NEW PHOTOSHOP • LIGHTROOM • TIPS • TECHNIQUES

ঘফনঅ঵ষল঩
ইলর঳নযযব঱প
ইলর঳লশবষনশ
How to assemble images

255+
to make amazing new artworks

Techniques & Tips

to take your images to the next level
ঘফন঑লশষউশশন঱ষবতয অচন঵শতষবযন४ঔল঺ন঵঩সয ঘ঵ত঱শ঩ল঵রঔযতব঱ঘন঻ষ
ঔফলষলশফল঳ঘনদফ঱ব঴সনশ উধবষব঱পঘললযউ঻঳যল঵নধ ব঱ষলগলরনষফব঱পগ঳নদবতয

Placing & importing your Delve into the key aspects of Try this creative technique
content made easy layer masks in your documents & you’ll be good to glow!


  




Process and edit your images like the pros

We continue this issue with more of be editing like a pro in no time. We
Photoshop’s essential collection of also have more creative projects to
under-the-hood features, tools and get you fired up and we continue to
techniques that underpin all good unearth more of the in-depth features
digital image editing. Couple that with available within Lightroom Classic.
a series of easy-to-follow guides on While you’re at it, watch out for the
some basic editing mainstays, you’ll zombies on page 8!

www.bdmpublications.com 3
 Contents
Compositing Walkthrough Best of the Rest
8 We reveal a technique called grey screen Photoshop 2021
compositing to make a movie poster 18 Quick actions - remove background
18 Quick actions - blur background
18 Quick actions - make b/w background
8 19 Discover
19 Quick actions - enhance image
19 Pattern preview
20 Remove background 18
20 Object selection tool
20 Properties panels
20 Zoom to layer
20 Type layer properties
21 Pattern presets
21 Warp tool
21 Pattern - solid - gradient
22 Brush to eraser
22 The frame tool
22 Blend mode preview 22
22 Maths in number fields
23 The color wheel
23 Default text
23 Updated undo
23 Transform tool
23 Auto-commit

19 22

4 www.bdmpublications.com
Photoshop Essentials
26 Placing and importing images
28 Non-destructive enhancement part 1
30 Non-destructive enhancement part 2
32 Selection tools
34 Making selections

26 34
48

Photoshop Creative Zone

48 Create a neon sign
54 Double exposure effect
62 Collodion portraits
68 Cartoonize your photos

Unleash the Power

38 Your first composition
40 Your first cut out
42 Your first layer mask
44 Your first set of adjustments

42 44
76

Exploring Lightroom
76 Lightroom underwent a big update for 2022, so
let’s start with what’s new in the most recent
version and show you the latest new features.
84 Exploring the workspace
86 Importing photos for the first time
88 Fix photos with quick develop
97
Lightroom Tips & Tricks
90 Let us show you how certain less well-known
tips and tricks can enhance your Lightroom
experience and creative workflow.

www.bdmpublications.com 5
 Compositing
Walkthrough
The power of Photoshop comes from its ability
to let you create anything you can think of using
images and graphics from different sources. It
uses layer-based editing which means you can
make very complex images whilst still keeping
the various elements separate from each other
on their own layer. This issue, we kick off by
showing you a technique called
grey screen compositing to
make a movie poster.

6 www.bdmpublications.com
COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH

www.bdmpublications.com 7
 COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

AFTER

BEFORE

Zombie
Apocalypse
Create art like the pros using some key
methods that are easy to use
C ompositing is the combining of visual
elements from separate sources into
single images, often to create the illusion
main elements of the image which is the grey/
neutral background compositing technique.
The beauty of shooting your main subject
sized or in this case, just a 150mm tall action
figure, grey screen compositing is the choice of
many graphics professionals and is easier to do
that all those elements are part of the same against a grey screen is that it gives them a than you think. To flesh the scene out, we have
scene. There are a number of ways to produce well defined edge that makes the process of a background and some additional graphics to
composite images. In this tutorial we will be blending them into another environment all the create what could easily be a movie poster for
looking at a fairly typical approach for the two easier. Whether your subject is normal human- the next big zombie apocalypse blockbuster.

8 www.bdmpublications.com
 ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH

Composites normally have a number of elements to work with, but The image is 3000 pixels wide x 4000 pixels high. Certain settings
01 02
you need to start with your main parts first. For our example, we went and brushes used are based on an image that size but if working with
to File > Open and navigated to a file called ‘hero.jpg’. Places like Pixabay images of a different size, you may need to alter your settings accordingly so
have many similar images you can use for your own projects. they match the scale you are working at.

Next, we went to File > Open again and navigated to a file called Go back to your main ‘hero’ document and then press Cmd + V.
03 04
‘street.jpg’ and clicked Open. This image will open in its own This will paste the street image you just copied into the document
document. Now we need to combine the two images. Press Cmd + A to containing the image of the hero. You can convert the Background to a layer
select all and then Cmd + C to copy the street image to the clipboard. by clicking the padlock icon on the right of the layer.

You now have two layers. You can name the recently pasted layer Click on the ‘hero’ layer to make sure it is active and then go to the
05 06
‘street’ and the unlocked background of the man can be named toolbar and choose the Quick Selection Tool (W). This is where the
‘hero’. For the moment, turn off the visibility of the ‘street’ layer by clicking the grey background that the figure was photographed on will help you make an
small eye icon next to its thumbnail. accurate selection of him.

www.bdmpublications.com 9
 COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Take your Quick Selection Tool and select a brush size of about If the Quick Selection Tool selects too much, such as his left boot, you
07 08
25 from the tool options menu. Then click anywhere on the grey can go to the tool option menu at the top and click the Subtract From
background and drag the cursor around the outside edge of the man. Make Selection button. Carefully draw over his boot and that part of the selection
sure you also select the gap in his left arm. will be removed.

You can use the add or subtract selection options to make sure just Keep the selection active and click on the ‘street’ layer visibility icon to
09 10
the background is now selected. Most areas should be fine but as turn it back on. You will see your selection, denoted by the marching
noted, the boots, and in this case, the tip of the baseball bat, need a little ants, overlaid on the street image. In the next part of the process, you are
attention to get the selection correct. going to make a mask.

Go to the layer options panel and click on the Add Layer Mask button. At the moment, the figure of the hero looks very obviously like a cut
11 12
When you do, a mask in the shape of the selection will be added to out. Click the ‘street’ layer and then choose Overlay from the Blend
the ‘street’ layer. Any white area of the mask reveals the street image, black Mode panel. Now both images blend much more smoothly, with light and
areas conceal it. shadow of the grey mixing with the street image.

10 www.bdmpublications.com
 ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH

Go to the layer options panel again and choose Create A New With the ‘fog’ layer active, go to the toolbar and choose the Brush
13 14
Layer. Name this new layer ‘fog’ and make sure it is at the top of the Tool (B). Set foreground colour to white and use a soft round brush
layer stack. This is a little visual technique to create some more separation of about 1200 pixels and paint white around the figure of the man. Blur the
between figure and background. brush marks by about 125 pixels.

Obviously the white brush marks have obscured the man but if you You can adjust the Opacity of the ‘fog’ layer as you wish; we set it
15 16
right-click the ‘fog’ layer, you can select Create Clipping Mask from to about 50%, just enough to help separate the foreground figure’s
the menu. The ‘fog’ layer is clipped to the layer below and inherits the mask outline from the busy details of the street image. Now, if you have them, you
properties you created, revealing the man. can add extra character elements.

We went to File > Open and navigated to where our example If you press Cmd + A to select all content and then press Cmd + C
17 18
characters ‘zombie 1.png’ and ‘zombie 2.png’ were kept. Highlight to copy all selected, you can then go back to your original document
your assets and click Open. The files will be opened in Photoshop in their and press Cmd + V to paste the first zombie into the document. It will appear
documents. We went to ‘zombie 1.png’ first. on a new layer which you can call ‘zombie 1’.

www.bdmpublications.com 11
 COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

We repeated the process with the second zombie image and named Hold Shift and left-click on each zombie’s layer to highlight them both.
19 20
its layer ‘zombie 2’. Both zombies are at the top of the layer stack Now right-click on them and a context menu will appear. Choose
and you can see that they appear to float in front of our main foreground Create Clipping Mask. You will see that both layers are now clipped in the
character. Let’s fix that next. same way the ‘fog’ layer was previously.

There is one more asset we can include to finish our scene off. We Since the ‘bike’ layer appears in front of our character, there is no
21 22
went to File > Open again and opened the ‘bike.png’ file. Just as requirement to clip it like the zombies and the fog. Now that we have
we did with the zombies, you can copy and paste images into your main all our elements in place, they can each be moved within the scene as you
document at the top of the stack. We named the layer ‘bike’. see fit. We can also boost the drama a little.

Then we went to the layer options panel and clicked on the Create With the ‘Levels 1’ adjustment layer active, go to its Properties and
23 24
New Fill Or Adjustment button and chose Levels from the dropdown push the middle Midtone slider to the right. All the middle tones will be
list. This will add an adjustment layer to the top of the stack; we used it to darkened but since this is affecting the whole image, you need to be a little
boost light and shadow in the image. more selective.

