Photodigitary

Workaround for Layer Masks in Photoshop Elements

Most photographers really don’t need the expense or the big learning curve of Photoshop. Photoshop Elements does a wonderful job, especially when used as a supplement to Lightroom. Lightroom does the “heavy lifting” and Photoshop Elements can then be used for layers and to access Photoshop-type plug-ins. I use Nik Software programs such as Vivesa and Dfine all the time. While they are available as Lightroom export plug-ins, I prefer to use them as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements plug-ins because of the added control you get by using them with layers.

Elements has layer masks with adjustment layers, but not for layers with pixels. So if you wanted to change exposure by using an adjustment layer, you could control that layer with a layer mask. However, if you wanted to merge two photos, each on separate layers, you could not do that with layer masks as those layers have pixels. Here one photo has the right exposure for the ground, the other for the sky. We need to bring those two exposures together.

There is a workaround:

1. Click on the layer that you want to change and control with a layer mask.

2. Add a blank layer by clicking the add layer icon or from the Layer menu. This will add a layer over the layer you clicked on.

3. Click and drag the new blank layer under the layer you wish to control.

4. Click on the layer you want to change and press Ctrl + G or Cmd + G. This groups the layer with the blank layer, and since the blank layer is blank, the layer you want to control becomes blank, too.

5. Choose the paintbrush tool from the toolbox at the left.

6. Use black or white as the color (you could use other colors, but let’s keep it simple).

7. Paint into the blank layer wherever you want the hidden layer to now appear (if nothing happens, you are probably still on the grouped, hidden layer. Undo, then click on the blank layer before painting).

8. Erase from the blank layer to remove something from the grouped layer. You can go back and forth, painting and erasing, as much as you want, refining it so it looks natural like the real scene.

That’s it. You can also fill the blank layer with black or white (Edit menu, choose Fill, and Black or White for color) to show the hidden, grouped layer, then erase what you don’t want.

Posted in Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | 3 Comments »

Getting Neutral Tones Where You Need Them

A friend of mine is a pilot and was frustrated by photographing clouds. He could never get the color right.

I gave him some ideas, something he might try for color in clouds, and thought my readers would be interested in this, too. While he was talking about clouds, the techniques here work for any situation where color is off. I will give this for Photoshop and Lightroom/Camera Raw. The key to doing this is to understand that you are using a control that works to make neutral tones neutral, i.e., whites, grays and blacks without color casts. You do need to have an idea of where the neutral tones are in a photo (parts of clouds are typically neutral, to use my friend’s example), but this does not have to be precise. You simply click on whatever you think should be neutral and keep clicking new spots until the photo looks good. If some of your clicks look bad, so what? Just click somewhere else. Here are the steps:

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements:
1. Open a Levels adjustment layer over your photo.
2. Click on the middle eyedropper of the three eyedroppers in Levels in order to select it.
3. Move your cursor onto the photo (the cursor will look like an eyedropper).
4. Click with the bottom of the eyedropper on parts of the photo that should be neutral (the middle eyedropper is for taking color casts out of neutral tones — you can click on white, gray or black sorts of tones).
5. Keep clicking until you are close, but a little over-adjusted.
6. Use Layer Opacity to control how strong the layer is applied.

Lightroom and Camera Raw:
1. Click on the White Balance eyedropper (in the toolbar at top with Camera Raw, in Basic in Develop in Lightroom).
2. Uncheck auto dismiss (in toolbar in Lightroom below photo)
3. Move your cursor onto the photo — it will be an eyedropper.
4. Click with the bottom of the eyedropper on parts of the photo that should be neutral (the WB eyedropper is for taking color casts out of neutral tones such as white, gray and black).
5. Keep clicking until you get what you want.
6. Tweak adjustment if needed with Temperature and Tint adjustment sliders.

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | Comments Off

New Software

I want to tell you about some new software I am using, but before I do that, I feel a need to qualify this blog. I love software that helps me get better results from my photography and makes it easier and faster to work with photos — so I get excited about anything that does this. However, I realize that not everyone will share my excitement, and that’s okay. I don’t think everyone needs to do the same things with their images. I also cannot tell you if you will like this program, if it fits your workflow or your budget. I can only tell you what I like and how it affects my work. I say these things because I know that it is easy to get excited about software and not appreciate that the cost may be a significant factor for people who don’t work with these things for a living like I do.

