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Wednesday, June 20, 2007, 1:15:48 AM- Started a new blog | ||
...you can check out my photo blog at johnkeats.tumblr.com and if you have an image you'd liked worked up you can send it to me at johnkeatsglamour at gmail dot com. More tutorials soon, I promise...just slammed with "real" work at the moment. Love your comments and suggestions...and ALWAYS looking for new models to work on. Later, jk. | ||
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Sunday, April 29, 2007, 9:54:34 PM- Glam Tutorial #7 - "Patching" up a pic. | ||
//Don't forget my FAQ waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom (1st post)// ==================================================================== Glam Tutorial #7 - "Patching" up a pic. How about a Quickie! Yeah..thought so. We've already got a great shot: But there's a problem, a very common problem. Damn those foreign seamstresses, putting a damn seam right in the middle of the "money shot" area of her cute camisole. We can get rid of it digitally using a little known tool in Photoshop called the Patch Tool You use it like much like the Lasso except it does more than just isolate an area. #1 Select the "Patch" tool, making sure "Source" is also selected in the toolbar at the top of the screen. #2 Circle the area you want to change and drag it to a "clean" area of the image and release. You'll see the area you dragged TO sucked back into the area you originally circled. #3 To better blend the two areas, hit CNTL + SHIFT + "F" and adjust to taste. Dragging the Opacity to the left shows you the original area...dragging to the right shows you the new area. The same technique can be used to remove blemishes on the skin, tattoos, moles, you name it. Hope that helps. Got a question or a tip, drop us a note here or at jkgirls@gmail.com. jk. | ||
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Saturday, April 21, 2007, 8:49:06 PM- Glam Tutorial # 6 - Correcting Exposure | ||
//Don't forget my FAQ waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom (1st post)// ==================================================================== Glam Tutorial #6 - "Boy, git in here and Clean Up Yer Mess!" If you've done any photography of anything for any length of time you've had this happen: That GREAT shot!...SPOILED because of some TECHNICAL goof. The flash didn't flash, or your setting was wrong, whatever. But the shot was so damn good you want to save it...and often you can. While it will never be as good as if you did it right the first time...you can get surprisingly close. Case in point: Ran across this picture the other day, which was part of a GREAT series with this one being one of the best ones IF THE FLASH had fired. Luckily we can see a little bit of her so we know there is a chance we can save the shot. To make sure we open IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS for a closer look. WHEW! All is not lost. We know from previous tutorials (#3 & 5 to be exact) that the graph shows us on the left that we have areas of the image that are ABSOLUTE BLACK (the area where the graph goes through the roof on the left) and with ABSOLUTES there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING we can do to change that. ABSOLUTE BLACK AND WHITE are just that...there is no color information available except black and white. The good news is that there isn't too much absolute black so we should be able to salvage the dark area of the shot. And looking to the right side of the graph we see we also have a lot of room to play with before the image becomes "too hot" or OVEREXPOSED. So to fix this we want to do three things: A. Bring up the levels of the dark areas. B. Even out the exposure across both dark and light areas so no one can tell we made a mistake. (Which is good news since you spent weeks trying to get the chick to strip for you and you certainly don't want to have to admit she did it for nothing!) C. Clean up and even out the color a bit. #1 Create our two trusty duplicate layers on top of the original layer. (see Tutorial #3 step 6) #2 Select the top layer and begin adjusting the middle triangle to the left so that the dark areas of the shot begin getting brighter. And actually we want to adjust the dark areas to be just as bright as the left area of the image was before we started playing around. ============================================================= Keat's Sidebar - Let's talk just a second about why moving the triangle to the left - toward the dark area of the graph - lightens the shot instead of darkens it. That gray or center triangle marks the center point of the image's levels. There is no more space between the gray triangle and the black triangle as there is distance between the gray triangle and the white triangle. By sliding the gray triangle to the left, we're telling the program to put more bright in on the right, and less dark on the left. That's all you need to know. If moved the triangle to the left and then saved the image and then reopened it again and then looked at the new level graph...the gray triangle would be back right back in the center awaiting your next adjustment. ============================================================= So we move our gray triangle to the left until we get something