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Have you ever seen those teeth whitening commercials on TV that tell you that they’ll whiten and brighten your smile? Regardless if the products these people are selling work or not, the goal is still to whiten and brighten your teeth. So, when working in Adobe Photoshop to achieve these goals, take a tip from the commercials and use the tools available to make any type of teeth look a lot better than they normally do. You want to whiten and brighten.

In today’s post, I’m going to walk you through the process of whitening teeth in Adobe Photoshop. I’ll make a selection, apply an adjustment layer to that selection and then copy the mask in that layer and apply it to another adjustment layer. The first adjustment layer will take care of the whitening by removing any yellow in the teeth and the second adjustment layer will brighten those teeth up so they’re not so dull. By the end of this post, you should have the knowledge necessary to make any smile look more inviting.

Before I begin, I’d like to tell you that I wrote a post a while back that talks about achieving the same goal, but in Adobe Camera Raw. So, if you’re into that application more than you’re into Photoshop, please feel free to browse through my post.

How to Whiten Eyes & Teeth in Adobe Camera Raw

The Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a photo of a girl in a warm setting. I understand that the lighting may be having an effect upon the girl’s teeth, among other things, but the teeth can be clearly seen and I think they’ll be appropriate for a tutorial like this. Take a look at the photo.

Selecting the Teeth with the Quick Selection Tool

To make my selection, I’ll be using the Quick Selection Tool. I’ll go ahead and activate it from the left vertical toolbar now.

I’m going to make my selection. First, I’ll size my brush by pressing the [ and ] keys on my keyboard. Since this is a relatively tight area, I’ll use a rather small size. Also, before I select, I’ll make sure to enlarge the photo so I can see what I’m doing. And since I’m sure I’ll select something I don’t intend to, I’ll press and hold the Alt key on my keyboard to unselect that area.

To learn more about this particular tool, please read through the post below.

Selecting Objects & Refining Edges in Adobe Photoshop

Okay, I made a pretty good selection. Let’s take a look at what I have at this point.

Selecting & Masking the Selection

Now that I have a fairly decent selection made, I’d like to clean it up a bit. To do so, I’ll click the Select and Mask button that’s located in the options bar up top.

Once I do that, an entirely new work area will appear. Inside this work area, I’ll push a few sliders around. More specifically, I’ll increase the values of the Radius, Smooth and Contrast sliders and I’ll check the box that says Smart Radius. These sliders really assist with obtaining a sharp selection. Although, the final product of this selection will result in a mask, so it’s not overly critical to seek perfection at this point. I can always paint the mask to either reveal or hide parts of the teeth later on.

When I’m finished, I’ll press the OK button and I’ll exit the edge refinement work area. Upon returning to the regular work area, I won’t see much of a change. Perhaps just a better selection than before.

Whitening the Teeth

Now that I have the teeth selected, my first goal is to whiten them via an adjustment layer. To do this, I’ll click the Hue/Saturation icon in the Adjustments panel.

Next, I’ll use the Targeted Adjustment Tool to find the exact color of the teeth. I’ll click the small hand icon in the Properties panel and then I’ll click on the teeth. As you can see from the screenshot below, the bottom color sliders moved to yellow. That’s the current shade of the teeth.

Finally, now that the shade of the teeth has been identified, I’ll push the Saturation slider to the left. Normally, I’d only be able to push this slider to the left a small bit, but this time, pushing it as far as it’ll go doesn’t have any ill effects. I’ll get this result.

If I ever wanted to see exactly what it is that I’m altering the color of, I can hold down the Alt key on my keyboard and click once on the adjustment layer mask in the Layers panel. Doing that would superimpose the mask on top of the photo. Take a look. I’m editing anything that’s white and not touching anything in black.

Again, since this is a mask, I have the ability to edit it any time I wish by painting it white or black.

4 Masking Power Tips for Adobe Photoshop

Reusing the Selection For Another Adjustment

This is a really cool trick. Since I don’t want to go through the agony of (sometimes selecting things can be very challenging) making another, duplicate, selection, I’ll simply hold down the Ctrl key on my keyboard and click once on the mask in the Layers panel. Doing this will reselect the teeth, exactly how I selected them earlier. Or, if I modified the mask by painting it, it’ll create a selection based on the modified mask. Either way, I’ll see the marching ants on the teeth once again.

Now, I can see that the teeth are rather bright as they are. I really don’t need to add any brightness to them. I would like to see, however, what the teeth would look like if I darkened their tone somewhat. Or brighten the tone. Either way, I’d like to play around.

Since the teeth have been reselected, I’ll go ahead and click the Curves icon in the Adjustments panel. As you can see by the screenshot below, a new adjustment layer is formed and new content is seen in the Properties panel that appears.

Using the Adobe Photoshop Curves Tool For Photography

I’m going to adjust the curve until I see that the rear teeth have been brightened and the front teeth have be brought down in their intensity somewhat. Here’s what I came up with.

And that concludes the editing. Let’s take a look at the result.

