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Unit 2 - Photo Retouching

12 points, due Tuesday, January 31

download and open in photoshop, clouds.psd and start02.psd from this link: class images folder

open start02.psd and save as unit02.psd in your files.

this pic is typical of a scan in that it comes in crooked and has excess areas around the part you really want. so you have to straighten it up and get rid of the excess area, called cropping.

as with many of the things you do in photoshop, there are several different ways to get things done. first you have to straigten this pic out. you can do that by going, image>rotate canvas>arbitrary and do it by numbers and direction, you will have to probably have to do it a couple of times to get it perfect (you can enter half degrees, .5). or go select>all and then edit>transform>rotate and put your cursor near a corner and click to rotate, then double click inside the bounding box to set it. you can pull a guide out from ruler well to get it perfect. the third way, select the crop tool, click/drag around the image, use the little boxes in the bounding box to rotate and size the to fit it around the image exactly, double click inside the bounding box and your image will get rid of the black area and straighten it all in one shot. this seems like the most work efficient way, but i never seem to be able to get it right all at once, usually have to re-crop a couple of times. try all 3 and find the way you like to do this, you'll be doing it a lot if you scan images a lot. crop and straighten. save.

the first thing to do to improve our pic is to get the proper or better contrast in the pic. go image>adjustments>levels. notice the graph with the triangles underneath. to make this a properly balance/contrast pic, slid the black triangle to the right until you hit the first big clump of pixels. this graph is how many pixels has this amount of black/greys/white in it. so we set these semi-dark pixels to black. slid the white triangle to the left until you hit the big clump. notice in your pic how much white is in it and look at your graph, called a histogram and you can see a lot of bright pixels. nudge the grey slider left or right to balance it by looking at your pic as you do it. say okay and then reopen the histogram to see how it is now, nice and balanced.

when you scan or take a pic from a camera and transfer it in to the computer, you can get what is called color cast. basically a tint of too much of a color. since you have not seen the original or took the picture, i can tell you that this pic has too much red in it. go to layer>new adjustment layer>color balance, leave the defaults and click okay. a new menu pops up with 3 sliders and move it to look at your layers panel and see the new layer it added. slid towards the cyan side away from the red, about -15 and say okay. look at your layers palette, click on the eyeball several times on the adjustment layer to see it applied and not applied. save.

now let's change the color of an object in our pic. select the zoom tool. click/drag a rectangle around the orange tarp in the bottom right of your image to zoom in. select the rectangle selection tool, click/drag around the tarp again and make sure you get both pieces and all of the orange. go to image>adjust>replace color, in the new window, the center image is what's in your selection. click on the first eyedropper icon, this will select a color, click on the orange tarp, the tarp starts to show in the new window in white. click on the eyedropper plus icon, click and drag in the orange tarp so that the white image starts to show more clearly, if you go outside the orange, you will pick up too much color, either use the eyedropper minus icon or click cancel and start over. move the fuzziness slider either way, you want a sharp white image of the two shapes of the tarp, anything in white will be affected when we change color. slid the hue slider to the right and make it green, drag the saturation slider to the left to tone it down and the brightness slider to the left until it looks natural in the photograph. click okay. go select>deselect and double click on the zoom tool to go to 100%. if you double click on the hand tool, it will make you window fit on the screen. try them both. save.

now we are going to take that little boat out of our image. select the clone stamp tool. in the options panel at the top, make sure your brush size is around 20. hold down your alt key(option key-mac) and click in an area of the water away from the boat. that takes a snapshot. now click on top of the boat and drag over, you will see the original snapshot being dragged and where your cursor is now, that will be painted over that area, replacing the boat. you may have to do it a few times to get the feel of it. paint this in so the water looks natural and you can't tell the boat was there. save.

let's change the sky and add some excitement. select the magic wand tool. set the tolerance at about 20. click in the big sky area. hold the shift key down and click in the other 3 areas of the sky, so that all 4 areas are selected. click on clouds.psd or open it if not open. go select>all and then edit>copy, now click back on the unit02.psd file again. go edit>paste into. this fills the selected area with the clouds. notice the layers pallete and see that a new layer was added. make sure the new layer is in blue or selected and click on the opacity submenu at the top and drag the slider to about 35%. Not so bright now and looks natural. save.

go to save for web. select jpeg medium and save as unit02.jpg

send an email to me at ken.pugh@gcmail.maricopa.edu with an attachment of the unit02.jpg NOT THE unit02.psd

in the subject area of the email, put exactly art180aeUnit02 John Doe, but substitute your name as it is on the roster for John Doe.

i will email you back within a day or two that i have received it and your total points for this assignment.

good luck. professor ken