Need more PS help, please

sara505

Okay, you helped me so much on my other problem...now, how to brighten up these skin tones without losing all the whites. Obviously the white shirts threw off my metering and flash. (I usually recommend people not wear white to these photo sessions, but it's such a popular color in summer. The whole family--7 adults and 5 kids all wore white tops, ugh.) I have been able to work with most of the images nicely, but a few, like this one I would love to know the best and simplest way to brighten them up. Thanks! :

wxwax

Even the shirts look underexposed.

Easiest thing is to make two versions: one exposed for the whites, the other for their flesh (balanced for skin tones, natch.)

Layer and mask.

sara505

wxwax wrote:

Even the shirts look underexposed.

Easiest thing is to make two versions: one exposed for the whites, the other for their flesh (balanced for skin tones, natch.)

Layer and mask.

Would you mind explaining this process in a little more detail? I only know PS basics. Thank you,

btw, what's a wxwax?

bigpix

add a blue grad to the sky with some fade ajustment..... and then do a slight curves ajustment ....... your image should pop

sara505

bigpix wrote:

add a blue grad to the sky with some fade ajustment..... and then do a slight curves ajustment ....... your image should pop

ok, this sounds cool. what's a blue grad, and how do you fade? This is so embarrassing. I've been a photographer for many years, have used only rudimentary PS for the longest time, adjusting images for my newspaper work in the simplest fashion you can imagine--and am now slogging my way through the digital world, mastering a couple of cameras, and of course photoshop becomes ever so much more crucial, but I know next to nothing.

bigpix

sara505 wrote:

ok, this sounds cool. what's a blue grad, and how do you fade? This is so embarrassing. I've been a photographer for many years, have used only rudimentary PS for the longest time, adjusting images for my newspaper work in the simplest fashion you can imagine--and am now slogging my way through the digital world, mastering a couple of cameras, and of course photoshop becomes ever so much more crucial, but I know next to nothing.

gradient tool in tools.... after applying go>edit>fade......

hope this helps....... but add your gradient using a layer mask

Mike Lane

Wxwax pointed you in the right direction. Here's a tutorial that'll help you if you shot in raw, and here's one that will help you if all you've got is jpgs. The 2nd one is supposed to be if you have 2 different black and white images. But I've used it on color images and I'm betting that you can simply adjust the jpg to enhance the dark end and the light end and then use those two as your 2 images.

HTH

bigpix

here you go ..... this as explained above is a 1 minute fix.......

imann08

The absolutely easiest way to fix this is as follows.

- Duplicate the Background Layer
- Make the adjustment or fixes that you normally would for skintones
- While making your adjustments ignore the effect it has on the shirts or sky
- After you are happy with the skintones, double click the top layer right of its name.
- This will bring up the Blending Options dialog box.
- If it doesn't you can click the cursive f icon at the bottom of the layers palette and click blend options.
- Go to the bottom where it says "blend if"
- In the Blend if drop down, keep it at gray as it should be there already.
- Drag the white slider on the lower control in until you see the original white return.
- To make the the transition look smooth, once you see other areas of the image being effected that you don't want effected bring the slider back slightly and Alt+drag the left half of the white slider. This will separate the slider.
- This provides a smooth transition instead of an abrupt one. The area between the two sides of the slider will be part of both the top and lower layer. The bigger the difference between the sides, the smoother the transition.

This took a lot longer to describe than it takes to do. The Blend If portion takes about two seconds. The actual correction is up to you. If you need help there then ask again. Learning the Blend if command is extremely helpful and should be learned. It is essentially another type of selection tool.

imann08

After re-reading your initial post. It doesn't appear that you want to make any color corrections to the skin. While the Blend if command can add many options to your correction, it may not even be necessary here. I simply used the levels adjustment layer for this. It is apparent as was mentioned above that the shirts could use some brightening as well so it's not bad if they are effected in brightening the skin.

- Click the half black, half white circle at the bottom of the layers palette.
- From the list provided, select levels.
- A new layer is created called an adjustment layer. (another extremely valuable tool)
- Move the rightmost slider to the left until it reaches the histogram or just inside it.
- Move the leftmost slider to the right until it reaches the historgram or just inside it.
- If you would like to lighten the image even more, you can move the center slider.
- Moving to the left lightens it, moving it to the right darkens it.

