About a year ago, I showed a sneak from Adobe MAX of reflection removal from a photo. These sneaks are experimental features Adobe Engineers show off that may or may not make it into a product. Since then, many people have asked if this will make its way into Lightroom or Photoshop.

Reflection Removal is available today as a technology preview in Camera Raw. I’ll show you how to activate and use it in this tutorial. Currently it only works on RAW files. Adobe have said they are working on supporting other file formats as well as Lightroom support. That will all be coming soon. Ok, let’s look at reflection removal.

Enabling Reflection Removal in Camera RAW

First of all, update Photoshop to the newest version. This is in regular Photoshop, you don’t need the beta for this one.

Launch Camera RAW (by opening any image. Filter>Camera RAW).

Choose the gear in the top Right.

Click Technology Previews and turn on New ai Features and Settings Panel. (Technology Previews are beta for Camera Raw).

Restart Photoshop for this to take effect.

Using Reflection Removal

In Camera Raw, here is a photo of a train interior, shooting through the glass.

Click the Eraser icon

Turn on Reflections from the Distraction Removal panel.

Instantly, the reflections are gone and the contrast has been increased as if the glass wasn’t even there.

There are some things it works on better than others. It works best on Plate glass at the moment and struggles with smaller things like eyeglasses. Let’s continue to see how it works as well as other limitations.

Notice the reflection slider is at 100. This is completely the image without reflections.

If you slide the Reflection filter to the Left (-100), you will see just the reflections.

This uses ai to understand what is the reflection and what is the subject and separates the 2. This does not use Generative AI and it doesn’t generate anything that isn’t in the picture.

If you move the slider to 0, it will show the original image.

The reflection removal works well for glass and things like shooting through airplane and car windows, hotel windows, storefronts etc. It also works well for photos and framed pictures behind glass.

It doesn’t currently work well for images with specular highlights where the details are blown out, because the ai can’t currently understand an area where there is no pixel detail. It also doesn’t work will for brightly lit night scenes.

Here is a picture of a younger me on the nVidea Speak Visual campaign a few years ago. Lets run it on this image.

Notice it removes the reflections, but didn’t remove the specular highlights from the light source.

Take the same picture without specular highlights and run it again,

A much cleaner result.

I’ll keep you updated as this feature progresses. Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates.

Thanks

Colin

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A lot of people have been asking for this feature. Ever since Adobe added the ability to generate masks of people, faces and different parts of people to Lightroom and Camera RAW, Ive received a ton of communication from the community. “When will this feature be in Photoshop??” Well.. here it is!

Written steps coming soon

Hope you enjoy,

Drop a comment

Colin

The post Auto Select people and features in Photoshop appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Sometime, you go to output an image and suddenly, the color changes. Or you are trying to combine 2 images and the colors change. What gives?
This tutorial shows you how to keep your colors matching perfectly and explain why they change, as well as how to prevent color shifts. The first part of this Photoshop tutorial, show you how to prevent color shift.

The 2nd part of this tutorial explains basic color management in Photoshop. Even if you are a beginner, these essential steps will help you work with consistent color throughout your workflow. This is not a tutorial on monitor calibration, It’s a tutorial on setting up Photoshop. This applies to any version of Photoshop.

Stop Photoshop changing colors on export

Start with a photo and you want to export a jpg. (This is a  photo, I made of talented musician, Taylor Davis.)

Choose File>Export>Save for web.

Usually it starts in the Optimized tab, showing a preview that may or may not match the original.

In this case, it’s close, but more saturated color than the original.

Here is the same image before I calibrated my monitor. The color is different but by more.

The more different this looks, the more you need to calibrate your monitor. Even a calibrated monitor, will be slightly different (with these settings) as you see in the first image.

‘

Here is another example of uncalibrated. When I change to the Original tab, it’s different again. You might be seeing these types of shifts. Which is the real color? (Tip: what you saw in Photoshop).

