How to clean photographs using Photoshop - Tutorial

How to touch up your photographs in Photoshop

Here’s a basic tutorial on cleaning up your images using Photoshop CS2. The procedure should be the same for Elements, too, I think. I hope this will be useful when trying to make something out of those millions of images you shot while on vacation of cars, trees, dust, sky, water, trees and cars.

Step 1

Open the image to be edited in Photoshop. I’m sure you all know how, but just in case Suraaj is reading, Go to File>Open. :-)

Now, Close all the unnecessary panels in Photoshop. You can do this by clicking on the little x at the top right of each box. Do so for all except the Tools and Layers boxes, since you won’t be needing the rest for this “operation”. So it will look something like this.

Step 2

Now, the first thing to do is to press “Shift+Ctrl+L”(Or if you like the hard way, Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels). This will invoke the “Auto Levels” feature, which will try and predict what the picture’s overall colour is supposed to look like. If you don’t like what it does, simply press “Ctrl+Alt+Z”. Now, press “Ctrl+L”. This will bring up the manual Levels adjustment box, which looks like the one below. Mess around with it till you get a satisfactory look in your image. As you might see, dragging the things under the graph and at the bottom will reduce and increase the contrast and brightness in the image. Also, you can do this for each colour too. Experiment.

Step 3

Press “Ctrl+M” to bring up the “Curves” dialog. This will let you increase and decrease the brightness of select parts of the image. To do so, while the box is open, hold “Ctrl” and click on the parts of the image where you think the brightness is enough already, for example the sky, or a window in a room. Each time you click, a small dot will appear on the graph, holding that position. Then, click on a part of the curve, and see what happens. After a while, you’ll get the hang of it, and be able o adjust the thing so that jus the dark bit in your image are given some light. If you have, overall, a bright picture, then the process is reversed. i.e., “Ctrl”+click the dark areas.

Step 4


Saturation – Press “Ctrl+U” to bring up the Hue & Saturation dialog. This lets you alter the “freshness” of the image. Click on the slider under “Saturation” and slide away. Big alterations are not recommended unless you want people to look like tomatoes. Usually, +/- 10 works. You can play with the Hue if you want your subjects to appear alien like and display a range of comic book emotions, like jealousy(100) and anger(-30). What it does is, it replaces colours with different ones, as shown in the bar below the sliders. Or you could just click “Colourize”, and see what happens!





Step 5


Noise is common, and no one likes it, unless it’s blocking horrible music. To get rid of it, Click on “Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise…”. Then, Slide around till you get something you like. But try and stay away from the “Remove JPEG artifact” checkbox. In nearly all the images I’ve used it on, it just interprets all objects as noise, and goes forth blurring them. After you get something you like, click Done and take a look at what’s become of the image.



Step 6


If you want to do more, like clean up people’s faces, use the lasso tool to select the faces (Press L and then click and drag around the faces). You don’t have to get the lasso around perfectly. A rough shape will do. Then Right-click on the selection and click “Feather”. Enter a value of about 8 for a four mega pixel image. You’ll see what it does in the image below.



Then, copy that face by pressing “Ctrl+C”, and paste it again using “Ctrl+V”. This will make the face appear in its own layer. This means it can be manipulated separately. Imagine it as shapes made of paper, one on top of the other. Copy and paste various other objects you want to edit separately into more layers. You can rename these layers, for ease of use by double clicking on the layer name in the “Layers” palette(Default names are Layer 1,2 and so on).



Now that you have your objects in separate layers, use some of the tools described above on your disembodied faces. For example, you might want to emphasize a certain magazine in the image, and so you can make it more visible. To see if your work has made the image better or not, keep clicking on the little eye icon next to the layer names, to make the layers visible and invisible. Doing so will let you see whether the modifications are beneficial, or if the face still looks like the one it was originally.
Here are some examples of images done up –


Hotel Room-

Yala-Sloth Bear in Dehiwala-
Just as a note, The end result of the above image can be found at http://lame-duck.com/, and runs a pretty interesting forum.

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Well, that’s it for now folks! If I can make myself get round to it, I’ll make another on using the Rubber Stamp tool. “Why would I want to stamp my pictures with purple ink?” you ask? Well, It’s a wee bit different in Photoshop y’see…

Surveillance cam's in School

Big Brother is Watching.