I’d say this looks pretty good. If I ever want to edit either of these adjustments, I can easily do so by double-clicking on the adjustment layer icon in the Layers panel. When I do that, the appropriate Properties panel will pop open and I can do anything I wish.

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I hope I clearly explained how to go about whitening someone’s teeth in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!

Out of all the posts I write, I’d have to say that small tip posts are my favorite. I love learning these tips and I love sharing them with you. It’s that tiny high people get from reading about or watching something they’re interested in learning and then saying, “Ah ha!” when they figure things out. I love that and I promise to show you as many tips as I possibly can, right here on this website.

In today’s post, I’d like to talk about one very small area of cleaning photos up using the Spot Healing Brush Tool. I know I’ve already discussed this tool before and that I demonstrated the proper method for using it, but there is one thing I missed. Well, I most likely missed a lot more things than just one, but there’s one really important aspect of how to best use the tool that I have yet to discuss.

I’d like to show you how you can use this tool to remove any type of blemish in a photo. Then, I’d like to demonstrate how you can undo one or more of your corrections. The method I’ll show you is super simple and can save many a headache. I know how frustrating it can be to go back and try to remove corrections. It’s a real pain.

Reality

Let’s face facts here. Even though I wrote a post explaining the proper procedure for using the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop, I know that not many people are going to use it. What really happens is that editors quickly open a photo, grab the tool, resize their brush and start removing blemishes by clicking around. Just like that. They don’t take the additional steps to create a new layer and then to check the box that says Sample All Layers. In all honesty, the reason very few people take these additional precautions is because they don’t need to. Most corrections are fast and dirty and really, you get identical results, no matter how you go about things. The issues arise when you find that you need to undo something. Or change something. Or put things back the way they originally were. If you don’t create that additional layer, you’re going to be stuck with a photo you destructively edited.

To see what I’m referring to when I talk about this additional layer, please take a look at this post below.

Clearing Skin with the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using the photo below.

The reason I chose this one is because the girl in the photo has a few freckles. As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, I have nothing against freckles, it’s just that it’s a real challenge to locate photos of people with acne. Those types of photos would be my first choice, but freckles are fine.

Removing Some Blemishes

In this section, I’m going to go about the quick and dirty method for removing blemishes in Photoshop. The photo is already opened in the application, so I’ll head over to the left vertical toolbar and select the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

From there, I’ll resize my brush, add an appropriate amount of feather and remove a few freckles. Here’s my result.

As you can see there are fewer freckles. If I wanted to, I could save this file out and get on with my day. The problem is, if I didn’t create that additional layer to protect me, I might be stuck if someone were to ask me to make a change in regards to a blemish I just removed. Let’s take a look at the History panel, so I can show you just how difficult things would be.

Do you see what I’m talking about? How in the heck am I supposed to know which freckle removal belongs to which history layer? And even if I could find out, if I were to click on one of those states, everything after it would be gone. I’d have to redo work I already did, which is a waste of time and money.

Filling in with History

I have a really great method for getting around this little issue. I’m going to show you right now. To demonstrate, I’ll need to draw some guides to remind me where the freckle I’m about to remove is.

Now, I’ll use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to remove the freckle. I won’t show you a screenshot of what the result looks like, because you already know. The freckle will just be gone.

Okay, let’s say I did a huge number of corrections on this girl’s face and someone then asked me to recover the freckle on the forehead – you know, the one I have in the crosshairs of the guide. How can I get back just that freckle without touching anything else? Check this out.

I’m going to use the Lasso Tool to draw a selection around the area where the freckle was. I can use any tool, but it’s a good habit to get into using the Lasso Tool because it has the ability to draw such custom shapes.

Next, I’ll right-click inside the selection and choose Fill.

When the Fill dialog box appears, I’ll click the Contents drop-down box and then I’ll select History.

I’ll click on the OK button and, bam, the freckle will magically reappear.

The really cool part about this approach to solving the problem is that we’re able to draw as large of a selection as we want to. It I wanted to select the entire image to bring back the original state of things, I could. It’s that versatile. Give this a try, I think you’ll like the results.

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I hope I clearly explained how to go about undoing unintended blemish removals using the Fill dialog box in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I’ll admit, I have yet to come across a need to add a curved blur to a photo, but I wanted to write a post on the topic nonetheless. I was introduced to this feature in Photoshop a few weeks ago by a friend and have been meaning to jot down a few notes on it ever since. After playing around for a while, I can definitely see how this would be a handy function to become more familiar with. There are all sorts of different situations where one would need a curved blur. Any type of water movement being one of them.

In today’s post, I’d like to walk you through the steps of using a small portion of the Path Blur filter. While what I cover will be extremely fundamental, it will give you some decent insight into what this filter is capable of and what types of photos may necessitate the resulting type of enhancement. More specifically, I’ll be taking a static photo of a woman standing under a waterfall and will be adding some movement to the water that’s falling on her. I think the result will be eye opening and that it will inspire you to explore this tool on your own.

