Photoshop User Magazine 2013-12

Kata LPS-216 DL Laptop Backpack I generally don’t like backpacks (I use rolling bags instead), but what I love about this one is that it’s not big and bulky, yet it still holds a lot of gear and my laptop. Plus, the interior is bright yellow, so you can actually fnd stuff. It’s really well made and only $109.99, which makes it my favorite photo gear backpack ever! www.kata-bags.us Price: $109.99 Squarespace.com Every photographer, designer, and illustrator needs a portfolio, and Squarespace.com has a killer deal on them with very slick professional templates. With Squarespace, you can have a very cool-looking online portfolio up and running in about 15 minutes with absolutely no Web design experience necessary. I use Squarespace for my sports photography portfolio and absolutely love them! They start at around $10 a month (but you’ll get your photographer a full year for $96). You’ll be a hero. www.squarespace.com Price: Starting at $8 a month with an annual subscription Lexar Professional Workfow HR1 (Four- Bay USB 3 Reader Hub) You know what photographers hate? They hate waiting for their cards to download to their computer. That’s why this baby was born. Well that, and the fact that a lot of cameras these days have more than one memory card slot, and often those are two different types › › www. photoshopuser .com (like an SD card and a CompactFlash, or a CompactFlash and an XQD card). With this, you buy the docking bay ($99.99) and then up to four readers that pop right in, in any format you want (SD, CF, or XQD) starting at $36.99 each. I love this. Big time. www.lexar.com Price: HR1 Hub: $99.99; SD reader: $36.99; CompactFlash reader: $36.99; XQD reader: $44.99 051

Yongnuo YN560-III Hot-Shoe Flash If you want her to think you spent a bundle, which will lead to you getting “Most Favored Friend” status for all of 2014, get her a Yongnuo hot-shoe fash. It’s only $70 but looks like it cost $600. It creates a bright fash of light (just like every other fash), but without the high price of about every other fash. www.hkyongnuo.com Price: $70.95 › › photoshop user › december 2013 FP-1 Floor Plate for Price: $65 Using Remote Cameras If you’ve ever thought about using a remote camera (like a camera set up behind the bride or on the balcony, or for sports), this foor plate is fantastic! I use these for sports and absolutely love ’em. They’re very strong, yet surprisingly lightweight, and they’re designed to work with just about any ballhead and PocketWizard remote. Incredibly handy for only $65. http://fplate.net 052

B&H Gift Cards Not sure exactly what to get her? Yes you do. Get her a B&H Gift Card. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want something from the greatest photo store on earth, plus this way she can get whatever she wants (within the limit of how much you put on the card, of course). You can order them direct from the B&H site. They send a card and a catalog so it looks pretty substantial. www.bhphotovideo.com Price: Starting at $20 PocketWizard PlusX Wireless Transceiver PocketWizard has always been the gold standard in wireless triggers for fash or even for firing remote cameras, but the best is always expensive. But this year, they came out with a new budget-priced model for only $99 each (you need two—one for your › › www. photoshopuser .com camera and one for your fash), called the PlusX, and it has the ruggedness, range, and quality without the high price. They’re simple and they work. If you can’t swing the $198, try Cactus triggers instead (two for $60). Not the same quality, build, design, or range, but it’s not the same price either. www.pocketwizard.com Price: $99 053

Impact Quickbox Softbox Kit B&H Photo put this kit together and for the money, I don’t know how you can beat it. It’s a 24x24\" collapsible pop-up softbox, a tilt-swivel bracket, a bracket that holds your flash and the softbox, and a 8' light stand, all for $149. It’s hero time. www.bhphotovideo.com Price: $149.06 Canon Close-up Lens Filter (for Canon or NIKKOR) Get him this screw-on lens flter that turns most any Canon or NIKKOR lens into a Macro lens for close-up photography. It’s small › › photoshop user › december 2013 wedding photographers). They start at around $72 and go up to (only about 1\" thick), screws on just like a flter, and violá, you have a macro lens that you can toss into any camera bag (perfect for around $150, based on how wide his lens is (in millimeters). Price: Starting at $71.95 www.bhphotovideo.com 054

CHA-CHING! Westcott SkyLux LED What’s the next big wave in lighting? LED continuous lighting (it’s not a fash, so what you see is what you get). Video creatives have long-embraced LEDs but now they’re finally (finally!) making their way to still photography. Westcott’s SkyLux is really fantastic, and even though it’s here in “Cha-ching Land” at around $1,200, it’s one of the cheapest LED solutions out there. Plus, Westcott makes a ton of softboxes that fit right on it. This is where lighting is going. You can take someone special there now, this holiday season, and he will love you like a puppy without all the yipping (well, some yipping but it ends after a few weeks). http://fwestcott.com Price: $1,199.90 Canon EOS 70D › › www. photoshopuser .com I got a chance to use the Canon EOS 70D on a few studio shoots and events, and I have to say this camera body may be the best deal of anything on the list, value-wise (well, maybe beside the $6.49 sheets of Rosco gel). It has features way beyond its price, and if the photographer on your gift list has any ideas about shooting DSLR video, he’ll lose his mind over this puppy! Did I mention it has a touchscreen, and that you can pinch to zoom and fick to scroll through your photos, and it’s responsive like a smartphone touchscreen. I remember when Nikon released the D700 a few years back and we all thought, “What was Nikon thinking? It’s too good a deal.” I feel the same way about the 70D. Pro-quality images with many pro features, but they pretend it’s for consumers. www.usa.canon.com Price: $1,199 055

PrioLite MBX500 500 W/s Monolight This is a serious studio strobe that lets you use studio strobes on location. That’s not new; there are a bunch of strobes that you can take out in the feld using a battery pack that slings over your shoulder. The difference here is that there’s no battery pack to sling over your shoulder. The pack is built right into the strobe itself. There’s no cable. There’s no battery pack. It’s just the light. It’s awesome! But it ain’t cheap. They’re $1,479 each. Defnitely for pros or for the Wall Street crony on your holiday gift list. www.priolite.com Price: $1,479 AF-S NIKKOR 28–300mm f/3.5–5.6G ED VR or Tamron 28–300mm f/3.5–6.3 XR Di VC The AF-S NIKKOR 28–300mm f/3.5–5.6G ED VR is my all-time favorite travel photography lens because it’s one lens that › › photoshop user › december 2013 to get rid of her. A perfect gift for someone you’re stalking. Price: $1,049.95 does it all—from wide-angle to portrait lengths to a tight zoom. Plus, this particular lens is amazingly sharp, lightweight, and very well built. It’s not cheap at $1,049.95, but it’s worth it. Give her this as a holiday gift and you may not be able If the photographer on your list is a Canon shooter, unfortunately Canon doesn’t make a compact 28–300mm like thisNikon model. (The Canon version is full size, quite heavy, and expensive at an MSRP of $2,689.) Tamron makes a 28–300mm f/3.5–6.3 XR Di VC that will do the trick. It’s not as sharp as the Nikon 28–300mm or the Canon for that matter, but it’s not nearly as expensive either at around $630. Q www.nikonusa.com Price: $629 www.tamron-usa.com 056



ho w -t o › › BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP LESA SNIDER Safe Healing and Cloning When it comes to retouching, the Spot Healing Brush and Healing Brush tools are perfect for repairing or removing items and then blending surrounding pixels so your changes look real. The Clone Stamp tool, on the other hand, copies one area of an image to another. Today, you’ll learn to use those tools safely to clean up a snowy portrait. STEP ONE: The Spot Healing Brush tool (J) is great for repair- ing small- to medium-sized areas with surrounding pixels; those that Photoshop automatically picks. Create a new layer by pressing Shift-Command-N (PC: Shift-Ctrl-N), name it “spot healing brush,” and click OK. Position this layer above the layer you’re fxing. ISTOCK, LINDAYOLANDA, IMAGE #3496810 [NAPP members may download the f les used in this tuto- rial at http://members.photoshopuser.com/magazine/issue/ december-2013. All fles are for personal use only.] Step One Step Two STEP TWO: Grab the Spot Healing Brush from the Toolbox. (Tip: Pressing Shift-J repeatedly cycles through all tools in that toolset.) In the Options Bar, set the Type to Proximity Match (uses pixels immediately outside the brush cursor) or Content- Aware (analyzes a larger area of nearby pixels); you’ll get slightly different results with each Type. Turn on the Sample All Layers checkbox to make Photoshop look through the active empty layer to pixels on layers below. STEP THREE: Mouse over to the image and make your brush cursor slightly bigger than the area you’re fxing. Click or click- and-drag to remove a few snow and water droplets from this girl’s face. If you don’t like the results, press Command-Z (PC: Step Three Ctrl-Z) to undo and either change brush size or switch modes (from Proximity Match to Content-Aware, or vice versa) and try › › photoshop user › december 2013 your image by pressing Command-+ or Command-– (PC: Ctrl-+ again. Tip: Press the Left Bracket key ([) to decrease brush size and the Right Bracket key (]) to increase it. Zoom in and out of or Ctrl-–), respectively. STEP FOUR: The Healing Brush tool is great for fxing small- to medium-sized areas with pixels from another area in your image that you pick by setting a sample point. Create a new layer as described in Step One, name it “healing brush,” and position it at the top of your layer stack. Step Four 058

