Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2022 i Practical Photoshop

Layers are the most fundamental feature in Photoshop, and the cornerstone upon which so many other tools and features are based. But they’re often misunderstood or used wrongly. Over the next few pages, we’ll introduce you to the key points behind layers, and take an in-depth look at the making of our cover image. As well as explaining how to carry out each stage in the technique, we’ll delve deeper into the theory that underpins them. In essence, layers are a way to keep elements in an image separate and editable from one another. Like working with several sheets of acetate paper sandwiched together, we can combine different elements or effects into a cohesive whole while being able to edit each component, tweak a setting, or reposition an object. Layers…

01 DROP IN THE WREATH Go to File > New and choose an A4 template, then set Background Contents to White and click OK. Download the free wreath image from pixabay.com (search for 3005547). Drag it into the document and resize it to fit. Click the FX icon and choose Drop Shadow; use the settings shown to the right. 02 MAKE A FRAME Grab the Frame Tool from the Photoshop Tools Panel, then drag a box over part of the wreath, as shown to the right. Go to File > Properties to bring up the options for the Frame Tool. Click the Stroke color box and pick white, set the Stroke width to about 8 pixels and press the Return key to apply. 03 BUILD THE TEMPLATE Get the Move Tool.…

1 CHECK YOUR ANGLES Before heading out, consider the position of the sun and where it’s likely to set: it’ll give you a better idea of which parts of the scene will be illuminated by the horizontal evening light of the setting sun. An app like The Photographer’s Ephemeris is ideal for this. 2 TIME IT RIGHT Find out what time the sun will be setting using a weather app. This will indicate when to arrive and how long to stay. We set up a couple of hours before sunset, then stayed a half-hour beyond it. Throughout this time, the light and clouds changed dramatically. 3 EXPERIMENT WITH COMPOSITIONS Upon arrival, walk around taking handheld shots of the scene to seek out the best composition. Once decided, you’ll have to…

This project can highlight the benefits of waiting around for the best light. The variety of cloud cover and wind speed during our shoot meant that the sky was constantly changing over the course of the evening. We were treated to beautiful evening sunlight, low gray clouds, vibrant sunset tints, and even a bank of mist that rolled in at twilight. The most vibrant sky fleetingly emerged about 40 minutes before sunset. After this, the sun disappeared behind thick low cloud, and sundown was barely visible on the horizon. With such variety, it’s also worth trying a time slice like this. Simply copy and mask slivers of the scene into a single image.…

The latest version of the raw file processor included with Photoshop is so powerful that most photos can be processed entirely in the raw processor, with no need for further editing in Photoshop. And by making your adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw, rather than in Photoshop, you’ll ensure the best possible image quality, because raw files contain more picture information than bitmap images such as un-layered PSDs and JPEGs. Here’s our reference to the features you’ll use the most in the Basic panel. THE BASIC PANEL IN ACR TEMPERATURE Use this slider to warm or cool an image if the White Balance tool fails to correct a color cast TINT This slider enables you to correct a green or magenta cast, again, if the White Balance tool fails EXPOSURE Controls…

1 Hold Cmd/Ctrl and click on the thumbnail of any layer or mask to load a selection of the shape of the layer. 2 Hold Alt and drag any layer up or down the layer stack to make a quick copy of this layer. 3 Hold Alt and drag a Layer Mask or Layer Style to other layers to quickly copy it over. 4 Hold Cmd/Ctrl and click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel to make a new layer underneath the currently highlighted layer. 5 Hold Alt and click the Layer Mask icon to add a full black mask to a layer, which hides everything below. 6 After making an Adjustment Layer, press Cmd/Ctrl+I to quickly invert the mask and hide the effect, then paint…

WATCH THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/3X4tFKh Photoshop Actions allow you to save and reuse a sequence of edits, commands and settings. If you carry out a task once, you need never to do it all again. You can use Actions to automate tasks, speed up your workflow and access your most-used Photoshop features. It only takes a moment to create an Action for a sequence of edits, then the same sequence can be applied to other images with a click. What if there are certain points in the sequence where you want to change things manually? Well, you can build stops and pauses into your Actions, as well as several other useful functions. In this tutorial, we’ll explore some key features and show you how to create custom Actions. As an example,…

01 PREPARE THE PHOTOS Use Bridge to select the frames you want to use – we picked one for the sky, another for the land, but you could use more. Highlight the shots, then right-click and choose Open In Camera Raw. Use the tonal tools to prepare the images. Here, a boost to Saturation in the reds and oranges of the Color Mixer Panel enhances the clouds. 02 ALIGN THE LAYERS Click OK to return to Bridge. With the images still highlighted, go to Tools > Photoshop > Load Files Into Photoshop Layers. In Photoshop, go to the Layers panel and Cmd/Ctrl-click to highlight all the layers. Go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers. Set Auto and click OK. This will correct any misalignments between frames. 03 ADD A LAYER MASK…

If you’re relatively new to editing in Photoshop, or you just don’t know where to begin, then this section is the best place to get started. Over the next 10 pages, you’ll find an overview of the different versions of Photoshop available; a breakdown of the typical image-editing workflow in Photoshop; an overview of raw file editing; a guide to the six most useful layers; and a glossary of the most useful shortcuts. This guide condenses most of the tools and techniques you’ll use every time you import a new roll of pictures. CREATIVE CLOUD PLANS CHOOSE THE PLAN WITH THE COMBINATION OF TOOLS AND STORAGE YOU NEED PHOTOSHOP CC FROM £9.98/$9.99 PER MONTH WINDOWS, macOS Photoshop is the software of choice for most professional and non-professional photographers. Beyond the standard…

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…

WATCH THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/3hPdrVg Whether you prefer to send them through the post or online, a personalized Christmas card is a wonderful way to share both season’s greetings and cherished photos with friends and family. In this project, we’ll look at how to create a Christmas wreath collage using a selection of photos. We’ll fill the shape of the wreath with our photos, then fine-tune the collage so that everything fits together. This involves fundamental layer skills, masking techniques and selections. We’ll begin with a wreath shape, which can be downloaded from pixabay.com (search for wreath_3005547). You can use this wreath shape as a base to add our own photos, then bring everything together with masks and text. Key to this effect is Photoshop’s Frame Tool: it lets us make…

01 USE APERTURE PRIORITY A set-and-forget exposure mode is the easiest option on a lengthy shoot like this. Aperture Priority mode is a good choice, as we can use a narrow aperture of f/16 for maximum depth of field, and set ISO 100 for max image quality, then let the metering work out the correct shutter speed for us. 02 BRACKET YOUR SHOTS Time-blending involves combining frames taken at different times of the day, so it can be difficult to predict exactly which frames you’ll use, and how they’ll look when blended. To give yourself more options, bracket your shots. We set up to take three frames at a time, each with a 1-stop increment. 03 TRY A TIME LAPSE If you want to leave your camera unmanned for a…

The image-editing process begins as soon as you’ve transferred your photos from your memory card to your computer. 1 The first stage is to begin sifting through your pictures to discover which are the keepers. The image organizer that comes with Photoshop is ideal for this task. Adobe Bridge has controls for keywording, rating and filtering your images, and there are handy tools for batch renaming files, creating panoramic stitches, making contact sheets and more. Launch Adobe Bridge and navigate to a folder containing new images. Use the cursor keys to quickly flick through the images and click below a thumbnail to add a star rating, or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+1-5. You can then filter your photos by the star rating to group the ones you want to work…