Photoshop Elements 3 Solutions: The Art of Digital Photography- P4 pdf

74 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Figure 3.17: Before using the Dodge tool (left). After using the Dodge tool (right). To use the Brush to whiten teeth: 1. Choose a color to paint with by selecting the Eyedropper tool ( ) from the toolbar. Click the lightest section of a tooth. Now click the foreground color swatch ( ) in the toolbar, which now contains your sampled color. This opens the Color Picker. Select a color that is brighter than the sampled color. On the left in Figure 3.18, you can see the sampled color shown in a small circle. The larger circle shown above and to the left of the sampled color is the mouse cur- sor, which you can move around to select a lighter color. When you click the cursor on a color, that color appears in the upper half of the color rectangle to the right of the color slider, with the sampled color appearing in the lower half of the rectangle. 2. Select the Brush tool ( ) from the toolbar. 3. Select an appropriately sized soft-edged brush from the options bar. Set the Mode to Lighten and the Opacity to 15–20 percent. 4. Paint carefully over the teeth until you get the effect you want. Figure 3.18: Select a color (left) that is brighter than the tooth (right). To fix a tooth with the Liquify filter: 1. Make a selection around the area you want to fix. 2. Choose Liquify from the Filter menu (Filter  Distort  Liquify). 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 74 75 ■ SELECTIVELY REMOVING WRINKLES AND BLEMISHES WITH THE HEALING BRUSH 3. Select the Bloat tool ( ) if you want to enlarge a tooth, the Pucker tool ( ) if you want to shrink one, or the Warp tool ( ) if you want to straighten one. Choose an appropriate brush size and a relatively low brush pressure. 4. Place the brush over the area you want to fix. It will take some experimenta- tion, but you can shrink the gaps between teeth, fill in a missing piece of enam- el, or straighten a crooked tooth. In Figure 3.19 you can see how I’ve fixed two teeth by using the Liquify filter and the Bloat tool. Figure 3.19: Before applying the Liquify filter (left) and after (right). Selectively Removing Wrinkles and Blemishes with the Healing Brush Personally, I like wrinkles; they show character and maturity. However, I know that not all wrinkles are caused by age and character. Many times they are unwanted arti- facts of a high-speed contrasty film or harsh lighting. Getting rid of wrinkles and removing blemishes and other unwanted artifacts from the face is especially easy with Photoshop Elements’ Healing Brush tool, which is similar in practice to the Clone Stamp tool. You start by clicking and defining a source. Then you “paint” over the area you wish to replace or “heal.” But the Healing Brush tool does much more than simply duplicate and replace pixels. It matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the source pixels. The result is often a seamless blend that leaves little or no trace of the original underlying flaw. To use the Healing Brush tool to eliminate wrinkles or other small skin blemishes: 1. Select the Healing Brush tool ( ) from the toolbar. 2. In the options bar, select a brush size. The brush size will vary depending on the target. In general, it’s a good idea to pick a size 30 percent or so larger than the crease of the wrinkle or circumference of the blemish. Hard-edged brushes are usually more effective than soft-edged ones. The Healing Brush tool applies a complex blending algorithm to the edges of the brush, and a soft-edged brush adds a variable to the equation that makes the results unpredictable. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/18/04 1:21 PM Page 75 76 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ 3. From the Healing Brush tool’s options bar, set the remaining options as follows: Mode: Normal. Choosing “Replace” basically turns the Healing Brush tool into a Clone Stamp tool, which isn’t what you want for this exercise. Source: Sampled. The Pattern choice blends a chosen pattern over the target area, which isn’t useful for this kind of cosmetic healing. Aligned. You can go either way with this setting depending on the size and location of the flaw you are healing. Selecting Aligned means pixels are sampled continuously, always at a relative distance from the target. Deselecting Aligned means that after you click to define a source, Photoshop Elements will use that initial source point as a reference when you click and paint with the Healing Brush—no matter where you move on the image. It will continue to use the original defined source even if you release the mouse button and click another target area. Use All Layers. Select this if you want to sample data from all visible layers. Select All Layers is particularly useful if you want to keep your original image untouched. In this case, simply create a new layer (Layer  New  Layer), make it active, and follow the subsequent steps for using the Healing Brush tool. The healing will occur on the new layer, leaving the underlying layer untouched. When you are completely satisfied with your results, you can choose Layer  Merge Down or