A perfect photograph is constituted of a number of elements light conditions, the amount of exposure and selecting the ideal lens and the filter.
The feeling of "What if" lingers and given the constraints of time and expenses incurred, it re-shooting the entire image, or series of images, as the case may be, is not always a feasible solution. And here's where editing comes into the picture. Not just limited to digital photography, many conventional photographers edit the imperfections away from their photographs in their dark rooms. And with the advent of time and technology, many new and advanced kinds of software have been developed, amongst which a worthy forerunner is Adobe Photoshop.
Despite all the benefits that editing software has to offer, many photographers refrain from using this tool for anything more than a few basic touch ups, for fear of compromising on the image quality. Adobe Photoshop does away with this challenge as it does not burn your changes onto the original image, like many other editing tools, but allows you to work on your image without altering your image itself. This remarkable feature is attained by the use of Layers, which, like transparencies, divide your image into different parts, each of which is overlaid on a layer. These layers, when stacked together, recreate the original image. Thus you can work on only specific parts of your image without altering the appearance of the remainder, as your effects will be limited to the specific layer you choose to apply them to.
This allows you to modify only specific parts of the image, where you can correct overexposure by building density and modifying the color until the anomaly is barely distinguishable. And if the final result is not quite what you imagined it to be, you can undo your effects in parts, stopping just where you want to instead of having to delete all you efforts away and then start right where you began. This is because, when you work with layers, you are not embedding the effects on the complete image, but only modifying the part which appears on the specific layer. The Multiple Undo option lets your imagination break free, as you can toy around as much as you like and stick with only the effects which augment your image.
If your editing skills go haywire, and you end up with something you didn't quite expect, you can also undo all the changes you've made and start all over, without even the slightest bit of change to the original image quality. You can also gauge if your editing is proceeding the right way by turning off the visibility of the layer you are working on, to view the overall effect and then turning the visibility back on to proceed with your editing.
You can custom create your own adjustment layer by making your selection from the New Adjustment Layer Sub-menu which you can find in the main Layer Menu, or click on the Palette Icon which opens up a pop up menu for you to make your selection from. Once you've found just the right adjustment layer, you can even preserve your preferences for later images to achieve the same spectacular effect without having to toil for hours over it.
It also helps if you label each layer with a distinctive name, so that shifting from one layer to another is not a very bothersome task. To do this, you can double click on the Layer you are working on where you can enter the title you've selected for your layer in the Name field and then click OK to save the name. You may also want to hide all the other layers except for the one you are working on, to help you focus better, to do which, you need to click on the eye icons next to each unwanted layer to make them disappear. To bring them back on, click on the eye icon again and there you go! You're all set to work on your next layer.
You may also inundate yourself with more layers than you can handle in which case, you can easily deleted the unwanted ones, without disturbing the others that you need. You can even select a combination of layers and merge them together by choosing the Merge layers Option in the Layer Menu. As any Photoshop expert will tell you, if there's one tool you need to master when you learn Photoshop and make the most of it, it has got to be layers. So wait no further get to work on that image which you've always wanted to work on, but didn't for fear of ruining it you can never tell just what you might unmask! - 16651
The feeling of "What if" lingers and given the constraints of time and expenses incurred, it re-shooting the entire image, or series of images, as the case may be, is not always a feasible solution. And here's where editing comes into the picture. Not just limited to digital photography, many conventional photographers edit the imperfections away from their photographs in their dark rooms. And with the advent of time and technology, many new and advanced kinds of software have been developed, amongst which a worthy forerunner is Adobe Photoshop.
Despite all the benefits that editing software has to offer, many photographers refrain from using this tool for anything more than a few basic touch ups, for fear of compromising on the image quality. Adobe Photoshop does away with this challenge as it does not burn your changes onto the original image, like many other editing tools, but allows you to work on your image without altering your image itself. This remarkable feature is attained by the use of Layers, which, like transparencies, divide your image into different parts, each of which is overlaid on a layer. These layers, when stacked together, recreate the original image. Thus you can work on only specific parts of your image without altering the appearance of the remainder, as your effects will be limited to the specific layer you choose to apply them to.
This allows you to modify only specific parts of the image, where you can correct overexposure by building density and modifying the color until the anomaly is barely distinguishable. And if the final result is not quite what you imagined it to be, you can undo your effects in parts, stopping just where you want to instead of having to delete all you efforts away and then start right where you began. This is because, when you work with layers, you are not embedding the effects on the complete image, but only modifying the part which appears on the specific layer. The Multiple Undo option lets your imagination break free, as you can toy around as much as you like and stick with only the effects which augment your image.
If your editing skills go haywire, and you end up with something you didn't quite expect, you can also undo all the changes you've made and start all over, without even the slightest bit of change to the original image quality. You can also gauge if your editing is proceeding the right way by turning off the visibility of the layer you are working on, to view the overall effect and then turning the visibility back on to proceed with your editing.
You can custom create your own adjustment layer by making your selection from the New Adjustment Layer Sub-menu which you can find in the main Layer Menu, or click on the Palette Icon which opens up a pop up menu for you to make your selection from. Once you've found just the right adjustment layer, you can even preserve your preferences for later images to achieve the same spectacular effect without having to toil for hours over it.
It also helps if you label each layer with a distinctive name, so that shifting from one layer to another is not a very bothersome task. To do this, you can double click on the Layer you are working on where you can enter the title you've selected for your layer in the Name field and then click OK to save the name. You may also want to hide all the other layers except for the one you are working on, to help you focus better, to do which, you need to click on the eye icons next to each unwanted layer to make them disappear. To bring them back on, click on the eye icon again and there you go! You're all set to work on your next layer.
You may also inundate yourself with more layers than you can handle in which case, you can easily deleted the unwanted ones, without disturbing the others that you need. You can even select a combination of layers and merge them together by choosing the Merge layers Option in the Layer Menu. As any Photoshop expert will tell you, if there's one tool you need to master when you learn Photoshop and make the most of it, it has got to be layers. So wait no further get to work on that image which you've always wanted to work on, but didn't for fear of ruining it you can never tell just what you might unmask! - 16651
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