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How to Remove People & Moving Objects From a Photo in Adobe Photoshop

March 16, 2019

If you’ve ever tried to take a photo of an area and had people constantly enter your shot, I can feel your frustration. Just think about it. You’ve either got your tripod set up or you’re just standing there with your camera at a train station, mall, city square or anywhere else people tend to frequent and every single time you take a photo, you find that someone had walked right into your scene. This happens all the time, so don’t sweat it. Actually, Adobe Photoshop has a tool to fix the problem I’m referring to. So, if you’ve ever wondered how these great photographers who post their images all over the place online get those magical shots of empty city centers in Europe, I’m about to show you their secret.

By the way, the process I’ll cover down below is also useful for passing cars that don’t belong in your “empty road” shots and animals that tend to wander nearby or fly right your your otherwise beautiful sunset photo.

In today’s post, I’ll use three photos of a wonderful sunset. In each shot, the photographer attempted to capture just the sunset, without any distractions. Unfortunately, there were some pesky birds nearby that kept flying through his scene. Because this photographer knew how to remove the birds using Adobe Photoshop, he didn’t mind them at all. He took his shots and went how to enjoy some tea.

Okay, so I’m not using people for this demonstration as I would have loved to because I just couldn’t come up with the perfect sequence of photos. I’m substituting these birds in instead. What’s important here is the process, not the subjects of the photos. As I continue through this tutorial, think about how you might use this same process for your own experiences. Remember, for this to work, you’ll need to keep your camera steady and capture multiple shots of the same exact scene, with only minor differences in each one. For example, let’s say you were standing on the corner of a street in an attempt to take a nice photo of a building across the way. The problem is, cars kept passing by. What you would do is take four or five shots of the building and not concern yourself with the cars. They can be easily removed later on.

Demo Photos

Here are the images that I’ll be using for this post. They’re fairly identical, except for the random birds that were caught in the shots.

My goal is to remove these birds from the photos in order to present one final photo void of birds altogether.

Loading as Photoshop Layers

Okay, let’s get going. To begin, the first thing I’m going to do is to open the three images I have to work with into Adobe Photoshop as layers in the same file. To accomplish this, I’ll open Adobe Bridge, locate the files, click on them to select them and then head up to the Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers menu item and click. This will transfer the three images into one file in Photoshop and each image will be in its own layer in the Layers panel. Take a look.

Aligning the Layers

Now that I’ve got the layers inside of Photoshop, I’ll need to align them. This step is very important because it’s rare that multiple photos will have exactly the same alignment, even if a tripod was used. To align the layers, I’ll click on the top one in the Layers panel, hold down the Shift key on my keyboard and then click on the bottom one. This should select all three of them. Then, I’ll head over to the Edit > Auto-Align Layers menu item and click.

When the Auto-Align Layers dialog box appears, I’ll keep the setting on Auto and then click the OK button.

Converting to a Smart Object

The next step I’ll need to take is to convert the three individual layers into one Smart Object. To do this, I’ll select all the layers in the Layers panel once again and then I’ll right-click on any one of them. When the menu appears, I’ll click on Convert to Smart Object.

Creating a Stack Mode

This next step is going to blow your mind. You’ve most likely never heard of a Stack Mode. I’m also guessing that you didn’t know that Photoshop allows you to take the “average” of multiple photos. For example, in the three photos I’m working on, the average of two of the photos in a particular area might be the sky. In one of those photos though, a black bird might be in that very spot. By using a stack mode and taking the average of that specific area, the bird would disappear and the sky would prevail. It’s a crazy helpful tool, so I’ll show you how to use it right now.

Now that I’ve got the three images combined as a Smart Object, I’ll go to the Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Median menu item and click.

In this case, all the birds will disappear and my project will be completed. If I had chosen the Mean option from the menu, some of the birds would simply fade out while the ones all the way to the right would disappear all together.

Removing Faded Birds

As I just mentioned above, using the Median option of the Stack Mode completely removed the birds from the image I’m working on, so as of this point, my project is completed. I’ve done what I set out to do. The problem here is called reality. This almost never happens. What usually happens is, depending on how many photos you’ve taken, you’ll likely have a few faded objects in your Smart Object that still need to be removed. In this section, I’ll show you how to do just that. To assist me, I’ll be using the Mean Stack Mode as opposed to the Median one I described above.

To remove the faded birds, I’ll double-click on the Smart Object thumbnail in the Layers panel. Doing this will open up a new tab that contains the individual layers again. I’ll find one of the layers that has the original birds that are now faded in it and then I’ll select that layer. Then, I’ll go to the bottom of the Layers panel and I’ll click Add Layer Mask button. This will add a new mask to the layers in question.

Next, I’ll use the Brush Tool with a resized and very soft brush to paint black over the birds in the photo. This will make them disappear. I’ll do this for both layers where the birds are visible.

After that, I’ll make sure all of the layers are visible and then I’ll use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to clean up any areas that look unnatural. I’ll make sure the Sample All Layers box up in the options bar is checked so all of the layers are taken into account.

When I’m finished with this, I’ll close the tab, click on Save to save it and then take a look at my final image. There’s more I could do to clean the image up at this point with the Spot Healing Brush Tool if I needed to, but I don’t see any need for that. In that case, the project is completed.

You may be asking yourself why I didn’t simply use masks to remove the objects in the first place. The answer to that is that I could have. That’s always an option. The thing is, when you take the median of the images together in a Stack Mode, you’re blending them so they’re nearly identical. When is comes to the mask work later on, it’s minimal. In my case with the images I worked on today, things were very straightforward and simple. If this were a much more complex image, I definitely would have needed every bit of extra help I could garner.

I hope I clearly explained how to remove people, animals and moving objects from a stack of photos using Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below or in the Photoshop discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

Using Color Range & Masks to Separate Colors in Adobe Photoshop

March 12, 2019

There may come a time when you need to separate out colors in a photograph for some reason or another. This may be because you want something to stand out in an image or because you simply want certain areas to fade into the background. Whatever the reason, it’s oftentimes far too tedious to sit there with your selection tool of choice or your painting tool in Adobe Photoshop and work things pixel by pixel. For complicated images, that’s just too much work. If you’re facing a photo that’s got big, broad colors that are easy to select, that’s one thing, but if you’re facing a complex photo, that’s quite another. Nobody wants to work on something all day long. Especially if that something is only one part of a larger project in Photoshop.

In today’s post, I’m going to work through a quick project in Photoshop that will hopefully give you some ideas for your own projects in the future. I’ll show you how to apply the Hue/Saturation adjustment and then how to use the Color Range tool inside the Masks panel to choose just the color you either want to keep saturated or make desaturated. I’ll then show you how to desaturate the colors you want to fade away, which will make the other saturated colors really pop. This will be a fun post and again, I hope you learn something from it.

Demo Photo

Take a look at this image. I’d like to make it so only the pinks, reds and oranges are saturated, while everything else is desaturated. Can you imagine trying to select or paint these colors for use with a mask to change their saturation values? That’s not something I’d want to get myself involved in. Luckily, there’s a better way.

