Photoshop CS Savvy by Romaniello, Stephen -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

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Photoshop CS Savvy: Who Should Use This Book Part I: Photoshop Core Chapter List Chapter 1: The Foundations of Photoshop Overview Photoshop is the progeny of a lineage of artistic and technical methodologies that have evolved over the centuries. Painting, mosaic, photography, and printing have been the primary methods of producing two-dimensional images for many generations. The twentieth century saw the rapid emergence of new image technologies that extend and amplify the conventional ones. Photoshop combines these methods into a virtual interface that enables the user to experiment freely in a dynamic user-friendly environment. This chapter will cover these topics: Image technology defined The history of imaging, from prehistory to the present Painting, printing, collage, and photography The world of Photoshop and the Web Chapter 1: The Foundations of Photoshop Image Technology Image technology is the method used to produce pictures. Since the first images were painted on the stone walls of caves with pigment extracted from natural materials, humans have invented new image technologies to visually express their ideas and experiences. The process of technical evolution was slow in preindustrial societies, so for thousands of years, techniques for creating images were primarily done by the skilled hands of artists and artisans. During and after the industrial revolution, however, image technology accelerated to the point that, today, we see new innovations on an almost daily basis. The evolution of the visual image is due, in part, to the methods available to the artist. Artistic styles are an expression of the zeitgeist of the periods that produce them. As technology evolves, new ideas and visual idioms emerge that reflect the cultural ambiance of their times. This idea was quite apparent in the twentieth century from the speed in which new te Mosaics One significant milestone in the history of visual art was the ability to portray tonality. Tonality is the effect of changing light or color on an image. In the real world, we see a seamless continuum of blended color that defines our visual world in light and shadow, and produces a tangible, three-dimensional reality of color and form. Primitive artists made no attempt to express tonal differences, in part because the technology was unavailable to them. If you think that tonal variations in digital images is a new phenomenon, however, think again. One of the first methods of simulating the effect of tonal variation was to place tiny individual units of slightly varied color next to each other. We see this technique commonly employed in mosaics from imperial Rome, such as the one in Figure 1.1. Each element of color is a separate glass or ceramic tile. The tiles, placed next to each other in a graduated sequence, produce the effect of varied tonality. Figure 1.1: A mosaic from PaintingCreating images by applying color to a surface is one of the most basic forms of artistic expression; indeed, the history of the world can be viewed in the legacy of paintings that have been left behind by our talented predecessors. Throughout history, the technical and aesthetic qualities of painting have changed, various styles have emerged, and pictorial content has evolved. Representational painting dominated the world for centuries. Paintings contained content that could be easily recognized, whether the subject matter was religious, historical, or descriptive. Then in the late nineteenth century, artists began to abstract the tangible realities that they observed to produce art filtered through their personal experiences. Within 50 years, abstraction led to the creation of a totally nonobjective idiom in styles such as the Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s and the Minimalism of the 1960s. Still, the tradition of representation coexisted with abstract painterly forms, bu Impressionism In the nineteenth century, in an attempt to revive what was perceived to be the glories of the classical civilization of the Greeks and Romans, much of what was being produced in the art world consisted of the representational, idealized images of the Neoclassic style. In the latter part of the century, the nature of European art shifted. The Impressionist movement emerged with a fresh new approach to painting. Artists such as Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and Mary Cassatt produced paintings that were explorations of the quality and nature of light and color. The importance of the Impressionists’ contribution to the way we perceive color cannot be overstated. One particular group of Impressionists, the Pointillists—and particularly Georges Seurat and Paul Signac (see Figure 1.4, which is also Figure C3 in the color section)—most influenced the digital art we practice today. The Pointillists worked extensively with color theory and how one color affects the colors around it. PrintingAnother significant change in the ability to produce images came about a thousand years ago with the emergence of woodcuts, which were used to print textiles. In the early fifteenth century, the use of woodcuts and wood engraving began to take hold in Europe as a method of producing pictures (see Figure 1.6). At about the same time, Johannes Gutenberg introduced the concept of movable type technology. Printing gave us the capability to produce multiples of the same image—the first big step in mass communication. Figure 1.6: A woodcut from a Venetian edition of the fables of Aesop, published in 1491 Of course, the printed image has evolved over the past five hundred years; we’ve invented numerous methods of imprinting ink on paper, monochromatically or in full color. In the case of traditional offset printing, the process involves separating colors into their ink components and transferring the information to a piece of film and then to a metal plate. The plate is mounted on a p Photography When you think of how many centuries passed in which images were created exclusively by hand, you can appreciate how revolutionary the photograph was. A crude type of camera called a camera obscura, which was invented in the beginning of the fourteenth century, captured and projected light on a surface. However, it wasn’t until 1826 that the first true photograph was taken. Early photographers needed special equipment and a broad knowledge of chemistry to produce photographs (see Figure 1.7). As a result of the scientific and technical discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries, cameras became more efficient and easier to operate. Now, millions of still photographs are taken and processed every day. Figure 1.7: Lady Clemintina Hawarden, photograph of a model, 1860 A camera is very much like the human eye. Light rays enter a camera and are focused on a surface into an image. Film rests on the surface and is exposed, causing a chemical reaction. The exposed film is then bathe Collage In the early part of the twentieth century, the artistic revolution in Europe was shocking the world with images that had never before been seen. Instead of representational content, the pictorial sources came from an abstraction of physical reality or the realization of a personal, inner reality. Cubists, Dadaists, and Surrealists changed the face and meaning of art. Before World War I, the Dada movement produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason. Growing principally out of Dada, Surrealism flourished in Europe between the world wars as a visual art and literary movement. Surrealist images had a dreamlike quality—time, space, and matter were completely malleable. Compelled by the idea that rational thought and behavior had brought the world close to the brink of annihilation, the Surrealists created images that were anti-rational and anti-bourgeois. Surrealist painters such as Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, André Masson, Joan M PhotomontageNew movements in art and graphic design blossomed in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s as a result of the instability brought about by the aftermath of World War I, the Great Depression, and the Russian Revolution. Constructivism, New Typography, Streamline, and Dada recycled photographic images, typography, and graphics as collage elements in a new process called photomontage. Radical magazines and newspapers from the period, for example, Simplicicimus, Der Knuppel, and Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ, or Worker’s Illustrated Times), published photomontage images as satirical cartoons to promote a socialist or anti-fascist political agenda. Photomontage is a collage of photographs that are carefully cut and pasted together to create a new visual reality. Often, type and other graphic elements are incorporated into the composition. These images synthesized the seamless pictorial realities of multiple photographic images into biting political metaphors and clever visual puns. The WebRecently, the world has been transformed by a powerful new invention. This new communication technology is as revolutionary as the telephone and as ubiquitous as the automobile. Within a few years, it has embedded itself deeply in our lives and has affected how we communicate and how we do business. The World Wide Web (see Figure 1.8) is by far the most accessible communication medium in which to publish images or text. As a research tool, the Web gives us instant access to every conceivable form of information. The Web is the ultimate technical manifestation of democracy in that it embodies the essence of free speech and freedom of the press. Being the most unregulated of all publishing mediums, anyone can publish anything at any time. Figure 1.8: An Adobe Web page The Web has changed the nature of how we handle pictures. Images can be transmitted electronically and downloaded, making access to them almost instantaneous, even at a distance. Many art museums and libraries have p PhotoshopThe introduction of new artistic idioms into our culture not only affects the world of art galleries and museums; it influences advertising, architecture, industrial design, and fashion. As new styles appear on the scene through commercial vehicles, they become an integral part of our everyday lives. The same is true of new image technologies: as new ones are introduced, they become embedded into the production cycle of our economy. In our contemporary culture, images are everywhere. Pick up a book, magazine, or newspaper, and images dominate the layout. Take a walk or drive, and you’ll see images on billboards, signs, and the sides of buildings. These pictures are the result of the work performed by artists, designers, illustrators, and photographers. The legacy of image technology is the primary influence on the images we see today. Its evolution has given us the foundation to create and manipulate images to visually communicate ideas in personal, commercial, or artistic ven Chapter 2: What’s New in Photoshop CS Overview One of the most important concepts of this new version of Photoshop is that it is part of a group of tools known as the Creative Suite, hence the CS after its name. Other Adobe products that are included in the standard edition are ImageReady, InDesign, Illustrator, and Version Cue (the premium edition of the Creative Suite adds GoLive and Acrobat. These programs are designed to work together to enable you to utilize tools for any publishing goals. Photoshop CS is the cornerstone application of the Creative Suite, and it has been endowed with upgrades for superior image-editing capabilities and streamlined work flow. This chapter will cover new features such as: System requirements File Browser improvements Photography features Video enhancements Design productivity upgrades Automation advancements Web tools Chapter 2: What’s New in Photoshop CS System Requirements The following lists indicate the hardware and operating system requirements for Windows and Macintosh: Windows Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, or Windows XP Intel Pentium III or Pentium 4 processor 192 MB of RAM (256 MB or more recommended) 280 MB of available hard-disk space Color monitor with 16-bit or greater video card 1024×768 or greater monitor resolution CD-ROM drive Internet or phone connection required for product activation Macintosh Mac OSX 10.2.4 or higher PowerPC processor (G3, G4, or G5) 192 MB of RAM (256 MB or more recommended) 320 MB of available hard-disk space Color monitor with 16-bit or greater video card 1024×768 or greater monitor resolution CD-ROM drive Note Adobe′s minimum requirement of 192 MB of RAM is enough to launch and run the program, but its performance will be clunky. Purchase and install as much memory as you can. After you′ve installed the memory, be sure to allocate it to Photoshop. File BrowserThe File Browser (see Figure 2.1) has many new features that make locating and processing your images much easier. This is a next-generation version rather than a simple cosmetic update. The new features are as follows: A new button on the Options bar opens or closes the File Browser. The File Browser now has its own menu bar and toolbar. A customizable tabbed palette interface includes folders, preview, metadata, and keywords. The preview options have been upgraded. You can flag and unflag items for viewing and selecting. You can drag images in the File Browser to manually regroup them, as if your images were on a light box. You can apply actions and automations to images, including supported Camera Raw files. You can edit image metadata in the File Browser and you can apply saved metadata to multiple images. You can search for files via keywords. You can specify Favorites and Recent images in the File Browser. Figure 2.1: The new File Browser contains many new features. Photography FeaturesPhotoshop CS introduces these enhanced features that support the needs of photographers: 16-bit Editing Most features now work on 16-bit images. Camera Raw Support The plug-in that supported Raw files made with professional digital cameras has been integrated into the program. Camera Raw settings can be applied to images selected in the File Browser. Camera Raw supports a wider range of cameras and has controls to create profiles to anticipate color shifts caused by unusual lighting situations. Histogram Palette This new context-sensitive palette (see Figure 2.2) enables you to see brightness information on the fly with views of the histograms of individual color channels, before and after adjustment comparisons, and cached and uncached versions. Figure 2.2: The context sensitive Histogram palette can display the changes to your image’s individual channel information. Match Color Feature You can sample color from one selection, layer, or an entire document and apply Video FeaturesEnhanced video features have been added to Photoshop’s editing capabilities: Photoshop supports a variety of video formats and aspect ratios. Non-square ratio documents can be created in Photoshop’s New dialog box. Photoshop automatically modifies the appearance and behavior of shapes, text, and brushes. The Pixel Aspect Correction feature simulates the appearance of non-square pixels but enables you to retain the proportion of common geometric shapes such as circles and squares. The New Document dialog box contains video-sized presets that control the document aspect ratio. Design and Production FeaturesPhotoshop CS features many new design and production tools that increase efficiency and accelerate work flow. They include: Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts Custom Keyboard commands can be assigned to menu items and palette commands. You can print out the shortcuts to a list as a reference. Text Enhancements You can put text on or inside of a path, (see Figure 2.4) and you can drag the insertion point of the text to change its position on the path. Figure 2.4: You can now insert text directly on or inside of a path. Layer Comps Make multiple versions of your documents from its visible layers. Comps can be updated, renamed, or reverted. Brush Tool Enhancements You can lock brushes. Brushes work on 16-bit images. Metadata Features You can attach metadata to files. You can log your editing history to files and/or text files and print it. Included in Photoshop and ImageReady is the new Adobe-Standard File Info dialog box, which enables you to create custom File Increased AutomationPhotoshop CS increases the power of automation to speed your work: Photo Merge This new automation creates seamless panoramas from multiple images. Crop and Straighten Photos This new File → Automate command looks for rectangular regions in a document, crops them, straightens them, and duplicates them into multiple documents. It’s designed to quickly make separate documents from images that have been batch-scanned. PDF Presentation You can save two or more images to multiple-page PDF files or create an automatic slide presentation complete with cool graphic transitions. Web Photo Gallery New templates have been added to this automation. Picture Package Enhancements You have the option of placing images from different sources on the same page. You can choose from a variety of new size and layout options for a picture package or create a custom picture package layout. See Figure 2.5. Figure 2.5: The Picture package automation is fully customizable. Other New Photoshop Features Among the new features in Photoshop are a variety of items that make image editing easier and more user-friendly: A new welcome screen that gives you access to tutorials, and information about tips and tricks, color management, and new features by accessing both local and online links. The Healing Brush can now heal to transparent layers. The Patch tool source option now includes a live preview. You can create large format documents, up to 300,000 pixels in width and height, and up to a 4 GB file size. You can save document size presets to the New dialog box. An image can be moved in Full Screen mode. Photoshop supports up to 56 channels per document. You can “scrub” tool and palette values (for example, layer opacity) by clicking the label and dragging it left or right. Pressing the Shift key enables you to accelerate the value change by a factor of 10. Pressing the Shift key while scrolling or zooming will scroll or zoom all open documents. New Arrange op Image Ready Web EnhancementsNew Web enhancements have been added to ImageReady, Photoshop’s sidekick Web-authoring software. ImageReady is bundled with Photoshop and can be accessed by clicking the Edit In icon at the bottom of Photoshop’s Tool palette. User object-based interface enhancements Multiple objects can be selected on the canvas or on multiple layers by clicking the Direct Select mode button. Multiple objects can be grouped. You can make noncontiguous selections on multiple layers by pressing /Ctrl. You can drag to select multiple objects. You can drag multiple layers to the trash simultaneously. You can drag layer and vector masks from one layer to another. Font settings of multiple text objects can be applied simultaneously. You can align selected objects or layers from the Options bar or with menu commands. Streamlined performance Tools that are not used for Web production and are redundant with Photoshop have been eliminated. The enhanced Edit In (previously Jump To) com Chapter 3: The Nature of the Beast Overview In order for Photoshop to maintain its position as the grand kahuna of all image-editing software, it needs frequent upgrades. Adobe’s new release of Photoshop, currently in its eighth iteration, coincides with cutting-edge advances in digital photography and Web authoring. I think you’ll find that there are several new whistles and bells that make the upgrade worthwhile (refer to Chapter 2, “What’s new in Photoshop CS” for the full list). Photoshop CS runs seamlessly on Mac OS X and Windows XP. It no longer runs on Mac OS 9 or Windows 98 or earlier. However, all the components of Photoshop 7 remain intact; the upgrade has either added to or improved those features. Users who were comfortable in 7 will feel even more at home in CS. But Photoshop is not a soft and fuzzy program. It’s big, it’s powerful, and it will do almost anything for you if you ask it nicely. Before you jump into the world of Photoshop headfirst, you should understand its Chapter 3: The Nature of the Beast The Anatomy of a Digital Image Graphics software uses two fundamentally different methods to construct images. First, vector graphics consist of objects constructed by mathematically defined points and curves. And second, raster images use a grid of squares, or pixels, to determine color variations. Understanding Vector Graphics Vector graphics use lines and objects to define their shapes. On a computer, you can draw hard-edged graphics that, when printed, produce clean, sharp lines and edges. This is particularly valuable for illustrators who want to create crisp, well-defined artwork. Vector software is also ideal for graphic designers who work with type, because type characters need razor-sharp edges with no “jaggies” (stair-step edges caused by a series of right angles trying to represent a curve). Vector-based illustration software (such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, and CorelDRAW) and page-layout programs (such as QuarkXPress, Adobe PageMaker, and Adobe InDesign) are Color ChannelsWhen you acquire an image, the color information that the scanner “sees” is separated into red, green, and blue components. Photoshop configures this information into a red, green, and blue color channel plus a composite RGB channel, which displays the entire image in full color. Think of each color channel as a separate, transparent color overlay consisting of red, green, or blue pixels. The combination of the three color values, when superimposed over each other, produces full color. The channels can contain 256 possible shades of either red, green, or blue, because each pixel on the channel contains 8 bits of tonal information (see the upcoming sidebar titled “Bit Depth”). The computer processes the information in each channel as an independent grayscale image. Each pixel is assigned a specific numerical value, where the darkest shade (black) equals 0 and the lightest shade (white) equals 255. By default, individual color channels are displayed in grayscale because the Working in PhotoshopIf you think about it, the computer is really a megacalculator that crunches numbers at lightning speed. The graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced “gooey”), of a raster software program such as Photoshop lets you perform virtual operations that mimic real-world tasks such as painting, compositing, or filtering. But what is actually happening behind the scenes is that the numeric color values of the pixels in each color channel are being changed. Photoshop works as an image editor, color corrector, and photo compositor, but by no means is it limited to these tasks. Its primary purpose is to alter reality, and that is the ultimate reason for its popularity. There is something very compelling and empowering about changing the color of the sky in a landscape or replacing Uncle Herman’s scowl with a smile from another photograph. No matter how you alter an image, the sequence of procedures you employ is quite similar: Capture the image by using a device such as a Creating New DocumentsThere are two ways to determine the size and specifications of a New Document in Photoshop. One is a blank canvas whose size is determined by entering or choosing preset specifications in the New document window. The other is from an image copied to the Clipboard. Determining New Document Specifications You can generate a new, empty document in Photoshop with specific characteristics that can be used as a blank canvas on which to paint or paste images from other sources. To create a new document, follow these steps: Choose File → New. The New dialog box (shown in Figure 3.10) appears. Figure 3.10: The New dialog box In the Name field, type a name for the document, but remember that naming the document is not the same as saving it. Eventually you will need to save it to your disk. On the bottom right of the menu, the image size in bytes is displayed. This will change depending on the height, width, resolution, and color mode you choose for the document. Enter a wid Saving FilesThere are six methods for saving a Photoshop document to a disk—Save As, Save As A Copy, Save, Export → Paths To Illustrator, Save For Web, and the new Save A Version—which you can find in the File menu. They are affected by the options set under Edit → Preferences → File Handling (see Chapter 5). A description of each method follows. Saving As Use File → Save As to save your document to a designated location on your disk. You can name the document and choose a format for it. The newly named file will replace the document in the active window. These options are in the Save As dialog box (see Figure 3.12). Figure 3.12: The Save As dialog box Checking or unchecking the boxes in the Save field of the Save As dialog box enables you to configure the document to your particular needs. As A Copy When you select check As A Copy, the document is saved to a designated location on your disk but does not appear in the image window. Be sure to rename it so as not to replace the current Duplicating a Photoshop Document You can duplicate a document on the fly. The Image → Duplicate function will produce an exact copy of the document along with its layers and alpha channels. It is useful for quick experimentation when you don’t want to affect the original image. The new file, which by default is given the original filename plus the word copy, is unsaved and exists only in memory. If you plan to keep the duplicate file, it is wise to save it immediately. Click on the Duplicate Merged Layers Only check box if you want to combine the visible layers into one merged layer in the new document. Understanding File FormatsDifferent file formats serve different purposes. Some formats compress data to make the file size smaller on the disk, whereas others are used to make a file compatible with another software program or the World Wide Web. The format you choose will depend on how the image will ultimately be used. It is important to know what saving an image to a specific format will do. At worst, saving a file to the wrong format can damage it; at the very least, it will inconvenience you by losing the ability to place the document into another program. Photoshop CS can open 29 file formats on the Mac and 26 on Windows, and save to 18 file formats on the Mac and 16 on Windows. With the addition of plug-ins that attach to the Import and Export submenus, Photoshop supports even more, which means it is a great program for converting files to make them compatible with other software programs. A complete list of file formats, what they do, and how they operate can be found in Appen Platform CompatibilityIn ancient computer times (less than a decade ago), a battle raged between Macintosh and Windows users. Amazingly, the passion and prejudice generated by proponents of one platform or the other bordered on religious fervor. What is it about a computer platform that generates such divisiveness in its adherents? I think it’s because a personal computer is, in essence, an auxiliary brain. It stores information and ideas that can’t fit into the limited storage capacity of our own gray matter and extends our ability to make calculations and perform complex tasks. A platform simulates the way we think and organize our reality. We can personalize the way each interface behaves and how it looks, to a certain extent, which increases our attachment to it. The phenomenon of platform prejudice will, I’m sure, be a topic for social theorists to thoroughly investigate in the future. The battle has died down because of the capability of the different computers to read each other Software Compatibility In this age of information, publishing is indeed a universe unto itself. The process of creating an image for print, multimedia, video, or the Web can involve many steps that require specific tools. It is the task of the designer, image editor, desktop publisher, or computer artist to assemble the tools that best perform the necessary tasks. Photoshop does not exist in a vacuum, but works in concert with other computer programs to integrate the images, text, graphics, animations, digital video, and so forth, that compose the final publication. Images created and edited in Photoshop integrate into all mainstream desktop-publishing, illustration, Web-authoring, and video-editing programs. Because of its capability to open and save in so many file formats, Photoshop is preferred by most design professionals as the essential image-editing software and is the mainstay in a suite of powerful publishing tools. Chapter 4: Navigation: Know Where to Go Overview A computer-generated image is not really that complex. In fact, it exists most commonly as a series of positive and negative charges on a piece of magnetic media. Quite unlike a drawing, painting, or photograph for which you need only your eyes and a half-decent light source to see, viewing a digital image requires some very fancy electronic equipment, starting with a computer and a monitor. To seriously edit or manipulate the image, you need a big pixel-pusher program such as Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is big, all right—so big that it’s quite possible to get confused or lost trying to determine where all the stuff is and what it means. Use this chapter as your road map, because it explains Photoshop’s numerous navigation features that enable you to find your way around the program. In this chapter, you’ll travel through the workspace, tour the menus and palettes, and zoom through Photoshop’s viewing options. By the end of your journey, Chapter 4: Navigation: Know Where to Go Launching the Program The code that runs Photoshop was produced by awesome programming wizardry and a comprehensive knowledge of the technical aspects of publishing. But let’s not forget that Photoshop is primarily a creative environment. Whenever you feel the urge to express your visual ideas, you’ll have all the necessary tools at your complete disposal. The splash screens and Photoshop’s new Welcome screen are the first images you see when you launch the program. They are designed to make you feel right at home. The Photoshop Folder When you install Photoshop CS, you can access the program files from your Macintosh Applications folder on the hard disk or in Windows at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS. The Adobe Photoshop CS folder (see Figure 4.1 for the Mac version) contains icons that make Photoshop functional, plug-ins that extend its capabilities, and settings that contain Photoshop’s preferences. Additional folders and the Install CD contain extras such as stock art, additio Using Photoshop’s GUI A Graphical User Interface or GUI (pronounced gooy) is a software program’s way of communicating with you. The computer is really not much more than a machine that does really fast math, and each operation is a series of mathematical calculations. Imagine how labor-intensive it would be if you had to perform that math yourself. For example, suppose you had to change the RGB values of the pixels in 1 square inch of an image to be printed in a magazine. You would have to perform 90,000 calculations by hand. Talk about mathaphobia! Fortunately, software designers have set up an environment—the GUI—that makes it easy for you to perform complex calculations quickly and without even having to add 2 + 2. In fact, when you work in a program such as Photoshop, the GUI is so seamless that when you change the color of pixels, it feels as though you’re working in a studio environment. Photoshop’s GUI is easy to use after you learn what the tool icons, menus, and floating pale Accessing MenusYou access the majority of Photoshop’s most powerful operations through the pull-down menus at the top of the screen. Mac OS X offers ten menus (as illustrated in Figure 4.6); Windows has nine. The menus are quite logical and user-friendly, with related operations accessible from the same menu. Figure 4.6: Photoshop’s menus, with the Photoshop menu selected (in Mac OS X) Commands on the menus apply various filters, effects, or operations to an image, directly or through dialog boxes. Some of the menus, such as the View menu or the Window menu, are used to display additional tools or palettes and to change how the image appears on-screen. When applying an operation such as an image adjustment, you will see a dialog box that displays the items for that particular operation. You usually cannot perform any other operations until you implement or cancel the dialog. There are some exceptions: although the menus are accessible most of the items are grayed except for some items Viewing DocumentsThe Window menu displays a list of the current images that are open on the desktop; this menu can be used to quickly navigate to a specific document. At the top of the Window menu is the Arrange submenu. The Window → Arrange → New Window For file name command displays multiple windows of the same document. Multiple windows give you the ability to observe two or more views of your image simultaneously so that you can see both the close-up detail in which you are working and the global effect on the entire image. When you edit the image, you will see the changes on both views. Choose Window → Arrange → Cascade to display multiple open documents on the desktop stacked and slightly offset. Use Window → Arrange → Tile to organize them in rows and columns. New Arrange → Match Zoom, Match Location, or Match Zoom And Location display all of the multiple windows at the same zoom ratio or position as the currently active one. Organizing Your WorkspaceThe workspace controls, under the Window menu, give you the ability to organize and save a working environment. Specifically, the Workspace command enables you to save and restore palette locations and tool settings. To use the Workspace command, follow these steps: Choose Window → Workspace → Save Workspace to save the current environment. In the dialog box that appears, name the workspace and click Save (see Figure 4.7). Its name then appears on the list in the Workspace dialog. Figure 4.7: The Save Workspace dialog box To restore Photoshop to the desired workspace, choose its name from the list. To delete a