IndustryDev

One of the most annoying parts of straightening images in Adobe Photoshop has to do with the loss of photo content after the crop. As you twist a photo, the crop area shrinks to compensate for the reduction of area around the edges of the photo. If you’ve ever worked in Photoshop before and if you have done a lot of cropping, you certainly know what I’m referring to. This is especially bad if you’re trying to keep as much of the photo as you possibly can.

Luckily, Photoshop has a really awesome feature that can help you keep as much as the photo as possible, while still straightening it out. This feature is called Content-Aware Crop and it works rather marvelously.

In today’s post, I’m going to introduce Photoshop’s very cool Content-Aware Crop feature to you. The entire thing takes only one quick click of the mouse to activate, so this should be a very straightforward post.

The Demo Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a photo of a dog in front of a lake. The reason I chose this particular photo is because it’s obviously crooked. It needs straightening either by hand or by using the Straighten Tool in Photoshop. I think I’ll probably go with the Straighten Tool because it’s so easy to use and it’ll likely give me a more accurate result. This tool only assists with the crop and it twists the picture in the same exact way as turning it by hand would, so which method I use really makes no difference in the long run.

Straightening the Photo

This image is already opened in Photoshop in its own tab. To straighten this photo out, I’ll click on the Crop Tool icon in the left vertical toolbar to create the crop grid overlay on the photo.

From here, I’ll click on the Straighten Tool up in the options bar.

I’ll draw the straighten line from one edge of the photo to the other. Since I have a water horizon line, I’ll just use that as a guide. By the way, if you would like to learn how to use this Straighten Tool in more depth, please take a look at this post:

How To Straighten a Photo Using Adobe Photoshop

If you look closely at the above screenshot, you’ll see the line I just spoke of running from one side to the other.

Once I draw that line, I can see the photo twist one way or the other. And as I stated above, when it does this, the crop grid shrinks down to compensate for the loss of area. Take a look at this next screenshot. The checkerboard area and anything outside the crop grid will be deleted during a normal crop.

If I were to click Enter on my keyboard right now, all that area would be lost. My photo would also be smaller. Since I don’t want that to happen, I’ll take advantage of the tool this entire post is about.

If I look up at the options bar while the Crop Tool is in action, I’ll see a small check box that’s labeled Content-Aware. Basically, by checking this box, I’ll be telling Photoshop to use its magic to fill in any area that has that checkerboard pattern in it.

The tip in yellow in the above screenshot says Content-Aware Fill Areas Outside the Original Image.

Using Content-Aware Fill During a Crop

So, what happens when I click Enter to apply the crop? Well, the crop grid won’t crop where it currently is. It will actually move back to the outer edge of the entire photo and crop from there, making it so I won’t lose any material from the photo. While that’s happening, Photoshop will fill in any empty areas inside of that outer edge. I’ll go ahead now and press Enter.

You probably can’t see the edges that were filled in because Photoshop did such a good job at it, but they were. Photoshop used an algorithm to fill the areas with colors and shapes that were similar to what was near the area to be filled. That’s why they match up so well.

Oftentimes, when attempting something like this, Photoshop won’t get the results exactly perfect. You may notice some odd artifacts or something like that inside the areas that used to be empty checkerboard pattern. When this happens, feel free to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool or the Lasso Tool combined with a fill option to clean any errors up.

——

As I said at the beginning of this post, this small feature in Photoshop is quite simple to take advantage of. I hope I did a good job explaining how to use it. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Between Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom and Photoshop, there are many tools dedicated to straightening things in images out. While taking photos, tons of variables can throw off the perfect shot. A crooked camera, the wrong position, lens distortion – whatever. What I’m trying to say here is that the field and the lab are two very different things. Out in the field, the goal is to capture the essence of something. Back in the lab, the goal is to fix whatever it is you captured and to make it look its best. Luckily, there are more tools than ever to help out with these goals.

In today’s post, I’m going to share a tool with you that might just save you tons of time. It’s called the Perspective Crop Tool and it’s just about flexible enough to make a very badly composed photo good again. And the best part is, working with this tool is a snap. It’s so easy that I’m not even sure I need to write a post about it. Of course, I will, but I don’t think I need to.

