ptg 251Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Continued Step One: Here’s the image we’re going to work on, and if you look at her eyes, and the eye socket area surrounding them, you can see that they’re a bit dark. Brightening the whites of the eyes would help, but the area around them will still be kind of shadowy, so we may as well kill two birds with one stone, and fix both at the same time. Step Two: Go to the Layers panel and duplicate the Background layer (the quickest way is just to press Command-J [PC: Ctrl-J]). Now, change the blend mode of this duplicate layer from Normal to Screen (as seen here). This makes the entire image much brighter. This is a very common problem, and photographers use everything from reflectors to strobes placed down low in front of the subject to open up dark, deep-set eye sockets. Luckily, there’s a pretty quick and easy way to fix this problem in Photoshop. Here’s how: Fixing Dark Eye Sockets SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 252 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: We need to hide the brighter layer from view, so press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (it’s shown circled here in red). This hides your brighter Screen layer behind a black layer mask (as seen here). Now, switch to the Brush tool (B), choose a smallish, soft-edged brush, and paint a few strokes over the dark eye sockets and eyes (as shown here). Now, I know at this point, it looks like she was out in the sun too long with a large pair of sunglasses on, but we’re going to fix that in the next step. Step Four: What brings this all together is lowering the Opacity of this layer, until the parts that you painted over and brightened in the previous step blend in with the rest of her face. This takes just a few seconds to match the two up, and it does an in- credibly effective job. See how, when you lower the Opacity to around 35% (which works for this particular photo—each photo and skin tone will be different, so your opacity amount will be, too), it blends right in? Compare this image in Step Four with the one in Step One and you’ll see what I mean. If you’re doing a lot of photos, like high school senior portraits, or bridesmaids at a wedding, this method is much, much faster than fixing everyone’s eyes individually. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 253Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Continued Step One: When you have a Brush tool selected, just press-and-hold Option-Control (PC: Ctrl-Alt) and then click-and-drag (PC: Right-click-and-drag) to the right or left onscreen. A red brush preview will appear inside your cursor (as seen here)—drag right to increase the brush size preview or left to shrink the size. When you’re done, just release those keys and you’re set. Not only is this the fastest way to resize, it shows you more than just the round brush-size cursor—it includes the feath- ered edges of the brush, so you see the real size of what you’ll be painting with (see how the feathered edge extends be- yond the usual round brush size cursor)? TIP: Change Your Preview Color If you want to change the color of your brush preview, go to Photoshop’s Preferences (Command-K [PC: Ctrl-K]), click on Cursors on the left, and in the Brush Preview section, click on the red Color swatch, which brings up a Color Picker where you can choose a new color. In CS4, Adobe added one of those seemingly little things that is actually a really big thing—the ability to resize your brush visually onscreen. I’ve been using the Left and Right Bracket keys to change brush sizes for years, and that works pretty well, but you never get exactly the size you want (because they jump between preset increments), and you never get there fast enough. But now, not only do you finally get the exact size you want really fast—the first time—you can use a slight variation of the technique to change the hardness of your brush, as well. Ahhh, it’s always the little things, isn’t it? The Fastest Way to Resize Brushes Ever (Plus, You Can Change Their Hardness, Too) Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 254 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Two: To change the Hardness setting , you do almost the same thing—press-and-hold Option-Control (PC: Ctrl-Alt), but this time, click-and-drag (PC: Right- click-and-drag) down to harden the edges, and up to make them softer (here I dragged down so far that it’s perfectly hard-edged now). TIP: Turn on Open GL Drawing If you don’t see the red brush preview, you’ll need check your preferences first. So, go to Photoshop’s preferences (Command-K [PC: Ctrl-K]), and click on Performance on the left side. In the GPU Settings section near the bottom right, turn on the Enable OpenGL Draw- ing checkbox, then restart Photoshop. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg SCOTT KELBY 255Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Continued Step One: Start by opening the image you want to make a selection in, and getting the Quick Selection tool from the Toolbox (as shown here). If you’re thinking this is the same tool from Photoshop CS4…well, you’re right. But, it’s the new features in Refine Edge that make it really powerful. If you never used the Quick Selection tool back in CS4, here’s how it works: you just take it and paint loosely over the areas you want to select, and it kind of expands to select the area (kind of like a much smarter version of the Magic Wand tool, but using different technology). Step Two: Take the tool and paint over your subject. Don’t forget the flyaway hair on the left side. If it selects too much, press-and-hold the Option key and paint over that acci- dentally selected area to remove it from your selection. Remember, it’s not going to look perfect at this point, but that’s what the Refine Edge control is for, so go ahead and click the Refine Edge button up in the Options Bar (as shown here). Most of the selecting jobs you’ll ever have to do in Photoshop are pretty easy, and you can usually get away with using the Magic Wand, Lasso, or Pen tools for most jobs, but the one that has always kicked our butts is when we have to select hair. Over the years we’ve come up with all sorts of tricks, including the intricate Channels techniques I covered in my Photoshop Channels Book, but all these techniques kind of went right out the window when Adobe supercharged the Quick Selection tool in Photoshop CS5 with the new Refine Edge feature. This is, hands down, one of the most useful, and most powerful, tools in all of CS5. Making Really Tricky Selections, Like Hair Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 256 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: When the Refine Edge dialog appears, you have a lot of choices for your View Mode (including just