Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Practical Photoshop

“Welcome to issue 142 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99?” Whether you’re just getting started with Photoshop or you’ve used it for years, there are certain tools that you simply can’t do without – so this issue we look at our top 10 favorite photo-enhancing features. Plus: find out about amazing AI-powered portrait masks and make fun snow globe effects. james.paterson@futurenet.com www.digitalcameraworld.com Editor James Paterson Art Editor Rosie Webber Production Editor Richard Hill 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_142 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…

This is a tool that we simply can’t do without. Found in Camera Raw and Lightroom, the Color Mixer Panel gives you a wealth of control over the colors in your image. There are lots of sliders to play with, but there’s no need to use them. Instead, you’re usually better off grabbing the Target Tool, then dragging up or down over colors in your image to alter them. You can target and adjust Hue, Saturation or Luminosity, depending on which tab you’ve selected.…

01 CUT OUT THE KIDS Open the image of children you’ve taken, or use our example in the download. Mask the background with Select > Subject, then click the Add Layer Mask icon in the Layers Panel to hide the background. Zoom in to check the selection edges and paint black on the mask to hide or white to reveal areas. 02 POSITION THE LAYER Open the snow globe image from the download, or use your own. Grab the Move Tool and drag the cut-out portrait layer up to the tab of the snow globe image, then down and in to copy it over. Press Cmd/Ctrl+T for Free Transform, and use the controls to resize and position the kids inside the globe. 03 MASK THE LAYER Press Cmd/Ctrl+G to convert…

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…

It’s only been around for a few weeks, but we’re already finding that the Sky Masking Tool in Camera Raw and Lightroom is one of the most useful image-editing tools ever for enhancing our outdoor photos. Here’s how it works… 01 MAKE A SKY MASK Open an image into Camera Raw, or import it into Lightroom. Click the circular Mask Panel icon in the toolbar on the right, then choose Select Sky. An automated mask will be created for the sky. Check that the mask is successful. If it needs refining, you can add or subtract with the Brush Tool (press Shift+K to add, Alt+K to subtract). 02 ENHANCE THE SKY Once you’re happy with the mask selection, head to the tonal sliders on the right and adjust them to…

Few tools offer the chance to improve and enhance your image like the Crop Tool. Of course, you needn’t use it if your image is perfectly cropped in-camera, but often a little refinement can go a long way. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of the tool… 1 While cropping, press X to switch the crop box orientation between horizontal and vertical. 2 Hold Alt while dragging the corner of the box to resize it from the center point, rather than inwards from one corner. 3 Hold Shift and drag the corner to constrain the horizontal and vertical proportions as you resize the crop box. 4 Hold Shift plus Alt to resize from the centre and constrain the proportions. 5 To quickly access the Straighten…

There are several great retouching tools in Photoshop – but if we could only pick one, it would be the Spot Healing Brush. That’s because retouching can be quite monotonous for the most part, so you need a tool that does the job quickly with the minimum of fuss. Found in the Photoshop toolbar, the Spot Healing Brush tool works like a brush, and you simply paint over areas to fix them. Photoshop will do the rest. To keep your retouching non-destructive, make a new empty layer and set the tool to Sample All Layers in the tool options at the top. The Spot Healing Brush works brilliantly for isolated problems like sensor marks and spots, but it can also fix larger distractions like the rock on the left here.…

Here’s a fun project to try over the festive break, and a great way to learn new camera and editing skills. Over the next few pages we’ll show you how to make a Christmas snow globe composite. We’ll shoot two separate images for this – the children and the snow globe – and blend the two together in Photoshop. To add a little extra depth and color to the composite, we have also supplied a collection of lovely bokeh images for you to use, either in this project or to add an atmospheric glow to any festive photo. The key is to match up the details in both photos. The more consistency between the two, the easier they’ll be to blend together. So we need to think about consistent lighting,…

01 SET UP THE SNOW GLOBE We’ve provided a snow globe image for you to use in the download, but if you want to shoot your own instead, set up the globe and a few other colorful Christmas items. We also put up some fairy lights in the background – when they’re captured out-of-focus, they create beautiful background bokeh. 02 LIGHT THE SCENE We lit our snow globe scene using two LED lights: one above and to the left of the camera, the other on the right. You can use any household lamp to light your scene, but using LEDs like the Amaram model here means we can fine-tune the color temperature of the lights for an inviting, warm glow that enhances the shot. 03 USE A WIDE APERTURE A…

Color Balance ticks a lot of boxes. Not only is it simple and intuitive to use, it lets you create subtle but powerful color shifts – whether you want to fix an unwanted color cast or make a creative change to the mood of the photo. To begin, go to the Layers Panel in Photoshop, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom and choose Color Balance, then start experimenting. The great thing about Color Balance is how you can shift the colors in either the shadows, midtones or highlights (using the dropdown at the top of the settings) so you can tint each part of the tonal range independently of the others.…

Found in Camera Raw and Lightroom (as well as in the Camera Raw filter in Photoshop) the Dehaze Tool is great not only for enhancing hazy photos, but also for pulling detail and contrast out of an image. However, it’s very easy to overdo it, and the results can quickly become overly processed. The key is to use it selectively with the masking tools in Camera Raw or Lightroom. Here we’ve created separate masks for the sky, the beach in the foreground and distant Mont St Michel, then applied varying levels of Dehaze – along with other tonal tweaks – to tailor the edits to specific parts of the photo. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3v5zSbW…

1 CAMERA SETTINGS We set the camera to Manual mode with shutter speed 1/250 sec, aperture f/6.3 and Auto ISO. The ISO adapts to the ambient light, while the shutter speed is fast enough to freeze the action. The mid-range aperture provides enough depth of field to ensure sharp subjects. 2 LARGE WINDOW A large window or patio door is ideal for this project. We created a platform outside the window, then asked the children to press their cheeks, noses and hands up against the pane of glass, so that their squashed faces could be merged with the snow globe later on. 3 LIGHTING We used two LED lights to illuminate the children: one placed inside and to the left of the camera, the other outside to the right of…