Photoshop On Mac : How To Adjust Dark Photo With Photoshop

How many of you own a Digital camera with cybershot function? How many times of you took a picture with this cybershot which the result is very dark not good and you want to delete the file right away. Well.. dont just delete the file yet.. here I’ll share with you a very simple tutorial on How to Adjust Your Dark Photos to become more outstanding photo.

Take a look at this photo for instance.. I took this photo (well she’s the same model again from my previous tutorial) at the KLCC using SONY CyberShot T5 but the lighting is not like what I want, actually this happens sometimes when you’re lazy to set the correct setting on your CyberShot or you’re just lousy to do it.. BTW, on the second picture is better highlights + contrast.. No! I didn’t took the photo for a second time if that’s what you think.. the answer is Photoshop treatment! read on..

STEP 1 : Open the photo that you want to adjust File>Open. In this tutorial we start using a scenenary photos something like this..

STEP 2 : Go to Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlights. Adjust the ‘Amount’ of Shadows to be how many percent which you think the best, click the preview box several time or press ’space bar’ to see the effect. In this tutorial I increase the amount of shadows to 50% while amount of Highlights I leave it 0%.

Tips : the more percent the more dark shadows will reveal.

STEP 3 : Now you’ll see a brighter shadows and highlights on the photo. If you still not satisfied.. click the Show More Options box for more Highlights + Shadows adjustment.

Can you see the difference clearly?

STEP 4 : There you go..very simple right!! Checkout this two photos.. You see clearly so obvious the different after we done the adjustment of Shadows/Highlight where the sun reflection on water is become more brighter + the leaf stands out clearly.

STEP 5 : Hmmm.. actually you can make further adjustment by setting the Color/Hue/Saturation to make your photo more outstanding. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation or press (Mac: Apple+U / PC: ctrl+U). Now adjust only the Saturation to the right means to increasing, the rest just leave it 0.

STEP 6 : Now.. you see the different after a few treatment? amazing right!! still not satisfied? Okay.. go to Image>Levels or press (Mac: Apple+L / PC: ctrl+L). Now as you can see the little tiny white thing on your right is light tone and on the left is dark tone while the middle is neutral tone. Adjust the light + dark tone by dragging the tiny thing towards the middle.

Tips : The less light tone you drag on the White arrow towards the middle the brighter the photo will be, while..the more you drag on the Black arrow towards the middle the darker the photo will be.

STEP 7 : There you go..Waalaah! Practice this simple tutorial on as many as your dark + ugly photos that you took until you master this valuable technique. But remember, this technique can only be apply when you using Adobe Photoshop CS + newer, old version doesn’t have this simple function yet..

Photoshop on Mac : Advance WaterColor Effects

Photoshop is one great + powerful platform software for editing pictures using by most designers + also photographers around the globe. Photoshop has one good function of effects on picture editing call ‘Filter’ and one of the easiest and fastest way of editing your picture is Artistic Filter, one of my favourite was ‘Watercolor’ effect. But, I find this filter technics has not giving me a perfect results and that’s why here I would like to share with you guys on How To Make Watercolor Effect on your picture with Advance technic.

STEP 1 - Choose any picture of you like, ( recommended, scenery pictures ). Here I use this photo taken on Manukan Island, situated near my place here at Sabah, Borneo Malaysia. Will takes you about 30 minutes boat ride from the Kota Kinabalu city jetty.

STEP 2 - Now copy the Layer name (Background) simply by dragging the layer towards the ‘create a new layer’ icon on the lower part of the Layer’s pallete and place it on top of the first layer. Then, delete the first layer (Background) and copy again the new layer (Background copy) and place it on top. Name this new layer to ‘Watercolor’

STEP 3 - Now, with the new layer selected (Watercolor), set the new layer to Luminosity mode and then go to Image>Adjustment>Desaturate. You’ll see nothing much is changing right, be patient my dear fellow apprentice.

STEP 4 - Now go to Filter>Stylize>Find Edges. Do not panic as this is really how your photo will look like.

STEP 5 - This time go to Edit>Fade Fine Edges. Please note that this action can only be done at one time, if you’ve mistakenly apply any kind of different action before applying this, you may not be able to do the Fade Fine Edges. However, don’t get yourself panic again, just go to History’s pallete and select to the previous action and then you can be able to do the command (Edit>Fade Fine Edges) one more time.

STEP 6 - Now the Fade window appear and change the mode from Normal to Color Dodge and set the Opacity percentage to around 25% - 45% depending on how best you like, for this tutorial I choosed 30%.

STEP 7 - Now you’ll see the different from original picture to this result. Now you need to make some extra adjustment where you can make color to be more outstanding. With the ‘Background copy’ layer selected, press (Mac: Apple+U / PC: Ctrl+U) and adjust the Saturation to be more color by draging the pointer to the right. Next, you need to select Level (Mac: Apple+L / PC: Ctrl+L) to make the photo more balance in terms of black and white tone. Adjust the pointer until you’ve satisfied with it. You can also set the layer Opacity or Fill on ‘Watercolor’ layer to be lesser at 85% or 75% if you still not satisfied about it.

Tips : for Levels, drag the left pointer towards the middle will get you a darker tone while the pointer on the right will get you a brighter tone.

Original Photo

Standard watercolor effect

Advanced watercolor effect

STEP 8 - Here are the comparison between standard Watercolor filter effect and my custom Watercolor filter effect. Take a closer look at the texture on the tree, the sea surface and the sand.. now that’s what I call good Watercolor effect. If you guys just curious.. to apply a standard filter for watercolor effect, just go to Filter>Artistic>Watercolor.

