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! 

Basics: the colour wheel

It probably comes as no surprise that colours give your picture more impact. The tricky part is: how to use colours? 

So, speaking of colours: there are three categories:  

Primary colours: red, yellow and blue
Secondary colours: green, orange and purple
Tertiary colours: yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green

One way to give your pictures more colour depth, is to use the colour wheel. A colour circle - based on red, yellow and blue - is traditional in the field of art. Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colours in 1666. The idea behind the colour wheel is that complemantary colours give a strong image by using both warm and cold colours. 

Complementary colors are opposite each other on the colour wheel. So for example you can use red and green or blue and orange. By using those opposite colours you add more depth to you photo. 

There is a great blog which explains the use of colours in the foreground and background of your photo. You can also watch this video on Youtube from Serge Ramelli. He postprocessed a great sunset image using the technique of colours to add depth to his picture.

Another way to add colour to your image, is to use colours in the same range. If this aroused your interested, make sure to check out this cool guy: Aaron Nace from Phlearn. He has a really quick and interesting explanation on the use of the colour wheel in this video. More interesting stuff can be found on his site. 

Now go out there and be colourfull! 

Tutorial / Photoshop: the liquify filter

Portraits and photoshop. A marriage made in heaven if you ask me. In this post we'll introduce you to the liquify filter in Photoshop.

Let's start with this picture: 

After a couple of small adjustments in Lightroom, you end up with this: 

To take the magic one step further, open this image in Photoshop: 

So now you have a wealth of opportunities in Photoshop. For this tutorial I'll make some small adjustments using the liquify filter. 

First I created a new background layter (CTRL J). Mind you, all the editing is done in this layer. With the rectangular marque tool I selected the area I chose to edit.  

A pop-up appears: 

Now you can get started on modifying the chosen area(s). Let's take, for example the eyebrows. 

I used a big-sized brush to move the eyebrows slightly up. Same can be done for the mouth and the nose. As I wanted the end result still to be a picture of a pretty girl and not an alien, I tried to make the alterations subtle ones. When you're done, click on the OK button. By disabling and enabling the layer you can see the effect of your actions. 

So this is what my end result looks like: 

Of course you can use this tool to excess, but I prefer to only make subtle changes to enhance the image. 

Two more before and afters. Can you spot the differences? 

Basics: know the rules well, so you can break them effectively

This is not a wisdom we can take credit for. It's the Dalai Lama who came up with these very wise words. And they even apply to photography. 

This post is about the 'rule of thirds'. There's a short explanation on this rule of thirds and we'll show you some examples. And we'll also shed some light on the rule 'always straighten your horizontal line'. 

Let's start with the 'rule of thirds'. 

The rule of thirds divides your image in 9 rectangles, using 2 horizonal and 2 vertical lines. The subject of your picture is placed along those lines. This is where it becomes (even more) interesting: 

1. Here's an example of placing the subject of your picture in the middle of the image. 

When you place the subject along the lines of the rule of thirds the image is stronger. 

Now let's take a look at the next picture: the idea being that an off-center composition is more pleasing to the eye and looks more natural than a picture where the subject is placed bam in the middle of the frame.

So here you have the same picture of the dog, but now he's no longer smack in the middle of the frame. Which one do you prefer? 

This rule of thirds is deemed most important for landscape pictures. Then again: rules are just rules. Know how they work, so you can figure out your best way to break them effectively. 

Then: the horizontal line in your images. When shooting and editing, don't forget to look at your horizontal line. When you talk about pleasing to the eye: it's most pleasing to have a straight horizontal line in your images. So how about when the horizontal line in your picture isn't entirely straight? It's very easy to correct this with Lightroom CC.

To straighten the horizontal line
1. Open the picture and go to the Develop module.
2. Choose Crop Overlay (R)

3. Click on the Straighten tool

4. Draw a line over the horizontal

5. Crop the picture

Et voila! The result is a picture - with the rule of thirds - with a perfectly straight horizontal line. 

