Final Project- Photoshop Tutorial-Extract Tool and Effects Tool

After completeting this tutorial the student will have been introduced to the Extract Tool as well as the Effects Tool.

1. The first step in creating the top image is to open the bear picture and the cactus picture in photoshop.
2. Next click on the bear picture to activate it. Go to the filter menu and select the extract option or press Alt+Ctrl+X to open the extract window.
3. Select the edge highlighter tool which is on the left hand side of the window at the top. You can set the highlighter diameter on the right side of the window where it is listed under tool options. For my purposes I left it at the default of 20 pixels. (If at any time you need to zoom in there is the zoom tool on the left hand side six down from the highlighter tool. To zoom, click the area you want to enlarge. To zoom out hold the alt key down and click the image.)
4. Trace the edges of the bear. If you are like me and have a hard time making nice, neat lines you can do a shift click to draw straight lines between each click. Press shift and then click, between each segment and a straight line will be drawn. If you make a mistake you can ctrl z to erase the last thing you did or there is the eraser tool located on the left hand side of the window.
5. Next, click the Smart Highlighting option on the right hand side of the window under the tool options. You will use this to extract the mouth area of the bear. Simply highlight the area between his teeth and the back of his mouth.
6. Next use the fill tool, which is located on the left hand side and looks like a paint bucket, to fill in your selected area, in this case the bear.
7. Now click the preview button on the right hand side to see what your extraction will look like. You can change what background it rests on if you go to the bottom of the right hand side and change your options under the preview section. You can have it be on a transparent background, a grey background or a background color of your choice.
8. Now select the edge touchup tool or the cleanup tool on the right hand side. They are the 4th and 5th option down from the highlighting tool. The edge touchup tool will adjust any pixels that fall within your highlighter. The cleanup tool will erase pixels.
9. Once you are happy with your selection click OK.
10. Now you can drag your bear selection and drop it into your cactus picture.
11. Once in your cactus picture you will want to change the way the light is hitting your bear so it looks like it matches the lighting of the picture. To do this select the fX option in the layers palette once you have the bear layer selected. Add a gradient overlay. Set the blend mode to multiply and change the opacity to 45%. Change the degrees to 176 and the scale to 10%. Make sure the reverse is unchecked. Drag your overlay within your picture until you are happy with the way the bear is highlighted. I chose to have the light hitting is rear area.
12. Now my bear is ready to be placed in the proper position but I decided that he needed a better place to stand then what was already provided. To solve this I used the clone tool to extend out the rock and make it into sort of a slope. To do this alt click an area of the large rock with the clone tool and copy it over to the left side of it until you have a nice little slope for your bear to walk up.
13. Next use the free transform tool to rotate your bear at an angle as if he was walking at a slight incline.
14. Next go to your custom shape tool which is found in the same submenu as the rectangle tool. Select the talking bubble. Draw the bubble while holding the shift button to maintain proportions and place over the bear's head. If you hold the space bar down while drawing it you will be able to move it as you draw.
15. Next use your text tool to write in the words"I don't see any salmon here!". Choose whichever font you see fit. Once you have done so you can apply a drop shadow effect to the text by selected the fX option in the layers menu. Set the blend mode to multiply, the opacity to 75%, the angle to 35 degrees and the noise to 54%.
16. And there you go! All done!

I have to note that for some reason my text bubble is not showing up in blogger but it was in my final picture in photoshop. I don't know why that happened.

Mask Layer

For my first image I used the color range tool to select the shadows and highlights. I then created new layers with those selections and filled the shadow one with black while maintaining the transparency. I filled the highlights one with 50% Grey while maintaining the integrity. I then merged the two layers. Next I created a new layer with a dark navy fill and pasted the shadow/highlight layer as mask. Next I created a new layer and filled it with a light blue color and gave it texture by using the filter gallery. I then used the dodge tool to lighten the area around Elijah's face and the teddy bear.