STEP 9 - Actually the Tuts not just stop here, If you find the result still not that so outstanding.. Let’s do some more advanced treatment. First, carefully observed and study the ‘LOGIC’ elements on your picture. For this photo, the sand just seems not so impressive, some part looks so white.. just select Eraser tool (Press E) on the Tool’s palette and simply erase the area where you want to make the picture looks more clearer, make sure the ‘Watercolor’ layer is selected. Set the Opacity + Flow to be 75%, 55% or even lesser 35%, depending on how best you like the result will be.

STEP 10 - There’s still one more.. this picture has a very blur sky.. what you need to do next is to act like a god, where you need to create a sky. Select Brush tool (Press B) on the Tool’s pallete and set the Fill color to light Blue sky while the Opacity + Flow is set to 55%. Select the correct size of your brush, for this tutorial I use 65 and start brusing gently on the sky. To choose brush size, while the cursor on the picture right click and the Brush option windoe will come out.

There you! one nice Water Color effect for your favourite photo. Practice a lot, play photoshop frequently and sure you’ll master this simple technic very fast. Send me your watercolor photo once you’ve done okay.. see you all!

Illustrator Tutorial 11 : Christmas Desktop Wallpaper

Ho! Ho! It’s Christmas season again..This time I would like to share an interesting tutorial with you guys in conjunction to this Christmas season on how to create a simple Christmas Desktop Wallpaper.

The very first thing come out when I think about Christmas, would be Mr. Santa and the color Red, but this time I wouldn’t use any of Mr. Santa or Red color for my Christmas desktop wallpaper. How do you make your Christmas desktop wallpaper to be more simple yet attractive? Here’s how..

STEP 1 : First of all you need to create a new document in Illustrator by selecting 1064 x 768 for the size of your document and set the color mode to RGB. Select ‘Rectangular tool’ and create the background by covering all the background area and fill it with gradient colors for the background, on the Layers pallete (Press F7) name this first layer to be ‘Background’. As for this tutorial, I choosed a combination of Light Blue + Royal Blue for the background.

TIP : The size of your document is actually depends on your computer screen size since nowadays every computers and notebooks sale in the market are wide screen.

STEP 02 : Next.. in order to have your background to be more natural, create some small hills covered with a snow to be something like this by Using ‘Anchor Point’ (press P) on the Tool’s pallete.. Set the ‘Toggles Visibilty’ icon (something like an eye) on this layer to be off on the Layers pallete so that you can work on another drawing in a new layer without interfering any of those items.

STEP 03 : Next is for you to create a Christmas tree. This time I’ll share with you how to create a simple + quick christmas tree. First create a new layer (Layer 2) and name this layer ‘Tree’, then create 4 guidelines across each other to be like this Red guidelines. Then use the ‘Anchor Point’ (press P) to draw the outline on one side of the christmas tree.

STEP 04 : Later, just duplicate the outline of christmas tree and place it on the other side. First select the finish outline using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V) and copy (Apple+C / Ctrl+C) and place in front (Apple+F / Ctrl+F). Then, drag the new outline to the other side of the christmas tree and reflect it using ‘Reflect Tool’ (press O) while preesing shift button.

This Pathfinder effect will merge the two outlines to become one single shape.

STEP 05 : Select both outlines and go to Pathfinder (press Shift+F9) and select ‘Add to shape area’ icon while pressing ‘Alt’ button. Then fill the color you prefer for your christmas tree, recommended Green/Light Blue.

STEP 06 : Use ‘Rounded Rectangle Tool’ on the Tool’s pallete to create the tree’s wood. and fill it with brown color of your favourite.

Fill up more Christmas tree by simply duplicate them as many as you like.

STEP 07 : There you go, place the Christmas tree just nice on the hill side. To fill up more tree simply duplicate by selecting the tree using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V) and drag it to the area you want while pressing ‘Alt’ button.

STEP 08 : Later comes my favourite part.. Creating a Snow Man! First create one more new layer (Layer 3) on top of the (Layer Tree) by clicking the ‘Create a new layer’ icon on the Layers pallete and name this layer to ‘Snow Man’.

STEP 09 : Now, select ‘Ellipse tool’ (prees L ) on the tools pallete and start creating two round shape in two different size which is something like this. The small round shape on the upper part will be the ‘head’ of a snow man while the big round shape on the lower part will be the ‘body’. Later, continue creating the ‘eyes’ the ‘nose’ and the ‘mouth’ of the snow man. As for the mouth, use ‘Anchor Point ‘ (press P) and create one curve line.

STEP 10 : Create some more items for your snow man like a skarf and a tree branch then start filling up colors of your snow man. Choosing a right color combination is a key to get an attractive vector drawing. Here I choose gradient colors of Blue, Light Blue and White while Red for the skarf.

This how the snow man looks like..

and place it somewhere on the wallpaper.

STEP 11 : Finally, there’s one more thing you need to add on.. the snow! But before that, set all the Layers to be Lock by clicking the Lock icon on the Layer’s Pallete. Then only create a new layer (Layer 4) and name this layer ‘Snow’. This one will be a quick one.. using an ‘Ellipse tool’ (prees L ) on the Tool’s pallete, create a small round shape then fill it with White color. Duplicate this round shape by using ‘Selection Tool’ and drag it to fill the area while pressing ‘Alt’ button.

Tip : To get more attractive results, duplicate the snow into various different kind of sizes.

There you go.. your Christmas desktop wallpaper is ready..