Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers 330 3 The models were cut out using mainly paths for their bodies and clothing and variable density masks for the hair. The original outlines were not followed slavishly and a number of areas were smoothed over and modified. These cutouts were then added as new layers on top of the viaduct image. 4 The exact sizing was carried out by reducing the opacity of the models (so that the original column could be seen through them) and care- fully tweaking the exact shapes using the Free Transform. In some instances, a little perspective control had to be introduced, but this was mini- mal and was done by eye until it looked right. This took many attempts, so I kept the original cutouts handy in case I needed to start over again. To ensure the highest quality in an image, it is best to avoid using the Transform more than once. If I cannot get it right the first time, I will not transform it again, but start from scratch. 5 When the models were placed in their final positions, work could begin on extending the background to remove the viaduct columns and create the impression they were supporting the bridge. The clone stamp retouching was carried out on separate layers so that any mistakes could easily be corrected. To control the shape of the mountains in the background, the outline was defined with a path, converted to a selection and feathered by one or two pixels. Using Command/ Ctrl+Shift-I, I could swap between the mountains and the sky to build up a convincing edge. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Montage techniques 331 6 The most difficult and time-consuming area to fix was the grass around the legs and feet. I try not to keep cloning the same areas of the origi- nal images repeatedly. Instead, I try to find areas from elsewhere in the image, then copy and paste it over the area I need to cover and then use a curves adjustment to try to match the color and density of the area underneath. I then erase the areas I don’t need. In many cases, adding a little noise over a cloned area can help it look more convincingly part of the photograph. A great ad- vantage of using 5 × 4 originals is that there is very little grain in the scanned images. With smaller format films it can be very difficult to match the more pronounced grain. 7 One of the touches that (hopefully) makes this image seem more convincing, are the little bits of grass and vegetation which go over the people’s shoes. It is little touches like this which help create a sense of scale. This was achieved by copy- ing part of the background image behind the shoes, pasting it into a new layer on top of the shoes and using the eraser tool to remove the areas I didn’t want. There is usually more than one way of approaching a problem in Photoshop. For example, I could have achieved the same result by using a layer mask. 8 A lot of work had to be done on the faces and hands of the models to try to get them to look as if they had really had been there and that the viaduct was casting shadows on them. Much of this was done using the brush tool on a separate layer that is set to the Darken blending mode. Some areas were lightened using curves, with a lot of attention paid to keeping the colors consistent. Photograph: Ian McKinnell. Client: Logica. Agency: Stocks Austin Sice. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers 332 Exporting clipping paths Clipping paths are vector paths that can be used to mask the outline of an image when it is exported to be used in a DTP layout program such as Adobe PageMaker™, Adobe InDesign™ or QuarkXPress™. You will remember me saying earlier that a selection can be converted to and from a path? If an image document contains a closed path, when you save it as an EPS format file, there is an option for selecting that path as a clipping path. In Adobe Illustrator™, for example, you can use the saved clipping path as a masking object. Imagine a catalog brochure shoot with lots of products shot against white ready for cutting out. Still-life photographers normally mask off the areas surrounding the object with black card to prevent unnecessary light flare from softening the image contrast. Whoever is preparing the digital files for export to DTP will produce an outline mask and convert this to a path in Photoshop or simply draw a path from scratch. This is saved with the EPS file and used by the DTP designer to mask the object. Clipping paths are an effective tool for lots of projects, but not in every case. I had a design job to do for photographer Peter Hince, who asked me to design a brochure showing a collection of his underwater photographs, Ocean Images. I assembled the twelve black and white pictures in Adobe PageMaker™. They all had rough edged 9 Each person had their own curves adjustment layer for small tweaks to their density and color, using a mask so as not to affect the rest of the image, and another curves adjustment layer over the whole image. I use these adjustment layers so that I can keep changing my mind and try lots of variations with- out changing the original image until the last minute. The most vital part of building an image such as this is the planning, vi- sualizing the final image in your mind and then working backwards from there. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Montage techniques 333 1 The background layer consisted of a water re- flection pattern. All the individual photographs were aligned to Guides, as they would appear in the final design and grouped on the one layer. Before proceeding to the next stage, I copied this layer by dragging it down to the New Layer button. 2 To demonstrate the following steps, I worked on a cropped view of the above layout, which shows just a single picture against the water background layer. I switched off the Eye icon for the copy layer and made the original Turtle layer active. I now wanted to remove the white pixels from the outer edges of the turtle image frame. rebates that Peter wanted preserved. I could have made a path outline of each image and placed these on top of the background image. What I did instead was to prepare the design in PageMaker™, scaling the individual images and working out their position. After that I reproduced a similar guideline layout in Photoshop and created a multilayered image, positioning the individual images and merging them all into one to make a single CMYK, EPS file. The steps below demonstrate how I retained the subtlety of the borders, which may otherwise have become lost. Another good reason for doing things this way is that it saves on the RIP time for proofing and imposition and reduces the chances of file errors. On the other hand, clients might ask you to alter one of the images after seeing the proof, so save that multilayered Photoshop original for backup! Photographs: Peter Hince/Ocean Images. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers 334 4 I activated the copy layer again and marqueed inside the image border. When finished, I inverted the selection (Select > Invert Selection) and de- leted or cut the selected area (Edit > Cut). I then flattened the image before saving to export to the DTP program, but also saved a layered copy of the image in case any further adjustments were required. 3 I Option/Alt+double-clicked the layer to open the Layer Options dialog box and held down the Option/Alt key to split and drag the highlight sliders for This Layer, as shown here. What this does is to remove the pure white tones from blending with the underlying layers. It also made some of the inner highlight areas transparent. These can be covered up with the copy layer. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Shortcuts 335 Shortcuts Chapter Twelve G etting to know the basics of Photoshop takes a few months, learning how to become fluent takes a little longer. There are a great many keyboard short- cuts and not all of them are listed in the manual. In this chapter I have grouped together a list of tips and keyboard shortcuts to help expand your knowledge of Photoshop. These are a reminder of some of the suggestions covered elsewhere in the book – use it as a reference for productive and efficient Photoshopping. Learn the keyboard shortcuts a few at a time, and don’t try to absorb everything at once. The key to efficient working is to plan your projects in advance. Rather than dive straight in, think through first about what you want to achieve – either write down or make a mental note of what it is you want to do and work out the best order in which to do everything. An obvious example would be to avoid preparing your work at high resolution when the final and only use was just a few megabytes. Yo u would want to reduce the file size at the beginning of the Photoshop session rather than at the end in order to save on the computer processing time. Another reason is that there is often more than one way of doing something and a little time spent thinking through things at the beginning will save much in the long run. This is particularly true if working on an underpowered computer or you are pushing your machine to its limits. Where a project requires experimentation to see which ef fects work best, it may be wise to start with a low resolution version first. This will enable you to edit quickly without waiting for the dreaded wristwatch or egg timer. Make a note of the settings that looked best and repeat these at higher resolution. This is a particularly handy way of exploring the dif ferent blending modes and filters but remember that the filter effects may work slightly differently at higher resolutions and the settings will need to be scaled up. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers 336 Instead of making notes you could try recording the steps used as an action. This can then be replayed on subsequent images. Process an image once, recording each step used, stop the recording and play the action on single images or batches of images. You will find several Actions already available when you install Photoshop and dis- cover many more which are freely available on the Internet. One such site is Actions X Change maintained by Joe Cheng and can be found at: <www.actionxchange.com>. Another is the Elated site <www.elated.com/toolbox/actionkits/>. Both these sites have ready prepared actions or sets of actions with examples of the types of effects achieved with them for you to freely download for use in Photoshop. To find out more about actions, see the section Working with actions on page 346. Macintosh/ Windows key equivalents are used everywhere else in this book, but due to lack of space, only the Macintosh keys are listed in the tables. Remember, the PC equivalent for the Command key is Ctrl and the Option key is Alt. Here are the single key shortcuts for accessing tools and commands in the Tools palette: To cycle through the hidden tools, hold down the Option/Alt key and click again on the tool icon in the Tools palette or hold down Shift and press the key shortcut again. For example, if the eraser tool is currently selected, Option/Alt-click the eraser tool icon or press Shift-E to cycle through the other eraser tools. There is also an option in the first dialog of the General Preferences that allows you to cycle through the tools without using the Shift key modifier. xoblooT A slootnoitcelestnenopmochtap/htapnoitcelestceriD B slootlicnep/hsurB C lootporC D srolocdnuorgkcaB/dnuorgeroFtluafedotteseR E resarecigam/resarednuorgkcab/resarE F sedomyalpsidneercseerhtehtelggoT )Ftsrifretfa(F+tfihS sedomyalpsidyradnocesowtniffo/norabunemelggoT G sloottekcubtniap/tneidarG H lootdnaH rabecapS evitcasilootrehtoynatslihwlootdnahsseccA I slooterusaem/relpmasroloc/reppordeyE J sloothctap/hsurbgnilaeH K sloottcelesecils/ecilS Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Shortcuts 337 deunitnocxoblooT L slootossalcitengam/ossallanogylop/ossaL M slooteeuqramlacitpille/ralugnatceR N slootnoitatonnaoidua/setoN O slootegnops/nrub/egdoD P slootgniwardhtapnepmrofeerf/neP Q edomnoitceles/edomksamkciuQ R slootegdums/neprahs/rulB S slootpmatsnrettap/pmatsenolC T lootepyT U :slootgniwardepahS motsuc/enil/nogylop/espille/elgnatcerdednuor/elgnatcer V lootevoM yekdnammoC lootneprab,evitcasilootynatslihwlootevomsseccA syekworrA lexip1yb,ylnoredrobnoitcelesegduN syekworrA lexip1ybnoitcelesegdun:detceleslootevomtslihW syekworrA+tfihS stnemercnilexip01gnisuegduN W lootdnawcigaM X srolocdnuorgkcab/dnuorgerofegnahcxE Y hsurbyrotsihtra/hsurbyrotsiH Z lootmooZ yeknoitpOnwoddloH detcelessilootmoozehtnehwtuomooZ kcilc-rabecapS+dnammoC nimooZ kcilc-rabecapS+noitpO tuomooZ Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers 338 Efficient running Allocate as much RAM memory as possible (see Chapter Six) and run Photoshop on its own. Keep the minimum number of image files open at any one time. Check the scratch disk size by having the status box at the bottom of the image/application window set to show Scratch Disk memory usage. Once the left-hand value starts to exceed the right, you know that Photoshop is running short of RAM memory and employing the scratch disk as virtual memory. To copy selections and layers between documents, use drag and drop actions with the move tool. This will save on memory usage and preserve any clipboard image at the same time. Save either in the native Photoshop format or as a TIFF to the hard disk and not to removable media devices (nor should a removable drive be used as a scratch disk). deunitnocxoblooT A+tfihS slootnoitcelestnenopmochtap/tcelestceridneewtebelggoT B+tfihS slootlicnepdnahsurbneewtebelggoT E+tfihS slootresarehguorhtelcyC G+tfihS sloottekcubtniapdnatneidargneewtebelggoT I+tfihS looterusaemdnaslootreppordeyehguorhtelcyC J+tfihS loothctapdnahsurbgnilaehneewtebelggoT K+tfihS sloottcelesecilsdnaecilsneewtebelggoT L+tfihS slootossalhguorhtelcyC M+tfihS slooteeuqramlacitpillednaralugnatcerneewtebelggoT N+tfihS slootnoitatonnaoiduadnasetonneewtebelggoT O+tfihS slootgninothguorhtelcyC P+tfihS slootnepmrofeerfdnanepneewtebelggoT R+tfihS slootegdumsdnasucofhguorhtelcyC S+tfihS slootpmatsnrettapdnapmatsenolcneewtebelggoT T+tfihS slootepyttnereffidehtneewtebelcyC U+tfihS slootepahstnereffidehtneewtebelcyC Y+tfihS slootyrotsihtradnayrotsihneewtebelggoT Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Shortcuts 339 Contextual menus A good many shortcuts are just a mouse-click away. Contextual menus are available throughout Photoshop. On a Macintosh you use Control-click and on the PC use right mouse-click to open a contextual menu in an image document window or a Photoshop palette such as the Layers, Channels or Paths palette. For example, you can Control-click/right mouse-click in the document window to access a list of all the menu options associated with the currently selected tool. unemeliF tuctrohsdraobyeK noitcnuF N-dnammoC eliFweN>eliF N-noitpO+dnammoC sgnittesdetcelesylsuoiverpgnisueliFweN>eliF O-dnammoC eliFnepO>eliF O-tfihS+dnammoC resworBeliFnepO>eliF W-dnammoC eliFesolC/wodniWesolC>eliF W-tfihS+dnammoC llAesolC>eliF S-dnammoC evaS>eliF S-tfihS+dnammoC sAevaS>eliF S-noitpO+tfihS+dnammoC beWrofevaS>eliF P-tfihS+dnammoC puteSegaP>eliF P-dnammoC )secnereferPees(eliFtnirP/weiverPhtiwtnirP>eliF P-dnammoC )secnereferPees(weiverPhtiwtnirP/eliFtnirP>eliF P-noitpO+tfihS+dnammoC ypoCenOtnirP>eliF M-tfihS+dnammoC noitacilppaotpmuJtluafedehtotspmuJ Q-dnammoC tiuQ>eliF 5F weiveerttsilresworBeliFehthserfeR 21F etatsyrotsihwenasanoisrevdevastsalottreveR>eliF DrocsE )dnammocmetsyS(esolC>eliFretfaevaSt'noDetavitcA ).