Dodge and Burn, part 3 // Using channels

To end this special Dodge and Burn week, here's one more post about it: dodging and burning using channels. It's fast, it's easy and you can use it as a seperate technique or in combination with other dodge and burn tool(s).

So this is how it works: 

1. It all starts with opening the picture you want to use. In my case it's an image of Marino Vanhoenacker, during his win in the Ironman triathlon in Luxembourg.

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2. Then, open the channels

3. Next: hold down the CTRL or CMD key and click on the RGB channel. You can see that several parts of the picture are selected. 

These are the lighter parts of the image. Make a layer of the selections using CTRL or CMD J. When you go back to your layers you see there are now two layers. Rename the top layer to screen. 

4. Now click on the background layer and go to Channel. Click on the RGB Channel again using holding down CTRL or CMD. Again you see a selection of some part of the pictures . As told in the previous step these are the lighter part of the image. But this time, I want to select the darker parts of the picture. So invert the selection using CTRL or CMD I.

5. Then click on CTRL or CMD J to make a layer of the (inverted selection). Go back to layers and rename this new layer to multiply. 

6. Rename the blending mode of the screen layer to Screen. Rename the blending mode of the Multiply layer to Multiply. 

Voila! There's a picture where we did some dodging and burning using channels!

But, did I like the actual result? Naah, the darks where too dark for my liking. So what did I do? I reduced the Opacity of the layer to a point where I was satisfied with the result. Like I said in some other posts also: make sure that the focus is on the subject of your picture. In this case it's Marino. I want to have the effect in him instead of on the entire picture. So I added a black mask to the screen and multiply layers and I used a brush to white out the areas where I wanted to have the effect.

And this is the end result. 

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Basics: get on your knees!

In a previous post we wrote about the importance of being close when shooting sport: be there were the action is. Close is one thing butbeing low is also important.

Being close is something you can achieve with a zoom lens like a 400 mm. But you can cheat and crop your picture (a lot) to get even closer.
There's no cheating in Photoshop or anywhere else for creating a low point of view. When shooting sports, get down on the ground to be as low as possible.

Where there's no cheating in Photoshop to create a low point of view, you can get yourself some tools to make it a bit more comfortable: a small chair to sit on.

All this talk about getting low when shooting sports. What's the reason behind this? Why do we recommend to be as low as possible?
It's actually the same reason as for being close when shooting sports. You wanna be there where the action is. If you are more or less on the same height level of the play and/or the players, you automatically become part of the game. You can feel the action. Not to mention the ball sometimes...

When shooting from a low point of view, your picture tells a different story then when shooting standing up. You're part of the game. You're in on the action. 

Then again: it's not always possible to shoot from a low point of view. When you go to your local soccer game, you can probably sit low right next to the pitch. But when you go to your favourite top level club you are stuck behind the boarding. That's where you're flexibility as a photographer comes in. Bend and twist and turn a little so you can create your low level shooting point even from behind the boarding. You don't want to tower over the players when shooting, so try and get as close to the action as possible. 

 

It's a decent picture but still, you miss the feeling of being part of it. Being in on the action. 

In the following picture I was at the right side of the boarding and with a 400 mm I could get in close and position myself low. You can feel the action! 

There are sports where it's easy to get low and close to the action. Go to any running or cycling event and if you get there on time, you'll be able to find yourself a cool spot to take some really fab action pictures. Then again, there are sports where you can't get close unless you have an accreditation. If you're serious about your photography, make sure you have some good images posted online and ask for the accredition. 

This shot of current Vuelta leader Tom Dumoulin was taken while I sat ON the road. It was during the Dutch time trial championships I took this image. But only after I got the accreditation I could get in so close on the action.  

Same goes for any big city marathon you go to. Do some reconnaissance of the track, make sure you know where the best light is and get there on time. This is a shot of Hilda Kibet, taken during the Rotterdam Marathon. And again, I was sitting ON the road to be able to shoot from a low angle. 

But heck, rules are meant to be broken. For this shot, during the Grandslam Beachvolley in The Hague, I was high up on the stands because I wanted to get a shot with a different look and feel. 

There's cool sports events everywhere. Just check your local newspaper and Google is your friend.
So get out there, go low and get close. And to top it all off, it does create a stunning image if you can have eye contact too.

