blending




Click on pics for originals

The blended has so much more depth IMO .

Thanks Cletus you are a great contibutor to this site .


Tim

ginger_55

How did you get the frame for the dogs?
This is ginger, I am going to copy all you wrote down and try some later, but I have Adobe Elements 2, I miss some of the frames I used to have available through a cheaper program. (The computer crashed, I would never have deleted the program.)

I could get more, but I would have to pay a bunch. I love your frame. Did you pay a bunch for a plug in? Is it something I could do, too. And I don't mean "pay a bunch", I mean could I do it, without paying anything.

How did you do it. I just love that picture, by the way. Just love it!

ginger

I added a frame for style and the final image printed very well.

Hope this of interest.

Brad

Original Image:



Final Image:

[/QUOTE]

lynnma

Shakey wrote:

This thread is great since I now have PS7 I can follow tutorials and the such.


Without blending



Then with blending




Click on pics for originals

The blended has so much more depth IMO .

Thanks Cletus you are a great contibutor to this site .


Tim

Beautifully done, congrats Tim I love it.

DoctorIt

Shakey wrote:

This thread is great since I now have PS7 I can follow tutorials and the such.


Without blending



Then with blending




Click on pics for originals

The blended has so much more depth IMO .

Thanks Cletus you are a great contibutor to this site .


Tim

To be honest... this ones a toss up. Can't tell which one I like better. What kind of blending did you use?

wxwax

Same question: which blending do you use, Shakey?

Ginger, your work looks really nice, especially your last image of the house. Lynn, I love your horse. What did you do to it?

I keep hacking away at the same photo, trying to squeeze something out of it. Poor old Patch29, probably a good thing he's travelling this week!

Here's the original.



Here it is in B&W with Vivid and layer mask to make Patch29 not vivid.



And finally, same as above, but with another layer mask of the original, to slightly colorize Patch29.

wxwax

Here's another, from last week.

The original, in which the plane does not stand out from the background.



And the new version. I used Overlay, I think. Again, I masked the plane to make it standout, and then masked in the original plane as well, to help make it brighter and standout. Prolly overdone, again...