12 www.bdmpublications.com
 ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE COMPOSITING WALKTHROUGH

Keep the adjustment layer active and go to the toolbar and choose We painted around the three characters to keep them at their original
25 26
the Brush Tool (B). Set the Foreground Colour to black and use a large brightness but made sure that their surroundings are darker. If you Alt
soft round brush to paint black on the ‘Levels 1’ layer mask where you do not + left-click the mask, you can see the brush marks that conceal the effects of
want the darkening effects to be seen. the adjustments you’ve made.

If you press Shift + Alt + Cmd + E, you can create a new layer that is Call this new layer ‘merged’. You can add some extra sharpness and
27 28
a merged version of all the layers you’ve created so far. Think of it as boost contrast quickly by going to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.
a snapshot of the work done so far. Be aware that any layers that are turned Set the Amount to 30% and Radius to 30 Pixels. Threshold is 0 Levels.
off, will not be merged into the snapshot.

This boosts overall contrast and adds a level of sharpness, bringing The ‘merged’ layer will open in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). The latest
29 30
out detail in the image. Now you can think about the colour in your version of ACR now has some interesting new creative filters which
image. If you go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter (Shift + Cmd + A), you can play can be found under the Presets tab. You can preview each filter’s effect on
with some its new filter options. your image until you see something you like.

www.bdmpublications.com 13
 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER COMPOSITING IMAGES

We chose the Flat & Green preset under the Creative options as ACR will hand the ‘merged’ layer back to Photoshop where you can
31 32
this suited the content of the image quite well. We also employed see it updated with the adjustments you’ve just made. You can add a
ACR’s own Basic adjustment options too, to add more contrast and colour new layer next and call it ‘flare’. Go to the Brush Tool and choose a soft white
saturation. Click OK when you’re happy with the changes. brush of about 300 pixels.

We painted over the headlights of the bike with the white brush. Then Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Cmd + U) and in
33 34
we set the Blend Mode of the ‘flare’ layer to Linear Light. This is a the panel that appears, check the Colorize button, set Hue to 20,
favourite method of ours for adding a glowing effect to bright areas in an Saturation to 40 and Lightness to -22. Click OK to apply a yellow glow to
image for a little extra visual appeal. the headlights.

14 www.bdmpublications.com
 COMPOSITING IMAGES PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Create another layer called ‘flare 2’ and make its Blend Mode Overlay. We also added another Levels adjustment to darken the edges a little
35 36
Now paint with your white brush on top of the glow you just made to more using the same selective masking methods used in step 25. Our
enhance the light effect of the bike’s headlights. composite example image is finished. Our hero is about to face off with the
zombie hordes and we have front row seats.

Create amazing
art today
Compositing is easier than you think, and great fun too.

www.bdmpublications.com 15
 Best of
the Rest
Last issue we looked at the main new updates that
graced the 2022 version of Photoshop. Here’s a
look at some of the other interesting features and
tools originally implemented in Photoshop 2021
that actually were genuinely good to have.

Contents
Photoshop 2021 21 Pattern presets
18 Quick actions - remove background 21 Warp tool
18 Quick actions - blur background 21 Pattern - solid - gradient
18 Quick actions - make b/w background 22 Brush to eraser
19 Discover 22 The frame tool
19 Quick actions - enhance image 22 Blend mode preview
19 Pattern preview 22 Maths in number fields
20 Remove background 23 The color wheel
20 Object selection tool 23 Default text
20 Properties panels 23 Updated undo
20 Zoom to layer 23 Transform tool
20 Type layer properties 23 Auto-commit

16 www.bdmpublications.com
BEST OF THE REST

www.bdmpublications.com 17
 BEST OF THE REST

Quick Actions - Photoshop 2021 onwards

T hese so-called Quick Actions are very
similar in feel to the automated effects
available in Photoshop Elements. They are
on each effect’s Apply button and the effect
is added automatically. At the time of writing,
there are twenty Quick Actions available with
actions are accessed via the Help > Photoshop
Help menu option. This opens the Discover
panel. There are other options to look at but we
quick in the sense that you simply click once the promise of more to follow. These new will look at a few Quick Actions.

Quick Actions - Remove Background

Let’s start with the Remove
Background action. Click on
it and you will be presented
with a small effect preview,
a quick explanation of
what the effect will do and
which layer, if any, is going
to have its background
removed. You simply hit
the apply button. This will
scan your image and make
an educated guess based on its
content as to what constitutes background and
what is your foreground subject. Our example is
Bailey the dog against a blue sky. A fairly simple one
we think. The result is pretty good. Your results will
vary depending on how well your subject stands out
from their background. You can further refine your
mask or return to your image which will now have a
mask added.

Quick Actions - Blur Background

Quick Actions - Make B/W Background

As the preview example shows you, a bright foreground object like
a rose in our case, against a green background, should be fine for
this effect to work well. When you hit Apply, the foreground object
is masked and the rest of the background has a Black & White filter
applied to it. As ever, your results will depend heavily on having
a foreground image that stands out well against its background.
The more complex it is, the more likely it is that the effect will start
to break down. At the end of the process, you are given a masked
layer that lets you refine the mask if you need to.

Another fully automatic effect for you to play with. This time,
instead of cutting your foreground subject out of the background,
it scans your image, isolates your foreground subject and then
blurs the background to help reduce any annoying distractions. We
used a fairly complicated image to see how well it would cope. The
main subject was identified reasonably well and a new masked
layer added to the document with a Gaussian Blur filter added.
This filter can be activated in order for you to increase the blur if
you so wish. The problem that we can see with this filter is that
the foreground subject is simply masked out. The more you blur
the layer, the more you can see a blurry halo appear around your
subject. If the subject were cut out and put on a new layer and the
background filled in using Content-Aware Fill and then blurred,
we think it would be a more successful action. If nothing else, you
have a masked subject that you can use to do it yourself.

18 www.bdmpublications.com
 BEST OF THE REST

Discover Quick Actions - Enhance Image

This feature automatically applies adjustments
to an image after one click of the Apply
button. In general terms, it appears to add
contrast and saturation with a few tweaks
to highlights and shadows to make the
image a little more punchy. It would be
nice to have something like a low, medium
and high adjustment setting but ultimately,
since it applies the Camera Raw Filter, you
can simply double-click it and dive in and
adjust it further to suit your tastes.

If you need help at any time while

using Photoshop, you will find it
has been improved to better aid
you when searching and finding the
relevant tool you need. You can find
it under Help > Photoshop Help. The
Discover panel will then open. It has
a number of items you can browse and
a list of resource links you can access but
if you want to input something specific, then
in the search pane you can
input your search request.
For example, if you want
to find any or all tools
relating to Saturation, type
it in and it will display all
topics related to the search.
It will also display a series
of shortcuts. If you hover
your cursor over each one, a
small tooltip icon will appear
that points you to the right
menu. Alternatively, you can
just click the shortcut and
that particular tool will open
up for you ready to use.

Pattern Preview
This is a very simple but very useful tool that lets you
create completely seamless patterns with no guesswork
involved. The time was, you used to create a pattern by
drawing it out within the image bounds and then choosing
Edit > Define Pattern to save the result in your patterns
library. Applying the pattern however, may show up
some nasty flowers that make it useless as a repeating
pattern. If you use the Pattern Fill option and scale your
creation down, as you can see in this example, the lines
don’t match up at all. So much for a seamless pattern.
Thankfully, that has been addressed. If you start with a
blank document and go to View > Pattern Preview, as
soon as you start creating your pattern, you are shown
exactly how it will repeat. Zoom out your workspace and
you will see more of the pattern repeating. Now you can
join elements up accurately and you can even edit your
pattern outside the confines of your original document.
Jut paint anywhere on the preview and it will be added
to the overall pattern. Now you can define your pattern
secure in the knowledge of how it will look when repeated
many, many times.

www.bdmpublications.com 19
 BEST OF THE REST

Remove Background Object Selection Tool

This recent additional enhanced feature expands The Select Subject Tool is a very useful addition
upon the Select Subject Tool. If you have that will automatically throw an active selection
an image on a layer and you want to let around what it thinks is the main foreground
Photoshop take a shot at removing the image. However, what happens if there is
background entirely, then you can try this more than one subject, and you only want to
handy feature very easily. Our example select one specific item? That is where the
has two layers. The top layer is an image Object Selection Tool comes in and saves
with a boring background that we would the day. As our example shows, if you choose
like to remove. Below it, on its own layer, is a Select Subject, all the text items are selected.
replacement background for the subject above If you want to select just one character, go to the
it to appear on. You can call up the properties panel toolbar and choose the Object Selection Tool (W) and
of the topmost layer and select the Remove Background option. from the Tool Options menu above, choose the selection Mode. In this
Photoshop will analyse the image and automatically remove the case, you have either Lasso or
background. The subject remains, but now the background image Rectangle as your choices. We
below can show through to make the image more interesting. used the Lasso to encompass
one numeral roughly and then the
Object Selection Tool did the rest.