Workspace, choose Delete Workspace from the list. In the dialog box that appears, choose the workspace you wish to remove from the menu and click OK/Delete. This menu also enables you to restore the desktop to the default workspace. Choose Reset Palette Locations. Working with PalettesMany of Photoshop’s tools and operations are displayed in a system of floating palettes, which appear on the desktop when you launch the program. These palettes let you efficiently apply operations directly to the image, thereby saving the time and hassle of following a sequence of windows to accomplish a task. To display or hide a palette, click the Window menu and choose the palette’s name. To hide or display all palettes simultaneously, press the Tab key. Press Shift-Tab to hide all palettes except for the Tool palette. Using Palette Clusters By default, palettes appear in clusters that can be separated or reconfigured according to how you might want to use them. To place a palette into a cluster, click the palette’s tab and drag it into the cluster. When you see a heavy black outline appear around the cluster, release the mouse button. To separate a palette from a cluster, click its tab and drag it away from the cluster. The palette’s new position is wherever y Displaying an ImageWhen you open an image in Photoshop, it is displayed to fit in the image window so that you can see the entire image regardless of its size. When working on an image, it’s often necessary to vary the view size so that you can see changes to the document as a whole, concentrate on specific areas of the image, or work closely on details. Varying the size of the image display does not affect the physical size of the image. You can choose from several viewing methods. The Zoom Tool The Zoom tool provides a fast way to take a closer look at an image and is probably the technique you’ll use most frequently for changing the view. Choose the Zoom tool from the Tool palette by clicking it or press Z on the keyboard. Place your cursor on the area of the image that you want to see close-up; you will see the Zoom tool cursor (a magnifying glass) with a plus sign to indicate that the Zoom tool will enlarge the view. Click your mouse, and continue to click until the image appears Using Rulers, Guides, and GridsRulers, guides, and grids are used to align image content. Alignment of visual elements is critical to maintaining a cohesive structure to the composition. A good composition gently guides the viewer’s eye across its surface so that important elements are emphasized. Rulers, guides, and grids can assure the precise measurement and placement of image components. Setting Preferences for Rulers and Guides Photoshop can display a horizontal ruler across the top of the screen and a vertical ruler along the left side of the screen; to display them, choose View → Rulers. Rulers give you a visual reminder of the physical size of your image, which you might forget from time to time as you zoom in or out. You can change ruler units by choosing Edit → Preferences → Units & Rulers or double click either the horizontal or vertical rulers to display the preferences. The zero point, or point of origin for all measurements, is in the upper-left corner of the image where Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop Overview Before any job, there is always preparation. Let’s say you are going to change the oil in your car. Before you crawl under it and loosen the plug, you’ll need to move the car to an appropriate location—certainly not near your newly planted front lawn, and not on the side of a hill. You’ll need to find a level spot and gather an oil filter, pan, pouring spout, and rag. A simple job, yes. But consider how difficult the task would be if any of the elements were missing. If you choose the wrong location, you might kill your grass; if you park on a hill, some of the old, dirty oil will stay in the crankcase. The pan is essential, because without it, the oil will spill onto the ground. The point is, you need to choose the right workspace and prepare it with all of the things you need before you begin the job. In the case of Photoshop CS, that means setting up the program to run at its optimal level, customizing the interface to best suit your needs, a Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop Modifying Photoshop’s Settings Photoshop’s settings control how the program appears and behaves. On the Mac, settings are stored in files, folders, and directories with names such as Settings or Preferences. Windows has similar directories where settings are stored as well as having other settings stored deeper in the Registry. After you modify any setting and quit the program, the information is saved to these files. When you launch Photoshop for the first time, a set of preferences is created. These are the factory default settings. Any changes you make in the appearance or the behavior of the program are recorded in the preferences file. After a work session, when you quit the program, these preferences are stored so that the next time you launch the program, the position of the palettes, the tool settings, the color of the guides or grid, and any other changes you made remain the same. Restoring PreferencesIf Photoshop starts behaving unpredictably or bombing frequently, it could indicate that the preferences are damaged. You should restore your preferences to the originally installed default settings. Re-creating your preferences file resets Photoshop to its defaults and can help troubleshoot problems. Note I recommend that as you begin each of the Hands On projects in this book, you discard your “prefs” file and restart Photoshop to create a clean set of options. This will make working through the exercises easier. To restore your preferences, follow these steps: Double-click the Photoshop program icon to launch the program. Immediately after double-clicking, press Shift-Option- on a Macintosh or Shift-Alt-Ctrl on Windows. A dialog box asks whether you want to discard the Photoshop’s Settings file, as in Figure 5.1. Click Yes, and the program continues to launch. Figure 5.1: The Discard Photoshop Settings dialog box After Photoshop has launched in the Windows vers Allocating Memory New Processing graphics files requires large amounts of memory. Photoshop is a memory hog, so the often asked question, “How much memory do you need to best operate Photoshop?” is easily answered with another question: “How much memory can you afford?” The minimum hardware and software requirements for running Photoshop are as follows: Mac OS 10.2.4, 10.2.5, 10.2.6: PowerPC processor (G3, G4, or G5) 192 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended) 320 MB of available hard-disk space Color monitor with 16-bit or greater video card 1024×768 or greater monitor resolution CD-ROM drive Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, or Windows XP: Intel Pentium class III or 4 processor 192 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended) 280 MB of available hard-disk space Color monitor with 16-bit or greater video card 1024×768 or greater monitor resolution CD-ROM drive Adobe’s minimum requirement of 192 MB of RAM is enough to launch and run the program, but its performance will be clunky. Purchase and ins Setting PreferencesWhen you change Photoshop’s preferences, you affect the behavior or the appearance of the program, thereby customizing the interface to best suit your style of working. In the descriptions throughout this chapter, the illustrations are of the default preferences, but I recommend (in parentheses within the text) the preference configuration that is most suitable for the majority of working situations. You access the preferences through the Photoshop → Preferences menu in the Mac and the Edit → Preferences menu in Windows, or type -K (Mac) or Ctrl-K (Win) to display Photoshop’s Preferences dialog box. You also have the option of going directly to the preference category you want under the Preferences submenu. From the dialog box, you can navigate to any of the preference categories by clicking the pop-up list at the top of the dialog box. You can also jump from category to category by clicking the Next or Prev buttons. General Preferences When you first open the Prefer Utilizing the Preset ManagerPhotoshop gives you the ability to manage several libraries from a single dialog box. The Preset Manager is the storage unit for all of the elements that you might want to apply to the image, and it’s a library of palettes that can be utilized by the program. As you add or delete items from the palettes, the currently loaded palette in the Preset Manager displays the changes. You can save the new palette and load any of the palettes on the system. Choose Edit → Preset Manager to access its dialog box (Figure 5.12). From the Preset Type option list, choose the type of palette you wish to affect. Figure 5.12: The Preset Manager The small arrow to the right of the Preset Type list displays a pop-up menu that is divided into three groups of commands. The top group includes a list of display options for the items within the palette, which let you display the items as thumbnails or by their names. The second field lets you restore the current palette to the defaul Calibrating Your MonitorPart of the initial setup in Photoshop involves ensuring that your colors look right on-screen. A calibrated and ICC-profiled monitor is the foundation from which all other color settings are determined, and is the initial stage of color management that will ultimately provide consistency during each work session and predictable results from your printer. Calibration configures the best possible characteristics for a particular monitor so that the display is optimal. Calibration utilities are part of the Mac and Windows operating systems and will calibrate your monitor and record the resulting data to an ICC (International Color Consortium) profile. Because these are visual calibration systems, they are inadequate for precision calibration. If you need precise calibration, use a device called a colorimeter, which sticks on the surface of your monitor’s glass, measures the temperature of the phosphors, and records this state into an ICC profile. These devices are Chapter 6: Making Selections Overview Essential to image editing is the ability to isolate an area of the image so that an effect can be applied exclusively to that area. A selection serves two contradictory purposes: it affects and it protects. When you apply a Photoshop tool or operation, the area within the bounds of the selection marquee will be altered and the area outside the selection marquee will remain unaffected. Think of a selection simply as a hole through which you can alter the reality of your image. Because there are so many variables to selecting an area, Photoshop provides several tools that facilitate the selection process. You’ll encounter a wide range of methods, from the labor-intensive to the fully automatic, that enable you to select pixels for the ultimate purpose of altering their appearance. This chapter will introduce you to the following: Masking Using selection tools Applying selection techniques Chapter 6: Making Selections The Power of Masking Masking, or the process of protecting portions of an image, used to be an entirely manual process. In ancient times—that is, prior to the introduction of Photoshop—one of the most common methods of altering a photograph was to paint it with an airbrush. Air-brushing required a person with a steady hand and a razor-sharp knife. A piece of transparent frisket film was placed over the entire image. The artist slowly, carefully, and gently (so as not to damage the photo) cut a hole in the frisket to expose the area of the photograph to be painted. The exposed portion of the image was painted, and the areas where the frisket remained were protected. The frisket was then peeled back to reveal the colored shape of the hole. Photoshop CS offers an arsenal of tools and operations that give the user versatility and control unimagined in that bygone era. The selection tools range from purely manual, such as the Lasso, to semimanual, such as the Marquee, to semiautomatic, such Using Selection ToolsWhen you make a selection in Photoshop, an animated marquee defines the approximate boundaries of the selected area. This moving, dash-lined border is sometimes referred to as the “marching ants” because of its resemblance to a column of tiny insects on the move. By default, three of Photoshop’s selection tools are visible at the top of the Tool palette (see Figure 6.1). When you press and hold the mouse on the Rectangular Marquee tool, the palette expands to reveal all four marquee tools. When you expand the Lasso tool, all three free-form selection tools are revealed. With the Magic Wand tool, which resides alone, the total number of selection tools is eight. Figure 6.1: Photoshop’s default selection tools Other methods can enhance the speed or accuracy of the selection process. The Pen tool, covered in Chapter 9, “Drawing Paths,” uses Bezier curves to define edges. Quick Mask uses painting tools to select areas (see Chapter 12, “Using Channels and Quick Mask”). Applying Selection TechniquesYou can modify a selection outline several ways; among them, you can conceal it, transform it, add to it, subtract from it, soften its edges, and eliminate it. These commands are important because they facilitate the process of masking. For example, if you draw a selection incorrectly, instead of redrawing it from scratch, it might be more efficient to make a few alterations to it. What follows are some indispensable outline-altering techniques. Using the Select Menu Some selection adjustments can be automatically applied by accessing them from the Select menu or applying a shortcut key command. You will find that you use these commands quite frequently, so in the interest of working efficiently, I recommend that you learn to use the shortcuts. Here are the Select Menu commands and their shortcuts: Select All ( /Ctrl-A) This command selects the entire content of an image or a targeted layer. Because you can perform virtually any operation to the entire imag Hands On 1: Making Selections Overview When I was a kid, Mr. Potato Head was a special toy. It was one of the only objects in my toy chest that let me make real aesthetic choices. I would start with a potato and choose from dozens of plastic facial features that could attach to produce a unique character. For this first Hands On exercise, Fred Photato Head is the virtual version of the popular toy. In the process of assembling a character from dozens of features, you will learn how to use Photoshop’s selection tools. All of the elements are on a single document. You will choose a feature, select it, and drag it to the character. In this way, you will build your unique version of Fred Photato Head. Making accurate selections is fundamental to maintaining the credibility of your image. Poorly drawn selections that are rough, inaccurate, or stair-stepped, or that contain unwanted edge pixels, are sure to destroy the illusion of a seamless reality. It’s important, then, to familiarize your Getting StartedDelete your preferences file before beginning this Hands On exercise. The “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” section in Chapter 5, “Setting Up the Program,” details how to reset your preferences to Photoshop’s defaults. After you have launched Photoshop with default preferences, here’s how to begin the Hands On project: Insert the Photoshop CS Savvy CD in your CD-ROM drive. Choose File → Open; select and open Fred_Photato_Head_Start.psd in the HO1 folder on the CD (see Figure H1.1). Figure H1.1: The open Fred Photato Head file Save the file to your hard disk. Figure H1.2 shows one possible outcome. Figure H1.2: This is what I made out of the virtual elements, but yours might look quite different. Note See the color versions of Fred_Photato_Head_Start and Fred_Photato_Head_End—Figures C40 and C41—in the color section of this book. Moving the Mannequin You’ll use the Rectangular Marquee tool to move the mannequin into position: Use the Navigator to zoom in or out so you can see all of the mannequin in the center of the screen (see Figure H1.3). Figure H1.3: Use the Navigator palette to bring the mannequin into view. Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool. Place your cursor just below the lower-left corner of the mannequin. Click and drag to the upper-right corner to make your selection, as shown in Figure H1.4. Figure H1.4: Drag a rectangle around the mannequin. Choose the Move tool . Place your cursor inside the marching ants. Click and hold the mouse button. Press the Shift key to constrain the vertical movement of the marquee as you drag down. Drag the mannequin until its ragged bottom edge is just outside the bottom of the white background, as shown in Figure H1.5. Then release the mouse. Figure H1.5: The mannequin positioned at the bottom of the background Press -D (Mac) or Ctrl-D (Win) to deselect the mannequi Selecting a HeadYou can choose among the potato, the onion, or the egg for the head. This exercise uses the egg. Follow these steps: With the Navigator, zoom out so that you can see the egg, the onion, and the potato. Press Shift-M to select the Elliptical Marquee tool or choose it from the Marquee fly-out in the Tool palette. Place your cursor in the approximate center of the egg. Press the Option/Alt key as you drag an ellipse from the center. As you near the edge, press the spacebar (but don’t release the Option/Alt key!). Drag the marquee to accurately position it so that it just touches the edge. Release the spacebar to resize, and press it again to reposition the marquee until you’ve centered and positioned the selection outline on the edge of the egg. Release the mouse first and then the keys. Choose the Move tool. Place the cursor inside the marquee and drag the egg to position it on the mannequin, as in Figure H1.6. Figure H1.6: The egg positioned on the mannequin Press /Ctrl- Selecting the Eyes With the Elliptical Marquee tool still active, you will now select the eyes: In the Options bar, from the Style pop-up list, choose Fixed Aspect Ratio. Enter 1.5 for the width and 1 for the height, as in Figure H1.7. Figure H1.7: Choosing a fixed aspect ratio You’ll find a group of eyes to the left of the mannequin. Zoom in on one of the left eyes and place your cursor in the center of it. Press the Option/Alt key and drag outward. Don’t drag to the very edge, but stay a few pixels within the oval shape, as seen in Figure H1.8. Figure H1.8: The selection of a left eye Choose Select → Feather. Enter a value of 2 pixels. This option lets you apply a feather to an existing selection. Choose the Move tool. Drag the left eye and position it on the egg. Notice the seamless transition between the egg and the eye due to the feathered selection. Choose the Elliptical Marquee tool. You will use the same fixed aspect ratio for the right eye. In the Options bar, enter a value of Selecting a Nose You’ll use two variations of the Lasso tool to select the nose: Choose the Lasso tool. In the Options bar, set the feather radius to 2 px. Choose a nose. Start at the lower-left of the nose and drag to the right around the curved shapes. When you reach the side of the nose, press and hold the Option/Alt key. Release the mouse. The tool changes to the Polygonal Lasso. Drag a straight line up the right side of the nose. When you reach the top portion of the nose, press the mouse button, release the Option/Alt key, and drag the curve with the Lasso tool. Press the Option/Alt key again. Release the mouse and drag a straight line down the left side of the nose. When you reach the curved portion of the left nostril, press the mouse button, release the key again, and drag the Lasso to close the selection. The selection should look like Figure H1.10. Figure H1.10: The selected nose Choose the Move tool, drag the nose, and place it on the egg. Press /Ctrl-D to deselect and /Ctr Selecting the MouthYou will also select the mouth with the Lasso tool: Choose the Lasso tool. Because the feather radius was set for the Lasso tool in the previous step, it doesn’t need to be reset. Encircle one of the mouths as close to its edge as possible. Choose the Move tool. In the Options bar, select the Show Bounding Box check box. Place the cursor inside the bounding box. Drag the mouth and place it on the egg. Press the Shift key while dragging to constrain the proportions. To size the mouth, place your cursor on any one of the bounding box handles, and drag inward to decrease or outward to increase the size, as in Figure H1.11. Figure H1.11: Sizing the mouth Press the /Ctrl key to independently move the corner points of the bounding box to distort the mouth. To rotate the mouth, place the cursor on the outside corner of the box until the rotate icon appears and then drag. If you would like to see the mouth without the marquee to get a better idea of how it looks, choose View Adding a MustacheUse this fast technique of selecting the mustache by subtracting the area around it from the selection: Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool. Drag a rectangle around the mustache of choice. Choose the Magic Wand tool. In the Options bar, set the tolerance to 24. Choose the Subtract From Selection icon from the toolbar. Click within the rectangular selection but not on the mustache. The mustache is automatically selected. Choose Select → Feather. Enter a value of 1 px. Choose the Move tool. Place the cursor inside the bounding box. Drag the mustache and place it between the mouth and the nose on the egg. Size the mustache to fit the space. Deselect and save. Selecting the EyebrowsTo give Fred a little character, you will add eyebrows. There are some real whoppers to choose from. Here are the steps: Choose the Magic Wand tool . In the Options bar, set the tolerance to 32. Click a right eyebrow. Only a portion of the eyebrow is selected, as shown in Figure H1.12. Depending on the eyebrow you select, you’ll have to readjust the tolerance and reselect to make a complete selection, or you can click the Add To Selection icon in the Options bar and continue to click the unselected areas. Select the left eyebrow in the same way. Figure H1.12: Only a portion of the eyebrows is selected. After the eyebrows are selected, choose Select → Feather. Enter a value of 1 px. Choose the Move tool. Place the cursor inside the bounding box. Drag the eyebrows and place them above the eyes on the egg. Resize them if desired. Deselect and save. Choosing the HairThe easiest way to select a complex shape with an irregular edge and a lot of tonal variation is with the Magnetic Lasso tool. Here you’ll use this tool to select the hair: Choose the Magnetic Lasso tool . In the Options bar, set the feather radius to 1 px. Use the other default settings in the Options bar to control the tool’s performance. Zoom in on one of the wigs. Place your cursor on the wig’s edge. Drag slowly around it. A path is laid down as you drag, as demonstrated in Figure H1.13. For more control, add additional anchors by clicking your mouse as you drag. Figure H1.13: The wig selected with the Magnetic Lasso tool. Notice the areas where some of the edge was not precisely selected. You can later refine these imperfect areas by subtracting them from the selection with the Lasso tool. Completely surround the edge of the wig and connect the end point with the beginning point to close the selection. If you lose control of the tool, double-click, deselect, and b Selecting and Duplicating the EarsTo select the ears, you will once again use the Magnetic Lasso tool: Again, maintain the 1 px feather radius in the Options bar that you set in the previous step. Use the default settings in the Options bar to control the tool’s performance. Carefully drag along the edge of one of the ears to encircle it. After you’ve entirely surrounded the edges with the magnetic selection outline, place your cursor on the original point and click your mouse to implement the selection. Choose the Move tool. Click inside the bounding box. Drag the ear and place it on the left side of Fred’s head. Size the ear by dragging its corner points and then commit the transformation. Click inside the bounding box again, but this time press Option/Alt as you drag to duplicate the ear. Position the ear on the right side of the egg and release the mouse. Choose → Edit → Transform Flip Horizontal. Reposition the ear. Deselect and save. Creating the TieFirst, you’ll make a selection of the area where you want the tie. Then, you’ll move the marquee onto the fabric, copy it, and deposit it on the mannequin to create a tie: Choose the Lasso tool. In the Options bar, set the feather radius to 0 px. On Fred’s shirt, draw the shape of the tie, as shown in Figure H1.15. Figure H1.15: The outline of the tie Place your cursor in the center of the marching ants. Click the mouse and drag it to one of the material swatches. Choose the Move tool. Place the cursor inside the selection outlines and drag the tie back onto the shirt. Deselect and save. You can enhance the tie, as I have done in Figure H1.16, by painting portions of it with a low-opacity black to produce a shadow effect. See Chapter 12, “Using Channels and Quick Mask,” to learn about painting. Figure H1.16: The completed tie, with a shadow for depth Cropping the ImageNow that you’ve finished Fred, you can throw away any unwanted parts of the image: Choose the Crop tool . Place your cursor on the lower-left corner of the white background. Click and drag up and to the right to encompass about seven-eighths of the vertical and the full horizontal dimension of the white background, as shown in Figure H1.17. Release the mouse. Figure H1.17: The Crop bounding box in place Adjust the Crop bounding box by dragging its corner handles. Click the check mark in the Options bar or press the Enter key to implement the crop. Save the image. Adding a BackgroundTo finish this portrait off, you’ll add a soft-edged background: Choose the Magic Wand tool. Set the tolerance to 32. Click in the white background to select it. Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool. In the Options bar, set the feather to 40 px. Click the Subtract From Selection icon. Click about a half-inch or so from the upper-left edge and drag down to the very bottom, about an inch or so from the lower-right edge, as shown in Figure H1.18. Figure H1.18: The feathered selection border Click the Swatches tab in the Color/Swatches/ Styles palette cluster. Choose a color by clicking a swatch (see Figure H1.19). Figure H1.19: Choosing a color in the Swatches palette Press Option-Delete/Alt-Backspace to fill the area with color. Deselect and save. Chapter 7: Layering Your Image Overview Photoshop images appear on flat screens, but they are actually three-dimensional because of the power of layers. In the virtual world of the Photoshop work flow, layers are the third dimension. Beyond the height and width, they create depth. Layers are critical to working dynamically in Photoshop. Fragments of an image saved on individual layers can be edited separately and moved independently of each other. The stacking order of layers can help determine the depth and position of visual elements within the picture plane. In short, working with layers gives you tremendous control over the image during the process of creating it. This chapter will help you learn about the following: Understanding the Layers palette Creating new layers Using layer styles Consolidating and blending layers Working with Type layers Chapter 7: Layering Your Image Creating the Illusion of Depth The illusion of depth on a flat surface is created by techniques used to mimic what we see in the world. Artists have used these techniques for centuries to create realistic images that resemble our visual reality. One technique, called perspective, achieves its effect by using converging lines that intersect at a horizon. An object whose contours align with the perspective lines appears to recede in space. Another method involves modifying the relative scale of visual elements in an image. Larger objects appear closer to the viewer than smaller ones. Because this visual phenomenon is a naturally occurring characteristic of sight in the 3-D world, when we see it in a picture we subconsciously draw the conclusion that the objects exist in space when, in fact, the picture is two-dimensional. The position of an object in an image also contributes to the illusion of depth. If one element blocks out part of another element, the obstructing element appears to b Using the Layers Palette At the heart of all this power is the Layers palette (shown in Figure 7.2). It is the control center from which you perform most layer operations. By default, the Layers palette is clustered with the Channels and the Paths palettes. If the Layers palette is not displayed, you can access it by choosing Window → Layers or by pressing F7 on an extended keyboard. Figure 7.2: The Layers palette Each layer in the palette is separated from the one directly below it or above it by a thin line. Each layer’s row includes a thumbnail of the layer’s contents, the layer’s name, and any layer styles, masks, or locks applied to that layer. In the far left column is a visibility indicator which, when displayed, indicates that the contents of the layer are visible. Immediately to the right of this visibility indicator is another column that displays a brush icon if the layer is targeted. A small chain icon appears to the right of the visibility indicator if the layer is linked, Creating New LayersIt is often necessary to create a new layer, either to add new content to the image or to isolate an existing element. When a new layer is added, the file size of the document increases proportionately to the quantity of information on the new layer. Adding several new layers can significantly increase the amount of space the image consumes on your disk. This, however, is a small inconvenience for the power that layers deliver. As part of your work flow, though, you’ll no doubt want to consolidate layers during the imaging process to decrease the file size (see “Consolidating Layers” later in this chapter). Creating a New Empty Layer Here is an another example of redundant Photoshop operations. Two of these operations produce identical results, and one produces similar results with a slight twist. All three create a new layer: From the Layer menu, choose New → Layer to bring up the New Layer dialog box. Name the layer and specify its characteristics. Click OK. From t Blending LayersImagine having two color slides on a light table. Let’s say you sandwich a red transparent gel between the two slides. The image you see would be a combination of the bottom slide and the top slide affected by the tint of the gel. But suppose that, instead of just the tinted image, you had the ability to slide in more complex, specific effects, such as color saturation, color inversion, or color bleaching. That’s how blending modes perform. They are preprogrammed effects that determine the color relationships between aligned pixels on two consecutive layers in the stack. Figure 7.21 demonstrates some of the many applications of blending. (A color version of this demonstration, Figure C6, is available in the color section.) Figure 7.21: Examples of blending modes applied to an image A blending mode can be assigned to a layer in a couple of ways: Target the layer and then use the Mode list at the top of the Layers palette (directly under the Palette Title tab) to choose th Working with Layer Styles Layer styles jazz up your images with realistic enhancements such as drop shadows, neon glowing edges, and deep embossing. These efficient, canned effects simplify operations that used to require tedious channel juggling and layer manipulation. When a layer has been affected by a style, an italic f icon appears to the right of its name in the Layers palette (like the one next to the Pipe layer or the Sky B layer in Figure 7.23). The Layers palette can be expanded to reveal a list of the layer styles that have been applied, by clicking the small arrow to the left of the f icon. Double-clicking any one of these effects displays its controls so that you can modify it. Figure 7.23: Image with a Drop Shadow and a Bevel and Emboss effect Note Layer styles apply their effects to the edges of the layer, so the content on the target layer should be surrounded by transparency. Using Layer Styles If you want to create, define, or edit a layer style, access the Layer Sty Working with Type LayersBy default, when you enter type in Photoshop by using the Type tool, a new layer is automatically created. The layer is conveniently named with the text. Type layers are pretty much like any other layer in that they can be edited, transformed, reordered in the stack, and modified by applying styles to them. The thumbnail of a Type layer is identified by a capital T. If you’ve entered type and want to edit it, double-click the thumbnail to automatically highlight it, as in Figure 7.28. Figure 7.28: A capital T identifies a Type layer Several Photoshop operations cannot be directly applied to Type layers, including color adjustments or filters that affect only pixels. Before a Type layer can be affected by these operations, it must first be rasterized. Rasterization converts the vector information of the type fonts into pixel-based information. After you’ve rasterized the type, you can no longer edit it with the Type tool. To rasterize a Type layer, target the lay Consolidating LayersAt some point during the process of creating a digital image, you will probably have accumulated numerous layers.. This can present problems, because with the addition of each new layer, the size of your file will increase depending on the amount of information the layer contains. In the interest of streamlining your work flow, you should, from time to time, merge your layers. Merging layers combines the content of two or more layers into one. You can merge visible layers and linked layers, and you can merge down from a targeted layer. You can flatten the image so that all the layers are consolidated into a Background. You can copy the contents of two or more layers onto a single layer. Hold down the Option/Alt key and select a Merge function from the Palette menu. This merges the content of the layers into the targeted layer but doesn’t delete the original layers. By adding a new blank layer, holding Opt/Alt and using the Merge Visible command you can retain the or Chapter 8: Working with