In this tutorial, I will teach you how to lose your head – the safe way! As usual, I will start off with the basics, and then suggest how you could carry on from there. Let’s get started.

Setting up for this photo manipulation is quite similar to the previous (and now rather famous!) cloning tutorial, in which you need a camera (obviously), a tripod (or just a steady place to put your camera) and 2 photographs of the same scene, one with your model (or yourself) in it, and one without.

For this tutorial, I will be using these 2 photographs below. I had accidentally shifted the camera a teeny bit when I was taking these shots, but the difference is almost negligible, so these images can still be used. But for those of you trying this out for the first time, and have never done the cloning tutorial before, remember not to move your tripod and camera in between shots, ya?

Just to reiterate from the cloning tutorial, this is so you will get a consistent look (distance of scene from camera, angle, et cetera) for both your photographs, as this is crucial for the photo manipulation to work.

The 2 photographs :

The second photograph, which I’ve mentioned before that I like to call the blank template, is only necessary for the parts you’d like to be invisible, but enough with words, let’s get to the steps.

Step 1:

1. Bring both the photographs into Photoshop. If possible, work with the highest resolution photographs that you can get your hands on. This will allow you to work on the more minute details, to make your finished product more realistic.

   Move the image with the blank scene to the top, above the image with the model. In my example, my blank scene is named Blank and the one with the model is named Model. You may name your layers whatever you choose (or not name them at all), but I will be using these names in this tutorial to make things easier to understand.

2. Add a layer mask to the Blank layer.
    

3. Fill the layer mask that you have just added to the Blank layer with the colour black.
    

4. Click on the Brush tool (shortcut button : B), and make sure that the foreground colour is white.
    

5. While the layer mask of the Blank layer is still selected, and using a brush size of your liking, start brushing away on the head. What this does is cover the bottom layer, which is my Model layer, with the top layer, which is my Blank layer, making it look as though the head of the model is transparent.

   In the image above, I showed a feathered brush of size 20. In reality, I alternate between different sizes and I use a small solid brush to get the edges of the head which touches the shirt. For intricate selection, I use paths as well.

   To know more, jump over to my previous tutorial on how to do precise selections.

Step 2:

At this point, you should have an interesting headless image, like so :

Some people are happy to stop here, but we are not, are we? Oh no, of course we’re not. Let’s recreate the back of that shirt.

1. First we have to create a base colour for the back of the shirt. I used Photoshop’s Eyedropper tool (shortcut button : I) and chose a colour from the shirt. While we know that the shirt is black in colour, the Eyedropper tool would tell us exactly which specific shade of black a part of the shirt is. This is more important for clothes of other colours rather than black. Black is relatively easy to fake.

   Then, use a solid brush (as opposed to a feathered brush) to create the shape of the shirt. Use your judgement here, and decide what looks right to you. You can use an actual shirt as a reference.

   Optional :
    
   One sure way to get the shape and colour and such of the inner back of the shirt right… Is to actually take a photograph of the back of that shirt, and paste it in at this stage. I would recommend doing this if you’re creating a photo manipulation for prints larger than A4.

2. Next, we have to match the noise of that base colour to the noise of the photograph, otherwise, it will look very obviously fake since it would be of a solid colour, and would stand out from the rest of the image. What we’re looking for here is to make it look as realistic as possible.

   To add noise, select the layer with your base colour and click on Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Experiment with the noise amount to match the noise in your photograph. For the photograph I used here, the image wasn’t all that noisy, so I added about 2% noise.

   I had also decided to lighten the base a bit here since the black I originally chose blended way too well into the shadows. 

3. At this step, I began to add shadows to make the back of the shirt seem slightly less 2 dimensional. I played with the shadows a lot before I settled on this, subtle but yet you can tell there are shadows.

   To add shadows, you can use either use the Gradient tool (shortcut button : G) with a gradient that goes from black to transparent, or you can use a small feathered brush and brush in the shadows yourself. Play with the opacity of the layer until you are satisfied with the look of the shadows. 

4. And the finishing touch is adding of the shirt label and the seams of the collar.

   The shirt label is just a rectangular box which is filled with white, and with its opacity lowered. The seams were made by using the brush tool, and painting a line around the collar.