like this: She's much brighter, perhaps a little washed out, but that's okay. Next we want to bring back the original color and contrast of the original bright (left) area of the shot. #3 Select your ERASER with a fairly large brush with HARDNESS of 0% (zero percent), and with OPACITY at 50%. #4 Select the top layer and slowly erase out the bright end of the picture so that the copy of the original layer below it begins to show through. This will take you a couple of tries as you will no doubt bump into the old dark area and ruin the adjustment we made above. So UNDO and try again. You would end up with: #5 Select the top two layers and merge them into one...and then make a safety duplicate of the new layer. Our picture is now MUCH better than before, but it's still not as good as it could be because she's rather flat. NO NOT HER BREASTS...her COLOR is flat. The area that was dark is now brighter but not very naturally colored. Let's fix that. #6 Select IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > EQUALIZE and watch the difference. As with most Photoshop presets they sort of over do it so we need to adjust it down by... #7 Select EDIT > FADE EQUALIZE and let's back down the opacity to around 50%...I went down to 46%..but do it to taste. Watch the dangling foot on the left and make sure you DO NOT get it overexposed. Now we're getting some natural looking shading throughout her body...on her face, shoulders and breasts. Still kind of flat on the color, but it's getting more natural looking. Once you're satisfied lets give her a tan. #8 Select IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > PHOTO FILTER. In the drop down menu you'll see an assortment of filters built into PShop. You can play around with them and get all kinds of effects. But for our purposes today let's select one of my favorites - good ol WARMING FILTER (85). #9 Adjust the DENSITY to around 25%, give or take, until you like the color of her skin. One tip is to watch an normal exposed white area and keep if from turning a color as you make your adjustment. If it starts to look tan or yellow, you've gone to far. #10 To see how well we've done we bring back up the LEVELS graph (IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVEL) and WOW! Look how balanced our levels graph is compared to the original back up at Step #2 With your exposure corrected you can now work on all the other tricks to bring out the best in our gal. Here's mine: Hope it helps. Let's hear from you...PM here or drop a note directly to jkgirls@gmail.com Later, jk | ||
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007, 7:37:53 AM- | ||||||
//Don't forget my FAQ waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom (1st post)// ==================================================================== Glam Tutorial #5 - Pop Her Eyes Out! If you know anything about me (don't call the cops...I'll deny it all) you know my favorite part of working up an image is working with the eyes. You get the eyes right, and the rest of the body falls right in place. (see FAQ item #9) So thought we'd quickly cover a basic technique that most of you have done or tried or thought of trying. Have you ever noticed how wedding pictures look so great...even when the bride is as ugly as her cousin Waldo twice removed? That soft feminine look isn't achieved by gallons of moisturizer. It's done using digital layers on the image. After all, the photographer wants to get paid! and delivering a Wedding Album full of a "gosh darn fuggly" bride won't 'git 'er done!" To demonstrate please welcome - straight from the World Wide Web Viktoria! This image is sort of a lot like the images I work with throughout the week. It already is fairly perfect, meaning there are no tattoos to remove, no fat rolls to flatten. All in all a pretty good shot except for one area...(altogether now..) THE EYES! Oh their nice eyes, but we'll make them better and as a result move the already good pic and make it hot! # 1 To start we make our three layers (more if you want...but not necessary) of the exact same image - (See Tutorial # 3 items 7-9) And then click on the top layer to select it (turn it blue) as you see above. #2 Then we check her "levels" Image > Adjustment >Levels and we can see a little bit of a problem. As we discussed a little bit in Tutorial #3 this shows us the volume (just like on your iPod or stereo) of the various areas of brightness. In the "Input Level graph" (the black inkblot looking thing)...from left to right you're seeing pitch dark to brilliant daylight. The three triangles (black, gray and white) are what we'll use to adjust this image so the brightness and contrast are better...and as a result, cause that right eye (our left, her right) to show a little more white next to her nose. Any "flatlined level is just wasted contrast and does nothing but cause "noise" in your image. Over on the right you can see that the graph goes through the roof just at the every end. That my friends is OVEREXPOSURE! Not much you can do about that, but thank God there's very little of it, actually. #3 First slide the BLACK triangle to the left until it is directly under where the graph begins to show some movement. You'll notice she gets darker as you do. No worries. #4 Now slide the middle GRAY arrow to the left (she gets brighter again) until you can start to make out the little white area of the eye better. No need to move it much cause we're just trying to help the eye, without overexposing the rest of her. Better, ey? Okay, they're brighter...but not "all that"...yet. #5 Now that we've got the top layer fixed, let's make a duplicate of it (Tutorial #3 item 9)..and throw away the second layer from the bottom. So you'll have, starting at the top...the copy of the fixed layer, the fixed layer and on the bottom the original. You can click on and off the eyeballs to the left to see how you are progressing. Select the top layer again and get ready to cheat the viewer a little (well actually a lot). Have you ever seen those eye games...you know you stare at a box of squares and you swear they are moving. This is sort of like that. We're going to change the image a tad and force the viewer,s eyes into thinking they are seeing something they really aren't. By the way, the better the quality of image you start with, the better the cheat. A bad, soft or blurred image to start...and you're sunk. This one's pretty good so we can do it. And for those of you who think you know about the "Gaussian Blur" trick...keep reading...you might find you have missed a step or two. Or at least that's what I thought when I ran across it. #6 With the top layer selected...zoom the image into an area where you can see a discernible difference in skin smoothness. For this model I concentrated on her left (our right) aureole...there are bumps on it (must have been cold...and I'm not talking about the nipple!) #7 Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur her until you can no longer make out those little bumps around the nipple. For some reason 2.6 seems to work for most images I work on here on NN. But every image is different. The trick is to NOT overdo it...or she'll end up looking like a blow up doll (though I know probably some of you are into that...so I won't judge here! ) Now the fun begins... #8 Move the image so that you are zoomed into her face and then select the eraser with a width just smaller than her eye. And set the opacity to 90%. If the original you are using is rather grainy you'll have to go lower, like 80%...but the higher the better. #9 Now erase her eye - just the eyeball and eye lashes...and do that for both eyes. Notice how cool it is to see them come back into focus. This is the beauty of LAYERS...you've blurred out the top layer..and we're erasing just the parts we want to show through to the layer below...the un-blurred layer. Got it? Keep reading this step over and over until you get it. #10 With the eyes done, do the same with the mouth trying to uncover just the teeth and lips. #11 Next we take the little used DODGE TOOL which looks like a Dilly Bar at Dairy Queen and select a size that is just smaller than the whites of her eyes and set the RANGE to MIDTONES and the EXPOSURE to 50%. And ever so carefully, burn or paint the WHITES OF HER EYES...AND ONLY THE WHITES..NOT THE PUPIL. We want to make them brighter, but not freakily so, unless you are into that. You might have to rub over them a couple of times to get to the whiteness you want...and keep zooming out so you can see the effect from a distance. # 12 Then do the same thing to her teeth...staying away from the lips and trying to keep from causing her teeth to burn together so it looks like she's got just one bright tooth. # 13 Next lets isolate and work on the color of her eyes. Take the MAGNETIC LASSO and draw around her pupils. Once you've done one...hold down the shift key and do the other so you don't cancel out the first. # 14 Next create a blank layer above the layer your working with. Then choose a color, I think she should have green eyes, and paint or pour the color into the two areas we selected with the lasso. http://www.stonercreekdesign.com/nn/gt05_12.jpg" class="embedded-image" > I can hear Rick James now, "She's a Super Freak..awww, she's Super Freaky!" #15 At the top of the layers bar you have a drop down menu and to finish up the eyes you want to choose one of three settings depending on which you like best. OVERLAY, SOFT LIGHT OR COLOR. For ol Viky here I selected COLOR...and though that helped blend the color into her eyes, it was still a little bright...so just adjust the opacity down until it looks more "normal." http://www.stonercreekdesign.com/nn/gt05_12.jpg" class="embedded-image" > Once she's where you want her. Highlight the top layer you're working with AND the one just beneath it (the one where we erased some of the blur) then "right click" and choose "MERGE LAYERS". You should now have the blurred but somewhat erased layer on top, with newly colored eyes...and just below it the unblurred but brightened layer. At the bottom, of course, the original. For the final two steps, and the ones most Gaussian Blur users miss, we're going to even out the rest of her blurrness, if that's a word...so she looks damn smokin' hot. This step is where we separate the men from the boys and it takes some trial and error, but it's pretty easy. You'll develop your own technique. #16 With the top layer ONLY selected, go grab your eraser tool and look for the shine in her hair...little streaks that are MUCH brighter than the rest. Set your eraser's exposure to 80% and the size