Lessons

Lesson Info

Stylizing an Image

Now let's look how it khun style eyes an image given a quite different feeling this is a vehicle that actually own I will live in this vehicle once winter is comes around again and once it finishes the should be ready to live in and I want this image to look stylistically different so I'm gonna do a couple different effects the first one I'm going to do is what I call it diffused glow and to accomplish that effect I end up duplicating the layer the original layer twice now before I do that I'm going to make the layers in my layers panel larger cause that looks tiny on is a little hard to see if you want to change how large these previews are you khun right? Click down here in the empty portion if you're on a mac that only has one mouse button hold on the control key in click and you can choose the size of your thumbnail but you have to be clicking in the empty area below the layers like right here whether there could be layers but there aren't and I'm just going to make large thumbnail...

s not essential to this technique. I just thought I'd be better visually for you guys to see what's going on so I got that layer what I'm going to do here is duplicate it twice you could go to the layer menu you'll find a choice to duplicate layer but I do this so often I used the keyboard a shortcut for duplicating the layer is the type command j think of it is jumping something new a new layer that way you might remember it, so I'm just going to type command j twice and that's going to give me my two duplicates with the top layer active, I'm going to change the blending mode on that top layer uh to a choice called color and what that's going to do is make sure that the top layer is where the color comes from and therefore whatever happens on the layers that are underneath cannot effect the color of the image because if I don't do that, the layer that's underneath is going to end up doing something to the image that would make it too colorful and khun just make it not look the way it should so that top layer is just a little safety margin to make sure the colors don't shift but it's a duplicate where the little menu at the top of layers panel was changed to color. Now I'm going to work on the middle layer that's what's actually going to create my fact and I'm going to end up changing that middle layer to a mode that is called overlay when I do that we're going to get a lot more contrast in the image and if I didn't have that top layer in there the colors could look a little too colorful I just turned off the top layer, turn the top layer on and off, but then I want us to be a diffused glow where it has a soft feeling to it, so in order to get the soft feeling with the middle layer active, I'm going to go to the filter menu and I'm going to simplify what's in there I could end up blurring it, but instead of blurring it, a different way to soften is to apply filter that's called median it's found into the filter noise menu that's called medium what I'm going to do then is in the median filter I'm going to bring up this slider until I can't see the fine details in the image, but I can still recognize shapes, so in here do you still see some fine detail in the concrete of this bridge? I'm going to bring that up until that stuff has been simplified, but I can still recognize shapes so I can still see this edge quite well, but the detail in the middle starting to go away it's a personal choices to how high you want to go, but I go up until at least the really fine details gone I could go up in this case maybe a size five because I can still somewhat see those shapes click okay then this effect is usually way too strong if you want to see the difference between it before and after, I'll zoom up on the image you see you khun, you see the detail and I'm going to just turn off the middle layer here's before here's after look at the clouds in other areas, you see that they have a softer feeling to them kind of more diffused look but it's usually too much and so I just take that middle layer and I lower the opacity of it bring it all the way down. What I do is when I adjust opacity I click on the word opacity instead of dealing with the number that's there. If you click just on the word you khun drag left and right, just don't let go until you the setting you want because if you let go, you have to go back to the word opacity to click again to readjust it so I just click on opacity dragon left till it goes to zero slowly bring it up when I'm looking at my image to say how much of that could I get away with it's a personal choice but has a different idea of what good looks like then if there's any area the photograph where I don't want it to be applied, I could add a layer mask and paint on the leather mask with black that would hide the effect uh and bring the image back to normal now to organize my layers usually when I'm done just so I remember why the heck do I have three versions of the image sitting in there I would usually select the two layers that make up the effect so I already have the middle layer selected ah hold downshift and get the top one and I would put them in a folder it's actually known as a group and to create a type command g control g and windows watch my layers panel when I type command g just popped him in a folder double click on the name of it give it a name in that way if ever opened this image six months later I know why the heck I have those extra layers in there and if I want to turn off this effect to try a different one I could just turn off the eyeball in that it's not pine both layers have been hidden now let's try another effect