Properties Panels
The properties of the various layer types
have been upgraded to include many more Zoom to Layer
choices and options as to how you can
modify the properties of that layer. If you This is a very simple but effective tweak to the basic zoom functions
take the basic background layer properties available. Sometimes, if you have a number of image objects
as an example, now you have many more scattered around your document across a number of layers,
options including a series of Quick Actions navigating around and filling the screen with that particular item
for altering Image Size, Crop, Trim and for close inspection can be a bit of a process. It may require you
Rotate. A standard Pixel Layer properties to zoom in, then zoom out, locate the next item and then zoom into
also contains the Remove Background that. Now, as long as you have your items on separate layers, you can
and Select Subject Quick Actions as well simply press the Alt key and click on the layer you want to view and
as Distribution and Spacing options and fill the screen. Each layer you Alt-click on will scale to fit the screen
Transform controls too. as large as possible whilst showing all pixels on that layer.

Type Layer Properties

Another set of properties to get an overhaul are those of the Type
Layer. When you create a new layer of text in your document,
opening the Properties panel for it will reveal a much more varied
array of options that can make your workflow a little easier and puts
all the main options that you might need right at your fingertips. Apart
from Transform options, the Character and Paragraph properties
can be accessed here as well as more varied Type Options such
as Ligatures and Contextual Alternates. There are additional Quick
Actions included that allow you to convert your text layer. There are
options to Convert to Frame and Convert to Shape.

20 www.bdmpublications.com
 BEST OF THE REST

Pattern Presets Warp Tool

Adding a Pattern adjustment layer now
reveals a few more presets available
to you. We have an image with the
background removed and we wish
to add a pattern behind it. Pattern is
chosen from the Create New Fill Or
Adjustment Layer menu, and the new
Pattern Fill 1 layer is dragged beneath
the subject layer with the background
removed. If you go to Window > Patterns,
you can see there are some new presets
supplied under the headings of
Trees, Grass and water. If you have
the Pattern Fill 1 layer thumbnail
active, each pattern preset you
move your cursor over will be
displayed in real-time. Some new additions to the Warp Tool give it extra
creative clout and the ability to warp your images in even
more interesting ways. Our example features a car, which
we duplicated onto a new layer ready to edit. You can press Cmd
+ T to activate the Free Transform Tool and then, when you right-click the
image, you can select the Warp option. You can add a 3x3, 4x4, 5x5 or
Custom grid if you like, but if you right-click the image, you can choose
Split warp Horizontally and add a warp point wherever you like on your
image. Control Points let you start the warping process after which more
can be added and warped to your heart’s content. Then, if you Split
Warp Vertically, you can add custom warps in the vertical direction too.
And if you choose Split Warp Crosswise, you can warp in both directions
at once. Lastly, if you hold the Shift key, you can also multi-select mesh
points and rotate and scale that selected group in one go.

Pattern - Solid - Gradient

Taking a step on from the Pattern Preset preferred a solid colour instead? You would layer and it will automatically change it to
function. It is now very easy to change a normally have to delete the existing layer and a solid Colour Fill 1 layer instead. Open
Pattern Adjustment layer to another kind add a new Adjustment layer entirely. Now, if the Gradients swatches, and you can
of layer using a simple drag and drop. you go to Window > Swatches and open the drag a gradient onto the Colour Fill 1 layer
What happens if you added a Pattern Fill Colour Swatch panel, you can simply drag where it will transform to a Gradient Fill 1
1 adjustment layer but then decided you and drop a solid colour onto the Pattern Fill 1 layer instantly.

www.bdmpublications.com 21
 BEST OF THE REST

Brush to Eraser
This is a simple one that lets you switch easily between
using a brush of a specific size, colour and properties,
to an eraser that uses the same properties but lets
you erase with the brush. While working with a chosen
brush, simply press the tilde key (~) and the brush
becomes an eraser.

The Frame Tool

This tool is great for the quick and easy
creation of rectangular or elliptical frames.
Simply go to the toolbar and click the
Frame Tool (K) then from the Tool Options
menu at the top of the screen, select your
choice of rectangular or elliptical frame.
You can then draw that shape on your
document and make an instant frame
ready for an image. You can easily
drag any image onto a frame
and it will automatically
be sized to fit the
frame you’ve made.
Any images that you
place are converted to
Smart Objects, so you can
edit them non-destructively. You’re
not limited to rectangles and ellipses
either. Any shape or text you make
can be converted into frames and filled
with your images. Right-click on the
layer that contains an item you want to
convert, and choose Convert To Frame Blend Mode Preview
from the menu.
The Blend Mode preview is a handy new time saving feature that
has recently been implemented. Up until now, if you wanted to know
what affect a particular blend would have on your images, you had to
Maths in Number Fields select one and apply it. If it wasn’t right, you had to undo that choice
or go back in, choose a new blend mode and apply that to see the
difference. Photoshop CC does away with Blend Mode guesswork.
An interesting one this, basically now you can use simple maths in
Now, if you click on the Blend Mode button and scroll through the
any numeric value input box or number field. As an example, if you
available options, each one you roll over will be applied in real time,
have an image on a layer currently at 100% Opacity and want it to be
so you can instantly see what effect it has. It will not commit the
exactly 1/12th the opacity (we're not sure who might find it useful),
blend you have chosen until you actually click the preferred blend.
you can type 100/12 in the Opacity input field and the Opacity will
This also works when viewing the Layer Style dialog panel too. A
be altered to 8% which is 1/12th the Opacity of 100%. If you have an
small change, but a welcome one nonetheless.
image and want the Canvas Size to be precisely 1/3rd the width, you
can call up the Canvas Size dialog box and add /3 to the Width value
of your image. So, if you had a photo that was 4000 pixels wide and
3000 pixels deep and wanted the canvas to only be 1/3rd the width,
adding that /3 will automatically size it 1333 pixels wide.

22 www.bdmpublications.com
 BEST OF THE REST

The Color Wheel Default Text

The Color Wheel is a useful new way to Placing a text layer within your document
visualise the colour spectrum and choose used to result in an empty box into
colours for your artworks and design which you would type your text and
projects. It can be accessed via the Color then format it with the correct font
panel fly-out menu or by pressing F6 and and type size. Now if you go
clicking the small Menu icon in the top to Edit > Preferences > Type,
right of the Colour panel. It operates by you can select the option to
letting you control the Hue, Saturation, and fill your new text layer with
Brightness of your colours. The outer wheel placeholder text
controls the Hue and the triangle within
controls the Saturation and Brightness of
the Hue chosen in the outer circle.

Transform Tool
Photoshop has now swapped the methods
by which you can proportionally transform
your images and other layer types. The Auto-Commit
previous method was non-proportional
by default. Meaning if you clicked and This is quite a simple one, but also one
dragged a control point, it would scale that does away with a potentially annoying
and stretch without maintaining its original trait of older versions of Photoshop, which
proportions. Proportional scaling was was to display a pop-up asking if you
achieved by holding the Shift key as you
Updated Undo dragged a control point. Now, in this latest
wanted to commit the change you just
made before you could move on to the
version, the transformation of most layer next part of your workflow. Your other
types, such as pixel and bitmap layers, text option was to hit the Enter key on your
layers, and Smart Objects is proportional keyboard to commit a change you had
by default. To transform non-proportionally, just made, or go up to the top options
you now have to press the Shift key. menu bar and click the Commit button.
Shapes and paths have recently been Now, if you crop or transform, Auto-
updated to transform proportionally too. commit will be applied when you
select a new tool, or select
anything outside the currently
active image or text.
No Shift key

The Undo function has been updated once

again, after a couple of odd functionality
changes. In older versions of Photoshop
you could press Cmd (Ctrl on PC) + Z to
step back and undo multiple steps. Then
they decided to change that and you had
to press Cmd + Z for the initial undo and
then press Cmd + Alt + Z to keep stepping
backwards. In the 2019 version, if you
press Cmd + Z now, you go back one
step each time you use that command.
Whereas pressing Cmd + Shift + Z, will
step you forward each time. Hopefully
Adobe will finally settle on which version
they prefer, so we can settle down and
memorise a keyboard shortcut that
remains unchanged from here on.

www.bdmpublications.com 23
 Photoshop
Essentials
As you dive deeper into the world of photo editing
and digital image manipulation, remember that
there a number of core skills, tools and concepts
to be aware of that, once learned, will become the
backbone of any image editing that you do. In this
issue, we present some more of those key tools that
with practice, can be used quickly and intuitively.

Contents
26 Placing and importing images
28 Non-destructive enhancement part 1
30 Non-destructive enhancement part 2
32 Selection tools
34 Making selections

24 www.bdmpublications.com
PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

www.bdmpublications.com 25
 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS PLACING AND IMPORTING IMAGES

Placing and
Importing Images
Now we will show you how to bring content into your
document and make it look amazing
I t’s very easy to find and open a photo, work
with it, and then save it again, without the
need to turn it into a native Photoshop PSD
building a basic design with just a couple of
images. As simple as this guide may appear,
it is a cornerstone to what makes Photoshop
file that retains all the layers and adjustments so useful as an image editing and digital
information within it. We’ve looked at creating manipulation tool for photographers and
new documents from scratch, so now we can designers alike. We will use this tutorial to get
take our newly created blank document, start used to bringing in images and working with
importing images and begin the process of them on their layers.

