Innehållsförteckning för May 2023 från Practical Photoshop

Welcome to issue 146 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99? You can make all kinds of fun glow effects in Photoshop with a cunning combination of filters, layer styles and blending tricks. This issue we show you how with a range of clever techniques, from simple glow filters to light painting skills. Elsewhere, there’s a complete guide to Luminosity Masking. 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_146 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 HIGHLIGHTS:…

Infrared film – or an infrared converted camera – allows you to create ethereal glowing images, by capturing infrared light that is invisible to the naked eye. Foliage and trees in particular will take on an intense glow. You can get the look of infrared in Photoshop with a combination of tonal tools and filter effects. First we can make plants and leaves brighter by lifting the luminance of the yellows and greens, which is easily done in the Camera Raw HSL Panel. Blues tend to go very dark, so we can lower the Luminance of the blue range too. Once done, we can open into Photoshop and use a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer, which has a handy Black And White Infrared Preset. Finally, we can Dodge and Burn to…

There are many reasons to go to the beach, but flinging around a disco light in the dark is probably among the more unusual pastimes. However, while it might get you a few funny looks, it can lead to some truly vibrant photos. In this project, we’ll look at how to create stunning long-exposure light paintings with a combination of shooting and Photoshop skills. The process begins with an after-dark shoot, during which we swing a torch or other suitable light source around to create swirling patterns. The beach setting isn’t essential – it can be done in your back garden, a darkened room or any dim setting. But to add extra sparkle to our light painting, we headed to the coast and splashed around in the shallows with our…

01 POSITION THE SHAPE Open a frame of the empty scene. Next, open an image of the shape you want to use – we chose a water lily. Grab the Move Tool and drag the shape into the empty scene to copy it over. Press Cmd/Ctrl+T to transform, then resize and position the shape to fit. Go to the Layers Panel and reduce the opacity so it’s just visible. 02 CHOOSE A PAINTING Find a suitable flowing line in your set of newly shot light-painting images that roughly mimics part of your reference shape. Make a rough selection of it with the Lasso Tool then copy (Cmd/Ctrl+C) and Paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V) it into the empty image. Grab the Move Tool and position the image roughly in place. 03 WARP THE PAINTING…

01 DARKEN THE IMAGE If - like the train here - you’re using an image that was taken during daytime, then begin by darkening it. The darker it is, the stronger the fire effect will show. We can do this in Camera Raw. Open the image into Photoshop and go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter, then use the Exposure and tonal sliders to darken it as shown. 02 BLEND THE FIRE Open a fire image (here we used several free downloadable images from Pixabay.com; search for images 4744023, 2262295, 2730796 and 971046) then drag it into your main image with the Move Tool. Press Cmd/Ctrl+T to enter Transform Mode, then position and resize the fire to fit with the image. 03 ADD MASKS Set the Blend Mode of the…

1 SHOOT AT THE BEACH A beach or lake will be ideal for your splashing light painting. Even a large puddle will do. The water creates attractive colorful reflections. We shot our scene on sand with shallow rivers of seawater at low tide. Weigh the tripod down with a camera bag for stability. 2 STAY SAFE Safety is paramount whenever you’re taking pictures around water, especially when it’s dark. A shallow area like this is the best option – and in chilly weather, you won’t have to get too wet! Keep your camera and lenses free of sand as much as possible. 3 SET UP A TRIPOD We need a tripod to keep the camera still throughout the shoot. When you shoot on wet sand, make sure the legs don’t…

The Warp command in Photoshop is fantastic for reshaping layers into any form you like. To initiate it, go to Edit > Transform > Warp (or, instead, right-click while transforming a layer to access the Warp feature). There are a few crucial controls. First, the grid in the top-left lets you set how many segments your warp box has. The more segments, the tighter the changes you can make. As well as choosing from a standard grid like 3x3, you can also Cmd/Ctrl-click to add your own anchor points on the layer. Now you can either drag a single point; or hold Shift and drag a box to highlight several anchor points, then move them all at once. If you’re after more pixel-pushing controls, head to the Liquify command (Filter…

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…

01 PLOT A PATH Open any image you have that has a fairly dark backdrop. Grab the Pen Tool, then click and drag to make a few curved flowing lines as shown, with the aim of wrapping the lines around the subject. After drawing any line, you can hold the Cmd/Ctrl key and drag anchor points to tweak the position of the path. 02 SET UP A BRUSH Click the New Layer icon in the Layers Panel to add a new empty layer, then grab the Brush Tool. The characteristics of the brush we set – the size, hardness and color – will determine the look of our flowing line. So set a fairly small size, choose a light color (or white), and lower the hardness. 03 STROKE THE PATH…

01 MAKE A SHAPE Open a portrait image (it’s best to use one with a dark backdrop, as we’ve done here), then grab the Pen Tool. Use the Pen Tool to click anchor points to make a triangle – or any geometric shape you like – within the image. Once done, click the Shape button in the tool options at the top to convert the path to a Shape Layer. 02 SET UP A STROKE Click on the Shape Tool. We can use the options at the top to control our triangular shape. Set Fill to empty (by selecting the icon that’s white with a red stripe), then click on Stroke. This lets us outline our path. Set a stroke width, and set the color to white in the options…

01 PREPARE THE LIGHT Unless your light source is waterproof, you’ll need to place it in a watertight bag. We used a battery-powered disco light: you can buy these cheaply on Amazon or similar sites. We placed the light inside two clear bags, tied tightly to a piece of string so that we could swing the light around with confidence. 02 SET UP AN INTERVAL TIMER If you’re shooting solo, you won’t want to be going back and forth to the camera. It’s better to set the camera firing at intervals so that you can continue shooting for a few minutes while you produce the light painting. Use the interval timer to shoot continuously as you paint. 03 EXPOSURE SETTINGS An exposure length of two or three seconds is ideal…

Luminosity masking is a powerful technique for making selective tonal adjustments. It’s a favorite with landscape photographers, offering precise control over the brightness of different tonal ranges. Essentially, luminosity masking allows us to create selections of different areas of brightness. In our coastal scene here, it means we can target the bright areas of sky around the sun, or the dark groynes in the foreground, then enhance only those areas. There are several plugins that make luminosity masks – but to understand how they work, it helps to know how to create your own, using simple selection shortcuts in combination with Channels in Photoshop. Our Channels Panel lets us isolate luminosity by loading selections of different channel information. From here, we can target the brighter and darker ranges so that…