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Digital
imaging - Manipulation
by
Gordon Beddis
Reproduced
from in focus 68 (June
2002)
See
also: COMPUTERS
: SCANNERS & PRINTERS
: FINE TUNING
by
Gordon Beddis
and
DIGITAL
SLIDE SCANNERS & SCANNING by Brian Pitkin
In
this issue, I am going to get down to a bit of work, beginning
with tools that are common to most image manipulation software.
At work we use Photoshop 5.0 and at home Photoshop LE. The
later being a cut down version of the former, it comes packaged
with many new printers and yet a very powerful tool.
EXAMPLE
ONE
TOOLS
USED: Rubber stamp, Air brush, Smudge tool.
FILTER
USED: Lighting effect
Rubber
stamp. Everybody's favourite tool, This is used to remove
the back scatter that underwater photographers have so much
trouble with. Do not go mad here and remove it all, otherwise
it will look like a fish out of water.
Air
brush. Zoom in on the fish's eye, until you can sde the pixels
(the squares or dots that make up the picture). Pick a small
brush from the brush palette; a colour from your colour palette
(current selection is known as the foreground colour). Find
the 'highlight' of the eye and then add to it with the airbrush,
note, highlights are not always pure white!
Smudge
tool. Blur the pixel edges to blend in those hard edges of
the highlight. Because the original image was taken on a small
aperture e.g. f16 the background is black. This colour is
frowned upon by nature photo judges, who expect to see a subject's
habitat, or as in this case, British green water.
Lighting
effect. Using this filter we can simulate a light source.
If we align it with the subject, it will bring out the fish's
colour and will also lighten the surrounding water, turning
it into the required green tinge.
EXAMPLE
TWO.
I
have used some of the techniques of the last example but developed
them further.
Picture 1 is the original, but the background is too dark.
Picture 2, Open a new image, select a light blue foreground
colour, select a darker blue background colour. Use the Gradient
tool, select which way you want the gradient effect - in this
case, fromtopto bottom. Add lighting effect filter to minimic
the sun. Save image. Open picture 1, use the magic wand to
select the black area. Remove or clear selected area. Open
picture 2 (use window tile from the pull down menus) both
pictures will now be in view at the same time. You can use
cut and paste, or just drag the remainder of picture 1 over
the top of picture 2. Get the positioning right? You end up
with Picture 3. Remember to save the image.
TAKING
IT A BIT FURTHER
I
am never happy with the finished result and must go a bit
MAD.
I
stated that you could have two images on screen at the same
time: so why not use the Rubber starnp tool to copy the fish
picture 3. Use grids to help get the right position.
The
customer, who is mad on Clown fish, loved the BLUE, and was
presented with images of 2,3,4 and even 5 fish. After a long
pause he asked if I had one single fish on the blue.
Remember!
When you make a mess you can always use UNDO from the EDIT
pull down menu. Alternatively, Photoshop 5.0 has a HISTORY
from the WINDOW pull down menu; this shows every charge made
to the image, which you can revert too at any time.
Ah
well, its back to the computer for me! Happy imaging!
See
also: COMPUTERS
: SCANNERS & PRINTERS
: FINE TUNING
by
Gordon Beddis
and
DIGITAL
SLIDE SCANNERS & SCANNING by Brian Pitkin
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