November 2007 Archives

Layer Masks, one of my favourite tricks is to duplicate a layer, make some changes to it, whether it be colour contrast b&w, or some other effect I want to, apply to the image then add a layer mask and brush in any differences I want to see applied to the image.

Using a black and white image on top of the other is one of the most common, but intensifying colour using curves or levels is one of my favourites. Again this approach in non-destructive, and infinitely un-doable, while the layers are unflattened.

Lastly the Text Layer, which is relatively self explanatory, I hope? Handy for adding a copyright watermark to your image I guess?

Today, I'm going to look breifly at how I use adjustment layers.

From Photoshop's help files:-

An adjustment layer applies color and tonal adjustments to your image without permanently changing pixel values. For example, rather than making a Levels or Curves adjustment directly to your image, you can create a Levels or Curves adjustment layer. The color and tone adjustments are stored in the adjustment layer and apply to all the layers below it. You can discard your changes and restore the original image at any time.

As a small aside you can now access an extensive set of help files on the web directly from the help applicaiton in photoshop.

The key issue here for me is the ability to make and adjustment to say colour balance density or saturation of an image and then brush through the mask to locally adjust the image to best suit my ideas and intentions in photograph.

This approach offers a degree of control unheard of in the history of colour photography. Combined with a desktop inkjet printer like the Epson R2400, I now have a complete home colour darkroom. And of course, again, no pixels are destroyed in the process.

Yesterday, I talked about 4 kinds of layers. The first in my list was just a Layer, an empty one. As an artist with a training in wet darkroom processes and the production of photographic prints as objects, I actually have little use for many of photoshop's features, this layer does however have a fantastic use. If I fill it with 50% grey, and change it's blending mode to soft-light, this enables me to burn & dodge an image in a NON-DESTRUCTIVE manner as I would in a wet darkroom.

I've never quite understood HOW¶ this works, but it's power, simplicity elegance, and infinite un-doability makes it a must have trick in my bag of photographic darkroom tricks.

Then using either a) a paintbrush and black or white at low opacities, or the burning & dodging tools again at low opacities, in photoshop you can totally re-map the tonality of your image shifting emphasis on areas in a way that painters have understood for 100's of years.

The real beauty of this is if applied subtly there will be no obvious artefacts creeping into your image and even if they do, they can be wound back by using the opposite colour to change, not to mention that no pixels are edited directly in the image thereby non are destroyed and no issues such as banding creep into you prints†.

One night a week, I privately tutor a friend in Photoshop. Typically at the end of the session, I come away with insights about the application and how people understand it. Monday night was no different, except this time I still feel invigorated enough to talk about it in the hope that it will help others to understand this cumbersome destructive & powerful tool.

So I guess i've got the next few days covered in terms of blogging.

Here's a copy and paste from the help files for Photoshop CS3

About layers
Photoshop layers are like sheets of stacked acetate. You can see through transparent areas of a layer to the layers below. You move a layer to position the content on the layer, like sliding a sheet of acetate in a stack. You can also change the opacity of a layer to make content partially transparent.

You use layers to perform tasks such as compositing multiple images, adding text to an image, or adding vector graphic shapes. You can apply a layer style to add a special effect such as a drop shadow or a glow.

Work nondestructively
Sometimes layers don’t contain any apparent content. For example, an adjustment layer holds color or tonal adjustments that affect the layers below it. Rather than edit image pixels directly, you can edit an adjustment layer and leave the underlying pixels unchanged.

A special type of layer, called a Smart Object, contains one or more layers of content. You can transform (scale, skew, or reshape) a Smart Object without directly editing image pixels. Or, you can edit the Smart Object as a separate image even after placing it in a Photoshop image. Smart Objects can also contain smart filter effects, which allow you to apply filters nondestructively to images so that you can later tweak or remove the filter effect. See Nondestructive editing.

Organize layers
A new image has a single layer. The number of additional layers, layer effects, and layer sets you can add to an image is limited only by your computer’s memory.