› › be ginners ’ w ork shop STEP FIVE: Activate the Healing Brush tool (nested below the Spot Healing Brush tool), and in the Options Bar, set the Sample Step Five menu to Current & Below. STEP SIX: To reduce the dark area beneath eyes, set a sample point by Option-clicking (PC: Alt-clicking) the spot you want Photoshop to use for the fx, such as the cheek area shown here. Try to use a nearby or adjacent area to match tone and texture. Step Six STEP SEVEN: Mouse over to the problem area and adjust the brush size to be a little bigger than what you’re fxing. Next, click or, in this case, click-and-drag across the area. Tiny cross- hairs mark the sample point as you drag, and a preview of the sampled area appears inside your cursor. Repeat this process on the other eye. If you’re fxing a small area, you’re probably okay with setting one sample point; for larger areas, you may need to set a new sample point every few brushstrokes. Tip: If you Step Seven accidentally introduce a repeating pattern, either set another sample point and paint the error away, or switch to the Spot Healing Brush tool to fx it. STEP EIGHT: Reduce the Opacity of the “healing brush” layer so your changes look realistic (40% was used here). Step Eight Step Nine STEP NINE: The Clone Stamp tool (S) copies one area of your › › www. photoshopuser .com Step Ten image to another, making it great for duplicating objects or removing stray hairs. Create a new layer as described in Step One, name it “clone stamp,” and position it at the top of your layer stack. STEP TEN: Activate the Clone Stamp tool and, in the Options Bar, set the Sample menu to Current & Below. 059

be ginners ’ w ork shop › › STEP ELEVEN: Repeat Steps Six and Seven to remove strands of hair on her teeth and chin. (Tip: Use a small brush to re- move or duplicate small items and a larger brush for bigger stuff.) STEP TWELVE: Here’s the before and after version of the image, along with the fnal Layers panel. Step Eleven Step Twelve STEP THIRTEEN: As mentioned earlier, you can use the Clone Stamp tool to duplicate items. In this image, we’re going to duplicate a snowball. Create a new layer, name it “clone stamp,” and set a sample point atop an existing snowball. Mouse over to an empty bit of sky and then click-and-drag to › › photoshop user › december 2013 the Spot Healing Brush or Healing Brush tools to fx it. Step Thirteen ISTOCK, ZENAPHOTO, IMAGE #6594728 create another snowball. If you introduce any repeating ele- ments, set another sample point and click to fx it, or switch to STEP FOURTEEN: Be sure to choose File>Save As and pick Photoshop as the Format so you can edit each layer later. You can undo edits by activating that layer and using the Eraser tool (E) or by using a layer mask. Next issue, we’ll discuss using the Patch tool and the Content- Aware Fill command to remove items from your photos. Until next time, may the creative force be with you all! Q 060



ho w -t o › › CLASSIC EFFECTS PETE COLLINS Get Your Head in the Clouds One of the brushes that I keep going back to is the cloud brush. It can be used to add an extra cloud to an already dynamic skyline, or you can add many clouds to crank up the drama. Once you learn how to make them, you’ll fnd they also come in handy for creating anything from fog and smoke to unique textures. STEP ONE: Find a good cloud image. What makes a good cloud image? Look for a singular cloud that has a bit of sky all the way around it. This will make selecting it much easier. You can purchase stock clouds at places such as Fotolia.com, but I prefer to have my camera or iPhone ready whenever I see good clouds, and I keep a library of shots from which to choose. (Since it’s going to become a brush, the resolution of your camera phone will probably work just fne.) I like this cloud image because I can actually create several different-sized and -shaped clouds from one image. Step One STEP TWO: When creating a brush from an image, anything that’s black or shades of gray will be the part of the brush that leaves a mark, and anything that’s white is transparent. So we want to convert the photo so that the cloud is not white but black and shades of gray. (This will make sense in a minute.) There are several ways to do this, but I prefer to add an adjustment layer. Click the Create New Adjustment Layer icon (half-black, half-white circle) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Black & White from the menu. The Properties panel will appear with a bunch of sliders and the colorful sky will be a shade of gray. Move the Blues slider to the left and the gray should darken. Don’t go overboard. You want it close to black, Step Two but if you go too far the cloud will start to get clumpy and not that attractive. Now move the Cyans slider a little to fne-tune the cloud since it will probably have some of that color in the sky, as well. When you’re done tweaking the sliders, your image › › photoshop user › december 2013 STEP THREE: When you’re satisfed with the look of the should look like a white cloud on a black or near-black sky. cloud and sky, select the adjustment layer and press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to Merge Down. Now you’ll have only one layer to work with. Step Three 062

› › CLASSIC EFFECTS STEP FOUR: Remember that black and gray are the colors that do the painting when you create a brush? As things are right now, if we made a brush from this image, it would paint a big box with a cloud-shaped hole in the center. We need to fip things around. Press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to invert the image. Now the cloud should be black and the sky white. Perfect! Use the Lasso tool (L) to just select the cloud you want to make a brush from and copy it to its own layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). At this point, I usually add a plain white layer between the bottom cloud layer and the new single cloud so I can easily see what I’m doing. Click the bottom layer to make it active, click the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, press Shift-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace) to bring up Step Four the Fill dialog, choose White from the Use menu, and click OK. The edges of the cloud may be a little sharp, or you may have a few stray white areas that need addressing. STEP FIVE: Here’s a neat trick that I stole from Corey Barker. Press D then X to set your Foreground color to white. Choose the Gradient tool (G) from the Toolbox, click the Gradient thumbnail in the Options Bar, choose the Foreground to Transparent preset, and click OK. Back in the Options Bar, click the Linear Gradient icon and set the blend Mode to Screen. Now, select your cloud layer in the Layers panel, place your cursor outside of the cloud, and click-and-drag a gradient toward the center. You’ll see the edges of that side of the cloud soften. It may take a little playing around with this to get the hang of it, but when you do, you can go around the entire cloud and soften it. Step Five STEP SIX: With your cloud edges looking fuffy, make a selec- tion around that cloud with your selection tool of choice (we used the Rectangular Marquee tool [M]), then go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. In the Brush Name dialog that appears, name the brush (notice the size of the brush below the thumbnail), and click OK. › › www. photoshopuser .com Step Six 063

CLASSIC EFFECTS › › STEP SEVEN: Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect, then press B to choose the Brush tool. The newly created brush will be the last one in Brush Presets panel (Window>Brush Presets). Choose the brush and make sure your brush color is set to white because we want happy clouds. Open an image with a bland sky. Click the Create a New Layer icon, use the Left and Right Bracket keys to adjust the size of your brush, and click in your image to place a cloud. If you fnd the cloud too opaque, you can lower the Opacity in the Layers panel and even add a layer mask to hide parts of the cloud if it’s behind an object in your scene. STEP EIGHT: Now you can go back and make more cloud brushes and use them to make lots of cloud layers that can be rearranged to make the best compositional impact. Now all you need is a catchy title and a semiobscure PBS reference to take your designs to new heights! That last pun was pretty bad, I admit, but being able to create your own cloud brushes is pretty awesome. I’ve used cloud brushes to add crusty mud to a rhino illustration, and if you look closely, you can see I used it to add the paint and splotches to the paintbrush in the fnal image. So take a little time to play in the clouds and you’ll see that I’m not full of hot air. ■ Step Seven › › photoshop user › december 2013 BACKGROUND: FOTOLIA, SILOTO, IMAGE #9330295 PAINTBRUSH: FOTOLIA, HAMSTERMAN, IMAGE #34697472 Step Eight 064 ALL IMAGES BY PETE COLLINS EXCEPT WHERE NOTED



› › k e y c oncep t s : Pen tool FROM BERT’S STUDIO BERT MONROY Drawing Dog Tags In this issue’s tutorial, we’ll create a metallic dog tag complete with a chain. As I’ve said many times, it’s not what you’re doing in Photoshop but how you’re doing it—what’s important are the steps used. A slight modif- cation here and there and these techniques can be used in many other situations. CREATING THE TAG STEP ONE: Start by creating a new fle (File>New) that’s 12x9\" at 72 ppi. Click on the Foreground color swatch near the bottom of the Toolbox, pick a medium-gray color in the Color Picker (R:128, G:128, B:128), and click OK. STEP TWO: Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, name it “plate” in the New Layer dialog, and click OK. Using the Rounded Rectangle tool (nested under the Rectangle tool [U] in the Toolbox) set to Pixels in the Options Bar, create a rectangle like the one here, which is roughly 5x3\". Note: The Radius of the corners Step Two is controlled in the Options Bar for the tool (we used 30 px in this example). Make the rectangle a selection by clicking on its preview thumbnail in the Layers panel while pressing the Command (PC: Ctrl) key. STEP THREE: Create another new layer and name it “rim.” Choose Edit>Stroke. Enter a Width that will give you a rim bordering the edge of the tag (we used 12 px in this example— you may need to use a higher Width depending on the size and resolution of your image). The Color should already be set to the same medium-gray color that you set for your Fore- ground color earlier. Set the stroke to Center and click OK. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect. STEP FOUR: With the rim layer active, click on the Add a Layer Style icon (ƒx) at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Bevel & Emboss. Alter the settings to give you a nice highlight and shadow along the edges. Click OK, then hold Step Four › › photoshop user › december 2013 Note: The layer style will not show on the faceplate of the tag the Option (PC: Alt) key and click-and-drag the words “Bevel & Emboss” that appear below the rim layer in the Layers panel to the plate layer. This will copy the layer style to the plate layer. until the next step. STEP FIVE: In the plate layer, switch to the Elliptical Marquee tool (nested under the Rectangular Marquee tool [M] in the Toolbox), hold the Shift key, and draw a small circular selection to represent the hole where the chain is going to go through. Press Delete (PC: Backspace) to cut out the hole, and deselect. The layer style will make the hole appear three-dimensional. 066

