ytf d djyrd jrjr j by Derek Kolush

T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R L I G H T R O O M ® & P H O T O S H O P ® U S E R S  J U N E 2 0 2 1 Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Web Maximum Using to share image galleries and get feedback Workflow from friends, family, and clients

Designing in Photoshop

With artboards, smart objects, and CC Libraries, you can create templates for your social media channels that are easy to edit and update

Cover Image by Mathias Engfors | KelbyOne Member

VANISHING POINT Don’t let your images go off the rails when it comes to editing in perspective

JUNE 2021

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VOL 24



NO 6

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[026]

[032]

DEVELOPING THE SHOT

LIGHTROOM LABORATORY

UNDER THE LOUPE

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[054]

MAXIMUM WORKFLOW

VISUAL STORYTELLING

LIGHTROOM Q&A

Eilean Donan Castle: HDR Photo Merges

Like and Share!

Five Powerful Tips for Creating Stunning Photography

Return to the Streets

[056]

[070]

LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS

FEATURE: A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Learn to Work Faster and Smarter in Lightroom

[ 007 ]  A NOTE FROM SCOTT [ 009 ]  CONTRIBUTORS [ 010 ]  BENEFIT SPOTLIGHT [ 012 ]  KELBYONE COMMUNITY [ 018 ]  NEW ONLINE TRAINING [ 134 ]  REVIEWS

MARK HEAPS

Plug-In Workflows with Lightroom Classic

Answers to Your Lightroom Questions

[060]

[082]

GOING MOBILE

[064] PHOTOSHOP FOR LIGHTROOM USERS

[100]

[108]

[116]

BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP

PHOTO EFFECTS

PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND

[122]

[130]

[144]

DESIGNING IN PHOTOSHOP

PHOTOSHP Q&A

PHOTOSHOP TIPS

Getting the Most Out of the Camera in Your Pocket

Creating a Grid Portrait Effect

Making YouTube Thumbnail Templates

Using Content-Aware Fill to Remove Distractions

Attract Attention by Manipulating Light

DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS Never Say Revens

Mixer Brush Painting with Stencil Masks

Terry White Answers All of Your Photoshop Questions

Learn to Work Faster and Smarter in Photoshop

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KelbyOne

A NOTE FROM SCOTT

GETTING PLUGGED IN

so if you have questions about using plug-ins with Lightroom Classic, you should check it out. Also, in every issue, Sean McCormack has taken many a deep dive with lots of different plug-ins in his “Maximum Workflow” column, so be sure to check out recent back issues to see which plug-ins he’s covered and to learn how to use them. One more thing: I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up that, on the heels of our awesome all-online Outdoor Photography Conference (which took place May 18–19, 2021), we’ve announced the iPhone Photography Conference coming up June 29–30, 2021. Two days, two tracks, all online, with an all-star cast of instructors, and it ’s already blowing up the attendance numbers. I hope you can join us because there’s so much neat stuf f happening with iPhone photography these days, you’ll learn a ton. You can find all the details over at KelbyOneLive.com. That ’s it for now. Go try out some of those plugins, and we’ll catch you next issue, where hopefully we’ll be talking about some cool new goodies in Photoshop and Lightroom. All my best,

Scott Kelby KelbyOne President & CEO Editor & Publisher

KELBYONE .COM

Okay, summer is here and I’m so excited to be planning my first family trip since 2019. Man, it’s been a long time coming. Besides getting to take a trip, summer also usually means we get a bunch of new Photoshop and Lightroom features (this isn’t confirmed; I’m just going by past history and, if that’s any indication, they do usually release an update in June). If they do, I’ll do a new class on what’s new (and I hope it’s a really long class, because that would mean they added lots of new stuff). Again, this is just speculation at this point, but I’m hoping they do (and guessing they will). In the meantime, here’s an idea to keep you busy, having fun, and being creative: Go download trial versions of some of the best Lightroom and Photoshop plug-ins (well, just start with one, and see how that goes. LOL!). Right now, there are so many incredible plug-ins (we’re experiencing a “plug-in renaissance”), and they’re becoming an important part of so many people’s workflows. I use several daily in my own workflow, and the new AI that’s getting incorporated in these plug-ins is pretty amazing. Here are a few I’d tell a friend to try: The latest version of the Nik Collection of plug-ins from DxO is still incredibly popular and powerful; Sharpen AI from Topaz (Erik Kuna, my co-host on The Grid and rockin’ rocket photographer, swears by it). Erik is also really big on DxO’s new DeepPRIME noise-reduction technology, which is a part of their PhotoLab and brand-new PureRAW software (of course, he shoots at crazy high ISOs). The plug-ins from Skylum are really getting a lot of buzz these days and their fan base continues to grow. They recently released a totally AI-based plug-in that does a lot of the work for you (and some people really want that) called Luminar AI (I’ve tried it; it’s surprisingly cool). Also, ON1 is releasing a new AI-based noise reduction plug-in this month that looks pretty amazing called ON1 NoNoise AI 2021 (and they also have a number of different killer plug-ins). Almost all of these plug-ins have fully functional trial versions you can download and try, so if you’re looking to expand the number of tools in your creative or production toolbox, at least you can give them a good run-through first and see how they fit with what you want to do. By the way, Rob Sylvan’s “Under the Loupe” article in this issue (p. 32) is called “Plug-In Workflows with Lightroom Classic,”

THE MAGA ZINE FOR LIGHTROOM & PHOTOSHOP USER S

EDITORIAL: Scott Kelby, Editor-in-Chief Chris Main, Managing Editor Kim Doty, Associate Editor Barbara Thompson, Copy Editor Cindy Snyder, Technical Editor Cover Image: Mathias Engfors

GRAPHICS: Jessica Maldonado, Art Director Margie Rosenstein, Senior Graphic Designer Angela Naymick, Senior Web/Graphic Designer

MARKETING: Adam Frick Ashley Fosse Kleber Stephenson

WEB: Adam Frick

Each issue we feature cover art by a KelbyOne Member This issue’s cover is by Mathias Engfors, who is a recreational photographer from Stockholm, Sweden, with a taste for street photography. He also likes to capture the vast and rural expanses of territories far away from the Northern Hemisphere, as well as urban architecture of the neighboring

Curt Husting

European countries. He began his pictorial journey more than

Yojance Rabelo

three decades ago, and went digital in the early 2000s. So

Aaron Westgate

PUBLISHING:

far, he has visited innumerable cities in 49 countries during his travels around the world. To learn more about Mathias, turn to page 17.

Scott Kelby, Publisher Kalebra Kelby, Executive V.P. Jean A. Kendra, Business Manager

ADVERTISING: Kleber Stephenson, Vice President of Business Development & Enterprise: kleber@kelbyone.com

All contents ©COPYRIGHT 2021 KelbyOne, LLC. All rights reserved. Any use of the contents of this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Photoshop User is an independent journal, not affiliated in any way with Adobe Systems, Inc. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop are registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc. in the

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COLOPHON:

Photoshop User Magazine is produced using Adobe Photoshop CC 2021 and Adobe InDesign CC 2021. Korolev, Factoria, and Priori Sans are used for headlines and subheads. Acumin Pro and Korolev are used for body copy.

An official publication of KelbyOne This seal indicates that all content provided herein is produced by KelbyOne, LLC and follows the most stringent standards for educational resources. KelbyOne is the premier source for instructional books, online classes, and live seminars for creative professionals.

JUNE 2021



VOL 24

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NO 6

VICTORIA BAMPTON

BRYAN O’NEIL HUGHES

runs the popular Lightroom Queen website and forums. She is an Adobe Community Professional based in England, and the author of the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic: The Missing FAQ and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: Edit Like a Pro series of books.

is Director of Product Management & Partner Outreach at Adobe, overseeing a portfolio of Creative Cloud applications and services. He’s one of Adobe’s primary spokespeople, representing them across creative segments and platforms.

COREY BARKER

SEAN McCORMACK

is an award-winning designer and illustrator. He has also been an instructor at the Photoshop World Conference and an Adobe MAX Master Instructor, and has produced numerous titles for KelbyOne. Look for his latest book Photoshop Tricks for Designers.

is a commercial photographer based in Galway, Ireland. His work covers everything from fashion and portraiture to products and interiors. He fell into writing from his love of Lightroom, and appreciates the opportunity to pass on his knowledge. He also loves playing with plug-ins.

is a photographer, educator, and aspiring beekeeper. He’s the author of many Lightroom and photography books, eBooks, and videos, including Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic for Dummies. Rob can often be found in the KelbyOne Community helping members with PS and LR.

PETER BAUER

KIRK NELSON

SCOTT VALENTINE

is an award-winning photographer and author, and does photo and video verification for a limited clientele. His latest book is Photoshop CC for Dummies. He was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2010 and received the Pioneer of Photoshop Award in 2005.

is a professional graphics artist in the Washington, D.C., area. He is an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop. Kirk’s career has touched on a broad range of subjects from logo design to animation. He can be reached here.

DAVE CLAYTON

IBARIONEX PERELLO

LESA SNIDER is the author of Adobe Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC for Photographers: Classroom in a Book (2016), Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, TheSkinnyBooks, and more than 40 video courses. She’s also the technical author and eLearning specialist for TAITTowers.

ROB SYLVAN

blends his education in physics with his love for art, bringing a unique voice to teaching through experimentation. His Hidden Power books (Adobe Press) are used in colleges across the US. He wants you to never let your tools get in the way of your art.

ERIK VLIETINCK

is a UK-based graphic designer with over 30 years experience; author of How Do I Do That In InDesign; host of the successful He Shoots, He Draws podcast; and a KelbyOne, Photoshop World, and Adobe MAX instructor. He also works at Astute Graphics.

is an LA-based photographer, writer, and educator with over 30 years of experience. He’s the host of The Candid Frame podcast, and has written many magazine articles and books, including Making Photographs: Developing a Personal Visual Workflow.

A J.D. by education, Erik has been a freelance technology editor for more than 22 years. He has written for Macworld, Computer Arts, Post Magazine, Red Shark News, and many others. Visit his website at Visuals Producer.

SEÁN DUGGAN

SERGE RAMELLI

TERRY WHITE

is a fine-art photographer, author of several books on Photoshop and digital imaging, and creates educational content for companies such as Adobe and LinkedIn Learning, where he has over 20 courses on photography, Photoshop, and mobile image making.

is a landscape and urban photographer based in the US and Paris. His work has been shown in more than 90 galleries worldwide, and he has 7 fine-art books. Serge teaches photography, Photoshop, and Lightroom to students all around the world.

is a Worldwide Creative Suite Design Evangelist for Adobe Systems, Inc., an Adobe Certified Expert, author of Secrets of Adobe Bridge, co-author of InDesign CS/CS2 Killer Tips, runs Terry White’s Tech Blog, and presents at conferences around the world.

MARTIN EVENING

COLIN SMITH

DAVE WILLIAMS

is a photographer with a background in commercial studio photography. He’s also an experienced technical reviewer, who has over the last two decades authored 25 books on Photoshop and Lightroom. He was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2008.

is an award-winning digital artist, photographer, and lecturer who has authored 20 books and a library of training videos. He’s the founder of the online resource PhotoshopCAFE.com, president of Software-Cinema .com, and runs a popular YouTube channel.

is a well-seasoned, UK-based travel photographer, educator, and blogger with internationally published work and a passion for sharing his knowledge of Adobe software. Dave lives by the mantra, “Lend me your eyes and I’ll show you what I see.”

A NEW PERSPECTIVE MARK HEAPS Mark is an Adobe Community Professional, instructor, author, photographer, and Executive Creative Director. He’s been a featured speaker at Adobe MAX, SXSW, and many other events. His clients include Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Dell, and many others.

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COMMUNITY

CHRIS MAIN | ASHLEY FOSSE | DAVE CL AY TON

• Work must be original to the entrant. • Only one image can be submitted per entrant. • W ork must be created within the timeline given (May 5, 2021–June 20, 2021). • I mages must be submitted by June 20, 2021, at 11:59 p.m. EST. • T he winner of this Member Challenge will be announced by July 1, 2021, on the Insider, where they will receive a Member Challenge feature post and bragging rights! After you’ve created your image, head on over to the Member Challenge 45 | Macro thread on the Community and submit your work in a comment. All the contest details, rules, and prize information can be found there, as well. So what are you waiting for? Grab your camera and capture a stunning macro image for your chance to win!

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

Winner of Member Challenge 44 | Wildlife

What a lineup of images! We knew that after the Wildlife Photography Conference, our community would be well equipped to rise to our recent Wildlife Member Challenge. What we didn’t expect, is how hard it would be to pick a winner. This was one of our most intense photo competitions ever. We had so many submissions by so many talented photographers, but someone had to win, and that person was Lynn Fergusson. Lynn pulled at our heartstrings with this adorable baby fox. We love the shadows and depth in the photo. Congratulations, Lynn, on being crowned the winner of our Wildlife Member Challenge! Keep up the amazing work.

In second place, we have Dragomir Vujnovic. We almost never see this animal up close in wildlife photography. Great job on the lighting and setting a dramatic scene, Dragomir. We loved it! Thank you to everyone who participated! We are so proud of our members who challenge themselves to get out there and create new projects. That ’s the best way for all of us to improve as photographers. You can also check out the honorable mentions for Member Challenge 44 on the Insider.

iPhone Photography Conference: A KelbyOne Live Online Event

iPhone owners, did you know have one of the most powerful photography tools you can own, all in one device? Don’t let all of those features go to waste. If you want to stop taking basic, boring, flat photos with your phone, we have you covered with the iPhone Photography Conference on June 29–30, 2021! Exciting class topics, first-class instructors, live Q&A sessions, and premium sponsor discounts are just a few of the reasons to attend the iPhone Photography Conference. In addition, our breakout sessions, gear guide, show floor, and bonus sessions will leave nothing to be desired. Plus, how often can you connect with other photographers from around the world? Early bird tickets are only $99—that’s $100 off the full ticket price. Click here to see what all the hype is about and to get registered today. n

Dragomir Vujnovic

• E ntrant must be a KelbyOne Pro member to submit their work into the contest.

Lynn Fergusson

Member Challenge 45 | Macro

Member Challenges are assignments for KelbyOne members to get out and practice the skills you’ve learned through our courses, magazine tutorials, and online conferences. Whether it’s compositing, retouching, or photographing, use the challenge as your reason to create something new. They’re a great way to build your portfolio and show off your work. For Member Challenge 45, get ready to get up close and personal with your subject. Macro photography is all about highlighting the details or creating an abstract pattern with fine lines, gears, feathers, texture, petals, or any element of your subject. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Here’s how the Member Challenge works:



 Artist

Spotlight  Tim Oliver / member since 2020 / oliverimages.com

KELBYONE COMMUNITY



KELBYONE COMMUNITY

 Artist

Spotlight  Tina Anderson / member since 2009 / tinaanderson.net



 Artist

Spotlight  Dave Rizzico / member since 2012 / drizzicophotos.com

KELBYONE COMMUNITY



KELBYONE COMMUNITY

 Who’s

Who in the KelbyOne Community  Mathias Engfors / member since 2016 / mengfors.com



KELBYONE COMMUNITY

WHO’S WHO IN THE KELBYONE COMMUNITY MATHIAS ENGFORS

Mathias Engfors is a recreational photographer from Stockholm, Sweden, with a taste for street photography. He also likes to capture the vast and rural expanses of territories far away from the Northern Hemisphere, as well as urban architecture of the neighboring European countries. He began his pictorial journey more than three decades ago, and went digital in the early 2000s. So far, he has visited innumerable cities in 49 countries during his travels around the world.

Could you tell us a little about the image on this issue’s cover? It looks like Chicago.

You obviously love to travel; with recent lockdowns, have you tried anything new in your photography?

I was in Chicago a few days before I traveled to the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas when I got the idea that this train could look interesting with one of the techniques I’ve learned at KelbyOne. I wanted to try to capture the movement of the car. The details and lines of the aluminum body made the headlights pop. To add extra drama, I emphasized it with a cloud technique when I developed the shot. I’m interested in architecture and transport solutions and wanted to catch the vibe in Chicago. I like the raw feel that makes it look more like a snapshot.

Being used to traveling several times a year, it’s not only been a big change to my photo trips but also the way I look at photography. I’ve had to take a different approach to the way I think about shooting: new angles and new ideas both creatively and technically. During the past year, I’ve explored my neighborhood and local area a lot. The current situation has made it feel deserted and different but still beautiful. Since we haven’t had an actual lockdown, it has also been possible to travel within Sweden even if there have been restrictions. Sweden has amazing nature and lots of charming small towns.

I usually have a basic idea of what I want to capture, but the past year has had a lot of photo days with no particular planning at all. I normally make a list of things I find interesting and do a little recon beforehand. Some of the tools I use are flickr, 500px, and the UNESCO World Heritage list. Another tool I find useful is an iPhone app called The Photographer’s Ephemeris planning tool for outdoor photographers. But sometimes I simply leave the camera at home, explore whatever area I’m visiting, and make notes about the places I want to come back to later with the camera.

Have you adopted mobile editing, or do you do all your editing on your return? Normally I don’t put much time into editing when traveling with my big camera. For me, it’s more important to secure the content, create backups, and then work on developing the photos when I get back home. When I shoot with my mobile, however, I occasionally edit on the phone before posting and sharing images during my travels. I’m looking for a solution for an editing and backup workflow that works when I’m on the road, but haven’t settled for one yet. Lightroom, both the mobile and the computer versions, is my favorite program, but I do most of the creative editing in Photoshop.

As a photographer, do you feel it’s important to not only use the “big” camera but also drones, GoPros, and mobile phones?

You’ve been with KelbyOne for a few years now. Which instructors have inspired you the most?

I use the camera that’s best for the story I want to tell at the moment. A big camera can intimidate people and is sometimes inconvenient to carry around in the countryside, especially when visiting people. One of the places I’ve found most interesting to use the whole range of cameras is the Philippines. There are the mountains, the islands, and the everyday life of the people living in the provinces. It’s a perfect place to go from a frog perspective to a bird perspective with a GoPro or drone. I also scout new potential projects with my mobile phone. Treating the mobile phone as a big camera gives you amazing pictures and ideas for the other gear too.

I always want to learn new things and develop my skills in all areas. The courses at KelbyOne have taught me how to use the different software and editing techniques. Photoshop, which used to be a huge scary program, is now a natural part of my workflow. The instructor who has influenced me most is Scott Kelby. His straightforward manner and easily accessible explanations have always pushed my curiosity and desire to expand my knowledge, especially in Lightroom. Terry White also stands out with his straightforward style that has given me good insight and confidence with the basics in Photoshop. And, of course, all of the course instructors are great. n

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As an outdoor photographer, how do you approach a day of shooting?

Here Are Your Latest Online Courses

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Creative Portraits with Everyday Objects Learn how to incorporate your personality into your portraits and let it shine through the camera! Join Mary Bel as she walks you through how to take everyday materials and turn them into something different that can give your photography a beautiful elevated feeling. Making something from nothing is super fun and completely attainable, and by the end of the class, you’re sure to take away inspiration, ideas, and tips that you can apply to your own creative journey.

Every week, we publish at least one new training course. Check out these brand-new courses below:

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MARTIN EVENING

DEVELOPING THE SHOT

EILEAN DONAN CASTLE: HDR PHOTO MERGES While I was heading to the Isle of Skye on a spring tour of the Scottish Highlands a few years back, I stopped off at a hotel in the village of Dornie so I could photograph the local Eilean Donan Castle. There has been a castle on this spot since the 13th century that was gradually added to, but was destroyed in 1719 and left as a ruin. What you see today is a modern 20th-century interpretation of what the castle might have looked like back then. I had read that the castle is illuminated at night so I planned to take photographs at dusk.

Now maybe it was the long day’s drive, or the cold, windy weather, but I initially set up my tripod on the wrong side of the castle, as it’s the south side that’s fully illuminated at night. I hurriedly got back in the car and drove round to the car park next to the entrance, from where I was able to capture the view you see here. Despite the earlier hiccup, I managed to time the shot perfectly with a nice balance between the ambient daylight and the floodlit castle. Back at the local hotel, the only other guests staying there happened to be a photographer from Malta with his family. I recognized him from a conference I had done there a few years earlier. Like me, he was having a great time taking photographs, though I have to say his kids looked rather bored from yet another day of Scottish landscapes. 20

When you travel to amazing locations such as Eilean Donan, you want to make sure you capture as much as you can. You might only be there once, but you have the rest of your life to process the photos. With this in mind, I thought it sensible to shoot bracketed exposures of this dusk scene so that once merged, I would have a full tonal range of detail to edit. But I also wanted to capture a wide view of the castle and the bridge without heavily cropping the image. The answer was to capture both HDR brackets and panorama step exposures. By carrying out the steps I’ve outlined below, I ended up with a 30-megapixel image from my 21-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds camera, with an extended dynamic range and saved as a RAW DNG file. The RAW file therefore gave me more flexibility at the editing stage to carefully manage



DEVELOPING THE SHOT

ALL IMAGES BY MARTIN EVENING

the highlights and shadows. (KelbyOne members can click here to download smaller DNG versions of these images for practice purposes only.)

