Painting a Rose

Here is another example of painting in Photoshop.  Here is a before and an after.

Before

After

Painting on Black & White

I've always been intrigued by photos that are black and white that have touches of strategic color added to them.  I found this to be extremely easy to achieve.  As mentioned photos need to be black and white, either originally or by converting it to black and white.  Once this is done, a new layer will need to be added changing the name to "Color" to remember that this layer is for altering the colors.

Before

Now on the layers menu, you will need to change the blend mode to color and ensure that the opacity is at 100%.  The mode should also be set to normal.  Now that this has been done you will begin to alter the color of only the area you would like to see color.  On the foreground color picker in the lower left, select the color you wish to use and click okay.  Using the paint brush, color the areas that you wish to change.  This is something you should truly have fun with.  If you should color something accidently, you can remove colors without removing the any aspect of the picture by using the eraser icon.

Once finished, this is what the same photo looked like.

After

Moving Objects - Being the Puppet Master!

I was completely blown away as I dug deeper into Photoshop and discovered that you can actually move objects in such a way that they seem to change the original shape of your photo.  Though this is complicated in a way and definitely requires some further tweaking, the end result is truly worth it!

We first start out with the below picture of a tree. Many may agree that the tree looks rather awkward because the far right branch looks oddly out of place though we know that this is merely an act of nature.  We can however make this tree look more proportioned.

Though this tutorial showed the final result moving the branch only a small amount, I wanted to dive in further to see if I could indeed move the branch to where I personally felt it should be to look the most appealing.

First, we are going to be working with the Channels panel first.  To make it simple, we need to find the best contrasting photo to begin working with so after selecting the Channels panel, I selected the "Red" view and then dragged this down to the new channel icon, the same way we would to create a copy of  a layer.  We then select, Image, Adjustments, and then levels.  This is so we can increase the white background and the contrast in the tree to their maximum yet visually appealing points and then click OK.  At the bottom of the channels menu is a circle icon called, "Load Channel as Selection".  We then choose, Select, then inverse.  (We are trying to select only the branch we want moved.

You will then choose the lasso tool and select the "Intercept with Selection" icon from the options menu at the top.  Use the lasso to draw a boarder around the branch itself such as was done below.  (I found this worked better using a much bigger arc around the branch.)  Now in the channels menu, re-select RGB and then return to the layers tab.

You will now need to copy the background layer by dragging it down to the new layer icon and then select the "add layer mask" icon making sure the copy layer and branch are selected.

Now we must eliminate the original branch so that when we move it, we won't see two.  Again, drag the background to copy the background layer.  We will use this layer to delete the branch.   Now turn off the layer containing the mask layer.  Click, Select, Modify and Expand and increase your selection.  For this example I chose 12 making sure the entire branch was in there.

Now click, Edit, Fill, and Content Aware, then click okay.  Then click select and deselect layers... This is what you should see.  (Once you deselect layers, the lines will disappear.)

Now click on the background copy layer containing the mask layer and click the left background thumbnail. Now click, Edit, Puppet Warp.  Make sure you are in normal mode and normal density and click show mesh.  Now zoom in.

You will now add pins to the branch starting at the base and then around the edges.

You will then select all of those pins holding down the shift with the exception of the one at the base.  When a pin is not selected, this portion will not move freely.  As I moved my branch upwards, I kept deselecting pins to the far left moving right.

After moving into position / before clean-up

In final position, but cleanup needs to still take place

Using steps mentioned in previous posts, I used the healing brush to repair some of the areas where the original branch was.


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A final look before

... and after

Touch Ups

While I'm having trouble getting content aware to work, I decided to play around with this photo of a car that happened to be visited by quite a few birds.  I will definitely need additional work with this but my first attempt looked fairly decent.

Before

Cleaning Up Large Areas

In a tutorial I was watching, the narrator showed us the following photo and mentioned how he was disappointed with the photo he had taken because he forgot to make sure his shadow didn't appear in the photo.  If you take a look at the right hand side of the photo, you will notice that his shadow casts over the fence and is completely noticeable.  While this lesson was a bit intimidating at first, I decided to tackle the very same thing and found it to be extremely useful.

There were quite a few steps involved but the practice was well appreciated!  After opening the photo up, I created a new layer and named this one 'cleanup".  I then selected the lasso tool as I have in a previous post but chose the polygonal lasso instead - selecting a portion of fence without shadow being sure to include some area above and below the fence.  (Don't worry, we can adjust it later.)  

You will then click the background layer to make it active, then select layer, new, layer via copy (or ctlr J).  Rename this layer Fence 1 and then select the move arrow from your toolbox on the left and move this area of fence on top of the shadowed area you want to correct.  I found I needed to repeat this step a few times so it is not an issue if you don't cover the entire affected area.  

