Photoshop Elements Vol 11 (Nov-Dec)

8/10/2019 Photoshop Elements Vol 11 (Nov-Dec)

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Recompose

TOOLCHUCKIE DELANO

Pop ArtSPLATTERPORTRAITDIANA DAY

POSTERMANIAMICHELLE STELLING

Speeding Editing for

HEADSHOTSERIN PELOQUIN

Moving andRemoving

OBJECTSLESA SNIDER

PhotoshopElements 13:

FIRSTLOOK

MATT KLOSKOWSKI

N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4

NOT JUST ANY

OLD PHOTOLARRY BECKER


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2 |Photo ElementsTechniques

Diana Kloskowski |Editors Note

Hello PET Members,

Love this time of year: pumpkin spice coffee, the scentof fresh baked cookies and most of all celebrating withfamily and friends. Its certainly a busy time for all, butwhen you have a few minutes, grab a cup of coffee anddig in, we have a wonderful issue lined up for you.

If you havent looked at the new features in AdobesPhotoshop Elements 13 yet, check out Matt Kloskowskis Photoshop Elements 13 First Look. In the featurearticle, Not Just Any Old Photo Larry Becker shows youhow to recreate an old tintype style image. Lesa Snid-ers article How to Move and Remove Objects takesa look at different tools and techniques to do just that.The Tool Tips column is featuring the Recompose Toolthis issue and was written by Chuckie Delano. Bring outyour inner child and create a Pop Art: Splatter Portrait

with this fun and creative article written by Diana Day.Short on time? Erin Peloquin gives you some time sav-ing tips for editing headshots using Lightroom in TheSpeedy Technique for Editing Headshots. And finally,Michelle Stelling shows you how easy it is to create aposter in Poster Mania.

Subscriber Showcase is 1 page this issue, and onlyincludes the winners from the Farm Life photo chal-lenge. But not to worry, next issue it will return to 2pages and submissions submitted for the past twoissues will be considered.

Thanks to all that participated in our recent survey!Weve read each and every comment, and it has proven

to be very insightful.

Finally, from the PET family to yours, wed like to wishyou a warm and wonderful holiday season!

Happy Holidays!

Diana Kloskowski

Editor-in-Chief

Cover Photo: Fotolia.com Igor Mojzes

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November/December 2014 |3

Contents

Volume 11|Number6

04

Learn the art of resizing usingthe Recompose tool in both theGuided Editor and Expert Editor.by Chuckie Delano

08Simplified shapes in vibrantcolors add up to an eye-catching retro image.by Diana Day

16 Create your own professionalposters using pre-made back-grounds.by Michelle Stelling

26

Learn which tools to use, and howthey work, to move or removeobjects from your photos.by Lesa Snider

30A quick overview of the newfeatures in PhotoshopElements 13.by Matt Kloskowski

34Time saving techniques for editingheadshots using Lightroom, andtaking advantage of its batchediting capabilities.by Erin Peloquin

40Subscriber ShowcaseWinners from the Farm Life Photo Challenge

Make a Tintypestyle image usinglayer masks andadjustment layers.by Larry Becker

20

SUBSCRIBER SHOWCASE

EDITORS PHOTO BETTY EICH

PHOTOBYFRANKZAREMBA


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Download the images for this project from the Magazine section for the November/December 2014 issues Extras at PhotoshopElementsUser.com.

Chuckie Delano | Recompose: The Art of Resizing


AS THE WORLD PROGRESSES, IT IS INEVITABLE THAT YOU WILL CAPTURE AN IMAGE THAT

CONTAINS SOMETHING UNWANTED. THAT SOMETHING MAY BE IN THE FORM OF UNWANTED

SPACE, A PERSON THAT IS OUT OF PLACE, OR AN OBJECT THAT JUST BEGS TO BE ERASED. OR PER

HAPS YOU WANTED TO CHANGE THE ORIENTATION FROM LANDSCAPE TO A PORTRAIT IMAGE,

BUT DIDNT KNOW HOW TO BEGIN? IF YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED EITHER OF THESE SITUATIONS,

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE RECOMPOSE TOOL.

recompose:

the art of resizingThe Recompose tool is available in both the Guided Edit mode and the Expert Edit mode. Both modesprovide brushes to keep visually important content or to remove unwanted content, as well as anoption to resize an image to a desired aspect ratio.

RECOMPOSING INGUIDED EDIT MODELets start in Guided edit to eliminate the unwanted spacebetween the two kite surfers and transform the image from alandscape orientation to a 5 x 7 portrait.

1Open an image for resizing/

recomposing. If you donthave an image of your own, youcan follow along using my imageof the kite surfers. Go to the Filemenu and select Open, navigateto where the image is located onyour computer, click to select itand then click the Open button.

2Next, click on Guided at the top of your workspace toenter Guided Edit mode. From the panel on the right, selectRecompose, which is located under Touchups.

From either Guided Edit mode or Expert Edit mode, ifyou right-click on an image a Highlights pop-up menuappears. Whether you are using the Protect brush or theRemove brush, there are two brush modes to choosefrom: Normal Highlight and Quick Highlight. When inNormal Highlight mode the brush behaves like a regu-lar brush. When in Quick Highlight mode you draw theboundaries of the area youd like to select and QuickHighlight will highlight the area within the boundary.The Clear Protect Highlights option will clear any high-lights you made with the Protect brush areas shadedin green. The Clear Remove Highlights option will clearany highlights you made with the Remove brush areasshaded in red. The Clear All Highlights option will clearall highlights made from both the Remove brush and

the Protect brush. Finally, there is a Show RecomposeHelp option that you guessed it, will display help topicsfor the Recompose too.

RECOMPOSEHIGHLIGHTS MENU


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Recompose: The Art of Resizing | Chuckie Delano


Tool Tips

3The Protect brush allows you to select theareas of your image that youd like to protectwhen the image is resized. The areas selected withthe Protect brush will be shaded green. With theProtect brush selected, paint over each of the kite

surfers and be sure to include the kite lines. Resizeyour brush as needed using the Brush Size slider, orthe keyboard shortcuts of the left bracket key ( [ ) tosize it smaller and the right bracket key ( ] ) to makeit larger. Note: Although not needed for this image,the Remove brush allows you to select the areas of

your image that youd like removed when the image

is resized. The areas that have been selected with the

Remove brush will be shaded red.

4Dont worry if your selection includes more than you intended,just click on the Eraser with the plus sign (+), located to the rightof the Protect brush, and paint over the areas that you dont wantincluded in your Protected selection.

5From the Preset drop-down,select 5 x 7 forthe dimensions, click the green check mark tocommit, and then click on the Done button.

6Remember you can take an image intoExpert Edit mode, after you finish with theGuided Edit, to make further edits if needed. Thisimage looks pretty good, but one bit of clean up isneeded, so click on Expert at the top of your work-space to open the image in Expert Edit mode.


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Chuckie Delano | Recompose: The Art of Resizing


7Next, select the Crop

tool from the Toolbox,and in the Tool Options Bar,click on the Crop Preset drop-down and select 5 x 7.

8Finally, crop the image by drawing a boxaround the image and click the green checkbox to commit the crop.

RECOMPOSING IN EXPERT EDIT MODERecomposing in the Expert edit mode provides a couple of options that are not available in Guided edit mode: HighlightSkin Tone and Threshhold.