› › FROM BERT’S STUDIO STEP SIX: Create a new layer above the plate layer, and call it “sheen.” Switch to the Brush tool (B), and press D then X to set the Foreground color to white. Right-click in the document and choose the Soft Round brush in the Brush Preset Picker. Use your Left and Right Bracket keys to adjust the size of the brush, and paint some different-sized strokes to represent highlights on the metal surface. Clip the sheen layer with the plate layer by clicking between the two layers in the Layers panel while pressing the Option (PC: Alt) key. Lower the Opacity of the sheen layer to around 40%. Step Five ADDING THE TEXT STEP SEVEN: Select a color that’s slightly lighter than the gray you selected earlier. Switch to the Type tool (T), and in the Options Bar, set the size to around 50 pt and select the Left Align Text option. Type in the message you want to appear on the dog tag. Note: Using the Type tool will automatically place the text into its own layer. Choose any font you wish. Courier is the closest to what you usually fnd on dog tags. Select all of the text with the Type tool, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, and press the Left or Right Arrow keys to control the tracking (space between characters), and the Up and Down Arrow keys to control leading (space between lines). Step Six STEP EIGHT: Give the text a layer style of Bevel & Emboss. Set the Style to Outer Bevel, and increase the Depth and Size settings. In the Shading section of the Layer Style dialog, turn off Use Global Light and set the Angle to the opposite of the current direction. This will make the letters appear to be punched into the surface of the plate. Click OK. STEP NINE: Turn off the Eye icon for the Background layer to hide it. Making sure you have the topmost layer active in the Layers panel, press the Option (PC: Alt) key and choose Merge Visible from the panel’s flyout menu. This will make a new layer containing a merged copy of all the layers while leaving all the original layers intact. This is useful if, say, you wish to make multiple tags with different names. Note: Not pressing Step Eight the Option (PC: Alt) key will merge the layers—loosing the ability to make changes or repurpose sections for other images. STEP TEN: Double-click the name of the merged layer and rename it “tag.” For the sake of organization, click the Create › › www. photoshopuser .com a New Group icon (folder) at the bottom of the Layers panel, drag all the original layers into the group folder, and name it “pieces.” Turn off the Eye icon for the folder containing the original layers so you no longer see them, and drag it below the tag layer. Turn the Eye icon back on for the Background. 067

FROM BERT’S STUDIO › › STEP ELEVEN: Make the tag layer active, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) for Free Transform, and click-and-drag outside the bounding box to alter the angle of the dog tag in any way you wish. Press Enter to commit the transformation. Give the tag layer a layer style of Drop Shadow, and click OK to apply the default settings. CREATING THE CHAIN STEP TWELVE: Create a new layer above the tag layer and call it “chain.” Using the Pen tool (P), draw a shape you want the chain to follow. Choose the Brush tool with a small brush Step Twelve size—small enough to represent the thin wire that runs through the chains found in dog tags (6 px in this example). In the Brush panel (Window>Brush), turn off any default settings. Set the Hardness to 100%, and reduce the Spacing to the lowest value of 1%. Make sure you’re still in the Brush tool, and stroke the path by clicking on the Stroke Path with Brush icon at the bot- tom of the Paths panel (Window>Paths). STEP THIRTEEN: Create a new layer above the chain layer and call it “balls.” Choose a larger brush Size to represent the tiny balls of the chain (20 px in this example). In the Brush panel, increase the Spacing until the preview at the bottom of the Brush panel looks like individual balls. Once again stroke the path for the chain. Step Thirteen STEP FOURTEEN: Give the balls layer a layer style of Bevel & Emboss. Leave the Style set to Inner Bevel, and adjust the Depth, Size, and Soften settings to make the chain appear realistic. You can also try raising the Opacity of the Highlight Mode in the Shading section. Click the checkbox next to Drop Shadow in the list of Styles on the left side of the Layer Style dialog to apply the default settings. Click on Blending Options in the list of Styles, turn on Layer Mask Hides Effects, and click OK. Copy these layer styles to the chain layer. THREADING THE CHAIN STEP FIFTEEN: Make the balls layer active, and click the Add Step Sixteen Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel. Make the tag layer a selection by Command-clicking (PC: Ctrl-clicking) on its preview thumbnail in the Layers panel. › › photoshop user › december 2013 running under the tag. Using the Brush tool with a soft, round tip set to black, paint inside the selected area to hide the parts of the balls that are STEP SIXTEEN: To duplicate the mask over to the layer with the chain, in the Layers panel, Option-click-and-drag (PC: Alt-click-and-drag) the mask preview thumbnail from the balls layer over to the chain layer to apply it there, as well. This image shows the mask and how the chain and tiny balls are being hidden by it. The fnal result is a realistic-looking dog tag and chain. Q 068 ALL IMAGES BY BERT MONROY



› december 2013 › › photoshop user 070

UnderstandingPresets By Sean McCormack WHAT ARE PRESETS EXACTLY, AND HOW DID PEOPLE START SHARING THEM? A PRESET IS A SAVED COPY OF YOUR CURRENT SETTINGS IN THE DEVELOP MODULE. YOU CAN CHOOSE TO HAVE ALL THE SETTINGS IN THE PRESET, OR JUST SOME OF THEM. IN FACT, THIS ABILITY TO CHOOSE WHAT GOES INTO A PRESET GIVES YOU A REALLY POWERFUL METHOD OF MANAGING YOUR PRESETS AND HOW THEY INTERACT. Presets have been in Lightroom since before version1. During that phase (without blowing my own trumpet too much), many of us were exploring what was happening in Lightroom independent of the information provided in the beta forum on Adobe Labs. Unfortunately, those posts were all lost when Lightroom 1 came out, but it was then when I found out that preset fles are merely text fles. Back then there were no tools to show where these fles were stored, so we had to fgure all that out. Because they were text fles, we shared them by simply cutting-and-pasting the text contained within them. Had there been a way to attach fles, we would’ve done that instead! A fellow tester, Richard Earney, solved the issue of sharing actual fles by creating a site called Inside Lightroom (http://insidelightroom.com). › › www. photoshopuser .com CREATE A CUSTOM PRESET We had established that a preset file is a text file, but what is its function? Let’s create a preset and then take a look inside it. When Scott Kelby visited London, one great takeaway I got from the seminar was about black-and-white photographs. It wasn’t even a Lightroom seminar, but the information still applied. What makes for a quick, but good black-and-white? Simply desaturate a photo, and bump up the contrast. You can do that in Lightroom by simply by lowering the Saturation to –100 and raising the Contrast in the Basic panel. 071

Now, we’ll save the preset via the New Preset command in the Develop menu. You can also use the shortcut Shift-Command-N (PC: Shift-Ctrl-N), or click the Create New Preset icon (+) on the Presets panel header. Any of these methods will open the New Develop Preset dialog. Because we’ve only changed the Saturation and Contrast, we can click the Check None button to deselect all, then tick the Contrast and Saturation boxes, as well as the Process Version. Why? Basically, we’re telling Lightroom to only change these settings and leave everything else alone. Unless you specifically need a preset to make changes to the whole Basic panel, it’s better to leave unused settings out. For instance, if we set an Exposure value in a preset, it will wipe out any existing Exposure value. If you’ve gone to the trouble of fixing the exposure in a photo, best not have it wiped out by a preset. As to the Process Version being added, Contrast in PV2012 is different to PV2010, so we need to tell the preset to apply the Process Version, too, or this won’t work properly. Name your preset “Easy B&W,” and click the Create button. In the case of our preset, we can now quickly apply it to other images. Using Grid view (G) in the Library module, we can select photos to convert to black and white, then select our new Easy B&W preset to apply it to those photos. You can select the preset through the Saved Preset drop-down menu in the Quick Develop panel. Notice that all other aspects of the photo remain the same: Exposure, Shadows, High- lights, etc. GOING DEEP Let’s take a look at what’s going on in- side the preset. In the Presets panel in the Develop module, go to the Users Presets folder, Right-click on the Easy B&W preset, and choose Show in Find- er (PC: Explorer). Open the Easy B&W.lrtemplate file in a text editor (not a document editor such as Word). I’ve used Text- Wrangler, a free Mac text editor. The important lines here are lines 7–11. › december 2013 There are four key lines here.Three of these are lines that match › › photoshop user and the Process Version is 6.7 (from Camera Raw 6.7). The final our ticked boxes: Contrast (called Contrast2012 to distinguish it from the older PV2010 Contrast) is at +29, Saturation is at –100, item is “ConvertToGrayscale = false.” This is an internal value let- ting Lightroom know that the Black & White option hasn’t been selected. Of course, our image is black and white, but not through normal Lightroom channels. 072