THE STEPS STEP ONE: In this first step, import the images into Lightroom Classic, and then select the three main views that will make up the final panorama, as well as the bracketed exposures that have been shot at each camera position.

STEP THREE: Clicking the Merge button produced the HDR panorama stitch you see here. Because I had also checked the Auto Settings box, Auto Tone and Vibrance adjustments were applied to the panorama image.

KELBYONE .COM

STEP TWO: With the nine photos selected, go to Photo> Photo Merge and choose HDR Panorama. This will open the HDR Panorama Merge Preview dialog. Here, I selected the Cylindrical projection method, checked the Fill Edges box to auto-fill the outer transparent areas of the stitched photos, and made sure Auto Settings was turned on.



HOW TO

STEP FOUR: Although I quite liked the wide letterbox format of the photograph, I chose the Crop Overlay tool (R) and trimmed the left and right edges to make the width a little less extreme. Press Enter to commit the crop.

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

STEP FIVE: In this step I reviewed the Tone settings in the Basic panel. I lightened the Exposure more and increased the Shadows amount to bring out more detail in the grass and the bridge. I also reset the Vibrance to zero as I didn’t feel the image needed a further saturation boost.

STEP SIX: In the close-up view of the castle at the top of the next page, you can see the effect of adding more Texture and Clarity. I found that adding Texture really helped bring out more sharpness in the castle walls.

STEP SEVEN: As a rule, I aim to make all the desired tone and contrast adjustments using only Basic panel adjustments. Essentially, I use the Basic panel to do all the “heavy lifting” and rely on the Tone Curve panel for secondary contrast adjustments. In this instance, I used the Tone Curve parametric sliders to apply a gentle steepening curve to the highlight zone and add more contrast to the sky (see bottom of next page).



DEVELOPING THE SHOT

Step Six

KELBYONE .COM

Step Seven



HOW TO

STEP EIGHT: I now wanted to selectively darken the sky and the water. To do this, use the HSL/Color panel. Here, I selected the Luminance tab and, with the Target Adjustment tool active (the little circle with a dot in the upper-left corner of the panel), clicked on the sky and dragged downward to darken the Blue and Aqua colors. Doing so also increased the saturation of these colors. So, I clicked on the Saturation tab and used the Target Adjustment tool to click-and-drag downward on the sky to desaturate the targeted colors.

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

STEP NINE: Finally, I selected the Graduated Filter tool (M) and added a few linear gradient filter adjustments. I added a negative Exposure adjustment to darken the top-left area of the sky, and then added two further horizontal adjustments to the right of the photo to balance out the evenness of the overall exposure.

Final

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DEVELOPING THE SHOT

HDR PHOTO MERGES switched off. This means you can successfully merge HDR panorama photos that have been captured handheld. If there are issues such as moving clouds or tree branches, however, then you may find it preferable to stick to the old method of creating the HDR merges separately first. The hard part is capturing the photos, of course. I’d personally recommend shooting with the camera on a tripod and controlling the bracketed exposure sequences manually, or using an in-camera bracket setting. This photo was taken of a woodland scene where I needed to both stitch together a series of photos and bracket the exposures to merge as an HDR image. n

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What these steps show is how simple it can be to merge bracketed exposure photos to create a stitched DNG panorama image. There was a time when the only solution was to create the individual HDR merges first and then merge these together separately to create a panorama. The HDR Panorama method is simple and produces a RAW DNG output image. This preserves the RAW data in the original files and allows you full tone and color control of the image. The only downside is that you have no control over the HDR merge options. Note in the HDR Panorama Merge Preview dialog that Photoshop warns you that Align Images is always enabled and deghosting will be

SERGE RAMELLI

LIGHTROOM LABORATORY

FIVE POWERFUL TIPS FOR CREATING STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHY This month I’m going to show you how you can get the best out of your photos in 2021. I’ll use a photo that I took many years ago of an incredible sunset in Paris on the Pont Alexander III bridge with my Canon EOS-5D Mark II at the time. The following includes my best advice to capture and develop nice shots.

1. CORRECT THE EXPOSURE FOR THE STORY YOU WANT TO TELL Here I want to tell a simple story of a beautiful sunset in Paris. I like the idea of having the statues as a silhouettes in the foreground; it really contributes to the aesthetics of the photo. The best way to capture a scene like this is to take bracketed exposures: one normal, one overexposed, and 26

one underexposed. Then you can merge them in Lightroom Classic for a super RAW file with which to play. After you import your bracketed shots into Lightroom, select the three photos in the Library module, Right-click on one of the images, and select Photo Merge>HDR. One important point in the HDR Merge Preview dialog is to

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L I G H T R O O M L A B O R AT O R Y

ALL IMAGES BY SERGE RAMELLI

select High for the Deghost Amount, as it will remove any distortions created by movement between the exposures. I also turned on Auto Align to make sure the three exposures are perfectly aligned, and Auto Settings, which is like clicking the Auto button in the Basic panel. Now click Merge. To establish a good exposure in your image, start finessing the settings in the Basic panel. In this example, we brought down the Exposure to –0.65, opened up the Shadows to +36, and dragged down the Highlights to –88. You also need to set your black point (Blacks) and white point (Whites), which we set to –16 and +7, respectively.

In Lightroom Classic, you can start with white balance presets, such as Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, etc., but I advise setting the white balance manually so you can get exactly the right Temp and Tint to re-create the feeling and emotion you had while taking the photo. In this image, we used Temp 6,678 and Tint +36. It’s key to stay realistic and use the correct colors because you don’t want to distract your viewer from your message. Also, if you add too much yellow, the blue of the sky can turn a bit gray, so make sure you don’t do that!

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2. A DJUST WHITE BALANCE FOR AESTHETIC

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HOW TO

3. D ON’T OVERUSE CLARITY AND SATURATION I used to make the mistake of oversaturating my photos and pumping up the Clarity to make them spectacular, but people would comment that I was “good at Photoshop,” and they didn’t focus on the photo itself. Now, instead of boosting Clarity like crazy, I tend to use a negative Clarity (–11 here) on the overall photo, and then use the Adjustment Brush (A) to boost the Clarity on the parts of the image that I want to appear sharper so they grab the viewer’s attention. The same goes for Saturation: you need to make sure that your viewer can fully experience the colors captured in your photos and not be distracted by the postprocessing.

4. A DJUST HUE SLIDERS TO YOUR LIKING In the HSL/Color panel, you can adjust the Hue sliders to nail the colors that were there when you captured your photo. Try not to go over 40 on any of the sliders because it can create some weird colors; otherwise, you can enhance the colors any way you want. If you’re developing a sunset shot, as we are here, try Red (+1), Orange (–28), and Yellow (–12).

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

5. U SE THE LOCAL ADJUSTMENT TOOLS TO GUIDE THE VIEWER’S EYES

This is one of the most important tips because it can make the difference between an okay shot and a fine-art photo. Use the Gradient Filter (M) to “close up” your photo so the viewer’s eyes are drawn into your main subject. Set one Gradient Filter at the top, lowering the Exposure to –0.65; set the Temp to –6 as well. Then Right-click on the Gradient Filter’s pin, and choose Duplicate. Drag this Gradient Filter to the bottom of the image and rotate it so the darkening Exposure affects the bottom of the image. So now the top

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and bottom of the image are darker, focusing the attention on the lighter parts of the image in the center. You can also use a Radial Filter (Shift-M) to enhance the sun. First, check on Invert and Feather it to 100, then boost the Exposure to +0.80 and the tint +28 to add some more colors.

BONUS TIP USE COLOR GRADING TO CORRECT THE COLORS Color Grading comes in handy when you want to play with the colors in the shadows or highlights in the overall photo. As it was very magenta, we set the Shadows to more neutral tones and colder colors here. For the Highlights, you can really re-create the sunset mood by adding some more warmth to it, which also increases the warmth of the overall photo. Note: In the Color Grading panel, the inner circles on the color wheels control the Saturation, and the little circles outside the wheels control Hue.

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PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

Once you’re satisfied with the retouch of your HDR image, one thing you can try is to copy your settings onto your underexposed photo (depending on the look you’re going for). A quick way to do that is to click on the underexposed thumbnail in the Filmstrip, and then go to Settings>Paste Settings from Previous. With some basic adjustments to Exposure (+1.80), Whites (+46), and Blacks (+3), you can sometimes get a great result with less noise, as well. You can see the comparison above. And here’s the final result from our super RAW file.

I hope you find these tips useful and that you’ll be able to use them in your retouching workflow. I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes on my photography adventures, and these techniques have been very successful for me. Here’s to getting some great shots in 2021! n

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ROB SYLVAN

UNDER THE LOUPE

PLUG-IN WORKFLOWS WITH LIGHTROOM CLASSIC A question just about every Lightroom Classic (LrC) user faces at some point is, should I be using such-and-such plug-in to do X, Y, or Z in my workflow? The answer is, of course, it depends. Each issue of Photoshop User magazine (and previous issues of Lightroom Magazine) contains reviews and in-depth articles about using different plug-ins, so I’m not here to repeat those efforts (I do recommend you look back at previous issues if you’re interested in a specific plug-in), but rather to consider the question of where and when a plug-in might fit in a typical LrC workflow, and how you might decide if it’s right for you.

ALL IMAGES BY ROB SYLVAN

First, to answer the question of do you even need to use a plug-in of any sort, I would say, no, you don’t need to at all. In all my years of helping other photographers with their workflows, I’ve found that there’s a wide variety of workflows, subjective tastes, and needs. There’s no

one best workflow for all photographers. Heck, even over the course of your own photographic journey, you’ve undoubtedly found that your own taste, needs, and eye have continually evolved. Depending on your current photographic style, subject matter, output needs,

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WHAT IS A PLUG-IN? In the context of this article, I consider any software tool that can integrate with LrC that offers access to specialized image-editing solutions that may do a better job (subjectively to you) than LrC can do itself, or that LrC can’t do at all, to fall under the large umbrella of being a plug-in. This includes everything from Adobe’s own Photoshop to software solutions made by any other vendor. These plug-ins can fall into a wide range of categories, such as:

• Special effects (Photoshop, ON1, Nik, Topaz, Boris) • Noise reduction (ON1, Nik, Topaz, Photoshop) • Sharpening (Nik, Topaz, Photoshop) • Resizing (Photoshop, Topaz) • Portrait workflows (Perfectly Clear, ON1, Photoshop) • B&W conversion (ON1, Nik, Photoshop) • HDR (ON1, Nik, Photoshop) • Focus stacking (Photoshop, Helicon, Zerene Systems) That is by no means a complete list of all categories or companies making plug-ins for any given category, but with so many options out there, you can see why this question comes up so often for people using LrC. For example, at the time of this writing, LrC alone doesn’t have the Super Resolution feature found in Adobe Camera Raw (hopefully coming soon!), so if I wanted to employ that in my workflow, I need to find another solution, such as the Camera Raw workflow I outlined in the May 2021 issue of Photoshop User, or something like Topaz’s Gigapixel AI. Alternatively, LrC has some great tools for creating powerful B&W images, but if you have a strong affinity for B&W or a background in film, you may find a specialized tool for that specific task gives you the results you want, such as Nik Silver Efex Pro.

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and visual aesthetic, however, there may be third-party software tools (i.e., plug-ins) that you’d find very helpful for your workflow even if it’s not the right choice for someone else. As you consider adding other tools to your workflow, you must think about the downsides of doing so; such as additional cost, learning curve, and time required to complete the task (some can be quite resource-intensive); against the upsides, such as a certain tool may do a better job (image quality-wise or maybe it’s easier/ automatic), save you time in the long run, open up new photographic opportunities, or solve other problems with your current workflow. You’re the only one who can answer those questions for yourself, and that can require time and experimentation.

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PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

WHERE IN THE WORKFLOW?

Another question is: Where in the workflow? The answer varies depending on the specific workflow, the problem the plug-in is trying to solve, and other factors such as if you’re working on a RAW photo or a non-RAW photo. I must also point out that this isn’t necessarily a static answer. Just as Adobe is constantly evolving and improving its products, third-party software developers are doing the same with their products too. The best practice workflow of today may not be the same a year from now. Just look at how the workflow around merging bracketed HDR exposures has evolved in the last few years, and will continue to evolve into the future. Anyone else still have 32-bit TIFF files in their library from when that was the way HDR was done, as opposed to the merged HDR DNG files we can create today? I know I do. LrC’s main purpose is to handle a RAW workflow from start to finish. Being able to perform edits on RAW data in a 16-bit (essentially) ProPhoto RGB workspace allows for changing profiles and white balance, applying lens profile corrections, and adjusting sharpening and noise reduction, before the data is rendered (baked) into pixels. This is extremely powerful, and should not be given up too early in the workflow. As you consider the possibility of adding a plug-in to your workflow, you’ll want to factor in which edits you should do first in LrC and which you can do in the plug-in, and possibly what finishing edits you’ll need to do after the plug-in. Let’s look at an example workflow where I have a RAW photo of a cotton-top tamarin taken at the Boston Museum of Science in poor lighting conditions with a high ISO of 4000. Beyond the basic edits I’d do to all photos, I’ve identified a few problems I’d like to solve using additional software. I want to use Topaz’s DeNoise AI to deal with the high ISO noise issue, and I want to crop aggressively and then use Super Resolution in Camera Raw to resize the cropped version closer to the native pixel dimensions.

STEP ONE: One of the first things I suggest doing is being conscious of whether you’re starting in a folder or collection view; and if it’s a collection view, make sure it’s a regular collection and that collection is selected (not its parent collection set). This is so that you can find the iterative copies that will be made as you progress through your workflow. If you start with a collection selected, copies sent to external editors (plug-ins) are typically also added to that collection as part of the process. Copies are always added to the same folder as the source photo (unless you’re using a plug-in that relies on the Export dialog to get the job done as opposed to the Photo>Edit In menu). I’m starting in a collection made for just this photo so that I can see more easily any copies made as I progress.

STEP TWO: As it’s RAW data, I want to do all the edits that can only be done on RAW data before I move the photo out of LrC for specialized edits. After choosing a profile, setting white balance, and applying lens profile corrections, I cropped the photo down to zoom in on the subject and improve the composition. Since I decided to use a specialized plug-in for removing noise, in this case Topaz DeNoise AI, I turned off all Sharpening and Noise Reduction in the Detail panel, as well.

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STEP THREE: Okay, there are still tonal adjustments to be made, but I feel confident that I can make those adjustments using the rendered 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF version of the photo after I’ve dealt with the noise, and after I’ve upscaled the cropped version using Super Resolution. I’m now at a decision point: Do I send the photo with LrC adjustments to DeNoise AI, or do I upscale first, then remove the noise? There’s possibly more than one right answer, but I want to take advantage of the “rawness” of the photo as long as I can, so I opt to use the workflow I outlined in the May 2021 issue of Photoshop User to super-size the RAW photo first.

STEP FIVE: Although the copy will no longer be RAW, I’m sending the maximum amount of image data along for the ride, which will yield the best results. Within Topaz DeNoise AI, I choose my desired (subjective) option, and click Apply. This applies the DeNoise settings to the copy and closes out the plug-in, returning me to LrC where I now have a second copy (third version counting the original) of the original photo. This is the TIFF copy sent to DeNoise, and it’s this copy that’s my new master version, as it contains all of the edits I’ve made each step of the way.

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STEP FOUR: I now have my first iterative copy, which is the enhanced DNG version that’s now back to roughly the same pixel dimensions as my uncropped original with all of my base edits applied. Now it’s time to deal with the noise, so using the Photo>Edit In>Topaz DeNoise AI command, I’m presented with the (expected) Edit Photo dialog, and I use this to confirm that a 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF copy (with LrC adjustments) will be created and sent to the plug-in. Clicking Edit saves the copy to the same folder as the source photo and adds that copy to the LrC catalog (and the collection I started in, as well).

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

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HOW TO

STEP SIX: While I’m pleased with the noise reduction, I’m noticing how soft this version is after all those edits. Because of this, I decide to send this copy through Topaz Sharpen AI to see if I can improve the sharpness around the tamarin’s face. This is another decision point: Do I run Sharpen AI on the current master TIFF version, or do I create a new copy to preserve the results after the noise-removal process? I feel the answer to this depends on your workflow, but the safe choice is to create a new copy just in case you want to manually composite the results of the Sharpen AI process with the results of the DeNoise AI process (to get the best of both worlds) or if you’re not happy with the new results and want to go back. Using the Photo>Edit In>Topaz Sharpen AI command, I choose Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments, and now a third copy is added to my collection, and that latest copy has become my new master version. As you can see, while I’m getting pleasing results from this process, it’s taking quite a few steps, iterative versions, time, and hard-drive space to get here, and I’m not done yet.

STEP SEVEN: My current master version now has “-Enhanced-Edit-Edit” appended to the original filename. The “Enhanced” came from running it through Super Resolution in Camera Raw, the first “-Edit” came from the copy sent through DeNoise, and the second “-Edit” came after sending a copy of that to Sharpen AI. I’m pleased with the results, and will now use a few of the other tools in LrC to finish the job. Specifically, I’ll use the Whites and Blacks sliders to set the white and black points, respectively, and a little Radial Filter around the tamarin’s face to further open those shadows and see those eyes. STEP EIGHT: Comparing the final result of all of those edits with the original file shows that I’ve come a long way (see top of next page), and completed tasks that were beyond what LrC could do alone. I’m very pleased with the final result but, as you can see, I involved three other programs, and performed a lot of steps. In the end, we each have to ask: “Are the results worth the effort?” For me, I say yes, but that’s not the right answer for all of us, and certainly not the right workflow for all photos.

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UNDER THE LOUPE

DO A LITTLE RESEARCH It has been my experience, all things being equal, that any tool that specializes in a single function will probably do a better job than a tool that’s a jack of all trades (such as LrC) when put head-to-head on that function. It’s just that all things aren’t equal, and this is where we each may come up with a different answer. I love the ability to extend my image-editing possibilities beyond what LrC can do, and I take the choice of adding new tools into my workflow very seriously. Should you decide to add any other plug-in to your repertoire, I recommend doing the following: • R ead a few reviews (such as the ones in past Photoshop User and Lightroom Magazine issues). • W atch a few videos on YouTube to see how other photographers use them. • R eview the resources provided by the plug-in’s creator to learn the nuances of that application and how it integrates with LrC (they’re not all the same). • G ive the free trial a good run (plug-ins almost all come with some sort of free trial). • C heck your KelbyOne Perks to see if there’s a discount code. • A sk questions and share your experiences in the KelbyOne Community so we can all continue to learn from each other.

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FINAL VERSIONS One final point: do we need to keep all of the iterative versions between the original and the final master version? The answer to that may also vary with your workflow, but in this case, the only versions that matter to me now are the original and the final. I’ll delete the two middle versions, as they no longer serve any purpose, and are just taking up hard-drive space. n

SEAN MCCORMACK

MAXIMUM WORKFLOW

LIKE AND SHARE! Have you ever wanted to get opinions about a set of your photographs, but the effort of exporting, finding a home online where you control who views them, and then getting the results back into Lightroom just makes it far too tedious? Maybe it’s for a client to find the best files for their campaign, or maybe it’s for your family to choose the best holiday shot. Whatever your reason, it’s actually all easier to do within Lightroom cloud: no exporting, manual uploading, or much else for that matter. At the shortest, you make a few clicks and copy a link to send.

CLASSIC COUSIN Not only that, but it’s even doable from within Lightroom Classic, the poor cousin of the Lightroom cloud ecosystem. Lightroom cloud for desktop, iOS, Android, and Apple TV, along with Lightroom Web, are all full-fledged members. Lightroom Classic does have some capabilities to sync to the cloud, and it’s those abilities that led to the cloud ecosystem being viable. But, with 10-year-old architecture as its foundation at the time, Classic wasn’t ready for this new cloud-based file system without a complete rewrite. So along came Lightroom cloud for desktop (called Nimbus in beta), which allowed full-resolution files to live in the cloud and be accessible from all connected devices running 38

ALL IMAGES BY SEAN MCCORMACK

Lightroom. The downside of Classic, in comparison, is that it only stores synced files online as smart previews, which are 2,560-pixel versions of the original files. While not as good as the original size, you can still do a surprising amount with it. If this makes it seem like Lightroom cloud is the better app, you have to remember that Classic has far more features for editing, full plug-in support, and can handle more than one catalog. It’s the more “pro” of the two apps. Lightroom cloud (we’ll just call it Lightroom from here on out) also costs by the terabyte of storage, so large photo libraries are more expensive to run. My 16-TB of photos would be a tidy sum each month.