that I often apply in concert with the diffuse glow and it's what is known as anti color to accomplish antique color I'll come in here and do a black and white adjustment layer I just went to the bottom of my layers panel click on the half black and half white circle to get to this and while you're in the black and white adjustment layer, you can click on this little hand icon, and if you do, you'll be able to click on your picture and click on various areas dragged left or right control the brightness of areas that used to be whatever color is under there. In this case, it used to be blue, so I've applied a black and white adjustment layer. Now we've got all the color, uh, gone now we're just going to add color back in color based on the original picture to accomplish that, I'll go on my layers panel, click on the background layer and all type command j remember that jumps it to new layer and I'm gonna move that above my black and white adjustment layer just by clicking here and dragging up. Then in order to get the color from this one to apply, I'm gonna come in here and set the blending mode of this two choice called overlay that's going to apply the colors in a different way, they can give it a little bit more of a vintage feel. The only problem is, any time you use the mod called overlay, it increases the contrast in your image, and you'll notice that in general, you're going to lose a lot of shattered detail. I usually don't mind what it does to the highlights it's the shadows that I don't like. So if I hide this layer, look at the shadows, the dark part of the image before I could see some detail in those areas other than under the bus after things are getting way too dark so let's see what I could do to a fix that well, with that top layer that's part of this effect it's active, I'm going to go to the bottom of my layers panel and that's why I'm going to find the letters f x the same place where I gotta drop shadow before, but one of the choices is the very top one it's called blending options if I choose blending options, his big dialogue box comes up and what I can do is take this slider that's over here on the left side called this layer if I pull this in it's going to take the letter I'm working on and make the dark areas go away. So watch what happens when I pull it in might have to pull it in a little ways before you notice, but can you see the dark part of the image start to bring the details back? The only problem with it is when it makes the dark parts go away, it doesn't it is if it's using an exacto knife too cut it away can you see the edge? I can see it right here. This really distinct chris badge on it I wanted to be a soft edge where it's not overly noticeable and to do that here's what you need teo to do instead of just grabbing this slaughter and pointed over this is actually two sliders they're stuck together you see the vertical line in the middle indicating that there's two if you hold down the option key that's all tum windows you can grab either side and pole and you'll separate it when you use it as two separate halves then it's going to cause it to fade out so I'll just bring that over about halfway over and it's still going to be hiding in the dark portion of the image but it's going to do it with a very soft transition if you do it with this method, I'll turn the previa track box off in the upper right and you'll see what it looked like before I did this and then I'll turn it back on you'll see what it looks like after you see my shattered detail starting to come back a bit and you confined to knit pull it and even further pulling the other side if you want but it's going to bring back my shattered detail I did that when I was on that layer that was sent to overlay because that's the layer that cost the contrast to go up and cause me to lose my shattered detail so it was when that layer was active that I went to the letters fx to do this just like before when I'm done with this effect I end up selecting the two layers that make up the effect and I put him in a folder the folders actually known as a group you created by typing command g control jean windows double click on its name auntie color then oftentimes I find it's too much for the image and so I want a lesson it so I just click on the name of the folder that's there make it active and I lower the opacity so click on the word opacity drag it down to zero track it back up you can see the difference in color and I'll just bring it somewhere in between where it's not quite at full strength and I might do that along with diffuse glow so I'll turn on the group diffuse glow effect as well bring it down and back up and if I want the anti color though to really be in there I probably want to change the order of these layers against the bottom most stuff is applied first and then the stuff above it and if the anti colors applied first the problem is diffuse glow can make the image more colorful and it can sometimes counter act the anti color, so click on the word diffuse glow to strike it down so it's in between those two, and to make sure that it's not too, uh, too much of a change. So let's, look at the difference between the original. In this end result, I'm just going, teo, hide all the layers, except for the bottom one, you could either click on one of the eyeballs like this one here, and just dragged down like that to turn him off, click on one of these and drag up to turn him on, or, if you have way too many layers were dragging like that would be impractical. There's a trick if you move your mouse on top of the eyeball for the bottom layer, you could option click on it that's, all clicking