BEFORE

AFTER

26 www.bdmpublications.com
 PLACING AND IMPORTING IMAGES PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

Opening a single image is a fairly simple To begin, a quick word about the two Secondly, you have the Place Linked option.
01 02 03
process, which Photoshop makes even methods on offer for imported images. This means you have an image that once
easier thanks to the number of ways you can interact You can use the Place Embedded option, which placed in your document retains a link to the original file
with your files before opening them. Now, having embeds images as Smart Objects that can be that you placed. Now, if you edit the original image, the
made a blank document to your requirements, we’ll edited independently of your active document, but next time you look at your document containing that
go a step further and populate it. are still contained within it. image, it will update to the latest saved version.

Here, we have used File > Place You can now move, scale and rotate the Go to File > Place Embedded again and
04 05 06
Embedded. Start by navigating to the folder image before you commit to finally placing this time choose a second image. We have
with the first image you’re using, highlight it and it on its layer. Click and drag the cover control a dinosaur character we want to bring in to a new
then click the Place button, or simply double-click it points to scale the image to fully fill the document. layer. Place this new image, and then use the
to open it in the document on its blank layer. Note Then you can hit Enter on your keyboard to control points to scale the image and also drag it
the layer name changes to the image name. commit the changes. to your preferred position.

Both images, since they are embedded, Right-Click on your layers to call up the You have created a basic document with
07 08 09
are placed as Smart Objects. If you look Context menu. Look down the list and two layers. It might seem quite simple,
in the lower right corner of their thumbnail, you’ll you will see the Rasterize Layer option. When you but this is what makes Photoshop so versatile
see the small icon that denotes a placed Smart select this, you will convert each of the Smart and offers you the chance to take various image
Object. If you are happy with them, you can Objects into normal pixel-based images that now elements and combine them in amazing new
convert them to standard pixels. behave like standard photos. ways to create stunning artworks.

www.bdmpublications.com 27
 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS NON-DESTRUCTIVE ENHANCEMENT PART 1

Non-destructive
Enhancement Part 1

A great way to edit your images without damaging them

A lthough there are many editing options
in the Image > Adjustment menu, they
all have one thing in common. When you
Saturation, then add a Photo Filter effect,
that’s three operations that have discarded
information, each one degrading your
the damage done by these modifications
is to revert to an earlier version by using
undo or the History palette, but that also
apply them to an image the effect they image quality. If you apply an operation undoes all your subsequent editing as well.
have is destructive, because they discard repeatedly, such as multiple Curves This degradation is much worse with 8-bit
information from the original image. For corrections, you’ll actually be able to see than with 16-bit images, since there’s less
example, if you apply Curves, then Hue/ the degradation. The only way to undo information to start with.

It’s impossible to avoid this image degradation merged when flattening the image.
altogether, but by using Adjustment Layers You can apply Adjustment Layers in several
we can reduce it as much as possible. ways. First, you’ll find a list of available layers
Adjustment Layers sit above the pixel layer in in the Layer > New Adjustment Layer menu.
the stack and their effects are applied in real Second, if you have the Adjustments palette open
time as the layers are displayed. That way (it’s open in the default interface workspace) you
if you change your mind about an effect, or can click on the button for the layer you want to
wish to change it after it has been applied, apply. Third, you can click on the middle button
your alteration doesn’t have any further at the bottom of the Layer Palette. All of these
effect on the layer below it and the image offer exactly the same list of options and produce
degradation isn’t applied until the layers are the same results.

28 www.bdmpublications.com
 NON-DESTRUCTIVE ENHANCEMENT PART 1 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

The Adjustment Layer Palette

Click on any of these buttons to instantly create a new adjustment layer.

01 Brightness/Contrast Photo Filter 09

Edit image tonal range. Add custom colour cast to images.
02 Levels Channel Mixer 10
Adjust colour and tonal range. Adjustments Create tinted or greyscale images.
03 Curves Colour Lookup 11
Adjust points through the tonal range. Add an adjustment Add preset colour effects to images.
04 Exposure Invert 12
Adjust an images’ exposure range. Inverts image colours like a negative.
01 02 03 04 05
05 Vibrance Posterize 13
Enhance less saturated colours first. Adjust the number of tonal levels.
06 Hue/Saturation 06 07 08 09 10 11 Threshold 14
Alter Hue, Saturation and Lightness. Convert to black and white bitmap.
07 Colour Balance 12 13 14 15 16
Selective Colour 15
Add colour to shadows and highlights. Alter individual primary colours.
08 Black and White Gradient Map 16
Convert to monotone or greyscale. Maps an image to a custom gradient fill.

AFTER

BEFORE

Before and After

This photo of a girl in a field was taken on an intermediate level digital
camera. The subject was photographed with strong back lighting
and this has resulted in a fairly low contrast image and lacks any real
punch. By applying Levels, Saturation and Photo Filter adjustments
to the image, the colours have been saturated and contrast
enhanced to bring back some life and detail to the image.

www.bdmpublications.com 29
 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS NON-DESTRUCTIVE ENHANCEMENT PART 2

Non-destructive
Enhancement Part 2

Add effects non-destructively with Layer Masks

W hile a Quick Mask function is an easy way to selectively edit your pictures, the
more traditional method is to use Layer Masks. The advantage to this method
is that it is non-destructive, so if you don’t like the results you can just go back and
01 To start with, right-click on the thumbnail of the
photo in the layer palette and select Duplicate
Layer from the menu. Alternatively click and drag the
start again. It is also repeatable, because you can use the same mask for multiple layer thumbnail in the palette onto the New Layer
effects, saving you time and effort. For this quick tutorial we’ll use a Layer Mask to button at the bottom of the palette, which will also
apply a selective monochrome or colour extraction effect. We’ll start with this bright duplicate the layer.
image of a red truck. The red tones will remain in colour while the rest of the picture
will be changed to black and white.

BEFORE

Next, activate the new layer by clicking on it in the

02
palette and then click on the Add Layer Mask button
at the bottom of the palette.

A white square will appear in the layer palette

03
representing the new mask. Double-click on this
and the Layer Mask palette will fly out. This palette lets you
configure the mask in a variety of ways.

30 www.bdmpublications.com
 NON-DESTRUCTIVE ENHANCEMENT PART 2 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

Click on the Color Range button and you’ll Next we can apply the effect to the top 08 The Layer Mask can be used to produce
04 06
see a new window appear with a colour layer. For this one we’ll use the Black any kind of selective effect like this and
range picker and the cursor will change to an and White menu option, since it’s a quick the great part of it is that the original image is
eyedropper tool. Click on the red chassis of the and easy effect. You’ll find it in the Image > still intact in the background layer, so if you’re
vehicle and adjust the sliders so that as much of Adjustments menu. unhappy with the finished result you can just
the colour as possible is selected, but none of the delete the effect layer and start again. However
background. Click OK when you’re happy. as you can see, the effect is working well.

You can adjust the parameters of the

07
Black and White effect with the sliders
on the window that appears. The results
are a matter of personal taste, so adjust the
parameters until you’re happy.

USEFUL TIP
Always remember that layer masks do not
erase any of a layer’s detail, it just makes
certain details invisible without deleting
them. This is referred to as non-destructive
Now we’ve got a mask that covers the
05 image editing.
shape of the truck but what we need is a
mask that leaves the chosen colour, while covering
everything else, so click on the Invert button
that swaps the mask and the background. This
effectively creates a hole in the layer through which
the background layer will be visible.
AFTER

www.bdmpublications.com 31
 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS SELECTION TOOLS

Selection Tools
This fundamental technique allows multiple methods
for isolating specific areas of your image
T he ability to select discrete areas of an image and change them
in isolation is fundamental to Photoshop editing and to help
with this there are many different ways of making that selection.
you to select regular shapes such as rectangles, ellipses and lines. For
irregular shapes there are several Lasso tools, which let you draw the
area to be selected. For quicker selections there are the Magic Wand and
The most frequently used are the Marquee tools, which allow Quick Selection tools.

Common Options
If you look across the top left of your menu bar,
you will see there are common tool options for all
of the selection tools. After the Home button and
the Tool preset picker are the selection options.
The row of four buttons are: New Selection,
which is the default setting; Add To Selection,
which can also be activated temporarily by
holding down the Shift key; Subtract From
Selection, also activated by the Alt key; and
Intersect With Selection, which selects only from
areas you have already selected.

Edge Refinement
The next option is Feather, which softens the
edge of the selection based on the number of
pixels you enter in the Feather input field. This
is useful for gradual effects where you do not
want a hard edge around your active selection.
If you want even more control, the edge of the
selection can be further adjusted by using Select
and Mask, which uses sophisticated edge-
detection techniques to automatically select
around things like fine hair or soft and blurred
edges. You are given a number of options and
tools to control just how much refinement and
adjustment you want to apply to your selection.
A number of selection tools are also included
within the Select and Mask panel itself.

Object Selection Tool

USEFUL TIP
The most recent update to Photoshop has seen
a number or improvements to the selection You can use the Quick Selection tool to
tools on offer. Most notable is the Object quickly paint a selection using an adjustable
round brush tip. As you drag, the selection
Selection Tool which can scan your image and
L_WHUKZV\[^HYKHUKH\[VTH[PJHSS`ÄUKZ
individually target all the differentiated objects
HUKMVSSV^ZKLÄULKLKNLZPU[OLPTHNL0M[OL
in your photo. This is a handy new feature and
tool isn’t visible in your toolbar, hold down
when used in conjunction with all the other [OL4HNPJ>HUK[VVS[VZLL[OLÅ`V\[TLU\
selection methods such as Select Subject, with the additional options that are available
Select Sky and all those shown opposite, you to you.
have lots to choose from.

