Photo Filter and Curves in photoshop

Hello everyone! :)

Apologies for the long gap since my first post. I visited my hometown and took a break from work for a relaxing vacation.. :)

Today's post is regarding how the Photo Filter can be used to reduce the effect of unnecessary colours in the photo graph.

The image I used to edit was a cute little fish from my aquarium at home.


Step 1 : I added a new Photo filter adjustment layer and selected the Cooling filter (80).


Step 2 : Next I added a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer on top of the photo filter layer.


Step 3 : On top of the brightness/contrast layer I added the Curves layer.


Step 4 : to adjust the saturation a bit, I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on top of the curves layer.


Step 5 : I reduced the noise using the noise filter.
Note: Please remember to select the background while the noise filter is selected.




After modification


View larger image in mY fLiCkR.

Hope you liked today's post.

Have a nice day.

Manoj C V
mY fLiCkR

Jewels using curves in photoshop

I will start with a very basic step in Photoshop.

That is to enhance an image using 'Curves' adjustment.

The original image looked like this.


I opened the image using Photoshop.

Then I followed the steps below.
Step 1 : Right click on the 'Background' in the 'Layers' palette as shown in the figure.


Leave all the values in the 'New Layer' dialog without amending and click on the 'OK' button.
Now we have made the background to a layer. The use of layers is one of the greatest strengths of Photoshop.

Step 2 : Click on the 'Create new fill or adjustment layer' button on the bottom of the 'Layers' palette, and select 'Curves' from the options as shown in the figure.


Step 3 : In the 'Curves' dialog which pops up, I selected 'Red' from the 'Channel' and set value 166 for output and 133 for input. This is done for enhancing the red colour.



Step 4 : Now in the same 'Curves' dialog, I switched the 'Channel' to 'RGB' and set the values 49 for output and 127 for input.


Yes that’s it. The contrast, colour balance of the image has been set using the curves.

Now I need to crop the image to remove distractions such as the edge of the bowl, over exposed parts etc.

Step 5 : Before doing that, I flattened the image.

Tip: It’s advisable to save the file before flattening, because in case we need to do some additional processing before we go ahead with cropping, it would be helpful to open the backup which is saved.


Step 6 : Select the 'Rectangular marquee tool' from the tool bar.


Step 7 : I dragged the marquee tool to get rid of the distractions in the image, which doesn’t add much value to the image.



Step 8 : Once I've selected and finalized which will be my final image that needs to be cropped, I selected the 'Crop' option from the 'Image' menu.



That’s it. The image is ready.

After changes



Adding a border and signature

Step 9 : I opened the modify canvas size dialog.


Step 10 : Checked the 'Relative' checkbox, set the value 50 for width and height, select 'pixels' from the dropdown list and click 'OK'.


Step 11 : I selected the empty space which is created using the magic wand tool.



Step 12 : While the magic wand tool is active, right click on the selected section(the highlighted section shown in the figure above), and select 'Select Inverse'.


Step 13 : Copy the selection (ctrl + C).

Step 14 : Create a new document (ctrl + N), click 'OK' with all default values in the 'New' dialog.

Step 15 : Paste (ctrl + V)

Step 16 : Resize the new image.

Increase the width and height by 50 pixels.

Step 17 : In the new image which is resized, select all (ctrl + A) and copy (ctrl + C)

Step 18 : Go to the previous image window (alt + TAB), and paste (ctrl + V).

Step 19 : Move the new layer 'Layer 1' below the layer 'Layer 0', by dragging the layer.


Step 20 : Blur the layer 'Layer 1'.



Step 21 : Select the 'Horizontal Type Tool' and select suitable font and font size and type the signature.




Step 22 : Set the opacity of the 'Text' layer to 50%.


Image with the border and signature


Thank You,
Manoj C V
mY fLiCkR

An introduction to myself

Dear Friend,

I'm living in Bangalore which is the Information Technology hub of India. My hometown is Trivandrum which is the capital of Kerala. My sweet family has my Father, Mother and younger Sister. I'm a software developer by profession, working for different clients from around the world.

I enjoy coding very much. It’s my passion since my 7th standard to program and learn new languages and technologies. This quench for new technologies got me introduced to some of the very interesting visual tools such as Photoshop, flash, etc.

Later when I started software development as a profession, I learned many aspects of web development mainly focusing on development for intranet and internet solution for my clients.

Photography is my hobby. I like to click images which captures the amazing moment nature creates using a combination of light.

I started clicking snaps when I got my first camera as a gift from my dearest friend. It was a Canon Powershot A520. I decided to learn the basics of photography, because using the 'auto' mode in the camera not always given what I actually wanted to capture. The terminologies and techniques used in photography were alien to me then.

Internet was the only source of help for me for my photographic learning journey. Mastering the basics allowed me to explore the different aspects in my little camera. And now I have my new DSLR, the Canon EOS 40D with a Canon 28-135 IS USM lens. It’s a magic machine in itself. It clicks fabulous images. I use Canon image processor for processing my RAW images and slight touches using Photoshop to enhance those images.

During my experiments with Photoshop I have come across many techniques and sequence of actions that created wonderful effects on a photograph. I thought it would be a good idea to share different learning I came across. From my experience, internet is the best place where I can share my learning with photographic enthusiasts around the globe.

Hope the posts I add to my blog will be useful for you.

Thanks,
Manoj C V
mY fLiCkR