Demo Photo

As you can see, this photo was taken with a rather fast camera shutter speed. The way I know this is because the falling water is captured in stasis. Currently, there’s no motion in regards to the water’s movement. Obviously, we all know the water is falling because of experience, but it sure doesn’t look that way in the photo. My goal with this photo is to add some blur that curves around the woman at the bottom of the waterfall. The curve will be subtle, but it will be there. I’ll also take advantage of some layer masking so the entire image isn’t blurred. I’ll show you how to remove the blur effect from the remainder of the photo down below.

Creating a Smart Object

As with any layer that I apply a filter to, I want to convert this one to a Smart Object. I’ve discussed the reasoning for this many times over on this blog. It all has to do with making non-destructive edits.

What are Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop?

To create a Smart Object, I’ll right-click on the layer thumbnail in question and then click on the Convert to Smart Object menu item when it appears.

Once that’s done, I can move onto applying the filter.

Applying a Path Blur

I want to tell you right off the bat that like many other areas of Photoshop, the Path Blur filter is much like an application unto itself. It’s huge and deep and it would take quite a while to cover all aspects of it. Because of this, I’ll merely be touching on one small area of the entire thing. My goal here is to introduce you to the Path Blur filter so you can explore more on your own. I’m sure I’ll share much more about this feature in future posts. Okay, I just wanted to get that out of the way.

To access the Path Blur filter, I’ll head up to the Filter > Blur Gallery > Path Blur menu item and click.

After I click, a few things will change. First, the options bar up top will show various settings that can be taken advantage of. Second, any panels I had open on the right side as well as the left vertical toolbar will disappear, to be replaced by the Path Blur settings and third, a small blue line will appear at the center of the image. It’s this blue line I’ll be manipulating next. But first, take a look at some screenshots of what I just described.

First is the Path Blur options bar.

Next up is the Blur Tools.

And finally, we have the blue line I just mentioned.

Making the Blur Curve

If you’ll notice in the above screenshot, a blur has actually already been formed. The problem is, it’s not following any path we set and it’s applied to the entire image. I’ll need to correct these things so it makes sense to what I’m working on.

If you look closely at that blue line that’s been placed at the center of the image, you’ll notice that there’s an arrow attached to one end of it. This arrow should point in the direction of the blur. Also, there are two large handles at either end of the line as well as one in the middle. To start off, I’ll click the handle closest to the arrow and drag that to the point at which I’d like to blur to end. After that, I’ll click and drag the opposite end of the line and drag that to the point at which I’d like the blur to begin. Finally, I’ll click and drag the center point so it creates a curve, or an arc, that will guide the flow of the blur. Here, take a look.

As you can see, the blur is now curved. It’s still applied to the entire image, but I’ll deal with that later.

While the blur certainly is curved and it’s following (or guiding) the water that’s falling, I’m missing the other side of the falls. I’d like the falls to split around the woman so it appears that they are encapsulating her. To create another path, I’ll simply double click my mouse on the other side and when the new path appears, I’ll click and drag the end points in a similar fashion as to what I did previously.

Okay, that’s looking good. I’m not even going to get into any other controls regarding this filter today. I’m merely going to leave things like this and move onto clicking OK up in the options bar so the filter is applied to the photo. It’ll take a little while to complete. A lot of changes are taking place.

Let’s take a look at the blurred photo. I think it’s evident that the falling water now conveys motion.

Correcting the Filter Mask

Now that the filter has been applied, I’d like to remove much of it from the photo. Because I transformed the image layer into a Smart Object back at the beginning, this is a very simple task to accomplish. All I need to do is to paint the area I don’t want the blur to show, black. That’s it. I’ll do that now.

I’ll go ahead an activate the Brush Tool by clicking on its icon in the left vertical toolbar. Then, I’ll make sure the color black has been selected in the Color Picker. Finally, I’ll adjust the size of the brush and give it a very soft edge.

How to Adjust the Brush Tool Settings in Adobe Photoshop

Once that’s all complete, I’ll paint away the much of the blur. Of course, I’ll leave some on the falls because that’s what I was after from the beginning. Let’s take a look at the Layers panel now.

Before I painted, I made sure that I clicked on the filter mask to select it. Then I painted. You can see the difference between the white and black areas in the thumbnails. If I hold down the Alt key on my keyboard and click once on the mask thumbnail, that thumbnail will enlarge and cover the entire image. Doing this gives a more close up view.

Remember, anything that’s black will be invisible and anything that’s white will be visible.

Let’s take a look at the final product. There should be blur only over the top of the falls, indicating direction and movement.

I’d say that looks pretty good. Not bad, considering I didn’t dive into even a small percent of the Path Blur filter tool. I’ll surely do this in the future. For now, I encourage you to explore this filter and push some sliders around. Don’t worry, you’re not going to break anything.

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I hope I clearly explained how to apply a curved blur using the Path Blur filter in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I can remember way back to the early part of this century, before I knew how to use any of the more advanced selection tools, all the different types of things I would select. Most of the time, it was either round/oval objects or square/rectangle ones. I never got into clipping out people or things with random and complex edges. And honestly, the only reason I would ever select anything was to copy/paste it somewhere else or to crop the areas of the photo that weren’t selected, out. Things were very straightforward.

