Digital Imaging

Photoshop Digital Imaging

Revised Version

Making Selections & Combining Images

                                   Color Correction

In Australia color is color, it just doesn't look right so I'll stick with the Americans with this one, which seems like the more appropriate spelling for me.

On with the show.......

In addition to tonal correction a designer is expected to be able to fix the color in an image; Photoshop to the rescue! With some useful ways of enhancing your images.

Sharpening an image

Sharpening is essential to enhance hidden detail in an image.

The Photoshop "unsharp mask" tool offers the best quality for this purpose; it offers greater control over the process, this is a favorite of designers who need to send high quality pictures to print.

"Smart Sharpen" (FILTERS/SHARPEN/Smart Sharpen) is a more popular option for web designers, it offers enough control for the lower-res images that the web uses and it's a lot less fuss.

Making Selections

All the image adjustments covered above and in Lesson 1 would have been applied to the entire image. What if you wanted to change just part of the image and leave the rest unaffected?

That's where "selections" come in. A selection in Photoshop "speak" is the region that the user "marks-off" or isolates ready for some sort of adjustment or alteration. A bit like a farmer fencing off a paddock for sowing.

Photoshop has lots of ways to make a selection:

• magic wand/ quick selection tool

• rectangular, elliptical, single row/single column selection tools

• quick mask mode (very flexible method using standard brushes to make selections)

• make selection from alpha channel (sophisticated approach when working with fine hairs)

• pen tool then convert the subsequent path to a selection

• color range select (making selections based on colours)

• type tool without filling to make type-shaped selections

• lasso tool, polygon lasso tool & magnetic lasso tool

• quick selection tool

• CTRL-A (Apple-A) = select all the image

• ctr-l (Apple-D) = De-select current selection

• CTRL  (Apple-;) = hide selection outline

• inverting selections

Combining Images

Making selections and combining images goes hand-in-hand. A designer is often asked to combine images together so that the result conveys several messages or at least, suggests greater depth/ interpretation to the message/ product.

Things to consider when combining images:

• images that are different sizes

• images that are different resolutions

• images that are different modes

• images that are different color/Saturation's

A great work-around for the first 2 issues is the "transform tool". If you drag n' drop or copy n' paste an image into your Photoshop document and it's the wrong size, then simply EDIT/TRANSFORM the image and re-size it using any of the 6 "handles". If the image you want to combine is a different mode to the one you're already working on then change either one so they both use the same color mode. If the images are different colors or saturation s use the adjustment layers techniques.