Type Overview Type is more than just written words. It is an important part of the visual gestalt of any layout. How a word looks can communicate to a viewer as much as or more than how it reads. Photoshop’s powerful set of tools and palettes can precisely control all the characteristics of typography. Combined with the application of layer styles, the typographical options are limitless. Many of Photoshop’s type functions resemble those of page-layout programs, and you might be tempted to use Photoshop to create text documents. But don’t try to drive a nail with a screwdriver! Use the right tool for the job. When generating body copy, it’s better to import your image into a page-layout program and then create or manipulate the text there. Where Photoshop really shines is in its capability to produce cool text effects and large display type for headlines, subheads, and graphic text. This chapter will introduce you to these topics: Typography 101 Using the Type t Chapter 8: Working with Type Type in Photoshop Photoshop’s type functions give you the ability to generate fully editable type directly on the image. You have the ability to enter text in a bounding box to confine your text to a predefined area and to attribute paragraph characteristics such as indents and spaces to it. There is a Warp text feature that bends type into a variety of defined shapes, and Photoshop CS introduces a new feature that enables you to enter type on a curved path. Many of the basic type functions—including orientation, font, style, size, anti-aliasing, alignment, and color—are accessed on the Options bar when the Type tool is selected. Additional type-specific characteristics—such as leading, tracking, horizontal and vertical scale, and baseline shift—are easily accessed from the Character and Paragraph palettes. You can set type attributes before you enter text, or edit selected characters after you enter them. In addition, you have a complete set of tools to create and edit Chinese, Japane Typography 101If you are going to create type on any software program, it’s essential to understand the nature and terminology of type. Type has been around ever since humans decided to record their experiences as symbols. The conventions of typography have evolved over the centuries. Type is more than just words. It is a powerful visual element, capable of expressing ideas. Your eye perceives the character forms, and your brain freely associates what it sees with what it knows—it translates the unique visual relationships of the text symbols into a silent voice. The voice can have a gender; it can convey a particular time in history. It might have an accent from another language or culture. It can be humorous, serious, fluid, mechanical, or any other description. It can have a specific tempo and pitch. Figure 8.1 identifies the traditional names for the key type features and dimensions that help define your type’s voice. These characteristics, and many others, are explained in the fol Using the Type ToolsTo generate text, choose the Type tool , click the point in the image where you want the text to appear, and enter the text from the keyboard. You can preprogram the Type tool prior to entering the text by entering values in the Options bar or in the Character or Paragraph palettes, or you can highlight the text after it has been entered and modify its specifications. Use these functions to modify text: To highlight text so that it can be edited, click in front of it and drag over it. To select a word, double-click it. To select a line of text, triple-click it. To select all characters in a bounding box, quadruple-click anywhere in the box, or press /Ctrl-A (Select All). When you select or format text on a Type layer, the Type tool shifts into edit mode. Before you can perform other operations, you must commit the changes by clicking the check mark or pressing Enter/Return, or cancel by clicking the Cancel icon or pressing Esc. Choosing Horizontal or Vertical Type T Applying Character and Paragraph SpecificationsPhotoshop gives you two palettes that expand your capabilities for generating text above and beyond those readily available in the Tool palette. In these palettes you’ll find controls for character and paragraph specifications and a compete set of Asian character controls. To access the palettes, select the Type tool and click the Palettes button in the Options bar. The Character and Paragraph palettes appear. The Character Palette This palette consolidates all the character attributes into one floating palette. To access the Character palette (see Figure 8.13), you can either choose Window → Character or, with the Type tool selected, click the Palettes button in the Options bar. Figure 8.13: The Character palette For most changes to the Character palette settings, you can click the Commit (check mark) button at the right end of the Options bar to apply your edits or the Cancel button if you change your mind. For most settings, pressing Re Warping Text You can bend type to conform to almost any type of curve. The Warp Text option is accessible from the Type tool Options bar or from the Layer → Type menu. When you click the icon, the Warp Text dialog box appears (see Figure 8.18). You can choose from 15 styles (all demonstrated in Figure 8.19), each with its own set of precision controls. Figure 8.18: The Warp Text dialog box Figure 8.19: The 15 Warp Text styles There are so many combinations of styles and settings that it’s impossible to list them all here. I’ll show you how to warp a few lines of text in the Hands On project that follows this chapter, but play with these controls. Experiment with settings, sizes, and fonts so you’ll be familiar with some of the wild, twisted type effects you can create. Rasterizing TypePhotoshop uses vector-based fonts that preserve the ability to edit the text throughout the imaging process. After you’ve generated the text, you can scale it and apply any layer style to it. You can also warp it or change its color. There are, however, certain operations such as filters and color adjustments that don’t work on vector-based type. If you want to apply those effects, you’ll have to rasterize the type, or convert it into pixels. Pixel-based type has its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that after you render your type, it appears at the same resolution as the document. This is particularly problematic for small type on low-resolution documents, because there might not be enough pixels to do a decent job of smoothing the type’s edges (as seen in the sample in Figure 8.20). Figure 8.20: Crisp, vector-based type (top), and jagged, rasterized type (bottom) The advantage of pixel-based type is that it enables you to apply effects to the ima Using the Spell CheckerThe spell checker will check the type on Type layers but will not check text that has been rasterized. To check your spelling, follow these steps: Choose Edit → Check Spelling to display the spell checker (see Figure 8.21). Figure 8.21: The spell checker If a Type layer is targeted, you can check the text exclusively on that layer or select the Check All Layers check box. The checker displays any words that are not in its dictionary and alternate spellings for the misspelled word. Click the correct spelling, or enter an alternate spelling in the Change To text box. Then click the Change or the Change All button to respell all instances of the word. If the checker doesn’t recognize additional words, it continues to display alternate spellings. If the word is spelled correctly and is not in the dictionary—a person’s name, for instance—you can click Ignore or Ignore All. To add an unrecognized word to the dictionary, click Add. When the spell checker finishes, it di Using the Find and Replace Text Command Find And Replace is a convenient method of locating and changing words in a document. It functions like the Find Change function in any word processor. The text needs to be on Type layers and not rasterized for this operation to work: Choose Edit → Find And Replace. The dialog box in Figure 8.23 appears. Figure 8.23: The Find And Replace feature Enter the word you want to locate in the Find What text box, and the word you want to replace it with in the Change To text box. Choose the following check boxes as needed: Search All Layers searches additional layers, other than the targeted layer. Forward moves forward through the document as you click the Find Next button. Case Sensitive ignores words that are not in the same case, even if they are spelled similarly. Whole Word Only finds and changes an entire word rather than a fragment. Click Find to locate the word and click Change to change it. Click Find Next to locate additional instances of the Hands On 2: Layers and TypeLayers greatly increase your power to manage your work. In this Hands On session, I’ll put you through the moves of layers and type so that you can apply some of the powerful techniques from Chapter 7, “Layering Your Image,” and Chapter 8, “Working with Type,” to an actual project. You will see the advantage of organizing your layers into sets as you apply layer upon layer of digital images to produce a phantasmagoric poster. You will also take a crack at generating type, applying layer styles, and warping text. Getting Started Before beginning this Hands On exercise, delete your preferences file. The section titled “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” details how to reset your preferences to Photoshop’s defaults. After you have launched Photoshop with default preferences, here’s how to begin the Hands On project: Insert the Photoshop CS Savvy CD in your CD-ROM drive. Choose File → Open; select and open Flying_Women_start.psd Arranging Layers The Layers palette is the central control center for a layer’s operations. From here you can view, move, link, and organize the components of an image. The following steps show you how. Viewing Layers Follow these steps to view your layers: When you open the file Flying_Women_start.psd, you see only the transparency checkerboard, as shown in Figure H2.3. The Layers palette, however, reveals that the image contains two layer sets, seven additional layers, and the Background. To reveal the contents of the Background, click the first column next to its thumbnail. The layer visibility icon appears, and the Background image appears in the image window. Figure H2.3: The image window and the Layers palette of the Flying Women document Reveal the contents of all layers: Option-click (Macintosh) or Alt-click (Windows) the visibility icon of the Background. Conceal the layers that you don’t need right now. Click the visibility icon next to the following layers or layer sets to c Using Layers to Create and EditLayers enable you to create and edit content. You will see how to create new layers from selected areas and affect their pixels with a few of Photoshop’s powerful features. Cutting and Copying Images to a New Layer You can make new layers from the contents of existing layers. You’ll cut a planet and copy it to a new layer. Target the Uranus layer. Option/Alt-click the eye icon of the Uranus layer to reveal only its contents against a transparent checkerboard, as in Figure H2.9. Figure H2.9: The contents of the Uranus layer appear against the transparent checkerboard. Select the Rectangular Marquee tool . Draw a marquee around the blue planet. Choose Layer → New → Layer Via Copy, or press /Ctrl-J. The selected planet is copied onto a new layer. Double-click the default name and rename the layer Galaxy. Target the Uranus layer again. Draw a rectangular marquee around the green planet. Choose Layer → New → Layer Via Cut, or press Shift- -J/Shift-Ctrl-J. The Entering Type in a Bounding BoxThe Type tool can produce sophisticated text effects. Combined with Photoshop’s layer styles, the graphic possibilities are endless. Follow these steps to place and manipulate the Amazing Flying Women from Outer Space text: Display all the layers in the document by pressing the Option/Alt key and clicking the eye icon next to the Background. Target the Purple layer set, which is topmost in the stack, to ensure that the Type layer you are about to create will appear above all the other layers. Select the Type tool. Place your cursor on the image at the 1′ horizontal mark and the 2′ vertical mark. Drag downward and to the right to the 4.75′ vertical and 9′ horizontal mark to produce a bounding box. Enter the following text specifications in the Options bar: Font Times Size 90 pt Anti-Alias Smooth Alignment Centered Color Red Display the Character palette (Window → Character, or click the Palettes button on the Options bar); Set Leading field to 95 pt. You’l Entering Type On a PathNow you’ll place the subheading on a vector path: Select the Pen tool . Click about 2 inches below the F in the word Flying. Click and hold the mouse while you drag up at about a 45-degree angle and about 1 inch to the right. Release the mouse. Click 2 inches below the space between the g and the W, and drag to the right and down. Release the mouse. Click 2 inches below the n. Drag to the right and up at a 45-degree angle for about an inch to finish the path. The path should look like Figure H2.18 (see Chapter 9, “Drawing Paths” for more information on that topic). Figure H2.18: The subheading type placed on a curved path Click the Text tool. Change the settings on the Options bar to the following: Font Helvetica Medium Size 45 Color Yellow Alignment Flush Left From the Character Palette pull-down menu, choose All Caps. Click on the leftmost point on the path; you’ll see a blinking insertion point. Type the words FROM OUTER SPACE. Click the check mark in the Opti Merging Layers and Flattening the ImageTo reduce the file size and to more efficiently manage your document, you can merge layers or flatten the image: Click to deselect the visibility icons next to all the layers except for the Blue, Purple, and Yellow layer sets. Target the Purple layer set. Choose Merge Visible from the Layers palette menu. The content of all three of the layer sets is merged into a single layer (see Figure H2.23). Notice the reduction in the file size in the information field in the lower-left corner of the image window. Figure H2.23: You can merge the contents of all three layer sets into one layer. To finish the image, you will flatten it. Choose Image → Duplicate. Name the new image Flying_Women_flat.psd. Be sure all the layers and layer styles are visible. From the Layers Palette pull-down menu, choose Flatten Image. Save the image. Chapter 9: Drawing Paths Overview Photoshop provides several methods for isolating areas of an image, as you saw in Chapter 6, “Making Selections.” Still, making accurate selections can be difficult or time-consuming, because each image presents different problems. The Pen tool and the Paths palette add more capabilities to further enhance the accuracy and speed of making selections and defining the smooth edges. After you’ve learned to draw with the Pen tool, you’ll probably find it indispensable, because it can often be the easiest and fastest way to select areas that are defined by long, smooth curves. Photoshop also offers several other vector-generating tools that are used for making lines and shapes. This chapter will cover topics including: Using the Path tools and the Paths palette Drawing and editing paths Using paths to apply color Converting, importing, and exporting paths Using vector masks and clipping paths Using the Shape tools Chapter 9: Drawing Paths What Is a Path? If you have used any vector illustration software, then the Paths function in Photoshop should be familiar to you. Paths represent vector objects that mathematically define specific areas on an image by virtue of their shape and position. Vector objects are composed of anchor points and line segments, known as Bezier curves, like the ones shown in Figure 9.1 (see Chapter 3, “The Nature of the Beast,” for more information on these terms). Figure 9.1: Components of Bezier curves The Path tools enable you to create straight lines and curves with much greater clarity and precision than the selection tools. If you create an open-ended path, you can then stroke it with a color to form a curved line (using the path as a drawing tool). If its two end points have joined, the path encloses a shape. You can then fill the shape with color, stroke it with an outline, or store it in the Paths palette (or the Shape library) for later use. It can also be converted into a selection, to The Path ToolsThe primary Path tool is the Pen tool, located in the Tool palette. To choose the Pen tool, click its icon or press P. If you hold down the mouse button, you can expand the Tool palette to display the other Path tools. Photoshop has tools for drawing paths (Shift-P cycles through these) and tools for editing paths (Shift-A cycles through these tools). There are also two tools designed specifically to select and move a path or a portion of a path. You’ll explore these tools throughout the chapter, but here is a quick preview. Path-Drawing Tools This set of tools includes the following: The Pen tool draws paths by clicking and dragging. The Freeform Pen tool draws a freeform line that converts itself into a path when the mouse is released. The Freeform Pen tool with the Magnetic option, sometimes simply called the Magnetic Pen, intuitively defines edges based upon contrasting colors. Path-Editing Tools This set of tools includes the following: The Add Anchor Point tool adds Drawing PathsEach path-drawing tool employs a slightly different method for creating a path outline. Learning to draw accurately with the Pen tools can be challenging at first, because drawing with Bezier curves is unlike any form of traditional drawing. With a little practice, however, as you become familiar with the process, your speed and accuracy will improve considerably. The Pen Tool The Pen tool enables you to draw straight lines and smooth curves with a high degree of control and precision. The basic techniques and concepts used for drawing paths in Adobe Photoshop closely parallel those used in Adobe Illustrator. Usually, a path is drawn to follow the form of the area to be isolated, and then the path is edited and refined to a considerable degree of accuracy. The Pen Tool Options bar displays options that enable you to modify the tool’s behavior (see Figure 9.2). Before you draw a path or a shape, specify in the Options bar whether to make a new Shape layer or a new work path Editing PathsAfter a path has been drawn, all or part of it can be moved or reshaped. Anchor points can be added or omitted, and corners can be converted into curves or curves into corners. Paths can also be transformed and combined. The path-editing tools include the Path Selection tool, the Direct Selection tool, the Add Anchor Point tool, the Delete Anchor Point tool, and the Convert Point tool. Using the Path Selection Tool The black arrow, the Path Selection tool, selects all the anchor points and segments of a path. You can then reposition the path anywhere on the image by dragging it with this tool. Note Another method of selecting a path is to use the Path Selection tool to click and drag a marquee that touches any part of the path. All the anchor points will appear solid, indicating that the entire path is selected. You can duplicate a path by dragging and dropping it with the Path Selection tool and the Option/Alt key depressed (see Figure 9.11). Figure 9.11: Option/Alt-drag The Paths PaletteThe Paths palette is the central control for all path operations. Like a layer or a channel, a path can be stored into a palette so it can later be edited or converted into a selection. You can access the Paths palette by choosing Window → Paths (see Figure 9.16). If you still have the Paths palette in the default cluster—grouped with the Layers palette—pressing the F7 function key will also bring it up. Figure 9.16: The Paths palette and its menu Work Paths When you begin drawing a path with the Pen tool, it appears in the Paths palette as a thumbnail named Work Path. The work path is a temporary element that records changes as you draw new sections of the path. If you complete a path on an image, click the Pen tool, and draw another path, it will appear on the same Work Path thumbnail as the first path. To create separate additional paths, you must save the work path to the Paths palette. You can increase or decrease the size of the Paths palette thumbnails, or turn Using Paths to Apply Color You can apply color to an area of an image within a closed path or to the edge of a path. Filling a Path To fill the area within a path follow these steps: Draw an open or closed path or display an existing path from the Paths palette by clicking its thumbnail. Choose a foreground color and then choose Fill Path from the Paths Palette pull-down menu. The Fill Path dialog box appears (see Figure 9.17). Its Contents and Blending areas are identical to the Fill dialog box accessed from the Edit menu and are discussed in Chapter 10, “Creating and Applying Color.” Figure 9.17: The Fill Path dialog box In the additional Rendering field, you can enter a feather radius for the edges of the path and select the Anti-Aliased check box. Click OK when you have the settings you want. You can fill a path with the current Fill Path dialog box settings by clicking the Fill Path icon at the bottom of the Paths palette. Stroking a Path A path can be stroked with a line of a spe Converting PathsThe primary reason for using paths is the ease and facility with which you can precisely define regions of an image. Although some of the selection tools offer unique selection techniques, there is nothing quite like the path operations to quickly and precisely surround an area. Paths are easy to edit and require less real estate on your disk than selections saved as alpha channels. Eventually, though, you will need to convert your path into a selection before you can apply a Photoshop operation to the area it surrounds. Converting a Path into a Selection When you convert a path to a selection by using the Make Selection dialog box, you can specify the characteristics of your new selection and its relation to active selections on the image. To do this, target the path in the Paths palette and choose Make Selection from the Paths Palette pull-down menu. The Make Selection dialog box is displayed, enabling you to choose the characteristics of the new selection: Feather Ra Importing and Exporting PathsPhotoshop paths can be used by other programs, where they can be modified. You can transfer a path directly from Photoshop to popular vector-based drawing programs such as Illustrator or FreeHand, or vice versa, to take advantage of either program’s unique path-editing features. Copying and Pasting If you’re moving the path from Photoshop to a vector-based drawing program, you can select the entire path with the Path Selection tool and copy it to the Clipboard (by choosing Edit → Copy or pressing /Ctrl-C). Open a document in the other program and paste the path into it. The paths remain fully editable in either program. When you paste a path from a drawing program into Photoshop, a dialog box appears that asks you to choose to place the path as a rasterized image (pixels), a vector path, or a Shape layer (see Figure 9.21). Figure 9.20: The Paste dialog box Figure 9.21: Selecting the area with the free form Pen tool with the Magnetic option Dragging and Drop Using Vector Masks When working with Photoshop graphical elements, it is sometimes necessary to “knock out” portions of an image—that is, make those areas invisible so that elements in layers below can show through. This can be done by using a vector mask. When you use a vector mask, the interior portion of the path will be displayed, and the area outside the path will be completely transparent (for more about layer masking, see Chapter 22, “Advanced Layer Techniques”). Vector masks are best used when you want a clean, crisp edge to your element—not always easy to create with regular selection methods! To create a vector mask: Open el jefe.psd in the Chapter 9 folder on the CD In the layers palette, double click the Background to make it into a layer. Name the layer Head. Choose the Freeform Pen Tool. In the Options bar check the Magnetic option. and click the Paths icon. Draw a path around El Jefe’s head with the pen tool to isolate it (see Figure 9.21). Use the Direct Selection tool Using Clipping Paths The Clipping Path option has essentially the same effect as the Vector Mask option, except that clipping paths are designed to be exported with your image into a vector illustration program (such as Adobe Illustrator) or a page layout program (such as Adobe InDesign) instead of embedded within a Photoshop layer. To create a clipping path: Create a path around an area of your image as before by using the Path tools. Note Check the Options bar to be sure the Path option is chosen (not shape layers or fill pixels) and the Exclude Overlapping Path Areas option is also chosen (not the add/subtract/intersect options). If these two settings are inactive it often confuses users wishing to create simple compound clipping paths. From the Paths Palette pull-down menu, choose Save Path, and give it a name. Choose Clipping Path from the palette menu, and the Clipping Path dialog box appears (see Figure 9.24). Figure 9.24: The Clipping Path dialog box Select the name of the pat Creating Lines and ShapesPhotoshop handles lines and shapes in a manner much like Illustrator. Like type, lines and shapes are vector objects (drawn and defined by paths). You draw a predefined shape by using one of the Shape tools, or a custom shape by using the Pen tool. Once drawn, shapes can be edited by adjusting their anchor points with the path-editing tools. When you create a shape on a Shape layer, it appears on an independent layer with a Vector Mask thumbnail next to a Color Fill Layer thumbnail. The shape also appears as a separate path in the Paths palette. To apply any filter to a shape, it must first be rasterized, or turned into pixels. If you flatten the image, shapes are automatically converted to pixels. The Shape tool can instantly create precise shapes, such as rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, polygons, lines, and custom shapes that you can edit with the path-editing tools. When you click the Shape tool icon in the Tool palette, it expands to reveal all of Chapter 10: Creating and Applying Color Overview The methods used by painters and computer artists differ in their physical application. Painters, of course, paint with pigment, whereas computer artists paint with light. The similarity, however, is that Photoshop’s painting functions are designed to simulate the real-life studio environment with a variety of virtual tools for applying color. Photoshop draws and paints with light, yet has the ability to simulate almost any effect that can be created on paper or canvas. These same capabilities can be greatly extended by applying artistic, textural, and brush stroke filters that can convert a photograph into anything—from a Rembrandt to a Picasso—instantaneously. In this chapter, you’ll learn about: Understanding digital color Choosing colors, color modes, and color models Creating and modifying brushes Using the painting and editing tools Making and applying gradients and patterns Filling and stroking Chapter 10: Creating and Applying Color Painting with Paint and Pixels Applying color to a surface is one of the oldest and most common forms of self-expression. From the meticulous application of thinned glazes used to render exacting detail on photo-realistic paintings to pigment splashed by the gallon on Abstract Expressionist canvases, the application of color is the artist’s way of whispering, speaking, or shouting. Paint is indeed a versatile medium. Colors are made from minerals or organic substances, ground, and then mixed with either an oil- or water-based vehicle that forms a liquid or paste to make them fluid enough to apply. It can be brushed, troweled, rolled, sprayed, poured, spattered, or thrown onto a surface. It can be mixed, blended, glazed, or smeared, thin or thick, to produce an infinite variety of colors and surface effects. Photoshop’s drawing and painting features enable you to use light instead of physical compounds on paper or canvas. Specifying digital color and applying it with one of the painting Understanding Digital ColorEvery pixel in each color channel of your image is assigned a numeric value. These values can be translated into specific color systems that distribute the information depending on your needs. For example, the three-channel RGB system is used to display images on-screen, but the four-channel CMYK color system is designed to organize the information into color separations so that it can be printed on paper. In Photoshop, you can choose a specific color system. Some of these systems—such as RGB, CMYK, Lab, and Grayscale—are called color modes, in which the information is organized into color channels with specific characteristics. Others, such as HSB, are called color models and are supported for your convenience, so that you can easily pick the exact color you want by determining its basic characteristics. Color Models and Modes A color mode or model is a system of displaying or printing color. Photoshop supports the HSB color model and RGB, CMYK, Lab, Graysca Choosing Colors Picking a color in Photoshop is as simple as squeezing paint from a tube. It is a matter of choosing a color from one of Photoshop’s three color interfaces or sampling colors directly from any open image. There are two color swatches near the bottom of the Tool palette, representing the current foreground and background colors. The swatch on the left is the foreground color, which is applied directly by any of the painting tools. The default foreground color is black. The background color on the right is applied with the Eraser tool or by cutting a selected portion of an image on the Background. The default background color is white. You can reverse the foreground and background colors by clicking the curved arrow to the upper-right of the swatches. To restore the colors to the default black and white, click the icon at the lower-left of the swatches. Note When you cut a portion from an image on a layer, the area becomes transparent. The Color Picker To choose a foregr Introduction to Brushes Photoshop provides you with an abundant supply of built-in brushes that can be used to apply color to your image in a variety of ways with the painting and editing tools. In addition, you can create new brushes and control such characteristics as size, hardness, spacing, roundness, and angle. You can also make custom brushes in virtually any shape. The preset brushes are displayed by means of a pop-up palette on the left side of the Options bar whenever a painting or editing tool is activated. Click the small arrow to the right of the Brush icon in the Options bar to open the pop-up palette called the Brush Preset Picker (see Figure 10.7). By default, the brushes will be displayed with a thumbnail view of each loaded brush tip, along with a brush stroke view. Clicking on the view will select the brush. You can modify the selected brush’s size and softness on the fly by moving the Master Diameter and Hardness sliders. The thumbnail in the Options bar at the top o Using the Painting and Editing Tools Use the painting and editing tools to manually apply color or to modify an area of the image. With the exception of the Gradient and Paint Bucket tools, the painting tools rely on the motion of your hand and choice of brush tip to distribute the color or apply an effect. Each tool has its own unique set of characteristics. You can access the painting and editing tools by clicking them in the Tool palette or by pressing the appropriate shortcut key on the keyboard. (The letter in parentheses after some of the tool names in the following sections indicates its keyboard shortcut.) The behavior of the painting and editing tools can be adjusted by setting certain characteristics in the Options bar. Note If the option is checked in the General Preferences, you can toggle between most tools in an expandable tool cluster in the Tool palette by simultaneously pressing the Shift key and the tool’s keyboard shortcut. The Painting Tools The painting tools incl Making and Applying Gradients In nature, we see countless variations of color that subtly blend into one another as light and shadow intermingle into dimensional forms. The ability to gradually blend colors is essential to the credibility of any realistic image. Photoshop gradients blend multiple colors into each other, or into transparency, over a specified distance. Choosing Gradients Choose the Gradient tool from the Tool palette and notice how the Options bar configures itself. At the far left is a preview bar, or gradient swatch, with a down arrow. Clicking in this swatch calls up the Gradient Editor, and clicking the arrow pops up a simpler Gradient Picker. Both display all saved gradients, beginning with the several preinstalled gradients. The default gradient creates a fill that blends from the foreground color to the background color. Another gradient, called Foreground To Transparent, fills from the current foreground color to transparency. Use it to gradually fade a single c Creating PatternsYou can fill a selection with a repeating pattern. A pattern can be any image contained within a rectangle, or tile, that defines its top, bottom, left, and right edges. To create a pattern in Photoshop: Select an area on an image by using the rectangular marquee. Choose Edit → Define Pattern. The rectangular marquee must have a feather radius of 0 pixels. In other words, it cannot have a feathered edge. It can, however, have an anti-aliased edge. If you select an area on the image and you find that the Define Pattern command is grayed out in the Edit menu, check the rectangular marquee’s Options bar to be sure that the Feather Radius reads 0 px. If you look in Edit → Preset Manager → Preset Type → Patterns, you’ll see that the pattern has been added to the list. You apply patterns to the image with the Pattern Stamp, the Fill command, the Paint Bucket, the Healing Brush, and the Patch tool, or as a Pattern Fill layer (see the sections on these features elsewhere in th Filling and OutliningYou might find it difficult or time-consuming to paint large areas of the image and impossible to paint the outline of a shape. Photoshop provides several alternatives that automatically perform these tasks. The Fill Command Filling