First the metal detectors, now this. Yup, They're going to fix cameras all over the place. Sometime soon, I think, Because they've already fixed the wires and stuff. I might even be captured by one next Monday...

WHY??? Are we that dangerous? When was the last time there was a report of even a pocket knife in a school? I doubt many of the students have even seen a gun, let alone posses one. If this was America or someplace, then fine, but here?

Okay, say it isn't about security. What if it's for enforcing discipline? Do we need to go that far to get students to stay in class during school hours? Would not that money be better spent on something like, say, renovating classes? Even if the students WERE so unruly as to require constant vigilance on the part of the administration, surveillance like this would completely ruin the fun that is school. Pretty soon our parents will stop saying "Enjoy your school years, they're the best you'll get". I don't think even prisons here have surveillance yet...

Where's the fun in letting out the air from a particularly despised teachers car tire when you'll be shown photographic evidence of your crime the next day? Or of stealthily avoiding the rector only to be caught on tape?

Good thing I'm only here till next August. I just hope the younger students are able to make the best of it...

Farticles

"A farticle with a mass 'm' is connected to a..."
"A WHAT? Sir?"
"Farticle oi! Farticle!"

Yes. Particles. So be the plight of the english medium students in Mahindaland( Actually, they DID name a village somewhere "Mahindapuram"). Where the economics teacher introduces himself with

"Hello boys, I am the Lal!"

Lal being his actual name. Anyway, instead of making my first November post yet another rant about school, I provide here some links that people might find useful for everyday use, and some links to various tutorials on software like Photoshop.

Humour/Satire

http://www.maddox.xmission.com - Updates are few, but content is extremely bone-tickling

http://www.satirewire.com - This is the written form of Dilbert

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php - Great web comic


Tutorial sites

http://www.tutorialized.com - Any design program, You'll find tutorials here

Communities

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com - Very helpful and informative computer hardware forum

http://www.lame-duck.com/forum - The Alternative Forum. Is the new TNL radio forum. Hosted by my brother.



Useful programs

Just search Google for these.

VLC media player - Will play any media format under the sun, With no codecs required. Just install and run.

K-Lite Codec Pack - If you want to install codecs system-wide, this is great.

WinRAR - Will read most of the compressed file formats.

Good Art on display. Look at it.

The latest fruits of my brief labours. Whaddaya think?

GaNgStA sTyLe !!!!! and more !!!!!'s

I noticed that I didn't have any posts for October, And I need more posts, and hence more pages to place advertisements for you to click. So, Being the shallow and materialistic person I am, Here's the next post!


We all listen to music. We all love it, We all blindly follow what the lyricist says. Okay, Maybe not that last bit. But take a rap artist for example. Say 50 Cent or any of the other aspiring "Rapper/Gangstah!" combo's out there. Along with them, you find a flock of ardent followers who will dress like 50, walk like 50 and even think like 50. Yo! You gettin' my vibe fool?

Dear God, Why? What's with dropping your pants and wearing t-shirts two sizes too big? It's not just the dress. They have to talk like that too. "soz howz life dawg" Yup, they can actually use a simple letter at the beginning of a sentence when TALKING. All that's just about bearable, but what drives me up the wall(Not literally, okay?... ;) ) is that these guys use this type of thing when typing too. Come on, You've got a whole QWERTY keyboard in front of you, try using all the keys. And just bueacse msot poelpe can raed txet lkie tihs, Doesn't mean you can type like that, dawwg. I see some profiles on various social networking sites(No, I don't use them, I was doing some...research) and I see stuff like

"dis doods tha kewlest guy ppl!!!! rock on nigga!!!!"

And

"yo dawg, wassup.............. jus lookin at ur profile an man!!!!!! kewl dood!!!!!"

And sometimes

"yo fool, heard u gots a hair transplant.... gd 4 u dawg! v cn hook up wit da chiks now!!!!!!! don worry i won tell ne1!!!!!!!!!"

And many more exclamations in the comment boxes. How hard is it to spell properly and actually use the "Shift" key? First time with a keyboard? Probably the last because going by the typing, I doubt it'll get you anywhere near a job with a PC involved. Probably be bagging groceries, Or polishing my shoes. And it's not just the "Rappers" who do this. Even the "Extra Weighty Metal" fan's too. With their black clothes and "Rap SUXXX" t-shirts, they parade around the streets saying stuff like "None of it Matters man, We all die in the end anyway", And other such philosophical gems of thought. Most of them are like vampires and are afraid of sunlight, the bible and music other than heavy metal, Because the rest isn't "Real" music.