Layer  Flatten Image. Or you can save the layered PSD file. 4. Pick an area adjacent to the wrinkle or blemish and sample it by holding down the Alt/Option key and clicking. Now click and hold the mouse, and paint over the wrinkle or blemish. When you release the mouse, the Healing Brush goes to work. If the area you painted over is large, it may take time to complete the healing process. If the healing is acceptable, you are finished. If not, use the Undo command (Ctrl+Z / + Z, or Edit  Undo) and start over. Often it is just a matter of changing the brush size to get it right. Sometimes, if the area you want to heal is adjacent to a detail with strong contrast—for example an eyelid or a lip—you’ll need to isolate the target area with a selection and then apply the Healing Brush tool. I used this method to remove the wrinkles shown in Figure 3.20 and to remove the blemishes shown in Figure 3.21. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 76 77 ■ SELECTIVELY REMOVING WRINKLES AND BLEMISHES WITH THE HEALING BRUSH Figure 3.20: Before (left) and after (right) using the Healing Brush tool. Figure 3.21: Before (left) and after (right) using the Healing Brush tool. Keep in mind that wrinkles are technically shadows on a digital image. If you want to diminish their appearance—and not get rid of them completely—you can just lighten them up. To use the Dodge tool to reduce wrinkles: 1. Select the Dodge tool ( ) from the toolbar. Set it to Midtones and use an appropriately sized, soft-edged brush. If needed, magnify your image so the wrinkles fill the screen. 2. With a very low exposure—say 10–20 percent—gently stroke the wrinkle away with the brush. Don’t go too far. Before you make a final judgment, you should zoom back to normal magnification. That way, you’ll have a more objective view of your work. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 77 78 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Diminishing and Straightening the Nose Wide-angle lenses or oblique camera angles can make a nose seem much larger than it is. Again, the Liquify filter is a good way to diminish an unnaturally large nose—or to straighten a crooked one. To use the Liquify filter to diminish or straighten a nose: 1. Select the nose by using any of the selection tools. 2. Choose Liquify from the Filter menu (Filter ➢ Distort ➢ Liquify). 3. To diminish a nose, select the Pucker tool ( ). Pick a brush size that fits over the entire nose. Select a brush pressure less than 50. Hold the cursor over the nose and click incrementally until you get the effect you want. 4. To straighten a nose, select the Warp tool ( ). Click and drag to shift the nose into a straighter position. I used a combination of these techniques to achieve the effects shown in Figures 3.22 and 3.23. Figure 3.22: Before applying the Liquify filter (left). After applying the Liquify filter (right). Figure 3.23: Before applying the Liquify filter (left). After applying the Liquify filter (right). 4363_ch03.qxd 10/19/04 3:40 PM Page 78 79 ■ MAKING PEOPLE GLOW Making People Glow In the “old days” I used to stretch a nylon stocking over my darkroom enlarger lens to give a portrait a glamorous, dreamy glow. It’s easy to simulate this look with Photoshop Elements. Look at the difference between the images in Figure 3.24. Figure 3.24: The original photo (left). It’s easy to create a softer look (right). Here’s what I did to create the softer effect: 1. I selected and made a copy of the background layer and named it Blur. You can copy a selected layer by choosing the Duplicate Layer command either from the Layer menu on the main menu bar or from the Layers palette menu. You can also duplicate a layer by selecting it and dragging it to the New Layer button ( ) at the top of the Layers palette. Windows users can right-click the selected layer—but not the thumbnail—and choose Duplicate Layer from the pop-up menu. Mac users can do the same by Ctrl+clicking the layer bar. 2. With the Blur layer selected, I applied a strong Gaussian blur (Filter Blur  Gaussian Blur). The exact amount of blurring will depend on the size of your image. In the case of this image, I chose a Radius of 30 pixels from the Gaussian Blur filter dialog box. 3. In the Layers palette, I selected Overlay from the Blending Mode drop-down list (see Figure 3.25). (You can also experiment with the Soft Light, Hard Light, and Screen blending options.) I diminished the Opacity setting in the Layers palette to 90 percent, which gave me the effect I wanted. Again, the exact opacity that looks the best will depend on your image. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 79 80 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Figure 3.25: The soft look is created with a combination of blurring and different Layers settings (left). The blur effect is selectively removed from the neck and chest area with the Eraser tool (right). 