and windows, and that automatically hides everything but that layer. Just do it to a second time that will bring the other layers back on. So let's, take a look before after you were getting a different look in this image, and if there's any one of these pieces that I don't like let's say that the top or the bottom one called diffuse glow, I don't like how it's darkening the bus that's there well, if that's the case, click on the layer that makes that up the one called diffuse glow and down at the bottom of your layers panel at a layer mask that's this icon, the circle inside of a rectangle if I click that I get a mask attached to that and I could come in here and grab my paintbrush tool if I paint with black wherever I paint with black it's going to remove the effect so I could come in here and just say get it off of the bus because the boss is becoming a little too dark and you could do that for each of the layers. Another effect that I sometimes do when I'm trying to created a different look in a photo like this one is also come in and do a black and white adjustment layer and I'll turn on the tent check box when you turn on tent, you have a little square next to it you can click on you can choose the color you're using and usually end up choosing really mellow color, not all that colorful, and then this vertical bar last me to switch between the colors. I'll just look at what I think goes best with the image that we have blue in this case and then whenever you have an adjustment layer comes with a mask, so I'll just grab my paintbrush and I'll paint with black wherever I want your idol look so if I want your eye to look at those bus, I'm going to come in here and just paint and it's going to remove the black and white effect, revealing the colors that are underneath that's going to force your eye to go right there, then I might also come in here and lower the opacity of my brush to say, how much do I want to remove that effect? Maybe I don't want to remove it all the way, so I'll end up grabbing it at fifty percent and say, ok, fine plight to the trees over here and the bridge at fifty percent, allowing half of the original color to show through it's okay, if I go past the bridge or the bus again because it's already had the effect completely removed it's not like it can remove it. Mohr so it's okay to paint over it again then finally, when I'm done doing this painting at one hundred percent opacity or I want to get back full color in fifty percent where I want to get back partial it's will often be just too much overall, so I'll lower the opacity on that adjustment layer for black and white, bring it all the way down and slowly bring it up to say how much of that can I get away with before somebody really realizes I've done that to them maybe somewhere about in their fifty percent so let's take a look at the difference between the original in this end result I'm simply going to hide all the other layers here's before looks like a normal picture here's after and it just has a different feel and a lot of people ask me how did I get that look in my kind of vintage content images? And this is a good part of how I get it to look at a way to make it so I don't have to remember all the steps to do this kind of stuff I create actions so I have an action for diffuse glow I have an action for anti color ivan action for ten to black and white so for me to actually apply this, let me delete these layers real quick ah, I just come in here and I hope they're loaded right now we'll find out pretty quick here didn't check that ahead of time here's ben's creative actions well here's auntie color I just choose the name of it hit the play button he had asked me how much I want to blur do things like over here soft contrast to sit play oh and actually before I applied the second one I should have hidden the first otherwise it's incorporated uh so let me delete that just hide this before and then it automatically creates the folders for me. I can come in here and say well exactly how strong I want that to be I can put the other one in maybe on top exactly how strong I wanted to be and I could add mass and paint on them we talked about actions in a different session there was a session on actions and automation that I recorded previously in creative live if you want to know how to create those so that you could make it so you only have to know how to do this process once and then it's very easy to apply them and so what questions do we have about the techniques we've been talking about? Any questions on the studio audience to start? I had a question when you did the when you had the layer mask on there is there a way of copying the layer mask from one layer to another? Yes there is it's relatively easy to dio I just added a layer mask here and I'm gonna paint where the buses although I want my capacity of one hundred when I do it to get the effect ofthe of that area and you can see the layers you see the mask if I want that to also be down here I could just click on this and drag it to hear if I do that it's going to move it if I want to move a duplicate I hold on the option key alton windows and then when I drag it will keep it on the other layer as well and so wholly on the option key ultima windows drag between the layers that's what's going to copy it over to the other layer. This was a question that sam cox had asked earlier from love in colorado who said ben mentioned that the post crop vignette tool works well with cropped images but does not apply only to the cropping done in a cr if you crop in photo shop after applying a post crop and yet in a cr would you lose that advantage? Yes if if