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You are here: Home / 2017 / Archives for April 2017

Archives for April 2017

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How to Use the Free Transform Tool in Adobe Photoshop

April 29, 2017

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve pressed Ctrl+T on my keyboard through the years. Hundreds, if not thousands of times – for all sorts of reasons. If you aren’t aware, Ctrl+T (or Command+T on the Mac) is used to activate the Free Transform tool in Adobe Photoshop. It’s an all around super versatile tool that’s been around for a long time.

Many editors are used to visiting the Edit menu and then choosing the transform tool of their choice when they want to manipulate an object in some way. For instance, you can select many different options from this menu, such as Scale, Rotate, Skew, Distort, Perspective and Warp. I’ve actually talked about these tools in a previous post. If you’re interested in learning about them, click below.

Using the Transform & Free Transform Tools in Adobe Photoshop

In today’s post, I’d like to focus only on the free transform version of all the transform tools in Adobe Photoshop. As I said above, there’s a lot you can do with this one tool and there’s a way you can access the rest of the transform tools if you need them. Other than getting to them via the Edit menu.

Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a beautiful demo photo of a man looking towards the mountains.

Man Looking Towards the Mountains

Basically, I’ll just duplicate this image background layer in Photoshop and then create a new layer and fill it with white. I’ll do this so I can work with the image layer and the Free Transform tool. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I kept it as the background layer. Here’s how my Layers panel will look.

Layers Panel in Adobe Photoshop

To duplicate the background layer, I dragged it down to the bottom of the Layers panel and dropped it on top of the Create New Layer icon. That gave me two identical layers. Then, I clicked on the Create New Layer icon with my mouse, which gave me an empty layer. Finally, while that empty layer was selected, I went up to the Edit > Fill menu item and clicked.

Edit - Fill Menu Item

When the Fill dialog box appeared, I click the drop-down and chose white.

Fill Dialog Box

I clicked OK to apply the color white to the empty layer and then I dragged that layer so it sat between both image layers in the Layers panel. That’s all I did to set this post up.

Activating the Free Transform Tool

Now, I’ll activate the Free Transform tool. To do this, I’ll either press Ctrl+T on my keyboard or I’ll head up to the Edit > Free Transform menu item and click.

Edit - Free Transform Menu Item in Photoshop

Trust me when I say this, just use the keyboard shortcut. You’ll be using it so much, the menu item will just waste time.

Anyway, once this tool is activated, an outline with a few handles will appear around the object in the layer you’re transforming. I’ve outlined these handles in red in the screenshot below.

Transform Handles

Resizing the Layer Object

I’d say the most common use of this tool is to scale, or resize, something. The reason for this is because it’s so easy to do. Also, people need to constantly resize things. To resize an object in an image using the Free Transform tool, all you need to do is to click on one of the handles that are outlining the object and drag. So, if I clicked and dragged the handle on the left side of this picture, I can make it more narrow.

Scaling an Image Narrow

I could do the same thing from the top and drag down to scale this image wide. Also, I could drag any one of the corners in or out to change the entire dimension of the image. The issue with free-scaling like this, however, is that photos become distorted very quickly. Oftentimes, it’s best to constrain the proportions of an object will altering its dimensions. To do this, simply hold down the Shift key while dragging a corner and dragging it towards the center of the image or away from the center. Using the Shift key will lock the original dimensions in and you can make the object any size you’d like.

Below, I’ve held down the Shift key while dragging the upper left corner towards the center of the image.

Scaled Proportion

Another neat trick is to hold down the Alt key while dragging a corner. If you’ll notice in the screenshot above, I dragged towards the center of the image and the lower right corner stayed where it was originally. If I held down the Alt key while dragging the same way, all the corners would converge around the anchor point, or “transformation origin point.” I’ll do this right now as an example.

Scaling Towards Center

I bet I don’t even need to tell you what’s wrong with this picture. Even though I scaled down using the Alt key, the image still became distorted. So, while one trick worked, another failed. To scale down and keep the image locked to the origin point and to keep the photo locked into its original dimensions, I’ll need to hold down both the Shift and the Alt keys while dragging. This will reduce the size of the image while constraining its proportions while locking it to the origin point. I’ll even outline the origin point in red below.

Scaling Around Transformation Origin Point in Adobe Photoshop

That’s beautiful. As I dragged, the photo maintained its proportions and all four corners moved towards the center of the image at the same time.

Moving the Anchor Point

This center point has many names. It’s called a center point, an origin point and an anchor point. I prefer to use anchor point because the layer is anchored around that point. You can do a few different things with this point. Above, I showed you that you can scale an object and have that scaling be dictated by where the point is. To use this to our advantage, we can move the point anywhere we’d like, even outside the transformation boundaries. In this next screenshow, I’ll move the anchor point by clicking and dragging it to the peak of the mountain at the center of the photo. Then, I’ll click and drag to transform the photo like I did above.

Moved Anchor Point

As you can see, when I scaled the image this time, it was centered around that anchor point. So when I dragged the corner inward, the photo shrunk down, but kept position around that point. This is very handy if you want to keep someone’s face as the center of the transformed photo. Or anything like that.

Also, just so you know, you don’t necessarily need to drag that center anchor point. You can hold down the Alt (Option on a Mac) key and simply click anywhere in the image and the anchor point will move to the position of your click.

Rotating the Layer

Rotating a layer with the Free Transform too is super easy. To do so, I’ll move my mouse outside of the transformation boundaries so the pointer turns into a curved double pointer. At that point, I can click and drag up or down and the layer will turn with my mouse.

Rotated Layer

In some cases, you may want to rotate a layer around a certain point. Well, that’s easy. All you’d have to do is to move the center anchor point to the point you want to rotate around and follow the same instructions I just gave you.

In this next example, I moved the anchor point to the upper right portion of the photo. Then, I rotated the image. You can see how the layer rotated around that origin point. Think of it this way; pretend you hung a photo on a wall using a thumb tack. If you spun the photo around, the center of that spinning would be wherever that tack was. If you moved the tack, the photo would spin around that new point. The anchor point in Photoshop is the thumbtack.

Rotating Transform Around Anchor Point

Moving the Transformation

This is a very short section. I wanted to tell you that, while transforming, you can move the layer anywhere you’d like by clicking inside the transformation boundaries and dragging the object around. It’s just like as if you weren’t transforming at all. Just click and drag with the Move Tool.

Further Options

Remember back at the beginning of this post where I told you that you could access a heck of a lot of transform tools from Free Transform? Well, I’ll tell you how you can get to them. While transforming, if you right-click inside the boundaries, a menu will appear.

Transform Options

These options are the same exact ones you can access by using the Edit > Transform menu item. Check them out.

Edit - Transform Menu Options in Photoshop

Accessing these additional transform tools is faster when doing it via the Free Transform tool. Even if I wanted to use a tool that I could only get to through this menu, clicking Ctrl+T and then right clicking is more efficient than mousing up to the main menu and mousing around more after that. I’ll talk about some of the options that are available lower down on this menu in another post. If you’re interested in the upper ones, please read this post.

Confirming the Transformation

Once you’re all finished transforming whatever it was that you wanted transformed, you can confirm it so the boundary box disappears and the layer stays however you put it. To confirm the transformation, simply hit Enter on your keyboard or click on the Commit Transform check icon up in the options bar.