Adding the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

I’ve already got the image I’ll be working on open in Adobe Photoshop. The next step I’ll take will be to apply the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. To do this, I’ll click on the Hue/Saturation icon in the Adjustments panel, which will, in turn, add that adjustment layer to the Layers panel. Take a look.

Choosing the Color Range

Now, I’ll click on the Masks tab in the Properties panel that appeared after I applied the adjustment layer. And then from there, I’ll click the Color Range button.

When I click the Color Range button, the Color Range dialog box will appear.

In the above screenshot, you can see that I already clicked on the color pink. Basically, when this dialog box appears, the mouse turns into a dropper that selects the color you want. Since I already clicked on pink, I’ll need to switch from a “one use” dropper to a “cumulative” dropper.

By using this cumulative eyedropper version with the small + (plus) mark next to it, I’ll be able to select one color and then another and another. It adds to what I’ve already selected. I’ll go ahead and click on the pink, red, and orange squares in the photo now. If I need to, I’ll move the fuzziness slider to make my selections more sharp. I’ll then click on the OK button when I’m happy with my selection.

NOTE: If I see that random areas of the image are being selected as I click, I can check the Localized Color Clusters box to limit the reach of each click (selection).

Inverting the Selection

Okay, this is the tricky part. If I look at the mask thumbnail that’s in the Layers panel, I’ll see that my selected areas are white while the areas that weren’t selected are black. Since this is a mask, that means that the white areas will be affected by the adjustment layer and the black areas won’t be. Since I’m using this adjustment to desaturate, I’d like to reverse the effects of the mask. I want the selected areas to stay saturated and the areas that weren’t selected to become desaturated. To make this happen, I’ll click the Invert box in the Properties panel.

Now, if I return to the regular Hue/Saturation Properties panel and push the Saturation slider all the way to the left, I’ll see everything in the image become grayscale while the areas I selected will stay saturated. Pretty cool.

This is what I have as a result so far.

Cleaning Up the Mask

While the Color Range selection method can save tons of time, it’s not perfect. Sometimes when using this method, it’s necessary to go back into the mask afterwards and clean things up. This is what I’ll do now. As you can see in the image directly above, there are some squares that need filling in or color removal.

To see a larger view of the mask, I’ll hold down the Alt (Option on Mac) key on my keyboard and then click once on the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel. Check this out.

Next, I’ll use my Brush Tool that’s been sized appropriately with the colors of white and black to either remove black from areas it’s not supposed to be and to add it to areas it is supposed to be. Basically, anything that’s gray and supposed to be black, I’ll color over with black so I get the full saturation I’m after.

This is the cleaned up version of the mask.

And here’s the final version of the photograph.

Ad you can see, the Color Range selection tool can help out a lot when it comes to making selections based on color. Also, if you want to get creative with your selections like I did today, you can combine the Color Range tool with a mask and completely change the appearance of a photograph.

I hope I taught you something new in this post. If you have any questions, please ask in the comment section down below or in the Photoshop section of the user’s forum. Thanks for reading!

Keyboard Tips & Opening a Camera Raw Image as Smart Object in Adobe Photoshop

March 8, 2019

The Camera Raw Filter in Adobe Photoshop is one of the most powerful tools available. It allows us to edit layers within Camera Raw and have those edits appear in Photoshop as a Smart Filter. This feature is extremely helpful because we can edit the image as many times as we want to and we can jump back and forth between Camera Raw and Photoshop while doing so. It doesn’t get much better than this while post-processing. Or does it?

When someone makes changes to an image using Camera Raw, those changes are stored in either the file’s meta data (JPEG) or in an external XMP file (RAW). Either way, those changes are stored someplace where they can be readily accessed by the application. This is fine and it’s not a concern. It’s also what many people are used to. As I scroll through my folders full of RAW files, I’m used to seeing all of those accompanying XMP files that sit right next to the source file.

Did you know that you can open a file that’s been edited in Adobe Camera Raw as a Smart Object? Also, did you know that when you do that, all of the changes that you make to the file in Camera Raw are stored in the Photoshop file and not the meta data or the XMP file? The changes are actually store in the Smart Object “shell” and are as readily accessible as when the image is edited in any other fashion. This is beneficial because all of the data is contained in one file, which makes storing and sharing much easier. Those XMP files have been known to get lost, which in turn, makes all of the hard earned edits disappear. That’s an extremely annoying circumstance.

The real reason for working on these types of images as Smart Objects is that when you do, you won’t affect the original file. If you do this any other way, the changes you make will stay with the original and in many cases, people don’t want that to happen.

When comparing the two methods; editing an image in Camera Raw via a Smart Filter or editing an image in Camera Raw via a Smart Object, there are distinct difference. With the Smart Filter approach, you certainly have the ability to edit again and again, but with this method, you can also adjust the visibility of your edits by taking advantage of the included layer mask. You may also edit the blending modes and add additional filters to the Smart Filter package. When editing as a Smart Object, you can do all these things as well, but you’ll need to set them up differently. They’re not as streamlined. The benefit you get with using this method though is simplicity. Everything; the file, the edits, the layer, is all there in one streamlined file. Which approach you want to use really depends on the circumstances and your goals for the file.

In today’s post, I’d like to quickly walk through the process of first opening a file via Adobe Bridge into Camera Raw, making some edits to the file and then continuing on into Photoshop as a Smart Object. The process is very simple, but I’ll show you a few quick Camera Raw slider tips along the way.

Demo Image

I picked this image out of a hat. I could have used any photograph, but I thought this one was nice.

Going From Photoshop to Bridge to Camera Raw to Photoshop

I’ll start off by launching Adobe Photoshop. When the application is open, I’ll go to the File > Browse in Bridge menu item and click. This will open up Adobe Bridge, where I’ll navigate to the file I’d like to work on. When I locate the file, I’ll double-click on its thumbnail. When I do that, Camera Raw will open up with the photo in question launched inside of it. From there, I’ll hold down the Shift key on my keyboard and press the Open Object button that’s down in the right corner.

The New Smart Object in Photoshop

When I pushed down the Shift key on my keyboard, the Open Image button turned into the Open Object button. When I pressed this button and moved the file into Photoshop, I severed any relationship I once had with the original file. Everything from here on out will be contained inside of the Photoshop file, as a sweet little bundle. Here, take a look at the Layers panel in Photoshop. You can see the small Smart Object icon in the layer I just imported.

Now that I’ve got the image contained inside of a Smart Object in Photoshop, I can double-click on its layer thumbnail to open the photo in Camera Raw at any time I wish. I’ll do that right now.

A Few Slider Shortcuts Inside of Camera Raw

I’m not going to go nuts here, but I would like to demonstrate a few neat little shortcuts you can use instead of pushing sliders around the traditional way in Camera Raw. The keyboard comes in handy here and can offer a bit more precision than the mouse can.

The first shortcut I’d like to show you has to do with increments. To move a slider in increments, you can click inside the value box that sits to the right of the slider you’re interested in moving in Camera Raw and then hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. When you do that, press the up or down arrow on your keyboard as well and you’ll see the slider move to the left or to the right automatically, in even increments.