‘

If your colors are wildly off, or you have never calibrated your system, it will make a difference. This is not a tut on Calibration (I can do one, if I get requests). To calibrate, you will need a monitor that supports calibration. I use BenQ monitors. Disclosure, I am a BenQ ambassador, but the isn’t a sponsored tutorial and not a tutorial about monitor calibration. If about Photoshop color settings.

You will also need a device like the Calibrate Display Pro HL, If these is demand, I’ll do a tutorial on Monitor calibration.

How to view Accurate Color in Save from Web in Photoshop

Here is the first tip: Where it says preview in save for web, see if it says Monitor color

Change to Use Document profile. You should see a big difference. For many users, this alone will solve or greatly reduce the problem.

Notice how the colors now perfectly match (on a calibrated display).

The good news, even if the colors don’t match perfectly in Save for web, the output jpg or png image should still match the original.

Export as, an alternative way to export

Adobe wants us to use the newer Image>Export>Export as

You should notice the preview colors are closer to the original. The downside to Export as, is that lack of metadata and some other options, which leaves me still using the Save for web.

Hopefully, this helps you get better previews in save for web. Ok, now, lets set up Photoshop to give us perfect colors every time.

Basic Photoshop Color Management (Please read).

Within the RGB (Red, Green +Blue) world, there are different profiles (AKA color spaces).

• ProPhoto RGB supports the most colors (aka Largest Color Gamut), but not all colors can be displayed on your monitor.
• Adobe RGB is a reasonably large color space that can be displayed on monitors that boast 98%-100% Adobe RGB colors, this is common for printing to a desktop printer.
• sRGB is a smaller colorspace, but all the colors can be viewed on almost any monitor. Because of this, it’s the most common color space for sharing images online. Going to sRGB will cause you to lose some colors, so it’s best as an output file, not your working color.

There are other color spaces , such as P3 which is used by Apply on their devices and is also a good working color space for certain things. It’s a good idea to keep the original file in the largest color gamut possible, to preserve colors (in RAW, this doesn’t matter). Then work on your preferred profile for the image that you are going to output.

To view the color space in your image, choose Document profile from the bottom menu in Photoshop

Here this image is Adobe RGB. (16bpc means its a 16 bit file).

For my workflows, I use Adobe RGB and output to sRGB for sharing online and social media. (Some people use ProPhoto and their reasoning is it supports more colors and has a wider color gamut. For my needs right now, I prefer to be able to view all my colors on my monitor and use Adobe RGB and have a 99% Adobe RGB display on my Benq SW321C.

Please note, I shoot in RAW and store my images in Lightroom, so I don’t lose any color info on my originals. RAW files transcend any color space, because the RAW sensor data is preserved. If you don’t understand that statement, don’t worry, read on.

I set my settings to Adobe RGB in Lightroom and Photoshop, as well as on my camera.

Setting the  Default Color Profile

Choose Edit>Color Settings

This is where you choose the default colors Photoshop will use.

Working spaces>RGB this is where you choose the profile that you want to use. Whenever you create a new document, it will now be created into this space.

You can choose how Photoshop handles images that have a different profile, under Color Management Policies.

If the color profile is different than your working space (Adobe RGB in this case) :

Off: The color profile is removed from the image and it becomes untagged.

Preserve Embedded Profile: (my preferred choice) The image opens and the color space is unchanged. (You can manually change it with Image>Convert to Profile).

Convert To working RGB: Every image you open is automatically converted and tagged with the working space. For some people with a closed workflow, this might be a good choice. In my case, I working with different clients and across many different types of mediums, so I prefer to only change what I want to change and do that manually.

Converting Color Profiles

If you image profile is different, or to shows untagged (no color profile attached) then you need to convert it.

There is a wrong and right way to do this, If you choose Image>Assign Profile

You will notice Photoshop shifts the color as you change profiles.

Choose Image>Convert to Profile

Now you can change the profile without changing colors in your image.

If you follow the proceeding streps, you should have less issues with color mismatches.

Hopefully you found this helpful

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

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Lets have a look at the new features in ACR 2025 aka ACR 17. Camera Raw comes with Photoshop and is accessablw either through Bridge or as a filter in Lightroom. There is a slight difference between the 2 and we will see what that is in a sec. Other thing, Lightroom Classic uses ACR as its processing engine. In this case, we have a couple of beta features in ACR that haven’t found their way into lightroom yet.