32 www.bdmpublications.com
 SELECTION TOOLS PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

Rectangular Marquee Single Column Marquee Elliptical Marquee

Make a selection of a rectangular area of any This option creates a selection of just a single Create a selection of an elliptical shape of any
size or aspect ratio. Just click and drag to the vertical column of pixels. This is useful for tidying size or proportion. Just click and drag to the size
right size. Hold down the Shift key to constrain up other selections or crops that are just a little and shape you need and hold down the Shift key
the selection to a square shape and use the too big. Click near the area you want to select to draw a circle. If you hold down the Alt key the
arrow keys to move the selection area. and then drag the marquee to the exact location. ellipse will be centred on the starting point.

Magnetic Lasso Lasso Single Row Marquee

This tool uses edge-detection to try to match your The Lasso is also used to make area selections This is the same as Single Column Marquee,
selection to the edges of the subject in the image. from the active layer, but this time the shape can be but this time it selects a single horizontal row
You simply draw a line as closely as possible to irregular, marked out by clicking or drawing a line of pixels. As with the Single Column Marquee
what you want and it should automatically snap to around the area to be selected. Join up your lasso option, click near the area you want to select and
the edge. Works best on high contrast areas. at the point you started to close the selection. then drag the marquee to the exact location.

Polygonal Lasso Magic Wand Quick Selection

The Polygonal Lasso lets you draw a point-to- This tool lets you make selections from areas of This tool lets you paint a selection and uses edge
point line around your subject. It can only draw the same colour and brightness and by adjusting detection to try to match the selection to the
straight lines, but by using very short sections it’s the tolerance and whether or not it will select nearest hard edge in the image. Again it’s often
possible to approximate a curved line. To draw contiguous areas, you can use it to do things like only an approximation and will have problems
curved lines you need to use the Pen tool. automatically select all the sky in your image. with blurred or low contrast edges.

www.bdmpublications.com 33
 PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS MAKING SELECTIONS

Making
Selections
The ability to select and modify only part of an image is
fundamental to how Photoshop works
O ne of the most basic features of Photoshop is the ability to
modify only part of an image, leaving the rest unchanged.
The way that we do this is by using Selections, and there are
several tools and menu operations that we can use to help us
achieve this.
After the Move Tool, the next three icons on the Tool Palette
are all selection tools, giving you a wide range of methods for
isolating an area of your image. Some are fully manual, while
others use varying degrees of automation.
The most basic selection tools are the Rectangular and
Elliptical Marquee Tools. These both allow you to manually select
a simple shape of any size, or of a fixed size or aspect ratio. You
can select several areas, either separately or joined together,
and with a hard edge or a soft feathered edge. The various Lasso
Tools let you select an area of irregular shape, again with the
option of a feathered edge. You can draw the area freehand, or
use point-to-point lines for greater precision.
Let’s take a look at the process of making a selection, and
examine the various options that are available.

Elliptical Marquee Tool

The Elliptical Marquee tool works

01
in much the same way as the
Rectangular Marquee, but draws a To draw an ellipse around your
03
curved shape. selection, imagine that it’s actually a
rectangle, start from one corner and drag to
As with the Rectangular Marquee, the diagonally opposite corner. This can be
02
you can set the size or aspect ratio. A tricky to get right, so alternatively hold down
ratio of 1x1 draws a circle, other ratios draw the Alt key and start from the centre of where
ellipses of various sizes. you want your ellipse to be.

34 www.bdmpublications.com
 MAKING SELECTIONS PHOTOSHOP ESSENTIALS

Simple Area Selection

To make a soft-edged selection, type a

05
number into the Feather box. The higher
the number, the more blurred the edge will be.

Let’s start off with the simplest selection

01
tool, the Rectangular Marquee. This is To draw a square, click on a point where you
03
used, as the name implies, for selecting simple want one of the corners to be, then hold and
rectangular shapes. drag to the diagonally opposite corner. You’ll see
the “marching ants” line of the selection box appear
following the cursor.

This time if you draw a selection and fill it,

06
you’ll see that the edges are very blurred, with
the marquee “marching ants” line in the middle of the
blurred area.

USEFUL TIP
0M`V\^HU[[VZLSLJ[TVYL[OHUVULHYLHVY
You can draw a freehand rectangle, or fix add to the current selection, holding down
02 the Shift key will temporarily put the tool into
the size or aspect ratio by using the Tool If you use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the
04 “Add to Selection” mode.
Options. Let’s draw a perfect square selection area you’ve selected you’ll see that the
by setting a ratio of 1x1. edges are very sharp.

Polygonal Lasso Tool

For selecting more complex shapes, the With the Polygonal Lasso, you A Polygonal Lasso selection is ideal if you
01 02 03
best option is the Polygonal Lasso Tool, click around the edge of the area want to cut or copy a complex shape out
or if you want to draw freehand, then the Lasso you want to select. When you complete of a background, for example to make it part of
Tool is the one to go for. Drawing freehand may the loop, or double-click, the selection is another picture. It is particularly helpful when your
be quite odd using a mouse, but with a little completed and you’ll see the “marching subject has lots of straight, regular edges that are
practice you can use it with confidence. ants” border. easy to follow.

www.bdmpublications.com 35
 Unleash
the Power
Learning how things work is a series of
firsts. Your first cut out, layer mask or
adjustment layer is an important part of
the road to becoming a confident and
skilled Photoshop artist. We all had to
start somewhere right? We wanted
to spend a little time just showing
you some of the ‘firsts’ you will
encounter as you get more familiar
with Photoshop.

Contents
38 Your first composition
40 Your first cut out
42 Your first layer mask
44 Your first set of adjustments

36 www.bdmpublications.com
UNLEASH THE POWER

www.bdmpublications.com 37
 UNLEASH THE POWER YOUR FIRST COMPOSITION

Your First
Composition
This is when you discover the power
of Photoshop
N ow is the chance to get to the nitty gritty
of what Photoshop is all about. Working
with layers in a document and importing
editing program it has become. You can
simply enhance a favourite photo to make
its colours look more vibrant and the details
various images and graphics is a key part of a little sharper, or you can create amazing
how Photoshop functions. Opening a photo compositions by combining various images,
and then adding layers of adjustment or or parts of them, in new and exciting ways
additional elements on top is what makes that will have your viewers wishing they could
Photoshop the incredibly useful image do it too.

BEFORE

AFTER

38 www.bdmpublications.com
 YOUR FIRST COMPOSITION UNLEASH THE POWER

This new artwork starts with the opening of If you wanted to, you can keep a browser This means your dropped image will open
01 02 03
a base image. In this case we chose File > window open on your computer that on its own layer, which will be named after
Open (Cmd + O) and then navigated to where our contains your images and, rather than going the title of the file. In this example, an image of a
background image was stored. We have chosen a through the open and find procedure, you can knight now sits above your base image on a new
snowy background image for our new composition. simply bring the browser window to the front and layer. Next, we need a little more background
Now we can add more elements on top. drag your next image on top on the base image. interest to flesh out the scene.

Using the same drag and drop technique, Click and hold your mouse over the layer Since each element is on a separate
04 05 06
we have added a set of standing stones containing the stones. You can actually drag layer, they can be edited and manipulated
that sit quite nicely in the background. There is one that layer so it sits underneath the layer containing independently of each other. For instance, the
problem however, the stones now appear to be the knight. Now, the image makes more sense with stones would look better if they were the other way
covering our foreground character. This is when our knight in the foreground and the stones behind around, so we flipped the layer horizontally for a
layers become so useful. him in the distance. better looking composition.

If you go to the layer options palette, you Since both the knight and the stones are One final addition for this example was a
07 08 09
can click on the Create A New Layer button Smart Objects, when you are happy with new layer named ‘mist’, which was placed
and then add a layer between the stones and the their final placement, orientation and size, you can between the knight and the stones. This layer of
base image called ‘shadows’. Here you can use a right-click on them, choose Rasterize Layer from mist contains a white to transparent graduation and
soft black brush to add some shadow to anchor the menu and convert them to normal pixel images then, to complete this dramatic composition, its
the stones to the ground more realistically. in each of their layers. Opacity was dropped to about 55%.

www.bdmpublications.com 39
 UNLEASH THE POWER YOUR FIRST CUT OUT

Your First
Cut Out
Learn how to cut out parts of one
image to use on another
I f we are talking about key skills that
make Photoshop the most popular photo
editing program around, then we have to
fingertips that can help make the process
less of a chore. We are going to take two
images and then cut out part of one and use
talk about the ability to cut out parts of it on the other. Yes, it’s a very simple tutorial,
one image and then use it as part of anther but it’s also very useful. This is a skill you will
image entirely. Cut outs are another staple of need to use a lot if you wish to create works
image enhancement and manipulation that of art involving multiple image sources. It’s
are essential skills to have. It is lucky for us not as daunting as you might imagine and we
that Photoshop has a number of tools at its can show you now.