Okay, the software. Nik Software just introduced Viveza 2, the latest version of this software. I like a number of things about it, including its original technology for carefully controlling adjustments in a specific area of the photo. I saw this technology, U-Point, in development years ago and was quite impressed with it at the time. U-Point technology is in a number of programs now for Nik Software, including Nikon Capture (also made by Nik), Dfine and Color Efex Pro (all very good, highly photographer-centric programs). Viveza uses the technology to create what is essentially an alternative to Photoshop’s adjustment layers and layer masks. You click on something in the photo you want to adjust.

You then adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation (which, by the way, is a far better saturation control than the one in Photoshop) and an area to be influenced. The U-Point technology finds similar color, tone and texture to what you clicked on and limits adjustments to that. You don’t have to do any selections or work with layer masks. In addition, you can add minus control points to places that are being adjusted to prevent them from being adjusted. This is just a click on the photo and you have control. The U-Point technology is very good at finding just the colors, textures, etc. that you want without a lot of work on your part.

Viveza 1 did all of that. What 2 does is add some very nice global controls that allow you to quickly and easily adjust the overall image, plus you gain a new adjustment parameter called Structure. I am so impressed with Structure (which can be used overall or with selected points using U-Point technology) that for nature photography, I find it alone is worth the price of the program.

Now do you see why I qualified this blog in my opening paragraph? I know that some people will think I am crazy saying that one small feature is worth the price of software that is not inexpensive. It all depends on your work and what you like to do. For me, Structure solves a problem I have long struggled with, and that is getting good detail and tonal rendition in the mid-tones, especially the dark tones. Clarity in Lightroom and Camera Raw is a good addition to those programs and does that to a degree. However, I find that clarity can quickly make a subject look harsh and you can lose subtle tonalities. Structure doesn’t do that. It gives great “structure” to tonalities without making them look harsh or destroying subtle tonalities. And to have that in both overall and local adjustments is great.

In the photos I have uploaded, you will see a first photo as it might come from Lightroom or Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Then you see an overall adjustment to structure — notice how the granite rocks really become defined much better. Then I added some local adjustments to just the sky and the flowers. Bright yellow flowers can be difficult to really define because of the way that digital cameras handle bright colors, but Structure has allowed me to bring out their detail and even add some quality saturation (you can see this well in the preview at the bottom right — the left side is before, the right side is after).

Viveza 2 works with Lightroom as an export plug-in, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements as normal plug-ins. Frankly, the average photographer could use Photoshop Elements and Viveza and do work better and faster than most photographers working with Photoshop alone.  Nik Software is at www.niksoftware.com.

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An Easy Special Effect

This photo is our family’s Christmas photo. The background “angels” are a special effect that can be easy to do and can be used for all sorts of photos beyond Christmas.

This is essentially an optical effect related to depth of field. Let’s first look at depth of field. The following shots show a street corner at night — the first image shows it in focus, the next images show it progressively out of focus. This was shot with a telephoto focal length to increase the depth of field effect, i.e., the circles getting bigger. The circles are the lights out of focus. Any out-of-focus bright lights or highlights will take on the shape of the inside of the lens. They become more pronounced with more telephoto and a wider aperture. In this case, the lens was shot wide open, which gives the circles. A lot of lens designs now strive for a circular aperture (or f-stop) at more than the widest f-stop so that this effect shows up at more f-stops, although the largest circles at a given focusing distance will occur with the widest f-stops (f/2.8, f/4, etc).

This can be done during the day, too, by deliberately using bright, out-of-focus highlights behind your subject — this especially works well with close ups. I’ve done this a lot around water, looking for a sparkle in the water from backlight, then shooting flowers in front of it with the lens wide-open to get this effect.

Now to the angels. Remember I mentioned that out-of-focus lights and highlights will take on the shape of the inside of the lens? If you shoot with your lens wide open, then put a cover over the front of your lens with a cut-out shape in it, that will take on the shape of the highlights. So what I did was take a paper punch with an angel shape (I had gotten it on sale after Christmas last year), and cut an angel hole in the middle of a piece of cardboard that fit over the front of my lens. I actually cut a circle of cardboard to fit inside a lens shade, then punched the hole in the middle of that. So now the lens acts as if its aperture or f-stop had the shape of an angel!