How to update Camera RAW

Let’s update to the latest version.

Launch the Creative Cloud app.

To update ACR, you update Photoshop. The latest version is part of the Photoshop installation.

When you update Photoshop, its a good idea to NOT remove old versions. I would make sure everything works first, and then uninstall the old version after a week or 2 when you are sure you don’t need it any more. Yes, you can have multiple versions installed at one.

You can Launch ACR as. filter in Photoshop. Filer>Camera Raw filter

But notice the crop tool and geometry are missing. So are the image sizing options at the bottom.
This is intentional, because as a filter, ACR can be run on a layer and you wouldn’t want to mess up your entire document, by resizing a layer.

If you want to run the “full” version of Camera Raw, either open a raw file from File open.. or you can launch a jpg, RAW, Tiff or png from Adobe Bridge. Right-Click  and choose Open in ACR.

Enabling the Beta Features

Some of the new features are turned off, lets enable them.

Launch the full ACR. Click on the gear in the top Right.

Go to Technology Previews>Turn on New features from Technology Previews

Denoise

The ai denoise may be the best feature in ACR.

Here is an image at 25,000 ISO and its very noisy (grainy).

In the detail tab there is a Denoise option.

It removes the noise really well. Whats new about this and  Raw Detail and Super Resolution, they are non destructive and a new file isn’t created any more. They work on the original file.

Its still limited support for file types, but more RAW formats are included now including Apple Pro Raw (iPhone) and google Pixel raw.

Adaptive Profiles

The new Adaptive profiles are great, especially for HDR images. This is an unedited, but merged HDR image.

Here you can see its using the default Adobe Color.

Change it to adaptive.

Immediately, the image looks better, this is before we have applied any adjustments yet.

Profiles arwe appl;ied before image adjustments, more about ACR / Lightroom Profiles here

Generative Expand

Normally, when you straighten a photo, it crops in to the photo and you lose some content around the edges.

If you turn on Enable Expand..

Now you can outcrop

Click on Generative Expand

All the transparent areas a filled with generated content. Now you can straighter or an image without losing and of the content.

Lets try it on a larger image. This is a stitched panorama.

As you can see, it can generate large areas with ai.  Be careful with this though, because the generated pixels are lower resolution, so this doesn’t match too well on a large image. You can see the grain mismatch around the edges. Hopefully this improves in the future.

Extending an image. We are adding more to the left and top of this image.

In this case, it looks pretty good. It helps when the extended area is smaller and less detailed.

Generative Remove

Gen Remove isn’t brand new in ACR, but it got some updates.

Turn the options on, like before

Now you can circle select

It will detect the object

And it nicely removes the back sign.

For the front one, we will use the other new feature, scribble select

It detects it nicely

And ai removes it.

You have 3 variations to choose from. You can see in the video.

Ok, thats our ACR updates this time around. There are also some new Adaptive Presets and a couple of other little things.

Hopefully you found this tutorial useful

Colin

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Here are some other tuts on making the selections.

1. Combining Photos for Beginners
2. How to use Select and Mask
3. How to make auto ai selections in Photoshop
4. How to cut out hair and Fur in Photoshop

OK, on with our tips.

1. Visualizing pixels in an image

When you have the animated marching ants selection, you can see where the pixels are.

Once you add a mask, it can be difficult to see the pixels and transparency.

Choose the fx in the layers panel and add a stroke.

Make it a color that is easy to see, like red

Now you can clearly see the areas that you need to clean up.

2. Removing Colored Edges

Sometimes when you cut out an object, you can see a colored edge. This is usually left over background color, known as a colored fringe.

With a selection tool active, choose Select and Mask from the top toolbar. (If you don’t see it, make sure a selection tool is the active tool, yup, that’s why I said that at the beginning of this sentence.)

3. Blending Edges into the image

Sometimes the edges look too sharp, or even a little serrated and we want to blend them into the background smoothly.

Here are the steps I take.

