Photoshop Techniques

Part IISelection & Interpretation

Gordon Osmundson

P In the traditional darkroom, outside of the selection of yourmaterials, there are really only two variables, exposure andcontrast.

P Of course the entire print does not need to be given thesame exposure (or even the same contrast if you use multi-grade papers, I never did this).

P This technique is known as burning and dodging.

P Photoshop has something called the Burn and Dodge tools,but they really aren’t the same thing.

P What Photoshop does have are some tools to selectdifferent parts of the image for different treatments.

P With these tools you can selectively apply any ofPhotoshop’s interpretive tools, from sharpening, to tonecontrol, to filters, curves, etc.

Burning & Dodging

P The tools we are going to study are the RectangularMarquee Tool, the Lasso tool and Polygonal Lasso Tool, theQuick Selection Tool and the Magic Wand Tool.

P We will also look at how to refine the edge of our selectionsand otherwise modify them.

P We’ve already used the Marquee Tool to crop an image, butit has other uses.

The Selection Tools

Let’s take a look

P We’ve already used the Rectangular Marquee Tool to cropour images.

P We can also use it with the Patch Tool to cut and pastesmall parts of our image into those empty wedges left overfrom rotating or perspective correction.

Rectangular Marquee Tool

P First you need to put something in the wedge alongthe edges of the image. Demo with NN #105

P With the Rectangular Marquee Tool, select anarrow rectangle from the image that approximatesthe area next to the wedge. Copy. Paste. Thisputs a copy of your selection in a new layer overthe selection.

P Use the Move Tool to drag it into the wedge at theedge of the image.

P Flatten the image. [Layer > Flatten Image]

P Repeat until you have something around all of theedge.

P Now use the Patch Tool to fill in the rest of theWedge.

Filling a Wedge

Selection Options or Modes

All New Selection

Add to Selection

Subtract from Selection

Intersection of Selections

P The Lasso Tool is very simple, you cando a free hand trace with it to select apart of your image.

P You can also use it to deselect areasselected with other tools.

P It only really comes into its own as aselection tool when teamed up withrefine edge. More later.

P Just hold the mouse down and tracearound the area you want to select. Release the mouse and the area isautomatically closed.

P Example <Crosshead, 8444>

Lasso Tool

P Refine Edge gives us the tools toblend our selections, much as wemight blend our burning and dodgingin the traditional darkroom.

P The principal controls that we use areFeather and Contract/Expand.

P Feather blends the selection over anarea the of the number of pixelsselected.

P Expand/Contract expands or contractsby the number of pixels selected

P Photoshop gives us a graphicrepresentation of what our selectionlooks like as we modify it.

Refine Edge

Adjust Feather andContract/Expand until youhave the selection you want.

P The Polygonal Lasso Tool selects apolygon by linking points that you selectwith straight lines.

P This works well for selecting straitedged objects.

P By closely spacing your points you canalso work your way around a curved orotherwise irregular edge.

P Move your curser to the point you wantto use and click. Repeat. Double clickto close the selection.

P Example <Frame & Equalizers, NN93>

Polygonal Lasso Tool

With this image, I used thePolygonal Lasso Tool tooutline the frame and brakehanger so that I couldcreate a distinct differencein tonality with thebackground.

Frame & EqualizersNN #93

P This is a powerful selection tool that can selectirregular but tonally distinct areasautomatically.

P Hold the cursor down and move it around inthe area you wish to select. As you move thecursor around, the area will be selected. <Quintsentialy Nevada>

P Quick selection does not always get it right. Some areas will be over selected, some under.It depends on the tonality of the adjacentareas. Zoom in and use Quick Selection againto more accurately make your selection.

P Use the Subtract From Selection option toclean-up areas that are over selected.

Quick Selection Tool

Note areas where snow has been selected in addition to the sky. Use the Subtract From Selection option with Quick Selection toclean this up.

P This is another powerful selection tool that can select irregularareas of similar tonality. Example NN #80

P Click on a point and the area that it is in with a similar tonalitywill be selected.

P You can adjust the band width or Tolerance of the selection. Numbers between 10 and 50 can be used effectively dependingon what you are trying to select.

P You can select one contiguous area or all the areas in the imagewith that tonality.

P By using the Add to Selection option, you can add to yourselection by clicking on points with a different tonality.

Magic Wand Tool

P [Select > All] - Selects the entire image. Needed forperspective, distortion and some other global operations.

P [Select > Deselect] - Closes current selection

P [Select > Reselect] - Re-selects past selection. This allowsyou to close your selection, make one or more globalchanges, then return to your selection and work on it somemore.

