With a RAW file you get a little drop down menu for the white balance.

Auto
Daylight
Cloudy
Shade
Tungsten
Fluroescent
Flash
Custom

Now, how can you make these same settings available so you can use them with a jpeg file, pretty easily as it turns out. You will need one RAW file to make this work (and it little bit of time)

Open the RAW file in ACR and then go the drop down menu and click on Daylight (example) Save this as a Preset – you might call it something like Daylight for jpeg. Click on Cloudy next and then save it as a preset, continue on till you have done all the white balances.

When you open a jpeg file in ACR, go to your presets folder and try out one the new white balance presets you made

Tilt-shift photography refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium format cameras; it usually requires the use of special lenses.

“Tilt-shift” actually encompasses two different types of movements: rotation of the lens relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift. Tilt is used to control the orientation of the plane of focus (PoF), and hence the part of an image that appears sharp; it makes use of the Scheimpflug principle. Shift is used to control perspective, often involving the convergence of vertical parallel lines, as when photographing tall buildings.

In many cases, “tilt-shift photography” refers to the use of tilt and a large aperture to achieve a very shallow depth of field.

Tilt shift faking is the process whereby we take a normal life size location or object and give it an optical illusion to make it appear as a miniature scale model. Probably the best images to use are those that look down on a subject i.e. from a high angle – this isn’t always the case though and a bit of fiddling in Photoshop will soon let you know if the image is suitable. Definately one of the easier effects to achieve in Photoshop – so lets get rolling.

I would very much like to thank Steve Carter for the use of his image *Shieldaig Village in February*. Steve has some fabulous images of Loch Torridon and other places that I’ve never heard of over at his site – which you can find HERE THIS is the link to the images of the latest local photos(Highlands)

I have resized the image a little for the purpose of this tutorial. Please be respectful of Steve’s copyright to this image.

Open the image, duplicate the image and close the original. Duplicate the image by dragging it to the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard. Make sure your f/ground is set to black and the b/ground to white then click on the gradient filter, go to the top toolbar and make sure the filter is set to f/ground to b/ground i.e. black to white and click on the Reflected Gradient icon. Next click on the Quick Mask Icon at the bottom of the side toolbar, or press Q on the keyboard. In this particular image, you want the main row of houses to be in focus, see the image below for the start and finish position I used for the gradient. Once you have done that, the mask will appear, exist quick mask mode by clicking on the icon on the side toolbar, or pressing Q on the keyboard – marching ants will appear.

Next you need to go to Filter>Blur>Lens Blur and the teeny weeny dialogue box will open I did adjust my gradient after previewing it in the Lens Blur dialogue box, just take it a little bit higher than shown in the example above.

You can punch in the same settings as I have, see image below.

Most miniatures are painted bright colours, so next you are going to use a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer to boost the colours. Click on the little ying yang symbol at the bottom of the layers palette (create new adjustment layer) and choose Hue/Saturation from the menu. On the Master, pump the colours up quite a bit, I chose +60 on the saturation slider – just watch what is going on with the houses, you are going to add a mask in a minute so the changes only apply to the part that is in focus.

Hold down the Alt key and click on the add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Grab a soft edged white brush and making sure the mask is active by clicking on it, paint back in the colour to the houses, road, cars etc., all things that are in focus. You can boost the Saturation a little more if you want by double clicking on the adjustment layer thumbnail. And there we have our miniature village. I went ahead and added a small amount of sharpening to the houses. Bear in mind that the settings used are relevant to this image 800 x 507@72dpi.

Comparison Image

You can borrow my horrible image to practise on if you like, copyright is mine etc., The image was taken on an overcast, hazy day and probably really wouldn’t be worth keeping, but there will be images that you have with a blown out sky that are worth keeping.

Open the image in Photoshop and duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard or dragging it to the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. On the side toolbar select the rectangular marquee tool – reference the image below and make your selection is in a similar place. You can selecting the blown out sky and down into the tree area to get any patches that may be showing through the trees.