And that’s it! Pretty easy, no? The tricky part is to make it as realistic as possible. If you’re going to set up a photoshoot especially to try this tutorial, keep in mind to keep as much shadow away from the collar area. The final image below still looks a bit off (to me, at least) since there are heavy shadows around the neck area, when there isn’t supposed to be a head there to cast the shadow. Heh.

And here’s one more example.

Other cool things that can be done using this technique, along with properly posed photographs, include getting beheaded (place your head somewhere else in the photograph!) and becoming 100% invisible (clone out your arms, hands, and feet too!)! And if you’re like The Decapitator, you’d maybe want to leave the neck alone, and add some blood, flesh and bone! Heh.

Go on, then. Show us what you can do!

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com

That said, let’s get on with today’s tutorial!

This time around, I will show you how to do a precise selection in Photoshop, and then some of the cool things that you can achieve, once you’ve mastered it. Precise selection? That isn’t very descriptive, is it? Doesn’t sound cool, but here are 2 teaser images to encourage you to read on.

To do a precise selection in Photoshop is not all that difficult. It might be tedious, but it’s not difficult at all. There are several ways to achieve this, and in this tutorial, I will guide you through two methods. I will be using the photograph below for examples. Feel free to use your own, or, if you like, use the same image.

1. First Method : Mask & Brush

   The basics of precise selection, for both methods, lie with using Layer Masks. The first method, you may already be familiar with, if you had gone through my previous tutorials. This is the more tedious method of the two that I’m going to show you, but it’s necessary for me to include this for the tutorial. Here are the steps :

   1. Step 1 :

      Step 1 is the same for both methods. Open up your image in Photoshop, in a new document, and Add layer mask to the image layer.

   2. Step 2 :

      Make sure your foreground colour is black, and that the layer mask is selected, then use the Brush tool (shortcut button B), a solid – non-feathered – brush, to paint the section you want selected. If you have no Background layer, painting the section with black will show you a square grid, Photoshop’s default “transparent” background. If you do, your background layer will be shown instead. Zoom in so that the item you want selected fills up a big percentage of your screen, to make it easier for you. Zoom in to 600% even, if you prefer it so. I know I do.

      

      Control + / Command + to zoom in, Control - / Command -to zoom out.

   3. Step 3 :

      Alternate with different sized brushes. Use smaller sized brushes to paint over the smaller parts of the image. This is the part where it gets tedious. If the item that you want to select has many small parts, or if it is complex, then you might have a more difficult time painting all of it in properly.

      

      This is what it should remotely look like when you’re done painting all the details in. If you managed to brush in everything perfectly, I applaud you! It’s not that easy! Normally I would paint in the reflection as well, but since using this method is not the focus of this tutorial, I didn’t.

   4. Step 4 :

      Now, press the Control (Command for Mac users) button, and click on the Layer mask thumbnail. This will grab your selection. By default, the parts painted in white is the selection. You want the one in black to be selected, so go to Select > Inverse. This grabs the item you painted in, and you can now disable your Layer Mask.

      

      Note : You can also use the Quick Mask method, by pressing Q to enter Quick Mask mode, in place of Step 1. Then brush in the item you want, and then press Q again to exit the Quick Mask mode which will automatically select your brushed area.

      End of First Method of precise selection using a Brush tool.

2. Second Method : Mask & Pen

   This second method is what I would recommend you to learn and master. This enables you to quickly do superbly precise selections that would otherwise take a very long time to do using the First Method.

   1. Step 1 :

      Step 1 is the same for both methods. Open up your image in Photoshop, in a new document, and Add layer mask to the image layer.

   2. Step 2 :

      This method requires you to play around and familiarise yourself with the Pen tool (shortcut button, P). Let me show you my recommended settings first :

      

      I suggest reading a bit on the Pen tool from the Help section, or just playing with the tool for a while. If you want to skip doing that, you can still follow this tutorial.

   3. Step 3 :

      If you’re familiar with using the Pen tool to follow an image’s outline, you can just continue on to the next step.

      Otherwise, use the Pen tool and click on the edge of the item you want to select to create what is called an Anchor Point. Trace out the item’s outline using the Pen tool using as many Anchor Points as you want/need. Every single click creates a new Anchor Point.

      

      As with the previous method, feel free to zoom in as much as you need. It will make the tracing out easier.