TIME FOR ANOTHER PRESET If we look at this preset in a text editor, we’ll see quite a differ- This time we’ll go a little fashion retro. Up until Lightroom 4, you ence from the Easy B&W preset. First, it’s a lot longer, and second, could only get retro looks through the Split Toning panel. Now it has completely different settings. The first part of the settings we have the Red, Green, and Blue channels in the Tone Curve (from line 7) is the parametric curve. We didn’t use this, so all the panel. First up, we’ll use a trick that Matt Kloskowski showed settings are at their defaults. In the ToneCurvePV2012 section we recently in Lightroom Magazine. We’ll fade the image using the see lines of numbers: 0, 28, 255, and 255. These tell the curve that RGB Tone Curve. If you see sliders in the Tone Curve panel, click 0 has been moved to 28, and that 255 remains at 255. This is our the small icon at the bottom right to open the Point Curve (see fade. For the other curves, each pair of numbers is the input point top right). This gives us a far more powerful version of Curves. and the corresponding output value. Where the numbers match, First, make sure the Channel drop-down menu is set to RGB, the point doesn’t change. and then drag the bottom-left point up. A good starting point is around 10–15%, but it’s really up to you what you like. Next, in PRESET WORKFLOW the Channel drop-down menu, change RGB to Red. Pushing the By only including the things you’re changing for a particular look, curve up adds red, while pulling down adds the opposite color, you can build up new looks by applying these “partial” presets cyan. Let’s add cyan to the shadows. Click a point near the middle on top of each other. Because they only affect particular panels of the curve to fix the highlights in place, then drag a second point in the Develop module, they won’t overwrite each other. Using down in the left of the curve. We’re not going to play with the Preset Folders, you can have a folder of presets for each panel in Green curve here, but it’s worth mentioning that pushing up in the Develop module: Basic, Tone Curve, B&W, Split Toning, etc.. the green adds green, and pull- You can create folders by selecting New Folder in the Folder drop- ing down adds magenta. Next, down menu in the New Develop Preset dialog. By hovering over go to the Blue channel. Again, the preset name in the Presets panel, you can see the affect it will pushing up adds blue, while pull- have on the current photo. If you’re really happy with a look from ing down adds yellow. Let’s add applying multiple presets, save these settings as a new preset to a yellow to the highlights. Click a Looks folder where you know it will overwrite far more. point in the middle to hold the shadows, then drag down in the DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL right part of the curve. Both the Easy B&W and Faded Retro presets can be downloaded from › › www. photoshopuser .com Now let’s save the preset and http://members.photoshopuser.com/magazine/issue/december-2013. call it “Faded Retro.” This time, To install them, Right-click on any preset in the Develop module, and only select Tone Curve and Pro- choose Import. Go to where you unzipped the download, and cess Version in the New Develop choose the Easy B&W.lrtemplate or Faded Retro.lrtemplate file to Preset dialog. add them to the Develop module. Q 073

a dobe photoshop l ightroom section › › UNDER THE HOOD HDR and Panoramics Brian Matiash Picture this: You’re in a stunning and historic church in beautiful Sorrento, Italy. You have the entire place to yourself except for a few locals who are sitting quietly with their thoughts and prayers. You’re standing all the way in the back of the church, trying to capture all of the ornate details of the wide interior. .... You know that you’re going to have to shoot some brack- balance. Next, I selected all of the remaining bracketed imag- ets to tone map an HDR image, but your lens isn’t wide es in the Filmstrip and clicked the Sync button to synchronize enough to capture everything in one frame (or set of brack- the white balance and ensure consistency. Now, when you ets). This is where the beauty of shooting panorama panels look at three of the sample brackets in Survey view (N), you’ll comes into play, and it even works well if you’re creating an see a more accurate color representation. HDR image. CAPTURING THE PHOTOS The scenario I described above is exactly what I experienced several years ago when I visited Italy. I simply couldn’t get a wide enough frame, even though I had my Canon 17mm Tilt-Shift (TS) lens on a full-frame Canon EOS 5D Mark II. That’s when the idea of panos popped into my head. If I took a set of brackets covering the left, middle, and right portions of the church, I should be able to tone map and stitch every- thing together to get a beautifully wide, ultra high-resolution HDR pano. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing. I simply shifted my TS lens to three sections—from far left, middle, and far right—and took a series of bracketed images at each section. Don’t worry if you don’t have a TS lens. The same general workfow below will apply even if you simply swivel your tripod head to capture the pano panels. You are using a tripod, right? › › photoshop user › december 2013 STEP ONE: Typically, whenever I begin editing a series of brackets for HDR, the only edit I make before tone mapping is white balance correction. In the case of these images, the white balance was off because of the light inside the church. So, in Lightroom, I simply pressed W to choose the White Balance Selection tool, and selected a portion of the image from here. Some photographers prefer to stitch each set of that I wanted to use as the base for my new custom white STEP TWO: There are actually two ways you can proceed 074

›› under the hood brackets into their own pano image fles before tone-map- For the sake of keeping my library tidy, I always stack the ping, but I fnd that process to be more time-consuming and tone-mapped image along with the bracketed source images. convoluted. I prefer to frst create my three tone-mapped HDR fles and then stitch those into a single pano. To begin, I’m going to send my frst set of nine bracketed images to Photomatix for tone mapping. Now, you don’t have to use Photomatix; you should use whatever tone-mapping product you’re most comfortable with. In Lightroom, I selected the Photomatix export action that I created, which launches the Photomatix dialog. You can also select the photos and choose Photo>Edit In>Edit in Photomatix Pro, or whatever application you’re using if you’ve set it up as an external editor in the Lightroom (PC: Edit)>Preferences. Because there was motion from some of the churchgoers in my bracketed images, I made sure the Remove Ghosts checkbox was turned on and selected the With Selective Deghosting Tool radio button. › › www. photoshopuser .com STEP THREE: Next, I drew selections around the people who were moving through the frames and chose the brack- eted image I wanted to use as the source. When the ele- ments are looking good, I proceed to tone map the image accordingly. When I’m done and return back to Lightroom, I’ll have the frst of three tone-mapped panels ready to go. 075

under the hood ›› STEP FOUR: The next steps are actually pretty automated. Because I want to ensure that my three tone-mapped HDR images blend evenly during the pano stitching process, all I do is select the next set of brackets, send them to Photo- matix, and apply the tone mapping without touching any sliders. One thing to note is that you want to make sure that whatever tone-mapping software you use has sticky settings, which essentially remember the state of the sliders from your last session. Because Photomatix supports sticky settings, all I need to do is click one button to proceed with the exact same settings as before. Repeat this process for each panel that you want to tone map and subsequently stitch together. With the tone mapping complete, I can see the three source panels that I’m going to stitch together to shop. In the Photomerge dialog that appears, you’ll have a create my pano image. variety of options for how the fles are analyzed, edited, and stitched together. I almost always use Auto then click OK. STEP SIX: When Photoshop is done analyzing and stitch- ing, the result is a beautifully wide photo that accurately conveys all of the details, architecture, and craftsmanship of this gorgeous church. There isn’t much to do at this point other than choose the Crop tool (C), crop the pano, and then save the fle to fnish things in Lightroom. STEP FIVE: While there are many apps out there that will stitch multiple fles together to create a pano image, I’ve been really happy with how Photoshop CC handles this task, and because I already have it installed on my computer, there are no extra apps to buy or install. To start, select the three source panel images in Lightroom, Right-click on one of the photos, and choose Edit In>Merge to Panorama in Photo- STEP SEVEN: Because I prefer to create my initial tone-mapped HDR images to be rather flat, the fnal pano image could stand to have a few mild edits applied. This image is truly beautiful and stands on its own, and for that reason, I don’t want to apply any heavy-handed changes, such as cross-processing, so I stick with some basic adjustments like cooling off the color temperature, adding a contrast boost via the Tone Curve panel, and applying some sharpen- ing. Now I’m left with a truly accurate and beautiful representation of what it felt like to stand in this church, and it couldn’t have been possible without combining two fantastic tools with HDR and pano stitching. Q › › photoshop user › december 2013 076 ALL IMAGES BY BRIAN MATIASH

