learning about photoshop

ivar

Okay, a small introduction. I downloaded a trial version of photoshop cs2, and i am trying to learn how to work with it. I'm totally new to photoshop, so bear with me.


Here is the original photo i started with. Someone else took it on a film camera, scanned it, and then i got it, so there is nothing i can do about the quality of the original.



After some playing around, i got to this point. I played with the curves, masks for channelmixer and some other stuff, it may technically be not correct and i didn't crop anything yet, but it is just for me understanding photoshop.


So, here is the question. If you look at the original above the glasses, there are some stray hairs.

I tried to remove the hairs, but for some reason, whatever i do, it looks unnatural, like i took a white brush, and just painted it white. Also the texture of the tiles, i can't seem to duplicate. Whatever i do, it is either to light, to dark, or just doesn't match at all... The same thing happened on the right side of her head, where i removed the hairs sticking out. How do i go about doing that? to a point that it looks "natural"?

edgework

ivar wrote:

So, here is the question. If you look at the original above the glasses, there are some stray hairs.

I tried to remove the hairs, but for some reason, whatever i do, it looks unnatural, like i took a white brush, and just painted it white. Also the texture of the tiles, i can't seem to duplicate. Whatever i do, it is either to light, to dark, or just doesn't match at all... The same thing happened on the right side of her head, where i removed the hairs sticking out. How do i go about doing that? to a point that it looks "natural"?

What tool did you use?

ivar

edgework wrote:

What tool did you use?

hehe that's my problem, i tried so many of them. I just can't find one which seems to work for me. It's just my lack of ps experience, so deciding which tool to use, does not come naturally to me. For the pattern i tried the clone thingy (is that the one i am supposed to be using?), and some other ones too. I do get things to look a little like it, but then i look at the whole picture again, and it is just too obvious that i changed it.

cletus

Hi Ivar,

I would use the Clone Stamp Tool for this task. It's in the left column of the toolbox, fifth from the top. It works by reading one part of the image and painting it into another part of the image. When you have the clone tool selected, hold down the alt key (on a mac it would be the option key) and click with the mouse to set the source point (where the tool reads from). Then you can move to another part of the image and paint away.

I think the clone tool will work very well in this case. The only trick will be playing around with the source point and where you start painting to get the tile background to look right.

If you've already done all this and the clone tool isn't behaving the way you want, check a couple things:

At the top of the screen is the option bar. When you have the clone tool selected, make sure that mode is Normal. If you have multiple layers in your image, try turning off and on the Sample All Layers option for the clone tool to see how it affects things.

Hope this helps!

If it doesn't let us know. We'll get it figured out!

edgework

Use a brush at less than 100% opacity. That way you won't obliterate the underlying pixels in one fell swoop. Clone in a new layer. That way you can retreat from a few bad moves.

You're using CS2. Read in he help file about the Vanishing Point filter. I is perfect for something like this. You can clone an entire pattern from one area into another and it will correct for perspective. Clone the tiles into position, then use a layer mask (see help files) paint out the parts that overlap the hair that you want to preserve. Again, use a brush with less than 100% opacity so you can build your edge gradually and make the blend with the underlying image organic.

ivar

cletus wrote:

Hi Ivar,

I would use the Clone Stamp Tool for this task. It's in the left column of the toolbox, fifth from the top. It works by reading one part of the image and painting it into another part of the image. When you have the clone tool selected, hold down the alt key (on a mac it would be the option key) and click with the mouse to set the source point (where the tool reads from). Then you can move to another part of the image and paint away.

I think the clone tool will work very well in this case. The only trick will be playing around with the source point and where you start painting to get the tile background to look right.

If you've already done all this and the clone tool isn't behaving the way you want, check a couple things:

At the top of the screen is the option bar. When you have the clone tool selected, make sure that mode is Normal. If you have multiple layers in your image, try turning off and on the Sample All Layers option for the clone tool to see how it affects things.

Hope this helps!

If it doesn't let us know. We'll get it figured out!

Wow, that clone stamp tool is amazing! if you know how to work it, hehe. So i Alt-clone a sample, and then stamp it somewhere else. I think i figured out, that in the place where you "stamp" there needs to be some structure, or difference in color already, right? I mean, if i "stamp" something on a totally white area, it doesn't do anything, correct?
I copied a different part of a picture, put that on a layer below my picture, and then erased part of my picture, so the underlying layer shows through. I then used that one for stamping. It seems to work allright.