The second shortcut I’d like to show you has to do with clipping. If you hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and then click on the Highlights, Shadows, Whites or Blacks slider and push, you’ll see that the screen turns either white or black. When you push the sliders to the extreme, you’ll see blotches appear, which is either over or underexposure rearing its ugly head. This is just a very quick way to see where you stand while you’re making your edits.

Returning to Photoshop After Editing

I made a few changes to the photo I’m working on in Camera Raw. I added some contrast as well as color. At this point, I’d like to transfer the photo back to Photoshop, whence it came. Since the file has already been opened in Photoshop and since I was merely editing an already opened image in Camera Raw, there’s no “Open” button to click. There’s only an OK button, so that’s what I’ll press. When I do this, Camera Raw will close and the image inside of Photoshop will update with my changes. Again, those changes are stored inside of the Smart Object, not inside of the photo’s meta data or in an external file. Also, if I ever want to re-edit the layer, I can simply double-click on the Smart Object thumbnail and Camera Raw will open again once more and all my slider positions will be intact. It’s that simple.

Here’s the final image, after I edited it.

I hope I clearly explained how you can open an image as a Smart Object in Photoshop and then edit that Smart Object in Camera Raw and then return to Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below or in the Photoshop discussion board. Thanks for reading!

Reshaping a Photograph with Content-Aware Scale in Adobe Photoshop

March 6, 2019

I wrote a post a few days ago where I expressed my affection for square photographs. Since I made that post, I’ve looked around at even more examples of this type of post-processing and I’m so glad I wrote what I did. Square is where it’s at. I received a reply from a reader who praised photographer Michael Kenna and I was blown away after viewing his work. If you’ve never seen it, you should really check it out. So much is in black and white and so much is square. When visiting Michael’s site, click the photo on the homepage to enter and then click the Image Archive link. Or, you can simply click the link in the previous sentence. His stuff is so good. Now I’m jealous.

In today’s post, I’d like to offer you a few tips that may assist you in your own square journey. If you’re interested in “reshaping” an image that was previously captured using a landscape or portrait orientation, I may be able to help. Adobe Photoshop offers a tool that’s called Content-Aware Scale and this tool has the ability to not only stretch or elongate areas of an image, but to protect other areas that you don’t want touched. The results are truly remarkable, so I’m quite excited to share this with you.

Now, before I begin, I must warn you that working with this tool is only appropriate for certain types of photos. As I mentioned above, there is a bit of distortion that occurs, so you shouldn’t use the method I’ll share below with highly detailed edges or edges that are meant to portray reality accurately. If you’re unsure about what I’m referring to, just take a look at the demo image I’m using down below. This image is just perfect.

Demo Photograph

For today’s post, I’ll be using a photo of the cutest little puppy you ever will see. Please notice the sky above and the grass below. Both of these areas won’t be affected terribly as I work through the process of making this image square. Mind you, I won’t be cropping the sides; I’ll actually be adding to the top and the bottom.

Resizing the Canvas

The first thing I’ll do to reshape this image is to resize the canvas. Since my goal is to make the photo square, I’ll head up to the Image > Canvas Size and change the Height value from 1440 pixels to 1920 pixels, so it matches the Width value. When I’m finished, I’ll click the OK button.

This is what the file looks like now. Do you see how I added space above and below the original image?

Protecting the Dog

The process I’m showing you in today’s post actually stretches an image so it fits into a new shape. The problem with simply using the Free Transform tool for this is that the tool I just mentioned doesn’t do anything to protect objects and elements you don’t want distorted in your photo. There no intelligence, if you will. When using the Content-Aware Scale tool, you can actually take objects in the image into account and those objects won’t be distorted at all.

To protect the dog in the image I’m working with, all I need to do is select him. To do this, I’ll use the Quick Selection Tool. I don’t need to be perfect with the selection either. All I need to do is make the rough selection so the dog is ignored in the following steps down below.

Just to be sure I selected the entire dog, I’ll expand the selection by ten pixels using the Select > Modify > Expand menu item.

Saving the Selection

Now that I have my selection, I’ll need to save it. To do this, I’ll head up to the Select > Save Selection menu item and click.

When the Save Selection dialog opens, I’ll name the selection Beagle and then click the OK button to save the selection into the Channels panel. It’s not important that you know where the selection is saved, but I thought I’d mention that.

Changing the Scale of the Photo

The next step I’ll need to take is to go about the actual scale adjustment. I have the dog selected and that selection saved, so I’ll now need to deselect my selection. I’ll use the Select > Deselect menu item for that.

After that, I’ll use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select just the photo area of the canvas. Then, I’ll go to the Edit > Content-Aware Scale menu item and click. Doing this will activate a transform bounding box. I’ll drag the top center handle to the top of the canvas and the bottom center handle to the bottom of the canvas. Since I’m using the latest version of Photoshop, I’ll need to hold down the Shift key on my keyboard so the proportions aren’t locked. Adobe seems to have reversed that little feature.

As I stretch the image, I’m noticing something. The dog is being stretched too, even though I thought I protected him. Take a look. See how long he’s looking?

The reason for this distortion is because even though I selected the dog and saved that selection, I haven’t yet protected it. To do this, I’ll need to go up to the options bar and click on the Protect drop-down box and then, when I see my saved selection named beagle, I’ll click on that.

Doing this will immediately snap the dog back to its original state and everything will look great. I’ll press the Enter key on my keyboard to accept the changes and then I’ll deselect the layer. Take a look at the final image.

I’d say that looks pretty darn good!

I hope I clearly explained how to use the Content-Aware Scale tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post or topic, please let me know in the comment section down below or in the Photoshop forum. Thanks for reading!

Why I Love Square Photographs

March 4, 2019

There’s something about square photographs that warms the cockles of my heart. I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been seeing landscape oriented photos for most of my life and I’m getting tired of them or maybe it’s because square photos just seem more artistic. I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I like the square format and that’s the way it is.

In today’s post, I’d like to talk about the affection I have for this specific style of post-processing. I’ll discuss a few of the better reasons someone might feel the same way I do and I’ll also try to convince you to join along with our way of thinking. You may not know this about me, but I went through a “square photo” phase a few years ago. Every time I’d output an image, it’d be square. I can’t remember why I ever gave that one up. I also went through a phase where I used all caps when writing emails. I think I got away with that one twice before being asked to stop it. I don’t want to talk about that any more than I have to. We’ll leave that in the past.

Square Creates an Interesting Composition

I want you to do a mental exercise for me. Pretend that you just spent a few minutes looking through a collection of entirely square photographs. Let’s say ten minutes. Now, pretend that someone showed you a landscape oriented photo. What would you think? I can tell you that I’d be like, “What is that? I like the square ones better.” The mind gets used to certain things and symmetry is one of them. Now, I’m not saying that photos that are comprised of other dimensions are any better or worse, I’m just saying that square has a place among them all.

Here, take a look at this photo.

Pretty cool, right? I cropped this shape from a landscape photo because I thought the square would envelop the scene better. That it would “hug” the smoke pillars coming from the stage. I also wanted to remove any elements in the photo that I didn’t think were important or that I thought might detract from the primary focus. I think I succeeded because the image looks great with the dimensions I applied. This technique is especially appealing when there’s a single element in a photo, such as a flower or other similar object.

