Page #175 (141. Improve a Nighttime Photo)


142. Fix a Flash That's Too Close

Before You Begin

136 About an Images Histogram

138 Improve a Dull, Flat Photo

151 Blur a Background to Create Depth of Field


See Also

144 Correct Color Manually


When you shoot a subject with the flash turned on at a very close distance, a strange thing happens to your photo that you can see in its histogram: The colors become bleached out and desaturated. The contrasts in the picture become too heavy, such that the histogram looks like a camel's back: a big clump of darks and a big clump of lights.

Restoring midtones isn't a difficult task in itself. But with an overlit photo, you run the risk of restoring too much saturation to peripheral elements of the imagethings you'd rather not be the center of attention. This task demonstrates how to restore midtones, while at the same time, reducing the attention that the background receivesall without over-saturating the background.

1.

Select Foreground Subject

Open the image you want to adjust in the Editor in Standard Edit mode and save it in Photoshop (*.psd) format. To display the Histogram palette if it is not already showing, select Window, Histogram. From the Channel list, choose Colors.

With the Background layers chosen in the Layers palette, click the Lasso tool on the Toolbox. Use this tool (primarily) to draw a marquee border around the foreground subject. Include all clothes and as much hair as possible.

2.

Create Foreground Layer

With the selection marquee showing in the active image window, select Layer, New, Layer via Copy from the menu bar. Name the new layer Foreground.

3.

Adjust Levels for Foreground Colors

With the Foreground layer chosen, select Enhance, Adjust Lighting, Levels from the menu bar. The Levels dialog box appears. From the Channel drop-down list, choose RGB. Enable the Preview check box.

The histogram for the RGB channel should show definitive "twin peaks." In 138 Improve a Dull, Flat Photo, the Levels dialog box is explained in detail. In this particular circumstance, the most important adjustment you can make is to decrease the gamma for the RGB channel. Do this by sliding the gray pointer on the scale below the histogram to the right. It seems backward at first to slide right to turn it down, but what you're doing is pinching the gap between midtones and highlights, adding more midtones in the process. In the example, I raised the black point for Katerina just slightly from 0 to 14, but then I dropped gamma significantly to 0.75. To finalize your adjustments, click OK.

TIP

When objects in the foreground and objects in the background are both bleached out by a nearby or overpowered flash, it might be difficult for you to select the foreground elements to isolate them. This is where you might need some practice with the Lasso toolnot the Magnetic Lasso or the Polygonal Lasso, but the one where you draw the border of a selection yourself. This skill is covered in 73 Draw a Selection Freehand. Because this is a skill, you might find yourself having drawn pock-marks or holes in the border of your foreground selection. In such a case, the Selection Brush tool, covered in 77 Paint a Selection, comes in handy.

4.

Blur Background Layer

It's extremely likely that your background is as desaturated as your foreground, as a result of your over-bright flash. But you don't want to resaturate it because that will make it compete with the foreground you just rescued. What you want is to de-emphasize the background. Because it's on its own layer now, the easiest way you can accomplish this is by blurring it.

In the Layers palette, choose the Background layer. From the menu bar, select Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur. In the Gaussian Blur dialog box, enter a small radius such as 4 (slightly higher if your image resolution is above 150 PPI). Don't worry if the sample makes it appear like you're about to blur your subject; Her blurred copy will be obscured by the Foreground layer when this is done. Click OK.

NOTE

If your subject is severely desaturated, you can increase the saturation of the Foreground layer only. See 146 Adjust Hue, Saturation, and Lightness Manually.

5.

View the Result

When you're satisfied with the result, make any other changes you want and save the PSD file. Resave the result in JPEG or TIFF format, leaving your PSD image with its layers intact so that you can return at a later time to make new adjustments.

One of the great three-dimensional illusions in all photography is that richer, clearer yellows and reds appear to "pull" toward the viewer, whereas desaturated colors appear to recede. In this example, from the angle at which this photo was originally taken, Katerina looks foreshortened, as though she were a giant being photographed by a passing miniature blimp. Bringing her midtones back down into the realm of richness and clarity with a simple gamma adjustment makes her appear human again and not so much like a colossal statue. What do you suppose that this little girl was getting into at the time this photo was taken? Maybe her redder cheeks will give her away.



Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 in a Snap
Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 in a Snap
ISBN: 067232668X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 263

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net