Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i Practical Photoshop

“Welcome to issue 136 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99?” Sharpening is one of the most important editing tasks, but’s it’s often misunderstood. In this issue’s feature you can learn pretty much everything there is to know about it. Elsewhere, discover the latest updates to your favorite image editors, and learn to make powerful effects like the cover image. www.digitalcameraworld.com Editor James Paterson Art Editor Rosie Webber Production Editor Kyle Hearse Content Director Chris George Senior Art Editor Warren Brown DOWNLOAD THE PROJECT FILES To download this issue's files, type the following link into your web browser on your PC or Mac: https://bit.ly/pho_136 FIND US HERE… http://bit.ly/practweet http://bit.ly/pracface Also available on: http://bit.ly/pp_pocketmags http://bit.ly/pp_app_store http://bit.ly/zinio_pp…

As discussed earlier, sharpening increases contrast along edges. The four key sharpening tools in Photoshop – Unsharp Mask, Smart Sharpen, High Pass and the Detail Panel in Camera Raw – all have a Radius control. This determines how far from the edge sharpening will occur. Set to a low value, the contrast change may only spread a pixel or two from the edge, but with a higher value the change expands outwards on either side of the edge. If we push it too far, we might see halos around details in the image. As such, Amount and Radius are directly tied to one another, and one doesn’t work without the other.…

The Masking slider in Camera Raw and Lightroom can be very helpful for restricting image noise to in-focus detailed parts of a photo. After applying sharpening the shot universally with the Amount, Radius and Detail sliders above, hold Alt and drag the Masking slider to the right. You’ll see areas begin to appear in black and white. The black areas will be excluded. This allows us to restrict sharpening to areas of detail in the image. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3HA9z34…

When sharpening for print, always do so after resizing for a specific print size. The correct resolution for prints is 300 pixels per inch. So a 10-inch print should be 3,000 pixels wide. Typically prints need a stronger level of sharpening than images for web, as the printing process tends to soften them slightly. So in general, push the sharpening effect slightly further than you might think acceptable.…

Of all sharpening techniques, perhaps the most-loved by photographers is the High Pass method. It brings a crispness to the details without overly affecting image noise. The High Pass technique is especially suitable for localized sharpening of specific areas of an image. Watch the video for a neat trick involving Focus Area, which lets us target just the in-focus parts of the image with our high pass sharpening effect. 01 DUPLICATE AND BLEND Open high_pass_before into Photoshop CC. Go to the Layers Panel (Window > Layers) and hit Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate the Background layer. Double-click the layer name of the duplicate and rename it to ‘Sharpen’. Next, right-click the layer and select Convert to Smart Object. 02 CHANGE TO OVERLAY Go to the Blending Mode dropdown at the top of…

Why not use AI-powered selection tools to zero in on your subject before sharpening? In Photoshop, try using Select > Subject, then use the Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen to boost the subject. In Camera Raw or Lightroom, use the Select Subject Mask, then increase the Sharpness slider to crisp up the area.…

If an image has been ruined by camera shake, the Shake Reduction Tool can improve things and give you a sharper image. It’s not a miracle worker, but for slight shake it can certainly help. Shake Reduction works by analyzing the image for the direction and length of the blur. The command will determine the ideal areas to base the correction on by adding a blur trace, then the fix is applied across the entire image. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3O6JlI5…

1 SUCTION MOUNT A suction stand lets us attach the camera to the window of the car. This small arm with a tripod-like head sticks to the window to create a firm bond capable of holding a heavy camera. Of course, ensure that the stand will hold the camera before speeding off, and wrap the strap around the wing mirror, just in case! 2 CAMERA SETTINGS Our camera is in Manual mode here with a shutter speed of 4 secs, the aperture at f/18 and ISO 1,600. The four-second exposure length transforms the surrounding lights and details into luscious motion blur, while the narrow aperture ensures plenty of depth of field in the car and subject. 3 PREPARE THE CAR For the face to come out sharp, we need to…