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All files automatically get uploaded online with Lightroom, but Classic requires you, the user, to choose which files are uploaded. Not only that, but you can have only one active catalog syncing at a time. To prevent potential disaster, it’s best not to keep changing this catalog. Classic’s connection to the cloud isn’t as robust as that of Lightroom, and you want to give yourself the best chance possible. So how do you start syncing? Collections is the short answer. Any user-created collection can be synced to the cloud. You can choose to do this when you first create a collection, but you’re not limited to only syncing on creation. Before you start syncing collections, sync must be turned on globally for your catalog: Start syncing by clicking on the cloud icon to the right of the Module Picker, and then clicking the Start Syncing button. If syncing is already turned on, then the button will say Pause Syncing.

To create a synced collection, first select the images you want in the collection (you can always add more later). From the Library menu, choose New Collection, or use the shortcut Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N). Give the collection a name and, since you want to get these images in the cloud, check the Sync with Lightroom box. If you intend on adding more images from different places in your Catalog, check the Set as Target Collection option, as well. With this on, it’s a simple matter

of pressing the B key to add or remove photos from the synced collection. Then click Create. For an existing collection, go to the Collections panel, and click on the small box to the left of the collection’s name. The box will change to a double half arrow icon indicating sync is on.

SO YOU’VE SYNCED. NOW WHAT? As the images upload, the cloud icon at the top right changes to show that files are uploading. When they’re done, it will change to cloud with a checkmark to indicate sync is complete and up to date.

You can check the progress and find more information about the syncing files by going to Lightroom Classic (PC: Edit)> Preferences. In the Sync Activity section of the Lightroom Sync tab, you’ll get a list of file actions. Should something go wrong (and sync does sometimes go wrong), this is where you’ll need to look.

SHARING YOUR COLLECTION IN LIGHTROOM CLASSIC At this stage, you’re ready to share your collection, and we’re going to look at two different ways to do that: the

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SYNCING FROM THE LIGHTROOM CLASSIC CATALOG

MAXIMUM WORKFLOW

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PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

first will be in Lightroom Classic, and the second will be in Lightroom Web. So, starting in Lightroom Classic, click the Make Public button that appears at the top right of the Grid (G) view of your synced collection in the Library module of Classic. This will generate an Adobe shortlink that you can share. Anyone with the link can view the photos. Obviously, if you only share the link with a specific person, and they don’t share it, only the two of you can view it. This means this option can be useful for quick sharing. Note:

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I’ve blocked out part of the Adobe shortlink, as I created this shared collection for demonstration purposes only.

Here’s how the shared collection will look to someone viewing it through a web browser.

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You may want to give your reviewer some instructions, which might look a little like this: Click into any photo on the grid to see it in a larger view. At the bottom left you can add a like or comment on the photo. Use the Arrows keys on your keyboard to move through the photos until you’ve seen them all. If you change your mind, you can always remove a like or delete a comment.

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REVIEWING COMMENTS AND LIKES Whenever someone leaves a comment or likes an image, a yellow speech bubble will appear on the collection name in the Collections panel in Lightroom Classic. Click on the bubble to reveal two options: Review Comments and Mark All Comments as Read. Select the first option to sort commented photos to the top of the Grid view.

You know which images are the selects as they’ll have that same yellow speech bubble badge at the bottom right in the Expanded Cells view (press J to toggle through the cell view options). When you click on an image that has a yellow speech bubble, you can see whether the image was liked, commented on, or both, in the Comments panel on the right. The speech bubble will then turn gray to indicate that it has been read.

You’ll need some way to identify the commented-on and liked photos quickly after you’ve gone through the comments. One option is to change their star rating, or alternatively apply a color label. You can always increase to more stars or use a different label as you reduce the number of selected images. It ’s much easier to mark them at this point, than to try to gather them later. You could also create a new collection for the selects. In cases where the client has a tough time deciding, I’ll tell them to pick the ones they like, then I’ll create a smaller collection of just these images, and share them again, taking away some of the “analysis paralysis” that can occur when comparing photos.

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If the person wants to like or comment on the photos, they’ll need to log in to Adobe.com after they click on the speech bubble or heart. They can use their Facebook, Google, or Apple login, or create their own separate account. And to those worried about privacy, here’s Adobe’s Privacy Policy.

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SHARE & INVITE IN LIGHTROOM WEB The next option that we’re going to talk about is Share & Invite, which is done in Lightroom Web. Go to lightroom .adobe.com and make sure you’re logged in with your Adobe ID. Your synced Lightroom Classic collections will appear as albums on the left. Select the album you want to share, and then on the right of the screen, above the image grid, click on the small icon of a person with a + symbol to open Share & Invite. The Create a Shareable Link button is the same as using Make Public in Lightroom Classic. In this case, we don’t want to make the album public so, after you click that button, change the Link Access from Anyone Can View to Invite Only.

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

You can change the Theme and Appearance options in the settings pod and, with the disclosure arrow opened, you can choose to show the title, author, and change the background.

With Invite, you can invite as many people as you like. With each invitee, you can give permission to view only the images via Can View, or the ability to add photos via Can Contribute. This is great for controlling access, unlike with normal sharing, where anyone can view it. Once you type in an email address and click the Invite button, it gets added to the list at the bottom of the Share & Invite panel. There are two other tabs in the Share & Invite panel: Display (formerly Customize) and Settings. When you click the Show Me button in Display, you’ll see what the current layout looks like with a settings pod below the images.

Finally, you can choose the sort order for the images.

Your final tab in the Share & Invite panel is Settings, and there are some really important options here.

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Fortunately, Allow Comments and Likes is on by default, which is good in case you skip this section.

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Proofing. Just turn it on, and click Apply Changes. Since proofing is a Technology Preview, you’ll probably see a note asking for your feedback. To the right of the Display icon (paint palette) at the bottom left of the gallery, you should now see the Proofing icon. Click this and you’ll get a message that you need to enable proofing. When you click on the icon of the person with the + to open the Share & Invite panel, you’ll see that it has become the Proofing panel. Click the Enable Proofing button to begin.

Allow Downloads (JPG) and Export is a useful option for just sharing the images without the need for exporting them yourself. It would be perfect if there were a watermarking option, as well. Show Metadata and Show Location Info are good if the person with which you’re sharing requires those details. The final option is Allow Access Requests, meaning that if someone who hasn’t been invited to view the album gets the link, they can contact you in the app to get connected.

PROOF OF THE PUDDING The proofing options are pretty basic. You get a shareable link, and the option to limit the number of photos that can be chosen. This is perfect for clients who have gone with a specific package with a fixed number of images—no upsell with this though!

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The following is a Technology Preview, which means it ’s something that Adobe is working on that may or may not one day become a permanent feature. To enable Technology Previews, click on your avatar at the top right of the webpage, and select Technology Previews. You’ll see a dialog for turning on Collaborative

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PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

What the client sees

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Here’s an example of what the shared view looks like. The person with the link can check the boxes, which get a blue surround. As they make selections, it updates in your proof window (you may need to refresh the webpage to see the selected images). If you set a limit to the number of images they can select, they’ll see a note that tells them how many they’ve selected and how many they’re allowed to select. Once the client has made their selects, you’ll need to mark these images with a flag or rating to help you identify them back in Lightroom Classic. The images in this example were already 2-star images, so I could change them to 3 stars or flag them. You can’t use keywords as they don’t get written back to Classic, and labels aren’t an option. You can view all the selects from different accounts via All Activity in the central drop-down menu at the top, or you can select individual accounts.

What you see after client selects images

A PROBLEM SHARED With the two options for sharing and proofing, you have a good set of features to gather information about your photos from others. Whether they’re approving work, downloading their favorites, or just commenting, the Lightroom ecosystem has you covered. n

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VISUAL STORYTELLING

RETURN TO THE STREETS After being vaccinated, I felt comfortable about practicing street photography in Downtown Los Angeles, which has been one of my favorite locations for decades. The mix of modern and classic architecture and the density of tall buildings provide a unique place to chase light and find moments.

The majority of Los Angeles is flat and expansive. It possesses an openness that distinguishes it from cities such as New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. It’s a quality that on a clear, warm day contributes to its magnetic allure. Despite the myth of perpetual idyllic weather, a high percentage of life happens inside homes, offices, and cars. It’s a culture that takes people more time getting 46

somewhere than they spend at the destination. At least it feels that way. The song “Walkin’ in L.A.” by the band Missing Persons makes fun of the idea that having a pedestrian life is for those without fame, wealth, and privilege. It’s something that happens out of necessity, like when your car runs out of gas and you’re left to walk the streets with an empty gas can. Walking is something best avoided.

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V I S UA L S T O RY T E L L I N G

ALL IMAGES BY IBARIONEX PERELLO

Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the antithesis to that. Though countless cars, trucks, and buses make their way through its congested streets, DTLA is a place for walkers. Its sidewalks provide some of the greater offerings of a diversity of class, race, ethnicity, and culture. Other locations draw large numbers of pedestrian traffic, such as Hollywood, Universal CityWalk, and Venice Beach, but these locations are designed specifically for diversion and commerce. Downtown is a community where life of all types exists, mix, and sometimes clash. It ’s a place where the unexpected is commonplace. Downtown Los Angeles possesses its restaurants, apartments, government buildings, and retail stores, but the people who make and sustain this community aren’t hidden behind facades and closed doors. Lawyers, cooks, bus drivers, police officers, street sweepers, construction workers, food vendors, security guards, homeless persons, and office workers share these streets. Its proximity makes for great street photography, and results in a level of interaction that makes it easy to approach a casual stranger and strike up a conversation. That’s what I did when I approached this young man, who was working as a security guard for a jewelry store at the corner of Broadway and 7th Street. I complimented him on the charm at the end of his chain and we began a conversation. I asked him how things

were changing in the neighborhood with the loosening of restrictions because of COVID. He explained that things were picking up and that activities would reach their peak in the afternoon if I wanted to take some good photographs. I thanked him for the tip and asked if I could make his portrait. While speaking to him, I assessed not only him but also the area that would serve as a background. He was working, so I didn’t want to take up much of his time by moving him to another location. I chose to photograph him where he was and to use a relatively shallow depth of field to create a contrast between him and the background. This was easy to do with the Fujifilm GFX 100s on which was mounted a GF 32–64mm f/4 zoom lens. It was an overcast day, which provided flat even lighting across the entire scene. I knew that I wouldn’t have an issue with exposure; however, there were several color elements in the frame, specifically the red awning, that would be distracting. I knew that the image would eventually be rendered as a black-andwhite photograph. (KelbyOne members can click here to download a smaller DNG version of this image for practice purposes only.) Note: We’ll be processing the RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw before heading into Photoshop, but you can just as easily follow along in Lightroom Classic.

“ D owntown is a community where life of all types exists, mix, and sometimes clash. It’s a place where is commonplace.”

Before

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the unexpected

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HOW TO

STEP ONE: Begin in the Basic panel by processing the RAW file as a color image. For the profile, click on the icon of four squares at the top right of the panel to open the Profile Browser. Expand the Camera Matching group and select the Camera NOSTALGIC Neg profile. Click Close to close the Profile Browser. To rein in the highlights and increase the contrast, set the Whites to –40 and the Blacks to –48.

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STEP TWO: There’s more detail that can be restored to the highlights, so move Highlights to –85. You’ll see increased detail on the building facade in the upper right-hand quarter of the frame. Also increase the contrast of the shadow tones by moving Shadows to –20.

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STEP THREE: The midtone contrast will be essential for the black-and-white rendering of the file. A good place to start with this is by adjusting Texture to +26 and Clarity to +8.

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STEP FOUR: Along with some minor color corrections, there are shiny spots on the subject’s skin that need to be eliminated. This is easily achieved by going into the Color Mixer panel (the HSL/ Color panel in Lightroom Classic) and choosing the Luminance tab. Increase the Reds by +1, Magentas by +1, Blues by +1, and reduce the Oranges slider to –14. Next, click Open to open the image in Photoshop (in Lightroom Classic, go to Photo>Edit In>Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2021). STEP FIVE: Create a duplicate of the Background layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J).

STEP SIX: Convert the new layer to black and white by navigating to Image> Adjustments>Black & White. This will launch the Black and White dialog.

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HOW TO

STEP SEVEN: There are several presets available in the Black and White dialog that can provide a solid starting point. Select the Darker preset to begin, which creates a darker and higher-contrast image.

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STEP EIGHT: The key contrast is between the subject and his surroundings. To enhance this, the changes need to focus on his jacket and skin tone. In the Black and White dialog, adjust the Reds to –10%, Yellows to 74%, and Blues to –37%. Click OK.

STEP NINE: The background is brighter than preferred. To contend with this, create a Curves adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves). In the Properties panel (Window>Properties), click to add a point in the bottom half of the curve, and set the Input to 77 and Output to 52. This global adjustment results in a good look for the background, but the subject is now too dark; but this is easily corrected.

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V I S UA L S T O RY T E L L I N G

STEP 11: With the layer mask still active, use the Brush tool to paint the subject and reduce the effect of the Curves adjustment layer on the face and body. Darkening the mask reduces the impact of the Curves adjustment in those areas. Use the Bracket keys ( [ ] ) on your keyboard to adjust the size of the brush as needed.

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STEP 10: From the Toolbar, select the Brush tool (B). In the Options Bar, choose the Soft Round brush from the Brush Preset Picker, set the Opacity to 30%, Flow to 70%, and Smooth to 10%. With the layer mask thumbnail active in the Curves layer in the Layers panel, press X until the Foreground color is black.

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HOW TO

STEP 12: There are still small areas of the subject that need to be brightened, particularly beneath his neck, brow, and eyes, so let’s create a dodge layer. While holding the Option (PC: Alt) key, click on the Create a New Layer icon (+) at the bottom of the Layers panel to open the New Layer dialog. Name it “Dodging,” set the Mode to Soft Light, and check the box that reads Fill with Soft-Light-Neutral Color (50% Gray). You’ll see a gray layer appear in the Layers panel, but the Soft Light blending mode renders it invisible in the image.

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STEP 13: Select the Brush tool, and press D then X to set the Foreground Color to white. With the Dodging layer active and using the same brush settings we used

STEP 14: A vignette can often be used to darken the edges of the frame and draw more attention to the subject; however, this image contains elements a good distance from the edges. A normal vignette would not do this. Instead, create a layer for burning. While holding the Option (PC: Alt) key, click on the Create a New Layer icon (+) at the bottom of the Layers panel to open the New Layer dialog. Name it “Burning,” set the Mode to Soft Light, and check the box that reads Fill with Soft-Light-Neutral Color (50% gray). Again, a gray layer will appear in the Layers panel, but you won’t see it in the image.

in Step 10, paint the areas of the subject ’s face and neck that are too dark until important details are revealed.

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V I S UA L S T O RY T E L L I N G

Final

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STEP 15: Select the Brush tool and press D to set the Foreground color to black. With the Burning layer active, paint around those background areas that are too bright. You can refine the overall look by adjusting the Opacity of the layer in the Layers panel. In this case, it was set for 74%. n

VICTORIA BAMPTON

LIGHTROOM Q&A Q. I know how to change the filing structure from yyyy-mm-dd to yyyy-mm on import, but if I wish to change my already-imported files, would I need to manually create the new date folder structure in Lightroom Classic and manually move the images? A. If you were moving from a topic-based folder structure to yyyy-mm, then the answer would be yes, you’d need to manually create the new structure. But the good news is, since you’ve already been using a yyyy-mm-dd structure, you already have the month folders you need, so you just need to move the images into the month folder and then delete the empty day subfolders. (As always, make sure your backups are current before you start making significant changes.) First, go to the Library module, click on the + icon at the top right of the Folders panel, and ensure that Show Photos in Subfolders is checked. In the Folders panel, select the first month folder to show all of the photos captured in that month. Select all of these photos and drag them directly onto the month folder. When the move completes, the day subfolders should all be empty, with a photo count of 0, as shown here. You can select all of the empty day folders and delete them from the Folders panel before moving on to the next month and repeating the process.

or the Nik Collection). Some install a plug-in, and these can be enabled/disabled using the File>Plug-in Manager. Many other editors automatically create external editor presets, and these are the ones that show up in the Edit In menu. To delete external editor presets, you have to go to Lightroom Classic (PC: Edit)>Preferences and select the External Editing tab. In the Preset pop-up menu in the second section of the dialog, select the external editor preset you want to delete, then open the pop-up again to select Delete Preset [name of preset] from the bottom of the list. The same principle applies to any presets and templates that are selected using a pop-up, such as Metadata presets, Filter presets, and Watermarks.

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Q. If I import a RAW file straight from my camera into Lightroom on my iPad, how do I then get the original out of the cloud and stored safely on my desktop hard drive with my other photos? A. W hen you import a photo into Lightroom on your

Q. I want to delete some of the external editors that appear in the Edit In menu, but I can’t find them in the Plug-in Manager. How do I delete old external editors? A. T here are a couple of different ways that Lightroom can interact with other editing software (such as ON1

iPad (or iPhone or Android device), it automatically uploads that original file to the Lightroom cloud. To double-check that it ’s finished uploading, tap on the cloud icon in the top right-hand corner of Lightroom on your iPad and ensure it says “Synced and Backed Up.” Once they’re safely in the cloud, you’re ready to download the photos to Lightroom Classic. It sounds like you’ve probably already been syncing photos to the cloud from Lightroom Classic, but if you haven’t, click on the cloud icon in the top-right corner of Lightroom Classic and click

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LIGHTROOM Q&A

ALL IMAGES BY VICTORIA BAMPTON

the Start Syncing button. Lightroom automatically downloads the original photos to your Lightroom Classic catalog. By default, Lightroom puts downloaded photos and videos in the Mobile Downloads.lrdata folder. It’s always stored in your user account’s Pictures folder, regardless of where you store your catalog. The device shows up in the Folders panel as an additional drive called something like “Victoria’s iPad.” This isn’t a great place to leave the files, because they may not be included in your regular backups, and since they’re not with the rest of your photos, they can get left behind when you move to a different computer. Since the default location is the boot drive, you might also find yourself running out of space. If you select the photos in the Grid view, you can drag-and-drop them onto a normal folder of

Lightroom remembers these settings and uses them for any new Graduated Filters, Radial Filters, or Adjustment Brush strokes, until you next repeat the process.

your choice. But better still, rather than having to manually move the photos into your normal photo folders, you can change the default location and select a dated folder structure for future downloads by going to Lightroom Classic (PC: Edit)>Preferences and selecting the Lightroom Sync tab.

Q. How many Lightroom catalog backups should I keep? A. If you ask 10 different experts, you’ll get 10 different

trick is to make sure the panel is set to New rather than Edit mode before you adjust the sliders to your preferred settings. A quick way to reset all the sliders to 0 is to double-click on the word “Effect” at the top left of the panel.

If you have a Lightroom question that you’d like Victoria Bampton to answer in the pages of Photoshop User magazine, send it to letters@photoshopuser.com.

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Q. When selecting any type of local adjustment tool (gradient/brush), some of the sliders already have adjustments. How do I change the default settings so that the sliders are set to 0 when I create a new mask? A. To change the local adjustment slider defaults, the

answers, but I’d recommend keeping a few older backups in addition to the current ones. For example, 1 year old, 6 months old, 3 months old, 1 month old, plus the most recent four or five backups. My logic behind keeping much older backups is simple: You never know when you might discover a mistake you made a few months ago, and want to retrieve settings for some photos from a much older backup. n

SEÁN DUGGAN

LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS A recent experience I had in Lightroom Classic with files that weren’t sorting properly in chronological order inspired this month’s column where we dive into the options in the Sort Order menu, as well as custom sort orders, and when they do and don’t work for you. As is so often the case with such inquiries, one thing led to another, which then led to another, so we’ll also look at editing the capture time of photos, and how to tell Lightroom Classic to show you all of the missing photos in your catalog.

WORKING WITH SORT ORDER If the image thumbnails in Lightroom Classic’s Library module aren’t arranged as you expect them, the first thing to check is the Sort Order menu, which can be found under the thumbnail grid on the left side. There are twelve ways you can choose to sort your images using a variety of criteria. The default is Capture Time. There’s also a Custom Order option in the Sort Order menu, which only appears and is chosen automatically when you manually drag-and-drop thumbnails to rearrange them. Sort order can be used with folders, collections, and collection sets.

images are sorted. The sort options for the Lightroom for mobile app are the same as Lightroom for desktop.

View of the Sort Order menu in Lightroom cloud

SORT DIRECTION

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If you’ve set the Sort Order the way you want and the thumbnails are still not in the proper order, see if the Sort Direction is set correctly (look for the AZ icon with the curved arrows next to the Sort menu). There are only two options for this: A to Z, and the opposite, Z to A. The A and Z are proxies for criteria other than alphabetical order, such as time (newest to oldest), ratings (most ratings to least ratings), or whatever you have chosen in the Sort Order menu.