Black & White Framed Photos

A few months ago, I went to an art sale at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. Whenever I go to these types of events, I expect to see some astonishing art and I usually do. Much of it comes in the form of photography. A ton of it is comprised of photos taken right here in Maine. After all, we are in the state and I’m not sure why someone would be selling photos of mountains in Wyoming when Maine mountains are a favorite of Mainers. Anyway, as I was browsing around, I found that nothing struck my fancy. That is, until I saw a gentleman selling black and white images. I have to say, I was blown away by what he had for sale. They were all in frames and they were hanging on the wall. Many of them were perfectly square. I’ll never forget the impact those square framed photos had on me. That’s probably why I’m mentioning this right now.

The square shape can truly come alive when it’s applied to black and white images. Again, it removes the fluff and allows for the focus to be directed at the subject.

Square Exudes Feeling

Regular landscape and portrait photos are fine and I find it challenging to argue against either of these formats, but I do want to say that under certain circumstances, square photos can handle situations just a little bit better. Take a look at this next image. I cropped it from a landscape photo and the moment I did, I realized that I had made the correct decision.

In the original image, there was stuff off to the sides. I was distracted by that stuff so I gave it my attention. That took the focus from the true subjects of the photograph which just happens to be a couple in love. The moment I removed the sides of the image (street signs, park benches, automobiles), the scene tightened on the couple and I had no choice but to consider what was happening.

In my opinion, square images can bring out the meaning behind an image. It can force a focus and the “squareness” of things can completely change the way a viewer perceives what they’re looking at.

Social Media & Instagram

One hundred bajillion people can’t be wrong. Just look at Instagram. Every image displayed on Instagram is square and people seem to love it. I will mention one issue with this though. With this blog and others that I own and manage, I find that when I upload a post related image to social media that isn’t square, the results can be somewhat unpredictable. Sometimes things are cut off that are meant to be in the photo and sometimes things just don’t look right. I’ve actually begun cropping photos that I intend to upload to my social media accounts to counter this unpredictability. At times, I go square and things are a-okay. I actually like it better this way because I don’t need to concern myself with how things are going to end up. I already know how they will. Of course, square may play second fiddle to another format one day, but I’ll enjoy it until then.

I hope I clearly offered some new perspective to a different type of shape when it comes to photography. If you have anything you’d like to add, please do down in the comment section below or in the General Photo Technique discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

How to Make Homemade Business Cards (With Printing & Cutting Instructions)

March 3, 2019

I got a great idea the other day to create some sort of business card that I could include with any type of printing combination I may engage in in the future. For instance, if I was interested in perhaps creating some greeting cards to sell on Etsy, it would be nice to include a small ancillary card that includes my information on it, such as my name, website and email address. The same is true for any type of photographic print I might be interested in selling. If you’ve ever seen or purchased any sort of photography on Etsy or a related site, you most likely know that these packages come with whatever photography medium you purchased, along with a matte, cardboard backing, clear plastic protective sleeve and a business card to keep the seller’s name top of mind. These little add-ons are important.

Anyway, since I already knew how to make a professional business card, that wasn’t an issue. I used to create some stunning, full color, double-sided, UV coated business cards for clients, back when I was in that business. I loved making those things. The only problem for today is, since I used to send those files to a print shop for printing, I never had to concern myself with any type of cutting. If I were to make these more “homemade” business cards, how would I go about cutting them? Well, I’ve got an answer and I’ll share the entire process with you down below.

In today’s post, I’d like to walk through the process or creating a business card template as well as a template that will assist with printing and cutting. While I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of how I created the actual graphics for the business card, I will talk about what’s important when it comes to setting up the file. And then I’ll move into setting up a larger dimension file for the actual printing of the cards. So, if you’ve ever been interested in creating your own business cards for a small time operation like the one I may be putting together in the future, read on. As a special reward, I’ll be including the actual templates in both PSD (Photoshop) and PDF format at the end of this post for you to download and use for your own projects. I mean, it took me a little while to put these files together and I’d hate for you to have to go through all of the work I already went through for no reason at all. What’s the sense in reinventing the wheel? Well, I suppose you could learn how to do these things yourself, which is valuable in its own right.

The Benefit of Homemade Business Cards

There’s a very real problem with business cards out in the world today. The problem is, most people who purchase them, purchase them by the thousand and then never use even close to the quantity they purchased. I should know. I’ve done this many times. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve designed and had printed a box of business cards, only to never give a large majority of what I had bought away. I don’t even know why I ever made the business cards in the first place. I think I may have just liked the idea of having them. They made me feel professional. My point here is, if you’re an individual who works for yourself or someone who has a side-gig going on and you work online or for a small operation, you most likely don’t need a thousand business cards. There’s a benefit to creating a file in Photoshop and then printing the cards as you need them. Things are less expensive this way and if you ever need to update your information on the card itself, it’s so easy to do. You won’t need to throw out an entire box of cards, just because you changed your phone number. I actually love the idea of printing cards as you go. Or as I go. Whatever.

Creating the Business Card Template in Photoshop

There are a few important things you need to know when it comes to creating a business card template. First, the size. For this card, I’ll be using the standard size of three and a half inches wide by two inches high, or 3 1/2″ x 2″. Of course, business cards come in all sorts of sizes and some even fold, but we’ll worry about those another day. For now, just know that 99% of business cards come in the standard size.

The next important consideration is the resolution of the file. If you’re making a graphic for use online, you would set the file up at 72dpi. If you’re creating a graphic for print, you would set the file up at 300dpi. At least 300dpi. I used to create large graphics for city buses that called for 1200dpi. Those were nuts. Anyway, 300dpi it is for this project.

Finally, it’s important to understand that the card template I’ll be sharing with you today can be used for either a professional print shop or your own printer at home. I’ll talk about both options. The thing to remember is that there are a few margins to concern yourself with when creating the file. The first is called the Bleed and the second is called the Safety. The Bleed gets cut off by the printer and the safety is a margin that you need to keep your graphics inside of, just in case there’s some sort of shift that occurs. You wouldn’t want any pertinent information to be trimmed by accident. You also don’t want your information to be right up against an edge. That never looks good. I’ll show you all this below.

To start things off, I’ll head into Adobe Photoshop and click the File > New menu item. When the New Document dialog box appears, I’ll set the Width to 3.75 inches and the Height to 2.25 inches. I’ll show you why this extra space is needed down below. I’ll then set the Resolution to 300 pixels/inch. Finally, I’ll set the Color Mode to CMYK and then click the Create button. The reason I set the Color Mode to CMYK is because that’s the mode color printers use for accurate colors. We won’t go into that today, but just know that RGB is used for online graphics and CMYK is used for print.

Setting Guides

The next task I’ll take care of is setting the guides for this template. I’ll first set the rulers to show in the workspace by visiting the View > Rulers menu item and I’ll make sure there’s a black check mark next to that option. If there isn’t, I’ll click it so there is.

Then, once I see the rulers outlining the workspace, I’ll double-click on one of them to open the Preferences palette, directly to the Units & Rulers area. Once there, I’ll make sure the Rulers drop-down is set to Inches.

