ptg 271Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: So, at this point, the columns aren’t bow- ing, but they are still leaning out too far, so now we have to fix those manually. Go down to the Transform sliders near the bottom of the Custom tab. The Vertical Perspective slider fixes problems where thing are leaning out or in, and there’s a tiny icon on either side of the slider to show you what dragging in each direction will do. In this case, we need to drag over to the right to around +12 (this is how far I needed to drag over to make the columns stand up straight again). Compare them to the image back in Step Four, and you’ll see what an effect this had on the columns. Step Six: When you make geometric corrections like this, sometimes (okay, fairly often), you’ll see that in the process it seems to crop in a little bit tighter on your photo. What it’s doing is automatically correct- ing for the fact that when it unbowed your image, it did bow the outside edges a bit, so it automatically scales the image up a little, and crops off those messed- up edges. If you want to see what’s really going on, drag the Scale slider (at the bottom of the window) to the left (to less than 100%), and you’ll see the edges (I dragged it to the left to 91%, and you can see the gaps at the top that the image area used to fill). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 272 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Seven: If you have an image where scaling it down even a tiny bit is unacceptable, then try this—use the Scale slider to scale it down until you see the full image (and the gaps it creates), then click OK to apply the edits from the Lens Correction filter. Now use the Magic Wand tool (press Shift-W until you have it) to select those gap areas (as shown here). Step Eight: Go under the Edit menu and choose Fill. When the Fill dialog appears, in the Use pop-up menu, choose Content-Aware (if it’s not already selected for you), then click OK, and watch as it fills in the gaps for you (as seen here). It’s not perfect, but it did a lot of the work for us (for much more on Content-Aware Fill, how it works, and what to do when it doesn’t, jump to the next project). Now, at this point, after a little Clone Stamp retouch- ing on the area we just filled, we’d be done, but I want to cover a couple of other little things they tweaked in the CS5 update of the Lens Correction filter. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 273Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Nine: In previous versions of the Lens Correction filter, there was a visible grid that was on when you opened the filter. Thankfully, now it’s off by default, but if you miss it, you can turn on the Show Grid checkbox at the bottom of the dialog. There are two other sets of controls on the Custom tab: You can remove/add vignetting in the Vignette section, but it works just like it does in Camera Raw, and that’s explained in Chapter 3. There are also two sliders for fixing chromatic aberrations (where you see a red, cyan, blue, or yellow fringe around the edges of things in your photo). Using it is a cinch—just drag the sliders toward Red to remove red, or toward Cyan to remove cyan (and so on for Blue and Yellow on the bottom slider). Below is a before/after, but I didn’t do the whole Content Aware Fill thing—it’s just the filter as is. AfterBefore Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 274 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step One: In this case, we have someone sneaking into the scene from the far left side of the image, and it takes away from what’s hap- pening in the rest of the image. To have Content-Aware Fill remove that one-third of a person, just get the Lasso tool (L) and draw a very loose selection around them. Don’t get too close—a loose selec- tion, like the one you see here, is fine. Step Two: Now press the Delete (PC: Backspace) key on your keyboard, and the Fill dialog will appear, with Content-Aware selected in the Use pop-up menu (as shown here). Just click OK, sit back, and prepare to be amazed. (I know—it’s freaky). Go ahead and Deselect by pressing Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D). Look at how it replaced the missing grass in the proper perspec- tive. This is the essence of being “content aware” and being totally aware of what’s around it. The more I use it, the more it amazes me, but part of using this effec- tively is learning it’s weaknesses, and how to get around them when possible. Removing Distracting Stuff Using Content- Aware Fill This is probably one of the main reasons you bought the CS5 upgrade—to get Content-Aware Fill, because it’s just incredibly amazing. That being said, as amazing as it is, it’s incredibly simple to use, so don’t let the fact that it only took four pages in the book to cover perhaps the most famous feature in all of CS5 throw you off. What makes the feature even more amazing is that you have to do so little—Photoshop does all the heavy lifting. Here are a couple of examples of ways to use it to remove distracting things you wish weren’t in the photo: SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 275Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: As well as it did removing that one-third of a person on the far left, it’s not going to do a good job if you want to remove the guy on the right. It seems like it should work just fine, but it doesn’t. Well, at least not at first, but we’re going to kind of make it work. Start by putting a loose selection around him, then hit the Delete (PC: Backspace) key, and when the Fill dialog appears, don’t touch anything, just click OK. Step Four: In this case, it didn’t really work as well as we had hoped. Now, your first inclination is to undo, and then switch to the Clone Stamp tool, but don’t quite yet. One thing I’ve learned about Content-Aware Fill is that it is sometimes chooses different places to sample content from, so instead of switching to the Clone Stamp tool, try this first: press Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z) to Undo the Content-Aware Fill, and then just try it again. You might be surprised that it samples from a different area, and it might work this time. However, it didn’t for me, but don’t worry—I’ve got a back- up plan. Go ahead and deselect. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 276 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: Now, let’s think of things differently at this point. Let’s not think, “Content- Aware Fill didn’t work.” Let’s think, “Hey, l can use Content-Aware Fill to fill that concrete-looking shape on the right side of the photo.” So, make a loose Lasso selection around the concrete-look- ing blob, then bring up Content-Aware Fill again, and give it a shot. Step Six: Wow—this is a lot better. It’s not fully there, but a lot, lot better (more on taking it up a notch in a moment). Now, you will fall deeply in love with Content-Aware Fill if you can come to peace with the fact that it won’t work perfectly every time, but if it does 70% or 80% of the work for me (in removing something I don’t want), that means I only have to do the other 20%, and that makes it worth its weight in gold. If it does the entire job for me, and sometimes it surely does, then it’s even better, right? Right. Also, it helps to know that the more random the back- ground is behind the object you want to remove, the better job Content-Aware Fill generally does for you. (By the way, do you think we could pull that same scam again? The one we did in Step Five?) Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 277Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Seven: Put a Lasso selection around the area that’s still messed up (where the guy on the right used to be), and try the Content-Aware Fill thing on that area, and see what happens. Well, you don’t really have to, because I’m showing you here. It’s pretty darn close now, and just needs a little touch-up (notice how the railings don’t quite match up?). Well, let’s see what happens if you tried to move the guy in the black outfit—you know what to do: Lasso, then hit Delete. Step Eight: For some reason, it worked much better on him, first time out, than it did on the guy on the right. If you look at the fence behind where he was, you do have a tiny bit of touch-up with the Clone Stamp tool to make his removal really seamless (that fence needs a tiny bit of fixing, right?), but when you think of how much Content- Aware Fill did for you, it makes you start to wonder how you lived without it. TIP: Painting Using Content-Aware Fill The method you just learned has you making a selection, and then filling it using Content-Aware Fill. If you’d rather paint than select, you can use the Spot Healing Brush—just make sure the Content-Aware radio button is on up in the Options Bar, then paint right over what you want gone. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg How to Make Shadows/Highlights an Adjustment Layer Well, it won’t technically be an adjust- ment layer, but it will act and perform exactly like one. Here’s what you do: First, go under the Filter menu and choose Convert for Smart Filters (which con- verts the layer into a Smart Object). Then go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Shadows/ Highlights. Now, choose any settings you like, then click OK. If you look in the Layers panel, you’ll see that attached below your layer is a layer mask (just like an adjustment layer), and if you double- click on the words “Shadows/Highlights” below the mask, it brings up the dialog again, with the last settings you applied (just like an adjustment layer), and if you click on the little adjustment sliders icon to the right of the name, it brings up a dialog where you can change the blend mode and opacity (just like an adjust- ment layer), and you can click the Eye icon to turn the adjustment on/off (just like an adjustment layer), and finally, you can delete it anytime during your project (just like an adjustment layer). Not Sure Which Blend Mode Is the Right One? Then just press Shift-+ to toggle through all the layer blend modes one-by-one, so you can quickly find out which one looks best to you. Changing the Position of Your Lens Flare When you use the Lens Flare