What You’ll Learn in This Hour:
<objective>Adjusting scale and lighting in a composite
</objective> <objective>Applying layer styles to image elements
</objective> <objective>Using adjustment layers to fix flaws
</objective> <objective>Working with tool and layer blending modes
</objective> <objective>Applying special effects to image elements
</objective> <objective>Incorporating prebuilt objects from the Content palette
</objective> </feature>Any time you combine two or more images into a single picture, you’re creating a composite image. Composites can be as simple as a corporate logo superimposed over an advertising photo, or as complex as a full-scale photomontage by an artist such as Salvador Dalí. If you’ve never studied this art form, you’ll enjoy the fascinating history of the art of photomontage at the Cut & Paste website (www.cutandpaste.info).
At any rate, creating composite images is more than just a matter of cutting and pasting one picture into another. You have to consider the lighting in each photo, the relative scales of the objects they contain, and ways to enhance the different elements so that they either combine seamlessly or stand on their own as separate parts of a whole, depending on the artistic effect you hope to achieve. We look at all these factors in this hour.
When you’re combining images, you need to watch out for two dead giveaways that the images didn’t come from the same place originally: their lighting and their relative scale.
If one photo was taken outdoors under harsh sunlight and the other was shot indoors with dim fluorescents, you’ll need to do some fancy footwork to make the two blend. The angle of the light can also cause problems because the placement of shadows needs to be consistent throughout the composite for it to be convincing. Try to match lighting as closely as possible when you’re choosing pictures for a composite (see Figure 22.1).
Scale is just as much of an issue; unless you’re purposely going for a surreal effect, you really need to watch the relative sizes of the objects in your composites to make sure they’re convincing. When you’re working on a composite, try standing up and looking at the image from more than one angle and distance; this will help you spot elements that just aren’t working and figure out what’s wrong with them. Watch the positioning of objects that should be at the same level, too; for example, if an elephant is standing next to your cat, their feet should appear to be next to each other. Positioning one of the animals too high or too low destroys the illusion you’re trying to create.
Did you Know?
To make sure you can change the size and position of each element without affecting anything else in the image, keep everything on separate layers as you work until you’re sure you’re done making changes. The fact that pasting automatically creates a new layer in Photoshop Elements makes this about as easy as it could possibly be.
Layer styles, found in the Effects palette (choose Window, Effects), are special effects designed specifically to be applied to individual layers. Each layer style is a combination of color or gradient fills, lighting effects, surface textures, and other individual effects (see Figure 22.2). If you spent a lot of time fiddling with a layer in Full Edit mode, you could reproduce each of these effects yourself—but why bother? I’m all for letting Photoshop Elements do the work, when appropriate.
You worked with layer styles in Hour 8, “Adding Type,” and Hour 21, “Creating Art from Scratch.” It’s common to jazz up type and shape objects using layer styles, but you can use them on any layer you want. They fall into 13 categories:
Bevels—. Sharp or rounded edges of varying widths
Complex—. Combinations of several of the other layer styles
Drop Shadows—. Soft or hard shadows of any size and color, appearing below the layer and overlapping any layers under it
Inner Glows—. A soft glow of any color emanating from the inside edges of an object
Outer Glows—. A soft glow of any color coming from the outside of an object
Visibility—. Modified opacity so that objects appear translucent or transparent
Glass Buttons—. A smooth, shiny, raised surface that appears to be transparent, in a variety of colors
Image Effects—. Natural and human-made effects such as fog, rain, snow, water reflection, and night vision
Patterns—. Natural and artificial textures, including fabric, stone, metal, drywall, and more
Photographic Effects—. Traditional darkroom effects such as sepia and negative
Wow Chrome—. Chrome effects of varying colors
Wow Neon—. A bright glow and a curved surface, to simulate neon tubes
Wow Plastic—. Similar to Glass Buttons, but gives you a less shiny surface
Adding Layer Styles
Layer styles are “live,” meaning that if you edit a layer’s content, its style updates automatically to match the new shape and size of the layer’s contents. To apply a style to a layer, follow these steps:
Choose Window, Effects to display the Effects palette (see Figure 22.3).
