With the changing of the leaves fast approaching most of the States, we’ve been doing a few posts on how to capture the beautiful colors of the trees and leaves around your area.  Regretfully, sometimes you  just can’t get that amazing color you see  in front of you captured on your digital camera.  In the film days, a solution to this was to grab  some Fuji Velvia slide film.  Velvia was amazing; it took plain, drab scenes and supercharged the colors to make them vibrant and give them “pop”.  We can simulate that effect in Photoshop easily – so let ‘s get started!  (note – just like with Velvia, this effect works best on scenics / fall foliage / stuff – not really people.)

If you want to try it with the same picture I used you can download it here.

Open your image in Photoshop.  Go to Windows – Channels so your Channel’s  palette is showing.  It should show  that we are in the RGB mode and you’ll see the  separate R, G, B channel layers.

(click any picture to enlarge)

We’ll be doing our editing in a different mode -  LAB Mode.  LAB is a different way to describe the color of a pixel.  Instead is assigning a Red, Green, and Blue number it splits the color into Luminance (how light or dark) and A and B color values (Don’t worry what the A and B stand for).  The benefit of editing in LAB mode versus RGB is LAB treats the brightness of a pixel separate from the hue / color of a pixel.  I can change the L number to lighten or darken a color without changing the “color” of the color.

So go to Image – Mode- Lab Color.  You see while the color of your image didn’t change,  the Channels palette has now switched to show the separate Brightness (L), A, and B channels instead of R,G and B.

Now click on the A layer in the channel palette. You see it shows a ghostly, B&W depiction or the color.  We are going to adjust the Levels of this A channel and the B channel to get our Velvia look.

But we want to see the effect the changes have so click the eyeball next to the LAB channel layer – your entire picture will show AND the A Channel layer will still be highlighted.

Now to the adjustments.  It will require a little math – but only about 3rd grade level!  Hit Ctrl – L or go to Image – Adjustments – Levels.  You’ll see an adjustment box similar to this one.  We are going to move the right and left arrow heads the same amount while looking at the changes to our picture.  So I first moved my right arrow head towards the left and saw the reds and yellow get a lot more saturated (and weird looking).  It looked right at about 205.  So I move from 255 to 205 = 50 points.  I now move the left arrow head to the right the same amount – 50 points – and the color came more back to normal but brightened up .

The amount you move it isn’t really important – it’s just important to move the right and left arrow heads the same amount or the color will be wrong.  Now we need to do the same to the B Channel.  Simply click on the B Channel layer, hit Ctrl – L to bring up the Levels dialog box, and move your right arrow heads left the same as you did for the A Channel layer.

Now the last step is to convert back to RGB color, as LAB color is used only with programs – printers, labs ,etc are all expecting the picture to be in RGB.  Just go to Image – Mode – and select RGB Color.

And there you  have it!  Quick, easy and it gives you great results.  What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know if you’ll use this or find it useful.

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I love all the different ways we can use Photoshop and Elements to create interesting styles for our type when creating new digital scrapbooking layouts.  Whether it’s simple gold text, a set of drop shadows or something more complex, the different ways you can change the type to suit your layout is endless.  This effect is one of my favorites.  Called the Letter Press effect, it simulates an old style of printing where the letters are actually pressed into the paper – hence a letter press type.  This style got wide spread recognition when Adobe used it for all of the icons for their Creative Suite line.  It’s really simple to do – so simple I created a short video to show you how:

In a nutshell – create a new document in Photoshop at the resolution and size you need and fill the background with a deep blue color.  Go to the type tool and create your word or saying, making sure to use a bold, blocky face with the color set to #404040 .  I used Myriad Pro Bold for the font and I think that’s the same font Adobe used for the icons.  Now apply layer styles to the type:

• Inner Shadow at 90% opacity, settings of distance 5, choke 0, size 13
• Here’s the magic one – use the drop shadow to create a highlight – set color to white instead of black, blending mode to normal, 35% opacity, setting of distance 3, spread 0, size 2
• Gradient overlay – change blend mode to overlay, gradient of black to white, opacity 15% (or until it look good visually)

Now these settings are not available to you if you use Elements – but we won’t forget you!  Below is a link to download this as a layer style so you can install it in Adobe Photoshop Elements and use this to create the effect for your layouts – you just can’t play around with the settings. (Follow this link if  you need help installing a layer style in Elements)

So what do you think?  Leave a comment if you like this style or have a style you want us to cover in another tutorial.  We’re always ready to take requests!

Download Letterpress type style by Scrappers Workshop

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As many of you know I love doing panoramic pictures.  Whether I’m trying to capture a really beautiful landscape or doing a class picture, panos are fun and easy to do.  And Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements make it so much easier with the PhotoMerge feature – it basically does all the hard work of assembling and correcting the panoramic for you.

One of the facts of life you  have to live with though is this:

Unless you have the camera absolutely level (and on a tripod) the edges get uneven – and you have to crop into the pano in order to get something your can print. Now you could use the rubber stamp tool to very carefully create the missing areas – and I’ve done that.  But it takes a lot of skill and a long time.

Enter Content-Aware Fill.

Content- Awa….WHAT?

Tucked under the Edit-Fill menu in Photoshop CS5 is one of Adobe’s more magical tools – Content-Aware.  What this tool does is to analyze the area  surrounding a selection and “create” new content based on what should be there.

To use it just select the blank areas using the magic wand tool, go to Edit – Fill – Content Aware, and let the magic happen.  Here’s what the program gave me:

Now is it perfect – no. The left edge brick wall didn’t get “created”.  But that would be easy enough to retouch in.

Now it takes longer to write about it than it does to see it (and it really is like magic!)- here’s a video tutorial.

What do you think? I know it will make my panoramics so much better.

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Here’s a quick, easy way to enhance the look of any photo, especially ones that are just slightly out of focus.  It uses the High Pass filter in Photoshop and Elements.

The what?

Yeah, The High Pass filter.  It’s one of the lesser known filters hidden under the menus but is it ever a lifesaver for these slightly soft pictures.  Here’s how to use it:

Open your image in Photoshop or Elements.  As you can see from our kitty picture, it’s cute but just ever so slightly soft.

Duplicate the layer by hitting Ctrl-J or dragging your layer to the copy icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

Go to Filter – Other – High Pass and you get this: (path is the same in both Photoshop and Elements)

Set the radius to about 5 and hit okay.

Now here’s the magic.  Go to the layer palette and set the blending mode to either soft light for a subtle sharpening or hard light for a more dramatic one.

What a difference that makes!

(Click to enlarge and really see the difference)

Now to really boost the enhancement, you can duplicate the top layer (the one set to hard light) and set it to hard or soft light.

And that’s it!  It’s easy, fast and really makes a huge difference in those “less than purrfect” pictures!

What do you think – leave a comment if you’ve heard of this one before or find it useful.

BONUS – I liked this technique so much I made a video to show how to do it too!

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As many of you know from Facebook and the news, Cleveland TN (where we live) was devastated by 5 tornadoes Wednesday. We were hit along with a huge section of the south from Alabama , Georgia, and Tennessee. There are 9 confirmed deaths in our county and more than 135 homes destroyed. We are safe. The storms, while scary, didn’t affect our section of town as much as the southern part. Sadly, two of my co-workers homes were destroyed, as was one of the girl scout leader’s home that Jenn works with. A family that was on Sam’s Robotics team lost everything

Jenn and I are taking a break from blogging for a little bit to be of any help that we can to our friends and community. Our friend Casi has some pictures posted here and here if you want to see.

Prayers for those suffering.

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