SORT ORDER/DIRECTION IS SPECIFIC TO THE SELECTED SOURCE

View of the Sort Order menu and Sort Direction icon

The cloud-based Lightroom also has a sort order menu in a similar location, but it doesn’t offer as many options as Lightroom Classic for controlling how the

An important thing to know about Sort Order and Sort Direction is that both are tied to the selected source you’re viewing. If you choose to sort by Rating for a specific folder, that will only apply to that folder. If you move to a different folder, or to a collection, the Sort Order will either be the default (Capture Time), or it will be what was selected for that source the last time you

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LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS

ALL IMAGES BY SEÁN DUGGAN

worked with those images. Sort Order is a sticky setting (i.e., it “sticks around” until you change it).

IDENTIFYING OTHER CAPTURE TIME SORT PROBLEMS

shortcut to select all of these photos, and from the main menu, I chose Metadata>Edit Capture Time. In the Edit Capture Time dialog, I used the Shift By a Set Number of Hours (Time Zone Adjust) option, added one hour to the capture time, and clicked Change All.

Recently, I added images taken with my iPhone into a folder of photos made with my Sony camera on the same day and at the same location. Once they were all in the same folder, however, I realized that images taken at the same time with each camera were not next to each other. I checked the Sort Order menu under the thumbnails and saw that it was set to Capture Time. The EXIF section of the Metadata panel, however, indicated that the capture times of photos from my Sony camera were about an hour behind those of the iPhone, and that revealed the problem: Daylight Savings Time had begun almost a month earlier, and I hadn’t updated the time on the Sony camera.

Metadata panel: Capture time for Sony

This time change only applies to the record for the images in the Lightroom Classic catalog. If you view the files in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer view,

EDIT THE CAPTURE TIME To fix this, I used the Metadata filter above the thumbnails and filtered for only the photos made by the Sony camera. Then I used the Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A)

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Metadata panel: Capture time for iPhone

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HOW TO

the actual, non-adjusted capture time will show there. You can also see this by viewing the EXIF section in the Metadata panel in Lightroom Classic. The Date Time Original value will show the adjusted time that’s now being used by the catalog, while the fields for Date Time Digitized and Date Time will display the actual capture time.

be either very distressing news, or no big deal. In my case, it was no big deal. I reviewed the filenames, and the original folder locations for the missing files and determined that most of these were either temporary files for projects that were completed long ago and never removed from my catalog, or they were files that I was pretty sure I could track down.

WHY IS CUSTOM SORT ORDER NOT AVAILABLE? In some circumstances, you may not be able to manually rearrange image thumbnails. If you run into this, or see that Custom Order isn’t an option in the Sort Order menu, check the left-hand panel in the Library module to see what the current source is for the thumbnail view (i.e., a folder, a collection). Custom sort order isn’t available when you’re active on a folder that contains subfolders, a collection set that contains other collections, smart collections, or collections that appear in the Catalog panel such as All Synced Photos, Previous Import, Previous Export as Catalog, and Missing Photographs.

WHY PHOTOS GO MISSING

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

DISPLAY MISSING PHOTOS

The Missing Photographs collection I mentioned in the previous tip isn’t displayed by default. You have to ask Lightroom Classic to create it and show it in the Catalog panel. To do this, choose Library>Find All Missing Photos. Depending on how many photos can’t be found, it may take a little time for Lightroom Classic to generate the results. When I did this with my main catalog, it displayed 1,275 missing images. That represents about 0.6% of the catalog total of 206,675 photos. Depending on the number of missing photos that Lightroom Classic finds in your catalog, this could

When images are imported into Lightroom Classic, the program notes the location where the file is stored on your system. The main reasons that some of your photos may turn up as missing is that a folder that contains them, or the files themselves, have either been moved or renamed outside the program (i.e., you move or rename a folder or a file using the Mac Finder or Windows File Explorer). This is why it’s important to handle any file or folder management and renaming from within the program. Missing files may be stored in folders that are also missing. Missing folders show up in the Folders panel with a question mark badge. In the March 2021 issue of Photoshop User, this column covered ways to locate missing folders and relink them with the Lightroom Classic catalog. But what about individual files that are missing? We don’t have room to go into that deep topic at this point, but I’ll be covering tips and search strategies for locating missing files in the July issue of the “Lightroom Tips & Tricks” column. n

Get professional-looking images using the camera you always have with you

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Imagine if someone took the same photographic techniques, principles, and tools used by high-end and professional photographers, but applied them to shooting with an iPhone. Imagine the type of images you’d be able to create using those same ideas. Well, Scott Kelby has done just that in his latest book—The iPhone Photography Book: How to Get ProfessionalLooking Images Using the Camera You Always Have with You.

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BRYAN O’NEIL HUGHES

GOING MOBILE

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE CAMERA IN YOUR POCKET I love helping people discover and understand the tremendous power and unique platform strengths of Adobe’s portfolio of mobile apps. In so many cases, we’re able to do more with mobile than we can on the desktop: more intuitively, powerfully, portably and, in so many ways, delightfully. In explaining all of that, however, I’ve missed an opportunity that’s very obvious and critically important: what about the work (or play) that happens before you edit?

This is everything. Nailing your capture will assure the

Lightroom, Photoshop, Fresco (where you can over-paint

best file from which to work and thus the best final output.

with oil and watercolors), or any other image editor of

Doing this right begins the moment you take your phone

choice. Let’s cover the best practices that help will get

out of your pocket and continues right up until you land in

the most out of “the camera you have with you.”

ALL IMAGES BY BRYAN O’NEIL HUGHES

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GOING MOBILE

KEEP IT CLEAN With a lens the size of a BB and a sensor a fraction of the

When it comes to steadying your handheld shots,

one you have on your larger camera, a small speck can

leverage the volume buttons as an alternate shutter

very easily become a big problem. Fingerprints cause light

button on your phone (the native behavior on iPhone

streaks and small artifacts become very big problems in

and a user-configurable option on Android). This will

post. My two tips here are:

allow a better, two-handed grip on your phone.

Don’t put anything else in the pocket in which you keep your phone: no keys, change, or anything that will

CONTROL THE EXPOSURE

act like a rock tumbler to your screen and lens. If you

As with all forms of photography, controlling expo-

keep it in a purse, store it in a separate pouch within it.

sure is a very important step, and one that ’s often

Get in the habit of wiping off the lens (or lenses) every

overlooked on mobile. Touch-and-hold your phone’s

time you intend to shoot. These lenses are covered with

screen on a bright area of the image (this can also

strong anti-scratch coatings, so you can use your shirttail

lock AF), then drag your finger up or down to adjust

or even tissue (not ideal, as these often have additives and

your exposure. The general rule is to expose for the

lotions), or anything to buff off the lint and fingerprints

highlights. This simple trick will give you considerably

likely to have landed on it.

better-looking (and infinitely more editable) images!

These two steps will save a lot of work in post.

The camera is making an educated guess; you’re saying, “I know better.”

This is consistent with all forms of photography: a

SHOOT IN RAW

steady perch is the key to sharp shots, be it a tripod,

A RAW image is uncompressed, which means you have

windowsill, or just using both hands. For portable

a higher fidelity file and thus pristine pixels and unbaked

stabilization, I’m loving this little device called the

colors. Conversely, a JPEG is compressed and the colors are

Pocket Tripod PRO.

“cooked” into the pixels. RAW images allow considerably

Adjusting exposure

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STABILIZE!

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HOW TO

Shooting in RAW in Lightroom’s camera

more flexibility in terms of tonal and color adjustments.

Pro Tip: To accelerate Lightroom RAW capture, add

Click here for a great example of the sort of before/after

the Lightroom widget to your iOS widgets. On iPhone,

that’s possible with RAW.

swipe right on the home screen to reveal widgets, scroll

So, how do you capture a RAW image on a mobile phone? There are two ways to do this:

down to the bottom, and tap the Edit button. Click + at the top left of the screen to add a new widget, scroll

1. T he iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max support Apple’s ProRAW, which is natively supported by both Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom (all versions). Initially, you have to turn on Apple ProRAW in Settings> Camera>Formats. Then it becomes a simple toggle in the phone’s default camera. 2. For other iPhone models and Android phones, Light room is here to help! Paid versions of Lightroom enable the application’s camera to capture RAW (DNG) files! In Lightroom, choose the camera by clicking on the camera icon. Then, tap on Auto next to the shutter button,

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

and select Professional or High Dynamic Range (HDR),

either of which allow you to shoot in RAW (as shown at the top, left, or right [depending on your camera orientation] of the screen in a file format toggle: JPEG/DNG). It will now say either Pro or HDR next to the shutter button, depending on what you chose. Professional will capture one RAW image, where HDR will fuse three captures together as one RAW file. The results are so good that I use this as my default RAW capture in most cases.

Adding the Take Photo Lr widget in iOS

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GOING MOBILE

down to Lightroom and tap it, and choose the Take Photo Lr widget, which should the first one. This will now be available in widgets so that you can access your RAW capture utility almost as quickly as the native camera! Those are the fundamentals. Put together they’ll help you create better, cleaner, sharper, and infinitely more editable images.

CAMERA OPTIONS (iPHONE) There are some really cool things you can do in the native camera and photos apps, as well, so we’ll take a quick look at some of my favorites and some gotchas. Let’s use a screen capture of my iOS camera to step through these. FLASH: The first icon at the top left turns the flash on and off. My flash is always off. I might occasionally use it in bright sun as a fill flash to remove shadows; otherwise, it only introduces glare and, with increased low-light capabilities, I simply don’t need it. (I take that back, I use it daily, but as a flashlight!) NIGHT MODE: The next icon is Night mode, which is incredible; but, when in Night mode, make sure to drag the Auto slider to Max to capture a longer sample of your low-light setting.

Apple’s native iOS camera

I didn’t find this immediately and it’s a game-changer! The amount of time for the capture is based on the current lighting. LIVE PHOTOS: To the right of the RAW button is the toggle for Live Photos. There are two great use cases for these: one is to later edit the Live Photo and extract a still (imagine a group of folks moving, blinking, or changing expressions); the other is to bring the Live Photo to life, which can be a loop, bounce, or long exposure. Here’s a link that shows more on how to do both of those. And finally, to completely push things into head-scratching experimentation, here’s an example of something I did with Live Photos, flash, and video export! I hope that clarifies, expands, and accelerates your mobile own workflow, follow me on Instagram: Instagram.com /bryanoneilhughes. n Apple’s native iOS camera in Night mode

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workflow! To see more of how I leverage the iPhone in my

SCOTT KELBY

PHOTOSHOP FOR LIGHTROOM USERS

USING CONTENT-AWARE FILL TO REMOVE DISTRACTIONS AND FILL IN GAPS We’re picking up where we left off last issue (removing distracting stuff), but we’re going in a different direction with it, because we’re not using a Healing Brush or Clone tool this time; we’re using some real Photoshop magic: Content-Aware Fill. This is Photoshop doing some crazy math behind the scenes to either cover over something we don’t want, or filling in missing parts of our photo, and doing it incredibly intelligently.

This is one of those features that works incredibly well most of the time. Not 100% of the time, but probably 70–80% of the time it does a jaw-dropping job. Another 10–15% of the time, it doesn’t fully fix the problem, but it does enough that we can kind of clean it up pretty easily, so it does “most of the job” for us. That other 5–10% when it doesn’t work at all, it leaves a big mess, and our only recourse is to hit “undo.” Still, the odds are hugely in our favor, so this is one of those go-to tools worth learning right up front.

pressing the letter M on the keyboard, and drag out a selection right over some of those weeds, as shown here.

REMOVING STUFF

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Here’s our original image, and it’s a little messy. What I want is our bride on a simple clean wall, but what we have is a bride with plants (weeds?) sticking up into the picture, as well as a window, a column, a random piece of metal along the left side and, well, we’ve got some cleanin’ to do.

6 4

STEP ONE: Let’s start with those weeds down in front, and target them for removal. Grab the Rectangle Marquee tool (the one that makes square and rectangle selections) by

STEP TWO: If the image is on your Background layer in Photoshop, there’s a special shortcut that brings up the Fill dialog so you can get to Content-Aware. You simply press the Delete (PC: Backspace) key on your keyboard and the Fill dialog pops up. If your image isn’t on the Background layer, you pull up the dialog a different way: go under Photoshop’s Edit menu and choose Fill. It brings up the same Fill dialog either way. And there’s also a keyboard shortcut to bring it up when you’re not on the Background layer: Shift-Delete (PC: Shift-Backspace). Once the Fill dialog appears, where it says Contents up top, it should say Content-Aware (that’s the default setting), but if it says anything else, just choose Content-Aware

PHOTOSHOP FOR LIGHTROOM USERS

ALL IMAGES BY SCOTT KELBY

from the pop-up menu. Now just click the OK but ton at the top right to apply a Content-Aware Fill to your selected area. Just like that those weeds are gone and Photoshop intelligently replaced them with a texture and tone from the surrounding area. That’s all there is to it (well, that’s all there is to the basics—there’s still some meat on this bone, so hang with me for another minute). In short, make a selection (it doesn’t have to be with the Rectangular Marquee tool; you can use any selection tool you like), choose Fill, make sure Content-Aware is selected, and click OK.

STEP THREE: Now, let’s keep chunking away at this, but let’s take a bigger chunk this time. We’re going to select that entire right side of the image with a big ol’ rectangular selection (like you see here), and then go under the Edit menu and choose Fill. Content-Aware will already be chosen; once you choose it in the Fill dialog, it’s sticky and will stay at Content-Aware until you change it. So you don’t even have to look at the dialog; just choose Fill and hit OK. Of course, you can use the Delete (PC: Backspace) keyboard shortcut, as well, if your image is on the Background layer. It worked! (It works on big things like this more often than you’d think, but in the next issue we’ll cover what to do when it doesn’t work.)

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HOW TO

STEP FOUR: Now let’s grab that thing sticking into our image on the left side. Same routine: put a selection around it, go to the Fill dialog, and click OK. That’s the routine. Yup, it’s gone now, too!

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FILLING IN MISSING AREAS

Okay, let’s look at a different photo and a different situation when we’d use Content-Aware Fill. Here’s our image and, as you can see, our horizon line is super crooked. There are a bunch of ways to straighten it, but for now we’re going to use Photoshop’s Free Transform tool to rotate it so it’s straight. STEP ONE: We can’t use Free Transform on the Background layer. That layer is locked (see the lock icon to the right of “Background” in the Layers panel?). So, to use Free Transform we have to make it a regular layer (not a Background layer). To do that, just click once directly on that lock. That’s it; now it’s a regular layer (Layer 0).

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I didn’t exactly nail it, but let’s not dwell on that). Hit the Enter key to lock in the rotation. STEP THREE: Do you see those gaps in the corners of our image that appeared because we rotated it? That’s what we’re going to use Content-Aware Fill to fix. First, we have to tell Photoshop what we want to fix ( just as we did by selecting the weeds, column, window, etc. in the previous project). The easiest, quickest way to select those corners is the get the Magic Wand tool from the Toolbar (it’s up near the top nested with the Quick Selection tool [W], and its icon looks like, well, a magic wand). Click it once in the gap up in the left corner and it “magically” selects that whole transparent area. To add the other three corners, you first have to hold the Shift key (that tells Photoshop you want to keep the corner already selected, but you want to add other areas to it). Now when you click in the other three corners, it selects them, too. Okay, at this point, all four corners are selected (as shown here).

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STEP TWO: Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to bring up the Free Transform feature. It puts a bounding box around your image with handles on each side and each corner. We’re not going to use any of those handles for this; instead, move your cursor just outside that bounding box, and you’ll see it change into a double-headed curved arrow. Now click, hold, and drag in the direction you want to rotate the image until your horizon line looks straight (or kinda straight;

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HOW TO

STEP FOUR: Okay, you’re about to learn a killer tip to help you get better results in situations like this when you’re filling an empty area using Content-Aware Fill. Right now, all you’ve selected are empty corners, right? You can help Photoshop make a more intelligent “fill” by expanding your selection just a little, so the empty areas are selected and just a tiny bit of the image area, as well. When Photoshop sees those extra pixels selected, it makes a smarter fill, so it’s worth doing. Here’s how: Go under the Select menu up top, under Modify, and choose Expand. We’re going to expand (grow)

this selection by 4 pixels (that’s the magic number) and then click OK. You won’t see much happen onscreen unless you zoom way in, and do a before/after by pressing Command-Option-Z (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Z) a few times to toggle back and forth. You’ll see that, sure enough, your selection expands out just a little into your image.

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STEP FIVE: Now do the rest of the Content-Aware Fill routine. You already made your selection, so go under the Edit menu, choose Fill, click OK, and it’s done. For three of the corners it did it’s usual amazing job. For the bottom-left corner, ummmm, not so much. It looks like it didn’t quite fill in that bar and piece of wood (I’m sure it has an official boating name, but for now, this landlubber will just call it “a piece of wood”), but it’s easy to fix, and finish it off.

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STEP SIX: Yup, we’re going to go get the Clone Stamp tool (the same one we’ve been talking about in the past few issues), and use it to clone more of that bar so it reaches the left corner and the piece of wood so it fills in that gap. Get the Clone Stamp tool (S) from the Toolbar, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, and click right along the round wood thing, and then paint it right into the left corner. Then, resample the wood behind it and fill in the gap. There ya have it, and we used two of Photoshop’s tools together to get the job done, so you can see another instance of how the tools work so well together. Okay, next issue our journey continues and we’ll look at what to do when using Content-Aware creates a big mess; but I hope you found this tutorial helpful, and that it’s a reminder of how powerful these tools are when you use them together. See you next issue! n

TAKE YOUR IMAGES FROM FLAT TO FABULOUS

Get ready to learn “The System” crafted by world-renowned Lightroom expert Scott Kelby. This is a new way of working and thinking about editing your images that will change the way you work in Lightroom forever, so you’ll spend less time fixing your photos and more time finishing them, and doing the fun, creative things that make Lightroom the amazing tool that it is. This isn’t a “read about it” book. This is a hands-on “you do it” book. You start each lesson with the RAW photo, right out of the camera (you can download Scott’s images, so you can follow right along). Then, you’re going to apply the 7-Point System, until these seven points are absolutely second nature to you. Once you learn this system, there won’t be an image on your screen that you won’t be able to enhance, fix, edit, and finish like a pro! This is the book you’ve been waiting for—the industry has been waiting for—and once you learn this system and start applying it yourself, you’ll be the next one to say, “You can’t beat the system!”

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A FUNDAMENTAL REFRESHER The importance of understanding how one-, two-, and three-point perspective works is that you can establish the location of the horizon. In the examples on this page, the yellow circles represent where parallel edges recede over distance and eventually cross one another. This convergent point, also known as the vanishing point, is at the horizon of an image and can be extremely helpful when you want composited images to feel more natural. If you’ve ever tried sizing an image in a composite and it just didn’t feel like it matched the scene, it’s probably because it had a different perspective than the main image, so the horizons didn’t align. Vanishing points are key in knowing how perspective tools work in Photoshop. For many photographers, if they want to straighten the perspective of a photo, they’d simply use the controls in the Geometry panel in Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw or the Transform panel in Lightroom; however, if you want a level of control like the handlebars and modifiers that Free Transform offers, you can use a feature called Perspective Warp found under the Edit menu in Photoshop. The value of this tool is that all the perspective math is calculated for you, and it works very well. Remembering how vanishing points are determined will be important in using this tool. Let’s do a basic project to introduce you to Perspective Warp.

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sh Photo by hohyeong lee on Unspla

Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash

If you did take an art class in school, do you remember drawing those receding, orthogonal lines over a photograph? Or maybe you secretly wanted to draw comic books, so you learned how to draw in one-point, two-point, or even three-point perspective? If you did, it would have looked something like these examples:

Background Design: Elements ©Adobe Stock

SH IF TI NG YO UR V IE W PO INT W ITH PE RSPECT IVE WARP To understand how we can use Perspective Warp, you can download this image from Unsplash.com for your personal instruction. So that the background doesn’t get distorted, make a quick selection of the image (Select>Subject) and mask it out (click the Add a Mask icon [circle in a square] at the bottom of the Layers panel), and place it above a new solid white layer (click the Create a New Layer icon [+], press D to set the default colors, press Command-Delete [PC: Ctrl-Backspace] to fill the new layer with white, and drag it below the box layer in the Layers panel). Now we’re going to shift the perspective, viewpoint, and extreme nature of our lens (as shown here), all by using Perspective Warp. Let’s begin.

STEP ONE: Convert your masked box image layer to a smart object by Right-clicking to the right of its layer mask thumbnail in the Layers panel and choosing Convert to Smart Object. This will ensure your transformation is nondestructive and will allow for adjustments later on in case you need to composite the image elsewhere. It will also now treat Perspective Warp as a smart filter (you can learn more about smart filters here).

Photo by Christopher Bill on Unsplash

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Original image

After applying Perspective Warp

STEP TWO: With your box smart object layer active in the Layers panel, go to the Edit menu in Photoshop and choose Perspective Warp. This is where the fun begins!