(doireP-dnammoCrocsE )dnammocmetsyS(noitcnuftrobArolecnaC Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [...]... the recording Just before the filter step, I inserted a ‘Stop’ with a message reminding me that the next step requires me to select a KPT gradient The Stop allows the Action to continue playing after pressing Enter Automation plug-ins This Photoshop feature will allow third-party developers to build plug-ins for Photoshop that will be able to perform complex Photoshop operations The Photoshop suite of... Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Creating a Droplet A Photoshop Action can be converted into a self-contained application, known as a Droplet, that can be saved outside of Photoshop to somewhere useful, like the desktop and which will launch Photoshop and initiate a specific Action sequence, whenever you drag and drop... to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Web Photo Gallery This is one of my favorite automated plug-ins The Web Photo Gallery (WPG) can process a folder of images and automatically generate all the HTML code needed to build a website complete with thumbnail images, individual gallery pages and navigable link buttons This Photoshop feature can therefore save you many hours of.. .Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Edit menu Keyboard shortcut Function Command-Z Edit > Undo last operation (see Preferences) Command+Shift-Z Edit > Step forward through history Command+Option-Z Edit > Step backward through history Command+Shift-F Edit > Fade last operation (image... purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Figure 12.1 An example of the Batch Action dialog set to apply a prerecorded Action Select the Action you wish to apply from the pop-up menu at the top Then choose the source folder containing the images to process You can either instruct Photoshop to save and close, overwriting the original or select... www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Contact Sheet II The Contact Sheet II is able to take all the images in a selected folder and construct a contact sheet of these and (if you wish) print the file name as a caption below each picture Just choose a source folder and all the images will be opened up and assembled to form a contact sheet page If there are more... palette can also be resized to make the preview window larger Working with Actions Photoshop is able to record a script of the operations performed in a Photoshop session and save them as an Action These Actions can then be replayed on other images and shared with other Photoshop users so that they can repeat this sequence of Photoshop steps on their computer Actions can save you the bother of laboriously... actions like Cut and Paste with Function keys Note that the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 > Presets > Actions folder contains a PDF document illustrating all the preset Action outcomes If you are sent a Photoshop Action as an Action document (it may be appended with atn), instead of loading it via the Actions palette, you can just double-click it to open Photoshop and automatically install it in the Actions palette... to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Color Palette shortcuts Keyboard shortcut Function Shift-click Color bar Cycle between all the color spectrum options Control-click Color bar Specify Color bar to use Click gamut warning swatch Select nearest in gamut color History Palette shortcuts Keyboard shortcut Function Command-Z Toggle moving back and forward one step (undo/redo)... set (cycle up) Option-[ Select next layer or set (cycle down) Option+Shift-[ Select bottom layer or set Option-click eye icon for the set Toggle show all layers/show just this set 361 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers Blending modes Keyboard shortcut Function Shift-plus Set layer to next blend mode in list Shift-minus Set . Adobe Photoshop 7. 0 for Photographers 3 30 3 The models were cut out using mainly paths for their bodies and clothing and variable density masks for. is selected (1 = 10% , 9 = 90% , 0 = 100 %). For more precise settings, enter any double number values in quick succession (i.e. 04 , 23, 75 etc.). Use the