crop and align a photo in Photoshop

To start, activate the crop tool with short cut C or select crop on the tool bar, draw a crop mark around the photo, don't worry about aligning it right now. (click here to learn more about crop tools)

On the tool bar, the very last item says Perspective, check that box.

Now if you drag the corner of the crop mark, you will notice you will be able to draw each corner freely without being restricted to a rectangle. Drag all the corner to the corner of the magazine.

When you are done dragging all the corners of the crop mark to the corner of the magazine, either hit the Entire key or double click inside the crop mark. Your image should now be perfectly aligned and in the right perspective.

Lastly, you might want to adjust the color since your camera might not translate the color accurately, I will use the LAB color technique to adjust it.  Go to menu and under Image - Mode - LAB to change the color space, click here to learn more about LAB mode Here are the setting I used.

and here is the final image, fairly close to a scanned image if you do not own a scanner wouldn't you agree?

Similiarly if you want to rotate an image, you can change the crop mark by rotating it instead of the photo itself. Here is a vertical image, I want to make it in to a square image while rotating it 45 degree angle. I start by drawing a square crop, hold shift and drag.

Expand the crop mark beyond the file itself and rotate the crop mark 45 degrees.

The final image takes on the space that the crop made but right side up.

if you have questions about this tutorial please posted it in the comment section, and see more tutorial on Tools here

The following sets are combination of the last two set, where 50% gray area has no effect on the photo, darker pixels on the blending mode will behave like their Darkening counterpart and the lighter pixels on the blending mode will behave like their Lightening counterpart.

Overlay – This is a combination of both Multiply and Screen blending mode, it affect both light and dark pixel where 50% gray will show no effect, white will have similar effect to Screen Mode and Black has similar effect to Multiply Mode.

Soft Light – This is a combination of both Darken & Lighten blending mode, it affect both light and dark pixel where 50% gray will show no effect, white will brighten and increase contrast and Black will darken and increase contrast. Notice the 50% gray in the sample did not affect the image while the darker circles darken and increased the contrast and lighter circles does the opposite.

Hard Light – is a combination of Linear dodge and Linear burn, it affect both light and dark pixel where 50% gray will show no effect, white will brighten the picture and Black will darken the picture. This is useful for adding shadows and highlights to an image as you can see in the sample below.

Vivid Light - This is a combination of both Burn and Dodge blending mode, it affect both light and dark pixel where 50% gray will show no effect, white will brighten and increase contrast and Black will darken and increase contrast.

Linear Light - Burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.

Pin Light – This mode will choose to keep either the color of the base or the blending layer using their light/shadow value. When the luminance value of the blending layer is lighter than 50% gray, any pixel darker than the blend color will be replaced. When the luminance value of the blending layer is darker than 50% gray, any pixel lighter than the blend color will be replaced.

Hard Mix – This mix will result in a definite color of Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, White and Black and nothing in between. This can be useful for special effect or evaluating shapes or analyzing the dominate colors of a photo.

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The next two modes are mainly for evaluation purpose, but with some creativity you can incorporate their effects into your design.

Difference – This mode is used to align two similar photos visually, if two exact duplicate photo were used, the result will be black because there will be no difference. In the example below, I duplicated the photo and made one the Difference blending and one as the base but I nudge the blending layer so that it is not 100% aligned on top of the base, notice the white spots in the final result, that is the difference from the nudging, now you can try to nudge it back so that there are no white spot.

Exclusion - Creates an effect similar to Difference mode except blending with light/white values result in inverted base color and blending with dark/black yields no change. In the sample the sun is the lightest and therefore the base color is inverted and the rocks are left alone because it is closer to a black value.

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The list sets of modes are for dealing with Hue, Saturation and Luminance.

Hue - It will apply only the hue of the blending layer to the base layer without changing the saturation or luminance of the base layer. Notice that the blue, red and green color spots in the example shows in the final result but only with the same amount of saturation and luminance of the base value.

Saturation - It will apply only the saturation of the blending layer to the base layer without changing the color or luminance of the base layer. Notice that the blue, red and green color spots in the example did not affect the color of the final result, the only information that the base is inheriting is the saturation level of the blending layer.

Color – It will apply only the color of the blending layer to the base layer without changing the light and shadow (luminance) of the base layer. It is perfect for coloring in a black and white photo or changing color of a part of a photo. In the sample below, the base layer takes on the color of the blending layer while retaining the grayscale of the original photo.

Luminosity – It will apply only the light and shadow (luminance) of the blending layer to the base layer without changing the color of the base layer. You will achieve the same result if you take the example I showed you above and switch the base to blending layer and blending layer to base.

You do not need to memorize every single mode but it would be helpful to know what Photoshop is capable of so that when you are creating your design you know what your limits are. I understand some of the modes are very complicated and difficult to understand so feel free to ask any questions or if you are able to write it in a way that is easier to understand please leave that in the comment.

I still haven't found use for some of the modes such as Exclusion, Hard Mix and Pin Light. Have you used any of them for a project? if so let us know what you did with them.

This entry is continued from Layer Blending Modes Part one

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.

