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Photoshop Digital Picture Editing Photo Dynamics
Note: This section uses Adobe Photoshop
for Picture Editing
Find all current special offers on Adobe products.
When taking your digital pictures you are not always going to have the best lighting due to the time of day and year, but importing pictures to photoshop helps you adjust any levels that would be ideal for the photograph. Color balance, hue, saturation, brightness, and an assortment of other parameters, let you fix anything that might be lacking in your photo to truly call it a professional looking photo. This is extremely important to selling you pictures and editing them for any professional purpose, and of course it is greatly needed for artistic and abstract photography, giving your pictures an edge that can make a picture truly original. This site is dedicated to bringing all the information about getting jobs with simple picture taking and editing skills, and a picture usually isn't completely presentable unless it has several changes made.
Jump to a Photoshop Dynamic's Subject
-Introduction- -Levels-
-Brightness and Contrast- -Color Balance-
-Color Selection and Replacement- -A Few More things-
I know the lack of video tutorials is annoying, so if you want to shove out some money and watch em, here ya go Click Here!.
If you want more reading on the subject of altering a pictures appearance to perfection go here
I pulled out some of the grey and extra color that didn't need to be in the picture, which will give it a stronger look. Start out by going to IMAGE - ADJUST - LEVELS, this window should pop up.
What you want to do is pull any unused colorings that clutter your picture, I pulled both sliders toward the middle a tiny bit. This got rid of some of those unused levels, and took most of the grey out of the picture. After setting your level constraint you need to move the slider in the middle, which will strengthen the pictures levels depending on which way you move it. I pulled my slightly to the left, its hard to specify the exact science of changing levels but mess around with it and make sure not to pull a level too far or you will get extreme results.
The other two arrows are for taking black or white out of the picture, this should mostly be left alone but you can tweak it a tiny bit if you need to, only if your picture is really lacking one of the shades.
and this is the example we are going to be using...
To quickly explain this window, you have three main sliders letting you change to pretty much any color, although this isn't as easy as it sounds because mixing colors is sometimes pretty complicated, practice makes perfect (if you have not heard that enough yet). Besides the sliders you have the options of what shade to work on Shadow, Midtone, or highlights. Shadows are darker shades and will only drastically change darker places in the picture, following that, midtone affect the general picture and highlights only affect lighter colored shades. I also recommend keeping the PRESERVE LUMINOSITY button checked.
Lets take my motif of a slight tint of blue, to give it a nostalgic cold look.
The first one may have okay lighting and colors, but they do not fit my scheme so I had to give it some blue and cyan on the sliders. Now I am ready to get my blue motif job done.
We have that lines and planes photograph that doesn't stand out very well, no real accenting colors, no real interesting shapes. I just increased the amount of red there is in the bricks and its a huge improvement, now the bricks have a real pop to them. This isn't the most drastic change but that is why this is called picture dynamics.
There is three ways of doing this: Color range, Selective Color and Color Replacement.
They are all important although they do relatively the same thing, but I mostly use color range. Using color range selection will let you change any attribute in the picture: Color, brightness, contrast, level, and even filters. And I also find it better for changing colors of exact objects and not just the color in general.
Color Replacement is better for blending and changing a single color in the whole picture in stead of just one object. But the parameters are limited to Hue, Saturation, and Lightness, which is sometimes annoying if you have a ton of changes to make. And Selective color changes everything in the picture that contains the parameters of a single color such as RED, Yellow, Green, Cyan etc. There is no selection it just automatically senses a certain color in the picture and changes it with 4 different sliders, this is great to get a color conceptual piece or motif. I recommend learning them all because if you take your photoshop and picture editing seriously you are going to use them both.
Color Range Selection
So if you read the tutorial about textures then you should already know the basic concepts of color range. Start out by know what object or color you need to select (you can also do multi color selection), go to SELECT - COLOR RANGE.
So the screen above should pop up and you will need to select the eye dropper tool and click on your actual picture, if you picture is not visible move the color range window over a bit so you are able to click on it. After clicking on the desired color, slide the arrow left or right until your selection is all white and the rest of your picture is black. Select another color by clicking on the plus eye dropper, which I don't recommend adding another color unless it is generally the same color, because adverse effects could make the picture seem unrealistic. Click OKAY and the dancing ants should be around only your object/color, now you are free to select COLOR BALANCE, LEVELS, BRIGHTNESS, and even FILTERS, to change the picture to your specific need.
