Actions are automated sequences of commands in Photoshop which you can then re-use on other images with a single mouseclick. They’re like macros in other programs and they can save you a great deal of time if you find yourself repeatedly [...]
Archive for the 'Photoshop' Category
Adjustment layers are used to change the appearance of the layers underneath, without actually changing their contents, and you can undo or modify their effects at any time. Adjustment layers can be stacked on top of each other, re-ordered and deleted. [...]
This is a plug-in tool supplied with Photoshop, Elements and Adobe Bridge which can open and convert RAW files from a wide range of cameras. If you attempt to open a RAW file with these programs, it will automatically open in [...]
Digital images are made up of a number of ‘channels’, usually red, green and blue in a digital photograph. These red, green and blue channels combine to produce the full-colour image. Alpha channels are additional ‘unseen’ channels used to store [...]
Photoshop tool for creating paintings from photos. It’s a variant of the History Brush Tool and attempts to mimic real brushstrokes as you paint in a previous history state.
A Photoshop command for neutralising colours. It analyses the light and dark colours in the image and attempts to produce neutral midtones.
A common option for optimising contrast. It automatically maximises the tonal range of an image but not to the point where shadows or highlights are ‘clipped’.
Auto Levels optimises both colour and contrast at the same time by maximising the tonal range of the red, green and blue colour channels individually. This produces maximum overall contrast (without ‘clipping’) but it may distort the image’s colour balance. This [...]
The base image layer in Photoshop. Digital camera images opened in Photoshop consist of this single ‘background’ layer when first opened. Some Photoshop tasks (such as transformations) can only be carried out on full image layers. You can convert a ‘background’ [...]
If you enlarge the image canvas or erase parts of the image, the ‘background colour’ is what fills the gaps. It’s found at the bottom of the Tools palette.
This quickly removes unwanted backgrounds in Photoshop. It’s semi-automatic, in that it constantly adapts to the colours under the cursor. You simply make sure the crosshairs in the centre of the brush remain over the background colour to be deleted as [...]
This is the amount of computer data used for colours. Regular 8-bit images can only produce 256 different shades in each of the three colour channels, or 24 bits overall. Digital images are composed of three separate ‘channels’ of data – [...]
Black and white is traditional style of photography still popular today. ‘Black and white’ isn’t strictly black and white, of course. It’s actually, black, grey and white since there are lots of intermediate shades. Black and white may also be [...]
Blend modes control the way different layers in a composite image interact. This can prove very useful for more advanced image-editing techniques. In ‘Normal’ mode, one layer simply overlays and obscures the one below. In the other modes, the pixel values [...]
Blur tools artificially soften edges and detail. They can be useful for smoothing complexions in portraits, for example, or softening the edges of layer masks.
Bridge is a file/photo browsing program supplied with Photoshop. It has evolved to include basic image cataloguing and searching tools. It also integrates the functions of other Adobe creative applications like InDesign and Illustrator, so it’s not specifically a tool for [...]
This is usually a simple but crude image adjustment. It’s easy to grasp, but crude and indiscriminate in practice and best avoided if possible. Both the brightness and the contrast adjustments are likely to destroy or compromise important shadow and highlight [...]
Photoshop tool used for darkening parts of a photo. You can increase or reduce the strength of the effect, and also change the brush size and softness.
This is the size of the image ‘document’ as opposed to the size of the image itself. You can increase the ‘canvas’ size, to produce a border around the photo, say.
Colour images are made up of separate colour components called ‘channels’. There are different types, depending on the image and the colour mode being used. In general photographic images have three channels – red, green and blue. Hence the acronym ‘RGB’ [...]
Photoshop’s Channel Mixer adjusts the relative strengths of the red, green and blue channels. It can be used for colour correction but is most often used when converting colour photos to black and white because it can simulate the effect [...]
‘Clipping’ is the loss of extreme shadow or highlight detail. It can happen with subjects which have a very high brightness or because of careless image-editing. The scene in the picture below has contrast so high that some clipping was inevitable, [...]
Colour mode used in commercial publishing. Uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black channels to match the inks used by printing presses. Photographers should leave CMYK conversion to print professionals, since it’s a technical area that requires good familiarity with the [...]
This is a Photoshop tool for adjusting the strength of the red, green and blue components of the image using sliders, and can be used for basic colour corrections. When you move a slider, you adjust the balance of each colour [...]
