Introduction to Photoshop for Photographers

Steps to Create a Master Image - Your Workflow One of the most important things you’ll learn in this introduction class is how to approach an image. What are the first steps to take? The second? The third? Having a defined and orderly workflow alleviates much of the stress involved in digital imaging. You no longer have to guess or wonder if what worked for the last image will work for the next one. You’ll know. For this section of the class you’ll want to read Chapter: 17: “Your Workflow, Steps to Create a Master Image.” Overall Color Correction For all types of realistic imagery (and most non-realistic art) consistent and predictable color is a major issue. This class primarily addresses the issue of adjusting the color of your original in Photoshop. Once you are comfortable with using the tools in Photoshop, you can move on to Barry’s Printmaking for Photographers workshop which delves into issues of scanning and digital camera settings for acquiring the best possible information, as well as profiling printers and papers for consistent output. In this section of the course you’ll learn how to use Levels, Curves, and Hue Saturation adjustment layers for initial color corrrection, as well as adjustment layers with layer masks to correct selected areas. You’ll learn what exactly a histogram is trying to tell you about the information in your file. We will discuss the advantages of 16-bit scans as well as using Camera Raw, although we will not go into detail about these topics. We will color correct images that have good highlight and shadow points as well as images that are more difficult and have no good points to set highlight and shadow. For this section of the class, you’ll want to read Chapter 7: “Layers, Layers Masks, Adjustment Layers, and the Layer Comps Palette,” Chapter 19: “Overall Color Correction, “ and Chapter 20: “Correcting a Problem Image.” Perfecting Your Photo Once you’ve color corrected your image, you still have work to do before the file is ready to print. You’ll want to dodge and burn areas to create focus or mood, do your spotting and clean-up, and sharpen the image. In this section of the course, we’ll explore some of the different techniques for dodging and burning other than Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools, including a soft-light layer with either the paint tools or dodge and burn tools, and adjustment layers with layer masks. We’ll also do some spotting and sharpening using Photoshop’s tools such as the Clone Stamp and the Unsharp Mask filter. I’ll demonstrate the differences between using the Unsharp Mask filter on the entire image and the Barry’s ArtistKeys action, Sharpen only edges BH. Preferences How you set your preferences will make a huge difference in what appears on-screen and in your print. We’ll walk through the preferences step by step, so you have a basic understanding of why you’re setting things up the way we recommend in Chapters 3 and 15. Compositing Understanding selections, paths, masks, channels, layers and layer masks are the secrets to great compositing. When do you use a selection tool? When do you save a selection as a channel? Do you feather before or after making a selection? How do you use the Gaussian Blur filter effectively? All this and more is covered in this section of the course. I’ll also show you some tricks with the Extract filter. We’ll work on the Colony Composite from Chapter 18; selections, paths, maks and channels from Chapter 6; and the Extract filter from Chapter 34. Facial Retouching Here, we’ll use the Healing Brush, Patch Tool, Color Replacement tool, and the Liquify filter. I’ll show you how to repair damaged channels with the Channel Mixer adjustment and how to enhance the focus on the face using Curves and Hue/Saturation. We’ll explore how much retouching is enough and how much is too much. We’ll be using Chapter 24: “Desert Al” to do some of the corrections as well as other photos. The Workspace and Production tools In this section we’ll take a look at the improved Photoshop CS File Browser and how it can be used to organize your files. We’ll also see what it takes to create a custom workspace, custom keyboard shortcuts, and how to use actions. You’ll see how two open windows of the same file can be helpful, and how to zoom into the same spot on several open files. The Tools Here we’ll explore the Tool Bar, tool options, and the color correction tools. You’ll learn which tools to rely on and which to ignore. Introduction to paint and texture, blend modes and filters Depending on how much time we have left, we’ll take a brief tour of some of the ways to create special effects in Photoshop including the Blend Modes, Layer Styles, Advanced blending, and Filter Gallery.

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Intro to Photoshop please e-mail us.