Commit Transform

Remember, if you ever get in too deep and just want to get the heck out of the Free Transform tool, all you need to do is press Esc on your keyboard. That will get you out of there. It’s the equivalent of pressing undo a bunch of times and choosing another tool to get rid of the transform boundary box.

——

I know there is a lot more to all of these tools I talk about on this site, but one can only make a post so long. I have to decide which areas are the most important and which ones I’ll save for later. For today, I thought this would be helpful. I hope you got something out of it.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


How to Enhance Color Using Curves in Adobe Photoshop

April 26, 2017

The Curves feature in Adobe Photoshop is really fun to talk about. People discuss it all the time. They’re like, “Hey man, I made my photo look totally better with curves the other day.” “Yeah, me too,” someone else would reply. The fact of the matter is that very few people know what in the world Curves does. Yeah, I know. We’ve all gone into this panel and pulled the little line one way or another, but the truth is, most of us straightened it back out before leaving to head towards a more intuitive slider option. Curves can do a lot and can really make a photo pop, but before even attempting this, an editor needs to have a goal. They need to ask themselves what they would like to accomplish while using this tool. Simply messing around with something isn’t good enough and it’s oftentimes a waste of time.

In today’s post, I’ll be doing a bit of exploring inside of the Curves Properties panel in Adobe Photoshop. I’ll try to keep things simple. Basically, if you can understand the concept, or the idea, behind Curves, you’ll have the ability to work though this tool with ease. Also, there are a few options available to us in this panel that I’d like to take a look at. I’ve ignored these extra tools for years, but I really shouldn’t have. They can help tremendously.

Demo Photo

For today’s post, I’ll be using a photo of a lovely dog looking at the sky during the winter. I’ve already gone ahead and adjusted this version, but the original that I’ll be working with below is quite bland.

Dog Standing in Snow in Winter

Curves Adjustment Layer

To kick things off, I opened the original, non-edited, image into Photoshop. Right after that, I created a Curves adjustment layer. If you aren’t familiar with adjustment layers when it comes to Photoshop, you can either search for “Adjustment Layer” on this site or you can visit this post I linked to below.

Using the Levels Adjustment in Adobe Photoshop for Photography

This is what my workspace looks like now.

Curves Properties Panel in Adobe Photoshop

Contrast & Saturation

You can do a lot with Curves. In today’s post, I merely want to explain how you can gain some contrast as well as some color saturation with this one tool.

As it stands, the color curve in the Properties panel is set to a 45 degree angle. If I were to lift the left side and lower the right side, I’d end up with a photo that has low contrast as well as saturation.

Low Contrast and Saturation in Photo

Now, if this is my result by making the line flatter, it only stands to reason that by making the line more steep, I’ll get an opposite effect. Let’s see what happens if I do just that.

High Contrast and Saturation

I was correct, although the photo is now a bit over contrasted. Of course, there’s always a happy medium. To find that, I’d have to place the line back in its original position and then pull parts of it until I am happy with the outcome.

Darkening an Image

Next, I’ll show you how to very easily darken an image using Curves. Basically, all you need to do is to pull the center of the line towards the lower right corner like so.

Darken Image in Adobe Photoshop

Lightening an Image

And to lighten it, all I’d need to do is pull the center of the line in the opposite direction.

Lighten Image in Photoshop Using Curves

If I wanted to affect both the shadows and the highlights using the Curves adjustment tool, I could do so easily. I’ll click once on the lower part of the curve and drag it slightly down to darken the shadows and then I’ll click again on the upper part of the curve and drag up to lighten the highlights. This will create much more contrast in the photograph than was there originally. Check out the line now.

S-Curve in Curves Properties Panel in Adobe Photoshop

Curves Presets

In all honesty, this is where most editors go wrong. While it’s very simple to make adjustments to an image using the Curves tool, one never really knows if what they did was correct or not. This is what causes the situation I described above, where people straighten the line back out and close the panel or delete the adjustment layer all together. Even as I look at my own adjustments that I just made in the demo photo, I have no idea if they are any good.

The real problem lies with having an infinite number of variations to choose from. If this adjustment was a slider, things would be much easier. Just push the slider on way or the other. On the Curves line, however, I can add a number of points and pull each point in any direction I wish. Things become rather insane quite quickly.

There is a better way to go about things. Inside the Curves Properties panel is a preset drop-down box. Take a look.

Curves Preset Drop-Down Box in Photoshop

Inside this drop-down is a preset called Increase Contrast. I’ll go ahead and click that.

Increase Contrast Preset in Curves Properties Panel

As you can see, Photoshop automatically added some points and pulled the curve in the directions it saw fit. From here, I like to make slight adjustments, based on what was done. At least I’ll know that I’m headed in the right direction.

Increase Contrast Preset Curve

The Benefit of Curves Presets

I’ll tell you the real value in these Curves adjustment presets. If you were to click on each option, you’d see the physical change to the photo. That’s fine, but what you want to take notice of is how Photoshop decided to change the curve itself. In some cases, the application will move the end points a great distance, such as it did after I selected Negative from the preset list.

Negative Option in Curves Preset List

Negative Adjustment Curve

And sometimes Photoshop will add some additional lines to the curve as it did here after I selected Cross Process.

Cross Process Curves Option

My advice is to click on each preset option and see what additional points were added and where they were positioned. This will give you a good indication of how things work inside of this tool. Once you get the hang of it, you can begin adding points of your own and dragging them across the spectrum with confidence.

——

I hope I gave you some good ideas to utilize in this post about working with the Curves adjustment tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment area below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


What’s the Difference Between Vibrance & Saturation in Adobe Photoshop?

April 24, 2017

I use both the vibrance and saturation features inside of Photoshop so much that I don’t even think of them anymore. I know what they do and how they work, but really, I’m not sure I’ve ever truly looked into what exactly the difference between the two are. I mean, on the surface, both sliders add and remove color. One does it more then the other. So what’s the big deal? Well, perhaps there isn’t any, but I sure would like to dive a bit deeper into the topic to learn more about the intricacies of both color adjustments.

In today’s post, I’m going to use a photo as an example to show you the effect these sliders can have on color. For the uninitiated, I’ll do a bit of explaining of what both vibrance and saturation adjustments are and then, for the more initiated, I’ll talk about how things work behind the scenes. You may not ever need to know more beyond, “if I push this one way, I’ll get more color and if I push it the other way, I get less,” but still, these things are nice to know. Especially as you get better and better as using Adobe’s applications. Sometimes, these types of details matter.

By the way, what I write in this post applies to Photoshop, Lightroom and Camera Raw. Each of these applications uses both of these sliders and it all means the same thing.

Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a photo of a box of pastels. I thought this type of photo would be appropriate because it covers a wide spectrum of color and none of them are already fully saturated. I can play with both of the features I’d like to discuss and really show off the differences in effects.

Box of Pastels

Definitions

I think I’ll set this post up in two parts. First, I’ll offer some definitions of what saturation and vibrance mean and then I’ll give some graphical examples to bring it all home. I’ll start with the definitions here.

Saturation: In general terms, saturation refers to how pure a color is. It has to do with the concentration and intensity of a color. In Photoshop (and others), if you were to add saturation to something, you’d be bringing the color closer to what’s considered “pure.” Conversely, if you were to desaturate something, you’d be removing color and making whatever it is you’re desaturating less pure. As you continued down this path, you’d end up with some shade of gray.