STEP THREE: Your cursor now looks like an offset grid. This is the part of the tool that allows you to draw “quads.” When you click-and-drag, it will create a grid. After you release the mouse button, grab each corner of the grid and drag it so it matches the perspective of the object (see next page). Remember, follow the receding orthogonal edges of the box as shown to make it easier. STEP FOUR: Repeat the previous step again, but add grids to the top and left side of the box. After you drag out a new grid, drag one of its corner points to align with an adjacent grid; the opposite point on that side should snap to the adjacent grid, as well. Note that when

Step Four

STEP FIVE: Up in the Options Bar, switch the Perspective Warp mode from Layout to Warp. This will allow you to click the corner points of your quads and drag them to warp/transform the shape of the object you outlined. Because you built the quads to resemble the perspective of the object, anything within the quads gets transformed relative to the correct perspective scaling. A bonus if you noticed that the icons to the right of the Warp button in the Options Bar will allow you to auto-correct perspective so that verticals, horizontals, or both, are set to parallels. STEP SIX: Decide how you want to adjust your perspective and once you’re done, click the checkmark in the Options Bar to apply the Perspective Warp edit. Here are a few different warped examples of the same box.

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Step Three

you create an additional grid, if you drag a corner point of the new grid between two points of an existing grid, one side will snap to that grid. This greatly simplifies the 3D perspective mapping process. You can then adjust the other two points as needed. Note: You’ll need to experiment with drawing grids to get used to their snapping behavior. Once your grids are in place, you can drag the corner points to fine-tune their placement.

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Note: Because the box layer was converted into a smart object, the Perspective Warp is applied as a smart filter. You’ll see this show up as an element in the Layers panel when the smart object layer is expanded. Double-click on that smart filter label, Perspective Warp, and it will bring back the quad controls so you can adjust your perspective as needed. Here’s an example of using the same technique on a cropped portion of the building image from the

beginning of the article. The original on the top looks like a three-point perspective image because the photographer shot from a low vantage point with a wide-angle lens. In this instance, I didn’t select and mask the building first. I duplicated the Background layer, converted it to a smart object, applied the Perspective Warp to the building, and then cropped out the transparent areas created by the warp.

THE NEXT PERSPECTIVE Just like Perspective Warp, the basis of this tool is to draw grids to show Photoshop where the receding perspective lines are. If you’ve ever struggled transforming something you composited into a photograph so that it matches the perspective, this allows you to be more accurate than making a “guesstimate.” Let’s take an overview of the filter with one of our box images that’s been isolated with a layer mask (but not converted into a smart object). STEP ONE: Go to Filter>Vanishing Point, which will launch the filter in its own window. STEP TWO: The second tool in the Toolbar on the left of the Vanishing Point window is the Create Plane tool (C). This allows you to draw a grid reference for the receding horizontal and vertical edges on the reference image. It’s easier to start on the corner of the box that’s closest to the viewer, so click once with the Create Plane tool on that corner. Move your cursor down and click on the bottom-middle corner, then click on the bottom-right corner, and finally, click on the top-right corner. You’ve now drawn a plane on the right face of the box. The grid should be blue; if it’s any other color, adjust the corner points until it turns blue. Now you want to make a plane for the other edges of the box. If you use your imagination this could be a building, a side of a car, or just about any object. As long as you can find the perspective form, you can use this technique. STEP THREE: Holding the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, grab the left-middle transform node on the plane, and drag it to the left. This is known as “tearing off a plane.” Photoshop will attempt to auto-calculate the form of the left side of the box. Note: This doesn’t work when you grab a corner transform node; you must use a transform node in the middle between two corners. If the new plane doesn’t match the perspective of your desired form, just grab the corner nodes (no modifier key needed), and adjust them to match perspective lines of the object. Repeat this for the lid of the box. It should look like this when you’re done.

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Now that you’ve learned one technique for shifting perspective by warping and transforming, let’s look at another powerful perspective control within Photoshop. Not surprisingly, it’s called Vanishing Point, a reference back to the foundational overview with which we started in this article. This feature is found under the Filter menu, and although it’s quite helpful, it’s important to note that it doesn’t work with smart objects, which means you should be mindful of how destructive each edit can be.

Why have we done all this prep work? Well, when you click OK, even though you’ve done nothing more than define the surface planes of the object, Photoshop will retain this 3D grid the next time you reopen the Vanishing Point filter, which is handy because your grid can be saved for future perspective edits. So click OK to go back to the main workspace for Photoshop. STEP FOUR: Find something you want to put on your box, select it, and press Command-C (PC: Ctrl-D) to copy it to the clipboard of your computer. In our example, we made a fun hipster logo for KelbyOne on a transparent background. STEP FIVE: Create a new layer in your box image file and then go back to Filter>Vanishing Point. You’ll notice your original grid planes are still there.

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STEP SIX: Press Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V) to paste in the artwork you copied in Step Four within the filter’s window. It will paste flat as shown here with no adherence to the perspective planes of the box.

STEP SEVEN: Grab the Transform tool (T) from the Toolbar on the left, hold the Shift key, and drag one of the corner points on your pasted object to size it down for the box. Then click-and-drag it to the box. It will snap to the first plane it encounters. Now as you move it around, it will adhere to the dimensional faces you created earlier, following the perspective of the box. When you click OK , your pasted graphic will be on that new blank layer you created in Step Five. The first time that most Photoshop users see this feature, there are gasps of relief after years of faking perspective with hokey Free Transform controls to distort the corner nodes into place. Now you can define the perspective planes you need, and then freely move composite graphics or retouching elements relative to the perspective.

INTEGRATE MORE WITH VANISHING POINT

Marquee tool options

Stamp tool options

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If you were paying attention to the interface of the editing window for Vanishing Point, you probably noticed there were even more tools and controls inside. Some of those tools even borrow features from other tools we know in Photoshop, but what’s great about them is they’ll all work relative to the perspective planes that you create within the Vanishing Point filter. As you go through the tools, look at the Options Bar along the top of the window. You’ll notice things such as Heal for the Stamp tool (S), which allows it to work like the Healing Brush, only it will clone from the perspective planes relative to one another. Another good example is the Marquee tool (M), which also has an option for Heal that works similarly to the Patch tool with Source/Destination options.

Photo by Justin Taylor on Unsplash

THEATER MARQUEE EXAMPLE In this example, we’ll look at a few ways to copy one side of a theater marquee to the other side so that the content is the same. You can find this image on Unsplash by clicking here. Create a new layer, and then, as we did with the box, you’ll need to create two planes in

the Vanishing Point filter that represent each side of the marquee. The image above is what it should look like after you create the planes. We now have a few options for copying the sign on the left side over to the plane on the right.

O PTION A: THE RUBBER STAMP

STEP ONE: Now that you have your planes created, choose the Stamp tool (S) within the Vanishing Point window, and select On in the Heal dropdown menu.

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STEP TWO: Hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and click the area that you want to use as your starting sample point. In this example, we sampled the letter P of the word “Protect” on the left side.

Example after cloning 1/3rd of the way through from left to right

STEP THREE: Now move your stamp to the right side of the sign, and begin painting to clone the details from the left to the right. Notice it’s flipping the perspective. With the Heal option set to On, the cloned pixels blend nicely with the surrounding tones allowing the composite to look more realistic.

Final version using the Stamp tool with Heal

OPTION B: THE MARQUEE DRAG

Instead of using the Stamp tool, you could use a technique very common in everyday Photoshop editing: drag-anddropping a copy. Here are the steps: STEP ONE: With your planes created, grab the Marquee tool (M) in the Vanishing Point filter window, and set its Heal option to On. Draw a marquee inside the plane on the left sign, selecting all the letters. Notice that the Marquee tool adheres to the perspective of that plane.

into any other plane; if you Command-click-and-drag (PC: Ctrl-click-and-drag), the content from the other plane will move into the selection. This is similar to using the Patch tool within Photoshop, but it conforms anything patched to the new perspective plane. If you set the Move Mode drop-down to Source after drawing your selection, just click-and-drag inside the selection to move the content from the other plane into the selected area.

STEP TWO: Immediately after making the marquee selection, the Move Mode drop-down menu in the Options Bar defaults to Destination. If you click-and-drag inside the selection, you can move the selection itself; if you Option-click-and-drag (PC: Alt-click-and-drag) inside the selected area, you can move the selected content

Helpful Hint: When you have an empty blank layer active before going into the Vanishing Point filter, you can reference the visible layers, but any filter edits made will be sent to the empty new layer when you click OK. This way, it’s easy to mask out or retouch any of the elements.

Final version using the Marquee tool

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Using the Marquee tool and the Move Mode, you can move selected elements between multiple planes.

PAINTING IN PERSPECTIVE One last feature worth noting is that you can also use the Brush tool (B) within the Vanishing Point filter to paint in perspective on your image. The brush is a bit too limited in its controls to be a viable retouching feature but if you need to make brushstrokes that follow perspective, this can be helpful because contours and size over a perspective distance are very difficult to guess. You can find this Unsplash image by clicking here. Don’t forget to create a new layer before going into Vanishing Point. The grid view of the planes in this image shows that there’s a plane on the main wall, the sidewalk on which the man is sitting, the curb’s vertical face under his legs, the road surface, and then the curb across the street. The wall was the first plane we traced, and then each plane after that was created

by holding the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and dragging the bottom-middle nodes as we did earlier with the box example. With the perspective plane set for each surface, grab the Brush tool (B), and select your brush Diameter and Color in the Options Bar. Hold Shift to constrain the stroke to a straight line, and watch the diameter, shape, and angle of your brush change as you paint over each perspective plane. The image of the yellow line on the next page is done with one stroke of the brush. Although this yellow line is no example of retouching mastery, it illustrates a detail that’s often lost in compositing and retouching: a brush’s radius and size should change over a perspective plane and distance. You could use this to mark and measure things, or just play around and have fun simply doodling over

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Photo by 贝莉儿 DANIST on Unsplash

the perspective planes, as in the example below. After clicking OK, it applies the brushstrokes to the new empty layer you made before entering Vanishing Point. Now you can mask out or remove any elements of the brushstroke that you don’t want in certain areas of the image.

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There you have it! Whether it’s compositing logos onto products, changing the perspective of a 3D form, or modifying details and illustrating in new elements, the groundwork that’s done with these perspective tools inside Photoshop can make your work more convincing and a lot more fun. n

COREY BARKER

PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS

NEVER SAY REVENS There’s a new show on HBO called The Nevers and, while it does look interesting, I haven’t watched it yet (someone let me know if it’s any good!). I did, however, notice the poster design was a rather simple effect using masks in interesting ways. I thought we’d explore creating similar masking effects

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but also build on them with some additional effects.

PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS

STEP ONE: Start by creating a new Photoshop document by going under the File menu and selecting New. Set the Width to 1280 pixels, Height to 1900 pixels, Resolution to 300 ppi, and Background Contents to White. Click OK or Create. STEP TWO: Click the Foreground color swatch near the bottom of the Toolbar and, in the Color Picker, choose a base color for your background. We’re starting with a light shade of purple. Click OK to close the Color Picker.

STEP THREE: In the Layers panel, create a new blank layer, and then press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the new layer with the light-purple Foreground color.

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HOW TO

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STEP FIVE: We’re going to use a city skyline image for the mask and background effect. Here we have a nice shot of London from Adobe Stock. It has minimal texture in the sky so extracting the buildings should be easy. Start by using the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) to select the top half of the image at the approximate horizon line. We just used the bridge as a guide in this example. If you’d like to download the low-res watermarked versions of this image to follow along, click this link, log in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library button. Right-click the image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries) and choose Edit to open it in Photoshop. To make it easier to work with the image, increase the resolution of the practice file. (We normally don’t recommend enlarging images, but this is only for practice purposes.) Go to Image>Image Size, turn on the Resample checkbox, select Preserve Details 2.0 from the Resample drop-down menu, set the Width to 2,000 pixels, and click OK. Select the top half of the image as described above.

©Adobe Stock/norbel

STEP FOUR: Click on the Add a Layer Style icon ( ƒx) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Gradient Overlay. Click on the Gradient thumbnail in the Layer Style dialog to bring up the Gradient Editor. Select the Foreground to Transparent preset in the Basics set, and then double-click the color stop (it looks like a little house) under the left side of the gradient ramp to open the Color Picker. Choose a dark-blue color (R: 18, G: 20, B: 38) and click OK to close the Color Picker. Double-click the color stop on the right, and choose a light-blue color (R: 182, G: 185, B: 219). Click OK to close the Color Picker, and click OK again to close the Gradient Editor. Back in the Layer Style dialog, set the Blend Mode to Hard Light and Opacity to 100%. Choose Radial in the gradient Style drop-down menu. If the dark color is in the center of the image, check on Reverse. Use the Scale slider to increase the gradient to fit in the overall composition as shown here. Click OK. Remember this is a layer style so you can change this at any time. Set the layer Opacity in the Layers panel to 75%.

PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS

STEP SIX: Once selected, press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected area to a new layer. In the Layers panel, click the Eye icon next to the original Background layer to hide it. Go to Select>Sky to select the sky, which creates a decent selection, but we need to clean it up a bit, so grab the Quick Selection tool (nested below the Objection Selection tool [W] in the Toolbar). While holding the Option (PC: Alt) key, clickand-drag over any parts of the buildings that were included in the selection to exclude them from the sky selection. If any sky areas were missed, simply clickand-drag to add those areas (no modifier key needed). We also removed the flagpole from the sky selection. STEP SEVEN: Go to Select> Inverse so the buildings are selected instead of the sky, and click the Select and Mask button in the Options Bar at the top. Set the View drop-down menu to On Black (A) with Opacity at 100% so you can see if any large areas were missed or if any minor tweaks are needed using the Refine Edge Brush tool (R). Over in the Properties panel, set the Edge Detection Radius to 1 px. Go to the Output To drop-down menu in the Output Settings at the bottom of the Properties panel, and choose New Layer. Click OK.

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HOW TO

STEP EIGHT: In the Layers panel, make a duplicate of this extracted layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). Go under the Edit menu, to Transform, and choose Flip Vertic al. Using the Move tool ( V ), drag the flipped layer down to create a reflection effect. Once done, press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to merge the two layers together into a single layer.

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STEP NINE: Once the layers are merged, use the Move tool (V) to drag this layer into the main image file with the purple background. Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T ) for Free Transform to scale and position the reflected city skyline as shown here. Press Enter to commit the transformation.

STEP 10: Click on the Add a Layer Style icon ( ƒx) again at the bottom of the Layers panel, and choose Gradient Overlay. The Layer Style dialog should have the same settings we used in Step Four. Just change the Style to Linear, adjust the Angle to 90°, turn off Reverse, and lower the Scale to decrease the distance of the gradient. In the Gradient Editor, set the left color stop to black. Click-and-drag on the canvas to manually reposition the gradient so the gradient line is close to the horizon of the image. Don’t click OK yet in the Layer Style dialog.

PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS

STEP 11: Next, click on the words “Color Overlay” on the left side of the Layer Style dialog to turn it on and activate its settings. (Note: If an effect is missing from the list on the left of the Layer Style dialog, click on the ƒx icon at the bottom left of the dialog, and select the effect from there.) Set the Blend Mode to Color and click on the color swatch to open the Color Picker. Select a light-blue color, and click OK to close the Color Picker. If the color seems a bit harsh, just lower the Opacity a little in the Layer Style dialog. Click OK. The two layer styles create a color grading effect with a dark silhouetted reflection.

STEP 12: Now let’s get our main subject in the scene. As in the TV show, we have a woman dressed in Victorian-era clothing. There’s a bit of a texture in the background, so when we tried using Select>Subject, it wasn’t getting everything in the selection. As an alternative, we’ll use the Quick Selection tool, located in the Toolbar under the Object Selection tool (W). You can find this image on Adobe Stock by clicking here. Again, if you download the low-res preview, increase its image size as we did with the London image in Step Five.

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©Adobe Stock/rodjulian

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HOW TO

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STEP 13: In some cases you may find it easier to select the background rather than the subject to get started. Just paint over the background in an upside-down U shape around the subject with the Quick Selection tool. If any part of the subject is selected, just hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and paint over the unwanted area to remove it from the selection.

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STEP 14: Once the selection is made, go under the Select menu and choose Inverse to flip the selection from the background to the subject. Click the Select and Mask button in the Options Bar. Select the Refine Edge Brush tool (R) in the Toolbar and adjust the brush size as needed using the Bracket keys on your keyboard. Paint around the subject’s hair to clean up the selection. Also paint or dab in any other areas that need the original background removed. Over in the Properties panel, set the Radius to 3 pixels and, down in the Global Refinements, bump up the Contrast to around 13% to tighten up the edges a bit more. Go to the Output Settings and check on Decontaminate Colors, then lower the Amount to about 45% . This cleans up any edge noise or color effects spilling over from the background onto the subject and also does a good job cleaning up anti-alias artifacts. Finally, set the Output To drop-down menu to New Layer and click OK.

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STEP 15: Using the Move tool, drag the extracted subject into the main design layout. Use Free Transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T ]) to scale and position the subject in the composition as you see here. Press Enter to commit the transformation. Double-click the name of the subject layer in the Layers panel and rename it “Main Subject.”

STEP 16: With the subject in place, not only does the city behind her seem a little short vertically, but also the other tower is being covered by the subject and we’d like that one in view. Just make a duplicate of the city layer by clicking on it in the Layers panel to make it active and pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). Click back on the original city layer below in the Layers panel, and use the Move tool to drag it over to the left so the tower can be seen on the left side of the subject, and then move it down a little to increase the vertical thickness of the overall buildings. Click on the subject layer in the Layers panel, and press Command-G (PC: Ctrl-G) to place the layer inside a layer group folder. Double-click the name of that group folder, and rename it “Main Subject,” as well. Placing the layer in a layer group will give you some advantages on how some effects are applied, as you’ll see shortly.

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STEP 17: Hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click on the layer thumbnail of one of the city layers in the Layers panel to load the shape as a selection. Then hold down Shift-Command (PC: Shift-Ctrl) and click on the other city layer ’s thumbnail to add it to the selection.

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STEP 18: Select the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) in the Toolbar, hold down the Shift key, and draw a selection over the top half of the image, stopping at the horizon of the buildings. This will leave just the upsidedown building shapes selected.

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STEP 19: Click on the layer group in the Layers panel to make it active, and then click the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will mask the bottom area of the subject in the shape of the buildings, resulting in this cool effect. STEP 20: Back in the Layers panel, make a duplicate of the Main Subject layer inside the group folder by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). Remove the color from the duplicate layer by pressing Shift-Command-U (PC: Shift-Ctrl-U). Then, change the layer blend mode to Multiply and lower the layer Opacity to 90%.

STEP 21: Press Command-L (PC: CtrlL) to open Levels. We’re going to apply a lot more contrast to the image to crush the shadows and bring out the extreme highlights in the subject. You can see here how much we’ve pushed the sliders in the Levels dialog to get that contrast. Experiment with these settings, as different images require different adjustments. Click OK when done.

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STEP 22: Now let’s add a color effect to help blend the subject a bit more with the scene. Press Command-U (PC: Ctrl-U) to open Hue/Saturation. Check on Colorize then set the Hue slider to the color you want and adjust the Saturation and Lightness as needed. You can see what we’re using here for this scene.

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STEP 23: In the Layers panel, click on the original Main Subject layer to make it active, and then load that layer as a selection by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking its layer thumbnail. Press Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C) to copy the selected image to the clipboard.

STEP 24: Open the Channels panel (Window>Channels) and click on the Create New Channel icon (+) at the bottom of the panel to create a new channel called Alpha 1. The selection will still be active, so just press Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V) to paste the image in the new channel. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect. Make a duplicate of this channel by dragging it to the Create New Channel icon (this is just in case you need to start over), and click back on the Alpha 1 channel (this should automatically hide the Alpha 1 copy).

PHOTOSHOP DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS

STEP 25: Open Levels again by pressing Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L). The idea here is to push the highlights on just her dress, specifically in the darker areas like the sleeves (you can ignore what it’s doing to the other parts of the channel such as her face and hands). You can see our settings here are extreme but look good in the image.

STEP 26: Use the Lasso tool (L) to draw a selection around the suitcase and her hands. Press X until the Foreground color is black, and press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the selection with black. Repeat for the white ruffles on her dress and her head. All you should see is the fabric highlights.

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STEP 27: To brighten the highlights even more on the Alpha channel, select the Gradient tool (G) in the Toolbar. Press X to set the Foreground color to white. In the Options Bar, click the preview strip and choose the Foreground to Transparent gradient in the Basics set in the Gradient Editor. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor. Set the style to Radial and the tool blend Mode to Overlay in the Options Bar. Now drag out gradients over the existing highlighted areas of the dress. This will force a lot of the gray pixels to white, making the highlights a little brighter.