      Note : Should you click on a wrong place, press the Delete button to clear the last Anchor Point you created. Be careful, though. Pressing the Delete button a second time will delete the rest of the path (the lines and Anchor Points that are created are called Paths) that is left, which you might want. If you want to delete off the next Anchor Point, click on it first before pressing the Delete button.

   4. Step 4 :

      When you’re almost done tracing out the item using the Pen tool, click on the first Anchor Point that you created to close the path. When you hover over the first Anchor Point, you will see the Pen cursor change to have a circle beside it. When you close the path, all the Anchor Points you’ve created will become one solid path line.

      

      To save the path that you have worked so hard to create, go to the Paths tab (Windows > Paths, if you don’t see it), and double-click on the Work Path layer. Enter a name for it, if you like, and click Ok to save it. Now that path is accessible via Paths tab everytime you open the document you’re working on. Each newly-created path needs to be saved like this.

   5. Step 5 :

      Once you’re done with tracing out the whole item’s outline, with the Pen tool still in use, right-click and click on Make Selection. Give one or two pixels Feather Radius if you want a blurry edge. For this tutorial, I’m using 0 as I want a smooth nice edge instead.

      

      Click Ok and you will get your selection. Click on the Layer Mask and click on Edit > Fill > Use > Black (shortcut : Alt Backspace if black is your Foreground colour, Control Backspace if black is your Background colour) to mask the selection.

      Note : An easier tool to try that is somewhat similar to the Pen tool is the Magnetic Lasso tool (right-click the Lasso tool button). It gives less control compared to the Pen tool, but it is quite good for beginners. If you feel like the Pen tool is a bit too frustrating for you, try the Magnetic Lasso tool instead, and forge on!

      End of Second Method of precise selection using a Pen tool.

So, now that you know both methods, the best way to get a really precise selection is to use a mixture of both. I would start with the Pen tool (method 2) first, and then clean up any stray edges with the Brush tool (method 1). Alright, let’s see what you can do with this new trick!

Example 1

This is what came out of this tutorial example, of course. To do this :

1. Step 1 :

   Follow the Second Method, and edit any stray edges with the First Method above.

2. Step 2 :

   A major difference though : Make sure your Path has been saved (see Step 4 of the Second Method : Mask & Pen above), fill the whole Layer Mask with black instead of white (that is, there will be no selection yet at this point). Click on your saved Path, and Make Selection (see Step 5 of the Second Method : Mask & Pen above). Fill the selection with white instead of black.

3. Step 3 :

   Right-click on the layer (eg. Layer 1), and click on Duplicate Layer. Drag this layer so that it’s below Layer 1. Right-click on the Layer Mask of the duplicated layer and delete it. Desaturate the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

4. Step 4 :

   You’re done! I added some gradients to the image above to make a faux-vignette.

Example 2

If you’ve visited my blog before, you’ve seen this image! It was done using the steps in this tutorial!

Example 3

You can also completely remove an aspect of an image, and replace it with something else entirely.

Example 4

And of course, this will help you create slightly more advanced clones!

To “cut out” the object you have selected, right-click on your selection and click on “Layer via Copy” or “Layer via Cut” (I recommend using “Layer via Copy”). This will create a new layer out of just that selected bit. From there, you can duplicate that layer (right-click on that new layer and click on “Duplicate Layer…”) to other documents.

Alternatively, you can just add a Layer Mask to the layer with the selection. I prefer doing this as it is less destructive, and you can still clean up your selection in the future, using the First Method in this tutorial.

Alright, that’s the end of this tutorial! And what a long tutorial this is! I hope this makes up for its absence for the past months! I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Till the next tutorial!

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com

Here’s a short filler one, regarding flash, to allow you to get your tutorial fix while I work on the lengthy new one coming up next month.

Light is the most crucial part of a good photo. Not the camera, not the photographer, but light. And natural lighting is definitely the best way to go, but if you lack natural lighting, then you can use flash to compensate. I know, I know… Using flash produces such artificial looking photos, right? Well, not if you use flash right! Fill-flash, especially, can be used to make your pictures pop up even more.

Here I will illustrate how using flash can make or break a photograph in this short tutorial.

(Sorry, this was Mr Malique’s idea! Happy New Year! I will be back with a real tutorial soon. Promise! )

Later,

Well, at least in your photographs.

Do you have a near-perfect portrait of yourself, that is embellished by a pimple? Don’t you just hate when that happens? In this tutorial, I will show you how to get rid of all the unflattering marks on your face using Adobe Photoshop mostly by just using two tools. Yes, just two! You will be surprised at how easy it is to do it! So, let’s get started.

Step 1:

I’ll be using this photograph below as an example. You, you can dig up a photograph of yourself to try. Come on now, don’t be shy. Bring the photograph in to Photoshop, preferably using the biggest resolution version of that photograph that you have.

At this point, I would colour-correct the photograph first before continuing with the editing. Not sure how to? Feel free to read my tutorial on how to colour-correct your photos first. Don’t worry, we’ll wait.

Step 2:

Here’s the magic tool that you’ve been waiting for : Healing Brush Tool.

I’ve heard of designers and photo editors who have never even heard of this amazing tool, and I hope to help put that to an end with this tutorial (and after that, take over the world!). Using this tool is pretty simple, but first let’s set the correct options.

1. Once you’ve clicked on the Healing Brush Tool icon, you will be presented with a toolbar of options. Click on the arrow button beside the Brush option.

2. Set the diameter of the brush (ie. the brush size) to something small, depending on your image resolution. A good way to base this size upon is to see the diameter of the most visible blemish in your picture. Set the diameter to something slightly bigger than that. (But this really depends on the photograph and if there are a mess of blemishes together.)

   For this example, I’ve used 19 pixels as the brush size, but I change this brush size dynamically while using the tool on different parts of the face. Experiment! See what works for you.

3. Now set the brush hardness to about 15%. This will give the brush a feathered edge, which will help blend the blemishes with the rest of the skin.

4. You can ignore the rest of the options for this tutorial.

Step 3:

A tool can do wonders, but you have to properly use it to get great results. Here’s how you properly use the Healing Brush.

1. Zoom in to your picture. I zoom in and zoom out often to see the overall progress. Remember the proverbial “You can’t see the whole forest if you just look at one tree”? It’s the same concept here, only more literal. Heh.

   Once you’re zoomed in (200% is usually enough, but again it depends on the resolution of the image you’re working with), press Alt (Option for Mac users) and left-click on a part of the face near to the blemish with nice skin. What this does, is to provide a source for Photoshop to correct the blemish you use the Healing Brush Tool on.

   

2. Alright, the trick is to just use the brush once on the blemish. Single clicking works better than holding the left-click and swiping across the blemish. So, do this : Alt + left-click on a nice part of the skin around the blemish, and then single left-click on the blemish. Repeat on other blemishes.

   Remember, do not swipe the brush around while left-clicking! The results will rarely turn out good. Single left-clicking for each blemish will give you the best results.

   

3. Now continue doing that for all the visible blemishes, keeping in mind to keep zooming out to see the overall progress. Also, remember to change your brush size as you see fit. Don’t use a huge brush on a small pimple, although sometimes using a smaller brush on a huge blemish works quite well too.

   If at some points, the Healing Brush Tool gives you a totally messed up result (like for example, a solid colour appears that’s not the colour you sampled or what your target is), undo and try again. If it still gives you the wrong result, ignore that for now. We’ll get to that in the next step.

Quick tip:

With the Healing Brush Tool in use (or any other brushes, really), you can use the ] button to increase the brush size and [ button to decrease it.

Step 4:

Here’s how the guy’s looking once I’m done. Looking quite good, no? This is just with using the Healing Brush Tool. If you click to enlarge the image, you might notice some parts are still not acceptable. Or maybe you might not notice, but I’m a borderline perfectionist.

You might also notice that if you use the Healing Brush Tool, and you want to clean up something that’s in a part of the photo that’s of high contrast, the tool might not work properly. Like for instance, a pimple that’s above the guy’s left eyebrow (that is, from our view, the right eyebrow). If you try to heal that using a 19 pixel brush, it will not turn out correctly. You could use a small brush, but we’ll use something else.

Remember, I mentioned two tools? The second one is the Clone Stamp Tool. It’s right below the Healing Brush Tool in the toolbar. The way to use this tool is exactly the same as using the Healing Brush tool. I’m going to use this tool to clean up the image a bit more.