You should have the marching ants showing. Create a Selective Colour adjustment layer by clicking on the little ying yang symbol at the bottom of the layers palette and selecting Selective Colour. The marching ants will disappear, that’s OK. At the bottom of the selective colour dialogue choose Absolute (see image) and from the drop down menu at the top choose White. Fiddle with the sliders until you get a colour that you like – you can make the colour quite strong because you will be able to take the opacity down later and change the colour altogether if you like (the joys of adjustment layers). I’ve gone a little nuts with my colour to show you how well it works.

Make sure your f/ground colour is set to black and the b/ground to white. Click on the mask to make sure you are working on it, then go to Filter>Render>Clouds – you can just click on clouds, or you can hold down the shift key when you click on clouds to get a more intense result. After you have applied the clouds filter you can also use Ctrl + F to get a different effect.

I doubled clicked on the Selective Colour thumbnail and changed the colour, I also took the layer opacity down to 65%. Here is the final image and then a comparison image – Have fun!

All of the settings will be relevant to the start image 800 x 585 @72 dpi.

You can practise on the image below if you like, copyright is mine etc.,

Duplicate the layer and then bring up a Hue/Sat adjustment layer by clicking on the ying yang symbol at the bottom of the layers palette. Check the Colorize box and you can use the same settings I have if you like. Hue 25 – Sat 25 – Lightness 0. Merge the Hue Sat layer down. We are going to make the standard white border that comes with old photos. Use the rectangular marquee tool to draw inside the photo, use Shift + Ctrl + i to invert the selection, then fill it with white. You may end up with something similar to the image below.

Working on the newly adjusted layer, hold down the Alt key and click on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. When the dialogue box appears, check the box that says ‘Use previous layer to create clipping mask’ leave all the other things as is. Go to Edit>Fill and you can use the same colour as I have if you want *EECE93* Fill the layer with the colour. Add a layer mask to this layer by clicking on the ‘add layer mask’ icon at the bottom of the layers palette – click on the mask to make sure it is active, then go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels and you can punch in the same numbers I have if you like.

You can take the opacity of the layer down to about 15% if you like – you will be able to adjust it later (the joys of adjustment layers)

Hold down the Alt key and click on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette and check the ‘use previous layer to create clipping mask’ again. Go to Edit>Fill and you can use the same colour I have if you like *C1A467* Add a layer mask to this layer and then go to Filter>Render>Clouds, then go to Image>Adjustments>Levels – use some different numbers this time – mine were

50 – 0.50 – 225 I took the opacity of the layer down to 50%.

Go to the ‘create new fill or adjustment layer’ at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Pattern from the menu. You may have to load the Rock Textures if they aren’t already there, and then choose ‘Textured Tile’ from those patterns and lower the scale to 60%, change the blend mode of the layer to Linear Burn and take the opacity down to 25%

Hold down the alt key and click on the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Check the ‘Use previous layer as clipping mask, change the blend mode to soft light and check the ‘Fill with soft light neutral color (50% gray). Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise and you can use the same settings as I have below.

Hold down the Alt key and click on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Check the ‘Use previous layer as clipping mask’ and click OK. Grab the pencil tool, and with the f/ground set to black, draw some squiggles around the image. Switch the f/ground colour to white and do the same thing. Then take the opacity of the layer down to about 20%

You can now go through and adjust the layers to suit if you like. I’ve added a curves adjustment layer to mine. You are going to do a ’stamp visible’ so, making sure the top most layer is active press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E and all the layers will be stamped onto one layer.

You could go and look for some coffee stain brushes on the net if you’d like to add that to the image as well. The image still needs the mandatory fold line in it though, so lets go ahead and add one of those.

Make sure the top most layer is active, then click on the ‘create new layer’ icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Grab the rectangular marquee tool and draw out a selection from the top to about half way down the image. Make sure the f/ground colour is white and select the gradient tool. Use a f/ground to transparent linear gradient and referencing the image below apply the gradient.

