Tuesday 25 September 2012

Yr8 PHOTOSHOP: Improving photos

YEAR 8: Your challenge: to learn how to apply a range of Photoshop tools to enable you to improve and transform a range of damaged photos. You will then promote this valuable skill by launching a new photo improvement shop, creating a logo and slogan for this and finally a brochure to showcase what your business can offer to the public, including several before and after snaps!
For two lessons you will be learning how to touch up photographs using various Photoshop tools, then applying these skills to a range of photos you'll include within a brochure ...
After your two lessons working with Photoshop you'll work in Publisher to create a company logo and then a brochure for a business which takes in and improves damaged or poor photographs (you might use other software such as Flash to help create your logo).

KEEP A RECORD (create a Word document, Photoshop tools used, for example) OF THE TOOLS YOU'VE USED. THIS WILL HELP ENSURE YOU GET FULL CREDIT WHEN YOUR WORK IS ASSESSED!
An example of an old photo a customer might bring to you

Here are a few tips on which tools to use for improving photos in Photoshop...

ENHANCE - AUTO-CORRECTION
This won't always work well, but is worth a try. Click ENHANCE from the top menu and try out a few of the options to see what effect these have. This is worth trying out with a new image, but as often as not you'll want to undo (Ctrl + Z) the changes.

THE CLONE STAMP
This is arguably the most important tool you have to improve photos with cracks, folds, dirt etc. Remember, you need to hold in the ALT key to select the part of the image you want to clone, and you'll need to redo this as you move around. The x that appears marks the spot that you cloned. Experiment with the brush too. This site has great videos to help guide you step by step: http://simplephotoshop.com/photoshop_tools/clone_stampf.htm. You could also use this detailed, more text-based, guide: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/retouching-repairing-images.html.
By using the clone tool I've begun to fix the image!


CORRECTING RED EYE
Modern cameras are getting better at avoiding this, but many photographs, old and new, still have this redeye effect. Unless your subject really is a demon you'll want to correct that! When using this tool remember you can experiment with the light/darkness settings to make it more realistic. There's a useful guide at http://www.brainbell.com/tutorials/Photoshop/How_to_Use_Red-Eye_Tool.html.

As you discover useful tools, make a note so you can find and use them again
USING FILTERS TO MAKE A PHOTO INTO A PAINTING!
This article (http://www.bmcphotoart.com/tutorial-impressionist-photoshop-painting/) takes you through the steps you need to apply a filter to create something very different from the original photograph, a service that might help your photo editing business attract some customers! You can experiment with many more filters than the ones shown here.
Also try out FILTER > DUST + SCRATCHES and experiment to see if this can undo some damage to save you a long time using the clone stamp tool.

USING THE IMPRESSIONIST BRUSH
Check the brushes available to see if these offer the ability to make changes to sections of your final image. See this guide: http://garymgordon.com/misc/tutorials/photoshop_tutorial/elements/ref/tool_impressionistBrush.htm. Here's another guide, much more detailed than the first with information on what settings to change: http://www.the-graphics-tablet.com/impressionist-brush.html

FRAMING A PHOTO
You can choose from many frame styles
Especially for photos that you've made to look like paintings by applying certain filters, its useful to be able to offer your customers a framing service so they can hang the image you produce on the wall. Framed images are also popular as gifts! Try clicking through LAYERS > EFFECTS > FRAMES and experiment. Note that frames can only be added right at the end - to a single, flattened layer.
Look at the options on the right of your screen - just above the Layers palette you get the Styles and Effects palette. Select Effects from the first dropdown menu and frames from the second, then pick and modify your frame. 


In the second lesson of four on this you're ready to start taking in orders and turning damaged photos into flawless photos that customers will be thrilled with! You can find a range of damaged photos in the CUSTOMERS PHOTOS folder within the curriculm share/ICT/KS3/Yr8/Photoshop folder. The more of these you can work through the more before-and-after shots you can use in your brochure to tempt in the customers! You could copy some of these into your own My Documents and work on a couple over a lunchtime or two as well!

Not ideal, but if you're struggling to fix 3 photos here's a quick method. This is Photo1 and I've selected the crop tool and drawn round an area which cuts out the fold and tear. Once I click on the green tick I get...
It may not be quite what the customer wants, but we can do this partial fix very quickly. We can also try the auto smart fix from the ENHANCE menu at the top of the screen
ENHANCE>autofix options are hit and miss, but here they've worked quite well to sharpen the image, although we can take more control over sharpening by trying FILTER>SHARPEN from the top menu




We could also add a frame...
...and here it is; hopefully the customer will pay good money for this as a gift (at least once you've also removed the other small bits of wear and tear!)
xx

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