1. Make a selection active, marching ants, add a layer mask.
2. Inverse the selection, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I
3. Select>Modify>Expand, by 1 pixel
4. Select>Modify>Feather by 1 pixel

Now we have a single pixel soft selection inside the edge.

With the Layer Mask Selected, Paint over the edge and see how nice it looks!

If you want to see the edge while painting, Press Cmd/Ctrl+H to hide the selection. The selection is still working, you just can’t see it.

4. moving mask edges. Choking the mask

Sometimes you have a visible edge and maybe you want to contract the mask to hide that edge. In select and Mask, you can use the slider to expand/contract the edge. But this old school tip gives you more control.

With your selection as a mask. Always make a mask out of your selection, never hit the delete key. Why? For a start, you can’t do any of these modifications without a mask.

Click on the Layer mask and choose filter>Blur and apply a small Gaussian blur. You are blurring the mask, not the photo. I zoomed in on the next image which is why it looks blurry now. Just the edge should actually be blurry.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+L for levels. or make a levels adjustment layer.

Notice as you move the black and white sliders you get a nice crisp edge. As you move the gray slider, you can move the edge itself. Move its until the fringe disappears and you have a perfect mask edge.

5. Cleaning up a mask

There are times when there are lots of little spots on your mask, almost like snow, these are left over pixels from certain selection tools.

You can paint them away manually, or you can use this tip to get a head start and fix most of them.

This is actually very similar to the previous tip, but we are working on the mask area, rather than the edge.

Choose the mask. (watch the video to see how to do it, if you don’t know).

Choose Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur

Choose small Radius

With the Mask selected, choose Ctrl/Cmd+L for levels.

Move the Left, black slider in Levels to clean up the blacks, the white dots and gray will begin to disappear.

As you move the white, right slider you will notice the whites begin to blend together and the black dots disappear,

You may still have to do a little manual brushing, but a lot of the cleanup work is handled by Levels.

And you get a nice clean mask, any leftover parts can be fixed with a black or white bush on the mask.

Alright, I hope you find these tips helpful

Colin

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This easy Photoshop tutorial, shows you the steps to combine photos and match the colors in Photoshop. We use Photoshop 2024 and this is suitable for beginners or newer users of Photoshop but it also contains some useful tips for all users.

How to Get Images into Photoshop

To get images into Photoshop, choose File Open

Navigate to the image you want to open, Select one or multiple images, and click Open.

You will see each image is open in its own tab.

How to Combine images in Photoshop

Let’s combine both these images into a single layered document.

Click and drag into the tab of the document that you want to move the image into.

Don’t let go of the mouse button.

Move to the middle of the image on the window that opens.

Hold Down the Shift Key (to center the image) and release

You will see that both images are in the same tab

Notice, they are on different layers (See more about layers here)

How to Remove the background of a photo in Photoshop

Now we want to remove the background on the top layer, so we can see the layer underneath

Choose the Quick Selection Tool

At the top, look for Elect Subject. Choose the Cloud option (better quality selection).

Click Select Subject

You should see the marching ants selection around the person.

To refine this selection, use the quick selection tool. By default it is set to add.

Drag with the tool to add to the selection.

Hold down Alt/Option and drag to take away from the selection.

Lets add the ground.

To amass this out and hide the background, either

Option 1.

Click the mask tool. or..

Option 2.

If you want to further refine the selection, click on Select and Mask.

You will now go to the select and masks workspace, which has lots of tools. Learn how to use Select and Mask in Photoshop here. 

Id you see a colored fringe around the image, choose decontaminate colors

Make sure Output is set to New Layer with Layer Mask

Click ok.

If you used option 1 o2, you should see th background hidden and our person against the city.

Use Ctrl+T and drag the corners to scale and move the image if you need to.

How to match colors between layers in Photoshop

Let’s match the colors now.

Choose the top Layer

Choose Image>Adjustments> Match Color

Under Source, choose the document.

You want the same name as the tab you are working in.

Under Layer, choose the layer you want the image to match to. In this case, it’s background.

You will see the colors change. (If not, turn the preview button on in the top right).