Go to Select>Inverse and then create a new layer, switch the f/ground to black and using the gradient tool do the same as before except start outside the selection from the centre of the image. Deselect. You should have something similar to the image below.

Merge the two layers together, then press Ctrl + i on the keyboard to inverse. You can take the layer opacity down to about 40%, or whatever suits. Below is the final image and then a comparison image in the next post. Have fun.

You can practise on the image below if you like, copyright is mine etc.,

For this to work on other images, the image should have any adjustments needed already done – including being sharpened i.e. print ready.

Open the image, duplicate it and close the original. Double click on the layer to unlock it and when the dialogue box appears, rename the layer *Original* Now you are going to add a levels adjustment layer, you could use a curves adjustment layer if you wanted – either way, you are using an adjustment layer so that you have the ability to go back and change the settings later if you feel like it. Add a levels adjustment layer by clicking on the little ying yang symbol at the bottom of the layers palette. Slide the middle slider to the left till it reads 1.35 see image below.

Click on the b/ground (original) layer and duplicate it using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + J and then repeat again. Name the middle layer Multiply and the top layer Blur. Click on the levels adjustment layer and repeat the same process i.e. you should have 3 adjustment layers. Drag the adjustment layers down till you have one image, one adjustment layer see image below.

Next you are going to Clip each of the adjustment layers with the image layer below. Click on one of the adjustment layers to make it active and use the keyboard shortcut
Ctrl + Alt + G to Create Clipping Mask. See image below.

Click on the Blur layer and then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur I entered an amount of 5 pixels and then took the opacity of the layer down to 60%. Click on the Multiply layer and change the blend mode to Multiply and I took the opacity of the layer down to 65%. If you have any part of the image that you would like to stay sharp, add a layer mask to the blur layer and brush them back in. I added a layer mask and brought back the eye and the black thing on the Rosella’s beak. See image below.

I’ve added a Hue/Sat layer at the top of the stack and boosted the Master by 10, I then inverted the layer mask Ctrl + i and used a soft edged brush to paint back in the bird. You can go through and adjust anthing you want, and you may end up with something similar to the final image below – and then the comparison image. Have fun

Neither of these techniques will work on *all* images, but because they are so quick to do, they are usally worth taking the 20 seconds to try them out.

The start image is brought to us by Orbán Ferenc over at the Stock Exchange site.

]

Open the image in Photoshop and then grab the rectangular marquee tool. You are going to make a selection that includes a lot of different tones in the image. Reference the image below to see where I made my selection.

Open a levels adjustment layer by clicking on the little ying yang symbol at the bottom of the layers palette and choosing levels. Where the dialogue box opens, go to *options* at the right hand side of the dialogue box and make sure *enhance per channel contrast* is selected.

Click OK to accept that and then press Auto – and you should end up with something similar to the image below.

So that looks a little strange Hold down the shift key on the keyboard and click on the mask – and there you have a quick colour correction.

On to the next quick colour correction

Open the image again and add a new blank layer above the b/ground layer by clicking on the ‘create new layer’ icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Grab the eyedropper tool by pressing *i* on the keyboard or using the side toolbar. You can reference the image below as to where I selected the colour from in the image, or, the RGB colours are 142 – 127 – 93.

Fill the blank layer with that colour. Press Ctrl + i on the keyboard to invert the colour and then change the blend mode of the layer to overlay and you can take the opacity of the layer down if you like – I adjusted mine to 75%. If the colours appear a little washed out, you could also add a hue/sat adjustment layer and boost the colours a little. You could also try a soft light or colour blend mode. If you use a colour blend mode you might have to take the opacity of the layer down to about 20% (or to your taste) On the image below I used a hue/sat adjustment layer to boost the master by 15%, then I added a levels adjustment layer and brought the sliders in on RGB channels.

Have fun!

