Innehållsförteckning för August 2020 från Practical Photoshop

“Welcome to issue 113 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99?” For something that is essentially very simple, sharpening often leads to a lot of confusion. This issue, our complete guide to sharpening your photos will help you cut through the jargon and crisp up your photos with ease. Elsewhere, we get creative with time-lapse sequences and craft cinematic portraits. www.digitalcameraworld.com 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_113 FIND US HERE… http://bit.ly/practweet http://bit.ly/pracface Also available on: http://tiny.cc/4dw9ky http://tiny.cc/rew9ky http://tiny.cc/8ew9ky…

There are no rules when it comes to sharpening. The strength of sharpening is up to you, and will differ depending on the content, details and textures in your image, as well as your exposure settings and ISO. In general, images with lots of high-frequency detail, like landscapes, often benefit from a lower Radius setting; while more low-frequency images, like portraits with lots of smooth skin, usually look good with slightly higher Radius settings. While judging the right amount of sharpening, it’s always best to zoom to 100%, as this shows the actual pixels. Sometimes it can help to push the Amount slider up to 100 so that the image looks over-sharpened, then gradually pull it back. It’s easier to recognise too much sharpening than too little.…

Sharpening is a subject that photographers tend to worked up over. But it’s not worth worrying about. Bear in mind that the camera, lens and exposure settings you use to capture the image are far more important for sharp photos than the sharpening settings you apply later. So keep it simple, decide on a setting and forget about it. Just keep in mind the golden rule - don’t sharpen too much. Nobody ever looked at a photo and thought to themselves, “Eurgh, that is horribly under-sharpened!” – but it can certainly happen with over-sharpened images. So, as with most Photoshop edits, just don’t push it too far.…

1 THE SMART SHARPEN COMMAND Begin by resizing your image for your chosen output, like a specific print size or a resolution for onscreen viewing. To quickly do this, grab the Crop Tool, choose ‘Width, Height and Resolution’ in the options then input your print size, set to 300 pixels per inch. Next go to Filter > Sharpen for Smart Sharpen. 2 AMOUNT SLIDER In essence sharpening is simply localized contrast, applied along edges (where lighter pixels meet darker pixels). Amount controls the strength of the change in contrast. In other words, it determines how much brighter the pixels on the light side of the edge will go, as well as the darkness of the pixels along the dark side of the edge. 3 RADIUS SLIDER Radius sets the distance…

Found within the Photoshop toolbar, the Sharpen tool lets you apply localized sharpening. It’s useful for sharpening the areas of a photo that might need it most, like the eyes in a portrait or a tree in a landscape. As the tool works like a paintbrush, it’s very quick and easy to use: simply set a strength, then paint over parts of the image to sharpen the details. It’s best to check Protect Tones and set the strength fairly low – around 10-20 – then build up the sharpening gradually. It’s also a good idea to set the tool to Sample All Layers, then paint on a new empty layer to keep the sharpening non-destructive, so you can change your mind later on.…

1 KEY LIGHT We lit the face of our subject with a single flashgun, fitted to a light stand and used in combination with an umbrella softbox. Modifiers like this offer a soft spread of diffuse light that is perfect for portraiture. We also attached a wireless trigger to the camera. 2 REFLECTOR ON STAND A silver reflector was placed opposite the key light and just below the face, angled back towards the subject so that it bounces some light into the shadows. This helps to lift the darker areas under the eyes and offers an attractive second catchlight in the eyes of your subject. 3 LONG FOCAL LENGTH Longer lenses, like the 70-200mm used here, are generally better for headshots, as they result in an attractively proportioned face, as…

01 MAKE A LETTERBOX Open your image, then go to View > New Guide. Check Horizontal and set Position to 8%, then add a second guide and set Position to 92%. Next up, you’ll want to grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Drag a box over the top section of the photograph, then hold Shift and add the bottom section. 02 FILL AND CROP Make a new layer in the Layers Panel, then go to Edit > Fill and set Contents to black. Press Cmd/Ctrl+D to deselect then go to View > Clear Guides. You may want to reposition the portrait a bit, depending on how it looks. Double-click the bottom layer and use the Move Tool to tweak the positioning. Make any necessary tonal adjustments to finish.…

Sharpening is an essential stage in image-editing. It has the potential to make any image look better. However, several questions arise. Which sharpening tools should you use? How strong should the effect be? And at which point in your workflow should you sharpen? In this guide, we’ll look at how and when to sharpen, and the tools that are best suited to the job. Photoshop and Lightroom offer an array of sharpening tools and commands. They’re very capable, but can initially seem a little confusing. Take Unsharp Mask, for example: this sounds like it’s going to make your image less sharp, but it’s called this because it first blurs, then subtracts the blur, hence the ‘mask’ part. Other terms can be confusing too. Sliders named things like radius, threshold, detail,…

The Masking slider is invaluable for controlling your sharpening. You don’t want to sharpen intentionally soft or blurry areas, as this will only amplify the image noise. Masking lets you protect low-frequency areas of the image, like blurred parts or areas of uniform color. Simply hold Alt and drag the slider. Initially the screen will be white, but as you drag, areas will begin to show in black. These will be excluded from the sharpening. Here it lets us knock out the soft backdrop, so our sharpening only affects the subject.…

