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Digital Media Through Photoshop

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Basic Photo Adjustments

6:31 with Shon Dempsey

In this video we’ll take a look at a few of the photos our client provided to us and make some quick adjustments to ensure the image looks its best.

[MUSIC] 0:00
For this stage, we're gonna do a bit of roleplay as we create some ads for 0:04
a client. 0:09
The client is Nature Light Studios, 0:10
a small photography team that specializes in photos for realtors. 0:12
They'll be providing us with the imagery, their logo, and even the copy, or 0:17
text, that we'll need to use for all three deliverables. 0:21
They're looking for a banner for a website, an ad for 0:26
a mobile device, an ad for a use in Twitter. 0:29
So we'll need to make sure their imagery looks good, 0:33
and all the content is formatted properly for each use case. 0:36
You can download all the assets we'll use in the teacher's notes. 0:40
Within the ZIP file, you'll find the image and 0:44
logo we'll be using, let's get started. 0:46
The first thing we'll want to do is have a look at the image they sent 0:49
of the property. 0:52
So, let's open the file, Naturelightimage-raw.jpg. 0:53
The first thing I notice is, 1:03
there's an unnecessary whitespace around the image itself. 1:04
Let's go ahead and use the Crop tool to isolate just the image content. 1:08
Once selected, the Crop tool gives us an overlay, 1:13
with handles on each side we can adjust. 1:16
In our top toolbar, we can take advantage of some popular preset aspect ratios, or 1:19
the relationship of the width to height, and the crop will constrain to that ratio. 1:24
For this image, let's go ahead and 1:29
manually crop the image by selecting width by height by resolution. 1:31
It's okay if we crop just a little bit of the edges of the image, 1:48
as it probably won't end up in our final product. 1:51
Press Enter to commit to your crop changes. 1:54
Next, let's have a look at the histogram for this image. 1:58
To bring up the histogram, if you're not seeing it, select it from the Window menu. 2:01
The histogram gives us the tonal range for all the colors within the photo, 2:08
giving us an overview of the exposure. 2:12
Along the horizontal axis, we'll see the distribution of tones and 2:15
colors lying within the range black to white, or shadows to captured light. 2:18
The vertical axis tells us how much we're seeing of a specific tone. 2:24
Generally, when looking at a histogram, we see all colors RGB-combined by default. 2:28
If an image is overexposed, it'll be quite a bit of white, and look blown-out. 2:35
The histogram would then appear heavier on the right-hand side of the graph. 2:40
If it's underexposed, the image will appear dark, and 2:44
have more peaks to the left end of the histogram. 2:47
Our image here appears to be quite overexposed, and 2:51
that's not always a bad thing. 2:54
This whitespace will actually come in handy for our end product. 2:55
We can make a few adjustments, 2:59
however, to bring out some of the natural colors of this image. 3:01
To do so, we're gonna use a few adjustment layers. 3:04
Adjustment layers allow us to modify an image in a non-destructive method. 3:07
Meaning we can delete the layer, if we don't like the adjustments we made. 3:12
If we were to use the Levels adjustment from within the Image Image menu, 3:16
That would be a destructive adjustment, that would immediately affect our image. 3:23
For the most part, 3:27
sticking to non-destructive techniques is best practice. 3:29
As it allows us to undo or modify any adjustments we make. 3:32
So let's add an adjustments layer, and see how those corrections work. 3:37
From the Layers panel, let's go ahead and 3:42
select Adjustments Layer, and select the Levels adjustment layer. 3:45
As you can see, the levels adjustment looks like our histogram, 3:51
providing us a tonal range of the image. 3:55
We're able to make adjustments to this range, 3:58
either in RGB together or individually. 4:01
I'll make some adjustments to help bring out the reds and blues in the image. 4:06
Slightly decrease the midpoint of the red. 4:13
The highlights as well, just a hair, and then now I'll select Green. 4:18
Gonna adjust the shadows of the greens, again just a hair. 4:25
And the highlights. 4:35
Finally we'll adjust the blue. 4:40
I'll choose to adjust the midpoint on this one as well, And the highlights. 4:45
The one thing to think about when making adjustments. 4:56
Is, the gradient below will give you a good idea of whether you're adjusting 4:59
the highlights or shadow areas of a specific channel. 5:03
If you'd like to read more about adjusting levels, 5:06
check out the links in the teacher's notes. 5:09
So this is looking pretty good. 5:12
We can preview our adjustments later by turning it on and 5:14
off within the Layers panel. 5:16
Let's add just one more adjustment layer, to bring up the contrast of our colors. 5:21
Again, selecting Adjustment Layer and choosing Brightness/Contrast this time. 5:26
This panel only has two adjustments, 5:33
similar to the one you may find on a TV, Brightness and Contrast. 5:36
By increasing the contrast, we'll see the difference between colors, and 5:41
bring about additional detail. 5:45
And we'll bring up the brightness just a hair as well. 5:53
Okay, that's looking pretty good as well. 5:59
We can also, again, turn on and 6:01
off our levels together, and see them combined, or one on top of each other. 6:04
Okay, this is looking pretty good, let's go ahead and save it, 6:09
click File, then Save. 6:13
Since we've added some layers, it'll default to saving in the PSD extension. 6:17
For now, I'll choose to save this on my desktop, 6:22
and I'll make sure that the layers are indeed preserved. 6:25