Tuesday Tip: Eat Cookies!

Today is the last day of the summer semester for me, which means lots of grading and so much to do before I take off for a bit before the fall semester. Because I have been crazy busy doing last minute things for the semester I don’t have a Tuesday Tip today for Photoshop. However, I firmly believe that taking a break is a good thing. (Which is hard for me to do). So, today my tip for everyone is to check out my Mom’s BLOG. She has a great recipe on there for Peanut Butter Cookies, so go take a break and make some cookies!!!

Jeff & Lindsay

Jeff and Lindsay are celebrating their 10 year anniversary! They look so young! I really love these people, they are really so very kind. Jeff and Lindsay lead my sister’s Sunday School class at Scotts Hill Baptist Church in Wilmington, NC. If you would like to know more about Jeff and  Lindsay you can visit their BLOG. I helped them celebrate their 10 years with a photo session. We went over to Topsail Beach for some fun photographing…I got really sandy, sometimes you have to get dirty to get the right perspective for an image. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

I have figured out that if you want people to laugh, just ask them to be serious:

So, I grew up at the beach, I have always known the importance of the dunes and not to go on them, however, I never knew that the areas between the wooden fences were for the sea turtles…I learn something new every day, and thanks to a passerby know what those are for now and not to disturb them, so this is most likely the last image you will see in the sea turtles’ area from me

Tuesday Tip: Local Adjustments

Often times the added contrast and saturation techniques that I use when editing will darken and even in some steps, lighten certain areas a bit more than I want them. Lindsay has beautiful blue eyes and I want to see them. I have created actions for this that help to combat that. You don’t have to set up an action for this if you don’t want to, however, I have found this something that I use on a regular basis. Here is the example we will work with:

Notice that her face has gotten a bit too dark in the shadow, I just can’t see the detail like I want, both because of the shadow and because of the adjustments I have made previously. So, here is how I solve that issue: 

Step 1: Open an image in Photoshop you wish to adjust locally.

Step 2: Click on the top most layer in your layers palette and go down to the bottom of the layers palette and choose “Levels” from the adjustment layer pull-down menu (half-black, half-white circle). This will open the levels dialogue box. Move the dialogue box so you can see the image and the adjustment box simultaneously. 

Step 3: I want to lighten her eyes, so I am going to move the midtone slider (middle slider) to the left down the histogram. If the preview box is checked you should see the entire image lighten up. Just pay attention to the eyes to get them at a desirable level. Then click “OK” when you are happy.

Step 4: Of course we didn’t want to lighten the entire image, so we are going to use the layer mask to adjust that. Instead of painting the entire image with black and leaving the small face area we will work in reverse. Click on the Levels layer mask to ensure it is selected (empty box in levels layer) and go to Edit>Fill> and choose Black for Contents. Click “OK.”   (keyboard shortcut for mac is command-delete – be sure black is background color) It will now appear that no changes have been made because you have masked out the entire levels adjustment.

Step 5: Select white as your foreground color (keyboard shortcut for mac: hit “d” then “x.”) select a soft  paintbrush tool much smaller than the face area and begin painting over the face area or whatever area needs to be lightened. They should appear lighter. If they are too light, simply lower the opacity of the layer. If they are too dark, double-click back on the levels adjustment icon and increase the lightening by dragging the midtone slider to the left even more.

Here is the finished image with a few added adjustments:

As I said before this works wonderfully for an action. I have set them up for both lightening and darkening. Of course, every image is not the same, so you will have make adjustments, but it gives you a quick starting point.

Charlotte Sessions, Part 10: Rachel

Rachel wrapped up my Charlotte Sessions. She is a rising Senior and has so much to look forward to for her future. After high school Rachel plans on going to college and possibly getting a scholarship to play tennis. She is quite a lovely young lady and a lot of fun to work with. I wish her all the best in her future endeavors!

Charlotte Sessions, Part 9: Luke & Denise

Like I said earlier, I really love images showing interaction between parent and child. It is a subject matter that has been used by artists for so long! I enjoyed watching the interaction between Luke and his mom Denise. They both have such great smiles! The images that are taken in succession are often enjoyable to me as well. It is almost like a little movie clip if you view them all together. 

Tuesday Tip: Patch Tool

There is more than one way to fix an owie. My niece Bree likes Neosporin…the spray kind makes her feel especially good. Some prefer band-aids. And then there is Photoshop which can just make it go away in a matter of minutes. Miss Caroline got a nice big boo boo a few days before our photo session, so her mom asked me if I could “doctor” it and so I did, and it gave me the idea to share it with you. You may already be completely comfortable with the patch tool, the clone tool, and the healing brush, but for those of you who are not, this may be of interest to you. Here is my before image, showing Caroline’s boo boo on her chin…still cute, boo boo and all: 

Step 1: Of course you need to open an image that needs adjustment in Photoshop. There are soooo many ways to do this. Once you familiarize yourself with the tools above you will know which one will work best for each situation. Duplicate your background layer. You want to do this to preserve the background layer. In this case I like the patch tool. So, choose the patch tool, nestled under the healing brush. Be sure you have the “New Selection” choice from the tool option bar (below menu) chosen as well as the radio button for “source” selected:

Step 2: Make a good selection around the area to be covered over of “fixed.” Be sure to make a selection that includes a good portion of it. In this case I want to select it all, but I want to stay away from the edge of her chin. If you include edges, such as the edge of the chin here, or say, the edge of a shirt, etc., it gets funky. 

Step 3: Next, you are going to drag that selection by clicking in the middle of it and dragging it to a location that you will use to blend or cover over what needs to be “fixed.” I chose an area very close to her boo boo:

I liked the patch tool for this because of its blending capabilities.

Step 4: Deselect by clicking Command-D or go up to Select>Deselect. Done! Here is the after:

Charlotte Sessions, Part 8: Grayson

This is Grayson, who I like to call: “the little professional.”  I really think she models professionally during her time away from dance class. She was such a great little model. As usual, here are some images that I enjoyed from our session:

Charlotte Sessions, Part 7: Caroline, Murphy, and Davis

My husband and sister always make fun of me for taking sooo many pictures, but if you had kids these cute in front of your camera, what would you do? We had a good time running around the park. Such cute expressions! I am always a fan of the funny faces kids make. I had a hard time deciding which images to share, I just love their little faces….

Charlotte Sessions, Part 6: Addison

Meet little Addison. What beautiful blue eyes! I have always been a bit jealous of the blue eyed folks. Needless to say….so very adorable. Here are some of my favorites featuring those captivating blue eyes:

Tuesday Tip: Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

Here are a list of my top 10 favorite keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop (these are for Mac, but there is a PC equivalent):

Command-Z is undo…use this one all the time!!!

Command-D is for deselect

V is for the move tool

M is for the marquee tool

L is for lasso

T is for the text tool

Command-delete will fill your layer or selection with your background color. 

Command-E is for merge down (to merge a layer down to the next one)

Shift-option-command-E is for merging all visible layers into one layer

Command-C, then Command V is for copy and paste. 

There are so many more, for a complete list go HERE

They really can make your life easier if you learn a few here and there!