Photoshop Professor Notes – Volume 5 – Retouching Images

Photoshop Professor Notes – Volume 5
Retouching and Repairing Your Images …
This is Volume 5 of 5 in my “Photoshop – Beginners to Intermediate” series. I have developed this series over many years of teaching at both the College and University levels in a variety of departments including the Multimedia Program, Graphic Design Program, the Fashion Program, and the Creative Photography Programs both daytime and evening diploma and certificate programs.
Lecture 1: Clone Stamp, Patch, Healing & Spot Healing Brush & Red Eye Removal Tool
Knowing how to properly use Photoshop’s retouching tools is essential to making your images look realistic when you are done. When viewers look at you images you want them to ask the question; “Was Photoshop used on this image?” as opposed to making the statement; “Photoshop was used to make this image!”. If you have ever had a great image of a family photo where everyone in the picture was smiling and had their eyes open except for that one person and you wished you knew how to fix that in Photoshop, then this lecture is for you.
Lecture 2: Modifying Your Brushes
When using most of the retouching tools in Photoshop you will notice that they are brush based. that means that the tool is a brush and the effect you wish to apply is done so in a painting manner. For example in the previous lecture description I mention about possibly replacing some’s closed eye for an open one. Using the Clone Stamp Tool, which is a brush, you can sample form one image and paint into another image. Learning how to modify your brushes will allow you to paint in a more organic fashion which will leave you with a more realistic end result.
Lecture 3: Understanding the Dust & Scratches Filter
Understanding how this filter works can save you lots and lots of time when trying to clean up old images that may have been scanned in and given to you to work on. We all have these old images. Some are colour and some would be black & white and if they have been sitting in a shoe box for the past 20 years or so, chance they will have dust embedded into them and the easiest way to clean them up is using this filter.
Lecture 4: Using the History Brush and the History Panel for Creative Work
So moving forward and building upon the last lecture, we can further enhance our image using the History Brush and the History Panel. You can do some pretty amazing things with this technique and I encourage you to do so.
Lecture 5: Using the Straighten Tool and Content-Aware to Fix Images
Using the Straighten tool is very straight forward but until you are shown that it exists and how to use it, you may be spending too much time using other methods to get that horizon to line up properly. The Content-Aware feature is just plain magic. This tool, when used properly, will assist you in ridding your images of unwanted objects with three clicks of a mouse button. Okay, maybe four.
Lecture 6: Understanding the Vanishing Point Filter
This is truly one Photoshop’s under used and misunderstood Filters. It’s not really a filter in the traditional sense – it’s more like a tool and it is very useful. It allows you to clone in perspective. What does that mean? You know how when you use the Clone Tool to clone say along the side of a building to clean something up. If you start from the front and work your way backwards, the clone job doesn’t look very real because the size of the clone brush stays the same from front to back but in reality it should get smaller as it travels towards the back – this filter will allow you to clone in perspective.
Lecture 7: Bonus Lecture – Finalizing the Panorama …
In this final lecture we go over many of the previously discussed tools and techniques and add in more techniques in order to bring it all together. If the light has not already gone on, I am hoping that this will do the trick.