shadows. High-key interpretations of an image tend to look dreamy, glamorous, and idealized. That's one of the reasons they keep cropping up as a fad in fashion, female portraiture, and cosmetic ads. However, high-key images can be equally effective in creating a dreamy or foggy landscape or romantic wedding photo. One precaution: any image that is destined to be interpreted as high-key should be adjusted in RAW so that all the detail falls inside the borders of the Histogram. In other words, you don't want to see any more "blocked" detailespecially in the highlightsthan absolutely necessary, even though you may decide it's appropriate when you finalize the adjustments in Photoshop. The Camera Raw Histogram should look something like the one in Figure 4-42. Of course, this is an ideal Histogram for virtually any type of RAW file exposure interpretation. But it's more important here because if highlight detail is blocked to begin with, there will be even more detail blocked when you use Photoshop to further interpret the image as high-key. Figure 4-42. The ACR adjustments and Histogram of a high-key interpretation. It would seem that the "no brainer" way to create a high-key version of the image would be to simply drag the Exposure slider far enough to the right. The problem with that is you push a lot of the brightest details, which are precisely the ones you want to keep, right off the edge of the Histogram. That means those highlights are blocked and you won't be able to see any detail in the area where it is most important to have it. Now, let's try an interpretation that keeps detail in the highlights (although perhaps not as much as we'd have in a "normal" or low-key interpretation) and in which there are at least enough blacks to keep the image from looking like it was a mistake. Then, go to the Curves tab and select Linear from the Tone Curve menu. The Linear curve is superimposed over the image's Histogram. At the point where the Histogram reaches the greatest height (has the most pixels), click the tone curve directly beneath. Now, while watching the Preview window, raise the tone curve to the point where you get the high-key effect you are looking for. Figure 4- 43 shows the before and after. Figure 4-43. The before and after. If the image is a portra it, it will often need some retouching in Photoshopespecially skin smoothing and lightening the shadows around the eyesbut the above high-key steps provide a much better start than you would be likely to get otherwise. The following are the steps normally required for this type of effect. After, I'll tell you what I did in Photoshop to improve these effects when applied to a portrait. 1. Open your image in Camera Raw. 2. Move the Highlight slider until the highlights are just touching the right foot of the Histogram. 3. Move the Shadows slider as far to the left as you can without pushing the shadows off the left end of the Histogram. 4. Move the Brightness slider all the way to the right. If a significant amount of the Highlight detail has moved off the end of the Histogram, look at the brightest tones in your image. If they lack detail that you'd like to see, drag the Highlight slider back to the left until you reach the best compromise. 5. Drag the Contrast slider both ways until you feel you've gotten the best effect that you can get from this particular image. 6. Click the Open button. You will almost always want to do some further work on your high-key image in Photoshop. The main reasons are retouching, layer blend modes, and masked Adjustment layers, since none are available (yet) in Camera Raw. In this portrait in Figure 4-44, there are still areas of the face that are in shadow and, as a result, aren't very flattering. In fact, they're even less flattering than in a normal tone portrait because the lighter skin tones contrast more noticeably with the shadows. After opening the RAW file you just made in Photoshop CS2, open the Layers palette and click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the palette. A new layer will appear just above the background layer. Figure 4-44. The high-key portrait as it came out of Camera Raw (left) and after further adjustments in Photoshop (right). There are big advantages to burning and dodging with the Brush and an Overlay layer, rather than the burn and dodge tools. First, it has no effect on the original image's layer. So, if you goof, you can just paint that part of the layer 50 percent gray and then start over. Second, there's no loss of contrast or change of color balance in the burned or dodged areas because you are changing brightness with absolutely color-neutral tools. Third, you can "blend" the effect by changing the layer Opacity after the fact. To burn and dodge with the Brush and a 50% Gray Overlay layer: 1. Fill the new layer with 50 percent gray. Of course, this will hide your portrait momentarily, but choose Overlay from the Blend mode menu in the Layers palette and the gray suddenly becomes transparent. 