A Highlight Skin Tone option is provided in the Tool Option Bar, which allows the quick highlighting of skin tones in yourimage. I dont normally use it because I use the brushes to identify the objects I want to keep and delete, but you may findit useful in helping you highlight people you want to keep. Use with caution, sometimes it will select objects that you hadntintended. For example, click on it after opening the image of the skateboarder and youll notice that it also selects the lightpoles. Well do our selections with the brushes, so go to the Edit menu and select Undo Highlight Skin Tones.

Note: if the ratio is 7 x 5, click the bluedouble headed arrow to switch the W & H.

Highlight Skin Tones option


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Recompose: The Art of Resizing | Chuckie Delano


Tool Tips

Chuckie Delano is a military photographer and an instructor. Hehas taught photography and Photoshop at the college level. Hiswork appears in numerous Department of Defense magazines andWebsites.

1Begin by opening an imageto resize/recompose. For thisexample, well use the image of the skateboarder, so if youdownloaded it go ahead and open it now. Also, you want to bein Expert Edit mode, so if youre not there already go ahead andclick on the Expert tab, located at the top of the workspace.

2There are 3 ways to access the Recomposetool: Select the Recompose tool from the Tool-box, it is located in the Modify section of the Tool-

box, using the keyboard shortcut W, or by going tothe Image menu and selecting Recompose.

3In the Tool Options Bar, select the Protect Brush (thebrush with the + sign). It works the same in Expert mode asit does in Guided mode, but has one extra option here, Thresh-hold. The Threshold slider is used to adjust the RecomposeThreshold, reducing the Threshold will help with distortions,its best to leave it at 100% and then lower it if needed. Nowhighlight the main skateboarder using the Protect Brush.

4Next, lets mark the two bystanders in the image forremoval. In the Tool Options Bar, select the RemoveBrush (the brush with the minus sign) and highlight the twobystanders. Also, lets remove the light pole that is behind thebystander on the left. If you accidently select an area that youdont want removed, no sweat, just click on the Eraser iconwith the minus sign (-) next to it and paint over the areas youdont want removed.

5Now, grab the square handle on the right side of theimage and pull to the left until the unwanted bystandersdisappear, and click on the green check mark to commit. Ifyou pull to far left, youll notice that the light pole on the rightwill start to distort.

6To finish it off, select the Crop tool from the Toolbox,and crop out the unwanted areas. The Recompose tooldoes a great job of eliminating object, but you might need to

grab the Clone Stamp tool or the Spot Healing Brush tool toclean up a bit.

Recomposing provides a method of resizing your imagewhile removing unwanted objects. Selecting a preset ratio is

a quick way of converting a landscape image into a portraitwithout losing any key elements in your photo.

You may be able to breathe some new life into some of yourold photos by eliminating an unwanted object or changingthe orientation.


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Diana Day | Pop Art Splatter Portrait


SIMPLIFIED SHAPES IN VIBRANTCOLORS ADD UP TO AN

EYECATCHINGRETRO IMAGESUITABLE TO ADORN A WALL OR

PERSONALIZED GREETING CARD

POPARTSPLATTERPORTRAIT

EXTRAS:TRY IT AT HOME!

To follow along with the photo Diana used for thisproject, download it from the November/Decem-ber 2014 Extras at PhotoshopElementsUser.com,where youll also find additional examples andtips, as well as download links to suitable brushesand custom shapes.

1My example project starts witha headshot of a senior girl I took forher high school yearbook. Downloadmy example image to follow along,or select a photo of your own. Sincein a later step well be simplifying theproject photo to a black and whiteshape, youll have the most successif your photo has a light background

and strong contrast. Use the Crop tool(C) to crop the portion of the photoyou wish to use.

I remember as a kid in grade school, doing a funpainting project by spattering paint over a leafwith a piece of door screen and a toothbrush.After spattering paint all over the project andon ourselves, we removed the leaf to reveal ourcolorful design on the paper. But I always lovedthe splattered leaf best. Thinking back on thisgave me the idea of digitally filling a shape withpaint spatters. So I experimented awhile, result-

ing in this part pop art/part paint-spattered sil-houette. I believe youll have fun with this ver-satile effect, which can be applied to a customshape, as well as a photo.


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Pop Art Splatter Portrait | Diana Day


Project

If you prefer a more abstractimage and wish to leave the miss-

ing details to ones imagination,you have the option of skippingSteps 4 through Step 6, and stick-ing with the default thresholdlevel in Step 3, or tweaking it a bitto your liking.

2 Duplicate the Backgroundlayer by drag-ging the layer to the Create a new layer iconat the top of the layers panel. The duplicatelayer is automatically named Background copy.If your image does not have solid light-colored

background like my photo, refer to the onlineextras for tips on how to delete the background.

3We will apply a Threshold AdjustmentLayer to our photo to convert it to a flatblack-and-white image. This step is a trial runto determine if the photo has the right contrastto get a good representation of the subjectsfeatures. By adjusting the threshold to the pointwhere the majority of the image looks prettygood, we can determine which areas are lack-ing detail and should be darkened in order torender a better silhouette of the features.

Click on the Create new fill or adjustment layericon at the top of the layers panel, and fromthe drop-down menu, select Threshold. Thedialog displays a default threshold level of 128.In my project photo, the hair and most of thefeatures look fine with the exception of parts ofthe nose and mouth, which have almost disap-peared. Move the Threshold slider to see howthe image is affected. If we raise the level to 188,the mouth starts to appear, but the shadowed

side of the nose is way too dark, and her eyeslook like shes wearing a mask.

The test run for my image shows that the mouthand left side of the nose and nostril need morecontrast. So, lets back out of the ThresholdAdjustment for now. Close the Threshold dialogwith the small x in the upper right corner andthen drag the Threshold 1 layer to the trash.

4Before continuing, lets darkenthe areasof the missing features we would like to beconverted to black. First, zoom in on the mouthand select around the lips with the Lasso tool(L). Right-click inside the selection and fromthe context menu, select Feather, and enter 2pixels. Press Ctrl-J (Mac: Command-J) to copythe selection to a new layer. Change the Blendmode of the Mouth layer to Multiply, and lowerthe Opacity to 75%. Merge that layer down bypressing Ctrl-E (Mac: Command-E).


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5Next well select and darken part of thenose and left nostril, the same way we didwith the mouth. Zoom in on the nose, selectthe applicable portion of the nose, featherthe selection, and then copy it to a new layer.

Change the Blend mode to Multiply, and thenfor this layer, lower the opacity to 50%. Mergethe darkened nose layer down.

6 Now apply the Threshold filter to seethe difference Steps 4 and 5 made to theimage. Create the Threshold Adjustment Layerand drag the Threshold slider until the eyes,nose, and mouth have good detail, but donttake it so far that it removes the detail from theother features. I adjusted the threshold level to147 for my image. Merge the Threshold layer

down. Where there are gaps, such as the topand bottom of the lips, and around the bottomof the chin, I used the Pencil tool set at 2 pixelsto roughly sketch in lines with black. In orderto see the edges of the features to trace, I tem-porarily lowered the opacity of the Backgroundcopy layer to about 50%. This sketching step isoptional; you may prefer it without adding thelines. When finished, change the Opacity of thelayer back to 100%.

7 If the subject of the photo youre using is wearinglight colored clothing, select around the garment withthe Lasso tool and fill it with black. Lower the Opacity ofthe Background copy layer, if needed, to see the edges ofthe clothing. Make sure black is your foreground color anduse the keyboard shortcut Alt-Backspace (Mac: Option-Delete) to fill the selection with the foreground color. Iusually fill the selection on a blank layer and then merge it

down when it looks good.

