Courtesy of our friends at NAPP UK we’ve got a great DVD to give away this month

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Adobe Photoshop CS5 Crash Course

by Matt Kloskowski

This DVD isn’t just about what you’ll learn in Photoshop CS5 – it’s also about what you won’t learn. While many beginner DVDs try to teach you everything there is to know about Photoshop, this beginner’s crash course shows you just the things you need to know to start feeling confident in your skills. Bestselling author, Matt Kloskowski, realized that Photoshop is a huge program with a lot of tools, filters, adjustments, palettes, and menu items. So he cuts through the complexity and shows you exactly what you need to know to hit the ground running in Photoshop. Things like:

- Layers and how they’re the key to using Photoshop

- Selections and the only tools you really need to worry about

- Everything you need to get started with Camera Raw

- Which Retouching tools you’ll use the most

When you’re done with this DVD you’ll realize you didn’t learn every little thing there is to know in Photoshop. But you will have a solid grasp of the most important features and you’ll be at the next level in no time.

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Closing date Friday 3rd March 6pm UK time.

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We’ll start with this image; we could use any image that could use a border:

On top of this image, we’ll add a new layer filled with plain white:

Next, use the rectangular marquee tool to draw out an area and fill it with black – leaving a small white border all the way around. This will be the basis of our easy customizable border:

Now, what we want is to keep the white border, but drop out the black square. The easiest way to do this is to change the layer’s Blend Mode to Screen. Use the drop-down list at the top of the Layers Panel:

There we have a nice white border, very easily accomplished. But, we’re not done yet – by a longshot.

For the next series of steps, we’ll need to convert the Border layer to a Smart Object. Right click the Border layer in the Layers Panel, and choose Convert to Smart Object. You could also choose Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object.

Notice the little badge that appears on the layer indicating it is now a Smart Object:

Why a Smart Object? Because that allows us to use Smart Filters! And, as you may recall from earlier tutorials, Smart Filters allow us to modify the parameters of the filter at any time. Let’s start by adding a filter to the Border Smart Object layer – we’ll use Filter > Distort > Glass. This opens the Filter Gallery and we see the parameters of the Glass filter. This filter distorts the edges of our black rectangle, where it meets the white border.

Note that even though the black is invisible due to the Screen blending mode, it is still there and available for us to modify with the filter. We’ll crank up the Distortion parameter to a healthy 10, and leave the Smoothness at a moderate value of 3:

Click on OK, and we have a bit of a rough edge to our border. Things are getting interesting, but we’re just getting started:

Let’s use the Smart Filter the way it was intended! Double click on Glass in the Layers Panel, and we’re right back to the filter gallery. Let’s change the Texture parameter to Blocks and notice the way our border is changing. Don’t click OK yet:

Next, click the icon at the bottom right for New Effect Layer:

This adds a second Glass filter on the first, and the effect is enhanced. We could stop here, but we won’t:

Let’s change the filter type of this new layer from Glass to Ocean Ripple. Set the Ripple Size to 8, and the Ripple Magnitude to 12:

We could keep going, adding new filter layers and changing the effects, but let’s stop here and press OK to see how our image looks:

Notice how Ocean Ripple pushes the pixels to the right, creating an uneven border. We could change this from Ocean Ripple to Spatter, with a Spray Radius of 15 and Smoothness of 5 to get this effect:

You could try dozens, if not hundreds, of variations on this theme of white borders. But, what if we need a black border? Thanks to adjustment layers and Blend Modes, the solution is only a couple of clicks away. First, the explanation.