Finally, I’ll click inside the horizontal ruler with my mouse and drag down into the work area. I’ll do this four times until I have guides set at the 1/8″, 1/4″, 2″ and 2 1/8″ distances on the vertical ruler. Then, I’ll click inside the vertical ruler and drag to the right until I have four guides at the following measurements: 1/8″, 1/4″, 3 1/2″ and 3 5/8″. This is what the file looks like at this point.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, you can read my post about how to set guides in Photoshop.

Completing the Template

As it stands, this template is good enough to get your file to the print shop. The outer margin is the Bleed area and the inner margin is the Safety area. Anything in the outer margin will get trimmed off by a professional print shop, leaving the proper business card size behind, which is 3.5″x2″. So, as you can see, I made the template a quarter inch larger for both the width and height dimensions to account for that. As for the inner margin, you may add graphics there, but not text or important information. This one is meant for spacing. So, if you have a photograph as a background or some sort of graphic that you’d like to go right to the edge, be sure that it goes all the way to the edge of the entire file. As for the text, keep that inside the large empty area in the middle.

To make things easier to deal with if you decide to download the PDF file version of this template, I’ll go ahead and use the Rectangle Tool to draw out some dashed boxes for the Safety and Bleed margins. I’ll draw the boxes and then set the shape to empty and the Stroke to 3px. I’ll also make the outer box red so you know it’s a hard cut and the inner box gray so you know it’s a soft margin. I’ll even label the boxes for you so it’s easier to remember later on. This is what the file will look like.

Free Business Card Templates

Do you like the way I used the word “free” above? I thought that was fun. Anyway, if you would like to download the PSD file, click below.

Individual Business Card Template (PSD)

If you would like to download the PDF file, click below.

Business Card Template PDF File (PDF)

I prefer that you download the Photoshop file because that way, you can hit the ground running when you’d like to start designing your cards. When you’re finished with whatever you create, all you need to do is hide those template layers so they don’t appear in your print.

Creating the Business Card Print Template

I’m going to whiz through this section because it’s not likely that you’ll want to create a print template like the one I created last night. It took a bit of time and to be honest, it would be a real pain for someone who isn’t proficient in Photoshop. I will give you the rundown of what I did though, just in case you’re interested in trying this out for yourself. It’s not terribly difficult, but it does take time.

I started things off by creating a new file. This time, I kept everything the same, except for the dimensions. I used 8.5″ wide and 11″ high, so the printout would be the same size as a regular piece of paper.

Once I had the print file created, I created an additional file with the dimensions of a regular business card. This is 3.5″ x 2″. I colored that file solid black, flattened all the layers and then dragged the black layer over into my print template file. Then, I duplicated the layer seven times so I had a total of eight layers. Then, I used guides and the rulers to equally distribute the black “business cards” inside of the file. This is what I came up with.

Well, the bottom two cards are cut off, but you get the idea. Basically, I lined the cards up vertically and horizontally so when it came time to cut, I could do so accurately.

Adding the Cut Marks

In the past, I’ve seen templates like the one I’m making right now include cut marks. Since I’ll eventually be cutting each card from the paper its printed on, I want to make sure my lines are straight and that I’m cutting the correct size. To add the “corners,” I used the Line Tool to make one horizontal line that was about one inch long. Then, I colored that line gray and duplicated it. I turned the duplicated line so it was vertical and then connected two ends together, so both lines formed a corner. After that, I merged the two line layers together and duplicated that merged layer together three times. I rotated and placed each corner so it was facing the corner of the black business card placeholder. Take a look.

After one card’s corner combination was completed, I merged those four layers together and then duplicated that merged layer seven times. I applied each cut template layout to each black card. Finally, I hid the guides and then hid the black card placeholders. Here is the top half of the finished product. The bottom half is the same thing. I just couldn’t fit it in the screenshot.

Adding the Business File to the Print Template

Now that I have the print template created, it’s time to apply the sample business card I prepared last night to it. It’ll be necessary to resize the canvas of the business card file if there’s a white background to 3.5″ x 2″. The reason for this is because I’ll need to place it directly over the black card position placeholders. Basically, the reason for this step is to make sure the card is centered inside of the cut marks and I can’t do that if the card is white and the print template is white. I’ll flatten the file so I can drag it over to the print template. I’ll do this now. If you’re doing this as well, be sure NOT to save your business card file after you flatten it. If you do that, it will become uneditable. This is what the print template looks like with the business card inside each position. After dragging the card over, I duplicated that layer seven times to fill in each spot.

This is a screenshot of the business card almost in position on the left and in the perfect position on the right. I wanted to be clear with what I meant about covering up the black placeholder.

After I have all the card layers in position, I’ll hide the black placeholders, just in case an edge here or there decides to randomly print for some reason.

Printing & Cutting the Cards

To print these cards, you’ll want to use at least 60lb photo paper. I tried this last night with some matte photo paper and things looked pretty good. I would go with high gloss next time, since that’s the best of the best. To print, set your color photo printer up for the correct size of paper and then have at it. After that, place a straight edge along the edges of the cards and use an x-acto knife or a razor to do your cutting. I’ve tried this and I’ve also seen a number of videos where the video creator has used this method. It’s much better than using scissors. The result is as near to perfect as you’ll get. Just make sure the blade cuts inside the cut marks and you should be all set.

To make your life much easier, I’ll include the Photoshop PSD file in this post. If you’d like to download it for your own use, click below.

Business Card Print Template (PSD)

Well, I hope I taught you something with this post and I hope I saved you some time if you decide to use the templates I created. If you do use them, please let me know. I’d love to hear about it. Also, if you have any questions, let’s talk about them in the comment section below or in the Photoshop forum in the discussion board. Thanks for reading!

How to Use the Face-Aware Liquify Filter in Adobe Photoshop

February 28, 2019

Adobe introduced one of the coolest features available into Photoshop back in 2016. This feature is called the Face-Aware Liquify Filter and what it can do is simply outstanding. There aren’t many tools this intuitive and powerful out there and I have to say, I’m more than impressed by it.

Basically, this filter can recognize most faces and sets them up for editing. It’s rather remarkable what it can do. Have you ever wanted to make someone’s eyes larger or smaller? Perhaps tilt them slightly, spread them apart or squeeze them closer together? Have you ever wanted to make someone smile a bit more or make them frown? What about narrow or widen someone’s face? Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions and if you have an up-to-date version of Adobe Photoshop, you’re in luck. In just a few seconds, you can pretty much do anything in regards to what I just mentioned. And the best part is, the process is so painless. Photoshop sure makes it easy.

In today’s post, I’d like to show you exactly what you’ll need to do to set a photo up inside of Adobe Photoshop to properly take advantage of this filter. Then, I’ll simply walk through many of the options contained therein. Since using the filter comes so intuitively, there’s not a lot for me to show you, but I’ll give plenty of example images to make up for that. This is going to be fun.

Today’s Demo Photo

This is the photo I’ll be using today. As you can see, it’s of a girl’s face. As I alluded to above, Photoshop does a fairly good job at recognizing faces with its technology, but those faces need to be clear of obstruction and they need to be facing the camera when captured. Anything else may give unpredictable results. I tested the filter with this face and it worked perfectly.