of your brush to about the size of the streak...and start erasing her highlights. The idea here is that as more light is one something, the easier it is to see it, so we need to help the eye feel like it's looking at a virtually unblurred picture. So we say, "Here eye, see you can see some of her strands! Happy now?" Once the strands are done reduce the opacity to 60%, increase the size of the brush and erase out the rest of the blur on her hair. Once that's done reduce the opacity to 50% and let's do some detail work on her body. For instance her nose, we need to bring her nostrils into focus so we need to erase them to bring them back. As you may have noticed everytime you click off and click on the eraser, it erases more and more...so we set this opacity low enough so we could erase more and more until we get her right. Once you've done the nose, then you need to do every discernible area of her body. The lines between her fingers, her nipples, even the shading in her breasts, navel and the crease in her leg, her collarbone, the area where her hair meets her head, her eyebrows, etc. And then finally, erase a total outline of her body...hopefully in one stroke or two to set it apart from her surroundings. If after you are done, you turned off all the layers except the one you are working on and you should have something like this. This is also a good way to see the areas you've missed. AND FINALLY (Call the wife, tell her you're almost done) #17 To cement the optical illusion for the eye we need to erase 100% of the inanimate objects on her body (her hot little teddy and the sunglasses...can't figure out why she'd have sunglasses in the first place, but hey, she's hot with them). The eye knows different people have different textures of skin, so it will forgive us if we show Mr. Eye a little clear skin every now and again. IT WILL NOT FORGIVE US if we show it a blurred inanimate object. It has to be as clear as possible or all your work will have been for nothing. So...TURN YOUR ERASER'S OPACITY TO 100% AND WIPE OUT EVERYTHING ON HER BODY THAT ISN'T BREATHING. Try not to hit the skin too much. If you do hit her skin, after you're done with the suit, reduce the eraser's opacity back to 50% and go back over those areas to blend them a bit. And here's our hottie! All glammed up and ready for the cover! Now call the wife/girlfriend/chick you won over at Waffle House and tell "Honey, I'm FINALLY gonna make you BEAUTIFUL!"...and watch out for the flying frying pan. Love to hear feedback, questions, suggestions, etc. You can reach me here at jkgirls@gmail.com or on yahoo at johnkeatsndc Later, jk | ||||||
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Sunday, April 15, 2007, 12:16:26 AM- Whew! | ||||||
Finally getting caught up. WoW! what an early spring. Seems like everybody and their family and their families all want stuff and we WANT IT NOW! If you're interested in a touchup...I think I can turn them around rather quickly for at least the next week or so. As for the tutorial...anyone still interested? Was going good for a while then life got in the way. I'm thinking of ditching the previous tutorials and just do individual techniques of your interest. What do you think? Also you can catch me on chat (usually with cam on) on yahoo at johnkeatsndc. Should be on a loooooong time tonight if you have anything you'ld like to discuss or drop a file off for some work. Missed you guys...look forward to getting back at it... Later! jk. | ||||||
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Sunday, February 11, 2007, 11:20:07 PM- New Blog Update Coming... | ||
Sorry for the delay in the tutorial...but have been involved in a couple of rather large projects. Those are coming quickly to a close and should be back in DC by mid-week and hope to have a new section(s) by the weekend. Thank you for all your wonderful comments and suggestions. jk jkgirls@gmail.com | ||
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Monday, January 29, 2007, 6:19:19 AM- Glam Tutorial: Sidebar...John Keats is a Dumbass...sometimes. | ||||||
Glam Tutorial: Sidebar....John Keats is a Dumbass...sometimes. We interrupt this tutorial for an important announcement! Boy do I feel dumb. I was so excited about rushing to get this tutorial off the ground that I forgot the VERY FIRST STEP in ANY workup you do. (Surprised that no one has called me on it yet) You NEVER, NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, ABSOLUTELY, NEVER, EVER want to work with a JPG image. God, how in the HELL could I have forgotten that!?!? (Actually you CAN use work on a jpg but the outcome will be far more crappy) "But Hell, John, every damn picture I have is a jpg!" No sweat...here's the VERY first thing you do when you begin a workup. Open the original (hopefully Hi-Rez) jpg you have and then immediately save it as a ".tif" or my favorite a ".png" file. Once you've created the new file, close the jpg and open the new tif or png image...and begin working on that. "What's the big damn deal, dude?" JPG is a "compressed image format" meaning every time you close a jpg it squeezes it down into a smaller file size...similar to ZIP files you may be familiar with. The problems with working with a compressed image are two-fold: 1. Every time you open and close and open and close a jpg...you lose a little bit of the image. 