Advanced' Photo Effects Tutorials

Fixing a Highly distorted and Dark Picture
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In this tutorial we will straighten out the image and then fix the lighting, leaving just the painted image. (Not all the steps are purely necessary, but this is one way to do it in a visual way).

It is always best to know the dimensions of the image, so we measure the original and find it is 41x31 so our final image has to have some fraction of those dimensions. To make it easy I will choose 4.1x3.1 inches at 300 dpi for printing. (If the picture you want to try is a different size, just make sure you change these numbers to your dimensional equivalents.)

1) Open Photoshop and set all your preferences (visible: toolbox, layers palette, rulers)

Wave_before.jpg (right click and download the above image)



2) Open Wave_before.jpg:
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i) In the top menu bar choose: File>open
ii) (In the pop up) Browse to Wave_before.jpg, click on it, click on OPEN



3) Open a new blank file:
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i) In the top menu bar, choose: File>new.
ii) (In the pop-up): go to the height and width drop down menus and change them to *inches*.
iii) Type 4.1 in the Width box, and 3.1 in the Height box.
iv) Type 300 in the Resolution Box.
v) hit OK


4) Mark the area for guidelines:
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i) In the Toolbox palette, click on the foreground colour (the upper square) to activate the colour picker pop-up menu.
i) If the main square isn't orange, left click on the thin middle strip so the main square turns orange (or use your favourite colour)
ii) In the main square left click anywhere that is orange, then OK


5) Fill the blank Canvas with Orange:
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i) In the toolbox, click on the paint bucket tool (under the gradient tool if not visible)
ii) Left click anywhere on the blank canvas (it will all turn orange)





[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 6:06:42 PM]

[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 6:07:09 PM]

6) Increase the Canvas Size to 150%:
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i) In the top menu bar choose: image>canvas size
ii) In the pop-up click in the centre of the tic-tac-toe board so the centre square is white and you get arrows pointing away from the centre.
iii) In the drop down box to the right of the width box, choose *percent* (both height and width will change to 100)
iv) Type 150 into the width and height boxes
v) Click OK (canvas will get bigger with orange in the middle)

7) Dragging Wave-before.jpg to the new canvas:
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i) In the toolbox choose the move tool
ii) Get both open windows onto the screen by dragging their title bars around until visible
iii) Left click anywhere on Wave_before.jpg to get it selected
iv) In the layers palette hover over the name of its only layer and then: left click hold and drag the word to anywhere visible above the window containing the orange rectangle and release.
v) Maximize the window containing the orange rectangle by using the maximize icon in the top corner (pc is right, mac is left) of the window frame
vi) In the top menu bar choose view>fit on screen
vii) Using the move tool, left click hold and drag anywhere on the new wave image and slide it until the bottom right image corner meets the bottom right corner of the canvas.





[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 5:31:09 PM]

viii) (In the top menu bar choose view>fit on screen if top left of wave is offscreen) Using the move tool, hold shift the shift key down (this keeps the proportions) and left click hold and drag the opposite corner of the inserted wave image until the wave image is the same size as the canvas, hit Enter.
ix) Go to the Layers palette and make the wave layer invisible by left clicking the eye icon beside the wave layer's name
x) In the top menu choose view>fit on screen

8) Creating Guidelines:
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i) In the toolbox select the move tool
ii) Anywhere inside the ruler zone at the far left of the page (if you see no rulers press both ctrl r (pc) or cmd r (mac)), left click hold and drag to the right until a vertical guideline appears and keep dragging until your new vertical guide is along the far side of the orange rectangle. Repeat to make another guide along the left of the orange rectangle.
iii) Anywhere inside the top zone containing the ruler, left click hold and drag downward until your new horizontal guide is along the bottom of the orange rectangle. Repeat to make another guide along the top of the orange rectangle.
iv) In the Layers palette, make the wave layer visible again by left clicking the eye icon location again.
v) Using the move tool, click anywhere on the wave image you just turned on again
vi) In the top menu choose: layer>duplicate layer
vii) In the pop-up in the box labeled "AS" name the new layer Wave 2, and hit OK


9) Aligning and Resizing the Wave Image:
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i) Using the move tool, left click hold and drag anywhere on the wave image and align the bottom right corner of painted portion of the image to the bottom right corner created by the far right and bottom guidelines. (We chose that corner because it was the least distorted). (the arrow keys can be used for fine adjustments)






[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 5:47:17 PM]

ii) In the top menu choose: view>fit on screen
iii) Using the move tool, hold down the shift key, while left click hold and dragging the opposite corner of the wave image until the top of the painted portion is roughly aligned with the upper guideline.(shift keeps the image proportional)

iv) Hit enter
v) Using the move tool slide the middle left handle of the wave image by left click hold and dragging the handle to the right until the top left of the painted portion of the wave image hits the left guideline.
vi) Hit enter


10) At this point the Top left and Bottom right corners match our dimensions so fix the others:
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i) With the move tool hold the ctrl key down and left click hold and drag the bottom left corner handle of the wave image to the right until that corner meets the bottom left corner of the guidelines.
ii) Similarly Ctrl left click hold and drag the top right corner handle to move the top right corner of the painting to its corner of the guidelines

iii) If necessary Ctrl left click hold and drag any corners that arent perfectly matching the corners of the guidelines until they are all matched up.
iv) Hit enter.


11) Fixing the Bulges (requires Photoshop CS2 or higher for the Warp Tool):
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i) To stop the magnetic properties of the guidelines, turn them invisible
temporarily by hitting CTRL (pc) cmd (mac) and the semi-colon key ( ; ) at the same time.
ii) To simplify the warp tool we will get rid of most of the un-needed parts of the image beyond the painted portion: In the toolbox, select the crop tool and left click hold and drag from a point at the top left of the painting to the bottom right until you have selected all of the painting without chopping it off anywhere. ( undo if you miss)
iii) Hit enter
iv) At the same time hit CTRL (pc) cmd (mac) and the semi-colon key (;) to turn the guides back on
v) In the top menu choose: edit>transform>warp
vi) A grid and nodes appear around the wave image, the nodes can be dragged to distort the image. Using the move tool, left click hold and drag each of the bottom two centre nodes straight up to fix the bottom bulge, and each of the centre two left nodes to the right to fix the left bulge.
vii) Repeat until straight and then hit Enter.
viii) In the toolbox choose the crop tool and left click hold and drag from the top left of the painting to the bottom right to crop out the now straightened painting.
ix) Hit enter.


12) Fixing the Lighting:
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i) In the Layers palette make sure the wave painting is selected
ii) In the top menu and choose Layer>duplicate layer (in the pop up name it wave3 and hit OK)
iii) In the top menu choose: images>adjustments>autolevels
iv) Your picture should be fairly good. (There are other settings in: images>adjustments if you want to fine tune it on your own.)


13) Save PSD and JPEG
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i) In the top menu chose: File>Save
ii) In the pop-up, choose the correct directory path to save in, and in the box for *File Name* type: Wave_after, in the box for *format* open the dropdown and choose PSD. (this will keep all the layers)
iii) In the top menu choose: File>Save as
iv) In the pop-up, choose the correct directory path to save in, and in the box for *File Name* type: Wave_after, in the box for *format* open the dropdown and choose JPEG. (this will be a flattened image in JPEG format)
v) Click SAVE
vi) In the next pop-up you can set the quality level of the compression. You can change the number from 1-12, or use the drop down, or move the slider to higher or lower settings. The program will calculate how may bytes the file will save as and when you get one you like hit OK.


[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 5:59:19 PM]