Then again, when shooting sports it can work really well to not have a perfectly straight horizontal line. This can give your image more dynamics. Like the image I shot during the uphill race in Åre. 

So, think of this post. And the Dalai Lama. Know the rules so you can break them effectively! 

Basics: know when to stop...

It goes without saying that one of the most important elements in photography is light. This blog gives some more details about exposure, aperture and other useful terms related to light. 

The amount of light captured whilst taking a photo, is known as the exposure. Exposure is controlled by:
1. Aperture
2. Shutterspeed
3. ISO

The aperture is a hole within a lens through which light travels into the camera body. With a big hole (small number, for example F/2.8), a lot of light will come onto your picture. And thus with a small hole (big number, for example F/16), less light will travel into your camera body. 

Basically, large aperture (f/2.0, f/2.8 etc.) lets in more light to the camera shutter for an exposure, whilst small aperture (f/11, f/16, f/22 etc.) has a smaller opening in the lens. 

After aperture, let's talk about shutterspeed. So a camera shutter is curtain in front of the camera sensor. This curtain stays closed until the camera fires. The faster your shutterspeed is, the faster the curtain will be closed and your picture will be darker than with a slower shutterspeed. 

And then ofcourse: ISO. ISO indicates the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive your camera is to light. A higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera to light. Turning your ISO up to 400 gives you a lighter image than a picture with ISO 200. 

Be in control

These are the basics for good exposure. And good exposure is so very important for great images. Ofcourse you can use the automatic setting but then you have no influence on the actual result. Or you can choose to shoot semi-automatic. This is where for example you set your shutterspeed and the camera then decides on the aperture. You still don't have full control over the entire process. 

I always prefer to shoot manual. Good start is to shoot in Aperture Priority Mode (AV for Canon) and check the result. So set an Aperture (for example F4) and make a picture. Now check the shutterspeed and ISO that was used by the camera. Switch your camera to Manual and now you can be in control. Do you want more or less light? You want to change your depth of field? When making this creative changes, you need to know your stops: 

This table shows you all the details you need to know. It might look a bit tricky but actually it's not. Each step in Aperture, Shutterspeed or ISO is called a stop.

When you go from F2.8 till F4 it's 1 stop. If you are on F11 and want three stops back (more light) you have to change your aperture to F4. It works the same with Shutterspeed and ISO.

So let's take for example this well-exposed image that was shot with the following settings:   F5,6, 1/250 and ISO 200. What to do if you want less depth of field, you don't want the background to be that sharp. 
In this case you should change your aperture to F2.8 or F4. So you go from F5.6 to F2.8. If you take a new image now, it will be 2 stops brighter. You can (should?) compensate this with your shutterspeed and go 2 stops darker there. In this example your shutterspeed then changes from 1/250 to 1/1000. 

And finally, a 4th element can be when you work with flashes. So after aperture, shutterspeed and ISO the power of the flash can be adjusted too. When shooting full power and you switch to half power, the amount of light changes with 1 stop. Depending on your creative goal this gives you a darker image or you can composate it with aperture, shutterspeed and/or ISO as described in this blog. 

Keep the basics in mind and go out there and shoot. Shoot, have fun and get to know your stops. 

Cheat sheet alert!

I guess I don't need to tell you that it can save you some time to know your keyboard shortcuts when editing your photos. I've found this cheat sheet really useful so I thought I'd share it with you. 

Basics: direct flash

The inspiration is flowing! So instead of waiting for the Friday blog, here's a little extra on direct flash. Just this week I took some shots of my son with a one light set-up. I thought I'd share it with you guys. 

It really is a simple set-up with just one Speedlite and a white background, in this case a door,

I put the flash on a light stand, and I got the light stand to be high up. I asked the very patient model to stand against the white door. And this is the result. I've used no modifiers, only the flashlight on the light stand. 

If you want more shadow, move your model a little further away from the background. If you have the room, move the light stand to try different lighting and don't forget to move yourself. Have fun out there!