Do not use, republish, in whole or in part, without the consent of the Author. TheTAZZone policy is that Authors retain the rights to the work they submit and/or post…we do not sell, publish, transmit, or have the right to give permission for such…TheTAZZone merely retains the right to use, retain, and publish submitted work within it’s Network

I thought you animal lovers out there might like something to do to the next kitty photo you take

This can also give you a rather nice painterly effect as well. Any settings used here will be relevant to this image only ….sorry. It comes down to personal taste as well, some will leave the fading or opacity reduction at different amounts …. try different amounts and see what you can come up with.

Caution – after you have applied the the diffuse filter, you will go immediately to Edit>Fade Diffuse. Don’t do anything else before going to the Fade command otherwise it won’t be available to you.

The start image is brought us by *sateda* over at the Stock Exchange site, you can find the image HERE I have cropped and resized the image for the purpose of this tutorial.

Open the image in Photoshop and then duplicate it by dragging it to the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette, or pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard. Turn off the original by clicking on the little eyeball. You will be using this layer later. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask and you can use the same settings I have if you like. *Amount – 50%* *Radius – 0.8* *Threshold – 0* Click Ok to accept those numbers. Go to Filter>Stylize>Diffuse and choose Anisotropic from the available menu – click OK to accept. Immediately go to Edit>Fade Diffuse and take the amount down to 50%, click OK to accept. You probably noticed the effect before you faded it, looks a little painterly don’t you think.

Duplicate the layer and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical Run the Diffuse Filter again … you should be able to hit Ctrl + F for this to happen. Immediately fade the diffuse to 50% like you did before. Go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical again – you should now have something that looks similar to the image below.

Duplicate the layer you were just working on and go to Filter>Blur>Surface Blur If you haven’t go surface blur you can use median blur. I’ve used a radius of 10 and a threshold of 10 on this image – click OK to accept. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and you can punch in an amount of 2.5 on this image. Take the opacity down to suit, I used 40%.

As a rough guide to the blurring, you would probably use half the amount that you used on the surface blur, on the gaussian blur. That isn’t a hard and fast rule though, once you’ve done this a couple of times you’ll get the hang of what looks good.

Make sure that the original background layer is turned off, then Merge Visible by clicking on the little downward pointing arrow at the top right of the layers palette and choosing Merge Visible. Turn on the original background layer and if you want, you can take down the opacity of the top layer. I took the opacity down to 85%.

You may want to finish there, but I added a mask to the top layer by holding down the Alt key and clicking on the Add Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of the layers palette (black Mask = Hide All). Grabbed a soft edged brush, and with the foreground set to white, painted back over the kitty avoiding the eyes. Alt + click on the mask to make sure that you have painted back in all the parts, and Alt + click to get back to the normal view.

You can go ahead and make adjustments from this point if you like. I did a Hue/Sat adjustment layer and incresed the master by 10%.

Here is the final image and below that a comparison image. Have fun.

Do not use, republish, in whole or in part, without the consent of the Author. TheTAZZone policy is that Authors retain the rights to the work they submit and/or post…we do not sell, publish, transmit, or have the right to give permission for such…TheTAZZone merely retains the right to use, retain, and publish submitted work within it’s Network

Don’t just think of portraits as involving people, I think this will work well with animals as well.

This process is dependant on lots of factors, personal taste being one of them. The blend modes for the layers and the sharpening and blurring will still be the same. However, the amounts of blurring and sharpening will vary, as will the opacity of the two layers – well, 3 layers if you choose to go one step further. So lets take a look at the process, then you can go off and play

The practise image is brought to us by Arif Imam over at StockExchange, you can find it HERE I have resized the image.

That’s a nice portrait, it could probably do with quite a bit of colour correction. Even then, it may not be anything special. So lets bypass the colour correction and try to make it have an impact with a couple of layers and changing blend modes. Open the image, duplicate the image and close the original. Duplicate the background layer by dragging it to the create a new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard. Working on the top layer, press Ctrl + U on the keyboard to bring up the Hue/Sat dialogue box and take the Saturation all the way down to -100, click OK to accept the changes. Duplicate the desaturated layer twice more by pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard twice. You should now have 3 desaturated layers. Name the top layer ‘Multiply’ and the middle layer “Screen”, turn off the top layer (multiply layer) and change the blend mode of the layer named Screen to Screen. You should have something similar to the image below.

