Photoshop Tutorials 2013

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Focus correction in Photoshop

7:18 PM MY STORE

Focusing is something you do with a camera. But sometimes it turns out that the details in an image is more than you wanted and detracts from the main figure. You can use Photoshop to accentuate the main figure. This can be done in a number of ways. I will show you one which I think is the easiest and can be done in any version of Photoshop, including Photoshop7. No special expertise is required either.

This is a free stock image which you can download from here

It belongs to me

You can see that the image is nothing great. It is a Kolkata street scene. Let us see if we can shift the focus more on the girl than on the bus.

Step 1 : Press CTRL+J to duplicate the Background Layer. Switch off the eye icon by clicking it off in the Background layer. It is a simple precaution to duplicate the Background layer. So you always have the original to fall back on if something goes wrong.

Step 2 : Click the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Step 3 : Press SHIFT and you will be able to draw a perfect circle. Do not be worried if the circle is not exactly where you want it. Mine isn't either.

Step 4 : Press the UP, DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT arrow keys to move the circle where you want it. Here the circle covers the girl because I wish the focus to be on the girl.

Step 5 : Go to Select>Modify>Feather.

Step 6 : The Feather Selection dialogue box comes up. I have set the Feather Radius quite high at 150 pixels. Click OK.

Step 7 : Press CTRL+SHIFT+I to inverse the selection.

Step 8 : Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

Step 9 : Depending on your image set the Radius of Gaussian Blur to between 10 and 14. I have set it at 12. Click OK.

Step 10 : Press CTRL+D to deselect. The figure of the girl has grown more focused and sharper as the bus in the background has been blurred. That is all.

The before

And the after.

Removing Color cast and Noise with Camera Raw

11:35 PM MY STORE

Sometimes a problem is created because of a color cast in the image. It makes one color predominant. How do we remove this cast without spoiling the image? Then there might be noise too which is another irritant. It can be corrected in Camera Raw and with Adjustment Layers in Photoshop.

I have been sent this image. It has a yellow color cast. It also has noise.

The corrected image.

Step 1 : Go to File>Browse in Mini Bridge.

Step 2 : The Mini Bridge opens. The image I want is in My Pictures.

Step 3 : Navigate to the selected folder. Here I have the images in the Oliver folder. Double click the folder to open.

Step 4 : Right click and select Open in Camera Raw.

Step 5 : Click Details.

Step 6 : Camera Raw has its own Zoom Tool. Zoom in and you will be able to see the noise in the image.

You can see the noise present in the image.

Step 7 : Click to increase the zoom to 100%. Some say that you need to zoom to 400%. I have settled for 100%.

Step 8 : Drag the Color slider to something high. I have dragged it to 50. You will notice no difference in the image.

Step 9 : Drag the Luminance slider till the noise disappears. I have had to drag the slider to 75.

The noise has gone.

Step 10 : Return to the Basic panel by clicking it. Click the Open Image to open it in Photoshop.

The image looks like this after opening in Photoshop. The noise is no longer visible.

Step 11 : Click the New Fill or Adjustment button.

Step 12 : Click on Hue/Saturation from the pop up menu.

Step 13 : The Hue/Saturation opens.

Step 14 : Click on the Yellows from the drop down.

Step 15 : I have dragged the Saturation slider to 0 in the Yellow channel.

The image looks like this. The yellows have gone.

Step 16 : Click the Cyans.

Step 17 : I have dragged the Saturation to +20.

Step 18 : Click on the Blues.

Step 19 : I have dragged the Saturation slider to +25.

Step 20 : I have switched to the Magenta channel and dragged the Saturation slider to +10.

Step 21 : I have switched to the Red channel and increased the Saturation to +10.

What I have done so far is studied the color cast first. This particular image had a yellow cast. Therefore I selected the Yellow channel and removed it. I have then nudged up the other colors. If your image has a different color cast reduce the saturation of that channel first then nudge up the other colors.

The image looks like this.

Step 22 : Click the Add New Fill or Adjustment Layer button and click on Levels.

Step 23 : The Levels dialogue box opens.

Step 24 : Drag the White slider at the right to bottom of the Histogram. Notice that I have not dragged it to where the actual Histogram begins, but to where it trails off.