Paris Rooftops

Ok, so there is this really cool place in Paris to shoot from. It's called the Montparnarse Tower - it's in Montparnarse (duh) and it's this big office building. The beauty of it is that it has a rooftop area you can visit and it doesn't cost a heap. It also has breathtaking 360 degree views of Paris all the way to the Eiffel Tower and across the Seine.

Ok, so they can be breathtaking views if it isn't foggy and smoggy. Memo to self: don't go there early in the morning before the wind has blown the mess away.

The Eiffel Tower could be seen, just!

Here is one of the photos I took of the rooftops in Paris from the tower. The poor air quality killed the color so there was precious little to recover and the overall image was muddy. The solution was to duplicate the image a few times and then drag bits and pieces of color and detail back out of it. The light roofs were a big issue, fix the tonal range enough to fix the image and the gorgeous detail in the roofs disappeared.

The solution is to fix the image multiple times on multiple layers. On each layer, focus on a specific detail. Then clobber the whole lot together again using Layer Masks you just paint on the bits you want and paint out those you don't.

Custom color swatches

I like to look at what users type into Google when they land on my blog. Today, someone wanted to create a monochromatic swatch from a monochromatic image. I don't have explicit instructions for this, so I thought it a good concept to consider.

To do this, first convert your image to monochrome by choosing Image > Mode > Greyscale and click to Discard the color. If the image doesn't show the variety of greys you want, use a Levels adjustment to alter the tonal range in your image.

Now choose Image > Mode > Indexed color and then Image > Mode > Color Table. Here is your custom swatch sourced from your image. Simply click Save to save the color table.

Now, you don't have to make a monochrome swatch. Say you need some lush greens for a project. Grab an image that shows the greens you like. Choose Image > Mode > Indexed Color and, for now, select the defaults and click Ok. Now choose Image > Mode > Color Table and you have a color table created from your image with your lovely greens and you can save them to use any time. If you get too many other colors in the swatch, crop the image to just the green area before making the conversion. Save the Color Table but don't save the image and you'll find no photos have been harmed in the process of creating your own custom color swatch.

To add the color table as a swatch, display the Swatches palette (Window, Swatches) click the menu and choose Load Swatches. From the Files of type list choose Color Table (*.act) and then browse to find your saved file and open it.

Metro - Paris

This was one of my favourite shots of the Paris metro stations. It was a throw away shot - I just took it walking past because I loved the bikes around it and there weren't many people around.

I dumped most of the color in the photo as it just looked so good when you look at the blacks and whites in it.

I duplicated the background layer and turned the top layer into a black and white using the new Photoshop Black and White adjustment layer which lets you select which direction to take each colour into. It's way more sophisticated than anything we've had in the past. Then I adjusted the opacity of the layer a little to show some of the colors from the layer underneath. The result is an almost ethereal photo. I've put it on a white tee shirt at CafePress in my store if you like it and want to wear it.

Paste to a layer mask

Ok, here's the dilemna. You have two images open in Photoshop and you want to add one image as a layer mask into the other.

One solution is to copy the first image, then switch to the second. Click the layer mask and switch to the Channels palette. The layer mask appears as a channel. Select the channel's visibility icon to make it visible, select the channel to make it active, and click Edit, Paste. Deselect its visiblity, reselect the RGB channel to make that one active, switch back to your Layers palette and the pasted selection is in your layer mask. This solution has the advantage that the copied/pasted piece doesn't have to be the same size as the layer mask.

The alternate solution if the two images are the same size, is to use Apply Image. Select the target layer mask, choose Image, Apply Image and, as the Source, select the image to copy from, the layer to copy and click Ok. Now the selected layer (or the merged source) is pasted into the Layer Mask.

Two alternatives, the second is easier to use but it does require two same size images.

Graffiti de Paris

I was looking for an image to put on a t-shirt for a friend for Christmas. Let's say, he's a bit out there and pretty just won't cut it.

I had two good photos of this graffiti covered wall so the Photoshop Automate > Photomerge tool put them together into a panorama. I used the clone and copy and paste to put back the missing bits as it was shot from a moving boat - a far cry from the ideal for shooting a panorama.

Color fix was an issue. I needed a channel to blend back into the image to boost the color and contrast. Problem was, the red killed the blue and the blue killed the red. Solution was to use both.

Duplicate the background layer twice. Select the first copy, choose Image > Apply Image and apply the red channel to the image. Then use the second copy and apply the blue channel to the image. Use the lighten blend mode on the top layer to blend the two together. You can use a Layer mask on the top layer if necessary to bring back detail from the layer underneath.

The grunge details are an image/edge from a set of grunge images from Graphic Authority applied as a layer mask with a black background layer put behind everything.

Rooftops in the rain - Brighton

When I was in Brighton we had one beautiful summer like Sunday when everyone was walking along the beach and it was all so gorgeous and then, next day, it rained cats and dogs.

Here's a photo I took from my hotel room window across the roofs of Brighton the day it rained. I don't think the windows of the Queens Hotel had been washed since good ol' Queen Vic gave her name to the hotel so they were pretty interesting to shoot through and, of course, they only opened 6in from the bottom so shooting through the gap was impossible.

The original was flat and lifeless as one might expect. A Levels adjustment is a great starting point for a photo like this. Simply choose Layers, New Adjustment Layer and then choose Levels. Drag the little triangle sliders in from the left and the right till they are just under the places where the chart data begins and ends. This darkens the darks and lightens the lights and instantly boosts the tonal range in the image and gives it more contrast and life. The middle slider handles the midtones so you can drag it to the right or left as required for your image.

For the rest of this image I worked hard to get the colour and detail back. The cream buildings in the background were treated independently of everything else as they just kept getting lost in every solution I tried. Masks are great for this, fix one part of the image with adjustment layers, then hide the adjustment layer and work with another one focusing on the other part of the image. Then, use the mask on each adjustment layer to paint in or remove the fix from areas of the image. When I want most of the fix I just paint in black over the areas that I don't want the fix to be applied to. When I only want little bits affected by the mask, I fill the mask with black (white reveals, black conceals), then paint with a low opacity, soft white brush to bring back the fix in the small areas that it is needed.

I also used the Selected Color adjustment on this image, I'll talk more about it in a future blog post.

Photoshp CS3: Copy a Layer Mask

Often you'll need to copy a layer mask from one layer to another so you can mask out the same area on two layers. I do this when I mask the hightlights highlights in an image to protect them from being blown out.

Copying a layer mask doesn't look easy or intuitive - there's no menu command for it. However it can be done very simply. Hold the Alt and Control keys at the same time and drag the layer mask from one layer and drop it onto another. If there is already a layer mask on that second layer you'll be prompted to replace it, answer Yes to the prompt.

Mona Lisait, Paris

This bookshop in Paris is so wonderful jammed as it is with books and people browsing. It just begged to be converted to black and white. There's even a small child in the foreground who is banging away at a book on the pavement. You can double click the image to enlarge it to see him.

Of course, you need to look closely too to see Mona Lisa herself in the photo.

Brighton Pier No. 3

I fell in love with Brighton and Brighton Pier. The day I had to photograph it the rain nearly put an end to my photoshoot. However, I managed to get some great images. This is of the pier looking back to Brighton, the only real colour is in the life preservers and I love that you can see some of the Brighton buildings through the water pouring down the window. The repeated elements really work in this image.

The photo needed a bit of a levels adjustment, I use this to punch the contrast up a bit more than I get from the camera. The crop makes the image look so much more interesting than the size that it came out of the camera.