8 Well now remove the white,leaving a silhouette ofthe subject. Turn off the visibility of the Backgroundlayer. Grab the Magic Wand Tool (A), and in the ToolOptions bar, set the Tolerance to around 25, and makesure Contiguous is unchecked. Click on a white area of theimage, which should select all the white areas. Press theDelete key to delete the white, leaving the backgroundtransparent. I renamed this layer Silhouette. Press Ctrl-D

(Mac: Command-D) to deselect.


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Project

9 At this point I decided, instead of asquared off bottom edge of the image, Iwanted the torso shaped with a more finishedand decorative look. To do that, well need moreroom around the edges of the image. Select the

whole image with the Crop tool (C), and thendrag all four edges outward to add more can-vas. Since we dont know yet how much roomwell need, bigger is better. You can always cropit down later.

10While experimenting,I discovered thatthe Custom Shape tool is a good way to

add on to the torso. There are several optionsfor shapes that would work. I decided to use theheart in the Crop Shape set. To do this, makesure the foreground color is black. Select theCustom Shape tool (U), in the Tool Options barclick the drop-down arrow to open the CustomShape picker and select Crop Shapes, and thendouble-click the heart crop shape. Drag out theheart shape on the image. It doesnt need to fitto the subject at this point. When you releasethe mouse button, the shape will be drawn on anew layer. Press Ctrl-T (Mac: Command-T) anduse the free transform bounding box to adjustthe heart to fit from the shoulders down and aswide as needed.

11 In order to cut the shapeaway to revealthe clothing neckline, first well need tosimplify the custom shape because its a smartobject. Right-click on the shape layer, andchoose Simplify Layer from the menu. Lowerthe Opacity of the shape layer to about 70% tosee the neckline below. Use the Lasso tool (L) toselect the portion of the shape to be deleted,and then press the Delete key. Press Ctrl-D(Mac: Command-D) to deselect. If the squarecorners of the original torso are visible beneaththe heart shape, on the Silhouette layer, selectthe corners and delete them. Return the Opac-ity of the shape layer to 100%. Merge the shapelayer down.


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12 The edge of the necklineis very sharp,in contrast with the grungy edges of thecrop shape, so I used the Eraser tool (E) with abrush from the Natural Brushes set to rough upthe neckline a little on the Silhouette layer.

13 In keeping with the pop art look, fillthe transparent facial features with flatcolors sampled from the colored backgroundlayer. Turn the Background layers visibility backon and add a new, blank layer above it. With theLasso tool, make a loose selection around theface and neck, overlapping just inside the hair

and shirt line. On the new layer, fill this selec-tion with a skin color sampled from the Back-ground layer I used #eabfaf. To set the color,click on your foreground color chip to open theColor Picker, you can choose a color from theColor Picker or sample a color from your imageby moving your cursor over your image (yourcursor will turn into an eyedropper) and clickto sample the color. Next press Alt-Backspace(Mac: Option-Delete) to fill the selection withthe foreground color. Finally, press Ctrl-D (Mac:Command-D) to deselect, and then hide that

layer so you can see the Background layer again.

14 Repeat step 13 to create an Eyes &Teeth Layer and a Lips layer. For theEyes & Teeth layer, select around the teeth andaround the edges of each eye and fill thoseselections with white. For the Lips layer selectaround the lips and fill with a color suitable forlips I used #fa6d81. On that same layer, makea loose selection around the teeth, being care-ful not to select into the red lip area, and thendelete the red color covering the teeth.

To prepare for painting, lets give our image anew background layer to set off the subject.This is especially important if you removed thebackground from your original photo. Add anew, blank layer above the original Backgroundlayer and set your foreground color to a colorof your choice, then press Alt-Backspace (Mac:Option-Delete) to fill it with your selected color.Here its neutral, but you can always change thiscolor later, as long as you dont merge that layerwith another layer.


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Project

15 Now youll need some paint splat andspatter brushes. Go to the online Extras,and download brush files from the links provided.Create a folder on your desktop for the brushes. Ifa downloaded file is zipped, double-click on the

zipped folder to open it and drag the .ABR file out toyour brushes folder. If the file is compressed in .RARformat, youll need an app to extract the .ABR brushfile. Check the Extras for links to .RAR extractors.

To load a new brush file to use in Elements, selectthe Brush tool (B) and in the Tool Options Bar, clickthe drop-down arrow beside the brush stroke toopen the brush picker. Click the menu icon in theupper right corner of the brush picker and selectLoad Brushes to open a dialog where you cannavigate to the file where you stored your brushes.

Click on a brush file, and then click the Load but-ton, which takes you back to Elements with thatbrush set loaded. In the brush picker youll see thebrushes in that brush set.


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17 Painting the facial features.With the selec-tion still active from the previous step, nowwell paint over the black threshold areas of the face.

Add a new, blank layer at the top and name it FacialFeatures and zoom in on the face. Choose a red colorto coordinate or match the section of the lips alreadycolored and use the Brush tool resized smaller to paintthe rest of the lips. Then select colors to apply brushstrokes for the eyes and eyebrows. For the outlines ofthe Eyes, I left them mostly black to represent eyelinerand eyelashes, and added a bit of color to the irises asdescribed in the Extras. Deselect when finished. Sincenow the silhouette is no longer black, I filled my neu-tral background with black.

16Adding base paint to the hair and shirt.Start on a new, blank layer above the Silhou-ette Layer, which I named Base Paint. To get a selectionaround the silhouette shape, Ctrl-click (Mac: Com-mand-click) on the Silhouette layer. With the selection

active, the brush strokes will affect only the inside ofthe selection. This means when you stamp a brush halfinside and half outside the selection, only the portioninside the selection will be applied.

I chose two colors, blue for the hair and red for theshirt, but I used three shades of each color stampedon separate layers, starting with the base color, themedium shade on a layer above that, and then lightestshade on top, to produce a marbled look. I stampedvarious overlapping brush shapes. You can use a singlecolor if you wish. If you want to peek at the Back-ground layer to see where the hair and shirt meet, Alt-click (Mac: Option-click) on the Backgrounds eye iconto toggle the view on and off. Take care that your haircolor brush stamps dont overlay the facial features,unless you want that color there (if they do, just eraseover them). Once you get the base coverage you like,merge the individual paint layers down to the BasePaint layer, but leave the Silhouette layer un-merged.

It would be difficult to give you detailed steps for which brush stamps to use, which colors tochoose, and exactly where to stamp them to duplicate my project. The brushes and shadesof colors, as well as the placement of the paint are your choice. Just like those spattered leaf

designs in school, everyones project will look different. However, several tips on paintingthe silhouette, including the hexadecimal values for the shades of blue and red I used, areprovided in the online Extras. Keep in mind that the painting doesnt need to be precise, justartistic make it your own style.


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Project

Diana Day is a self-taught Elements user, and she teaches Elements to members of her community by hosting a PSE Users Group,presenting at meetings and workshops of photography groups, and tutoring Elements users one-on-one in their homes. Diana alsoperforms photo-editing services for photographers and does photo restoration for genealogists when called upon.

18 The final step is the most fun!On blank layers above the Facial Features layer,add multicolored splat, spatter, and paint drip stamps all around the image as youdesire, using the downloaded brushes. Some of the splats and spatter should overspillonto the background and a little on the face and neck. I added some swirl brushes on aseparate layer around the hair as embellishment. Use your imagination and creativity to

decorate your pop art portrait. As a finishing touch, I added the blue stroke around theedge. To create a stroke, on a blank layer at the top, make a selection with the RectangularMarquee (M) tool a bit inside the edges, and from the menu select Edit>Stroke (Outline)Selection. In the Stroke dialog, enter the pixel Width, select a Color, click Inside for Loca-tion, and then click OK. I hope you have as much fun with this project as I did.