2. When you use a few editing techniques (like those we're about to use beginning with the next tutorial) the outcome of your edit can look smeared rather than being precise. So you have two options if you are following along with this tutorial: 1. Wait for the next tutorial where we'll take what you've got now and convert it to a tif or png before continuing...or... 2. You can be real industrious and start over converting the jpg original to a tif or png and working back up through the steps. Note: There's not much harm in just continuing from where we are...and I'll detail the steps in the next tutorial. Sorry...it was one of those things that I just do without thinking and therefore didn't think to tell you. Questions, comments, hitmen can catch me at: jkgirls@gmail.com Till next time, jk | ||||||
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Monday, January 15, 2007, 8:05:18 AM- Glam Tutorial #4 - LEVELS & COLOR - Getting rid of da' Blues! | ||||||
Glam Tutorial #4 - LEVELS & COLOR - Getting rid of da' Blues! The "No Shit Sherlock" Statement of the Day: You can't be the shit if you got da blues. We have just a couple more adjustments to make before we start tearing into SexWoman in a big way! Our photo is suffering from the blues...a common ailment caused by the camera's flash that washes out the image a bit and leaves a harsh blue tint over everything. There are many ways to avoid this...like bouncing the flash off the ceiling or shooting the flash through a filter. But as I'm not a photography expert I'll leave that to them. Our job here is to take the photo as is and make it better. So here's how to get rid of da blues! Now that we've adjusted the exposure so that all parts of the image are more equal (see Tutorial #3) we now need to check the levels and adjust the color of the image. With the top layer selected (if you worked through Tutorial #3 it till be the top of the four layers you have)... 1. Goto IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTS/LEVELS 2. Under the INPUT LEVELS graph find the three triangles, one black, one gray, and one white. 3. Slide the black one slightly to the right and the white one slightly to the left so each is just under the edges of the graph. (see below) The middle triangle will move as a result of what you're doing, but don't adjust it directly. We're removing extremely low amounts of both dark and bright contrast that are causing the image to look a tad bit washed out. And that is all the work we're going to do on exposure...at least for now...although SexWoman still has some very over exposed areas ("well, she looks almost TOTALLY exposed to me, jk...hubba, hubba". Along the side of the neck, the near shoulder, and a few areas on her face are almost totally white. And there is NOTHING we can do to bring it back. Trying to adjust contrast and brightness will only make things worse. We'll have to do some skin grafting a little later and she'll be better than ever. But first we want to adjust the color of the main room, and SexWoman's color, too so she looks more like the blond, tanned, bombshell she is and less like some blue lady out of Star Trek. 1. Create TWO copies of the top layer (the layer we just adjusted) 2. Turn off the top layer 3. Select the one just beneath the top layer. Here's what out Layer window looks like. Because of the mirror area of the image we know the walls in the room are supposed to be beige, not blue. And we know it should be a little lighter beige than what's in the mirror, cause, well the mercury in mirrors has a way of slightly darkening reflections. PhotoShop has "Photo Filters" we'll use to color correct the main room...but ONLY the main room. 1. Goto IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTS/PHOTO FILTER 2. Select the WARMING FILTER (LBA) 3. Raise the DENSITY 30% to help overcome the excessive "blueing" we have. Now we've got beige walls, but the filter also added color to everything else, too...areas we didn't want to color like the mirror and SexWoman herself. To fix that.. 1. Turn on and select the top layer. 2. Use ERASER (you need a soft one, so set the brush size at 145 and the hardness at 50%) and set Opacity and Flow at 100%. 3. Begin erasing everything in the image EXCEPT SexWoman and everything in the mirror. This allows us to see the areas of the photo filtered layer without messing with SexWoman's skin color. NOTE: If you are erasing and not noticing a change, check again to make sure you are have selected the top layer and that it is turned on. Here's what you should look like when finished: And finally we need to give our gal a little color all her own. We could have simply included her in the blanket colorization with the Photo Filter above, but that would have left her with tan that looked like she had used one of those sunless tanning products that turns you orange. Yuck. Since she really has just a touch of blue tine to her, and we can simply knock it out by: 1. Selecting the top layer, then 2. Goto IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTS/COLOR BALANCE 3. Make sure MIDTONES is selected...and slide the "Yellow to Blue" slider a tad to the left (toward yellow) and the "Magenta to Greet" slider also to the left but not quite as much until you achieve the tone you seek. Here's our colorization settings: If you select all the layers, and then turn the top layer off, you see that she's tanned, but not quite as much as if we had left her with the Photo Filter color. While our image is now already much improved over the original, but still a long way from the Glam cover we're hoping to achieve. Before we end and save our work: 1. Select the top two layers together. 2. Right click and "Merge layers" 3. Take the new layer and drag it to "Create New Layer" to create a new backup for our next time around. Till next time, jk. | ||||||