Converting to a Smart Object

We know by now that we don’t apply filters to layers that haven’t been converted to Smart Objects. We don’t want to do this because if we did, any changes we make to the layer will be permanent and we’ll be unable to change any edits later on. In other words, the filter will be etched in stone and that’s that. So, the very first thing I’ll do today is right-click on the thumbnail of the photo layer in the Layers panel and then I’ll click on the Convert to Smart Filter option. That will convert the layer and I won’t have anything to worry about later on.

Accessing the Face-Aware Liquify Filter Palette

Next, I’ll head up to the Filter > Liquify menu item and click.

Doing this will bring me into the Liquify palette, which is sort of overwhelming at first glance. After looking around for a bit though, it actually seems rather simple. If I look over to the right, I’ll see a few different drop-down panels indicated by small triangles. I’ll go ahead and click on the Face-Aware Liquify triangle to open up that panel. When I do that, I”ll see a few sub-panels indicated by more triangles. Currently, these sub-panels are named Eyes, Nose, Mouth and Face Shape. I can click any one of these triangles to open their respective panels and have all sorts of fun with the sliders contained therein. First though, I want to mention one other thing.

If I look over to the left of the Liquify palette, I’ll see a vertical toolbar. Inside of that toolbar is a neat little feature called the Face Tool. It’s appropriately shaped like a human head. If I click that tool and then roll over the face I’m working on, I’ll notice small white dots and/or lines appear around specific parts of the face that have been allocated to the panels on the right. For instance, I can roll my mouse over the eyes or mouth or cheeks or nose and these little white dots will appear. Take a look. This is the tool icon.

And here are some control points located around the girl’s right eye.

If I click on one of those control points and drag, I’ll make an edit to the image. I’ll also see the related slider move by itself over on the right. If I hover my mouse pointer over the eye (or mouth, nose, etc…), I can click and drag to reposition the eye itself. If this case, no slider will move by itself on the right.

If I ever go too far and royally screw something up, which actually isn’t very difficult to do, I can simply click the Reset button in the right panel to erase all of my edits and to bring me back to the beginning. I’ve used this button quite a bit as I’ve experimented with this photo for this post.

Be Careful With This Tool

While this tool is extremely intuitive and easy to use, I do have a word of warning for you. As you make subtle changes to someone’s face, you may not notice that you’re making them look very strange. This sort of thing creeps up on editors and it’s only when someone else sees what you’ve done do they ask, “What in the world???” So, my advice is to go very easy with the edits. Unless you see something that absolutely needs to be changed on someone’s face, it’s often better to leave well enough alone.

Example Face-Aware Liquify Edits

As I said, this tool is intuitive. Because of this, you’ll be able to figure it out in about ten seconds. Simply click and drag the control points on someone’s face to enlarge, shrink or twist something or click right on the feature itself and drag to reposition it. This is for when you use the Face Tool. When using the sliders, simply drag the slider back and forth to make your edits. Each slider is labeled clearly, so there won’t be any ambiguity when it comes to using them.

As you make your changes, you’ll notice that the area you’re working on will become very blurry. This is just the preview in action. When you click on the OK button down at the bottom of the palette to accept your changes, you’ll see the image become clear again with your edits applied. Let me show you what I mean. I’ve gone ahead and edited this eye. I made it as large as possible. This is the “in edit” stage while still in the palette.

This is after I’ve clicked the OK button and have exited the palette.

For this next edit, I used the Eye Distance and Eye Tilt sliders to bring the eyes closer together and to tilt them inward. This is the editing stage.

This is the photo after I’ve applied the changes.

As I said, you can dramatically change the appearance of someone, so care needs to be taken. But you can certainly see the high quality of the edit. No one would ever know that one was made, which is somewhat scary.

I’ll let you do some experimentation to get used to the power of this filter, but before I end this post, I do want to bring the Smile slider to your attention. This one is located inside of the Mouth panel. You have to see this.

I’m going to push the Smile slider to the right, so the neutral lips curve upwards into a smile. How this is accomplished, I’ll never know. This is the editing stage.

See the blur? Now here’s the final product with the girl smiling a bit more than she originally was.

Isn’t that crazy? So I could basically take a photo of someone’s face and completely transform it with this filter and the outcome will be of such a high quality that no one would be the wiser. Perhaps I could take some photos of me to make myself appear a bit happier. Nah.

Open a picture of someone and experiment with this filter. You can’t break anything, so have fun with it. And remember, when you really need it, it will be there, but be careful in the meantime.

I hope I clearly explained how to access and use the Face-Aware Liquify filter in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please ask down below or in the Adobe Photoshop discussion board. Thanks for reading!

Checking Out Some Histogram Options in Adobe Photoshop

February 26, 2019

Histograms are immensely helpful tools when it comes to editing photographs, but I have to say, while they look very cool to have hanging around our cameras and editing applications, they’re also one of the most ignored features out there. Personally, I feel very professional when a histogram is in view. Do I use it all the time? Sadly, I don’t. I’ve been doing this for so long now that I’ve got a feel for certain things. Histograms are definitely important though, especially for newcomers in this game. They can offer tons of useful information and they shouldn’t be ignored at all. Sometimes your eyes can fool you as you’re viewing a scene or an image. Histograms don’t fool you. We should all be using them much more often.

What is a histogram? It’s basically a tool that measures exposure in an image. I’ll leave it at that. As I continue to write this post down below, you’ll learn much more about these little treasures. What does a histogram look like? Here’s one for you. It’s from Adobe Photoshop.

I opened this Histogram panel by going to the Window > Histogram menu item and clicking. When it opened, it was stuck to the toolbar on the right. To separate it from the toolbar, I simply clicked on the top part of it and dragged it away. Now it’s sitting in the middle of my screen.

In today’s post, I’d like to do some exploration around the Histogram panel as well as explore how this tool can help when it comes to analyzing and editing photos and graphics. While this tool may seem intimidating at the beginning, once you understand exactly what it’s here for, it won’t be intimidating at all. It’s actually quite friendly.

The Different Views of the Histogram

In the upper right corner of the panel, there’s a menu. If I click on that menu, I’ll see a few different options that pertain to how the panel is presented in Photoshop.

As you can see, I’m currently in the Expanded View, which offers a few handy statistics below the graph. There’s also the Compact View, which is smaller and which doesn’t show any statistics. There’s also the All Channels View, which shows not only the RGB histogram, but individual histograms for the Red, Green and Blue channels.

This All Channels View can come in handy when you’d like to analyze and edit specific colors in the image you’re working on.

Regenerating the Histogram

As you work in Photoshop, data becomes cached in its memory. Because of this, the histogram you’re currently viewing may not be populated with the most up to date information. If you see a small triangle with an exclamation mark inside of it and roll over that warning symbol, you’ll see this text appear: Click for Histogram with Uncached Data. If you click that warning icon, the histogram will regenerate itself and will be once again populated with unchached, recent information.