Click the Layer Styles button and choose a category of styles from the list.
In the Layers palette, click the layer to which you want to apply the style, to confirm that it’s active. Make sure that the only things on it are the things that you want the style to affect.
Double-click a style in the Effects palette to apply it to the current layer. An fx icon appears next to the layer’s name in the Layers palette to indicate that a layer style has been applied.
Applying a layer style does not remove any previously applied styles; Photoshop Elements applies the new style over the old one. If the new style includes any transparency, you’ll be able to see part of the old style through it. To remove all the layer styles you’ve applied to a layer, click the Clear Style button at the bottom of the Effects palette (it looks like a trash can). And, of course, you can remove a layer style that you just applied by clicking the Undo button.
After you’ve applied a style, or more than one style, you can modify it at any time by activating that layer and choosing Layer, Layer Styles, Style Settings, or double-clicking the fx icon in the Layers palette. The Style Settings dialog enables you to tweak the light angle and other attributes of a style to customize it for your own needs (see Figure 22.4). If your only problem with a style is that it’s too big or too small for the objects you’ve applied it to, activate the layer and choose Layer, Layer Styles, Scale Style; then drag the slider to change the scale of the style relative to the objects on the layer.
We talked a lot in previous hours about making backup copies of images before you do anything irrevocable to them. That way, you can always go back to the original version if your edits don’t work out the way you envisioned them or if you need to use the same original art in a different way for another project. Adjustment layers provide a different approach to preserving original images by enabling you to adjust color, lighting, and other attributes of a layer or several layers by putting the changes on their own layer.
For example, you could apply the Levels command to a layer, permanently modifying its contents, or you could create a Levels adjustment layer above the layer you want to modify. If you use the adjustment layer, you can change its Levels settings at any time, delete the adjustment layer, or move it to a different position in the Layers palette. You can group the adjustment layer with one or more other layers so that its effects are seen only on those layers. Meanwhile, the original layer stays just as it was, and you can always restore it to its original appearance.
To add an adjustment layer, click the layer below where you want it to be. Then you have two choices. The quickest way to create the adjustment layer is to click the Create Adjustment Layer button on the Layers palette and choose the type of adjustment you want to apply from the pop-up menu (see Figure 22.5). Using this method, you don’t get to specify a name for the layer; it’s just named with the type of adjustment and a number, such as Gradient Map 1. If you want to give the layer a particular name when you create it, you need to choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and pick the type of adjustment from the submenu. Then you’ll see the New Layer dialog (see Figure 22.6), where you can enter a name for the layer, group it with the layer underneath, choose a blending mode, and set its Opacity.
Did you Know?
If you use the Layers palette pop-up menu to create an adjustment layer, you can change the new layer’s name by double-clicking it in the Layers palette and typing the new name.
The types of adjustment layer you can create are the same as many of the commands you used in earlier hours; others are fun effects you’ll try out in the next hour. Here’s the list:
Solid Color—. Makes the nontransparent areas of the layer appear to be filled with a solid color that you choose.
Gradient—. Places a gradient fill of your choice over the nontransparent areas of the layer.
Pattern—. Covers the nontransparent areas of the image with a pattern of your choice.
Levels—. Applies the same levels adjustments that we used in Hour 14, “Adjusting Brightness, Contrast, and Color.”
Brightness/Contrast—. The same as the Brightness/Contrast command from Hour 14.
Hue/Saturation—. Works just like the Hue/Saturation dialog that you learned about in Hour 14.
Gradient Map: A neat way to substitute a different new color for each color in an image. We look at this effect in Hour 23, “Going Wild with Your Images.”
Photo Filter—. Subtly modifies the colors of the layers underneath it in the same way a special camera filter would. You have a choice of 20 different filters, including Violet, Sepia, and Underwater.
Invert—. Reverses all the colors on the layers below; we look at this effect in Hour 23, too.
Threshold—. Displays all the pixels on the layers below as either pure black or pure white. We try out this one in Hour 23 as well.