Color Replacement
Like I said before this method is quite a bit quicker but isn't as detailed as the Color range selection, it pretty much has the same interface as the color range window, start out by going to IMAGE - ADJUST - REPLACE COLOR this window should pop up.
This window should look familiar, slide the fuzziness arrow left and right to get only the color you want to be effected. If you need more selected, click on the plus eye dropper and click on another color. Now all the changes are made in this window by sliding the three parameters left and right, Hue will adjust the color, saturation will adjust how much color there is in the photograph, and lightness is the general brightness and how much exposure your picture will have.
The biggest problem with REPLACE COLOR is that it makes the coloring a bit too drastic and doesn't keep that level of realism.
Selective Color
This is probably the easiest one to use, and is mostly used for changing themes in the entire photo. Say if you wanted to change a particular color in the picture to blue to give it a cold blue flavor, then this can select all the reds, yellows, greens or whatever color and change them to the blue color you want. Under IMAGE - ADJUST - SELECTIVE COLOR a window with colors and sliders will pop up, select the color you want to change in the pop down menu, and simply slide what color you desire to be more visible in the picture. It's a pretty nice tool, since it takes quite a bit to make it look unrealistic.
Black and white is under IMAGE - ADJUST - DESATURATE, and one more thing to desaturate is the same thing as taking out all the color.
Negative image is when the colors are reversed and come from a real photographs negative, to do this go to IMAGE - ADJUST - INVERSE.
And lastly if you want to rotate your picture in any direction go to IMAGE - ROTATE CANVAS, remember that this will flip the CANVAS not just the picture meaning it will flip any layers you might have in your layers tool bar.
Find all current special offers on Adobe products.
When taking your digital pictures you are not always going to have the best lighting due to the time of day and year, but importing pictures to photoshop helps you adjust any levels that would be ideal for the photograph. Color balance, hue, saturation, brightness, and an assortment of other parameters, let you fix anything that might be lacking in your photo to truly call it a professional looking photo. This is extremely important to selling you pictures and editing them for any professional purpose, and of course it is greatly needed for artistic and abstract photography, giving your pictures an edge that can make a picture truly original. This site is dedicated to bringing all the information about getting jobs with simple picture taking and editing skills, and a picture usually isn't completely presentable unless it has several changes made.
-Introduction- -Levels-
-Brightness and Contrast- -Color Balance-
-Color Selection and Replacement- -A Few More things-
I know the lack of video tutorials is annoying, so if you want to shove out some money and watch em, here ya go Click Here!.
What exactly can I change?
Ah, that's a good question... There tons of possibilities as far as colors replacements, brightness-contrast, and even sometimes superimposing. If you want more reading on the subject of altering a pictures appearance to perfection go here
Turn up the Volume! a.k.a Levels
Changing a level is like changing the pictures volume, how much color shows at what frequency. You might remember this picture from the texture tutorial...
I pulled out some of the grey and extra color that didn't need to be in the picture, which will give it a stronger look. Start out by going to IMAGE - ADJUST - LEVELS, this window should pop up.
What you want to do is pull any unused colorings that clutter your picture, I pulled both sliders toward the middle a tiny bit. This got rid of some of those unused levels, and took most of the grey out of the picture. After setting your level constraint you need to move the slider in the middle, which will strengthen the pictures levels depending on which way you move it. I pulled my slightly to the left, its hard to specify the exact science of changing levels but mess around with it and make sure not to pull a level too far or you will get extreme results.
The other two arrows are for taking black or white out of the picture, this should mostly be left alone but you can tweak it a tiny bit if you need to, only if your picture is really lacking one of the shades.
Brightness and Contrast
This one compared to levels is relatively simple, and is applied to pictures with too many blending colors and a dark or light look. This particular dynamic is great because of its ease to use and it can help any picture get some depth and quality. Under IMAGE - ADJUST - BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST this window will pop up.and this is the example we are going to be using...
