Tabla de contenidos para March 2022 en Practical Photoshop

The Adjustment Brush has all kinds of interesting uses. We can even make rays of sunlight with this simple trick. First use Select Sky to isolate the area, then click the 3-dot icon next to Select Sky and choose Intersect with>Adjustment Brush. Go to the brush options on the right side and increase the Feather to make it softer, then paint straight lines from the clouds towards land where you want the rays to appear. Next go to the tonal sliders and reduce Dehaze to create the rays. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3LTNTkm…

Some cameras have a feature that allows you to record depth information. The most popular is portrait mode on iPhones, which uses a three-camera system to capture depth information in order to blur out the background. We can bring images like the HEIC format files from an iPhone into Photoshop and make use of this depth information in local adjustments. Simply add a Depth Range mask in the Mask panel settings, then use the mask range slider on the right to target a depth range in the scene – here we’ve used it to make separate edits to the dog and the backdrop. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3oXw7CI…

Ring lights have been used for photos for a long time, but in the past couple of years – thanks to the pandemic and endless video meetings – they’ve become increasingly popular. A ring light eliminates shadows, resulting in simple, flattering lighting over a face. The 360 degrees of illumination helps to give skin a flawless look, it fills out bags under eyes and reduces wrinkles. As such it’s a popular choice, not only for Zoom meetings but also among YouTube vloggers and for fashion photography. Besides the characteristic shadow-less illumination, it also results in wonderful circular catchlights in the subject’s eyes. It’s this that makes a ring light a great choice for pet photos, as eyes are such an important feature for conveying the character of subjects. We’ll explore…

01 SQUARE THE CIRCLE The idea here was that if we divided the ring into equal segments then they’d make for an interesting catchlight in our subject’s eyes. We began by cutting out several squares of cardboard, then taped them over the ring to break up the circle of light into much small chunks. 02 POSITION THE SUBJECT We brought the ring light in fairly close to our subject’s face so that the catchlight would show clearly in the eyes. You may find that parts of the ring do not show as clearly as others, if this is the case experiment with the height and angle of the light and camera. 03 CAPTURE THE EYES The reflection in the eyes causes them to sparkle with dots of light, while the…

You might wonder why we choose to make these edits in Camera Raw/Lightroom rather than opening up into Photoshop. While Photoshop’s main interface offers all sorts of great options for local adjustments, best practice is to make these kinds of edits at the raw processing stage. Raws hold more colour information and greater dynamic range, so when editing in raw format you can make use of the wider array of colours and pull extra detail out of highlights and shadows. Essentially you have greater headroom for pushing tonal adjustments, changing white balance and recovering details. What’s more, you can copy these edits from one photo to another, so if you have a sequence of images shot using a tripod, then you can choose one photo from the set to work…

A person’s eyes are usually the first thing the viewer will look at when gazing upon a portrait, so it makes sense to give them a gentle boost. This is easily done with the Camera Raw Adjustment Brush. Hit K for the tool, then begin painting over the whites – try checking Auto Mask in the brush options to lock on to the edges of the area. Increase Exposure to lift the whites. Next hit J for a new Radial Filter adjustment. Drag it over the iris then increase Clarity, Saturation and Exposure to boost the area. Finally hit K again for another Adjustment Brush mask and paint around the edge of the iris then reduce exposure to darken it slightly. Finally hit K again and paint over the lashes,…

Photoshop offers a box of tricks for all sorts of effects. There are those that can transform your image into something unreal. Then there are those that let you make more realistic changes. The Depth Blur filter falls into the latter category. As the name suggests, it lets you mimic the effects of in-camera blur. If your image has a foreground in front of your subject, this is blurred too. The result is realistic fall-off either side of your focus. We’ve been able to simulate depth-offield effects in Photoshop for a long time by using filters like Lens Blur, but Depth Blur is one of the new range of neural filters, which means it works by employing machine learning to analyze the content of your picture. It recognizes subjects and…

1 RING LIGHT A ring light has a circular bulb that results in 360 degrees of frontal illumination. This creates minimal shadows over your subject’s face, with gentle fall-off. As such, it’s a flattering light source for portraits and pet photos. We used a 19-inch Interfit ring light here, plus a smaller LED ring. 2 CAMERA POSITION Shooting through the centre of the ring light enables the light to wrap around the subject from all angles. Some ring lights and flashes can be attached to your camera, but larger ones, like this, will need a separate stand. Of course, we need to be mindful to keep the edges of the light out of the frame. 3 DOUBLE RINGS Why not try using two ring lights instead of one? Here we…

Photoshop has many types of layers and adjustment layers available, but there are six that you’ll find you need to use again and again. Learning how they should be used may seem a little daunting for beginners, but once you’ve got to grips with them, you’ll find they play a part in the creative process of almost every image you make. 01 LEVELS This should be the first layer you add to an image, because it fundamentally alters the tonal range of the entire image. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer, drag the Black point slider inwards until it touches the left-hand edge of the histogram, and drag the White point slider inwards to the right-hand edge. This remaps the tones of the image to make more of the available tonal…

In landscape photos the sky tends to come out brighter than the land, so a simple edit to darken and boost the area can help to balance out your outdoor scenes. The Select Sky command is a game changer when it comes to enhancing skies. We can simply click Select Sky then use the tonal sliders, perhaps by decreasing Exposure to darken the area, then by boosting Clarity to enhance cloud detail and Saturation to give the colours more impact. However, sometimes making edits like this over the entire sky can create an unnatural-looking transition with the land below. If so, it helps to fade out the effect along the horizon with the Linear Gradient tool. Simply click Subtract, choose the Linear Gradient tool and drag up from land to…

The Color Range options are very handy for targeting and altering specific colours in an image. Here we can use the controls to change the colour of the clothes. We begin by making a Color Range Mask and Shift-clicking over the clothes to sample different colours. In this image the clothes are similar in colour to the backdrop, so the command naturally picks up colours there too. But then we can go on to intersect the Color Range mask with the Select Subject command (click the 3-dot icon next to Color Range) and Subtract any remaining areas with the Brush tool. WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3sSZNCa…

In the short time it’s been around, the Object Selection Tool has become one of the most useful on offer in Photoshop. Powered by artificial intelligence, it is able to recognize the content of your photos and seek out the edges of objects: you can now make a precise selection of any object within seconds. With the release of Photoshop CC 2022, the Object Selection Tool has evolved further. Now you can hover over objects in the image and the tool gives you a handy overlay preview to show what will be included. You then simply click on the area to make a selection. You can go on to cut out the area, or apply a selective adjustment, use filters, or make any other changes. We used the Object Selection…

01 PRACTISE ON A TEDDY If you’re planning on capturing pets, it’s a good idea to practise beforehand, so that the lighting, backdrop and exposure are spot on before the chaos of the shoot begins. A teddy bear is ideal, as you can place it in the right spot, perfect your lighting, and even check how the ring light reflects in the eyes. 02 SIMPLE CAMERA SETTINGS When using always-on ring lights we can set any exposure mode we’re comfortable using, and let the camera meter for the correct exposure. Here we used Manual mode with aperture at f/1.8, shutter speed 1/125 sec and Auto ISO. This way the ISO will adapt to the conditions for us. 03 LENS CHOICES A 50mm prime lens is perfect for this type of…