Digital painters do it all the time, so why shouldn’t you as a digital photographer use the technique of coloring your images manually as well? Sure, Photoshop lets you change the color of your pictures with several image adjustment options already. But by coloring your photos with the paint brush tool you have the absolute freedom to do whatever you want–just color your pictures as you like and get results that even the best Photoshop preset cannot create. Nothing can stop your creativity. And the best thing is: it’s so easy.

1. Open the picture you want to color and desaturate it (because you can only color a greyscale image). In Photoshop, click on Image > Adjustments > Desaturate or press Shift+Ctrl+U.

2. Create a new layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+N and set the layer blending mode to “Overlay”.

3. Now select the brush tool and color of your choice and start painting over the image. You will see that only the filled pixels are colored (depending on their brightness) while totally black and white pixels stay black and white.

4. If you have huge black or white areas and want to color them as well, you have to give them some color information first (black and white are not regarded as colors). You can do so by adjusting the levels (press Ctrl+L) and moving the black and white arrows just below the histogram. Moving the black arrow more to the right will change the black parts to a dark grey tone, while moving the white arrow to the left will change the white parts to a bright grey tone. Now your new grey areas are ready for being colored as well.

5. Let your creativity flow and try other layer blending modes as well. If “Overlay” is not enough for you, you could try “Color Burn.” Or try something totally different–with “Difference” as in the picture below. Try different opacity settings for the colored layer and different brushes. As I said above, nothing can hold you back from the total coloring madness. And don’t forget to play around with the layer opacity setting if you prefer more subtle colors.

6. If you’re not satisfied with the colored image, just delete the layer you created in step 2 and start over by creating a new one with Ctrl+Shift+N.

This image could really need some more contrast and more vivid colors. Usually, the easiest and fastest way to fix that is hitting the button to auto-adjust the levels (Ctrl+L -> Auto) but this time the result is an image where the original blue colors are lost:

In order to keep the original hue you have to convert the image to LAB colors. If you haven’t done so already, go back one step in the history (Ctrl+Z), then click on Image > Mode > LAB color as seen on the picture below:

Now try auto-adjusting the levels again (Ctrl+L -> Auto). This time you should be able to increase the contrast while preserving the natural blue colors of the image like this:

So, whenever the level adjustments are not satisfactory in RGB mode just switch over to LAB colors and try again. In most cases you should get a much better result.

TIP: LAB mode is great for touching up the levels of portrait photos because skin colors will look much more natural

Click here to download the .atn script file used in this tutorial

So you’ve probably heard about the Photoshop CS3 beta and downloaded it already,  now all you need from there is an overview of the newest features and how they work.
PhotoshopCAFE is pleased to offer you the launch site for CS3 at:

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs3/index.htm.

You can find reviews, articles, tutorials, tips, videos, discussion forums and links to all the important places there as well as the download site at Adobe Labs.

This is how it works:

Step 1: Take a photo by looking through the view finder (the LCD screen won’t work well because it’s too inaccurate) with your right eye. Focus on a medium-range object and make sure you include a foreground object as well to get the maximum effect.

Step 2: This is the tricky part because you have to be really accurate. Take a photo by looking through the view finder with your left eye, while focusing on exactly the same point as in step 1 and also keeping exposure, focal lenght, vertical alignment and distance the same. You shouldn’t move the camera lens more than 2,5 inches horizontally (which equals the distance between your eyes) or else the effect will disappear. This may require some experimenting because different cameras have different view finder positions.

Step 3: Open Photoshop and create a new file by pressing Ctrl+N. For the example above I chose a size of 320×240 pixels but you can choose any size you want (however, the width/height ratio should be the same as your camera image ratio, i.e. 4:3, to make the placing process easier). Just keep in mind that animations with no frame delay like the one we are about to create run smoother and without any distortions only if they are small.

Now click on File > Place and select the image that you took in step 1. Place it in the newly created file by pressing the enter key.

Open the animations Window (Window > Animation) and duplicate the first frame by clicking on icon 1 that you can see in the picture below.

Place your other picture from step 2 in the newly created frame (File > Place > Enter).

In the layers window, click on the eye icon of the top layer so that it disappears like in the red circle below:

Now you’re basically done. Test your animation by clicking the play icon (2) in the animations window. If the animation is too shaky, nudge one layer until you get a good result. You might also want to add some sharpness (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen) or adjust the levels (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels).

If there is no real 3-D effect, try step 1 and 2 again and experiment a bit with the horizontal distance of the two camera positions.

When you’re satisfied with the result, save your animation by clicking File > Save for web, choose GIF format and hit the save button.

Cross-processing, briefly, is a photographic technique where slide film (E6) is processed in the set of chemicals usually used to process print film (C41). The result is images with oddly skewed colors (usually with a cyan hue) and increased contrast and saturation because the high-contrast slides have to be enlarged on a paper which is actually intended for print films with less contrast.

