PS tutorial

[Sushigaijin]

eh, I ended up writing a whole tutorial anyway. Here goes.

Edit: added photo visual aids.

First thing I did was open the file in CS2, and check the histogram. Histogram showed information across the whole spectrum of tones, so the shot did not waste any sensor ability and has good dynamic range. Usually the more tones that are available, the more detail is available.

I opened a new adjustment layer>levels and a new adjustment layer>curves. These were labeled global levels and global curves. I didn't think either needed adjustment, so all I did with these layers was use the levels layer to check the threshold for the black and white points. If these had too little or too much of either, I would use the curve layer to change the thresholds. Come to think of it, I think I boosted the midtones in curves a bit, to brighten the shot by about a half a stop. Now would be the time to adjust the white balance too, but i didn't think it needed it. Often times I find that levels adjustments will crank saturation as a side effect. If that happens, I open a new adjustment layer for saturation and adjust that accordingly. Often I lower the saturation on a few hues and not others - a little extra saturation is nice, but a lot can quickly become too much!!



Next I examined the photo for technical issues that I wanted to address. The background shows some noise, there is a twig growing out of one of the bird's head, and the birds are soft but contain a lot of detail. Contrast is pretty low, they look like I am looking at them through a dirty window. Now that I look at it again, the snow on the right is distracting and would benefit from being cloned out. All this assessment is a personal decision, there isn't any right or wrong, although the rule books are written for pretty solid reasons.

I first went into quick mask mode, masked the tree and the birds, exited quick mask mode, selected inverse, and copied into a new layer. This layer was transparant except for the birds and the tree. I named it foreground.



From there I created a new adjustment layer>levels>clipping mask to previous layer. I did the same with curves. Now I had a level and curves layer for JUST the birds and the tree. I boosted contrast in curves with a slight S curve, about three tones on either side. Cant remember if I adjusted the gray point in levels, it is a possibility. I also trimmed the edges of the layer to get rid of any of the stick that persisted in the foreground. Once that looked good, I moved to the next project.



I used the magnetic lasso to (crudely) select the bird on the left - I only worried about the area where the stick was coming out of the top and bottom. I layered via copy about half of the left bird and named it mask. The rest of the layer was empty. As long as I merge this layer with the foreground later, the contrast and color will be the same as the correct birds. I could just as easily have pasted this layer into "foreground," at this point, but I didn't. I chose to do it this way because it was faster and easier to extract the tiny bit of the bird from the stick then it would have been to extract the tree and the birds. Quick mask is a down and dirty technique that is pretty imprecise, It is much faster than extracting but I needed an exact extraction around where the stick was so that the clone job would look clean.



I then created a new blank layer directly under this one and labeled it "clone."

Now I have four layers: The background, the foreground, the mask, and clone. I have a bunch of adjustment layers pinned to some of these, and I have two global adjustment layers. No one said this is easy, and I am not even sure I know what I am doing!!

I selected the clone layer and selected the clone tool, made sure the box "sample all layers" was selected. I then cloned out the stick. Since the layer "mask" was on top of the layer "clone," I could use a large brush and get the whole stick in one click. Of course I got most of the bird's head as well, but the layer "mask" made sure that wasn't visible.

finished layer, "clone"



Editing finished, ready for filters, sharpening.



I looked at the photo, and it looked pretty good. I decided I was finished. I started merging the layers. I merged "mask" into foreground and "clone" into background. I then merged the adjustment layers that were clipped to "foreground" onto "foreground." Now I had the two layers "foreground" and "background," and the global adjustment layers. I wanted to get rid of the noise in the bokeh, so I used noise ninja at full power on a duplicate background layer. This got rid of the noise but made the birds look like they were a painting. Since "foreground" is on top of "noise reduction," the birds and tree that were noise reduced were not visible through the birds and tree that WAS NOT noise reduced. I then sharpened the foreground with smart sharpen, I think I went with about 130% at 0.3 radius. I sharpened again after that at about 50% and 0.3 radius. If i had masked the left edge of the tree off, I could have probably sharpened again - sharpening halos were still pretty small over most of the image.



I was pretty happy, so i merged the background and foreground, and saved it. End of tour. Took WAY longer to explain than it took to do.

here's the finished image from the tutorial, which ended up a little different from what I did last night. Still total time, about 10 minutes.



and a link to the .PSD with all the layers intact, in case anyone wants to disect my work.

http://www.sushigaijin.com/images/ph...orial%2010.psd

[Knight]

Now thats what i call full service. Thanks for the details Erik ,im gonna try this tonight

[OBie]

:crazy:

My head is spinning! What a great tutorial for CS2. Someday I may find time to actually learn more than how to resize.

[Copy_Kot]

THANK YOU ERIK! Awesome tutorial! I do have one question about Noise Ninja: I checked out their web-site and they seem to have a couple of different versions. I would love to be able to remove that glassy/dirty window look, which version are you using that removes noise in bokeh? I have Neat Image, but I'm unable to do that... Thanks again!!!