As you adjust the Saturation slider inside of Photoshop, you’re increasing or decreasing the intensity, or pureness, of all the colors in the image equally. Saturation doesn’t care. It’s a blunt instrument. Think of it as a mathematical equation. If you were to push the Saturation slider to the left 10%, you’re be removing 10% of the image’s color across the board. It’s that simple.

The issue with adjusting saturation is that it doesn’t matter where the beginning point of a certain color is. Let’s say that the color red in a photo is already fully pure, but every other color is quite dull. If you were to slightly push the Saturation slider to the right to increase the photo’s color concentration, you’d immediately oversaturate the red, while only mildly increasing the pureness of all the other colors. That red area would lose detail. Let’s just say it’s a temperamental adjustment that needs to be used with care. Just a little too much saturation can make a picture look very strange.

Vibrance: Vibrance is awesome and it’s the color adjustment tool I usually use most often, by far. The reason I’m so fond of it is because it’s sort of like saturation, but it’s got brains. While pushing the Saturation slider increases or decreases color concentration equally across the board, the Vibrance slider uses an algorithm that relatively adjusts saturation based on a color’s existing color intensity. I think it might be easier to read what Adobe has to say about it:

Vibrance adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colors approach full saturation. This adjustment increases the saturation of less-saturated colors more than the colors that are already saturated. Vibrance also prevents skintones from becoming over saturated.

Basically, if you take my previous example of the image where the color red was initially fully saturated but where the other colors weren’t, the Vibrance feature would be much more appropriate to use, if you wanted to adjust the color intensity of the image. While pushing the Vibrance slider, the color red would hardly be affected at all while the remaining colors would be much more affected. Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s a much more subtle method for increasing or decreasing the intensity of color in a photograph.

Examples of Saturation & Vibrance

In this last section, I’m going to show you some examples of how both the Saturation and Vibrance features can affect color in a demo photo. For the first image, I’ll display five different saturation settings. At the top is a setting of 0, or no additional saturation at all. In the second row from the top, 25%, in the third, 50%, in the fourth, 75% and finally at the bottom, the Saturation slider is pushed all the way to 100%. Here, take a look.

Color Saturation Examples in Adobe Photoshop

I know you can’t see it, but when I turned on the clipping indicator in Camera Raw (where I was editing this image), I could see that the yellow pastels were oversaturated. Next, let’s look at some examples of different Vibrance settings.

In this next example, the top row is again at a Vibrance setting of 0. The second row from the top is 25%, the third row is 50%, the fourth row is 75% and the bottom row is 100%.

Color Vibrance Settings in Adobe Photoshop

While it’s not terrible easy to see the color differences between the rows, I can tell you that after I turned on the clipping indicator at the full 100% setting, no areas in the photo were over saturated. Also, even at the higher vibrance settings, the image simply isn’t as saturated as it was in the first example photo. This is probably the reason many editors call the Vibrance feature the little brother of the Saturation one.

A good way to remember how Vibrance works is to think of it as favoring the weaker colors. Strong colors aren’t touched nearly as much as the weaker ones are.

——

I hope I effectively explained how both Vibrance and Saturation differ from one another in Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom and Photoshop. While Vibrance is a non-linear adjustment, Saturation is as straight linear as they come. As you experiment with both of these adjustment tools, I think you’ll quickly become used to what they can accomplish. Both have a place in every editor’s arsenal.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Introducing the Path & Direct Selection Tools in Adobe Photoshop

April 22, 2017

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been much of an artist. I couldn’t draw if my life depended on it. I suppose that’s part of the reason I’ve yet to look into the drawing tools that Adobe Photoshop has to offer. Hey – if I’m no good at something there’s very little reason for me to bang my head against the wall trying to get better. Well, that’s what I used to think anyway.

Introducing the Path & Direct Selection Tools in Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop has got a really nice set of illustration tools for us to take advantage of an enjoy. These tools consist of the Pen Tool, Freeform Pen Tool, Add Anchor Point Tool, Delete Anchor Point Tool, Path Selection Tool, Direct Selection Tool and some others. The best part about a few of these tools is that they exist in some of Adobe’s other applications. For instance, you’ll find the two tools I’m going to discuss in this post today in both Adobe Illustrator as well as Adobe InDesign (in addition to Photoshop). While these tools may have different names here and there, much of their functionality remains the same.

In today’s post, I’m going to take the first few steps of breaking out from my fear of anything that has to do with anchor points and the pen tool. After years and years of meddling with a few of those pesky icons located towards the bottom of the left vertical toolbar in Photoshop (and failing), I’m going to dive right in and get my hands dirty. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and watching videos lately and I believe I’ve got a firm grasp on what’s up with the two, and probably most important, tools when it comes to drawing and manipulating vector objects inside of Adobe Photoshop. The tools I’ll be discussing in today’s post are called the Path Selection Tool and the Direction Selection Tool. One of them is solid black and the other is white with a black outline. I’ll talk about which one is which and what each of them does below.

The Path Selection Tool

I can’t stress this enough. While this post may seem ultra basic for those who already use Adobe’s drawing tools, it’s absolutely perfect for those who don’t. Take it from me – you need to start at the beginning when it comes to stuff like this. As I mentioned above, I’ve messed with some of these things since the beginning and I was left wondering what I did and why nothing ever worked consistently. The reason is because I never started at the beginning. While it’s simple to click on a tool in Photoshop to test it out, it’s quite another thing to click on a tool and actually achieve something effectively. If you read what I have to say below, you’ll understand a bit of what each of these two tools can do, without a doubt. It’ll be the beginning of a learning process for both you and me.

Path Selection Tool in Adobe Photoshop

The black, left leaning arrow you see above is called the Path Selection Tool. Currently, it’s the fifth tool from the bottom in the left vertical toolbar inside of Photoshop. I’m sure you’ve seen it before.

One of the areas we need to look at first is a definition. Before we go on, we’ll need to define what a “path” is in Photoshop and the other appropriate applications. Basically, a path is a shape. It can be either straight or curved. It can go one way or another and it’s made up of anchor points. So if we know what a path is and we’re working with the Path Selection Tool, it only makes sense that this tool “selects” the path, or shape. Let me show you below.

I’ve gone ahead and drawn a black box in a document. I’ve also centered it. Right now, the box isn’t selected by any tool.

Black Box

Now, if I use the Path Selection Tool and click on the box (providing the layer in the Layers panel is selected first), the path, or shape, will be selected.

Path Anchor Point

In the above screenshot, I enlarged the view so you can see the anchor point in the corner of the path. That, along with an outline, indicates that it’s selected.

To move the path, I’d simply drag it. To delete it, I’d select it and press the Delete key on my keyboard. I could also do a whole bunch of other things that I’ll lay out in future posts. Basically, what I want you to know is that the Path Selection Tool in Photoshop selects entire paths and easily moves them around.

The Direct Selection Tool

Direct Selection Tool in Photoshop

This tool is different than the previous in that instead of it selecting the entire path, it only selects anchor points and segments of a path. Let me show you what I mean.

If I were to switch tools to the Direct Selection Tool and click inside the black box I created earlier and try to move it, nothing would happen. After clicking the box, the four corner anchor points would appear, but I wouldn’t have the ability to do much dragging.

If I were to click on just one of those anchor points and drag, things would be different. I’ll go ahead and click on the upper left anchor point and drag outward.

