Favorite Adjustment Layers and Filters

This chapter is from the book

Adobe Master Class: Advanced Compositing in Adobe Photoshop CC: Bringing the Impossible to Reality -- with Bret Malley, 2nd Edition

Learn More Buy

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Adobe Master Class: Advanced Compositing in Adobe Photoshop CC: Bringing the Impossible to Reality -- with Bret Malley, 2nd Edition

Learn More Buy

Click to view larger image

FOUR TEARS OF VICTORY (2009)

Remember your first few composites—those roughly cut and pasted, disjointed collages? Whether we like to admit it or not, we all go through this stage before honing our eyes and skills to craft an element of photorealism into our work. That element is what elevates a composite from a mere copy-and-paste-fest to a seamless new reality. The craft behind it is largely the craft of using filters, adjustment ­layers, and their masks (FIGURE 4.1). These features represent their own art form when used by a pro. Endlessly useful for a multitude of situations, they can be the difference between realizing your vision and consigning yet another project to the digital scrap heap of “not quite right.”

FIGURE 4.1 Filters and adjustment layers are essential for blending very different image sources into a seamless composite.

Rather than giving you a hasty flyby of every adjustment layer and filter, this chapter will push deep into my four favorite adjustment layers (along with their subterranean features), as well as the Photoshop filters that I find come in most handy for composite work. This focus will get you going for most situations and provide a solid base for the more complex tutorials and projects in Sections II and III. For an even greater investigation into adjustment layers and a plethora of their uses, I highly recommend Scott ­Valentine’s The Hidden Power of Adjustment Layers.

Adjustment Layers

When working nondestructively, adjustment layers are the professional way to go rather than choosing the destructive adjustments available from the Image menu. By making your adjustments as dedicated layers, each with an accompanying mask (FIGURE 4.2), you can later fine-tune or remove your changes without any permanent alterations or loss of quality. Just like standard layers, adjustment layers affect the layers directly below them in the stack and can be independently altered by themselves. When you just want to adjust a single layer, you can restrict an adjustment layer to a single layer or group by clipping it to the layer placed directly below it (as covered in Chapter 3). As a standard feature, every adjustment layer comes with a clean white mask for safe and nondestructive adjusting.

FIGURE 4.2 Each adjustment layer includes a mask for immediate nondestructive erasing of the adjustment.

Although the Adjustments panel (choose Window > Adjustments to bring this up if it is not open) offers many choices, each with its own specialty, I have come to rely on four adjustment layers in particular. Whether piecing layers together seamlessly or correcting for some shortcomings of an image, I use Curves, Black & White, Color Balance, and Hue/Saturation most heavily.

Curves

Of my top four, Curves is perhaps my most used adjustment layer and is by far the most versatile, as well. It is my go-to when something is just not looking right or when I need more control over the general lights and darks of an area, when I need to isolate a tone, and much more. A Curves adjustment layer enables you to nondestructively shift tonal attributes of an image, making specific tones lighter or darker.

To add an adjustment layer to your image, make sure the Adjustments panel is visible (choose Window > ­Adjustments) and click the icon for the desired adjustment. In this case, click the Curves icon . The controls you need are housed in the Curves Properties panel (FIGURE 4.3). Dominating the panel is a graph of the tonal values in the image. The horizontal and vertical axes (represented by gradient strips along the bottom and left side of the Curves graph) represent the range of possible tones (from darks through midtones to lights) in an image. The diagonal line (the “curve”) represents the value of each of the tones in the gradients as they compare to each other. This is basically a before and after situation. Here this is referred to as Input (the before) and Output (the after). The bottom gradient represents the image’s original tones (input values) and the vertical gradient represents the tones you can shift and bend those input values to (the output values).

FIGURE 4.3 The Curves Properties panel contains both the controls to adjust the levels of darks, midtones, and lights in an image and a histogram that graphically represents the quantity of those tones present in the original image.

Notice that when you first apply a Curves adjustment layer, the “curve” starts out as a straight line. That’s because the line shows the ratio between the adjusted and original tonal values in the image. Before any adjustments, the input and output values are the same, so the ratio at every point is 1 and the “curve” starts out as a nice, even slope. Now, click the line to add a control point, and drag the point upwards. Notice that because the point is higher, it now corresponds to a lighter shade on the vertical gradient than on the horizontal gradient? By dragging up, you’ve lightened the original tone at that point, as well as along the curve. Dragging a control point down does the opposite.

