Flat Skin

[postlink]http://testlifepsd.blogspot.com/2010/01/flat-skin.html[/postlink]Follow this Photoshop tutorial to revitalize the look of skin for portrait photographs. This natural-looking effect evens out uneven skin tones and reduces the appearance of skin imperfections. Skin tones look more equalized and blemishes are reduced without being removed.

Fix Blown Out Skin Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open a photo to begin. Expand the file menu and select Open. Then, browse for the file and click OK.

Step 2

Click on the button in the layers pallet and select Invert. This will create a new Invert adjustment layer. This adjustment layer will invert the hue and brightness of the image to create a negative.

Step 3

Change the blending mode to Luminosity. Then, lower the opacity until the skin tones look even. The entire image may start to lose contrast, but we will fix this later. For now, focus on the skin tones.

Step 4

The skin tone looks more even now, but the Invert adjustment layer affected the entire image. We need to use a layer mask to hide the effect. Before we can do that, we need to create a selection of the skin. There are many ways to create a selection:

• Quick Selection Tool
• Magic Wand Tool
• Lasso Tool
• Color Range Selector

The tool you use depends on the image you are editing. For the image used in this tutorial, the Color Range selector is the quickest way to create the selection. The Color Range selector may be found in the Select menu.

Step 5

Now that we have a selection of the skin, press Shift+Ctrl+I to inverse the selection or open the Select menu and click Inverse.

Step 6

Make sure that the layer mask is activated. There should be a white thumbnail around the layer mask. Press delete to erase the contents in the selection and now the layer mask should have the skin in white and everything else in black.

Step 7

If you used the Color Range selector to create the selection, you may need to do further editing. To make this step easier, hold the Alt key and click on the layer mask to view the layer mask in the document window. In the image below, I used the Eraser tool to erease the hair and used the brush tool to paint the skin. Minor flaws won't be noticable so you don't have to be overly precise when painting.

Step 8

We're done smoothing out the uneven tones, but the overall skin tone has been altered. To fix this, we'll add a Levels adjustment layer to darken the skin back to the natural tone. Click on the button in the layers pallet and select Levels.

Step 9

In the Levels window, adjust the middle input slider until the skin tone looks correct. A good area to look at while adjusting is the face.

Final Results

Move your cursor over the images to see the unedited photo.

source: photoshoptutorials.ws

Flat Skin

Underwater Photo Retouching

[postlink]http://testlifepsd.blogspot.com/2010/01/underwater-photo-retouching.html[/postlink]One of the most common underwater photography difficulties is trying to capture a photo without extreme color and contrast loss. In this Photoshop Tutorial, you'll learn how to analyze and restore the color and contrast of underwater photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Underwater Photo Retouching Photoshop Tutorial

Color Correction

Loss of color and contrast is the primary obstacle faced by underwater photographers. First, we'll work on restoring the color of the photo to produce a fuller spectrum of color. The deeper the location image was taken at, the more color loss there is. Colors with longer wavelengths such as red and orange disappears first. When extremely deep, only blue can be recorded.

Identifying the Problem

Correcting the color for underwater photos is simple, but not as simple as regular photos. Unlike most photos where the color can be corrected using by setting the gray point with the Levels tool, underwater photos need to be manually corrected. Because most underwater photos lack an accurate gray as a reference for the color, we need to analyze the channels to identify the color causing the problem. There are two primary elements that need to be worked on: color and contrast. First, we'll show you how to restore the colors and then we'll show you how to enhance the contrast of the distance.

Correcting Color

Step 1

Open an underwater photo in Photoshop. To do this, click on the File menu and select Open. Then, browse for the photo and click OK.

Step 2

To brighten the red channel, we'll use a Levels adjustment layer. Click on the “New Adjustment Layer” button located in the Layers pallet and select Levels.

Step 3

The Levels tool should appear. Change the channel to Red.

Step 4

Drag the middle input slider towards the left until the color of the photo looks correct. Keep your eye on the photo as you adjust; especially on the red areas.

The color is now fixed. Looking back into the channels, we can see that the blue and green channels were left untouched while the red channel was brightened.

Next, we'll learn how to correct the contrast of underwater photos.

Correcting Contrast

Contrast is another primary element for underwater photography that usually requires retouching. Follow this simple Photoshop technique to enhance the contrast of the distance without affecting the foreground.

Step 1

Open the Layers> New Adjustment Layer menu and select Brightness/Contrast. The Brightness/Contrast tool should appear. In the Brightness/Contrast tool, increase the contrast until the distance looks correct.

