elements 3 11 more layers - wofford...

Lesson 11 Elements 3 – More Layers January 29, 2007 David Whisnant

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Photoshop Elements 3 – More About Layers

Adjustment Layers

On disadvantage of the Undo History feature is that the Photoshop processing history of an image is not saved with a file when it is closed. As long as the file is open in Elements, the processing history is there, but if the file is closed the history is lost. This means that, once a file is closed, you will not be able to adjust any of the changes you have made.

This is where Adjustment Layers come in. A few of the most important Light and Color adjustments in the Enhance menu (Levels and Hue/Saturation in particular) also are available as layers. If you add a Levels Adjustment Layer, you make the tonal changes on the layer rather than the original picture. The Adjustment Layer is saved as part of the image, so that if you open the image’s file later, the layer will still be there and adjustments can be altered if you should so desire.

Open Harbor.jpg and save it as Harbor_1.psd.

Choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Levels from the main menu.

After being asked a name for the layer, you will see the Levels histogram for the image.

If you view the Layers palette, though, you will see that the image now has a second layer. The new layer is a Levels Adjustment Layer, as symbolized by the histogram icon in the Layers palette.

Use the Levels histogram to improve the tonal values of the image. When you are through, save the image as Harbor_2.psd and close the image.


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Open Harbor_2.psd again. If you view the Layer palette, you should see that the Levels Adjustment Layer still is there.

Double-click on the histogram icon in the layer. This should display the Levels histogram of the image again. You should find that you can adjust the tonal levels of the image again.

Close the file.

Adjusting the Levels of Individual Colors

So far, when we have adjusted the tonal values of an image using the Levels histogram, we have adjusted all of the colors at once. It also is possible to adjust the three colors (Red, Green, and Blue) individually, which sometimes is a useful way to change the color of an image.

Open LivingRoom.jpg and save it as LivingRoom_1.psd. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer.

In the Levels histogram, select the Red channel and adjust the levels of the red colors in the image.

Select the Green channel. The histogram for this channel looks well-exposed and does not appear to need adjusting.


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Finally, adjust the levels of the Blue channel.

You should find that the color of the image is more acceptable now.

Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

Open LivingRoom.jpg again and save it as LivingRoom_3.psd. This time, create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer.

In the Adjustment Layer, adjust the hue and saturation of the image to give more acceptable colors. Does this work better than adjusting the colors with Levels?

Drop Shadows and Layer Styles

We used drop shadows in the previous lesson to give text a shadow. A drop shadow edge also sometimes can be a nice touch on pictures, because the shadow makes them appear to float above the background. In particular, pictures with drop shadows can have a nice effect on a web page. Open SophiaPark.jpg and save as SophiaPark_1.psd.

Create a duplicate layer of the background, so that you have a second layer that is a copy of the first.


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Let’s add some canvas around the image so we can see the drop shadow when we add it. Select Image, Resize, Canvas Size from the main menu and expand the canvas to a width of 6” and a height of 6”.

In the Styles and Effects section of the Layers palette, select Layer Styles, Drop Shadows, and High. You should see a drop shadow somewhere around the image. The position of the shadow will depend on the style settings.

To change the position of the shadow, select Layer, Layer Style, Style Settings from the main menu.


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For example, changing the Lighting Angle to 141o and the Shadow Distance to 42 pixels will make the shadow look like shown in the picture at the right.

Try different lighting angles and shadow distances to see what you like best.

When you are through, you may crop the image, leaving the shadow within the uncropped area.


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Layer Masks

Open the image Spires.jpg and save it as Spires_1.psd.

This picture of a glacier in Alaska is potentially a good one, but has a lot of exposure problems because of the high contrast and the haze in the air from forest fires on the day it was taken. The spires in the foreground are fairly well exposed, but the mountains and sky behind are washed out.

The Levels histogram for the entire picture looks pretty good, so it doesn’t look like we can do much by changing the image as a whole.

Instead we are going to need to work on the image a piece at a time. We can do this by masking out sections of the image we do not want to work with.

Choose the Selection brush and switch to Mask mode with Overlay Opacity = 100% and Hardness = 50%

Select the ice below the mountains. It will appear that you are painting the ice with red, but you are not. The red simply indicates the masked area that will be protected when you make changes.

Feather the selection to soften the boundary between the selected and unselected areas.


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Create a new Levels Adjustment layer. When you do, the red will disappear from the image.

Look at the Layers palette. An Adjustment Layer has two parts – the adjustment it makes, Levels in our current example, and a Layer Mask that determines where the adjustment is applied. The Layer Mask is the rectangle on the right. Usually this rectangle is white, indicating that the Layer Mask is transparent and that the adjustment will be applied to the entire image.

If you look at the Layer Mask for the Levels Adjustment Layer you just created, you will see that the bottom of the Layer Mask rectangle is black. This indicates that the bottom of the Adjustment Layer is masked and that Levels changes that are made will not be applied to the black area, which is screened by the Layer Mask.

Click on the Levels Adjustment Layer in the Layers Palette.

Move the midtone slider on the Levels Adjustment Layer to the right to darken the picture. Note that only the unmasked portion of the image is changed. Save as Spires_2.psd

Using the Selection brush, mask out the ice and the first mountain, leaving the rocky mountain and the sky in the background unmasked. Again, feather the selection.

Create a second Levels Adjustment Layer, which will have a Layer Mask created by the selection. Slightly darken the mountain in the background by moving the midtone slider. Save as Spires_3.psd


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Composite Images – Adding a New Sky to a Picture

Another major problem with this picture is that the sky is washed out. It would be a better picture with a blue sky and a few clouds. Let’s add a new sky to the picture.

Open another picture, Clouds.jpg, which has a blue sky and a few wisps of clouds in it. Save it as Clouds_1.psd

When you copy a portion of one picture into another, you want the two pictures to be as similar as possible in size and resolution. Select Spires_3.psd. Use Image, Resize, Image size and write down its width, height, and resolution. Click on Cancel.

Select Clouds_1.psd and, with Resample checked, resize it so it has a size and resolution close to that of Spires_3.psd

Using the Rectangular Marquee Selection tool, select a portion of the sky in Clouds1_.psd and Copy it.

Select Spires_3.psd. Paste the sky on the picture (which creates a new layer) and then move it to an appropriate place using the Move tool.

Adjust the brightness and contrast of the sky layer with Levels.

Change the Layer Opacity of the sky layer to 60% to allow you to see where the mountain lies in the underlying layers.

Use the Eraser tool to erase the portion of the sky that overlaps with the mountain. It may be helpful to magnify the image to 400% with the Zoom tool when you are erasing around the edge of the mountain.

Adjust the Layer Opacity of the sky layer to give it a pleasing appearance. Flatten the image and save it as Spires_4.psd.


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Adding a Sky and Varying its Color 1

Open Botanical.jpg and save it as Botanical_1.psd. This picture could be improved by the addition of a blue sky.

Create a duplicate layer so we can work with a second layer rather than the original

Open a second sky picture, AnotherSky.jpg, select the entire picture (Select, All), and copy it.

In the Layers Palette, select the original Background Layer. Paste in the sky, which will create a sky layer. When you have done this, the Layers Palette should look like the picture on the right, in which the sky layer is between the other two layers.

Select the upper Background Copy layer. Using the Magic Wand selection tool, which has been set to 15% Tolerance with Contiguous unchecked, select the white sky. You should notice that this also has selected several small areas in the interior of the image. Use the Selection Brush to remove these portions (Alt key depressed).

Delete out the sky you have selected and deselect the area you deleted. Because the white sky in the upper layer has been deleted, the blue sky in the underlying layer shows through.

If you Zoom in to 400%, you probably will find that your selection was not perfect and that there are a lot of light pixels on the edges of the trees where the sky was not removed.

Use the Clone Stamp tool to cover these light spots with copies of the leaves in the trees. This will make the trees slightly larger than they actually are, but who will ever know.

1 Sue Chastain. “Replacing a Dull Sky in Photoshop Elements.” http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/ss/replacedullsky.htm

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/ss/replacedullsky.htm


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At this point you should see a deep blue sky behind the building.

The current picture is better than the original, but looks somewhat unnatural. Real skies are seldom this deep blue. Real skies also vary in tone, getting lighter as they approach the horizon. We need to work on the sky layer to make it more realistic.

Creating a Gradient Layer Mask

We are going to create an Adjustment Layer with a Layer Mask that varies continuously from dark at the top to light at the bottom.

Select the sky layer and click on the Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers Palette.

Choose a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer. Don’t do anything with the Adjustment Layer right now – click on OK.

Click on the Layer Mask section of the Brightness/Contrast layer in the Layer Palette. This will select the Layer Mask.


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We are going to modify the Layer Mask with Gradient Tool so that it will gradually change the shade of the sky to make it get lighter as you look down the picture.

Choose the Gradient Tool.

In the Gradient Tool’s Options bar, make the choices shown below.

Do the following:

1. Click on the Open Gradient Picker triangle. 2. Display the Gradient list by clicking on the small

triangle in the Gradient Picker menu 3. Choose the Default gradients 4. In the list of Default gradients, choose Black,

White.

In the Layer Palette, again click on Layer Mask for the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer to make sure it still is selected.

Position the cursor at the top of the picture as shown at the right, hold the left mouse button down, and pull the mouse down in a straight line until it reaches the lower edge of the roof, which is slightly lower than any of the sky.


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If you look at the Layer Palette again, you will see that the Layer Mask for the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer has gradient in its upper half that varies from black to gray to white. This indicates that the Layer Mask will gradually mask the adjustment less and less as you move down the picture.

Click on the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer and set the brightness to around 75 or 76

You should see that the sky now gradually lightens as your eye moves down the picture. The gradient Layer Mask screens out the change in brightness at the top of the picture and progressively screens less as the gradient becomes lighter.

The sky now looks much more natural.

I think the sky is still too deep blue, though. To fix this I selected the sky layer and set its opacity to 63%, which lightened the sky.


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Practice Problems

1. Ice.jpg

Use a Levels Adjustment Layer to brighten the photo.

Use a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to increase the saturation slightly (10 – 12% or so).

Note that you can change the Levels and Saturation of the image again if desired.

2. Church.jpg

Choose the Magic Wand selection tool and set it at a fairly high tolerance (maybe 60%) with contiguous not checked. Select the sky that is fairly well exposed, leaving the darker foliage unselected.

Use Inverse on the Selection menu to invert the selection (all but the sky is now selected).

Choose the Selection Brush set on Mask. This will mask out the sky. Finish selecting the church spire with the Selection Brush so that the church also is masked out.

Feather the selection.

Create a Levels Adjustment Layer for the selected area and brighten the lower portion of the picture. You may need to adjust the midtone slider as well as one of the end sliders

Create a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer for the entire picture and increase its contrast slightly

3. Grief.jpg

Do what you need to do to add a drop shadow that looks like this picture.


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4. Grief.jpg

Using Sky.jpg, add a sky to the picture. Erase the flat stone from behind the woman’s figure so that the sky can show through. Create a Gradient Layer Mask to slightly vary the sky’s brightness from top to bottom.

5. Hall.jpg

Make obvious changes

Lighten the inner hall without lightening the windows

Use an Adjustment Layer to slightly increase the contrast of the image

Use an Adjustment Layer to slightly desaturate the image

Sharpen the image

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