I'm kind of jealous of everyone that gets to go back to school, so I decided I'm going to class too...
I'm going to learn photoshop elements. I'm going through chapter by chapter and trying everything in the manual. Hopefully I will learn some cool things about editing photos. I'm going to post things I've learned on this post, so I can keep track of my progress, and if there is anything that I learn that is interesting, I can share it with others.
I will come back to this post to add more about what I'm learning, and post them at bottom each time.
One of the first things I learned is that a picture should be no more that 650 pixels on the longest side of your photo for computer viewing. That way, when you send it to someone, the don't get this lifesize view of your photo, and it will upload a lot faster. If you are going to be printing the photo, it needs to be about 300 pixels on the longest side. I've saved this photo with both amounts of pixels to see if you can tell the difference on the computer.
I will come back to this post to add more about what I'm learning, and post them at bottom each time.
One of the first things I learned is that a picture should be no more that 650 pixels on the longest side of your photo for computer viewing. That way, when you send it to someone, the don't get this lifesize view of your photo, and it will upload a lot faster. If you are going to be printing the photo, it needs to be about 300 pixels on the longest side. I've saved this photo with both amounts of pixels to see if you can tell the difference on the computer.
The first one is 600 pixels, the second one is 300 pixels...any difference on the computer?
Right now I'm on the chapter about layers. I've made several layers on this photo. On one layer I lighted the background, and darkened the edges. The next layer is where the text is, and the next layer is where Braden, Ej, and Dean are, and I enhanced the color on them. This is the effect of those adjustments..
I tried to upload a file that had not been converted to a JPEG, and it didn't load, so I guess for blogspot, you must convert to a JPEG before posting.
This photo, I removed the background, I posted it to see how it showed up on the blog. Anyone know how to make it a cut out on my blog instead of having a white background? Gives me something to fine out....
On these pictures, the first one is the original. I added a layer with their names on it, selected the outline of them, and 25 pixels out. Then lightened that selected area. Then I inverted the selected area, and blurred the background. Hoping that would make them "pop out" a little.
I'm loving this!!!
Today's lesson: More about layers. Here's the before and after, we had to do a little more with layers before we could move on to Exposure Problems! Be excited...
I learned to separate the people from the background, so they can be edited at different levels. Notice the lady right by Braden's neck...not in the next picture. It was much easier to remove her from background, and then I put the layer of the men over it. That way I didn't have to use the clone tool and go really close to Braden's neck.
Exposure problems
This first picture was overexposed, but with one click, it was so much better. Now I'll try it with a photo that was under exposed....oh this is so much fun!
The underexposed one looks a little grainy after the fix...not too excited about that, I'll read on, next up: understanding the Histogram The third picture here is the one adjusted using the histogram...ok, it was just a lame picture. Last night I was experimenting with manual modes on my camera. So many fun things to learn about!
Histograms
The Histogram....ok, this one was pretty cool! Incase you have ignored the histograms...DON'T! First of all, on your camera, they show you if your exposure is correct, if the "mountain is to far to the left, you are underexposed, to far to the right, over exposed. Using that, you don't have to depend on your little camera screen to check to see if your exposure is correct. On the editing, you can adust the levels on your histogram, and you can see the effects from these next two pictures. The first one is before, the next is after.
I like this fix much better than the exposure fix above! I'm going to try this fix on the photo above to see if it makes a difference...
(and how cute is Deaner!)
These are done by using the histogram on Braden, and the other tools on the background. The first one is the original. As you can see by the photos, I was such a huge help in the flower bed project!
So far, the only way I've been able to get Braden silhouetted is to change my background to white, as he has a white background behind him.....but I'm still working on this one. This is saved in the format Jessica suggested, PNG. If/when I figure out how to make a transparent background, I'll let you know. This may have more to do with my lack of blogging knowledge....I'll work on that next semester!
Okay, not sure this is the quickest way, but it worked! So, back to layers, then in the background layer, I used the paint bucket, and painted it the color of my blog. How did I get the color of my blog you ask? Click on the eyedropper, click anywhere on your photo, and while holding your mouse button down, mover the cursor to your blog background. Then let go, and your new color is in the square in Elements! It's magic! I had to get rid of the cute little line around all my pictures, which means I'll have to put a cute border around them before I upload, until I find out if I can do that on individual photos while editing the blog.
I'm so excited, I got my new camera today....so much reading to do. My old camera was a 6 megapixel camera, and now I'm up over 14 megapixels! So far I've only done reading, not a lot of picture taking....I LOVE owners manuals!!! This weekend I get to go to Kanab to take family pictures for the Jensons. I need to read everything about this new camera so I can take cool pictures for them.
This photo, I removed the background, I posted it to see how it showed up on the blog. Anyone know how to make it a cut out on my blog instead of having a white background? Gives me something to fine out....
On these pictures, the first one is the original. I added a layer with their names on it, selected the outline of them, and 25 pixels out. Then lightened that selected area. Then I inverted the selected area, and blurred the background. Hoping that would make them "pop out" a little.
I'm loving this!!!