01 SELECT THE SUBJECT Open the portrait into Photoshop then go to Select > Subject. Grab the Quick Selection Brush and paint to add any other areas to the selection, or hold Alt and paint to subtract. Go to Select > Select And Mask. Increase Radius to improve the edge, then choose Output: New Layer With Layer Mask. 02 FILL THE BACKGROUND Go to the Layers panel, hold Cmd/Ctrl and click the thumbnail of the layer mask to load it as a selection. Highlight and reveal the bottommost layer, then go to Select > Modify > Expand and expand by 5 pixels. Next, go to Edit > Fill, set Contents: Content-Aware and click OK. 03 BLUR AND TINT Go to Filter > Blur Gallery > Path Blur. Drag a curved…

TONE YOUR VIDEOS IN LIGHTROOM CC The headline feature here is video editing in Lightroom CC. Lightroom has previously offered very basic video editing functions in Lightroom Classic, in that you could view video clips in the Library and apply tonal changes with the Quick Develop tools in the Library Module. But crucially, you couldn’t work on video in the Develop Module. Now you can use Lightroom CC’s powerful array of tonal controls on your videos in much the same way as you do on your stills (with a few limitations – unfortunately you can’t use local masking tools). You can also use presets for different tonal effects, and easily sync edits made on one video clip to several others (or copy edits from stills to videos). While you’re also…

There are essentially four sharpening tools and techniques that you need to know. These are the Camera Raw Detail Panel, the Unsharp Mask filter, the Smart Sharpen filter and the High Pass method. There also are a couple of useful selective sharpening tools: the Sharpen tool in Photoshop and the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw and Lightroom. Rudimentary filters like Sharpen, Sharpen Edges and Sharpen More might give decent results, but the lack of control makes them redundant compared with these more advanced tools.…

When an image has out-of-focus, detail-less areas, there’s really no need to apply universal sharpening to these areas: all we end up doing is amplifying the image noise. As such, it’s often better to apply selective sharpening to different areas. There are several ways to do this. You could use layers, selections and masks in Photoshop to zero in on different areas (we’ll explore a few techniques for this later on).…

Digital images are inherently soft, so they need some level of sharpening just to make them appear acceptable. If your camera is set to shoot in JPEG, the initial sharpening takes place in-camera. By contrast, with raw files you need to do your own initial sharpening. This is sometimes called Capture Sharpening, as it happens at the start of a workflow (as opposed to Output Sharpening, which happens at the end, after an image has been resized for print or web). Capture Sharpening usually takes place in your chosen raw editor, like the Detail Panel within Lightroom or Photoshop’s Camera Raw plugin.…

Ironically one of the best tools for sharpening, Unsharp Mask, sounds like the opposite of what it’s doing (it’s called Unsharp Mask because it blurs then subtracts the blur, resulting in enhanced edges). First double-click the Zoom tool to zoom to 100% view, then duplicate the layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) and go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Use the Amount slider to control the strength of the effect and Radius to control the spread, then increase Threshold to prevent the sharpening from amplifying image noise. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3tPwK3U…

Sharpening is directly linked to image quality, resolution and crispness, so if we want sharper photos we need to think beyond which sharpening tools to use. We also need to consider how to get the best quality from our digital photos. Options like Enhance Details and Super Resolution can give us a better starting point. If you need a boost in resolution, simply right-click an image in Camera Raw, go to Enhance and click Apply to double the resolution. For better-quality raws, consider using DxO plugins like PureRaw. This applies AI-powered noise reduction and industry-leading lens-correcting tools, resulting in a sharper, higher-quality raw file. It’s especially effective for high-ISO images, as it reduces noise and enhances details to an astonishing degree.…

01 TIME IT RIGHT Your shutter speed needs to be slow enough to blur the motion of the surroundings. Here, at 1/10 sec there’s too much detail in the reflection, while the 4 secs in our main image gives better blur. Of course, for faster motion – like a speeding train – you can use a faster shutter speed. 02 SECURE THE CAMERA The camera needs to stay as still as possible as you shoot, so that some parts of the scene come out sharp while the motion is blurred. The suction cup here acts much like a tripod, only it moves in sync with the motion of the car. Check that the attachment is secure! 03 FIRE THE SHUTTER We need to fire the shutter remotely, especially if we’re…