We will want the white to become black, but remain visible, and the black to become white, but remain invisible. We can invert the Border layer’s colors and change its Blend Mode from Screen to Multiply to accomplish this. Let’s start by inverting the colors. Add a new Invert Adjustment Layer by clicking the half black, half white icon on the Layers Panel and choosing Invert:

Here’s the result. We have our black border, but the rest of the image is hideous:

Now, we don’t want to invert everything – just the Border layer. So, we need to clip it to the Border so it only affects the Border. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is Ctrl-Alt-G on Windows, Cmd-Opt-G on Mac, or choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask. The Invert layer now is indented with a small arrow icon indicating it is clipped to the Border layer:

Now, we have the opposite effect with the Border layer – the border is invisible and the interior is opaque. This is because the colors are inverted. We can change the Border layer Blend Mode to Multiply, which will hide the white and show the black:

And, we have our black border! Now, to change from white to black, we simply click the eyeball on or off of the Invert layer, and change the Blend Mode from Multiply to Screen.

If you’re adventurous, you could even create layer comps to change from the white to black borders in a single click. And, you could drag the Border and Invert layers into any other document (resize to fit the new document) and you have easy, portable, customizable borders, with lots of variation available via the filter gallery.

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When we talk about the Levels dialog in Elements, we generally stick to the default mode of adjusting the shadows, midtones and highlights of the overall image in order to correct and boost the existing tones. There is far more to the Levels adjustment, however, as we’ll find out in the following tutorial.

In addition to the composite RGB, we can alter the component colour channels (red, green and blue) individually to change the colour of an image with far more accuracy than we can with tools such as Hue/Saturation. Here we’ll be working on an image of a silver trophy; first changing it to gold, and then to bronze.

Something to note: although the trophy is not on a separate layer, the white background is never affected. This is because we are only working on the midtones; white is pure highlight. The same would be true of a pure black background. If it had a colour or photographic background we would first need to select and copy the trophy to its own layer.

1. We’ll begin by creating a new Levels Adjustment layer. We can do this by either clicking on the New Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers panel then choosing Levels from the pop-up menu, or by going to the Layers menu and selecting New Adjustment Layer > Levels. This is preferable to simply using the stand-alone Levels dialog as it never alters the original image and we can always go back and make changes later on.

2. In newer versions of Elements (9 & 10) the dialog for the adjustment layer appears in the Adjustments panel. Earlier versions display the dialog in a pop-up window as it would if you used the standard Levels command. There is no difference in the way the controls function; it just makes it more convenient and is tidier.

3. Gold contains a large amount of red, so we’ll begin by selecting the red channel from the drop-down menu. We could also use the keyboard shortcut cmd/ctrl + 3. Drag the midtone slider to the left to increase the amount of red. Around 2.40 should be sufficient; we can always tweak this later if necessary. The trophy now has a slight pink hue.

4. Next we’ll add some green – this pushes the colour into the warmer tones. Select the green channel from the menu, or with the shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + 4. Drag the midtone slider slightly to the left to increase the amount, around 1.10 is enough; it’s a subtle change but is enough for now.

5. The last part of the colour change process is to alter the amount of blue in the image. Select the blue channel (Cmd/Ctrl + 5). This time we’ll be subtracting the colour from the image. Drag the midtone slider over to the right; as we do so we can see the gold hue building up. Take it down to around 0.20. This is effectively the same as adding more green but it’s easier to gauge when the adjustments are made in sequence.

6. Go back to the composite RGB control (Cmd/Ctrl + 2). Drag the midtone slider to the right slightly. This increases the midtones of all channels, adding to the effect by making the colour richer. This completes the colour change and we’ve got a really good result.

7. The advantage of using adjustment layers is we can always go back and make changes if required. We can also make more drastic alterations. Here we’ve created a bronze effect by decreasing the red and green midtones slightly and added in a little more blue. We’ve increased the overall shadow and midtone content to give the trophy a more matt appearance.

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We’ll start in Lightroom. I’ve just returned from a trip to China, and I managed to take a variety of photos while I was there. I returned, and imported the images into Lightroom.

Some of my images were bracketed, so I elected to merge them to HDR using Nik’s HDR Efex Pro, one of my personal favorite plug-ins. The process is straightforward, highlight my bracketed images, right click, and choose Export, then select my HDR Efex Pro preset:

In HDR Efex Pro, I make my adjustments, then click Save to return the processed image back to Lightroom:

Now, we get back to Lightroom, and… no image! Where it the world did it go?