BEFORE

AFTER

40 www.bdmpublications.com
 YOUR FIRST CUT OUT UNLEASH THE POWER

With Photoshop open, we have gone to We need to concentrate on the owl image You could choose the Lasso tool (L) and
01 02 03
File > Open and then navigated to a folder first since we want to remove it from its try to draw freehand around the outline
containing the two images we want to combine. It’s background. This image has one immediate benefit of the bird. This can be a time-consuming, tricky
a shot of an owl in flight along with a very moody in that the bird’s outline is quite well defined against and relatively inaccurate way to do it when there
sky we want to use as a backdrop. Select both and the darker colours of the forest behind it; useful are other tools available to you in Photoshop’s
then click on Open to get started. stuff to know. selection arsenal.

In this example, the Quick Selection tool Using a relatively small brush size, of about Once you have the owl selected, you can
04 05 06
(W) may be a better option. Select it from 9 pixels, start to click and drag the tool refine the selection still further using the
the toolbar and, in the tool options panel at the across the body of the owl. Take care not to stray Select and Mask tool. Click on it and use the Refine
top, make sure that Auto-Enhance is checked. outside the edges of the owl’s outline. The Quick Edge Brush tool (R) to brush over any areas that
This means that it will refine any selection you Selection tool will automatically start to make might be in need of some targeted refinement,
have made. selections as you go. such as the feathers on its tail.

If you’re happy with the refinement, click Now you can go to Edit > Paste (Cmd All we did next was to use the Lasso tool
07 08 09
OK to proceed and return to the main + V) and paste the cut out owl into this (L) to select the tips of the wings and the
image. You can now go to Edit > Copy (Cmd + C) document on its own layer, which is called ‘Layer talons. Then we went to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur
to copy all the pixels inside the selection area you 1’ by default. The owl can be moved, scaled and and added an Amount of about 3 to the Spin Blur
have created. You can then click on the document rotated, if you wish, until you have it how you want method. This added a small amount of blur to
tab of the other image to open it. it against the clouds background. suggest the bird’s wings were in motion.

www.bdmpublications.com 41
 UNLEASH THE POWER YOUR FIRST LAYER MASK

Your First
Layer Mask
An introduction to one of the key
ingredients of Photoshop work
P hotoshop’s use of layers is one of the
most important aspects of what makes
it is so versatile and enables the user to
can also be used, in conjunction with an
adjustment layer, to provide the same
function of hiding or revealing parts of the
unleash their full creativity. Once you include effect you’ve chosen. We are getting ahead
the ability to add masks to those layers, you of ourselves however. Let’s take a look at
have yet another very powerful tool that lets how you can use a simple mask to produce
you blend or hide parts of one image on a very cool effect. In this case, cover up part
a layer and control how they interact with of a base image and allow part of another
another. Masks are not only very useful in image to show through to transform the look
hiding or revealing parts of an image, they of the original.

BEFORE

AFTER

42 www.bdmpublications.com
 YOUR FIRST LAYER MASK UNLEASH THE POWER

We have opened an example image of We have another photo with a great sky Making the new layer invisible for a
01 02 03
the famous and iconic landmark, the that should work well with our original moment, we make the Background image
Matterhorn. Lovely image though it is, we want mountain image. We simply drag and drop the active by clicking its layer, then go over to the
to be able to replace the sky with something a sunset image onto the active document, which toolbar and choose the Quick Selection Tool (W).
little more exciting and masking is a method that then appears on its own layer. We then scale the This tool allows for simple area selection based on
allows us to do just that. image so the sky fills most of the frame. detecting contrasting edges.

Because the outline of the mountain against Make the top layer visible and active again Keeping the selection active, go down to
04 05 06
the featureless sky is very well defined, and you will notice your active selection that the layer options palette and choose Add
the Quick Selection Tool can easily select the sky encloses the sky area (indicated by the black and Layer Mask. When you do, a mask will be added
alone. All you do is click the tool on an area of sky lines known as marching ants) is now overlaid. We to the top layer in the shape of the selection you
and then slowly drag the cursor around the sky want to turn this area into a mask that hides the made. The area inside the selection is white, the
area, selecting more sky as you go. area outside the selection. area outside the selection is black.

Any white masked area allows that part of To view the mask on its own, hold the Alt To move the sky in the top layer around,
07 08 09
the layer be seen, whilst any black part of key on your keyboard and left-click on but keep the mask in the correct position,
the mask hides that part of the layer. The result is the mask itself. The Quick Selection Tool made you can click on the small Chain link icon between
that only the interesting sky area of the top layer is a decent job of discerning the edge between the the layer thumbnail and the layer mask thumbnail.
visible, while the featureless sky is hidden on the mountain and the featureless sky. Alt + left-click on This unlinks the image from the mask so either can
layer below. the mask to return to normal view. move without affecting the other.

www.bdmpublications.com 43
 UNLEASH THE POWER YOUR FIRST SET OF ADJUSTMENTS

Your First Set

of Adjustments
This is another key aspect of
non-destructive editing
W hat do we mean when we say non-
destructive? Well, in simple terms,
if you open a photo shot as a jpeg file and
make all your edits and enhancements
directly to the image itself, you will find that
unless you save the results as another jpeg
file, the original will be lost to you. You have
effectively overwritten the original with your
edited version and there is now no way to
retrieve it. Unless you specifically wanted
to only use the edited version from then
on, that could be a very annoying outcome.
This is where Photoshop’s use of layers
and adjustment layers comes in very handy.
Something simple like a boost to brightness
and contrast need not be applied to the
image itself. You can use an adjustment
layer to affect the image, which means if
you remove the adjustment layer, the image
returns to its previous state. Not only that,
once you use layers, you can save your
work as a PSD and create a document with
everything you’ve used also preserved. You
can go back into it at any time and make
further adjustments knowing that the base
original has not been affected.

BEFORE AFTER

44 www.bdmpublications.com
 YOUR FIRST SET OF ADJUSTMENTS UNLEASH THE POWER

Let’s take a fairly typical example as The image can remain as a locked If the Properties panel does not
01 02 03
our first step into adjustment layers. We Background layer. If you go to the Layer automatically appear, simply double-click
have a photograph of a blonde lady taken on an Options panel, click on the Create New Fill or the adjustment layer thumbnail (not the mask) and
overcast day. The image is a bit underexposed Adjustment Layer button and choose Brightness/ the properties panel will appear for that particular
and lacking any real punch and colour. That’s ok, Contrast from the list that appears. An adjustment adjustment; in this case, two sliders that control
we can use adjustment layers to help us. layer will now appear above your main image. Brightness and Contrast.

This image looks better after a +40 boost Click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Click on the middle slider and move it to the
04 05 06
to the Brightness along with a small -5 Layer again and choose Levels to add a left, all the middle tones will get lighter. You
adjustment to the Contrast. The problem is that Levels 1 adjustment above Brightness/Contrast can also move the Black Point slider below slightly
the darkest areas still look too black with not much 1. Levels gives you more control, of any shadows, to the right, to remap solid black to progressively
visible detail. There is another adjustment that can midtones and highlights in the image, than lighter tones. The darker areas should now show
help out in this case. Brightness and Contrast alone can offer. more detail.

Now we can address the colour in the How much you decide to boost saturation You aren’t limited to standard adjustments
07 08 09
image. At the moment, all the colours look is purely down to personal taste. In this either. If you wish, you can experiment with
a little subdued. We can boost the vibrancy of the case, the Hue has a +5 adjustment, Saturation is Things like Gradient Map. This uses two colours
image with another adjustment layer. This time, +49 and Lightness +6. Because these adjustments initially, to replace the lightest and darkest tones
choose Hue/Saturation and add that to the top of are all on layers, they can be modified or removed in the photo. In this case dark purple blends into
the growing layer stack. at any time with no issue. bright orange.

www.bdmpublications.com 45
 Photoshop
Creative Zone
As per the last issue, here is a section to get your
creative mind into gear. Examples like these are
the next step in your evolution as a digital artist
and master manipulator is to take on some new
projects and really let your digital creativity loose.

Contents
48 Create a neon sign
54 Double exposure effect
62 Collodion portraits
68 Cartoonize your photos

46 www.bdmpublications.com
PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

www.bdmpublications.com 47
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CREATE A NEON SIGN

AFTER

Create
a Neon
Sign
BEFORE

Transform plain text into

eye-catching lights
N othing is quite as eye-catching as a neon sign. If you've ever been
around a metropolitan area after dark, you have no doubt been
bombarded with any number of high visibility signs in a host of gaudy
and in graphic
design in
different forms.
colours selling their wares. Although LED signs and even large digital Whether you want a
displays are now very commonplace, there is something about a glass realistic neon sign or more of a graphic
tube filled with gas, stimulated by an electrical current that can still representation, we have a fun guide that can show you
command your attention. That effect certainly carries over onto the web the basics of getting a good neon glow on the go.

48 www.bdmpublications.com
 CREATE A NEON SIGN PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Our example image is perfect for our neon effect. For your information, We start by going to the toolbar and selecting the Horizontal Type Tool
01 02
we are working in Essentials workspace. The image is 5000 pixels (T). Up in the Tool Options panel, you can select a typeface you think
square. All the settings we are going to use are based on this image size. If is suitable for being converted into neon. We are using a font called Beon,
you're using a different size image, you may need to alter yours accordingly. which is styled to look a bit like neon signage.