Color Balance
A color scheme is a set of particular colors that is the motif of the picture, website, advertisement etc. In order to keep a good color scheme you may need to adjust the color balance of a picture. Go to IMAGE - ADJUST - COLOR BALANCE, and of course another window to deal with.To quickly explain this window, you have three main sliders letting you change to pretty much any color, although this isn't as easy as it sounds because mixing colors is sometimes pretty complicated, practice makes perfect (if you have not heard that enough yet). Besides the sliders you have the options of what shade to work on Shadow, Midtone, or highlights. Shadows are darker shades and will only drastically change darker places in the picture, following that, midtone affect the general picture and highlights only affect lighter colored shades. I also recommend keeping the PRESERVE LUMINOSITY button checked.
Color Selection and Replacement
Color Replacement is changing a single color in the picture with the intent of changing it only on the object of interest. Replacing a color can help the picture stand out or make someone focus on one key detail in the photograph. Lets start by taking a look a picture I have changed. If you notice that only the brick color has changed instead of every color like in the Volume tutorial. There is three ways of doing this: Color range, Selective Color and Color Replacement.
They are all important although they do relatively the same thing, but I mostly use color range. Using color range selection will let you change any attribute in the picture: Color, brightness, contrast, level, and even filters. And I also find it better for changing colors of exact objects and not just the color in general.
Color Replacement is better for blending and changing a single color in the whole picture in stead of just one object. But the parameters are limited to Hue, Saturation, and Lightness, which is sometimes annoying if you have a ton of changes to make. And Selective color changes everything in the picture that contains the parameters of a single color such as RED, Yellow, Green, Cyan etc. There is no selection it just automatically senses a certain color in the picture and changes it with 4 different sliders, this is great to get a color conceptual piece or motif. I recommend learning them all because if you take your photoshop and picture editing seriously you are going to use them both.
Color Range SelectionSo if you read the tutorial about textures then you should already know the basic concepts of color range. Start out by know what object or color you need to select (you can also do multi color selection), go to SELECT - COLOR RANGE.
So the screen above should pop up and you will need to select the eye dropper tool and click on your actual picture, if you picture is not visible move the color range window over a bit so you are able to click on it. After clicking on the desired color, slide the arrow left or right until your selection is all white and the rest of your picture is black. Select another color by clicking on the plus eye dropper, which I don't recommend adding another color unless it is generally the same color, because adverse effects could make the picture seem unrealistic. Click OKAY and the dancing ants should be around only your object/color, now you are free to select COLOR BALANCE, LEVELS, BRIGHTNESS, and even FILTERS, to change the picture to your specific need.
Color Replacement
Like I said before this method is quite a bit quicker but isn't as detailed as the Color range selection, it pretty much has the same interface as the color range window, start out by going to IMAGE - ADJUST - REPLACE COLOR this window should pop up.
This window should look familiar, slide the fuzziness arrow left and right to get only the color you want to be effected. If you need more selected, click on the plus eye dropper and click on another color. Now all the changes are made in this window by sliding the three parameters left and right, Hue will adjust the color, saturation will adjust how much color there is in the photograph, and lightness is the general brightness and how much exposure your picture will have.The biggest problem with REPLACE COLOR is that it makes the coloring a bit too drastic and doesn't keep that level of realism.
Selective Color
This is probably the easiest one to use, and is mostly used for changing themes in the entire photo. Say if you wanted to change a particular color in the picture to blue to give it a cold blue flavor, then this can select all the reds, yellows, greens or whatever color and change them to the blue color you want. Under IMAGE - ADJUST - SELECTIVE COLOR a window with colors and sliders will pop up, select the color you want to change in the pop down menu, and simply slide what color you desire to be more visible in the picture. It's a pretty nice tool, since it takes quite a bit to make it look unrealistic.
Everything Else
We have pretty much went over all the important photograph dynamics and how to make your pictures professional and artistic, but there are a few thins left that are pretty basic but you should know. Black and white is a pretty simple way to turn your picture in a whole different direction, by turning off distracting colors or just by keeping a classic look. Black and white is under IMAGE - ADJUST - DESATURATE, and one more thing to desaturate is the same thing as taking out all the color.
Negative image is when the colors are reversed and come from a real photographs negative, to do this go to IMAGE - ADJUST - INVERSE.
And lastly if you want to rotate your picture in any direction go to IMAGE - ROTATE CANVAS, remember that this will flip the CANVAS not just the picture meaning it will flip any layers you might have in your layers tool bar.