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Basics: how to make cleaning fun

I guess it's safe to say that cleaning is not very high on list of favourite things to do, but sometimes it just has to be done. 

In photography sometimes you just have to do some cleaning too. Sometimes there are things going on the background you don't like. And so long you're not working as a photo journalist, you can manipulate (clean) your images. 

Let's start with this picture: I like the way the athlete is portrayed, but the guy in the yellow jacket draws too much attention in this picture. 

One option is to de-saturate the yellows and the orange. But if you ask me, that doesn't do much to improve the picture. 

So here is what I did: I used the brushtool to paint over the guy. To make the yellow-clad guy dissappear into the road. To get the right colour, I used the eyedropper tool: sample the colour and use that colour as your brush colour. With the clone stamp tool and the spot healing brush tool I added more bushes and part of the typical Amsterdam houses. 

Voila! Gone is the yellow and orange distraction in the picture! 

OK, so I also added some more colour into the figure with a hue and saturation layer. With a mask I desaturated the background. The result is a clean picture if you ask me. The focus is on the athlete, as it should be. 

Right. Let's take another example. I took this picture during a MTB race in the south of Holland. Again, it's the people in the background that are a distraction. So I decided to clean them out of my picture. 

First step was using the patch tool to get rid of the woman in the white jacket. The guys in the middle and to the left side of the image were removed with the spot healing brush tool in combination with the stamp tool. 

And here you have the result:

Again it's a cleaner image, with focus on the athlete. Then again: spectators are part of a sporting event, so it's definately not the case that they should always be removed from an image to have a clean image. You just have to decide for yourself where and when to clean up. 

This final image is an example of shooting with an aperture of 2.8 or 4.0 so the background becomes blurred and the athlete is very much in focus. 

Have fun cleaning!

Tutorial / Photoshop: changing colours

This post is dedicated to magic. How to do the magic to come from this first picture: 

To this: 

You might think involves a lot of work and is horrendously difficult. But let me tell you: it's pretty easy to change colours in Photoshop. 

It all starts with: 
1. Opening your image 
2. Next step is to create a new empty layer

So now you've got your background layer and an empty new layer.

3. Next: on the empty layer go to Select > Color Range

    A new popup window appears.

4. With the eyedropper you can pick the color you want to change. In this case I used sampled colors to select the color that I wanted to change. But you also can use the drop down menu: 

 

When you select 'Reds', Photoshop will select all the red pixels. But in most cases you can use the eyedropper and choose the colour you'd like to change.

With Fuzziness you can tell Photoshop what the tolerance is. The higher you set the fuzziness value, the more brightness will be included in your colour change. 

In the Selection Preview you have several options

Right, so you click on the colour you'd like to change. When you see in your preview that Photoshop selects too much or too little you can use the + or - eyedropper. And when all is done to your satisfaction, you click the OK button.

Photoshop now shows you the selected part of the picture. 

In this case I only wanted to change the shirt of the first cyclist. But you can see in this selection that also the shirt of the third rider is selected. That's something I want to change later, using the layer mask.

5. The next step is to create a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer. Click on the icon 'Create new fill or adjustment layer'

And choose Hue and Saturation

Now you get a new window

By dragging the Hue slider to left or right you can change the color to a color that you like. With the saturation slider, you can give it more or less saturation. Use the slides to your satisfaction and then close the properties screen. 

The result of all the aforementioned actions is this: a cyclist with a red shirt instead of a yellow shirt. 

It's a pretty cool result if you ask me, but it still annoys me that there are some additional parts in the picture that have been coloured red, look at the third cyclist for example. Because I was working on layer mask, it's easy to correct this. 

Remember when you are working with layer masks:  

White reveals, black conceals

With an black brush you can paint on the areas that you want to be yellow instead of red. Make sure that your mask is selected. In the picture above you can see all the white parts from the underneath layer.

So here's the final result:

This whole changing colours of the jersey was just for this tutorial. In real life of course this is very much not done. It was for this tutorial that this picture came in handy. Both for the changing colours part and bearing in mind the colours from the colour wheel (see our previous post) 

If you thought this a little confusing with us talking about layer masks, rest assured: the next post is actually about this very subject!