an area changes its pixels to a designated color: Before an area can be filled, it must first be selected. Make an accurate selection with any of the selection tools to define the area. If the selection is feathered, the area that is filled will have a soft edge. Choose Edit → Fill. The Fill dialog box is displayed (Figure 10.27). Figure 10.27: The Fill dialog box From the Use pop-up list, choose a color or method to fill your selection: Foreground Color Fill the selected area with 100% of the current foreground color. Background Color Fill the selected area with 100% of the current background color. New Color The Color option will display the Color Picker for the user to select a new color. Pattern Fill the selected area with a patter Chapter 11: Altered States: History Overview As you’ve seen in previous chapters, the application of such fundamental procedures as using layers during the editing process helps to keep an image dynamic. As you work, you can make changes to the image, or even just a portion of the image, one step at a time, until the results are satisfactory. In this chapter, you’ll examine Photoshop’s capability to take a step backward as well as forward. In this respect, I like to think of Photoshop as the “bachelor’s software”: you never have to make a commitment—that is, until you finally settle down and publish your work. Photoshop takes the concept of bachelor’s software to the max with the extreme flexibility of its History palette. The History palette is Photoshop’s answer to the concept of multiple undos. Whereas some programs provide a system of undoing operations backward in sequence, Photoshop’s interactive History palette features both sequential and nonlinear editing. This chapter will ex Chapter 11: Altered States: History Undoing What You’ve Done Even the most accident-prone among us will find that it’s almost impossible to do any permanent damage while working in Photoshop, because Photoshop can instantly undo errors. You never have to compromise, because you can reverse any operation. With this in mind, you can feel secure while experimenting freely with your images. The Undo Commands There are several techniques that reverse unwanted edits. Let’s say you are carefully cloning out the blemishes on Uncle Herman’s portrait. You’ve had one too many double espressos, and your hand is a bit jittery. You slip, you drag a little too far, and you place a rather unsightly blotch on the tip of his nose. An easily corrected mistake? Yes! The first course of action is to head straight to the top of the Edit menu and choose Undo, which will instantly revert the image to the moment before you made the ill-fated clone stroke. When you choose Undo, you get a new command on the Edit menu—Redo—which restores the undone Using Photoshop’s Time MachineThe history of a Photoshop image is simply a record of work that has been performed on it. Photoshop automatically records every edit, operation, or technique that you apply to an image. As you work, each event, called a state—whether it’s a paint stroke, filter, color correction, or any other operation—is listed in the History palette (see Figure 11.1). You can target a specific state on the list and display its contents in the image window. Like riding in an H.G. Wells time machine, you can freely move through the history of the document, alter states, and in so doing affect the outcome of the final image. Figure 11.1: The opening History palette and menu: no changes have been applied to the image yet. New The History states are not layers. They do not contain isolated parts of the image per se. Rather, each state is a record of how the image looked after a specific tool or operation was applied to it. The history is exclusively a record of the changes Looking at History Options You can change the behavior of the history by selecting options in the History Options dialog box. In the History Palette pull-down menu, choose History Options to view or change these settings (see Figure 11.3): Figure 11.3: Use this dialog box to change the behavior of the history. Automatically Create First Snapshot produces a snapshot of the original image upon opening it and places its thumbnail at the top of the History palette (see the next section, “Working with Snapshots”). Automatically Create New Snapshot When Saving generates a snapshot of the current state when saving and adds its thumbnail to the top of the History palette. Allow Non-Linear History enables you to discard or edit a previous History state without deleting more recent states. Show New Snapshot Dialog By Default automatically displays the Snapshot dialog box when a new snapshot is created, prompting you to name the snapshots as they are made. Working with SnapshotsAt any time, you can save the current image to a snapshot (see Figure 11.4). By saving a snapshot, you can explicitly preserve various states of the image. Snapshots don’t count toward the History state limit; they’re saved—period—and you don’t have to worry about that state being discarded when the limit is exceeded. But of course, they use up memory and, like the rest of the history, are discarded when the file is closed. Figure 11.4: The History palette with a snapshot Saving Snapshots Click the History Palette pull-down menu and choose New Snapshot. The dialog box that appears enables you to name the snapshot and determine which combination of layers the snapshot will be made from. Full Document makes a snapshot of all the visible layers and the Background. Merged Layers makes a snapshot of all the layers and merges them into one layer. Current Layer makes a snapshot of the currently targeted layer. A fast way to make a snapshot is to target a History state an Editing History StatesThe primary purpose of Photoshop’s history is to keep the editing process dynamic. There are several ways to use the History palette to keep the workflow flexible so that you can experiment freely and confidently. For all history operations, to target a state, click it in the History palette. Deleting History States Sometimes you’ll want to delete a state. Try any of these methods: Drag the state to the trash icon at the bottom of the History palette. Target the state, and then choose Delete from the palette’s pull-down menu or click the trash icon. Target a state. All states beneath it will be grayed out. Perform an edit to the state, and the grayed-out states will be purged. Choose Clear History from the palette’s menu to clear all the states except the last state. Clearing the history retains the snapshots. Choose Edit → Purge → Histories. All the states but the one at the bottom of the list will be deleted. This option cannot be undone. The snapshots are retai Hands On 3: Painting, Paths, and History When working on an image in Photoshop, you will almost never use just one particular tool. In nearly every real-world project, you will draw upon the many features that Photoshop has to offer. In this lesson, you’ll combine many of the basic tools and techniques introduced in Chapters 9, 10, and 11—painting colors, working with paths, and using the History palette—to create a virtual painting from a line-art image. Getting Started To ensure that your settings match the settings shown in this Hands On exercise, discard your preferences before beginning. The section titled “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” details how to reset your preferences to Photoshop’s defaults. After you’ve launched Photoshop with default preferences, you’ll create a written record of the image’s history with Photoshop’s new History Log feature. From the Photoshop menu (on a Mac) or the Edit menu (in Windows), choose Preferences → Genera Painting the Main Character You’ll start this lesson by selecting the central character—the seahorse—and then you’ll use several of the painting tools to color, shade, highlight, and texturize the skin within the selected area. Selecting the Painting Area To begin the project, you’ll use a selection tool to select the outer areas of the layer, and then inverse it to select the seahorse: Target the Outline layer. Click the Magic Wand tool . In the Options bar, check to make sure the tolerance is set to 32, with the Anti-Aliased and Contiguous check boxes both selected. In the image window, click once in the white area outside the seahorse outline. Hold down the Shift key to add to the selection (or click the Add To Selection icon in the Options bar), and click inside the small circular area created by the curl of the seahorse’s tail. All image areas outside the outline are now selected, as evidenced by the “marching ants” of the selection marquee. Inverse the selection via Select → Inve Creating the BackgroundNow that you have the basic character finished, you’ll move on to adding a background environment. Applying Color as a Diagonal Gradient To begin creating the background setting, you’ll use the Gradient tool to place the initial colors for the water: In the Layers palette, target the Background. Click the foreground color swatch in the toolbox to bring up the Color Picker, and choose a shade of light blue. Click the Background color swatch. Choose a medium blue, perhaps with a bit of purple tint, for the background color. Choose the Gradient tool (press Shift-G) and click the Linear Gradient icon in the Options bar. Click the Gradient Picker in the Options bar and choose Foreground To Background, as in Figure H3.15. Figure H3.15: Choosing the Foreground To Background option Place your cursor in the upper-left corner of the image and press the Shift key to constrain the angle of the gradient to 45 degrees. Click and drag to the lower-right corner. Save. Using a Pa Using a Pattern Fill Layer to Build Up the Water To add more of a motion effect to the water, you can utilize the Scale option in a Pattern Fill layer: With the Plantlife layer still targeted, choose Layer → New Fill Layer → Pattern. In the resulting dialog box, name the pattern Water, set the blending mode to Soft Light and the Opacity to 75, and click OK (see Figure H3.19). Figure H3.19: Use the New Layer dialog box to set the water’s blending mode and opacity. In the Pattern Fill dialog box, choose the water pattern you used previously (water.psd). By using a Pattern Fill layer, you can scale the pattern to a different size—use the slider to scale it up to around 155% (see Figure H3.20). Figure H3.20: Use the Pattern Fill dialog box to scale the pattern to a different size. Save your work. The Pattern Fill layer enables the water pattern to not only blend with the water below it, but to give the impression of water flowing over the plants (see Figure H3.21). Figure H3.21: A Pattern Chapter 12: Using Channels and Quick Mask Overview It’s raining outside. You’re quite comfy in front of your computer, working on an assignment to colorize a black-and-white group photograph of 34 mariachis. You’ve spent the last half-hour carefully outlining each one of their pants, tunics, and sombreros with the selection tools. You’re about to apply the Hue and Saturation command to simultaneously color all of their costumes a brilliant turquoise. You hear thunder in the distance. The lights flicker. Your screen goes dead! You’re not worried; you’ve been regularly saving your work. You restart your computer, launch Photoshop, and open the image. The 34 mariachis are there, but without the precious selection marquees over which you labored for so long. More than a half hour of work has just vaporized into pixel dust. Before you utter a stream of unprintable obscenities, however, remember that you’ve learned a valuable lesson: Save your selections! In this chapter, you’ll explore some Chapter 12: Using Channels and Quick Mask Understanding Photoshop Channels There are two types of channels in a Photoshop document. Color channels are graphic representations of color information. They are an integral part of the image. Having access to this information enables you to perform powerful modifications and corrections to the image’s appearance and color relationships. Alpha channels are graphic representations of selections that have been stored for later use. Color channels are composed of information segregated by color. Each color channel is actually a separate grayscale image. When you view the color channels superimposed on each other in an image, you see the full-color composite image. For a detailed description of color channels, see Chapter 3, “The Nature of the Beast.” An alpha channel is also a grayscale image. Like a color channel, it can support 256 shades of gray. Unlike a color channel, however, an alpha channel does not contain information that contributes to the image’s appearance. And instead of t Looking at the Channels PaletteChannels are displayed in the Channels palette (see Figure 12.1). To access the Channels palette, choose Window → Channels, or you can press F7 to display the Layers/Channels/ Paths cluster. Figure 12.1: The Channels palette with the alpha channel visible on the image The composite channel appears at the top of the palette. The individual color channels appear underneath, each labeled with the name of the color that it represents and a key command that displays it in the image window. As in the Layers and History palettes, the first column, to the left of the thumbnail, displays or conceals an eye icon (a visibility indicator) that tells you what you can see—in this case, it indicates what channels are displayed. Clicking to turn off the visibility indicator next to the red channel, for example, reveals the content of the green and the blue channels. Clicking the composite channel visibility indicator reveals the full-color image. If you save a selection Editing ChannelsIt is sometimes desirable to change portions of the channel by using the painting or editing functions. If, for example, you missed a small part of the selection while using the Lasso tool, you can alter the contents of the mask channel with the Brush tool to include the areas that were excluded from the original selection. Any painting or editing function that can be applied to a grayscale image can be applied to an alpha channel. Fine-Tuning Alpha Channels by Painting Suppose that after having saved a selection, inaccuracies are visible on the mask that weren’t visible on the selection marquee. You can fine-tune these and other flaws by painting directly on the alpha channel. Here’s a practice exercise on how to save and alter the contents of an alpha channel: Open the file titled big_bug.psd from the ch12 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. Select the Magic Wand tool. In the Options bar, be sure the tolerance is set to 32, and deselect the Contiguous check box. Clic Performing Channel OperationsYou can perform several operations within the Channels palette that change the structure of the document. Some of these operations produce shifts in the color mode, and some disperse the channels into several documents. Note Because of the radical changes to the color information, it is always a good idea to make a copy of the document before implementing most of these channel operations. To duplicate the document, choose Image → Duplicate. Duplicating Channels When you duplicate a targeted channel, you get an exact copy of it in the Channels palette. You should duplicate the channel if you want to experiment with modifying it by painting, applying a filter effect, or using any other editing function. Also duplicate the channel if you want to invert it and save it for alterations, as seen in Hands On 4, “Channels.” Click the arrow in the upper-right corner of the Channels palette and scroll down to the Duplicate Channel command. Note The Duplicate Channel Using Quick Mask ModeAs you become more proficient in Photoshop, the speed of performing tasks will become more crucial to your particular style of work. As you understand the mechanics of the tool functions and begin to recognize the logic and similarity of the various windows, palettes, and toolbars, you’ll want to explore shortcuts that accelerate your work. Selecting areas on a Photoshop image can be the most time-consuming part of the image-editing process; Quick Mask mode can accelerate the selection-making process and enhance its precision. Quick Mask mode is an efficient method of making a temporary mask by using the painting tools. Quick Masks can quickly be converted into selections or stored as mask channels in the Channels palette for later use. By default, the Quick Mask interface is similar to the channels interface in that Photoshop displays a colored overlay to represent the masked areas. You can toggle directly into Quick Mask mode on the Tool palette by pressing the l Hands On 4: Channels The goal of this project is to learn important techniques that enable you to make, store, and edit selections as alpha channels. You’ll begin by selecting a region of an image with the manual selection tools (you’ve had plenty of practice making selections in Hands On 1). Then, using Quick Mask, you’ll refine the selection to a high degree of accuracy. Next, you’ll save the selection as an alpha channel, duplicate it, and apply a fill that will greatly alter its capabilities. Finally, you’ll apply a Photoshop filter through the new selection to give the image movement and life. Getting Started Discard your preferences file before beginning this Hands On exercise. The “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” section in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” details how to reset your preferences to Photoshop’s defaults. After you have launched Photoshop with default preferences, open the file Chickens_in_Motion_start.psd in the HO4 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. Save the f Selecting the Chickens You’ll start by selecting the white surface of the chickens’ bodies. Follow these steps to begin: Choose the Magic Wand tool from the Tool palette or press the W key. Set the tolerance to 32. Click on any white area on the chickens. In the Options bar, click the Add To Selection icon and click again. Continue this process until a portion of the background is selected. Because the colors of the chickens are within the tolerance of the areas surrounding them, it is impossible to isolate them without also selecting the background. Deselect. Again, click the lightest area of a chicken with the Magic Wand tool. Click the Add To Selection icon in the toolbar and continue to select the lightest areas. Select as much as you can, without selecting the background. When the selection marquee extends onto the background, press /Ctrl-Z to undo that step (see Figure H4.3). Figure H4.3: Select the chicken parts by selecting the lightest areas of the chickens first. Click the Qu Saving and Cleaning Up the Alpha ChannelFollow these steps to repair and save your selection as an alpha channel: Click the Save Selection As Channel icon in the Channels palette to quickly save the selection. A thumbnail labeled Alpha 1 appears in the palette. Deselect. Click the thumbnail to display the alpha channel in the image window. Notice that there are some flaws—areas that you missed or edges that are not sharp (see Figure H4.5). Choose the Paintbrush, choose white as a foreground color, and paint out the flaws in the white area of the alpha channel. Figure H4.5: The flaws in the alpha channel While making repairs to the edges, you might want to see the image. Click the eye icon next to the RGB composite channel to reveal the image and the alpha channel at the same time. When the alpha channel is complete, save the document (File → Save or /Ctrl-S). Duplicating and Modifying the Channel Follow these steps to copy and edit the alpha channel: Drag the Alpha 1 channel to the New Channel icon at the bottom of the Channels palette to duplicate it. The new channel is named Alpha 1 Copy. Choose Image → Adjustments → Invert to reverse the colors of the channel, making the black areas of the channel white and the white areas black (see Figure H4.6). Figure H4.6: The inverted alpha channel Double-click the channel thumbnail. Name it Gradient Mask. The Gradient Mask channel should be targeted. Click and drag the Gradient Mask channel to the Load Selection icon at the bottom of the Channels palette to select the white area of the alpha channel. You can also select the white area by clicking it with the Magic Wand tool. Press the D and then the X key to make the foreground color black and the background color white (or click the Switch Colors double-arrow icon on the Tool palette swatches). Choose the Gradient tool and click the Radial option Filtering and Adjusting the SelectionNow you’ll apply a filter and an adjustment through the selection to affect the image. To filter and adjust your selection: Click the RGB composite channel to target it. Load the Gradient Mask channel by dragging it to the Load Selection icon at the bottom of the Channels palette. Your image should look like Figure H4.9. Figure H4.9: The loaded selection Choose Filter → Blur → Radial Blur, set these options, and then click OK: Amount 100 Blur Method Zoom Quality Best For added movement apply the filter again with the same specifications by pressing /Ctrl-F. You’ll want to further enhance the image by adjusting its brightness through the Gradient Mask channel. Target the RGB composite channel. With the Gradient Mask channel still loaded, choose Image → Adjustments → Auto Levels. Apply this operation a second time. Then choose Edit → Fade Auto Levels. Move the slider to mitigate the second application of the effect. Deselect ( /Ctrl-D) and save ( /Ctr Chapter 13: Sizing and Transforming Images Overview Photoshop documents can be resized and transformed in several ways. An image can be enlarged by adding new solid-colored pixels or reduced by cropping out unwanted areas from its edges. An image can also be made smaller or larger by resampling. When you reduce the size of an image in this way, you discard pixels from the image content. When you resample to enlarge an image, you add new pixels. All of these operations can significantly affect the look of the final published work. This chapter will examine issues related to image size and will help you best determine the methods to choose when capturing, sizing, and transforming an image to achieve optimal results. This chapter will help you understand: Resolution and image size The Crop tool Canvas size The Resize Image Assistant/Wizard Transformation operations Chapter 13: Sizing and Transforming Images What Is Resolution? Resolution determines the quality of an image and the amount of detail that can be displayed or printed. There are several important terms relating to resolution that you should know: Image resolution The number of pixels that occupy a linear inch of a digital image, usually measured in pixels per inch (ppi). Monitor resolution The number of pixels that occupy a linear inch of a monitor screen (72 ppi for most Macintosh RGB monitors, 96 ppi for Windows VGA monitors). This resolution never changes, as it represents the physical matrix of the monitor. Image size The height, width, and resolution of an image. Printer resolution The number of dots that can be printed per linear inch, measured in dots per inch (dpi). These dots compose larger halftone dots on a halftone screen or stochastic (random pattern) dots on an ink-jet printer. Halftone screen The dot density of a printed image, measured in lines per inch (lpi) or, in rare instances, lines per centimeter (lpc). A Determining ResolutionAs noted earlier the physical size of an image is its height and width when printed. Its resolution is the number of pixels that occupy a linear inch of a digital image, measured in pixels per inch (ppi). You determine this resolution when you scan an image or shoot a digital photo at a given setting. To acquire sufficient information to produce good-quality images from your high-resolution imagesetter or laser printer, scan your images at 1.5 to 2 times the screen frequency of the halftone screen you will use for printing (again, see Table 13.1 for common halftone screen frequencies). That means if your image is going to be printed in a newspaper or in a newsletter, scan it anywhere from 128 to 170 pixels per inch (1.5 or 2 × 85 lines per inch). If your image will be printed in a glossy magazine, scan your image at 225 to 300 ppi (1.5 or 2 × 150 lpi). The image size should be scanned at 100% of the size it will be printed. Note Should you use 1.5 or 2? Whether t Getting Help with Resizing ImagesPhotoshop provides the Resize Image Assistant (Macintosh) or Wizard (Windows) to help you determine the best possible options for size and resolution. When you use the Resize Image Assistant/Wizard, Photoshop duplicates your document. The operation has no effect on the original. This interactive tool, seen in Figure 13.9, guides you through the entire process of resizing your image: Choose Help → Resize Image and wait for the Resize Image Assistant/Wizard window to appear. Choose Print or Online, depending on how you will use the image. Then click Next. When preparing an image for online use, you need only enter specifications for the height or width in pixels because the proportions are constrained. Photoshop will automatically resize the image to these specifications, which completes the Online process. If you’re resizing an image for print, set the new image height or width in the desired units. You can choose from inches, centimeters, points, picas, Using the Crop ToolSometimes the best way to resize your image is to eliminate part of it. The Crop tool enables you to trim your images precisely. (You can also select an area with the Rectangular Marquee or Elliptical Marquee tool and then choose Image → Crop, but with the marquees, you sacrifice the flexibility and control of the Crop tool’s features.) The Crop tool is found in the default Tool palette, on the left column in the third row. To perform a basic crop with the Crop tool, open the mandrill.psd file from the ch13 folder on the CD and follow these steps: Choose Image Duplicate to make a copy of the image. Choose the Crop tool from the Tool palette. You’ll crop the black border out of the picture. Drag the mouse to define the bounding box. As you can see in Figure 13.10, the area outside the crop will darken, highlighting your selection. Figure 13.10: After you define the initial cropped area, the borders outside the Crop bounding box will darken. Use the handles to fine-tun Trimming an ImageThe Trim command automatically eliminates edge pixels of a specific color to quickly refine the edges of an image. To trim an image, follow these steps: Duplicate the mandrill.psd image again. Choose Image → Trim. The Trim dialog box appears (see Figure 13.17). Figure 13.17: The Trim dialog box In the Based on field, click the Top Left or Bottom Right Pixel Color radio button. If the image has a transparent edge that you want trimmed, click the Transparent edge radio button. In the Trim Away field, check all four boxes to trim the entire black rectangular border from all four sides. Click OK. The entire border is removed, and the image is cropped to a new size. Sizing the CanvasThe Canvas Size command produces more space around the image and more pixels to work with. When you apply this feature to an image that has a Background, by default, the new canvas is filled with the background color specified in the Tool palette. If there is no Background, the new canvas extension will be transparent. Choose Image → Canvas Size to access the dialog box that enables you to expand or shrink your canvas (see Figure 13.18). Figure 13.18: The Canvas Size dialog box The Current Size area displays the file size and the width and height of the image. Type a new width and/or height value in the New Size area. Check the Relative box and type the width and height amounts you want to add to an existing canvas. You can work in any of eight units: percent, pixels, inches, centimeters, millimeters, points, picas, or columns. The anchor grid controls where the new canvas will be added. Click the center cell, and the canvas will grow on all sides. Click any of the cel Rotating the CanvasTo rotate the entire image rather than a single layer or selection, use the Rotate Canvas commands. These menu options, which are found under Image → Rotate Canvas, will reorient your entire document: 180º rotates the image so that it appears upside-down. The image retains its left-to-right orientation. 90º CW rotates the canvas by 90 degrees in a clockwise direction. 90º CCW rotates the canvas by 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction. Arbitrary displays the Rotate Canvas dialog box (see Figure 13.20). Specify a precise angle by entering a number in the Angle field, choose CW or CCW (clockwise or counterclockwise), and click OK. Figure 13.20: The Rotate Canvas dialog box Flip Canvas Horizontal mirrors the image across the vertical axis. Each pixel will mirror horizontally, so items from the right will appear on the left and vice versa. Writing and other features will appear reversed. Flip Canvas Vertical mirrors your image across the horizontal axis with vertica Transforming Your ImageImages can be stretched, squeezed, rotated, and otherwise altered. These operations can be found in the Edit → Transform submenu (see Figure 13.21). You can apply any of them to a selection or to an independent layer. Many of these transformations act very much like the cropping operations discussed earlier in this chapter. They differ in that they affect only your current selection or the active layer (and any layers linked to it), and they simultaneously affect all of the layers in a layer set. Figure 13.21: The Transform submenu You’ll save time and effort if you copy or cut the item to be transformed to its own layer before performing a transformation. The advantage is that you can apply the transformation to the entire contents of a layer without having to make a selection. When you choose any of the manual transformation operations, the Options bar displays numerical data of the transformation (see Figure 13.22). You can choose to manually transform or you Chapter 14: Image Capture and Digital Photography Overview The process of digital imaging begins when an image is captured. Two broad types of devices can be used to convert a real-world scene into digital information: the scanner and the digital camera. These devices “see” light and color and convert what they see into numerical information that Photoshop can use. Learning to use a digital camera or a scanner properly is an important skill, and many variables enter into producing a quality image. In addition to image size, factors such as resolution, contrast adjustments, and hardware limitations must be taken into consideration. This chapter will introduce you to the best methods for inputting your image so that you can be assured of producing the best possible results in Photoshop. In this chapter, you’ll learn about: Scanners and digital cameras Scanning images Attributes of digital photographs, including 16-bit images Digital panoramic photography Chapter 14: Image Capture and Digital Photography Scanners and Digital Cameras A variety of hardware is available that captures image data in a form that your computer— and particularly Photoshop—can understand. These technologies transform visual information into digital data. They work by translating light striking the sensors in the device into digital values that you can store and manipulate on your computer. As a preview of the issues this chapter will explore, Table 14.1 summarizes the factors that determine the quality of a scanner or digital camera. Table 14.1: Factors That Determine the Quality of an Image-Capture Device FACTOR MEANING Optical resolution The maximum number of pixels per linear inch the device can create from information it gathers from a reflective or transparent image. (See the upcoming section “Flatbed Scanners” for a warning about optical vs. “effective” resolution.) Scanning sensor Charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). Some of the latest digital cameras feature CMO Scanning Images Photoshop provides direct integration with most scanner control software. And although you can open a previously scanned image, you can also scan images directly into Photoshop. The File → Import submenu offers direct access to any installed scanners. This menu will vary with the scanning software currently installed. The TWAIN software is designed to provide universal controls for scanners and other image-capture devices. After you select a scanner from the submenu, its controlling dialog box will appear. The software for every scanner will vary, but most scanner control software enables you to control attributes such as these: Type Most interfaces offer you the opportunity to choose among multiple scanners. Beginner/Advanced Typically you can choose between a Beginner mode that offers limited control using everyday terminology and an Advanced mode that offers precision scanning options. Resolution Enter a value to determine the pixel count. Be aware that some scanner Digital Photographs vs. Scanned ImagesDigital photographs share traits with scanned images but also have some unique attributes of their own. Here are some of the ways in which they differ: Size Consumer- and prosumer-quality digital cameras usually produce smaller images than scanners do. Their image size is limited to the capacity of their CMOS or CCD sensor chip. Their resolutions and file sizes depend on the amount of data their detectors can collect and process. Advertising materials often describe the resolution of a digital camera measured in megapixels. For example, a 2.5-megapixel camera will have a sensor that converts the image into approximately 7,500,000 pixels (2.5 million × 3 channels—red, green and blue). Functionality Digital cameras work best when used in the same way you’d use a traditional camera. Many do not capture pages or printed photographs particularly well, although they can be used in a pinch to create relatively low-resolution copies of printed material. Bl Editing 16-Bit ImagesIn all versions of Photoshop prior to CS, the manipulation of high-bit-depth images (more than 8 bits per channel) was problematic. Although the acquisition and handling of images from devices capable of capturing 16-bit images was simple, the variety of controls available was extremely limited. New In Photoshop CS, the list of image adjustments has been expanded to include more than Levels and Curves. Image filters, like the artistic functions of Watercolor, Chalk, Pastels, and others, are still not available for these high-bit