Over the years I have had people ask me how I do certain effects and things on my photos, so I have decided to start making some tutorials to give some insight and help those wanting to learn or obtain additional skills for their own work. Enjoy!!!
Photo Editing – Enhancing Detail and Depth
Image Correction
Controlled Detail and Depth Adjustment Tutorial
“Several Lessons in One”
By: Bryan Crump, Photographer and Artist
Introduction:
This tutorial is to give some people ideas on how they can improve their images and get some effects they may not have known about previously, using photoshop and similar editing programs. You may have an image that is too light or too dark or that you just want to give more depth or sharpen up a little. This tutorial covers that.
Before we begin, I want to thank the lovely model: Asia Dayle for being the subject of our example image. Asia has modeling profiles on both modelmayhem.com and myspace.com
I will give links to her portfolio at the end of this tutorial.
_________________
Using this image in the tutorial or your own image we will be taking several steps to correct the image lighting, detail and create a desired effect. If you need the main image for this tutorial, you can download it here: tutorial image to download, just right click and save the link.
This is the is the before and after:
If you are using the example image in this tutorial or zip file, then your end result should look close to the finished image as well. If you are using the file in this tutorial it will be called ” asiadetailpinup.jpg “. First we open the image and want to check to see where out light point and dark points are.
But before we begin that, we want to duplicate the background or main layer, so that there is a duplicate. You can do this by dragging the layer to the create new layer icon or right clicking in the layer menu and selecting duplicate layer.
We want to keep the original layer so that we have something to refer back to and also keep from losing our original if we need something to come back to.
Now go ahead and save the file before we start working any further, but save it as asiadetail_e.psd
The _e is there so we know this is our edited file. We can rename the image again once we have finished with out editing.
Okay, now that our image is saved as a working file we can begin our work.
On the new layer that you created. Double click on the name background copy in the layers tab and rename it to BEGIN
now press [ctrl] [s] to quicksave.
We will be saving periodically, just because it is a good habit to get into, if anything were to happen, you don’t lose what you were working on.
Now, with the BEGIN layer selected, go to the Menu Bar at the top of photoshop and select the menu option Image, then adjustments and then threshold. This will temporaliy turn the image into a gritty black and white image, but don’t worry, this is only a reference for what we are about to do.
You will see that a new window has appeared for the threshold editing. ** Remember ** Do not click OK. We are not applying this effect, we are using it to get our reference points for the next step.
Bring the slider under the graph to the left until you get something that looks like this.
You will see that there is very little of the image left and some little black chunks on a white canvas. these are the darkest and closest to black spots on the photo. What we want to do now is zoom in and create a reference marker. We zoom in and out by pressing [ctrl] and the [+] or [-] keys. Now because we are in an editing option we cannot use the move tool, but we can use the sliders to move the viewing area of the image. Zoom in an move to this area:
Now hold down [shift] and left click your mouse in the middle of the black area. You will notice that it left a little marker. This is our reference point for one of the darkest areas in the picture, as seen above.
Now zoom back out by [ctrl] and the [-] key and bring the slider in the threshold option to the right until you get something that looks like this:
You will notice that it is all the lightest areas of the picture on black now. Also the area where the sky is, is the lightest area. It was an overcast day and very cloudy, so I know these are white or light grey cloud. Go ahead and bring your mouse point over that area or the lighest area on your picture and again hold down [shift] and left click.
Now, you have created our second marker, giving us, a point of reference for our lightest point in the image.
Now click CANCEL, ** DO NOT CLICK OKAY *** in the threshold menu so that it closes and you have your color image again.
Now save with [ctrl] [s] and if you look at the image you will see that the markers are still there and we have not lost them.
Now we can correct the lighting and white balance if needed. So for the next step we will go to the Menu bar again and select image, adjustments and curves. You will see that a new editing window popped up. It should be in the RGB mode and have a straight line. like this:
Now what we want to do is zoom in to the shoe where we put the marker for our darkest area.
Click on the eydropper on the left side in the curves menu, this will set our black point in the image. Now click on or as close to the marker on the darkest part of the image and you will see that it changes the image lighting a little.
We have now set our black point.
Now zoom out so you can see the whole image and zoom into the the area with the second marker for our lightest area, like so:
Now click on the far right eye dropper in the curve menu, so we can set our white point. Now, click on the second marker we created for our white point or lightest area of the photo. You won’t see a lot of change in the this particular image. But in others you edit you may see a big difference. Especially if you shot in a low lighting situation.
The color looks okay, so we will go ahead and click OK in the levels menu. Now our dark and light points are set. We can go on to the next step.