For example, in FIGURE 4.4, I shifted a wide range of tones lighter by lifting the single control point (perhaps not the best aesthetic choice, but a good demonstration); to see how this works, pick any point along the new curve line and compare where it lies along the horizontal gradient (the original tone) to where it aligns with the vertical gradient (the new, adjusted lighter tone). This is a good way to remember how Curves works by default: Pull a point higher means lighter, pull it lower means darker.

FIGURE 4.4 Pulling a curve’s single control point upwards or to the left shifts the tonal values lighter and keeps the lightening effect proportional with all nearby tones as they are gently elevated along the curve.

Curves Strategy

With a better understanding of the technical theory of Curves adjustment layers, consider some practical tips for using curves to their full potential:

• Don’t try anything too radical. For example, a curve with a very exaggerated sideways S shape (doubling back on itself as in FIGURE 4.5) creates an inversion for some tones of the image, causing lights and darks to switch places with each other. (Try pressing Ctrl+I/Cmd+I on an image layer to see the full effect of this.) The power behind Curves adjustment layers is in the subtlety and gentleness of the curve that you make. Less is truly more!

  

  FIGURE 4.5 Curves that are too exaggerated end up looking pretty awful (leading to something like a posterizing effect) or producing inversions of lights and darks as shown here. Keep your adjustments gentle and controlled instead.

• Use two points to create a fully controlled contrast adjustment. Click to add two control points along the curve line, one toward the bottom darks and one towards the lighter end. Slightly drop the darks control point downward and similarly bring the highlights control point upwards for a punchier look!

  TIP

  Check out some of the contrast presets from the Presets menu as a starting point when playing with curves. This is a good reference and helpful for getting the hang of things—as it can be a steep learning curve after all!

• Use no more than three control points along the curve whenever possible. I usually stick to adding just one or two unless I am trying to isolate a very specific tonal adjustment. The more points you make, the higher the chances are that the image might begin to look “off” or inversion begins.

  It can be a good idea to try a stronger than desired curves adjustment (such as increasing the contrast by lowering the darks and raising the lights) as an experiment to see how the adjustment will affect the image. Then, you can dial back the intensity of the adjustment by dragging the Opacity slider in the Layers panel. Using opacity in this way gives you greater flexibility and headroom for your curves adjustment.

• Isolate a tone by using the On-Image Adjustment tool , found on the left side of the Curves Properties panel, above the column of eyedropper icons. Move the mouse pointer over the image (it will turn into an eyedropper) and watch the curve—a phantom control point will move along the line of the curve showing the value under the pointer. When you reach the specific area or tone that you want to adjust, click the mouse button. Clicking adds a control point to the curve at the value of the spot that you clicked. If you hold down the mouse button you can drag up and down to adjust the value of the control point directly. This can be helpful for those times when you need to find a spot at a specific value and shift it lighter or darker.

• Use the mask provided with the adjustment layer to isolate your Curves adjustment to specific areas of the image. Suppose you want to lighten one area to draw further attention to it, but you don’t want it to lighten the edges of the image. As you adjust, focus only on the critical areas, then paint black on the layer’s mask to remove the changes from areas you wish to be unaffected. Alternatively, you can also make a selection before adding the adjustment layer, and Photoshop will automatically adjust only the selected area, applying a layer mask to everything outside of the selection.

• Use a pair of Curves. One Curves adjustment layer can be helpful for controlling, say, the darks, but when you try to get the highlights right in the same curve, it changes too much or is harder to control. Adding a second Curves adjustment layer that finesses another portion of the tonal range of the image, such as the lights, will keep a more even tonal adjustment than trying to do it all in one go and getting dramatic with the curve shape.

• Clip the Curves adjustment layer to a single layer below it so that you can affect that clipped layer only. This is so important for composite work where images are taken from a wide variety of sources that you must match the lights and darks consistent with the background (FIGURE 4.6) or each other. To clip the adjustment layer, either click the Clip To Layer button at the bottom of the Curves Properties panel or Alt-click/Opt-click between the adjustment layer and the layer directly below it.