4. I liked the effect of the blurring on the face. However, I wasn’t pleased with the way the effect blurred the clothes. To selectively remove the effect from that area, I chose the Eraser tool ( ) from the toolbox and selected an appropriately sized, soft-edged brush. With the Blur layer selected, I used the eraser to remove the blur effect from the tie and shirt (see Figure 3.25). As you can see in Figure 3.26, the effect also works well in grayscale. To soften this image, I followed the same steps; however, before I began, I desaturated the image by choosing Enhance  Adjust Color  Remove Color from the main menu bar. I also chose Screen, instead of Soft Light, from the Blending Mode pop-up menu and dropped the Opacity setting to 25 percent. I also could have turned the color image into black-and-white by changing the mode from RGB to Grayscale (Image  Mode  Grayscale from the main menu). Figure 3.26: The soft-focus effects work with a black-and-white image as well. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 80 81 ■ CREATING A GRAINY 35 MM BLACK - AND - WHITE LOOK Creating a Grainy 35mm Black-and-White Look What do you think of when you see an old, grainy, black-and-white print? To me it evokes the ’60s and ’70s and movies like Blow-Up. Whatever. The fact is, it’s easy to simulate this grainy, gritty look with Photoshop Elements. That’s what I did to a contemporary color photo I took of TechTV guest host and Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak (see Figure 3.27). Figure 3.27: The original color image (left). The image after applying desaturation and the Noise filter (right). Here’s how I created the effect I wanted: 1. I desaturated the color image (Enhance  Adjust Color  Remove Color). 2. I increased the contrast by a factor of +12 (Enhance  Adjust Lighting  Brightness/Contrast). 3. I applied the Add Noise filter (Filter  Noise  Add Noise). In the Add Noise filter dialog box, I chose Gaussian rather than Uniform to authentically dupli- cate the erratic size and shape of the film’s silver halide crystals. To prevent the introduction of color, I selected the Monochromatic check box (see Figure 3.28). I played with the Amount setting until I got the look I wanted. In this case, 30 percent was about right. Figure 3.28: The Add Noise filter dialog box and settings. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 81 82 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ To duplicate a similar effect, you can also try the Mezzotint filter (Filter  Pixelate  Mezzotint). I prefer the Add Noise filter because I have more control over the way the image looks, but some people may prefer the Mezzotint look. Creating a Digital Fill Flash It’s common to take a picture of a person against a bright background. However, if you don’t use a fill flash or specifically expose for the skin tones, a face will turn into a silhouette (see Figure 3.29). Photoshop Elements includes a useful Shadows/Highlights command that does a good job of creating a digital fill flash, balancing the foreground with the background. (In earlier versions of Photoshop Elements, a less sophisticated version of Shadows/Highlights was called Fill Flash.) Figure 3.29: Before applying Shadows/Highlights, the face is too dark (left). After applying Shadows/Highlights (right), both the face and the background are fine. Here is what I did to fix this picture of San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds: 1. I selected Shadows/Highlights from the Enhance menu (Enhance  Adjust Lighting  Shadows/Highlights). 2. I left the Lighten Shadows slider settings at 50 percent, which made the face look right. I also left the other settings alone. 3. I clicked OK. That’s all. It was that easy. Note: One of the most effective ways of emphasizing the features of someone is to iso- late their face from the background. If you shoot a portrait with a longer than normal focal length and a wide f-stop, the background will naturally fade out of focus. However, when this shooting this way isn’t possible, or if you inherit a photo with a distracting background, you can use Photoshop Elements to save the day. Later in the book I’ll show you how to use the Gaussian blur filter to isolate an object from its background,  Chapter 4, “Adding Selective Focus.” 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 82 83 ■ MAKING DISTORTED FACES NORMAL Making Distorted Faces Normal Facial distortion is often caused by inferior optics or by the inherent effect of wide- angle lenses. It can also be caused by illness or certain prescription drugs. I’ve noticed that some faces are more puffy in the morning than later in the day, or at certain times of the month. Whatever the cause, if the distortion is unwanted, you can use Photoshop Elements’ Transform tools to compress and reshape a face. Figure 3.30 shows an example of distortion caused by poor optics. In this case, artist Tom Mogensen used a digital video camera at a San Francisco Giants baseball game to capture a still image frame of the legendary Bobby Thomson and Debby Magowan, the wife of one of the owners of the Giants. Instead of selectively fixing just one face, as I did in the preceding example, Tom applied a global fix to the entire image. Figure 3.30: This distortion is global (left) and affects the entire image. After applying the Transform  Distort command, the image looks normal (right). Here is what he did: 1. He selected the entire image (Select  All or Ctrl+A / +A). 