Okay, so i’m a slacker…

Just occurred to me that it’s been a month since I posted last… Oh, wow, what a month.  Between school starting for my 7 year old, migraines and trips to the headache wellness center, and busy busy studio work (yay) it’s been a crazy month.

So, hopefully you haven’t forgotten.  I’m not getting any of the assignments from but one person, so i am thinking there’s not a ton of disappointment out there.

Let’s start where we left off.

Adjustment Layers:

Look to the bottom of your Layer’s palette (should be in the lower right hand of your screen.  If not, go to your ‘window’ menu at the top, and click on ‘layers’. )

At the bottom of the layer’s palette, you’ll see an icon that looks like:

This is your Adjust Layers icon.  When you click on this, a drop down menu with several options appears.

You can also find these options in the ‘Layer’ menu at the top of your screen, by going to ‘Layer’, ‘New Adjustment layer’ and selecting one.

Sure, you can make adjustment layers to your original layer.  Problem is, you can’t go back and undo that move without undoing all of the moves you’ve done since.

Adjustment layers are great, because instead of making changes to your original layer as a whole, you can use an adjustment layer, and later go back and trash it if need be.  You can also create masks to ‘hide’ part of the changes that the layer makes.  As in, I like everything in black/white, except for her lips (last assignment).

If you’ll notice, all of your adjustment changes (layers, curves, hue, selective color, etc) are there, and can be made into a separate layer for your convenience!

This weeks’ assignment, I just want you to try out each adjustment layer.  Play with them all.  See what you like, what you don’t like.  For instance, instead of levels, I prefer curves to adjust my black and white points.  You play with each, see what you like.

I don’t need anything turned in this week… heck, if i can’t turn my blog in, why should you have to turn your assignments in, right?  Instead, if you come up with anything you’re proud of, send it to my email at

Jennifer@jwestmorelandphoto.com

Until next week,

Party on.

j.

I haven’t forgotten….

Imagine some wonderful soothing jazz right here, as this image sits on your screen between your regularly scheduled shows…SO…Every time i look at the little bookmark up there at the top of this page, all i can think of is that i need to post another homework assignment!!!

I haven’t forgotten…  I’m just slammed, and that’s a good thing, i suppose.  I have two days this week to rest, so I will post soon!  Promise!!!

Until then, keep playing and learning your tools…  leave a comment if you’ve learned anything new on here or on any of the tutorials I’ve posted!

Jenn

Some fantastic links for you this week…

Betcha can’t go through them all in a week!  lol, but this will definitely be a great resource!

Have fun!

j

Lesson 3/Assignment 3: MASKS.

So I spoke about masks last weekend, and now I’m going to go full out and show you how to create a hue/Saturation layer adjustment and only apply it to certain parts of your image, with a MASK.

1.   Open a file.  Any file is fine, but preferably one large details, not tiny ones.  For instance, this is Kate, with her big blue eyes.  Now, I’d like to make Kate black and white, but leave her eyes blue, and maybe a little bit more of her facial features like cheeks and lips.

3.  Open a hue saturation adjustment layer.

3.  In the Hue Saturation sliders, slide ‘saturation’ slider all the way to the left.

AND then click ok.

4.  Now, go to your Color Palette, located at the bottom of your Tools palette on the left hand side of your screen, and make sure the foreground color is black.

5.  Click on the ‘Brush’ tool in your tool palette, and then go up to the top of the screen, and change your brush parameters hardness to 0%.  You can also adjust your brush size here,

or you can right click on the image and move the brush size slider to the left or right to adjust the size.

NOTE:  Make sure your ‘caps lock’ is not on, or you won’t see the outline of the brush size on your screen as your mouse over your image!!!

6.  Making sure the mask is selected in your layer’s palette (on your hue saturation layer) paint with ‘black’ on the mask over the areas you want to show through… in other words, the things you paint with black are ‘blocking’ the hue saturation layer from happening.  Which means that when you paint black, color should come back.  If it’s too much color, you can use the ‘edit’ menu at the top of the screen, and select ‘fade’ after each brush stroke until you get it right.

That’s it.  It’s very simple, once you get this step down, to create ‘selective color’ images using masks.

OTHER USES FOR MASKS:

Masks can be used to block color layers, adjustment layers, layers containing text or other images…pretty much anything you want to partially show.

ASSIGNMENT:

For this assignment, please create two files:

File Number One:  Selective Color File, using a Hue Saturation Layer adjustment with mask.  Please save this file as a jpg and send it via email to:

jennifer@jwestmorelandphoto.com

File Number Two:  Image Merge File:  Please open two images, drag one into the other (using edit: Transform to make sure their sizes match or are where you need them to be).  On the top image layer, add a layer mask, and paint out parts to create a collage type merged image.

You may use more than one image, but i want to see at least to images masked out in the finished piece.

