Composite photos are made up of two or more different images. There are several different types or styles of composites, but I’ll be focusing on just one in this tutorial. The type of composite we’ll look at is made up of multiple images with exactly the same framing, exposure, and lighting. Using this method, you can add or subtract objects from a scene. Here are seven basic steps for creating simple composite photos.
With the advent of Myspace, then Facebook, and who knows what’s coming next, the whole world has become an endless source of perfect skin and magazine cover worthy supermodels. Now that Photoshop is a verb and household name, you might as well get in the know and make yourself (or your girlfriend/boyfriend) uncommonly perfect.
Airbrushing is (or was) a process typically used to remove minor imperfections in portrait, model, and fashion photography (among other uses in photography). I’ll be presenting a digital airbrush technique in Photoshop intended to slightly smooth out skin textures in close up portraits. Sharp lenses and good lighting can produce very detailed captures, including all the small wrinkles and pores. Sometimes you just want to smooth out all those little things.
We’ve had quite a journey with this whole histogram and curves ordeal. And now I’d like to wrap things up with a few tips, tricks, and things to avoid when using curves. It’s a fairly simple tool once you begin to work with it and understand it, but there are a few non-obvious items worth pointing out.
We’re basically building on our basic understanding of the histogram and our knowledge of linear curve adjustments to take the next step into nonlinear adjustments (the curvy curves). What I’m going to show here are some very basic curves at each extreme. The single bend and double bend curves are most commonly used during post-processing, but these are not the only options.
In this article, I’ll be discussing how various curve adjustments affect the image and the image histogram — but only in the realm of linear curves. So… linear… curves? Yup, you can do straight lines in the curves adjustment and they have their applications. So let’s look at a few extremes, then I’ll show you how to apply the linear adjustment to an image in need.
I’m still working on putting together my article on using curves and histograms to edit photos, so in the meantime here are some good video tutorials on the subject. These tutorials are easier to understand because they show how the curve adjustments affect the image in a more dynamic fashion. This first tutorial is fairly [...]
Curves adjustments are complicated… so let’s start learning the basics.
The image histogram is often treated as a thing of “extra information” and treated as a “good way to check for clipping”. While it’s true that the histogram provides a good check for highlight and shadow clipping, it also serves a greater purpose in post processing. Our mortal eyes are no match for the mighty histogram when it comes to tricky photos. Understanding the histogram and how your image editing software interacts with it can greatly improve your productivity and quality output.
Reading histograms is an important skill to acquire in the world of digital photography. Most images from digital cameras will require some amount of post processing, particularly if you shoot raw format. And most of the processing can be done by viewing the aesthetics of the image as you go, but having the ability to read and manipulate a histogram will increase your productivity and output quality.
