Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop
- Version: CS4, CS5
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Estimated Completion Time: 3 Hours
Tutorial Assets
The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.
Step 1 - Photograph the Series
Camera set up, environmental conditions, and placement are key to this type of work. You want a scenario where the wind is not gusting, the sky is overcast (as shadows don't play well together here), and you really don't want to see a thick cloud in the sky. You will need a camera (and lens of course) that has full manual capabilities, a tripod, and a remote release or a timer for shutter release. The remote release is preferred as the less physical interaction you have with the camera, the easier it will be for Photoshop to properly stack your images (stay tuned).
Set up your props and carefully plan your entire series. The first shot in this series (not included), is a shot of the scene. The reason I took that was so I could go back to my original framing and easily fix a problem if it occurred (and it did...I actually had to do a bit of tilt to get what I was going for).
Since my model had five different locations in which to stand, I had to focus on a center distance. In this series, the closest she was to the camera was about eight feet and the furthest was about fourteen feet. My focus was set to eleven feet.
As this was an overcast day and you can't always rely on things to remain stationary during a shoot, I took my initial light reading and decided on ISO 200. As I wanted my aperture to be 14, I got a shutter speed of 1/40th of a second (I can even hold still for that). Aperture is key here as you want ALL points from closest to farthest to be sharp (depth of field).
The next important issue is speed of scene changes. The Earth rotates far quicker than the eye deduces. This entire series took 1.5 minutes to complete. Again, when stacking your images in Photoshop, you do not want color shift or lighting changes (both due to the position of the sun from our horizon).
Whew...you got the shots. Perfect! Now let's put the real workhorse to the task (that workhorse being your brain and Photoshop!)
Step 2 - Checking Continuity
I may only be assuming here that the previous steps were carried out by a 'photographer in the know' meaning the files on your camera are RAW files. If not, lesson learned and go out to reshoot. No, not really but shame on you! JPGs can be opened in Adobe Camera RAW if you know how. And here's how:
- Launch Adobe Bridge
- Navigate to your JPGs on your recorded disk
- Right click on the JPG file
- Click on "Open in Camera Raw"
If you were in the know and saved to your disk the RAW files then KUDOS. Now we're going to test out Smart Objects. We've all heard of it but, really, what is the value? Here again, stay tuned!
You now have the file opened in ACR. Don't make any changes just yet! Hold down your Shift key (PC and you Apple folks know what I'm talking about) and the Open Image button will change to Open Object. The file will open as a Smart Object in Photoshop.
Anytime you double-click on the small icon at the bottom right of the layer view, ACR will reappear so that you can make adjustments to ALL the original camera settings. Save each corrected file as a .psd.
In this series, I tested the upper left-hand corner for exposure consistency. Once all my shots were checked and saved as .PSDs (right click on the layer in the layers palette and select "Rasterize Layer"), I set out to accomplish my 'Stack!'
Step 3 - Stacking the images
In the Adobe Photoshop File Menu, you will find "Scripts...Load Files into Stack" This is a key issue: Look at the shots you've taken. You want your primaries (lower layers) to be those with little or no interaction. You can change these in the layer order later, but it's easier to do now.
Click on the Browse button and navigate to the files you just saved (you'll notice I removed the Smart Object portion of the name). Select the files, check the box to align as shown below, and then click Ok
Your computer will churn for a bit, but you'll end up with a document containing five layers. Please note the order in which the layers appear in the palette. The reason why will become apparent as we progress.
Step 4 - Sharpening
For the sake of this tutorial, I decided to sharpen the images just a bit. We will be doing this in lab mode as we want to make our sharpening changes to the light. Go to Image > Mode > Lab. Click Don't Merge. Now, in your Channels Palette, you'll see a channel called Lightness. That's where we want to work. With the bottom layer selected, go to Channels and select the Lightness channel. Your image will turn grayscale.
With this channel selected go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Check the settings I used below. Familiarize yourself with this process of using Lab Mode to sharpen images. You can also get some great colors playing in Lab. Once you've sharpened this layer, go back to the Layers palette, select the next layer, go to the channels palette, select Lightness again, and hit Ctrl + F. This will run the previous filter. Do this for each layer. Once you're done, go to Image > Mode > RGB (remember, don't merge!)
Step 5 - And Now the Masking
The most important two things you can learn about masking is to ALWAYS make sure you have the mask 'active' while you're painting and when to use black paint and when to use white. You can also use shades of gray. For this work, we will be using black and white. I always tell my students to make the foreground and background very vivid colors so that all you have to do is look over to your tools palette to tell if you're on the mask or not.