Posterize—. Reduces the colors in the picture to a specified number, for a pop art effect. Hour 23 covers this effect as well.
After you choose the adjustment type from the Layers palette’s pop-up menu, or after you click OK in the New Layer dialog if you used the Layers menu command to create the adjustment layer, you’ll see a dialog in which you can make whatever settings are appropriate for the type of adjustment you’re using. For example, if you create a Levels adjustment layer, you’ll see the Levels dialog, just like the one you worked with in Hour 14. Make your changes and click OK. To change the settings later, double-click the adjustment layer icon to reopen the initial dialog. You can’t change the type of adjustment this way, however.
Did you Know?
If you want to temporarily hide the effects of an adjustment layer, just hide the layer itself by clicking the eye icon next to its name in the Layers palette.
Each adjustment layer has a built-in mask, whose icon you can see in the Layers palette. The mask controls where the effects of the layer adjustment show up; you can edit it to hide the effect on part of the layer while letting it show through elsewhere. We look at how to do this in the next section.
By default, a new adjustment layer’s mask is all white, meaning that the effect shows through completely in all parts of the layer. If you have a selection active when you create the layer, however, that selection is automatically converted into the adjustment layer’s mask. On the mask, the selected area is white (letting the effect show through), the unselected area is black (hiding the effect), and partially selected areas such as feathered edges are gray (partially hiding the effect).
You can edit the mask just as you would edit any grayscale image in Photoshop Elements, and you’ll probably find it easier to edit if you can see the mask in the image window instead of working from the small Layers palette icon. To see the mask and the image at the same time, Shift+Alt+click the mask icon. Black areas of the mask are displayed in transparent red (see Figure 22.7); this looks just like the Selection Brush’s mask mode (see Hour 7, “Making Selections and Using Layers”). If you’d rather see just the adjustment layer’s mask, Alt+click the mask icon in the Layers palette to display the mask in the image window, in grayscale (see Figure 22.8).
When you click the mask’s icon to edit it, Elements changes the Foreground and Background colors to white and black, respectively. You can use any tool to paint the mask, including the Impressionist Brush and the Gradient tool, or you can select areas and fill them or delete them. No matter what technique you use to modify the mask, when you’re done, white areas allow the effect to show, black areas hide it, and gray areas make it partially visible.
Add Layer Styles and Adjustment Layers to a Boring Picture
The picture in Figure 22.9 should have been really cool. I was fascinated by the intricate detail of the thistle blossom, but I just couldn’t capture all that visual interest in the photo. The flower was green, just like the leaves behind it, so it didn’t stand out, and my hand just looks odd there at the side. There has to be a way to salvage this picture, though, so let’s take a whack at it. You can download the photo from the book’s website at www.informit.com/title/9780672330179 (it’s called thistle.jpg) and work along with me.
Switch to the Selection Brush tool and use it to select the flower and the leaves that surround this particular blossom. Click along each leaf, and Alt+click in any areas included in the selection that you don’t want to be part of it.
Choose Layer, New Layer Via Copy to put a copy of the flower on its own layer so that you can apply layer effects to it.
With the flower layer still active, double-click any of the Drop Shadow layer styles in the Effects palette to apply it. It doesn’t matter which one you use because you’ll modify the settings in the next step.
Choose Layer, Layer Style, Style Settings. Change the settings to match what you see in Figure 22.10. You’re modifying the drop shadow, adding a bevel, and adding a stroke to the flower. Click the color swatch in the Stroke area and set the color to Red
194, Green145, Blue255(a thistly sort of purple).Now click the Background layer in the Layers palette. Using the Selection Brush again, in the same way, select the hand. Don’t miss the tiny bits you can see past the leaves!
With that selection still active, click the New Adjustment Layer button at the top of the Layers palette and choose Hue/Saturation to create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer between the Background layer and the flower layer.