You work with layers in the Layers palette. Layer groups help you organize and manage layers. You can use groups to arrange your layers in a logical order and to reduce clutter in the Layers palette. You can nest groups within other groups. You can also use groups to apply attributes and masks to multiple layers simultaneously.

Essentially there are 4 types of layers in photoshop. Each has a use that can be combined with other layers to provide a level of photo manipulation unheard of for the average person prior to Photoshop 4, Photoshop itself is over 10 years old maybe 15.

1. Plain Layers, clear of information, waiting to be edited.
2. Adjustment Layers, used to adjust, in a non-destructive way, things like Hue & Saturation, Levels, Curves, ETC
3. Layer Mask, which is used to hide and reveal differences between 2 or more image layers, again in a non-destructive manner.
4. Text Layer, used for, well text.

More tomorrow, hopefully.

Gary Winogrand

Here's a Downloadable pdf of the processing matrix, that may be easier to read.

Sometime back, I mentioned, I was thinking about a processing matrix of sorts, well here it is, now I need to make a better looking pdf version

Gallery 124 in Sunshine are having a X-mas Show, I have some new work and some old work in the show. The old work is from a couple of shows I had in the early 90's and 2 of the pieces are from the yet to be completed series, Maps. Given the response to the Maps pieces I may well try and finish printing the work and exhibit it in either 2008, or 2009.

The Show runs until 21st of December 2007, the gallery is at 124 Hampshire Rd Sunshine.

In Melbourne these days anyways.

This is the time of year, where many of the major art schools around Melbourne have there under graduate exhibitions. The RMIT Fine Art Photography Graduate Exhibition is on at Red Gallery Contemporary Art Space, 157 St. Georges Rd. Nth. Fitzroy until the 1st of December, I highly recommend it. Gallery Hours are Tuesday to Saturday 12-6pm. Red Gallery's phone number 9482 3550.

Blogger has just added a neat little slide show feature that allows you to run a slide show in the sidebar of your blog, all you need is an account with someone like flickr or paint-bucket or picassa, and away you go.

During the year I, as an experiment ran an elective, a workshop on Phone camera photography. Finally enough of the work has been handed in for me to complete the website. Have a look and see for yourselves.

It's that time of year where contemplating photography takes a back seat over other issues, like results and forward planning. I have however been thinking about, a matrix of sorts that shows the similarities between Digital photography processing and Analogue Photography processing.

We are not alone, so do the writers at Luminous Landscape dot com.

The Holga "look" coming from the this camera is amazing.

The opportunities keep rolling in with my VistaQuest 1005.

Another weekend ends another week in Lo-Fi concludes

This project, has been going now for 25 weeks, the challenge, each week pick only 7 photos from the preceding week and upload them to facebook.

This week in particular proved difficult, as I went out on my day off specifically to make images with a specific location in Melbourne in mind. Not to mention a brief trip out into the Victorian countryside on the weekend just gone. I think I got lucky, the light was good for this time of year in Australia, but the choices were far, far too many.

Need to get more photo-blog info, start here on Magnum's blog with an article by, Martin Fuchs

Any of my readers on a Mac, like to try some very cool free software? It's called skitch, and currently is only available as an invite download, you will also be required to register as well.

It is useful for quick screen-grabs and sharing information graphically from computers

Just send me your e-mail address and I'll invite you.

Check the flickr pool for some ideas on what it can do.

Picnik, an online Photo Editor I seem to remember dabbling with in some time back is now offering pro services.

Now Picnik offers 26 effects, 5 frames, a totally new touch-ups section, and nearly 200 fonts and shapes! We've added Facebook, Photobucket and Webshots to the list of sites you can open, save and share to, and our integration with Flickr is about to get a whole lot better (stay tuned!).

The move to online application use marches forever forward, will the state of broadband in Australia, however improve enough to make this idea feasible?