Still working on the layer you changed to screen go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask … or you can use Smart Sharpen if you like. You can copy my settings for this image but different amounts will work better on different images – just a case of finding the time to practise a little bit. I’m going to push the numbers here – Amount 300% – Radius 0.8 – Threshold 0

Turn on the layer you named multiply and change the blend mode to multiply. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and again on this particular image you can punch in the same numbers that I have ….. experiment.

Change the opacity of the multiply layer to about 40% With some images you may have go and reduce the opacity of the Screen layer as well, but I have left it at 100% in this image. Duplicate the original background layer and drag it to the top of the stack. Change the blend mode to Soft Light and lower the opacity to suit. I used 40%, which can be adjusted. I then used a Curves adjustment layer Output 125 – Input 103 to lighten the image overall. If your Layer Palette Options are set up for an adjustment layer to automatically add a mask, click on the mask and press Ctrl + i to invert it. My Options are set up so I can add a mask only if I want one to appear. Because my adjustment layer doesn’t have a mask attached, I can simply hold down the Alt key and click on the add vector mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette and the mask will be black (hide all). With the foreground colour set to white and a large soft edged brush selected, make sure you are working on the mask and paint the face and hair area back in. At this point you can go back tweak each of the individual layers to come up with something you like. Here is my final image, and then a comparison image.

Have fun.

Do not use, republish, in whole or in part, without the consent of the Author. TheTAZZone policy is that Authors retain the rights to the work they submit and/or post…we do not sell, publish, transmit, or have the right to give permission for such…TheTAZZone merely retains the right to use, retain, and publish submitted work within it’s Network

Does this technique have a practical purpose, probably not really. You could use it as a backdrop in a composition, or maybe as a background in the header for a website. You could also create some artwork to sell as I have done with the following

Mostly it’s about playing and seeing what different images you can come up with. I’ve also tried some variations to the technique I used in the images above and came up with more interesting stuff – so it really is all about playing.

A word of caution – I would definately grab a pen and paper to jot down what you’ve done as you go along because you really don’t want to be trying this out on a 5,000px X 3,000px @300dpi – I would suggest that you use a 800px X 600px @ 72 dpi file do whatever you want to do (keeping notes) and then do it on the larger image if you happen to like the end result. The filters will take a lot longer to run on a larger size file and with the likes of the Radial Blur Filter you are going to use it at ‘Best’ rather than ‘Good’. The good news is that the filters used are available in all versions of Photoshop.

Create a new file 800 X 600 @ 72 dpi and then duplicate the b/ground by using Ctrl + J on the keyboard or drag the b/ground to the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Turn off the b/ground layer for now. You may or may not end up using this layer depends if you’d like to use a solid colour or gradient to blend your final image with.

Make sure the default colours are set to black and white, then go to Filter>Render>Clouds. This is where teaching this gets a little tricky – you can accept the default clouds or press Ctrl + F on the keyboard to get some more variation, that will be entirely up to you. I haven’t done any variation with mine, but you will end up with different effects if you repeat the filter. The next part is tricky as well

Go to Filter>Pixelate>Mezzotint and choose Long Strokes from the drop down menu. I’ve tried a couple of other effects from the pixelate menu and they have worked quite well – experiment.

Now go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur and use the settings that I have below. Once it renders press Ctrl + F on the keyboard so it renders again. You should end up with something similar to the second image

Duplicate the layer you just did the radial blur on and turn the topmost layer off by clicking on the little eyeball. Click on the other radial blur layer to make it active and go to Filter>Distort>Twirl and you can punch in the numbers I have below if you like. the amount of Twirl you use will change the final image, so again, experiment. You can also try out some of the other Distort filters if you like.