the standard old Marching Ants), but to really see how your selec- tion looks, I think the best View is Black & White, which shows your selection as a standard layer mask. As you can see, the Quick Selection tool, by itself, isn’t gettin’ the job done (the edges are jaggy and harsh, and there’s no wispy hair se- lected at all), which is why we need Refine Edge to help us out. However, the trick to working effectively in this dialog is to use just the Edge Detection section and, honestly, I would avoid the Adjust Edge section in the center altogether, because you’ll spend too much time fussing with sliders, trying to make it work. I figure you guys want me to tell you when to avoid stuff, too, and this is one of those cases. Step Four: Next, turn on the Smart Radius check- box, which is the edge technology that knows the difference between a soft edge and a hard edge, so it can make a mask that includes both. This checkbox is so important that I leave it on all the time (if you want it always on, as well, just turn it on and then turn on the Remember Settings checkbox at the bot- tom of the dialog). Now, drag the Radius slider to the right, and as you do, watch the hair on the left side. It doesn’t take a big move with this slider before you start seeing hair detail magically appear (as seen here). For simple selections, leave the Radius amount down low. When you have a tricky selection, like fine hair blow- ing in the wind, you’ll have to increase it higher, so remember: trickier selections mean higher Radius amounts. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 257Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: Now let’s change our view to see if there are any areas we missed. For this part of the process, I use the Overlay view (seen here), because the parts that didn’t get selected show up in white. So, choose Overlay from the View pop-up menu (as shown here). TIP: Which View Is Which Although I generally only use the Black & White mask view and the Overlay view, here’s what the rest do: Marching Ants gives you just what you’d expect—a stan- dard marching ants selection, just like always. On Black puts your selected area on a solid black background, while On White is on a solid white background (helpful if you’re doing selections of prod- uct photography, because you can see what the final image will look like). On Layers shows your selection on a trans- parent layer, and Reveal Layer just shows the original image without any selection in place (so it’s the before view). Like it says right there on the View menu, you can press F to toggle through the views. Step Six: What you need to do next is tell Photo- shop exactly where the problem areas are, so it can better define those areas. You do that with the Redefine Radius tool (E), shown circled here in red. Get the brush and simply paint over the areas where you see white peeking through, and it re- defines those areas. This is what gives you that fine hair detail. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 258 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Seven: If you look closely, you’ll see that her hoop earring on the right side didn’t get selected at all, so use the Left Bracket key to shrink the size of the brush down to where it’s just slightly larger than the hoop, then paint over it. It’ll look like it’s painting in white, but when you’re done, it just redefines the area and tells Photoshop that this area needs some work, and it “redoes” its thing. Step Eight: Now skip down to the Output section, where you’ll find a checkbox to Decontam- inate Colors. What this does is remove the color spillover on your subject from the old original background. It basically de- saturates the edge pixels a bit so when you place this image on a different background, the edge color doesn’t give you away. Also, just below that, you get to choose what the result of all this will be: Will your selected subject be sent over to a new blank document, or just a new layer in this document, or a new layer with a layer mask already attached? I always choose to make a new layer (with a layer mask) in the same document. That way, if I really mess up, I can just grab the Brush tool and paint over those areas on the layer mask to bring them back to how they looked when I first opened the image. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 259Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Nine: Now, open the new background image you want to use in your composite. (You knew we were going to put her on a different background, right? I mean, why else would we be worrying about select- ing her hair?) Get the Move tool (V), press-and-hold the Shift key to keep the background photo centered, then click- and-drag this background image into your working document. (Note: This is easier if you have the Application Frame turned off and can see at least part of both images on your screen.) Step 10: In the Layers panel, click on the back- ground image’s layer (Layer 1 here), and drag it beneath the layer with your subject on it, so it appears behind her (as seen here). Chances are that the colors from the two images aren’t going to be right on the money, because they came from two different lighting scenarios. Her overall color looks much warmer than the back- ground setting we’ve put her into, but I’ve got a trick you can use that will help make the colors work between the two. SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 260 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 11: First, we need to load the layer mask on the top layer as a selection, so press- and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click directly on the layer mask thumbnail (as shown here), and it loads the layer mask as a selection. Step 12: Make sure Layer 1 (the background image you dragged in earlier) is still the active layer, then press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to put this selected area up on its own separate layer. Now, drag this layer to the top of the layer stack (as shown here). Since this is a selection of the background, in the exact shape of your subject, you get what you see here—it looks like the background image, but with a thin out- line around your subject. Well, that’s about to change. Download from www.wowebook.com . Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: Now let’s change our view to see if there are any areas we missed. For this part of the process, I use the Overlay. Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: We need to hide the brighter layer from view, so press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer. OpenGL Draw- ing checkbox, then restart Photoshop. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg SCOTT KELBY 255Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Continued Step