For my second image I did the same first steps as my previous explanation but instead I used the color range option to select the midtones instead of the highlights. When I created my new layer I gave it a white fill instead of the navy fill like the last image. I then used the paintbrush tool to paint that blue. Next I created another new layer and filled it with a green color. I then used the paint brush to cover it with blue, lavender and pink. Next I used the liquefy tool to blend those all together in a nice swirly mix. Next I used the dodge tool to darken the area near the edge and then used the paintbrush tool to create a black frame of sorts. Next I used the smudge tool to blend my colors a little more and then finally I created a text layer and used the glow effect on text.

For my third image I did the same first steps as my previous images. To create the final look I had the merged layer of the shadow and midtones left on and the mask layer with blue painted background.

I had a really hard time at first with this assignment because I kept picking out pictures that did not just seem to work right when using the color range tool. Eventually I thought to use the highlight color range as an option too. I also was having a serious block on my creative juices. But after much trial and error I finally figured it out and my favorite image of the three is the one with Elijah's name on it.

Project 6- Photo Stitching

This assignment was really fun to do and I can't wait to be able to do this same picture but in the summer when the water is not frozen and it is sunny! My process for this was pretty much on par with what John discussed in the class. After I took my three pictures the first step that I took was to resize all the images down to ten inches wide and 72 resolution so I could post them easily to the web. Next I enlarged the canvas of the left image to 30 inches wide so that I could copy and paste the other images in. Next I took the middle image and pasted it in and then lowered the resolution so that I could line it up with the left image. I then put the opacity back up to 100 percent. The middle image was lighter then the left image so I ended up changing the levels on the left image so that it was closer to the middle image. I then used the eraser to blend the seam as much as I could. I ended up having to use the clone stamp a bit as well because of the color difference in the photos. I also had to use the burn tool for the shoreline as well for it to blend nicely. Next I took the third image and did the same steps as I did for stitching the first two. I did not have the same issues with the light difference that I did with the first two so the seam blending was relatively low key. After I had the three images blended I cropped it so the road would not show since I could blend the road lines and the mountains at the same time besides who wants an ugly road in their picture anyways. I then flattened the image and went to work on editing it. I increased the saturation just a bit and also used the dodge and burn tool to work on the lighting of the picture. I then used the blend tool to get rid of the faint telephone pole lines throughout three pictures.

My last steps were to give the picture frame edges. To do this I created a new background copy and enlarged the canvas by 50 pixels (relatively) all the way around. I selected a dark blue color for the canvas color. I then applied the bevel and emboss effect to give the image a raised edge. Next I made another background copy and enlarged that canvas again but making it 100 pixels and choosing a white background color instead of the blue. I also applied the bevel and emboss effect to this one as well.

After that I made my type and did one in the upper left corner of the image and then one in the center of the white frame. Both had a drop shadow and glow effect applied to them.

Filters

The image above is my original image. It is just a top view of a fake rose.

I created this image by first selecting the rose from the original picture by using the quick selection tool and refining my edges so it was slightly feathered. I then dragged it into a new document. Next I created a new layer to go behind the flower. I gave it a gradient layer of green and black. I then used the liquefy filter to blend my gradient into some swirls. Next I increased the saturation of my flower so it would appear more pink using the hue/saturation option in the photo adjustments. Next I used the Smart Sharpen filter to sharpen my flower image by making the amount 75% at ten pixels and using the Gaussian Blur. I then cropped my image to the what it is now and also rotated the flower. I did these steps to all three of my final pictures. After that I chose a different final filter for each image. For the above one I used the paint daubs filter. My goal in selecting the different filters was to accentuate the edges of the flowers in a slightly different way.

The final filter for this one was the Dark Strokes filter. This is my favorite image because I like the contrast of the dark edges. I think it looks really pretty!

The final filter for this one is the Accented Edges filter.