Sometimes, the answer is that you have a specific User sort order set, and the image goes at the end of the list. Not the case here, as we can see the bottom of the grid and the image clearly is missing.

A closer inspection of the grid shows something strange is definitely going on. The images were in a stack:

But, notice the first image says “1 of 4.” If you hover over the second, it shows “3 of 4.” What gives? The returned processed image from HDR Efex Pro should be “2 of 4,” but it isn’t showing.

The answer, and this is what gets everyone from newbies to more experienced but forgetful users, is found in the left hand pane, which was closed in my example. Let’s open the left pane and take a look:

And, here we see the issue. We are viewing “Previous Import!” Previous Import is a special kind of temporary collection, that shows the images from your last Import session. For whatever reason, any image created by an external editor and saved back into Lightroom does NOT show up in Previous Import.

Let’s open the Folders, and navigate to the folder where we asked the files to be placed during the previous import session. In my case, this is very easy, because I let Lightroom organize the files by date (it’s an import option, which I strongly recommend unless you have a good reason to organize them another way… and of course, many people do have a good reason).

Here’s the view of the folder, and there’s our image, right where it is supposed to be – in position “2 of 4” in the stack. When we view the folder, we see all the items in the folder, which is where HDR Efex Pro returned the file. When we were viewing Previous Import, we did not see the file because external editing, even though it re-imported the new file, did not count as an “Import” worthy of inclusion in “Previous Import.”

Here we see that the file was never missing at all, we were just looking in the wrong place – at a filtered list of files that didn’t show the whole picture.

This very same problem can occur in other similar circumstances:

• When you send a file to Photoshop for editing, or to any other plugin that returns a different file from what was sent.
• When you are viewing a collection and send files for editing, the returned edited files aren’t automatically included in the collection.

So, the next time you’re doing some post-processing in Lightroom, and wonder why your image disappeared, look to the left hand pane. Chances are, you’re viewing Previous Import, or viewing a Collection. Go back to the Folders, and you’ll find your image!

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These days photos can be tagged with GPS data using nifty gadgets like the Nikon GP-1 for Nikon DSLRs, or more commonly, if you’ve got an iPhone or similar device, you can add GPS info to pictures that way as well. However most of us have countless photos from years past, where we never gave any thought to GPS metadata for our favorite shots. Then what?? How do you mix images with no GPS data, with those that have it, so that the Map module can work with all of them over time?

The answer is geotags. Geotagging is a way of retroactively assigning map coordinates to photos that didn’t originally have this data. As a starting point  create a standard Collection in the Library module, and then click the Map module to get a look at your new Lightroom 4 surroundings.

Lightroom 4 Beta Map Module

At the center of the window we have the main attraction –the Google map– where we can start placing markers as we gather different Collections of images. Everything is organized as you might expect: at left we have The Navigator panel, with Saved Locations and Collections panels below that. We have zoom and view controls beneath the map view, and a metadata panel at right (shown at the end of the tutorial). When we’re done, all of the (collected) files will end up with accurate longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates embedded!

Note that here I’ve chosen the Terrain view on the map, which can be helpful if you’re looking for a particular high vantage point. As you zoom in you’ll see  terrain relief lines and other details. I’ve also got my Collection available, but we haven’t yet created a custom Location (that’s coming up).

Searching for a location is simple.

The next step is to use the Location Filter (top of map) to find our location. Here I have 57 images from the Napali Coast in Kauai that I’d like to tag with the appropriate data. All you need to do is type in your search location on the right side of the filter area, and you should get a list of possible matches as shown at right. From there just click the location in the list and you will zoom into that spot on the map.

