FAS443: Drawing 4
David Poolman
Retouching and Adjusting Documentation of Artworks
A. Downloading Images
1. Download your RAW and jpeg images using Image Capture. Image Capture is an application that comes with your operating system.
2. ALWAYS SAVE A COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL IMAGES. Select your folder and copy it to another drive. This folder will act as your archive.
B. Opening and Editing Images
Your photographs will either have been created as RAW files or standard images files (jpegs).
Below are instructions for opening these two different file types.
I. Camera Raw
1. If you have shot in the RAW format, launch Photoshop and open your image. Note: Your file should have a CR2 extension.
2. To set the white balance and adjust the exposure of your image, click on the Basic button (located at the top right hand side of the screen). Choose your lighting type from the White Balance pull-down menu.
3. Click on the Lens Corrections button (located at the top right hand side of the screen). Check Enable Lens Profile Corrections.
4. Click on the Crop tool. Crop your image to the desired size.
5. Click Open Image. The image can now be adjusted in Photoshop.
II. Saving Images before Editing (PSD, JPEG, TIFF, etc.)
After opening your image in Photoshop, from the File menu select >Save As. Rename your image and save it as a Photoshop file or TIFF file and save so that all your layers remain intact. Do not make any changes to your background layer.
C. Assessing the Image before Editing
Before you can fix a picture, be sure you have decided on what’s wrong with it.Make a list and prioritize the issues you find in each image. It’s easiest to fix one
problem at a time, and if you identify those problems, you’ll know when to stop twiddling with the image. The five most useful image adjustments are
> Levels Adjustments
> Curve Adjustments
> Hue/Saturation Adjustments
> Colour Balance Adjustments
> Shadow/Highlights Adjustments
D. Edit with Adjustment Layers
Adjustment layers allow you to apply most of the image correction commands as non-destructive effects.
Adjustment layers are added as a layer above the actual image; the adjustment layer can be blended, masked, or deleted at any time. Additionally, if you double-click the adjustment layer’s thumbnail, you can modify its properties in the Adjustments panel. The same modifications are available in both the Adjustments menu and Adjustments panel.
E. Adjusting the Levels
The Levels command corrects tonal ranges and color balance issues. With this command you can also fix poor exposure. Nearly every image can benefit from making a Levels adjustment.
1. From the Layer menu choose >New Adjustment LayerLevels. Name and save your Adjustment Layer.
2. In Levels dialog box, move the shadow input slider to make changes to the darkness of the shadow areas and then use the white input arrow to change the highlights. Be careful to not eliminate important highlights and shadows in your histogram.
3. Slide the middle arrow to the left or right to make the middle tones lighter or darker. To preview your changes, click on the Press to view previous state button at the bottom of the Levels dialog box.
Colour Adjustment Levels
Additionally, you can perform colour correction by manually identifying a white point and black point in the image.
From the Levels pull-down menuchoose the colour channel you wish to correct. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to adjust each colour channel.
For Advanced Users: Precision LevelsA more selective way of changing the contrast is to select the highlights and shadows within the Levelsdialog box. Note: the image must have a definite black and white, not all images do.
1. Double-click on the Set White Point Eyedropper; set R at 244; G at 244; B at 244.
2. Double-click on the Set Black Point Eyedropper; set R at 8; G at 8; B at 8. Note: you can set these levels anywhere between 8 and 15 for each colour channel.
3. Setting the Highlight: Press the option key and slide the input Highlight Arrow until it turns black with one small area of white. This will help you to determine the brightest highlight (avoid spectacular highlights such as hot reflections off of glass, etc.). Now turn the slider back to where it was. Using the Highlight Eyedropper try to locate the brightest highlight while looking at the info palette numbers (or locate the target you just made). You will need to zoom in to find the exact pixel (command key, and + key). Once you’ve located it (or the target, if you made one), click on it (without the shift key). When the curser disappears, the values to the right of the RGB info palette should read 244, 244, 244.
