August 28th, 2014

Today I continued working on the Photoshop CC for Photographers: Fundamentals course on Lynda.com. I watched chapters 13-15. While watching the videos I edited a few photos. The videos were mostly just describing different ways to change the colors of photos.

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After:

First I duplicated the background by dragging the layer to the new layer icon. Then I went to the image pull down menu, selected adjustments, then I clicked on Black and White. Then, I added a layer mask on the new layer by clicking on the new layer, then clicking on the new layer icon. I then selected my brush tool, changed my color to black and decreased my brush size. After that I simply painted over the pumpkin carefully. 

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After:

To get this effect on the photo I went to the select pull down menu, then selected focus area. This brought up a menu in which the default was auto. Auto wouldn’t work for this photo because the dress is white so I clicked on the brush on the left with the minus sign and painted over the model. I then refined the photo with refine edge. Then I went to the select pull down menu and chose inverse. This made the selected area the background instead of the model. I went over to the adjustments panel and clicked on the black and white icon. 

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After:

To edit this photo, I clicked on the adjustment layer named curves. I moved the curve up to brighten the photo. To invert the mask I went to the mask panel, then clicked invert. Next, I used the brush tool, changed the color to white, then painted the model and around her. To soften the brightness to look more subtle, I increased the ‘feather’ effect by moving the slider up. 

Before:

After:

First I went to the adjustments layer and brought up the vibrance adjustment sliders. Then I moved both the ‘vibrance’ and ‘saturation’ sliders all the way to the right at 100%. This was a very simple edit but made a dramatic difference. 

Before:

After:

For this photo I went to the Filter pull down menu chose ‘Render’ then selected ‘Lens Flare’. this opens a lens flare dialogue in which I clicked on the lens type: 50-300mm Zoom. Then I moved the flare to behind the girl close to where the sun would be. After that I changed the brightness to 147%.