images. Some scanners will generate 16-bit images, and several professional digital cameras will also generate these images on capture, ensuring a smooth tonality and tremendous gradation quality from these devices. In general, the tools used to manage high-bit-depth images are Levels, Curves, and Unsharp Mask, each of which can be applied to original images without requiring a conversion to the coarser 8-bit mode (see Figure 14.5). Each o Taking Better Pictures with Digital CamerasDigital cameras are all the rage—everyone has one or wants one. They can take great photographs, and they can make the images available to us in seconds, eliminating even the one-hour photo kiosk. They have also spawned a new generation of digital darkroom specialists, people who can make images look great, and make beautiful prints without enlargers or chemistry. In a word, digital cameras are miraculous. But, digital cameras are still just cameras, and in the hands of a thoughtless photographer, they can produce bad images (although sometimes even thoughtless photographers get lucky!). The conventions of good composition, correct exposure, a level horizon, and other considerations apply equally to digital and film cameras. Just because you can fix a digital image easily does not excuse making a digital image badly. Here are seven tips for better digital photography: Look —really look—through the viewfinder (or at the little LCD screen) of th Digital Panoramic PhotographyAt the turn of the nineteenth century, an amazing photographic technique was developed for taking photographs in a complete circle. Using a rotating camera and long rolls of film, images were created that showed a scene that was impossible to capture with any lens on any conventional camera. The popularity of these photos was great, and it lasted well into the 1940s. Visit any county museum in any part of the country and you’re almost certain to see these photos—rows of high school students standing in front of the camera or soldiers in uniform at attention on the parade grounds. And, bulky as these cameras were, panoramic photography was used to record historic events (see Figure 14.12) as well as high school graduating classes. Figure 14.12: A panoramic photo taken during the San Francisco earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906. This image was made with a rotating Kodak Cirkut camera; the film was 10 inches tall by more than 40 inches long. Panoramic photogr Opening Camera Raw Images from Digital Cameras New Offered as an extra-cost plug-in option for Photoshop 7, the CS version will open Camera Raw files from most professional digital cameras directly. Photoshop’s File Browser will also preview images in Camera Raw format. Camera Raw images are those that have not been compressed by the digital camera into JPEG files, a process that is usually called lossy. JPEG is known for making compact files, but is also famous for delivering visible tonal artifacts while making the compression. Some cameras also allow images to be stored internally as RGB TIFF files that are not compressed by the camera. The function supports the proprietary file formats of the following cameras: Make Models Canon EOS-1D, EOS-1Ds, EOS-D30, Eos 10D, EOS-D60; PowerShot models 600, A5, A50, S30, S40, S45, S50, G1, G2, G3, G5, Pro70, and Pro90 IS Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro Kodak 720X, 760 Leaf (Creo) Valeo 6, Valeo 11 Minolta DiMAGE 5, 7, 7i, 7Hi Nikon D1, D1H, D1X, D100, Part II: Photoshop Color Chapter List Chapter 15: Color Management and Printing Overview You’ve labored long and hard to get the color exactly right. You’ve used all the tricks—Levels, Curves, Selective Color, Color Balance, Adjustment Layers, the Unsharp Mask filter (covered in Chapter 16, “Adjusting Tonality and Color”)—and the image looks perfect on your computer display. Unfortunately, what your printer just spit out looks quite different. Those beautiful sky blues have turned to gloomy blue-gray. Furthermore, the image looks quite different from one display to another. If you’re a digital artist or graphic designer using Photoshop to print color images, you probably frequently ask yourself two important questions: How can I be confident that the color on my display will be matched by the color of the printer? And, how can I trust that the color on my display will look like the color on your display? These questions are about how you manage color from one device to another, and that’s what this chapter is about. In thi Chapter 15: Color Management and Printing Color Management—A Brief History In the years before the desktop publishing revolution, professional color systems were used in the creation and modification of high-quality printing and publishing. These methods for processing color relied on what is called a closed-loop system, the idea being that nothing ever escaped the system. No outside files were accepted, and no files were ever allowed to leave the system except in the form of separated film, ready for printing. Looking back, those were the “good ol’ days” when the reliability of color was—mostly— under control. These closed-loop systems were expensive, and compared to today’s computers, very slow. But they worked, and the people who used them learned to trust them. Desktop technologies created a distributed model for color production. Some of the work was done on a computer that wasn’t connected to a prepress color system. It was the differences between systems—different displays, different viewing conditions, and different so The Color Working SpaceWhat revolutionized digital color was the introduction of the concept of a specific environment for handling color. This environment, called a color working space, is independent of the display and can be chosen by the user. Under this model, it is possible to scan, save, edit, and store an image with a color working space embedded in it. When the image is saved and then opened again, its appearance will display the characteristics of the color working space. The image is embedded with an ICC (International Color Consortium) profile, information that describes the color characteristics of the color working space. The image can then move from one computer to another with its profile embedded, and will appear similarly on different computer displays. The color working space concept created the opportunity for Photoshop to accommodate images from scanners and other sources whose colors exceed the available colors of the display. The color working space allows for co A Window into a WindowTo grasp the concept of a color working space, imagine that the image you see on your display exists on a separate, parallel plane, just behind your display, and that your display acts like a window into the image. The image you see might be the entire image, but it might not be. It might be distorted by the window’s characteristics or size. Perhaps the window is not perfectly transparent, perhaps it is slightly tinted, or perhaps light is reflecting off its surface, causing the colors to appear slightly muted. In fact, computer displays really behave like windows into your images, modifying the “reality” of the actual image and showing you something that is appropriate to the display’s abilities, but not always the qualities of the image itself. For professional graphic artists, the computer display is an excellent window into the image. This is true because we spend considerable sums of money on quality displays that have good color and a range of brightness tha The Yin/Yang of ColorAs I discuss the gamuts of color working spaces, you must understand that the gamut of a display is a pyramidal space with its lower corners in the red, green, and blue areas of an industry-standard color chart (the top of the pyramid is “white”). The gamut chart in Figure C15 in the color section plots the available colors of a device (a display, for example) compared to the gamut of colors humans can see—and the differences are extreme. All the color spaces of the world of graphic arts and photography converge inside a large space that falls well within the colors of human vision. With Photoshop’s support for the color working space, you want to choose a space that is adequate to accommodate all the colors of your output device, while providing a reasonable view of that color on your computer display. The color system used for printing color on paper is the physical opposite of the color system used to emit light on the face of a display. With light-emitting devi Color SettingsPhotoshop 5 made significant changes to the color settings, which remain intact through this latest version. Photoshop uses ICC color management at all times (even when color management is technically “off”). The settings you select for color handling can make a huge difference in the appearance and reproduction of color. Choose Edit → Color Settings (Win) or Photoshop → Color Settings (Mac) to access the Color Settings dialog box (see Figure 15.3). It has two modes: Standard and Advanced. (The Conversion Options and Advanced Controls areas shown in the figure are hidden if you clear the Advanced box.) Figure 15.3: The Color Settings dialog box, where color profiles and color management policies are set. These settings are a critical part of getting color right in Photoshop. You should configure color settings prior to opening a document or creating a new document. The Color Settings dialog box controls your color working spaces, your color management policies, and your s Advanced Color Settings Checking the Advanced Mode check box at the top of the Color Settings dialog box displays two sets of additional settings shown at the bottom of Figure 15.3, Conversion Options and Advanced Controls. Engine In the Conversion Options area, the Engine setting enables you to set or change the color management “engine” that is used for color conversions (see Figure 15.7). Depending on the options available on your computer, those options range from a selection of two to six or more. Figure 15.7: The Engine conversion options Adobe has its own color management engine (in the parlance of the industry this is called a CMM, or color management method): Adobe Color Engine (ACE). Other CMMs you might encounter include Apple ColorSync, Heidelberg, Kodak, Imation, or Agfa. Which engine should you choose? Each company suggests that its CMM uses a superior method of polynomial voodoo to convert color. Adobe similarly claims that theirs is superior. A good suggestion is to use Previewing in CMYKThe world of graphic arts reproduction is changing, and many printing firms are now using a fully color-managed work flow in preparation for printing. Those who do so want you to provide your images to them in RGB color, with embedded working space profiles. Printers request these files because there is no “generic” CMYK separation that is correct for all types of paper and ink sets. The separation made for sheet-fed offset on uncoated paper is drastically different from the separation made for web-fed glossy paper. Printers want control over this conversion. When an image is destined for the printed page, it is necessary to preview the image before sending the file to the printer. You also need the ability to preview an image in CMYK without making the conversion to CMYK. Photoshop provides the Proof Colors control, which enables the on-screen preview to simulate a variety of reproduction processes without converting the file to the final color space. To prepare for Printing from Ink-Jet Printers After you’ve completed your image, assigned RGB profiles to it, and converted it (or not converted it, depending on the circumstances), you can print it. The majority of desktop ink-jet printers use the RGB information to convert the image to CMYK (or CcMmYK) on the fly, so you should not convert to CMYK for those printers that handle this conversion internally. Ink-jet printing results can vary dramatically from model to model because of their different color gamuts. If you have the printer’s profile, the results will be more predictable. If you don’t have the profile of a specific printer, you can improve the results on ink-jet printers by printing the image in RGB and letting the printer software do the conversion on the fly. You can then use the print as a proof to recalibrate your display (using Adobe Gamma or other visual calibration software) to display the image as close to the proof as possible. Save the Adobe Gamma settings to be used specifical The Printing DialogsSeveral dialog boxes offer similar functions for ultimately printing your image. They are Page Setup, Print With Preview, Print, and Print One Copy. Page Setup Choose File → Page Setup to determine the paper size, orientation, and scale of the image. The dialog box will include different options depending on your installed printer, sometimes including some of the same options found in the Print With Preview dialog box. Print With Preview Choose File → Print With Preview to display a printing dialog box with a preview on the left side of the screen. Set up your printing specifications (see Figure 15.16). The preview image on the left side of the screen displays the image’s size in relation to the paper. Figure 15.16: The Print With Preview dialog box The Position settings specify the location of the printed image on the current paper size. Scaled Print Size lets you increase or decrease the image size while maintaining the image’s constrained proportions. Check the S Preflight ChecklistAs a final note, I’ve provided a general checklist of operations that you should perform to ensure accuracy on the printing press. These operations are covered in this chapter and throughout Photoshop CS Savvy. Calibrate your display. Scan the image at the proper resolution or open a digital camera file with the appropriate color settings applied In the Color Settings dialog box, choose the appropriate RGB color profiles for display and printing. Open the image. Crop it, rotate it and adjust its Image Size to suit the requirements of the project Check the image in the Levels palette ( -L). I look for problems with highlights and shadows there first. Not all images need to be corrected here, but some are improved by resetting the end-points to establish black and white points. Edit the image by using any combination of Photoshop’s tools. I usually make color corrections first ( -B) and then make editorial and creative changes. Flatten the image layers if necessary. Ap Chapter 16: Adjusting Tonality and Color Overview Almost every photograph that finds its way onto your computer—whether it is scanned, copied from a Photo CD, transferred from a digital camera, or downloaded from the Web—will need some color adjustment, from minor tweaking to major surgery. Inferior photographic techniques, such as bad lighting, poor focus, and under- or overexposure, are a major cause of color problems in images; however, other variables can significantly degrade color and tonality. The type and quality of the equipment that is used to digitize the image is a factor—an expensive film scanner with a high dynamic range can “see” many more variations of tone than an inexpensive digital camera. Inevitably, you will use Photoshop’s color adjustment features to enhance contrast and remove color casts in order to compensate for the multitude of variables that can occur during input. In this chapter, you will learn about: Measuring tonality and color Making quick adjustments Chapter 16: Adjusting Tonality and Color Measuring Tonality and Color When you first open an image, scrutinize it carefully to determine what the colors on your monitor represent. Be aware that sometimes the on-screen image doesn’t accurately represent the image’s actual colors. First, be sure to calibrate your monitor by using Adobe Gamma, the operating system’s calibration software, or a hardware device to create an accurate on-screen image before performing any color adjustments (see Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” and Chapter 15, “Color Management and Printing”). Next, look at the image’s histogram to determine the distribution of tonal values within the image and whether the image has sufficient detail. To view the histogram, choose Window → Histogram. Note To accurately display the actual tonal values within an image, you should avoid using the Image Cache to generate the histogram. Instead, click the cache warning icon in the Histogram palette. of pixels. Histograms A histogram is a graph composed of lines that sho Making Quick Adjustments They say “never sacrifice accuracy for speed.” Sometimes, however, expedience is a virtue, and you can therefore use one of Photoshop’s semiautomatic operations to perform fast adjustments and correct simple, common problems. These commands can change tonal values in an image quickly, but they also lack the precision and control of the high-end adjustment features. Using the semiautomatic adjustment features hands over the control of how your image looks to the software. Photoshop is not always the best judge of the aesthetic qualities of your image, so use common sense when applying these commands. Occasionally, you will luck out and they’ll work just fine. But more often than not, they likely won’t achieve the same quality of results you could achieve with a more hands-on approach. Brightness/Contrast Choose Image → Adjustments → Brightness/Contrast to perform a global adjustment of brightness or contrast to a selected area or to the entire image. The top sli Working with LevelsThe Levels command displays an image histogram, which you can use as a visual guide to adjust the image’s tonal range. Levels initially gives you three points of adjustment. The black slider on the left of the graph determines the darkest pixel in the shadow areas, which is called the black point. The white slider on the right determines the lightest pixel in the highlight area, called the white point. Move the black and white sliders to adjust the shadow and highlight extremes, respectively, of the image. The middle, or gamma, slider determines the median value between the black and white points. Move the slider to the right to decrease the median value, thereby making all values lower than the median darker, or to the left to increase it, making all values higher than the median lighter. Note Before using the Levels command, choose Photoshop → Preferences → Memory & Image Cache. Be sure that the Use Cache For Histograms check box is cleared. Quit the program and t Adjusting CurvesCurves are Photoshop’s most powerful color adjustment tool. Whereas levels give you the ability to change three to nine points of adjustment, curves enable you to map many more. You can adjust an image’s brightness curve to lighten or darken an image, improve its contrast, or even create wild solarization affects. When you choose Image → Adjustments → Curves, Photoshop displays the Curves dialog box (see Figure 16.19). By default, the graph is divided into 16 squares, each representing 16 brightness levels. Press your Option/Alt key and click the graph to refine the grid into 100 squares, representing the total 256 brightness levels for finer adjustment. Figure 16.19: The default Curves dialog box shows a 16-cell graph (left); Option/Alt-clicking the grid changes it to a 100-cell graph (right). You can expand the curves dialog box to make the graph bigger, which enables you to be more precise when you adjust the curve. Place your curser on the size icon in the lower rig Applying a Photo Filter New The new Photo Filter adjustment lets you apply the effects of traditional photographic filters to an image. These filters produce results that are commonly used by photographers to warm or cool the colors of an image, reduce glare, or simulate a specific atmospheric environment. Choose Image → Adjustments → Photo Filter to display the Photo Filter dialog box (see Figure 16.23). Figure 16.23: The new Photo Filter dialog box Under Use, choose a specific filter from the menu. You can also choose a specific color by clicking the swatch to display the Color Picker. Control the amount of the application by moving the density slider between 1 and 100 percent. The Preserve Luminosity box, when checked, preserves the brightness values of the image. Note Figure C18 in the color section shows the before and after results of applying one example of the Photo Filter: Cooling Filter 80. Adjusting Shadow/Highlight New Another new addition to the Adjustments submenu is the Shadow/Highlight command. It enables you to quickly and precisely correct over- and underexposed areas of an image. Choose Image → Adjustments → Shadow/Highlight, and the dialog box appears (see Figure 16.24). Figure 16.24: The Shadow/Highlight dialog box Shadow/Highlight corrects each pixel adaptively, according to the luminance of the neighboring pixels. This enables image contrast to be increased in the shadows or highlights without significantly sacrificing contrast in the other tonal regions. This can be essential for bringing out detail in overexposed or backlit images, as in Figure 16.25 (which is also shown in the color section as Figure C19). Figure 16.25: The Shadow/Highlight command applied to a backlit image You can adjust the following shadow and highlight characteristics in the dialog box: Amount Determines how much the pixels will be affected. Larger values provide greater lightening o Balancing ColorAfter the tonal values have been corrected, you might want to make further adjustments to eliminate color casts, oversaturation, or undersaturation. Color in the image can be balanced by using several methods found in the Image → Adjustments menu: Color Balance is used to change the overall color mix in an image. Selective Color adjusts the quantities of cyan, magenta, yellow, or black in specific color components. Levels and Curves adjust the brightness values of individual channels (see the previous sections in this chapter). Hue/Saturation changes the basic color characteristics of the image (see Chapter 17, “Modifying and Mapping Color”). Replace Color replaces the hue, saturation, and brightness of specified areas (see Chapter 17). Channel Mixer blends colors from individual channels (see the section titled “The Channel Mixer” later in this chapter). Match Color enables you to select a color from the content of one selection, document, or layer and apply it to the c Using Adjustment LayersWhen you apply an adjustment operation such as Levels, Curves, or the Channel Mixer to an image, you directly affect the information on a layer or on the Background. The only way to change these operations is to return to them in the History palette, which can have complicated and unexpected results if you’ve done a lot to the image. Photoshop’s Adjustment layers segregate the mathematical data of the adjustment to a separate layer that can be re-edited at any time during the imaging process. Adjustment layers are very handy indeed, and another element in Photoshop’s arsenal that keeps the process dynamic. Creating an Adjustment Layer Follow these steps to create an Adjustment layer: Choose Layer → New Adjustment Layer and select the type of Adjustment layer you want from the submenu. The New Layer dialog box appears. Name, color-code, and set the opacity and blending mode of the layer, if desired. The Adjustment dialog appears. Make the adjustment and click OK. Applying the Unsharp Mask FilterYou might ask, “What is a filter description doing here in the color adjustment chapter?” The answer is that the Unsharp Mask (USM) filter is a contrast-adjustment tool that goes hand-in-hand with color correction, and if used properly, it can further enhance the color relationship and contrast of the image and make it really “pop.” USM exaggerates the transition between areas of most contrast while leaving areas of minimum contrast unaffected. It can help increase the contrast of an image and fool the eye into thinking fuzzy areas of the image are in focus. To apply the USM, choose Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask (see Figure 16.30). The USM filter has a preview in which you see a thumbnail version of the image. You can reduce or enlarge the preview by clicking the – or + signs. This is helpful if you want to compare the affected preview to the original 100%-sized, unsharpened image. Check the Preview box to see the effect on the image itself. Figure 16. Chapter 17: Modifying and Mapping Color Overview Color is one of the most significant factors in our visual experience of the world around us. Humans react to color emotionally. Cool, subdued colors can calm our senses, and hot, saturated colors can excite and motivate us. Color affects the decisions of our daily lives, such as whether we purchase a certain product or cross the street. It affects our physical and mental space and contributes to our sense of well-being. Because color plays such an important role in our lives, how we use it to communicate ideas is essential to the success of our images. As you have seen, Adobe Photoshop provides numerous ways to apply and adjust color. In this chapter, you will explore features that can radically alter existing colors in an image—color-mapping operations that go beyond brightness and contrast adjustments and simple color fills. These operations provide the means to alter the basic characteristics of color while maintaining the image’s de Chapter 17: Modifying and Mapping Color Altering Hue and Saturation You find most of the color-mapping operations under the Image → Adjustments submenu. You use this same menu to access the brightness and contrast operations, such as Levels and Curves, and color-correction features, such as Color Balance, Selective Color, and Shadow/Highlight (see Chapter 16, “Adjusting Tonality and Color”). The Hue/Saturation command lets you alter the basic color characteristics of an image. When you choose Image → Adjustments → Hue/Saturation, you are presented with a dialog box with three sliders (see Figure 17.1). Each slider remaps a different color characteristic. Figure 17.1: The Hue/Saturation dialog box Changing Hue If you drag the Hue slider to change relative color relationships of the image or selection, you can produce some really beautiful and unexpected color combinations. I encourage you to experiment with color images to get a feel for the Hue/Saturation command and to experience its potential. You’ll find that changing the Matching ColorsYou can match colors within an image by using the Hue/Saturation command; you can also accurately match colors automatically by using Photoshop’s new Match Color command. Matching Colors by Using Hue Saturation You can use the Hue/Saturation command to sample a color from one area of an image and apply it to another area, thereby perfectly matching the colors. Here’s how: Open the file dice.psd from your CD, in the ch17 folder. To make it easier to target specific areas of the image, I have separated it into two layers and a Background. Target the Background. Choose the Eyedropper tool . In the Options bar, set the Sample Size to 3 By 3 Average. Choose Window → Info. In the Info palette menu, choose Palette Options. For First Color Readout, select HSB Color in the Mode submenu. Click OK. Place the cursor on a midtone region of the red die (I chose the area along the lower right of center of the die). Click your mouse to sample the color as a foreground color. Note the Hu Replacing ColorWith Photoshop, you can do more than just alter the hue, saturation, and lightness of an image. You can sample a specific range of colors and automatically replace it with a different range of colors, without affecting the rest of the image. This is particularly useful if you need to change a similar color that is scattered throughout an image. The two features that are designed to replace colors effortlessly are Replace color command and the Color Replacement tool. Using the Replace Color Command When you choose Image → Adjustments → Replace Color (see Figure 17.8), you get a dialog box that is a combination of two powerful Photoshop operations: the Hue/Saturation command and the Color Range command. This dynamic duo can quickly perform miraculous color swapping. The Color Range command makes selections based on colors you sample in the image. (See Chapter 21, “Making Difficult Selections,” for details on how to use Color Range.) The Replace Color dialog box combines th Rearranging ColorsPhotoshop’s color-mapping features enable you to limit the number and range of colors in your image. You can automatically produce higher levels of contrast, convert your images into line art, produce images that resemble serigraphs (silk-screen prints), and change your image from a positive to a negative. With so many choices for transforming your image, no doubt you’ll never again be satisfied with just an ordinary photograph. Let’s go through them one by one and determine what they do and how they work. You can find all of these features on the bottom rung of the Image → Adjustments submenu. Equalizing the Contrast You can use the Equalize command to alter the contrast of an image. It analyzes the color information in each channel, and maps the darkest pixel it can find to black and the lightest pixel to white. It then evenly distributes the color information between the two extremes. This doesn’t mean that the image will contain black or white—only that, in at lea Creating Digital HalftonesA halftone is an image in which ink or toner is transferred to paper, and consists of dots on a grid. The resolution, or number of lines per inch (lpi), of a halftone depends on the printer’s capabilities. The number of dots on a traditional halftone is finite and depends on the grid’s lpi. The tonal densities of an image are determined by the size of the dots—the larger the dot, the more ink is deposited, and the darker the area appears. Most low-end ink-jet printers, however, produce a stochastic, or frequency modulated, dot pattern, in which the tonal density is expressed not by the size, but by the number of dots deposited. That’s why the resolution claimed by desktop ink-jets (commonly 720 × 1440) is usually higher, though not necessarily better, because the dots are smaller and distributed in a random pattern. When you send an image to a printer, Photoshop, in tandem with the printer driver software, automatically and transparently converts the tonal inf Hands On 5: Image Size, Transformation, and Color Adjustment Often, an image needs more than minor color correction. This project covers techniques to improve the overall quality of an image. You will learn to manage color and to crop and size an image. You will apply color correction adjustments to enhance contrast, and eliminate color casts. You will also use some of Photoshop CS’s newest adjustment features. Getting Started Discard your preferences file before beginning this exercise. The “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” section in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” details how to reset your prefer ences to Photoshop defaults. Then follow these steps: Open the file named big_city_night.psd (see Figure H5.1) in the HO5 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. See Figure H5.2 for the completed image. (To see a color preview of the before and after versions of the image, look at Figures C49 and C50 in the color section.) Figure H5.1: The original Big City Night image Figure H5.2: The finis Choosing a Color SpaceCalibrate your monitor by using the operating system software or a colorimeter as described in Chapter 15, “Color Management and Printing.” If you are a Windows user, you can calibrate with Adobe Gamma as described in Chapter 5. The image for this exercise is going to be used as an illustration for a story in a glossy magazine using four-color process printing. Before opening the document, choose an appropriate color space: In Windows, choose Edit → Color Settings. In Mac OS X, choose Photoshop → Color Settings. The Color Settings dialog box is displayed. From the Settings menu, choose U.S. Prepress Defaults, as shown in Figure H5.3. Note that the RGB working space for this setting is Adobe RGB. Figure H5.3: U.S. Prepress Defaults color setting Open the big_city_night.psd file you previously saved to your disk. Because you’ve changed the working color space to U.S. Prepress Defaults, and the image does not contain an embedded profile, you are now presented with th Cropping the Image New The image has a gray border around it and is at an angle. You’ll need to crop it to eliminate the unwanted areas and adjust its angle relative to the page. Instead of using the Crop tool, try Photoshop’s new automation. Choose File → Automate → Crop and Straighten Photos (Learn more about Crop and Straighten in Chapter 23, “Automating the Process”). A duplicate image will be generated with excess canvas. It will be trimmed and image rotated automatically to align with the edges of the page. Close the original file and save the new file as big_city_ night.PSD. Sizing the Image New The final physical size of the image has to be 7′ wide to fit in the brochure. Resize the image by using the Image Size command (see Figure H5.5): Choose Image → Image Size. Uncheck the Resample Image box. Change the width to 7′. The height automatically changes to 4.686′. The resolution has to be 300 ppi, which is the required resolution for printing to a high-quality printed publication. The image currently is 208 ppi at the current physical image size. Because you will have to increase the resolution of the image, you’ll need to resample up. Check the Resample Image box to activate the interpolation options. The file size will more than double because you’re adding pixels to the image. From the Resample Image menu, choose Bicubic Sharper. Click OK. Click OK. Press /Ctrl-S to save. Figure H5.5: The Image Size dialog box Adjusting Levels Next you’ll adjust the image’s levels: Choose Window → Histogram to display the Histogram palette. From the Layers menu, choose New Adjustment Layer → Levels. The layer should name itself Levels 1; click OK. In the Histogram palette, and the Levels dialog box (see Figure H5.6), notice the histogram: The pixels are clumped into the center, which indicates that the image needs a contrast adjustment. The graph is also devoid of lines in the highlights and shadows. (The pixel cluster on the left indicates that most of the pixels are dark, which is consistent with the image being a night scene.) You can increase the overall contrast by moving the sliders to spread the highlights, midtones, and shadows over a broader range of values. Figure H5.6: RGB levels Move the White slider toward the center until the input level reads 198. Move the Black slider until it reads 36. Move the midtone slider until it reads 1.05 and click OK. You’ll see a marked improvement in the contrast o Correcting Color with CurvesNow the image looks a lot brighter but has a reddish color cast. You’ll use the Curves feature to eliminate the cast: In the Layers palette, target the Background Layer. Make a new Adjustment layer. This time, choose Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Curves. Click OK in the New Layer dialog box. The Layer will be named by default Curves 1. In the Curves dialog box, be sure the Preview box is checked to see the results as you work. Press the Option/Alt key and click the grid to display a 100-cell grid. Choose the Red channel from the channels list. Click the point on the diagonal line where the grid intersects in the center of the graph. To reduce the amount of red in the image, drag the point downward until the Output value reads 96 as in Figure H5.7. Figure H5.7: Adjusting the Red channel curve Choose the Blue channel. To cool down the midtones, drag the center point upward until the Output value reads 145 as in Figure H5.8. Figure H5.8: Adjusting the Blue cha Adjusting Shadow and Highlight New The image is now looking good because you have adjusted its contrast and eliminated the color cast, but the highlights could be a little stronger and shadows could have more detail. Follow these steps: In the Layers palette, target the Background. Choose Image/Adjustments → Shadow/ Highlight. A dialog box appears (see Figure H5.9). Figure H5.9: The Shadow/Highlight dialog box Set the Shadows to the following settings—Amount: 54%, Tonal Width: 48%, Radius: 35 px. Set the Highlights to Amount: 0%, Tonal Width: 52%, and Radius: 30 px. Adjust the color correction slider to –25 and the Midtone Contrast slider to 0. Click OK. Applying the Photo Filter New The image’s contrast has improved, but there is still a slight pinkish cast in the neutral colors such as the white frame around the billboard. You can eliminate this stubborn cast by cooling the image down with the new Photo filter: In the Layers palette, target the Curves Adjustment layer. Choose Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Photo Filter. The Photo Filter dialog box appears. (see Figure H5.10). Figure H5.10: The Photo Filter dialog box Click the Color radio button and click on the swatch. You’ll want a light blue so the effect will neutralize the pinks in the frame without discoloring the warmer colors. Enter the following values R: 148, G: 230, and B: 229, in the RGB fields. Click OK. Check the Preserve Luminosity box and apply a density of 36%. Click OK. Save. Removing NoiseThe highlight and shadow operation revealed colored noise in the dark areas that were poorly lit when the photograph was taken. You’ll diminish this by slightly blurring the Blue channel: In the Layers palette, target the Background. Click the Channels tab in the Layers/Channels/Palette cluster. Target the Blue channel but click the visibility icon next to the RGB composite channel. Choose Filter → Gaussian Blur. Move the Radius slider to 2.8 (see Figure H5.11). Click OK and target the RGB composite channel. Figure H5.11: The Gaussian Blur filter applied to the Blue channel to help diminish noise There might still be a few areas of noise and dust in the darker regions of the image. Choose the Clone tool and spot clone them out. Matching ColorTo add counterpoint to the image, you’ll match the color of the 8 on the billboard to a color from another image: Choose the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Tool palette. Place the cursor in the center of the top circle of the 8. Click and drag to the right and down, and then press the Option/Alt key to constrain the marquee from the center point. Drag until you’ve selected the edge of the 8 (see Figure H5.12). If necessary, press the spacebar as you drag to position the ellipse. Figure H5.12: Selecting the 8 on the target image Click the Add To Selection icon. Repeat the process for the bottom part of the 8. Click the Subtract From Selection icon. Place the cursor in the center of the top part of the 8. Drag downward and to the right. Press the Option key as you drag to constrain the ellipse to the edge of the top inner circle of the 8. Repeat the process for the bottom part of the 8 (see Figure H5.12). Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool. Click the Subtract From Select Replacing Color ManuallyLet’s enhance the color of the billboard image and change the color of the model’s face from a jaundiced yellow to a soft flesh tone: Click on the Foreground color in the Tool palette to display the Color Picker. Enter the following values in the appropriate fields—H: 12, S: 62, B: 84. Choose the Color Replacement tool . In the Options bar, set the Mode to Color, the Sampling to Contiguous, the Limits to Contiguous, and the Tolerance to 30. Zoom in on the model’s face. Choose a 55 px brush and carefully replace the color on the model’s face. Choose red (H: 0, S: 100%, B: 100%) as the foreground color and a 14 px brush and paint the model’s lips. Choose the Dodge tool and a 5 px brush. Set the exposure to 50%. Dodge over the whites of the model’s eyes to lighten them. While you still have the Dodge tool selected, set the exposure to 10%. Dodge the two dark bottom windows in the building on the left. Save. Applying USMThe image is practically complete, but let’s see if you can get a little more punch out of it. Because you are going to flatten the image, you should make a copy of it first: To duplicate the image, choose Image → Duplicate. Name the image big_city_night_flat.psd. Check the Duplicate Merged Layers Only box to flatten the image. Duplicate the Background by dragging it to the New Layer icon. In the Layers palette blend mode menu choose Luminosity. Choose Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask. Set the amount to 81%, the radius to 4.2 pixels, and the threshold to 28 levels (see Figure H5.14). Figure H5.14: Applying the Unsharp Mask filter to the image is the final step in enhancing the contrast. Click OK. Press /Ctrl-S to save the document. Converting the Image to CMYKIf you are outputting the image to four-color process color separations, it’s wise to convert it to CMYK first so that you can make any necessary adjustments and accurately predict how the image will print. First, preview the document; then follow these steps: Duplicate the flattened, sharpened image. Name the file big_city_ night_cmyk.psd and place it next to the original RGB image on-screen, making sure it’s active. In the View menu, make sure that Proof Colors is checked, and then choose View → Proof Setup → Working CMYK to display the image in the CMYK setup that you selected in the color settings. In this case, it’s U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2, which is part of the U.S. Prepress Defaults selected earlier in this project. By comparing the CMYK preview image to the RGB image, you’ll notice minor color shifts in the sky of the CMYK preview file, but let’s convert the file as is. Choose Image → Mode → CMYK to convert the file. Save the image. Note If there a Chapter 18: Duotones and Spot Color Overview Most images printed from Photoshop are printed in process colors. Printing presses use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink to print color images. Similarly, ink-jet printers deposit ink from cartridges containing CMYK colors. From time to time, however, the occasion arises when you need to create images by using custom color ink systems, either for a specific look or for reasons of economy. Photoshop has two functions that are designed to prepare images for printing by using custom colors: Duotones and spot colors. These systems depend on color information found in the Channels palette. In this chapter, you’ll discover: The nature of Duotones How to make Duotones, Tritones, and Quadtones work How to create spot color channels How to print Duotones and spot color Chapter 18: Duotones and Spot Color Why Use Duotones? Duotones are a source of disagreement in the printing industry. Some press professionals call them a waste of two-color press time. Others claim they can turn otherwise lackluster halftones into subtle works of art. Duotones, and their siblings Tritones and Quadtones, print grayscale images by using two (or three or four) separate inks. Usually the inks are colored, but occasionally you’ll see a Duotone created by using two black plates. Proponents claim that two blacks can attain a richness and depth out of reach of the simple halftone; critics say it’s just one black plate too many. They might never reach an agreement. No such controversy exists over the use of spot colors. Pressroom shelves are lined with tubs of premixed and mixable inks, and now with six- and eight-color presses becoming more and more common, combinations of four-color process, spot colors, and/or varnishes are being used with greater frequency. Photoshop’s spot color channels provide a tool for What Are Duotones?When a grayscale digital image is converted to a halftone and printed with black ink on paper, the shades of gray that you created on your computer are represented by the size and concentration of dots. The black ink is still black, no matter what size you make the dot. It can’t, however, represent all 256 levels of gray found in the grayscale image. Duotones can help you achieve a wider tonal range in a grayscale image by using more than one shade of ink to fill in the gaps. You can enhance the detail and texture in an image. If you’re printing a two-color book with halftones, adding the second color to the halftones can add an elegant touch. Duotones using a dark and a metallic ink can impart an opaque, antique quality, whereas lighter pastel shades might approximate a hand-tinted look or other variations, as you can see in Figure C28 in the color section. Duotones do present one potential problem. Because two (or more) inks are being superimposed on one another, it Working with Duotone Mode Suppose you start with a color photo you’ve scanned. Open your RGB image and then look in the Image → Mode submenu. You’ll see that the Duotone mode is grayed out, unavailable as an option. To convert an image to Duotone mode, you first have to convert it to Grayscale mode. Wait! Before you do that, it’s best to correct tonal and color values first, using Levels, Curves, or the other adjustment features discussed in Chapter 16, “Adjusting Tonality and Color.” Get the image exactly where you want it before you reduce it to a single channel. In fact, take a look at your color channels individually. You might find something there you like (the Green channel in an RGB image might contain a convincing microcosm of the whole, for example). Even better, use the Channel Mixer to get the perfect grayscale image. After you’re happy with it, choose Image → Mode → Grayscale. If you want to do any further tweaking, do it while you’re in Grayscale mode. Then choose Image → Adjusting Duotone CurvesDuotone curves let you control the density of each ink in the highlights, midtones, and shadows. Click the curve thumbnail for any ink to display the corresponding Duotone Curve dialog box (see Figure 18.3). Here you can adjust the curve to define ink coverage for each color. Or enter values in one of the 13 percentage fields. Figure 18.3: The Duotone Curve dialog box When you first convert a file to Duotone mode, the curves are straight by default. If you apply the straight curve, Photoshop will distribute the ink evenly across the entire tonal range of the image. If all the curves on a Duotone are straight, you’ll end up with a dark, muddy mess. It’s best to apply colors to suit the needs of the image in question; generally, you’ll want dark inks densest in the shadows, somewhat lighter inks in the midtones, and light colors enhancing the highlights. There are two ways of adjusting the curves in the Duotone Curve dialog box. Either type numeric settings for in Using Spot Color ChannelsSpot colors are additional inks used in a print job other than black or process colors. The inks can be independently printed or overprinted on top of the grayscale or CMYK image. Each spot color requires a plate of its own. Spot colors are printed in the order in which they appear in the Channels palette, from top to bottom. Spot color channels are totally independent of the color mode of the image. They are not part of the composite channel in a grayscale, RGB, or CMYK or Lab image. Spot color channels are also independent of layers—you cannot apply spot colors to individual layers. Here are some of the characteristics of spot color: Spot color channels are like layers in that they are independent of and separate from the Background image. Spot colors are unlike layers in that they cannot be merged with the image and continue to remain as spot colors. Spot color channels are like color channels in that they exist only in the Channels palette. Spot color chann Printing Duotones and Spot ColorPrinting Duotones and spot colors presents its own set of challenges. For example, in this book, the Duotones and Tritones were created by using two or three custom color inks. But the color section of the book is printed by using four-color process. So the Duotones and Tritones had to be converted to CMYK before printing, which can result in darker, less distinct colors than provided by premixed inks. If you want to import your Duotone into another application, you’ll have to save it in EPS format. Only EPS preserves Duotone mode’s color information properly. If you save it in another format, the additional curves simply won’t be recognized; only Ink 1 will end up printing. Spot color channels, however, are supported by PSD, TIF, EPS, PDF, and DCS 2.0 formats. A special problem common to Duotone and spot color jobs is the difficulty in proofing. Most color proofers convert everything to CMYK when printing; custom ink colors simply aren’t recognized. If Hands On 6: Duotones and Spot Color Here is a chance for you to work in Duotone mode and with spot color channels. In this Hands On project, you’ll convert a grayscale image into a Tritone to enhance its tonal depth, create more drama in the image, and bring out its details. Then you’ll apply a spot color to a prominent area on the image and to some type. Finally, you’ll convert it to an entirely different mode to be able to observe the channels as separations. Getting Started Discard your preferences file before beginning this Hands On exercise. The “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” section in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” shows how to reset your preferences to Photoshop’s defaults. After you’ve launched Photoshop with default preferences, here’s how to begin the Hands On project: Insert the Photoshop CS Savvy CD in the CD-ROM drive. Choose File → Open; select and open the sun_god.psd image in the HO6 folder on the CD (see Figure H6.1). Figure H6.1: The beginning image Full-color Adjusting CurvesNow you’ll adjust the curves of each color for precise control over the distribution of ink in the highlights, midtones, and shadows: Start with the shadows: In the Duotone Options dialog box, click the PANTONE 289 C curve thumbnail to display the Duotone Curve dialog box. The values you’ll enter in the next few steps are shown in Figures H6.3 a, b, and c. Clear any presets from fields that aren’t listed here. Figure H6.3: Duotone curves for (a) PANTONE 289, (b) PANTONE 436, and (c) PANTONE 467 In the percentage fields, enter the following values: For 0%, enter 15. For 20%, enter 16.3 to reduce the amount of darker ink in the lower midtones. For 50%, enter 33.8 to slightly reduce the coverage in the midtones. For 80%, enter 90 to boost the coverage in the shadows. For 100%, enter 100; you’ll keep the darkest ink at full intensity in the deepest shadows. For PANTONE 436 C, enter the following values to distribute the color in the midtone range: For the 0% field, enter 0. Part III: Photoshop Savvy Chapter List Chapter 19: Photo Retouching Overview Since the introduction of the box camera by Kodak in the late nineteenth century, photography has become a popular pastime, practiced by countless people. If your attic is anything like mine, there are no doubt hundreds of photographs sitting in envelopes or boxes that haven’t been looked at for years. We don’t throw these images away because they are valuable to us and are part of our legacy. Many of these images are of relatives who have passed on and are the only living reminder we have of their lives. Unfortunately, few of us have the time or money to create an environmentally safe archive for the original images, and so, with the passing of time, many of these photographs remain neglected and begin to fade or collect dust, scratches, and abrasions. This chapter is about restoring those long-neglected pictures. You’ll learn about: Scanning old photographs Removing dust and scratches Adding missing pieces to a photograph Restoring contrast Makin Chapter 19: Photo Retouching Problems with Old Photographs Several common problems can occur in old photographs that will determine the best strategy for their reconstruction. Here is a list of problems you are likely to encounter: All or part of the photo is faded. This problem results from the deterioration of the emulsion on an image, caused by exposure to ultraviolet light, air, or fluctuating temperatures. (It could also result from an image that was overexposed to begin with.) Sometimes the photograph might be perfect on one side and fade gradually to the other. The photo has a color cast. A color photograph might have washed-out colors or a yellow or red cast over its entire surface. This can be the result of the emulsion’s chemical reaction with air or paper. The image is wrinkled, torn, scratched, or covered with spots. Wrinkles and scratches are often a result of mistreatment of the photograph. Spots will develop from exposure to dust. Images stored in a damp environment can collect mold that appears as Scanning Old Photographs If you’ve read Chapter 14, “Image Capture and Digital Photography,” you are aware of the many types of input devices available to scan images. Before scanning an old photograph, you’ll want to examine the image closely. Observe the darkest and lightest areas of the image and see whether there is detail within these areas that needs to be preserved. If so, you might want to adjust the contrast by using the scanner software’s brightness and contrast features. Don’t expect to correct the entire image. Adjust the image just enough to capture the details. You can later make more refined adjustments in Photoshop. Observe the digital image carefully. If you haven’t captured the detail you want, rescan it at different settings. You can also make multiple scans of the same photo at different settings and composite the best parts of each image into a master image. This technique, though labor-intensive, will enable you to combine the enhanced detail of the highlight, mid Removing Dust and ScratchesThe Dust & Scratches filter (choose Filter → Noise → Dust & Scratches) was created for the purpose of removing those ugly artifacts that are unavoidable when scanning old photos. With its Radius and Threshold sliders to help define edges, the Dust & Scratches filter is a powerful tool for eliminating a good deal of the unwanted debris from an image. If you’re scanning a batch of old pictures from your grandmother’s scrapbook, or that old team shot from your high school yearbook, Dust & Scratches works wonders. It can also help a great deal in getting rid of moiré patterns that can appear when scanning printed halftones. When using the Dust & Scratches filter, select small areas of similar texture in which to work. Each area of the image might require different settings. Applying it to the entire image all at once can result in a loss of detail. The Dust & Scratches filter has two controls, Radius and Threshold. Use the minimum Radius and Threshold you need to Adding Missing ElementsOften in old photographs, large areas have been scratched beyond recognition or are missing completely. Based on the severity of the problem, you’ll have to decide the best approach to restoration. In many cases, Photoshop’s tools and commands can be combined to remedy these problems, but some parts of photographs might be too damaged to restore. If, for example, the face of a person is missing from an image, I recommend that you avoid trying to paint it back in, because this will prove to be a virtually impossible task to accomplish with any credibility. A better approach might be to composite the face from another photograph or, if that’s not possible, fill the area with neutral gray. Cloning Small areas that are missing can be repaired with the Clone Stamp tool . I recommend that you first make a rough selection around the area so as to avoid applying the clone to unwanted areas. To practice using the Clone Stamp tool, follow these steps: Open clone_practice.p Adjusting Contrast The contrast of many old photographs diminishes over time because of the instability of the emulsion used to create the print. This emulsion might react chemically with nonarchival photo paper or it might have been exposed to sunlight; both of these can cause discoloring or fading. These problems can usually be remedied by adjusting levels or curves, as long as there is enough detail on the photograph to begin with. Areas of highlight that have washed out will be more difficult to restore, often requiring careful cloning, compositing, or passes with the Burn tool. Frequently, however, contrast problems are more complex. When a photo has developed a gradual fade from one side to the other, as in Figure 19.13, the problem can be more difficult to fix. You might need to use special masks to apply precision contrast adjustments to the image. Figure 19.13: An image whose contrast fades from right to left To get an idea of how these problems might be corrected, try this te Making a Digital ArchiveHaving performed miracles on that old photograph, you should store your work in an archive, where it is readily accessible. Most commonly, images are stored in JPEG format to reduce file sizes, using the highest settings to reduce visible data loss. The disadvantage of saving to JPEG format—if you expect to do any further work with the image—is that you will end up discarding all of your layers and alpha channels in the process. You should save a version of the image in Photoshop format and another version in JPEG. Archives are usually burned to a CD or a DVD; either provides an inexpensive storage medium with room for plenty of images. To review the content of the archive, you can use Photoshop’s File Browser. You can quickly scan the contents of your archive in thumbnail form and open the desired image. Note Before burning the image directory to CD, choose from the File Browser’s menu, File → Export Cache to pre-generate the File Browser cache data so that fu Hands On 7: Restoring a Color Photograph The restoration of color photographs presents a unique set of problems. In addition to the usual dust and scratch repairs and contrast adjustments, the color emulsions can change with time, producing severe color casts. The best way to remove these color casts and restore natural color varies with each situation, but in general some specific tools are commonly used to make these adjustments. Usually, Levels, Curves, Color Balance, and the arsenal of color correction features covered in Chapter 16 work in combination with Adjustment layers and layer masks. In addition, you can use the new Replace Color tool and Match Color features to make the image look as though it were taken yesterday. In this Hands On exercise, you will restore a color photograph by employing some of these techniques. The before and after versions of the image can be seen in the color section (see Figures C55 and C56). Cropping the Image The scanned photograph you’re going to Adjusting Contrast and Color Adjusting levels by individual channels offers more control than a global adjustment to the RGB channel. You will use this technique on an Adjustment layer to improve the contrast and balance the color and monitor the changes in the new Histogram palette. From the Histogram palette menu, choose All Channels View (see Figure H7.2). Figure H7.2: The All Channels View of the Histogram palette before (left) and after (right) the adjustment Choose Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Levels. Click OK in the New Layer dialog box. At the top of the dialog box, choose Red from the Channel pull-down menu. Move the Black slider to the right until the input field reads 36. Move the White slider to the right until the input reads 175 (see Figure H7.3a). Figure H7.3: The Levels dialog boxes, showing red (a), green (b), and blue (c) levels Choose Green from the Channel pull-down menu. Move the Black slider to the right until the input field reads 5. Move the White slider to th Cloning Out ArtifactsThe color and contrast adjustments have enhanced surface artifacts in the image. They need to be removed. You will use the Clone Stamp tool to eliminate these imperfections: From the Layers palette menu, choose Merge Visible to merge the two Adjustment layers with the Background. With the Lasso tool, select the area adjacent to Violetta’s hair to include the bluish surface artifacts (see Figure H7.5). Figure H7.5: Selecting the area around the artifact Choose the Clone Stamp tool and a 65-point Soft brush. Place the cursor on the grass to the left of Violetta’s head. Press Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) and click the mouse to sample an area. Place the cursor within the selection outline, and click and drag until the selection is filled and the artifacts have been eliminated. Choose Select → Inverse to inverse the selection and clone the artifacts out of Violetta’s hair, as in Figure H7.6. Figure H7.6: The artifacts cloned from Violetta’s hair Removing the ScratchNow you will fix the scratch that runs diagonally across the grass and Violetta’s ankle. You will need to sample both areas separately to repair them. Follow these steps: Choose the Healing Brush tool . Select a suitable brush from the Options bar. Place the cursor on the grass. Press Option/Alt, and click the mouse to sample an area. Drag over the scratch to heal it with your sample. You might want to sample more than once. Sample the ankle and repair the scratch. (The result should look like Figure H7.7.) Figure H7.7: Selecting the area around the artifact Save the image. Restoring a Scratched AreaNext you’ll work on the scratched area in the upper-left corner, using the Patch tool: Choose the Patch tool . In the Options bar be sure that Source is chosen. Drag a selection encircling the scratched area of the image in the upper-left corner, as in Figure H7.8. Figure H7.8: The area selected with the Patch tool Place your cursor in the center of the “marching ants.” Click and drag the selection to an area of similar texture on the right side of the photo, near Violetta’s head. Release the mouse. The area is completely restored. Compare how the area looked before and after the repair in Figure H7.9. Figure H7.9: The scratched area before and after the repair made with the Patch tool Using a Filter to Remove Dirt The contrast and color adjustments have amplified dirt on Violetta’s skirt. Because it is in an area of consistent texture, you can easily remove it with the Dust & Scratches filter. Choose the Lasso tool. Encircle the area as shown in Figure H7.10. Figure H7.10: Select the area of similar texture first. Choose Filter → Noise → Dust & Scratches (see Figure H7.11). Set the Radius to 14 and the Threshold to 20. Click OK and deselect. Figure H7.11: The Dust & Scratches dialog box Select the dirty area to the right of the original selection (in the shadow area of the skirt) and repeat the process with different settings. Experiment with the sliders to find the settings that work best. Clone out additional smaller spots with the Clone Stamp tool, sampling areas of similar color and texture and painting out the flaws. Replacing the Shoulder A severely torn area like the right shoulder can be replaced and modified by using other parts of the image. To replace the shoulder, follow these steps: Choose the Magic Wand tool . In the Options bar, enter a Tolerance value of 80. Click inside the white tear to select it. Choose Select → Modify → Expand → 6 pixels. Choose Select → Feather → 4 pixels. Choose Select → Transform Selection. Then choose Edit Transform → Flip Horizontal. Click the Commit icon to implement the transformation. Drag the selection outline and place it on the opposite shoulder, as shown in Figure H7.12. Figure H7.12: Using the selection on the opposite shoulder Choose Layer → New → Layer Via Copy. Double-click the layer name, name the layer Shoulder, and hit Return/Enter. Choose Edit Transform → Flip Horizontal to flip the shoulder. Choose the Move tool. Click and drag the shoulder and position it on the left shoulder, as shown in Figure H7.13. Deselect. Figure H7.13: The replacement sho Coloring the GrassThe grass in our photo is quite brown, so next you’ll color it. The best way to color the grass is to match it with the color of grass in another photo. Follow these steps: Choose the Magnetic Lasso tool . Encircle Violetta as accurately as possible. You might need to use the Quick Mask (see Chapter 12, “Using Channels and Quick Mask”) or another selection technique to tweak the results of the selection. Inverse the selection so that the grass is now selected. On the CD in the HO7 folder, open the document grass.psd. Activate the Violetta document. Choose Image → Adjustments → Match Color (see Figure H7.15). For the Source, choose grass.psd. Check the Use Selection in Target to Calculate Adjustment box. Figure H7.15: The Match Color dialog box The default results are too saturated. To correct them, move the Luminance slider to the left, to 77. Reduce the color intensity to 69. Drag the Fade slider to the right, to 24. Save the image. Coloring the RibbonAt this point, most of the restoration is complete, but you’ll make one final color alteration to add a sparkle to the image. Using the new Color Replacement tool , you’ll change the color of the ribbon in Violetta’s hair: Choose the Magnetic Lasso tool. Drag a selection around the ribbon. Choose the Eyedropper tool and drag it over Violetta’s sweater to sample its color. Notice the foreground color in the Tool palette. Stop dragging when you see a color you like. Choose the Color Replacement tool. Paint inside the selection outline to color the ribbon. Deselect and save. Chapter 20: Using Filters Overview When images created in Photoshop really make your eyes pop out, chances are good that filters were involved. Like many of Photoshop’s other techniques, filters have their origin in the analog world of photography. A photographer uses a filter to correct or enhance lighting, and to create or adjust anomalies of perspective. Photoshop’s filters take on these tasks and expand them far beyond the traditional tools. You’ve applied filters in previous chapters to retouch images and enhance contrast. Here, you’ll see further that with filters, you can adjust focus, eliminate unwanted artifacts, alter or create complex selection masks, breathe life into less-than-perfect scans, and apply a range of effects previously unavailable to the traditional photographer. Filters also have the capability to completely destroy anything recognizable in an image and turn it into a swirling vortex of pixels gone wild. In this chapter, you’ll look at the wonders filters can Chapter 20: Using Filters Filter Basics Filters are nothing more than mathematical formulas that alter the features of pixels or groups of pixels in specified ways. What can be changed for any individual pixel are its brightness value, saturation, and hue, and its position in relation to other pixels. These changes are limited. What allows for the great variation among filter effects is the way they can alter groups of pixels over a specified range, following specific constraints. Some work subtly; others can be brash and flamboyant. Some effects gain strength when used gently and reapplied; sometimes a filter can be mitigated or softened by fading the effect. The Fade command extends the range and usefulness of filters by enabling you to use layer-like blending modes to blend the filter effect back into the original image. It’s beyond the limits of our space here to delineate every possible effect offered by Photoshop’s filters. Rather, some of the most useful ones will be discussed in detail. I encourage you Constructive FiltersFour groups of filters provide tools to help improve image quality by changing the focus, or by smoothing transitions within an image. These filters belong to the Filter → Blur, Noise, Sharpen, and Other submenus. These groups are the bread and butter of Photoshop filtering, the workhorses that are put to frequent, day-to-day use. The constructive filters complement one another. For instance, Blur’s effect is the opposite of Sharpen; Median acts on an image in exactly the opposite way from Add Noise. These complementary effects will be delineated in greater detail in this section. Blur Filters New The Blur group contains eight individual filters: Average, Blur, Blur More, Gaussian Blur, Lens Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, and Smart Blur. Like their Sharpen counterparts, Blur, Blur More and the new Average filter are fully automated. You click, the filter does its job, and that’s that—no dialog box, no user input, no control. Blur and Blur More diminish contrast, r Destructive FiltersNow that the constructive filters have displayed their image-correcting prowess, it’s time for a little fun. The special effects in the Filter → Distort, Pixelate, and Stylize submenus take your precious pixels and shove them about with wild impunity. With these filters, you can turn images inside out, explode and reassemble them, or boil the life out of them, leaving you with an indigestible goo. Used with care, they can be useful friends; used unwisely, they’ll turn on you viciously. These filters are undoubtedly the cool members of the gang; they look good and offer a fun night out, but ultimately they’re not quite as responsible as the constructive filters. And some are just plain dumb. Distort Filters The common purpose of the filters in the Distort submenu is to transport pixels