Choose fade, and move it to the right for the original color.

This is mainly the hue (but contrast is affected too) move it until the colors match the best

Drag the color intensity slider. Move it until the saturation matches.

Finally, move the Luminance slider until the brightness matches.

When you are happy with the settings, click Ok to apply

You should have a better match now. (Different way of matching colors in Photoshop)

Now, it’s time to blur the background for more realism. How much you blur this is up to you.

How to Blur the background of a photo in Photoshop

With the Background selected, right click and choose Convert to Smart Object. This will let us change the settings later if we want to.

Choose Filter>Blur Gallery>Field Blur

Move the ring to change the amount of blur. Or choose the blur slider at the top left. I used about 4pixels here for a very subtle effect.

Click ok to apply.

I hope you found this simple tutorial useful. There is a lot more you can do with this and I have hundreds of free Photoshop tutorials here at PhotoshopCAFE to help you do almost anything in Photoshop.

Check out the goodies at the vault below if you are new here, they will help you on your Photoshop journey.

Great to have you here!

Colin

PS Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media for more tips..

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The post How to combine photos in Photoshop for beginners appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

This tutorial shows you how to paint on adjustments with pen pressure to add depth and drama to a photo in Photoshop 2024. For tips on using a Wacom tablet, check out these tips. 

This works like the Adjustment brush, but it’s a more advanced way to create this effect and gives us more control and power.

Lets start with this picture I shot, it is an interesting subject with a great sky. Its just a little flat. Lets fix it now.

How this works

We will make some adjustments to the image. These adjustments will be our “paint”.

We will hide all the Adjustments with a black mask.

Finally, we will paint with a white brush to add the adjustments exactly where we want them. By using Pen pressure, we can shade and blend the adjustment like we would with a pencil. This is my favorite way of working,

Choose new adjustment layer in the layers panel.

Grab a curves adjustment.

Increase the midtones and brights, we are looking to set the new maximum highlights.

See how the land is looking better. Yes, the sky is blown out, but don’t worry. We won’t be applying this adjustment to the entire image, just certain area.

Add a second adjustment layer. This time, Vibrance.

Add a third, levels adjustment.

(Despite what some people say, Levels has a very valid use alongside curves, it gives a linear midtone /highlight boost, that’s hard to accomplish with curves without introducing banding).

Now we have several adjustments, lets combine then together into a “super adjustment” that we can paint onto our image.

Click, Ctrl+Click on each layer to select all three.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+G to group the Adjustments together.

Click the layer mask icon to add a layer mask to the group.

Click the mask to select it. Press Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert your mask.

(If you hold down the alt/Option key as you create the mask, it will make a black mask).

The Adjustment will now be hidden because of the black mask. The image should look like the original again.

Choose the brush tool and a soft edged brush. Set foreground color to white.

Click the brush options

Under transfer, choose Pen Pressure for opacity jitter. This will only be available if you are using a pressure sensitive pen and tablet, such as a Wacom, Xence, Microsoft Surface etc. When you press harder, the effect will be stronger than when you brush lightly.

You can still adjust your images without a tablet, just use a lower opacity, you obviously won’t be able to use pen pressure.

Optional: You can use selection tools such as object selection to isolate regions that you will paint.

In this case, I selected the rock, because I want to constrain the brush strokes to the structure and not on the water. We will use different strokes on the water.

Paint the areas that will be facing the sun to accentuate the highlights and add depth to the image. It’s like painting with light.  See the video at the top to see this in action.

Add more highlights on the ocean by gently brushing with the pen.

If you want to increase the effect, duplicate the adjustment group by clicking it in the layers panel and pressing Ctrl/Cmd+J.

Here we have painted on highlights. Lets also do some shadow.

To set up a shadow adjustment.

Click the New Layer icon while holding down alt/Option.

This gives us a dialog box, change it to overlay mode.  This will hide gray.

Here is our new adjustment, notice its overlay blend mode. Understand Layer Blend modes in Photoshop here.

This time, choose a brush and set foreground color to black.