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a dobe photoshop l ightroom section › › UNDER THE LOUPE Expanding Web Gallery Options Rob Sylvan The Web galleries that come with Lightroom can provide an okay starting point for building your online presence, but to take the Web module’s capabilities to the next level, you’ll want to explore some exciting third-party Web galleries. .... A lot of people check out the Web module, click through SOME RECOMMENDATIONS the different Web galleries found in the Layout Style My two favorite places to start looking are Photographer’s panel, shrug, and never come back again. This is too Toolbox (www.photographers-toolbox.com) and The Turn- bad because there’s a lot of power in that module that’s ing Gate (www.theturninggate.net). Photographer’s Tool- waiting to be tapped into, and luckily there are some box provides a number of very strong gallery options from independent Web gallery creators that have been doing Sean McCormack and Timothy Armes, along with a wide just that. Whether you’re interested in new options for range of other Lightroom plug-ins from other developers. standalone galleries or wanting to run a full-fedged web- The Turning Gate (TTG) is the work of Matthew Campagna, site right from Lightroom, there may be a gallery that fits who is (to my knowledge) the only person working full your needs (and budget) waiting to be found. time on developing Lightroom Web galleries, and this really Let’s start with a look at the Web galleries that come shows in the level of integration and sophistication of his bundled with Lightroom. From the Web module, expand offerings. All of the galleries I’ve mentioned do cost a small the Layout Style panel and you’ll find five different styles fee to use, but this is a reasonable expense for the increased from which to choose. These are the same five styles that functionality they provide, and I’m happy to help support have been in Lightroom for several versions now. Four fellow photographers who are behind all of these efforts. of the fi ve styles are Flash based, which may limit your search engine optimization efforts (SEO) and support on DETERMINE YOUR NEEDS iOS mobile devices. There’s only one HTML gallery, and I’ve had a WordPress blog running for some time on my while it can be customized to an extent, it’s actually pretty sylvanworks.com domain and I’ve been wanting to fi nd a limited for today’s Web needs. way to leverage it to support my new stock photography endeavor on Stocksy United. I wanted to create a standalone gallery that would integrate well with my existing WordPress blog, but could also tie back to my work on Stocksy—along with allowing integration with social media sharing (Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)—and be fexible enough to display well on mobile devices. I was also curious to see if I could find a way to also tie into a platform for print sales. After doing a bit of research, I settled on trying two products from The Turning Gate: CE3 Theme for WordPress and CE3 Gallery. What are these other options? Well, your first thought The CE3 Theme for WordPress allows me to update my exist- ing WordPress theme and provide a unified look across my might be to click the Find More Galleries Online button › › photoshop user › december 2013 Lightroom, where you can find a number of Web gallery ing a new HTML photo gallery with a host of SEO-friendly existing pages, as well as provide a consistent feel on the new at the bottom of the Layout Style panel. Clicking that gallery page. The CE3 Gallery plug-in is the engine for creat- button will take you to the online Adobe Exchange for options and other plug-ins for Lightroom. The only prob- features, a slick slide show feature, social media integration, and even tie into print sales via Fotomoto (recently acquired lem with that option is that (as of this writing) it’s sadly by Bay Photo). This is just what I was looking for. outdated. It seems that there’s some snafu on the back Installing a third-party Web gallery is very simple and end that’s impeding third-party developers from updat- ing and adding new content. If you do find something the process is the same no matter where you get the gal- lery. Here’s how: of interest on the Lightroom Exchange website, I highly responsible for that item to see if there’s a more up-to- unzip this to a folder on your desktop to make it easy to find. date product available. 078 recommend you seek out the website of the developer STEP ONE: Download the ZIP file from the developer, and

› › under the loupe The Web gallery fle itself has a .lrwebengine fle extension. ful program for managing your website and you’ll have no problems uploading. STEP TWO: Copy that .lrwebengine fle to the follow- When your gallery is ready to upload, click the Export ing location: button (instead of Upload) to save all of the related gal- lery f les to a folder of your choosing on your hard drive, Mac: which you’ll upload to your Web server using your FTP Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/ program. You’ll obviously need a Web domain and Web Lightroom/Web Galleries host that allows for FTP transfer, which is pretty standard. Windows: Use collections as a starting point for creating your gal- Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\ leries, and then save your gallery settings with your photos Web Galleries by clicking the Create Saved Web Gallery button. This will create a new collection of those same photos with your Note: If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, you’ll need Web gallery settings saved together. to open a new Finder window, click the Go menu, and press-and-hold the Option key to show the Library. Click SETTING UP YOUR SITE Library to get started on the right path. On Windows, the With your collection loaded and new Web gallery selected, AppData folder is hidden by default, so you’ll need to open the frst panel to dig into will be the Site Info panel. The Windows Explorer, go to Tools>Folder Options>View, and contents of this panel will vary widely with each gallery, check the box to Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives. On but this will probably contain the most important elements both operating systems, you’ll need to create the Web Gal- affecting the look of your gallery. One of the simplest (and leries folder in the Lightroom folder, if it’s not there already. most welcome) features of The Turning Gate galleries are the felds pertaining to SEO and Google Analytics; these STEP THREE: Restart Lightroom. When Lightroom are webpage development 101 things, but also completely opens, you should see the new Web galleries listed in the lacking in the built-in galleries. Another nice feature is being Layout Styles panel. That’s all there is to installation. able to integrate all of my social media links in a consistent manner across all of my website’s pages. From there, con- tinue to work your way down through the settings in each panel until you’re done. The preview in Lightroom is okay for basic confguration, but you’ll want to test in a real Web browser as you go by clicking the Preview in Browser button, and then fnally testing it live on your site. With each of these third-party galleries, you’ll have a wide range of new options to explore and test. In my experi- ence, these plug-ins are very well documented (check the website of the developer) and the developers have proven to be very responsive to questions. Keep in mind that you’ll fnd entirely new options in these galleries that don’t exist in the default galleries, which is exactly what you’re look- ing for, so take your time in becoming familiar with these new offerings before pushing them live onto your website. I don’t have the space to detail every step I took to cus- tomize the new options available in these galleries, but I want to highlight some of the most compelling options and some of the things I learned along the way. First, don’t You can test drive my website, where the theme is › › www. photoshopuser .com rely on the built-in FTP capabilities of the Web module entirely generated from the TTG WordPress plug-in (you because it isn’t that robust. Instead, try out a dedicated FTP don’t blog from Lightroom, you just use it to generate the program. You may already have a favorite, but I’ve been fles that make up the theme) and my growing gallery using using Cyberduck on my Mac and FileZilla on my Windows TTG Galleries, by going to www.sylvanworks.com. Drop me machine happily for years. You’ll get a much more power- a line if you have any questions. Q 079

a dobe photoshop l ightroom section › › Seán Duggan LIGHTROOM Tips &Tricks THE WHITE BALANCE they help me determine a neu- SELECTOR TOOL tral color balance for the image. The White Balance Selector Of course, elements you find tool is the primary way for as part of the scene may not setting a custom white bal- be strictly neutral in terms of ance in an image. You can setting a correct white balance, activate it from either the but it will get you much closer Library or the Develop mod- to the mark and you can then ules by pressing W on the fine-tune with the Temp and keyboard. Pressing W again Tint sliders, if needed. docks the eyedropper back in the Basic panel. To use it, SYNCING WHITE BALANCE ACROSS simply click on something in MULTIPLE FILES the image that should be a neutral tone, such as gray or a white Once you have corrected the white balance in one shot, you with tonal detail (more on that below). can apply the same setting to multiple files that need the same correction. With the corrected shot still selected in the Develop USING GRAY TARGETS TO SET module Filmstrip, select the other shots. If they’re in a contigu- WHITE BALANCE ous row adjacent to the first shot, simply Shift-click on the last Placing a gray or color target in the scene and taking a few shot to select the entire row. If you need to select noncontigu- well-exposed test shots will give you an accurate reference that ous shots, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the thumbnails can be used to set white balance when you process your shots. you want to select. Then click the Sync button in the lower This image shows the SpyderCUBE by Datacolor. In addition to right. In the Synchronize Settings dialog, click Check None, neutral gray areas for measuring white balance and midtone then click the checkbox for White Balance at the top left, and repsonse, the SpyderCUBE also has a chrome ball for refective click Synchronize to apply the white balance from the source specular highlights, white and black sides for highlights and shot to all the selected files. shadows with detail, and a black “trap” to set absolute black. Once in Lightroom, you can use the White Balance Selector SAVE A CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE PRESET tool to click on the gray area of your target to set a correct If you routinely find yourself in the same location and lighting white balance for the shot. conditions for a specific and recurring job, consider saving a custom white balance preset that can be applied to images as they’re imported. To do this, follow the steps above for using a gray target to set white balance. Then click the Create New Preset icon (+) in the Presets panel header. In the New Develop Preset dialog, click Check None, and then select White Balance and Process Version (the latter will ensure predictable results in future versions of Lightroom). When you import files, you can access the custom preset in the Apply During Import panel on the right side of the Import dialog. Open the Develop Settings menu and find your white balance preset for that location and › › photoshop user › december 2013 CORRECTING WHITE BALANCE WITHOUT lighting conditions. Q A GRAY TARGET Even though many gray targets are small and easy to carry in a pocket or camera bag, there will be times when they’re not available for a shot. If there’s any area in the scene that should be a neutral, or close to it (e.g., the gray in a cloud, the whites of the eyes, gray metal, gray cement, a white shirt), you can If you’re clicking on a refective metallic object, zoom in and make sure you’re not inadvertently clicking on a refection that has color in it. I refer to these areas as neutral guides because 080 use these with the White Balance Selector tool to get started. ALL IMAGES BY SEÁN DUGGAN

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column › › CREATIVE POINT OF VIEW KATRIN EISMANN Still-Life Portraits In photographic history, the primary genres include landscape, portrait, and still life, and more recently abstrac- tion. Combining these categories by exploring the fgure in the landscape and the portrait enriched with still-life elements adds depth and can enrich your photographic voice. FIGURE IN THE LANDSCAPE rule of thirds composition, in which the fgure falls on the Combining landscape photography with figure studies intersection of three lines that both balance the scene expresses a sense of place, light, and scale. Working in a and create an interesting visual tension. Placing the fgure beautiful environment with talented and trusting models in the direct center of the frame can feel unbalanced, as allows for collaboration to create successful images. Success- the landscape around the fgure teeter-totters around the ful landscape and f gure images are often built on the classic centered fgure. › › photoshop user › december 2013 082