With levels you are handling the highlights with the right slider, the shadows with the left slider, and the midtones with the middle one.

sara505

bigpix wrote:

here you go ..... this as explained above is a 1 minute fix.......

This is gorgeous. One minute? I will have to study this and work on it. This is great. The sky is gorgeous but a bit unbelievable. Yeah, I want to learn how to do this. Thanks. I can do this on an older version of photoshop?

sara505

imann08 wrote:

The absolutely easiest way to fix this is as follows.

- Duplicate the Background Layer
- Make the adjustment or fixes that you normally would for skintones
- While making your adjustments ignore the effect it has on the shirts or sky
- After you are happy with the skintones, double click the top layer right of its name.
- This will bring up the Blending Options dialog box.
- If it doesn't you can click the cursive f icon at the bottom of the layers palette and click blend options.
- Go to the bottom where it says "blend if"
- In the Blend if drop down, keep it at gray as it should be there already.
- Drag the white slider on the lower control in until you see the original white return.
- To make the the transition look smooth, once you see other areas of the image being effected that you don't want effected bring the slider back slightly and Alt+drag the left half of the white slider. This will separate the slider.
- This provides a smooth transition instead of an abrupt one. The area between the two sides of the slider will be part of both the top and lower layer. The bigger the difference between the sides, the smoother the transition.

This took a lot longer to describe than it takes to do. The Blend If portion takes about two seconds. The actual correction is up to you. If you need help there then ask again. Learning the Blend if command is extremely helpful and should be learned. It is essentially another type of selection tool.

I will be able to do this on an older vesion of photoshop?

imann08

sara505 wrote:

I will be able to do this on an older vesion of photoshop?

As long as it has the function you can do it. As of version 7 it had it but I don't know about prior to that. The neat thing about Blend If is that in fixing the sky, all you would have to do in RGB is bring back the green and red from those channels in that pop down menu. You could simply make a gradient that went from blue to light blue on the top layer and use the blend if command to get the rest back. I'll have to see if it works that simply but, hopefully, you get the idea. As far as I see it, there is no blue of significance in the green grass behind the people or the people. The only thing that may get in the way would be their eyes but there is an easy solution to that if you want.

sara505

imann08 wrote:

As long as it has the function you can do it. As of version 7 it had it but I don't know about prior to that. The neat thing about Blend If is that in fixing the sky, all you would have to do in RGB is bring back the green and red from those channels in that pop down menu. You could simply make a gradient that went from blue to light blue on the top layer and use the blend if command to get the rest back. I'll have to see if it works that simply but, hopefully, you get the idea. As far as I see it, there is no blue of significance in the green grass behind the people or the people. The only thing that may get in the way would be their eyes but there is an easy solution to that if you want.

Ok, here's my result, using your handy explanation. I did not see much change in the way of whites, but I did everything you said. How'd I do?

Sara
(trying desperately to catch my photoshop skills up with my photography skills--major gap!!--now that I'm getting the hang of the cameras. I'm an old dark room junkie, so this is actually a blast--if I live long enough!)

imann08

I'll mess with it and see if Blend If is appropriate here and then try to explain it step by step for you. I strongly recommend a beginner book to get you rolling. This will make it much easier for you to understand us. Having a basic knowledge of the tools and what's in the menus makes this a ton easier. The Blend If command is not something that is used by all or even realized by all even though they know it's there. I have found that since learning it, it has helped me to no end. I would include adjustment layers as another thing that I didn't learn to use regularly until later on but couldn't do without now. Anyways, I'll get back to you.

sara505

imann08 wrote:

I'll mess with it and see if Blend If is appropriate here and then try to explain it step by step for you. I strongly recommend a beginner book to get you rolling. This will make it much easier for you to understand us. Having a basic knowledge of the tools and what's in the menus makes this a ton easier. The Blend If command is not something that is used by all or even realized by all even though they know it's there. I have found that since learning it, it has helped me to no end. I would include adjustment layers as another thing that I didn't learn to use regularly until later on but couldn't do without now. Anyways, I'll get back to you.