For my demonstration, I’ll take a photo that’s crooked and straighten it out again. Now, I mentioned that there were other tools to handle this and there are. I’ve actually written about a few of them. Think about the Straighten Tool and the Upright Tool in Camera Raw. Photoshop has the Straighten Tool built right into its Crop Tool and also has quite a few Distort Tools and Transform Tools that would help out in situations like these. Today though, I’ll be focusing only on the Perspective Crop Tool because it’s definitely one you want to learn about. It’s probably the most simple to learn of all of them.

By the way, if you would like to learn about the other tools I just mentioned, take a quick look through these posts:

Using the Transform & Free Transform Tools in Adobe Photoshop

How To Straighten a Photo Using Adobe Photoshop

How To Use Guided Upright to Correct Lens Distortion in Adobe Camera Raw

Fixing a Crooked Image in Adobe Camera Raw

The Demo Photo

I have a perfectly good photo to use for this post. It’s actually straight. Take a look:

To make things interesting and to use the tool I’d like to show you in this post, I’ll need to make this image crooked. I’ll do that now.

This crooked shot is perfect because it’ll work as an excellent demo photo for this post. Now, I want you to be aware of something. This tool isn’t only valuable for fixing crooked photos. It’s primary purpose is to alter the perspective in photos (much like the Upright Tool in Camera Raw). So, if you have a picture of a tall church and it looks like the top of the building is more narrow than the bottom, and it really isn’t, you can follow the instructions I give you down below to make the church appear all the same width. All you need to do is outline the building, stretch the bounding box and hit Enter on your keyboard. You’ll see what I’m referring to below.

Where is the Perspective Crop Tool?

I already have the crooked window photo open in Photoshop. To access the Perspective Crop Tool, I’ll need to click on the regular Crop Tool in the left vertical toolbar and drag out to the right. From there, I’ll see the tool I’m interested in directly below that.

I’ll click on that tool and I’ll be ready to go.

Using the Perspective Crop Tool

This tool’s usage is very straightforward. Basically, all you need to do is to click on the corners of the crooked or misshapen item to create a bounding box. I’ll do that as an example now. I’ll begin by clicking on the upper left corner of the window, then down to the lower left, then to the lower right and finally, to the upper right. As I do this, I’ll notice sort of a web being created. It’s extremely easy to understand and conceptualize.

Next, I’ll click on all four center handles and pull outward. Doing this will keep the perspective I initially drew, but will create a larger area to crop.

Finally, I’ll click the Enter key on my keyboard and the crop will take place.

As you can see, the window is now straight. Your mileage will vary with this tool and it’s best used with photos where an object has a perspective that is off. The window I used was just as an example of how the tool functions. You should definitely experiment with other types of photos to get the hang of things. But really, that’s all there is to it. Like I said, this is a fast one.

——

I hope I clearly explained how to use the Perspective Crop Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading.

If you’re a casual user of Adobe Photoshop, you probably don’t do a lot of workspace customizing. If you use Photoshop more extensively, however, you would most likely benefit from making your workspace as efficient as you possibly could. Luckily, this application is extraordinarily customizable and you can make it look and act pretty much any way you want. All it takes is some know how to make the changes you desire.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you how you can add to and remove tools from the left vertical toolbar in Adobe Photoshop. This type of thing is much easier than you would ever expect, so if you would like to minimize the toolbar options, please read on. If you’d like to reorder your tools in the toolbar or even regroup various tools into different sets, this post is definitely for you as well. I’ll be covering all of this down below.

Accessing the Customize Toolbar Dialog Box

A good percentage of toolbar controls reside in one dialog box. This box has the title of Customize Toolbar and can be accessed a few different ways. If I head up to the Edit > Toolbar menu item and click, I’ll find that I can get to it that way.

Alternately, if I head to the bottom of the toolbar itself and click on the selection with three dots lying horizontally and hold the mouse button down for a second or two, I’ll see a fly out that can get me to the same exact dialog box. Check it out.

Either method I choose does the same thing. It’ll open the dialog box I referred to above.

How to Delete a Tool From the Toolbar

This dialog box has a lot going on inside of it. It can do a lot of things. The first task I’d like to show you how to complete is the task of removing a tool from the left toolbar. In all honesty, when I go about doing this, I’m not actually removing a tool at all. What I’m doing is hiding it down at the bottom of the toolbar in a place called Extra Tools. It’s almost as good as removing a tool because it’s essentially gone from the lineup. If your goal is to clean up the toolbar and reduce the number of visible tools showing in it, this is a good option for accomplishing that.