Once you have moved it, you will not need to re-size it so it blends as nicely as possible.  You do this by clicking Ctlr T and you will see a box appear around the area of fence you have moved.  Now holding down the shift key, re-size the image.  To rotate the image click outside of the box, click and drag into position.  When you are satisfied, click press enter.  

You will now add a mask layer.  This will enable you to fill this area in with the newly replaced fence.  On the layer toolbox, hold down the alt key and press the square with the circle in the middle (which will show the text "add vector mask" when hovering over it.    You will notice a black box will appear next to the original layer. 

You will now choose the brush icon while pressing D once.  You brush hardness should be raised to about 60%, your blend should be set to normal and your opacity to 100%.  Now you will notice a circle appear as your brush.  Decrease and increase the size of the brush using the [ or ] keys.  (The smaller the brush the more precise you can paint.)  Zoom in and begin to paint over the fence you moved into place being careful not to brush past the actual fence area.  

After the first try

After the second correction

After further correcting the bottom rail

Though we did not correct all of the shadows, you will notice that you cannot tell that they are indeed the shadow of a person.  

Lasso and Content Aware

So, I often come across photos that I really wish I could remove something from the picture.  In the past with other programs, I've tried cropping but what happens when you want to remove something in the middle of the photo??  I've also tried to shade over items that I wanted to "cover up" and of course this didn't work either because I could never quite match up the actual background to appear like what would have been behind it.

The lasso tool combined with the content aware tool is wonderful.  Though I'm working on perfecting this, here is a great example of this.

In this photo we see some common wall hanging letters spelling out the name "Annie" but let's say for whatever reason, I wanted to remove the first "N".  This would be impossible to accomplish with a mere crop.

To remove the first N.. I first ZOOM in on the picture.  I then choose the lasso tool on the left and carefully outline around not just the N, but around the shadow as well.  After a few trial runs I realized that if I didn't surround the shadow too then it would show up in the picture afterwards.

Once I finish selecting the N, I then right click and select fill and then under "use" I make sure "content aware" is selected before clicking okay.  After the page refreshes what you should have is the same photo minus your selection.   What you should have is the following.

Attempting Photo Restorations

Well, my second attempt did not go so well.  I was absolutely over my head with the next assignment however per some very helpful advice, I picked up a copy of "Photoshop Image Editing" from Barnes and Nobles which came with a disk.  One issue I was having was trying to find relevant photos to fit the assignment and all examples in the book are also found on the provided disk.

I chose a section on Restoring Photos.  I know this will likely be very helpful as we always run across photos that become ruined.  In the past I have just thrown these away but now know that it can be extremely simple with a little patience to restore these to almost new condition.

Here is the photo I started with originally.  

Photo from the disk - Before

Notice the ugly red creasing throughout the photo?  This wasn't hard to remove at all but did require a few different steps.  First I zoomed in on my photo.  This can be done easily by pressing (Ctlr +)

You first need to create another layer.  (Anytime you make additions or changes, create a new layer so that if you make a mistake, you delete the layer and your original photo is in tact.)  

Once you add a new layer, change the blending mode to "Color".  Next, you will select the eye dropper and under sample size select 5 by 5 average.  Next select your brush tool and make sure to select a brush size that is slightly larger than the crease area.  

Now you will toggle back and forth between the eye dropper and the paint brush - sampling grass to replace in this area.  You can even take this a step further and repair some of the dead grass.  Some may prefer to leave this in it's original state, but I decided to play with this anyway to get the hang of it.  The great thing about using this tool is that it seems to sample the blades of grass as well, not just the color!  I repeated this step not only for the grass but for the sky as well.  I was nervous when I got to the tree in the distance, but to my surprise it seemed to know to copy branches and background.  

Once I finished this step, this is what I was left with.

After removing the red - just before fixing more green.

This is where things got a little tricky.  Now that we have fixed the coloring, we need to remove all evidence of the actual crease.  This is done using the patch tool.  

Again, create a new layer and right click the layer and when the menu pops up, hold down the Alt key and choose "Merge Visible.  Then you are going rename your layer to "Clean Up" or whatever suits you.  Using the select tool, you are going to make a rectangle around the section you are trying to remove.  (The book says to do a small section, but I found this was easier if I used a larger box.)  

Use the patch tool to click inside the boxed area and drag past the imperfection.  You will need to keep doing this in all sections until you are satisfied.  

This is what I was able to create after making all of my changes and going back to make some updates as well.  

After all changes were made