In the Hue/Saturation dialog, change the settings to Hue
+29, Saturation+74, and Lightness+26, and then click OK. Because there was a selection active when you created the layer, it’s masked so that the hue/saturation adjustment affects only the hand.Click the Background layer again. Now you’ll create a selection that includes everything in the picture but the flower and the hand. Start by Ctrl+clicking the flower layer’s thumbnail to select just the flower.
Then press Shift and Ctrl+click on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer’s mask thumbnail to add the hand to the selection. Invert the selection so that it no longer includes the hand or the flower (choose Select, Inverse).
With the selection active, use the New Adjustment Layer button on the Layers palette to add a Posterize adjustment layer between the Background layer and the hue/saturation layer. Set the number of levels to
2and click OK.You’re done! Your layers palette should look like Figure 22.11.
Figure 22.12 shows my version of the modified picture. The best part? The original picture is intact on the Background layer, so if I decide I don’t like the way this picture came out after all, I can start over and make a whole new set of changes. Or I can simply change the settings on the adjustment layers and layer styles I applied, for a whole new effect.
You’ve been waiting a long time for this explanation, so let’s hope I can make it a good one. Here goes.
Photoshop Elements’ blending modes enable you to simulate the real-world phenomenon in which two colors mix to form a new color. In Photoshop Elements, you can go one better than real life because you can control exactly how those colors mix by choosing one of 25 different blending modes. Painting tools have blending modes that determine how the new colors applied by the tools interact with any colors underneath them. Some filters have blending modes; the dialog box that you see when you choose Edit, Fill Selection (remember it from Hour 7?) has a blending mode menu. And, of course, layers have blending modes. If a layer’s blending mode is Normal, that layer’s contents hide whatever’s behind it. But if you choose a different blending mode, the colors on that layer blend with the colors of the layers beneath it.
Blending modes are based on math. Average, for example, looks at each pixel on the layer and the corresponding pixel on the layer below, averages their colors, and displays that color value instead of either of the original colors. When we’re working with blending modes, we use the term blend color for the new color being applied and base color for the original color. Each of the 25 blending modes is shown using a simple graphic so you can see just what’s happening. They’re in the color section, too, and you’ll want to check them out there because it’s hard to see the differences in black and white.
Normal is the default mode; the blend color replaces the base color.
Dissolve converts a random number of pixels to the blend color, giving a spatter effect at any point where the blend color is partially transparent.
Darken colors each color channel separately by choosing the darker of the blend color and the base color for each pixel in the channel. This can result in new colors.
Multiply changes the colors by multiplying the base color and the blend color and using the result, which is always darker.
Color Burn increases the contrast of the base color to match the blend color.
Linear Burn decreases the brightness of the base color to match the blend color.
Darker Color chooses the darker of the blend and base colors for each pixel; it doesn’t produce new colors as Darken can.
Lighten colors each color channel separately by choosing the lighter of the blend color and the base color for each pixel in the channel. This can result in new colors.
Screen creates a lighter image by multiplying the inverse of the base and blend colors a each pixel.
Color Dodge decreases the contrast of the base color to match the blend color’s brightness.
Linear Dodge (Add) increases the brightness of the base color to match the blend color’s brightness.
Lighter Color chooses the lighter of the blend and base colors for each pixel; it doesn’t produce new colors as Lighten can.
Overlay mixes the base color with the blend color to reflect the brightness or darkness of each pixel in the original image, using the Screen mode to lighten pixels and the Multiply mode to darken them.
Soft Light dodges or burns the base color, depending on whether the blend color is lighter than 50% gray or darker than 50% gray, respectively.
Hard Light multiplies or screens the base color, depending on whether the blend color is lighter than 50% gray or darker than 50% gray, respectively.
Vivid Light darkens or lightens the base color by increasing or decreasing contrast, depending on whether the blend color is lighter than 50% gray or darker than 50% gray, respectively.
Linear Light darkens or lightens the base color by increasing or decreasing brightness, depending on whether the blend color is lighter than 50% gray or darker than 50% gray, respectively (see Figure 22.13).
Pin Light replaces the base color with the blend color where the base color is darker or lighter, depending on whether the blend color is lighter than 50% gray or darker than 50% gray, respectively.