Once you’ve found the area of the world map that you’d like to work with, you can zoom in more if you need to by using standard keyboard shortcuts, or the slider control beneath the map. You can also pan around the map by clicking and dragging it. Next you’ll need to create a new Location, which you can do by clicking the plus (+) button next to the Saved Locations panel, on the left side of the window.

When you do that, the New Location dialog box will pop up, giving you a chance to both name the location, save it in a particular location on your computer and define a radius for the group of photos you’re using. Typically it is useful to create names that not only give you the general area (state, province, etc) but also the specific venue. I also reduced the radius a bit so that it more accurately encompassed the area that I photographed.

You can also make the Location private. This allows you to manage the locations inside Lightroom, but when you export the files, the GPS data will be stripped out so that third parties don’t have access to it.

Creating a custom location is easy.

Once you’ve customized your Location parameters, click Create. From this point you can click and drag the circular widget that is overlaid on the map, so that it encircles the area you photographed. If needed you can zoom in even further, to get very precise locations for small batches of photos. For this tip we’ll put them all in one spot. To tag the photos, open the Filmstrip, select the shots you want to be tagged with this Location, and drag them onto your Location “map pin” (that’s the little silver circle in the middle with the black dot). That’s it!

When you’re done you should see something that looks like this (notice the coordinates in the Metadata panel):

The Geotagged Collection, Coorindates of the selected shot

In the weeks ahead, I’ll share more details on the Map module and other great features in Lightroom 4 beta. You’ll be able to find some of them on my web site, at Colortrails.com. Meantime, dive into the beta and have some fun with it (remember to create a new catalog for the beta – don’t convert your primary catalog from Lightroom 3 until the final version of Lightroom 4 is released).

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In order to create the animated sequence I will be using Adobe Premier, the reason for this is that it is very simple to import material from one Adobe product to another. However, if you have another video/animation package you will be able to save images/export images to another file type including JPEG or GIF and many other types, which would be read by a video editing package such as AVID or Final Cut Pro for example. If you have an edit package that is not a multi-track edit suite such as Movie Maker, you would need to adjust your animation in accordance with the package’s capability. By this I mean you would only be able to have one change at a time, so you may need to make each change on your Photoshop file saving each small animation as a different file name and then importing them all on to the edit package to arrange one after the other. This would then give a similar effect to what I will show you how to do through Adobe Premier.

There are many ways to create an animated sequence and many styles/genres of animation. Within this article I will be showing you how to create a basic edit, using simplistic techniques, which when put together can be as elaborate as you want them to be. I was working on an animated sequence before Christmas, so I will use this one to show you what to do.

First create a new Adobe Photoshop file and set the size you would like the image to be (4cm X 6cm, 21cm X 29.5cm etc). The larger the image size the more memory it will consume. If you wish to create a small animated video sequence for a website the image can be smaller than if you were planning it to be shown on a large screen. The reason is that when an image is blown up to the size of a larger screen the pixels on a small image will appear very large (much like an old computer game).

Remember to set your background to transparent. Then Import an image to Adobe Photoshop, which can be done by a copy and paste function. If doing this please ensure that the image is in its largest size possible (not a thumbnail) or click on File>Import then select the picture.

If the image has a background, cut this out using a magic want or eraser tool. Next examine the image and have an idea of what you want animated. The animated parts will always need to be on a different layer.

In this example I want the legs to be animated. The brief for this was to be a simple animation; therefore I left two legs together. The reindeer will be running moving the back two and front two legs together (similar to medieval artwork). Copy the front legs and back, making alterations to these (again on separate layers) in this case these are at around 45 degrees in front of, or behind the animal).

The animation also required a flashing red nose. This can be done either by replicating the nose and colouring it or by drawing a circle and changing the fill colour, in this case to red. Once all images are on separate layers I will then save this image as multi-layered, not compressing the layers together.

Important: Adobe Premier and many other multi-track edit suites will select the top layer (highest number) over a lower one. Therefore on the Adobe Photoshop file it is advantageous to place images that will either cover or replace the original image on higher numbered layers at the top). Another good tip is to have the body of the animal cover the very top of the legs on all ‘leg layers’, this will cover up any anomalies or untidy edges, providing you with a more professional look to the animated sequence.