Sharpening is essentially a form of contrast control, and contrast is increased by making shadows darker and highlights brighter. With sharpening, this is done along the edges in the image where dark pixels meet lighter pixels. The pixels along the dark side of the edge will become darker, and the pixels along the light side will get brighter. Most sharpening controls have an Amount slider or Sharpening slider that controls how strong the change in contrast will be. You’ll find a slider like this in Unsharp Mask, Smart Sharpen and the Detail Panel in Camera Raw and Lightroom.…

There are no hard rules with sharpening. The best advice is to eyeball the image and use your judgement to decide how sharp it needs to be. Different settings will typically be suited to different types of subject. Portraits, for example, will usually benefit from a combination of high Radius and lower Amount. This is because with portraits there are usually areas of smooth detail in skin and clothes, then points of sharp detail dotted around the frame like the eyes, lips and hair. By contrast, with landscapes and other detail-heavy scenes, the opposite approach tends to work better.…

Sharpening is tied to resolution: if we alter the resolution of an image, perhaps in order to prepare it for printing or web publication, we often need to apply sharpening too. So once we’ve resized an image for a specific output – whether it be a 10x15 inch print or a 600px web image – we need to apply output sharpening that is tailored to the specific media and resolution of the image, to ensure that the image looks nice and sharp when viewed in its end format. Usually the ideal tool for this will be Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen. But if you want to export images directly from Camera Raw or Lightroom without having to open them into Photoshop, there’s a simple, effective output sharpening tool in…

If you want options, Smart Sharpen gives you more sliders and controls than any other sharpening tool. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen to launch. Once open, make sure ‘More Accurate’ is checked under the cog dropdown at the top. Use the Amount and Radius sliders to apply sharpening. There are further options to remove noise, fix blur and apply sharpening to the shadows or highlights independently of one another. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3O9uwo7…

After you’ve applied sharpening to a duplicate layer using the Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen filters, you may notice that halos appear around areas of extreme contrast, such as the horizon line. Rather than trying to reign in the sharpening (which might adversely affect other areas), you can remove the halos with the Blend If command. Simply double-click the layer to open up the Blending options. In the Blend If settings, drag the This Layer highlights sliders inwards slightly to knock out the brightest parts of the layer. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3Oa86Tu…

We’re all used to seeing portraits with lovely background bokeh, but what about a different kind of blur? Motion blur can give your portraits a dynamic sense of speed and blur the surroundings into gorgeous silky streaks. In this project, we’ll look at how it’s done. First we’ll explain how to shoot subjects in moving cars, to capture both stunning blurred trails of light and a sharp subject in a single frame; then we’ll explore a few other methods for shooting beautiful motion-blurred backgrounds. This can be something of a balancing act in terms of our camera settings. We need to slow our shutter speed down to allow for moving parts of the scene to become blurred, while keeping the shutter speed fast enough to capture the person sharply. We…

01 TWIRL AN UMBRELLA If you can’t find any motion in the scene to work with, why not create some of your own? An umbrella like this (with colorful patterning on the inside) looks fantastic when twirled around by your subject. This was taken in Shutter Priority mode at 1/10 sec, aperture f/11, ISO 100. 02 PAN WITH THE SUBJECT If your subject is moving through the frame – perhaps on a bike or skateboard – try panning your camera along with the motion. Get it right and the subject will be sharp while the background is motion-blurred. Here the camera is in Shutter Priority mode at 1/30 sec, aperture f/16, ISO 100.…

Photoshop has many types of layers and adjustment layers available, but there are six that you’ll find you need to use again and again. Learning how they should be used may seem a little daunting for beginners, but once you’ve got to grips with them, you’ll find they play a part in the creative process of almost every image you make. 01 LEVELS This should be the first layer you add to an image, because it fundamentally alters the tonal range of the entire image. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer, drag the Black point slider inwards until it touches the left-hand edge of the histogram, and drag the White point slider inwards to the right-hand edge. This remaps the tones of the image to make more of the available tonal…