Clone stamp is not just for cloning objects in photos, you can also “erase” them. Blemishes and wrinkles can be magically erased from your model’s faces as well as that annoying person who somehow made it in to your photo.

To start, select the clone stamp on your tool bar or press S on keyboard.

You will first need to pick a spot where you want Photoshop to copy/sample the information from than start painting over the area where you want the cloning to happen.

First hold Alt/Option to set a sampling point, this is the location you want to clone, than start painting as you would with a regular brush. Instead of solid paint coming out of the brush it is a identical spot where you first set your sampling point.

This is similar to using a lasso or any other selecting method and copy and pasting it to a different location.

The first 5 settings are the same as Brush tool, please read my post on brush settings

Brush – you can use any brush and brush dynamic for the Clone Stamp. Read my article on how to use Brush here.

Mode – the colors can be manipulated using any of the blending mode, although I do not advise using this. You will gain better control if you paint onto a blank layer than using the blending mode on the layer instead.

Opacity – Lets you choose the transparency of your stamp.

Flow – The value is how fast the paint will be applied, for best result use soft edged brush. You will see the paint builds up as the brush overlap previous paint.

Airbrush – this option will only work with brush with soft edge, it will gradually accumulate into a bigger blob if you hold your mouse in one area for too long similar to an airbrush.

Aligned – Once you start painting after you’ve set your reference point, the cloning will continue where you last left off every time you release your mouse until you set another anchor point. If aligned is off than once you release your mouse and tries to paint again, it will use the original reference point.

Example –

- Current layer, Clone tool will only be cloning whatever that is on the active layer.

- Current & Below, Clone tool will only clone whatever that is on the active layer plus whatever is visible under the active layer.

- All Layer, Clone tool will take all visible layer into account.

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Include Adjustment Layer, this icon become available when you have an active adjustment layer turned on and Sample is set to anything other than Current Layer. When it is on, it will ignore all adjustment layer, and when it is off than what you see is what you will get.

Use the key “[“ and “]” on your keyboard to increase or decrease the size of your brush.

Best way to use clone tool is to paint it on a blank layer with the Sample set to Current & Below or All layer, that way you are not destroying the original.

There are many ways to "erase" an object in a photo rather than Clone stamp, what else can you use to achieve the same result?

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.

Brush property can be use for any other tool that requires painting on the effects or selection such as painting dodge and burn effects or painting quick mask selection.

Selecting Brush – Photoshop is shipped with many predefined brushes, you can find them under the brush selection menu. Select the set you want and you will be asked to Replace or Append. Replace will hide the current brushes and replace it with the new set. Append will add the brush on to your current selection.

Under this menu you can also select different viewing mode, try them out and see what fits your taste best.

Select Brush by clicking on the brush icon on your tool box or use the shortcut B

You can use paint in different blending mode but I recommend doing it on a blank layer and using the layer blending mode so that you will get a chance to change it later.

Opacity can be changed by typing in a number, sliding the slider or pressing the number keys. A lower number will make your paint transparent. The example below shows 100% opacity than 50 and 25 percent.

Flow is how fast and how transparent the paint is released as you drag your mouse across. You will see a very obvious spacing if you are using a brush with hard edge, a small Flow percentage works best with a soft edge brush. It gives a more realistic paint brush effect than using the Opacity setting. The example shows 30% flow using soft edge and hard edge brush.

Airbrush will only be visible on soft edged brushes. It simulates airbrush painting, as you hold your mouse in the same location the paint will build up into a bigger blob. The example below shows two different location where I stopped my brush and the paints builds up into thicker paint.

You can also set physical dynamics on your brush to simulate real world brush or creating custom randomized effects. Play with the settings under Brush Dynamics with the shortcut F5 or pressing the Dynamic icon.

I will discuss brush dynamics and creating your custom brush in a separate entry.

I hope you enjoy this tutorial, please leave a comment below for feedback.

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.

If you need to get the exact color from a specific location on your photo you can extract that information using the eye dropper tool.

There are two version of the eyedropper, one is call eyedropper and the other one is color sample tool. They can both be activated by selecting the icon on tool bar or with shortcut key I, and use the Shift+I to cycle through them two.

Sample Size- Point Sample means that it will extract the color information from exactly one pixel, this is the most accurate way to select a color. However, the color in a photograph is rarely exactly the same, if you were to take a picture of a green wall and zoom in on it, you will notice slight variation of the green. Click on the drop down menu and slight one of the higher number sample average, it will get you the average of the nearby pixel.

Color sample tool is similar except the information are posted on the Info panel so that you can read the color information of that particular spot. You can select up to 4 spots and you can delete it by right clicking of each of the spot and select delete. As you are adjusting the color, the info panel will update the color information as well.

As you can see that when I adjusted the color of the photo the Info panel updated as well.

Temporary eyedropper – You can activate eyedropper temporary while you are in a mode that requires you to choose color such as Brush and Paint Bucket tool by holding Alt\Option.

What other tips on eyedropper do you know of and what other uses are there for eyedropper? Please share with us in the comments below!

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.