Paint on the shadows to chisel some depth into the image. If you like this look and want a deeper walkthrough step-by-step, check out my course on dodge and burn in Photoshop, it will transform your images!

The tablet used in this video, Wacom Intuos Pro Medium

I hope you found this tutorial useful! Check out our other tutorials here at the CAFE, there are over 800 free Photoshop tutorials here.

Colin

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Just in time for the April 8th 2024 American Total Solar Eclipse. You have captured your eclipse photos, now what? Here is how you can assemble them into a cool eclipse sequence using Photoshop. How to Photograph a solar eclipse. 

This tutorial works for Solar eclipses and lunar eclipses.

Assemble your eclipse photos

Ill show how to import photos to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic, and without Lightroom (after the few lightroom steps here).

You will most possibly have hundreds of eclipse photos when you are done. Choose the best totality image and the best 6 sequences on either side of totality, 13 in total. (You can obviously do more, or less, I used 13 for this tutorial.)

I made a collection in Lightroom to separate the images.

If you aren’t using Lightroom, put your images into a different folder on your computer.

Select all the images from the Filmstrip at the bottom of Lightroom

Right-Click on the filmstrip and choose Edit In>

If you have RAW images and want to retain that format choose Edit in>Open as Smart Object Layers in Photoshop

Jpg or other formats choose Edit in> Open as Layers in Photoshop

Photoshop will launch and all the selected images will be loaded into separate layers automatically.

If you don’t use Lightroom

If you used Lightroom, skip the next 4 steps.

If you aren’t using Lightroom go to Photoshop

Choose File>Scripts>Load Files into Stack

Your finder will open.

Locate the folder where you have put the individual images you want to combine into a sequence. (You can use RAW files, but they will be converted on import using this method. To keep them RAW, use Lightroom Classic or Bridge).

Select all the images and click ok

You will see the images in the dialog box.

Click OK

You will now see them load in as a layers in Photoshop, similar to the Lightroom result.

Building the Eclipse Sequence in Photoshop

It doesn’t matter how you imported the images to Layers in Photoshop, directly or through Lightroom, the steps are identical from here out.

Currently, you will each image in its own layer and only the top layer will be visible. We want to reveal the eclipse phots for ALL the layers at the same time, so we don’t have to cut anything out or do any masking

Select all the layers in the layers panel (Press Ctrl/Cmd+A to select all). Or Ctrl/Cmd+Click on each layer. Or click on the top, hold Shift and Click the bottom layer. (Lot’s of ways to do this).

Click Where it says Normal at the top of the Layers Panel, choose Lighten from the menu.

You should now see all the eclipses from all the layers. You have changed the blending mode on all the Layers to Lighten, which hides black. How to use Layer Blending Modes in Photoshop

Arranging the Eclipse Sequence, measuring the gaps

How we need to resize the canvas to fit the final eclipse sequence which will be much wider than the current document dimensions.

Here is a trick to determine the width we will need.

Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool

Start the box on the left side of totality, or a full sun image.  Tips: Hold Spacebar to move selection as you are creating it.

Drag to the right, decide how much space you want between each disk in the final composite.

You will see an overlay that shows the width of the selection. Here, we see about 1200 pixels (rounded) will be about right for each disk, if we want the spacing in the image.

To determine the needed width of the canvas, we will need 1200px for each disk. There are 13 disks aka eclipses or partial eclipses (layers)

Open your calculator and multiple 1200 by 13.

I see that 15,600 is what we will need. We need to expand the width of our overall image (canvas) to 15,600 pixels to fit the final sequence.

You can use the crop tool method shown in the video for a more visual way of resizing, or do this.

Change the Background color to black.

Choose Image>Canvas size.

Change to Pixels

We aren’t changing the height of the image so we only need to input the new width, this will be 15600

Click ok

You will now see the width has changed, the background should be black. If not..

If you see a transparent checkerboard, choose a solid color adjustment layer

Choose black and ok

Drag the solid black layer to the bottom of the layer stack

Creating the placement guide

This is a key step. If we make a guide, it will be easier to position each layer.

Photoshop can automatically make this guide.