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Michelle Stelling | Poster Mania

These posters are so easy and fun for the kids! If you can get your kid to suit up and do a quick photo shoot, the hard part isover. These EASY Digital backgrounds are available in a variety of categories ranging from sports, cheerleading, band, gymnastics,seniors, you name it. Visit www.EASYdigitals.com for more information.

POSTER

MANIA:

Create a ProfessionalPoster using these Simple

Steps with EASY Digitals

EXTRAS:TRY IT AT HOME!

To download the photo and a low-resolution version of the background used in this tutorial, go to theNovember/December 2014 Extras at PhotoshopElementsUser.com. If you would like to purchase thehigh resolution background please go to www.EASYdigitals.com, the names of these three backgroundsare titled: Champion Lights Vertical, Football Fury Horizontal and Football Fury Vertical.

NOTE:You can always google search various poses on the internetfor ideas. Just be sure to choose images after you put in thesearch words. In this case I searched for football poses.

1The first step is to take a photo of yoursubject in uniform. If your model is any-thing like mine, they might fight you on thisone, lol. I use a big blanket and just hang itfrom the wall or drape it over the curtains. I

am not a professional photographer (I con-sider myself a photo taker) so if you have amore professional set-up, by all means, use it!I chose a red blanket since it created the mostcontrast with my subject. This will help tre-mendously once we have to extract them fromthe background. For example, if you have awhite uniform, you wouldnt want to put themon a white background as this would makeselecting the subject very difficult. Here are afew poses we came up with.

2Next, you will want to choose whichpose works best with your background.There are many different backgrounds youcan choose from. These three backgroundsreally caught my attention. For this demon-stration, I will use the one on the left. Alsokeep in mind that most of these backgroundscome in both horizontal and vertical formats,so if you want to create a horizontal poster,this is totally doable.

3 First, open the photo of your model,goto File>Open or use the keyboard shortcutCtrl+O (Mac: Command-O) then locate yourphoto and click on Open. You will want to makesure you work on a copy of the original, so besure you always have a backup, just in case.


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Poster Mania | Michelle Stelling


Project

4 Next, you will need to extract the sub-ject.There are various tools and/or meth-ods you can use to extract the subject, so youwill need to figure out which works best foryour photo. In this case, lets use a combina-

tion of the Quick Selection tool and the RefineEdge Feature. Select the Quick Selection tool(A) from the Toolbox, and in the Tool Optionsbar, size your brush as needed. You can use theslider or simply enter in the pixel size manually.Every photo will require a different setting sotest various sizes for your photo. A brush sizeof 250 works well with this image. Click on theBrush Settings button to change the hardness,soften up the brush just a bit to 90%, and leavethe other options at their defaults.

5Select the subject by clicking and drag-ging around within the model. You will see

marching ants around your selection, if youneed to add or subtract from the selection, usethe Add or Subtract icons, located in the ToolOptions bar. Try to get the best selection pos-sible, but dont worry if its not perfect, we willuse the Refine Edge feature for more accuracy.

6 It is now time to pick the settings withinthe Refine Edge dialog. With the modelselected, click on the Refine Edge button located

in the Tool Options bar. In the Refine Edge dia-log, click on the View drop-down options andselect the View Mode that works best for yourphoto, the On Black (B) View Mode works wellfor this image.

7At this point, we will zoom into the sub-

ject so that we can see the details. Be sureto select the Zoom Tool (Z) within the RefineEdge dialog. Then click-and-drag within thearea you want to zoom to. In this case, I want tostart with the hair. Check the Smart Radius boxand set the Adjust Edge settings as shown in thescreenshot. Again, every photo will be differentso sometimes it is just a matter of trial and error.

NOTE:

I usually put a slight featheron my edge and also choose anegative Shift Edge in order todecrease the halo effect.


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Michelle Stelling | Poster Mania


8 Its time to Refine the Edge. Make surethe Refine Radius Tool (E) is selected, paintaround the outside of the selection. This toolis fantastic for selecting hairs and tricky spots.You might need to select the Hand Tool (H) in

order to move around the subject. Once youhave painted around your subject, hit the OKbutton. You should have a pretty good selectionat this point.

9 I suggest that you Save this Selection.Atthis point, you have put a lot of time intomaking this selection, so I strongly suggestyou save the selection by going to Select>SaveSelection, name it and hit the OK button. If youever need to go back and load the selectionin the future, go to Select>Load Selection andchoose it from the list of drop-down choices.

10 Open your background file.Keep themodel image open and open your back-ground file at the same time. Go to File>Openand locate the file. I put them side-by-side inorder to drag the model image over to the back-ground file. If you are unable to float your boxes,go to Edit>Preferences>General (Mac: Photo-shop Elements Editor>Preferences>General)and check Allow Floating Documents in ExpertMode. Select your Move tool (V) from theToolbox and drag-and-drop the subject over tothe background.


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Poster Mania | Michelle Stelling


Project

Michelle Stelling is the founder of the National Association of Digital Scrapbookers. She has taught thousands of studentsworldwide the art of photo editing and digital scrapbooking. Teaching others how to create beautiful cards, personalized photosand scrapbook layouts using Photoshop Elements is her passion. Come check out her free weekly webinars and learn more aboutdigital scrapbooking at www.naods.com

11 Position and Transform your photo to what looksappropriate. Use the Move tool, and with the modellayer selected, position the subject and use the handles ofthe bounding box to resize as needed. The resolution willplay a big part in how much you need to transform. The file

that we will supply will be a low resolution photo, so youmight need to make adjustments.

12 Finally, you will save your poster.File>Save As> Football.psd. I usually save 2 different files from this layout. Isave one as a PSD file and the other as a JEPG file. The PSD file keeps the layers and the JPEG file will compressthe layers. Here are a few other posters I created using www.EASYdigitals.com backgrounds.

NOTE:

The extracted player should go right on top ofthe layer that says extracted player here, but

also feel free to move that layer into other spotsfor various effects. The sky is the limit withthese awesome backgrounds!

NOTE:

The Champion Lights file will have layersthat you can adjust to your liking. So be sureto play around with turning layers on and offand adjusting them to give the best effect. Theversatility of these files allows you to changecolors, brightness, curves, color brightness, etc.


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Larry Becker | Not Just Any Old Photo

20 |PhotoElementsTechniques

Not Just Any Old PhotoTHIS ONE IS JUST MY TINTYPE

IN MY MOTHER'S CURIO CABINET THERE'S A SPECIAL PHOTO OF A RELATIVE FROM

GENERATIONS AGO THAT'S PRINTED ON METAL. IT'S THE ONE AND ONLY TINTYPE PHOTO

IN MY FAMILY AND IT'S ALWAYS BEEN A SOURCE OF FASCINATION FOR ME. AFTER DOING

A LITTLE RESEARCH, I DISCOVERED THAT TINTYPE IMAGES ALSO CALLED FERROTYPES OR

MELAINOTYPES ARE CREATED BY COATING A THIN SHEET OF IRON WITH DARK LACQUER OR

ENAMEL AS THE SUPPORT MEDIUM FOR A POSITIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT.