If you click the text colour swatch on the right of the Tool Options, Now you can simply click on your document and Photoshop
03 04
you can use the Color Picker (Text Color) to select a base colour for automatically places some default text on a new layer for you. Select
your text. We have gone for a bright blue, which should stand out against the the text and type the word NEON, or whatever text you want the sign to read.
darker brickwork. Click OK when you have a colour you like. If you press Cmd + T, you can scale the text to whatever size you want.

Now we have to create our neon effect. With the text layer active, We need to add some basic structure to the text. Under the Structure
05 06
if you double-click it, you can call up the Layer Style menu. We will panel, choose Style: Pillow Emboss, Technique: Smooth, Depth
use this exclusively to make the neon effect. Start by checking the Bevel & 250%. Direction is Up, Size is 90 pixels and Soften is 15 pixels. The small
Emboss box; now for some layer style magic. preview on the right shows you've added some basic glow to the text.

www.bdmpublications.com 49
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CREATE A NEON SIGN

Below Structure is the Shading panel. Make the Angle and Altitude 0°, Next, click on the Contour button out in the Styles list to activate it.
07 08
Gloss Contour is Cove - Deep, selected by clicking the small arrow to Under Elements, make the Contour Cove - Deep again and set its
the right of the current contour shown. Highlight Mode should be Overlay white Range to 100%. The effect is subtle, but it makes the lettering more rounded
with 100% Opacity and Shadow Mode should be 0% Opacity. and three-dimensional.

Back in the Style listing on the left of the panel, check the Stroke Fill Type is more involved, click on the Gradient to open the Gradient
09 10
button. This is probably the main one to really get this effect working. Editor. The Gradient Type colours need editing. Note that above the
Under Stroke > Structure, make the Size 53 pixels, Position is Centre, Blend Gradient Preview you have what are called Opacity Stops and below it are
Mode is Screen and Opacity is 100%. Check the Overprint box. Color Stops. Click the left-hand Opacity Stop and make its Opacity 0%

Click the far-right Color Stop and under Color use the Color Picker In our case, the two new middle Color Stops are our blue text colour.
11 12
to make the right-hand colour a bright blue, like your text. Then click Click each Color Stop and change it to a much darker blue using the
midway along the gradient preview twice to add two more Color Stops. They Color Picker again. Now, you need to add two Opacity Stops directly above
will use whatever is currently set as your foreground colour. each of the two new Color Stops you've just added.

50 www.bdmpublications.com
 CREATE A NEON SIGN PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Make the Opacity of the middle left stop 0% and the Opacity of the Click on the Style button and change the style to Shape Burst. You should
13 14
middle right stop 100%. The Gradient Type preview should now now have what looks more recognisable as a neon glow effect. Keep
run from transparent, quickly fade up to 100% of the darker blue and then the Layer Style panel open as we have one more tweak to finish the effect. Now
smoothly fade into the lighter blue on the far right of the preview. check the Outer Glow button in the Styles list on the left of the panel.

Under Structure make the Blend Mode: Overlay, Opacity is 100% and You should now have an effect that turns your text into a reasonable
15 16
Noise is 0%. Make the Glow Colour the light blue used for your text. facsimile of a neon tube. You may find that thinner fonts may work
Keep the Gradient button unchecked. Under Elements make the Technique: better than wide, heavy fonts, but you are free to use whatever you think suits
Softer, Spread 4% and Size 250 pixels. Quality can be left as is. your project.

If you look at your layer palette, you should see that your neon text If it isn't already, click the neon text layer to make it active and press
17 18
layer now has the effects and styles you've just created added to it as Cmd + J to duplicate it. You can scale this copy and edit the text to
a small list. You can double-click these any time to go back in and alter the type a new word. We have simply typed 'effect' and placed the smaller text
values if you feel they are in need of tweaking. below the main neon sign. We have a few final additions to finish it off.

www.bdmpublications.com 51
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CREATE A NEON SIGN

Go to the Layer options panel and choose Create A New Layer. Name Make sure your foreground colour is the same light blue you've been
19 20
this new layer 'glow' and make sure it sits above your background using and paint a stroke that covers the large main lettering. Then
image but below your two text layers. Go to the toolbar, select the Brush Tool reduce the brush size by pressing the minus (-) key to about 500 pixels and
(B), and choose a large, soft brush of about 1200 pixels. paint another stroke to cover the smaller lettering.

Now set the 'glow' layer Blend Mode to Overlay and the blue brush Keep the 'glow' layer active and click the Add Layer Mask button.
21 22
strokes are blended into the brickwork, adding to the glow effect Click the layer mask to make sure it is active and then use a black
we've made so far. It also adds more bluish light to the man's face, but we brush of about 250 pixels and paint on the mask. Brush along the right side
want to limit the glow to just the left side of his face. of his face to remove the bright blue cast.

The next step is optional, but it helps to finish off the effect. Add a Under Structure, make Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth and
23 24
new layer called 'wires' and make sure it sits between the background Depth 90 pixels. Direction is Up, Size is 20 pixels and Soften is 15
layer and the 'glow' layer. Double-click this layer to activate the Layer Styles pixels. Under Shading, the Angle is 90° and Altitude is 30°. Highlight Mode is
panel again and check the Bevel & Emboss button. Normal White at 100% Opacity. Shadow Mode is 0% Opacity.

52 www.bdmpublications.com
 CREATE A NEON SIGN PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Now check the Drop Shadow button in the Styles list and under Now click your foreground colour swatch and choose a dark grey
25 26
Structure, make the Blend Mode Multiply and the Colour black. from the Color Picker. Go to the toolbar and choose the Brush Tool
Opacity can be about 85% and Angle is 54°. Distance is 0 pixels, Spread (B) and select a Hard Round brush of about 20 pixels. We are going to use this
15% and Size is 25 pixels. Quality can be left at its defaults. colour brush to add some wires that snake between the lettering.

Keep the 'wires' layer active. Now you can start painting wires that join
27
up the parts of the neon lettering. Note that as you add brush marks,
they are embossed with a small shadow under them as defined by the Layer
Style you added. With that, your neon signage is complete.

You’re good
to glow!
A bright idea for eye-catching lettering.

www.bdmpublications.com 53
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT

AFTER

Double
Exposure BEFORE

Effect
A Photoshop makeover of a
classic technique
D ouble or multiple exposure photography is another reference to the
more traditional methods of image capture where a photographer
would expose one frame of film more than once to achieve a surreal look
These days, of
course, we can
explore the creative
in the final image. A downside to this method was that you could never aspects of combining multiple images on
be certain of what effect you were actually achieving until the negative our computers with effects that can be edited and adapted
was developed and a print was made in the darkroom. An alternative precisely to suit our needs. For our example, we are going to combine a
method was to stack two negatives in the enlarger at the printing stage. graphic image of a woman and a city street.

54 www.bdmpublications.com
 DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

For this tutorial example, we are going to need base images to blend These example images have been chosen because they have specific
01 02
together. Go to File > Open (Cmd + O) and navigate to the folder that properties that work well for a double exposure effect. The street photo,
contains your own images. We have a profile shot of a woman and a sunlit in particular, is a staple of this technique. The two rows of buildings with the
street scene. We selected both and pressed Open to continue. gap down the middle will be quite effective. Read on to see how it works.

Our example image of the woman is 3333 pixels wide by 5000 pixels high. This figure has a grey background. For the double exposure technique
03 04
Any settings and brush sizes used are based on an image of this size. If to look its best, the figure needs cutting out so it is on a plain white
you are working with different sized images, then you may find that you need to background. Luckily, of course, Photoshop comes armed with several tools to
alter your settings and sizes to match the mage size. help us achieve this.

www.bdmpublications.com 55
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT

Go to the toolbar on the left of your screen and choose the Quick Selection As a side note, you can see that the Tool Options panel also has a button
05 06
Tool (W). With the Quick Selection Tool active, the Tool Options panel called Select Subject. This is an automated version of what we are about
above displays options for altering its parameters. Choose a brush of about 20 to do next. We are doing it manually as we would always recommend that you
pixels in size and check the Add To Selection and Auto Enhance buttons. give yourself the chance to get more 'hands-on' with Photoshop's tools.

The tool works by detecting contrasting edges in your image. The more Now start to drag the brush tip up slowly along her hair. The tool begins
07 08
contrast your subject has against its background, the easier the tool will selecting areas it thinks are similar. Keep the brush within the confines
find it to detect them. Start by clicking and holding the Quick Selection Tool brush of the figure's outline. Don't worry if the selection is not super-accurate. This
on the tip of her ponytail. can be improved later on in the process.

56 www.bdmpublications.com
 DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Continue to work your way around the figure. If the selection starts Click the Quick Selection Tool on an area you want to remove and start
09 10
outside the outline of the figure, don't worry, you can simply go to the to drag the tool over the overspill areas slowly. As an example, the small
Tool Options panel above and click on the Subtract Selection button or hold area between her hands and her arm needs removing. Click on it, and the tool
the Alt key. You can now remove any overspill. removes that area from the active selection.

