Photoshop Tips
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 11:53 pm
I am by no means a Photoshop expert, but I will share what I know about fixing up photographs. Anyone who wants to add their knowledge is invited to do so - please! 
A couple of forumites may recognize some of this word-for-word, because it's what I e-mailed to them.
Adobe Photoshop is one of my favorite subjects. I have Photoshop 6.0 and I'll never need more than it offers as far as I'm concerned. Try these little tips and you'll have a great time. Open Photoshop, open a picture (File > open) and then choose "Image > Adjust > Auto Levels". Usually that's all you have to do, but sometimes it makes things look a lot worse. So make sure that on the right side of your screen you have a little box with tabs open and one of them says "history" (again, at the top, go to "Window > Show History"). You can back up in the steps you've done (click on the last action you liked) and re-do the picture just about as many times as you want. If the Auto Levels doesn't work, back up to where you opened the picture. Then do Image > Adjust > Levels. Then you get a wavy graph and the left side is "darks" the right side is "lights" and the middle is your shadow areas. Just slide the little arrows at the bottom back & forth until you get a look you like, then say "ok".
Depending on what resolution you had your camera set at when you took the picture, you may want to size the picture down to e-mail it to someone or post it on the forum. Right click on the blue title bar at the top of your photo and choose "image size" and put in whatever size you want your picture to be. Again, if you don't like the new size, click back in your history and try making your picture a different size. I mostly use "history" as a powerful undo/redo.
After you re-size your picture, you might want to click on "Filter" on the top toolbar and scroll down to "Sharpen", choose either "sharpen" or "sharpen edges". Sometimes "sharpen" makes too many lines stand out (not good on faces! LOL!), so use "shapen edges" and it just makes things "pop" a little. Sometimes neither "sharpen" or "sharpen edges" looks too good, so then I just leave the photo as it was with a little softer look. Save your photo with a different name (save as) and make sure you choose .jpg or .gif, or it will save as a .psd (photoshop document) and can only be viewed in Photoshop.
Master that and I can turn you on to a few other little tricks
Like for instance, see what "Curves" will do. Put your cursor on the diagonal line and move it up or down at one end or the other, or even right in the middle. It can really fix up a hazy picture. I usually play around with curves about 5 times and hit "cancel" before I get one I like well enough to save. Sometimes I just plain cancel because nothing I do really improves the photo.
Here are a couple of before & afters so you can see what Photoshop is capable of. Sometimes I had my camera set on "underwater" when I was taking pictures, and sometimes I didn't. I really can't see a difference in the final product when I compare. What DOES make a difference is how clear the water is. The photos I took at Lovango Cay were all done on a cloudy day, and they are by far the best of all my underwater photos, but the water was CRYSTAL clear.(Neither of the photos below were taken at Lovongo Cay)
COWFISH - BEFORE
COWFISH - AFTER (Mostly Auto Levels, then I adjusted Levels on my own on top of Auto Levels, size down & sharpen)
BARRACUDA - BEFORE
BARRACUDA - AFTER (Same drill as before, but I also used "Curves" to bring the fish out. Unfortunately, to be able to bring out the fish, I lost some of the detail in the rock, like the sea urchin. I might work on this one again )
I hope this helps and I will answer ANY questions you have that I know the answers for
I've tried real hard not to make any typos, but if this all reads like instructions on a Taiwanese hairdryer, please let me know. Good luck with your photo editing! I love it!
A couple of forumites may recognize some of this word-for-word, because it's what I e-mailed to them. Adobe Photoshop is one of my favorite subjects. I have Photoshop 6.0 and I'll never need more than it offers as far as I'm concerned. Try these little tips and you'll have a great time. Open Photoshop, open a picture (File > open) and then choose "Image > Adjust > Auto Levels". Usually that's all you have to do, but sometimes it makes things look a lot worse. So make sure that on the right side of your screen you have a little box with tabs open and one of them says "history" (again, at the top, go to "Window > Show History"). You can back up in the steps you've done (click on the last action you liked) and re-do the picture just about as many times as you want. If the Auto Levels doesn't work, back up to where you opened the picture. Then do Image > Adjust > Levels. Then you get a wavy graph and the left side is "darks" the right side is "lights" and the middle is your shadow areas. Just slide the little arrows at the bottom back & forth until you get a look you like, then say "ok".
Depending on what resolution you had your camera set at when you took the picture, you may want to size the picture down to e-mail it to someone or post it on the forum. Right click on the blue title bar at the top of your photo and choose "image size" and put in whatever size you want your picture to be. Again, if you don't like the new size, click back in your history and try making your picture a different size. I mostly use "history" as a powerful undo/redo.
After you re-size your picture, you might want to click on "Filter" on the top toolbar and scroll down to "Sharpen", choose either "sharpen" or "sharpen edges". Sometimes "sharpen" makes too many lines stand out (not good on faces! LOL!), so use "shapen edges" and it just makes things "pop" a little. Sometimes neither "sharpen" or "sharpen edges" looks too good, so then I just leave the photo as it was with a little softer look. Save your photo with a different name (save as) and make sure you choose .jpg or .gif, or it will save as a .psd (photoshop document) and can only be viewed in Photoshop.
Master that and I can turn you on to a few other little tricks
Like for instance, see what "Curves" will do. Put your cursor on the diagonal line and move it up or down at one end or the other, or even right in the middle. It can really fix up a hazy picture. I usually play around with curves about 5 times and hit "cancel" before I get one I like well enough to save. Sometimes I just plain cancel because nothing I do really improves the photo.Here are a couple of before & afters so you can see what Photoshop is capable of. Sometimes I had my camera set on "underwater" when I was taking pictures, and sometimes I didn't. I really can't see a difference in the final product when I compare. What DOES make a difference is how clear the water is. The photos I took at Lovango Cay were all done on a cloudy day, and they are by far the best of all my underwater photos, but the water was CRYSTAL clear.(Neither of the photos below were taken at Lovongo Cay)
COWFISH - BEFORE
COWFISH - AFTER (Mostly Auto Levels, then I adjusted Levels on my own on top of Auto Levels, size down & sharpen)
BARRACUDA - BEFORE
BARRACUDA - AFTER (Same drill as before, but I also used "Curves" to bring the fish out. Unfortunately, to be able to bring out the fish, I lost some of the detail in the rock, like the sea urchin. I might work on this one again
)I hope this helps and I will answer ANY questions you have that I know the answers for
I've tried real hard not to make any typos, but if this all reads like instructions on a Taiwanese hairdryer, please let me know. Good luck with your photo editing! I love it!