Right click on the Begin layer in the layers tab and duplicate it two more times.
Now select the begin layer in the layers tab and press the lock at the top and then select the layer named begin copy 2.
Now save again using [ctrl] [s]
Make sure that the layer, Begin Copy 2, is selected.
Now I want to adjust the darkness of the image. This can be done many ways, but for the purposes of this tutorial we
will use the exposure option. Go to the menu bar at the top select image, adjustments and exposure.
*** If you do not have an exposure option. You can use levels or curves to create a similar result.
You will notice that now we have an exposure editing window. For this section will be only be using GAMMA. You can play around with the other options later if you like, but for now just follow along. Adjust the slider on the gamma option, until you get something like this and click OK:
Now our image is starting to have a little more depth, but the light is brighter on Asia’s legs in this photo. She has nice legs but we want her to be the focus of the image, not just her legs.
Now, click on the eye icon next to the begin copy 2 layer. It will disappear. Don’t worry it is still there.
Now select the begin copy layer. go to the menu bar and select image, adjustments and levels. Change the settings so the image looks close to this and then click OK:
Now select the begin copy 2 layer again and click in the empty box on the left to make the eye reappear again. Now you have the original layer with the legs being the focus, but we have the other layer underneath.
Now will zoom into the area of her face and torse until it looks like this:
In the layer tab on the right, click the button button called [ add layer mask ]
Now select the brush tool and set your brush size to about 65 pixels and make sure the brush hardness is set to 0, so we have a good fade for the effect we are doing. Make sure that you have black selected in the color like so:
At the top make sure your brush opacity is around 20 to 25 percent, we want this to be a subtle edit.
Starting with the begin copy 2 layer selected and make the new layer masked is highlighted or you will be painting black on the picture. If the layer mask is not highlighted or you are not sure then, click on it. It should look like this:
Once you are sure. Start painting on the image in the areas of her face and arms and you will see that it erases that part of the image so that the layer underneath starts to show through. Making her face brighter. Keep painting until you get something that looks like this:
If you want you can do the same for some of the bricks if you want them to lighten up a little.
Once you are done, hold down [ctrl] and then left click on both the layers, begin copy 2 and begin copy so they are both selected, like so:
Now go to the menu panel and select the layer menu and then merge layers or you can use [ctrl] [e], which is the shortcut.
Double click on the begin copy 2 layer in the layers tab and rename it to DETAIL. It should look like this:
Duplicate the detail layer and select the detail copy layer.
Press [ctrl][s] to save our progress
Now we are going to sharpen the image. There are a few ways to do this. One is the sharpen tool and another which I
have been doing is a new technique I came up with, that lets you control, where you sharpen details overall in the image.
I want you to duplicate the detail copy layer 3 more times, like this:
Now rename the layers so that the top is named
High Pass 1, the next one is high pass 2 and the 3rd one is called effect 1. It should look like this:
Now that you have done that go to the menu bar up top and under filters, select other and high pass. You will should notice it turns into a sort of greyscale image with some color and has a glow of light and shadow. If we adjust the settings that look changes. For this image I set it around 8 pixels because image is large, depending on how much you want to effect and the size of the image you will want to change this.
Adjust it until you get something like this and click okay.
Make this layer invisible by clicking the eye next to the high pass 1 layer.
Now, select the high pass 2 layer and do the same high pass setting.
Now we have two layers with the same high pass effect. For this tutorial this is fine, but once you see what we are doing you may want to play with the settings to get different looks in your picture.
Okay, with the High Pass 2 layer selected, go up to your menu bar and select image, adjustments and levels.
You will notice we again have the editing window, but this time the graph is different. That is because of the high pass effect we did. Bring the left slider to about the midpoint if not a little past to the far side of it, but not too far. You should have something that looks like this:
Now click okay. Right now it looks horrible, but this is only an effect layer. It is important to remember that.
Go to your high pass 2 layer and with it selected and in the layers tab select the drop down tab next to the opacity
setting and select SCREEN.
WOW!! it enhanced all the highlight areas of the image. Your image should look something like this now:
Now select the High Pass 1 layer and click in the box to make the selected layer visible again. It should be the first grey looking highpass layer we created.
Now we go up to the menu bar again and select image, adjustments and levels once again. But this time we bring the slider the opposite direction to effect the darkest details. It should look something like this:
Now click OK. Thats an interesting effect, but again it is an effect layer.
Make sure the High Pass 1 layer is selected.
Next to the opacity adjustment in the drop down menu, select multiply.
Now the color image is back and some of the darker areas detail is enhanced.