Photoshop tool for selecting areas of similar colour. You can adjust the tolerance, or ‘Fuzziness’ of the selection, and it’s previewed in the Color Range dialog as you work.
This command is found in Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation dialog and it’s a quick, effective and flexible way of producing a black and white image tinted with a single colour.
How colour data is stored in the image. Digital camera photos usually arrive as full-colour RGB images (three channels). You can convert RGB colour images to Greyscale mode (one ‘grey’ channel) for black and white work. Duotones are a special [...]
Cropping is the process of trimming photos for framing or to improve composition. You use the crop tool to mark out the area of a photo you want to keep. The rest of the image is discarded.
This is a tool for adjusting contrast within the image, and it’s usually found in the more advanced image-editing programs like Photoshop. You can adjust the shape of the curve to increase or reduce overall brightness, or to add contrast in [...]
The Desaturate command in Photoshop takes all the colour out of an image but without converting the RGB image into a greyscale image. It’s the same as opening the Hue/Saturation dialog and reducing the Saturation level to zero.
This command cancels any selections you’ve made when editing a photo. It’s good practice to cancel selections as soon as you’ve finished with them to avoid confusion. When you select part of an image the selection remains active until you make [...]
A technique for lightening parts of a photo. In the darkroom it’s done by shading areas of a print while it’s being exposed under the enlarger. It can also be done in Photoshop and other image-editing programs using a ‘Dodge’ [...]
Duotones are often taken to mean any black and white photo tinted with another colour, though in fact their real purpose is rather different. The name comes from a specialised technique used in the printing industry. ‘Duotones’ are black and white [...]
Elements in generally regarded as a beginners’ version of Adobe Photoshop, but it’s better than many people imagine and matches Photoshop in many respects. It’s also a good stepping stone for those intending to move on, since everything you learn in [...]
This makes circular or oval selections in Photoshop. Drag to create elliptical selections or hold down the Shift key as you drag to create circular ones.
This erases areas of a photo, image layer or layer mask. You can set the Eraser’s size, hardness and opacity just as you can any other brush. If you use it on a standard ‘background’ image layer, it reveals the current [...]
This is a Photoshop tool for creating cutouts more easily, although it does appear to have been dropped from CS4. It uses a process seen in other applications and plug-ins. You draw a rough outline around the object, then fill the [...]
This is used in Photoshop to identify and ‘pick up’ or replace a colour. It’s also used to select a specific colour in the image as the ‘foreground’ colour. Eyedroppers appear in other dialogs, and their function is similar though can [...]
‘Feathering’ is where you soften the edges of selections so that you don’t get a hard division between the adjusted part of the image and the rest.
Filters are tools and special effects usually provided as ‘plug-ins’, which are like mini-applications which work within programs like Photoshop. Photoshop comes with many filter plug-ins as standard, but it’s also possible to download and install third-party plug-ins for specific tasks.
This is the ‘active’ colour in Photoshop for painting, filling selections and so on. It’s set using the colour swatches at the bottom of the Tools palette. Clicking on this displays the Color Picker, but you can also set the foreground [...]
The Freehand Lasso is the most basic of Photoshop’s selection tools. You use it to outline the object or area you want to select by hand. It requires patience and care and even then it’s difficult to follow outlines with [...]
A Photoshop filter used to soften image detail in a progressive and controllable way. It can be used to blur unwanted detail in a photo, or to soften the edges of layer masks.
The Gradient Map is an interesting tool. What it does is to match the brightness values in the photo with the colours in the gradient you specify. There might not be too much you can do with this in colour [...]
The Gradient tool is used to blend one colour into another. You add gradients directly to images or to layer masks in Photoshop to blend one image layer with another. First you choose or edit your gradient, then pick the gradient [...]
A mode where colour information is translated into shades of grey. It’s the quickest way to turn a colour image into a black and white photo, though not always the best. When you change the colour mode to greyscale, the red, [...]
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It’s a technique for recording very bright areas of a scene (like skies) and very dark areas (like shadowed buildings and foregrounds) and displaying them with similar brightness levels. It can be a complicated and [...]
This offers an alternative method for sharpening photos. It takes a little longer than conventional sharpening tools, but it offers a great deal of control.
You can use your camera’s histogram display to get the exposure right. In the digital age, this can be quicker and more effective than relying on old techniques involving different metering modes, calculated averages or complex approaches like Ansel Adams’ [...]