While in the Customize Toolbar dialog box, all I need to do to add a tool to the Extra Tools area is to click and drag that tool over from the left panel to the right one. It’s a drag and drop motion. For instance, if I wanted to remove the Move Tool from the top position in the toolbar, I can drag and drop that one specifically.

After I do that, I’ll see the tool in question over on the right side instead of the left.

If I head up to the upper right corner and click on the Done button, the window will close. I can then see what I’ve done to the toolbar. If you take a look at the next screenshot, you’ll see that the Move Tool is no longer in the top position of the toolbar, but instead is positioned down at the bottom, nested inside the area those three dots control.

If I continued to do this, I’d shrink the size of the left toolbar and increase the size of the nested Extra Tools area.

To replace a tool to its original position, it’s just as simple as removing it. All I would need to do is to drag it from the right side of the panel back to the left, where it originally sat.

How to Reorder Tools in the Toolbar

This is fun. Many folks aren’t into getting rid of too many things in the toolbar. That’s understandable. Reordering though, that’s a different story all together. If you use a specific tool all day long, you may want that one to be located at the top of the toolbar. Or, if you always use the Elliptical Marquee Tool, for instance, instead of the Rectangular Marquee Tool, you may want that one to show on your active bar as opposed to being nested under the primary Rectangular option. Reordering tools in the toolbar is just as simple of an operation as was the first one I showed you above.

To reorder tools in the toolbar, you’ll need to open up the Customize Toolbar dialog box again. Once that’s opened up, all you need to do is to click and drag a particular tool from its original position to a new one. So, if I wanted to move the Lasso Tool to the very top position of the toolbar, all I would do is to click and drag that one up above the Move Tool and drop it. I would need to be sure that it creates its own tool position by dragging it all the way up to the top, but that’s easy. Once that’s done, I can check out my work. It happens in real time.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the Lasso Tool is now in it’s own position, which is away from the other selection tools of its kind.

Next, if I wanted to keep a tool in its own group, but alter the order of that group, I’d simply click and drag up or down only slightly. I would be sure that the tool didn’t stray too far as indicated by the blue lines that show during the clicking and dragging operation. In this next screenshot, you can see that I’m dragging the Elliptical Marquee Tool upward, but that I haven’t dropped it yet.

Once I’m happy with the tool’s position, I can let go of my mouse button and drop it. It will then show where I wanted it to show inside the fly out. Notice how the Elliptical option is first in the screenshot below.

To remove a tool from one set and add it to another, I would follow the same instructions as the others in this section. I would click and drag that tool from the group it’s in and let it go in the group I’d like it to live from then on. It’s very straightforward.

How to Restore the Default Toolbar

Sometimes, we make a lot of changes and for whatever reason, we want to bring things back to their original states. You know, how things were when we first installed Photoshop. Getting this done in Photoshop is no problem at all. To accomplish this, while the Customize Toolbar dialog box is open, all I would need to do is to click on the Restore Defaults button. That would erase everything I changed and bring order back to the universe. Once I click on Done, that’s it. This task will be finished.

How to Save a Custom Toolbar

In my opinion, this is the best part of this entire post because it’s the most practical. After doing all the work of actually creating the perfect toolbar, we also have the opportunity to save that toolbar, just in case we want to create multiple versions of the toolbar to jump back and forth between. Or, perhaps there can be multiple users on a computer and each user has their own preferred toolbar. This would work perfectly for that type of a situation as well.

After making any customization I see fit, I could save that toolbar scenario as what’s called a Preset. Basically, a preset is just any saved instance of a customization that was done inside of Photoshop. To save my toolbar out, I’d click on the Save Preset button on the right side of the Customize Toolbar dialog box. Once I do that, I’ll see a folder window appear that’s already navigated to the Photoshop > Presets > Custom Toolbars folder, where these things on my computer are stored.

I would name the preset something descriptive and then click on the Save button down in the lower right corner of the folder window. That’s it. If I were to create many of these presets and I wanted to jump between them, I could click the Load Preset button in the same dialog box, wait for the window to open, select whichever custom toolbar I’m interested and then click on the Load button down at the bottom right of the folder window. To exit out of all the custom toolbars to use the default one again, I would simply click on the Restore Defaults button in the Customize Toolbar dialog box, as I instructed above in a previous section.

