A few photoshop tricks (and calibrating your monitor)

northstarvintage

northstarvintage

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I mentioned in an earlier post that my husband is working for a digital photography company who puts out high end catalogues. He's learning all sorts of cool photoshop tricks, and I wanted to pass some along.

First, I had mentioned calibrating your monitor. We figured out how to do it - it's quite easy and REALLY improves the look of the screen.

Go to Start
Go to Control Panel
Click on "Adobe Gamma" (it's the top row on my Windows XP)
It will give you a choice of what profile to use. I used AdobeRGB (Matt picked it actually - I think because I use Adobe Photoshop). If you use another photo manipulation program there might be another choice.
Then just go through the steps - it's really easy.

Voila! I hope this works and helps!

Susan
 
One of the other cool tricks he taught me is how to brighten up or darken spots on your photo.

Enter Quick Mast Mode (hit the Q key)

Make sure that black is the foreground color.

Choose a soft edged brush from the brush palette.

Paint over the parts that you would like to alter. It will show up pink.

Hit Q again to exit Quick Mask Mode. You will see the "dancing ants".

Go to Image. Then to Adjust. chen those what you'd like to change - the levels or suration for example. You will see it change on the screen.

Click Control D to end.
 
And finally, this one is my favorite - it's really fun. But it takes a minute to get the hang of it.

To finely adjust the colors and contrast...

Hit Control M

This brings up a screen. Click on the black eye dropper - the furthest left of three buttons on the bottom of the screen. Then click on the darkest part of the photo.

Click on the white eye dropper (furthest right). Then click on the brightest part of the photo.

Click on the gray eye dropper (middle) and click on the most mid tone gray of the photo - you might have to click around a bit.

This will alter the color of the picture, and if you hit it right, it looks AMAZING.

However, you may need to tweak it a bit - so you can wiggle the line on the graph on the right side of the screen and it will make adjustments. You can also change only certain colors, using the Channel pull down menu at the top. This is a little tricky, but it's cool!

I hope these are clear!

Ill keep picking his brain.

Susan
 
Argh... I tried the Adobe Gamma thing and I just couldn't figure parts of it out!

When I got to the gamma part it said to set it so that the middle square faded into the patterned background.
Well that never happened! So I just didn't know where to go from there and quit.

This is something I'd really like to figure out since I posted pics of that "cement gray" purse last week and everyone said the pics all looked blue or purple. And then this week a customer got her dress and said it was "lemon yellow instead of pale yellow".. which was alright because she preferred the actual color but was just giving me a heads up.

Hmmmm maybe I'll have lunch and try again.

Sure do appreciate the tips, though, Susan!!:USETHUMBUP:
 
Susan,

These are great! Can't wait to try them - I tried to figure out Quick Mask a few times over the years & couldn't make heads or tails of it. I find Photoshop Help to be spectacularly unhelpful - I'm always reading it saying "What?" "Huh?!" Your instructions, on the other hand, are clear and simple! :USETHUMBUP:

As for Adobe Gamma-- I tried it with my old monitor - like Kristine, I was mystified. Couldn't get the square to fade into the background, which pretty much stopped the process in its tracks. Happily my new monitor is perfect in every way :)

Thanks so much for posting these. Photoshop (Adobe) should hire you and your husband to translate their Help into English.

Carolyn
 
I tried it and mine in better. Just stuck to the middle of that bar on the fading out of the middle thingie.

Thanks!!!!!!
 
Re: my last post - the last paragraph should read "Photoshop (Adobe) should hire you and your husband to translate their Help into <i>Human </i> (or something like that) - the Photoshop Help pages I bring up are, in fact, in English. I think.

I'm glad Linda was able to complete the monitor calibration process. I just felt like I was being f-ed with :o;)

Carolyn
 
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