P [Select > Inverse] - Selects the reverse of your currentselection. You can select one distinct part of your image, thesky for instance, work on it, then switch to the rest of theimage and make changes without effecting the sky.

Options, Cont.

P This tool is especially useful when used in conjunction with theMagic Wand Tool.

P Small details, like grain, can be added or subtracted from yourselection by using expand and contract in tandem.

P Expand by five or so pixels to select the grain that was missed bythe Magic Wand, then contract by the same number of pixels toreturn to the larger outline of your selection.

P Conversely exclude small areas that Magic Wand picked up bycontracting then enlarging your selection. <NN#80 again>

More Options

Expand & Contract

P Sometimes it’s better not to see the selection boundary. It’sjust easier to interpret the changes you are making.

P Use [View > Show > Selection Edges] to toggle theboundary line off and on.

One Last Selection Trick

Hiding the selection area

P We’ve looked at the Rectangular Marquee Tool, the Lassotool and Polygonal Lasso Tool, the Quick Selection Tool andthe Magic Wand Tool, plus a number of selection optionsincluding Refine Edge.

P You can use all of these tools together or separately tomake a single selection, both by adding to your selection orsubtracting from it. Getting the selection you want mayrequire using a variety of tools plus some ingenuity on yourpart.

P I’ve been know to make a feathered selection and then cut ahard edged piece out of it.

Selection Rap Up

P We’ve now gone through how to prepare your image forinterpretation and how to select parts of it for individualtreatment.

P We can make changes not only to parts of the image but tothe image as a whole, that is global changes.

P Now let’s try to really make our photographs sing.

P We do this by making adjustments to our images tonality.

P We will first look at Brightness/Contrast

Interpretation

P This sounds like just the ticket, the same two basic controlswe had in the traditional darkroom. We can lighten ordarken the image and change the contrast.

P But wait, the way that Adobe has set this up it is easy to clipour images and once clipped, the information is lost.

P In the darkroom this wasn’t a problem, all the informationwas in the negative and we adjusted our exposure andmade another print. We could go back in Photoshop but wewould lose whatever else we did.

P Photoshop offers us some much better tools that don’t worklike our old traditional darkroom controls.

P Next stop, Levels

Brightness/ContrastImage > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

LevelsImage > Adjustments > Levels<Ctrl L>

P You can do a lot with Levels and it’s included with PhotoshopElements, while Curves is not.

P Look at the histogram and note the three small arrowheadsbelow the histogram itself. They are marked 0, 1.00 & 255

P This arrow heads can be moved left or right. Moving the leftarrowhead adjusts the darkest part of the image, the rightarrowhead lightest.

P Moving the center Arrowhead changes the average value of theimage making it appear lighter or darker overall.<Box Poc Driver& Rod, SP 4449>

P In the upper image nochanges have been made.

P In the lower image the leftarrow has been moved tothe shadow clipping point at12 and the right arrow hasbeen moved to the highlightclipping point at 241. Thiswas actually done using theAuto button. This hasincreased the overallcontrast.

P The center arrow has beenmoved from 1.00 to 0.79darkening the image overallwithout changing thedarkest and lightest values.

P Click Okay and the changesare saved.

P When I was using Photoshop Elements, I used Levels a lot,but I wanted to do more. My primary motivation for gettingCS3 was to have access to Curves.

P Let’s first look at doing with Curves what we just did withLevels. Note the two arrowheads below the histogram, theydo the same thing as the left and right arrowheads in Levelsexcept that we can turn on Show Clipping and actually seewhere clipping would occur. <Box Poc, etc.>

P

CurvesImage > Adjustments > Curves(Use Show all Menu Items)<Ctrl M>

P To lighten or darken the image, weuse our cursor to grab the midpoint ofthe curve and pull it down and to theright or up and to the left.

P This is a very useful operation and forit I set up a series of preset curvesmoving the center point 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 &12 points down and to the right, or upand to the left.

P These preset curves are a handy andregular way to make adjustments,particularly fine adjustments. <BoxPoc, etc.>

CurvesImage > Adjustments > Curves(Use Show all Menu Items)<Ctrl M>

P If you make a curve you wish tosave there is a tool for that, seebelow and the down arrow atleft.

P Adobe gives us a number ofpreset curves. Lets take a look.

P I’ve shown their MediumContrast curve at left.

P It makes an image darker and alittle more contrasty.

Preset Curves

In the upper imagethere have been nochanges. In the lowerimage we have usedAdobe’s Mediumcontrast Curve.