Well, I did see when I went too far with the slider, backed off, as directed, then blended. But I didn't really see much happening with the whites, at least to my eye, except when it went too far. I guess I don't really have a concept of Layers--I couldn't tell that anything happened when I flattened the image. I have the manual for my version of photoshop.

I think I sort of need help with manipulating basic levels, like, how the heck to brighten and get the red out of these faces (a tad underexposed, and enough already with these Vineyard tans and sunburns! : )

This next image is what I came up with: using levels, first, RGB: 20.1.10, 220, for contrast and brightness, then for R: I pushed the slider on the left to 20, which seemed to take a little edge off the red; then I tweaked the Curves a tiny bit, and added +4 on saturation. Am I on the right track?

sara505

imann08 wrote:

I'll mess with it and see if Blend If is appropriate here and then try to explain it step by step for you. I strongly recommend a beginner book to get you rolling. This will make it much easier for you to understand us. Having a basic knowledge of the tools and what's in the menus makes this a ton easier. The Blend If command is not something that is used by all or even realized by all even though they know it's there. I have found that since learning it, it has helped me to no end. I would include adjustment layers as another thing that I didn't learn to use regularly until later on but couldn't do without now. Anyways, I'll get back to you.

What good beginner book do you recommend? Thanks for your help.

DavidTO

sara505 wrote:

What good beginner book do you recommend? Thanks for your help.

This one is pretty well liked.

imann08

This image caused some problems because the sky and shirts were too close together as far as how light they were. I was able to separate the skin from everything else but I had to go to LAB colorspace to do that and that would be a bit much for you right now. What I am posting is the same thing I posted before but I used Blend If so that only the corrected skin would show. Everythig else is from the original layer. Compare it to the first one I posted. The skin looks lighter but that is because it is now against a darker background. It's really the same.

Regarding the books. I would recommend a book called Visual Quickstart Photoshop. If you type that in to Amazon you'll see it. They are evidently selling older versions still so you could get one that is a little older although if you are into this I suggest upgrading your Photoshop. There are other books that I can recommend but you should get through the basics first before you move on to worrying about correcting photos.

imann08

With the last image you posted you just went overboard I think. I haven't looked at it yet but I can say that Levels and Curves are essentially the same thing. Curves are just a more advanced Levels. Also, Hue/Saturation can be taken care of in Curves a majority of the time. Of course, you have to become comfortable with curves first.

Photoshop is a very advanced program and takes a lot of time to learn. I've been doing it for 3-4 years and don't know anywhere close to what it's capable of. The frustrating thing is that the more you learn the more, it seems, you find out you don't know.

I know what it's like as does everyone else here so if you want to IM me to ask me some questions I'll be more than happy to help. I got to say it again though. You have to learn the basics like layers, what the tools all do, how to use curves etc. You can get by with just using levels but you obviously have higher standards than that being a photographer.

Duffy Pratt

Here are three different fast approaches:

1) Copy the background layer (Ctrl - J). Set the mode to Screen. Reduce the opacity to taste (40% here).

2) Make a Curves adjustment layer. Set the mode to Luminosity. Left click the mouse and hold it while scrolling over the shirts, you will see a black point moving up and down the line in the curve.

Control click on the low point in the shirt. The control click again on someplace a bit higher on the shirts. The two points you set will have the effect of locking the brightness level of the shirt in place.

Now click somewhere on the curve that is a bit below the lower of your control points. (If you want, you can check to make sure that your new point is somewhere above the brightest part of the skin by left clicking the mouse and exploring the skin tones.) Drag the new point upwards to brighten the skin tones while keeping everything that is as light as the shirts or lighter the same tone.

This second technique is alot easier to do than to describe. It took about 30 seconds.

3) Made a levels adjustment layer. Adjusted the high and low points of each of the red, green and blue channels. (I like doing it this way better than working simply on the RGB channel because it sometimes removes hidden casts, and just generally seems to work better.)

