My Photoshop Tutorial For Beginners

[Chris_SE]

Heres a tip: When sharpening the image, do it once BEFORE you resize it to the final smaller size, and do it in LAB-mode! Say What? Lab! Image>Mode>Lab color
Then select the Lightness channel and zoom to 200%, apply unsharp mask until "halos" just begin to appear. Then apply gaussian blur in channels A & B (usually around 1px or less, reduces grain).

Now resize the image, and apply just a tad of unsharp mask again, very little. This works well for me.

[FUAirliner]

Some little notes concerning the Unsharp mask:
There are no optimum settings of this extremely helpful tool. The amount of USM needed depends on the media you use (negative/slide scan, flatbed scan or digital image), the image itself and of cours the size of you input and output image which is the most important factor. For example, an approach shot taken with a Nikon D100 with the highest possible resolution needs a completely different amount of USM than a paper scan of a taxiing aircraft scanned with a flatbed scanner at 1200 dpi.


Chris_SE:
What is the advantage of applying USM before resizing? It might work with smaller images, but with larger images you just emphasize the grain/noise. I mask large, monochrome parts (like the sky), feather them by one or two pixels, apply some gaussian blur to these areas, then invert the mask and apply some USM to the rest. As I resize my original scans from 3072 pixels wide to 1024 pixels wide, there is very little to none grain/noise apparent. I have found that this method gives me the optimum result, although I have never tried your method. I'll give it a try soon.

[egll]

What are the chances of someone giving us a slightly more advanced version of this tutorial? I'm happy with the results I get from PS7 but if I can improve I would be willing to learn.

My procedure is:

1) Crop as necessary
2) Resize
3) Use curves to correct any colour imbalances
4) Use Brightness/Contrast as required
5) Apply USM as required
6) Use Blur tool if needed to reduce jagged lines on cheatlines/flaps etc
7) Save to file

I'd like to know more about using the levels function properly and I'm particularly intrigued by the number of more well known photographers than myself who use layers, mask tools, heal brush etc. These are all things I don't know much about and since my copy of PS7 was second hand and part of the D30 deal I have no manual to reference from. I've tried the online help function but it doesn't have enough visual images for me to know what it is talking about sometimes.

Any assistance appreciated,


Matt

[FUAirliner]

Matt,

I do pretty much the same, but with one exception: I don't use the brightness/contrast tools, but rather use the gamma function to brighten up the image and set the black and white points to increase the contrast. This method gives a much better result.

I also don't use the blur tool to reduce the jaggies, I just don't apply too much USM so that jagged edges don't appear anyway.

[Leftseat86]

I mask large, monochrome parts (like the sky), feather them by one or two pixels, apply some gaussian blur to these areas, then invert the mask and apply some USM to the rest.

Hi Frank,

I always have seen people talking about this method of removing noise/grain from the sky, but everytime I try it, I end up blurring the edges of the aircraft where they meet the sky, even after feathering like you said. In some cases, I contract the mask, by about a pixel, to leave space between the guassian blur and the aircraft, that way I don't get any blurred airplane.
How do you make it so the blur doesnt affect the airplane?

-CLovis

[FUAirliner]

Clovis,

I needed a lot of practise to get this method to work to my satisfaction. I set up the mask based on the colour of the sky (which can be very tricky when there are clouds or if you have shot a KLM plane on approach! ), then I contract the mask by one or two pixels (sometimes more) to get rid of masked pixels on the aircraft itself and to make sure that the edges of the airplane are not masked. Now the blur can be applied. After that I invert the mask and expand it by one pixel. By doing this I make sure that the sharpening doesn't reach beyond the mask (remember that the contrast of the pixels around the edge is changed). The additional already blurred space which is sharpened doesn't generate any more noise as it is already smooth because of the blur. Finally I apply the USM and remove the mask.

I hope this helps!

[Leftseat86]

Thanks Frank, that sounds exactly like what I've started doing on my recent uploads I thought I was doing it differently

-Clovis