2. He chose Image  Transform  Distort. 3. He dragged the right side handle slightly toward the center, then dragged the left side handle toward the center. He went back and forth until the faces looked just right. When he was finished, he clicked the Commit button ( ) at the top of the options bar. The results are shown on the right in Figure 3.30. 4363_ch03_p4.qxd 10/9/04 10:03 PM Page 83 [...]... selected (The brush size you choose will depend on your image.) I positioned the cursor at the top far left of the dramatic sky and, while holding the Alt/Option key, I clicked and sampled I placed the cursor on the top far left of the image of the man and the horse and “painted” the new sky I started with a horizontal stroke, going from left to right, filling in the top 33 percent of the sky Then, and... distracting Look at the image on the left in Figure 3. 38 The glare on the left is noticeable but slight, and it is easy to fix The glare on the right fills the lens and blocks part of the eye Although it takes a bit more work, it’s also relatively easy to fix The image on the right shows the results 89 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 To fix the glare on the left: I selected the Clone Stamp tool ( ) In the options bar,... that most of the colorizing he does is really lightening and darkening certain parts of the hair to model or mold it The secret, he says, is to lighten the front part so it creates a glow around the face while darkening the back to bring out the highlights in the front He also adds streaks of light and dark to give the hair a sense of depth All of this is easy to do in Photoshop Elements Look at the difference... changed the opacity of the Clone Stamp tool in the options bar to 65 percent I painted another horizontal layer of sky, this one just under the one that was painted at 100 percent opacity I painted about 40 percent of the sky this way and stopped just above the top of the horse and the top of the rock talus At this point, I wasn’t very precise and some of the clone spilled over the horse and the rock... Highlights Then I clicked OK Figure 3. 34: By selecting a new layer with these settings, you can literally paint highlights onto an image 2 3 I selected the Brush tool ( ) from the toolbar and then selected the Airbrush icon in the toolbar ( ) I selected an appropriately sized, soft-edged brush from the options bar and set the Mode to Normal and the Opacity to 4 percent In the Color Picker at the bottom of the. .. this time I painted the back of the hair with a black foreground color instead of white Figure 3. 35 shows all my layers after painting with the Airbrush Figure 3. 35: Highlights and shadows are painted onto their own layers It’s also easy to add color to hair by using the Color Replacement tool Compare the two images in Figure 3. 36 87 ■ FIXING HAIR Figure 3. 36: Hair before using the Color Replacement... effect to the same image, but rather than canceling each other, the combination of the two effects gave my image a soft, dreamy look and yet kept much of the sharpness in some of the detailed areas I also could have modified the effects of these two layers by using the Eraser tool ( ) and selectively erasing each effect from certain areas Figure 4.12: This is how the shot looked during the day (left)... layer, he used the Dodge tool ( ) from the toolbox to paint the reflection of the headlights in the pavement The conversion of a single frame from day to night was a piece of cake for Michael compared to what he had to do to convert the entire film footage into night That was a task for another program and a subject for another book! Making Weather If you don’t like the weather, use a Photoshop Elements. .. well Working with the Midday Sun The image on the left in Figure 4.15 shows a field of wheat shot in the middle of the day by field biologist Laura Laverdiere of the Syngenta Crop Protection company She used a digital camera to document the effects of different fertilizers and insecticides The midday sun washed out much of the color, making it more difficult to see the difference between the healthy and... sized, soft-edged brush and set the Mode to Normal and the Opacity to 75 percent I sampled an area outside the glare and then “cloned” this area to the glare To fix the glare on the right: I used the Lasso tool ( ) to make a selection of the left eye I then made a copy of this and pasted it onto its own layer (Ctrl+C / +C and then Ctrl+V / +V) I named this layer Right Eye I selected the eye in the layer . Figure 3. 30. 436 3_ch 03_ p4. qxd 10/9/04 10: 03 PM Page 83 84 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Fixing Hair You can do a lot to hair with the help of Photoshop Elements. You can tint it, you can change the. between the images in Figure 3. 33. 436 3_ch 03_ p4. qxd 10/9/04 10: 03 PM Page 85 86 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Figure 3. 33: Before (left) and after (right) adding highlights. Here is what I did to add the. gave me the effect I wanted. Again, the exact opacity that looks the best will depend on your image. 436 3_ch 03_ p4. qxd 10/9/04 10: 03 PM Page 79 80 CHAPTER 3: BETTER FACES ■ Figure 3. 25: The soft look