The darker areas area little darker andthere is more contrastthrough the middletones. The highlightsseem brighter due totheir contrast with theoverall darkening ofthe image.

P One of the curves that Adobegives us is called LinearContrast.

P I’ve shown their Linear Contrastcurve at left.

P I wanted to see what this did soI took a look. The clippingpoints are not changed so thereis no effect on the darkest orlightest values.

P The shadow areas are slightlydepressed and the highlightsslightly elevated.

P The response curve is a littlesteeper through the middlevalues.

Linear Contrast

P One would think that with nochange in the high or low valuesthat the overall contrastiness of theimage would not change, but it did.

P What has happened is that whilethe clipping points have notmoved, more of the images valuesare both lighter and more darkerthan before. That with the steepercontrast in the middle valuesmakes it look more contrasty.

P Note that this curve is symmetricalmaking it simple and easy tounderstand the effects. Adobe’sother curves are not symmetricalgiving more weight to the shadows.

Linear Contrast

P I thought that this was a usefulcurve, but I wanted to be able todo more with it.

P I therefore developed my ownversion of it, in fact three versionsof it.

P I took the quarter points of astraight line curve and moved theleft point down and to the right 3,6 & 9 points and the right point upand to the left 3, 6 & 9 points. This gave me three distinctcurves which I labeled LinearContrast I, II & III.

P Linear Contrast II is shown at left.

Linear Contrast

In the upper image Ihave moved the D-Maxpoint over 16 points tothe right making thedarkest part of theimage maximum blackand darkening theimage overall.

In the lower image Iapplied my LinearContrast II curve to theimage above. Notehow the contrast hasincreased and theimage looks snappierand is beginning tohave an overallglowing quality to it.

P After exploring the effects of Linear Contrast, I began tothink, “If darkening the darker parts of the image andlightening the lighter parts gives us more contrast, if wepushed this farther into the shadows and farther into thehighlights could we do more?”

P Then I had an epiphany.

P What I was thinking about was like a curve we have lookedat before. Furthermore, if we used that curve our ink jetprints would look much like Silver Gelatin prints.

P That curve, of course is . . .

Taking this a Step Further

Response Curve for Silver Gelatin Paper

PaperWhite

D-Max orMaximum Black

Toe

Straight Line Section

Shoulder

P Working in the traditional darkroom, the toe and shoulder of thepaper’s response curve often present problems. It could bedifficult to hold detail in the shadows and still get a convincingblack, likewise in the highlights it can be hard to hold detail andstill make the highlights sparkle.

P But if we compare the silver gelatin response curve to that ofthe digital capture JPEG, we start to see that it is this curve thatgives the traditional silver gelatin print its dramatic look. Theshadows are dark, but still hold detail, contributing to the graphicdesign of the image. While we try to avoid paper white in thehighlights, their contrast with the darker tones in the rest of theimage can make them sparkle. At the same time the contrastrange in the middle tones is greater than what we actually find inthe textures of the subject itself.

P While working with the toe and shoulder always presentedproblems, we now find, that in reality, that they are really our oldfriends.

The Toe & Shoulder Curve

P Starting with the linear response curve, I developed four newcurves by adding a point towards the ends of the curve thatbent the curve out to give it a toe and shoulder. Thedifference between the four curves lay in the steepness ofthe middle straight-line section and in the radius of the toeand shoulder.

P The two steepest curves proved to be too steep for all butthe flattest images. The other two curves did not give asfine a control as I wanted, so I developed some intermediatecurves. Eventually I had a total of seven curves which Inumbered 1 - 5 plus #7 and #9. The numbers represent theoffset the intermediate points, that is the curve number downand to the right and up and to the left of the left and rightintermediate points.

The Toe & Shoulder Curves, Cont.

P I’ve included all of the curves set points in the handouts sothat you can enter them into your own copy of Photoshop. Please feel free to experiment with these curves yourself.

P In practice, I find that most black-and-white images are bestserved with curve number five.

P You can also use these curves on color images. Curvesnumbers two and three will make colors seem more vibrantand alive.

P Note that these curves will make a dark image darker and alight image lighter. We can adjust this by using thedarkening and lightning curves presented earlier. As thesecurves will reduce some of the increase in contrast we justmade, we may wish to further tweak the image by using oneof the lower numbered toe & shoulder curves. Indeed, wemay need to go back and forth with this several times tofine-tune our image. <Flyer in Late Afternoon Sun>

The Toe & Shoulder Curves, Cont.

