Archive 2014 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

jbsf
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

Hi, can anyone suggest where there is a forum where newcomers to photoshop can post questions [perhaps upload specific examples ] where more experienced photoshop users have the patience and interest to respond, preferably with a step-by-step response,

- as in help with things that I expect are probably incredibly mundane to the point of fury of most FM post-processing members.. ie these beginner questions don't really contribute to their own knowledge pool..

For example, I'd like some help with this portion of a recent photo

- I want to make the green object on the left which is burnt-out, look as identical as possible to the one on the right - some "basic dabbling" with hue/saturation, exposure, and curves layers has not been very successful for me, so, I'm thinking there must be a better way and probably not some kind of cut/paste/patch/warp approach, though if that is the best way, I'd love to know how, step-by-step - I'm wondering if some kind of combinations of 'levels' or 'colour matching' ? Content aware fill ?

But really, what I'm looking for is a best practices solution for this and future comparable examples..

In this case I did Google 'fix burn out, colour, levels 'etc. but the lack of very relevant results is probably as much my lack of familiarity with the PS terminology for my example I think too !

Many thanks in advance

May 19, 2014 at 08:47 PM

Eyeball
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

This is the right place, although you might have to be patient for someone here to take the time to give you the step-by-step instruction you are looking for.

You might have better/faster luck over at retouchpro.com.

In general, there are several ways you could go about this in Photoshop.

One way would be to do a copy/paste of the non-reflecting diploma on top of the reflecting one, using the transform adjustments to get a reasonable match.

Another way would be to add a curves adjustment layer to darken and reduce the contrast of the diploma texture and then paint the sampled green color onto a new layer set to "color" mode. The gold emblem would probably be handled easiest by a copy/paste/transform from the other diploma. All of these things would need to be masked appropriately, which is sort of a skill all its own.

May 19, 2014 at 09:23 PM

jbsf
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

Thank you for your particular solution suggestion to my question, -& I have now visited retouch pro and looks interesting.
As a beginner, it's definitely helpful to have step by step - like I said, I expect painfully redundant for others, but helpful for beginners

May 19, 2014 at 09:41 PM

UCSB
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

The best way to come up to speed is to go to lynda.com and take an intro Photoshop class. There are typically many ways to use the tools in Photoshop to get a given result ... the important thing is to understand the tools and then you can use them. Here is a quick and dirty interpretation of the image above. If you are interested, I can give you the steps I used ... or someone can chime in with an even better fix.

http://home.comcast.net/~ucsb/Diploma.jpg

May 20, 2014 at 04:38 AM

howardm4
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

UCSB, for the benefit of viewers, pls state your 'recipe' for that.

May 20, 2014 at 06:25 AM

UCSB
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

Whenever you approach a Photoshop task, you need to ask yourself how you want the finished image to look. On this image, I wanted to retain some of the embossed look and a small amount of the refection. Probably bad choices ... see below.

Steps:

1. Copy original layer to a new layer (you don't want to ever work on the original layer).
2. Select only the area that you want to modify (the diploma cover), and use that selection to build mask on the layer. This is where I got a little cheap and it shows around the thumb ... no reason for that. You are going to use the mask for everything that follows.
3. Use eyedropper tool to select a color that you feel is representative from good cover on the right.
4. Use paint bucket tool to deposit selected color in the selected area making up the cover on the left. Then apply the blend mode "darker color" to this level. Repeat the process on a second layer.
5. Select the seal from the cover on the right. Issue a ctrl-j command to jump it onto it's own layer.
6. Use the move tool to place it on the cover on the left. Use a brighten blend mode on this layer.
7. Use transform (rotate and then perspective) commands to get new logo positioned on left cover. I could have done this more carefully. If needed use the eraser tool with max softness to blend any edges from the logo selection.
8. Finally, apply a curves adjustment layer to get color and brightness right. Do this by selecting a point on the right cover that you want to match on the left cover with the color sampler tool. Use tool to also select a point on left cover. Then adjust each of the separate RGB channels in the curves adjustment so each RGB value in the two selected points match.

Didn't do it, but you could brighten and color match the logos using similar approach.

Finally, there are many ways you could have done this project in Photoshop ... the important thing is to understand the tools. To illustrate that point ... here is another approach.

http://home.comcast.net/~ucsb/Diploma2.jpg

Steps:

1. Selected good cover on right. I used polygonal selection tool. ctrl-j to place selection it on it's own layer.
2. Use move tool to move into position. Then transform to create new shape and cover original. Create missing corner using similar method (probably not required on your original image because corner will not be missing). Use blend tool to create seamless final made up of two pieces (again not required on your original because you will only be working with one piece).
3. Mask out portion where thumb is. Surprisingly easy.

I left a little of the orginal cover in upper right ... so you can see the new cover is just sitting on top of the old. Also, to give impression of back cover. Actually, liking this second much easier approach. This is typical; sometimes you need to try a few approaches to get the effect you are looking for. Also illustrates why you need to carefully think through what you are trying to accomplish before you start. Trying to preserve the embossing on the first attempt sent me in the wrong direction. lynda.com can get you up to speed quickly ... I like Chris Owig's classes. If you try to retouch original and run into problems just ask for help and we will get you through the retouch.

May 20, 2014 at 03:54 PM

digicV
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

UCSB - good work and tutorial. Thank you

May 20, 2014 at 09:42 PM

jbsf
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Forum for help with "day to day" Photoshop beginner questions

Yes thank you very much for the helpful explanations on the steps taken, much appreciated!

May 23, 2014 at 12:06 AM


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