Wake up suckers, It's all just the hormones and stupidity talking. Get into rehab.

P.S. - Yes, I do listen to rap music sometimes, Even right now, WinAmp is playing Stronger by Kanye West (Great song). And even rock. Linkin Park happens to be my favourite band, and one of my current quick access play lists is Phobia by Breaking Benjamin. But I don't walk around dragging my feet and claiming I'm a "niggah". Nope, I just sit in a corner of the shower and cut myself to see if I can get high... What? ;-)

The Future? I doubt it.

I was in class yesterday and just started wandering what it would be like if I was living in the future. Here's what I thought.

I'd be woken up in the morning by my "Time-Specific Alert device" or Alarm clock, With "In the Morning" by Razorlight blasted in my ear. Being lazy in the morning like most people, I switch it to snooze, and after a couple of minutes I get some sort of water substitute sprayed in my face to wake me, courtesy of the clock's "Aqueous" setting, set by my mother.

Trudge over to the sink and pour some tooth cleaning solution into my mouth, gargle and spit it, And am surprised to find that the bathroom door can't be opened because the nanobots in the solution thought the old pizza stuck between my teeth contained the plague, and hence quarantined me.

After overcoming the paranoid bots, I try my luck at shaving with my newly acquired Gillette Mach64 razor, which contains a 64-Bit processor to help me get rid of all those unwanted facial hairs. It just ends up nearly scalping me. And it says "You are not hairless yet". Well, back to the good 'ol Mach 3 then...

Eventually, I pick up my school laptop and go stand by the road and wait for the bus. My watch tells me the next one will be there in 12 minutes. So I decide to listen to some music on my 4G Zune (Not iPod ;-) ), Only to be told that my mother's set a restriction on it so I can't listen right before going to school. So I wait it out. Bus comes, and the RFID tag in my watch tells the bus to charge my account. Takes about 15 minutes to get to school, And I get off. No more getting on and off the bus before it stops these days :-( . I walk along the street, Kicking away the countless iPod's littering the streets, discarded by people who had seen the light(Heh heh). A cleaning drone with a Sony logo on it was cleaning the mess up.

On my way I pass a Metrocop with a big Apple logo plastered over the back of his head. He smiled at me and said, "Do you require any assistance in...[Short Pause]... Walking, Sir?". I reply in the negatory and he waves me off with "Hail Steve Jobs".(Why am I still thinking of apple?)

I get to school and someone goes "Thamuseta deepu gaana haduwada oi?!"(or, Did you make the sum I gave you?!)

At which point I wake up, Curse under my breath and go back to living in the past. Present, I mean.

P.S. - My new sig. Don't know where I can use it yet, though.

My Teacher! No, It's not an "I love my teacher" post.

The mathematics teacher, to be precise. Why do I mention this Homo Sapien ? Well, Because he has had a huge effect on our lives, Mostly bad.

First off, He could very well be the first Teacher/Politician combo. No, really. We imagine he was one of those dudes who ran around in a bandanna waving a rifle and shouting slogans back in the 80's. It's quite evident that the fire in him, so to speak, has not yet burned out completely, as even in class, he says things like "Is making a sum even close to as hard as lifting a sack of grain"? In Singhalese, of course. He has to keep with tradition, even though it's the "English medium" class. Perfect logic, If you don't understand, congratulations.

Second, he sounds like he's trying to speak through his nose. Okay, that isn't so bad, but it adds to the effect. Says "Gnak" a lot. But the best part is, He's totally anti-capitalist. He sees a guy chewing gum, and says "You fellows will eat any dirt those foreign buggers make". Or even better, "Who ever benefited from learning to work with computers?". Yes. He said that. Maybe he thinks Mao was the richest man in the world. Can you blame him? He probably lives with poultry in his bedroom, And goes hunting for wild boar around Maharagama. "It's just a machine which shows pictures when you press buttons". I can hear you all screaming HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS GUY BECOME A MATHEMATICS TEACHER IF HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT COMPUTERS DO?

Point is, he's a weird character. And I now realize I have nothing left to write. And that I probably just wrote this because the blog was looking awfully starved of recent posts. Yeah. Hey, Don't read this post.