Photoshop Editing Skills

Original Image

 Photoshop can be used to subtly enhance images to add impact and make them more interesting. A simple way of editing photos is to use auto colour, auto contrast and auto tone. This means that the Photoshop programme adjusts certain aspects of the image automatically. This can mean that the contrast is lightened or darkened and the same with the colour levels. Auto tone adjusts the tone of the image and enhances the tone quality. For this image I have used auto colour. Personally I think that the original image is better as the colours are not adjusted very well when the effect is applied. I think that the effect gives the photo too much of a pink hue whereas the original photo has more of a warmer feel due to red being the stronger colour against the green.

Auto-colour applied

Desaturation

 Desaturating an image simply means to draw all of the colour of an image. This effect is very simple and adds a lot of impact. To create an effective desaturated image you should adjust the brightness and contrast to ensure the image features bright white and dark black. This strong contrast of colour highlights the most important areas and is often thought to make images seem elegant and is very popular in wedding photography. When shooting portraits a desaturated effect is often used as these images are seen as more attractive. To create this effect in Photoshop you must select image, desaturate and apply the effect to your image. In this image I have adjusted the brightness and contrast to add depth of colour to my image.



Desaturated Image

Vignetting

Adding a vignette to an image darkens the outer corners and therefore focuses the viewers attention on the centre and your subject. It also makes a subject appear to stand out more due to the darker colours surrounding it. To create this effect you should use the elliptical marquee tool to drag out a large oval around your subject-you must ensure the feather is set to around 60 as this smooths the line surrounding the subject. If you did not do this the line would be very sharp and visible, making the vignette very obvious. Then, to select the area outside of the oval you have drawn, click select and inverse. You will see that the shape outside of the oval is now selected. To create the darker area you must then adjust the brightness. It should not be adjusted too much as the vignette effect should be subtle. Then to de-select the new vignette press CTRL+D, the 'crawling ants' will disappear. If you want to increase the intensity of the vignette you should use the Burn tool, this will darken parts of the image you brush over with the mouse. To lighten areas the Dodge tool should be used-this is helpful when there is too much shadow in some places, sometimes on someones face. The Burn tool has the opposite effect-it will darken areas which are too exposed. Using the Unsharp Mask tool increases the sharpness of an image, therefore improving its quality. To do this click Filter, Sharpen then Unshark Mask. Select a radius of 2-2.2 pixels and the strength to anywhere between 50%-150%. If you have made the mask too strong the image will appear too sharp and create effects such as wiry hair. You can easily edit this by adjusting the strength percentage.