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Saturday, January 13, 2007, 9:01:18 PM- Free Photo Manipulation Software (Hurry before they change their minds!) | ||
A new friend sent me a question concerning whether Photoshop was absolutely necessary to pull off the photo manipulations or "glam" workups that I do. And the answer is......NO! While Photoshop CS2 (and now CS3) is the industry standard, there is a new open source program called GIMP that is making some noise as well. And what's great about GIMP is that is FREE! [url]http://www.gimp.org[/url] Photoshop still has a plethora more plug-ins and filters than GIMP...but would you really use them? Do I? Hardly. Give it a go and let me know how it works for you. We have it in the office, but I haven't really worked out on it, but my colleagues say it's strong...and you can't beat the price. UPCOMING... Tutorials on achieving different effects. I'm planning on writing a series of tutorials here that will walk you through a "Glam" workup. So if there's anything specific you're interested in ... please drop a line either here or at [url]mailto:JKGIRLS@GMAIL.COM[/url]. Otherwise I'll just start from receiving the raw image and walk through the steps to get it ready for posting. jk. | ||
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Saturday, January 13, 2007, 12:56:30 PM- Glam Tutorial #3 - LAY(H)ers & CURVES - The Foreplay of Digital Editing! | ||
Glam Tutorial #3 - LAY(H)ers & CURVES - The Foreplay of Digital Editing! The "No Shit Sherlock" Statement of the Day: You can't clean up shit unless you can see shit. (all together now...)"And the same can be said for photos you want to work with!" Before we begin, a HUGE, WONDERFUL, BOUNCING BODACIOUS THANK YOU to SexWoman for allowing us all to play with her!...or at least her image. If you'd like to following along the following tutorials with the actual image we'll be using then right-click and save the following file: [url]http://www.lex2010.com/nn/im000655nn.jpg[/url] Let's begin with a quick review: A. We know we want to start with the highest-resolution pic we can. And the resolution is set in the camera...NOT in our digital editor. (Tutorial #1) B. We've discussed a few things to look for in choosing which image to work on and given you some ideas to take with you on your next photo shoot (Tutorial #2) Now it's time to bring out the TOYs! So whip 'em out!...that's right, come on...whip out Photoshop or your favorite digital editor and open up our Digital Goddess SexWoman (or whatever image you want to work with). The steps that follow are based on Photoshop CS2 but earlier versions of PShop and most other image programs,including the great, new GIMP program which is FREE for those needing one [url]http://www.gimp.org[/url] will work the same way...or very close. SEXTION ONE: DIGITAL FOREPLAY...getting her lay-ered. ================================================================ Once we have SexWoman, or your image on the screen (and allowed sufficient time for the blood to flow BACK into our primary brain) the first thing we want to ...is blow her...("that's what I'm talking about!!"... ...up! ("..oh.." Goto IMAGE/IMAGE SIZE (In the top menu bar click "image" and then "image size" 1. Look at the resolution...and write it down, and put it away for safe keeping...you'll need it again...many, many tutorials from now when we're finished. Our gal's current image resolution is 72 dpi and if yours is anything LESS than 266 dpi, too...then 2. Click AUTO (For those of you without an "AUTO" button, manually change the resolution to 266 pixels/inch and skip to #5.) 3. Change the "Quality" to "BEST" and click "OK" Our resolution should now be 266 pixels/inch 4. Click "OK" again to close the Image Size window WOAH! Our baby is now satisfactorily blown up...but talk about an Amazon! We need to get her back under control and fitting inside our workspace. 5. Goto VIEW/FIT ON SCREEN (Ctl-0) ======================= We interrupt this tutorial for a "Keats Law": You may be asking why blow her up by changing the resolution. Why not just change the image dimensions (width and height). I'm glad you asked. The original we're using had a resolution of 72 dpi which means there are 72 different coloured dots that make up each inch of her gorgeous bod. If we just increased the height and width we'd still have 72 of them...they would just be stretched out (and we know how women HATE stretch marks) By upping the resolution to 266 dpi we have basically taken that same inch and divided it into more than 3 times the number of dots. So when we later zoom in to do our work, we can almost work on each sweat pore individually. Bottom line, your outcome will be three times more