4.Setting the Shadow: Press the option key and slide the input Shadow Arrow until it turns white with one small area of black. This will help you to determine the darkest shadow areas. (You can also zoom in, use the shift key and click on the brightest pixel to form a target). Now turn the slider back to where it was.
Using the Shadow Eyedropper try to locate the darkest shadow while looking at the info palette numbers (or locate the target you just made). You will need to zoom in to find the exact pixel (command key, and + key). Once you’ve located it (or the target, if you made one), click on it (without the shift key). When the curser disappears, the values to the right of the RGB info palette should read somewhere between 2, 2, 2 and 8, 8, 8 depending on how dark you have previously set your shadows your shadows.
3. Slide the Middle Arrow to select how dark you would like to set your midtones. Colour correct your midtones separately in the Red, Green, Blue menus of the Levels dialogue box.
F. Adjusting the Curves
While Levels Adjustment gives you three control points (highlights, midtones, and shadows), the CurvesAdjustment allows for up to 16 control points. This can significantly open up more options when adjusting colour and exposure.
1. From the Layer menu choose >New Adjustment LayerCurves. Name and save your Adjustment Layer.
Set the white and black points as follows:
Click on the Set White Point Eyedropper; set R at 244; G at 244; B at 244.
Click on the Set Black Point Eyedropper; set R at 12; G at 12; B at 12.
2. You can now adjust the curve: an S curve gives you more contrast, a reverse S curve flattensthe image. While in the curves palette, the eyedropper may be used to set points on the curve byCommand clicking. You may then enter
numerical values. If your adjustments are too strong, theEdit/fade command with the slider may be used.
G. Adjusting the Hue/Saturation
The Hue/Saturation command lets you adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of colour components in an image. Additionally, you can simultaneously adjust all the colors in an image.
1. From the Layer menu choose >New Adjustment LayerHue/Saturation. Name and save your Adjustment Layer.
2. Drag sliders to adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness of all colours at once, or select a single colour from the pull-down menu.
H. Color Balance
The Color Balancecommand is a simple but useful adjustment. By using the Color Balancecommand, you can change the overall mixture of colours in a particular tonal range. This can be useful for generalized colour correction. For example, if the shadows look too green, you can subtract green and add some red to balance the image. Color Balanceallows you to constrain an adjustment to the shadows, midtones, or highlights as specified in the dialog box.
1. From the Layer menu choose >New Adjustment LayerColour Balance. Name and save your Adjustment Layer.
2. Drag the colour balance sliders to adjust the colour balance in the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights of your image.
I. Adjusting theShadows/Highlights
Exposure problems often plague photos. Dark shadows may make a photo seem unusable, but Photoshop offers a powerful command for fixing these problems.
The image command Shadows/Highlights is very flexible for solving problems. The command can help salvage images where the subject is silhouetted from strong backlight. You can also use the command to improve subjects who have been washed out by the camera’s flash.
1. From the Layer menu choose >New Adjustment LayerExposure. Name and save your Adjustment Layer.
2. Drag the sliders to adjust the exposure of your image.
J. Saving and Exporting the Image
I. Saving for Backup
Save the image as a Photoshop or TIFF file with layers intact so that you can return to edit the image at anytime. These formats are uncrompressed.
II. Saving for Print
Ideally, you would not give a printer a JPEG file for prepress over the email (even though this is often necessary due to time restraints). It is best to save the file as an uncompressed TIFF or PSD file. Make sure to flatten the image before sending, as this will dramatically reduce the file size.
III. Saving For Web
To quickly send an image over the Web you will want to compress the image. From the File menus choose >Save for Web...
Choose the Optimizedfile tab. In the Image Size box, indicate the number of pixels to comprise width and height, forexample 800 x 600. Choose jpeg format.
You can experiment with the compression quality: low,medium, high, maximum. Once you press save, you can rename the file.