With the top three layers turned off and the second from the bottom layer active, click on the Add Layer Mask button in the layers palette as shown by the arrow below. This will result in a mask being applied to the selected layer (the white box).
With your mask active (just click on it) your foreground and background colors will turn to black and white. You want black as your foreground color. I suggest you lower the opacity of the mask layer (not the mask, just the layer) to about 50% so that you can see the image beneath as you mask. The image beneath will now be partially visible. To view the actual mask (and still see what is being masked), hit Alt + Shift + the layer's mask icon (the white box). To see the mask as opaque, hit Alt + the layer's mask icon. The three possible views are shown below.
For the beginning of the masking work, I used a brush 63 pixels in size with 0% hardness. Play around with these settings. As we get to the points where the figures are touching (interacting), we will change the size of the brush as well as the hardness.
Once completely masked, raise the opacity on the masking layer back to 100%.
Now click on the layer above the one we just did. All the work has disappeared. To duplicate the mask to the new active layer, hold down the Alt key while dragging the mask to the new active layer. Now you'll see that the subject in the back has disappeared. Again, lower the opacity and she will begin to show up again. This is where we mask this time. Be sure to use Alt + the layer's mask icon to check your mask often. Now we get into some interaction. Raise the opacity back to 100%.
If you blow the image up, you will see where the problem exists. In order to bring back the detail to this layer, we need to grab the white paint and a smaller, harder brush. I used a 25 pixel size and a 65% on the hardness.
I recommend staying with the smaller brush for the rest of this. Follow the previous steps for copying the mask and changing the opacity of the new active layer. Pay close attention to where the hands almost meet on the table.
This is the mask that will give you the most practice. It's very important to remember here that the subject seated on the left is being masked in. This is where the finesse also comes into play. You will need to experiment with brush sizes and remember your white paint. You'll most likely need it. It will be quite helpful on this mask to occasionally turn the top layer off to see where one subject ends and the other begins.
Follow the same steps as before to copy the mask to the top layer and lower the opacity. Once you completed this mask, the hard part is over. I just hope you've saved this at least 15 times by now. If not, save it!
Step 6 - Setting the Mood
This piece was initially titled, "We're All Here For You," and it was meant to be a bit dark. The colors in this resulting work are too vivid so we're going to change that! For any and all who have wondered just how to create dynamic lighting in Photoshop, here's the trick. Even some of the engineers at Adobe were surprised by this one! This will be a rather simple walk through using keyboard shortcuts. I've been doing this since Photoshop came out for Windows and we had layers to play with so I know you'll catch on quickly.
With the top layer active, select all (Ctrl + A), copy all visible (Ctrl + Shift + C), then paste (Ctrl + V). Now you've just duplicated everything we worked so hard to create. Now desaturate this layer (Ctrl + Shift + U), and turn it into a black and white negative (Ctrl + I)...yes, we use to do this in the darkroom to even out lighting. Make this layer an overlay. Now that's ugly!
Since we're wanting to spread the lighting out more evenly, we need to do a Gaussian Blur. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Most times when I perform this procedure I use the maximum of 250 here just to spread the light out evenly. If you stop to think what you're doing, this will be much easier to understand..
You've created opposite light balances, now you're just spreading them out evenly. Not done yet though. Do another Select All (Ctrl + A), copy all visible (Ctrl + Shift + C), create new document (Ctrl + N) then paste (Ctrl + V). Now we're going to play with another little toy in Photoshop that creates the best black and white http://www.photoshopdata.com/images/tuts/phototuts/compossition/images you may ever see! They key to this toy is understanding several other toys in Photoshop (like levels and curves) but for this, we're keeping it simple.
In this new document, go to Image > Calculations. In this resulting box we will be adjusting the grayscale values of the different channels. My choices for this image are shown below. You can play with them until the resulting black and white image is as intense as you like!
Now, in order to actually use this new masterpiece you have to go to the Channels and copy ONLY the new Alpha channel (Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C) then go back to the original document and paste (Ctrl + V) it as the top layer. Just remember, Calculations create a new channel based on the grayscale values you select. The original layer is NOT changed.
Now all you have to do is adjust the opacity for this new layer. Mine was set at 75%.
Step 7 - Crop Out What You Don't Want to See
Using your Crop tool is critical at this point. There is a bit of unnecessary space as well as some edges that, during the Stack, didn't line up. The image below shows where I selected to crop. This is a very personal decision so experiment.
Final Image
