Basic Photo Editing Part II

Yesterday we learned how to make your pictures look better.
Today I'm going to show you how to make you look better in your pictures.

Open up the photo we edited yesterday

Today we're going to use my favorite tools to edit the photo. The burn and the dodge tools. We're gonna use the dodge tool the same way you would use a highlighter (the makeup not marker) plus a little more.

Make a new layer by pressing the ALT/OPTION and clicking on the new layer button on the layers panel. Call this layer Dodge and change the settings to match mine in the picture below

Select your Dodge tool and set the exposure to 15%. We don't want to make it too dark otherwise it will look cray. Make sure your range is set to highlight

Then you need to pick the right brush. Try to pick a soft brush. The size doesn't matter because you will adjust it when you go to highlight, but you can adjust the hardness to about 50%

Now that you've have your brush selected you're going to highlight the parts in green.

I had to use green to show contrast. I promise your picture will not look like this

Now that we've added some highlights, its time to show some contrast. As before, make a new layer by holding down the ALT/OPTION key while clicking the new layer icon on the layers panel. Name this layer Burn and change the lettings like the picture below

Select your burn tool and change make sure the exposure is at 15% and your range is set to shadows.

Now burn all of the areas in blue. Notice that I darkened more areas on myself than Ken. You have to have a light hand when editing men to make sure they don't look like they're wearing make up.

Personally, I think this is a good look for me. 

Now you have your final picture.

You can thank me next time someone tells you that you look like a super model in your new picture.

p.s. I'm sorry if there is some spelling mistakes or anything. I am writing this in a hurry since I should be getting ready to go get some dinner with friends. :)

Basic Photo Editing Part I

As a blogger many people try and edit their photos.
I say try because plenty do a horrible job.
Luckily, you have me to show you the right way.

First things first, open your photo in photoshop.

Now that your photo is open the first thing you need to do is to tone your photo. There is many ways to do this but the absolute easiest way it to use Image> Auto Tone

The before and after the autotone

As you can see, my picture looks a lot better now but Ken's face looks a bit red. So our next step it to adjust the color balance. Like toning, there is many different ways to go about this process. Again, the easiest way is to auto color your picture. For this go to Image> Autocolor

This helped a lot but our faces still look red so we're going to adjust the color a little more. To do this go to Image>Adjustments> Color Balance

This is the screen that pops up

The best way to adjust the color is to add its opposite. Since my photo has too much red in is I'm going to add Cyan. There isn't an exact number to change it to, it's more of a feeling. 

As you can see my photo looks a lot better already. To some, this is good enough. If you want to know how to further edit your photo make sure you come back tomorrow!

ABC isn't as easy as 123

I really want to show you one of my favorite pieces of work from the typography class I took last semester.

We had pick 8 sets of two letters to combine them. 4 sets were letters that were similar to each other (Like C and E) and 4 sets were letters that were dissimilar (Like P and Z). The idea behind this is that you're left with very unique shapes. These are how mine turned out:

As you can see, I combined K&E, B&K, S&h, and v&R

Here I combined C&0, q&p, w&m, and v&X

When I first got assigned this topic, I didn't think it would be that difficult. Once I started to put the letters together I realized that there were so many combinations that I could use! I didn't want the letters to be strait up and down so I turned a lot of them on their side or upside down. I decided to make it look abstract so that you almost couldn't tell what letters I used.

Once I made each square separately I had to decide how I should put them together. I wanted each board to look like it was once piece of art, not four pieces put together. It took a lot of turning but I finally got all the pieces together.

These two boards were made to sit side by side. So if you saw them hanging up they look like this:

There should have been a little bit of space between the boards

I think this is one of my favorite pieces because it takes something simple and makes it very artistic. At first glance they don't look like letters, and sometimes you can't see the letters at all. I think it is also something that is unique because even though everyone in the class made these, none of them looked the same.

So what do you think? Should I had done something differently? Would you have chosen to combine the images the way I did?

Branches Boutique: The Logo put into Action

Last week I showed you my design process for making the logo for my imaginary company. Today you'll see how I put that logo into use. I had to make a letterhead, an envelope, business car, and a post card. 

Incase you forgot here is my finished logo:

For those of you that forgot or didn't see last weeks post my company was a clothing company called Branches Boutiques. 

Here is my letterhead and envelope. I chose to stick with the original colors of my logo and adding a decorative touch to it. I wanted it to look new and contemporary. I also chose to keep the same design for both because they go together in a set. 

Stationary

envelope

My post card is my favorite part of the whole project. I wanted to do something fun and different. I used photoshop to make it look like I carved the information into wood. Now that I've had some time I think I could have chosen a different picture of trees. I would have chose a picture of a tree that was still standing, and have the information carved into the wood. Like how people carve their initials into trees. 

I decided to make my business card match my postcard because they would be displayed on a counter together. I made it look like the logo was carved into a tree to connect it to the post card. I chose to go with a lighter pink and brown to give it a more rustic look. 

So there is it! What do you think? Should I have made a similar design for all of the products or did I do a good job of splitting them up?

Branches Boutique

For my Graphic Design II class we had to make a business and design a logo, stationary, business card, post card, and an envelope for it. My teacher decided to do something a little different. We had to decide a logo first. We did by using a chart and combining two images. This is what I came up with.

I chose to go with the tree but i really liked the foot and the thing in the middle a lot. It's really hard to make a design without something in mind. For the project we make the logo first. Then chose a business for it to go with.

Because I had a tree as my logo it would have been really simple to make a landscaping company or something like that. But I wanted it to be different. I decided to go with a clothing company called Branches boutique. I played around a lot with my logo and signature so I have many combinations of the logo and company name. Here are some examples:

As you can see I didn't make just one combination. There are 7 there and those are only the ones I chose to put on the computer. Designing a logo takes up a lot of time. This is my final logo combination that I chose to go with:

 As you can see, I didn't even go with any of the logos I designed already. I instead chose to combine two different logos. I used hot pink in my logo to make it girly since my company was a clothing store. I chose to go with grey to contrast with the pink. 

I had full intentions of posting the logo, business card, post card, and stationary today but this post is getting a little long so I'll show you that stuff next week. 

What do you think of my logo?
Be sure to come back next Wednesday to see the rest of the design!

Life

This if the very first project that I made in college. For the project we combined a word with an image. I chose the word life. 

I wanted my poster to look like a readings of a heart monitor. I made the lines turn into a ribbon to show that support is what helps keep people alive. I chose the color yellow to represent Leukemia and to also used by Military families to show that they have a loved one fighting in the war. I chose a very generic font for the word life because I did not want to draw away attention from the picture.

This project is about a year and a half old and I feel like I have really grown as a designer since then. There is only one main thing I would change for this project. I think I should have made the ribbon smaller and moved it down and to the right some. I think that it would have had a stronger impact on the viewer in that position. There is also some touchups I would like to make since I was not used to the programs at that time.

Even with the changes I would make, this is one of my favorite projects. It is the one with the most meaning. Do you think I got my message across? Do you think there are any more changed I should make?

Fontbot

My first project for my typograpy class was a fontbot. Its a robot made out of letters. Pretty simple. 

The font I chose to use was Letter Gothic STD. I chose this fount because I wanted something that was sans serif (that means no small lines at the ends of the letters) and had rounded edges. I really wanted my robot to be fun so thats why he has four legs and a silly little mustache. Personally, I think he looks more like a alien than a robot, but I love it. 

So what do you think? Is there anything you think I should change?

Photoshop Part 3

So today is the day you finally learn about part 3 of the Photoshop tool bar. I know you're excited, now you can finally make all your pictures look perfect! The Tools I am about to show you are some of the most useful ones (in my opinion) for basic photo editing.

Eraser Tool

This works just like any old eraser, it will delete the pixels as you drag it across your picture. Just like the Paintbrush toll, you can change the hardness and the size of the eraser. If the layer is unlocked it would be transparent but if the layer is locked it will show your background color you've selected in the tool bar. 

Background Eraser Tool

This tool lets you remove the background of an image. With this tool, it does not matter if you layer is locked or not, it will erase and make the background transparent. 

Magic Eraser Tool

The magic eraser tool will save you lots of time if you're trying to delete a lot at once. It detects color like the Magic Wand Tool. Just Click on what you want to erase and it will erase everything that color. 

Gradient Tool 
This tool lates you make a gradient with your foreground and background colors. Its pretty simple.









Paint Bucket Tool
This is another pretty simple tool. It fills an entire section with "paint." Just like Microsoft paint lol.






Blur Tool
This tool obviously blurs parts of your image. Like the Paint Brush Tool, you can select different brushes and different hardnesses.






Sharpen Tool
This tool will tighten up the pixels in your image. Like the Blur tool you can adjust the hardness of the brush.







Smudge Tool
This tool will take the color you've chosen and will smudge where ever you click over the picture.







Dodge Tool
The Dodge Tool is used to lighten things in a picture. I like to use this on people's eye's and something on hair to bring out highlights.








Burn Tool
The Burn tool is used to darken things in a picture.






Sponge Tool
This tool lets you saturate or desaturate a picture. Just like the other tools in this group it is done by "painting" on the picture.








I'm sure you've noticed that there are still some tools left that I haven't explained yet.

These tools will be explained next week when I go over the Adobe Illustrator Tool bar.

I have chosen not to explain the first two tools in this section because there are for 3D work and I am not entirely comfortable with them. The bottom two will also be explained next week when I explain the Illustrator

Photoshop Tool Bar Part 2

As you can tell, there are a lot of tools in the ToolBar, probably more than you thought. Today, I'm going to show you part two of the toolbar so hopefully you can go ahead and make your pictures perfect for your own blog.





Spot Healing Brush Tool
What do you do if you find a picture of yourself and you love it, except for the HUGE pimple on your chin? You use the healing brush tool. You just click and bam! It's like it was never there. Like the magnetic lasso tool, this isn't perfect but it does work pretty well in most cases.






Healing Brush Tool
I'll be honest, sometimes the spot healing brush leaves you with a odd colored spot on your face. That's when I like to use the Healing Brush Tool. With this you actually select the skin you want the tool to copy (by pressing the ALT key on and keyboard and clicking on the clear part of the skin with your mouse. This is very easy to mess up though. Some parts of your face have different tones to it and this will show up if you don't chose wisely.





Patch Tool
This tool is good for large surfaces that is pretty similar all over. You draw a shape around the part of the skin you want to change. Then you drag the patch to a part of the skin that looks great and, then you have perfect skin again!






Red Eye Tool
The red eye tool is used to get rid of red eyes in a picture. I know, it's rocket science. It's very simple, just click the part of the eye that is red and it will go away. The only part that stinks with this is that it'll turn the iris's grey instead of the true color of your eye, but it is not noticeable to anyone but yourself, I promise.






Brush Tool
You can use the brush tool to paint with pixels over your picture. There are many different brushes you can use and they are found in the Brushes panel. You find the brushes panel by going to Window, Brushes. There are many to chose from and each one has it own appearance. You can also change the size of your brush and the hardness of your brush.





Pencil Tool
The Pencil tool is like the Brush Tool except you can't change the hardness.








Color Replacement Tool
This lets you replace one color with another. Sadly, I have never used this tool because there are other ways to do this. I will give future tutorials on how to do this.





Mixer Brush Tool
This is another tool that I've never used. I actually had to look it up to make sure I was telling you the correct information lol. This tool is used to make things look hand painted. As I mention, I have never used this tool, I personally would paint something on paper then scan it onto the computer and make adjustments as I saw needed. But if you want to pain on the computer, this is the tool to do that.




Clone Stamp Tool
This tool allows you to duplicate part of an image. First you Pressing ALT on your keyboard and click the part of the picture you want to duplicate. Then you use it like the paint brush tool and paint, it will duplicate the part of the picture you wanted.








Pattern Stamp Tool
This tool is like the Clone Stamp Tool except it makes patterns. You can use patterns that are already in you library or you can make your own.






History Brush Tool 
This tool is a little confusing, so I hope I don't confuse you! This tool allows you to paint a new layer from a previous state of your image. I hope that makes a little sense!






Art History Brush Tool
It lets you paint on a new layer from a previous state of your image just like the History brush tool but it has a large amount of styles to chose from. You can choose different paint styles, sizes, and tolerance options. This is another tool I don't really use but I am interested into try it out now.




Tomorrow we're going to get to the final part! Woo Hoo! I hope you're learning a lot about the Photoshop toolbar!