——

I hope I gave you some nice background on how to create and save your very own custom toolbar inside of Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I think the best way I can describe Puppet Warp in Photoshop is to compare it to laying a large bed sheet on a hardwood floor. The sheet would have an image printed on it and if you wanted to reshape the image, you’d simply place your finger on the sheet somewhere and drag. The specific area of the image would move and it would bring some of the rest of the sheet with it. If you can picture this in your mind, you’ll have absolutely no problem using Puppet Warp.

In today’s post, I’d like to cover a few of the aspects that have to do with the Puppet Warp feature of Adobe Photoshop. In all honesty, this really isn’t a very difficult tool to use at all. While it does take some practice to make it effective with any project you might decide to use in in, you can get the swing of things fairly quickly. All it takes is to learn a few different control levers of the tool.

I’m going to keep things as straightforward as possible. I’ll open a picture into Photoshop and activate the Puppet Warp feature. From there, I’ll describe the different aspects of the tool and let you know what they do. Then, I’ll push and pull different areas of the photo so you can get a good understanding of what you can do with it as well.

The Demo Photo

Since the tool I’ll be discussing today is called “Puppet” Warp, I thought it would be fun to use a picture of an actual puppet. I think this is a Robin Hood puppet, but I’m not sure. Either way, it’s appropriate for the context.

Activating Puppet Warp in Photoshop

To take advantage of Puppet Warp in Photoshop, you’ll need to make sure the layer you’re working in isn’t locked. Since I just opened this image, it’s currently considered the Background layer, which has a small lock icon next to the layer name in the Layers panel. To unlock the layer, I’ll simply click on the lock icon. That will unlock the layer as well as change the layer name to Layer 0. Since that’s not a very fun name, I’ll double click right on it and type in Puppet. Then, I’ll hit Enter on my keyboard to apply that change.

Next, I’ll head up to the Edit > Puppet Warp menu item and click.

From there, I’ll see a web of sorts cover the entire image.

just be warned, if the layer is locked, you won’t be able to click the menu item. It’ll be grayed out and inactive.

The Puppet Warp Options Bar

The second you activate this tool, you’ll notice the options bar up top change. You’ll have a few different items to choose from and to customize. Let’s first take a look at the options bar.

Next, I’ll go over some of the different options to give you an understanding of what they do.

Mode: This setting controls how elastic the mesh over the image will be when one of the pins is pulled. The default setting is Normal. Rigid keeps the mesh somewhat tight and Distort amplifies any movement you make when you click and drag on a pin. Below are three examples. The first is Normal, the second is Rigid and the third is Distort.

While there isn’t much difference between the Normal and Rigid settings, just know that while working in Normal, you’ll notice more of the image being dragged with the area you’re pulling. With Rigid, most of the image will remain behind. The dragging feel tighter. With Distort, all bets are off and the entire image moves, even if you pull the pin just a slight amount. If you want a dramatic effect when using this tool and would like to warp the entire area, go ahead and choose the Distort option.

Density: Inside the Density drop-down box, there are three options. The first is Fewer Points, the second is Normal and the third is More Points. With the screenshots below, I’ll show you how the mesh looks with each of these settings. The first will be Normal, the second will be Fewer Points and the Third will be More Points.

When working with points inside of the mesh, the results of your pulling is affected by how dense the mesh actually is. The fewer the points, the more area that will be dragged around. If you want to have an effect on only a small area for precise control, you’d want a higher density of points. Remember, when you use the More Points option, there’s is a lot more information your computer will have to process, so anything you do will take longer to complete.

Expansion: This setting controls the outer edge of the mesh. The default setting is 2 pixels, which keeps the original image aligned with the original edges of the canvas. If I were to click the slider for this control and pull it all the way to the left so it read -20, this is what I would see around the edges of the image.

If I were to do the same thing, but pull the slider all the way to the right, so the Expansion setting was +100, this is what I would see.

Notice the edge now. While this doesn’t seem to make a huge difference when you aren’t warping anything, it does exaggerate your results when you start clicking and dragging pins.

Show Mesh: While working with the tool, you can choose to either show or to hide the mesh overlay. If I keep this box checked, the mesh will show. If I remove the check from this box, the mesh will disappear. This is especially handy if you’re working with a tight area and really need to clearly see whatever it is you’re warping. In the screenshot below, I added a bunch of pins in one area. They show more obviously because there is no mesh in the way of their visibility. If you’d like to hide the pins themselves, you can hold down the H key on your keyboard. Just realize that this is temporary and when you let go of this key, the pins will appear once again.