Choose View>Guides>New Guide Layout

Turn on Columns and choose 14. This will give 13 guides, if you are using more, or less images than this, make the appropriate adjustment. (Don’t ask why it uses columns and not guides).

For Rows, choose 2. This will create a horizontal center.

Click ok

Choose the layer that contains the image of totality.

Grab the move tool (v key)

Drag totality to the center.

If you don’t see rulers, press Ctrl/Cmd+R to open them

Drag a horizontal guide out of the ruler and position it at the bottom of the totality disk. Drag another guide and place it at the top of the disk.

We now have a perfect grid for positioning.

Choose each layer in the layers panel and drag the disk to its position on the grid

Make sure the images in the right are aligned with the top of the grid

Align all the images on the left with the bottom of the grid.

And here is our final sequence.

I hope you have fun, and best of luck shooting your eclipses. Don’t forget to step away from the camera for a moment and just experience the moment of totality, the memory will be worth it. If you are having technical issues, with your camera during totality, don’t fiddle and waste away the eclipse, step away and just experience the moment, it could be a once in a lifetime experience and there will be plenty of very similar photos all over the internet for you to enjoy later. Trust me, from someone who has experienced a total solar eclipse, the experience and memory is more valuable.

Thanks

Colin

PS Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media for more tips..

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I’m sure you are probably aware a total Solar Eclipse is going to occur on April 8 2024 in North America. Maybe you have experienced a partial solar eclipse, or even an Annular Eclipse. As spectacular as those events are, they are not even close to the experience of a Total solar Eclipse. Its the equivelent of smelling the food, but not actually tasting it.

A total Solar Eclipse, is like someone turns on the dimmers and the lights fade out into darkness in the middle of the day. (See the video at the bottom for a taste). The Eclipse I experienced in Casper in 2017. It doesn’t go pitch black, but it’s like twilight, you can see stars in the sky and a 360 degree sunset all around the horizon. All of nature, suddenly goes silent. In past times, Empires crumbled, people shot flaming arrows at the sun trying to relight it. Today with our understanding it’s still alive-changing experience, even a spiritual experience for some people.

Advice, warnings and tips for shooting the eclipse

My advice, if you are photographing the eclipse, don’t be stuck behind your camera. Get your settings right (I talk about this on the video above), then let your camera shoot intervals, but Get away from your camera and experience the event, this is the most valuable advice I can give you, The experience will stay with you for the rest of your life.

As far as safety, NEVER look directly at the sun or the eclipse without the proper solar goggles, or you can go blind. (If you are buying glasses, beware of cheap fake glasses that may not give you proper protection, but sure they are real from a trusted source (Don’t trust some random guy on Amazon).

When you are shooting the eclipse, make sure you have the correct Solar Filter on the END of your lens (Not the filter holder at the bottom of the lens if available) or you will burn out the sensor on your camera,

NEVER look into the viewfinder on an SLR or point and shoot camera pointed directly at the sun (You could go blind instantly), use the screen. On a Mirrorless camera you are ok, because you are just looking at a screen.

I discuss all the settings on the video.

When you are in totality, you may see baileys beads appear around the edge of the moon as it begins to block the sun. Once you are in totality, it’s safe to take off your glasses and filters and look at the eclipse with your naked eye. NEVER do this on a partial Eclipse. Once you see Baileys beads again and the sun begins to appear from behind the moon, it’s time to get those glasses back on and put filters back on your camera.

How to practice and prepare for the eclipse

If you want to practice, go out and photograph the moon at night. This is about the size of the eclipse. This way you can decide of you want to shoot at 200mm, 400mm, 600m or more. At the least Try and use 200mm or add an extender.

You can also practice shooting the sun during the day with your solar filter on, this will help you find a starting exposure. Remember, Don’t look directly at the sun.

Here are some more useful resources to help you.

How to Assemble photos of Solar Eclipse in Photoshop

Get your juices up! Experience the 2017 Solar Eclipse in this BTS informative  Vlog

Info on April 8 2024 North American Total Solar Eclipse

Info from NOAA on Magnetic Declination (to find true North) :

American Astonomical Society Safe viewing glasses and filters   

NASA gallery from 2017 eclipse

I hope this info is helpful!

