Friday Photoshop Fun!

We went this past week to visit the botanical garden, and the big dogwood tree that is blooming. I love dogwoods, and the reason why is there was a HUGE dogwood tree next to the house I basically grew up in. I would say it was close to the size of this one. I remember seeing it bloom every spring, getting my photo taken with it, etc. EVERY SPRING. Good memories. Anyway I had heard the trees were in "peak bloom" and I knew a BIG STORM was coming that night and it had been raining or cool most of the week. I took a chance and ran the kids out to the gardens to try and do just snapshots of them. When I post the boys you'll see what I mean. One day I'll go back with the reflector and other equipment and concentrate on "portrait" quality photos. Although I got a few of them that I like. :)



Knowing how slowly dogwoods grow, and how fragile in those early years, this one (and the one from my childhood) have to be VERY old.

But back to the photoshop portion of this post. I took a series of photos of Katie, close up. Here are 2 of them. To see any of these larger, right click and open in a new tab or window. Your photoshop may not look like mine. I use Adobe CS4, but if you use Adobe products many of the tools "look" similar, and I think all photoshop products have layers capabilities. If you are using something else, then your tools may look different but you should have the same ones.




Basic edits done to them, but both adorable...just not "quite right" to me. The one with the better "face" is missing one of the pigtails due to the wind. The one with both pigtails showing, the face while cute isn't "just right" either. What to do? Well...here's what I'm going to show you on this post. I first open both in photoshop.

Then I copy and paste the one with BOTH pigtails over the photo of the one missing one. I also copy the background layer of the photo with the one missing the pigtail. I have 3 layers now - background, background copy, and Layer1 (which is the photo of both pigtails). If you don't know how to copy the background, one way is to copy and paste it on itself.



YES, there are 3 layers there. I never make "permanent" changes to the original layer so that I can always go back to it and start over. :)



On the top layer (which is the one with the 2nd pigtail) I change the layer mode to DIFFERENCE to see what is "different" between the two. When things are aligned properly the image is all black. Using the move/change size tool (mine looks like and arrow/pointer with a plus sign beside it...it's at the TOP of the far left tool bar in this photo), I rotate and MOVE the photo until I get the nose and eyes aligned. Then I change the layer mode back to normal (and sometimes lower opacity) until I tweak what I want into "perfect" alignment.





On the top layer that is now properly aligned, I add a LAYER MASK. What is WHITE in the layer mask shows the layer it is on. What is black on the layer mask blocks what is on that layer and shows what is beneath it. (Don't worry, more to come on layer masks I promise.)



Then, to "hide" all of that top layer, I use the paint bucket tool and paint the entire layer mask BLACK. If you make a mistake and paint the entire "photo" area black then just undo and click on the WHITE layer mask box to make it the active portion of the layer.


Then, I select the brush tool with the layer box active, and "paint" white over the black where the missing pigtail is located until I have it all the way "back" in the photo but the rest of that layer is still "blocked"...

I typically will work on areas that I'm "bringing back" (also known as "moving") zoomed in, usually close to 100%. I've been known to go to 200% or 300% depending on the blending that needs to be done. This was easy as the background around it was "blurred" due to bokeh. I had a bit of trouble around the face, and I had to make sure the face lines in the photo matched up.

After I had the "pigtail" in the photo as I wanted, and didn't see any harsh lines or uneven "face lines" anywhere. I made sure I was still on the top layer, then I merged it down into the 2nd layer.

Notice, there is no more layer mask.

I'm now ready to do the edits I would do to "fix" it up for printing. This includes - sharpening, a curves layer, a levels layer, then I enhance the eyes (sharpen those a bit more, brighten them), and then I fix the "spots" on the photo that are distracting...such as the leftover food mess. ;) Then I crop how I want it printed (or leave it and crop in the ordering program).





Could I have done this in Lightroom? Not that I know of. Lightroom IS powerful though, and does some really cool things. However it is more of a "proofing solution" not a full editing program. Lightroom is where I do the basic edits - exposure corrections, color corrections, etc. Honestly, I do many of those in Adobe Bridge. Then I do the full edits in Photoshop. :)