Archive for the ‘image editing’ Category

When you edit a photo in Photoshop using one of the image adjustment tools like Hue/Saturation or Brightness/Contrast, the image’s pixels are physically altered. This means that if you change the Hue, save, and then change the Hue again, the image’s quality will suffer.

What can you do to limit the damage? Use Photoshop’s Adjustment Layers instead. Adjustment Layers provide the exact same editing abilities as the standard image adjustments, but they allow you to edit non-destructively on your images.

To use Adjustment Layers:

1. In Photoshop, choose Layer.
2. Select New Adjustment Layer.
3. Select the desired adjustment layer type (e.g., Hue/Saturation).

Have you ever wished you could change the color of a part of your photos in Photoshop? Ever wanted to see what that shirt or dress would have looked like as a different color? By modifying the hue of the object using an image editing tool like Photoshop, you can!

Here’s how:

1. In Photoshop (or other image editing program), open the image and select the desired object. In this example, I’m going to change the color of the car from red to blue.

2. Change the Hue (in Photoshop, under Image, select Adjustments, and then Hue/Saturation).
   

3. Adjust the Hue until the object matches your desired color:
   

Last week, we talked about how to autofit a photo into a text box using Picture or Texture Fill.

Today’s tip will show how you can fit a photo into a particular shape (oval, arrow, triangle, etc.).

1. Select the picture or pictures that you want to crop to a specific shapeNote: If you are cropping multiple pictures, you must crop to the same shape. To crop to different shapes, crop the pictures individually.

2. In PowerPoint 2007/2010 (Windows), in Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Size group, click the arrow under Crop, and then click Crop to Shape.

   In PowerPoint 2011 (Mac), in Format Picture, in Adjust, click the arrow to the side of Crop, and then click Mask to Shape.

   
   Windows

   
   Macintosh

3. Select the desired shape.

 

If you insert a photo into a PowerPoint presentation, by default the image will be inserted at the exact size it really is. That’s great if your photo matches the size of the slide and/or is already the desired size. But if the photo doesn’t match, you need to painstakingly manually drag the edges of the photo until it finally fits — a hugely time-consuming activity.

There’s a better way — instead of inserting a photo, create a text box. Then, format the text box to have as its content the desired photo as a picture fill.

Here’s how:

1. In PowerPoint, create or select the desired text box.
2. Right-click the box.
3. Select Format Shape.
4. In Fill, choose Picture or Texture Fill.
5. In Insert from, click File.
6. Locate the desired photo, and click Insert.
7. Click Close.

The photo will match the size of your box. You can drag the box and resize, rotate, or otherwise manipulate as desired.

Created a Facebook page and picked out a great photo to be the profile picture, only to have it appear squished or otherwise out of sorts?

Here are some tips for making your profile picture look the way you want it to:

1. Make sure your photo is square-shaped. Facebook automatically squishes rectangle-shaped images into square-shaped for the profile picture.
2. Keep in mind that profile pictures display at 160 pixels wide by 160 pixels tall. Although the image you upload must be at least 180×180, the photo resizes to 160×160. A 320×320 picture should end up looking great as a profile picture.
3. Because profile pictures show up next to your name around the site, pick a photo or logo that represents your Page well.

For more details, visit Facebook’s help page at:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=315809258465467

The Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop allows you to manipulate and distort specific image areas of an image while keeping other areas exactly as they are.

You can use Puppet Warp to do small manipulations, such as straightening walls, moving hair, and the like. You can also use Puppet Warp to do major alterations to the photo, such as repositioning arms and legs.

To use Puppet Warp, the section you wish to manipulate must be in a layer other than the default Background Layer.

For example, to turn the Mona Lisa’s smile into a frown:

1. Open the photo in Photoshop (Puppet Warp is a feature in CS 5 and newer).
   
2. Change the Background into a regular layer (Layer > New > Layer from Background).
3. Select the portion you wish to warp (in this case, the smiling area).
   
4. On the Edit menu, select Puppet Warp.
5. In the meshed area, click to select the “joints” you will use to warp the photo.
   
6. Drag the “joints” to manipulate the photo until you achieve the desired result:
   

Last week, we looked at the free, open source desktop program GIMP, a fully featured alternative to Photoshop.

This week, I want to introduce you to some of the free, online tools that can also be used to modify photos and other pictures/artwork.