FIGURE 4.6 Adjust an individual layer by clipping the adjustment to it and then matching the lights and darks to the others around it. In this case, the piece was much too dark and needed a Curves adjustment layer to lighten it up.

Black & White

Although not specifically designed for the purpose, Black & White adjustment layers can replace hours of traditional black-and-white dodging, burning, and filtering to a swift move of the slider. True, this adjustment layer will turn the content black and white with the Normal blending mode, but by choosing a different blending mode you can control the lights and darks of each color of the original image separately to enhance certain features once in grayscale. Add blending modes to this adjustment layer and you have one powerful tone-controlling tool (say that one five times fast).

To begin, simply click the Black & White icon in the Adjustments panel; a new adjustment layer is added to the image, changing it to black and white using a default color conversion. Use the sliders in the Black & White Properties panel to adjust the values of each color individually and customize the conversion to your taste (FIGURE 4.7). Suppose you want a green (automatically converted to a mid-gray) to become an even lighter gray; find the green slider, and move it to the right to shift all the related greens lighter.

FIGURE 4.7 The mix-match of lighting amongst the elements ended up just being too overpowering in the composite image (left), so I added a Black & White adjustment layer (right) to alter the saturation (by lowering opacity of the adjustment layer) and values of separated colors.

If I want to use this in full force, that’s when I will change the blending mode to either Soft Light or Luminosity before I move the sliders around. At lower opacities, the Black & White adjustment layer is phenomenal for subtly controlling saturation and the lights and darks of certain colors. In general, though, the power of moving around the darks and lights for each color has far-reaching benefits. For example, I photographed the elements of Figure 4.7 with a wide range of lighting color temperatures, edited them together with a certain vibrancy in mind, and then decided I needed to tone down the colors instead. I added a Black & White adjustment layer and then lowered the opacity to under 40% until it curbed the saturation. From there, I further adjusted the colors to lighten the yellows and darken the reds and blues slightly to create a more contrast in the composition.

Color Balance

As an adjustment layer, Color Balance is a good choice for blending in layers whose colors don’t match those of the other elements in a composite. Perhaps the images were shot in different lighting conditions, different ­cameras setting, or just have a different color palette in general. With a Color Balance adjustment layer, you can easily correct moderate differences. The Color ­Balance Properties panel contains three sliders: one ranging from cyan to red, one from magenta to green, and the last from yellow to blue. FIGURES 4.8A, B and C are a good example of better blending two images with Color ­Balance. The woman with the sword was too warm in color compared to the cooler background, so shifting the sliders over to the cooler sides (more cyan, blue, and just a hint more of green) helped dramatically with fitting the two images together. The sliders start out neutral at the center, so you easily can go back and forth to finesse the colors.

FIGURES 4.8A, B and C Color Balance is not especially refined, but it is quick, efficient, and wonderful for most color discrepancies. When I first composited the subject with the background, I discovered I photographed her with warmer colors compared to her new, cooler surroundings (A). To cool the subject down and match the scene, I applied a Color Balance adjustment layer (B) and (C).

Although Photoshop offers many other ways (some a lot more refined and exacting) to help with color balance, this adjustment layer does a fairly decent job and is straightforward and quick. It works with very little effort or tweaking, making it my go-to choice in most cases.

Hue/Saturation

For quick color shifts and general desaturation, a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is also great for altering a selected color using color range (revisit ­Chapter 3 for a reminder) and shifting the color selection to an entirely new hue. Combining simplified features of the Color Balance and Black & White adjustment layers, Hue/Saturation includes a very basic, yet quick-to-use ­Saturation slider and can be good for simple neutralizing or color shifting. I find this adjustment layer especially valuable when I need to shift the hue of a specific color. For example, in FIGURE 4.9 I needed a small green object down by the crib to help complete a compositional triangle of color. I altered a single color of the juggling ball in front of the crib (the ball is on its own layer) by using Select > Color Range. I selected what used to be the red patch and then added a Hue/Saturation adjustment clipped to the same layer. From there, I moved the Hue slider in the Properties panel until I settled on the proper green.

FIGURE 4.9 A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer together with a mask created using Color Range (see Chapter 3) works especially well for isolated color changes; you can alter a selected color or limited portion of the image. Here I changed the ball from red to green.