Step 5: So here’s an example of what I used the Clone Stamp Tool for.

Then I noticed a bit more stuff I didn’t see previously. A bit more Healing and Cloning later, and here’s the end product…

Honestly, as I’ve mentioned somewhere else before, the trick is to know when to stop. You can continue if you like, but I am happy with the end product here.

But. Just for fun, I’m going to teach you another step I use.

Step 6:

Use any selection tool you’re comfortable with. Me, I enjoy playing around with the Magic Wand Tool once in a while. Set the options to the settings in the image below.

Click on the Magic Wand Tool and click on any part of the guy’s (or in your case, your own) face. Press Shift and click again until you get most of the face selected.

The Tolerance setting can be higher if you like. Setting it higher tells the Magic Wand Tool to select more of the pixels that looks like the ones you’ve chosen.

The purpose of this is not to get an exact selection. Just to get a somewhat of a face-mask-like selection of the face. Try not to get the hair, eyebrows, eyes, lips and nostrils selected. Don’t worry if you select lesser than the whole face ’cause it’s not necessary to get everything, but do not select the background or the shirt. If you do get some in, using the Magic Wand tool, press Alt instead of Shift to do some deselecting. Or use the history list (or Control Z) to undo.

Okay, next.

Step 7:

1. Right-click and choose Layer via Copy. This will create a new layer with just the selected skin.

2. Right-click that layer and choose Duplicate Layer…. You can ignore the options that follows and just click the OK button. That will create an exact copy of the layer you just created.

3. Click on the 1st layer “eye” icon to hide the layer for a bit. We will use this later.

   

4. Click on Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Depending on your picture resolution, experiment the Radius amount to one that will give your layer a nice, relatively flat, but slightly gradiented, consistent colour. For this image, I use 8.5 pixels for the Radius amount.

   It’s okay if your Radius amount is drastically different than mine. Previously, I’ve set it to about 30+ pixels for a 6 MP photograph. Once you’re happy with the blur, click the OK button. Try to aim for something like this:

   

5. Now, press the Control button and click on the layer you hid just now. It will grab the selection of the layer and that’s all you need. Now click on the Add Layer Mask button. If you had tried my cloning tutorial, you might remember where that is? If you don’t recall, here it is:

   

Step 8:

Alright, this might seem weird, but we’re going to add some noise to the layer we have just blurred. This is to allow the blurred layer to blend better with the original image later on.

1. Click on Filter > Noise > Add Noise…

2. Under Distribution, check Uniform (as opposed to Gaussian, which in my opinion gives too strong of a noise distribution) and check Monochromatic, and set the Amount according to your original image noise level.

   The image I’m using is quite noisy, and a bit of experimenting shows that 1.5% noise gives a similar noise look to the original image, so that’s what I’m sticking with. Feel free to adjust the amount as you see fit. Skipping this entire Step 8 is okay too, if your original photograph is not visibly noisy.

3. Click the OK button and let’s continue.

Step 10:

Now, click on the Brush tool, and choose a nice feathered brush size. This brush size will, again, depend on the image you have chosen. For the image I’m working with, I find that a size 27 feathered brush works quite well. Once again, feel free to use different sized brushes while you’re working; you don’t have to just stick to one size.

Then, set the Opacity and Flow of the brush to 50%. Again, feel free to lessen or increase both settings. Sometimes, I leave both at 100%.

Step 11:

So you’ve got your feathered brush selected, now click on the Layer Mask and make sure your Foreground and Background colours are set to Black and White.

Now brush against the edges of the “face mask” that you’ve created until the edges of the layer look like they fit in to the rest of the face. Pay extra attention on the edges of the eyebrows, hair and such. Once you’re done, lower down the opacity of the layer to about 30%.

The above is how your final image should look like. I made the opacity of the blurred layer to 30% only because I like to keep the final image as realistic as possible. You can increase the layer opacity to as much as you like if you prefer the “obviously-fake” look (like a certain celebrity-blogger? ). Me, I like to fool people to the point of almost disbelief, but with a hint of “Hmmm, maybe it is real!” Heh.

Step 12:

That’s it! That’s all there is to it. Now you can look perfect in your photographs all the time! Hehe. Just be certain to let your readers know that your images are highly Photoshopped and tell them to come here to find out how to do it themselves! We don’t want you getting accused of misrepresentation, now, do we? No, no, we don’t.

