Answering Photoshop Questions

When I introduced the idea of walking through Photoshop I asked for questions. I got some good ones. Some hard ones! Don’t worry people, I didn’t forget about you all! But my first goal was to walk through what I view as the basic of Photoshop:

• Photoshop Toolbar
• Pictures for Print Versus Web
• Cropping and Resizing Images
• Balancing Color
• Clone Stamp Tool
• Color Match
• Copying Pieces from One Image to Another
• Applying Filters

Here are the questions you asked me:

1. How do you crop a file?
   I answered this one in my post about cropping and resizing images.
2. How do you save a file for the web (don’t make it too big TWSS) or for print (don’t make it too small and how do you know if you original file is going to look like a pixilated Lichtenstein if you choose to blow it up)?
   I answered this one in my post about pictures for the print versus the web.
3. How do you change the color balance?
   I addressed this point in my post about balancing color. This is one of my favorite thing to play with.
4. When do you save a file in PSD vs. JPG?
   This is a very good question and makes a big difference when you’re working. I answered this in my post about images for the print and web.
5. How do you remove blemishes, zits and red eye?
   I go over this in my post about the clone stamp tool. Have fun making everyone’s skin clearer in your images!

The other questions take a little more work to answer.

How do you configure a file for printing? Hope that makes sense. Example: You know you want to print 4X6 pictures. How do you know your image size matches?

I thought I answered this pretty will in the post about images for print versus web, but turns out, I did not. Ooops!

If you have an image and you want to get it ready for print, there are a few steps to follow. First, open the image in Photoshop and check the image size by going to Image … Image Size. In the window that appears, check the resolution (dpi), which should be 300, the height and the width.

If your image is smaller than the size at which you want to print it, use this rule of thumb: You can make an image slightly bigger and probably get away with it (maybe up to an inch in any direction). You cannot make it significantly bigger without it looking terrible. You can always make an image smaller in Photoshop and it will stay looking just as good … maybe even better! Resize the image either using the open Image Size window or crop it to your desired size. Save it as a .jpeg and print away!

The other point on getting images ready for the print is to trust your computer and trust your eyes. If an image looks pixilated on screen, you can guarantee it will look the same, maybe worse, in print.

I’d like to know how to do the bokeh) effect and the macro lens effect. You can fake those with Photoshop right?

So the bokeh effect is sort of like having bubbles of light all over the image. To create this effect, I just downloaded a set of bokeh brushes. Using the brushes, I modified this image of my sister’s dog, Bruce, as in Springsteen, which was taken by my sister

and I created this image.

It looks terrible but if you look online you can see images that will actually inspire you to use this effect. Honest.

After installing the bushes, I just kept changing the color and clicking around my image. Seriously – it was that easy!

I also found a tutorial on creating this effect that gets a lot of great feedback online. It makes sense, but using the brushes sure was easy!

For that macro effect? I was intrigued by the question but admit I thought the answer was “Impossible!” There are ways to achieve it, though. There are some tutorials on achieving the look by merging several photos into one. I found a tutorial on creating a 50 cent macro lens, though I haven’t tried it out myself. Lifehacker led me to a much more difficult method of creating your own macro lens. The best method I found for recreating a Macro lens using only Photoshop came from Digiretus.

Read the tutorial that they have to help you get from a before and after like this one.

Before picture of a Cannonball Flower in Cambodia:

Doesn’t the picture have a nice bokeh effect going on? That’s a natural one though. Apparently mine look better if I don’t try!

After Picture of the Cannonball Flower:

I am so glad Chaos and Loving It asked that! I’ll definitely use that technique again!

There is one more question from Fever Thrift:

I really want to make silhouettes of the husband and me to frame, but I don’t really want to have to trace or cut out anything. I would prefer to just take profile pics and somehow edit them in Photoshop to be silhouettes…can you offer me any advice on how to do this?

I love this question because it inspires me to try this out. So, answer is coming soon and hopefully accompanied by a great silhouette of Wonder Boy and I!