I guess you can call what I was doing the basics. As with in many other areas, the basics are critical to understand because they are taken advantage of so frequently. They are an absolute must if you plan on working in Photoshop for any extended period of time.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you two really fast and easy tricks that will help immensely when it comes to making basic selections in Adobe Photoshop. For my example down below, I’ll be using the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select the top ring of a cup of hot cocoa. To make an accurate selection, I’ll use two additional tools; guides and the Free Transform Tool. I know I alluded to both of these techniques in previous posts, but I feel it’s a good idea to write about them in their own post today. I oftentimes look back and refer to these types of posts and something like this will make it easier to do so.

Demo Photo

As I mentioned above, I’ll be attempting to select the top ring of the mug in the photo below. I don’t need to do this for any particular reason other then to show you how to do it. And to let you know, the concepts I’ll demonstrate below can be translated and used with any type of a shape. Squares, rectangles, etc…

Setting Up Guides

Circles and ovals are notoriously difficult to accurately select the first time around. I almost never get them right. As for squares, they’re relatively easy. All I need to do is to place my pointer on one of the corners and pull until the selection is made. When it comes to circles or anything with rounded edges, there’s no corner to place the pointer on. That’s where guides come into play. We need to create a corner.

To create a guide, we’ve got two options. We can simply pull a guide in from the ruler that surrounds the work area or we can use a menu item to take care of it. I’ll show you how to use the ruler pull method now.

First, make sure your rulers are showing. To do that, head up to the View > Rulers menu item and make sure that option has a check next to it. If it doesn’t, click it to set it.

After that, to create a guide, you can simply click inside one of the rulers, hold down and drag out into the work area somewhere. If you click on the horizontal ruler, you’ll create a horizontal guide. If you click on the vertical one, you’ll create a vertical guide. Check this out.

That blue line is a guide. It’s basically an invisible tool that assists with design that doesn’t appear in the final product.

Tips For Tabs & Guides in Adobe Photoshop

The other method we can take advantage of is generally used when precise guides are needed. We can set guides anywhere we want on the photo by filling in a value. To do this, head up to the View > New Guide menu item and click.

Then, once the New Guide dialog box appears, you can choose whether you want your guide to be created in a horizontal or vertical fashion and the position in which it should reside.

After that, click OK and the guide will be placed in the work area somewhere. For this project, I’ll just pull four guides in using the ruler method and set them around the rim of the mug.

Making a Guided Selection

After the guides have been set up, I can activate the Elliptical Marquee Tool and then click on the guides’ upper left corner and drag down to their lower right corner. This is what I’ll end up with.

I’d say that’s not bad for my first try. I would never had gotten so close without those guides.

Transforming a Selection

Okay, so we all probably know that selecting something is rarely so easy. I mean, how often do we have mugs on a table that are sitting absolutely level or plates that are straight? I’m sure you get the idea here. It’s not every day that we stumble across items in photos that are set up so wonderfully. This isn’t an issue though because we can easily transform a selection once it’s made.

To transform a selection to resize or distort it, we’ll need to visit the Select > Transform Selection menu item and click.

Once we activate the Transform tool, we can decide what to do with it. If I wanted to rotate the selection, I could place my pointer just outside of the bounding box. When the cursor turns into a curved arrow, I could click and drag. That would rotate it.

If I wanted to simply resize the selection, I could click and drag one of the corners and push towards the center or pull away from it. Remember, to constrain the selection’s proportions, hold down the Shift key while dragging.

Really though, we most often need to distort the selection. This is because the objects we oftentimes need to select are crooked or warped.

To distort a selection, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while dragging one of the bounding box handles.

Obviously, I didn’t select the rim of the mug like I intended to earlier. I merely wanted to show you how I could do so. With this knowledge, I should be able to select almost anything with a regular shape with either the Elliptical Marquee Tool or the Rectangular Marquee Tool.

Remember, when transforming a selection, the transform tools follow the same rules the regular transform tools do, so if you are knowledgeable about them, you should have no issues.

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I hope I clearly explained how to set up guides for easier selections in Adobe Photoshop as well as how to transform selections in the same application. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

The Liquify Filter in Adobe Photoshop is almost an application in and of itself. It’s super powerful and it can add a level of creativity to a photo or graphic rarely seen anywhere else. If someone asked me about this filter, I would simply tell that “It’s huge.” That’s all I’d say. Well, maybe after that, I’d then go into my usual routine of telling them far too much and way more than they were asking about. That’s just the way I am.

In today’s post, I’d like to do some exploring inside of the Liquify Filter panel. Inside of this panel is an independent interface that can be used to do all sorts of things. From expanding to contracting, twirling and positioning. It’s a really great tool to learn about and become familiar with, so, if you have any interest in altering a photo to look completely different than it once did, please read on below. I’ll be covering many of the features of this filter, one by one and with examples of the output of each.

Demo Photo

For today’s post, I’ll be using a photo of a very creepy doll. The reason I chose this photo was because of the fact that it had some really nice features that I’d like to demonstrate on. Namely, the eyes. Many of the tools in the Liquify Filter would work perfectly with a face like this and I think what I decide to cover will be clearly understood.