you end cropping your image after you put prosper post crop than yet on it's going to forget that you've done that unless you applied it as a filter in photo shop you know how we could apply cameras a filter now if you have a photo shop cc then you could have it where if you crop the image it might update to reflect the new cropping but if instead you did it through bridge where you were in the camera window where it's not attached to your image as a filter instead it's applied to the original raw file any cropping you do afterwards and photo shop well just crop into the vignette it's not going to re calculate the vigna cool, then I have two questions one from the internet one from me about panel lage the first question is from the internet to all the images have to be the same size and d p I and my question is is when you're shooting these and and you change your camera, do you physically move the camera around like this? Or do you sort of just change the angle like like most of the time I'm standing still and I'm just rotating the camera and changing its angle? Uh, if you want extreme distortion between the images, where doesn't just like look like images have been rotated and scaled instead there bent in extremes, then take a step to your left and take a step to your right in between things just know that on occasion photo shop when you feed it images that have been taken from different positions will just cough and say, hey, I don't know how to do that because something will happen with the angle where it's too abruptly different and it might not be able to handle it. But if you're only taking like one step to your right one step to your left and doing so most of time it'll still be ableto line things up and you can get some more interesting results that has to bend the images in a more extreme fashion to get him to line up so also, when I do a panel lodge these days, like over the entire scene twice because I've had more than a few times where I'm in like, an exotic location shooting up something and I don't keep track of if I've covered the entire scene and I end up with a hole in the middle where I never shot that one, but if I cover it twice, then I know first off that I've covered the whole scene. And secondly, if I change the stacking order of the layers, I have more than one version of a picture for each area that might be a slightly different angles so I can create you have more control over it. Great and size and dp I size and d p I I haven't tested it extensively, but the fact that I could zoom my camera lens in and out and it will scale the pictures up and down, tells me that it should be ableto handle images that are different sizes and dp eyes. The main thing is, I don't know how you're going to end up shooting it unless you're changing that on your camera, I don't know how you're going to encounter a situation when you have that. Unless you have another person next to you with a different camera you know you're combining images from two cameras and I don't know if you said the spend did you did you say how often you shoot like this? How often you'd whenever I get if I get a subject that's boring we're a single straight shot of it is just gonna be like okay uh then I might use it you know, maybe it's an industrial thing that I'm supposed to shoot but I do whenever I just want something different, I've done it also when I'm stuck with a long lens and I wish I had a wide one I was shitting a concert I think it was a rush or was it sticks concert I'm in the pit shooting the concert and one of the the performers walks up really close to the camera and I had the wrong lens on and I could only get a portion of their face so they might have looked at me kind of funny but I went click click click, click, click click click and I combined the whole thing together into a one wider shot and I had the little shadows in between it and I thought it was rather interesting so that's pretty cool yeah it's in tow personal preference as far as you know how much it aligns with your way of thinking I want to show you one last photo stein will not one glass will show you a couple more but one that came to mind, which I think is kind of funny let's say that I was so full of myself I needed to do something to make this picture even maura about me so here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take this image and I'm going to scale it down really small I'm gonna make it so this is just like maybe two hundred pixels wide click okay? I just went to the image size dialog box to do that. So here we are now at full size I mean also take this image and remove the color by going to grayscale mode and it don't be always bugs you about it. This amuses me because, like whilst what I have chills grayscale uh and I'm gonna just take this image and go to the edit menu there's a choice they're called defined pattern to find patterns. So what I have here is a scaled down gray scale picture that's what's important and that grayscale picture contains a wide range of brightness levels it's not all fifty percent grey it's not all you know, just foggy looking them into anything it's got blacks, it's got whites everything in between I'm going to find a pattern and now we're set up now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to choose undo a few times or just in fact, over here and revert to get back to my full size image because once I had to find that pattern, I want to work in the high rise again. Well, that's kind of scary, and what I'm going to do now is let's use that pattern that I've defined and let's do something weird with this image you'll see in a moment I'm going changed a