Converted to LAB. Created a Curves adjustment layer. Bumped up the mid-highlight on the luminosity curve to lighten the picture overall and add contrast to the skin. Then steepened the A and B curves, but put control point on the neutral point and in the negative side of each and lowered the slope on the positive side to bring down the skin tones some.

The first two fixes are close to what Sara said she wanted, especially number 2, and they both took a few seconds to do. The last is more like what I would do if it was my own, but faster than I would take: The adjustments took about 90 seconds.

Duffy

Duffy Pratt

I can't figure out how to add more than one attachment. This is the curve adjustment layer.

Duffy Pratt

And this is the version using LAB curves.

sara505

imann08 wrote:

With the last image you posted you just went overboard I think. I haven't looked at it yet but I can say that Levels and Curves are essentially the same thing. Curves are just a more advanced Levels. Also, Hue/Saturation can be taken care of in Curves a majority of the time. Of course, you have to become comfortable with curves first.

Photoshop is a very advanced program and takes a lot of time to learn. I've been doing it for 3-4 years and don't know anywhere close to what it's capable of. The frustrating thing is that the more you learn the more, it seems, you find out you don't know.

I know what it's like as does everyone else here so if you want to IM me to ask me some questions I'll be more than happy to help. I got to say it again though. You have to learn the basics like layers, what the tools all do, how to use curves etc. You can get by with just using levels but you obviously have higher standards than that being a photographer.

Imann08, here's the thing. I should explain myself a bit, I think. I have been photographing for 35 years, beginning with a Retina IIA, and coming up through the dark room days, loved my Spotmatic II--taking a big leap into auto photography with the EOS system back in '86 or so, and have been transitioning, like so many others, into the digital world over the past couple of years. I am not a full time photographer, but once considered myself an accomplished photographer in my world of informal family photography and weddings, and I have worked for a newspaper as a photojounalist off and on for about ten years. Between the challenges of learning to use my 10d and 430ex (I am mostly baffled by what I can only describe as inconsistent results, but I plug away at it) and now, being faced with hours of post production, I am pretty discouraged.

I do a fair number of family photography jobs and weddings during the summer months and I simply want to be able to post some nice looking photos on my web site for my clients and give them a CD with files that will make them a nice print and look good in their computers.
Maybe I'm trying too hard.

I need to know the basics for post processing a large number of files in the simplest way possible. For example, the first image--of the family in red, above--as it first appears on my screen is unacceptable. You say I went too far in my corrections--I just want them to look nice--brighten them up, nice contrast, nice skin tones--what should I do.

I am looking into the book you recommended.

sara505

sara505 wrote:

Imann08, here's the thing. I should explain myself a bit, I think. I have been photographing for 35 years, beginning with a Retina IIA, and coming up through the dark room days, loved my Spotmatic II--taking a big leap into auto photography with the EOS system back in '86 or so, and have been transitioning, like so many others, into the digital world over the past couple of years. I am not a full time photographer, but once considered myself an accomplished photographer in my world of informal family photography and weddings, and I have worked for a newspaper as a photojounalist off and on for about ten years. Between the challenges of learning to use my 10d and 430ex (I am mostly baffled by what I can only describe as inconsistent results, but I plug away at it) and now, being faced with hours of post production, I am pretty discouraged.

I do a fair number of family photography jobs and weddings during the summer months and I simply want to be able to post some nice looking photos on my web site for my clients and give them a CD with files that will make them a nice print and look good in their computers.
Maybe I'm trying too hard.

I need to know the basics for post processing a large number of files in the simplest way possible. For example, the first image--of the family in red, above--as it first appears on my screen is unacceptable. You say I went too far in my corrections--I just want them to look nice--brighten them up, nice contrast, nice skin tones--what should I do.

I am looking into the book you recommended.

oh, the EOs was in '96, of course. :

Duffy Pratt

Sara:

For quick formulas, and a book that will also give you a handson approach, you might try one of the Kelby books that are titled Photoshop [version #] for Digital Photographers. Any of these books will give you some good tips on how to make some easy fixes to your pictures.

For a quick look into how to make some radical adjustments to your pictures very quickly, you could read the first five chapters of Margulis' Canyon Conundrum, which gives some amazingly useful info on how to use LAB to make drab pictures come to life.