The blurred shapes are moving car tail lights. You can do this with any shape you like. I knew a photographer who did this once with the logo of a company he had as a client. Detailed shapes can be done by making an inverted tone shape (i.e., do the shape in Photoshop, then invert it so the background is black and the shape white) and printing it on clear plastic (there are some special “overhead” sorts of media that this can be done with using a printer). You then cut out this new “filter” and put it in front of your lens.

Now the people. I have done this effect by simply having my subject in front of the lights and giving the subject a good exposure from flash. The problem I had is that our kids no longer live at home and so I had to get the family when I could. I didn’t have the perfect background for the lights yet, so I shot them at night with no background nearby (this allowed me to make the background completely black while they looked fine from flash). I cut them out in Photoshop and put them against a background. This had an advantage in that I could pick a favorite family shot and a favorite background shot (the moving cars meant this changed) and put them together. One trick to this, besides working to clean up the edges, is to create a new, top layer in Photoshop over the subject and background layers. Then use the eyedropper to select a color in the background (you might have to do this multiple times as I did). Take a small, soft-edged brush (how big depends on the photo) and paint over the edges of the subject. Change that layer to a Color blending mode (click on Normal and select Color from near the bottom of the big list), then change the opacity of the layer as needed to help it blend in. This layer really helps connect the background and the subject.

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Photoshop techniques | Comments Off

Better Prints the Old-Fashioned Way

I often hear from photographers who are doing everything right for printing, but they have trouble getting a good print. No matter what they do, the print seems to be different than what they expect from what is on the monitor. Then they read about computer gurus who seem to get perfect prints every time and so feel really depressed about doing such a terrible job with printing.

Okay, first thing, stop blaming yourself. Unfortunately, this problem is not uncommon. For some reason, on some computer systems (Mac or PC), Adobe products don’t always communicate as well as they should with certain printers. You can try re-installing the printer driver, but that might not help. I have had this happen to me and I have seen it happen to many photographers, so I know this is real. Digital printing is not pure technology and science. Sometimes we have to apply a little art of printing to get the prints we need.

That doesn’t have to be a problem, though. Your goal is a good print, not a technologically perfect system. Now in the days of the traditional darkroom, a photographer often got less than perfect prints when starting to print an image. That was no big deal. He or she considered that a workprint and simply a step on the way to get a good print. Even a master like Ansel Adams, who you know could have banged out a great print in an instant, considered his first prints to be workprints, prints to study to figure out what would make a really good print.

I think we have been suckered into believing that the computer, printers, color profiles, calibration, etc., etc., will always give us the technology we need to get a great print. In some ways, these may be misleading us toward getting good prints, but not necessarily great prints, but that’s another story. It is related, though. The story on this blog is dealing with those situations where you can’t even get a good print.

This is one place where Lightroom really shines because it is no big deal if the print is not perfect. Simply make a virtual copy of your finished development of the image (the easiest way to do that is to right click the image to get a contextual menu, then pick virtual copy about half-way up). Now go to Develop and make an adjustment to the image using brightness, contrast or color controls that you guess will correct the printing problem. Then print this virtual copy. Still not right? Try another adjustment until it is. You are not trying to match the monitor (which can take you down the wrong path anyway, because the monitor is never a print and a print is never the monitor). Just look at the print and decide if it is a good print or not. Then write down the difference of adjustment between the first image and this virtual copy and keep those at hand for future prints on the same paper (it is possible to create a Develop preset, but this can be a little tricky, so writing this down works).

Now I am going to tell you that doing this will take less time, frustrate you less, and allow you to keep more of your hair in place than trying in vain to make the computer and printer communicate properly. If you are really computer savvy, you might succeed at that, but I find most photographers are not and this process, which is based on how we used to work in the darkroom, is much more calming.

If you are working with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you can do something similar by adding an adjustment layer to your image when it is ready to print. You could try Brightness/Contrast, Levels or Curves for a too dark or too light print; Hue/Saturation or Color Balance for color. For example if your photo is too dark, add brightness to your image in an amount you guess would make the print look better and reprint. Since you are using an adjustment layer, you can then readjust this for another print if your guess was wrong. Then when you get a print you like, either write down that adjustment’s numbers (probably the easiest way to do this) or save a file with that adjustment layer intact for repeat use later, then whenever you print again, add an adjustment layer with those adjustments.