› › CREATIVE POINT OF VIEW Playing with a sense of scale, allowing the fgure to be smaller in the frame gives the scene a feeling of grandeur, which is created by using a wider-angle lens. Using a lon- ger lens compresses the background-to-fgure relationship and brings the background closer to the subject, creating a stronger relationship with the environment in this example, the stormy Pacifc Ocean and the silhouetted fgure. PORTRAITS AS STILL LIFES The intersection of portraiture and still-life photography is a fascinating area to explore and express symbolism of emotion, history, and perception. In my opinion, the simpler the inanimate object, the richer the fnal portrait can be. With a person in the image, there’s no reason to be heavy-handed or cliché, as we are naturally fascinated by pictures of people. Photography allows us to gaze at a person, and the addition of the object encourages our minds to create new combinations of meaning. An egg is among the most symbolic objects with great religious and cultural meaning for life, hope, and fertility. Con- trasting the egg against the strong face and intense eye › › www. photoshopuser .com contact of model Jean-Pierre Vertus glorifes the positive symbolism and importance of the egg. The photograph was lit with a large soft bank to camera right and a black flag on the left side to subtract light to contrast the egg more effectively. 083

cre at i v e poin t of v ie w › › Creating a successful single image is often the motivation for me to continue exploring an idea. In this instance, the opportunity to work with Jean-Pierre Vertus at a Gorman Photography Workshop for a week allowed me to continue exploring the still-life portraits. As the locations changed, I found props onsite that ft to the scene and light. Contrasting deer antlers with his face created the opposite of the egg image, as the antlers are masculine and sharp that cast graphi- cal shadows over his face. To show a softer side, I placed garlic from the gardens where we were into his protective shadow to symbolize the hid- den aspect of growth and regeneration. I prefer to fnd props on location, but of course bringing props or clothing can also be very successful. BUILD COLLABORATION Finding beautiful locations with privacy often requires favors and friendship. Never take that for granted— a bottle of wine and some good prints will open more doors than money. Always leave the location in the same or better shape than when you arrived: pick up trash; don’t trample flower beds; stay out of private areas of the home; don’t assume you can use the bathroom facilities; arrive and leave on time; and of course, return all props to their original location. Working with professional models, dancers, or actors will allow you to concentrate on your photog- raphy. Professional models understand how to pose, have confdence, and very importantly will under- stand that you need to take a lot of pictures to get just what you want. Make sure to give them breaks with privacy, warm or cool beverages, and warm clothing as needed. One last note: If you, the photog- rapher, are uncomfortable (as in being cold, hungry, or tired), then your models will be, too. If anyone on your team is uncomfortable, no one will be able to concentrate on his or her work. Be the team leader and take care of everyone by being positive and, for › › photoshop user › december 2013 than a paycheck. example, paying for breakfast after an early morning shoot. Little things count and are remembered longer TAKE A LEAP We all have habits and photographic subjects that we’re comfortable with. Take a workshop, fnd a muse, and mix things up. With these images I had els in beautiful locations, and now I feel empowered to push the contrast of the portrait and still life in new directions. Q 084 the good fortune of working with professional mod- ALL IMAGES BY KATRIN EISMANN



DYNAMIC RANGE TWO ONE FROM Creating and Blending Multiple Exposures from a Single Image By Dave Cross In many situations you can take Since this technique relies on smart object stack modes, you must have an ExtendedversionofPhotoshop or Photoshop CC. It also requires that you create Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) smart objects. In order to advantage of a tripod, bracketing do this, open your RAW fle and click on the blue link at the bottom of the ACR window. This will shots, and using HDR techniques open the Workflow Options dialog where you check Open in Photoshop As Smart Objects. After you click OK to close the Workflow Options dialog, you’ll notice that the Open Image button has to merge together diferent expo- changed to Open Object. With this option checked, a two-way street is established between ACR and Photoshop. That sures. But what do you do if you means that after applying the ACR settings to a fle andopeningitinPhotoshop,youcancontinue only have one shot, or the situation to edit the fle back in ACR simply by double-clicking on the smart object in the Layers panel. That’s a key aspect of being able to blend together two exposures. doesn’t lend itself to HDR (such as In this example, we’ll use a single shot that was captured in an attempt to getabitofalensflare from the sun while preserving the blueskyandseeingdetailin the tree branches. It’s close to the effect portraits)? This method involves I wanted but needs a little tweaking. automatically combining multiple We’re going to need to make two ver- sions of the same photo using ACR, so in exposures from a single image— the frst step you adjust either for one chal- lenge or the other: in this case, the blue sky with no masking required. or the backlit branches. › december 2013 › › photoshop user Images: iStock Layout Design: Taffy Clifford 086

STEP ONE: Open a RAW fle and make your initial adjustments—we’ll start with the branch- es. We adjusted the settings to make the details in the branches more visible. Don’t worry about what this does to other parts of your image (in this case, the sky). Click Open Object. STEP TWO: We need to make a copy of the ACR smart object that can be edited inde- pendently of the original. Right-click in the Lay- ers panel beside the smart object thumbnail and choose New Smart Object via Copy. STEP THREE: Double-click on the new smart object layer thumbnail to jump back to ACR. This time we’ll adjust the settings, focusing our attention on the sky. Click OK. STEP FOUR: Shift-click the original smart object layer in the Layers panel so that both layers are selected. Right-click on one of the selected layers and choose Convert to Smart Object. › › www. photoshopuser .com STEP FIVE: From the Layer menu, choose Smart Objects>Stack Mode>Median. This will mathematically combine the two ACR smart objects, resulting in a new exposure. 087

SMART OBJECTS ORDERED Although you may be happy with the result from this stack mode, the Although this technique can be applied to a variety of challenging images, beauty of the technique is its editability: we can still access—and edit—the there’s one thing to consider, and that’s the order in which you do things. It’s ACR settings for both of the layers that have been combined. Here’s how: great to be able to continue to edit the two ACR smart objects, but remember that some things do not update; for example, let’s take a look at this image STEP ONE: Double-click on the smart object thumbnail to open a second that we created using the same technique we’ve been discussing. window with the contents of the smart object (in this case, two ACR smart objects). STEP TWO: STEP THREE: Here are some other examples of the kind of additional experiments you can try with automatic updates (thanks to the stack modes): 1. If you drastically lighten an image using the Shadows or Blacks sliders, use the Detail tab to add some Noise Reduction. 2. Change one of the two ACR smart objects to grayscale: use the fourth tab (HSL / Grayscale) to Convert to Grayscale. 3. Add another version of the ACR fle by using New Smart Object via Copy and edit it. Try increasing the Clarity or Vibrance. Once again, when you save the contents of the smart object, the stack mode will update to reflect the change in contents. › december 2013 › › photoshop user 088

PHOTOSHOP CC CAMERA RAW FILTER SMART OBJECTS STEP ONE: STEP TWO: STEP THREE: STEP FOUR: STEP FIVE: › › www. photoshopuser .com STEP SIX: Now we have a sharpened image, with the option of digging down through the smart objects to access the adjustment layers and the original ACR smart objects—and the only masking we had to do was some basic painting on the adjust- ment layers. Q ALL PHOTOS BY DAVE CROSS EXCEPT WHERE NOTED 089

ho w -t o › › DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTEBOOK KEVIN AMES The Power of Layer Comps “Which one is better? This, or this?” No, this isn’t an eye exam. It represents the decisions made every day between differing versions of a final photograph. Turning certain layers on then off to show changes requires remembering the diferences, and what if the client wants to see the versions side by side? Anyone versed in using the amazingly powerful layers in Photo- [NAPP members may download the fle used in this tuto- shop can do all of these things. It’s time-consuming; it’s also cum- rial at http://members.photoshopuser.com/magazine/issue/ bersome, at best. Why isn’t there an easier way? There is. The december-2013. All fles are for personal use only.] little-known panel named Layer Comps. To learn more, download the fle 2788-Nebulas.psd from the NAPP member website and follow along. › › photoshop user › december 2013 Step One 090

› › digital photographer’s notebook STEP ONE: Open the fle 2788-Nebulas.psd. From the menu the 5 key to set the layer’s Opacity to 50%. Click-and-drag bar, choose Window>Layer Comps. The panel opens with the Red Nebula layer until its center is aligned with the Blue some layer comps already in place. The active layer comp is All Nebula’s center. Layers > No Layer Mask. All of the Eye icons in the Layers panel are showing, while all of the layer masks have red Xs, indicat- STEP FOUR: Next, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) for Free ing they’re disabled. Transform. Right-click inside the bounding box, then choose Distort from the contextual menu. Drag the center point of the STEP TWO: Now, in the Layer Comps panel, click on the bounding box over the middle of the two nebulas (it’s a little empty box to the left of the layer comp Blue Nebula > With hard to see, but it’s there). Grab the right handle and drag it Layer Masks. The red goes away and some of the bright flares until the edge aligns with the edge of the Blue Nebula. Repeat in the corners are gone. for the top-center handle. The center moves a bit. Compensate by dragging the middle handle on the left side and the bottom STEP THREE: Let’s make a new layer comp. Go to the handle until the centers once again align. Click the Commit Layers panel and turn on the layer Red Nebula (click where checkmark icon in the Options Bar. Press 0 to put the layer’s the Eye icon used to be). It’s not centered in the Blue Nebula Opacity back to 100%. Finally, press Shift-Option-B (PC: Shift- below it, so switch to the Move tool by pressing V, and press Alt-B) to set the blend mode of the layer to Color Burn. Step Two › › www. photoshopuser .com 091