Pin Depth: Let’s go back to the sheet on the floor example again. Say you place some pins near the upper right corner of the sheet and one final pin in the corner itself. If you grabbed the pin in the corner and pulled the sheet back towards the center, the corner would fold over the sheet so the corner is visible. Conversely, if you grabbed the corner and tucked it under the sheet, you would be hiding the corner. Photoshop gives you a similar ability with the Puppet Warp tool. By clicking the Set Pin Forward button, you would be, in effect, keeping that area of the image higher up than the rest. If you selected the pin and then clicked on the Set Pin Backward button, you’d be hiding that area of the image behind the areas where other pins reside. The best way to demonstrate how this works is to show the corner example. In this first screenshot, I set the corner pin so it’s lower than the two accompanying pins. Then, I pulled the corner pin towards the center of the image.

Do you see how the corner is being tucked under the area of the other two pins? Now, if I select the corner pin by clicking on it and click on the Set Pin Forward button up in the options bar and then pull the corner pin in the same direction, I’ll find that the corner of the image is folded over on top of the rest of the image.

This will definitely take some practice to get used to it, but it’s a worthy feature to have available, especially when working with objects that have been clipped out of an image or when working with vector graphics.

Rotate: You have two options to rotate an image around a pin. You can either set the Rotate option to Auto and click and drag an image to any rotation degree you wish with your mouse, or you can set this option to Fixed and type in the degree of the rotation you’d like it set to. If this option is set to Auto, you’ll notice that the image sort of goes nuts when you begin applying and dragging pins. I prefer to set this option to Fixed for the ultimate control. If I need to rotate the image at all, I’ll type in what I want it set to. In the screenshot below, I chose 10 degrees.

Now, no matter how many pins I apply to this image and no matter how I tug them around, the image won’t rotate any more.

How to Actually Warp an Image

In this final section, I’m going to show you the very basics of how to warp an image using the Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop. Basically, all you need to do is click on an image where you would like to hold it still. In these areas, by clicking, you’ll be adding pins. Consider these pins to be something like thumbtacks. If you apply a thumbtack to the sheet example, those areas will be stuck to the ground. If I add two pins to the working image in this post, I’ll secure those areas. If I go ahead and click to add a third pin and keep it active by not clicking on anything else (indicated by a white dot at the center of the pin), I can consider that a piece of tape on the sheet. If I stick some tape to the sheet and pull, that part of the sheet will move, while the other two pins stay put. Let me show you visually.

I circled the pins in red. The center bottom pin is the active one and the one I pulled straight down. By doing this, I pulled the entire center down, as seen by the checkerboard background up top.

It’s really not any more difficult than that. Of course, other things will come into play when using this tool, such as what the image is that you’re working with and whether or not it’s a Smart Object. Anything like this is beyond the scope of this post, but I may revisit this topic in the future to cover them. For now, I encourage you to experiment with this feature inside of Photoshop. You may have a use for it in the future and when that time comes, it’ll be extremely helpful if you have a bit of experience with it.

——

I hope I clearly explained the basics behind the Puppet Warp feature inside Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I’ve done a lot of graphics in my day. My favorites, by far, were some car and motorcycle show flyers I used to create a few times a year for some radio station events back between 2002 and 2007. The radio stations I worked for hosted many events like this and being responsible for all the media kept me very busy. It was rewarding though and I actually have a few of the fliers in frames in my office. I’m looking at them right now.

I decided that it might be fun to walk through the process of making one of these fliers, step by step, on this blog. I’ll start with the background graphics and move onto the logos, text and anything else that might make the flier look really good. It’s these step by step projects that are the most helpful to those who are looking to learn how to operate Photoshop, in my opinion.

In today’s post, I’ll be creating a background for a flier I’m going to develop inside of Adobe Photoshop. Doing this sort of thing isn’t really difficult at all. All it takes is a few skills, some imagination and some direction. The colors and shapes need to match up with the vision of the rest of the final product, so when making something like this, it’s important to stay focused and to not go overboard. With that said though, this part of the process should be fun.

To create this background, I’ll be taking advantage of a gradient layer as well as three other image layers. I’ll be using different blend modes to make everything come together seamlessly. Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through every step of this process.

