Photoshop Quick Tips #2 – Curves

(Download link is at the end of the tutorial. Please note that the files are now password protected, and the password is also at the end of the tutorial.)

Curves allows you make adjustments to colour and contrast with a little more control than any auto function, and even a little more than the levels tool. Open up your "Brown Dog" photo and we'll play with this a bit. Although the colour and contrast isn't too bad, this will allow you to see what the curves function can do.

The first thing to do is duplicate your background (right click on the
background layer in the layers palette, select duplicate layer) and name it "Curves Layer".

Now open the curves tool - you'll find it in the menu under
Image > Adjustments > Curves. You'll see a square divided into equal sections with a line from the bottom right corner to the top left, and a graph-like image in gray tones. This graph is the histogram - it represents light, dark and medium toned pixels in the image.

In the preset box at the top there should already be some settings. You can click on those. When you open the box it probably says "none". Click the little drop-down arrow and select a preset. Watch what it does to the image, and to the curves line.
Let's try the preset "lighter". And then look at the preset for "Negative".

hmmm. This isn't really what we want. Click the "none" in the drop down box to return to the original image. There is another button to the left called "options". Click that and play with the choices a little. This box allows you to select "auto" color correction options. Click the different radio buttons to see what they do. Okay, close the
box without making any changes (cancel). If you click the auto button, you'll get a similar result to whatever was set in the options, but lets not do an auto right now.

Below the graph are three "eye droppers". These represent the white, gray and black in the image. What you click on using these eye droppers can have a huge effect on your picture in terms of colour correctness and white balance. Select the eye dropper on the right - that one is for white. To use this, click on the whitest part of your photo - in this case it is probably the bit of tooth to left of the dog's tongue.

Now select the dropper in the middle. That's for grays. You should select a part of your image that seems to be as neutral a gray as you can find. Let's try the dog collar with this one. That gives the image a different colour cast. If you pick something else now, like the grayish-blue line along the background, you'll get something different. (don't do it right now).

You'll notice changes in the curve line over the histogram with each selection you make. Now try the black one. Click on a really black part of the image, like the front part of the dog's nose.

If you look over in the layer palette and look closely at the background and the curves layer, you'll what look like some slight changes in colour and brights/contrast. Okay, for the moment, we'll accept these changes. Click "okay" in the curves box to make the changes to the curves layer. Now, click on the little eye beside the curves layer in the palette - that will make your layer "invisible". This is where you see the difference between the beginning image and the changes we made with curves. Turn the curves layer
on and off a few times by clicking the little eye to see the differences.

To my eye, this "auto-ish" type of colour correction doesn't always give you the result you want, and highlights in the dog's fur look to have a pinkish cast to me. If you open the curves box again, You'll likely notice some crenellations in the histogram - these represent the changes we made. We can reduce the red a little in the fur by selecting the "red" channel instead of the RGB channel. Notice the histogram in the background changes to red?

In the upper right hand corner, grab the "line" and pull it slightly downwards and watch as the pink tones change slightly. The output reads at 246 on my sample. That's still not quite enough, and I don't like the pink that's still there. Let's change the figure in the output box to 240. Click in the box and type in 240. Now click okay in the curves box to accept the change. Being able to type in a value
gives you even more control than dragging the line. If you like the image the way it is, you can flatten and save it. But let's try a
couple of other adjustments.

Open the curves box again. I'd still like to lighten the mid-tones a little in this. One way is to put your cursor in the middle of the box, right in the center when the curves line crosses over the group of squares. First lift gently upwards, just a little...now move to the right, just a little. In the sample, the input box reads 138 and the output box reads 147. Another way is to add a couple of "points" along the curve line to make even more controlled changes. That's a little more in depth than what we want to do in this Quick-Tip tutorial. For now, Lets accept the current values by clicking okay.
Now you can flatten your image and save it with the name
"Brown_Dog_Curves.jpg"

Practice playing with the curves tool on your own. And remember - you learn by doing. Don't be afraid to explore the tool further. Try it on some of your own images. You might be surprised at the results.
Feel free to send me your before and after images of your own work and I'll whip up a page of comparison's to show people! (small size please)

DOWNLOAD THE FULL TUTORIAL WITH ADDITIONAL PICTURES TO HELP YOU FOLLOW THE STEPS – CLICK HERE

PLEASE NOTE! – THE PDF IS PASSWORD PROTECTED. The Password to open the file is notheft

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Wedding Photography for Non-Professionals – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series we talked about some of the things you shouldn’t do in trying to gain experience.