The last step can also be used to reduce noise from your images, for example if you’re printing a banner, using photos taken at a high ISO. And the Healing and Cloning tools can also be used to correct any other unwanted marks from your images, like say, dust on a scanned photo.

But editing blemishes away from your photographs is the most fun thing to do, of course. If you try this tutorial, show us your before and after pictures, yah? Oh come onnnnn, be a sport! Heh. Here, I’ll start things off with showing my digitally touched up images.

Happy Photoshopping!

Photo by Georgios Wollbrecht (main photograph in this tutorial) and was provided free at stock.xchng. The rest of the images were taken by myself.

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com

I’m always home late on Mondays and Wednesdays. I rush to school right after work and  sometimes the tummy will growl even before i reach home. So here’s a quick hunger fix, for workaholics out there.

I’m not going to do a detailed tutorial, unlike my tutorial specialist extraordinaire , ZuL. Its quick, its cute, and its yummy!

1. Cut a hole with a mug/cup
2. Pre-toast the bread (optional, but i love mine toasted!)
3. Place in pan with some butter or a super small teaspoon of oil (works better with Teflon non-stick pans!)
4.  Let a whole egg sink in, cover and wait..

Now your egg toast is done, eat it slowly…over a cup of warm milk and get to bed. Early bird catches the worm or as known as ‘don’t be late for work!’ But if you still can’t sleep, like a certain Mr.Malique, photoshop your egg toast creation and laugh alone in your room at 1 freaking a.m in the morning!

This next tutorial, we’ll take it slow and easy, and touch on colour-correcting photographs for beginners. It’s nothing difficult and by the end of it, you might probably wonder why I even bothered to post something so simple. It’s just something that I figured most hobbyist-photographers (like myself) would find useful if they had only just started out.

Alright, the image in the screenshot below is what I’ll be using for this tutorial. You can pick out any image from your own collection to play with. If you’ve never colour-corrected your images before, I think you’d be amazed at what the outcome will be.

Step 1:

Bring the photograph you want to colour-correct into Photoshop. What do you think of the image above? It looks pretty alright, yah? But, let’s get on to Step 2.

Step 2:

Click on Image > Adjustments. In the menu that follows lies the 3 automatic commands that would do your photographs a world of good.

1. Auto Contrast – Improves the contrast of your photographs by making the highlights of the photo appear lighter and shadows appear darker.
    
2. Auto Color – Improves the colour cast of your photographs. If your photograph has a sickly green tinge to it, this command will remove it.
    
3. Auto Levels – The Auto Levels command automatically adjusts the black point and white point in an image.

Personally, when colour-correcting my photos, I’d run them through the first 2 commands and leave out the Auto Levels. I’d correct the Levels manually (we’ll get to that later) instead. Since Auto Levels gives slightly different results, depending on the image, I had out-grown using it, but you can try it by all means.

As I mentioned above, trust your eyes. If it looks good to you, keep it.

That is… If you’re not colour-blind.

Step 3:

At this point, your image should look much better compared to the original. If it doesn’t, your photograph must’ve looked perfect to begin with and you don’t need this tutorial.

But if your image is looking drastically better, here’s how to make it pop out even more.

Click on Image > Adjustments > Levels.

Here you will see a histogram and 3 arrows at the bottom of it. Here’s a condensed explanation of what the arrows do.

1. Shadows Level
   Sliding this arrow to the right, nearer to the center of the histogram, makes the dark parts of your photograph darker: shadows, dark clothes, included.
    
2. Midtones Level
   Sliding this arrow to the left makes the midtones of your photographs darker, while sliding it to the right makes the midtones brighter.
    
3. Highlights Level
   Sliding this arrow to the left makes the highlights of your photograph brighter, and at a certain point, blown out. I rarely move this slider more than a few points to the left.

As this is a beginner’s guide, we shall ignore the rest of the options for now and just focus on these 3 arrows.

Once again, I would tell you to trust your eyes and play around with the sliders to see what looks good to you. I recommend playing with the Shadows Level and Highlights Level sliders first as these two will give the best effects to your photograph.