Today's lesson: More about layers. Here's the before and after, we had to do a little more with layers before we could move on to Exposure Problems! Be excited...
I learned to separate the people from the background, so they can be edited at different levels. Notice the lady right by Braden's neck...not in the next picture. It was much easier to remove her from background, and then I put the layer of the men over it. That way I didn't have to use the clone tool and go really close to Braden's neck.
Exposure problems
This first picture was overexposed, but with one click, it was so much better. Now I'll try it with a photo that was under exposed....oh this is so much fun!
The underexposed one looks a little grainy after the fix...not too excited about that, I'll read on, next up: understanding the Histogram The third picture here is the one adjusted using the histogram...ok, it was just a lame picture. Last night I was experimenting with manual modes on my camera. So many fun things to learn about!
Histograms
The Histogram....ok, this one was pretty cool! Incase you have ignored the histograms...DON'T! First of all, on your camera, they show you if your exposure is correct, if the "mountain is to far to the left, you are underexposed, to far to the right, over exposed. Using that, you don't have to depend on your little camera screen to check to see if your exposure is correct. On the editing, you can adust the levels on your histogram, and you can see the effects from these next two pictures. The first one is before, the next is after.
I like this fix much better than the exposure fix above! I'm going to try this fix on the photo above to see if it makes a difference...
(and how cute is Deaner!)
These are done by using the histogram on Braden, and the other tools on the background. The first one is the original. As you can see by the photos, I was such a huge help in the flower bed project!
So far, the only way I've been able to get Braden silhouetted is to change my background to white, as he has a white background behind him.....but I'm still working on this one. This is saved in the format Jessica suggested, PNG. If/when I figure out how to make a transparent background, I'll let you know. This may have more to do with my lack of blogging knowledge....I'll work on that next semester!
Okay, not sure this is the quickest way, but it worked! So, back to layers, then in the background layer, I used the paint bucket, and painted it the color of my blog. How did I get the color of my blog you ask? Click on the eyedropper, click anywhere on your photo, and while holding your mouse button down, mover the cursor to your blog background. Then let go, and your new color is in the square in Elements! It's magic! I had to get rid of the cute little line around all my pictures, which means I'll have to put a cute border around them before I upload, until I find out if I can do that on individual photos while editing the blog.
I'm so excited, I got my new camera today....so much reading to do. My old camera was a 6 megapixel camera, and now I'm up over 14 megapixels! So far I've only done reading, not a lot of picture taking....I LOVE owners manuals!!! This weekend I get to go to Kanab to take family pictures for the Jensons. I need to read everything about this new camera so I can take cool pictures for them.
11 comments:
I am proud of you for going back to "school". I have been meaning to learn this program FOREVER but just haven't done it yet! I will be anxiously awaiting your posts to learn from you!
Nice work. I took an online class for photoshop and learned a lot. I get excited about it, but then lose interest/time after a few weeks. Check out jessicasprague.com, she has some cool digital ideas and classes. I was able to take one for free from her and it was awesome.
It looks like you are learning some fun stuff! I thought that the smaller picture looked sharper. Cool stuff!
Where are you taking the class? Good for you, I have the program on my computer in SLC, and hope to be able to pick your brain when we get home. I know I am not going to live long enough to get all off these jillion fotos from Colombia and Costa Rica refined. I'm pretty happy to be able to "crop selection", and have it save to a place where I can find it!
Ok, so the class I'm taking is in my living room, and I'm the only student, and the teacher too. I'm trying to make time every day to read and practice chapters in my book.
How dangerous! Are you going to limit yourself to 15 hours (a day) of "studying"? Are any of these hours going to fall in daylight time? No doubt this will give you lots to think about on your training runs!
You are ahead of me in photoshop!! To select the background layer and edit it differently do you use the magic wand thing to select the people and then invert it? Or is there an easier way? That would be really useful to know.
I think you have a newer version of elements than I do because I don't see where I can edit histograms in mine, but that would be awesome! What version do you have? Maybe I should upgrade.
Also, I've been able to save files as .png and they will upload to the blog without making the transparent areas white. BUT I've noticed on computers other than mine it doesn't do the "silouette"... not sure why that is. I think maybe it depends on what programs they have. Try and see if it works for you. On my blog that's what all my side images of the scrapbook flowers are, on my comp the red background shows through does it do it on yours?
Good luck with your "class", I wish I had time to do that!!
I used the Magic Extractor, on mine, you go to image, and it's in the pull down menu. Make sure to make duplicate layers, so you only have to do it once. I've been saving them in the photoshop format so I can save them in layers, and go back and play with them later. Then when I go to post them I save them as a JPEG also. I'm using photoshop elements 6. Can hardly wait to see what I get to learn tomorrow!
for me to edit histograms, It's in the Layer pull down menu, then New Adjustment layer, levels, new layer, and the histogram pull up.
All I can say is wow! Was all of that stuff there last time I commented? I missed half of it before! Very cool!
Cool. I haven't learned how to do the background thing yet. I do like the histogram thing though. My friend has done some photoshop tutorials that are awesome. Especially the black and white one http://etceterajeri.blogspot.com/search/label/Photoshop
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