This is a record of the work you’ve carried out on a photo in Photoshop since you first opened the document, and it allows you to backtrack to any editing stage. The list is displayed in the History palette, and by [...]
This is a Photoshop tool which can ‘paint back’ earlier image states. You save a Snapshot of an image and this becomes the source for the History Brush later on. First, you use the button at the bottom of the History [...]
A dialog in Photoshop for adjusting colour Hue, colour Saturation and colour Lightness. It can do this globally and for individual colours.
This is a specialised colour mode in Photoshop which separates the lightness of the image from its colour components which are stored in ‘a’ and ‘b’ colour channels. Being able to work on the image’s luminance values separately to its colours can [...]
Photoshop’s Lasso tool comes in three different types, which share the same flyout on the Tools palette. The simplest is the Freehand Lasso, where you simply drag a freehand outline around the are you want to select. The ‘Polygonal’ lasso lets [...]
Layer masks are used to hide parts of an image layer in Photoshop . They’re not visible directly in the finished image, but they can be viewed and edited in Photoshop. Layer masks help you combine image layers in realistic ways. [...]
Layer styles add special effects to layers in Photoshop without altering any of the pixels in the layer. For example, you can add drop shadows or luminous ‘glow’ effects.
Layers are a way of combining images, text and shapes in Photoshop, Elements and other image-editing programs. There are different types of layer and different ways of combining them. The annotation below offers a guide to the main features.
1. This is [...]
Photoshop’s Lens Correction filter has controls for fixing many common lens aberrations, including distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting.
The Levels dialog should be the first stop for examining and fixing photos. Almost all image-editors offer a Levels adjustment in one form or another. The annotation might look complicated, but the histogram and the sliders below (items 1-4) quickly [...]
A Photoshop tool which combines the functions of the Magic Wand and the Eraser to quickly delete large areas of an image. You click on the area you want to delete, and all pixels of a similar tone to the point [...]
The Magic Wand tool in Photoshop selects areas of similar tone. Using a low tolerance value selects near-identical tones, while a high value selects a wider range.
Photoshop’s Magnetic Lasso tool attempts to follow object outlines, automatically detecting and following sharp edges, though it’s not always successful. It can help you trace complicated outlines quickly, but it can also prove maddeningly ‘random’, flying off in different directions without [...]
Masks protect or hide certain areas of the photo in Photoshop and other image-editing programs, and are related to selections. Indeed, masks are sometimes interchangeable with selections and may be saved permanently as part of the image, for example layer masks [...]
Photoshop’s Match Color tool is designed for matching the overall colour palette of two separate images, but can also improve a single image’s saturation.
Measures distances or straight lines in Photoshop. With the Measure Tool you drag a line along the edge of an object. Amongst other things, this will tell you not just the length of the line but its angle from the [...]
You can get motion blur in the background when you pan the camera to follow a moving subject, and you can also introduce this effect artificially in Photoshop.
A way of blending image layers in Photoshop. This mode multiplies the pixel values of one layer with those of the layer below to produce a net darkening effect. It’s analogous to sandwiching two slides together in a slide projector. There’s [...]
Photoshop’s Noise filter has a number of uses, but perhaps the most obvious to photographers is that it adds digital noise to simulate film grain.
This is the transparency (opacity) of a layer in Photoshop. Layers have a default opacity of 100%. You can reduce the opacity to make layers partially transparent.
Adobe Organizer is a photo cataloguing program supplied with Elements. It’s not just a component of Elements but a separate, companion application.
This is one of the blend modes you can apply to layers in Photoshop, Elements and other image-editing programs. It can be used to adjust image contrast, or to apply dodging and burning techniques in a non-destructive way. The basic science [...]
This is a Photoshop tool for hiding blemishes. You draw a selection around the damaged area, then move the selection to a nearby undamaged area. The pixels from the undamaged area are used to replace those in the area needing to [...]
Fixing converging verticals in buildings, for example. This can be achieved by using a special perspective correction (PC) lens or by using software. There are two ways to correct converging verticals or other perspective faults in Photoshop. You can use the [...]
Photomerge is a Photoshop tool which can automatically assemble and ‘stitch’ together a series of overlapping photos to produce a single ‘panoramic’ image’. However, earlier versions were not the most effective panoramic stitching tool, and it was often possible to see [...]