Viewing a Histogram For Each Color

At the top of the Expanded View histogram is the Channel drop-down box. If I click that box, I’ll see a few different options. In this section, I’d like to briefly address a few of the options available in this drop-down.

Currently, we’ve got RGB, Red, Green, Blue, Luminosity and Color options available. If I click on any one of these choices, I’ll see the histogram change in shape. Since the image I’m using as an example in this post is fairly uniform and dark in color, I’m not seeing large swings in the curve, but if I was using a different image that had many varying colors in it, I’d see much more of a difference among options.

If I select the RGB option from the drop-down, I’ll see all of the colors merged into one curve. I won’t be able to distinguish between any color’s curve in the image. If I choose either the Red, Green or Blue options, I’ll get a curve that separates out that specific color. If I choose the Luminosity option, I’ll see a histogram that represents the luminance values of the three channels combined. And finally, if I select the Color option, I’ll see each individual histogram for the red, green and blue colors overlay one another. It’s basically a composite of the three, but the individual colors are visible and easily distinguished. Personally, I like to use the Luminosity option to check the image’s overall exposure value. After all, that’s the primary use for this tool.

Viewing Luminosity For Individual Color Channels

This is where things start to get interesting. Let’s say that I have an image that’s overexposed in a certain area, but I’m not sure where that area is. My guess is that it’s in one of the colors and I’d like to find out which one. To view each individual channel’s luminance values, I’ll change the Histogram panel’s view to All Channels View and then I’ll select Luminosity from the Channels drop-down. Here’s a trimmed screenshot of this setup.

Now, if I wanted to adjust the luminance of just one channel and see if it’s making a difference in that particular luminosity histogram, I could easily add a Levels adjustment layer to the image from the Adjustments panel and then set the value to Red, if that was, for example, the color I’m interested in altering. Take a look. This next screenshot is of just the histogram I previously showed you above sitting to the left of the Levels adjustment layer Properties panel. Notice how I’ve set the Levels drop-down to Red.

I also went ahead and pushed the right handle in the Levels adjustment layer Properties panel to the left, which brought out a lot more red in the image. As I did this, I watched the Red curve in the Histogram panel move in conjunction with the changes I was making. It’s all very interesting and rather helpful. It’s a granular approach to editing photographs.

As you can see, the Histogram panel inside of Adobe Photoshop can offer tons of valuable information. When combined with other tools in Photoshop, it can be a handy guide that can assist with properly editing a photograph or graphic. If you have any questions regarding this tool or specific panel, please let me know in the comment section below or in the Photoshop discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

Animating Scale, Rotation & Opacity in Adobe Photoshop

February 23, 2019

I sat down a few days ago and started messing around in Adobe Photoshop. My goal was to see how cool I could make an already exciting and interesting motocross photograph. The image screams action and I thought a bit of text as well as another similar type of image would help, so after playing around for a while, I decided that some simple animation was in order. That’s when I got the bright idea to post my actions on this blog. Why keep them to myself?

In today’s post, I’m going to walk through the steps I took to make a good image better, right inside of Adobe Photoshop. I’ll first add some text to the image and then I’ll place a danger sign into the working photo as well. Then, I’ll not only animate the danger sign, but I’ll also animate one of the pieces of text. As for the danger sign, I’ll animate the scale, rotation and opacity and for the text, I’ll animate the scale and opacity. Everything I’ll cover today has already been covered on this website before, but it’s nice to see much of it combined in one place.

The Demo Photo

Take a look at this photograph. Isn’t is awesome? I love this and that’s why I decided to jazz it up even more than it already is.

Adding Text & Changing the Blend Mode

Okay, let’s get going. The image has been opened in Photoshop and I’m ready to take my first step. Because I’m not as hip as I used to be, I had to look up some motocross sayings that people out in the world are using today. Two that I liked are, “No Limits!” and “Don’t Hesitate, Accelerate!” Now I feel as part of the “in” crowd as everyone else. I’ll first type out the No Limits! text above the rider in the photo and then I’ll type out the Don’t Hesitate, Accelerate! text down below. I’ll use the Impact and AR Julian fonts respectively at approximately 100pt and 40pt respectively. I’ll also make the text white. After I get this text all set up, I’ll change both of the layer blending modes to Overlay. Doing this will make the text partially see through and will add some extra flair to things. Check it out.

Placing An Image

I found a neat little danger sign that I’d like to add to this project as well. In order to move it into my working file, I’ll use the Place Embedded feature. I have the image on my desktop, so inside of Photoshop, I’ll visit the File > Place Embedded menu item and click. After that, I’ll locate the image and double-click on it to move it into the project. After it’s moved in, I’ll reduce the size of it and then give it a bit of a twist to the left.

When I’m finished manipulating the image, I’ll press the Enter button on my keyboard to accept the changes. This is where I am now. I’d say the first stage of this project is completed.

Animating the Danger Sign

I’ll now move into some animation. To kick this part off, I’ll head up to the Window > Timeline menu item to open up the Timeline panel, if it’s not already opened. After that, I’ll click the Create Video Timeline button that sits squarely at the center of the Timeline panel. Doing this will create three timelines; one for each layer I added to the original photograph. A fourth timeline wasn’t created for the original image layer because that layer is locked. Since I don’t intend to animate that layer, that’s fine.

For this project, all I want to do is make the danger sign shrink, grow larger, turn slightly and then disappear. I’ll start off with this combination.

Since the Transform attribute isn’t available as an animation option when I expand the timeline to see those options, I’ll go ahead and right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose the Convert to Smart Object menu item when the menu appears. After doing this, the Transform option will be available to me.

To create the animation, I’ll move the playhead to the right to the position on the timeline in which I wish the animation to begin. Then, I’ll click the small icon next to the Transform option. This will create a keyframe on the timeline.

Once the keyframe is on the timeline, I’ll move the playhead to the next position on the timeline in which I’d like something to happen (as indicated in the above screenshot). In this case, after moving the playhead to the right, I’ll use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+T to activate the Free Transform Tool. Once that tool is active, I’ll shrink the graphic down to about 50% of its original size and then I’ll press the Enter key on my keyboard to accept this change. I do want to mention that as I was shrinking the graphic, I was holding the Alt and Shift keys on my keyboard to both constrain the proportions of the image as well as transform from the center point. This is helpful to know. Also, after I hit the Enter key, the second keyframe is created on the timeline.

At this point, if I move the playhead between the two keyframes on the timeline, I’ll see what I have as an animation so far. Also, since the graphic was converted to a Smart Object previously, there won’t be any degradation of quality in the next step.

Next, I’ll move the playhead farther to the right on the timeline and again, I’ll use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+T to activate the Free Transform feature. This time though, I’ll enlarge the graphic to about 200% its original size and I’ll also rotate it slightly as well. When I’m finished, I’ll press the Enter key to accept the changes. I’ll have a total of three keyframes on the timeline in the Transform section. Basically, what I just created was a bounce effect. It’s like the graphic is bouncing down and then back up and turning. It’s very cool.