STEP 28: Hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click on the Alpha 1 channel thumbnail in the Channels panel to load the highlights as an active selection. Back in the Layers panel, create a new blank layer and place it between the Main Subject layer and the Main Subject copy. Press D then X to set the Foreground color to white, and press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the selection with white. What you’ll see is the purple texture enhanced, revealing more of the fabric texture. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.

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STEP 29: While still on the same layer, click on the Add a Layer Style icon ( ƒx) at the bottom of the Layers panel, and choose Outer Glow. Use the settings shown here to enhance the highlights with a nice glow effect. The color we used is R: 207, G: 183, and B: 255.

STEP 30: Click on the Main Subject layer in the Layers panel to make it active, then go to the Add a Layer Style icon again, and choose Gradient Overlay. Again, we’re going to use a Foreground to Transparent gradient with the color stop on the left in the Gradient Editor set to black or a very dark purple. Set the Blend Mode to Linear Burn and the Style to Radial. Then lower the Opacity to around 75%. Next, set the Angle to 90° and increase the Scale to 150%. Now you can click directly on the canvas and drag the gradient around manually. Remember, if the dark color is in the center of the gradient, check on Reverse in the Layer Style dialog. Click OK when done.

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STEP 31: Next select the Magic Wand tool (nested below the Object Selection tool [W] in the Toolbar) and click on the white lace on the front of her dress. Hold down Shift and click to add areas to the selection; it doesn’t need to be perfect, just get most of it. Create a new blank layer above the Main Subject layer and fill this selection with white, as we did in Step 28. We want to add the same Outer Glow that’s applied to the highlights layer directly above, so hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, and click-and-drag its ƒx icon to the new layer to copy-and-paste it.

STEP 32: As an option, you can add a couple gradient layers to enhance the image. First, add a layer above the Main Subject layer group in the Layers panel. Using the Gradient tool with the Foreground to Transparent preset, set the Foreground color to black and, in the Options Bar, set the style to Linear and check on Reverse. Also, set the Mode from Overlay back to Normal. Click in the middle of her face and drag the gradient beyond the top edge of the image. Repeat at the bottom, dragging from the tip of the center silhouetted building beyond the bottom of the document. This adds simple dark fades to the top and bottom edges of the layer. Set the layer Opacity to 90%, and rename it “Gradient.” Add another layer above the Gradient layer named “Warm Gradient.” Change the Foreground color to an orange color, set the style to Radial in the Options Bar, and turn off Reverse. Drag from outside the canvas on the left to just past the middle of the document. Set the layer blending mode to Soft Light mode. This introduces a little warmth in an otherwise cold image.

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STEP 33: Finally, there are some particle elements in the original poster. For this, we have a simple star field image from Adobe Stock that will work just fine. You can download the preview of the image by clicking here. Press Shift-Command-U (PC: ShiftCtrl-U) to remove the color. Then use Levels to push the contrast to force all areas to either pure black or pure white. Drag this image into the main design at the top of the layer stack. Use Free Transform to scale it so it fills the image. Press Enter to commit the transformation. Set the blend mode to Screen and lower the Opacity to around 55%.

STEP 34: Now just click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and use Foreground to Transparent Radial gradients with the Foreground color set to black to fade out any of the particles that are on the subject’s face or anywhere they’re in the way of something. I also decided to go back to the purple-filled layer just above the Background layer, and change the Scale of the Gradient Overlay to 86%. Just double-click the words “Gradient Overlay” to open the Layer Style dialog, make your changes, and click OK. This creates a stronger vignette effect, focusing the attention on our subject.

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©Adobe Stock/ohishiftl

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In the end, you have a nice composite, but if you want to go all the way with it, add some text. Here’s our final version with text added. n

LESA SNIDER

BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP

CREATING A GRID PORTRAIT EFFECT Photoshop’s ability to clip one layer to another lets you push the top layer’s content through the shape of the layer or layer group underneath it. That could be a shape drawn with one of the built-in shape tools, a shape made with the Lasso or Pen tool, a brushstroke, or even text. In this column, you’ll learn how to push a portrait through a grid of squares.

©Adobe Stock/beeboys

STEP ONE: In Photoshop, choose File>Open and navigate to the portrait you want to open. If necessary, unlock the Background layer by clicking the padlock on its right (circled), so you can add more layers below it. If you’re starting in Lightroom, select the image thumbnail in the Library module and choose Photo>Edit In>Edit In Adobe Photoshop 2021. If you’d like to download the low-res watermarked versions of these images to follow along, click this link, log in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library button. Rightclick the image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries), choose Edit to open it in Photoshop, and then unlock the Background layer as described above. 10 0

BEGI N N E RS’ WORKSHOP

STEP TWO: Click the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of the Layers panel (circled) and choose Solid Color. In the Color Picker that opens, enter #FFFFFF into the hex field (also circled) and click OK.

STEP THREE: In the Layers panel, drag the Color Fill 1 layer beneath the image layer and then turn off the visibility Eye (circled) on the image layer to temporarily hide it. This makes it easier to draw and place the shapes precisely in the next few steps.

STEP FOUR: Press U to grab the Rectangle tool. In the Options Bar, set the Tool Mode menu to Shape (circled), and then set the Fill to black and Stroke to No Color.

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STEP FIVE: Point your cursor near the upper-left corner of the canvas and Shift-click. In the dialog that opens, enter 700 px for both Width and Height and click OK. (If you’re working with the Adobe preview image, try 125 px, and set all the Radii to 5 px.)

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STEP SIX: Choose View>Snap and make sure there’s a checkmark next to Snap. If not, then click on Snap. Press V to grab the Move tool (circled). Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the Rectangle 1 layer. Shift-drag the Rectangle 1 Copy layer to the right approximately 100 pixels past the right edge of the first square as shown here. (If you’re working with the Adobe preview image, try moving it 15 pixels past the right edge of the first square.)

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STEP SEVEN: Repeat Step Six until you have seven squares in a row. A pink display appears as you Shift-drag that shows the spacing between each square, which helps ensure equal spacing, plus you should feel the squares “snap” into place because you turned on snapping in the previous step. STEP EIGHT: In the Layers panel, make sure the topmost shape layer is active (named Rectangle 1 copy 6) and then Shift-click the bottommost shape layer (named Rectangle 1) to activate all of them. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate them.

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STEP NINE: With the Move tool active in the Toolbar (it should be), click within one of the squares and then Shift-drag downward to move the duplicated layers 100 pixels below the first row. (If you’re working with the Adobe preview image, move it 15 pixels below the first row.)

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STEP 10: Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J to duplicate the active shape layers and repeat Step Nine. Keep doing this until you have five rows of squares. Don’t worry if a little bit of the fifth row falls outside the canvas; we’ll fix that in a few steps.

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STEP 11: Click to activate the topmost shape layer and then Shift-click the bottommost one to select them all. Click the folder icon (circled) at the bottom of the Layers panel and Photoshop puts them all into a single layer group.

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STEP 12: With the layer group active in the Layers panel, and the Move tool active in the Toolbar, drag atop one of the squares horizontally until the group of squares are centered horizontally within your canvas. Pink lines help you line it up correctly.

BEGI N N E RS’ WORKSHOP

STEP 13: If you need to add more canvas space at the bottom, as we do here, press C to grab the Crop tool (circled). In the Options Bar, click the Clear button to clear any previously used settings and then drag the bottom crop handle (also circled) downward beyond the canvas edge. Press Enter to accept the crop.

STEP 14: In the Layers panel, activate the image layer and turn on its visibility Eye. Choose Layer>Create Clipping Mask and Photoshop clips the image layer to the layer group and pushes the image through all the squares. In the Layers panel, notice the image layer scooted to the right and it has a down-pointing arrow on its left (circled).

STEP 15: Press V to grab the Move tool (circled) and use the Arrow keys on your keyboard to reposition the subject so it fills all the squares. In addition, make sure your subject’s eyes aren’t obscured. If the subject doesn’t fill all the squares, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) for Free Transform, drag one of the control handles outward, and press Enter.

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STEP 16: Now let’s turn the portrait into a black-andwhite. In the Layers panel, click the half-black/halfwhite circle (circled) and choose Black & White. Reduce the Opacity setting (also circled) to approximately 85% so that some of the original color shows through.

STEP 17: For more creativity, select every other square and lower its layer Opacity. To do that, Right-click the second square in the top row and, from the menu that appears, click Rectangle 1 copy to activate that layer. In the Layers panel, notice Photoshop expanded the layer group and activated that layer. Lower the Opacity setting to approximately 75%.

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Tip: To hide a square completely, creating an empty space in the grid, lower its layer Opacity to 0%!

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STEP 18: Repeat Step 17 to reduce the layer Opacity of every other square in the first row to 75%. On the second row, start with the first square and then lower the Opacity of every other one. On the third row, start with the second square, on the fourth row, start with the first square, and so on. Here’s the final result. While this technique takes a little time, the results are worth it, both in creativity and in the core Photoshop skills learned. Until next time, may the creative force be with you all! n

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DAVE WILLIAMS

PHOTO EFFECTS

ATTRACT ATTENTION BY MANIPULATING THE LIGHT Composition is a huge consideration when we shoot, and once we get an image out of the camera and into our digital darkroom, we’re often limited in what we can do to edit its composition and control the path our viewer’s eye takes across the photograph. There are other things, however, that we can do in post to grab the attention of the viewer but with a bit more control and flexibility. One such thing that takes an equally high standing to composition is light.

Light and its quality can have a great effect on an image. We all know that our eyes are drawn to the brightest part of an image, and we’ll bear that in mind as we work through the following tutorial. It’s also worth considering that when the brightest part of an image is so bright that it loses definition, it becomes an element that we can use to manipulate our viewer’s attention without detracting from 108

the subject or the composition. When we take advantage of this fundamental element of photography, it becomes important to pay close attention to its application: When it’s used correctly, it can offer a serious level of enhancement for such a basic adjustment; however, if it’s used incorrectly, it becomes evident that the image has been “Photoshopped,” and that, of course, isn’t what we want.

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STEP ONE: Open the image you want to use in Photoshop. Here’s the image we’ll be using, which was taken at Oxararfoss, Iceland, where a scene or two in Game Of Thrones was shot. The light cast from the setting Arctic sun is coming from the left, so we’ll need to match this

angle of light and tone when we add our light. We’ve already made all the basic adjustments to this image, so we’ll only focus on adding the light effect. STEP TWO: Press Shift-Command-N (PC: Shift-Ctrl-N) to create a new layer. This will allow you to retain your original image layer while you work on the new layer.

STEP THREE: This technique is simple; the difficult element is the creative part, as we need to correctly place our glowing light. For this photo, we want to emulate and exaggerate the setting sun and make the flare from the sun more vivid. Once you’ve decided where you want to add your light, switch to the Brush tool (B). In the Options Bar, click the brush tip preview to open the Brush Preset Picker, select the Soft Round Brush in the General Brushes folder, and set the Hardness to 0%. In the Options Bar, set both the Opacity and Flow to 100%.

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In this tutorial, we’ll place some light on the edge of the frame in the form of a glow and a flare. We must take care to maintain realism so it doesn’t distract our viewer’s attention from the main subject (I know I’m repeating myself, but it really is important to get it right). We can also add a lens flare if we wish, as that will give a subconscious indication to the viewer that the light they’re seeing is real. The light we’ll add will be quite soft and diffused, with a tone similar to the ones in the image. We’ll consider the time of day the image was shot when we select a color for the light, and we’ll use the highlights on the elements within the scene to determine the origination of the light source, which will help maintain that sense of realism. If we get this technique right, the result can be enticing and cinematic. This is an effect we often see on movie posters and vacation ads, and there’s a good reason for it. The atmosphere and ambiance created by this effect lures people in, and in a world where our images are increasingly scrolled past on social media and we’re head-on against a swath of Instagrammers looking for instant gratification, we need every advantage to gain the attention of the masses and reap the rewards of attractive photography. Let’s get started!

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STEP FOUR: We can now select a color for our light. In order to get the correct tone, we’ll use the Eyedropper tool; but first we need to click on the Background layer in the Layers panel to make the image layer active. With the Brush tool active, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key to temporarily switch to the Eyedropper tool, and click on a highlight within your image. We’ve clicked on a highlight cast from the setting sun on one of the rocks in the water, which sets this as our Foreground color (near the bottom of the Toolbar). Tip: If you click-and-hold in the image while the Eyedropper tool is active, you’ll see concentric circles around the cursor. The bottom half of the inner circle represents the current Foreground color; the top half represents what the new Foreground color will be when you release the mouse button. While holding the mouse button, just drag around the image until the top half of that circle is the color you want.

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STEP FIVE: Now we can make adjustments to that color, if necessary. Click on the Foreground color swatch at the bottom of the Toolbar to open the Color Picker. I like the yellow hue we’ve selected but I’d like it to be a little brighter for the glow we’ll add. The simplest way to do this is to click directly above the currently active color in the big square on the left in the Color Picker. This will keep the color the same, but make it brighter. Going from left to right in that big square controls the saturation of the currently selected hue; going from top to bottom controls its brightness. Click OK in the Color Picker. Color contingency plan: If you don’t have a good reference point in your image for selecting a color with the Eyedropper tool, you can make an educated guess. Using the range of red to yellow in the Color Picker, choose a bright color that reflects the tone of the highlights within the image you’re adjusting. If the highlights are particularly warm, for example, select a color in the orange-to-red range, and set its brightness similar to that of the yellow in our example. If the color you’ve selected doesn’t work well with your image when you’re a few steps in, create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation) and, in the Properties panel (Window>Properties), move the sliders gradually until you land on a color that works. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Original color

New, brighter color

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STEP SIX: Now we’ll add the glowing light to our new layer, so click back on the blank layer in the Layers panel to make it active. Carefully place your brush cursor in a suitable and realistic position in your image and use the Left Bracket or Right Bracket keys ( [ ] ) on your keyboard to decrease or increase the brush size, respectively. We’ve used a very large brush size of 5000 px and, with a single click of the mouse, added the golden color to the left of the image where the light originates. It looks ridiculous at this point, but that actually helps us to better place the light flare. If you’re not happy with the placement or size, press Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z) to Undo, and repeat the process until you’re satisfied. You can see now that this technique is more about creativity than technicality.

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STEP SEVEN: The next step is to change the blend mode of this layer from Normal to Screen in the drop-down menu near the top left of the Layers panel. What’s happening behind the scenes in the Photoshop algorithm when we select Screen is that both layers are inverted, multiplied, and the subsequent result is then inverted again. It happens so fast you won’t see it; you’ll only see the end result, which is that our glowing light blends in seamlessly with the image.

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STEP EIGHT: We need to finetune this glowing flare because, as photographers, we’re not often satisfied with our first go at something. Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T ) for Free Transform, which will place a box with control handles around the glow. Simply drag out the corners and reposition the glowing effect until you like how it looks. We’ve increased the size of the light quite a bit in our example. Press Enter or click on the checkmark up in the Options Bar to commit the transformation.

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STEP NINE: If the glowing flare is too intense, simply lower the Opacity of the light layer in the Layers panel. If it’s not intense enough, press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the layer, and use the Opacity slider on this new layer to dial in the glow until you feel your image is vibrant and bright enough. For our example, we just went with the single layer set at 100% Opacity.

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Duplicating the light layer will really boost its intensity

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Here’s our final result: an adjusted image with an extra kick of realistic light, fine-tuned to perfection and glowing across our image as if we were there again.

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STEP 10: To add more realism to this image, we can add a Lens Flare. This will go a step further in applying a genuine physical effect caused by a strong light source flooding your lens with light. Simply add another new layer, press D to set the Foreground color to black, and press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the layer with black. From there, go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. The most common choice for Lens Type that best resembles what most people recognize as a lens flare is the 50–300mm Zoom. I like to add a little extra punch here, so I’ve set my Brightness to 120%. Drag the center of the lens flare in the preview area in the Lens Flare dialog to the approximate position you want it in your image, and click OK.

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STEP 11: Now we can blend our lens flare with the image the same way we did with our glowing light layer, using the Screen blending mode within the Layers panel.

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STEP 12: To retain the glow effect we just created so that it’s not outdone by the lens flare, use Free Transform to reposition the bright source of the flare outside the frame, which leaves us with the reflected flares we’d see caused within the elements of our glass. This offers a little extra touch to our warm, glowing image that we’ve totally transformed with light. n

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ALL IMAGES BY DAVE WILLIAMS

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SCOTT VALENTINE

PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND

MIXER BRUSH PAINTING WITH STENCIL MASKS This month, let’s explore expression with the Mixer Brush and what may be described as a Photoshop coloring book! The setup takes a little effort but, once you have the basic idea, you can change up everything for limitless variations. You’ll want to use a Wacom tablet or similar to get the full benefit of

Minimalist, high-contrast images work best, since the final result is as much about the textures as it is the sub ject. Any subject is fair game so long as you can isolate the parts you want to paint. Here, I’m starting with a portrait that converts readily to a mask with just a little manual adjustment. If you’d like to download the low-res watermarked versions of these images to follow along, click this link, log in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library button. Rightclick the image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries) and choose Edit to open it in Photoshop. To make it easier to work with the image, increase the resolution of the practice file. (We normally don’t recommend enlarging images, but this is only for practice purposes.) Go to Image>Image Size, turn on the Resample checkbox, select Preserve Details 2.0 from the Resample drop-down menu, set the Width to 2,000 pixels, and click OK. 116

this technique.

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STEP ONE: I find that it’s easiest to build up my mask by converting the photo to black and white so I can visualize the end result more easily, but this isn’t strictly necessary; all you need is high contrast. Start by adding a Black & White adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Black & White) above your image, then a Curves adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves) above that. The Black & White adjustment allows you to control how various colors convert to gray, and Curves is, of course, about enhancing contrast.

STEP THREE: This is what will become the stencil for our painting. Convert it to an alpha channel by going to the Channels panel (Window>Channels) and clicking on each of the color channels to find the one with the highest contrast. Drag that channel down to the Create New Channel icon (+) to duplicate it. Finally, with your new alpha channel active, press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert it; remember that white areas of a channel are opaque, while black areas are transparent. Finally, double-click the new alpha channel and rename it “Stencil.” Note: In order to get a “clean” mask of just the areas you want to paint, you may need to do some additional work, such as applying a dodge-and-burn pass to ensure there’s good isolation.

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STEP TWO: This portrait required a boost in Reds and Yellows in the Properties panel (Window>Properties) of the Black & White adjustment layer to blow out the model’s skin to flat white, but this change also made her mouth completely disappear. To solve that problem, I used the Brush tool (B) set to a basic Soft Round brush and painted with black to mask her mouth on the Black & White layer.

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STEP FOUR: Back in the Layers panel, create a new blank layer, press D to set the default colors, press Command-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace) to fill the new layer with white, and rename it “White filled layer.” You can discard the adjustment layers at this point if you want, since we’ll be painting on new layers from here. Add another blank layer and fill it with either a gradient or a colorful texture, such as this watercolor palette from Adobe Stock. We named our layer “Watercolor Texture.” Tip: For precision placement, temporarily turn off the White filled layer by clicking its Eye icon in the Layers panel, and slightly lower the Opacity of the texture layer so you can see the original photo below. Then use the Move tool (V) to position the texture over the photo. This lets you get an idea of where the colors will fall on the portrait. Don’t forget to set the texture’s layer Opacity back to 100% and turn the White filled layer back on. With the texture layer active, go to Select>Load Selection, choose the Stencil layer from the Channel drop-down menu, and click OK. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected texture to a new layer and name it “Paint.” Turn off the original texture layer’s visibility. To finish the layer stack, drag the White filled layer just below the Paint layer (this will serve as a background canvas).

STEP FIVE: Now comes the task of choosing a brush. A basic, round brush with soft edges will nicely blend colors, but a textured brush of some kind can add real dimension and interest. If you need to download some brushes, check out the collections Kyle T. Webster has made for Adobe by clicking here. Switch to the Mixer Brush (nested below the Brush tool [B] in the Toolbar) and open the Brush Settings panel (Window>Brush Settings). • To choose a different brush tip, be sure to select the brush in the Brush Tip Shape section of the Brush Settings panel, and not the Brushes panel or Brush Preset Picker in the Options Bar. Choosing from the Brushes panel or Options Bar uses Tool Presets, which includes changing the actual tool instead of just the tip, which means it will switch you back to the regular Brush tool. For this example, I’m using a basic spatter brush with low Spacing in the Brush Tip Shape section to keep the strokes more painterly. • E nable Shape Dynamics and Transfer, and turn off any other settings on the left of the Brush Settings panel. • U nder Shape Dynamics, set Size Jitter to 0% and Control to Pen Pressure. Set Minimum Diameter to 33%. Everything else should be 0% and Off (make sure all the options at the bottom are checked off).