grayscale with the full size image, then I'm going to change again two bit map bit map means make this image out of solid black and solid white. When I'm in here one of the choices down here at the bottom usually the it's going to be set to either fifty percent threshold or pattern dither or diffusion to there, I'm going to choose one that's rarely used it's called custom pattern. I got to this when I went to the image mount menu chose mode and went to bit map down here at the bottom there's choice custom pattern, and then I can click on this little thing in choose the pattern that I last to find, which was the picture of me, I'm gonna type in twelve hundred four output. And I'm going to click okay so what do we do? We went to the image menu chose mode chose bit map that's what caused this to come up? I said it to custom pattern in chose the pattern I had just to find type in twelve hundred for resolution for output click okay and now look at what we get okay can still tell it's a picture of me right? But it's not only a picture of me it's a picture of me made out of me look at that so imagine printing that huge on your wall or something so there's somebody saw it from a distance from across the room it might look like just a picture of me and then they walk up really close to the hall they see it's a picture of me made out of me but this has to be a grayscale picture that has in general full range where it has both black senate whites in it and everything in between and it will end up using that to try to reproduce what you have here if I wanted this to look even finer I could have actually started with the picture that had defined as a pattern is even being smaller then these little squares that this is made out of would be even smaller would be more of them therefore and you might be able to see a little more detail in the overall but I thought that was a pretty interesting look, especially if you make those really small where somebody from a distance can tell it's been done until they walk up close uh so is that a photo styling for you? All right? Couple other ideas there is there are some adjustments they added to fetter shop recently where they're designed mainly for folks that do film and video work but on occasion are nice for normal work as well and I just wanted to make sure you we're aware of it if you create an adjustment layer on your image, one of the choices now is in here it's called photo filter that right? No, no, I'm sorry color look up my brain was thinking about filters that you put in front of a camera, but color look up his new and in here one of the choices that I'm going to end up using is called horror blue for this particular image, but if you want another way of creating kind of a vintage feel on your image or just different look, consider using an adjustment layer that is called color look up and in there you're just gonna have some preset choices try experimenting with them one of the other things you could do with that is one of the choices available is that if you would like to come in here and do your color, look up you'll find that there is choice for bleach bypass, which is one way of making the highlights in your image blowout toe white while still keeping the shadow detail. And if you do that in concert with some of the other techniques that we talked about previously, like, do you remember when I talked about auntie color or or the soft contrast I can come over here? A diffuse glow? I'll just apply an action that ends up putting a soft contrast on or putting one on that has the anti color meaning the same techniques we talked about previously doing those in concert with each other can give you an interesting look so that I can end up getting the the highlights to blow out still maintaining some shadow detail and then giving it a soft look. And, uh, but that's, a filipino or a adjustment that I find that few people know is there but it's called color look up also, when you use any of those adjustments, know that you can also change how ends up applying to your image so that you get quite different looks, for instance, here's an adjustment that very few people use because it doesn't seem to be overly useful again with if I go to the adjustment layer, papa and I choose something like radiant map. Radiant map ends up first converting your image to black and white, and then here are the various shades of gray that would make up a black and white. If I click to the right of that there's a little triangle there, I can choose a preset, and this will replace the various brightness levels in your image with various colors, but usually doesn't quite look overly useful. You could change that, though, by simply going to the top of your layers panel and changing the blending mode to a choice called hugh hugh means allow this adjustment only change the basic color of what's in my picture and do not allow it to change. How bright the images do not allow it to change. How saturated the images. So the areas that used to be barely colorful, it all will still be barely colorful when I choose hugh it's just gonna be using these basic colors. So now you see, we get quite a different look at our inn. And now when we go through these presets, they become much more usable and just khun give you an interesting look. Give you sometimes the look of cross processing, sometimes look of just antique ing, that type of thing, but that is grady in't map in changing the blending mod menu at the top to hugh. If you find it to be too much, just lower the opacity. And you'll let some of the original colors kind of blend with that. To combine the two sea of kind of partial effect.