Converting to a Smart Object

Because I’d like to make my changes in a non-destructive manner and also because I’d like to have the ability to go back and make changes with this particular filter (if need be), I’ll go ahead and convert the background image layer into a Smart Object. To do this, I’ll simply right-click on the layer in question and select Convert to Smart Object.

Now, if I ever want to get back to the original image, I’ll have that ability.

What are Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop?

As you can see, the layer is now a Smart Object.

I didn’t even have to click on the small lock icon to unlock the layer. The convert option was already available in the menu.

Accessing the Liquify Filter

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

After I do that, I’ll see an entirely new window open. This is the Liquify panel.

Now, before I go any further, I want to tell you that there’s an entire strategy built around using this filter. Oftentimes, you’ll want to select and duplicate a particular object into its own layer before using the Liquify Filter on that layer. This is done to create separation from the original image. Since I don’t need any separation and since I’m merely partaking in a few demonstrations, I’ll skip the selections and placing things in their own layers. I’ve just gone ahead and launched the entire image into this filter. Perhaps in the future, I’ll talk more about different methods one can use to go about refining their workflow when it comes to a tool like this.

Also, just to let you know, most of the tools used in this filter act just like the Brush Tool does. In other words, when you click on them to use them, you’ll see a circle that you can resize either larger or smaller. Much of this filter really is a glorified Brush Tool. The only difference is, you can do a heck of a lot more with this thing than you can do otherwise.

How to Adjust the Brush Tool Settings in Adobe Photoshop

Also, I’d like to let you know that I’ll be showing you just the basics today. There is a lot more to this tool than I’ll be discussing here. In future posts, I’ll flesh out much more.

Forward Warp Tool

The first thing many of us think of when we imagine the Liquify Filter is warping or distorting something. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the very first tool on the left menu can do just that. It’s called the Forward Warp Tool and if you select it and resize your brush by pressing the [ or ] keys on your keyboard, you can distort any part of the image you’d like.

I’ll go ahead and do this. I’ll click and drag on the doll’s eyes to distort both of them. I’ll drag one up and one down.

In the above screenshot, you can see the brush I was using. It’s hanging out in the doll’s hair. It has a crosshairs at its center.

Since it’s oftentimes challenging to see exactly where you’ve made changes, after a bunch of changes have been made, there’s an option to turn on a mesh overlay. This overlay displays lines that curve where any change has been instigated. To turn this feature on and off, simply click inside of the check box over in the right panel area.

Take a look how the result looks. It’s clearly visible where I made the distortions. There’s no question about it.

Reconstruct Tool

I would say that 99% of what folks do inside the Liquify Filter panel, they’d like to undo. For instance, I was just playing with warping the eyes. I don’t really want to do that. Instead of clicking the Cancel button down at the bottom of the panel to close things out and start all over again, I can opt to reconstruct what I’ve constructed. In other words, I can undo my changes, to any degree I’d like. They don’t have to be completely reversed. They can be semi-reversely or only slightly reversed.

To activate this tool, I’ll click the second button over inside the left toolbar. It’s called the Reconstruct Tool.

This tool appears the same way the previous one did. It looks like a brush. To reconstruct something I’ve, in this case, warped, all I need to do is click on top of whatever it was that I manipulated. I can also click and drag this brush around to make sure I got everything. I’m going to put the left eye back where it was.

Again, I could have done this only half way or more or less. I wanted to undo the entire warp on this side, so I went a bit further than most people would go. This tool is sort of like magic. It won’t go further than the look of the original photo or graphic, so there’s no need to be light handed with it. Also, just a few dabs are sometimes all that’s necessary.

Smooth Tool

Let’s say I made a fairly sharp warp. I don’t know how – perhaps I used a brush that was too small and the warp came out tighter than I’d like. I’d like to take the edge off of it. To smooth out the sharp warp, I can use the Smooth Tool. It does exactly what I described.

In this next screenshot, I warped the left eye too much. To tamp things back down and to make the warp more rounded, I glided the Smooth Tool brush over the top of the warp a bit. That mellowed things out and forced the warp back into position some.

Twirl Clockwise Tool

This tool is extremely straightforward. It twirls things if you click on them. The default state of this tool is to rotate, or twirl, things clockwise. To twirl them counterclockwise, all you’d need to do is to hold down the Alt key on your keyboard. While holding that key down, click again and the twirl will be reversed.

Again, you can use the Reconstruct Tool to undo any twirling you find yourself in the middle of. That really is a great tool to take advantage of.

Pucker Tool

The Pucker Tool is so fun to play with. It does the opposite of what the Bloat Tool (up next) would do and that is it shrinks things. Part of the reason I chose this creepy photo to play with is because of this tool. I wanted to see what the face would look like if I shunk it a bit. To shrink, or pucker, something, all you have to do is appropriately size the Pucker Tool brush and click. The longer you click, the more the area will pucker.