Less common is cross-processing in the other direction–print film processed in slide film chemicals. The result you get then is lifeless images in subdued colors because the chemicals intended for slide films compress the lights on the already low-contrast print films. Moreover, you can never be sure what colors you will actually get.

The film material is extremely and irreversibly modified due to the cross-processing technique; therefore, the advantages of the digital cross-processing simulation are obvious. And the key for digital cross-processing is the modification of the curves.

Process a print film like a slide film (I will explain for Photoshop CS 2 here)

1. Open the picture you want to process.

2. Press Ctrl+M to open the curves window or click on Image > Adjustments > Curves.

3. Modify the curves for RGB and all channels (red, blue, green) as shown in the pictures below:

4. The curves here are only for a start, and you will probably have to re-adjust the curves (especially the standard-RGB curve) until you get a decent result. This technique is interesting especially for portraits.

Process a slide film like a print film

1. Basically, it’s the same technique as shown above. Open your image and adjust the curves like this:

2. Same for these curves: They are only a start; you will probably have to slightly tweak them to satisfy your needs.

3. Don’t worry about the brightness too much. Just play around with the curves and focus on the contrast and colors first. After finishing the curves, adjust the levels (Ctrl+L) and make your picture brighter by sliding the small right arrow below the histogram a bit to the left.

Download a cross-processing script for Photoshop

If you don’t want to mess with curves, try this script:

http://www.shanzcan.com/photoshop/Shanz_XP_2002.atn

“Once you’ve saved to your disk, load ‘ShanzXPActions©2002′ into your Actions Palette. Use the Presets Manager or drag and drop it into the Actions Folder. There are 3 variations included in this folder; XP#1, XP#2, XP3. After running one of them on your image, you will have a layered file, and can further adjust your cross processed image, by changing the opacity of the layer(s), the blend mode, or just duplicate the crossprocessed layer for a more intense look. You may also have to add a ‘Curves or Adjustment Layer.’ ‘XP’ is my abreviation for ‘Cross Process’ and is NOT referring to the Operating system. This Action works on both Mac & PC.“ (Source: http://www.shanzcan.com/photoshopahol.html)

In this tutorial you will learn how to take and process infrared (IR) images.You probably came across some infrared photos already without noticing it and were stunned by their beauty and maybe wondering how their special appearance was achieved. Most photographers choose a blue tone for their infrared images because then they will get a winterly look but sepia tones are found as well. However, the most important characteristic of an IR shot are the white trees and plants because they reflect IR rays almost completely. Enough said now–time for some action!

1. Requirements

If you want to take infrared images you first need an IR filter and a camera that can “see” IR light. Since some newer cameras have a built-in filter that prevents IR rays from coming through, you have to check if your camera can see IR light by pointing a normal remote control to the camera (with no filter attached). If you can see the infrared LED glow then your camera is capable of taking IR shots.

There’s a variety of IR filters available. A good standard filter is the Hoya R72 infrared filter. The “72″ indicates that it will block light of wavelengths of 720 nm and less. You can also buy a colored IR filter for better contrast in different situations but if you edit your pictures in Photoshop then you can apply a color filter with the program as well, so a colored filter is not really necessary.

2. Taking the shot

You can hardly see anything when you look through an IR filter. Since it blocks a huge amount of light the best shots are taken in bright sunlight with the sun in your back for maximum IR reflection. But even if it’s bright, you will have to use a tripod because the exposure will be much longer than normal.

If there’s enough light you can simply attach the filter to your lens and start shooting without any problems. The camera will use the best setting for focus, shutter speed and aperture automatically. However, if the lighting conditions are not good enough problems with the autofocus may occur. In such cases, you have to focus manually while keeping the filter attached to the lens. If you remove the filter to focus manually the photo will be slightly blurred because IR rays do not have the same focal point than visible light rays.

3. Processing the image in Photoshop

Your infrared image has a red/magenta hue. Additionally, it may be very noisy depending on your exposure settings and camera quality. However, the noise can be fixed easily with Photoshop and also the hue is no problem. Here’s my original image:

The first step is to open the channel mixer (image > adjustments > channel mixer). Choose “Red” as the output channel and move the source channel slider of red to 0% and the slider of blue to 100%. Then choose “Blue” from the output channel menu and slide red to 100% and blue to 0%. You should get something like this:

Additionally, you can adjust the levels manually. Choose the red channel in the drop-down menu and move the black slider a bit to the right (where the red slider is):

Then choose the green channel and move the sliders as indicated below:

Now it’s time to change the hue. Click on image > adjustments > hue/saturation (or press [Ctrl+U]) and check the “colorize” box on the right. Move the sliders of hue and saturation until you get a result that you like. Mine looks like this:

For reducing the noise I recommend Photoshop plugins specially designed for this job rather than the Photoshop noise reduction feature (despecle). With plugins like Noise Ninja or Neat Image you will get much better results. For the final step I also applied a bleaching filter before reducing the noise so that I get even more contrast so at the end my picture looks like this:

Hope you had some fun with this tutorial. If you want to practice the techniques with my original picture, you will find the link to download it on the right.