Once saved, open Premier (you may need to save each layer separately if you do not have Adobe Premier, as each file may need exporting as a different file type in order to be recognised by a certain edit package). In Premier click on File>Import and select the file you want to import to Premier. On Adobe Premier an option will appear, click on the arrow point down and select multi-layered sequence.

On the timeline on Premier right click on the timeline and select the amount of video tracks to correspond with the amount of image layers you have in your Photoshop file. If you go over this amount, do not worry. Once the Photoshop file is in Premier, click on the sequence in the bin and it will bring each image layer onto a separate video track. Now you will be ready to animate. Of course when all the layers appear, it will seem as though it is a multi-legged animal. Therefore, the two versions of the back legs should never be in the same shot. The same goes for the font legs. The red nose, however, will appear at set intervals, covering the original nose, therefore replacing it on the video.

On the timeline I have arranged the images to follow one another in a set order. The images that will remain constant throughout will remain so for the duration of the video as there would be little point cutting this (unless you want its body to disappear for a comic/cheesy effect). It will take a while to create a set order that gives a seamless edit between the images. The quicker the cuts are, the faster and smoother the animation will be. Just remember that in a cartoon there are many images that make up just two seconds.

Once you have created a very short sequence, I would advice that you copy this, pasting it after your animation comes to an end, without going back to the first image you used. This is important, otherwise your animated image will appear to infrequently stop and start, this is most likely not the effect that you are looking for. This is an animation done using simplistic techniques, which are easy to carry out as a whole but hard to master. Therefore, like many practical tasks, you will probably want to keep tweaking it for while or produce a few different animations practicing your skills.

A good tip would be before creating your animation, have an idea of what you would ideally like to look like in the end product to keep you focused and help to create a more professional product. This could be considered to be similar to an author writing a fiction piece, by having the ending in sight you know what to aim for and it will keep you more focused and motivated. Practicing these techniques will give you a range of skills, which you can use as a foundation to build upon.

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Duplicate the image using Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) plus “J”. The first thing we need to do is select the part of the image we want to change. On this particular image that’s fairly simple. Other backgrounds may be more difficult. There are many tutorials out there, and on TipSquirrel.com, that can show you different ways to do this. For this background we’re just going to use the Quick Selection Tool (Photoshop CS5). On your duplicated layer just “paint” in the background to select it. No holding any buttons down or anything (unless you want to paint a part of the selection out, of course, then you hold the Alt or Opt key down…). Easy breezy!

Next we need to mask the area. When the area you want is selected, go to the bottom of the layers panel and chose the Add Vector Mask icon, the gray rectangle with the white circle inside. By default the mask will be white in the selected area and black in the unselected area. You want this to be the reverse; to invert, simple use keyboard shortcut Cmd or Ctrl plus “I” (for Invert).  Make sure you have the mask itself selected when you invert.

Now go back to the original layer. For this next bit you can either use this layer or duplicate it again. I prefer to duplicate it because the next process will change it and I want the original to compare the result. That’s just me. If you’re like me, use keyboard shortcut Ctrl or Cmd “J”, now.

With the layer (orig. or duplicate) selected, go to the bottom of the layers panel and select the Add a New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon (the half white, half black circle), then choose a Hue / Saturation adjustment. In the Hue / Saturation dialog, move the Hue slider around to find the color you want to replace the original. Don’t worry too much about the brightness of the color; concentrate more on a color that looks good with the image.

To calm the brightness down, you can move the Saturation slider a bit to the left. You can also adjust the lightness or darkness of the background with the Lightness slider, if you wish.