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• U nder Transfer options set Flow Jitter to 0%, and Control to Pen Pressure. Again, the remaining settings should be 0% and Off.

PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND

Stroke option (the icon with a line going through a brush); set Flow to 100%; and turn on the Sample All Layers option. STEP SIX: We’re almost there. On the Paint layer, again load up the Stencil selection to make it active. Begin painting in the active selection to blend colors together. Starting or moving outside the selection region will pick up some of the white background, and that will be included on the final layer. After blend ing in a little white, Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Eye icon of the Paint layer in the Layers panel to turn off all the other layers to see the effect. Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Eye icon again to turn the other layers back on. If you plan to leave the background white, blending in the white won’t matter, but if you want to avoid mixing in the background, simply turn it off so you see the default checkered Photoshop background on your canvas. Use this option for paintings that you plan to composite with different backgrounds later on. Since I lean toward minimalism with this technique, I actively use white to blend into edges.

• I n the Options Bar, choose the Wet, Heavy Mix preset; select the Clean the Brush After Each

STEP SEVEN: Continue painting and blending as you like to complete your work, keeping in mind that not everything has to be blended or smoothed. I’ve chosen to only paint

Step Six: A few painted strokes, showing white background on and off

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this model’s hair, leaving her facial features sharp. Also remember to change up your brush size using the Bracket keys ([ ]) on your keyboard as you work: start with larger strokes for big fields of color, then decrease your brush size as you bring in details or work in smaller areas, such as around eyes and lips. Even a few strands of hair can be added with ease!

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STEP EIGHT: You may find some additional tricks helpful to achieving your painted goal. If you need some additional color, you can either switch to the regular Brush tool and dab in spots of color to blend in with the Mixer Brush, or you can add a Curves adjustment layer above your Paint layer. Make very small changes in the Properties panel (Window>Properties) by dragging the curve slightly up or down, then make the Paint layer active again and dab where you want the additional color with the Mixer Brush. This allows you to add contrast using shades or tints without having to open the Color Picker dialog. When you’ve added what you need, turn off the Curves layer and go back to blending with the Mixer Brush.

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STEP NINE: Finally, if you need to simply rebuild a section or want to start over, erase the problem area with the Eraser tool (E), and then turn off the White filled layer and turn on your texture or gradient source layer. Switch the Mixer Brush preset to Dry, Heavy Load, and brush back over the selection area you want to replace. This preset effectively just copies whatever is visible without mixing or distorting it. Turn off the texture layer and turn on the White filled layer, then switch back to the Wet, Heavy Mix preset.

Version 1 of final portrait

Showing dabs of darker spots to be blended

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PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND

STEP 10: Of course, you also have the option of working without the selection active. At any point that you feel the need for more freedom, simply press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect and get busy! You can always re-enable the selection when you need it.

EXPERIMENT & HAVE FUN

For bonus points, change up the brushes you use: try scattering and spattering, rotations, small dotted brushes, custom shapes, etc. Since everything is managed by your stencil mask, you can go wild and color where you like, even outside the lines! n

Additional examples

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Final painting

Try using the same selection stencil with a range of textures and gradients; you can create an entire series this way quite easily. The key concept is to balance the complexity of the texture with the simplicity of selections. When creating your stencil mask, variations in density (white/gray/black) lead to variations in color and mixing, which helps with visual interest. And nothing says you have to stick to a single texture! Use rainbow colors for one area, and a noisy gradient for another. You can even build up various layers if you want to experiment before making your final painting. Here are a few additional examples using this technique.

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DAVE CLAYTON

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MAKING YOUTUBE THUMBNAIL TEMPLATES If you’re a photographer, or any kind of creative, now is the golden time to start making content and create your own YouTube channel. With everyone being at home, it’s been a great opportunity to build your brand, and if you’re comfortable in front of a camera, building a YouTube channel is a great way to share tips, tricks, behind-the-scenes shots, and making-of videos. But to get noticed, it’s really important to get your YouTube thumbnails spot on and, in this tutorial, we’ll show you how to make a quick, editable set of six eye-catching thumbnails. We’re going to use Photoshop artboards, smart objects, and CC Libraries to create a workflow for building the graphics using your own photos. Each thumbnail will include editable assets that, when you change them on one artboard, they’ll change on all the artboards.

THE TEMPLATES STEP ONE: CREATE THE FIRST ARTBOARD The standard YouTube thumbnail has a 16:9 ratio, so we’re going to create our files at 1920x1080 px to make sure we have plenty of resolution. Go to File>New and set the Width to 1920 px, Height to 1080 px, and Resolution to 300 ppi. Make sure to check the Artboard box, and click Create.

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you’ll probably see the Artboard tool instead of the Move tool. Just click-and-hold on the Artboard tool in the Toolbar to access the Move tool.) In the Libraries panel, you can either click the Create Group button to manually create groups, or you can select the option to Auto-Generate Groups for Me. STEP THREE: ADD LOGO Drag the PhotoTips Weekly logo from the Libraries panel into your working file. Use the bounding box to resize and position it at the bottom left of the image.

Once you’re happy with the size and position (bearing in mind where you want to place other images and copy), you can lock this layer in the Layers panel by clicking the lock icon to the right of the word “Lock” to prevent it from being moved. This is a good tip so you don’t accidentally move the logo while selecting other items—it happens to all of us! Double-click the layer’s name in the Layers panel, and rename it “PhotoTips Weekly Logo.” If you have an empty layer from when you first created the document, you can delete it.

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STEP TWO: ADDING FIXED ELEMENTS In our first artboard, we’re going to create some fixed elements: the logo, the photographer’s name, and areas for bold video titles. These will be the same on each graphic. To start, I’ve created the logo file with Adobe Illustrator (KelbyOne members can click here to download the logo for practice purposes only). To make this process easier, let’s use CC Libraries to organize our assets. Go to the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries), click on the flyout menu at the top right, and choose Create New Library. Give the library a name, and click the Create button. Navigate to the logo you downloaded and drag it onto the Photoshop application icon to open it (if you double-click the AI file, it will try to open Illustrator). Once the file is open, use the Move tool (V) to drag the graphic into the Libraries panel. (Note: Since we created a file with artboards,

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STEP FOUR: ADD PHOTOGRAPHER’S NAME Next we’ll type out the photographer’s name; in this instance, “Your Name Photography,” which you’d obviously replace with your own name. Since we’re going to start with white text, and some of the other elements will also be white, let’s add a color background so we can see what we’re doing. Grab the Rectangle tool (U) and, in the Options Bar, set its mode to Shape and Fill color to gray. Drag out a rectangle that fills the entire document, drag this layer to the bottom of the layer stack, and rename it “GUIDE COLOR - TO DELETE.” We’ve used Lust Script Regular from Adobe Fonts but you can use any font you want; you might even have a logo you wish to place in the top left instead. To add fonts from Adobe Fonts, go to Type>More from Adobe Fonts,

log in with your Adobe ID, search for the font you want to use, and then click its Activate Font switch. Back in Photoshop, switch to the Type tool (T) and add your text in white. After pressing Enter to commit the text, use Free Transform (Command-T [PC: Ctrl-T]) to resize and rotate the text accordingly, and press Enter to commit the transformation. In the Libraries panel, click on the + icon and add this as a Character Style for future use. Right-click the type layer in the Layers panel, and choose Convert to Smart Object. Now, when we duplicate the artboards, not only will the type carry across all the artboards, if we change the text in one of the artboards, it will change in all of them (but more on that later).

STEP FIVE: TITLE BLOCKS Next, grab the Rectangle tool again, press D then X to set the Foreground color to white, and draw out a rectangle starting from the left side and going about halfway across the document. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the rectangle shape layer, switch to the Move tool, hold the Shift key, and click-and-drag the duplicate straight down until you have a little bit of space between the two rectangles. Shift-click the original rectangle shape layer in the Layers panel so they’re both selected, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) for Free Transform, rotate the rectangles as shown on the next page so they’re at the same

angle as your text, and then position them so their left edges are off the document. Press Enter to commit the transformation. This makes a nice area for a video title starting at the left and rising up to the right. With both layers still selected, Right-click on one of them in the Layers panel and choose Convert to Smart Object so that if we were to change their color or position, it will make those changes on all the artboards that we’re going to create. You can also lock this layer in the Layers panel; just unlock the layer (including the ones in the other artboards) if you ever need to edit it. Name this layer “Title Blocks.”

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Step Six

STEP SIX: DUPLICATE ARTBOARDS Now that we have the basis of our thumbnail template, we need to make five more duplicates to create our first set. If you click on the words “Artboard 1” on the canvas at the top left of the image, small + icons will appear on each side of the document. If you were to click on one of those plus signs, it would create a new blank artboard on that side of the document. But we need to make duplicates of our artboard, so in the Layers panel, click on Artboard 1, and press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) until you have five more copies. In the Layers panel, rename each artboard “Thumbnail 1,” “Thumbnail 2,” and so on. In the document, the artboards will have been laid out from left to right, but let’s place them in two rows of three so they’re easier to work with. Simply click on the name of the artboard that you want to move on the canvas, and drag it to the new position using smart guides to help you line it up. You can also space them further apart in each row in case your images bleed over the edge when resizing. Make sure your document is saved!

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Step Five

DESIGNING IN PHOTOSHOP

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STEP SEVEN: THE BACKGROUND IMAGES We’ll move away from the templates for a moment to prepare our images. For the most effective thumbnails, it’s good to have consistency in the images. We already have title and logo consistency with our template but now we want to ensure our images follow suit. For this example, I downloaded some images of a female photographer with similar poses and various pastel background colors. It creates a variation to break them up but keeps the same style. You should create your own images with a similar mindset. If you’d like to download the low-res versions of these images from Adobe stock to follow along, just click on each image to the right to go to its webpage, log in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library button. Right-click the image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries) and choose Edit to open it in Photoshop.

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STEP EIGHT: ISOLATE SUBJECT Open your first image. As these will be fairly small onscreen, we can take some artistic license with our selections, but the simpler the background, the easier it will be to select your subjects and keep everything clean and uncluttered. Go to Select>Subject and Photoshop will give you a quick selection. As we want to keep the original image intact, press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected subject to its own layer.

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STEP NINE: ADD A STROKE With our subject isolated on a new layer, click on the ƒx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Stroke. Add a 20-px stroke, set to Outside and white in color. If you’re using the low-res Adobe Stock preview images, try 5 px for the Size instead. Click OK to close the Layer Style dialog.

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DESIGNING IN PHOTOSHOP

STEP 10: ADD HALFTONE PATTERN Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to make another copy of the subject layer, and press D to set the Foreground color to black and the Background to white. Go to Filter>Filter Gallery, expand the Sketch folder, and select Halftone Pattern. Set the Size to 5 (use 1 for the Adobe Stock preview images), Contrast to 5, and Pattern Type to Dot. Click OK. Then set the layer blend mode to Multiply near the top left of the Layers panel and the Opacity to 50%.

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STEP 11: REPEAT FOR OTHER PHOTOS AND ADD THEM TO CC LIBRARY Now select all the layers and convert them to a smart object, and rename the layer “Thumbnail 1.” In the Libraries panel, click the + icon to add the image as a Graphic. Also, save the image as a PSD using the same name you just used for the layer. Repeat Steps 8–11 for all the images, naming them “Thumbnail 2,” “Thumbnail 3,” etc. and adding each one to the Libraries panel.

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STEP 12: ADDING IMAGES TO TEMPLATES Now that we have all our images cut out, stroked, halftone patterned, and added to the CC Library, we’re ready to place them in the artboards. To do this, just click on the Thumbnail 1 artboard in the Layers panel to make it active (expand the group if needed), and then drag your first image, Thumbnail 1, from the Libraries panel and drop it on the Thumbnail 1 artboard in the image. Once placed, you can resize the image to suit the space on the right side of the template. In the Layers

panel, drag the image layer just above the COLOR GUIDED layer. Repeat this for each image on each artboard until all are completed. Remember, these are smart objects, so you can double-click their thumbnails in the Layers panel to reopen them at any time and make changes to the Stroke or remove the Halftone Pattern layer if you don’t like the effect; just save and close the smart object file when done, and the image will update in the artboard.

STEP 13: ADDING TITLES Now that our images are placed and resized, let’s add some titles. Click on the Title Blocks layer for the artboard where you want to add your title, switch to the Type tool, and add your first line of text. We’re using Azo Sans Uber, a nice thick font from Adobe Fonts. Press Enter to commit the text. Click again with the Type tool to add the second line of text. Splitting up the lines of text makes it easier to place and resize them for each block. Using Free Transform, resize and rotate each line of text to match the blocks.

For more impact, you can make one of the lines of text larger than the other, as shown here in the examples. Repeat this step to add titles to each artboard. Tip: After you create the title for your first artboard, select both lines of text in the Layers panel, and duplicate them. Drag the duplicated text layers to another artboard group in the Layers panel, and they’ll appear in that artboard in exactly the same position as the original artboard. Now just use the Type tool to edit the type, and Free Transform to resize it as needed.

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STEP 15: EXPORTING We now have our first set of six YouTube thumbnails. If you need to add more, just duplicate one of the artboards and change the titles and images. And remember to add your images to the CC Library.

Quick Tip: Make one extra duplicate artboard with no photo or text so that you can use that to make more thumbnails as you build your channel. Finally, go to File>Export> Ar tboards to Files. Click the Browse button to select where you want to save them, and type in a File Name Prefix. Check on Include Overlapping Areas and Include Background in Export. Set the File Type to JPEG for this exercise, but you can save as other file formats including PSD. Click on E xpor t Options and slide the Quality all the way to 12 for YouTube. Click the Run button and they’ll export to your chosen destination. And that ’s it! Just like anything, it ’s all about the preparation and, then moving forward, you can quickly create more images from a single document. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and start building up your own YouTube channel! n

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STEP 14: EDITS It’s time to make our final checks. We decided we wanted the text “Your Name Photography” to be black instead of white to make it stand out more. So double-click the thumbnail of that smart object text layer in any of the artboard groups in the Layers panel to open the smart object. Change the color of the text, and then save and close the file. When you go back to your working file, that text will be black in all the artboards.

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TERRY WHITE

PHOTOSHOP Q&A Q. Now that Photoshop has the ability to use Super Resolution in Camera Raw, my question is, should I crop the image first or after I run Super Resolution? A. I recently photographed the moon with my new

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

Tamron 150–600mm lens and, although it’s a great lens, I wanted the moon to fill the frame. This meant that I had to crop it. Cropping will also result in a smaller file with less resolution than the original 48 megapixels from my camera. To get that resolution back, I opened the cropped version in Camera Raw and ran Super Resolution. The results would likely be the same whether you crop first or after, but why have Photoshop process the pixels that you’re going to crop anyway? I say crop first and then run Super Resolution.

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Q. I noticed in your Photography Masterclass | Photography Special Effects that you had a problem with the Gradient tool. Instead of giving you a gradient, it was giving you a solid color. Did you ever figure out how to fix it? A. Yes, I did fix it. Whenever you have a tool in Photoshop that all of a sudden starts misbehaving, there’s a simple fix that you should try (I wish I had thought of it during my class). Although I was using the gradient preset that goes from the Foreground color to transparency, I was only getting a solid color. The fix was to go up to the Options Bar and click on the tool icon on the left to open the Tool Preset Picker. From there, use the flyout menu (gear icon at the top right) and choose Reset Tool. This will reset the tool in

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PHOTOSHOP Q&A

ALL IMAGES BY TERRY WHITE EXCEPT WHERE NOTED

Q. Photoshop now has the ability to copy-and-paste layers; however, sometimes when I try to do a copy, the Copy command is grayed out in the Edit menu. Why? A. C opying-and-pasting layers is an awesome feature, especially when copying a layer from one document to another; however, if the layer you’re trying to copy is the Background layer, it won’t work until you first convert it into a regular layer. Luckily, there’s an easy way to do this in Photoshop. Just click the Lock icon on the Background layer in the Layers panel, and it will convert the Background into a regular layer. Now you can treat it as any other layer, including copying-and-pasting it to another document.

Q. W hat’s the difference between the Spot Healing Brush tool and the Healing Brush tool? A. T he Healing Brush tool (nested below the Spot Healing Brush tool [J] in the Toolbar) was the first of the two to make its way into Photoshop, around version 6; the Spot Healing Brush was introduced in Photoshop CS2. The original Healing Brush works very similarly to the Clone Stamp tool: You first must sample an area from where you want to heal by holding down the Option (PC: Alt) key and clicking. Then you can heal another area using the sample as the source. It’s usually a more seamless result than using the Clone Stamp tool and looks less like an exact duplicate. This tool was considered to be magical when it was first introduced, as it made retouching a photo so much easier. Adobe then took things up a notch by introducing the Spot Healing Brush. The big difference is that, with the Spot Healing Brush, there’s no need to sample a

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question back to its default behavior. In my case, it instantly fixed the Gradient tool problem that I was having during my class.

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source in the image first. It just works by clicking or painting on your image, and it will use the surrounding pixels as the source. To be honest, I use the Spot Healing Brush 99% of the time; not always because it’s going to give me better results, but because it’s that much easier to use. Easy doesn’t always mean better, though. There are times when the Healing Brush can give you better results because you can sample a clean area of the photo and not worry about pulling in surrounding pixels that don’t look as good. I invite you to give both a try without using one of them exclusively. There’s a reason that the Spot Healing Brush didn’t replace the Healing Brush all those years ago. [For more on the Healing Brushes and the Clone Stamp tool, check out Scott Kelby’s “Photoshop for Lightroom Users” column in the May 2021 issue of Photoshop User.—Ed.]

directly on smart objects. Tools that would alter the pixels of a layer are not allowed to be used on a smart object, but there is a way to use the Healing Brush tools nondestructively. The first way that a user will usually try is to simply duplicate the layer they want to heal, and that way if something goes wrong, they still have the original layer. But this method adds unnecessary weight to your file. There’s a better way. Instead, create a blank layer above the layer or Background layer that you wish to heal. Now select the Healing Brush tool that you want to use (in our example here, we’re using the Spot Healing Brush [J]). There’s a checkbox in the Options Bar at the top called “Sample All Layers.” Make sure that it ’s enabled. Now, when you use either the Spot Healing Brush or the Healing Brush (nested below the Spot Healing Brush in the Toolbar), the results will be applied to the new empty layer instead of the original. This way the original layer or Background will be untouched, and you can heal all you want. n

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Q. The Spot Healing Brush tool and Healing Brush tool are great, but is there a way to use them nondestructively? I noticed you can’t use them on a smart object.

A. F irst off, it’s true that painting tools don’t work

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If you have a Photoshop question that you’d like Terry White to answer in the pages of Photoshop User magazine, send it to letters@photoshopuser.com.