By the way, this is one way to reduce various sizes of parts of people’s bodies. When you hear that someone’s arms or waist was Photoshopped, this is one way to go about doing that.

Bloat Tool

Puckering is fun, but bloating is more fun. The next tool on the list is called the Bloat Tool.

This tool does exactly the opposite of what the Pucker Tool does. It enlarges areas. So, if you’d like to make something larger in a photograph, simply activate this tool by clicking its icon and then resize your brush. Click on the area you’d like to make bigger and there you go. In the example below, you can see the size of the brush I used as well as the larger eyes that I bloated. Pretty cool.

Push Left Tool

The next tool I’d like to talk about is called the Push Left Tool. This is one that should be used with care because it’s quite powerful. In later posts, I’ll talk about how you can limit and reduce the effects of each tool, but for now, just know that if you activate this tool, click and drag up, you’ll push whatever content that’s underneath your brush to the left. If you click and drag down, you’ll push the content to the right.

In this next screenshot, I dragged up over the left eye and then dragged down over the right eye. You can see how they were pushed apart.

You can also see how easy it is to make someone look completely different than they once did. All this with the Liquify Filter.

Freeze Mask Tool

This is where things begin to get interesting. Much of what I’ve shown you above was like using a sledgehammer to get things done in Photoshop. Sometimes, you need to liquify with care and for that, more delicate tools are necessary. This is where the Freeze Mask Tool comes into play.

Let’s say I wanted to twirl the lower half of the doll’s face, but that I didn’t want any of the upper portion of the face touched or altered. To accomplish something like this, I can’t just make the brush smaller. I’d need something to block out the top portion of the face from being twirled – completely.

If I activate the Freeze Mask Tool, I can size my brush appropriately and then paint over any portion of the photo that I don’t want affected by any other liquify tool. In the example below, I painted over the top portion of the doll’s face. Then, I activated the Twirl Tool and, like I did earlier, twirled the face. As you can see, the bottom portion of the face is twisted, but the top portion of the face hasn’t been touched at all.

Thaw Mask Tool

The final tool I’ll be showing you today is called the Thaw Mask Tool. This one is really easy to grasp.

If I previously used the Freeze Mask Tool and painted some areas red that I didn’t necessarily want painted red, I can unpaint them with this tool. All I’d have to do is click to activate this tool and then size the brush. I can paint this new brush over the red areas to remove that red. This one is sort of like an erasure. It just undoes what was once done.

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As I mentioned above, I’ll be writing more posts on the Liquify Filter tool in upcoming posts. These new posts will undoubtedly touch upon the right side of the Liquify panel that deals with all sorts of controls. I’ll discuss them later. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I have a really great tip for you today. This is something you most likely won’t use that often, but if you’re creating some sort of image combination or design, this one might be right up your alley. It’s a super precise method for both transforming and copying a layer, simultaneously. And the best part is, all it takes is a press of one additional key on your keyboard, plus a hint of creativity.

In today’s post, I’ll be creating a very artsy looking compilation of the same image. Each version of the four images I situate on the canvas will be placed there by using the method I’m going to share below. I’ll start off by opening the first image into Adobe Photoshop. Then, I’ll enlarge the canvas, so I can fit the original image, plus three additional copies of it, side by side and on top of and below one another. After that, I’ll use today’s tip to transform each image and copy it at the same time. Finally, I’ll apply a different blend mode to the tree copies I create, just to make things interesting.

The Demo Image

For this post, I found a really neat beach shot that was taken with a very slow shutter speed. Someone is holding a light and walking up the beach, which resulted in a cool looking spiral light trail effect. Here, take a look:

I could have chosen absolutely any image for this post, but I picked this one simply because it had a unique and interesting flair about it.

Resizing the Canvas in Photoshop

I already have the photo opened up in Adobe Photoshop. I previously ran it through Camera Raw, just to apply my usual edits to it, which brighten and sharpen it, among other things.

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

What I need to do now is to resize the canvas of the workspace so I can fit three additional copies of this photo. This is an easy operation to execute.

I’ll first click on the small lock icon in the image’s layer. This will unlock the image from the background, which will let me move the image around later on.

To resize the canvas proportionally, no matter what size it is, I’ll head up to the Image > Canvas Size menu item.

When I click on this menu item, the Canvas Size dialog box will appear. Inside this dialog box, I’ll make sure the two drop-downs are set to Percentage. Then, since I’d like the canvas size to be double the width and double the height of the original, I’ll type 200 into both of those fields.

When I’m finished with that, I’ll click OK and then watch as my canvas doubles in size, both vertically and horizontally. I should see the transparent checkerboard background under the image. If it’s a solid color, that means that the image layer hasn’t been unlocked and it’s still being treated as the background layer.

Positioning the Image

The next step I’m going to take is to position this image in the lower left corner. To do this, I’m going to select the Rectangular Marquee Tool. From there, I’ll use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+A to select all. Once the entire area is selected with this tool, I’ll then click on the Move Tool. When I do that, I’ll see the options bar change so there are some alignment options available.

Next, I’ll click on the Align Bottom Edges and Align Left Edges options. These are the third and fourth buttons from the left. What doing this does is automatically shift the image to the bottom, left corner.