Today, we’re going to explore a little bit of the creative side of weddings and how you can begin to train yourself to “see” what others may not.

Once, wedding photos were fairly standard, mostly not very exciting, but very traditional. Modern trends have changed wedding photography in some respects. While most will still want some of the traditional wedding party shots, many will want something different and unique. Something that “fits them” and shows who they are.

Coming up with unique ideas can be challenging, but it is also worth the effort.

To get the creative mind flowing, start by working at home – in a small studio if you have one. You don’t have to have a studio though: an empty corner in any room will do. These exercises don’t take much space. If you have access to a wedding dress, that’s great – set it up and use. If you don’t, you can use lots of other things. Shoes, handbags, pearls, gloves, white lace and other fabrics, wedding rings, greeting cards – almost anything that might say “wedding, romance, marriage” if it were displayed in the right setting.

Spend time arranging objects to make a pleasing display; photograph each as if it were a still life. Try arrangements that are unusual, or in settings you don’t normally think of as romantic.

This might seem like a useless exercise, except that it will help open your eyes to settings and events at or during the wedding that you might not otherwise notice. Things that can provide a unique view of the wedding – a tipped wine glass, spent wrapping paper after gifts are opened, confetti and streamers on the dance floor among the feet of dancers. Look for different angles, and unusual lighting.

The trick is to stay aware of as much going on around you as you can. If you have an opportunity to attend a wedding as a guest, then you put this into practice. And while these images aren’t likely to be a major component of the wedding album, being able to do this sort of work helps you train yourself to provide creative imagery to couples looking for something more than the ordinary.

copyright 2009, Veronica Hickey

(image posted with permission)

Be creative, and have fun while you do it! Til next time peeps :)

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Cloning for Beginners

Photoshop Quick Tips for the Beginner - #1 - The Cloning Tool
Photoshop Quick Tips for the Beginner will be a small series of tutorials teaching basic photo adjustments using Photoshop, or photoshop-like editing programs. This is mainly for beginners and for those who haven't done photo editing, but want to make some minor adjustments.
There are many other programs besides Photoshop or Photoshop Elements that will let you make "auto" adjustments, but "auto" doesn't always work the way you might want it to.
These tips are pretty quick, and give you a little more control over how your final image looks. The instructions are very basic, and they are that way on purpose.
Let's start with this handsome fellow. (download the photo from here) Not too bad a picture, but there's someone's hair in the bottom left. If I try to crop it off, I'm going to throw off the composition a little.

I don't want it there, so I want to remove it, but I don't want a blank space. How to fix it?
In most full-bodied editing programs will be a tool called a cloning brush, or stamp, or a healing brush. What this does is copy a piece or section near the object you want to remove, and allows you to brush it over top of the bit you want to replace.
In this case, we want to copy some of the dog's coat and some of the sky and cover the hair.
Depending on your program, the cloning tool should look something like this.

Before we start, we're going to save the dog picture with a different name. Save your picture as Cloning Test 1. Now you will be working on a file called Cloning Test 1, instead of "Brown Dog". This means you will always have a copy of the dog picture before you started editing it.
If you have a program capable of working on layers, you should make a copy of your background (the dog) layer. The method won't be the same for every program: some will have a button or link to duplicate the layer in the layer palette, some will allow you to use "hot keys" . Most will let you right click on the active layer and select duplicate.
If your program doesn't have a layers function, you have to work directly on the picture, so as you are working, if you make a mistake or a brush stroke doesn't look right, click the undo button (or you might have to select "edit" and then "undo" from the menu) and try it again.
Now you have two layers - "background" and "background copy". If your program allows you to rename layers, rename the "background copy" to "clone layer".

