Photoshop Tutorials - Basic Image Enhancement

Basic Image Enhancement

Touching up images first comes with mastering or having knowledge of the skills to use Photoshop’s tools. As you learn the tools, it will become more instinctual to know what to do in order to touchup or repair each different image.

In this case I’m using the clone stamp tool. By alt-clicking on a good part to determine that as the source point, I can then use the clone stamp to ‘clone’ or ‘paint in’ the good parts over the bad parts. Cloning is taking the pixel data from one area and transferring it to another.

          

This is fairly easy to touchup here because it is black. Good cleanup jobs can sometimes take a longer time, like if you’re professionally ‘repairing’ your old photos. Photoshop’s got the tools to handle it though, be assured.

      

Anytime you are going to alter pixels you need to ask yourself if you need to make a backup layer. In this case I’ve done the general repairing first ON the background layer itself because that’s how I now want to keep the digital version of this image. You can then duplicate the layer by dragging it to the new layer icon as shown.

 

There are several different filters and adjustments you can make depending on the different scenarios you have. 

In this case I’m using the Dust & Scratches filter which is under the Filter: Noise menu.

This filter will get rid of dust and scratches by causing a light blur around disparate pixels that are out of place. Radius of 1 pixel keeps it to 1 pixel around the specks. Threshold deals with the intensity of the blurring out effect.around each of speckles radius’. Basically adjust the threshold until you are happy with a very low radius (ie. 1). Remember you can turn the preview on and off and zoom in in the dialog box to get a comparison view.

A threshold setting under 60 should do a good job for you of getting rid of extraneous pixels.

Once you apply and run a filter, you can simply press Ctrl F to run the same commands again. It is shown here if you want to manually re-run any filter (on the same or different layer).

Often you’ll note that the effect is too strong. Since you have created a duplicate layer what you can do is just lower the opacity. This will allow the two layers to blend together, bringing back more of the original and softening the effect.

   

Remember that you can make a selection and run a filter on just that part of a layer.

This background looks like it could use some work (yes that’s me in the middle on new year’s ‘96). I’m selecting it with the magic wand on ‘add to selection’.

Now that the background is selected and I’m on the proper layer in the layers palette I can do some stuff to it.

Here I can run a filter just on this selected area as I previously described. It will not affect the rest of the image. Note that in the preview box it doesn’t distinguish between the selection that’s been made and the rest of the image.

I’m using the Gaussian blur filter.

This will help smooth it out more and get rid of some more moire from the scan in.

Remember that you will have to deselect something quite often so get used to the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl/Cmd ‘D’ or you can use the menu method as shown.

Now I’m switching to the clone stamp tool. I’m going to get rid of that white spot and replace/clone it with the wall.

I’ll clone it on both layers. If you have a layer on a lower opacity and do something such as cloning it won’t appear at full opacity either. Since this white paper mark wasn’t fixed earlier, I have to fix it in both layers so I’m going to select the background layer to make it active and also clone that layer by alt clicking on a good part of the wall and cloning it over the white spot.

   

If you’re really a beginner you can do a quick contrast correction by choosing Image: Adjustments: Auto Levels.

What you should get used to in order to become a really thorough and competent Photoshop user is to not be afraid of the levels command. This gives you much control over the exposure and contrast of the image (the layer that you are on). Bringing both sliders in will increase the contrast. 

When using the crop tool plan on using it for permanence that this is the size that you want it now framed to (or you can save a copy).

I could crop it down even more if I wanted to but you get the idea here. There are many things you can do to keep working on and improving your images.

Remember you have the history palette and you can create snapshots of your work along the way. 

Here is the original and the touchup. You can click at the top of the history palette as shown to get the original back but be VERY careful; if you make another move you'll wipe out your entire history and start over; its safer to create a snapshot and then go back to the original view. 

  

I’ve purposely made it a little more contrasty than I should but you get the idea.

You can also use the patch tool...there’s just so many options in Photoshop. You are fully armed in Photoshop CS (Creative Suite aka ‘8’).

You can fix up blotches of bad areas and patch them with good areas. There are often many ways to get to the same result.

Spice things up a bit by adding some appropriate and complimentary text (find a nice font). Use you T text tool and type something in along with your character palette by your side.

Use the default or adjust the settings to your liking (what looks ‘right’). The shortest way to the drop shadow is through the lower left icon in the layers palette...see thine own path apprentice.

Now we have an image that’s a lot more interesting than the original. From low class to high class and you understand how to use a few more of these different POWERFUL tools and your disposal. 

Posted in: Photoshop Tutorials