Thanks Eric

Not there yet, but getting better...

edgework wrote:

Use a brush at less than 100% opacity. That way you won't obliterate the underlying pixels in one fell swoop. Clone in a new layer. That way you can retreat from a few bad moves.

You're using CS2. Read in he help file about the Vanishing Point filter. I is perfect for something like this. You can clone an entire pattern from one area into another and it will correct for perspective. Clone the tiles into position, then use a layer mask (see help files) paint out the parts that overlap the hair that you want to preserve. Again, use a brush with less than 100% opacity so you can build your edge gradually and make the blend with the underlying image organic.

Thanks edgework , i figured out the opacity already, it's tricky though, too much, too little, alot of playing around. duplicating layers was the first thing i did, hehehehe, very usefull.

I just saw your second comment, so the vanishing point filter is the next thing on my list to learn about.

jfriend

Thought I'd play a bit

ivar wrote:

Okay, a small introduction. I downloaded a trial version of photoshop cs2, and i am trying to learn how to work with it. I'm totally new to photoshop, so bear with me.

It looks like you are well on your way with the clone tool to solve the issue with the hairs. I hope you don't mind, but I like this photo so I thought I'd play with it a bit and offer some suggestions. If you want me to remove my modifications, just let me know and I'll take them down.

First, I experimented with the conversion to black and white. Because there's so much red in the tiles in the background, I liked this conversion to black and white better if you take 100% of the green channel and none of the blue or red channels. Red usually doens't have much detail for portraits and blue often has lots of noise or shadows. So, I just took a copy of the green channel and used that for the black and white conversion. You could also do this in the channel mixer by just taking 100% green and no red or blue.

Second, I did a small levels adjustment to add a little more contrast. Once you go with just the green, the histogram for the image only occupies the middle of the spectrum so you can push in the ends of the levels dialog (or curves dialog) to add contrast without losing anything. I was careful to preserve some detail in her dark hair when doing this and to not get the face too bright.

Then, I cropped it a bit while maintaining the same aspect ratio.

This is what I ended up with. Let me know if you have any further questions or if you want me to remove it.

ivar

jfriend wrote:

If you want me to remove my modifications, just let me know and I'll take them down.

Nope, no problem at all, the more ideas and examples, the better

jfriend wrote:

First, I experimented with the conversion to black and white. Because there's so much red in the tiles in the background, I liked this conversion to black and white better if you take 100% of the green channel and none of the blue or red channels. Red usually doens't have much detail for portraits and blue often has lots of noise or shadows. So, I just took a copy of the green channel and used that for the black and white conversion. You could also do this in the channel mixer by just taking 100% green and no red or blue.

Okay, that's great information! I found a b&w conversion on the internet, it was talking about the red&green channels, not just the green one. So i guess i can use either on of the channels or a combination depending on the original color photo. I actually used two channelmixers, one for the background, and one for her. That way i could make her stand out a little more and i played with using masks. I did the one for her with the green-channel, like you did. But seeing it side by side with yours, i like your background better actually, so i will change that.

jfriend wrote:

Second, I did a small levels adjustment to add a little more contrast. Once you go with just the green, the histogram for the image only occupies the middle of the spectrum so you can push in the ends of the levels dialog (or curves dialog) to add contrast without losing anything. I was careful to preserve some detail in her dark hair when doing this and to not get the face too bright.

Hmmm , you lost me when you started talking about the histogram. Okay, so the histogram is the graph-looking thing, right? the one that shows if you add a "levels" adjustment layer? it shows colors from dark to light? and "pushing in the ends" is basically cutting out the most dark and low ones?

jfriend wrote:

This is what I ended up with. Let me know if you have any further questions or if you want me to remove it.

Like i said, no problem, don't remove it. I like it. Man have i got much to learn, i'm sure you did that in about 5 minutes, i'm still working on it


So this is what i've got sofar, i now definitely think the background is too light, but i'm happy with the "hair-project", i'm starting to get the hang of the clone stamp tool i think. Thanks so much, John!