Find your cloning brush/tool/stamp and click on it. Most programs will have some options you can set for using the tool - the size of brush, the "mode", the opacity and flow, whether it's aligned or not, and which layers you want it to "sample" the selection from.
In this case, choose a size you feel comfortable with for your brush, the mode is normal, opacity and flow 100%, the aligned box is ticked (on) and we are sampling the current layer only.
Zoom in on the part of your picture you want to fix - it's much easier to work on this when you see what you are doing.
The clone stamp is a 2-part tool. Once you have the cloner open, you first need to tell it what part of the picture you want to copy FROM. Different programs will achieve this in different ways - in photoshop you hold your cloner over the area (in this case the dog fur) and hold down the ALT button on the keyboard. When you do this, the normal cursor will usually change to a cross-hair or target style cursor. Now you click.
Let go of the ALT button and move to the area you want to cover. Brush over the area in the same direction. You can't cover an entire area all at once. It will take a few selection and cover processes to complete the job. Continue selecting areas and covering the hair until you come to the area where the edge of the dog's fur meets the sky.
Here, we're going to stop working on the dog fur, and begin copying the sky over the hair strands. Using the same method as you did for the dog fur.
Be careful while working around the edge of the dog's fur - you don't want to move over any of that, just the hair strands. What you are trying for is a result that looks something like this.

Now you can go back to finishing the dog fur cloning, still avoiding the edge of fur. Now we'll clean up the last of those bits of dark hair. Using a fairly small sized brush for your cloning tool, pick up bits of dog hair and cover the last few bits of dark hair, carefully make sure not to go over the edge of the dog fur.
That's it.
Now you are ready to move onto other editing if you need to, like colour or contrast or sharpness adjustments...but those are for another tutorial. If you plan to follow this tutorial series, hold on to your dog photos, because we'll be using those throughout.
Practice your cloning skills and you'll soon find that a small job like this takes you no more than a couple of minutes. You probably spent a much time reading this tutorial (or more) than it would take you to fix the photo.
Happy editing!
© J. Gracey Stinson


Download this tutorial with more extensive picture in .pdf format from here: Quick Tips #1 – Cloning Tool (Please note - the .pdf file is protected by password. The password to open the file is: getthisfromgracey)

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Help for “Blogger” Bloggers

NOTE: This article has been republished by the author (myself) on "Helpful Information for Newbies"

In the last month or so I’ve had to make use of the google help forums and discovered that there is a never-ending stream of questions coming into the help centers. Some quite simple, but others much more complex. What I also discovered is that help can sometimes be as simple as pointing someone to the right link in the vast network of google help links.

I am no expert on google or it’s help systems, but for the most part I have learned how and where to find help when I need it. What you’ll find though, is that getting a direct answer from any person who actually works for or is approved by google is difficult, at best.

Any email to support generally results in a form-letter reply directing you to a help forum for the area you are asking about. Considering the shear number of emails that must head towards google help centers every minute of every day, that really isn’t all that surprising.

I doubt any one entity that large could respond with personal emails to that volume of mail. But the help centers can be very useful once you learn how to navigate them.

While not related to all the google categories where you can find help, I’ve created a tutorial to help bloggers out a little bit – it walks you through the steps to add a Privacy Policy to your blogger blog, using written instructions as well as pictures in an easy-to-follow step-by-step manner.