Step 2

Click on the thumbnail of the the Brightness/Contrast layer mask. There should be a white outline around the layer masks thumbnail when activated. Select the Eraser tool from the tools pallet. Right mouse click anywhere on the document window to open the brush options and set the hardness to 50. Now, erase the foreground area. The area you erase should appear black in the layer mask thumbnail.

Final Results

Rollover the image to see the before and after effect.

 source: photoshoptutorials.ws

Underwater Photo Retouching

Medical Imaging with DICOM files

[postlink]http://testlifepsd.blogspot.com/2010/01/medical-imaging-with-dicom-files.html[/postlink]DICOM is the industry standard format for medical scans. Learn how DICOM files are used with Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended to create animations and measurements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening DICOM Files

To open DICOM files, open the File menu and choose Open. Browse for the DICOM file and click Open.

Once you click Open, a window will appear with settings you can modify.

Options

Frames

On the left, you can select which frame to view and open. To open a single frame, select the frame and click open. To select more than one, hold the CTRL key and click. To select all the frames, click the Select All button.

DICOM Dataset Options

There are two options in this area you can modify

Anonymize

Checking this option will anonymize the file by replacing all patients metadata with "anonymize".

Show Overlays

If your file has overlays such as annotations, curves, or text, you can check this box to display those overlays.

Windowing

Windowing lets you adjust the brightness and contrast of the image. To view all the Windowing options, check the Show Windowing Options checkbox located below the image.

Presets

There are 5 presets you can choose from:

• Default
• Lung
• Bone
• Abdomen
• Full

Manual Adjustments

Or, you can manually adjust the settings using your mouse:

1. Click on the button to select the Window Level tool.
2. Click on the middle of the image and drag the tool up or down to adjust the level.
3. Drag the tool left or right to adjust the width.

Reverse Image

To reverse the image, simply check the Reverse Image checkbox.

Frame Import Options

This area lets you choose how you would like to open the images.

Import frames as layers

This option will import frames into layers. This option is useful for manipulating the image or creating an animation.
N-up Configuration
This option will tile the frames onto one layer. Select this option if you would like to print the frames onto transparencies.

Creating an Animation

Step 1

Open a DICOM file. Open the File menu and select Open. Browse for a DICOM file (.dc3, .dcm, .dic, or no extension) and click OK

Step 2

Press the Select All button to select all the frames. In the Frame Import Options, choose Import frames as layers. Apply any other settings needed then click OK.

Step 3

You should now have each frame as layers. Select all the layers by pressing Alt+Ctrl+A or going into the Select menu and choosing All Layers.

Step 4

Open the Animation window by going into the Window menu and selecting Animation.

Step 5

In the Animation pallet, click on the button located near the top right to open the flyout menu. In the flyout menu, select Make Frames From Layers.

Step 6

If the Animation window is not in Frame view, press the button to convert the animation into a frame animation. If it's already in frame view, you can skip this step.

Step 7

Now we need to set how many times it should loop. Click on the bottom right menu to select how the animation should loop. To have the animation loop forever, select Forever.

Step 8

To save the animation as an animated GIF file, use the Save for Web & Devices tool. To open the Save for Web & Devices tool, press Shift+Ctrl+S or open the File menu and select Save for Web & Devices. In the Save for Web & Devices tool, Select a GIF preset and modify the settings if necessary. Click the Save button when you are ready to save.

Final Results

source: photoshoptutorials.ws

Medical Imaging with DICOM files

Airbrushing - Natural Smooth Skin

[postlink]http://testlifepsd.blogspot.com/2010/01/airbrushing-natural-smooth-skin.html[/postlink]Since the pre-digital era, glamour photos have been airbrushed by skilled photographers to remove imperfections on the skin. Now, with advance image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, airbrushing can easily be mimiced with realistic results. However, many airbrushing techniques removes too many details causing the skin to look plastic and unrealistic. In this tutorial, we'll teach you an effective Photoshop technique to simulate airbrushing without losing the texture.

 

 

 

 

Airbrushing - Natural Smooth Skin Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

First, go to the File menu and select Open to open a photo you would like to edit. Because we will be working with fine details, it is important that the image is a high resolution so that the details of the skin can be seen. The image I used is a high resolution 10 megapixel image with plenty of skin detail.

Step 2

In the next steps, we will be duplicating the layer twice and applying two filters to each of the new layers. Because the image I am working with is a large 31MB photo, processing the filters will be CPU intensive and slow. Before I continue to duplicate the layer, I'm going to use the Lasso tool to draw a selection of the skin and duplicate only that area. This will reduce the amount of pixels to work with and reduce the load on my computer. You don't have to do this if you don't need to. It may be helpful if you don't have a fast computer with lots of RAM or if your image isn't really large.