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2Now we need to eliminateall color in theimage and selectively paint back in some of

the yellow in splotches. We'll do this by adding anew adjustment layer at the top of the layer stackthat changes things to black and white, then usethe layer mask that is automatically attached, todo our splotchy painting. Press the letter D onthe keyboard to reset the foreground and back-ground colors to their default. (White is the fore-ground color and black is the background color).Now click on the Levels adjustment layer in theLayers panel to select it again (we're selecting the

top layer so the next new layer that's added is onthe very top), then add another Hue/Saturationadjustment layer to the top of the layer stack.This time simply adjust the saturation to zero, tomake your image black and white, and click theX to put that dialog box away.

Unfortunately, the Levels adjustment we just didhad the effect of washing out the vivid yellows,so we need to go back and punch them up a bitmore. The good news is that, because we madethat adjustment on an Adjustment Layer, we can

fix the vivid yellows by moving that slider a bitmore. So go back to the Hue/Saturation adjust-ment layer and double-click on it in the Layerspanel. Push the Saturation slider further right,into the mid 70s.

Press the B on the keyboard to activate the Brushtool. Now it is important to select all the rightbrush settings in the Tool Options bar. Start byclicking on the Brush Preset Picker and choosea large soft brush, I chose one with a 300 pixeldiameter. At this point you won't need to adjustany other brush settings, but you will need topaint with black. Press the letter X on the key-board to make black your foreground color.

Now simply click several places at randomaround your image. This will effectively paintlarge, soft, fuzzy black spots on to the layer maskfor the black-and-white adjustment layer, and inthose places, the yellow will reappear.


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Not Just Any Old Photo | Larry Becker

Feature

3The base image is pretty closeto finished,but we still need to add the fuzzy outer areato make the center area appear sharply focused.We need to make a new layer on top of the layerstack that is a flattened copy of everything vis-

ible, so press Ctrl-Atl-Shift-E (Mac: Command-Option-Shift-E. Now go to the Filter menuchoose Blur > Gaussian Blur... You will need tomake your image very blurry, so choose a valuehigh enough to blur your image sufficiently. I'mworking with a low resolution image so some-where between 6 and 9 is fine for my image.

4The base image is complete, and nowwe need to add a couple of different blackvignettes and a chemical stain to "sell" the effect.Start by clicking on the Create a new layer icon,at the top of the layers panel, to create a newblank layer at the top of the layer stack. Now,with the brush slightly outside your main imagearea, draw a U-shape around the right, bottom,and left of your image to create a dark vignette.

Next, click on the Add layer mask icon at the topof the layers panel to add a layer mask to the

blurred layer. My 300 pixel soft brush isn't quitebig enough for the next step, so I pressed theright bracket key ( ] ) several times to increase mybrush diameter. Then just clicking once or twicein the center of the image area will bring backdetail in the center of the image.

To create this next image defect, a hard-edgeupper vignette, you will need to make the edgeof your brush almost 100% hard. Start by click-ing on the Brush Settings button in the ToolOptions bar. Then in the Brush Setting Panelyou will need to adjust the sliders. First movethe Spacing slider to 1%, so the curve you paintwill be smooth, then move the Hardness slidernear 95%. Now, with as smooth a stroke as pos-sible, make an upside-down U around the topportion of your image.


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5At this point the image is veryclose to fin-ished, however, too much contrast remainsin the midtones, and I think my lower vignetteencroaches a bit too much on my image. Ratherthan going back and adjusting earlier levels and

the painted vignette, it's easier to add a fresh Lev-els adjustment layer on top of everything, andmake all these corrections at the same time. Justadd a new Levels adjustment layer, to the topof the layer stack, and move the Midtone sliderto around 1.6 and the output slider away fromthe right edge, to further flatten the midtonesand lighten the image. Note how that Levelsadjustment also softens the lower soft vignette and

makes it more transparent.

6The final detail is to add an appropriatechemical blemish. This is done on a new,blank layer at the top of the layer stack. Click theCreate a new layer icon to add a new, blank layer.From the Brush Preset Picker, choose a Spatterbrush. Because of the size of my image, I choseone with a value of 39. Then, in the Brush Set-tings panel, you will need to make the brush fadeover distance, so I chose to set the Fade valuenear 275, but your number will depend on theresolution of your image.

Finally, choose a dark-ish purple or blue fore-ground color to simulate the defect properly.Click on the foreground color chip to open theColor Picker and choose the color you like. Nowpaint a vertical, shaky stroke from the lower leftof your image area.


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Not Just Any Old Photo | Larry Becker


Feature

Because the blurred, purple stroke will be toowide, press Ctrl-T (Mac: Command-T) to getthe Free Transform bounding box. (It will auto-matically surround the purple stroke you just drew

because it's the only thing in that layer.)Use one of

the center handles to compress the shape verti-cally and then press the green checkmark to lockin the changes.

Now the purple, chemical stroke needs to havea white-ish glow, and I think it needs to be less

transparent. Start by changing the opacity ofthe layer to 65% using the Opacity slider at thetop, right of the layers panel. Click on the Effects(fx) icon, at the bottom of the Layers panel, andchoose Styles > Outer Glows, then double-clickon Simple to apply a simple whitish glow to thepurple stroke.

Click the Layers icon to return to the Layerspanel. Now you can see a small fxto the rightof your selected layer, indicating that some layereffects have been applied (and you may havealso noticed that the addition of the glow madethe density of the stripe too opaque). Double-click thefxand you can adjust the values of theouter glow. For my image, I changed the Size to7 pixels and the Opacity to 90%. And since thepurple smear is too opaque now, the final stepis to turn the Opacity back down. At this point,I think it looks best around 35% or so.

As you can see, this is far more specific than

simply running a Photoshop or Instagram filter.The defects appear to be random, but they arethe result of efforts to very convincingly repro-duce tintype image defects. And then, whenyou're all done, consider sending your finishedwork to someplace that prints on metal, likeImage Wizards, and you'll end up with a con-vincing tintype replica.

Larry Becker is a photographer and an instructor. He has taught Photoshop at the college level and conducted Photoshop Elementsseminars for Adobe. His work has appeared on the sites of many major technology training companies.


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Lesa Snider | Moving and Removing Objects


WHEN IT COMES TO MOVING OR REMOVING OBJECTS IN YOUR PHOTOS, ELEMENTS SPORTS A GREATSET OF TOOLS FOR THE JOB. BY USING THE CONTENT AWARE MOVE AND CLONE STAMP TOOLS, ALONG

WITH THE SPOT HEALING AND HEALING BRUSHES, YOU CAN LITERALLY MOVE MOUNTAINS! AS YOULL

LEARN, THREE OF THESE TOOLS BLENDCOPIED PIXELS WITH SURROUNDING PIXELS TO MAKE YOUR

CHANGES LOOK MORE NATURAL, BUT THE CLONE STAMP TOOL DOESNT. IN THIS COLUMN YOULL

LEARN WHICH TOOL TO USE WHEN, ALONG WITH HOW TO USE THEM WITHOUTDESTROYING YOUR

ORIGINAL PHOTO. THIS KIND OF EDITING REQUIRES PATIENCE, SO TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND READ ON!

MOVING &REMOVINGOBJECTS

1Open an image in Expert mode. In Ele-ments 11 or 12, click the Expert button at thetop of the workspace; in earlier versions, click FullEdit at the upper right instead. If you dont seeyour Layers panel on the right side of the work-space, click the Layers button at the bottom ofthe workspace or choose Window> Layers. Wellstart by moving the girl ahead of the boy in thissledding race. Create a new layer by pressingShift-Ctrl-N (Mac: Shift-Command-N) and inthe resulting dialog, name it move and click OK.In your Layers panel, make sure the new layer ispositioned above the image layer.