I’ll also be sure to use the Select > Deselect menu item to deselect the area.

Transforming & Copying the Layer

Okay, I’m ready to get to the meat of this post. What I’d like to accomplish first is to duplicate the current layer so the copy occupies the spot directly above. I also want the copy flipped upside down. Watch how I can easily take care of this task.

If I use the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut, I can free transform this layer. If I use the Alt+Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut, I can transform a copy of this layer, all in one step. Remember that, by adding the Alt, I’m not only transforming, I’m transforming a duplicate. So anything I do to the current layer after that bounding box is visible, will not actually happen to the layer itself. It’ll be happening to the duplicate layer that’s created.

Since I’d like the current layer flipped upside down and above, I’ll press the Alt+Ctrl+T keys on my keyboard now to create the bounding box.

That sets me up for the transformation of the duplicate. Now, to get this layer flipped upside down. I’m going to click and drag the center transformation rotation point to the center top edge. After I position it and let go, it should snap right into place. After that, I’ll right-click on the image somewhere and when the menu appears, I’ll select Flip Vertical.

Once I click on that menu item, the layer will duplicate itself and the duplicate will appear above the original, upside down. Exactly as I wanted it.

After the layer has been duplicated, I’ll press the Enter key to accept the transformation.

To continue on, I’ll select the layer from the Layers panel that I’d like transformed and duplicated, and then follow the same exact instructions as I laid out above. The only difference will be that instead of selecting Flip Vertical from the menu that appears after I right-click, I’ll choose Flip Horizontal. After I take care of these steps, the final image should look like exactly what I display below.

I’d say that’s rather interesting.

Applying Some Blending Modes

At this point, I should have four different layers. Each image position should be clearly visible in those layer thumbnails.

Since I don’t want a monotonous image, I’d like to add a little flavor. I’m going to apply a different blending mode to three of the layers. I’ll leave the original alone, just to remember what it was that brought me to this point.

Since blending modes rely on a complement or contrast between layers, I’ll need to add a white background layer that will reside under all of the existing layers. To add this layer, I’ll click the New Layer icon located at the bottom of the Layers menu. I’ll also be sure to drag this new layer down so it sits underneath all the others.

To fill the layer, I’ll head up to the Edit > Fill menu item and click.

From the Fill dialog box that appears, I’ll choose White from the Contents drop-down. Then, I’ll click OK and watch as the layer in question turns white.

Then, to add the blending modes, I’ll select each layer that I’d like to add a blend to right inside the Layers panel. Then, I’ll use the Blend Mode drop-down that sits at the top of the Layers panel to make the application.

What are Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop?

Learning the Difference Between Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop

Quick Keyboard Shortcut Guide For Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop

For this project, I’ll apply the Subtract blending mode to the upper left image, Luminosity to the upper right and Hard Light to the bottom right. Again, I’ll leave the original bottom left image alone. Now, let’s check out what this piece of art looks like.

I have no idea why I did this, but this result looks pretty cool in this post. It also served its purpose within this demonstration.

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And that, my friends, is how you can duplicate a layer and transform it at the same time. All with one easy keyboard shortcut. Of course I took the long way around, but that’s what I do. I hope you enjoyed the post. If you have any questions or concerns regarding what I shared above, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I know that many photographers and designers choose to do a good percentage of their photo editing in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom before ever entering into Photoshop, but I also recognize the fact that some folks out there don’t even know what Camera Raw and Lightroom are. Many people, including myself up until a few years ago, perform all of their editing straight inside of Photoshop. They open their photos, manipulate them and export them from this one application. While I’m definitely a proponent of using Camera Raw for the heavy lifting, I can understand the simplicity of getting things done using other methods.

Since there’s surely an audience for this type of thing, I thought I’d write today’s post from the perspective of someone, perhaps a photographer, who would like to refrain from using ancillary applications. I’d like to launch a photo into Adobe Photoshop and edit it from start to finish right there. Of course, I won’t show you how to open and export the image (I’ve already written about those topics), but I will cover the steps necessary to enhance the color and vibrancy of what we’re going to be looking at. And the picture I found is perfect too. It’s going to allow me to focus on lighting, which, when done correctly, can make any ho-hum photo look so much better than it originally did.

The Demo Photo

This is the photo I’ll be working with. If you take a look at it, you’ll notice that it’s got some potentially really nice aspects. I’m primarily interesting in bringing out the lighted area right in front of the peoples’ sneakers, bringing some color to the mountains, making the sun more orange and bringing some blues out of the sky.

Also, I think some clarity around the people would help as would some overall vibrance throughout the photo. So, as you can see, I’ll need to take quite a few different approaches to enhance this image. I can’t simply add saturation or something similar and call it a day.

Adding Blue to the Sky

The lowest hanging fruit here is to add some more blue to the sky area. As you can see, it’s very washed out looking. Now, I know I’m limited in this regard because any color I add is going to make the area I’m working on stick out when compared to the remaining photo, so I really need to be careful. I need to keep my changes mild.