This is so much easier than pulling your hair out. And yes, you will not be matching your monitor, but I am not a big believer in that anyway. A good print is a good print in your hands, not simply something that matches the monitor. The monitor can be used as a reference or guide, but no one who sees your print will ever ask to see the monitor to see if it matches. They will simply judge how well they like the print from what it looks like.

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | 2 Comments »

Muddy dark tones

One thing I see a lot of is what I like to call “muddy dark tones.” This is when the dark parts of an image have their tonalities sort of mush together like the tones of mud. The photo here is from Machu Picchu and has dark tones in it, but they have life and vitality in them, giving life to the photo. Where things are black, they are black and not trying to be dark tones.

Muddy tones can be avoided first when shooting. The first thing to understand as there is no such thing as an arbitrarily “correct shape” to a histogram. You cannot control that — that is a function of the scene. What you want to do is be sure is that there is no large gap at the right side of the histogram — that is a problem for a lot of reasons, including:

• you are not using the sensor efficiently or in its most optimum range
• you are compressing dark tones
• you may be getting less than the full range of tones the camera can handle
• you can increase noise.

In processing your image, you can look to see what is happening to the left or dark side of the histogram. Opening it up can help, depending on the scene. That means having a calibrated monitor in order to see this. With Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, this usually means working the low end of Curves (shadow and dark for Elements’ Color Curves) or using a Screen technique for layers and changing the opacity of the layer (note on that at the end of this blog).

I really like some of the controls in Lightroom 2 that allow you to open dark tones and give them definition so they do not look muddy — this includes the Fill slider (but be careful not to overuse it or the scene will look unlike anything that exists on this planet) and the shadow and dark sliders of the Tone curve. A challenge with all of this is that the world doesn’t follow rules very well! Growing as a photographer means, to a degree, gaining experience with all sorts of conditions and recognizing how different conditions change the way we interpret exposure.

Note on using Screen: Add an adjustment layer to your photo (Levels works fine). Click okay (if needed) without actually doing to the adjustment. This gives you an adjustment layer without any adjustments. Now go to the Blending Modes. They will say Normal by default and are at the top left of the Layers palette. Click on Normal to get a blending modes list. Then select Screen. Your photo will get lighter, but most of the effect is in the dark areas. Use the Opacity of the layer to tone this adjustment down, reducing Opacity until things look right. You can also use the layer mask with your adjustment layer to selectively allow or block the Screen adjustment.

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Digital camera techniques, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop techniques | Comments Off

Making an Image Look Its Best

I recently got a question from a reader that is a good item for the blog. He noted that he knows Photoshop technology pretty good, so he knows how to use it to control the image. But he felt he is not so good in recognizing and knowing what actually needs to be done to an image to make it look its best. He wanted to know what books might help.

I do hear this comment often enough that I know it is a concern. Unfortunately, a lot of Photoshop and Lightroom books are more about “gee-whiz” techniques than in working on this issue of how to look at an image and know what needs to be done. I admit that this can be hard to explain at times.

However, I do feel that a good resource comes not from modern Photoshop or other computer books, but from a classic of good photography — Ansel Adams. I highly recommend his books, The Negative, The Print, and Examples, the Making of 40 Photographs. They are all still in print, but can be also found at used booksellers (such as Abebooks.com) and libraries. You can skip all the developing and chemical stuff in the negative and print books, but the captions, the discussion chapters, are all quite good.

The Print has some really excellent discussions of specific photos and what Adams did working on them, plus I think his opening chapter should be required reading for all nature photographers. Examples, the Making of 40 Photographs gives some very specific information on how Adams worked on 40 photos, from the actual shooting through the darkroom work.

Posted in Books, Digital Photo Techniques, Photoshop, Photoshop techniques, nature photography | 1 Comment »

Nature Photography and Nature

How nature and the environment are portrayed has changed over the years. When I edited Outdoor Photographer magazine, I saw great photography that showed off the dramatic, big scenes. But in recent years, such photos begin to look the same because so many photographers are doing them. They have much less impact on readers.

In addition, today’s economy and harsh environmental realities have made people look again at what nature means to them. Still, most people don’t like to be hit over the head with messages about doom and gloom. They still want to see the beauty of nature and find a connection to it because it is an antidote to our times. But the “same-old” big landscape photos don’t do this.