2Activate the Content-Aware Movetool inthe Modify section of your Toolbox (it lookslike two intersecting arrows, and is available inversions 12 and higher). In the Tool Options Barthat appears at the bottom of the workspace,make sure Mode is set to Move and turn onSample All Layers. This instructs Elements to lookthrough the active emptylayer to where the pixelslive on the layer below.


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Moving and Removing Objects | Lesa Snider


Technique

Fotolia/24469417

Patrizia

Tilly

4Position your cursor inside the selec-tion and then drag downward to move the

girl ahead of the boy. Release your mouse but-ton and Elements moves the object and blendsit with surrounding pixels. While you still havean active selection, drag the Healing slider in theTool Options bar slightly left for less blending orright for more blending (dragging it too far leftcan mangle your subject). When finished, chooseSelect> Deselect. As long as theres some freebackground space around the object (like thesnow) and you dont move the object very far, theContent-Aware Move tool works wonders (just

think of it as Content-Aware Scoot!).

5If theres some cleanup to do, as in ourexample, activate the Clone Stamp tool in theEnhance section of the Toolbox and, in the ToolOptions Bar, turn on Sample All Layers. The CloneStamp tool is great for cleaning up areas near an

edge (where one color meets another) or any-where that you dont want blending to occur. Italso letsyoucontrol where to copy pixelsfrombysetting a sample point.

3Mouse over to your imageand click-and-drag to draw a rough selection around thegirl; youll see a gray outline as you drag. Makethe selection slightly larger than she is, so yourenot left with a weird outline once you move her,

and be sure to include her sleds shadow. TIP: Ifdrawing a freehand selection is too hard, use theQuick Selection tool to create a selection, expandit by choosing Select> Modify> Expand, and thenactivate the Content-Aware Move tool.


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Lesa Snider | Moving and Removing Objects


7Activate the Spot Healing Brush in theEnhance section of the Toolbox. Its great forfixing small to medium-sized areas with pixels thatElements automaticallypicks. It works by copyingthe pixels just outside your cursor and blendingthem with the area you click on, so you need aswath of good pixels around the thing you wantto remove (say, the open sky around the unwantedpower line, unblemished skin around the pimple,and so on). In the Tool Options Bar, make sure theSpot Healing Brush icon is darkened and turn onSample All Layers.

8Zoom in to the girls face.Create another newlayer named spot healing, as described in step 1.Mouse over to the image and use the Tool OptionsBars Size slider to make your cursor slightly biggerthan the thing youre removing. Click, or click-and-drag, to remove the snow spots from the girls face;Elements shows your brushstrokes in dark gray. Whenyou release your mouse button, Elements blends thepixels together. If you dont like the results, press theUndo button and either change brush size (the sizeof the area copied is the determined by brush size)or use the Tool Options Bar to switch the Type toProximity Match. The latter uses pixels immediatelyoutside the brush cursor, wherein Content-Awareanalyzes a largerarea of nearby pixels.

6Repeat step 1 to create a new layer namedmove cleanup, and position it at the top of yourlayer stack. Set a sample point by Alt-clicking (Mac:Option-clicking) the area you want to copy pixels

from; try to find an area that matches the color and

texture of the area youre fixing. Release the modifierkey and brush over the area that needs fixing. Tinycrosshairs mark the sample point as you drag anda preview of the sampled area appears inside yourcursor. (You can turn this preview off, or lower itsopacity, by clicking the Clone Overlay button.) Keepan eye on the crosshairs to make sure they dontmove into an area you dontwant copied. Set a newsample point every few brushstrokes to prevent that(this is the tedious part), and adjust brush size usingthe Tool Option Bars Size slider to sample smaller orlarger areas. If you introduce a repeating pattern, seta new sample point and brush back over it. If youdont like the results, keep pressing the Undo buttonin Elements toolbar to undo your brushstrokes andtry again.


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Moving and Removing Objects | Lesa Snider


Technique

Lesa Snider, founder of PhotoLesa.com, is the author of the best-selling book series, Photoshop: The Missing Manualand iPhoto: The Missing Manual(OReilly)and many video workshops, including Elements 12 for Photographers (lesa.in/lesacl). Shes a columnist for Macworld and PhotoshopUser magazines, a popular public speaker, and stock photographer. Download a free Elements cheatsheet at Facebook.com/photolesa. Twitter: @PhotoLesa.

9Activate the Healing Brush in the Enhancesection of the Toolbox. In the Tool Options Bar,make sure the Healing Brush icon is darkened andturn on Sample All Layers. The Healing Brush is goodfor fixing small to medium-sized areas with pixels

from another area in your image that you specifyby setting a sample point. TIP: Press Shift-J to switchbetween the Spot Healing and Healing Brush tools.

10Create another new layer named heal-ing brush. Mouse over to the image and, toremove the blurry snowflake on her forehead, set asample point by Alt-clicking (Mac: Option-clicking)the area you want Elements to use for the fix andthen brush across the snowflake. When you releaseyour mouse button, Elements blends the pixelstogether. Set more sample points as necessary and

repeat to remove the blurry snowflake on her cheek.NOTE: Each time you make a new brush stroke, thesample point returns to its original position (the oneyou initially set). If you want the sample point to alignitself with the location of your cursor instead, turn onthe Tool Option Bars Align checkbox.

11Save the document by choosing File>Save As. Pick Photoshop as the format so

your layers remain intact; you can undo edits byactivating a layer and using the Eraser tool or byusing a layer mask. Heres the before and after ver-sion of the image:

As you can see, a little time and patience is all ittakes to turn the photo you have into the photoyou want. Until next time, may the creative forcebe with you all!


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Matt Kloskowski | Photoshop Elements 13 First Look


MUCH LIKE EVERY MIDLATE SEPTEMBER FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS, ADOBE HAS LAUNCHED

ANOTHER VERSION OF PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS. SO WE THOUGHT WED PUT TOGETHER A

QUICK OVERVIEW FOR YOU SHOWCASING SOME OF THE NEWEST FEATURES AT A GLANCE, SO

YOU CAN SEE ALL THATS NEW IN THE LATEST VERSION. HERE GOES:

PHOTOSHOP

ELEMENTS 13FIRST LOOKCONTENT AWARE FILLOne of my personal favorites is a feature called ContentAware Fill. You may recognize the name "Content Awarefrom the Spot Healing brush which has this option, or ifyouve ever heard anyone talk about the full version ofPhotoshop. Essentially Content Aware Fill is really a wholenew level of cleaning up images because it looks at all sur-rounding areas near what youre trying to clean up (thats

the content aware part), and makes an intelligent replace-ment on top of what you want to remove from the photo(thats the fill part).

The way it works is pretty simple. Just use any selection

tool to make a selection around whatever it is you want to

remove in the photo. It doesnt even have to be a complex

selection. I usually just use the Lasso tool because its quick

and easy. Then go to the top menu and choose Edit > Fill

Selection. From the Use list, choose Content Aware Fill and

Elements will automatically fill that area with something

that matches the area around your selection to try to make

it look as seamless as possible. It usually does great, butsometimes I find trying it again if it didnt work the first

time helps. Or try making a slightly different selection and

using Content Aware Fill again and youd be amazed at

how different it can work each time. If I have one favorite

feature of the new version, this is it!