Tag us in your  Eclipse photos on Social Media @PhotoshopCAFE

Have fun!

Colin

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The post How to photograph a Solar Eclipse appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

To dodge and burn is to paint with light and shadow. By doing this, we can add depth to photos. We can also use it to tame the light in certain areas of image, or change the emphasis of what people mostly notice in the image.

This is a follow up to the Adjustment Brush Basics in Photoshop tutorial, where a lot of people indicated they wanted a more in depth look at this adjustment tool

Currently, the adjustment brush is only found in the Public Beta Version of Photoshop

How to use the adjustment brush

Choose the Adjustment Brush for the toolbar.

Set the adjustment to Brightness contrast

Once to click on the image, or begin painting the tool is activated.

You will see a new Adjustment Layer with a mask.
(This is the same adjustment layer if you added it from the layers panel, its just a simpler way of getting there).

Turn the brightness all the way up so we can easily see the adjustments. Don’t worry, you can reduce this later if you prefer a more subtle adjustment.

Brush settings

Let’s look at brush settings, including pen pressure for a Wacom, Xencelabs or Microsoft Surface type stylus. (The tutorials still works with a mouse, just not the pen pressure settings).

If you click the icon to the left of Opacity, pen pressure controls brush size.

If you click the icon to the right of the opacity you can control opacity with pen pressure.

This enables you to blend in the adjustments because you can shade like a pencil, adding more density by pressing harder.

If you want more advanced settings choose Window>Brush Settings

Shape Dynamics changes size, Transfer controls opacity with pen pressure.

For dodge and burn (painting with shadow and highlights) I like to use pen pressure for opacity and turn off size.

One more adjustment, lower the flow to around 7%

How to Dodge and Burn

Burn is to darken shadow areas and to Dodge is to brighten the highlight areas, or add highlights, I think of this as adding light.

You will lighten the areas facing the light source

You will darken the areas that are shaded from the light source

Tip for Brush Size, Control+Option+Drag your cursor to change brush size and softness. (Alt+Dight Drag on Windows). Or use the square bracket keys  [ and ] keys change brush size, add the Shift key to change softness.

Dodging and Burning

Lets start with Dodge, or lighten.

Paint the areas you want to lighten.

Here is the image with the light areas painted (you can see it in action on the video at the top).

Hiding the Adjustment layer, shows you the before image.

Burning the image (Darken)

Let’s paint some shadows.

Click the background

With the Brightness / Contrast still selected and the Adjustment brush the selected tool,

Click to add a new adjustment layer

Turn the brightness all the way down

Paint in the shadow areas.

Reusing your masks

Lets create a new Exposure adjustment, just to show how easy it is to reuse your work.

Choose exposure

As soon as you click on the image a new Adjustment layer is created.

We want the same brush settings we used on the highlight area, but don’t want to have to paint it again.

Here is a trick. Hold down Alt/Option and drag your highlight  Mask into the Exposure layer mask

The mask will be duplicated and added to the exposure.

If we hide the highlight area, we will see that the exposure can now be used to control the effect of the brushwork.

If you wanted to tint the color, such as warm uo the highlights, do the same thing, use a Photo filter of hue saturation adjustment.

Trick for straight lines

It can take a steady hand and some patience, to paint these columns at Petra.

As soon as you begin dragging down with your brush, hold the Shift key and it will constain the movements in the direction you are moving the brush.

This makes it easy to get the highlights on one side of the pillar.

Repeat for the other side of the pillars with a darkened adjustment to darken them

To make the shadows blend a bit more, drop the flow to 2%

Paint over the shadows to blend them in more.

When you are done, you can adjust the opacity of the adjustment layers to tone down the adjustments a bit, for a more natural result,

I hope you found this tutorial useful.

Check out another of our 700 free Photoshop tutorials here at the cafe

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

PS: Get over $200 worth of valuable Photoshop Add ons, brushes, presets, cheat sheets and ebooks abolulutely free, right here. 

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