in your image across specifically defined patterns. For instance, Spherize gives the impression that your image has been wrapped around a ball. Twirl fixes the center point of your imag Effects FiltersThis group of filters for the most part produce a variety of studio techniques traditionally achieved in drawing, painting, and photography. Artistic, Brush Strokes, Sketch, and Texture are the four groups of filters once called Gallery Effects. These all approximate different kinds of fine art, painterly techniques. With some of them, the results resemble effects that it would take several passes with standard Photoshop filters to achieve. Artistic, Brush Strokes, and Sketch Filters The Artistic effects attempt to reproduce the effects of traditional art media, such as Watercolor, Dry Brush, and Fresco. Brush Strokes filters convert the surface of the image into various styles of colored strokes, such as Crosshatch and Sprayed Stroke. Sketch filters use your foreground and background colors to replace your image colors while creating textures. If you want to get some of the original color back, just use your Fade command. Its usefulness is not to be underestimated. Take Render FiltersThe Filter → Render submenu contains an interesting mix of lighting surface effects. Clouds and Difference Clouds These two Render filters produce ethereal, vaporous cloud formations. to apply either of these filters to your image, simply choose the command. A hazy mixture of foreground and background colors fills your selection. Choose the filter again, and the cloud pattern changes. Every time you choose this filter, the cloud patterns shift. If you hold down the Option/Alt key while choosing, the colors create a more pronounced effect. Difference Clouds works in the same way as Clouds, but you end up with inverted colors (if you started with blue sky and white clouds, you now get orange sky with black clouds). Apply the filter again and your colors reinvert, back to blue and white. Fibers New This new filter automatically renders a surface resembling woven fiber in the foreground and background colors. In the Fibers dialog box (see Figure 20.35), you can control the v Other Filters Two filters—Video and Digimarc—exist in a category by themselves, being neither constructive, destructive nor effects for Render filters. Video Filters The Video → NTSC Colors filter has one purpose: to convert the colors of an image for transfer to videotape. This filter is not a color space. It converts your RGB images to NTSC (National Television System Committee)-compatible colors. If you continue to work on an image after using this filter, you might introduce incompatible colors. A better solution is to close the file, head to the Color Settings, and choose the NTSC RGB color space as your working RGB space. Then reopen the file and OK the profile conversion in the dialog box that appears. The Video → De-Interlace filter regenerates missing interlacing rows from video grabs. When you capture an image from a video device, the results might be less than satisfactory due to the interlacing used by the video program to compress file sizes. The De-Interlace filter restor The Liquify FilterThe Liquify filter is, at its heart, a set of painting tools that distort and transform regions of an image by intuitively manufacturing pixels. If you can imagine applying the earth-shaking effects of the Photoshop’s Distortion filters on the fly with a set brushes, then you understand the essence of this powerful subinterface (Figure 20.38). The Liquify filter dialog box contains sophisticated masking tools that protect the image from alteration and a complete set of reconstruction modes that correct unwanted distortions so you can apply a partial or complete reconstruction at will. There is an optional mesh grid overlay that enables you to gauge the effects of the distortion as you apply it. If desired, you can save the mesh and apply it to an entirely new image regardless of the image’s size or resolution. Figure 20.38: You can Liquify extensively within this “subinterface.” The Liquify filter has fully functional previewing capabilities and a set of transformatio The Pattern MakerIn the top section of the Filters palette under Extract Filter Gallery and Liquify is the Pattern Maker. With this interface, you can take any selection from any part of an image and generate repeating tiles based on the selection, the entire image, or the contents of the Clipboard. Figure 20.40 shows the Pattern Maker interface. Figure 20.40: The Pattern Maker interface Like the Liquify tool, Pattern Maker offers you considerable control over its application. At the top-left corner of the window are the familiar Marquee, Zoom, and Hand tools. With Pattern Maker, the Marquee enables you to select an area of the image from which to generate patterns. However, the dialog box also gives you the options of using the Clipboard contents, the entire image (via the Use Image Size button), or an area you define with the handy Width and Height inputs. In addition, you can Offset the spacing of your tiles horizontally or vertically and specify an offset Amount percentage. Changin Chapter 21: Making Difficult Selections Overview Chapter 6 covered the basics of selection making. You saw that the selection tools, such as the Marquee and Lasso tools, provide several manual techniques to isolate areas of an image. Photoshop also has a few semiautomatic selection tools, such as the Magic Wand and the Magnetic Lasso, that select pixels based on their brightness or contrast values. The Quick Mask extends selection-making abilities to the painting tools for even more control, and the Pen tool makes accurate selections with Bezier curves. Sometimes, however, areas of an image seem impossible to select because they have ambiguous surroundings or complex content. What do you do with these problem images, short of canceling all appointments, turning off the phone, and sitting in front of the computer for the next week, encircling each pixel one by one? In this chapter, you will learn how to select those really tough areas with a few tools and techniques that, if they don’t Chapter 21: Making Difficult Selections Making Selections with Color Channels You can use an image’s color information to make really difficult selections. The differences in the contrast levels of the red, green, and blue channels can often provide a method of isolating regions of the image that seem impossible to select. You’ll use this technique and a combination of Photoshop’s painting tools and filters to select from images in which the background and foreground are complex and almost indistinct. In Figure 21.1, for example, isolating the tree from the background would otherwise be virtually impossible. Figure 21.1: It’s close to impossible to select this tree with traditional selection tools, but you can use color channels to do it. Follow these steps to use color channels to make a selection: Open the image leaflesstree.psd in the ch21 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. Open the Channels palette (Window → Channels, or F7 on the keyboard if you still have it clustered with the Layers palette). Click the Red, Green, a Working with Color RangeThe Select → Color Range command is ideal for selecting areas of similar color within an image or within a selection outline. In Chapter 17, Modifying and Mapping Color you used a similar technique, Image → Adjustments → Replace Color, to substitute colors. Color Range operates in very much the same way, but instead of altering color it produces an accurate selection marquee around the specified areas of similar color. This tool really helps you when you have a lot of small areas of similar color situated throughout an image. With so many scattered areas of color, a tedious task can be simplified, as you shall see. When you choose Select → Color Range, the dialog box (see Figure 21.9) presents you with a mask of the image. The Select pull-down menu lets you choose a specific color range to sample, and it will automatically select all the pixels within the range. You can choose to select Reds, Yellows, Blues, Magentas, Greens, Cyans, Highlights, Midtones, Shadows Selecting Out-of-Gamut ColorsAnother unique function of the Color Range command is its capability to isolate unprintable colors. Chapter 15, “Color Management and Printing,” describes Photoshop’s color management features and shows how you can compensate for out-of-gamut colors. In the Edit → Color Settings dialog box, you can specify a CMYK profile for a device or printing environment that has its own unique CMYK gamut. When you prepare an image for process color printing, the profile affects how the image is converted into CMYK from its working mode (usually RGB). If you choose View → Gamut Warning, Photoshop will display a gray mask that shows you which colors are out of gamut. If you choose View → Proof Setup → Working CMYK (Photoshop’s default) and then View → Proof Colors, you can preview on-screen how the image will look when printed, before you convert it. Note Toggle in and out of Proof Colors by pressing /Ctrl-Y to compare the CMYK preview to the RGB display. You can also us Extracting ImagesEarlier you used RGB channels to isolate images with fuzzy, complex, or indefinable edges from their backgrounds. Another option is to use the Filter → Extract command for this purpose. The results might not be as precise as the channels method, but you can, by trial and error, isolate problem edges with much less effort. The Extract command is actually a mini-program, complete with a subinterface (see Figure 21.17), that measures subtle differences of the edge of an image by its color and brightness content and then determines how best to isolate the region. Figure 21.17: The Extract dialog box Use the Edge Highlighter to define the image’s edges; you then fill its interior and preview it. You can refine and preview as many times as you like until you have all of the image and none of the background. You then extract it, which deletes undefined areas and places the image on a transparent layer. Note Because of the radical transformation that Extract produces, you sho Chapter 22: Advanced Layer Techniques Overview Chapter 7 introduced you to layers and how important they are to the Photoshop work flow. I compared a layer to a piece of transparent glass. You learned that you can separate areas of your image onto independent layers that can be edited at any time during the imaging process. You also learned how to reshuffle layers in the stack to reposition their plane of depth in the picture, and how to link layers or create layer sets to organize your work. You changed a layer’s opacity to be able to see “through” it. You experimented with blending modes to dramatically alter the color relationships of layers, and applied cool special effects such as drop shadows and bevels. In Chapter 10 you learned to apply Fill layers and in Chapter 16 you discovered the power of Adjustment layers. In this chapter, I’ll introduce more of Photoshop’s layer capabilities and show you techniques that empower you to combine visual elements in unique and rather surprisi Chapter 22: Advanced Layer Techniques Working with Layer Masks When you work in Photoshop, you rely on masks to perform many of its editing tasks. Masking, as discussed in Chapter 6, is a way to isolate an area of an image. In Chapter 12, you worked with Quick Masks to extend the power of selecting to the painting tools. In the same chapter, you learned how to store selections as alpha channels so that they could be used at any time during the editing process. Selections, alpha channels, and Quick Masks all work to the same ends: to protect an isolated region from the application of a tool or operation. Layer masks are a little different. Instead of protecting an area of the image from the effects of an operation, they reveal or conceal areas of a layer from view. When you adjust the Opacity controls on the Layers palette, you change the transparency of the entire layer so that the content of layers beneath it in the stack will be visible. But when you apply a layer mask to an image, you can control the transparency of a p Seamless CompositingSometimes you’ll see an advertisement in a glossy magazine that you know has been “Photoshopped.” Non sequitur and neosurreal images are dead giveaways, and sometimes they are amazingly clever. The image might have a brilliant concept, dazzling colors, and a truly dynamic composition and be perfect in every way—except for a few out-of-place edge pixels. It is unfortunate when a great work of commercial art is just short of perfection, especially when Photoshop has built-in bandages to cover every possible boo-boo. Matting is the key to clean composites. When you select an image, the anti-alias programmed into the selection tool selects edge pixels. When you drag the selection onto another image, the stowaway edge pixels can’t be seen until they reach their destination. When you see them, it’s usually a row of one or two pixels that are significantly darker or lighter than the color behind them, as in Figure 22.7. Figure 22.7: The hand grenade on the top is surrounde Using Clipping Masks When you clip two layers together you create a clipping mask. Clipping masks enable you to perform some interesting graphic tricks such as literally “tattooing” one image onto the other. With the help of layer masks, layer opacity, and blending modes, you can mold and model the image into superbly realistic forms. To join two layers into a clipping mask, the image on the bottom layer must be surrounded by transparency. The layer to be clipped will appear one step higher in the stack. When a layer is clipped, it fills the shape of the image on the layer below it; in other words, the bottom layer acts as a mask to clip the layer immediately above it. To see how clipping masks operate, you’ll clip two layers together to create an “electric” telephone, and then use blending modes and a layer mask to enhance the effect: Open the electric_telephone.psd file in the h05 folder on the CD. The image is separated into three layers: the topmost is the Lightning layer, the midd Casting Shadows In Chapter 7, you looked at how to create realistic drop shadows by using Photoshop’s built-in layer styles. Cast shadows are a little different. A drop shadow is quite simply a gray, semitransparent, soft-edged duplicate of the image from which it is dropped. A cast shadow has all the qualities of a drop shadow, except that it is distorted by the direction of light and the terrain on which it rests. Using layers, you can create a very convincing cast shadow and blend it perfectly into its surroundings. You can see the beginning and end images from the following steps in the color section (see Figures C35 and C36): Open the black_cat.psd file in the h05 folder on the CD. The image is composed of two layers named Cat and Background (see Figure 22.11). Figure 22.11: The shadowless cat Duplicate the Cat layer by dragging it to the New Layer icon. Name the layer Shadow. Check the Lock Transparent Pixels icon . Choose black as a foreground color and press Option-Delete or Al Creating Multiple Versions with Layer Comps New The new Layer Comps palette is used to create multiple versions of a layered document. Designers can use this feature to present multiple comprehensives, or comps, to a client. In a sense, it’s similar to the History palette but is entirely layers based. Unlike the History palette it is saved along with the document when the file is closed. A layer comp is a snapshot of a state of the Layers palette and records the palette’s characteristics including layer visibility, opacity, position in the stacking order, content, and any styles that might be applied to the layers. The advantage of using layer comps is that you can build a document and display multiple versions quickly and efficiently. To create a layer comp, follow these steps: Choose Window → Layer Comps to reveal the Layer Comps palette (see Figure 22.17). Figure 22.17: The Layer Comps palette Click the Create New Layer Comp icon at the bottom of the Layer Comps palette. The defaul Hands On 8: Advanced Layers In this project, you’ll try out some of the advanced layer techniques by making layer masks, clipping masks, and a drop shadow, and applying matting to clean up edge pixels. You’ll also use layer comps to display three versions of a document. Getting Started In the HO8 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD, open the file hotel_flamingo_start.psd. Save the image to your disk. To view the beginning and completed versions of the Hotel Flamingo image, see Figure H8.1 (which is also presented as Figure C57 in the color section) and Figure H8.2 (Figure C58 in the color section). Figure H8.1: The beginning image (left) with its Layers palette (right) Figure H8.2: The finished Hotel Flamingo image Discard your preferences file before beginning this Hands On exercise. The “Modifying Photoshop’s Settings” section in Chapter 5, “Setting Up Photoshop,” details how to temporarily reset your preferences to Photoshop defaults. You can restore your customized personal setting Placing the Parrot in a Window The image has been divided into two layers and a Background. You’ll start by dropping in an image from another document, and creating a layer mask to place the parrot in a window of the hotel: Open the file mr_parrot.psd from the HO8 folder on the CD. Target the Parrot layer. Choose the Move tool . Drag the Parrot layer to the hotel image. Align it on the fourth large window from the left, as seen in Figure H8.3. Figure H8.3: The parrot aligned on the window Reduce the opacity of the Parrot layer to 60% so that you can see the window behind it. Choose Layer → Add Layer Mask → Reveal All. Choose the Brush tool and a 19-point Hard-Edged brush from the Brush menu in the Options bar. Choose black as a foreground color. With the layer mask targeted, carefully paint out the background and portions of the parrot to give the appearance that the parrot is partially inside the window. Restore the opacity to see the result, as in Figure H8.4. Figure H8.4: With the l Placing the Crane in a WindowNext you’ll place the crane in a window by using a layer mask, but with a different twist for concealing the background: Open the file dr_crane.psd from the HO8 folder on the CD. Choose the Move tool. Drag the Background onto the hotel image. Align it on the second large window from the right. Name the layer Crane. Choose Edit → Transform → Flip Horizontal. Choose the Magic Wand tool . Set the tolerance to 50. Click the blue areas around the crane to select them. Choose Select → Inverse. Choose Layer → Add Layer Mask → Hide All. The bird disappears, but you can see the selection marquee. In the Tool palette, choose white as the foreground color. Press Option-Delete (Mac) or Alt-Backspace (Win) to fill the selected area on the mask and reveal the bird. Check carefully to be sure that all of the blue field has been removed. If there are any edge pixels showing, erase them with the Eraser tool. Deselect. Reduce the layer’s opacity to 60%. Choose the Brush tool Casting the Penguins’ ShadowsIn these next steps, you’ll make an additional layer and distort its contents to cast a shadow: Target the Penguins layer and make it visible. From the Layers palette menu, choose Duplicate Layer; name the layer Penguins Shadow. Drag the Shadow layer beneath the Penguin layer. Check the Lock Transparency icon (see Figure H8.6). Choose black as the foreground color, and press Option-Delete or Alt-Backspace to fill the contents of the layer with black. Uncheck the Lock Transparency icon. Figure H8.6: Layers palette with Lock Transparency icon Choose Edit → Transform → Distort. Distort the marquee so that the contents of the Shadow layer appear to lie on the ground, as in Figure H8.7. You might have to play with this a little to get it to look convincing. After you’re satisfied, press the Return/Enter key. Figure H8.7: Distorting the penguins’ shadows Choose Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur (see Figure H8.8). Drag the slider to 2.3 to soften the edges of the shad Matting and Placing the Flamingo Matting removes unwanted pixels that result from selecting and cutting or copying an image from another document or layer. Follow these steps to matte and place the flamingo: Open the file Flamingo.psd from the HO8 folder on the CD. Choose the Magnetic Lasso tool . Drag around the edge of the flamingo, as in Figure H8.9, until you’ve selected it. Figure H8.9: Selecting the flamingo with the Magnetic Lasso Choose the Move tool and drag the flamingo onto the hotel image. Name the new layer Flamingo. The flamingo is too large, so reduce its size by 50%. Still using the Move tool, check Show Bounding Box in the Options bar. Place your cursor on the upper-left corner of the bounding box, click and drag inward a little bit, and release the mouse. The Options bar now changes to enable you to input numeric values for the transformation (see Figure H8.10). Figure H8.10: Width and Height fields Click the chain icon between the Width and Height fields to constrain Using Vector MasksVector masks are similar to layer masks in that they are designed to conceal parts of an image. (Read about vector masks in Chapter 9, “Drawing Paths.”) Follow these steps to use one to conceal part of a seagull: Open the file Gulls.psd from the HO8 folder on the CD. Select the frontmost gull by using the Magnetic Lasso tool. You might have to use the Lasso tool too to refine the selection. With the Move tool, drag the selected gull and drop it on the top corner of the hotel. Name the new layer VectorGull. Defringe if necessary. From the Layers menu, choose Add Vector Mask → Reveal All. A vector mask appears next to the VectorGull layer. Choose the Pen tool . Ensure that the paths and not the shape layer option is selected. Click along the top edge of the building. Encircle the gull to create a triangular path, as in Figure H8.13. The path will conceal the bottom of the gull. Figure H8.13: Creating the vector mask After you’ve drawn the path, choose the Direct Selecti Creating a Clipping MaskThe easiest and most flexible method of placing the gulls in the sky is to create a clipping mask with a Sky layer. Follow these steps: Drag the Gulls layer immediately above the Background. Target the Background. Choose the Magic Wand tool and set the tolerance to 50. Click on the white area above the hotel. Choose Layer → New → Layer Via Copy. Name the new layer Sky. Place your cursor on the line between the Sky layer and the Gulls layer above it. Press Option/Alt and click your mouse. The Gulls layer is now clipped to the Sky layer, taking its shape. Target the Gulls layer. Choose the Move tool; drag the Gulls layer inside the clip until you are satisfied with its position. Target the Gulls layer. Drop the opacity to 67% to subdue the gulls a little. The image should look like Figure H8.2, shown earlier in the chapter (see the image’s Layers palette in Figure H8.14). Figure H8.14: The Layers palette of the Flamingo Hotel image Save the image. On the CD, in th Using Layer CompsNow you’ll make a few changes to the Flamingo Hotel and save the multiple versions as layer comps. Here are the steps: Choose Window → Layer Comps. The Layer Comps palette appears (see Figure H8.15). Figure H8.15: The default Layer Comps palette Choose Layers → New → Layer Comp, or click the New Layer Comp icon at the bottom of the palette. The New Layer Comp dialog box appears (see Figure H8.16). Figure H8.16: Creating a new layer comp Name the comp duckless. In the HO8 folder on the CD, in the MoreBirds subfolder, open the file duck.psd. Select the duck with the Magnetic Lasso tool. Tweak the selection with the Lasso tool. Choose the Move tool. Drag the selection and its contents and place it on the lower-right corner of the Flamingo Hotel image. Name the new layer duck. Choose Edit → Transform → Flip Horizontal. Click the New Layer Comp icon and name the comp duck. Target the Background. Choose Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Hue Saturation. In the dialog box, adjust Chapter 23: Automating the Process Overview When working in Photoshop, you often repeat tasks. For example, if you publish a lot of work on the Web, you might regularly convert files from PSD to JPEG format. Here’s another: Let’s say you want to place all of the images in a folder into a single document to make a contact sheet for comparison. Opening, sizing, and pasting the images can be tedious, time-consuming work. Building a website is a lot of work too. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way to accomplish this by simply pressing a button? This chapter is about Photoshop’s magic buttons called Actions and automations. These operations can greatly accelerate your work flow by automatically performing tedious and repetitious tasks. You can perform most Actions and automations on either single or multiple documents, and you can save them and store them for later use. You’ll learn about these topics: Setting up an Action Applying Actions to a batch of images Creating contact sheets, Chapter 23: Automating the Process Creating and Applying Actions When a multimillion-dollar Hollywood movie is produced, everybody involved in the production, including the director, actors, and cinematographer, follows a script. A script is simply written dialog with accompanying directions. Just like the movies, computers also use scripts. Unlike actors, however, computers never ad-lib; they follow the script to the letter! When you record an Action, you are actually writing a script that tells the software what sequence of operations to perform. Fortunately, recording a script for Photoshop is a lot easier than writing a script for a movie. Almost any single operation or sequence of operations can be recorded into an Action, except for some of the manual tools such as the Airbrush and Paintbrush. You can program an Action to select the Paintbrush, but you can’t create an Action to paint with that brush. Likewise, the zoom tools, window commands, and view commands cannot be recorded. The tools from which you can recor Using Automation OperationsSo far you’ve applied Actions to images manually. Hmmmm…manual automation? Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be really cool if you could apply Actions automatically while you were away from the computer, maybe strolling in the park or dining out? “Why would he mention it if it couldn’t be done?” you might be asking yourself right now. Yes, it can be done. And there are several ways to do it. Batch Processing You can apply Actions to multiple files within a folder by choosing File → Automate → Batch; the Batch dialog box is shown in Figure 23.12. This formidable-looking interface lets you apply a set, a group of Actions, or a single Action. You can batch-process a group of images within a folder, or from an external source such as a digital camera or scanner with a document feeder. (But note that your scanner or digital camera might need an Acquire plug-in to support batch processing.) You can then automatically save the images within the folder Using Other Automation Commands The File → Automate commands are a group of commonly used Actions consolidated into a dialog box. You can configure options that vary the outcome of the image. Some of the Automate commands convert files to other formats or construct files into contact sheets. PDF Presentation New The new PDF Presentation feature collects images and produces a multiple-page PDF file for presentations. The PDF Presentation dialog box (see Figure 23.15) presents several options for viewing your images—either as a multiple-page PDF or as a slide presentation complete with specific time intervals and a choice of graphic transitions. Figure 23.15: The new PDF Presentation dialog box To create a PDF presentation, follow these steps: Choose File → Automate → PDF Presentation. Click the Browse button to choose the images that you want to present. If you have any open files on the Photoshop desktop that you want to include, click the Add Open Files check box. Choose an Output op Keyboard ShortcutsIf you want to be a Photoshop power user I suggest you learn to use keyboard shortcuts. They can really speed up your workflow. Default keyboard shortcuts are listed in Appendix D. However, if you want to customize shortcuts, you can access the new Keyboard Shortcuts command. You can change existing shortcuts and create new ones. To modify existing keyboard shortcuts, follow these steps: Choose Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts. The Keyboard shortcut dialog box appears (Figure 23.26). Choose a set of shortcuts from the Set menu. Photoshop Defaults will be the only item in the list until you create a new set. Figure 23.26: The Keyboard Shortcut dialog box In the Shortcuts For: list, choose a type of shortcut. The options available are Application Menus, Palette Menus, or Tools. Clicking any one of these options will display a different list of shortcuts. Choose the command or tool shortcut you want to modify, and a box will appear to the right of the name with the current shor Chapter 24: Overlay Techniques Overview One of Adobe Photoshop’s greatest strengths is its capability to combine images. In Chapters 7 and 22 you became savvy to the potential of compositing with layers and how selected areas can be accurately positioned and superimposed. Images from multiple sources can be collaged together, their transparency can be precisely tuned with layer masks, and their shapes can be altered with clipping masks. You saw in Chapters 6 and 21 that, like layers, alpha channels can also be combined. The process of combining images from multiple sources takes many forms and is one of Photoshop’s most useful features. In this chapter, you’re going to look at industrial-strength image compositing. You will learn about the following: Superimposing images to enhance their quality Creating artistic effects by applying images Using calculations to combine complex selections Chapter 24: Overlay Techniques Layer-Based Compositing Imagine that you have two transparencies on a light table, one on top of the other. When you look at them through a magnifying loupe, you see the effect of combined colors on the two superimposed images. Opposite colors (for example, reds and greens) might cancel each other and produce areas of dark gray, and colors that are closer to each other on the color wheel (for example, reds and yellows) might produce richer, more saturated oranges. Now imagine that you have duplicates of the same transparency on the light table, and you are able to “sandwich in” filters that produce a variety of color relations between the two superimposed images. In Photoshop, these are the blending modes, and you apply them to an image in the Layers palette. The blending modes, which are described in Appendix C and illustrated in the color section, can be used to enhance color on an image. When you superimpose one layer on another, you can apply a layer effect to alter the color relat Excluding ColorsUse Photoshop’s Layer Style dialog box (see Figure 24.2) to exclude colors in the image. Advanced Blending excludes targeted information in a specific channel. With the exclusion sliders, you can omit colors of a specific brightness value. Figure 24.2: The Advanced Blending controls in the Layer Style dialog box To demonstrate how these sliders work, follow these steps: Open the file Heavenly_Roses.psd from the ch24 folder on the CD (see Figure 24.3). Figure 24.3: The Heavenly Roses image The image is divided into a layer and a Background. Double-click the Rose Layer icon, to display the Layer Style dialog box. First, clear all of the Channels check boxes. The image of the roses disappears. Now check the red (R) box only. The channel information from the Red channel appears and affects the underlying layer. The Red channel appears to contain most of the detail of the red rose. Note If you were to look at the information for the Rose layer in the Channels palette, you w Channel-Based CompositingAdobe once counted channel-based compositing among Photoshop’s most powerful features. The extensive layer compositing techniques introduced in recent versions of Photoshop have made this capability redundant. It still, however, enables you to apply additional modes that, even in Photoshop CS, have not been added to the Layers palette. Photoshop’s two channel-based compositing techniques are the Apply Image command and the Calculations command. Apply Image The Apply Image command applies a source image to the target image. To use Apply Image, both images have to be open on the desktop. The images must be exactly the same physical size and resolution. First, look at the Apply Image dialog box (see Figure 24.6) to understand its commands. To access it, choose Image → Apply Image. Figure 24.6: You can use the Apply Image dialog box for channel-based compositing. You can set these options in the dialog box: Source This is the image that is applied, or overlaid. Cho Part IV: Photoshop, WWW, and DV Chapter List Chapter 25: Web Design with Photoshop and ImageReady Overview The Web is the world’s most recent and dynamic publishing phenomenon. It gives you instant access to an enormous amount of information and entertainment. The Web is like having at your fingertips a several-million-volume encyclopedia that is revised hourly with the latest information. In addition to being able to access information, you can also publish your ideas and images instantaneously on the Web. Photoshop has many features that enable you to efficiently publish images to the Web. Adobe, recognizing the need for streamlined, Web-specific software, bundles ImageReady with Photoshop to provide powerful tools to the Web designer. ImageReady can help you create images and animations and generate HTML code for browser-ready websites. ImageReady is fairly easy to learn because, in many respects, it closely resembles Photoshop. In fact, the two programs share many of the same capabilities. This chapter will cover the cool Web Chapter 25: Web Design with Photoshop and ImageReady Web Features in Photoshop Photoshop supports numerous image formats, which makes it ideal for importing scans and graphics from sources such as Photo CDs, digital cameras, and video captures. After you edit an image, you can easily save it or export it to a Web-compatible image format such as JPEG, GIF, or PNG. You can take advantage of the unique characteristics of each format including file size, progressive rendering, transparency, and compression. Photoshop’s user-friendly Layers palette is ideal for separating portions of an image so that they can remain editable throughout the creative process. This empowers designers to lay out entire websites within Photoshop and then use the elements created on the layers. The original files remain intact and can be modified as necessary. The Layers palette is also quite useful for creating and organizing simple animation sequences. These layer stacks are saved and reopened in Adobe ImageReady and have the capability of generating animated ima ImageReadyWhen you open ImageReady, your first observation might very well be that it looks a lot like Photoshop, and indeed it performs in much the same way. It contains many of the same tools, filters, commands, and palettes as its bigger, older sibling. ImageReady’s strength is its capability to prepare files for the Web, a capability it shares, in part, with Photoshop’s Save For Web option. However, it also provides the additional capability of creating rollovers, image maps, and animations. The primary difference is that in place of the extensive printing features of Photoshop, ImageReady has numerous powerful operations for Web file preparation. Instead of print-specific adjustments, color settings, and gamut tools, there are (among others) the Image Map tool, default browser preview, and the Slice, Rollover, Image Map, Animation, and Optimize palettes. Another major difference is Photoshop’s capability to save a document to many different formats, including those that support pr Designing Page Elements Follow the exercises in this chapter to become accustomed to designing for the Web by using Photoshop and ImageReady. In this section, you’ll build a few types of Web graphics. Creating a Margin-Style Background in Photoshop A margin-style background is a common visual element that helps unify the design of a Web page. It serves as a visual compass because it fills the entire vertical depth of the document no matter how tall it might be. Furthermore, a margin can help establish the ordered division of information by separating the background into vertical blocks. It is also a perfect way to infuse the page with interest and character by adding a splash of color or texture. A margin background is simply a pattern that is configured so that the image repeats vertically but not horizontally. Because all Web backgrounds tile from the upper-left corner into the available space, you have to ensure that you create a strip long enough so that the tile doesn’t appear to Choosing Web File FormatsImages need to be saved in one of several formats in order to be read by browsers. JPEG, GIF, PNG formats, and their variations are briefly described here. Look in Appendix B, “File Formats,” for more detailed descriptions. JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) JPEG is a lossy compression format. It supports 24-bit color and is used to preserve the tonal variations in photographs. JPEG compresses file size by selectively discarding data. A higher-quality setting results in less data being discarded. Low JPEG settings result in blocky areas within the image and a profusion of artifacts, or blotchy spots. JPEG compression can degrade sharp detail in images and is not recommended for images with type or solid areas of color. See Figure 25.17 for a comparison of JPEG settings. Figure 25.17: JPEG compression-quality comparisons: (left) Low and (right) Maximum Note Each time you save the file as a JPEG, you discard more data. To avoid progressive deterioration, yo Saving for the WebUsing Photoshop’s Save for Web interface allows you to optimize your images for the best combination of size and appearance and save a copy, without altering your original image. In this section you’ll learn how to optimize your images and save Web-ready copies in either Indexed or RGB color, as GIF, JPEG, or PNG format. The Save For Web feature is a subinterface. It contains numerous options for saving files to Web formats, and can compare the effects of different settings on up to four images at once. Figure 25.19 shows the Save For Web dialog box. It behaves very much like a plug-in application, with full features contained within the dialog box itself. Figure 25.19: The Save For Web dialog “subinterface” The Save For Web dialog box contains the following tab options: Original shows the image in its original state. Optimized shows the image with whatever Web optimization features you select. 