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Photoshop Elements 13 First Look | Matt Kloskowski


Product

NEW EFFECTS INTHE EFFECTS PANEL

NEW QUICK EDIT EFFECTS

NEW GUIDED EDITS

FACEBOOK COVER PHOTOS

If you like presets and effects then check out theEffects panel in the Expert edit mode. When you clickon the Effects tab, youll see you can filter the effects

by certain categories. But if you just click Show All,youll see all the effects available. While Elements 12had effects, there are lots more (and theyre easier tosee) in Elements 13.

While were on the topic of effects, the Quick Edit

mode has some new ones too, but it goes furtherthan that. If you jump to Quick Edit mode, andchoose Effects on the bottom right, youll see theeffects listed there. The list is a little larger becausethe thumbnails look better, but theres also neweffects as well.

But one of the big differences is when you click toapply an effect, Elements will apply it like always, butitll also show you a new list of other similar effectsbased off the one you just clicked. So you couldalways tweak the main effect a little by clicking on

one of the others.

If you want a little more control over your effects,then try the Guided Edit mode. Theyre categorizeda little different, the Camera Effects and Photo Effectsare now separated out. But youll also find some newones there including Black and White, Black andWhite Selection (you pick the parts of the photo youwant to keep in color), and B&W Color Pop, whichlets you make just one color in the photo stand out,and makes the rest black and white.

If youre a Facebook fan, then youll be happy to know that Elements 13 includes a way to create aFacebook Cover photo right from within the Editor. That way, youll be sure its the right size and youcan even upload it directly to Facebook.com without saving it and using your web browser, or goingto your Facebook page to do it. I mean, imagine not having to see what your old high school friend(who you never talk to anyway) had for breakfast that morning :-)


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Matt Kloskowski | Photoshop Elements 13 First Look


To use it, just go under the Create tab and chooseFacebook Cover Photo. Youll have some themeoptions and you can even go between Basic andAdvanced mode if you want to use the full editorto add and change things in the cover photo. When

youre done, youll be able to connect to your Face-book page and upload it directly from Elementswithout even going to Facebooks website.

AUTO CROP SUGGESTIONS

REFINE SELECTION BRUSH

PHOTOMERGE COMPOSE MOVING PEOPLEFROM ONE PHOTO TO ANOTHER

The Crop tool has a new feature called Crop Sug-gestions. You can still crop your photo the way youalways have, but now when you choose the CropTool, Elements shows you 4 Crop Suggestions. Fromthere, you can click on one of them to see what itlooks like. If you like it, just click the checkmark toaccept it, if not, you can skip to another one or cropmanually like normal.

Selections are one of the key areas in Elements. Justabout everything we do revolves around selectionsat some point, so whenever theres a new tool, itsdefinitely worth checking it out. The way the newRefine Selection Brush works is by helping yourselections along after youve created them. Mostpeople use the Quick Selection Tool to start their

selection. But its not always perfect, and it usuallyselects too much (or not enough) when you try toselect something. The Refine Selection Brush allowsyou to quickly and easily refine your selection.

Photomerge Compose is probably the worst name for thisfeature, because it says nothing about what it really does,which is moving people from one photo to another. And

its actually a great feature and probably one of the mostrequested things I see out there. If youve ever taken a familyphoto, but are missing a key family member, or just have ablah background in your photo, this is a cool feature to helpchange that and bring in new people and backgrounds.

Just go under the top menu to Enhance > PhotomergeCompose and itll bring up a screen asking you to place thephoto with the people you want to extract first. Theres afew selection tools to help you get underway, and it evenhas the full Refine Edge dialog in there if you need to finesseyour selections.


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Photoshop Elements 13 First Look | Matt Kloskowski


Product

Matt Kloskowski is Education and Curriculum Developer for the NationalAssociation of Photoshop Professionals. He has authored several bookson Photoshop and Illustrator. His latest book is The Photoshop Elements12 Book for Digital Photographers, coauthored with Scott Kelby. Matt alsoteaches Photoshop Lightroom at LightroomKillerTips.com and has a blogabout Photoshop and Photography at www.mattk.com.

Well, we hope you enjoyed this first look at Elements 13. As always,check back here at the PET website for more videos, presets, andarticles to help keep you up to date.

eLive

ORGANIZER IMPROVEMENTS

eLive is a new way to include tutorials, inspiration, and news right inthe Elements app, without you having to go on the web and search forit. From either the Organizer or the Editor, click on eLive at the verytop. Youll see a new window with content that has been curated by

Adobe (you might even see some PET videos on it) to help get you theinspiration or tutorials that you need. You can even filter it to just seethe type of content youre looking for, over on the far left side. Changethe setting from Everything to the one area youre looking for. And ofcourse, content will be added as time goes on so keep checking back.

First, even though this really has nothing to do with using the Orga-nizer, Elements has retina support now. So both the Organizer and theEditor support those really cool/sharp retina screens and can makethe most out of it.

You can also email your photos directly from the Organizer now too.The email feature also resizes the photos so it saves you the time fromhaving to resize them yourself and attach to an email separately.

Theres a Slideshow feature under the Create menu as well. So you canpick your photos, pick a slideshow theme, add music, and launch rightin to a slideshow from the Organizer.

The search bar has a new feature where itll automatically show youdifferent types of searches, rather than just search everything. Thatway you can tell Elements exactly what fields you want to searchthrough to help get better results.

If you like to organize your photos in folders, then youll be happy withthe newest folder views on the left side of the organizer. Youve got theoption to view your folders as a list or as a tree view. So if the view evergets to unwieldy, then just switch to List view.


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Erin Peloquin | The Speedy Technique for Editing Headshots


The Speedy Technique

for Editing Headshots

Red>Green>Blue

A day of headshots is an easy-to-implement business boost. Inthis age of social media, everyone needs a headshot to representthemselves on Facebook, Linked In, Instagram or any other socialwebsite. You can set up a backdrop and a flash and invite clientsover in 45 minute increments for a day full of shooting.

Even if youre not a professional photographer, think how fun it

would be to host a headshot party for your friends. Share yourtalents and give a gift that reminds your friends of you every timethey go online.

Either way, youll end up with a ton of photos to edit. Luck-ily, headshots are usually taken in consistent environments thatmake batch editing easy. Youll need Lightroom to edit in batches.After that, youll perform a few touch-ups in Elements to perfectthis group of images. This tutorial will show you how.

1Adjust Exposure. When shooting with studio lights, wehope that our Lightroom exposure adjustments are mini-mal. In many cases, I find that I need to tweak exposure up ordown by 1/3 a stop.

When correcting exposure in Lightroom, measure skin toneto ensure that it will print well. Look at the histogram at thetop right corner of the Develop module. When you hoveryour cursor over the image, youll see the Red, Green andBlue measurements under the histogram. Use the Red chan-nel to gauge exposure. The brightest area of skin should beno higher than 94% in the Red channel to prevent blown outareas. For most ethnicities, you want a skin midtone (not ahighlight and not a shadow) to measure between 60 and 88in the red channel.

To bring your exposure within this range, move the Exposureslider to the right to brighten and to the left to darken.

Proper skin tone comes from a combination of good expo-sure and good white balance. Looking at the RGB numbersunder the histogram, proper skin tone of any ethnicity orage should follow this pattern:

If the skin in your headshots doesnt follow this pattern,adjust the Temp and Tint sliders in the White Balance sec-tion to perfect the skin tone.

In most cases, youll want at least 4 to 5 points differencebetween each of Red, Green & Blue, if not much more. Youcan see how the numbers changed after my White Balanceadjustment in the image below.