Now I want you to press [ctrl] and select the top three layers, ( High Pass 1, High Pass 2 and Effect 1 ) and go to menu, layers and merge the layers together. They should all merge and become one layer.
Rename that layer to Pass Detail.
Now click on the eye next to Pass Detail to make that layer invisible.
Select the layer called, Detail Copy.
Go to the menu bar and select filter, sharpen, and unsharp mask.
You will notice that this filter does a similar effect to what we just did with the high pass. but it sharpens overall. My settings are Amount, 134%, Radius 4.4 pixels and Threshold 21 levels. You can adjust it as well to your liking.
Now select the layer called Pass Detail, and click the box to the left of it to make it visible again. Bring the opacity down to about 63%, make sure the Pass Detail layer is selected when you do this. You will see that it blends it down to the sharpened layer. You can adjust the opacity to your liking as well.
** I like to do both effects, of high pass and unsharp mask to get different looks and them blend them together for a unique sharpness or effect on the image.
Now, pressing [ctrl], click on all the detail layers ( pass detail, detail copy, and DETAIL ) so they are selected and merge them
Rename the merged layer to NEW DEPTH as in the example. Now, duplicate this layer twice. and then save by pressing [ctrl] [s]
Name the two new layers ( Depth Adjustment and Effect Depth ). Depth Adjustment should be the very top layer and Effect Depth just under it, like so:
Now, what we are going to do is unsaturate the Depth Adjustment layer so that becomes a grayscale image.
We do this by pressing [ctrl][shift][u]
The layer should now be a greyscale image like so:
Duplicate this layer. so that there are two greyscale layers. Make the depth adjustment copy layer invisible by clicking the eye next to it.
Select the Depth Adjustment layer, not the copy we just made. *The top layer should be invisible now. *
Alright, now, go to image, adjustments and EXPOSURE. Adjust it to something that looks like this and click OK:
Now with the depth adjustment layer selected, click on the drop down menu next to opacity and select SCREEN.
EEK!!! That really brought out some overexposure on the photo, but that is okay. Bring the opacity down to around 72 percent.
Now select the Depth Adjustment copy layer and make it visible. it should be a greyscale again.
Now go to the menu panel and select image, adjustments and brightness/contrast. Adjust it to look something like this:
now click OK.
With the Depth Adjustment copy layer selected.
Use the drop down menu next to opacity in the layers tab and select multiply.
You will notice that it darkens areas of the color image now and brings out more depth in the picture.
Pressing [ctrl] click on the layers ( depth adjustment copy, depth adjustment and effect depth ) to select them all together.
Go to layers and select merge layers. All three have become one layer with the desired effect.
Rename this new layer as DEPTH.
Now with the new layer, DEPTH, selected. Adjust the opacity to blend to the new depth layer, until you get something you
like this:
I set mine at an opacity of 54%.
now press [ctrl][e] to merge down the layer. Your layers tab should now look like this:
Now we have just one more step before the image in this tutorial is finished. We are going to add a lighting effect.
Duplicate the layer called New Depth and rename the new layer as SHADOW.
Now make sure you have the SHADOW layer selected and go to image, adjustments and exposure.
Adjust it to look like this:
Now at the bottom of the layers tab, click on the add layer mask button. You should see it pop up a white box next to the image on your selected layer in the layers tab. Make sure this white box is highlighted. Now select your brush tool and make sure that the color black is selected. Set your opacity on the brush to 23 percent or so if it is not already adjusted. Now you can paint where you want the light to be.
Keep painting on the layer mask until your image looks like this:
You can see now how we have a specialized effect. If it is too much, you can adjust the opacity on the SHADOW layer for
your preference. I have mine set at 33%.
Now pressing [ctrl] click on both the SHADOW layer and the New Depth layer, so that they are both selected and merge them using [ctrl][e]
Rename the new layer to FINAL IMAGE. press [ctrl][s] to save. Do any final adjustments to the image that you need to.
Now go to the menu bar and select layer and flatten image.
Go to file and SAVE AS. Save the file as “asiadone.jpg”
You have now completed this tutorial. It has a lot of steps, but there is a lot reason and technique behind it. You can use variations of all the steps to create different effects and looks. Once you learn this way, you can play around with all the different effects to create new and unique details. If you have an image that has a lot of noise or grain, it will intensify this. So you may have to do some editing to fix that, but I will cover that in a different tutorial.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Sincerely,
Bryan Crump
If you are interested in hiring Asia as a model here is a link to her modeling portfolio on model mayhem.
Asia Dayle http://www.modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=326874
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