Meeting 20

Il lavoro nobilita l'uomo

Soft Focus Effects
3-D Rendering Programs and Photoshop
More on the Info Palette
De-fringing a Cutout Picture

Remainder of class time is for working on assignments.

Soft focus special effects
Use Gaussian blur on a duplicate layer and then use transparency to blend between the two layers. Try Screen or Lighten for the layer interaction. Useful for studio photographers desiring a soft-focus effect after a sharp photo has been made.

Open MANVIOLI.TIF in exercises 5. This effect works most visibly on images having a dark background.

TIP: You can make a second copy of a file to evaluate the effects on small parts of the image by creating a New Window. Go to Window>Arrange and choose "New Window for filename" to create a second window containing your image. You may zoom this window independently of the original.

Duplicate the background layer by dragging the background layer onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.

Zoom in on part of this image and position it so that you can see both views simultaneously or use the tip offered above.

Choose Screen from the drop down list in the Layers palette.

Gaussian blur the top layer.

You should see an unsharp halo effect around an otherwise sharp image.

Adjust the Opacity of the top layer to blend the two images together with the desired amount of unsharpening.

TIPS: For an unusual appearance, you can adjust the levels on the top (blurred) layer to give the picture a haloed, "blown out" appearance.

For a darker, moodier softening of the picture, choose the Luminosity setting (available only for RGB pictures) in the Layers Palette, and adjust opacity to provide the desired effect.

A More Advanced Technique for Soft Focus Effects

Revert the file to undo the steps above or re-open manvioli.tif.

Duplicate the background layer.

On the Background Copy layer, Gaussian blur the picture significantly. It should look very unsharp.

Copy this blurred layer to a new layer by dragging it onto the "Create a new layer" icon at the bottom of the layers palette (upturned page icon). You should now have three layers.

With the top layer selected, choose Screen from the drop down list in the Layers palette.

Now choose the middle layer, and select Multiply mode from the list in the Layers palette.

The combination of Screen and Multiply reduces the need to run a levels on the picture to restore original brightness.

To reduce some of the blur effect, Shift click the top layer. This selects both layers.

Click the small arrow in the upper right of the Layers palette, and choose "New Group from Layers". This groups the layers together so that you can make opacity changes to the group to control the softening effect produced by the stacked layers.

You can also add a Layer mask to locally remove the soft focus effect (i.e., eyes and teeth of a model, etc.) from parts of the picture.

Using a Modified Blurred Layer:

This begins like the example given above, but adds a couple of extra steps. It works with pictures having a black background.

Open hands.jpg in Exercises 6.

Duplicate the Background layer by dragging it to the upturned page icon in the Layers palette.

Gaussian blur the duplicate layer about 12 pixels

Use Screen mode in the Layers palette

Invert the tones of the top layer by choosing Image>Adjustments>Invert or by pressing Command-I

If tones look a little weak, add a Levels Adjustment Layer to the stack.

Adjust opacity to suit.

Three-D Program Renderings and Photoshop
Demonstrate using Raydream Designer bitmap renderings in Photoshop. Open Raydream 3d.psd (Exercises 6) - a file exported from RayDream Designer software from MetaCreations. Use the cloud filter or one of the Blur filters with a selection made from the distance channel. Provide a sense of photographic depth of field within the image. Create fog in the background.

Open Raydream 3d.psd (Exercises 6)

Click on the Channels tab.

Choose the Distance channel.

The RGB Channel should be hidden from view. If it's still visible, click the eye icon to hide it.

Adjust the Distance Channel by going to Image>Adjustments>Levels (Command-L). Click the black eyedropper on the near fish to turn it black (which masks it from any changes) and click the White eyedropper on the far tower to make it white like the background (which will make it 100% susceptible to any changes you make or filters you use).

Drag the Distance channel to the Make Selection icon.

Return to the RGB Channel for a normal view of the image.

Press Command-H to hide the selection area’s "marching ants".

Experiment with Gaussian Blur, but note the dark areas around the far selections. Undo.

Use Filter>Blur More to make a more realistic depth of field blur. This can be repeated a numbe of times until the degree of background softness is achieved.

To make the background appear as if it were in a fog, increase brightness and decrease contrast (Image>Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast). It's one of the few times that using Brightness/Contrast will not get you in trouble!

Experiment with different filter effects using the various channels that RayDream exports.

Info Palette Reminder
Function of the Info Palette (Window>Info if it's not already onscreen) to aid color correction. For neutral tones (grays) in the image, the RGB values should have roughly equal values in the info palette. If you are in the process of adjusting colors or tones, a second set of numbers will display that represents what the values will become once the adjustment is made. Left info=before, Right info=after.
TIP: Press F8 to bring up the Info Palette when you are working in Curves, Levels, etc and can't select it using the mouse.

You may use the Color Sampler Tool (nested under the Eyedropper tool in the Tools palette) to place individual points at various places in the picture. They will be numbered #1, #2, etc, and corresponding readouts of RGB or CMYK information can be seen for each of them in the Info palette.

Minimizing Visible Borders on Cut-out Objects in a Collage
If you have created a collage and the cut-out objects on the upper layers have a visible fringe, you can perform the following steps:

Open diauto-fringe.psd in Exercises 6.

Choose the top layer for editing (Click on the name of the top layer in the Layers palette).

Select the transparent background with the Magic Wand tool (it is usually easier than trying to select the multi-colored object itself)

Select>Modify>Expand the selection by a few pixels.  If the picture is low-res, use 1-3 pixels. It will depend on the image itself what amount works best. Higher res pictures may need more than 3 pixels to have a significant effect. This expands the selection into the image itself.

Select>Modify>Feather about one-third of the number of pixels that you expanded the selection.

Press the Delete key to delete the newly selected border pixels.

The cut-out image should have its border "shaved" using this method, minimizing the cut-out appearance.

This lecture is short to permit a working lab.