Dragged Anchor Point

See? By directly selecting just that one anchor point, I was able to change the entire shape. If I were to click a segment (the line between two anchor points) and drag, something similar would happen. I’ll show you that below. I’ll go ahead and click between the two right corner anchor points and drag to the right.

Dragged Segment

As you can see above, by dragging to the right, I’ve stretched that side, making the entire shape longer than it was previously. By the way, to drag either a path or a segment in a fixed, straight line, just hold down the Shift key while dragging. That will keep you on the straight and narrow.

Tool Keyboard Shortcuts

If you’re a keyboard shortcut fan, listen up. The keyboard shortcut for the Path Selection tool is A on your keyboard. To choose the Direct Selection Tool, press Shift+A. To switch back and jump between both of these tools, continue using the Shift+A shortcut. Just clicking A by itself, once you’re in the tool, won’t do much.

——

I’m going to stop here. There is so much to cover when it comes to these tool that I’ve decided to take things in very small chunks. I’ve found that it’s easier to search this site when some tidbit of knowledge is necessary when the titles and content of the posts are direct and concise. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the post.

If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment area below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Selecting, Masking & Moving Image Objects in Adobe Photoshop

April 20, 2017

When it comes to Adobe Photoshop, or any Adobe application for that matter, there are a thousand different ways to do the same thing. Just this past weekend, I was talking to someone about how best to go about editing photos for different uses. I had to sit back and think for a while because it’s extremely tempting to go overboard and start talking about every little nook and cranny of what the program can offer. I decided that the direct route I use every day would suffice.

The issue with explaining how to go about completing a project in Photoshop is that you must consider future use. Most likely, when learning the program, someone isn’t going to stop at just color correcting and resizing photographs. If they have the interest, they’ll probably move onto other, more complex, tasks. It’s this type of thinking that gave me the most difficulty. Was I supposed to teach this person just the basics to get by or what I supposed to teach them what they’ll need down the road? I guess they’ll learn it as they go because really, this stuff has a tendency to become confusing – fast. Especially if too much information is thrown around all at once.

I’m going to use today’s post to shake the feeling that I had cheated someone with only covering the basics. I’d like to walk through a short project that will compare two different methods for arriving at the same result. The first method will leave you high and dry if it ever comes time to make additional edits and the second method will set you up for future success. It’s the second method you want to stick with because of all the flexibility it offers.

Down below, I’ll be talking about selections and masking. I’ve covered both of these topics in previous posts, but what I’d like to really emphasize here is workflow. It’s important that you know how to do things in Photoshop, but it’s also just as important that you know when to do those same things.

Working Photos

In this post, I’ll be working with two photos. The first one is of the front of a car and the second is of an outdoor setting. I’d like to select the car from the first photo and place it in the second. I want to do this because the background in the car photo is lazy and boring. I’d like to spice things up a bit. Here are the two photos.

Orange Antique Car

Dogs and Fire in the Desert

Selecting, Copying & Pasting

This is the way I used to move objects from one image to another. I’d select whatever it was that I wanted to move, press Ctrl+C to copy, then head over to the image I’d like to move the object to and press Ctrl+V to paste. What I was left with was what I was left with, meaning, I was stuck with exactly whatever it was that I copied and pasted. There was no recourse if I screwed up in any way. Let me show you exactly what I mean.

For this example, I’ll be using the Quick Selection Tool.

Quick Selection Tool in Adobe Photoshop

I’m going to do my best to quickly select the vehicle.

Making a Selection in Photoshop

If you look closely at the above screenshot, you’ll see the marching ants around the areas I selected. Remember, this was a quick job, so I really hope I got everything. Now, I’m going to press Ctrl+C on my keyboard to copy. Then, I’ll click the tab for the background image that’s already opened in Photoshop and press Ctrl+V to paste. Let’s see what the result looks like.

Missing Selected Areas

Oh man! What in the heck have I done? In my rush to finish this project, I’ve done an absolutely horrible job selecting the vehicle. The headlight is missing and so is part of the grill, not to mention the car’s logo. Here’s the issue – what’s my recourse? What can I do now? What if I had spent much more time making this selection, was confident, and closed out the original file? That’s right, I have no recourse and I’d have to start all over again. That’s a bummer and not a situation that saves time. It actually costs time and is no good.

By the way, what I just created was called a static selection and is a relic of the past. Let’s move on to something much more dynamic and futuristic.

Masking & Duplicating

Since I’ve already got something in the vehicle image selection, I’ll work from that point so I don’t have to go about selecting all over again. This time though, I’m going to do things a bit differently. Watch this – you’re going to love it.

Now that I have a selection, I’ll create a mask. I’ll head down to the bottom of the Layers panel and click on the Add a Mask icon.

Add a Mask Icon in Photoshop

Doing this will change a number of things. First, it’ll unlock the background layer I was working in and make it a floating layer. Next, it’ll create a mask that will hide anything outside of my selection and finally, it’ll give me that all too familiar checkerboard pattern for the areas that are hidden. Take a look.

Layer Mask

Selected and Masked in Photoshop

Now, if you’ve ever worked with masks, you know that the invisible parts of the car are still there. If I were to paint any area of this image with white, they area would reappear. That’s the benefit of working with non-destructive masks and that’s why this process is much better than the one I described previously. Remember, when using masks in Adobe Photoshop, white reveals and black conceals. That’s the rule.

At this point, I could fix up this selection by doing some painting right in this file. I’m not going to do that though. What I’d like to do is copy the layer over to the background file and then fix things up there. How can I do this? Well, the easy way is to click into any Marquee Tool in the left vertical toolbar and then right click in the image somewhere. From there, select Duplicate Layer.

Duplicate Layer Menu Item

When the Duplicate Layer dialog box appears, I can name the layer I’d like to duplicate and then choose which file in Photoshop I’d like it placed. In this case, I’ll name the layer Vehicle Mask and place it in the file that’s opened in the other tab. For this, I’ll use the drop-down box to pick the file.

Duplicate Layer Dialog Box

Now, I’ll change tabs in Photoshop so I can get a look of the file I’m using as the background. I want to make sure the vehicle layer was renamed and duplicated over inside of it.

Duplicated Layer in New File

Why yes it has. Everything has worked perfectly.

At this point, I would use some lessons I wrote about in previous posts to clean up the mask. I can begin by simply painting the areas of the vehicle that are missing with white. I’ll be sure to select the layer mask itself in the Layers panel before I do that though, or else I’ll be simply painting the layer white.

Fixing and Painting a Mask in Photoshop

Boy, I sure am glad I now have some flexibility. If you’d like to learn more about masking in Adobe Photoshop, please take a look at these posts below. They’ll tell you a whole heck of a lot:

What are Layer Masks in Adobe Photoshop?

Using Masks to Colorize Only Part of a Photo in Adobe Photoshop

Working Faster with the Quick Mask Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Select & Mask

As you may be able to tell, I didn’t make a very good original selection because the edges of the vehicle are jagged and really bad looking. As I was making the selection, I could have refined the selection edges and things would have come out much better. To see how to do this, please read this post:

Selecting Objects & Refining Edges in Adobe Photoshop

But, since I was in a rush, the time for refining those edges has passed. Good thing I created a mask, because Photoshop has a pretty awesome tool to deal with situations like this.

If I go ahead and double click on the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel, the Mask Properties panel will appear.

Mask Properties Panel

Inside of this panel are a few sliders that can help make the edge look better. The real power is in the Select and Mask tool though. So, if I click on the Select and Mask button that’s in the Properties panel, I’ll enter a new workspace.

It’s got some really great tools to help out with mask edges.

Select and Mask Workspace Tools

And it also has a Properties panel all to its own that will help you find and manipulate any edges inside of the mask.

Select and Mask Properties Panel

I do want to give you a word of caution here. There may be an error so large that you might want to just use the paintbrush to correct. Either use white to make something appear again or black to hide it from existence.

While I’m going to write an entire post about this Select and Mask workspace in the future, I did want to introduce it to you here. If you’re super interested in what it can do, please check out this post on how to refine edges in Photoshop to get a quick primer. Adobe uses many of the same tools for multiple situations.

I also wrote a bit about edges in this post:

Colorizing Grayscale Objects in Adobe Photoshop

Once you’re finished with making things perfect, you could treat your document as any other. Add to it, remove from it and export it to the file type of your choice. It’s that easy. If you’ve put a lot of work into your document, just be sure to save it as a PSD file so you can go back to it any time you want for modification.

——

I hope I did a good job with explaining how to make a selection, create a mask and duplicate that mask into another file inside of Photoshop. This method is very flexible, so please get used to it. Photoshop is full of tools that people used to use all the time, but that are beginning to move away from. In this case, creating and copying a static selection is one of those things you want to move away from.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Using the Dodge, Burn & Sponge Tools in Adobe Photoshop

April 16, 2017

While there are tons of great methods for altering the brightness, darkness and saturation of entire photos in Adobe Photoshop, there are also some very effective methods for altering only parts of a photo in the same application.

I’ll admit, I rarely edit anything other than entire photos. Generally, what I do is good enough. I plow through so many images on a daily basis that other, more detailed, workflows are simply out of the question. In addition, what I do, in my opinion, looks good. Rarely do I encounter something that needs a more detailed approach.

This isn’t to say that photos shouldn’t be edited on a more localized scale. Of course they should and in this post I plan on introducing you to a few tools that will assist with that endeavor. Be warned though – the tools I’m about to show you below have got a nasty past. As a matter of fact, I’ve hardly ever used them. With the upgrades and modifications of these tools in the more recent releases of Photoshop, however, their shortcomings have been greatly improved and I encourage all editors to take full advantage of what they can now offer.

In today’ post, I’ll work through the Dodge Tool, Burn Tool and Sponge Tool in an effort to demonstrate what editing with these assets used to result in and what the same edits can result in today. There’s a huge difference.

Demo Photo

For today’s post, I’ll be using this demo photo of a hot rod. The reason I chose this photo is because of its shiny exterior and the fact that there are some shadowed and darker areas as well as some highlighted and lighter areas. Working on this photo with these three tools should be lots of fun.

Antique Firebird

The Dodge & Burn Tools

The Dodge Tool and the Burn Tool are very similar in that they either lighten or darken parts of a photo. Originally, Adobe created these tools to mimic traditional darkroom techniques where the photographer would either hold back light to lighten the photo or increase light to darken it. These days, things have changed substantially with how these two tools affect an image so I’ll continue on with both methods in mind.

First, let me show you where both tools reside. I’ve already got the photo opened up into Photoshop. If I head over to the left vertical toolbar, I can click and drag open a tool set. Inside this tool set are the Dodge Tool, the Burn Tool and the Sponge Tool.

Dodge, Burn and Sponge Tools

I selected the Dodge Tool. Now, if you take a look up at the top of Photoshop, above the photo, you’ll notice a new options bar. In this next screenshot, I outlined it in red.

Dodge Tool Options Bar in Adobe Photoshop

Inside the options bar, towards the left, is the brush selection area. You’re probably already familiar with this area because I’m sure you’ve used a brush previously. This is where you choose which brush size and texture you’d like to have applied to the tool at hand. I’ve gone with a soft, medium size brush that will most likely change in size as I continue on with this post.

To the right of that is a very helpful drop-down box. Inside the box are three values; Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. It’s important to select the value for the area you’d like to affect in the photo. For example, if I wanted to use the Dodge Tool to lighten a shadowed area on this vehicle, I’d select Shadows from the drop-down. If I chose Shadows and attempted to brush over a lighter area of the image, virtually no change would be made. Conversely, if I chose Highlights from the drop-down and then tried to brush over a darker area of the vehicle to lighten it, again, nothing would happen. In that case, I’d have to change the drop-down selection to Shadows.

Really, all this drop-down does is target the shade of the area you’d like to either lighten or darken. Match the shade of the area in your photo to what it says in the drop-down. It’s very straightforward.

Continuing on to the right, we’ll find the Exposure value slider. Think of this slider controlling the intensity of the change you’d like to make. For this post, I’ll keep this value set at 100%, so any change I make is easy to see.

Exposure Slider

The only other area in the options bar I’m going to talk about is called Protect Tones and it’s turned on and off via a checkbox. For now, I’ll leave this box unchecked.

The concept of these two tools is simple. As I stated above, they are meant to lighten and darken the areas you brush. The problem is, throughout history, the results of using this tool have been dreadful. Let me show you what I mean. In the next screenshot, I’ll paint the fender of the car with the Dodge Tool. I’ll set the drop-down box to Shadows and keep the Exposure at 100%. Here’s what that looks like.

Dodge Tool Shadows Painted Lighter

And if I use the Burn Tool to do the same thing, here is the result I get.

Burn Tool Darken

While the Burn Tool example isn’t nearly as offensive as the Dodge Tool, it’s still not very accurate.

To compensate for the lack of love because of this imperfect product, Adobe improved both tools. They now offer a feature that will protect tones, which is controlled by the checkbox I described above. I’ll go ahead and check the Protect Tones box and use the Dodge Tool to lighten some shadows. Let’s see the result.

Dodge Tool Protect Tones in Adobe Photoshop

As you can see, there’s no more white haze over the fender. Now, the shadows have been lightened in a crisp manner.

Next, keeping the box checked, I’ll use the Burn Tool to darken some some of the highlights on the fender.

Burn Tool Protect Tones in Adobe Photoshop

Again, the result is fairly pleasing. The highlights have been taken down a notch. Also, please be aware that this tool is cumulative, meaning the more you paint, the more change is applied. Finally, always be sure to make changes like this on a duplicate layer as to preserve the original image. The edits I’m making to this file are destructive and that’s never a good thing.

My advice for using the Dodge Tool is to always keep the Protect Tones box checked. I’m not sure you can get good results otherwise. For the Burn Tool, try it both ways. The original tool isn’t bad, but the new version is better. Experimentation and hitting “undo” a lot will help you learn the ins and outs.

The Sponge Tool

The Sponge Tool is an awesome tool. I love it. It’s sort of like the previous two tools I described, but it’s different at the same time. It basically lets you add or remove saturation (or color) from different areas of an image. It uses a brush, so those settings are the same. The differences are with the drop-down, Flow value and the Vibrance check box. I’ll show you those settings in the next screenshot. I’ll outline the options bar in red.

Sponge Tool Options Bar in Adobe Photoshop

In the drop-down box, you can see two values. They are Saturate and Desaturate.