Hard Mix adds the color channel values of the blend color to those of the base color, turning the entire image into primary colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, black, or white).
Difference subtracts the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which is brighter.
Exclusion is similar to Difference but has lower contrast.
Hue uses the brightness and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.
Saturation uses the brightness and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color.
Color uses the brightness of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color.
Luminosity uses the hue and saturation of the base color and the brightness of the blend color.
But wait, there’s more! That’s right, in addition to layer styles, adjustment layers, and blending layers, Photoshop Elements has even more clever photo tricks it can perform. For one thing, you can use the Effects palette to apply 24 different photo effects to your image, in these categories: Faded Photo, Frame, Misc. Effects, Monotone Color, Old Photo, and Vintage Photo. And the Content palette (choose Window, Content) contains hundreds of graphics you can add to your images in these categories: Backgrounds, Frames, Graphics, Shapes, Text, and Themes. You can combine these tricks with all the other techniques you’ve learned so far to create truly unique images.
You’ve already worked with the Effects palette to apply filters (in Hours 19, “Using the Improvement Filters,” and 20, “Using the Artistic Filters”) and layer styles (earlier in this hour). Now take a look at the photo effects it has to offer. The most important point to remember about these effects is that they’re not editable as layer styles are. There are no settings to change; what you see is what you get, and any additional layers that are created in the course of applying the effect are merged so that you can’t modify them individually (see Figure 22.14).
You can see all the photo effects by clicking the third button at the top of the Effects palette (see Figure 22.15). You apply photo effects the same way you do layer styles, by double-clicking the thumbnail for the effect you want to use. Photoshop Elements duplicates the Background layer and applies the effect to the copy, so you can always delete the duplicate layer if you decide you don’t like the effect.
The Content palette, on the other hand, contains nothing but pictures. Some of them are designed to be dropped into your photos wherever you like, others are frames, and still others are backgrounds or even templates for party invitations or other kinds of documents you might create in Photoshop Elements. You can put a clown hat on Grandpa, stick a flower behind your sister-in-law’s ear, and even add old-fashioned photo corners in any of five different colors (see Figure 22.16). To include anything from the Content palette in an image, just drag it to the image window and drop it. Backgrounds and frames are automatically sized and positioned; you can resize and move other objects using the Move tool.
Because there’s so much, well, content in the Content palette, you can use the left pop-up menu at the top of the palette to choose how the stuff in the palette is organized—by Type, Activity, Color, Event, Mood, Object, Seasons, Style, Word, or All. After choosing one of these methods, you can choose categories from the right pop-up menu. For example, if you choose Seasons in the left menu, your choices in the right menu are Autumn, Spring, Summer, and Winter (see Figure 22.17).
We worked with layers and layer styles a lot in this hour, and you learned how to combine layers to create a composite image. You saw how to enhance layers with layer styles, photo effects, adjustment layers, and blending modes so that they stand out or blend in, whichever you prefer. You also learned about how lighting and scale affect the results when you combine images. And you took a look at all the prefab graphics in the Content palette that you can use to customize your pictures in your own way. In the next hour, we look at some more ways to get creative with your pictures.
This might have been the most experimental hour so far. Photoshop Elements really lends itself to trying new techniques and combining them in different ways. To see how creative you can be with all the tools available to you, take this short quiz and then try the activities.
C. You can see an example of his photomontage work (and buy a print of it) at 3D-Dali.com (www.3d-dali.com/Tour/Marilyn.htm). | |
B. False. You can always go back and change the settings, but after you’ve created an adjustment layer of a particular type, it’s stuck being that type till the end of time. | |
B. It’s actually a piece of farm equipment. |
Find a picture that needs an adjustment and make a copy of it. In one file, make the adjustment with traditional tools (such as the Hue/Saturation dialog); in the other, make the same fix with an adjustment layer using the same settings. Is there any difference between the two finished files?
Locate a picture of yourself and add a type layer with your name. Try different combinations of layer effects and blending modes for the type layer until you get an effect you like.