For the photograph I used in this tutorial, I moved the Shadows Level slider to the right quite a lot to get the shadows to a darker shade and to give the overall image a deeper red/orange cast than it originally was. I didn’t touch the other 2 sliders at all.

Regarding the Levels command, from Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended’s Help : “You use the Levels dialog box to correct the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of image shadows, midtones, and highlights.”

I like my explanation better.

Step 4:

Actually, that’s it! No step 4. Hahaha. This is quite a long tutorial and I didn’t think people would believe me if I typed that there were only 3 steps.

So this is the final image after the colour-correcting.

Colour-correcting is quite a subjective thing and what looks good to one person might not look quite right to another. I chose to make the image above to be a deeper red/orange cast to further emphasise the setting of sun and, more than any other reason, because I like how it looks.

There are many other ways to colour-correct your photographs, including using Curves and Hue/Saturation commands. The ones in this tutorial are those I personally use, and I use them all the time. They’re almost enough that you don’t have to even bother with the rest.

What do you think? Better?

With the advent of digital cameras, and their drastic fall in prices in the past decade, you can’t take one step without bumping into a photographer. Heck, there’s not a lot of handphones nowadays that doesn’t come equipped with a built-in camera. So this tutorial is meant to help even better your already-great photographs.

Even the best photos would benefit from a pass in Photoshop, and professional digital photographers heavily depend on the program to post-process their shots. You’d be amazed at the number of photographs that look awful in the beginning, but can be saved by Photoshop.

So go forth and try this tutorial out on some of your photographs. Don’t forget to show us your before and after pictures if you used this tip and found it useful, yah?

And remember… Trust your eyes!

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com

Have you ever wondered how Mr Malique creates his clones? Well, I’m here to teach you how to clone yourself just like the way Mr Malique does it!

Yeap, for my maiden post on this blog, I’m gonna do an in-depth tutorial on how to create your own clones, using Adobe Photoshop.

Here’s a list of tools you will need to be able to do this tutorial along with me.

1. A digital camera.

   You got a spankin’ brand new DSLR like Yanni’s Nikon D80? Great! You got a point-and-shoot consumer camera? No problem too! What? You want to use a film camera? Erm… Possible… But will be more than doubly troublesome. Let’s keep things simple and I shall assume you own/can borrow a digital camera.

2. A tripod.

   A must. Okay, not exactly a must, but it will make things so much easier. Easy is the keyword in this tutorial, okay?

3. Adobe Photoshop.

   Any version will do, as long as it supports layer masking. If the graphics program you’re using allows you to mess around with layer masking, you’d probably be able to adapt the steps here to fit that program.

   I shall be using Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.

4. Of course, you will need a computer. I shall assume you have access to one since you’re reading this entry. Mac or PC, whatever your choice may be, it will suffice. I will be using a PC.

But before we begin the tutorial proper, I am going to have to assume several things about you:

• You have taken photographs before, and know the basics of your camera, for example, how to take a correct exposure and how to set the timer.

• You have used Adobe Photoshop before, and you know what layers are.

• You know how to use your computer, whatever the flavour may be.

Now that all that is over, let’s get started!

Step 1:

Attach your digital camera to your tripod and find a nice spot to create your clones picture. Easiest places to create such shots include a nice row of chairs (like the one Mr Malique and me did a while back), a row of phone booths, a wide open field, the toilet (mirrors are always fun to play with!) and even just your room. Let your imagination run wild.

You don’t need to have a shot of the empty area that you will be shooting at, but here’s an example of what would make a nice place to create your clones at.

Step 2:

Place your tripod-attached digital camera at a spot that would capture a nice scene. If you’re alone, please make sure that the spot is not at a high human-traffic area that would allow just anybody to snatch your precious camera away while you’re cam-whoring! Be careful, people!

Set the correct exposure and then set the timer on your digital camera. Try to set as many settings as possible to manual. If you’re not comfortable with manual settings, you can use auto too, but just remember that some auto settings may make the photograph’s colour cast vary from shot to shot (which can be corrected in Photoshop, but we’re not going to get into that in this tutorial). What we’re looking for here is a consistent look for all the shots you’re going to take.

Set the timer to about 10 seconds, along with the timer indicator. Most cameras should have a timer indicator which is just a light (LED) that blinks every second until the timer runs out. Some have beeps along with the light. Either, or both, will help.