Click the eyeball to turn the top layer back on and click on the layer to make it active. Go to Filter>Distort>Twirl and you can punch in the numbers I have or try some of your own. You will notice this is a negative number.

Once you have completed that, change the blend mode of the top layer to Lighten. Isn’t that pretty

You can add colour in a couple of ways, but I’m going to use a Hue/Sat adjustment layer here. So, working on the top layer, go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on the little ying yang symbol and choose Hue/Sat from the menu. Once the dialogue opens, check the Colorize box. Fiddle around with the colours until you get something you like, then Clip the Hue/Sat adjustment layer with the layer below. Hold Down the Alt key and hover the cursor on the line that seperates the hue/sat layer from the topmost layer, wait till that strange symbol appears then click. Click on the first layer you did the Twirl on and repeat the steps but use a different colour … and remember to clip the hue/sat adjustment layer with the Twirled layer. You might end up with something similar to the image below

That is the basis of the tutorial. You could merge down the layers by merging visible and this will leave you free to add a gradient to the b/ground layer you turned off right at the start of the tutorial and then change the blend mode to get an interesting effect. You could also look at my tutorial on making a mirror image effect and try it out on your image. You’ll notice I’ve done that on the image below. I’ve also gone ahead and duplicated the layer, then changed the blend mode to Multiply. I then merged the 2 layers and used a Colour Balance adjustment layer.

I then duplicated the layers and ran the twirl filter on both of them again and changed the blend mode to Darken.

Here is another one that I was messing around with earlier, which was done using some different Distort Filters.

Have fun with it

Do not use, republish, in whole or in part, without the consent of the Author. TheTAZZone policy is that Authors retain the rights to the work they submit and/or post…we do not sell, publish, transmit, or have the right to give permission for such…TheTAZZone merely retains the right to use, retain, and publish submitted work within it’s Network

Now this can just be a whole lot of fun doing this effect, or you can take it seriously and do something contructive with it

Take a look at the comparison image and what I’ve done to that poor Juvenile Crimson Rosella

Probably one of the simplest effects do as well. A couple of things before we get started. It doesn’t matter what size the image may be, there will be no need to adjust any of the settings. It might be useful to use an image where the subject is a little off center. As you’ll see with the image you might like to practise on below, it isn’t essential – but you’ll soon be able to judge which images to use. so, lets get on with it. You can use the image below to practise on if you, click through for the larger image. copyright is mine etc.,

Open the image in Photoshop, then duplicate the b/ground layer by pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard, or dragging the layer to the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. Click on the eyeball next to the b/ground layer to hide it. Next go to the top tool bar and Click on View and make sure that ‘Snap” has a tick next to it. See image below.

Go back to the ‘View’ menu in the top tool bar and click on ‘New Guide’ – a small dialogue box will appear – punch in the numbers that I have below. The guide will be placed at the exact vertical center of the image. If you ever want to find the exact centre of one of your images – go ahead and run the new guide again, but change vertical to horizontal. Where the 2 guides intersect will be the exact centre of your image.

Select the move tool by pressing V on the keyboard, or going to the side tool bar and selecting it. Whether you move the image left or right at this point will be entirely up to you. I’m going to move the image to the right , then I’ll show you a screenshot with the same image moved to the left.

Once you have done that, select the rectagular marquee tool from the side tool bar and select the right hand side of the image – see image below – then press Ctrl + J on the keyboard to put the selection on its own layer.

Immediately after putting the selection on its own layer, press Ctrl + T on the keyboard to bring up the Transform Tool. Move the small rotation point in the middle of the image to the vertical guide, it should snap to it when it gets close. See image below.

Then go to Eit>Transform>Flip Horizontal. Press the Enter key on the keyboard to accept the transformation, then go to View>Clear Guides. And that is all there is to it. You can go through the image and see if there is any tidying up that needs doing. The first image below is straight after creating the mirror image, the second is after some fixing up. The third shot is the exact same technique, but with the mirror effect done the opposite way, and not fixed. Have fun.