The first thing I’ll do is to click on the Color Balance icon in the Adjustments panel. This will pop open the Properties panel for this adjustment. It will also create a Color Balance adjustment layer.

Next, I’ll push the top slider in the Properties panel to the left, towards Cyan, leave the middle slider alone and finally, I’ll push the bottom slider to the right, towards Blue. I’ll keep nudging the sliders until I see the sky turn the color I want. Mind you, the entire photo will turn blue, but ignore all that. Stay focused on only the sky.

From here, since it’s sometimes easier to paint in changes as opposed to removing them from areas I don’t want them, I’ll click on the mask thumbnail in the adjustment layer and then I’ll use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+i (Command+i on Mac) to invert the mask. The white thumbnail should turn from white to black.

Finally, I’ll enlarge the Brush Tool nice and big and I’ll use a soft edge as well. I’ll make sure the brush is white and will paint the areas of the sky that I want to add blue to. I’ll be sure to avoid the sun and the people. I’ll also add some blue to the top area of mountains, since they’re blue already.

How to Adjust the Brush Tool Settings in Adobe Photoshop

Here’s the result. Not overwhelming, but it does add some color.

Making the Sun Orange

Since the sun is almost white in this photo, it really doesn’t tell the story of what a sun should tell. Suns are orange, so that’s the way I’ll attempt to make this one.

For this adjustment, I’ll follow the same exact steps from above, but this time, when I get to the pushing of the sliders, I’ll move the top slider to the right, towards the Red and the bottom slider to the left, towards the Yellow.

After that, I’ll invert the mask for this adjustment layer and I’ll use the large white Brush Tool to dab one big spot over the sun. This should add a sort of an orange and pink fuzzy circle over the white sun. Check it out.

As you can see, just these two changes have made substantial changes to the photo. I couldn’t acquire these changes any other way than to apply them specifically to certain areas.

Adding Green to the Vegetation

Here’s the thing with this photo; it’s just dying to have the vegetation that sits in front of the two people brought out. As it stands, I can see that the sun is shining right on that lighter area. I’d like to accentuate that. So, following what I did above, I’ll add another Color Balance adjustment layer, but this time, I’ll push the middle slider to the right, towards Green and the bottom slider to the left, towards Yellow.

Then, I’ll again invert the mask and I’ll use the Brush Tool to paint white over the green area directly under the sun. My goal with this is to have the pink of the sun overflow the rocks, right into the vegetation. Let’s see how things look so far.

I’m really liking the look of this image a lot. I can tell that I already brought out so many nice colors. The ones that matter, anyway.

Clarifying & Adding Contrast to the People

Okay, I’m done adding individual colors to this photo. I am noticing that the area around the people is kind of dull though. I don’t like it. I think I’ll use the next two adjustment layers to clean that area up. First, I’ll add some brightness, reduce some of the blues and add just a hint of red via the Curves adjustment layer.

With that in mind, I’ll click on the Curves icon in the Adjustments panel and when the pop up appears, I’ll click and drag the primary RGB line upwards just a bit. Then, I’ll use the drop-down that currently says RGB in it to pull the Red line upward a hint and the Blue line downward a hint.

Doing this will add an overall brightness to the area as well as correct the colors within.

Using the Adobe Photoshop Curves Tool For Photography

Working with Selections & Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop

How to Enhance Color Using Curves in Adobe Photoshop

Then again, I’ll invert this adjustment layer’s mask and use the Brush Tool to paint white over the area the people are in. Let’s see how the result looks.

That looks really great, but I still think the people look hazy. I need to add some contrast to that area.

For this adjustment, I’ll follow every step I just took previously, but this time, instead of pulling lines around, I’ll click on the Preset drop down and choose Increase Contrast. This preset will do the dirty work for me and will move the line where it should be. The result will be a cleaner, more contrasted lower right area.

I’ll invert and paint this area identically to the way I did it above as well. Let’s see the result. I have a feeling it’s going to look good.

Oh yeah, now that looks much better than the original. If I wanted to, I could call this image finished. I do want to add just one more touch though.

Adding an Overall Vibrance

I would like to add just a bit of additional color to the entire photo to wrap things up. To accomplish this, I think I’ll click on the Vibrance icon in the Adjustments panel. Once the Properties panel opens up, I’ll push the Vibrance slider to the right as well as the Saturation slider. Just until things look decent overall.

I won’t be doing any inverting or coloring for this adjustment because I would like it applied evenly over everything. This enhancement is barely noticeable, but good nonetheless.

The Final Photo

I think this photo came out pretty good. When I was practicing, all of the changes only took about five minutes to complete. If I had to do this again, I’d probably get things done in under two. That’s how straightforward and direct these adjustment layers can be. Let’s take a look at the final image.

Now, let’s take a peek at the before and after shots.

I’d say that looks much better. I hope you would too.

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See? Wasn’t that easy? I encourage you to open a photo into Photoshop to practice some of what I covered in this post. Once you become comfortable with adjustment layers in Adobe Photoshop, life becomes much easier when you want to edit more complex projects. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!