precise. IMPORTANT NOTE: This is NOT the way you want to blow up a picture for good...cause the result actually looks like crap. As we mentioned in Tutorial #1 you can only change the resolution BEFORE you take the shot INSIDE the camera. Manipulating it afterward can leave your picture looking like crap. We're doing it ONLY to get the image ready for editing. When we are all done editing...we will return her to her original dpi and send her on her way. And we'll respect her in the morning. ======================= 6. Goto IMAGE/DUPLICATE and click "OK" (You NEVER want to work on an original. Always work on a backup). For now, set the original off to the side, but not off the screen as we'll be referring to it a lot. 7. With your Duplicate active...Goto LAYER/DUPLICATE LAYER (Give it a name if will help...I'm calling mine "SexWoman" and click "OK". 8. In your LAYER box, with your mouse drag the original "Background" layer to the trash can...the layer with the lock icon in it. We don't want to play with anything that's wearing a chastity belt. 9. Now take our "SexWoman" Layer drag it to the "Create a New Layer" icon and release. Then take this new layer (now called "Sexwoman Copy" and drag it to the "Create a New Layer" icon and release. Repeat until your Layer box looks like this: Alright lets stop, catch our breath and soak up what we've done: That little box with our four layers in it is one of the most powerful weapons you got in your arsenal against ho-hum women. It does a LOT of stuff...but for now just get your head around this basic understanding: Some describe "Layers" as pages in a book. Forget that crap and get it OUT of your mind this instance or you'll be ruined for life! Picture a layer as a topless woman! ("oh, yeah" who likes to be on the bottom ("oh, Hell, yeah!) Got that in your mind? Beats the shit out of "a book" doesn't it. In the above graphic that topless woman, who likes to be on the bottom, IS the layer on the bottom ...the original layer labeled "Sexwoman". ON TOP of that layer is "SexWoman Copy"...think of this as a topless woman on the bottom who now has underwear ON TOP of her body. ON TOP of that layer is "SexWoman copy 2"...think of this as a topless woman on the bottom who has underwear ON TOP of her body and a shirt ON TOP of all that. ON TOP of that layer is "SexWoman copy 3"...think of this as a topless woman on the bottom who has underwear ON TOP of her body and a shirt ON TOP of that...and a coat ON TOP of everything. The reason I keep pushing ON TOP is that, just like that woman in your mind you can only see what's ON TOP...which in our mind is a chick in a coat. And even though you can only see her coat...(looking back down the layers now)...you know that BELOW the coat is a shirt and BELOW the shirt is underwear and BELOW the underway is our topless woman who likes to be on the bottom. Please read that again and again until you absolutely GET IT. And once you get it, smile knowing you've learned in a few short minutes what some authors spend chapters trying to get you to understand. GOT IT? Good. As I said, that's a powerful box and we'll cover what all it does as we need it and come to it. Believe it or not we're all set to begin playing with our girl! (Whoo Hoo) SEXTION TWO: CURVES - Oh baby, let me see them curves! ====================================================== The first problem, well not really a problem, more like the first challenge we face with this image is its LEVELS are too varied. This is common with most raw images. What we mean is it has bright areas (SexWoman herself), some not as bright areas (everything behind her except the mirror) and some dark areas (most everything in the mirror). We need to equal it all out so we can see everything we're going to work on. To start, click on the very TOP LAYER in our LAYERS box (it will turn blue) and lets set up our workspace to include: A. Our tools (the long vertical bar with all the cool bizarre looking icons) B. Original image (with a part of SexWoman's body showing) C. Duplicate image (with what's in the mirror our main focus) D. The Curves tool (click IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTs/CURVES) E. Histogram tool (click WINDOW/HISTOGRAM) F. our Layers Box Space is tight on smaller monitors (laptops especially) so close all other windows not mentioned so you're looking like this: Before we continue let's look at the histogram tool (E). This is simply graphical representation of the contrast of the image. As you read the graph left to right, you're reading HOW MUCH of a contrast you have from dark to bright. So in our histogram we see we have a bunch of dark areas in the image (the big spike on the left), a fairly nice amount of medium contrasts (that hilly looking area just to the left of center) and a few bright areas (the right side of the graph including that little spike that looks like the dick of your girlfriend's ex-boyfriend). A picture in "perfect contrast" would have a solid graph from left to right halfway up the graph. But ours is not a perfect world so we'll just try to even it out a little. Which brings us to the Curves tool (D). The best way to explain this puppy is just to play with it (and while we do, watch what happens to the Histogram. It won't be long till you have a full understanding of both and