There is no question that when all photos start looking the same, no matter how “pretty” they are, viewers get bored and stop looking at nature photography.People then can lose touch with our natural world because they start to think that everything is okay based on the pretty pictures on that wall calender.

How do we create images that will get attention for our subjects? In large part, this is an attitude that one takes when photographing by deliberately looking for photos that are not the usual, common, and typical nature photography. But that should not be only “what not to do” — it is also about looking for the unexpected, the surprising, the image that takes the viewer to unexplored visual places. We explore this to a degree in a class I do at BetterPhoto.com on Impact in Photography.

But this idea goes far beyond that, I hope. I believe our natural world faces serious challenges and deserves more than just another “pretty picture” from us as photographers. I am not suggesting that pretty pictures are not important or that we should all become raving environmentalists. I just want people to appreciate and understand nature as more than a place where calendar photos come from. I want people to experience my photographs and the photographs of other photographers as a way of connecting again to our natural world.

Posted in Nature, Photoshop techniques, Uncategorized, Workshops and Classes, landscape photography, nature photography | 3 Comments »

The Print Attitude

I hear a lot about photographers wanting to match their prints with their monitors. While that is not wrong, I do think it can lead to an attitude that results in less than the best prints.

I do not believe in the idea of getting a print to match a monitor. I do believe in color calibration to give a consistent and predictable work environment. But I think that the idea that a print should match a monitor leads people down the wrong path.

I’m not saying that having a monitor correspond to a print is not important — I am talking about a mindset that a lot of photographers get. People should have, I believe, the attitude that a print is a special thing and must live on its own. No one will ever ask to see if your print matches the monitor. A viewer can only respond to what is in the print. That’s very, very important, so I will repeat it: A viewer can only respond to what is in the print. No amount of monitor calibration, soft proofing, profiling, etc., can help the viewer respond to what is actually in the print. Those things can be important in helping get a print, but they must be tools and not the goal. 

In many cases, a good print does not match the original monitor image. Now you might say, Aha!, then you do need to match the monitor as you go. True, but I find that when photographers really focus on matching the monitor as a goal, and consider that the most important thing, they stop looking at the print as a print.

I had a discussion with master printer John Sexton (Ansel Adams last printer) a couple of years ago and he felt that most digital photographers quit printing before the print was truly done, largely because the print “matched the monitor.”

For me, printing is a craft. While digital technology is important, it still must be in service of the craft. I believe that the Ansel Adams books, The Print and Examples, the Making of 40 Photographs, offer more for printing ideas than most digital photography books.

Posted in Digital Photo Techniques, Photoshop techniques | 4 Comments »

Non-Destructive Editing

There is some confusion about non-destructive editing or image processing in Photoshop and Lightroom. Non-destructive means that nothing in the original image is affected as adjustments are made. I had written about Lightroom in Outdoor Photographer magazine a couple of months ago and said everything was non-destructive compared to Photoshop. Some people had questioned that because you can use adjustment layers to “non-destructively” work on a photo. That is true, but it can also get you into trouble.

Photoshop is pixel-editing software. It was designed from the start to do that and is still considered the premier pixel-editing software on the market. Pixel-editing is “destructive” processing by definition because the original pixels are changed from the state they were in coming from the camera. Adjustment layers, in a sense, are a work-around that allow you to make adjustments to a photo without changing underlying pixels, a very useful tool. However, these layers can be merged and flattened at any time, which then applies the adjustments to the photo, and pixels are changed. In addition, the more adjustments you make, the more layers you have to deal with, and if you need to make changes, it can be a hassle to manage all of these layers.

Lightroom never touches original pixels — it is designed from the start to be non-destructive and cannot ever be destructive. You cannot change original image pixels. This really keeps your photo safe. So, based on how the programs were designed, you can say Photoshop is pixel-editing software that can affect original pixels while Lightroom is non-destructive software that can never affect original pixels. That is not to say that this makes either program “better” — better will depend on the needs of the photographer and both programs offer things the other does not. I still use both programs and my work requires both. I really like the integration between Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4, too.

In addition, all adjustments in Lightroom are applied seamlessly, and automatically in the right order (no matter what order you actually did them unlike Photoshop) when the image is exported from Lightroom. Finally, all adjustments are readily accessible in the processing panel of Develop and you need know nothing about layers to use them (Photoshop CS4 has a new interface that uses this idea quite nicely for adjustment layers).

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