I thought it would be nice to show all the newcomers the spirit of this community by sharing one (or two) editing tricks you've picked up last year - preferably one that can be done with free downloadable or free online programes like Picnik or Picasa. Of course, newcomers can share as well! And a picture as an example is always appreciated :).
I'll get the ball rolling:
"How to make a fake moon/sun with Picasa":
You need a decent silhouette picture which shouldn't be too hard to come by during winter - it can be trees, birds in trees, other animals in trees or even people. You then open Picasa, turn the picture into b&w, increase highlights and contrasts until the silhouette is very pronounced, then go to the special effects section, colour the whole picture in the colour you want the sun/moon to be in, then choose "selective colour focus" (it might also be called b/w focus, my Picasa is German...) and increase the sharpness of the coloured circle to maximum. Voilá! If you want a bit more colour action you can then use the colour gradient and add a bit of colour to the upper area of the picture.
Wow I love these - must try the fake sun shot some time soon, what a great idea! I always liked pictures that had selective colouring and found I could do it on picnik for free ... take your shot, make it black and white then hit the 'paintbrush' and paint back in the original colour where you like. This is the first one I did, and the best example, though I liked the effect it gave my slice of lemon too. I am the least artistic person but this has given me the chance to experiment and create all sorts of wonderful pictures. So many toys so little time....! Go play!
Open up CS5
I turned the colour photo of the rose firstly into B&W.
Then on the top menu bar click 'Layer' > 'New' > 'Layer' then the New Layer box will pop up and just click ok.
You should now see on the right hand menu bar that you have two little boxes within the Layers main box: titled Layer 1 & Background.
Keep the little 'layer 1' square box highlighted as this is the layer we are going to work with, but on your screen you will still see your main photo.
Oh the left hand side tool bar, there is a little square above the drip and below the eraser, this is the 'gradient tool'. Click that box and in the top menu a gradient bar will appear with a little down arrow next to it. By using the down arrow you can select which type of gradient you want to use. For the rainbow effect, you will need a 'colour harmonies', select that one and the gradient will appear in that box.
Now moving back to the right hand side menu, there is a sub menu which will prob say 'Normal', change that setting by clicking the arrow and scrolling to 'color'
Now take your cursor and click on one point on your photo and drag it over to another point. Top to bottom, side to side or from the center outwards, etc.. It dont matter which way you use it as long as the levels are what you are looking for.
You will see that the gradient layer now is seen through your photo. On the right hand menu, you can play with the 'fill' and the 'opacity' to get the level and depth of the gradient coming through that you prefer.
Once you have the effect to your requirement click back on the Menu bar at the top 'Layer' > 'flatten image' this will combine the layers, and save the photo as you wish.
Once you know these simple few steps you can have a lot of fun playing with the gradient layers :o)
You can do the same with anything, like smoke shots, for which I have used the same principle
@michelleyoung : I'm sure you've posted this before and I have tried rainbow layers many times but you know what? Just the little hint with the "colour" selection on the layer bar made ALL the difference! There I was struggling with the plastered on look, if you choose "normal". Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
How to do selective colour in Picnik.
up load photo, click on effects, change to black and white (can also do sepia), you will see a little box pop up, press the blue paint brush icon, simply use brush to erase the black and white.
you can make the brush bigger and smaller and zoom in (bottom right corner) to get the fine detail. simply save and up load :-)
these pics of mine were done using free picnik software
@filsie65 oh this is great, I really wanted to know how to do this - i have an app on my iphone - Colour Splash I think ,but it's a bit of a faff emailing a photo to my iphone, downloading etc...I will certainly have a go at this now
I used a variety of editing tricks here: SC from iSplash (cheap app), Faux HDR, and finally www.tiltshiftmaker.com which is wicked fun to play with (and free)!
@michelleyoung Excellent tutorial. @jannaellen Thanks for this awesome thread. Looking forward to learn lots more tips in editing and hoping it will become a great resource for newbies like me. @cfitzgerald I'm generally not a big fan of HDR unless tastefully done. This is one of those. I have cs5. How do you do faux HDR?
@ikamera This was done with the ReVitalize app from the Mac App store. I think it was $1.99. I am trying to do it with layers in Pixelmator, but I cannot get it to work there. Thanks for the compliment!
This is not a spectacular tip or trick. However, this is one I had known when I started doing B & W (black and white). When I started doing B & W, I would just use the B & W option on the photo editing software. Then, someone on 365 (wish I could remember who this was, so I could give this person the credit), told me to change the saturation to 0% to change a color shot to a B & W shot. I prefer doing this almost all of the time.
Guys. If you want to do B&W pics, do not stick with Photoshop alone. Try this add-on Nik's Silver Efex 2. It can make any B&W pics GORGEOUS! I used it in my last 3 posted images here. And after that, you may color any portion of it with layers in Photoshop and setting the layer mode to overlay or multiply.
@sarahricho Your selective B&W shots are lovely - very subtle and as a result the effect is totally different to the whap bang effects on mine. I think it's great for folk to see the different ways you can use the tools. Wish I'd found it sooner - I had only found how to do it with photoshop (which I don't have and can't afford) and it sounded so much more complicated I had all but given up! :)
@carli2012@chassitym
Have you tried selective colors in PS? There or doing a new layer in the desired color and changing the opasity or changing it tp a soft overlay?
instead of the gradient filter I used the brush and colored it .... still followed the rest of the tip but it help to get the exact colors where I wanted, don't worry about getting the colors outside of the smoke anything in black dissapears anyway.
@chassitym - I have just discovered Picnik (thanks to people here) and they have some great vintage effects. Also http://pixlr.com/o-matic/ is pretty awesome - good luck, hope to see some of your results
what you need:
steel wool - from a hardware store that is grade 0 to 0000 no other numbers
wire whisk (with a loop at the handle end)
metal cable (um I used a old dog chain/leash)
protective clothing (long sleeved hoodie, hat, long sleeve pants might as well toss safety glasses n gloves in there too for safe measures)
watered down towel (just in case)
Always be mindful of WHERE you do this. ensure enough space, and that there's nothing to catch fire. NO GRASS (unless it just rained heavily)
attach the chain to the whisk
"fluff" the steel wool
put it in the whisk
light it
spin around the sparks in a circluar motion
your camera needs to be on a tripod
cable release works best
30 second or less exposure
F8 (but there's plenty of "wiggle room for this")
ISO 200
*must be at night*
And you need a brave person to spin for you unless you feel like running back and forth.
Another technique was putting a shark in a teapot here - I used GIMP, not sure how much you could do on Picasa or Picnik:
I started with the following two pictures, well the first one isn't the exact starting picture, but the principle holds:
and
This is how I put the meniscus and shadows around the shark picture - I used the teapot picture as a starting point:
* cleaned up the rim by cloning
* created two duplicate layers
* base layer greyscale to put the shark in the right place
* added the shark over the rim - by copying the shark picture and pasting as a new layer - and using 50% transparency - it took a few goes to get the sizes and position right
* moved that layer to the second layer up
* on the first colour duplicate copy added an alpha layer (so cut outs are transparent)
* cut out central water area right up the rim - using lasso to select out the central area, delete, select all, eraser to clean up the edges
* tweaked shark position
* third teapot layer / second colour layer, cut out just the rim and shadows/meniscus using the same steps as above
* the meniscus and shadows were too dark so needed adjusting to work with the shark water colour, but that would distort the other colours in the teapot, which is why the third layer.
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For enhanced sunrise/sunset shots, I increase the contrast, decrease the exposure, then increase the saturation and voila!
to This
Open up CS5
I turned the colour photo of the rose firstly into B&W.
Then on the top menu bar click 'Layer' > 'New' > 'Layer' then the New Layer box will pop up and just click ok.
You should now see on the right hand menu bar that you have two little boxes within the Layers main box: titled Layer 1 & Background.
Keep the little 'layer 1' square box highlighted as this is the layer we are going to work with, but on your screen you will still see your main photo.
Oh the left hand side tool bar, there is a little square above the drip and below the eraser, this is the 'gradient tool'. Click that box and in the top menu a gradient bar will appear with a little down arrow next to it. By using the down arrow you can select which type of gradient you want to use. For the rainbow effect, you will need a 'colour harmonies', select that one and the gradient will appear in that box.
Now moving back to the right hand side menu, there is a sub menu which will prob say 'Normal', change that setting by clicking the arrow and scrolling to 'color'
Now take your cursor and click on one point on your photo and drag it over to another point. Top to bottom, side to side or from the center outwards, etc.. It dont matter which way you use it as long as the levels are what you are looking for.
You will see that the gradient layer now is seen through your photo. On the right hand menu, you can play with the 'fill' and the 'opacity' to get the level and depth of the gradient coming through that you prefer.
Once you have the effect to your requirement click back on the Menu bar at the top 'Layer' > 'flatten image' this will combine the layers, and save the photo as you wish.
Once you know these simple few steps you can have a lot of fun playing with the gradient layers :o)
You can do the same with anything, like smoke shots, for which I have used the same principle
up load photo, click on effects, change to black and white (can also do sepia), you will see a little box pop up, press the blue paint brush icon, simply use brush to erase the black and white.
you can make the brush bigger and smaller and zoom in (bottom right corner) to get the fine detail. simply save and up load :-)
these pics of mine were done using free picnik software
I used a variety of editing tricks here: SC from iSplash (cheap app), Faux HDR, and finally www.tiltshiftmaker.com which is wicked fun to play with (and free)!
@jannaellen Thanks for this awesome thread. Looking forward to learn lots more tips in editing and hoping it will become a great resource for newbies like me.
@cfitzgerald I'm generally not a big fan of HDR unless tastefully done. This is one of those. I have cs5. How do you do faux HDR?
Have you tried selective colors in PS? There or doing a new layer in the desired color and changing the opasity or changing it tp a soft overlay?
@ikamera Thank you :)
@pete21 Many thanks Peter :)
@cavemonster Cave, thank you :)
@jannaellen Janna, I certainly had done ;) And you are so very welcome :)0000
what you need:
steel wool - from a hardware store that is grade 0 to 0000 no other numbers
wire whisk (with a loop at the handle end)
metal cable (um I used a old dog chain/leash)
protective clothing (long sleeved hoodie, hat, long sleeve pants might as well toss safety glasses n gloves in there too for safe measures)
watered down towel (just in case)
Always be mindful of WHERE you do this. ensure enough space, and that there's nothing to catch fire. NO GRASS (unless it just rained heavily)
attach the chain to the whisk
"fluff" the steel wool
put it in the whisk
light it
spin around the sparks in a circluar motion
your camera needs to be on a tripod
cable release works best
30 second or less exposure
F8 (but there's plenty of "wiggle room for this")
ISO 200
*must be at night*
And you need a brave person to spin for you unless you feel like running back and forth.
slow spinning makes them just flop out less
I started with the following two pictures, well the first one isn't the exact starting picture, but the principle holds:
and
This is how I put the meniscus and shadows around the shark picture - I used the teapot picture as a starting point:
* cleaned up the rim by cloning
* created two duplicate layers
* base layer greyscale to put the shark in the right place
* added the shark over the rim - by copying the shark picture and pasting as a new layer - and using 50% transparency - it took a few goes to get the sizes and position right
* moved that layer to the second layer up
* on the first colour duplicate copy added an alpha layer (so cut outs are transparent)
* cut out central water area right up the rim - using lasso to select out the central area, delete, select all, eraser to clean up the edges
* tweaked shark position
* third teapot layer / second colour layer, cut out just the rim and shadows/meniscus using the same steps as above
* the meniscus and shadows were too dark so needed adjusting to work with the shark water colour, but that would distort the other colours in the teapot, which is why the third layer.