digital photographer’s notebook › › STEP FIVE: Click the Create New Layer Comp icon at the bottom of the Layer Comps panel. Name the layer comp Red Nebula > Center > Transform > Color Burn. I know it’s tempting to use the suggested naming of Layer Comp 1, 2, etc. Don’t! You’ll never remember what you did to get the result. Next, and this is super impor- tant, under Apply to Layers, make certain that the Position and Appearance boxes are checked. Click OK. The new layer comp appears under the sup- plied one Red Nebula > With Layer Masks. STEP SIX: Click the layer comp named Red Nebula > With Layer Masks. This is exciting. Even though the Red Nebula layer was moved, Step Five transformed, and had its blend mode changed in the previous steps, it’s now in its original (off- center) state! Click ahead to the next layer comp to return to the version from Step Four. Save your work. LAYER COMPS TO FILES At this point, variations can be viewed by selecting different layer comps. What about comparing the versions side by side? You could duplicate the fle four times—one for each layer comp—flatten, then save them with different names, but that’s a lot of work. Or… STEP SEVEN: Choose File>Scripts>Layer Comps to Files. Click the Browse button to choose the des- tination for the new f les. You can add a pref x if you’d like. I leave it blank. If you only want certain Step Seven layer comps made into fles, select them frst in the Layer Comps panel, then check Selected Layer Comps Only. Next, choose the type of fle you want from the drop-down menu. Finally, click Run. STEP EIGHT: Navigate to the destination folder in Bridge. All four versions are there as JPEGs (my choice for this example), complete with a numeri- › › photoshop user › december 2013 which comp. By the way, these photographs are cal prefx, followed by the layer comp description so it’s easy to know which version came from the holiday lights at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I rotated the camera on the tripod to get the nebula effect. There’s more to layer comps than there’s space to of the NAPP site with this tutorial step by step, plus even more info about using layer comps. Until next issue, keep shooting! Q 092 cover here. There’s a video on the Tutorials section Step Eight ALL IMAGES BY KEVIN AMES

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c ol umn › › THE ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD JAY NELSON New and Hidden Font Features in Adobe Creative Cloud With all the new features added to the Creative Cloud versions of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, it’s easy to miss some that are the most useful. Each time Adobe revises these applications, they improve the way you interact with fonts. Strangely, diferent improvements are given to each application. PREVIEW SELECTIONS (PS, ID & IL) isn’t available from the Type>Font All three apps let you scroll through your font list to see a menu). Then choose either Search live preview applied to selected text. It works like this: Select Entire Font Name or Search First some text in your document. Click on the name of the font Word Only—the default is Search in the Character panel, Options Bar, or Control Panel. Press Entire Font Name. the Up or Down Arrow keys on your keyboard and watch When you type in some characters, the font list will shrink as your selected text takes on the appearance of the next to display only the fonts whose name contains those char- font above or below your current font in your font list. You acters. A search for “Garamond Bold It” collects fonts from can now do the same thing in InDesign and Illustrator CC by multiple foundries. clicking on the downward-pointing triangle to the right of the font name, which displays your list of fonts. Pressing the Arrow keys will scroll up and down through the fonts and update the selected text in the document to the currently highlighted font in the list. FONT FAMILIES GROUPED AND INDENTED (ID & IL) In InDesign and Illustrator CC, font family members (styles) FAVORITE FONTS (ID) such as Light, Bold, Italic, and Condensed are now hidden InDesign still groups recently used fonts at the top of its and grouped under the main name of the font family in the font lists, and you can control how many fonts it remem- drop-down list of bers—and whether they’re listed alphabetically or in order fonts. To see them, of most recently used—in the Type preferences. To sort your click the downward- recently used fonts alphabetically, choose InDesign (PC: pointing triangle to Edit)>Preferences>Type, and check the Sort Recent Fonts the right of the font List Alphabetically box. But InDesign CC adds a new organi- family name to see a list of your fonts. zational twist: Favorite Fonts. To add a font to your personal When you click the disclosure triangle list of Favorites, click the star to the left of its font name. To to the left of a font family name, the view your Favorites, click the downward-pointing triangle at font family members appear indented the right of the current font name, and tick the checkbox under the family name. Click the tri- labeled Show Favorite Fonts Only. angle again to hide them. Note that you can still choose font family members from the drop-down menu next to the font name in the Control panels for both InDesign and Illustrator. › › photoshop user › december 2013 the beginning of a font name in the Font feld of the Control Fonts feature is available in the Control and Character panels, FIND PARTS OF FONT NAMES (ID & IL) In previous versions of InDesign and Illustrator, you could type As with the Search feature mentioned above, the Favorite or Character panels to see only the fonts whose name begins with those letters. However, many font names begin with the but not in the main Type>Font menu. font foundry (Adobe, ITC, P22, etc.) instead of the font family name (Garamond, Franklin Gothic, etc.), so finding all the Garamonds at once was impossible. InDesign and Illustrator CC TYPEKIT (PS, ID & IL) In the November 2013 issue of Photoshop User, this column now have a search option that fnds all the fonts whose name contains those characters, even if they appear in the middle of Cloud apps. The short version is that Adobe has made hun- the name. dreds of fonts available to every Creative Cloud subscriber. To use it, click the magnifying glass icon to the left of the focused on Adobe’s integration of Typekit into Creative 094 font name in the Control or Character panel (oddly, this option To get yours, go to the Creative Cloud app, click on the

› › THE ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD Fonts tab, and click the button labeled Browse Fonts on click on any of the bottom row of icons. If they’re grayed Typekit. That will take you to the Typekit website where you out, the font doesn’t support that OpenType feature. Hover can explore and select fonts. Some are in a format that can your mouse over any of them to see their names. only be used on websites, while others include both Web Illustrator has a dedicated OpenType panel with similar and desktop versions. The Web fonts remain on Adobe’s controls. Choose Window> Type>OpenType. servers and are served up when people visit websites that To access the OpenType specify them in their design. The desktop fonts you choose features in InDesign, you will be automatically downloaded to a hidden location on need to jump through a your computer and activated for use in any application. few hoops. After applying When your subscription to Creative Cloud ends, the Web an OpenType Pro font to fonts discontinue being served and the desktop fonts are your selected text, choose removed from your computer. Note that the Package fea- OpenType from the either the Character or Control panel flyout ture in InDesign and Illustrator will not collect Typekit fonts, menu. Be sure to explore the Stylistic Sets, which are combi- so everyone who opens your document needs to already nations of that font’s special features as chosen by the font own the fonts or have access to Typekit. designer. If an option has brackets around it, that feature isn’t available in the current font. ADVANCED OPENTYPE FEATURES (PS, ID & IL) Adobe has done a remarkable job of hiding the most creative features available in advanced OpenType fonts. An advanced OpenType font usually has “Pro” in its name, and includes a remarkable amount of intelligence. For example, some have multiple alternate glyphs (letterforms) for various letters, which you can use to give a unique appearance to your name or other important words in titles, captions, postcards, and so forth. Others choose variants of glyphs for you when they appear next to other specifc characters (e.g., fractions or special ligatures such as fi, f , T , or st). Some even provide increasing levels of “swashiness” in a script font. For example, Adios Script Pro’s lowercase “h” has 43 variants and the entire font has a stag- gering 1,470 glyphs. Both InDesign and Illustrator have a fantastically useful Glyphs panel that shows every glyph (character) in your cur- rently selected font. For both InDesign and Illustrator, go to Type>Glyphs. The Show menu can whittle down the grid to show only the punctuation, fractions, ligatures, ornaments, alternates, and so forth. If a glyph has a little triangle in the bottom-right corner of its square, it has alternate ver- sions. Choose an alternate To access all this intelligence, first be sure you’re using by clicking-and-holding on an OpenType Pro font. Select some text and begin explor- the glyph until they appear, ing the OpenType areas of the then mousing over to the Character panel, Control panel, one you want. It even keeps and Glyphs panel. Amazingly, track of your most recently Photoshop CC provides easier used glyphs so you can eas- › › www. photoshopuser .com access to OpenType features ily fnd them later! than either InDesign or Illustra- tor. Note the OpenType options Exploring the Advanced OpenType features is similar to explor- that appear near the bottom of ing Filters in Photoshop: you may want to pour a favorite the Character panel in Photo- beverage and dedicate an evening to getting lost in the cre- shop. With some text selected, ative possibilities. Q 095

