The Photoshop Topic: Questions & Answers

[Hush Little Batman]

I did a search and couldn't find a topic devoted solely to image-editing (and the ones I did find were joke topics) so I figured I'd start one.

I'm pretty sure there are many members here who use, or try to use, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or some other image-editing/graphics creation program and I thought a thread where we could seriously talk about our techniques and such could be fun (and educational).

I'll start off by showing how I took a low-res cap from an episode of JLU and tried my best to spruce up the image.

Here's the original image:


I used Photoshop CS.

1. First thing I did was create a new layer to work on (Layer>Duplicate Layer).

2. Now I corrected the darkened image. If you go into Image > Adjustments, you'll find that there are various ways of achieving this and in this case, the 'Auto Color' option worked well. Newbies should take note - what works on one image doesn't necessarily work on another and this is why most photoshop users always give the same advice ("Play around with the settings") because the truth is that when it comes to PS, there is no one way to do things.

3. I increased the brightness and contrast levels a little more because even though they were raised through the Auto Color mode, the image was still too dark for my liking.

4. Then I got to work on cleaning away those nasty looking artifacts and pixels and I did this by selecting the 'Eyedropper' tool and clicking on Shayera's hair. Using a 'Soft Brush', I began "painting" over her hair with the selected color, effectively removing all the pixels and artifacts. When that was done, I moved onto another area and repeated the process until both she and John were completely "restored", so to speak.

Here's the final image:


Which I'm using in my new avatar.


So there you have it. What do you think? Does anyone want to try their hand at this or perhaps post their own retouched image? Could be fun. :)

[Hush Little Batman]

I started off with this:



And used the Clone Stamp tool to remove the text.

[StoneGold]

[MKTerra]

I do like messing with the Gimp sometimes :)

+ =

At some point I may get around to removing the page line...

[Hush Little Batman]

I do like messing with the Gimp sometimes :)

Good job on switching the heads of the girl on the beach.

Question: what alteration[s] did you make to this pic?

[MKTerra]

Good job on switching the heads of the girl on the beach.

Question: what alteration[s] did you make to this pic?

Boy, I don't remember exactly now... After I copied out the head and resized it to fit the new body, I probably tried a bunch of changes (hue, saturation, lightness, contrast) until the skin colors matched.

I think once I finished that, the hair looked kinda green, so I selected it (repeated uses of the wand and circle/square selectors; Holding Shift to add, holding Ctrl to remove) and adjusted the color balance.

Also, the shaded patches of skin didn't match, so I selected them and filled them with colors picked from the body. I didn't know about the Clone tool yet so I didn't use it, but I think it looks okay.

Later I did learn of the Clone tool, and I used that to draw over the hair jewelry.

[Hush Little Batman]

I meant what changes did you make to the pic below, since you also posted it.

[MKTerra]

I meant what changes did you make to the pic below, since you also posted it.

Oh, that one's unmodified. If you look above, I have

[Picture A] + [Picture B] = [Picture C]

But it's not so noticeable since the pictures are alot taller than the math symbols. A and B were the original pictures I used to put together C.

Maybe I should try upping the text size of the math symbols...

[Hush Little Batman]

Ah, okay I see what you did. Yeah, I guess the first time I missed the math symbols between the pics. :p

[CoffeeStained]

I like Photoshop... my devart manip.

[Hush Little Batman]

I like Photoshop... my devart manip.

Nice work Coffee! Do you have any other pics you've maniped that you'd like to share?

Here's another, very simple one, I did:


Into

[howyadoin]

Then I got to work on cleaning away those nasty looking artifacts and pixels and I did this by selecting the 'Eyedropper' tool and clicking on Shayera's hair. Using a 'Soft Brush', I began "painting" over her hair with the selected color, effectively removing all the pixels and artifacts. When that was done, I moved onto another area and repeated the process until both she and John were completely "restored", so to speak.

I'd use a layer mask for something like that. Gives you a lot more flexibility.

[Hush Little Batman]

I'd use a layer mask for something like that. Gives you a lot more flexibility.

In what way?

[En Sabah Nur999]

How do you change the background color on a wallpaper, say red to black?

[howyadoin]

In what way?

In that the original art is still there; it's just hidden. If you decide after the fact to change something back, it's just a matter of editing the layer mask. You can also use layer masks, adjustment layers and layer sets to adjust colour while still preserving the original source art underneath.