Week 3 Review: Editing Smart Objects, Masks and Selections

Howdy

Keep those Before and after Pics flowing!  Remember, not sure what to do in Camera Raw? Click the "Auto" button... doing that usually reveals big hints at what you need to do!

When you have a photo where global edits in Camera Raw cannot process detail in highlights (sky) and shadows (landscape) or other similar situations without blowing away details in one or the other... Use smart objects to merge a blending of 2 copies of the same image, one processed for highlight recovery and the other(s) for mid-tones and shadows. 
Using Raw Smart Objects in Photoshop

The Photoshop "Power Tool" -- "The Quick Selection Tool"

Key board short Cut The "W" Key

Here's a video by Martin Evening Demoing CS5 The Quick Selection Tool and "refine edge"/"refine masks"

Click here for The video

More soon...

Before and After by Max Talbot

Max Talbot, Girls before

After

For the next few nights the Perseid Meteors are the "stars" Best after midnight, Get a lawn chair or a blanket and look up!  The Constellation, Perseus is rising out of the NE at Midnight, and that's where the meteors radiate from...

Enjoy!!!  Remeber, if you can see'em, you can photograph them...
For more details visit Sky & Telescope

Dragon Fly - "Before" and "After"

The before image 

After... Mostly using the "Dodge" tool, actually the "adjustment tool brush"  to bring out the details in the left wings to match the lighting in the right side wings

Share your photos

"Photoshop is a great plugin for Camera Raw," Photographer and Camera Raw Guru, Jeff Schewe.

As you saw in class, It is by far easier and quicker to enhance your photos in Camera Raw than using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop to edit them.

Photoshop is for complex composites, merging photos, removing or adding objects in a photo... where you need to use layers, masks and selections.

To print your photos you will need Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom, or a 3rd party like Costco, or Walmart.

Here's the page I put together, notes from the class about Camera Raw, you'll also find keyboard shortcuts, and other resources for Camera Raw.

Here are other photo enhancing tips for Camera Raw and Photoshop/PSE

Gradients
Layer Masks and Wrinkles
The Healing Brush
Skin Tones and the Clone Tool
Over or under exposed images in Photoshop/PSE
and

Camera Raw and Smart Objects

And, that is only the tip of the ice berg...

Cropping your photos for composition.


1. Crop to simplify the photo by eliminating distractions at the edge of the photo.
2. Crop Rules
There is a reason why a photograph looks good, or looks compelling...
Hidden in the photo is a mathematical progression that occurs naturally in nature.  We call it the Golden Mean.   It is based on the progression of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence:

For Photoshop there is a free "open Source" Javascript that you can run, that will aid you in deciding how to crop your photos

The Script is in the CD I gave you in class, it's in the folder called Actions.  Golden Crop.jsx

For those of you that are Using Adobe's Lightroom you can toggle the grids on and off only when the crop tool is running in the develop module! It's the O key, that's the "letter" o

You can double click the script and it will launch and run in Photoshop.  Or you can load the script from the Menu: File > Scripts

If you don't have the disk, you can find the script here...

http://goldencrop.sourceforge.net/

Share your "before" and "after" photos!

Now that you are an expert at Camera Raw, I'd like to see your work!

E-mail me your photos Labeled with your name and with before and after... 

Re-size your photos for the web

Landscape orientation at  1024 pixels x 768 px 

Portrait orientation at 768 px x 512 px

I will post'em side by side here...

Bring your problem photos to class, we'll work on them there!