ho w -t o › › BEYOND PHOTOSHOP SCOTT ONSTOTT Out of This World Animation, Part 1 In the course of this three-part series you’ll learn many animation skills that you can apply to images and 3D models. You’ll keyframe everything from layer positions, transforms, and efects to 3D scenes, meshes, lights, and cameras. Develop out-of-this-world skills in Photoshop CS6 Extended and Photoshop CC. STEP ONE: In part 1 of this series, we’ll set up the animation project by preparing its assets. All of the source images in this project are courtesy of NASA. Open EarthTopography.jpg. To convert this 2D map into a texture-mapped 3D sphere, choose 3D>New Mesh from Layer>Mesh Preset>Sphere. If your work- space doesn’t automatically switch to 3D, choose 3D from the Workspace drop-down menu on the right of the Options Bar. In the 3D panel, select Infnite Light 1. In the Properties panel, uncheck Shadow and increase Intensity to 140% to brighten the sphere’s texture map. Step One [NAPP members may download the fles used in this tuto- rial at http://members.photoshopuser.com/magazine/issue/ december-2013. The download also includes the series’ com- pleted animation. All fles are for personal use only.] STEP TWO: Press V to select the Move tool and click the Ro- tate the 3D Object icon in the Options Bar (frst icon in the 3D Mode section). Click-and-drag the Infnite Light 1 until its source (circled) is in the upper-right corner of the document. Rotate it forward slightly so that Southeast Asia is illuminated. If you need to change the orientation of the Earth, click on Sphere in Step Two the 3D panel, and then click-and-drag in the document. STEP THREE: You’ll make the Earth more realistic by add- ing a bump map simulating 3D topography. In the 3D panel, expand the Sphere node (if it isn’t already), and select the Sphere_Material. In the Properties panel, click the folder icon for the Bump slider and select Load Texture. Select EarthBump.jpg from the download fles, click Open, and drag the Bump slider › › photoshop user › december 2013 STEP FOUR: Press Command-R (Ctrl-R) to show the rulers (if to 7% to reduce the strength of the effect slightly. they’re not already showing). Right-click the top ruler and select Inches from the menu. Select the Move tool, then click the Slide the 3D Object icon in the Options Bar (fourth icon). Click-and- drag upward in the document to effectively slide the camera backward in space. Continue dragging until the Earth measures dow. In the Layers panel, double-click the Background 3D layer and rename it Earth. Save the document as Animation1.psd. 096 approximately 1\" in diameter, centering it in the document win- Step Three

› › BEYOND PHOTOSHOP STEP FIVE: Open LunarLandscape.jpg. Select the Magic Wand tool (nested under the Quick Selection tool [W]) and in the Options Bar, set Tolerance to 25, and check Anti-Alias and Contiguous. Click anywhere in the blackness of space to select everything but the Moon. Open the Layers panel and double-click the Background layer to unlock it. Type Moon in the New Layer dialog and click OK. Press Delete (PC: Back- space) to clear the selection and Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect all. Right-click layer Moon and choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu. Step Six STEP SIX: Choose Window>Arrange>Float All in Windows. Shift-click-and-drag the Moon layer thumbnail from the Layers panel into the Animation1.psd document window. Right-click the ruler and choose Percent. Press V to select the Move tool and Shift-click-and-drag the Moon layer down so that the highest part of its surface is approximately 75% of the way down from the top. This establishes the perspective of the viewer on the Moon. STEP SEVEN: Choose Layer>New>Layer, type Starfeld in the New Layer dialog, and click OK. Press D to select the default Foreground and Background colors, and then press Step Seven Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to f ll the layer with the Foreground color (black). Choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Set Amount to 50%, Distribution to Gaussian, check Mono- chromatic, and click OK. STEP EIGHT: Press Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to open the Levels dialog. Drag the shadow Input Levels slider on the left all the way to the right to reduce the number of stars. Drag the highlight Output Levels slider on the right to the middle of the range to reduce their intensity, and click OK. Drag the Starfeld layer to the bottom of the stack in the Layers panel. Step Eight STEP NINE: Open Sun.jpg, double-click the Background layer, rename it to Sun, and click OK. Select the Ellipse tool (nested under the Rectangle tool [U]), and choose Path from the drop-down in the Options Bar. Dragging from the center of the Sun, press-and-hold Option-Shift (PC: Alt-shift) and drag a circular path approximately the diameter of the Sun. Select the Path Selection tool (A), click the circular path, and nudge it with the Arrow keys to center it. Command-Option- › › www. photoshopuser .com click (PC: Ctrl-Alt-click) the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a vector mask. Right-click layer Sun and choose Convert to Smart Object. Shift-drag this smart object’s thumbnail into the project document. Step Nine 097

BEYOND PHOTOSHOP › › STEP TEN: Select the Sun smart object, click the Add a Layer Style icon (ƒx) at the bottom of the Layers panel, and select Outer Glow. Click the Gradient radio button in the Structure group, and click the gradient swatch to open the Gradient Editor. Change Gradient Type to Noise, set Roughness to 33%, and click the Randomize button until you get a gradient that has oranges and reds in it. Drag the R, G, and B sliders to refine the color range until the gradient has similar colors to the Sun layer, and click OK. In the Layer Style dialog, set Spread to 22%, Size to 250 px, Range to 100%, and Jitter to 3%. Click OK. STEP ELEVEN: Open Venus.jpg, double-click the Back- ground layer, and rename it Venus. Press U to select the Ellipse tool, press-and-hold Option-Shift (PC: Alt-Shift), and click-and- Step Ten drag a circular path somewhat smaller than the diameter of Venus. Choose the Path Selection tool, click the circular path, and nudge it with the Arrow keys to center it. Command- Option-click (PC: Ctrl-Alt-click) the Add Layer Mask icon. Right- click layer Venus, choose Convert to Smart Object, and Shift- click-and-drag it into the project document. STEP TWELVE: Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to enter Free Timeline button. Toggle off the Venus and Sun layers in the Lay- Transform, click the Maintain Aspect Ratio icon (link) in the ers panel, and save your work as Animation2.psd. Options Bar, type 15% in the Width field, and click the Commit icon (checkmark) to reduce the size of Venus. Drag the Venus Next issue, we’ll animate both the Moon and Earth to make layer to the top of the stack in the Layers panel. Open the it look like the viewer is taking off from the Moon and fl ying Timeline panel (Window>Timeline) and click the Create Video toward Earth. Q › › photoshop user › december 2013 098 Step Twelve ALL IMAGES COURTESY NASA



column › › THE SMALL BUSINESS AND FREELANCE COACH LARRY BECKER Question Everything Asking questions can help you better understand your business, open new markets, have happier customers, and be more successful. Some questions will prompt you to say, “Yeah, I should probably do that.” There are also ques- tioning strategies you can apply to a specifc business effort that will breathe new life into everything you do. Chances are that you’re reading this column because you’re she was doing things in ways completely opposite from conven- wondering if there’s something that can help you with your tional wisdom, and opposite from the way she was taught. business. Maybe you didn’t go so far as to self-analyze and think She had learned the stereotypical, conventional approach of hard about your motivation to fip to this particular page, and building a storybook wedding album and not letting the bride focus your attention on these specific words; but somewhere see anything until the album was done; but she realized that her in your feeting thoughts you’re probably reading this to find audience was made up of young brides who grew up with the some answers to questions you have about being successful and Internet, fipping through online images their whole lives. So, effective in business. she changed her business model to uploading every single shot from each wedding as soon as possible—usually within 24 hours. INTENTIONALLY ANALYZE AND QUESTION She realized quickly that the young brides were logging onto In business, it’s always good practice to intentionally ques- her website, feverishly clicking checkboxes by each image they tion things, yet so many of us get so caught up in our normal liked—and they were doing it on their honeymoon! The result workflow that we don’t stop to analyze. With respect to was that brides were building wedding albums far larger and general productivity, some obvious questions you can ask to more expensive than any prebuilt album the photographer had analyze if you’re being effective might include: Is this project ever done before. going to increase my income? Will this reduce my workload? Sure, she can still provide the traditional album-building ser- Is this the most efficient way to do it? Is this customer really vice for those who want it; but most of her customers don’t. The worth the trouble? way it is now, her brides do a big part of the work for her, and While you should use most of these questions from time to they buy lots of images. time to analyze your workfow and the effectiveness of various There’s another sales method that’s popular these days among processes in your business, that last one might make you smile photographers across the country: using a big projector. Presenta- a little because it sounds like a question we’d mutter quietly tions consist of clients on a comfortable couch, reviewing their when putting up with a demanding customer. In one of my images in a slide show run by the photographer, or by an expert columns last year, in fact, I even covered the 80/20 rule that salesperson from his or her staff. says specifically 80% of your income comes from 20% of your This method definitely has benefits and can be especially customers, so if you can trim the less-productive customers impressive when presented properly, for example: If you were from your roster and find more that are like your best 20%, hired to take portraits or family photos, you might also take some you can grow your business. reference shots of the family’s livingroom (because you had asked Beyond these tried-and-true self questions, there are some about the intent of the images you’d be shooting before you took › › photoshop user › december 2013 These questions are a two-way street: Giving you information Seeing the finished prints as they’ll look when hanging on the wall them). Then you could use Photoshop to render what the finished questions (listed below) that can help improve your place in the images would look like on a large canvas on the livingroom wall. market, and the relationship you have with your customers. is a powerful selling tool, and it invariably pushes people to buy you can use to help your business; and reaching your customers larger prints. in even more effective ways than your best marketing messages. But this really works well only when you ask questions up front HOW WOULD CUSTOMERS PREFER TO REVIEW about the final use of the images. THEIR IMAGES PRIOR TO BUYING THEM? As working professionals, we have an idea about how we want DO YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT DIGITAL VERSIONS to get images we create to our customers. Maybe we’ve been delivering prints in a specific way for years, but there might be When asked about digital files, the knee-jerk reaction most photographers have is that they have zero interest in providing a better way to do things. Last year, I reported on a young lady them. When using film, they never gave out the old negatives, who was an incredible success at wedding photography, and OF IMAGES? 100