Adding A Privacy Policy to A Blogger Blog

Links to Help Forums

Google Help Centres – all one page for all your google services

Wedding Photography for the non-Professional

I’m going to start into a small series of articles on wedding photography for the non-professional. Partly because right now, we are seeing a lot of people trying to enter the photography business, from students to amateurs to professional photographers working in other areas.
This beginning article is more about preparation, and gaining some experience – what to do, and more importantly, what not to do.
Because you are a good photographer doesn’t mean you will do well with wedding photography. It can have positive aspects – some are fun, and some are not so fun.
Wedding photography on a regular basis can be grueling – long hours and many weekends away from your family. Out of necessity, it is a weekend business but the whole of it is more than being there and taking the photos. During the week you will need time to process and sort images after the wedding. Before the wedding you’ll need time to meet, perhaps on a number of occasions, with the bride and groom. And you’ll have to prepare and go over the contract with them . You’ll need to prepare your list of “must have” poses/shots and if you are able to get access to venue where the bride and groom intend to have their photos taken, you should take time to visit that in advance. This give you an opportunity to see what you’ll be working with, what the possible lighting might be; the size of the space or, if it’s outdoors, the surroundings. And you’ll be taking notes of course. This will help you be ready for the day of the wedding. All of this is extraneous to the wedding day shooting.
If you have never done wedding photography, jumping in with both feet is not a good idea. Don’t offer yourself out as a hired photographer without some experience under your belt.
How do you get that? There are a number of ways. Offer to do some free photography for friends or family – not those who are hiring a professional wedding photographer, but those who can’t afford one. They might be a little skeptical at first – after all, most people don’t offer to work for free! You can offer your services as part of the wedding gift.
If you know someone who is a wedding photographer, offer to work as an assistant or a “second” at a couple of weddings – free of charge, in exchange for getting a glimpse of what the business entails.
Apply at studios for an assistant position (hard to come by).
When you are gathering skills and experience, there are some things on the “What Not To Do List”.
DON’T

• get in the way of the hired photographer at a wedding
• don’t use your flash while the photographer is shooting
• don’t tell the wedding party how or where to stand unless the photographer asks for input
• don’t talk to the people being photographed. It draws their attention away from the photographer

All these don’t might seem a little harsh, but in reality these are often necessary in order for the photographer to fulfill the contract.
At many weddings there will be other “photographers” – friends or family members with cameras who want to take their own memory shots, and all of them think that one or two extra minutes for their shot or setup won’t make much difference.
They might not understand that often, the couple will have paid for a location, and that location will usually have a time-limit. Places that hire out as photo locations may have a number of different weddings booked for that same day. Once the time limit is up, the photographer and the couple must leave. There are a number of things that can affect the outcome of the photo shoot.

• if the ceremony starts late or runs longer than expected, photo time is shortened
• if the weather is uncooperative photo time may be shortened
• if the traffic from the ceremony venue to photography location is heavy it may take longer to get there, leaving less time for the photography

When even more time is taken up by a number of the wedding guests also attending the photo location, things can get way out of whack. You might have six or seven different people with cameras all trying to take photos. A common phrase here is “wait, I didn’t get mine yet”.
This situation is not good for the couple, or the hired photographer. The couple have paid for these services, sometimes quite a lot of money. Guests should not be trying to fill their own albums during this time. IF you can get some shots without getting in the way, then do so, but don’t interject yourself into the planned shoot. And unless you are part of the wedding party, or part of the photographer’s staff, then you are a guest at the shoot.
Stay back from the photographer – don’t stand so close to him or her that you get in the way, or hamper their movements. They may have little enough time as it is without worry about whether or not they’ll be stumbling over another photographer. Don’t get in front of the photographer under any circumstances. Don’t use your flash while the photographer is shooting. It will throw off the lighting causing overexposure and make things more difficult for the photographer, having to reshoot the scene.
These tips profit both the couple and the photographer. Shooting a wedding isn’t all about the photographer. It’s about the couple and what they’ve paid for. If they are friends or family members, then hopefully you will want them to get the most value for their money by staying out of the way.
In some cases, the photographer will include limits in the contract. Limits on who can attend the photo shoot and whether or not the couple may hire another photographer (not every wedding has just one photographer). This helps to control the setting.
Learn first a little about how the wedding photographer works by watching. See how certain things are set up for a shot, whether or not he/she moves around; listen to their directions to the wedding party. Do this at a few weddings; as many as you can – because each photographer is different. Photographer’s work in different styles and have different work flows, and yours will probably be different from those, but watching and listening is the beginning of learning.
Next in the series…learn by doing.

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