Photoshop Project 4

My first step in creating this was to upload the original black and white half image. I doubled the width of the canvas by going to canvas size underneath the images menu. I set the width setting to 100 percent and clicked on the relative check box. I also selected the left edge of the arrow diagram so the canvas would widen to the right side only. I then selected the artwork with the rectangle marquee tool and created a clone by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt, that I then flipped horizontally. Next I lined it up with the original. To get rid of the white space so I could match up the lines of the two images I went to the edit menu and selected fade. I then selected the darken state under mode. This enabled me to see the lines on both artwork pieces and line them up accordingly. Next I loaded the channel as a selection by going to the channel menu and clicking on the ctrl key and clicking in the menu area below visible channel. That selected the background, in order to select the line art I selected inverse. Next I created a new layer by pressing ctrl+shift+n and named it line art. Next I pressed the D key to have black be the fill color. Next I pressed the Alt+Backspace to fill the selection with black on the new layer. After that I changed the background layer to just plain white by pressing ctrl+d to deselect the artwork and pressing alt+backspace to fill it with white. (First I made sure the fill color was white and not black.) Next I locked the transparency of the line art by going to the layers menu and selecting the tiny checkerboard icon found on the top right next to the lock symbol.

My next steps were to fill the artwork with color. First I went to the brush tool and selected a 44 size brush. I then opened the brush palette and gave it a scattering value and some texture. Next I chose a color and sprayed the line art in various sections. I repeated with a few other colors as well. After my line art was painted my next step was to fill the inside of the line art.

To start the process of filling the inside I created a new layer and called it colored fills. I then started filling various areas of the artwork with different colors. My opacity level was low on some of my fills resulting a more muted color. Others had the opacity on full.

After I had finished filling my artwork my final step was to give it a pseudo border by using my brush tool. I chose gray as my color and sprayed a border around the edge on my colored fills layer.

Project 3- Selection Assignment 2

The middle image is my final product. My first step was to fix my red eye using the red eye tool. I enlarged the canvas so I could put the cursor on the whitest part of the iris and then clicking. This corrects the red eye automatically. Next I used the quick selection tool to select everything but my head and then inversed it. I then refined the edges to give it a more feathered selection rather then jagged edges. I then moved my selection to my original picture.

I made both my original picture and my head picture black and white by selecting black and white out of the image adjustments menu. When I changed my head picture to black and white I adjusted the red tones just a bit so it was a little darker like the othere picture. I then used the clone stamp on the original picture to make part of my head dissapear so my new head would not have part of the old one sticking out behind it. I then flattened the image so I could fix my chin area by using the clone stamp and the spot healing brush. This cleaned up the area a bit so it did not have weird shadows. Finally I laid a gradient map color over the entire picture to give it a cool sepia tone.

Most of what I did at the beginning of this process was what I did for my final piece. However I did do some experimenting on my face to change the shadowing and chin area by using the dodge and burn tools. I also used the eraser to try to clean up the edges of my head picture but that just ended up making it more obvious that it was not part of the orignal picture. In the end though I just changed the red tone on my head picture to make it a little darker.

I know that my final product is not the best because my face is definately brighter then my son's face but I still think it looks sort of cool.

Project 3- Selection Assignment

To create this picture using selection tools only I started out with the polygon lasso tool. I drew the cross shape first and to keep the lines straight I held down the shift key while I drew my lines. I also tried to use the ruler on the photoshop screen to try to make the sections of the cross as even as possible. Next I used the rectangle marquee tool to draw the fours squares. I held the ctrl key down so I could add to my already drawn cross. After that I used the ellipse marquee tool to create the circle in the middle. Since I was taking away from the cross selection I held the alt key down to create it. To make sure the circle was centered I held down the space bar key while still holding the alt key and the mouse key down and moved it until I had it centered. Next I used the polygon lasso tool again to create the triangles. I held the alt key down just as I did with the circle, so as to take away from the cross selection. I held the shift key down to keep the line, closest to the cross edge, straight. To fill the my final selection in I went up to the edit menu and chose fill.

I accomplished all of this after I ran into a small problem. The first time that I did the selection assignment I ended up having my feathering set to 10 px on my ellipse marquee tool. This resulted in my circle having a fuzzy edge when I filled the color in. I could not figure it out at first but when I redrew it and examined what the properties on the ellipse were I figured out why it had done that.