Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the original photo. Not bad, not great. The mountains have a lot of haze, while the foreground is dark. Just when you forgot that nice +2 gradient filter at home. Don't lose hope!
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The original
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the view in Photoshop. I use Photoshop 7, and I'm sure later versions like CS etc. Have a better look and feel. These instructions should work with the later versions.
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First Look
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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The first thing to do is select Quick Mask. It's the icon in the lower right. Look at my junky hand drawn arrow.
Clicking on this button takes you to another layer where you will constuct a mask. When you return to the original view, the stuff you drew will NOT be selected.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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OK, so I'm in quick mask mode, and the first thing I want to do is use the gradient tool. If you see an icon of a paint bucket, that is the fill tool, and you have to click and hold on the little arrow on the icon to show the gradient tool.
If you hover above the icon PS will tell you the name of the tool. Yay!
Click on the gradient tool.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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The next part is somewhat hard to show. You will click on the beginning of this arrow, and then drag to the end of this arrow.
Where you start the gradient will be the positive color (dark in mask mode by default) and where you end will be the negative color (light by default). Mess with the gradient until you get it right.
In this case, I am masking off the mountains gradually so that I can in turn select just the sky.
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Gradient Selection
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the result from the gradient tool. I masked out the dark foreground and gradually lighten to the top of the sky.
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Gradient
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Now that I have my gradient set up, I need to return to the photograph. I click on the icon to return to Standard Mode where the mask will turn into a selection.
Once again a completely non-professional arrow shows you where to click.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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When you are back in standard mode, you will see a marquee selecting just the area you did not mask. Nifty.
To darken the sky, I select Levels from the menu bar from Image>Adjustments>Levels or Control-L.
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Another Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is what the Levels panel looks like. It is a plot of the brightness of the selected pixels from black (on the right) to white (on the right).
There are three Arrows on the bottom. The black shows where the darkest point of the selection is set. The gray shows where the 50% point of the selection is set. The white triangle shows where the lightest point of the selection is set.
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Levels Panel
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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To darken the photo I drag the dark triangle to where the levels appear to taper off. I move the midpoint gray triangle to the left to darken the sky even more.
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Levels Panel
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the result of using the levels control panel on a gradient mask. The sky is darkened, and the selection was so gradual that there are no masking lines as a give away.
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The result
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Let's go back to Quick Mask mode. Click on the quick mask button and make sure you have the gradient tool selected.
This time around, I'm going to create a gradient band instead of a steady ramp from dark to light. At the top of the window you can find the icon to click.
Just follow the junky arrow...
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Menu at top
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the result of the gradient, with a blue arrow showing where I clicked and dragged. You start at where the center of the gradient will be, and stop dragging where one end will be defined.
In this case I will select the middle.
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Another Gradient
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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When I return to standard mode, the middle gradient is masked. I have to use the select inverse command to turn the gradient I used from a mask into the selection.
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Select inverse
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Select the levels control panel. I adjusted the levels to darken the background and remove that horrible haze.
Here is the result with the level settings.
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After more levels
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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It's back to the Quick Mask, and this time I'm using the standard ramp quick mask. This time I use the gradient to mask out everything but the foreground, which is dark and loses the bison.
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Another Gradient
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the result and the level settings to lighten the foreground. Now the bison pop out from the grass.
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The result, again.
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Another trip to Quick Mask land...
This time instead of using the gradient, I'm going to use the paintbrush tool, and I use a brush with a blended profile.
Some more arrows to show you I'm going from gradient to brush.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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You can see the brush I selected in the upper left.
Here is the result of my semi-horrible mouse painting skills. If often switch from the positive to the negative on the brush to add and then subtract the mask.
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Mask
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Another shot showing the result of applying levels - this mask was to match up all the other work.
After this one, I go through with a dodge and brun tools set at 5% and do some really fine noodling.
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Touch Up
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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One final adjustment I have to make sometimes is to gently nudge the saturation of the photograph. My digital camera tends to be highly accurate, and I've noticed that the Kodak and Fuji films I used before had better color saturation.
Here is the menu to the saturation panel.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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To make the picture look more like film I sometimes push the saturation a little higher.
Here is the after with the control panel in the screen.
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Saturated!
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Some people have wondered how to get the older look to their photographs.
Read on if you want...
Here is the menu to convert the color image to black and white.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the image in black and white. I hit it with one more level to adjust any light or dark colors that may have turned out light or dark grays. I also tend to darken the mid grays to give the image a little more drama.
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Black and White
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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This photograph is now a nice black and white.
To give it a nice sepia tone I have to convert it back to RGB color.
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Color!
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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To tone the image, I use the color balance panel. Here is menu path to the color balance panel.
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The Menu
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the result with the settings I used. For a nice sepia tone, I shift the blue channel to yellow, and I add half the amount to red in the red channel. The settings here are +25 Red, and -50 Blue.
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Color Balance
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Here is the final photograph.
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Final
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/12/2004
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Well, go back to the top to see the before and after if you want to see the before and after. Hope that you learned something new to use.
