PHOTOGRAPH ENHANCEMENT: Easy Tips On Photoshop

  • 10 years ago
**MORE TIPS BELOW! \/ \/ \/ :) Please comment if you have any questions and I will get back to you.

Its been a while since I uploaded a bit of graphic/arty stuff! This is a quick video that shows you how to enhance your photographs quickly and easy on Photoshop CS6.

This took me about 20 minutes and it has been sped up, but I have annotated what I am doing throughout. If the video is too fast and you have missed something, please feel free to pop me a question.

Now for the tips....

GRAPHICS TABLET: I use a Bamboo Wacom- I swear your life will become A LOT easier if you get a tablet. Your speed will double, and there are some super awesome features like 'pressure' which makes your brush darker the harder you press- it is a lot like drawing in real life. I bought mine for around £50 last year and it was the cheapest one, its brilliant to practise with and then you can slowly upgrade and find what suits you best.

OPACITY: For all my artwork I always alternate the 'OPACITY' in the very top bar of photoshop. Altering this allows your work to be more subtle and it allows you to build up tone so you can gain a realistic effect. This applies to all the shading and airbrushing (skin tones) in this video, and I have also used a 'low percentage hardness' for my brushes that allows everything to be soft.

LAYERS: Always use layers if you want to build different tones and you want to be able to go back and change them. If you 'undo,' you can only go back so far.. Layers allows you to delete little segments and start again. You can also lower the opacity in layers (which can be found on top of the layers window' to gradually build your effect.

LAYER MASKS: Layer masks allow you to erase part of a layer. By having your background colour as black and your foreground as white, this ERASES your layer. However, switching it round to WHITE BACKGROUND allows you to REPLACE/undo your layer and get back your image incase you need to back-step! This has saved my skin more times than i've had an egg butty. Switch between the back/foreground colours by clicking 'X'

BRUSH SIZES: Make them 'big' with low opacity for big areas, and smaller with high opacity for little areas. Alter brush sizes by clicking [ and ]

CURVES/BRIGHTNESS AND CONTRAST/SHADOWS AND HIGHLIGHTS: Keep playing with these to create a good lighting effect. The eye loves contrast!!! Make the light bits bright and the dark bits dark.


Follow me on instagram for all art stuff! @cathbennett
Twitter @cathcreates
Check out my new Google+ on my channel banner. ( don't even know how to use it, I have no friends on there haha ;) )


Thanks for watching! If you have any questions, pop a comment below!


AUDIO:
Royalty Free Music by
http://audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music
Sound Effects by
http://audiomicro.com/sound-effects

Song: 'Home' by Matthew Shildt

IMAGE WEBSITE: http://www.morguefile.com (free stock photos)
Image URL: http://mrg.bz.Ho7wGu
JPEG URL: http://mrg.bz/uMCOLm

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