Photoshop CS5, announced in April 2010, offers a number of significant improvements over Photoshop CS4, though there are no radical changes to the interface or the way it works. Below is a list of the major enhancements and a brief [...]
Photoshop option for printing many images on a sheet. Many custom paper sizes and picture layouts are provided but you can also define your own.
A plug-in is an add-on software tool for Photoshop, Elements and other image-editing programs, which provides extra tools or effects. In fact, many of Photoshop’s special effects filters and functions are not built into the main program itself but are ‘plug-in’ [...]
A quick and accurate selection tool in Photoshop and one of the most useful. You make up selections click by click, out of straight lines. Each time you click in the image, another selection ‘node’ and straight-line segment is added. In [...]
A mode in Photoshop where a selection you’ve created is converted into a ‘mask’ which you can edit with the paint tools and then convert back to a selection.
A circular or zoom movement effect created in Photoshop. You can use it to make wheels look as if they are spinning, or to simulate the effect of zooming the lens.
RAW files are an image file format available on some high-end compact cameras and digital SLRs. Instead of processing the data to produce a JPEG image, the camera saves the data as it’s recorded by the sensor in its ‘raw’ [...]
This creates a rectangular or square selection in Photoshop and may sometimes be used for more advanced techniques, such as custom picture frame designs, say. It’s not really of much use photographically because you won’t often want to select a perfectly [...]
This means changing the number of pixels in the image by adding more (‘upsampling’) for big prints or taking some away (‘downsampling’) for on-screen use. For example, you need to ‘downsample’ digital photos to display them on web pages, where a [...]
You can ‘resize’ an image for printing without not changing the number of pixels it contains. Instead, you’re simply changing the size at which they will print.
An option for saving files within Photoshop which allows you to produce the smallest possible file with the minimum loss of quality for use online. It does this by adjusting the size of the colour palette (for GIF images) or the [...]
A way of blending image layers in Photoshop which combines the brightness values in one layer to those of the layer below to produce a net lightening effect. The maths in blend modes can be confusing – the significant fact is [...]
This is an area of a photo marked out for editing and indicated by an outline of ‘marching ants’ (a flashing dotted line). Whatever adjustments you make now will only apply to the area that’s been selected (until you cancel [...]
Photoshop tool for adjusting specific colours independently of the rest. For example, if you increase the Black component of the ‘Cyans’ and ‘Blues’ in the image, it will darken blue skies in a landscape in the same way as a [...]
The Shadow/Highlight dialog is a Photoshop tool which can be used to lighten shadows, darken highlights or both, while leaving the rest of the image unaltered. You can also use this dialog to adjust the image contrast without ‘clipping’ the shadows [...]
A simple tool for increasing the visual sharpness of fine detail. It may be useful as a ‘one-click fix’, but offers no controls for precise adjustments. Like other sharpening tools, it works by exaggerating contrast around the edges of objects. It [...]
Sharpening is the process of enhancing fine details so that they appear sharper, though there is usually a trade-off in the form of edge effects and increased noise. Unprocessed digital images are not sharp because a ‘low-pass’ (blur) filter is used [...]
A sharpening tool introduced in Photoshop CS2 which aims to give superior results to the traditional Unsharp Mask filter. It allows you to adjust the sharpening levels in shadow and highlight areas independently, for example.
You can take a ‘Snapshot’ of the current image state in Photoshop, and it’s stored within the History palette. Later on, you can return to this snapshot if your subsequent adjustments were unsuccessful, or ‘paint’ parts of this snapshot on [...]
This technique produces a photograph which is a curious blend of both positive and negative images. Darker areas of the scene come through as normal tones, while lighter areas are reversed. This was done in the darkrom by re-exposing the [...]
Tool in Photoshop for increasing or reducing saturation. It’s not particularly useful for the most part, though it can be handy for increasing the colour saturation quickly in small areas, or for reducing prominent colour fringing around silhouetted objects in [...]
Converts photos into simple black and white. In other words, the pixels will literally be either black or white – and not the range of greys of a conventional ‘black and white’ photograph. Photoshop decides whether to make a pixel [...]
Used to adjust perspective in Photoshop. In order to apply it to a digital photo, the image must be ‘promoted’ to a layer within Photoshop. To do this, just double-click the image’s thumbnail in the Layers palette.