Retouching Day 1

Keyboard Shortcuts

Clone Stamp Tool: S

Healing and Spot Healing Tool: J

Liquify Tool: SHIFT COMMAND X

Using the Clone Stamp Tool

The clone stamp tool allows you to paint a selection from one part of an image to another.

• You need to tell Photoshop what you want to duplicate by OPTION CLICKING.
• By default the Clone Stamp tool will only work on the same layer to work on multiple layers in the toolbar change the drop-down menu from Current Layer to All Layers or Current and Below
• The Clone Stamp tool is destructive so you should:
  1. create a new layer,
  2. select the layer you want to clone,
  3. OPTION CLICK on the target you want to clone,
  4. Click on the new layer and start cloning.

Using the Healing Brush tool

The Healing Brush works much like the Clone Stamp tool but also tries to match the color and tone of the location you are applying your selection to.

• You need to tell Photoshop what you want to duplicate by OPTION CLICKING.
• By default the Healing Brush tool will only work on the same layer to work on multiple layers in the toolbar change the drop-down menu from Current Layer to All Layers or Current and Below.
• The Healing Brush tool is destructive so you should:
  1. create a new layer,
  2. select the layer you want to heal,
  3. OPTION CLICK on the target, you want to heal,
  4. Click on the new layer and start healing.
• Be careful of edges as the Heal tool tends to blend the space around it.

The Liquify Tool

The Liquify tool allows you to warp an image like putty. This tool is also destructive so it’s a good idea to duplicate the layer you plan to modify.

• The Liquify tool will open up in its own window with its own toolset which includes:
  • The Forward Warp Tool allows you to warp the image.
  • The Reconstruct Tool will slowly undo the changes you have made.
  • The Smooth Tool is a less aggressive version of the Reconstruct tool.
  • The Twirl tool will twirl the image clockwise, holding down OPTION will twirl the image counter-clockwise.
  • The Pucker Tool will shrink the image to the center of the brush.
  • The Bloat Tool will enlarge the image from the center of the brush.
  • The Reflect Tool will try to flip the image you are working on to the other side.
  • The Freeze and Melt tool will mask the image from other liquify tool effects.
  • The Face Tool will allow you to manipulate various aspects of a face.

Download these notes here

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Adding Texture in Photoshop

Blending another texture into your composition

1. Make a selection of where you want to place your texture using the quick selection tool.
2. Open the new texture and select all of it by pressing COMMAND A.
3. Switch back to the image you want to place the texture in.
4. Choose Edit>Paste Special>Paste into... to paste the texture into your selection.
5. If the image is to small or large use COMMAND T to transform the image to the right size.
6. Pick a Layer Style that will properly blend the texture and the background (Multiply often works well —see Layer Styles later in these notes for more information)
7. You can clean up any issues in the mask by clicking on the texture layer’s mask (the black and white thumbnail) and using the Brush tool B to clean up your mask (Black hides, white reveals. Use X to quickly switch between black and white.)

Layer Styles

Layer Styles are a way of blending the top layer with the layer beneath it. The way layers are blended is usually through the value, the hue or combination of the two.

• The Layer Styles are separated into 4 basic groups.
  • The first group usually allows the darker pixels to win.
  • The second group will usually allow the lighter pixels to win.
  • The third group will add contrast to the winning pixel.
  • The fourth will change the color of the winning pixel often to the negative.
  • The fifth group will choose which pixel wins based on the color.
• Experiment with the different layer styles to see which one works best for what you want to do.
• You can also work with the opacity of each layer to adjust how much of the image is seen.

Retouching Day 4

Contextual aware delete

To use Contextual Aware delete hold down SHIFT when pressing DELETE

• Remember that when using contextual aware delete you are asking the computer to be creative. This will sometimes result what you want it will sometimes result in something you definitely don’t want but, you will usually need to clean up a bit after the initial delete.
• Contextual Delete usually works in places where there is a common pattern.

Using Brushes

Brushes allow you to change the shape of your paintbrush.

• These can be downloaded from the internet and added to your brush library.
• You can also create your own brush by selecting a greyscale image and selecting Edit>Define Brush Preset...
• You can change a number of brush options in the Brush Panel.
  • Shape Dynamics allows you to create a slight jitter around the diameter of the brush.
  • Scattering changes the scatter pattern of the brush shape.
  • Texture will add a slight texture of a loaded grayscale image.
  • Dual Brush will allow you to use two separate brush shapes.
  • Color dynamics will blend both the foreground and background colors.
  • Transfer changes the opacity of the brush this is often used with tablets.
  • Noise adds a bit of grain to your stroke.
  • Wet edges will make the edge of your stroke slightly darker and changes the way color is blended.
  • Airbrush lightens the edges.
  • Smoothing smooths the blending of colors a bit more.
  • Protect texture tries to keep the texture of the image when painting.

Matching Skin Tones and other colors

You may need to adjust the tones of skin, hair etc if you are taking a feature from one person and placing it on another. To help do this we’ll first just concentrate on the values and then move to the color of the image.

1. Create a new Hue and Saturation adjustment layer and drag it to the top of the layer stack.
2. Take the adjustment layer’s saturation all the way down to zero so everything is in black and white.
3. Select the layer you want to adjust, the one with the nose for example, by clicking on it.
4. Now select just the item on the layer by holding down COMMAND and clicking on the thumbnail of that layer.
5. Create a new Levels adjustment layer and adjust the shadows highlights and mid-tones so that they look similar to the tone of the rest of the face.
6. Turn the Hue and Saturation level off by poking its eye to see how close you are.
7. You should be pretty close but there will probably by some adjustments to the hue that will need to be done.
8. COMMAND click on the object you want to tweak like before.
9. Create a new Color Balance adjustment layer and and fine tune your color choices.
10. You can also blend your two items further by using a mask.

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Content aware fill and Frequency separation

Content aware fill

There may be times when you need to erase and image from a picture. Sometimes a good place to start is with Content Aware Fill. Note: This is asking the computer to be creative so you might not get exactly what you expect. Even if it isn’t perfect this could be a good start that could be cleaned up by using the clone stamp tool and the healing brush tool.

Frequency Separation

Frequency Separation allows you to separate the color from the texture of an image. It’s a little complex to set up but heres how to do it.

Set up

1. Create two more copies of the layer you wish to work on by pressing COMMAND J twice.
2. Name the top lave “Texture” and the one beneath it “Color”.
3. Select the Color layer and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to slightly blur the skin but make sure the things that should stay sharp like the eyes, teeth and eyebrows are not affected.
4. Click on the Texture layer and go to Image > Apply Image…
5. In the box that shows up make these changes:
   • Source: The name of the image you are working on
   • Layer: The color layer
   • Blending: Subtract
   • Opacity: 100%
   • Scale: 2
   • Offset: 128
   • Preserve transparency and Mask…. should be unchecked.
6. Change the Texture layer’s Layer Style to Linear Light.
7. OPTIONAL: Select the Color andTexture layer and group them to tidy things up.

Working with color

1. Select the color layer.
2. Click on the lasso tool and set you feathering before you make your selection. (You can press the Q button to quickly go into Quick Mask mode to check the feathering, pressing Q again will take you out.)
3. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use the slider to give the subject a more even skin tone.
4. Select more other areas and repeat.

Working with texture.

1. Select the color layer.
2. Make sure you’re using the Clone Stamp tool and that Current Layer is selected in the options bar.
3. Select a texture you want to use to clone by pressing the OPTION key and clicking.
4. Then paint in the texture you want on the area you want to change.