Here’s the deal; if you set the drop-down to Saturate and brush parts of an image, you’ll add color to it. You’ll saturate whatever color is already there. If you set the drop-down to Desaturate, you’ll do the opposite. You’ll remove saturation from whatever it is you brush. The Flow slider controls how fast those changes take place. For this post, I’ll keep Flow set to 100%.

What’s really neat is the Vibrance check box. This is the setting that controls which colors are actually altered when using this tool. If I were to set the drop-down to Desaturate and keep the Vibrance box unchecked, saturation would be removed across the entire spectrum of colors. If I were to check the Vibrance box and do the same thing, most colors would lose their saturation, but the oranges and reds wouldn’t be affected. This is because, in Photoshop, Vibrance affects skin tone and much of skin tone consists of those two colors. It’ll take some experimenting to get used to this.

In the next screenshot, I’ll set the drop-down to Desaturate and keep the Vibrance box unchecked. I’ll then paint the entire fender. Let’s see what happens.

Sponge Tool Desaturate with No Vibrance

Much of the color has been removed. Now, I’ll check the Vibrance box and paint the fender again.

Sponge Tool Desaturate With Vibrance Box Checked

See? Even though I’m desaturating, the Vibrance box is checked, so hardly any change is being made. There’s a distinct difference between those two settings.

Now, I’ll change the drop-down to Saturate and remove the check from the Vibrance box. I’ll paint the fender with the brush again to see what happens.

Sponge Tool Saturate With No Vibrance

Now, I’ll check the Vibrance box and repeat what I just did.

Sponge Tool Saturate With Vibrance

If you look at the difference between these last two screenshots, you’ll see that on a red car, saturation was more effective when having the Vibrance box checked. It’s brighter. I don’t think this change would have been nearly as profound if the car was blue.

——

I hope you enjoyed learning about the Dodge Tool, the Burn Tool and the Sponge Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you like editing photos, these three tools are definitely a must-know. These days, they’re much better than they’ve ever been and they’re actually quite user friendly. As I was going through this post, I kept looking for areas that might trip you up and I really didn’t find any.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


Jumping Between Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop & Camera Raw

April 13, 2017

I remember back when Adobe began integrating its different applications with one another. In the beginning, it was a noble effort. While they claimed integration, what I found was something much less. Let’s just say there were some bugs that needed to get worked out. As a matter of fact, much of my workflow today is derived from lessons learned all the way back then.

Today is much different. It appears that the connection between Adobe’s image editing applications is tried and true. When working on different types of photos, you can seamlessly work on one in one particular application and then jump to another one. The best part is, you can do what you have to do and then jump back to the first one. I know this sort of sounds confusing, but stick with me throughout this post. I’ll make it all seem super simple.

In today’s post, I’ll do a little editing on an image in Adobe Lightroom. When I feel that I’ve done enough in that application, I’ll make the leap over to Photoshop. While there, I’ll take advantage of something random that that application excels at. Then, I’ll make a quick edit in Camera Raw and jump back to Photoshop again. Finally, I’ll save the file out, which will close Photoshop and bring me all the way back to Lightroom. It’ll be like a big circle of coolness because stuff like this is awesome. I love it when things like this come together.

Demo Photo

For today’s post, I’ll be working with a version of the photo I display below. Remember, it’s not important which photo I choose or what I do to it. What is important is how I get from one application to another. That’s the lesson I’m trying to convey.

Boy in Hat Smiling For Camera

Editing in Lightroom & Jumping to Photoshop

I’ve already got Lightroom opened up on my computer. The image I’d like to work on is selected and I’m in the Develop module. The first thing I’m going to do is to make a few edits in the Basic panel. Nothing crazy – just a couple of things to give the image some contrast.

Editing a Photo in Adobe Lightroom's Basic Panel

When I feel I’ve done enough editing in Lightroom, I can launch the photo into Photoshop. To do this, I’ll right-click on the image’s thumbnail down in the Filmstrip panel, roll over Edit In and then click on Open as Smart Object in Photoshop.

Edit In - Open as Smart Object in Photoshop Menu Item in Adobe Lightroom

Once I do that, the photo will automatically open up inside of Adobe Photoshop where I can do all sorts of editing.

Photo Launched into Adobe Photoshop

Editing in Photoshop & Camera Raw

Now that I have the image opened up as a Smart Object in Photoshop, I can make some additional adjustments if necessary. In this case, just for fun, I’ll apply an adjustment layer. I’ll click the Photo Filter icon in the Adjustments panel to apply the new layer and to open up the Properties panel for the filter. Then, I’ll choose Deep Yellow from the Filter drop-down box. This will give the image sort of a yellow overlay to make it look more antique.

Deep Yellow Photo Filter Applied to Image in Adobe Photoshop

Once I’m finished with that, I’ll take a look at the photo to decide if it needs any further editing. Since I’m going through a sequence here, I’ll say that it perhaps needs something from Camera Raw. To open this Smart Object in Camera Raw from Photoshop, I’ll simply double-click the layer thumbnail in the Layers panel. That will immediately open Camera Raw (without the Photoshop adjustment layer applied).

Since I think the image needs some more contrast, I’ll push a few sliders around in Camera Raw’s Basic panel. I also think there’s some grain that shouldn’t be there, so I’ll head into the Detail panel and push the Noise Reduction Luminance slider to the right a bit. That will get rid of some of the noise.

Detail Panel in Adobe Camera Raw

When I’m done, I’ll click the OK button to return to where I was in Photoshop.

Closing Out of Photoshop & Going Back to Lightroom

Okay, I think I’ve done all the editing I would like to do, so I want to bring the photo back to Lightroom, which is my editing application of choice. To do this, all I need to do is close the image out of Photoshop.

To close the image, I’ll go to the File > Close menu item and click.

File - Close Menu Item in Adobe Photoshop

After I do that, a small dialog box will appear and ask if I want to save the file. I’ll click on Yes and watch as that tab and image disappear from Photoshop’s workspace.

Saving File From Adobe Photoshop

When I click back into Lightroom, I’ll find a new image there waiting for me. The original will be in the Filmstrip panel with the new, modified version sitting right next to it – adjustments from Photoshop, Camera Raw and all.

Smart Object Image in Filmstrip Panel in Lightroom

Isn’t that cool? I told you it would be a big circle. At this point, I could save the image, print it, turn it into a PDF file or whatever else I feel like doing in Lightroom.

——

I hope I clearly explained how easy it is to edit in Adobe Lightroom, open the edited photo into Photoshop, do some more editing in Camera Raw and then return to Lightroom. Once you get the gist of it and go through the process a few times, I think you’ll easily remember all the steps and fly through it after that. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


How to Filter & Reject Files in Adobe Bridge

April 12, 2017

When you have a high number of files to sift through after shooting a lot of video or photography, the last thing you want to do is confuse the heck out of yourself when it comes time to organize your work. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could place all your assets in a folder and have everything in plain view? Wouldn’t it also be nice if you could hit a button when you review a photo or video clip that you don’t want to use that would make that file disappear? Wouldn’t it be the best if, while the file disappeared, it wasn’t actually deleted? It was just hidden?

Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. Our favorite file organizing application (and more) offers exactly these features. Adobe Bridge is a master at getting files organized and streamlining workflow. What I just fantasized about above – no problem. Just a few pushes of a few buttons or a couple of simple mouse clicks. You’ll be able to reduce the number of files staring you in the face to the smaller number of quality shots you want to keep. Without ever deleting a single thing. I’m not sure about you, but I certainly have experienced “delete regret.” You know, when you delete that file you thought you’d never use and then want it back later on.