Without Toe & ShoulderCurve

With #4 Toe & ShoulderCurve

With #3 Toe & ShoulderCurve

Without Toe & ShoulderCurve

P I was reading an article about working in Photoshop where Isaw a description of the Shadows/Highlights command. What this tool does is it takes any information in theshadows or highlights and expands it, increasing its contrast.That is it is kind of the reverse of the Toe/Shoulder curvesjust described. But it doesn’t work in quite the same way.

P It actually analyzes the image and determines where thatdetail can be found and expands it.

P What this means, is that we can take the information in thetoe and shoulder and bring it back, but if we are careful wecan do it without degrading the graphic effect of the shadows and highlights that we developed with the Toe andShoulder curves. <Flyer in Late Afternoon Sun>

Shadow & Highlight

Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight

P Nonetheless it can be useful after using Shadows/Highlightto go back and further tweak the toe and shoulder with oneof the low numbered Toe & Shoulder curves.

P Again this can be a process of ever finer tweaking of theimage until we get the effect that we want.

P Let’s take a closer look at how to use the Shadow/Highlightcommand.

Shadow & Highlight

Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight

P At left is the Shadow/Highlight dialogbox. I have shown what I use as mydefault settings. These should betaken as a starting point as you maywish for a more subtle or a largereffect.

P Both the shadow and highlight boxeswork in the same way. The upperslider allows you to adjust the amountof effect that is being produced, whilethe middle slider adjusts how far upor down the tonal scale theadjustment will take effect. Both ofthese can be used quite effectively.

Shadow & Highlight

P The radius, or the third slider, has todo with the number of pixels that theprogram is analyzing. I always justleave this on the values shown here.

P I don’t use the Adjustments box veryoften and will leave it to you toexperiment with it. <EccentricCrank, SP 4449>

Shadow & Highlight

Scanned Print Scanned Negative Processed inPhotoshop

Note the shadow detail in the driving wheel broughtout with Shadow/Highlight in the right print

P We now have three powerful tools for adjusting the tonalityof our images. We have darkening and lightning curves, wehave the toe and shoulder curves and we have theShadows/Highlights command.

P We can go around and around with these tools making everfiner adjustments until we have the basic analogy of ourimage established. We can also use them on portions ofthe image that we have selected using the selection toolspreviously discussed.

P For me these are the essential tools, but there are someothers that can also be useful. We’ll take a look at thegradient tool, the paintbrush tool, and the burning anddodging tools. But first a look at a tool called Black & Whitethat is designed for selectively changing colors to black &white.

Our Tonality Toolbox

P With a scanned color slide or digital capture image, you caconvert it to black & white by simply discarding the colorinformation [Image > Mode > Grayscale] or you can adjustthe gray scale interpretation of each color using Black &White.

P We can, for instance, interpret blue as being darker than itwould normally be giving something of the effect of a yellow,orange or red filter making the sky dramatically darker.

P Warning strong use of this will exaggerate image flaws, andincrease digital noise.

Black & White

Image > Adjustments > Black & White

P At Left is the Black-and-White dialog box.

P Opening this box convertsthe image to grayscale.

P Now simply move a slider ofthe desired color to make itdarker or lighter.

P Adobe has also given ussome presets that simulatevarious color filters amongother things.

Black & WhiteImage > Adjustments >Black & White

P The next thing that I would like to talk about is the gradienttool. This tool provides an even blended Darkening orlightning of a part of the image. Is it is most useful for edgeburning, but you can use it any place you want a gradualadjustment to a part of the image.

P What is edge burning and why would we do it? It’s burning aslight darkening of the edges of our image. It is a subtleadjustment that requires a careful examination to notice butdoes have subtle effects on our viewing of the image.

P This was more necessary in the traditional darkroom lightfrom the enlarger tended to fall off slightly towards the edgesof the print due to the greater distance between the lens andedge as contrasted with the center. But it has a edgeburning has interpretive effects as well.

The Gradient Tool

P It helps to counter act the glare from thesurrounding white of the printed page ormuseum mat board.

P It helps to draw our eye towards the centerof the image and not outward towards theedges.

P It helps to also give us a more distinctchange of tonality between the edge of theimage and the printed page or mat board. This helps to solidify the impression ourimage makes.

P Finally, if the edges of our print are slightlydarker, we can make the center slightlylighter, helping to give our print a glowingquality.

The Gradient Tool

P With Gradient, I usually set themode to darken, an opacity of 5to 15% and I have it set forReverse and Transparency.

P With these settings I put mymouse pointer at the spot I wantthe gradient to begin and thenmove it towards the place where Iwant it to be at its darkest.