Now we need to go back to the original mask and clean things up a bit. Select the brush tool and make sure the foreground color is set to white. The first thing we’ll do is take care of the areas that are now green (or whatever color you changed the background to) and shouldn’t be, the necklace that didn’t get masked out in the first place, for instance. Adjust the brush size to fit the area as you go along using the open and close bracket keys. Zoom in close and go around all the edges of the selected area to make sure that the new color isn’t creeping in where it doesn’t belong.

The next step is to invert the foreground color to black and paint in all the areas where the original background color, in this case that lovely pink, is all painted out.

Now for a word about fringe; you need to pay particular attention to the area around the selection that isn’t super obvious but critical, just the same, to the result of your background change. Nothing screams “Fake!” as much as badly done edges!  Be particularly careful around light edges, in this case the skin. If you get sloppy you’ll get green where you don’t want it. In the dark areas, like the hat or t-shirt, you can be a bit less stringent.  In fact, I want you to go over the edge into the shirt a bit! There’s a color cast from the pink background reflecting on the shirt, so when you see that, go over it with the brush.

To fix that bit of untidiness we just made, we’re going to soften the mask a bit. With the mask selected, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Move the slider up or down enough to soften the edges without blowing out the areas of the mask around the lighter (skin) areas.

The area where we painted green in the shirt is still very obvious. To make it less so, bring up your color picker by double clicking on the foreground color and choose something around 25% gray.

Paint in those obvious green areas in the shirt with the gray. Soften the edges, if you like, by selecting the blur tool from the tool panel and painting over the area.

Take some time to zoom in and catch all those areas where the wrong color has bled or fringed and you’ll have a background color change no one will ever realize was different at all!

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The answer is likely much simpler than that. Many problems with the brush tool can be solved by examining the Brush toolbar at the top of the screen. Let’s look at an example.

Here we have the makings of perhaps a bit of poster artwork. We want to paint some bold freehand strokes on this image, on a new layer in a contrasting color:

So, we grab the brush tool, and set the brush to a hard round brush, set the color to a dark brown color, and start to paint. Oh, dear:

The color we’re painting doesn’t match the foreground swatch at all. The observant reader may notice the problem straight away: The brush opacity, as set in the toolbar, is 20%:

If we set the opacity back to 100%, by moving the slider or pressing the “0” key shortcut, we will get the expected results.

However, it’s not always that easy! Let’s look at another example:

Similar problem, but the opacity is set at 100%, so what gives? Again, a close inspection of the toolbar shows an option is set – one that is new to version CS5 of Photoshop:

Take a look at the tool tip: “Tablet pressure controls opacity (overrides brush panel setting).” This is a very handy option, but I’ve found that many people aren’t aware of it, click it inadvertently, and then drive themselves crazy trying to figure out why their brushes are acting up.

Note the other options just to the right also: “Enable Airbrush Mode” with its very own Flow setting (similar to opacity, but like an airbrush, it builds up over time) and “Tablet pressure controls size.” These can also wreak havoc if they become enabled accidentally:

These options are sticky, and using a tool preset can enable these without you knowing it. So, be aware and look to the toolbar right away if you sense a problem.

Now, let’s examine the brush tool bar to make sure everything is set properly – no errant options and no incorrect adjustments. We start to draw, and – uh oh. More problems:

Here’ I’ve brought the new culprit onto the screen, and as you can see, we’ve got the layer opacity set to 20% and we’re once again getting the wrong results. It may seem obvious and simple, but I can tell you this has tripped up many a student over the years!

Here’s another variation on the same theme. Can you spot the problem?:

We selected brown, but the foreground swatch shows gray. The color appearing on our image is green. The problem? We’re drawing on the wrong layer! The layer mask of the adjustment layer is active. Again, such a common problem, yet often a head-scratcher if you’re not paying attention.

Or how about just this one?