how to use them to your advantage.) Place your cursor over the Curves graph until it turns to a Crosshair and then drag the crosshair around and watch as the line bends and CURVES. Don't worry it won't break. Are you watching the Histogram too? If you are you'll notice as you drag the Curves line up the graph in the histogram begins shifting to the right (to the brighter side). And vice versa. Okay quit playing, we've got a gal waiting on us. Now place the crosshair where we have in the graphic above (top right corner of the bottom left square) and drag it straight up the line until the flesh of the gorgeous gal in the mirror is equally as bright as the flesh of the gorgeous gal in our original picture. The histogram will help you tell when you're close because we're sort of leveling out the playing field between the darks and the brights. Now we've got medium amount of contrast across all areas of contrast darks to brights. Click "OK" to close the curves window (and you can get rid of Mr. Histogram too) and let's zoom out look at the damage. Holy Sheet! In the mirror, SexWoman's gorgeous ass is now even MORE so now that we can see it. But DAMN look at how white she is in our room! And that's EXACTLY what we wanted! ================================================== We interupt this tutorial for a sneaky "Keats Tip" If you ever see one of those artsy, fartsy pictures where this gorgeous babe is in silhouette...you know she looks black cause she's standing in front of a bright light or a window? Run her through the Curve trick we just covered and watch her "hidden" parts come shining through! (But I didn't tell you) ================================================== Alright let's finish up getting our picture all evened out so we can go have a beer. We go Back to the LAYERS to do it. As you'll recall what we see in the picture is actually only the TOP layer in our LAYER Box...in this case that TOP layer ("SexWoman copy 3" is incredibly bright. If you click on the "eyeball" on the left side of the layer you'll turn it off and see the layer directly under it. Cool, huh? For now, though, click again to turn it back on and then drag the top layer down one layer. Here's what you should have: As you noticed since it is no longer on top, we can't see the bright layer. But Superman ain't go nothing on us, dude. 1. Select the new TOP LAYER ("SexWoman copy 2" 2. Select the eraser tool (E) from our tool bar on the left (looks like a bar of soap) 3. Along the top set the "Brush" size to 65 with a "Hardness" of "0" so we'll have a nice smooth stroke...and set the "Opacity" and "Flow" of the brush to 100% What we're going to is now erase the image in the mirror...which will unveil our bright layer below it. Like you learned in elementary school...try to stay within the lines or in this case try not to erase the frame. HINT: Turn the layer on and off (clicking the eyeball) to check to make sure you got it all. HINT: If you make a mistake you can always hit Cntl+ALT+Z and step back as many times as you would like. Similarly Cntl+Shift+Z steps forward. Once you've finished inside the mirror we need to lighten the main room. This time, since we've already wiped out the mirror we don't have to worry about staying in the lines, but we DO have to worry about erasing SexWoman...remember how damn bright she was? In this layer she's perfect like she is. Since the main room wasn't nearly as dark to begin with as the room in the mirror, we need to reduce the "Opacity" to around 50% before we start erasing so we don't erase as much. NOTE: This is where practice and skill plays a part. With the brush Opacity reduced to only 50% you're only erasing 50% of the image. But if you lift up your mouse button and then go back over what you've just erased, you'll erase 50% more of that. And so on and so on... Try it and you'll see what I mean. Again, the ONLY area not in danger at this point is what is in the mirror since our "Opacity" was at 100% that area is gone, gone, gone. As you are erasing refer to your original picture if you want to guage how much of the layer you need to erase in order to make everything fairly equally bright. Good luck. Here's how she should look when you are done. Once you are satisfied, only one more thing to do to complete this task. The image we now see is a combination of the TOP layer AND the one below it. But they are not really combined. Click the eyeball and see what happens. And better yet, to see what you've accomplished...keep the top layer one and turn all of the others off. I'm sorry, I digress. Turn them all back on so we can make our changes permanent and move on to the next step. To do this: Highlight the TOP Layer...the hold down "Shift" and click on the layer under it so both are selected (turned blue). Then right click and choose "Merge Layers". Ta Da! And do me a favor, as I always want you to work on a duplicate version of an original image, I also want you to work on a duplicate of any new layer changes you make...so you can always go back. So drag your new layer down to "Create New Layer" to make the backup and I'm a happy guy...and you're back to having 4 layers...only now the TOP layer is the one we've finished highlighting. Good job. Who's buying? next time, jk. | ||
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