Creating a New File & a Gradient

Since this project is only going to be posted on this blog, I’ll stick with the pixel dimension of 1000×667, like I always use. If I were to go to print with something like this, I’d use 300dpi resolution, instead of 72dpi, CMYK colors, instead of RGB and I’d have the physical size set to whatever the final print dimensions call for. Since this is only for web, things will be much more straightforward.

To create a new document, I’ll head up to the File > New menu item and click. Once I do that, a dialog box will appear that calls for some specs. I’ll fill the fields in with the information I just shared with you and when I’m finished, I’ll click on the Create button.

Now that the file is created, I’m going to head over to the Layers panel on the right and click on the small lock icon in the layer that’s currently called Background. Doing this will unlock the layer (removing the lock icon) and will allow me to work with it. Once I do that, I’ll double click on the word “Background” and I’ll type Gradient in it’s place and press the Enter key on my keyboard. Renaming this layer is just to keep things organized. Now it’s time to actually create the gradient.

There are a few different methods for creating a gradient in Adobe Photoshop, but for now, I think the easiest one to use would be via the Layer Style dialog box. To access this box, I’ll double click on the white thumbnail of the Gradient layer in the Layers panel. When I do that, the dialog box appears. Once that opens, I’ll click on the Gradient Overlay check box and then click right on the words “Gradient Overlay.” Clicking on the check box activates the style and clicking on the words actually gets you into the area to change the related settings.

There’s sort of a lot to creating gradients in Photoshop. It’s not too terribly challenging, but a thorough look is beyond the scope of this post. You can count on the fact that I’ll write something in the future that will cover every last detail, but for now, I’ll simply show you the settings I used for the gradient I created for this project.

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see the settings I’m referring to here. I kept the Blend Mode set to Normal and the Opacity set to 100%. Below the Gradient box, I set the Style to Radial and kept the Angle set to 90 degrees. Finally, I set the Scale to 150%. As far as the colors of the gradient itself, I clicked right onto the gradient color bar and waited for the Gradient Editor panel to appear.

Once I was in the editor, I clicked on one of the gradients I previously imported and adjusted the colors from there. Again, I’ll cover how to adjust the colors in a later post.

How to Load Additional Gradients into Adobe Photoshop

When I was finished, I clicked both OK buttons and returned to the image I created so far.

If I need to alter the look of the gradient later on, I can easily do that. It’s super simple because of the method I chose to create it.

Adding Additional Images

For this part of the project, I’m going to open three additional photos into Photoshop and drag them over into the project file. Here’s a look at the original photos I’ll be using.

I’ll stack these images on top of the gradient and then use blending modes to seamlessly integrate them with each other.

Adding the First Image

I’ll drag the first image over into the project file. This will be the one with the cars traveling on the highway at night. Once I have this image included in the project file and I have it sized and centered to match the file dimensions, I’ll go ahead and apply the Overlay blending mode to it that inside the drop-down box at the top of the Layers panel.

Doing this will sort of mix these two layers together and will give me this result.

Adding the Second Image

Next, I’ll do the same exact thing for the second image. This will be the block wall photo. I’ll drag it over into the project file and after I’m finished sizing and positioning it, I’ll apply the same Overlay blend mode to it. I’ll get this result.

If you look at the above image, you can see parts of the gradient, the highway and the block wall. They’re all sort of mixed together.

Adding the Third Image

This one is going to be a bit different. I’ll drag the white and purple blur over into the project file, but this time, I’m going to apply the Hard Light blend mode to it. This is going to offer a slightly different look to the image than it would have if I applied the Overlay blend mode. Actually, the Hard Light blend mode is the opposite of the Overlay blend mode. Here’s the result.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. My goal is to create a background that you can’t quite put your finger on. As it stands, it’s pretty cool. I do want to make a few changes though.

Adjusting the Layer Opacity

I did some experimenting and I found that if I reduce the opacity of the bottom, gradient layer and the top layer that I just added to 75%, things look a little less over the top. To do this, I clicked on the Opacity slider in the Layer panel and dragged it to the left.

Doing this lessens the intensity of the gradient layer and lightens up the highway a bit so it’s more visible. Here’s the result.