2-Up displays the original image next to the optimized image, or two optim Optimizing Images in ImageReadyOptimizing images in ImageReady is very similar to using the Save For Web feature in Photoshop. ImageReady’s optimization capabilities include the following: Live Preview Whenever you are working on a file in ImageReady, you can automatically see changes based on file type and optimization choices (see Figure 25.26). Figure 25.26: ImageReady’s live preview enables you to see changes in a file as you make them. The Optimize palette enables you to format the image to your chosen specifications. Choice of File Types ImageReady supports GIF, JPEG, PNG, WBMP, and PSD. Depending upon the file and your needs, you can adjust accordingly. User-Level Control Although you don’t really need a working knowledge of optimization to use ImageReady, you will no doubt be empowered by understanding the basic rules of thumb when it comes to optimization: Use GIFs when working with line art, flat color, few colors, or with animations. Cartoons and text usually work best as GI Chapter 26: Creating Dynamic Web Elements Overview The Web is a dynamic and interactive environment. This chapter will cover the dynamic, interactive elements you can create in ImageReady. It will take you through several step-by-step processes so that you can begin adding interactivity to images and animations for the Web. This chapter includes these topics: Creating image maps Creating animations and rollovers Using data sets to automate image processing Embedding metadata Chapter 26: Creating Dynamic Web Elements Creating Image Maps in ImageReady An image map is an area of an image that links the site visitor to another Web page or URL. You can set up multiple areas in the image called hotspots. Whereas slices let you define only rectangular areas as links, image maps let you define circular, polygonal, or rectangular regions. Note You can “float” the Image Map tools, or any of the drop-down subpalettes in ImageReady’s Tool palette. Click and hold any of these tools, and select the small triangle at the bottom of the list at the bottom to create a new floating palette containing those tools. To define an image map as a region of the entire image, use the Image Map tools: Choose one of the Image Map tools from the Tool palette. The choices are rectangle, circle, or polygon. Drag over the area you want to make into an image map. Click the Web Content tab to display the Web Content palette. If it’s not visible, choose Window → Web Content. Double-click on the new thumbnail in the new image map la Using Photoshop to Prepare AnimationsBecause Photoshop’s Layers palette enables you to successively stack one transparent layer on top of another in sequence, it serves as a very effective cell animation program. You can target an image on one layer, copy the layer, and apply a small increment of a filter, movement, or other operation. Copy the layer again and apply the operation one more time. Continue this process until the animation is complete. Incidentally, you can record the entire operation as an action, and quickly automate your task. Here is a step-by-step example of preparing a Photoshop animation: Open the Beating_Heart.psd image in the h07 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. The Heart image has been separated from its Background and named Layer 1 (see Figure 26.2). Figure 26.2: The Heart image separated from the Background Choose Window → Actions. From the Actions palette menu, choose New Set. Name the set Animation. From the Actions palette menu, choose New Action. Name t Creating a GIF Animation in ImageReady Another attractive aspect of ImageReady is that you can create layer-based animations. In Photoshop, you created the Beating Heart document; now, in ImageReady, you’ll give it life. Follow these steps: With Photoshop running and the layered Beating Heart document open, launch ImageReady by clicking the Edit In icon. If the Layers palette is not visible, choose Window → Layers to display it. The Layers palette shows five layers and the Background. If the Animation palette is not visible, choose Window → Animation to display it. The frame in the Animation palette displays the visible portions of the image (see Figure 26.5). Figure 26.5: The image, the Layers, and the Animation palette displaying the visible portion of the image Repeat the process, adding new frames for Layers 3, 4, and 5. Your Animation palette should look like Figure 26.6. Figure 26.6: The Animation palette with the first half of the animation At this point, you might want to see t Creating SWF Animations in ImageReady New A SWF (pronounced ‘Swiff’) animation is often called a Flash animation, because the SWF file format originated with Macromedia’s Flash software. But, with version CS, ImageReady can create SWF animations, too. Creating a SWF animation is similar to creating a GIF animation. In fact, in most cases, both the process and the results are virtually identical. SWF export is primarily useful if you are creating new elements for Flash-based websites. SWF files can be loaded dynamically by other SWF files. SWF files can also contain dynamic text, which can be changed via HTML, Flash ActionScripting, JavaScript, and PHP. If the animation consists largely of vector shapes and text, SWF files are often more efficient than GIFs. Experiment and see what looks best, and weighs in with the lowest byte count. In this section, you’ll create a SWF animation and then take a closer look at some of the options used to do so. Creating the Animation To create a SWF a Working with Rollovers in ImageReadyA rollover is a mini animation that is triggered by your mouse. Rollovers add interactivity to your Web page. An example would be a button which changes shape or color when the cursor passes over it. In this section you’ll learn how to create and change rollover states in ImageReady. Creating Rollover States Like animations, rollovers depend on layers for their behavior. You designate a rollover on an image by changing the visibility of a layer’s content. To create a rollover, you should slice your image or create an image map so that the portion that contains the rollover is independent from the rest of the image. Follow these steps: In ImageReady, open the file Bio_rollover.psd from the ch26 folder on the CD. To simplify the process, I have merged all the layers in the document except for the ones needed for the rollover. The Background and the Legs layer are visible, as shown in Figure 26.9. Figure 26.9: The Background and the Legs layer are visib Using Data Sets in ImageReady New ImageReady CS introduces data sets. What exactly is a data set? The ImageReady Help file tells us that a data set is “a collection of variables and associated data,” and, further, that you can “switch between data sets to upload different data into your template.” But what, exactly, does that mean? It’s a whole lot easier to show you than to try to explain it. Creating Data Sets Follow these steps to create some ImageReady data sets: In ImageReady, open the file headshots.psd from the ch26 folder on the CD. This file consists of five named layers, each containing a small photo, as seen in Figure 26.13. Figure 26.13: Each layer contains a photo. Choose Image → Variables → Define to open the Variables dialog box. From the Layer list, select Darren, as shown in Figure 26.14. Figure 26.14: The Variables dialog box Under Variable Type, check Visibility. Leave the Pixel Replacement option unchecked. Notice that an asterisk (*) appears next to the layer name Embedding Metadata ImageReady can also embed metadata in your image files. What, exactly, is metadata? Metadata is data that describes other data. In the case of, say, a GIF image, metadata would be additional information, other than the actual pixel data, that describes the file, such as a description and copyright notice. ImageReady can embed this metadata within the GIF file itself. Saving the Data Let’s take a look at how metadata is saved by ImageReady: In ImageReady, open the file tomatoes.jpg from the ch26 folder on the CD. New To add metadata to the file, choose File → File Info to open the File Info dialog box. Click Description in the left column and add some text for Document Title, Author, Description, and Copyright Notice, as seen in Figure 26.29. When you are finished, click OK. Figure 26.29: Add some metadata to the file. If the Optimize palette is not open, open it by choosing Window → Optimize. By default, ImageReady does not save metadata with your optimized images. Hands On 9: Web Design and ImageReady In this Hands On project, you’ll lay out a website and use ImageReady to prepare the files for publication. The project is intended to take you through some of the Web features of ImageReady, but you will also use image-editing commands covered in previous chapters. The goal of this project is to assemble a home page for Ballet Bleu, an international ballet company (see Figure H9.1). Figure H9.1: The finished home page To see the finished version from this exercise, see Figure C59 in the color section. Getting Started Launch ImageReady and choose File → New. Name the new document ballet_bleu.psd in preparation for saving to disk. Enter 768 for the width and 480 for the height, and set the color to white, as in Figure H9.2. (These pixel dimensions work for displaying a browser on a 17′ monitor.) Figure H9.2: Settings for the new document Opening the Ballerina ImageThe beautiful ballerina is a large part of the background image on the website. In these first steps, you’ll drag it from its window onto the Web page: Open the file ballerina.psd in the HO9 folder on the Photoshop CS Savvy CD. Choose the Move tool and drag and drop the image to the new document. Use ImageReady’s Smart Guides to snap it to the left side of the canvas. Open the Layers palette; a new layer is created. Name it Ballerina. Adjust the opacity of the Ballerina layer to 40%. Creating a BackgroundBecause you’re going to slice the image in ImageReady, you don’t have to worry about creating a seamless background. But you will fill the empty portion of the background: Choose the Magic Wand tool . Click the transparent area of the Ballerina layer to select it. Choose Window → Swatches. From the Swatches palette menu, choose Web Safe Colors, as seen in Figure H9.3. Click the Replace button to replace the current swatches with Web-safe colors. The Web Safe Colors swatches let you choose from the 216 colors that are displayed uniformly on the World Wide Web. Figure H9.3: Choosing Web-safe colors Choose black (#000000) from the Swatches palette. Black is the very last swatch in the palette. Note If you hover your mouse over a swatch, the color’s RGB value will be displayed. In the Layers palette, target the Background. Press Option-Delete (Mac) or Alt-Delete (Win) to fill the background with black. Deselect by pressing /Ctrl-D. The image should look like Figure H9 Entering the Type Another way to choose Web color is with the Color palette. Here, you’ll color the type with a hexadecimal that you choose from the Color palette: In the Layers palette, target the Ballerina layer. Choose the Type tool, and click on the canvas but don’t type yet. To specify a hexadecimal value for the type color, open the Color palette by choosing Window → Color. The Color palette has three drop-down boxes, one each for red, green, and blue. Select values from the drop-down lists. The Web Safe palette limits you to the following hexadecimal values for red, green, and blue: 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, and FF, so these are the only values offered by the drop-down lists, making the selection of Web-safe colors quick and error-free. The sliders under the red, green, and blue color bars also snap to these six values. You can also type hex values directly in the boxes. As you can see in Figure H9.5, I chose #FF0033. Figure H9.5: The Color palette I used 160-point Edwardian Script IT Adding the LogoThe logo is a graphic element that will later be used as a rollover on an image map in ImageReady. Follow these steps to create two layers, one for each state of the rollover: Open the file titled Logo.psd from the HO9 folder on the CD. Choose the Move tool and drag the Logo layer from the Layers palette onto the Ballet_Bleu image so that the logo appears to the left of the B. Leave some space beneath the logo; you’ll be adding another element here later. In the Layers palette, drag the Logo layer and place it under the Type layer, as in Figure H9.7. Name it Logo Black. Figure H9.7: The logo in position Duplicate the layer by dragging it to the New Layer icon. Name the new layer Logo Blue. With the new layer selected, choose Image → Adjustments → Hue/Saturation. In the Hue/Saturation dialog box, check Colorize. Move the Hue slider to 215, the Saturation slider to 100, and the Lightness slider to 21, as in Figure H9.8. Click OK. Figure H9.8: The Hue/Saturation dialog box Adding the Animation Images Next, you’ll prepare the images for an animation sequence. Follow these steps: Target the Ballerina layer. Open the file animation_images.psd in the HO9 folder on the CD. Target the topmost layer (1) in the stack. Click the second column in the Layers menu of each layer to link all eight images together. Choose the Move tool. From the image window, drag the layers and drop them on the Ballet Bleu image. In the Layers palette, click the Create A New Set button to create a new layer set. Double-click the set’s name and rename it animation. Click the topmost animation layer (1); then Shift-click the bottommost animation layer (8) to select all eight layers. Release the Shift key and drag the selected layers into the animation set. Target the animation set. In the image window, use the Move tool to drag the images to the upper-middle of the black rectangle, as in Figure H9.9. Figure H9.9: The Web page with the ballet images Press /Ctrl-S to save the document. Slicing the ImageNow you can slice the image into smaller, more manageable pieces. You’ll then create an animation, a rollover, and an image map. Finally, you’ll save all the elements as an HTML document for publication to the Web. Here are the steps for slicing the image: Choose the Slice tool and use it to divide the image into six rectangles (slices), as shown in Figure H9.10. One slice should contain the images you will use for the animation. One slice should contain the logo at the bottom right. Make the lower-left slice as small as possible, while still containing the entire image. Figure H9.10: The sliced image Use ImageReady’s Smart Guides to snap your slices to the edges of the images. If need be, you can readjust or reposition the slices by dragging their edges with the Slice Select tool. Note Another method of creating slices is to drag guides into the position where you want the image to be sliced. Then choose Slices → Create Slices From Guides. Animating the Images ImageReady can create layer-based animations. Follow these steps to animate the numbered layers: In the Layers palette, turn off the visibility indicators next to all the layers within the animation set. Choose Window → Animation. The frame in the Animation palette displays the visible portions of the image. For the first frame, click the visibility indicator next to Layer 1 in the animation set to make that layer visible. Remember that each frame in the Animation palette in ImageReady displays the current visible layers. You create an animated sequence by making a new frame and then making visible only those layers that you want to appear in the frame. Click the Duplicate Frame icon to insert a frame in the Animation palette. In the Layers palette, click the visibility indicator next to Layer 1 in the animation set to conceal it, and the indicator next to Layer 2 to reveal it. Repeat the process, adding new frames for Layers 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 and changing the l Creating an Image MapAn image map defines an area on the image that will be interactive. Follow these steps to make the logo a link to another Web page: Choose the Polygon Image Map tool . Draw a shape around the logo, as in Figure H9.12. Figure H9.12: Identifying the image map Choose Window → Image Map. In the URL field, enter http:// cyberdance.org (see Figure H9.13). Choose _self from the Target drop-down list. This links the image map to another website. (Note that the URL must include the entire address, as in http://cyberdance.org.) Figure H9.13: The Image Map palette If you want to link the logo to another Web page on this site, you will have to create a place for that page in the same folder as the Ballet Bleu Web page. The title of the page should include the HTML extension, as in aboutballetbleu.html. Creating a Rollover Like animations, rollovers depend on layers for their behavior. You designate a rollover on an image by changing the visibility of a layer’s content. Follow these steps to create a rollover and change the color of the logo: In the Layers palette, be sure that the Logo Black layer is displayed and the Logo Blue layer is concealed. Choose Window → Web Content to display the Web Content palette, seen in Figure H9.14. Figure H9.14: The Web Content palette In the Web Content palette, select the slice that includes the Logo layers, the one labeled slice 04 in Figure H9.14. Click the Create Rollover State button at the bottom of the Web Content palette. A new rollover state appears beneath the slice, labeled Over, as shown in Figure H9.15. Figure H9.15: Rollover states In the Layers palette, conceal the Logo Black layer and reveal the Logo Blue layer (by clicking the visibility icons so they are selected and deselected, respectively). When the mouse is within the boundarie Creating a Remote Rollover By default, rollovers affect only the rollover slice itself. But rollover slices can remotely control other slices, so that moving or clicking the mouse in one part of the screen causes changes in another part of the screen. Follow these instructions to create a rollover that alters the appearance of two slices: In the Web Content palette, select the Over rollover state layer you just created and drag it to the trash icon at the bottom of the palette to delete it. Still in the Web Content palette, right-click the slice that contains the logo image, the slice you just deleted the rollover state from, and choose Group Slices Into Table from the pop-up menu, as shown in Figure H9.16. Figure H9.16: Group Slices Into Table Select the new subslice you just created, right-click it, and choose Divide Slice from the pop-up menu to bring up the Divide Slice dialog box. Divide the slice horizontally into 2 slices, as shown in Figure H9.17. Figure H9.17: Divide Slice dia Previewing the Page Before saving the optimized file, it’s a good idea to look at it in your browser and to test the animation, the rollover, and the image map. Choose File → Preview In and choose a preferred browser from the submenu. The preview displays the Web page and the source code for the document, as shown in Figure H9.21. When the image opens, the animation will run. Place your mouse on the logo; the dancer will change color and the word Enter will appear. Click your mouse, and you will be transported to the cyberdance.org website. Figure H9.21: The Ballet Bleu Web page previewed in Internet Explorer If you get a warning and your animation doesn’t run, don’t worry about it. You’ll fix that in the next step. Optimizing the ImagesAfter the image is complete, you can optimize it slice by slice. To do this, select slices one by one, either by clicking on the image with the Slice Select tool or by clicking on them in the Web Content palette. Optimize the slices individually with the Optimize palette, or select them as a group and apply the same settings. Follow these steps to reduce the file sizes of your slices: In the Web Content palette, use /Ctrl-click to select every slice except the slice at the top right, which contains the animation. Select only the slices, not the rollover states or image maps. In the Optimize palette, choose JPEG Medium for the Preset setting, as in Figure H9.22. Figure H9.22: Optimize palette showing a JPEG setting In the Web Content palette, select the remaining slice, or click on the upper-right slice with the Slice Select tool. In the Optimize palette, choose the setting GIF 64 Dithered (see Figure H9.23) to decrease the file size of the animation and preserve it Web Authoring Alternatives Having brought your page to life, you are ready to publish it to the Web. ImageReady is a good tool for creating simple Web pages with slices, as well as straightforward cell animations and rollovers. For more complex animations, you might want to try Macromedia Flash or Adobe LiveMotion. To create and manage larger, more sophisticated websites, you’ll find what you need in programs such as Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Microsoft FrontPage. Many professional Web designers still prefer to assemble their Web pages in HTML code. They claim the code is cleaner than that generated by WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editors. I recommend that you at least learn basic HTML code, so that you can understand the structure of Web pages and troubleshoot any problems that might result from code that is too complex or that is not universally compatible with all current browsers. Chapter 27: Photoshop and Digital Video Overview A new movement of visual expression is in play, and it’s the digital movement. The computer encompasses all artistic mediums including music, drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, and video. This final chapter will cover how Photoshop enables you to handle still images and titles for video formats to be used in nonlinear video-editing programs. As an extra bonus, if you have Adobe After Effects, you’ll learn how Photoshop stills can easily be composited into your movies. This chapter will cover the following topics: Nonlinear editing Understanding video formats, pixels, and video aspect ratios Preparing Photoshop images for digital video Working with alpha channels for compositing Pulling it all together in After Effects Chapter 27: Photoshop and Digital Video Brief Insight into Nonlinear Editing Imagine that before the advent of digital video, you just finished shooting a short film in 35mm format with the intention of it being 20 minutes in length. The project is on a deadline, but you are nowhere near finished because the film must be previewed and edited—not only to fit the 20-minute time constraint but also to tell your story more effectively. Of course you understand that less can often be more, so you use this philosophy to your advantage. After taking the film to the lab to be processed, you get in return several large reels with hours of footage. Now you are ready to sit at the editing machine and edit through hours of your story to determine what is relevant to the story line and what should be discarded. With the reel on one side of the editing machine, the length of the film is fed through a preview window, where the technician can physically assess and cut away any irrelevant scenes. Now if you want to add a scene from a differe Exploring Video FormatsBecause of the variety of video-editing systems on the market, each has its own proprietary format for preserving timeline edits and special-effects information so the user can save and continue to edit their footage at a later date. For example, Adobe Premiere uses a .ppj file extension, NewTek’s Video Toaster uses .rtv files, Video Delux uses .mtv , and Adobe After Effects uses .aep, to name a few. There are some universal formats such as Targa (.tga), MPEG (.mpg), and AVI. Most editing programs will support those formats. Some will use their own codecs (compression-decompression schemes)—for example, Apple’s QuickTime or Microsoft’s AVI. Some, but not all, formats will incorporate codecs to compress and decompress the video images and sound. This process reduces storage requirements and data rates, enabling you to save the project for distribution via the Web, CDs, or DVDs. Almost all video-editing systems will enable you to export to various formats. All vide Preparing Photoshop Images for Digital VideoThere are a variety of tools for working with files from video, and Adobe has placed a couple of these tools in the Filter menu. They are the De-Interlace and NTSC Colors filters located under Filter → Video. Using the De-Interlace Filter When working with video, it is important to prepare your files so that they are compatible with the environment that they are going in. Let’s say that you really liked a particular frame from previous video footage and you would like to use it for the background of your current project. Photoshop can prepare a still image from interlaced frames to look as if it were originally a noninterlaced image, to give the background a much cleaner look. Let’s start with a digital video image exported to a single JPEG file as shown in Figure 27.6. Notice that you can see the horizontal fields used to create this image; however, your goal is to fill in the empty lines so that the image looks as if it were noninterlaced. Working with Alpha Channels for CompositingThe film industry uses compositing to enhance the visual effects of a story. In short, compositing is the layering of images or other video footage over the main story line for effects purposes. Essentially this is exactly what you do in Photoshop with layers when you blend two or more images together to portray a concept. In this section, you are going to get a little experience applying alpha channels to isolate a subject from its background. The standard image format that all video-editing programs can read and apply an alpha mask to is Targa. Targa files are associated with a .tga extension, and Photoshop CS will save to this extension. I created the image shown in Figure 27.10 in a 3-D program called LightWave by Newtek (www.newtek.com). When I exported into a bitmap, Photoshop placed the object on its own layer. You can take advantage of this to create a selection of your object. Try this: Figure 27.10: My 3-D spaceship From the Photosho Understanding Title-Safe Areas for Video New Photoshop provides most of your video format as a preset in the New File dialog box. Choose File → New, click the down arrow for the preset button, and browse all of the video formats that Adobe has provided. Also notice that guides are listed next to each of the video formats. Choose the NTSC DV 720×480 (With Guides) option. Now look at Figure 27.13 to see what Photoshop CS has given us. Figure 27.13: Video format with guides What are these guides for? Your television set is really closer to a square format, but many DV and big-screen movie formats are more rectangular. So something will have to be cropped off, and the guides show you the areas that are going to be viewed on the television set. The center is also known as safe areas. The center rectangle is known as the Inner Title Safe Area. You want to make sure that all titles are within these borders so that your audience will get the full view of credits without any cropping. The oute Pulling It All Together in After Effects If you have Adobe After Effects, you can apply all that you’ve learned and create a sample special-effects clip. In the ch27 folder on the companion CD, you will find a sample AVI video clip of the Golden Gate Bridge (GoldenGateBridge.avi). You can use the starship Targa file created earlier in this chapter to composite the starship bitmap onto the video clip and make it appear as if it’s flying from the background out toward the camera and then zooming out of view. Open After Effects and begin with the projects box, which is by default on the upper-left corner of your interface. Then follow these steps: Right-click/Ctrl-click within its interface, choose New Folder from the pop-up menu, and name the folder whatever you like (see Figure 27.14). Figure 27.14: Creating a new folder for your project You need to create a new composition that will create the timeline information that you need to create your very short movie. So right-click/Ctrl-click Chapter 1: The Foundations of Photoshop Chapter 2: What’s New in Photoshop CS Chapter 3: The Nature of the Beast Chapter 4: Navigation: Know Where to Go Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop Chapter 6: Making Selections Chapter 7: Layering Your Image Chapter 8: Working with Type Chapter 9: Drawing Paths Chapter 10: Creating and Applying Color Chapter 11: Altered States: History Chapter 12: Using Channels and Quick Mask Chapter 13: Sizing and Transforming Images Chapter 14: Image Capture and Digital Photography Chapter 15: Color Management and Printing Chapter 16: Adjusting Tonality and Color Chapter 17: Modifying and Mapping Color Chapter 18: Duotones and Spot Color Chapter 19: Photo Retouching Chapter 20: Using Filters Chapter 21: Making Difficult Selections Chapter 22: Advanced Layer Techniques Chapter 23: Automating the Process Chapter 24: Overlay Techniques Chapter 25: Web Design with Photoshop and ImageReady Chapter 26: Creating Dynamic Web Elements Chapter 27: Photoshop and Digital Video Chapter 3: The Nature of the Beast Chapter 4: Navigation: Know Where to Go Chapter 6: Making Selections Chapter 7: Layering Your Image Chapter 10: Creating and Applying Color Chapter 12: Using Channels and Quick Mask Chapter 13: Sizing and Transforming Images Chapter 14: Image Capture and Digital Photography Chapter 26: Creating Dynamic Web Elements Chapter 27: Photoshop and Digital Video Chapter 2: What’s New in Photoshop CS Chapter 3: The Nature of the Beast Chapter 4: Navigation: Know Where to Go Chapter 5: Setting Up Photoshop Chapter 9: Drawing Paths Chapter 10: Creating and Applying Color Chapter 13: Sizing and Transforming Images Chapter 14: Image Capture and Digital Photography Chapter 15: Color Management and Printing Chapter 16: Adjusting Tonality and Color Chapter 18: Duotones and Spot Color Chapter 25: Web Design with Photoshop and ImageReady Chapter 27: Photoshop and Digital Video

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