Assignment One: Photo Retouching and Digital Image Enhancing used in e-Wallpaper

This post is to brief on the techniques and tools used to retouch and enhance the images in Assignment 1 e-Wallpaper. First up, is to apply the 'Clone Stamp Tool' to repair certain areas in the images.

This is the image of businesswoman after applying the 'Selection Tool' from Tutorial 1.

As you can see, the area around the arms were not selected perfectly.

To perfect the arms, the 'Clone Stamp Tool' will be used to select a particular part of the arm that will be used to clone on the affected area. Before cloning, go ahead to Window --> Clone Source and adjust the settings as follows. Be sure to select the 'Show Overlay' which functions to let you see what you're cloning before you stamp it. Also, select 'Aligned' in the options bar so that you won't begin sampling from the same source point, regardless of where you place the tool each time you make a stroke.

To select a clone source, press down the Alt button and select the clone source to be used as a clone. Later, simply drag the 'Clone Stamp tool' until you get what you want.

Next, I will cover the shiny part on the FOM signage in the image.

The 'Smudge Tool' will be used to cover the shiny part on the FOM signage. Select the mode to 'Darken' and drag the tool until the color is blended nicely and the shiny parts are gone.

Then, the signage color is changed to a pinky color using the 'Replace Color'.

To enhance the image of the woman, the 'Smart Sharpen' filter and 'Reduce Noise' filter are used.

Final Image:

Tutorial Three: Photo Retouching

In Tutorial 3, we were taught how to do some photo retouching. This is how the BEFORE image look like.

Since the photo is tilted, we're gonna straightened and crop the image. Select the 'Crop Tool' and enter the dimensions in the option bar shown below. Then, draw a crop marquee around the image. Later, rotate the marquee accordingly so that it matches the angle of the picture.

Now, we're making some automatic adjustments to the cropped image. Do so by selecting 'Auto Color' at the Image tab.

Then, follow these steps to adjust the Shadow/Highlights.

Next, we will remove the color contrast of the image. Click the Color Balance button in the Adjustments panel. Select Midtones for the Tone and select Preserve Luminosity. Adjust the sliders like shown.

The next step, we will adjust the tonal range of the image. Do so by following these steps.

The next task is to replace the color of the girl's cap. First, zoom in too see the girl's cap clearly. The select the Background layer. Use the 'Rectangular Marquee Tool' and draw around the girl's cap.

Select 'Localized Color Cluster'. Then, use the 'Eyedropper Tool' and click on the cap to use that color as a sample. Then use the 'Add To Sample Eyedropper' to replace the color until the entire cap is selected in the mask display.

Next, we will adjust the lightness of the playground equipment to bring out the shadows and reduce the shininess. Select the 'Dodge Tool' and change the 'Default Foreground' to black and 'Background Color' to white. Then drag the 'Dodge Tool' over the playground equipment.

Now, we will adjust the saturation of the graffiti in this image. Select the 'Sponge Tool' and change the mode to 'Saturate' and flow about 40%. Then drag the 'Sponge Tool' back and forth to increase its saturation.

Then, to repair a certain areas in the image, we can use the
'Clone Stamp Tool' to do so. Press Alt as you click a source point and drag at the area that we want to repair.

That's basically what was taught by Madam Lydia :)

Assignment One: Layering used in e-Wallpaper

To begin with, my e-Wallpaper is based on a vintage and old school theme since I'm currently inspired by those themes. Don't ask me why. However, I think that this theme is unique as my e-Wallpaper and also different from the conventional open day posters.

I designed my own background for this e-Wallpaper. First, I create a new A4 document with a cream color background.

Next, I added a crumpled old paper image onto the background and set the blending mode to 'Overlay' and reduce its opacity to 70%.

After that, I am going to add some circle motifs as part of my background. To do so, create a new document with 40 x 40 pixels and create a new layer. Use the ellipse tool to draw a perfect black colored circle that covers the whole canvas.

Once a perfect circle is obtained, hide the background layer to get the transparent background and define the pattern. The purpose of this step is to use this shape as a pattern as part of my background for e-Wallpaper.

Now, return to the e-Wallpaper and got to the Pattern Overlay option and choose the newly created circle as the pattern and reduce its opacity to 7%. As a result, circles are automatically created all over the canvas.

To add a border effect, I used the 'Rounded Rectangle Tool' to create a rectangle shape positioned approximately at the center of the canvas. Then, I used the 'Underpainting' filter and reduced its opacity to 10%.

To add more old paper look, I added some dirty smears or stain like using the 'Watercolor Brush Tool' and use a mixture of black and white colors. Later, the opacity of the watercolor marks are reduced to 10%.

Finally, I'm done with my background :)

Now let's move on to the contents of the e-Wallpaper. First, the image of a woman that was previously selected in my raw images post is pasted into the canvas. Then, I created a new layer and draw an outline around the image of the woman by using the 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' and fill the selected area with black color using the 'Paint Bucket Tool'. Then, reduce its opacity to 20% so that it will look darker compared to the background.

The next few steps are pasting the images in the canvas and these images are positioned and resized accordingly.

That's it for now :) Will post an entry on how I add the texts and the techniques I used for photo retouching. Later!