• Picnik: http://www.picnik.com/
  • Free, online image editing service. Upload a photo, and make your edits. No need to sign in unless you want to. Upgrade (for a fee) to gain access to more effects and other editing features.
• Fotoflexer: http://fotoflexer.com/
  • Another free, online image editing service.  Like Picnik, you can upload photos and gain access to a wide variety of image editing tools and effects. (They tout themselves as the “world’s most advanced online image editor”.) As with Picnik, there is no need to sign in unless you want to.
• Pixenate: http://pixenate.com/
  • Pixenate allows you to edit photos directly on their website, OR you can download and install the software directly on your own web server to add photo-editing capabilities to your web site. As they say on their web site, “Pixenate is fully customizable so you can change any aspect of Pixenate’s appearance to suit your own website’s unique identity.” You can install Pixenate on any web server that allows for CGI, and like both Picnik and Fotoflexer, there are a wide variety of image editing tools available.
• Photoshop Express: http://www.photoshop.com/
  • Adobe recently released a web version of its popular image editing tool. Photoshop.com requires you to create an Adobe account, and limits you to 2 GB of disk space for free. (You can upgrade, for a fee, to increase the amount of disk space.) Many of the image editing features found in the desktop version of Photoshop are found in its online cousin, Photoshop Express.

Did you know that there is a free, open source, fully featured alternative to Photoshop?

The Gnu Image Manipulation Program is a fully-featured, sophisticated desktop-based image editing and manipulation tool. In many ways, the GIMP rivals and even exceeds the capabilities of Photoshop (especially if you download and install the many and varied plugins for GIMP).

The GIMP is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

More information, including download, and installation instructions is found on the GIMP website:
http://www.gimp.org

To enhance functionality in the GIMP, visit the Plug-in Registry:
http://registry.gimp.org/

For documentation on using GIMP visit the docs section:
http://www.gimp.org/docs/

My favorite GIMP plugins:

Liquid Rescale: http://registry.gimp.org/node/144

• This plugin performs content-aware scaling  in GIMP (and preceded Photoshop’s ability to do so by at least a year!)
• Video Example of Liquid Rescale: http://bit.ly/ohiXi0

Resynthesizer: http://registry.gimp.org/node/25219

• This plugin performs content-aware fill in GIMP (and preceded Photoshop’s ability to do so by years!)
• Video Example of Resynthesizer: http://bit.ly/pckIM4

Need to remove something from your photograph and make it look like it never was there in the first place? Photoshop CS4 and CS5′s Content Aware Fill is just what you need!

1. In Photoshop, open the image.
2. Using one of the selection tools, select the part of the image you wish to remove. In this example, we’ll remove the legs of the players in the upper part of the image.
3. On your keyboard, press the Delete key (or, on the Edit menu, choose Fill). The Fill window appears.
   1. In the Contents section, in the field Use, select Content-Aware.
   2. In the Blending section, in the field Mode, select Normal and Opacity 100%.
   3. Click OK.

The unwanted portion of your photo will no longer appear – Photoshop analyzes the contents of the photo and attempts to figure out what the photo would have looked like if they had never been there.

In this example, note, however, that the shadows of the unwanted players still exist – repeat the same steps to eliminate the shadows.

Want to learn more great Photoshop tips? Come take our class Photoshop 101 on April 11, or Photoshop Level 1 on May 16!

For more information on the classes, watch the course preview video , or visit http://techtraining.stanford.edu/.



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Have a portrait or a photograph of a person or object you want to emphasize without overdoing it? Adding a soft, feathered edge or a soft-focus to the photo can be the difference between a flat, boring photo, and one that evokes warmth and interest.

Feathered Edge Vignettes

Feathered Edge Example

To add a feathered edge to a photo in Photoshop:

1. Open the photograph in Photoshop.
2. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool.
3. In the Elliptical Marquee Tool’s properties, change Feather to about 5% of the overall width (e.g., for a 500 pixel-wide image, choose 30px).
4. Click and drag an oval of “marching ants” surrounding the object you are emphasizing.
5. To select everything except that object, right-click (on a Mac, control-click) inside the oval, and choose Select Inverse.
6. On your keyboard, press the Delete key (not the Backspace key).

Note that the edges around the selected region have become soft (feathered)!

Want to learn more great Photoshop tips? Come take our class Photoshop 101 on February 18, 2011.

For more information on the class, watch the course preview video , or visit http://techtraining.stanford.edu/.

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