And for a deeper look, you could do a lot worse than that Margulis book, or his Professional Photoshop book on color correction.

I started with Photoshop about 6 months ago, and still have a ton to learn. Those are the books I have used so far. The Margulis books aren't marketed for beginners, and they can be more difficult to understand, but I think they are well worth the effort, especially in the time they save in actually fixing photos once you start to understand what he is getting at.

Hope this helps,

Duffy

sara505

Duffy Pratt wrote:

Sara:

For quick formulas, and a book that will also give you a handson approach, you might try one of the Kelby books that are titled Photoshop [version #] for Digital Photographers. Any of these books will give you some good tips on how to make some easy fixes to your pictures.

For a quick look into how to make some radical adjustments to your pictures very quickly, you could read the first five chapters of Margulis' Canyon Conundrum, which gives some amazingly useful info on how to use LAB to make drab pictures come to life.

And for a deeper look, you could do a lot worse than that Margulis book, or his Professional Photoshop book on color correction.

I started with Photoshop about 6 months ago, and still have a ton to learn. Those are the books I have used so far. The Margulis books aren't marketed for beginners, and they can be more difficult to understand, but I think they are well worth the effort, especially in the time they save in actually fixing photos once you start to understand what he is getting at.

Hope this helps,

Duffy

Duffy, thanks. I have been working with Photoshop for years--but in a very simplistic way. I want very much to go deeper, but right this minute I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a couple of family portrait jobs--what I want is to be able to tweak the 150 or so images in each job and send them on their way. I also have a wedding with about 550 images, including some problem shots, sitting in my computer awaiting my attention, which I am dreading.

Mike Lane

sara505 wrote:

Duffy, thanks. I have been working with Photoshop for years--but in a very simplistic way. I want very much to go deeper, but right this minute I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a couple of family portrait jobs--what I want is to be able to tweak the 150 or so images in each job and send them on their way. I also have a wedding with about 550 images, including some problem shots, sitting in my computer awaiting my attention, which I am dreading.

You could create an action that would simply allow you to quickly set a black point, a white point, and a med-gray point, then shoot you over to lab where you could do a quick a/b steepen and contrast adjustment (both of which could be saved as a curve), then select the L chanel to sharpen it, followed by sending it to 8 bit sRGB and saving it as a jpg. It would still require user inputs but it would get the pics out the door much faster. If you want I'll even work up the action for you (I've been meaning to do this for myself anyhow). It'll be something that'll add pop and correct color issues quickly. The downside is that it wouldn't be all that tailored to each individual picture.

sara505

Mike Lane wrote:

You could create an action that would simply allow you to quickly set a black point, a white point, and a med-gray point, then shoot you over to lab where you could do a quick a/b steepen and contrast adjustment (both of which could be saved as a curve), then select the L chanel to sharpen it, followed by sending it to 8 bit sRGB and saving it as a jpg. It would still require user inputs but it would get the pics out the door much faster. If you want I'll even work up the action for you (I've been meaning to do this for myself anyhow). It'll be something that'll add pop and correct color issues quickly. The downside is that it wouldn't be all that tailored to each individual picture.

Mike, I have no clue what you're saying. This is what I know how to do: lighten and darken, add contrast, adjust skin tones. Mostly using levels and curves. I only the other day learned how to use the three sliders in the levels box, had no clue they worked together in any way. Sorry, but I don't know from black points or white points and I don't know what 'lab' means. I'm feeling quite hopeless. :cry

wxwax

Sara, have you bought any books to help you?

There are a number out there that are very easy to follow, which is just my style. Look for any of the Scott Kelby books, for example.

I think that would be a better first step than hoping to learn much from PS tutorials in a thread.

sara505

wxwax wrote:

Sara, have you bought any books to help you?

There are a number out there that are very easy to follow, which is just my style. Look for any of the Scott Kelby books, for example.

I think that would be a better first step than hoping to learn much from PS tutorials in a thread.

Right this minute I'm on an island with no access to any of the books folks have been referring me to. I have my photoshop manual, that's it. I am just about to go to Amazon and start looking. Thank you.