[Sushigaijin]

Copy:

The dirty window look is usually a contrast issue. A slight S curve in "curves" should clear that up. I use noise ninja pro, to smooth bokeh I turn smoothness and strength all the way up. I think that most noise reduction programs will smooth bokehs, since noise is most visible in large areas of similar texture and luminance.

One other thing I thought of after I posted, is that the contrast on the tree looks a little much and even sharpened twice it seems soft, yet in focus. A contrast mask and sharpening mask will clean that up. Working from the PDF, first I merge the clipped adjustment layers onto "foreground." then quick mask the tree from the "foreground" layer, select inverse, and layer via copy. I immediately duplicate that layer. One tree layer is labeled sharpen, the other is labeled contrast mask. align the layers so that "sharpen" and "contrast mask" sit over "foreground"



the layer labeled contrast mask - I desaturate, then invert. I apply a little gaussian blur (about 4 pixels for this image) to keep the layer from competing for detail with the other layers. Set the layer blending to overlay.



Now I adjust the opacity of the layer until the photo looks good - here i thought the tree looked like it was in much brighter light than the birds, so I want the tree to be a bit lit with a bit less contrast. With this image, 60% opacity seemed right.



Then I switch to the sharpen layer, and sharpen heavily - here a 0.3 px radius at 345% was not too much.



Next, sharpen as usual on the layer "foreground." since the tree layers are on top of this layer, the tree will not be further sharpened but the birds will. Flatten image and call it a day. A contrast mask will also bring detail out of shots that are WAY too dark to get good detail from, but obviously have a ton of detail. Great way to fix foreground/background problems in landscapes, and shiny stuff like snake scales.

old image:

New image:


.PSD:
Layered file

and heck, using the same mask and clone technique I used above, we can get that show out...once you start cloning huge areas of the background, the results are never super good, but this really wasn't bad. I created mask2 and clone2 layers to do this. Why risk messing up my perfectly good mask and clone layers?

[Copy_Kot]

I've been trying this tonight, creating mask layers and keeping everything separated isn't as easy as I thought it might be :crazy: I'm glad this was turned into a sticky... I'll be referencing it often.

edit- here's a link for othe p/s tutorials... http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tuto...otoshop-9.html

[livin4lax09]

Erik,

very nice tutorial, it would be great if you just posted the original image next to the final image so everyone could see what an improvement it is! Thanks for the tutorial!

[Copy_Kot]

I usually just delete my images that don't turn out so well, once in a while I'll get one that is very hard to give up on.

Here is a before and after of my first pileated. I used some of what Erik mentioned in this thread, and a few things from a couple of books... I have a lot to learn still. BTW, it is much easier p/p on separate layers.

The before image straight from my camera...



Here is the after image...

[Sushigaijin]

Nice extraction, looks pretty clean on the low resolution shot. I think the method to bring out the details in this shot is to duplicate the background twice, change the blending mode on both to "screen" and then do a levels adjustment to get the white point correct. From there a curves adjustment may or may not be able to get detail from the bird's breast, the shot's resolution is too low for me to tell. One thing that does bode well for breast detail is the black threshold - this shows me that only about 30% of the breast is solid black, which means that 70% is varying lighter shades...detail.

here's the finished image showing the black threshold at "5", which is 5 shades above pure black. This includes most of the "blacks" that we cannot distinguish from each other. A curves adjustment will change this histogram considerably.

[mn shutterbug]

Nice tutorial, but unless a person enjoys sitting in front of the computer or has a real need to "save" a photo, I think it'd be easier to go out and try and retake the picture the right way. It just seems to me like a lot of time and work. I suppose if it was for an assignment or you're doing this for resale, it makes sense.

As my name implies, I'm a scroll sawyer. Due to necessity, I have designed a few of my own patterns but would much rather go to a free pattern site and use the patterns already made. Some people actually enjoy sitting in front of a PC and fiddling with photos for a couple hours. For me, it's drudgery. However, I can sit here for hours reading all the interesting threads on this forum. Good thing, everyone is just a little different.

[Sushigaijin]

Nice tutorial, but unless a person enjoys sitting in front of the computer or has a real need to "save" a photo, I think it'd be easier to go out and try and retake the picture the right way. It just seems to me like a lot of time and work. I suppose if it was for an assignment or you're doing this for resale, it makes sense.

Mike:

I totally agree, many times it is better to reshoot. In fact, it is pretty much impossible to create a really good shot out of a bad one and still retain the original meaning - we could probably turn the two woodpeckers into dogs playing poker if we wanted, but that wouldn't do us much good. The end result here is still two downy woodpeckers fighting around the trunk of a tree, the original feeling and message of the photo has not been too far effected by the post processing. When that is possible, it is often worth the time and effort to post process.

That being said, you can't judge a shot to be good or bad without knowledge of what is possible; a person who has never eaten anything but McD's probably thinks McD's is pretty good food. Knowing the capabilities and limitations of software is a fundamental to good digital photography, just as darkroom knowledge was integral to film photography. There is always a balance to be struck between pre and post processing.

[Loupey]

I think it's time to un-stick this and my flash thread.

Erik - Thanks again for taking the time to do this write up :thumbsup: