PHOTOGRAPHY HOBBYIST

The popularity of Photoshop among professional designers easily makes it the digital imaging industry standard. The idea that it is, in essence, a brand name that has crossed grammatical barriers makes it a true cultural phenomenon. However, don’t let all this grandeur get in your way if you are an amateur photographers. Photoshop is a powerful tool for anyone who simply wants to make their personal photo collection look better.

Opening Photos With Photoshop Now that you’re getting comfortable with what’s on the screen, it’s time to learn how to get your photo in there so you can start editing! If your photos are in digital format already (i.e. taken with a digital camera), consult the camera’s documentation to learn how to transfer them to your computer. If you have photo prints, you can still edit them with Photoshop! Use a scanner to move the photos onto your desktop. Once the photos are on your computer, group them in a folder. To make it easy, call the folder something simple like “Original Photos.” Then copy the folder’s contents into a new folder. You may want to call this “Edited Photos.” Making this duplicate set of photos to work with means that if you make a mistake at any point in the editing process, you’ll always have an original copy of your photo to go back to. Now start Photoshop by double-clicking on the program. Go to the File menu and select that you want to open an image. Navigate to your “Edited Photos” folder (or to whatever you called it) and choose a photo. Now you’re ready to begin!

Adjust Levels in Your Photos Before you begin editing it’s always a good idea to check a photo’s levels. When photos are backlit, lit poorly, or overexposed, the colors tend to not look quite right. At times this is obvious, however at other times it’s hard to tell, so you always want to check your photo’s levels. Doing this first will help you make the colors in your photos look their best. To change the levels in your picture click on Edit in the menu bar. Move your mouse to Adjustments > in the drop-down menu and leave the cursor there for a second. In the sub-menu that pops up, choose on Auto Levels.

Save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows. Alternatively, you can press Shift + Apple + L on a Mac or CTRL + L on a PC to use the Auto Levels function. You should notice a change in the appearance of your photo. If you don’t see a noticeable difference, it’s okay. It just means your photo looked good right from the start.

Reduce Red Eye in Your Photos Everyone has become a victim to the curse of red eyes in our photos. More photos have been ruined with red eye than silly expressions, closed eyes, and blurred photos combined. Thankfully getting rid of red eye is a snap with Photoshop. To fix red eye we will need to use the Layers Palette. You should be able to find the Layers Palette in the lower right hand corner of the window when you open Photoshop. If you do not see the Layers Palette you can find it by clicking on “Windows” in the menu bar, scroll to Layers, and double check that Layers has a check mark next to it. If it doesn’t, click it once and the Layers palette will appear. Once you have found the layers palette you need to find the adjustment layer button. This button can be found at the bottom of the window. It has a half-black, half-white circle and when you move your mouse over it should have a pop-up box that says “Create new fill or adjustment layer”. To activate it, click on the adjustment layer button. A sub-menu should come up and you will want to select Channel Mixer. Now, a window with the words Channel Mixer should open. To fix the red eye you will want to set the Red slider to 0%, and the Blue and Green sliders to 50%. Once you have done this click OK. You may wonder why the people in the photos look like bluish-gray-skinned phantoms, don’t be alarmed! You haven’t messed anything up, they’re supposed to! You will soon fix this so they look like their regular people again. Set the foreground color to black at the bottom of the toolbar. In the toolbar, select the brush tool. Now, depending on the size of the photos, the red eyes might be too difficult to see; return to the toolbar and select the zoom tool (magnifying glass with a +). Clicking on the eyes with your mouse will zoom in on them. Once you have zoomed in enough so you feel you can comfortably work on the eyes you will need to select the brush tool again. Once again return to the Layers palette. Now you should see a Background layer and a layer called Channel Mixer 1. Select the layer Channel Mixer 1 by clicking it once. Now you can use the brush tool again to paint the parts of the eyes that had appeared red. They should turn red again. Return to the top of your screen click on the Image menu. Just like we did earlier you will need to move your mouse over Adjustments in the drop down menu. Select Invert in the sub-menu that comes up on the right. Tada we fixed the red eye! After all that hard work you definitely want to save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows. You may still see a red ring around the newly-fixed eyes; don’t worry, we can fix that too. You first want to make sure the Channel Mixer 1 layer is selected (click it once). In the main toolbar, make sure the foreground color is set to white. Since it was set to black a second ago, you will have to change it. Again, using the the paintbrush tool from the toolbar, carefully paint the red ring. As you paint you should see the color change to the correct eye color. At the top of the screen, in the menu bar, click Layer. Click on Flatten Image at the bottom of the menu. Save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows.