Rick Sammon Shows You How to Bring Out Your Inner Artist in Photoshop

Date: Jan 19, 2007

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CREATIVELY, YOU'RE AT THE MIDPOINT of this book. You've read about taking better pictures and applying some basic image adjustments to your images. If you've experimented with the techniques I suggested, you've gotten a glimpse of the power of seeing creatively when taking pictures and the power of Photoshop when working on your images in your digital darkroom.

Now it's time to dive a little deeper into the creative world of Photoshop. In this chapter, you'll learn how to create your own reality (with your images), which is totally cool. You'll see, among other things, how easy it is to change the time of day, control the weather, create an image that looks like it was taken before you were born, change one or all of the colors in a scene, put someone on the "Photoshop Diet," and, following our creative-image artistry theme, create the type of image that surrealist artist Salvador Dali might create if he were alive today and using a digital camera and Photoshop. Wallace Stevens wrote "Reality is the beginning not the end."

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? BEGIN!

All About Hue

Changing the hue affects the overall look of a color photograph. Hue is the actual color of an object. The hue of a red apple in a photograph is red. Other factors make that color, or any color, look different. For example, increasing the saturation of the picture gives the apple a deeper shade of red, and decreasing the saturation makes the apple look less vibrant. Increasing the brightness (using Levels, Curves, or Brightness) also makes the apple look less vibrant. Decreasing the brightness gives the photograph a deeper, richer look. Increasing the contrast can make the apple look crisper, whereas decreasing it makes it look less crisp. Hue works with saturation, brightness, and contrast—and you.

In this lesson, I use a still-life picture of tulips in a hand-painted vase to illustrate the possibilities of varying the hue (Figure 3.1).

In Photoshop, you can control hue by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (press Command-U: Mac or Ctrl-U: Win) and then adjusting the Hue slider (Figure 3.2). When you do that with the Edit: Master option selected, you change the hue of all the colors in an image. This is the result when I adjusted the Hue slider to –51 (with Edit: Master selected) (Figure 3.3). And here's what happened when I adjusted the Hue slider to +138 (again, with Edit: Master selected) (Figure 3.4).

But there's more to adjusting hue. You can adjust the individual colors (Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues, and Magentas) by clicking on the Edit drop-down menu and then scrolling to the specific color you want to adjust (Figure 3.5). For example, to adjust only the yellows in the tulip image, I selected Edit: Yellows and moved the slider to –51. Notice that the color of the flowers has changed from my original picture, but the background is still the same color (Figure 3.6).

Speaking of the background in the flower image, changing it is also no problem. Here I selected Edit: Blues and adjusted the slider to –43 (Figure 3.7).

Moving the different sliders gives you virtually endless hue possibilities.

In the next image, I wanted to change the young woman's blue outfit to more of a blue/green. To do so, I selected Edit: Blues and adjusted the Hue slider to –68 (Figures 3.8 and 3.9).

For extra color enjoyment, play around with the Saturation and Lightness sliders in this dialog box, too!

Move the Clock Ahead

Photoshop gives you control over many aspects of your photographs. You even have the ability to make a photograph taken during the cool light of midday look as though it were taken during the late afternoon hours, when the light has a warmer and more pleasing quality.

There are several options for changing the time of day (so to speak) when a photograph was taken. Here are my favorites.

I took this photograph around midday from the top of the World Trade Center in New York City (Figure 3.10). As expected, the quality of the light was cool, giving the photograph a cool tint. The photograph also lacks contrast—something a setting sun increases in a scene by creating strong shadows. (Looking at this photograph stirs up mixed emotions for me. I included it in this book as a reminder of happier times.)

When you understand a challenge (fixing the cool color and low contrast, in this case), it's easy to figure out a solution in Photoshop. To warm up the photograph, I went to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance (press Command-B: Mac or Ctrl-B: Win) and, by adjusting the Red and Yellow sliders, boosted those tones in the photograph (Figure 3.11). To increase the contrast, I chose Image > Adjustment > Brightness/Contrast and boosted the Contrast slider (Figure 3.12). That doesn't create shadows, but it tricks the eye into thinking the picture was taken later in the day.

Here's the enhanced image, which has more vibrant colors and contrast than my original (Figure 3.13).

Let's look at another technique for moving the clock ahead. This time, I'll use a picture I took at Jungle World at the Bronx Zoo (Figure 3.14).

In the earlier example, boosting the red and yellow tones warmed the picture. You can also warm up a picture by using the Warming filter (Image > Adjustments > Photo Filter), which brings up the Photo Filter dialog box (Figure 3.15). Move the Density slider until the picture is warmed to your liking. Here's the result of using Photoshop's Warming filter on my photograph (Figure 3.16).

Here's a picture I took on a beach in Corsica (Figure 3.17). Again, I wanted to simulate the effect of the picture being taken late in the day. Understanding what was wrong with the picture (low saturation as well as the aforementioned characteristics) helped me find a solution.

To increase the saturation, I went to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and boosted the Saturation slider (Figure 3.18). Then, to see into the shadows, I chose Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight and boosted the Shadows slider (Figure 3.19).

As a final touch, I did a bit of cropping; the result was a picture with more impact (Figure 3.20).

After Midnight

In the previous lesson, you learned how to turn the clock ahead by warming up a picture. Now, I'll show you how to transform a picture taken during daylight hours into one that looks as though it were taken at midnight—on a night when the full moon was shining brightly.

First, think about how a picture taken by moonlight differs in light quality from a picture taken at noon. The nighttime picture is cooler, has less saturated colors, and looks softer than a daytime picture. Knowing that, you can make the appropriate enhancements in Photoshop.

Here's a picture I took of a jaguar in the Belize Zoo (Figure 3.21). To cool off the picture, I went to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance (Command-B: Mac or Ctrl-B: Win) and used the sliders to boost the Blue and Cyan tones (Figure 3.22). Next, I chose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and used the Saturation slider to slightly desaturate the image (Figure 3.23). To soften the picture, I went to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and added just a touch of blur (Figure 3.24).

The resulting picture is cooler, less saturated, and softer—with one more added touch (Figure 3.25). I used the Burn tool (press O: Mac or Win) to slightly darken the area around the jaguar to create the impression that the big cat was standing in a beam of moonlight and the surrounding area was in a shadow.

Speed-Aging a Photograph

One of the creative effects I like to apply to certain images is to age the photograph. I say "certain images" because the image must lend itself to looking old, like the images I've included in this lesson. Why do I like the effect? Well, first off, when we remove the sharpness and true color from an image, we remove some of the reality. When we remove some of the reality, an image often looks more creative. Secondly, I just think the effect looks cool!

Photoshop offers a built-in Action (an automatic instruction found under Window > Actions) that makes the process fast and easy—and fun.

I'll begin with a picture of a man I took in Hong Kong (Figure 3.32). He's asking me for a dollar. I had already paid him a dollar to take his picture and was about to take another. The bucks were well worth it.

After I clicked the Aged Photo Action in the Actions palette (Figure 3.33), my image looked like a faded photograph that was taken decades ago (Figure 3.34).

You can also age a photograph by applying the Sepia Toning Action. On the next page, you'll see a picture I took of a cowboy in Texas look as though it was taken way before digital cameras were invented (Figures 3.35 and 3.36).

After you apply one Action, you can continue to apply other Actions to your images. To make my Great Wall of China picture look as though it was taken on a rainy day shortly after the completion of this wonder of the world, I applied both the Aged Photo Action and the Light Rain Action (Figures 3.37 and 3.38).

OK, it's your turn to take action!

Control the Weather

In Photoshop, you can play Mother Nature, to a degree—by adding rain or snow to a picture. You can easily do so by using Photoshop's Light Rain and Blizzard Actions. However, there is more to the forecast, so to speak. Let's take a look.

My goal was to make this picture of a horse and rider taken on a sunny day look as though it was taken on a rainy afternoon (Figure 3.39). Before adding the rain, I needed to do some work on the photo, which has strong colors due to the bright sunlight.

My first step was to go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and use the Saturation slider to desaturate the image (Figure 3.40). A setting of –51 did it.

Pictures taken in the rain have cooler tones than pictures taken on sunny days. So, my next step was to choose Image > Adjustments > Color Balance and boost Blue by +11 (Figure 3.41).

Rainy-day pictures also have less contrast than sunny-day pictures. I went to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and reduced the Contrast by –10 (Figure 3.42).

It was time to add the rain. To do so, I applied the Light Rain Action (Figure 3.43).

Whoa, partner! Now it looks like the rider is galloping through a light rain (Figure 3.44). I achieved my goal.

Filter Transformation

Creating more artistic pictures using Photoshop's built-in filters, as well as Photoshop-compatible plug-in filters, is fun and easy to do.

This lesson looks briefly at just a few of the millions (literally) of creative possibilities. In the next lesson, you'll see how to take more creative control over the filters.

As an example, I'll use a picture I took of a lifeguard stand in Miami's South Beach (Figure 3.45).

One of my favorite creative filters is the Graphic Pen filter (Filter > Sketch > Graphic Pen). You can access this as well as all of Photoshop's other filters through the Filter Gallery (Filter > Filter Gallery). When you select this filter, you get a dialog box that offers several creative choices (Figure 3.46). You can control the Stroke Length, Light/Dark Balance, and Stroke Direction; play around with these sliders for customized effects. After you're pleased with the image in the Preview window, click OK to apply the filter to the image.

When I applied the Graphic Pen filter to my picture, it looked like a painter's sketch (Figure 3.47). But this wasn't the end of the creative process—it was only the beginning.

I softened the filter's intensity (opacity) by going to Edit > Fade and moving the slider to the left (Figure 3.48).

That's more like it. I faded the filter so some of the color of my original photograph was still visible (Figure 3.49).

One of the cool things I like to do with the Graphic Pen filter is to change the color of the "pen" I use. I clicked the Foreground Color box at the bottom of the Tool Bar to open the Color Picker dialog box. Then, I clicked a color in the Color Picker, and the foreground color changed to my selected color (a light blue, in this case) (Figure 3.50).

Compare the effect of using the blue pen in this example to that of the black pen in the previous example (in which black was set as the foreground color) (Figure 3.51).

Here are three more examples of Photoshop filters, all using the default settings:

• Dry Brush (Filter > Artistic > Dry Brush) (Figure 3.52)
  

  Figure 3.52

• Rough Pastels (Filter > Artistic > Rough Pastels) (Figure 3.53)
  

  Figure 3.53

• Ink Outlines (Filters > Brush Strokes > Ink Outlines) (Figure 3.54)
  

  Figure 3.54

Filters and plug-in filters open up a new world of creative options. Play around with the filters and their sliders, fading the filter and changing the foreground color (you can't do this with all filters). You'll be pleasantly surprised when you get an unexpected effect. Just don't overdo it—too much of a good thing (applying the same filter to many photos) can get boring.

A Note Paper Effect

Photoshop's filters have a creative mind of their own. They make creative decisions for you, if you go with the default settings, as you saw in the previous lesson. However, you can change Photoshop's mind and persuade it to think more like you do.

Let's begin with a straight shot I took of a banded peacock butterfly, to which I'll apply the Note Paper filter (Filter > Sketch > Note Paper) (Figure 3.57).

Filters are located in the Filter menu or, as I mentioned in the previous section, through the Filter Gallery (Filter > Filter Gallery). When you apply a filter, you get a dialog box with a window that shows the effects of the default settings for that filter. By moving the sliders (Image Balance, Graininess, and Relief, in the case of the Note Paper filter), you can fine-tune the effect to suit your own creative vision. The picture window showed me Photoshop's creative vision for how the Note Paper filter should be applied to my butterfly picture (Figure 3.58).

After you click OK, the filter is applied to the image. Here's a better look at how the Note Paper filter looked when I applied it to my image (Figure 3.59).

As I mentioned, you can adjust a filter's sliders to fine-tune your image, using Photoshop's imagination. But you can also change Photoshop's thinking by applying one or more adjustments—including Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, and so on—to an image.

I like to do something else immediately after applying a filter: fading that filter. I went to Edit > Fade (the filter's name appears after the word Fade) and moved the slider to change the Opacity (intensity) of the filter. While in Normal mode, I reduced the Opacity to 50 percent (Figure 3.60).

Here's the result of reducing the Note Paper filter's Opacity by 50 percent—and increasing the Contrast (Image > Adjustments > Contrast) by 40 percent (Figure 3.61). I like this effect much better than the default.

You can make even more suggestions to the creative mind of Photoshop. By clicking the Foreground Color box at the bottom of the Tool Bar and then clicking a color in the Color Picker, you can change the foreground color—which in turn can affect the color of the filter. (I say "can affect" because not all filters are influenced by the foreground color.) In this case, I picked a red color (Figure 3.62).

Changing the foreground color to red totally changed the Note Paper filter's default effect (Figure 3.63).

Fading the Note Paper filter with the red foreground created one of a gazillion other creative filter effects that are available in Photoshop (Figure 3.64).

Finally, I picked a dark blue as the foreground color, applied the Note Paper filter, and then faded that filter. The variations are endless (Figure 3.65).

When it comes to applying a filter to one of your images, remember that you can always change your mind—and Photoshop's!

Create a Pinhole Camera Effect

As a professional travel photographer, I need to shoot with a top-of-the-line digital SLR camera. The images from my camera are super sharp. What's more, due to the camera's sensor and image processor, I get relatively little noise (what we used to call grain in film) in my pictures.

I love the detail-packed raw files that my camera delivers. However, I thought it would be fun to try to simulate the effect of the most basic and affordable camera—a pinhole camera (a camera with no true lens or shutter, which you can make out of an oatmeal container)—on one of my images. Pictures from pinhole cameras look soft and grainy, due to the pinhole "lens" and the fast film that is needed to record the image. The pictures also have dark edges, due to the light falloff passing through the small hole.

I like the pinhole camera effect! Here's how I created it.

I'll use a picture I took of an old homestead in Oregon (Figure 3.66).

Adding film grain to my photo was easy. I went to Filter > Artistic > Film Grain and played around with the sliders to get the desired effect (more or less grain) (Figure 3.67). Applying the Film Grain filter removed some of the scene's reality, creating a more artistic image (Figure 3.68). However, I wasn't finished. The next step was to remove some of the color (more of the reality) from the scene. I did that by choosing Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and moving the Saturation slider to the left until I got the desired result (Figure 3.69). The image was getting close to the effect I envisioned (Figure 3.70).

The image looked a bit flat to me. So, I went to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and boosted the Contrast a bit (Figure 3.71). I could also have used Curves (press M: Mac or Win) or Levels (press L: Mac or Win) to make a contrast adjustment to the picture.

In "Draw Attention to a Subject" in Chapter 2, I discussed the technique for darkening the edges of an image. By applying it to this image, I simulated the darker edges I'd get in a picture taken with a pinhole camera (Figure 3.72).

Pinhole cameras are mostly used for landscapes. But you can have fun applying the digital pinhole camera effect to portraits, too.

Here's how the effect transformed a picture I took of a little girl in a remote Embera village in Panama into a more artistic image (Figures 3.73 and 3.74).

If you want the best quality digital file, get a top-of-the-line digital SLR. For the cleanest picture, shoot at the lowest ISO setting. But keep in mind that sometimes a grainy, soft picture may look more artistic than a technically perfect photograph.

Create a Basic Montage

Creating a montage (a composite of two or more images) is a great way to express your creativity. This lesson looks at some basic montage techniques. I'll discuss more advanced montage techniques in "Create an Artistic Montage" in Chapter 4.

I'll make the first basic montage using two pictures I took in Botswana (Figures 3.75 and 3.76). My idea for this montage was to create an image that conveyed the spirit of Botswana—with a faint image of the leopard in the sky.

With both images open, I dragged my picture of the leopard onto my sunset picture. Now I had a two-layer document, with the leopard on the top layer (Figure 3.77).

To create only a faint vision of the leopard in the sky, I opened the Layers palette (Window > Layers) and reduced the Opacity to 36% (Figure 3.78).

Now it was time to erase the area around the leopard. I selected the Eraser tool (press E: Mac or Win) and chose a medium-size brush. For more control over my erasing, I went to the Menu Bar and reduced the Opacity to 39% (Figure 3.79). Reducing the Opacity makes the erasing process happen at a slower rate.

To check whether I was doing a good job erasing the desired area, I turned off the bottom layer in the Layers palette (by clicking the eye icon). Here you can see that I haven't done the greatest job so far (Figure 3.80). Good thing I checked; more erasing was needed. To make the image of the leopard more subdued, I reduced the opacity of the top layer to 21% (Figure 3.81). Here's my final "Spirit of Botswana" montage (Figure 3.82).

That's about as basic as it gets when it comes to making a montage. Let's look at a few more important steps in montage creation.

Here's another picture I took in Botswana, and a picture I took in another wild place: Miami's South Beach (Figures 3.83 and 3.84).

Following the same technique of opening the two images and dragging one on top of the other, my new document looked like this (Figure 3.85). Again, I wanted to eliminate the background. I could have used the Eraser tool, but a quicker method is available when the background is plain: using the Magic Wand tool (press W: Mac or Win). The Magic Wand tool selects areas of an image based on color, when you click that color.

This tool requires you to make some important choices. First, you need to set the Tolerance on the Menu Bar (Figure 3.86). Set too low a Tolerance, and only areas with small variations in color (from your original color) will be selected. Set too high a Tolerance, and you'll select areas with large variations in color. For my model image, I set the Tolerance to 30.

Anti-Alias is another choice. For a smoother transition between the selected and unselected areas, I chose Anti-Alias.

Next, you must decide whether to check or uncheck Contiguous. Checking it picks only the selected colors that are connected—in this case, between the model's arm and her body. Choosing not to check it selects all the similar colors in the image. I chose Contiguous for more control.

After all that work, my montage looked like this (Figure 3.87). What's wrong? The color temperature of the light doesn't match in the two pictures. The sunset picture is very warm, and the model shot is cool. Plus, the model image is brighter than the sunset image. Here's how I fixed the color.

To warm up the image, I went to Image > Adjustment > Color Balance (press Command-B: Mac or Ctrl-B: Win) and increased the Red and Yellow tones in the image (Figure 3.88). Then, I chose Image > Adjustment > Curves and pulled down the Curve line (Figure 3.89).

That's more like it! The color and brightness values of both images match, yielding a natural-looking montage (Figure 3.90).

I can't overstress the importance of trying to match the colors of the different images in a montage. Here's another example of how a matched-colored montage looks more realistic than a montage in which the colors of the different images don't match (Figures 3.91 and 3.92). Sure, the montage with the white seagull shows the true color of the bird; but when placed in a sunset scene, the white features take on a warmer cast (deeper shades of red and yellow).

Liquify Reality

Salvador Dali, the 20^th century's best-known surrealist artist, is famous for his painting of melting clocks. Those melting clocks were the inspiration for this lesson. As you'll see, you can use the Liquify filter (Filter > Liquify) to melt objects in a photograph for a surrealistic look.

Before I turn up the heat and start the melting, however, I'd like to share with you a more practical use of the Liquify filter: making a subject in a picture look thinner and more fit. Some folks call the following technique the "Photoshop Diet," which usually gets a few laughs at Photoshop World (a bi-annual gathering of Photoshop pros and fans). In reality, however, it's a practical effect that fashion photography retouchers use to make even top models look better.

To illustrate the technique, I'll use a picture I took of a young woman in Cuba, who didn't need to go on a diet (Figure 3.93).

When you select the Liquify filter (press Shift-Command-X: Mac or Shift-Ctrl-X: Win), you get the Liquify dialog box, which includes a Preview window and Liquify tools and controls (Figure 3.94). At the upper left of the Tool Bar is the Forward Warp tool, which is the default. This tool lets you liquify pixels—melting them, twirling them, bending them, and stretching them. In this screenshot, I've circled the brush I used to reduce the woman's waistline; I did this by clicking her waistline, holding down my right mouse button, and moving the brush inward.

Here's the effect of applying the Photoshop Diet to the woman's waist, arms, legs, and neck (Figure 3.95).

OK, let's get to the melting effect.

I'll use a picture of a flower I took in my backyard (Figure 3.96). In the Liquify dialog box, I moved the Forward Warp tool in a circular motion around the flower and then in a back-and-forth motion on the flower's stem (Figure 3.97). Here you can see the result of those quick mouse movements (Figure 3.98).

Talk about melting! In the next example, I used the Liquify filter to melt a hotel sign in Miami's South Beach, which is "hot, hot, hot" even in the winter due to the wild nightlife (Figures 3.99 and 3.100).

Reflecting on an Image

"It's all done with mirrors" is a popular saying among professional magicians. These days, digital photography artists are using mirrors, of sorts, to create magical effects on their computer monitors. In a mirror image, one side of a frame is perfectly mirrored (reflected) on the opposite side of the frame—side to side or top to bottom. Here's how to do it.

Start with a visually strong picture. Actually, you have to start with a vision—an idea of how a subject will look when mirrored, or reflected, against itself. For this lesson, I'll use a picture I took in the desert of Rajasthan, India (Figure 3.101).

My first step was to select the entire image. I chose Select > All (press Command-A: Mac or Ctrl-A: Win) and then Edit > Copy (press Command-C: Mac or Ctrl-C: Win). That placed the image in my computer's memory.

Next, I chose File > New (press Command-N: Mac or Ctrl-N: Win) and clicked OK. A new, empty file exactly the same size as the original image was created. (Your image may look larger or smaller due to the percentage at which you're viewing your original picture. The viewing percentage is shown at the bottom left of the document window.) I chose Edit > Paste (press Command-V: Mac or Ctrl-V: Win) to paste my original picture into the new document (Figure 3.102).

While working with the newly created document, I went to Image > Rotate Canvas > Flip Vertically to create the reflection portion of what would be my final image (Figure 3.103).

I went back to my original image and chose Image > Canvas Size to open the Canvas Size dialog box. To create the reflection, I doubled the height of the Canvas; to make things easy, I rounded up the height from 4.288 inches to 9 inches (Figures 3.104 and 3.105). Here you can see that the Canvas size is a little more than doubled in height (Figure 3.106).

I made sure I was viewing both images at the same magnification percentage. I clicked the upside-down image and dragged it into the newly created white space in the original image until the images were aligned (Figure 3.107). Next, I used the Crop tool (press C: Mac or Win) to crop out the white space at the bottom of the image (Figure 3.108). The upside-down image was on its own layer (Figure 3.109). That made the next step easy. With the top layer (the upside-down image) activated (shown in blue here and activated by clicking it), I went to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple (Figure 3.110) and played around with the Ripple Size and Ripple Magnitude sliders until I was pleased with the result.

Here's the final image—a perfect reflection (Figure 3.111).

Of course, you need to work with an original picture that will make a nice reflection image. On the next page are two more examples that use the reflection technique—one a tightly cropped vertical shot and one created horizontally (Figures 3.112 and 3.113).

A Quick Pencil Sketch

This lesson is just for fun—like many of the others in the book. I like to have fun in Photoshop, as well as use its powerful imaging capabilities to enhance my professional photographs. I'll show you how I created an image that looks like I sketched it with a pencil on white paper.

I'll use a picture I took of a seagull in St. Augustine, Florida (Figure 3.114). Note that this effect, like many others you can create in Photoshop, works on some images better than others.

With the Layers dialog box open (Window > Layers), I created a duplicate layer Figure 3.115). You can create a new layer using either of the following techniques: go to Layer > New Layer > Layer via Copy (press Command-J: Mac or Ctrl-J: Win), or drag the background layer down to the "Create a new layer" icon, which is what I did here.

With the new (top) layer active (shaded in blue) (Figure 3.116), I went to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. The image now appeared in black and white (Figure 3.117).

Next, I duplicated the top layer (you can use any of the aforementioned techniques). I now had a three-layer document (Figure 3.118).

Working on the top layer, I chose Image > Adjustments > Invert (press Command-I: Mac or Ctrl-I: Win). The file now looked like a negative (Figure 3.119).

While still working on the top layer, I selected Color Dodge mode from the pop-up menu at top left (Figure 3.120). The image almost totally disappeared, which is the normal result (Figure 3.121).

Still on the top layer, I went to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and adjusted the Radius slider until I was pleased with how the pencil sketch image looked (Figures 3.122 and 3.123).

Just in case you thought this effect was only for the birds, here's how the same technique transformed another picture I took in St. Augustine into a pencil sketch (Figures 3.124 and 3.125).

Have fun, as always!

Posterize an Image

Technically speaking, the Posterize adjustment in Photoshop is designed to analyze the pixel colors of a selected area of an image and reduce the number of colors, while maintaining the look of the original image. Visually, applying this adjustment makes photos look like wood block color artwork.

The Posterize adjustment is easy and fun to use. I'll show you how this adjustment affects one of my pictures of a model on South Beach, Miami (Figure 3.126).

First, I chose Image > Adjustments> Posterize to open this simple dialog box (Figure 3.127). You can change the effect by typing a different number in the Levels box; I selected 4. At first, you may be thrilled with the default setting, but I encourage you to play around with the different possibilities. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you'll come up with.

Here you see the effect of level 4 applied to my full-color image (Figure 3.128).

Next, I'll show you how the Posterize adjustment affected the sunset picture of a camel and rider that I worked with earlier in the chapter (Figure 3.129). I like the straight shot, but I thought you might like to see how the image looks when it's posterized. Here's the effect of level 4 on my color image (Figure 3.130). Cool! And here's the effect of level 4 on a black-and-white version of the same image (Figure 3.131).

Even after you've chosen a setting that you're pleased with, experiment with Curves, Levels, Filters, and so on to see how you can further enhance a picture. Remember: In Photoshop, a picture is never finished.

For example, here's a straight shot of a hotel in South Beach (Figure 3.132). I enhanced the image using Posterize, level 3 (Figure 3.133). After playing around with a few adjustments and filters, I decided to apply Warming Filter 85 (Image > Adjustments > Photo Filter > Warming Filter 85) with the Density setting at 100% (Figure 3.134). My image took on a totally new look (Figure 3.135).

When you're applying the Posterize adjustment to an image, remember to keep it fun. In some cases, you (and your friends) may prefer the original color image. However, the Posterize adjustment can make a picture look more creative. Just ask Peter Max (www.petermax.com), the artist who gained fame in the 1960s with his colorful posterized pop art.

As long as I'm talking about posterizing an image, I'll mention solarizing. Here's how the Solarize filter (Filter > Stylize > Solarize) affected the previous image (Figure 3.136). My message, again, is that an image is never finished in Photoshop!

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