P If you hold the shift key downwhile you do this for a LinealGradient, the direction will beperpendicular to the side of theimage.

The Gradient Tool

The Lineal Gradient runs across the image in a straightline. The Radial Gradient extends out in a circle withthe radius point where you first place the mousepointer.

P The paint bucket tool is very simple it fills aselected area with a color.

P If you set tolerance to 255 it colors in thecomplete area. If you set tolerance to alower number it will select an area to fill inin the same way as the Magic Wand toolselects an area.

P If you don’t wish to completely cover anarea set opacity to less than 100%.

Paint Bucket

P A handy way to select the color or opacitythat you wish to use is the eye dropper tool. Simply position the eyedropper in theimage at the color or tonality that you wishto duplicate and click.

P The color or tonality will be displayed in theSet Foreground Color box.

Paint Bucket

P The primary use I have for this tool is to replace somerather rough looking or unevenly developed skies in historicnegatives.

P I would select the sky area using the magic wand tool,select the lightest tonality in the sky with the eyedroppertool, then with the paint bucket fill in the sky.

P We don’t yet have a very convincing looking sky. Thetypical sky is lightest towards the horizon and darkesttowards the zenith. So use the gradient tool to darken thesky towards the top of the image. An opacity of about 15%works well for this but I would encourage you to experimentwith other values for your particular image.

P I also like the engine burn the sides with the gradient toolusually with an opacity of about 5%.

Paint Bucket

P Photoshop gives us both the burn tooland the dodge tool.

P I think these are both pretty self-explanatory and I used them a lotwhen I was first working withPhotoshop. I no longer use themvery much, preferring instead to usethe selection tools would curves andsome of our other interpretationoptions.

P I still occasionally find it convenient,however, to use these tools to makelocal increases in contract.

Dodge & Burn

P For instance, I might wish to brightenup the lettering on the side of atender. I would select dodge and setthe Range to Highlights with perhapsa 15% Exposure.

P Next I would set the Brush sizeMaster Diameter to slightly largerthan the width of the lettering andthen simply trace the brush acrosslettering.

Dodge & Burn

P We’ve looked at how the eye sees, how film sees, howdigital capture sees, we’ve taken a brief look at the zonesystem, etc. We’ve examined the response curve of filmand silver gelatin paper and how they give black & white itsdramatic character.

P We’ve worked over our scans and digital capture images torefine our compositions, remove defects and even give thema large format, view camera look.

P With Photoshop’s tone control tools, we tend to make moreglobal corrections to our images than in the traditionaldarkroom. Still different parts of the image call for differenttreatments and Photoshop gives us gives very preciseselection tools for this.

Conclusion

P Next we’ve taken a look at Photoshop’s tone controlsparticularly Curves and how we can use Curves to createthat silver gelatin look. In fact using Curves in conjunctionwith Shadow/Highlight we can overcome some of thelimitations of traditional materials.

P Finally we took a look at how to convert color images intoblack-and-white and closed with a look at a couple of othermiscellaneous tools.

P In the remaining time I like to open the floor for questions.

Conclusion

Toe & Shoulder Curves

Contrast I 20/24, 74/76, 128/128, 181/179, 235/231Contrast II 19/25, 73/77, 128/128, 182/178, 236/230Contrast III 20/30, 72/78, 128/128, 183/177, 235/225Contrast IV 19/31, 71/79, 128/128, 184/176, 234/222Contrast V 20/34, 70/80, 128/128, 185/175, 235/221Contrast VII 13/37, 68/82, 128/128, 187/173, 241/217Contrast IX 26/51, 66/84, 128/128, 189/171, 229/204

Reverse Contrast -I 24/20, 76/74, 128/128, 179/181, 231/235Reverse Contrast -II 25/19, 77/73, 128/128, 178/182, 230/236Reverse Contrast -III 30/20, 78/72, 128/128, 177/183, 225/235Reverse Contrast -IV 31/19, 79/71, 128/128, 176/184, 222/234Reverse Contrast -V 34/20, 80/70, 128/128, 175/185, 221/235

Linear Contrast I 61/67, 128/128, 195/189Linear Contrast II 58/70, 128/128, 198/186Linear Contrast III 55/73, 128/128, 201/183

Darken + 01 127/129Darken + 02 126/130Darken + 03 125/131Darken + 06 122/134Darken + 09 119/137Darken + 12 116/140

Lighten -01 129/127Lighten -02 130/126Lighten -03 131/125Lighten -06 134/122Lighten -09 137/119Lighten -12 140/116