Ah, the dreaded, “You can’t do this” icon. If you try to paint, you get this ugly message:

Again, the layers panel shows the issue: The adjustment layer itself is selected (not the mask, but the adjustment icon). This will never work:

We’ve just run through a litany of potential problems with the Brush tool – some obvious, some not so obvious – but all relatively simple to fix, IF you know where to look. Keep one eye on the tool bar, and keep another eye on the Layers panel – and you’ll solve 99% of your problems with the Brush tool. And, that goes for the other painting tools as well: the Healing Brushes, Clone Stamp, Eraser, Smudge Tool, Dodge and Burn, and so forth – they all share the brush functions and are all susceptible to those little errors – little errors that can create great headaches if you’re not paying attention.

Got a Photoshop headache? Drop a note in the comments and we’ll try to cover it either directly or in a future tutorial!

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In my previous post, I briefly mentioned the changes to the Basics tab in the Development module.. with the familiar Fill Light, Recovery and Brightness sliders making a departure and Highlights, Shadows and Whites making an appearance.

Lightroom 3 and Lightroom 4 Beta Basics tabs

The advice from Adobe is that you should learn how the new sliders work from the beginning and not expect them to work as they do in LR3 (Process version 2010). This is not as complicated as it sounds and quite easy to pick up with a few examples below.

All sliders set to the default zero

Brightness and Exposure Sliders

In Lightroom 3, the exposure slider affected the whole of the histogram and the brightness slider affected the middle of the histogram more than the highlights & shadows.

Lightroom 4 Beta on the other hand, creates a new and improved Exposure slider.. that has all the benefits of the the Brightness controls from LR3. The new Exposure behaves more like film, with a graceful fall off with the highlights.

In the photograph, my histogram is a little too far to the right.. with blown highlights and no deep blacks in the image.

Histogram of the unedited image

Bringing down the exposure just a little gives us a good starting point for the edit.

Exposure set to -1.10

As you can see in the Histogram below, the exposure has been brought back to reveal a little of the detail in the sky.

Recovered highlights

The image is now in a good starting position with all the data falling within the histogram, from here it is on to the Highlights and Shadows sliders

Highlights and Shadows

These two new sliders affect the bright (highlights) and dark (shadows) areas of the image.

First I reduce the Highlights to bring out more detail in the clouds.

Darkening the Highlights

As you can see, this has brought out the clouds

Cloud Detail

Now to the Shadows..

Lighten the shadows to +59

This brings out the detail hidden in the shadows..

Increased shadow detail

and now we look at the Whites & Blacks

Whites and Blacks

These sliders cover each end of the histogram. Whites are brighter than highlights and Blacks are darker than shadows. This may seem a little confusing as most photographers are used to referring to the very right of the histogram as the highlights, but it makes sense that the Whites slider plays the opposite role to the Blacks.

In my example image, I did not need to adjust the Whites as there are no blown highlights. The Blacks on the other hand could do with a little adjustment to increase the contrast.

Darken the Blacks to -11

This gives a little more contrast in the lower range of the image..

A little low end contrast thanks to the darker blacks

The image is almost complete now with just a touch of Clarity needed.

Clarity

In Lightroom 4 Beta, the Clarity brush has also been improved dramtically. The old LR3 Clarity had a tendency to create halos if over used. The new slider in LR4 Beta is much better at controlling artifacts and halos.. so much so that Adobe has also increased the strength of the slider. The advice from people at Adobe is that the Clarity slider in LR4 Beta is approximately twice as strong as that in LR3.. so expect to use lower settings to achieve the same affect as LR3.

Clarity is an intelligent contrast for the mid range tones on the histogram and can add a nice pop to an image.

Clarity settings

now you can see the difference in the Before and After screenshots

Before

and

After

I hope that you have found this look at the new Basics panel from LR4 Beta to be useful. My one piece of advice if you are coming from a previous version of Lightroom is treat the sliders as completely new. A quick 30 min play with the new sliders will give you more insight than trying to use familiar settings from LR3.

As always, please feel free to ask questions or comment below

Scot

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In this exclusive to TipSquirrel.com video, Rich Harrington takes us through a real world scenario using Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.

Download the original file here if you’d like to follow along.

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