Step 3

Now, press Ctrl+J or open Layer menu and select Duplicate to duplicate the layer. Do this once more so that you have two layers. Now, rename the top layer to "High Pass" and the middle layer to "Low Pass". As you may have guessed, on the High Pass layer, we'll be applying a high pass filter and on the Low Pass layer, we'll be applying a low pass filter.

Step 4

Lets work on the Low Pass layer first. In the Layers palette, click on the eye beside the High Pass layer to hide the layer and select the Low Pass layer that we will be working on.

Step 5

Instead of applying a low pass filter, also known as the gaussian blur filter, we'll be using the Surface Blur filter instead. Select the Filter> Blur menu and choose Surface Blur. The surface blur filter blurs the image but preserves the edges. It is great for smoothing skin without losing the edges. The Surface Blur provides two options:

• Radius:
  This setting specifies the size or strength of the blur. Use a higher setting for larger images.
  "The Radius option specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur."
  - Adobe Help Center
• Threshold:
  This setting allows you to define the area to blur.
  "The Threshold option controls how much the tonal values of neighboring pixels must diverge from the center pixel value before being part of the blur. Pixels with tonal value differences less than the Threshold value are excluded from the blur."
  - Adobe Help Center

First, set the radius and threshold so that the image becomes blurry but still recognizable. Then, lower the Threshold and stop just when the edges become sharp. Now adjust the Radius so that the skin is smooth.

Step 6

We're done with the Low Pass layer. Now we'll work on the High Pass layer that'll restore the tiny details such as the bumps and pores. Select the layer, click on the eye beside the High Pass layer, and change the layer blending mode to Linear Light.
The tiny bumps of the skin is most visible on the neutral tones of the skin and least visible on the dark tones of the skin. To simulate this natural effect, we'll add a layer mask that will reduce the visibility of the bumps on the darker tones of the image. Add a layer mask by clicking the button or by going to the Layer> Layer Mask menu and selecting Reveal All.

Step 7

Now we'll use the Apply Image tool to apply a copy of the image in the layer mask. Now we have a layer mask that defines and reduces the effect in those dark areas.

Step 8

We're done with the layer mask, so click on the thumbnail of the layer (not the layer mask).

Step 9

We will be using the High Pass filter next. The next step will require a lot of precise adjustments, so before we proceed, zoom in 100% on somewhere near the skin.

Step 10

Expand the Filter> Other menu and select the High Pass filter. In the High Pass filter, adjust the Radius in small increments until the skin looks natural.
Tip: Click on the Radius field and press the up and down button to quickly increase or decrease the effect.

"High Pass retains edge details in the specified radius where sharp color transitions occur and suppresses the rest of the image. (A radius of 0.1 pixel keeps only edge pixels.) The filter removes low-frequency detail in an image and has an effect opposite to that of the Gaussian Blur filter."
- Adobe Help Center

Step 11

Now we'll go back and tweak the settings of the layer mask. In the layers palette, click on the thumbnail of the layer mask to activate it. Then, go to the Image> Adjustments menu and select Brightness/Contrast. In the Brightness/Contrast tool, increase the contrast and adjust the brightness so that the bumps on the skin is less visible on the dark areas and more visible on the bright areas.

Step 12

We're done smoothing the skin, but now the whole image is smooth. We need to use a layer mask to erase the effect from the areas that are not the skin. Select the top two layers and press Ctrl+G or go to the Layers menu and select Group Layers to group the layers. Then, add a layer mask by going into the Layers> Layer Mask menu and selecting Hide All.

Step 13

You should now see back the image the way it originally was without the smooth skin effect. We will be painting the layer mask over the skin. But because this effect is subtle, it may be difficult to see where we have painted over. So before we paint the layer mask, add a new layer above the High Pass layer and fill it with the color red. Then, change the opacity of the red layer to 50%.

Step 14

Select back the Group layer mask by clicking on the black thumbnail in the layers palette. Select the brush tool and paint over the skin to make the smooth skin effect visible over those areas that you paint. To change the setting of the brush, right mouse click anywhere and the Brush settings will appear. Start with large diameter and a hardness about 50. Then, fill in the tiny spots with a smaller brush. You don't have to be too precise with this step. Minor flaws will not be noticeable.
Tip: To quickly change the brush size, press the [ key to decrease the brush size and the ] key to increase the brush size.

Step 15

Delete the red fill layer when you're done.

Final Results

Rollover the images to see the before and after effect. It may take awhile for the images to load.

 source: photoshoptutorials.ws

Airbrushing - Natural Smooth Skin