2 Color Correct.Shooting withstudio lights, your white bal-ance should be close to correct.However, my lights often requirea bit of extra warmth. The Light-room preset called Flash (avail-able only for Raw photos) works

well. If you shoot JPEG, move theTemp slider to the right by 5 to10 points.


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Once Sync is visible, click on it. The following dialogwill open so that you can select the edits that youdlike to apply to all selected photos. (Process Versionwill be on by default and you should leave it on. Itensures that Lightroom is applying the latest and

greatest technology to your photos.) Once youvechosen the edits to copy, click on Synchronize andwatch your photos change.

The other option for batch editing is to edit a groupof photos at the same time. For this option, selectthe photos to be edited by holding down Ctrl (Mac:Command) while you click on each. Toggle the Sync/Auto Sync button to Auto Sync. Any edit that youmake to the displayed photo will be applied to allselected photos.

5 Repair Backdrop Use the Spot Removal tool, ifpossible, to remove backdrop wrinkles or patchareas, where your frame extended beyond the edgeof the backdrop. If the problem area is small and sur-rounded by a simple area of backdrop, you can fixit in Lightroom. If not, youll need to take it to Ele-ments. Its best to do this edit near the beginning ofyour Lightroom workflow. If it doesnt work well, skipit, complete the rest of your Lightroom work and fixit in Elements after your other Lightroom edits.

To patch a backdrop, select the Spot Removal tool(Q). The Clone mode is usually best for backdropclean up. It pulls color, tone and texture from thesource area to the problem area. The Heal mode, onthe other hand, pulls texture from the source areaand color and tone from the area surrounding (andincluding) the problem area.

Click-and-drag over the problem area and makesure that the inner circle of your cursor touches allareas that need to be removed. After completingyour brush stroke, youll see that Lightroom has cre-ated a source area for you. You can click-and-dragthe source area to find the best match for the pixelsyou want to repair.

6 Correct Light Fall Off.You might find that you have dark areas on the sides or bottom of yourphotos caused by flash placement. Lightrooms Graduated Filter makes them an easy fix.

Source Area

Problem Area


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The Speedy Technique for Editing Headshots | Erin Peloquin


Lightroom

Select the Graduated Filter Tool (M) from underthe histogram. Increase the Exposure slider tobrighten it. Click-and-drag from the outside of thephoto (on the side where you see the drop off)towards the inside of the photo. Hold down the

shift key while you click-and-drag to create a per-fectly straight gradient.

After drawing, you can adjust the amount of expo-sure to suit your photo.

Also, you can batch edit this Graduated Filteradjustment, even though its a local edit. Use theSync or Auto Sync features as described above.

Select the Local Adjustment Brush (K) from under-neath the histogram. To whiten, increase Expo-sure & Shadows. You might also need to decreaseSaturation. Brush everywhere your backdrop isvisible. Type the letter O to show a red overlaywhere youve painted and ensure that you haventmissed any spots.

7 Darken or Lighten Backdrop Dependingon lighting, your backdrop might be lighter ordarker than it looked during your session. Light-rooms local adjustment brush will darken or lightenbackdrops easily.

Before

Before

After

After


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You can reverse this adjustment to make your back-drop darker or more gray. Darken Exposure andShadows and paint everywhere. For a pure blackbackdrop, reduce Exposure as much as you can.

This edit doesnt lend itself very well to using Syncor Auto Sync because theres generally slight move-ment between each photo. However, you cankeep your Adjustment Brush active and move fromphoto to photo adjusting your backdrop using thesame settings for each.

8 Enhance eyes. The Local Adjustment Brush willadd or enhance lifelike sparkle and light to theeyes in your image. Zoom in to the eyes by clickingon one of them (with all local tools turned off).

Activate your Local Adjustment Brush (K) and adjustyour settings to something like this:

Paint with this brush over the iris, pupil and lash line.

If each eye is equally lit, you can brush them bothwith these same settings. However, if one eye ismore shaded, youll need a separate brush with dif-ferent exposure settings for each eye. Dont forget topress the New button between edits.

To whiten those whites, double-click on the wordEffect at the top, left corner of the Adjustment Brushpanel to reset your brush. Increase Exposure slightlyand reduce Saturation. Set all other sliders to 0. Brush

just over the whites.

After turning off your adjustment brush (type K

again), you can click on your photo to zoom out.

Before

Before

After

After


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The Speedy Technique for Editing Headshots | Erin Peloquin


Lightroom

Erin Peloquin is a professional photographer and Elements and Lightroom Instructor. View her portfolio at TimeInACamera.com andher wide range of Elements and Lightroom tutorials at TexasChicksBlogsAndPics.com.

When editing using Lightroom & Elements both, the key to speediness is to do as muchediting as possible in Lightroom, so that you can take advantage of its straightforwardinterface and batch editing capabilities. Ideally, you wont need to take all of your photosinto Elements, only those with problems beyond the capability of Lightroom.

This method wont remove deep wrinkles. If thenegative Clarity is too strong in Lightroom, the skinwill look blurred rather than soft. If thats the case,youll need to take a photo into Elements to improvethe skin.

The tools that I use most frequently for headshotediting in Elements are the Clone Tool and BlurFilters. To repair a backdrop in Elements, use theClone Stamp tool at 100% opacity with the blendmode set to Normal. To minimize under eye wrin-kles and shadows, youll use the Clone Stamp toolwith the Blend Mode set to Lighten and its Opacityat about 30%.

To soften skin in Elements and for other retouchingtechniques, refer back to the November/December2013 article Advanced Portrait Editing.

9 Skin You can do minor skin softening andcomplexion improvement in Lightroom. Myfavorite method is to use the Local Adjustmentbrush with reduced Contrast and Clarity. To removeexcess redness, add the slightest bit of cyan to the

Color box.

10 For challenging skinand backdrop issues,youll need to take your photo(s) into Ele-ments. Remember to right-click on a photo orselection of photos and select Edit In so that youcan edit round trip from Lightroom to Elementsand back to Lightrooms catalog.


40/40

Frank Zaremba

Betty EichThe Villages, Florida

Mary SchwartzSeattle area

The image was captured on a return trip from taking other images for another

competition. I spotted the tractor, crouched down to compose the image withthe sunset in the steering wheel and began taking images. I had decided tobracket a number of images to get details in the sun and shade parts of the

image. I used Merge to HDR pro to get this.

I took the photo this summer near Dalton, Wisconsin.

After minor adjustments in white balance and satura-tion, I converted it to black and white with the Topaz

Black and White plug-in. Then I added the vignette in

Lightroom, using the tutorial Lightroom Vignettes

(Matt Kloskowski in the Sept./Oct. 2013 issue of Pho-

tographic Elements Techniques).

I was all set to photograph this old barn window in Power,

Montana, when a child plopped his kitten down in the win-dow! Serendipity, indeed!

DONE PLANTING PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER

HARVESTING THE GRAIN PHOTO CHALLENGE 1ST PLACE WINNER

PEEKABOO PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER

S U B S C R I B E RHere are the winners from our

Farm Life Photo Challenge.

Subscriber Showcase | Projects from PET tutorialsand videos

Want to see your photo in print? Show us howyouve put our tutorials to work in your images. Tosubmit your recent work to Subscriber Showcase,

Each issue we give you a new photo assignment. Winners areannounced online. A few may also get selected to appear inprint. Our Upcoming Challenge Theme is Macro. All entries for

Submit to Subscriber Showcase Take the PET Photo Challenge