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The LIGHTBRIDGE CRLS

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 Cine

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Reflect Lighting System, a Great Choice for Photographers Too | Review by Erik Vlietinck

If you’ve ever had to lighten a scene and couldn’t do it properly without flags and other devices to stop the light from spreading and spilling, you should take a look at the LIGHTBRIDGE CRLS (Cine Reflect Lighting System), a lighting system based on lightweight aluminum reflectors that don’t spill. The CRLS is used in cinematography but begs to be discovered by photographers. The LIGHTBRIDGE C-Reflector produces a natural look by using the inverse square law for less falloff than you can get from traditional reflectors. It’s available in five diffusion grades, ranging between a mirror and a muslin bounce. All C-Reflectors use a clear-cut, polished aluminum-coated, wrinkle-free surface that reflects 97% of the light, beautifully feathered and without any color shift. Each square-sized diffusion grade C-Reflector comes in five sizes: 2.7", 6”, 9.8”, 19.7", and 39.4". Except for individual reflectors, a variety of kits are available. I received the C-START kit, which includes four 6" C-Reflectors ranging from Diffusion 1–4, two 9.8" C-Reflectors ranging from Diffusion 3–4, and one C-Wheel male and one C-Wheel female mounting system. I tried the system with continuous light and a manual flash. The quality is top-notch without a flaw or even a speck on the reflecting surface. Because the system relies on the C-Reflector’s coating to reflect the light accurately,

Company: The Light Bridge GmbH

Price: C-START Kit: $799

Hot: No shift in color temperature; no spill; lovely falloff; lightweight; easy to carry; Neoprene sleeves included; high-quality make

Not:

you’re advised to handle them with gloves or at least with clean hands. I used a pair of cotton gloves. The back of the C-Reflector has a rail to slide on a C-Wheel with a square safety wedge. You turn the wheel to fix the reflector in place and attach the other end to a light stand, a suitable arm, or anything else that can hold a male or female spigot mount. I fixed the reflectors to a Manfrotto Avenger clamp. Most reflectors have a hole in one corner to run a provided cable through for extra safety. The smallest C-Reflector is meant to lighten smaller objects. You’d use it in food and jewelry photography, for example. The 6" one is good for portraits or bigger objects. Color accuracy isn’t an issue. I measured my lamp’s output and the reflected light, and the lamp’s color temperature was 5060K and the reflectors came in at 5080K. Because they reflect 97% of the light, you can use a 9.8" Diffusion 4 reflector on your subject and a 6” Diffusion 1 for a catchlight. The result I got with that setup was pleasing

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and natural-looking, and at this scale it never becomes impractical as is often the case with traditional reflectors. For portraits, the effects can range from the romantic to the dramatic with 6" reflectors. For bigger scenes, like a shot of an interior design, the entire room can be lightened as much as you want, using a combination of natural light and any number of the 9.8" reflectors pointed at the subjects to which you want to draw attention. I even used the sun coming in as the light source. Contrary to the name, the C-START kit is enough for portrait photography or video shooting in a small room. In a large studio, you might want to have one or more of the 19.7" and 39.4" reflectors that you can buy online. For even bigger setups, LIGHTBRIDGE can make any size to order. C-Reflectors aren’t cheap, but once you’ve seen what you can do with light and how easy it is using them, you’ll fall in love and never go back to traditional reflectors. n

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PDFpenPro 13 for Mac

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 PDF

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Editor Lonely at the Top | Review by Erik Vlietinck

PDFpenPro 13 has been released and it looks better than ever. Version 13 has a new UI design with a better-organized Toolbar that adds the essential markup tools and an Editing Bar with a text-formatting section and accessible color controls. Other lookand-feel improvements include modernized icons and more. One of the more interesting improvements in PDFpenPro 13 is the enhanced Highlighting feature. You can select anything from customizable colored highlights to underlines in a submenu right from the Toolbar. Changing the colors you use for highlighting is easy. Mixed Raster Content (MRC) compression is a method for compressing images that contain both binary-compressible text and continuous-tone components. It uses image segmentation methods to improve the level of compression and the quality of the rendered image. By separating the image into components with different compressibility characteristics, the most efficient and accurate compression algorithm for each component can be applied. This type of compression is available in PDFpenPro and can now be customized in five steps from best quality to best compression. This gives you more flexibility in controlling file sizes of bulky scanned documents during OCR. With PDFpenPro 12, you could already create a Table of Contents, and it’s now even better in version 13. For example, you can create different levels and drag levels out or in, as required. This means you can quickly set up a TOC with all entries on the same level and drag them to the correct level afterwards. Existing TOC entries can now be replaced and reorganized, as well. Minor improvements include using Insert Blank Page Again to bypass the stationery selector, hide the Sidebar with a click of a button, view highlights in colors in the Sidebar, and other enhancements. n

Company: SmileOnMyMac, LLC

Price: PDFpen: $79.95; PDFpenPro: $129.95; Upgrade: $35 (free for users who purchased on or after January 1, 2021)

Hot: TOC entry replacement; MRC customization; Big Sur look; customcolor highlighting

Not:

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Photo Mechanic Plus

Mechanic with a Robust Database | Review by Erik Vlietinck

Photo Mechanic Plus is a new version of the application for ingesting and managing image files. The Plus version is Photo Mechanic with an image database for making catalogs of every photo you’ve collected on both online and offline storage. With the database, you can browse, find, and manage your files, regardless of whether the images are located on a mounted disk drive, an offline RAID or NAS, or in the cloud. The interface design is pretty much the same as Photo Mechanic’s, with the addition of an Organizer. You first scan the drives and folders you wish to add. The app then creates thumbnails and medium-res versions of your images. Scanning an SSD was very fast. It took less than half an hour to scan more than 9,000 pictures that included TIFFs, DNGs, ARW, and JPEG files. The Plus version made browsing those images very smooth; however, browsing is perhaps the least interesting way to go through your database. Filtering and searching is what will get the most out of your collection. Searches can be simple or complex and, since you’re now searching a database, it’s fast and allows you to find images across devices, mounted or not. Of course, when you search for identical images on a regular basis, Photo Mechanic Plus allows you to save such searches for later reuse. Filters are more or less the same as predefined and optimized searches for finding your files by date, camera, lens, rating, color class, and more. Catalogs can be image collections based on date range, project type, or subject, or however you like to organize your database. Finally, Collections are for combining images from multiple folders or drives into cohesive units to keep yourself organized. n

Company: Camera Bits, Inc.

Price: $399; Upgrade from Photo Mechanic 6: $90

Hot: Speed of database queries; many ways to filter and search images; robust database suited for millions of images

Not: Outdated interface

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Olympus Tough TG-6

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 A

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Unique Compact Camera | Reviewed by Steve Baczewski

The Olympus Tough TG-6 is a 12-megapixel, fit-in-your-pocket-sized compact camera, with a 1/2.3" BSI-CMOS sensor that uses the same TruePic VIII processor as some of Olympus’s top-of-the-line professional cameras. It captures both RAW and JPEGs with an ISO range of 100–12,800 and can capture at up to 20 fps (RAW and JPEG). Its 4x optical zoom is the 35mm equivalent of 25–100mm and has a relatively fast variable aperture of f/2.0–f/4.9, making it versatile for capturing interiors, landscapes, and portraits; however, most other compact cameras can do that too. What distinguishes the Olympus Tough series are the features and quality it brings to macro and underwater photography. Its mobility and quick access to features, especially related to macro photography, give it a convenience and spontaneity just not available on full-frame or APS-C sized cameras. Full disclosure: I didn’t take it underwater, except to use it in the rain and leave it covered with water overnight, and it started up without any hesitation. All its compartments have double locks and, of course, are well sealed. It earns its “Tough” name from all the abuse it can withstand. It’s dustproof and waterproof down to 50' (and even more with the optional PT-059 Underwater Case). It can withstand being dropped from 7' (no, I didn’t try) and direct pressure of 220 lbf, and it works at 14° Fahrenheit. The lens resists fogging up by using an outer dual-pane glass design. It also has field sensors that collect and display data such as temperature, altitude, and GPS coordinates, and it has a compass. This last set of features puts a drain on the battery so there’s a convenient switch for turning them off.

Company: Olympus

Price: $449.99

Hot: Helpful accessories; rugged build

Not: Fixed LCD; no EVF

It can capture 4K video at 30p; at 1080 it can also capture slow motion at 60p or 120p; and at 720 it can go to 240p. Besides the usual settings, the mode dial includes a fish icon for underwater and a microscope for macro shooting. Interestingly, there’s no shutter priority mode. I adjusted shutter speed indirectly by changing the aperture and ISO. Performance is good. Single-shot autofocus is fast and accurate. It does occasionally hesitate and focus hunt in low light. In CAF (continuous autofocus) at 20 fps, I photographed a bicyclist going in various directions, and approximately 75% of the files were in focus. The mode dial includes two custom settings, and when you press the OK button the screen displays a comprehensive menu of frequently used features for quick access and to avoid time scrolling the menus. When you select a speciality mode such as underwater or macro, a set of specific options appear on the screen to help define what you’re doing. For instance, the Macro mode includes Focus Stacking, Focus Bracket ing, and a Microscope mode. The Microscope mode lets you zoom in and focus beyond the Tough’s focus limit of a centimeter and capture subjects such as a

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flower’s stamen at greater than 1:1. The TG-6’s Focus Stacking and the Focus Bracketing feature essentially do the same thing; however, Focus Bracketing will let you take up to 30 frames and Focus Stacking only up to 10 frames. Both are processed in camera. The results are impressive. If you already own the Tough TG-5, the TG-6 is a very modest upgrade. The LCD’s resolution has been increased to 1.04 million dots, an anti-glare filter has been placed in front of the sensor, there are now three white balance modes to accommodate the changing light at varying depths of water, and the Microscope Macro mode has been added to underwater video capture. I have several problems with the Tough TG-6: The shutter button offers too much resistance, resulting in occasional camera movement; the grip is too shallow; and, since there’s no EVF, the fixed 3" 1.04 million-dot LCD is the only means for composing a picture. Even when you boost its brightness, it just doesn’t hold up to direct outdoor sunlight. That said, I love what this camera can do. n

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REVIEWS

MindNode

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

 Basic

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Mind Mapping with Great Looks | Review by Erik Vlietinck

Next to writing notes for everything you do, mind mapping is a buzzword for life and business projects. It’s not enough that you’re able to draw a few connecting lines between ideas, you also need a gorgeous interface, and as many features as possible are essential. MindNode version 2021.1.5 indulges you. MindNode, which is available for Macs and iOS devices, looks awesome. A mind map drawn with the app looks better than with any other mind-mapping app I’ve ever used. I assumed, however, it would include flowcharts and other diagrams, as well as freeform maps that stimulate creative thinking with thought processes far more complex than the traditional map of a central idea of which ever-more detailed, less-important sub-concepts, tasks, and lines of thought branch off. That was not the case. Creative processes are less straightforward, though, with ideas not always branching off infinitely. And so, after having tried MindNode’s twoweek’s free ride, I came to the conclusion that the app is under-featured if you’re looking for support of complex thought processes. There are two apps that support this: Scapple and MindManager, both perpetual license-based; but neither offers the same design prowess as MindNode. Scapple does integrate with Scrivener, but it’s not optimal when your “mind map” has a lot of nodes and branches. And MindManager is a powerhouse, but comes with a cluttered interface that requires a good deal of learning. MindNode is easier to learn, and you can create mind maps that look gorgeous. It supports outlining and everything else that simple, business-orientated thinking might need. It doesn’t come with project-management functionality and if you want to brainstorm in a more topsy-turvy way, you’ll quickly bump into its limits, as it doesn’t have flowcharts. n

Company: IdeasOnCanvas GmbH

Price: $2.49/month; $19.99/year

Hot: Design features; basic mind-mapping capabilities

Not: No support for complex mind maps such as Venn diagram and matrix; no flowcharts; no support for circular thinking patterns

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REVIEWS

Alan 2.0 & DocZ2

Monopod with DocZ2 Footwear Provides Sturdy Platform | Review by Dave Williams

The Alan 2.0 monopod from 3 Legged Thing is clearly the successor of the original Alan, but how does it fare in comparison to its predecessor? Quite well, actually. I’ve always believed that we should invest sensibly in our tripods, monopods, and camera straps because we trust them with the most valuable thing in our arsenal: our cameras. The design and construction of the Alan 2.0 is as one would expect of 3 Legged Thing, with obvious attention to detail resulting in excellent versatility and efficacy. Using carbon fiber and aircraft grade-alloys, the Alan 2.0 provides a strong, robust platform that saves on weight. It can support a 132-lb (60 kg) load atop its five leg sections. Weighing in at only 1.35 lbs (615 g) and measuring 17.32" (440mm) when collapsed, it fits nicely in luggage. With the DocZ2 attached, it weighs 2.45 lbs (1.1 kg) and can collapse down to 19.68" (500mm). The DocZ2, which is part of the 3 Legged Thing’s footwear range, can be used as a standalone mini tripod and is also constructed from top-notch materials. It features a “boot” underneath to prevent any unwanted over-flexing when you accidentally apply a little extra pressure. Alan 2.0 features elements unique to 3 Legged Thing, such as their patented Trimount plate that includes hollow spurs, which are great for attaching accessories or tidying cables. There’s also the Big Grip, offering great purchase for even a gloved hand, and the refined leg locks include anti-rotation Chicken Lips that also work very well. For any photographer or videographer looking to add a monopod to their gear, the Alan 2.0 with the DocZ2 is brilliant value for the money. With world-class engineering and design, it performed flawlessly during my testing. n

Company: 3 Legged Thing LTD

Price: Alan: $149.99; Alan & DocZ2: $199.99

Hot: Does what it’s meant to with no fuss

Not:

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 Lightweight

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REVIEWS

Lightroom Classic Made Easy: Version 10  Dave

Kelly | Review by Peter Bauer

This book appears to be a little dense compared to most Lightroom—and

Publisher: Independently Published

Photoshop—books, but there’s a reason for that: The author provides quite a bit of excellent information. (Note: If you’re reading the Kindle edition and

Pages: 268

the images seem too small to read, simply double-tap to expand the image. When done, tap the X in the upper-right corner to close the image and return to the book.) If you’re new to Lightroom, or if you think you’re not using the program to its fullest (like most of us), this is an excellent choice. I recommend

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

that you have Lightroom open while using this book. If you have the Kindle

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version, you’ll want two screens, perhaps an iPad and your computer, rather than moving back and forth while you read and work. This book proves that yes, an independently published book can, in fact, be worthwhile—and worth your money. n

Price: $39.95 (paperback); $9.99 (Kindle)

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Photoshop Lightroom Classic 2021 for Beginners: A Crash Course on Mastering Lightroom CC for Digital Photographers  Carl

REVIEWS

Publisher: Independently Published

Brownell | Review by Peter Bauer

This is a very basic, cursory, minimalist overview of Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. Did I mention that it doesn’t go into great detail, and that it barely covers the subject matter at all? That having been said, if Lightroom is new to

Pages: 53

Price: $9.99 (paperback); $2.99 (Kindle)

you and you just need a quick look around the interface and basic operations, this Kindle might be worth considering. At three bucks, you get what you pay for. But if you want to use Lightroom as your primary image-editing software, spend a bit more and get a better book, one with a comprehensive look at the software. In addition to being rather light on content, this self-published book

title of Chapter Four calls the software “Adobe Classic” rather than “Lightroom Classic.” You’ll also find some discrepancies in the table of contents’ links. n

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could have used an editor, or at least a little more proofreading. For example, the

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COLIN SMITH

PHOTOSHOP TIPS Hey, everyone! Summer will officially arrive here this month in the Northern Hemisphere, so what better time for some summer tips in Photoshop? What makes for summer tips? Well, they’re the same tips, but I’m giving them to you in the summer. (Come on, work with me here.)

MAKE A NEW DOCUMENT FROM A LAYER Have you ever been working in a multi-layered document and you came across a layer that you wanted to put into its own document. Did you save the current version of the document, delete all the layers except the one you wanted, saved this version as a new document, and then reverted back to where you were before? Are you blushing? If I lost you, that proves my point. There has to be an easier way, right? Right-click on the layer’s name in the Layers panel and choose Duplicate Layer. You’ll see the Duplicate Layer dialog pop up. Change Destination to New and click OK. Now a new document has been created from that layer.

such as Edit>Transform>Distort, want you to rasterize the type first. If you try to run a filter, Photoshop will even kindly offer to rasterize it for you. Don’t! Just don’t, because rasterizing your text will convert it to pixels and you’ll lose those nice clean edges you get from real type (especially if you print it). Instead of rasterizing, Right-click on the type layer’s name in the Layers panel and choose Convert to Shape. This will make a nice vector that can be transformed. In the case of a filter, where Photoshop offers to rasterize, it also offers the option to convert it to a smart object. You’d be smart to choose the smart object (pun intended, sorry).

WHY A GRAY LAYER FOR DODGE AND BURN?

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

WHY IS MY BRUSH SLOW?

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Have you ever noticed that your brush is laggy? You paint, and then slowly you can see your brushstroke appear. This is because of the Smoothing option Adobe put in relatively recently. Smoothing helps iron out little micro movements in a brushstroke and makes it look smoother, a.k.a. better. This is great for illustrators and digital painters. Retouchers and photographers, however, have wondered why their brush is broken. Tip: It’s not broken. With the Brush tool (B) selected, turn Smoothing to 0% up in the Options Bar, and your brush will be freed from the shackles of Smoothing and should be nice and responsive again.

You may have heard by now that very few people use the Dodge and Burn tools anymore. Instead, most people add a 50% gray layer in Overlay mode and paint on it with black and white brushes. Here’s how: Hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This brings up the New Layer dialog. Change the blend Mode to Overlay, which hides 50% gray. When you choose Overlay, you’ll see an option appear at the bottom of the dialog that says Fill with Overlay-Neutral Color (50% gray). All the kids these days tell you to choose that option (but do they know why?). When you click OK, you’ll see a gray layer in your Layers panel, but you won’t see any gray in your image. Now you can use the Brush tool (B) set to either black or white with a low Flow in the Options Bar, and selectively darken or lighten the image, respectively. So why the gray layer? The Dodge and Burn tools won’t work on a blank layer, while the 50% gray layer allows you to work nondestructively on a new layer, which is why many people just use the brushes. Now you know.

DON’T RASTERIZE YOUR TYPE

FASTEST WAY TO SAVE AND LOAD SELECTIONS

Type is text, just to clarify that right away. There are times when you may need to change it from type to something else. For example, many transformations,

You probably already know you can save a selection by choosing Select>Save Selection. Maybe you also know that you can press Q to enter the Quick Mask

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PHOTOSHOP TIPS

ALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH | PHOTOSHOPCAFE.COM

MAKE AN ANGLED OVAL SELECTION Making a round selection is easy; making an oval one is even easier. But how about an angled oval selection? If this seems like kissing your elbow (go ahead try it, I’ll wait), it’s because you don’t know about this useful tool. First, make an oval selection with the Elliptical Marquee tool (nested below the Rectangular Marquee tool [M] in the Toolbar), and then go to Select>Transform selection. You’ll get a bounding box around your selection that works just like Free Transform. You can scale it or move your pointer outside the bounding box and drag to rotate. Why didn’t someone tell you about this one sooner?

THE FASTEST WAY TO LOAD PRESETS INTO PHOTOSHOP One of the strengths of Photoshop is its massive extensibility. Plug-ins, presets, and extras are what helped make Photoshop into the industry standard it is today. It’s easy to find more brushes, more textures, more actions, and generally just more online. I’ve fielded questions from people who were wondering which menus are best to load in things like brushes and actions. My answer may surprise you. None.

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tool, use the Brush tool (B) to paint the areas you want to select, and when you tap Q to exit Quick Mask, your brushstrokes turn into selections. But then you still have to go to Select>Save Selection to save the selection. This menu is like the middleman. When you save a selection, Photoshop creates an alpha channel. Cut out the middleman by opening the Channels panel (Window>Channels). When you’re in Quick Mask, you’ll see a temporary alpha channel in the Channels panel called Quick Mask. After you’ve painted in your selection, drag the Quick Mask channel to the little plus sign at the bottom of the Channels panel, and it will instantly make an alpha channel called Quick Mask copy, no menu digging. Now when you press Q to exit Quick Mask, that Quick Mask copy alpha channel will remain. Where this really speeds things up is loading the selections. Instead of choosing Select>Load Selection and then choosing the channel from the Channel dropdown menu in the Load Selection dialog, just hold down Command (PC: Ctrl) and click on the channel you want to load as a selection. Instant marching ants! It’s so much quicker, especially if you’re working with multiple alpha channels.

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HOW TO

Original image

Color-graded image with LUT applied

PHOTOSHOP USER > JUNE 2021

You don’t need menus; just double-click the downloaded brush or action preset file in Mac Finder or Windows Explorer and it will load into Photoshop. The first time you do this for each file type, you may be asked to select the application that you want to open the file (Photoshop, of course). This won’t work for LUTs though, but that’s another tip.

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LOADING LUTS INTO PHOTOSHOP AND KEEPING THEM THERE Since you asked how to load LUTs (color lookup tables) into Photoshop, I have a great tip for you (what a coincidence). LUTs are really powerful presets that give an instant color grade to your images. After downloading a LUT, go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Lookup. In the Properties panel, choose Load 3D LUT from the

3DLUT File drop-down menu, navigate to the LUT you downloaded, and click Open. But after you load it, it won’t appear in the menu the next time you apply a Color Lookup adjustment layer; you’ll have to manually load it each time. Here’s the tip: Copy your downloaded LUTs into your 3DLUTs presets folder. On Mac, it’s Applications/ Adobe Photoshop 2021/Presets/3DLUTs. In Windows, it’s C:\Program Files\ Adobe\ Adobe Photoshop 2021 \Presets\3DLUTs. (You may be asked for an administrator name and password to modify the 3DLUTs folder.) Restart Photoshop. Now when you apply the Color Lookup adjustment layer, you should see your downloaded LUTs in that 3DLUT File drop-down list. n

Learning Light Designed by Scott Kelby

Learn lighting in the palm of your hand. • Made for educators and students • Designed to teach photography lighting • Offers a variety of lighting techniques • Lightweight handheld design • LED is cool to the touch • Optional mount for a tripod or stand • Standard AA batteries included

EDU Price: $89.90

Quickly switch between daylight and tungsten light

Center column rotates to change lighting options

Includes KelbyOne video training for students and educators

Experiment with various light techniques and effects

Direct Light

Diffused Light

Fresnel

Gobo

See how different light patterns look on your subject

Designed by Scott Kelby The Learning Light is the first educational lighting device that allows you to experiment with various lighting techniques without the need for complex or expensive equipment.

Split

Rembrandt

Butterfly

Loop

Scott is a photographer, designer, and awardwinning author of more than 80 books, including The Flash Book, Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It, and The Digital Photography Book Series. He’s Editor of Photoshop User magazine, and CEO of the KelbyOne Online Educational Community.

See it in action and order yours at fjwestcott.com/learning-light-by-scott-kelby