In today’s post, I’ll be working with some sample shots in an effort to explain how they can be easily organized. I’ll, what they call, “reject” the ones I don’t want and keep the ones I do. Then, I’ll show you how you can hide the rejected assets so they’re not in view anymore. Hiding files is perfect for making your work area super efficient. Finally, I’ll show you how to unhide the rejected files and even unreject them. All right inside of Adobe Bridge.

The Content Panel

I’ve gone ahead and launched Bridge and browsed to the folder I’d like to work in. Here’s a screenshot of all the visible thumbnails.

Adobe Bridge Content Panel

For this post, I’ll pretend that these visible thumbnails are the one’s I’ll be using for a project. Out of the twelve showing, I’d like to use only eight of them.

Rejecting Files

Now, before I go any further, I want you to know that while I’m using photos in this post, you can do the same thing for any file type. This technique isn’t limited to certain types.

Since my project calls for specific photos, I’m going to reject the boy’s face, the bull, the cat and the camera. To do this, I’ll hold down the Ctrl key on my keyboard and click each one of those thumbnails. They should become highlighted once I do that.

Highlighting Thumbnails in Adobe Bridge

In order to reject these selected files, I can do two things. I can either head up to the Label > Reject menu item and click.

Label - Reject Menu Item in Bridge

Or, as you can see in the menu, I can use Alt+Del as the keyboard shortcut. Let’s see what the thumbnails look like after I reject them.

Rejected Files in Bridge

A Reject label has been added to each of these thumbnails.

Hiding Rejected Files

While rejecting files is fun, it doesn’t really help if they are still visible in the Content panel. It’s only after they’re hidden that we experience the magic of cleaning things up.

To hide a rejected file, head up to the View > Show Rejected Files menu item and make sure it’s not checked. If it is, the files will be visible and if it’s not, they won’t be.

Show Rejected Files Menu Item

I’ll click this menu item now.

Hidden Rejected Files

As you can see from the above screenshot, the rejected files are no longer visible. They haven’t been deleted, so they’re safe if you even want to use them again. They also haven’t moved anywhere and if you browse their origin folder on your computer, they’ll be perfectly workable. It’s only in Bridge that they’ve been hidden.

To unhide the hidden files, simply visit the View > Show Rejected Files menu again and check it. That will bring the thumbnails back in all their glory.

Unrejecting Files

You would think there’s a menu item to unreject files. I mean, it’s only fitting that if you reject something that you could reverse course. Apparently not. I had to play around a while to discover exactly how to do this.

To unreject the files I initially rejected, I’ll once again select each of the thumbnails. When they’re highlighted, I’ll visit the Label > No Rating menu item and click.

Label - No Rating Menu Item

Doing this will clear out the Reject label and bring the files back to their original state. It’s that easy.

——

I hope this post helps you with organizing your workspace in Adobe Bridge. I know it can make a huge difference in cases where the photographer takes many shots of similar items where only a few are kept. Oftentimes, it’s not the intention of the photographer to delete anything – the only thing they want is for the bad ones to disappear. In these types of cases, Bridge’s Reject feature is perfect.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Bridge


How to Export Video From Adobe Photoshop

April 9, 2017

When it comes to exporting and rendering video clips, there are some pretty cool options to be aware of. It’s not as simple as just hitting “save” and moving on with things. Adobe Photoshop offers an entire dialog box that’s filled with suggestions and possible settings that have the capability of making your life a lot easier when working with video. The way things are today is a huge step forward when compared to what was offered just a few years ago.

In today’s post, I’m going to walk through the process of exporting a demo video clip in Adobe Photoshop. During the process, I’ll do my best to explain what some of the more important areas can do. I’ll also point out some of the features that Photoshop offers that will let you work like a pro. Want to export just one section of your entire video for testing? Not a problem. It’s really all very doable.

Demo Video

I’ve already gone ahead and launched the video into Photoshop, but haven’t done anything past that. Today’s video is of a car racing down a dirt road. Here’s a still shot from the clip.

Race Car

I’m going to pretend that I’ve done tons of work to this video and that I’m ready to save it out. That will be my starting point.

Rendering the Video

Since I’m all done editing, I’ll go ahead an begin the process of rendering the video. All this means is that Photoshop is going to take what’s been edited and combine the parts to make a whole file. If it needs compressing, Photoshop will do that too. In general, when you render a video, it takes a few seconds, so if you’re following along and get to that point, please be patient and don’t click around.

There are multiple methods for accessing the Render Video dialog box. In this section, I’ll show you three of them.

The very first method and probably the most popular is to head up to the File > Export > Render Video menu item and click. Since this access point stems from the File menu, many folks can find it easily.

File - Export - Render Video Menu Item

The next method is even easier, but many people aren’t aware of its existence. If you head over to the right side of the Timeline panel and click the small menu icon, you’ll see an option to render from there.

Timeline Panel Render Video

And finally, the most simple method for accessing the Render Video dialog box. If you head down to the bottom of the Timeline panel, near the controls, you’ll see a small arrow. Click the arrow and you’ll go straight to the dialog. Once you use this method, I can guarantee you’ll never use the two previous ones. This one is so damn straightforward.

Arrow Render Video

The Render Video Dialog Box

In this section, I’ll go through the different sections contained inside the Render Video dialog box. There are four sections in total, but I’m only going to talk about three of them. The fourth has to do with 3D video and that’s a whole other post.

Location

I’ll start off with the Location section, which is contained inside the very top area.

Render Video Location

Inside this section are a few options. If you look through them, you’ll see they’re easily understood and are quite intuitive.

First, I’ll need to name the saved file, so in the top Name field, I can type in whatever it is I’d like the final name to be. In this case, I’ll just leave it with whatever the clip was originally named, which is a number.

Next, I’ll need to save the file to a location. To do this, I’ll click the Select Folder button to browse my computer or external drive for a location to save the file to. If I find a location and would like Photoshop to create a new directory within the chosen directory to place the file in, I’ll check the Create New Subfolder box and type in whatever I want the name of the subfolder to be. See? I told you this one was easy.

Output Type

I’ve named the next section Output Type because it doesn’t have a name. Right now, the lead options are Adobe Media Encoder and Photoshop Image Sequence. Since Photoshop Image Sequence will save the entire video as JPEG images as opposed to a functioning video, I’ll leave this option out of this post. Perhaps I’ll return to it another time.

As far as the Adobe Media Encoder option, there are lots of things to choose from. For Format, I’ll leave the default, which is H.264. The reason I’ll leave this is because it’s a very common format for video files. It compressed well and offers extremely high quality. Next, I’ll also leave the Preset drop-down set to High Quality, because that’s what I generally save my files as. I will, however, show you a screenshot of the options in the drop-down so you can see what’s available. If you’re using your video to upload to Youtube or Vimeo or a specific device, you would certainly want to take advantage of one of these other options. They’ll give your output a much more customized feel.

Video Preset Output Options

The next field is called Size, because it will dictate what the physical size of your video will be when played back. If you leave the default set to Document Size like I did, the output video dimensions will match the pixel dimensions you set when you created the editable file. Photoshop does offer alternatives though, such as sizes that will fit many different devices and TVs.