Unsharp Mask is one of the best filters available in Photoshop for sharpening your images. It should be used at the end of your workflow, after the resolution has been set for a specific output. Unsharp Mask sounds like the opposite of what it actually does – so why the strange name? It refers to an old film process in which two versions of the image – one sharp negative, one intentionally blurred (‘unsharp’) positive – were sandwiched together, resulting in crisper details. Here are the key settings… 1 SET THE AMOUNT Unsharp Mask’s Amount slider sets the overall strength of sharpening in an image, by determining how dark or bright the edge details become. It’s effectively a contrast control for edges. A typical setting for a 12-inch print would…

1 USE THE OBJECT SELECTION TOOL Sometimes you can help your subject to ‘pop’ by selectively sharpening it. A quick way to isolate it is with the Object Selection Tool. Simply grab the tool from the toolbar, drag a box over the area you want to sharpen, then use either Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen to crisp up the area. 2 TARGET IN-FOCUS AREAS There’s never really any need to sharpen the soft, out-of-focus areas of an image, as there are no fine edges there to sharpen, and you may just end up amplifying noise or artifacts instead. For a quick way to target the in-focus areas in a photo, try Select > Focus Area, then once that’s done use a sharpening filter to sharpen the in-focus range and leave…

This simple technique is a creative way to show off an entire time-lapse sequence in a single photograph. These sequences are a great way to show the passing day in a garden or elsewhere. All you need to do is set up your camera on a tripod and engage the interval shooting setting. If your camera does not have this feature, you can buy an extra cable release with a built-in interval timer. Alternatively, simply press the shutter every 20 minutes or so while you do household chores. The time-lapse method is a fantastic way of showing the transition between night and day, but you can also use the same technique for any sequence in which the subject changes over time, from a bowl of melting ice cream to the…

01 SHOOT SOFT BACKGROUNDS For the perfect backdrop, it helps to experiment by defocusing the lens, then taking a few test shots to see how the background looks when blurred. The best backdrops for this usually have a mix of light and dark. Specular highlights like bright lights can also look beautiful when blurred. 02 USE A WIDE APERTURE A wide aperture gives us the lovely blurred backdrop that we want for this kind of portrait. Most of our shots were taken at f/2.8, but for comparison here’s one taken at f/8. You can see this gives us a more detailed background. So the wider the aperture, the more blurred the backdrop. 03 CROP INTO THE FACE Including the entire head can result in a shot that looks like a…

You can paint to increase the strength of sharpening over parts of your image, perhaps to draw attention to a feature in a landscape image or to lift details in a wildlife photo. Simply grab the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw or Lightroom, paint over the area and increase the Sharpen slider to boost the area. Checking Auto-Mask in the Adjustment Brush settings can help you to quickly paint over an object or shape in your image, as it makes the brush seek out edges as you paint.…

1 SOFTEN SKIN Press Cmd/Ctrl+J to copy the Background layer. Go to Filter > Other > High Pass and Radius set between 20 and 30px. Click OK to confirm. Set the layer’s Blending Mode to Soft Light, then press Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert tones. Altclick Add Mask to hide the softening, use the Brush Tool to paint white over the skin. 2 SHARPEN DETAILS Press Cmd/Ctrl +Shift+Alt+E to merge a new layer from the others, then right-click the new layer and choose Convert to Smart Object. Apply High Pass with Radius at 3px, then set the layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay. As with the softening effect, you can apply the sharpening selectively with a Layer Mask. 1 HIGH PASS SHARPENING The High Pass filter seeks out edges while smoothing out everything…

Why not semi-automate your creative sharpening? By using a combination of the Select Subject and Focus Area commands, you can quickly isolate and sharpen just the in-focus parts of your subject. Even better, you can make an action that will do it in a single click. First go to the Actions Panel and click the New Action icon, then click Record. Go to Select > Subject, then press Cmd/Ctrl+J to copy the selection to a new layer. Next go to Select > Focus Area and click OK. Finally go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask, set a basic level of sharpening, and click OK. Go to the Actions Panel and stop the action. Open up the action steps in the panel and check the box next to Unsharp Mask.…

If you want your headshot portraits to have a vibrant, more polished look, why not try shooting in a cinematic style? With a few simple camera skills, you can get the look of a film still and transform your subjects into would-be movie stars. As with most great portraits, this has a lot to do with lighting, but it’s also about knowing how to get a lovely, soft background. Combine these techniques and you’ll be able to craft headshots and portraits with real star power. There are two key elements that go into creating a cinematic headshot. The first is the backdrop. Ideally, this should be a jumble of details, colors and changes in light. With simple camera skills and the right lens, you can blur out the backdrop and…

01 EXPOSE FOR BACKDROPS Before turning on the flash, look for an angle where the backdrop is lighter than the subject, then try a test shot. Set Manual with a shutter speed of 1/200 sec, a wide aperture, like f/2.8, and a low ISO (100 here). We want the subject to be slightly dark. 02 WORK OUT A FLASH POWER Next, set up a flashgun in an umbrella or softbox, positioned slightly to the side of the camera in front of your subject. Attach a trigger so it can be fired wirelessly. Using manual flash power, take a couple of test shots to determine the right power to light the face. 03 POSITION A REFLECTOR With the flash positioned above and to the right of the camera, the shadows will…

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…