Selection tutorial that will maks out difficult objects with clean edges.
Photoshop: Healing Brush and more December 11, 2008
I use the healing brush quite a bit. It’s great for getting rid of acne, discoloration, removing tattoos, any small thing you don’t want seen. I’m going to begin with an okay photo and run through the steps of how I can edit it to make everything look a bit better. This is really useful stuff that studios charge a lot of money to do, but is incredibly easy. Let’s start with the original image and the first thing we’re going to do is remove the blemishes.
Use the Healing Brush tool in the tools pallet. Zoom in on your photo and alt+click an area that’s somewhat close to where you plan to work. Use the smallest brush you can while still covering the blemish in the brush. Generally, the smaller you work, the less obvious the changes are. Just click away at the blemishes. You can click and hold and drag your brush all over an area, but sometimes the coloring gets funky, so it’s best to just click in specific spots. This can get tedious – maybe that’s what the studios charge for. 
Teeth whitening is another handy skill to know. Sometimes you can use the dodge tool on teeth, but it tends to make teeth glow, which looks weird. Try just using a select tool, such as lasso, and draw around the teeth. If you click on the Quick Mask Mode button at the bottom of the tools pallet (the front-loading washing machine), it will put everything but your selection in red. Then you can zoom in and make a better outline. Paint brush will add to your selection, eraser will remove. Click the Quick Mask Mode button again and you’ll see the regular image and an outline of your selection. Now go to Layer –> New adjustment layer. Here you can try a couple things. Either select Curves and adjust the brightness that way, or try color balance. Color balance will probably work best with yellowed teeth. What you’ve done is create a layer with only the teeth in it so you can adjust the look of your teeth without affecting the rest of the image.
Make me skinnier! This is a hit-or-miss method, but using the Smudge tool can often be the easiest way to squeeze a waist. In this example, I’ve taken in the arm a little. I select the smudge tool from the tools pallet, again using a fairly small sized brush, and work my way up and down the arm, smudging just a little at a time from left to right. The image will blur where you smudge, so you have to be clever about it. Sometimes smudging down is better than smudging right or left; follow the lines in the image. I’ve also gone over some of the image with the Blur Tool (located in the tools pallet) to help make the smudging less noticeable.
I really like the orange lights in this picture, but that guy in the lower left is killing me. By using the Burn tool, I can burn away the extra stuff in this image and blend it into the darkness. I adjust the range of the burn too to midtones (you can play with the ranges to see which works best) and go over all the extra people and objects. This leaves me with a nice clean background that no longer deters from the focus of the picture.
One thing that really bothers me about this picture is the random strand of hair hanging over the face. So I’m going to fill it in using the Clone Tool. Select the clone tool from the tools pallet. On the image, pick an area very near to where you plan to work and alt+click. You’ve now told the program where the origin of your clone is. After that, I can paint along the bare space and clone in the new hair. This can be a difficult tool, so be patient with it.
Photoshop: Gaussian Blur October 7, 2008
So you see a really cool photo with this neat blur thing happening, but the main focus of the picture is crystal clear. How do they do that? Well, here’s how:
Open a picture. My sister just had her second child, so she’ll continue to flood this blog with her beautiful presence.
1. Create a duplicate layer of background (main layer) – Go to Layer > Duplicate layer > OK.
2. You’re adding to add the blur affect to this duplicate later: Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur — set the blur to whatever amount you want the blurriest part of the picture to look like.
3. With that blurred layer still selected, add a layer mask. You can do this by either clicking on the icon in the layers pallet that looks like a front loading washing machine, or go to Layer > Layer Mask > reveal all. This adds a mask filled with white.
4. With that mask selected, use the gradient tool in the tools pallet. Set the tool to black to white or transparent. You can use a color mask, but it will make semitransparent masks. Remember: Black conceals, white reveals. Using the gradient tool, draw a line anywhere on the picture. You’ll notice that the blur changes depending on where you draw your line, what angle you draw it at, and how long or short it is. Apple+Z undoes your move so you can click around a million times until it looks just right to you.
I didn’t go crazy with the blur, but you can see it in the hands and border around the baby’s feet.
*This tutorial written with special thanks to the Lovely and Gracious.
