Photoshop Tips From Black and White Conversions to Correcting Colour Casts
Why? How could our Photoshop tips help you? Imagine the amount of (otherwise great) photos you discard because they are either a little under or over exposed. Maybe something got in the way of that perfect photo just as you fired or some other minor imperfection made you hit that delete key!
Using Photoshop, I can guarantee you will have hundreds more keepers in your files, I have saved literally thousands of pictures using Adobe’s premier editing suite. In fact I would bet money on you going through ALL of your old photographs and “tweaking” them, I did!
For the last few years, it has added a whole new dimension to my photography. Years ago I built a black and white darkroom in the loft, and it took AGES, and copious amounts of paper and chemicals, to satisfy my creative itch! Needless to say, colour processing didn’t get a look in, I left that to the pros at the labs!
When I first discovered Photoshop, I was baffled and bemused by the sheer scale of what I was looking at, I may as well be learning Japanese! It is the most comprehensive editing software available today and I suspect for a long time. I read up on as many Photoshop tips as I could find from magazines, websites and lately, blogs.
NEW: For the past two years I have been using Kevin Kubota’s Photoshop Action sets on most of my wedding images and find them invaluable. See more info here…Kubota Photoshop Actions
In typically “Me” style, I just loaded a photograph and started to play around, clicking this, sliding that…it wasn’t long before I got very frustrated with the sheer amount of features and effects available and so I shut the whole thing down for a while.
Then I started to read, and to listen to other people and their own Photoshop tips, people who knew what they were doing, and it wasn’t long before I was as “at home” with Photoshop as I was up in the loft in the early 80’s! It is not unusual for me to spend up to 8 hours a day on Photoshop CS nowadays. I run EVERY photograph I take through it whether for minor adjustments, or a full creative splurge!
I will show you simple Photoshop tips and techniques such as turning a somewhat bland photograph into something usable, for example…
A large Spanish Real Estate company, asked me to do something with their logo for an awards ceremony. This is the logo…
This took a lot more work but, once you know how, it isn’t that difficult!
The same company asked me to produce an A1 print based on the Ocean’s Eleven theme using the Directors of the company. Again, using the wonders of Photoshop CS I came up with this. I think they liked it, it is still hanging on the wall as large as life! With today’s technology, online printing services can produce anything from postcards to banners, right from your desktop!
If you are serious about photography and feel that you want to explore a new and exciting avenue, give it a try. Once you get the hang of it, I can assure you that you will Always use it! It will really get your creative juices flowing.
Oh, and you don’t have to have the latest version to get creative. Why not look at Photoshop CS2, a few generations old now but still great software and a lot cheaper than the latest reincarnation!
Review – Adobe Photoshop CS2
There are many other editing suites out there but none come close to Adobe Photoshop in terms of features, functionality and professionalism. However, it is pricey and not feasible for many people. With the amount of programs available, most with free trial, it is easy to end up with a PC that has 5 or more editing programs on it!
Please, please, please just stick to a maximum of 2, otherwise you will get confused as to which one does what and how?
If Photoshop is too much at this stage (both financially and on a learning curve basis), then I would suggest you look at Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or 8 . They are the “baby brothers” of Photoshop, much cheaper and more user friendly. It is also a great start to get you learning all the exiting techniques and alterations you can make.
Update 2012: Adobe have now released Photoshop Elements 11, an amazing update that now includes Content Aware made famous by Photoshop CS5. Check it out below:
One other piece of software I find myself using more and more is ACDSee. It is a fantastic program that allows you to upload from a scanner, burn to a CD, remove red-eye and do most basic editing techniques. Most of all it has the best file viewer facility that I find myself using use all the time.
If you want to scan through all the photos in one of your files, you simply click on the one you want to see and then use the scroll wheel to flick through your pics. That’s not all by a long shot…
For more information and brief review on this great bit of software, click here.
So you know everything about Photoshop?
I wish! There are very few people out there that have the time to learn this package inside out, there is just SO much to it! One of the tutorials that I will give you, is the basic run through that I give each photo I take digitally. I recommend that you try it and see the difference it makes to your photos. Also, as a start have a look through the following Photoshop tips, most of these you will find yourself using more and more as you progress further with Photoshop:
Photoshop Tips
- Erasing objects using Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements 11
- Adding Catch lights to the eyes
- Convert images to black and white
- Correct Red/Yellow colour casts
- Create a vignette effect on your images
- Add a Watermark to your images
- Adjust colour saturation/enhance colours
- Levels/curves/contrast
- Sharpening
- Improve skin tones and increase highlights without Photoshop CS “Highlights” tool
- Using the Paths Tool to Isolate your subject (Page is 500KB approx)
- Remove blemishes from the face
- Straighten Walls
- Adjust Shadows and Colour
- Effective Cloning
- Noise Reduction
- Stitching Panoramas
- Resizing and Printing Photos
- Create Light in Photoshop
You may also like our selection of Video Photoshop Tutorials!