Please send this file to

jennifer@jwestmorelandphoto.com

Week 3 Lesson Precursor:

So, in order to prepare you for the third lesson, which tends to be a bit confusing, I want you to do the following…trust me, i promise it will make this much easier in the long run!

what you need:

• Clear Transparency material (8.5×11″)
• Black paint and brush
• 8.5×11″ images from magazine
• tape
• flat surface

Place the clear transparency material over the magazine image and tape down to the surface.

Look at your image.  Determine what parts of your image you want to get rid of, and paint them black.

That’s it…now remember:

1.  The transparency was clear (white).  This is your mask.

2.  You painted it (black, or red if you are in quick mask mode) to ‘block’ out parts you didn’t want of that layer to show.

Now, for the actual lesson and assignment, which i’ll post in the next couple of days, I want you to try to get a grasp on what ‘masking’ means.  basically, it means ‘blocking’ out something on a layer that you don’t want to show.

TTYS (talk to you soon!)

Jennifer

Week 2 Assignment

For your Second Assignment:

1.  Open any image

2.  Open a second image and drag it into the first.

3.  Note the differences or similarities between the two.  Is one image much larger than the other?  or are they the same size?

4.  If one is larger than the other, why is that?  How can you fix that?

5.  Now open a third image, and drag into your first image, making an image with 3 layers (all three images).

6.  Save this file out.  You should not be able to see all three layers, just know that all three layers exist by looking at your layers palette and seeing all three layers there.  You will use this

file for your week 3 assignment.

Week 2 Lesson

oops…

I had thought my assistant had posted the assignment for last week, and just realized what Terry was talking about when she emailed last weekend asking if i had gotten too busy to post it…  my bad.

Here’s the assignment…sorry about that.

ASSIGNMENT #1

Step 1

As a bit of a self assessment, I’d like each of you to complete this if you haven’t already.  Any answers you aren’t familiar with, do a search to find the answer online.  I don’t need to know how  you did, but knowing all of the answers to these questions is a good beginning place.

Next, I want to make sure you are familiar with your ‘Tool’ Palette.  When you open photoshop, it could look one of several ways, depending on your computer (PC, Mac) Your Operating System (Windows 7, NX, OSX, etc) and your version of photoshop (I’m working with CS2, as it is a good middle.  I’d recommend CS – CS4).

Here is what my computer looks like when you open photoshop:

On the left is the Tools Palette.  I’ve made a little outline for you to see what each default tool is.  Your tools may look a little different, so hover your mouse over each tool, or click and hold to see the tools expanded (expanded means that each tool may have some other options when you click and hold the mouse over them in the tool bar)  Play around a little bit, see what each tool says when you click and hold.

Now, to the right of your screen when you open photoshop, as well as any file (images are referred to as ‘files’) are other palettes.  I will tell you right now, the two palettes I cannot live without are the LAYERS palette and the HISTORY palette.  If they aren’t showing, I’d suggest you go up to your ‘window’ menu at the top of your screen, and check them in the drop down list so that they are showing.  Once you do this, barring any problems with memory on your system, they will stay as your default palette.

*EXTRA:  To save your palettes how you want them (after you’ve dragged them about a bit and played a little, and get comfortable with a ‘setup’), go to the tabs at the top of your screen, click on the ‘window’ menu, click on ‘workspace’, and then choose ‘save workspace’ and name it something you’ll remember, like your name and a date.  this way, if someone else changes your palettes while you’re not there (don’t you just hate that!)  you can go back into the windows menu, and at the bottom of the menu it should say that name.  Mine is called ‘Jenn’!

Okay, so that will start to get your familiar with your palettes and your ‘workspace’ in photoshop.

Tomorrow I will be posting your first assignment.  We’ll be dealing with ‘layer adjustments’ and some of the tools in your tools palette.

See you then!

j

Hiya!

This is the Senior Mentoring Project for students who are interested in what is involved in becoming a Digital Image Retoucher.

Required software is Photoshop CS or higher.

I will posting weekly assignments for the duration, to culminate in a final Before/After piece consisting of the use of texts, paths, multiple layers, and at least the use of 10 different tools from the tools menu.

I will be posting other student’s blogs as they sign up.  To sign up, create a blog (any blog engine is fine…. wordpress, blogspot, blogger, etc) for this project, to post your finished assignments.

Send me a link to your blog: jennifer@jwestmorelandphoto.com

This is an ongoing project, depending on how long it takes to get it done.  Everyone is different.

You will learn all types of cool stuff, so if you’re just interested, take a look next week and see if you want to join our little group.

We will be meeting tomorrow morning at 9 am for our first ‘in studio’ meeting.  If you cannot make it, I will be posting the first assignment tomorrow night with links to tutorials.  This entire program can be completed online, so no worries.

Thanks

j