Output Size

The last area I’ll cover for this area is Frame Rate. If you’ve ever edited a video before, you know what this is and already have this set. If you’d like to keep what you already have set in the editable file, leave this alone. If you’d like to reduce the quality to meet some sort of specification, you can click the drop-down to select one of the presets.

While that section was cool, this next one is cooler.

Range

Let’s say I am completely finished with editing this video and I would like to output it in its entirety. I can do that by leaving the default option of All Frames selected.

Output Range

This isn’t a big deal and most of the time, if you’re a casual editor, you won’t ever need to change anything in this area. If you’re a power user though, you’ll definitely want to know about the next two options. They’ll let you export just part of your file so you can take a close look at a specific section of your masterpiece.

Say I have 237 frames in a video, which this sample video has. Now, let’s say that I only want to output the frames between 100 and 150 for close analysis. Well, if that was the case, I’d click to the left of Start Frame and then input 100 in the first field. In the End Frame field, I’d input 150 and I’d be all set. The entire video wouldn’t be outputted. Only the section between those two frames would be.

Now, I know that filling in these fields can be cumbersome at times and counting frames isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. This is fine, because Photoshop gives us another options to make our lives easier. The next field will output just the frames that are in the current work area of the editable video. So, if you’ve got a specific work area set, select this option and that’s it. Photoshop will only output those frames.

If you don’t know how to set a work area, you’re in luck. I’ll show you how in this next screenshot.

Work Area

To set a work area in the Timeline panel, all you need to do is to click and drag the beginning handle to the right and the ending handle to the left. The handles I’m referring to are inside the red box in the screenshot above. Not the blue playhead, but the two tick marks directly below it. Also, when you have a work area set in the timeline and play the video back inside of Photoshop, playback will be limited to that work area. Just an FYI.

Saving Out the File

After all these options have been set, all that needs to be done is to have the Render button pushed. Once I do that, I’ll have to wait a few seconds and then I’ll have a completed file that I can use for whatever it is I want. And that’s it.

——

While there are other options available, the ones I covered in this post are the most popular. and really, if you’re the average user, you’ll likely only need to name the file and choose a destination to save it to. You can probably leave everything else alone. It is good to know what your options are though.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Photoshop


How to Move Objects With the Spot Removal Brush in Adobe Camera Raw

April 6, 2017

This is going to be one of those posts where you hit your forehead with your hand and say “Oof, I knew that!” It’s so easy, it’s often overlooked. Although, I will tell you that the proper conditions must exist. I played around with this little trick for quite a while this afternoon with many photographs and I have to tell you, not every one worked out so well. Some did and some didn’t. The best ones were where the object that needed to be moved was small and the area or pattern around it was great. I’ll explain more below.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you how you can use the Spot Removal brush in Adobe Camera Raw to actually move an object in a graphic or a photograph. Normally, I’d select the object and move it after I jump to Photoshop, but this method is just as good. Also, this way, things are non-destructive, which is always a good thing. This post should be brief because there aren’t many steps involved. I think you’ll like it though. Also, keep in mind that you can follow the same instructions if you plan on doing something similar in Lightroom. Both Camera Raw and Lightroom use the same engine, so many things you do in one application you can do in the other.

Demo Photo

The only way the photo below could have been more perfect was to have a completely blank white wall with no sort of shading. Beyond that, it’s superb. I’m planning on moving the clock as my example and having all the room on the wall to move it to is great. Also, since the clock doesn’t take up much room, the process should be streamlined. Keep these things in mind if you plan on using the method I lay out below. Again, it’s only for certain situations.

Clock on Wall

Setting Up the Spot Removal Brush

Since I’ve already got the image opened up in Camera Raw, I’ll get right to it. I’ll head up to the top horizontal toolbar and click on the Spot Removal brush icon.

Spot Removal Brush Icon in Adobe Camera Raw

Once that’s done, I’ll go over to the right Spot Removal column and change a few settings.

Spot Removal Tool Settings

If you take a look at the screenshot above, you’ll notice that I set the brush fairly large. I did this because I want a nice broad curve when I begin painting. Also, I added a bit of feather and kept the opacity at 100%. The reason for this is because I’d like to make a duplicate copy of the clock to place somewhere else on the wall. This brings me to the most important setting, which is Clone. Since I want to make a copy, I wouldn’t select Heal from the drop-down above the other controls. I want a direct copy, which is what Clone will give me. If I need to adjust any of the sliders below as I work, I’ll do so.

Making the Copy

This is the part where you’ll hit your forehead. If you’ve ever used the Spot Removal brush before, you know that when you paint over something using the Clone setting, you get exactly what is inside the source area, somewhere else. Usually, you’ll paint over a blemish or something like that and replace it with an empty area. This time is different. Instead of painting over the clock to get rid of it, I’m going to paint over it and do something else.

To help explain, I’ll first use the brush to paint over the clock and the immediate area surrounding it. The area I paint over will be referred to as the target and the area the replacement is coming from will be called the source.

Source and Target with the Spot Removal Brush Tool in Camera Raw

So in the above screenshot, the red pin is the target area that will be sourced with the content of the green pin. This is all very simple because I’m sure many folks have done this a zillion times. All I did so far was to paint something with the Spot Removal tool.

Here’s the neat part. What if I click inside each of these areas and reverse them? That’s right. I’ll click and drag each area so the target circle is sitting somewhere else on the wall and the wall circle is sitting over the clock. Let’s see what happens.

Reversing Source and Target for Spot Healing

Basically, what’s happened is that the clock has now become the source content and the target is where ever I’d like to move the clock to. Pretty neat, huh?

Since there’s a gradient on the wall, I’ll have to either fuss with the Feather slider to soften up the edges, or I can simply move the new clock around until it blends in naturally. I think I’ll move it down slightly and then remove the check from the Show Overlay box that sits at the bottom of the Spot Removal panel.

Duplicate Clocks on Wall

By removing the check from the box, I hid the overlay graphics from both clocks. These consisted of the outlines that I painted inside of and both pins.

I’d say this looks very good. Of course, if I were a perfectionist, I could go back and modify whatever I wasn’t happy with, but really, I think I got the concept across. The best part is that any time I ever want to alter where the clock sits on the wall or what the sliders are set to, all I would need to do it to open this file inside of Camera Raw. It’s totally editable.

Removing the Old Clock

There is one glaring issue, so I guess I shouldn’t celebrate just yet. I need to remove the original clock. To do this, I’ll click into another tool in the toolbar to set the Spot Removal tool up for a new instance and then I’ll click back into the Spot Removal tool. Then, I’ll change the drop-down to it’s set to Heal and I’ll paint a nice big area over the original clock. Camera Raw will decide where a good area is to replace it with.

Replacing Original Clock With Spot Removal Brush Set to Heal

Again, I’ll uncheck the Show Overlay box to see what the wall looks like.

Relocated Clock on Wall

There does seem to be a small shadow showing towards the right of where the old clock sat, so I could just go over that area again with another instance of the Spot Removal brush. I could continue to do this until I was totally happy with the result.

Here is the final image:

Moved Object Using the Spot Removal Tool in Adobe Camera Raw

I bet if you asked anyone what was done to this photo, not one person would be able to tell you. And the whole project only took me a few minutes. I’d say this is right on par with making a selection and moving something in Photoshop. I like it!

——

See? Wasn’t that easy? If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw

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