Step 3:

Press down your shutter and run to the first spot you want your clone to be at. Or walk, if the distance is short. Or sprint, if you inspire to be like Uncle Sha.

Once you’re at your desired position, pose like you’ve never posed before.

Watch out from the corner of your eye for the timer indicator to stop blinking (or you could just estimate the countdown of the timer) and stroll back to your camera.

Step 4:

Okay, step 4 woohoo! Important note here. Please do not shift your camera from its original position. Leave the camera on your tripod, and leave the tripod where it is. Don’t move anything! Okay, good kitteh. The point of leaving your camera unmoved is to make sure that you will get all your photographs to match each other. This will make things so much easier later on.

You can review your first photo now, but try not to move the camera at all if possible. If you shift the camera a little bit while you were pressing the buttons, chances are things will be okay, but if you actually lift up the camera to see your pictures, your next shot won’t match the first one, and I’d recommend repeating Step 3.

Step 5:

Repeat Step 3 anyway.

But at a different spot. For example, if you were sitting on the first chair of a row of chairs in Step 3, then sit on the second chair for the next picture.

Step 6:

Repeat Step 5 until you have all the clones you want. But since this is a beginner’s guide, I shall stop at making 2 clones only to simplify things.

I will be using these 2 images below:

Image 1:

Image 2:

Step 7:

Bring your 2 photographs to Adobe Photoshop. I would usually use the photograph with the cleanest background as my bottom-most layer in Photoshop, ie. Layer 1. Cleanest background meaning the photograph with the least amount of distractions or human traffic in the background.

Create a new document with the same dimensions of your photograph (for example, 2560 x 1920), then open your first photograph in Photoshop. Right-click the layer and click Duplicate Layer, and choose to duplicate it to the new document you just created (should be Untitled-1 if you haven’t named or saved the file just yet) under the Destination.

Next, open your second photograph, and do the same thing.

At this point, try to align the pictures together as close as humanly possible. If you did Step 4 well, then aligning the pictures together will be easy. Or you might not need to do anything at all ’cause the images are perfectly aligned already.

Step 8:

Since we’re only working with two photographs for this tutorial, now choose the top layer with the second photograph and add a layer mask.

Step 9:

Without clicking anywhere else after Step 8, press the Alt and Backspace buttons to fill the layer mask with black. (Option + Backspace for Mac users.) If you did click somewhere else, make sure you click on the layer mask before you press Alt + Backspace.

This hides the top layer from showing. The following few steps will allow only certain parts of the top layer to show.

Step 10:

Right-click on the layer mask and click on Disable Layer Mask. This allows you to temporarily unhide the top layer.

Step 11:

Click on the Brush Tool (press B button for the shortcut) and choose a nice round brush.

Step 12:

Set your foreground colour as white. Refer to image below for a quick way to do that.

Step 13:

Let’s recap. So, you have your Brush tool selected, preferably with a nice round brush at a size like 35 pixels. And your foreground colour is now white.

Your layer mask for the top layer should also already be disabled.

Alright, go ahead and single left-click on the layer mask. Now it’s time to brush over your clone. Just use the brush tool and swipe around the photo of you that’s on the top layer. It will look like nothing is happening, but with every brush stroke, you’re allowing parts of the top layer to show through the mask. If both your pictures are aligned properly, you don’t even have to be careful at brushing over your clone. The image would still look good.

At this point, you can right-click on Layer 2′s mask and click on Enable Layer Mask to see your progress.

If you find that you were letting too much of Layer 2 show, you can change the foreground colour to black and “erase” off the white brushes that you did before. Of course, there’s always the History list or Ctrl + Z to undo your last action.

Keep in mind to brush in all the shadows and reflections (if any) of your clone. Otherwise, Tish and ET would be quick to point it out to everyone!

Step 14:

Once you’re done, right-click on the layer mask, and click on Enable Layer Mask and you should be able to get something like this.

Cool eh?

And once you’ve gotten the hang of that, you can try with more clones!

Update :

Check out my tutorial on how to do precise selections to find out how to create more advanced clones! Plus, how to use a similar method to lose your head!

Come shoot me with comments if you have any questions or if you think I missed something out. If you try cloning yourself using this tutorial, give us a shout out and post a link to your clones yah?

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com