San's Graphic Blog » San

Backpacking trip to Yosemite

San — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:50:34 +0000

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Here are some photos I took with Olympus zx-1

Panorama view from Hetch Hatchy Dam

Sunset at Lake Vernan

Random forests along the way.

View of the Hetch Hatchy

Where we got lost and almost died

Heading to Gondor

Hope you enjoyed it, please leave some critique and comment down below!

Fixing a vintage photo

San — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:09:39 +0000

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Here are some tips on how to fix a vintage photo. Let’s see the before and after first…

1)Let’s start by increasing the contrast with Curves.

Go to the Layer Adjustment icon at the bottom of the layer menu.

Select Curves…

Click and drag a control point on the curve to increase the contrast like my example

The Layer Adjustment allows you to go back to make changes even after you leave the menu.

2) Smooth out the noise in the photo.

Duplicate the original layer by dragging it down to the new layer icon.

Go to Filter-Blur-Surface Blur. Select a low radius and low threshold.

3) Next we will isolate the “edge” information to preserve the details from the blurred layer.

Duplicate the original layer again.

Go to Filter-Stylize-Find Edges, all the edge that Photoshop detected are in black line

Use Gaussian blur to soften the edges

Increase the contrast of the edges by using a Curve adjustment (use shortcut Ctrl+M/Cmd+M)

Select All (Ctrl+A/Cmd+A) on the Edge layer, copy it (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C).

Turn the Edge layer off, and make the Blured layer active by clicking on the layer.

Go to the bottom of the tool box and find the “Edit in Quick Mask Mode” and activate it.

Now that you are in the Quick Mask Mode, paste what you just copied (Ctrl+V/Cmd+V). In quick mask mode, the blacks are represented by red ink, anything that is red will become selection after you exit quick mask mode.

Exit out of the Quick Mask Mode, the Edge information that we just copy and pasted into the quick mask now becomes an active selection.

With the selection active click on the Add Mask icon on the bottom of the layer menu.

The selection now becomes a mask, anything that is white remains opaque and everything that is black becomes transparent.

You’ve just created a mask using the Find Edge filter.

You can turn the blur layer’s new mask on and off to see the effect of the mask. To turn the mask off, hold “SHIFT” and click on the mask.

4) Let’s refine the mask a bit more.

Click to activate the mask besides the Blur layer.

Bring up the Curve adjustment menu from the Image menu or on your keyboard Ctrl+M/Cmd+M and drag the curve to darken the darks.

Use a brush to paint black over any part that is not sharp enough. Some of the areas to consider is the mouth, nose, eyes and any edges that Photoshop missed in the Edge detection filter.

You can also switch to white paint to paint over any area you want to be opaque.

5) Next we will add some color to the image.

Create a blank layer and turn the Layer Blending mode to Color

Any color you paint on this layer is applied to the layer below it.

Continue coloring it until you are finished.

6) The left side of my photo has a darkened bar, lets adjust it by using Curve adjustment in this area.

Activate the rectangle marquee tool, enter a Feather amount so that the selection is soft.

Go to Layer Adjustment icon and select Curves.

The selection we made earlier automatically becomes the mask, now the Curve will only affect the selected area.

Pull the curve up until the color of this area matches the rest of the photo.

7) Sharpen the photo.

Select the entire canvas, go to Edit and Copy Merge (this will copy ALL visible pixels and not just the pixels on the active layer.) and Paste.

Go to Filter-Sharpen-Unsharpened Mask.

Play with the setting until you get what you like and press ok.

Here is the final image after more tweaking using the same methods mentioned above.

I hope you find this tutorial useful, if you have any questions regarding any of the instruction please feel free to ask.

Please comment below to let me know what you think!

Maui Photos

San — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:59:06 +0000

Total Views :5587

I recently went to Maui and took some photos, please feel free to leave constructive criticism!

