Somewhere between Black n White & Color

Previously, I learned to add color to to photos that had were black and white.  Here is an example of a lesson where I learned how to take out some of the color that had already existed in a photo.  The result give you a great effect which dulls the photo a bit.

Here is the photo that I began with.

Before color was removed.

We now need to work backwards by removing all color or simply converting this photo to black and white.

Black and White

You can then play with the photos brightness and contrast by using a tool found on the adjustments pallet and with that dragging left and right over different parts of the photo to bring out some contrasts differently.  Then using curves, we are able to further adjust the shadows and contrasts in the photo.  

After applying curves

Now we are ready to begin adding color back into the photo.  We do this by selecting the black and white layer.  (When we select curves, it adds another layer.)  Now in the layers pallet, adjust the opacity by reducing it.  This will slowly add color back into the picture.  Notice in the photo below we are begging to see the color in the hats and instrument.

Both pictures after reducing the opacity. 

When you are satisfied, you can apply other effects.  For instance, what if this young man holding the large instrument in this photo was someone we wanted to put in the spotlight?  Though the photographer did a great job applying the focus to him, what if we wanted to put more attention on him?  This is what happens when we apply burn and dodge effects as we have in previous lessons.

After dodge and burn effects

Replacing the View

This one was especially hard only because it was hard to get my mouse to select the exact points that I wanted.    What I wanted to accomplish was to change the view outside of a window.  For instance if you had a photo that looked out into an alley way, this feature would allow you to change this to a lake view if you preferred.

For the purposes of this assignment, I started with this photo.  Not a bad view, but just not what I preferred to look at.

So, in order to achieve this, you need to select the area you want to KEEP.  This means the actual window to include the area around each pain.  This is done by using the quick selection tool.  I didn't realize it at first, but there are three options within this tool that will save you a considerable amount of heartache.  

The bottom on the far bottom left is the quick select tool itself.  The three options are show in the upper right portion of the photo.  The first is, "New Selection"  the middle is, "Add to Selection" and the last is, "Subtract from Selection".  I started out with the new selection and as I added and subtracted (for the mistakes I made) then I utilized the others.  You really need to play with this in order to get the hang of it.  Though this tool seems to be quite smart on its own, you still need to tweak it.  

Once you have made the selections, you will have something that looks like this.  

Now comes the fun part.  Open up another file that represents the background that you wish to use and change the view to see both photos side by side.  

Now choose the background window to work from this side.  Using the move tool at the very top of the tool bar.  Click and drag the background over to the right hand side so that it is positioned over the window and let go.  You will notice that you will be able to see the outline of the window.  

Now you need to remove the unwanted area.  You do this by creating a masking layer click, alt and add layer mask via the icon in the layers toolbox.  

Now work directly from this window.  You will notice two boxes on your layers menu side by side where you created the masking layer.  Choose the one on the left which shows the window and click the link button that's in between them to unlink them.  . Using the move tool you can move the background around without moving the actual window to achieve the best view.  

Here was another little trick that I discovered.  After I finished changing the window view, I felt that the scenery was too big for my window.  I was able to change this by simply making the background photo smaller.  

Depending on the size of the image you used, you can also move the image up or down to create distance.

Here is the same background where I applied burn and dodge effects as I did in a previous entry.  By doing this, I was able to add the appearance of an overcast as well which also makes it appear later in the day.  

Burning and Dodging

Burning and dodging is an extremely simple way to add focus to a person or an object in a photo by simply lightening it and darkening everything else around it giving it that "less important" effect.  When I think of this, I think about how a performer is on stage and while you can see the musicians and background singers in the back, the lights are often muted on them tremendously while the performer receives their time in the spotlight!

Here is a great example:

This scene from Times Square in NYC shows a beautifully decorated tree while people ice skate below.

By using dodge and burn which simple involved adding a new layer going up to edit, fill (or shift 5) and select 50% gray.  You will then need to copy this layer and rename one "dodge" and the other "burn".  You will notice that each has covered up your original photo.  You will now set your blending mode to "Overlay" on each.  For this example I changed the opacity to 50% so that it wasn't an instant and major change.

First I highlighted the tree.  Using your dodge layer, select your brush tool and click X to ensure that your in your color pallet your white is on top of the black.  Now, paint over the tree and anything you want to highlight.

To shade or darken, you will go to your burn layer.  Click X to ensure that the black is on top of the white in your color pallet and do the same as you did before but this time to darken.

As I was using this technique (especially with this photo), I was able to not only make the tree stand out more, but I was also able to give the affect of the light reflecting off of the building to the left as well as to make it appear that this took place much later in the day.

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