filter (found under the Filter menu, under Render) it puts the flare in the center of your image, but you can actually choose the position for your flare cen- ter (which changes the look of your flare quite a bit) by just clicking-and- dragging the flare center within the filter’s Preview window. By the way, a great way to apply this filter is add a new layer, fill it with black, then run the filter, change its layer blend mode to Screen, and it will blend in with your image, so you can drag it wher- ever you’d like (if an edge shows, add a layer mask and paint over the edges in black with a huge, soft-edged brush). How to Change the Order of the Brushes in the Brush Picker Go under the Edit menu and choose Preset Manager. When the dialog opens, by default it’s set to display all your brushes, so now all you have to do is click-and-drag them into the order you want them. When you’ve got everything in the order you want, click the Done button. Changing the Color of Your Guides Want to change the color of those guides you drag out from the rulers? Just pull out a guide, then double- click directly on it, and it brings up the Preferences dialog for Guides, Grid & Slices, where you can choose 278 Chapter 9 Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Photoshop Killer Tips Download from www.wowebook.com ptg any color you’d like. You can also press Command-K (PC: Ctrl-K) and click on Guides, Grid & Slices on the left. What That Fill Field Does In the Layers panel, right below the Opacity field is a Fill field, which has had Photoshop users scratching their head since it debuted several versions ago. It only kicks in when you have a layer style applied to a layer, like a drop shadow or bevel. If you have something on a layer and you apply a drop shadow to it, then lower the Opacity amount, the object and its shadow both fade away, right? But if you lower the Fill amount only, the object starts to fade away, but the drop shadow stays at 100% opacity. The Hidden Shortcut for Flattening Your Layers There technically isn’t a keyboard short- cut for the Flatten command, but I use a standard shortcut for flattening my image all the time. It’s Command-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Shift-E). That’s actually the Copying Layer Masks from One Layer to Another If you’ve created a layer mask, and you want that same mask to appear on a different layer, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and just drag-and- drop that mask on the layer where you want it. It makes a copy leaving the original intact. If you want to remove the mask from one layer and apply it to another, then don’t hold the Option key and, instead, just click-and- drag the mask to the layer where you want it. shortcut for Merge Visible, so it only works if you don’t have any hidden layers, but I usually don’t, so it usually works. Customizing the HUD Pop-Up Color Picker In CS5, you can have a heads-up display color picker appear onscreen when you’re using the Brush tool by pressing Command-Option-Ctrl (PC: Alt-Shift) and clicking (PC: Right-clicking). And, did you know you also get to choose which type and size of HUD you want? Press Command-K (PC: Ctrl-K) to bring up Photoshop’s preferences, click on General on the left, then up near the top of the General preferences is a HUD Color Picker pop-up menu for choosing your style and size. Changing Brush Blend Modes on the Fly If you want to change the blend mode for your current brush without travel- ing up to the Options Bar, just press Shift-Ctrl (PC: Shift) and click (PC: Right-click) anywhere in your image, and a pop-up menu of Brush tool blend modes appears. Creating Cast Shadows To create a cast shadow (rather than a drop shadow), first apply a Drop Shadow layer style to your object (choose Drop Shadow from the Add Layer Style pop-up menu at the bot- tom of the Layers panel, change your settings, and click OK), then go under the Layer menu, under Layer Styles, and choose Create Layer. This puts the drop shadow on its own separate layer. Click on that new drop shadow layer, then press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to bring up Free Transform. Now, press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, grab the top center point, and drag down at a 45° angle to create a cast shadow (like your shadow is casting onto the floor). 279Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Photoshop Killer Tips Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Photo by Scott Kelby Exposure: 1/6400 sec | Focal Length: 18mm | Aperture Value: ƒ/4.9 Download from www.wowebook.com . Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Nine: In previous versions of the Lens Correction filter, there was a visible grid that was on when you opened the filter Fixing Common Problems The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step One: In this case, we have someone sneaking into the scene from the far left side of the image, and it takes. ptg 271Chapter 9Fixing Common Problems Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: So, at this point, the columns aren’t bow- ing, but they are still leaning out too far,