Blend exposures manaully

San — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:43:24 +0000

Total Views :13078

You can merge two or more photo of different exposure and blend it together to create a HDR image, in Photoshop there are many ways to achieve this, in this tutorial you will learn how to do that by using the Blend If function in the Layer Style menu.
	I will use my overexposed photo as the base layer and place the underexposed photo on top of this. Turn it into a 16 bits/Channel Mode under the Image menu.
	Copy and Paste the underexposed layer on top of the overexposed file. DOUBLE CLICK on the underexposed layer (on the layer pallet) to bring up the Layer Style
	At the bottom of the dialog box you will see Blend If. This setting lets you blend (by revealing or making certain pixels transparent) with the current layer and the layer below it.
	If you drag with “This Layer” black triangle, you will see the darkest area become transparent thus revealing the image below it. Same thing for White triangle, it makes the lightest area transparent. The further you drag the more pixels become transparent.
	The opposite happens if you drag the Underlying Layer. When you drag the black triangle, the darkest pixels from the bottom layer starts to become visible or the lightest pixels if you drag the white triangle.
	You will notice a harsh transition with no semi transparent, either it is 100% opaque or it is 100% transparent. You can make the transition more gradual by moving only half of the triangle. Hold ALT/option while dragging the triangle moves only half of the triangle. The distance between the two half of the triangle will determined how many levels of transparency you will get. The further apart the smoother the transition.
	Now the darkest dark pixels on the underexposed layer become completely transparent revealing the bottom layer. But the brightest area is still opaque covering the bottom layer. You have gotten rid of all over and underexposed area, the only problem is it looks too flat from the lack of contrast.
	Let’s fix the contrast by going to the bottom of the Layer pallet and select Curve Adjustment Layer. Create 4 points, the first point is to preserve the shadow detail so it should not move too far off from the original location, the second and third point should create an S curve to increase the overall contrast, and the 4th point will preserve the highlights, so don’t move it too far off the original location.
	Let’s sharpen the overall photo and add some glow effect to the image as a bonus.
	Select the entire canvas and Copy Merged (it will copy all visible pixel instead of just the active layer) Paste the copied information twice on the very top.
	Select one of the pasted layers and go to Filter and High Pass, select a small radius than click ok. User Overlay blending mode on the layer pallet, you will notice that your overall image is sharper, you can decrease the opacity later if it makes the image too fake.
	Turn on the other copy merged layer and apply a small amount of Gaussian Blur, enhance the contrast with Curve and lower this Layer’s Opacity down to 30%.
	Here are the three layers side by side zoomed in. You will notice the original two either had overexposed light area with no detail or underexposed dark area with no detail. The final blended image shows detail on bot the light and shadow area.

The basics of Selection Tool

San — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:11:54 +0000

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The most basic tool in Photoshop is Selection tool; you will use this to position all your layers and objects.



1	To activate the Selection tool, click on the icon on your toolbar or use shortcut key by pressing the letter V on your keyboard
2	Auto Select allows you to select the layers just by clicking on the canvas.
3	While selecting layers you can also choose individual layers or grouped layers.
Alt/Option + Drag	You can duplicate while in the selection tool by Alt/Option and click+drag an item on the canvas. The entire layer will be duplicated.
Ctrl/Command + Click to select	You can select a layer by clicking within the canvas by holding Ctrl/Command.
Ctrl/Command + Click and Drag	You can select multiple layers by (with the selection tool activated) click+draging a mark within the canvas, every layer within the selection becomes selected.
Click and Drag	The simplest operation is dragging a layer around, do that by click+dragging your house with the desired layer selected.
Hold Shift	Hold shift while moving with the selection tool to lock horizontal or vertical direction
(arrow keys) on your keyboard	The arrow keys on your keyboard can be used to move the layer one pixel at a time.
Shift + (arrow keys)	Holding shift while pressing the arrow key can move the layer 10 pixels at a time.
4	Activate the Show Transform Controls to freely distort and rotate the layers. This is similar to using free transform.
Enter	After you are done rotating and scaling with the Transform Controls, press enter to reorient the Control.
5 & 6	You can align two or more layer by selecting all the layers you want to align and use the align button. You can align based on horizontal or vertical direction and by the edge and center.
7 & 8	You can distribute/space out three or more layers evenly by selecting all the layers you want to distribute and use the distribute button. You can choose the distribution based on horizontal or vertical direction and by the edge or center.
Rick click menu (Command Click)	Right click or Command Click to bring up a Layer selection menu.
(number) shortcut keys	Press a number on your keyboard to change the opacity. Pressing 2 on your keyboard changes the opacity to 20% and 7 changes it to 70% and so on.
9	If you have taken consecutive photos such as a panorama landscape, you can select all the photo and Auto-Align it.