I’d say this is a good start. As you can see, creating a background layer of almost any look isn’t that difficult. If you have good source photography along with some interesting ideas, you can make a graphic that will knock people’s socks off. And the best part is, a background like the one I just made it completely adjustable. I know I haven’t gone any further in the project yet, but if I find that I need a different look, I can easily apply it. In the next few posts on this topic, I’ll be adding graphics and text, so be sure to check those out.

——

I hope I clearly demonstrated how to combine multiple images, along with a gradient layer to create a composite in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

We’ve all seen a stunning sunset. Most of us have probably tried to take a picture of one. If you’re anything like me, you saw the sunset, fell in love with it, took a photo of it and after you looked at the photo, wondered what in the heck happened to it. While sunsets often look wonderful in person, they rarely look that way as a photo.

But wait! What about all those photos of sunsets we see online that look absolutely stellar? Well, I’ll tell you. The owners of those photos edit them in Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom or Photoshop. Perhaps even a combination of all three. You’d probably faint if you saw the “before” shots of these pictures. You’d definitely tell yourself that you can do what they did, if you only knew how.

In today’s post, I’m going to give you a starting point for creating really killer sunset pictures. Of course you’ll need to start off with a picture of a sunset. After that, you’ll do all your editing right inside Adobe Photoshop. It’s really easy too. To alter the entire look of the picture, all you’ll need to do is create a few adjustment layers, make some edits to them and then take advantage of a blending mode. That’s it.

The Demo Sunset Shot

This is the original photo that I’ll be using for this post. It’s of a skate park at dusk. We have a rider at the center of it and the ocean behind everything. The sun is going down and the photo was taken during the “golden hour,” but for some odd reason, there seems to be a blue hue enveloping everything in the scene. I’ll fix that and make the atmosphere pop.

It’s interesting, the more I look at this photo, the more I don’t notice how blue it is. If you aren’t aware, blue isn’t a good color for sunrises and sunsets.

Adding an Adjustment Layer

I already have this photo opened up in Adobe Photoshop. As you can see from the next screenshot, there’s only one layer and that’s the photo itself.

The first thing I’m going to do is to click on the Color Balance icon in the Adjustments panel. This will add the first adjustment layer I’m looking for as well as open the Properties panel for this adjustment.

Making the Adjustments

My goal here is to get rid of the blue that’s in the photo. With that in mind, I’m going to push the top slider in the Properties panel all the way to the right towards the Red position. Then, I’ll push the bottom slider all the way to the left, towards the Yellow position. This will effectively remove all of the Cyan and Blue from the photo and boost the Red and Yellow colors.

Here’s a screenshot of the Properties panel.

And this is the resulting image.

I know, it doesn’t look very good. Don’t worry, I’m not finished.

Applying a Blend Mode

What I forgot to mention above was that I don’t really want to remove “all” of the blue from the photo. I just want to remove most of it. I’d like to neutralize it and add some yellow and red.

Do you remember that time I wrote those awesome posts that talked about blending modes? If you don’t, you can click through to them here:

What are Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop?

Learning the Difference Between Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop

In those posts, I explained what blending modes are and what they can do. You should really read them over. If you click the second link and scroll down the accompanying page, you’ll find a section called Soft Light Blending Mode. In that section, I define what that particular blending mode does.

Soft Light – Darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened as if it were burned in. Painting with pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area, but does not result in pure black or white.

Basically, I’m looking for some color contrast in the photo I’m working on and the Soft Light blend mode will give it to me. To apply this blend mode, I’ll first make sure the adjustment layer in the Layers panel is selected and then I’ll click the drop-down at the top of the same panel and then select Soft Light.

Making this change will give me a photo that looks like this:

It’s already looking better.

Applying Another Adjustment Layer

I created a nice base look, but now I want to add another Color Balance adjustment layer to tweak the reds and yellows even more. This time though, I’ll be doing it without any blending mode, so these changes will be more pronounced. As you may have already guessed, I certainly can’t push the top and bottom sliders all the way to the right and left, respectively, this go round. I’ll need to push them just a tad until the photo looks warm enough for my liking.

I think +25 for the top slider and -25 for the bottom slider is fine.

Now, I get a final photo that looks like this:

Let’s take a look at a before and after shot.

——

Like I said at the top of this post, this is just the beginning of the possible edits someone can make to a photo like this. If I were to continue on, I’d probably add some blue back to the sky as well as make a few more tweaks. For now, this is good and I think things look pretty great.

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