Check out some of my photographs if you liked the walkthrough. See if you can tell which ones were altered using these techniques and which were not.
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Geoff Simmons
(K=264) - Comment Date 10/14/2004
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This is a great tutorial... I am completely photoshop-impaired, and I managed to fix up this photo a bit:
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Marcy Massura
(K=1848) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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This tutorial took much time and effort- and I really, sincerely appreciate it. This is one of the many reasons Usefilm is so 'Useful'-because of people like you!
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Ben Mok
(K=4084) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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Thankyou Michael.....Thanks to you I have saved many of my old photos (Taken before I learnt about Shutter & Aperture).
Here's my 1st attempt walking through your notes!
When you come to Sydney give me a buzz and I ll buy you a drink or two.....or until you get pissed...
Cheers,
Ben
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Ben Mok
(K=4084) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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Don't know why the picture didn't attach previously.....
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View from Kintamani - Bali
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Chris Hunter
(K=25634) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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Hi Michael, this is a good example of one of the many ways to adjust photos selectvely. However, using individual masks seems abit long winded when there are adjustment layers, which are specififcally designed to adjust images in certain areas or in gradations, and are much easier to use, as they create both the adjustment (curves, level, hue/saturation, brighness/contrast, etc) and the mask all in one step. Also, the main problem with your technique is that you are remapping the image over and and over with each adjustment, where as w/ adjustment layers, you can many as many adjustment layers as you want and then flatten the image one you're satisfied, remapping the image only once.
Chris
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Chris Hunter
(K=25634) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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See...adjustment and mask all in one easy step...
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 10/19/2004
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Great suggestion - seems intuitive, but I don't see the feature in Photoshop 6.0. Do you know in what version this functionality was enabled?
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Ben Goossens
(K=491) - Comment Date 10/20/2004
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Hi Michael,
an interesting tutorial, but as always, there are many way to obtain the same results in PS
Till now, I never have used the grandient masks and prefere the selection tools, square or lasso, give it a feather of 250 and than use the levels, contrast ... ajustment tools.
Nest regards, ben
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Ben Goossens
(K=491) - Comment Date 10/20/2004
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Hi Michael,
an interesting tutorial, but as always, there are many way to obtain the same results in PS
Till now, I never have used the grandient masks and prefere the selection tools, square or lasso, give it a feather of 250 and than use the levels, contrast ... ajustment tools.
Best regards, ben
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Chris Hunter
(K=25634) - Comment Date 10/21/2004
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Hi Mike, I am using version 6.0 as well, the adjustment layers menu is in the layers pallette on the bottom middle, and it is a circle that is half black and half white, click on that and it will bring up almost all of the options under Image>adjust, applied as a maskable layer above your background layer. Let me know if you have any problems/questions using it,
http://www.usefilm.com/photo_forum/14/450933/#2295674
Chris
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 2/22/2005
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Group:
Google has a freeware program called Picasa 2 - in this package under some of the more "advanced" features there is a wonderful gradation tool. Great for those of you who do not have PS and want a nice program for free.
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Sally Morgan
(K=9219) - Comment Date 4/1/2005
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I really appreciate the time you have taken to produce this tutorial - I can't wait to try it out!
Thank you
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Steve Bull
(K=2094) - Comment Date 4/4/2005
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Great tutorial. It would be great if Usefilm had an area dedicated to user's tutorials, as im sure when i need to use this i will have no idea where it is!
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Pankaj Arora
(K=3752) - Comment Date 4/8/2005
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hye michael !
opened this post to go thro the walkthro so generously created by u but i guess some problem somewhere; i can see the text right but my browser doesn't seem to download any of the pics contained. can u find a little time and email that to me(walk thro) at my id mail2me_1@yahoo.com.
regards
Pankaj arora
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 4/8/2005
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I've asked the site admin to look into this.
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al shaikh
(K=15790) - Comment Date 4/9/2005
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Pankaj Arora
(K=3752) - Comment Date 4/9/2005
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[[dead account]]
(K=6692) - Comment Date 4/19/2005
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A good portion of my career is based on using gradients for masking purposes. Thanks for breaking it down!
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Henry Jalandoni
(K=140) - Comment Date 6/13/2005
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Hi Michael, I was wondering if you have an email version of your walk through, I'm having the same problem us Pankaj Arora(I'm not able to see the pictures). My email is hjal26@hotmail.com. thanks.
Henry
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 6/13/2005
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I'll have to repost the walkthrough.
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Ellen Smith
(K=14418) - Comment Date 6/18/2005
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Wonderful tutorial can't wait for the pictures to go with it.
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Michael Kanemoto
(K=22115) - Comment Date 6/20/2005
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Updated with images:
http://www.usefilm.com/photo_forum/14/836401/
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Henry Jalandoni
(K=140) - Comment Date 6/20/2005
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Thanks, greatly appreciated.
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Mary Sue Hayward
(K=17558) - Comment Date 6/21/2005
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Michael, I tried to follow the tutorial: http://www.usefilm.com/image/834562.html#4290475
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