Now I’ll move onto the opacity part of the animation, since I’ve completed the scale and rotation parts. This one is easy. To start off, I’ll move the playhead to the the point at which I’d like the graphic to begin fading out into nothing. I think about half way up the bounce is good, so I’ll move the playhead right in between the center and last Transform keyframes. Then, I’ll click on the Opacity keyframe icon to create the first keyframe. After that, I’ll move the playhead to the right until it lines up with the third Transform keyframe. At that point, I’ll go into the Layers panel and set the Opacity slider to 0%. This is what the keyframes for this graphic look like in the Timeline panel.

At this point, the animations for this graphic are completed. I’ll next move into the large text animation.

Animating the Large Text Up Top

This section isn’t going to take much writing because I think I just did it all above. Basically, I’m going to follow the same exact steps I laid out for the graphic, except for the rotation part. I don’t need this text to rotate. So after the graphic enlarges and just almost disappears entirely, I’ll begin enlarging the text. Then, about half way through that enlargement, I’ll being making it disappear. This will be the final result.

Animating Graphics in Adobe Photoshop – Video

While I know this is a simply effect, after I export the video, I can use it in a longer movie, which is very handy. Actually, I can make many of these types of simple animations and save them as MP4 files and use them in any video project I want. That’s the beauty of the entire thing.

This was just sort of a walk through of an idea I had and much of what I covered can be discussed much more. If you find that you have questions after reading through this post, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comment section below or in the Adobe Photoshop discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

Using the Tone Curve in Adobe Camera Raw to Reduce Clipping

February 20, 2019

I recently purchased a very nice Canon PIXMA Pro-100 color photo printer to start printing out some of my better photographs and I have to tell you, the printer is nothing short of outrageously high quality. I have seen the photos that I printed out dozens of times on my computer screen, but that doesn’t come close to the experience of holding a high quality, glossy print out of what I once thought of as just good. Printed images bring things to an entirely different level and I encourage you to look into transforming something that was once virtual into something that’s tangible. It’s so worth it.

Anyway, all this printing got me thinking about the data that’s captured in an image by a camera versus the data that’s actually sent to a printer to be processed. As I’m sure you’re aware by this point, it’s entirely possible to lose a lot of data during post-processing by way of clipping. If you aren’t aware of what clipping is, it’s when you either make your whites too white or your blacks too black. You essentially make what was once captured in the color spectrum disappear. You can do this inside the camera itself when you shoot your image or you can do this in an editing application such as Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom or Photoshop.

The reason I began thinking of this area of editing recently is because of the printing that I’ve been doing. If I over edit an image for online use exclusively, the lost data isn’t very noticeable. If I print out that same image though, solid white or black areas will show in ways that don’t look good at all. When printing, it’s much more important to make sure every area of your image contains data.

Since I’m trying to avoid a complete rehash of a post I previously wrote, I’ll lead you to that one for a primer on the clipping indicators that can be found in Adobe Camera Raw. If you’re interested in learning about them, please click through to this post:

Using the Histogram Clipping Warnings in Adobe Camera Raw

In today’s post, I’d like to offer you one simple tip that is going to make your life a lot better if you’re a printing maniac like I’m turning out to be. Instead of fooling around with the Whites, Blacks, Highlights and Shadows sliders in Adobe Camera Raw an attempt to remove any clipping that’s occurring in a photograph while editing, I’m going to lead you to a panel that can solve most of your problems. The best part is, your problems will disappear with just three clicks. One to access the proper panel, one to change one small setting and one to adjust a different small setting. This is an awesome tip.

The Demo Photo

For today’s photo, I thought I’d use one of me standing on a frozen lake up here in Maine. I had this picture taken last week during a road trip I was on. If memory serves, this lake is called Round Pond and it’s located in Turner, Maine, or thereabouts. The reason I’d like to use this photo is because it’s bright. Or rather, it’s going to be bright after I’m finished with my editing of it. Because of all the snow and the bright sky, there’s bound to be some clipping of the highlights and whites. The reason I need to make things so bright is because of the position in which I was standing in comparison to the position of the sun. There’s too much shadow on my left half and I’d like to brighten that up. Raising the shadows alone may cause clipping. Raising the exposure overall is bound to cause some too. Basically, there’s going to be solid white blotches on this image and I’m surely not going to want them there. Let’s take a look at the original image.

Editing the Image

Okay, for this section, I’m going to jump straight to the edited version of the photo in question. If you’re interested in how I got to this point in Camera Raw, please check out the post below. I explain it all there.

How To Make A Photo “Pop” With Adobe Camera Raw

This is actually a screenshot of the final edited image. I chose to take the screenshot because next, I’m going to show you the same screenshot with all the clipping that’s in it. Here’s the image.

In case you’re interested, these are the slider adjustments I made in the Basic Panel of Camera Raw. As you can see, there’s nothing drastic going on at all. Minor adjustments, if you will.

A Look at the Clipping

At this point, I think I’ll show you the clipping that’s been introduced due to my editing of the photo. To turn on the indicators, I’ll use two keyboard shortcuts. To turn on the Shadow Clipping Warning, I’ll press the U key on my keyboard and to turn on the Highlight Clipping Warning, I’ll press the O key. An easy way to remember these shortcuts is to think of the shadows as under and the highlights as over. That’s where the U and O came from. Here’s a screenshot of the histogram with the indicators on.

As you can see, there’s not much of an issue down in the shadows area, but we’ve got big problems near the highlights. Let me show you the photo with the red overlay showing that’s on top of the areas with no data in them. The data has been blown out due to my edits.

What’s the Problem?

You may be asking yourself, “Okay, you’ve got some clipping. Why not just reduce the highlights or the exposure some by pushing those respective sliders?” Well, the reason for this is because sometimes, clipping can be rather severe. To remove it in its entirety, it would take dramatic shifts in those slider values, which would alter my edits in such a way as to completely ruin them. Since I don’t want to do that, I’d prefer to handle things with a much more delicate touch. I’ll explain this approach next.

Adjusting the Tone Curve

To handle my situation, I’m going to click into the Tone Curve panel in Camera Raw. From there, I’ll click on the Point sub-panel and then I’ll choose RGB from the Channel drop-down box.

If you’ll notice, the left side of the curve controls the shadows and the right side controls the highlights. You can see the histogram behind the curve.

Now to the good part. All I need to do to remove the clipping of the highlights is to click on the point in the upper right corner of the curve with my mouse and drag down about a millimeter. That’s really all it takes. With the red areas of the clipping indicator showing, I can easily see how much I need to drag. Also, once I do this, I’ll notice that my image didn’t change very much at all. I’ll likely not even notice any difference. And if I roll my mouse over an area that was red from the indicator and then look at the RGB values under the histogram in the top right corner of the application, I’ll see that the values are all less than the 255 to make pure white. This is a good thing because it means that as I print the image, no pure white areas will be left in my print, which means a better print out overall.

If I had shadow clipping, I would simply click and drag the lower left corner of the curve and drag up a hair. That would lighten the overall image just a fraction, but enough to avoid pure black. It’s that easy.

Well, I hope I clearly explained how to remove any clipping that exists in an image after editing in Adobe Camera Raw. If you work in Lightroom, you’ll follow the exact same instructions. Everything is laid out the same way. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below or in the Camera Raw discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

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