2. Press D (for default) to set your foreground colors to black and white, then press X to switch your foreground and background colors so that White is the foreground color. Now you can dodge by using the Brush tool to paint in white. In the Brush Options, set Opacity to about 12 percent. Size the brush so it covers a bit less than the area you want to dodge and start painting into the shadows you want to lighten. Keep stroking (just as you would with the Dodge tool) until the area is as light as you like. In Figure 4-44, I did the following: o Created a large feathered brush to darken her hair slightly. To do this, I switched the foreground color to Black, lowered the opacity, and painted over the highlighted areas of the hair. o Created a new layer above the background layer to remove the wrinkles and skin blemishes nondestructively. But this time I selected the background layer. I also tu rned off the Burn and Dodge layer I just created (and any other layers that might have been added for whatever reason), leaving only the new, transparent layer and the Background layer visible. Next I chose the Spot Healing brush. In its Options bar, I make sure the Sample All Layers box is checked (clicking the box toggles the checkmark on and off). Now I "heal" all the spots. The Healing and Clone Stamp brushes will work the same way, but not the Patch tool. All the healing strokes appear on the new transparent layer. 3. Use a masked adjustment layer to lighten, darken, or change contrast or color balance to specific areas of the image. Select the area of the background layer you want to change. You'll want to soften the edge of the selection enough so that it blends smoothly with the other areas of the image, so choose Select Feather and then enter a number of pixels for the width of the transition from 100 to 0 percent opacity. Go to the Layers palette and choose the type of Adjustment layer you want to use. For this example, I wanted to drastically lighten the blouse and background, so I selected both, feathered at 100 pixels, and then used a Levels Adjustment layer and dragged the Midtone (middle) slider to the left until those areas were bright enough to suit me. You can see the result of both the Camera Raw and Photoshop CS2 steps in Figure 4-44. 4.8.5. Creating a Low-Key Effect In case you haven't already guessed, a low-key image is the opposite of a high-key image. That is, most of the tones in the image are in less than 50 percent of the overall brightness range. Low-key images tend to lend a more classic or somber effect. They're also used more often for masculine subjects than for feminine. Think Rembrandt. Creating a low-key effect isn't just a variation on creating a high-key effect. After you've opened the image in Camera Raw: 1. Move the Highlights slider to the left until the highlights leave a bit of space at the right foot of the Histogram. 2. Move the Shadows slider a little to the right, cutting off a bit of the end of the Histogram. 3. Move the Brightness slider to the left. Take a look at the Histogram. If a significant amount of the Highlight detail has been cropped at the top, take a look at the brightest tones in your image. If they lack detail that you'd like to see, drag the Highlight slider back to the right until you reach the best compromise that you can. 4. Click the Curve tab and choose Linear from the Tone Curve menu. Now make a curve somewhat like that in Figure 4-45. Figure 4-45. A tone curve for a low- key image. Yours will vary according to the exact levels of brightness in your image. Be careful not to let the peak of the Histogram move above the top side of the frame, as this will cause a loss of data. 5. Click the Open button. Your low-key image will open in Photoshop. You may need to repeat these steps for post-processing in Photoshop. You especially may need to burn in areas that were formerly very bright highlights. 4.8.6. Making a Black and White Image in Camera Raw There are many ways to make black and white and other types of monochrome images in Photoshopso many in fact that it could almost become its own separate science. Bet you didn't know you could do quite a decent job and do it a lot faster (although with slightly less flexibility) using Camera Raw. Simply making an ordinary black and white comes about as close as possible to being a no brainer. After adjusting Shadows, Brightness, and Contrast to your liking, simply drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left. Figure 4-46 shows the color and black and white renditions of the same photo after this treatment. Figure 4-46. Left: a color portrait after adjusting Exposure, Shadows, Brightness, and Curves. Right: a black and white rendition of the same portrait made by simply removing saturation in Camera Raw. You can do better than that, though. That is, you probably can but won't know until you try. There are two ways that Camera Raw lets you change the tonalities in the image. This is done in analog photography by choosing film or using filters that make the film more sensitive to different colors of light. You can do a similar thing in Camera Raw by changing the Temperature and Tint settings. You can then go one step further by changing the color sensitivities using the Calibrate tab. All of these actions will change the tonalities in the monochrome image without actually bringing any color back into the image. To create a black and white image: 1. Make the color version of the image look as good as possible in Camera Raw by using the steps described earlier in the Adjust Tab section. 2. Drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left (by the way, you can approximate a hand-colored process by removing nearly all the saturation; try entering -60 in the box). 3. With the Saturation at -100, move the Temperature slider back and forth until you're pleased with the new Tonal values. Figure 4-47 shows several different interpretations of the same image. Figure 4-47. From left to right, the color temperature has been changed to 2,000, 4,000, 6000, and 8,000. 4.8.7. Toned Monochrome from Camera Raw You can actually use the previous techniques to create a "look" approximating sepia- or blue- toned images, although they'll still have a bit of color in them. It's an especially good trick for a web s ite photo or to approximate it for client approval in a proof. To create a sepia-toned image, drag the Temperature slider so far to the right that the whole image turns a reddish-brown. Now drag the Saturation slider to about - 55. To create a blue-toned image, drag the Temperature slider so far to the left that the whole image turns blue. Now drag the Saturation slider to about -55. The result is Figure 4-48. Figure 4-48. Faux sepia and blue renditions of a portrait. Chapter 5. Nondestructive Layering The secret to a good nondestructive workflow lies in a regular system of organizing layers and layering techniques. The objective of keeping the workflow layered is that individual layers can be modified without affecting other layers. One type of layers, Adjustment layers, are completely nondestructive. You can always readjust an adjustment layer's effect as long as it hasn't been blended with another layer by double-clicking on the icon that designates its adjustment type. When you do that, the standard dialog for that type of adjustment appears. Adjustment layers affect all v isible portions of any underlying layers. You can also make them affect only a specific layer or group of layers by attaching them as a Clipping Mask to the target layer or group. Adjustment Layers: The Key to the Nondestructive Workflow This chapter is about how certain types of layers should be ordered and how you can use them to track exactly what you've done to your image. I'm not going to break down all the individual tricks that could be used on each of these layer types right here. This chapter covers the rationale for why the layers are placed in this order. This seems to be the best place to objectively address a problem that many users have with using "too many" layers: use of disk space and RAM. Let's face it, some of your images will be approaching 300 or 400 MBs by the time they near the end of the nondestructive workflow recommended in this book. But there are several solutions to this problem, including: Add a cheap external hard drive to your setup. Buy the capacity of driv e that will give you the lowest cost per megabyte. These days, it is about 30 cents per megabytethe cost of a single CD. Create a LZW compressed and flattened version of the final image and let that be the only one that is permanently kept on your hard drive. To do this, copy the layered file and move it to both CD/DVD and to an external hard drive. If you can't yet afford the hard drive, at least make the backup to a name brand CD/DVD and mark it with an acid-free marker. Don't use a standard marker or store your CDs in albums that haven't been certified as acid-free or archival. NOTE Although it's good discipline to arrange your Photoshop editing workflow in the suggested order on the layers as they appear in the book, you do have the option of performing the work for a layer out of necessity and then moving it to its "proper" position later. After all, there will be times when you need to do the work that creates the most obvious results first to turn an image around as quickly as possible. . slider both ways until you feel you've gotten the best effect that you can get from this particular image. 6. Click the Open button. You will almost always want to do some further work. it has no effect on the original image's layer. So, if you goof, you can just paint that part of the layer 50 percent gray and then start over. Second, there's no loss of contrast. 300 or 400 MBs by the time they near the end of the nondestructive workflow recommended in this book. But there are several solutions to this problem, including: Add a cheap external hard