Once you have the figure selected, click on the Select and Mask button. Use this Refine Edge Tool to brush over any areas that need refining.
11 12
This opens the various tools you can use to refine the edges of the active The edges of the hair are the most obvious. The more you brush over
selection. Make sure you have the Refine Edge Tool (R) selected and choose a those areas, the better the refinement of those edges becomes. You can
small brush of about 50 pixels. usually keep the brush properties at their defaults for this.

www.bdmpublications.com 57
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT

Once you have refined the selection to your satisfaction, you can simply Make sure the selection is active, go to the Layer options panel and
13 14
click OK and return to your main document. The selection is now much then click on the Add A Mask button. A mask is added to the image,
more accurate and we can use it to remove that intrusive grey background which is now on a layer. Any area outside the selection is coloured black, which
before we move on. effectively conceals the grey background.

Next, we need to make a new layer. Go to the Layer options panel again Keep the 'base' layer active and go to Edit > Fill (Shift + F5), choose
15 16
and click the Create A New Layer button. Name this new layer 'base' and White as your fill colour and click OK. The 'base' layer is filled with
then click and drag it, so it sits beneath the layer containing the masked figure. white, so our figure now sits atop a nice plain background. Next, click the
You might as well name that layer 'figure' for the sake of good housekeeping. 'figure' layer to make it active.

Go back down to the Layer options panel and click the Create New Fill Or In the Properties panel for the levels adjustment, you can drag the
17 18
Adjustment Layer button. Choose Levels from the menu that appears. A highlights slider towards the middle of the histogram to increase the
new 'Levels 1' adjustment layer is created above the 'figure' layer. We are going contrast. Then go back to the Layer options panel and click the Create New Fill
to use this adjustment to add a little more contrast to the image. Or Adjustment Layer button again and choose Black & White from the menu.

58 www.bdmpublications.com
 DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

A 'Black & White 1' adjustment layer is added to the top of the At this point, we have our figure removed from its background, converted
19 20
layer stack, converting the image to monochrome. If you want, you to black and white and the contrast increased, ready for the next stage of
can move the various colour sliders or click on one of the Presets to affect the technique. This is where the second image we opened comes into play for the
changes to the contrast and grey tones in the image. double exposure effect.

Click on the document tab of the other image to view it. Press Cmd + A to Keep the 'street' layer active and change the Blend Mode of this layer
21 22
select the entire image. Press Cmd + C to copy all the pixels to the clipboard to Screen. You'll see how the image changes. The darker areas of the
and then return to your other active document. Press Cmd + V to paste the image street image only appear when it is in combination with any dark areas of the
into your document. Make sure it is at the top of the stack and name it 'street'. 'figure' layer below it. This is the key to a double exposure effect.

Any bright areas of the 'street' layer now appear to punch a hole in After a bit of trial and error, we have arrived at a good composition. At
23 24
the image of the figure below it. You can now press Cmd + T to scale, this point, the edges of the street image are quite visible, particularly
rotate and move the image of the street until you get a combination of the across her shoulder and arms. That is easy to remedy, but first, we need to
two images that looks good to you. convert this image to black and white too.

www.bdmpublications.com 59
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT

Add a new 'Black & White 2' adjustment layer above the 'street' layer. In many cases, a double exposure effect like this is done primarily in
25 26
We want to make sure that this adjustment only affects the 'street' layer, black and white, but what happens if you wanted to bring some colour
so right-click it and choose Create Clipping Mask from the menu that appears. back into it? That is quite easy to do. Make sure your foreground colour is set
A small arrow, pointing down at the 'street' layer, tells you it is clipped. as black and then pick a large, soft brush of about 1500 pixels.

The 'Black & White 2' layer has a mask that you can click on to make it We just revealed a small amount of the yellow sunlit area of the street image to
27 28
active and then use your large, black brush to paint on that mask. Each add some warmth to it. Make the 'street' layer active and click the Add Layer
dab of black hides that part of the black and white adjustment you applied. Mask button. This adds a mask to the street image so you can use a large, soft, black
Colour starts to reappear with each stroke. brush on this mask to conceal any of the unwanted edges of the street.

We've used the black brush on the 'street' layer mask to blend out the In the same way we allowed colour back into the image of the street,
29 30
edges of the street image along the left edge of the figure's ponytail. we can do the same with the image of the girl, if you want. Click on
We've also masked the area around their face so it can now be seen. Finally, the 'Black & White 1' adjustment layer to make it active and use the large,
we masked the cobbled area so it blends into her shoulder and arm. black brush to conceal its effect in certain areas.

60 www.bdmpublications.com
 DOUBLE EXPOSURE EFFECT PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

As you brush on the 'Black& White 1' layer mask, its effect is concealed With those tweaks in place, the double exposure effect is complete. These
31 32
and the original colour of the figure is revealed again. We brought her kinds of images are often used as movie posters and can sometimes
face back to its original colour along with her shoulder and hands. This part of convey a sense of a memory revisited. In this case, perhaps our main character is
the process is purely optional, as is revealing colour in the street image too. remembering a happy time spent walking down a sunlit street as a child.

Are you
seeing double?
A traditional effect with a digital twist.

www.bdmpublications.com 61
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE COLLODION PORTRAITS

AFTER

Collodion BEFORE

Portraits
Mimic an old wet plate photographic
process for unique portraits
W hen photography was in its infancy, the method by
which images were captured was complex, time-
consuming and involved a lot of brittle materials and harsh
equipment and process using
the old wet plate techniques. Some use
a digital approach using Photoshop. Safe to say this is only
chemicals. That said, some early wet plate images are an approximation of the result you would get if you did it
amazing to behold even now. So great is the lasting impact for real but since not everyone has access to old bellows
of these early photographs that photographers today actively cameras, darkrooms, plates and chemicals, here is our
seek out ways to replicate the look. Some actually use the old version of the classic effect given a Photoshop twist.

62 www.bdmpublications.com
 COLLODION PORTRAITS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Let’s start off with a suitable head and shoulders portrait as typified The first step is to sharpen the image. Up in the File menu, go to Filter
01 02
by so many classic portraits done in this style. This example is > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and set your Amount to about 200 per
a portrait of Courtney. It is 2667 pixels wide by 4000 pixels deep. The cent, Radius to 1px and click OK when you are ready to proceed. Try to avoid
settings are based on an image this size. too much over sharpening.

Press Cmd + J to create a duplicate layer of this image and name it With the ‘blur’ layer active, Click on the Add Layer Mask button at the
03 04
‘blur’. With the new layer active, go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and bottom of the layers palette. A layer mask will be added to the blurred
make your Radius 60 and Noise 2. Lens Blur is a more photographic-looking portrait. We now want to combine both the blurred and sharp layers to create
blur method. Click OK and the blur will be applied. a suitable blend of the two to make the effect work.

www.bdmpublications.com 63
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE COLLODION PORTRAITS

Wet plate photographs are characterised by their very shallow depth Once you’re happy with that, go to your toolbar and select the Brush
05 06
of field from the wide aperture the cameras typically used. Normally, Tool. Make sure your foreground colour is set as black. You can press
just the eyes and some of the facial features are the only things in sharp D to default the colours to black and white and press X to toggle which is the
focus. This is what we are trying to emulate. foreground colour.

Click the ‘blur’ layer mask thumbnail to make it active and use a large, With each click of the brush, you will see more and more of the
07 08
soft, black brush with its Opacity set at 50 per cent and begin painting sharp layer below starting to show through. When you are done,
in the eyes, nose and mouth of Courtney’s face. Make sure it is the mask and you should have a shallow depth of field effect with just the eyes and the
not the actual layer thumbnail you make active. face in focus.

You can make the top ‘blur’ image softer by putting an elliptical Next, click on the Adjustment Layer button and select Channel Mixer
09 10
marquee (M) around the face, inverting the selection (Shift + Cmd from the dropdown menu. Make sure the new Adjustment Layer is at
+ I), feathering the selection by about 200 pixels and then using Gaussian the top of your layer stack. Click on it to make it active if it isn’t already. We
Blur with a Radius of about 20-30 pixels. will make some key colour adjustments.

64 www.bdmpublications.com
 COLLODION PORTRAITS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

From the Channel Mixer Properties panel, make sure the Monochrome This kind of portrait requires that the RGB sliders are adjusted in such
11 12
button is checked. Now you need to adjust the Red, Green and Blue a way to bring out texture in the skin. This image requires the sliders
sliders to alter the balance of monochrome tones in the image and give it a be set at Red -24 per cent, Green -42 per cent, Blue +166 per cent and
more authentic wet plate look. Constant at +4 per cent.

Add a Levels Adjustment layer and adjust the Output Levels of Black Now you can add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer. Make the filter
13 14
to 10 and keep White at 255 to reduce overall contrast slightly, and colour Warming (85) or Sepia. Make the Density about 30 per cent
brighten the darkest parts of the image by a small amount. Mid-tone and and make sure the Preserve Luminosity button is checked. This gives the
Highlight sliders can be tweaked too. image quite an antique feel.

At the moment the image looks too new and not authentically old. We For this example, we went to File > Open (Cmd + O) and browsed
15 16
need to add some effects to give it a distressed feel. The old wet plate for the location of a couple of images that can add the authentic
process also had an inherent amount of dust and scratches involved, which distressed look. There are two examples called ‘scratches’ and ‘streaks’
we can add next. created using an old but free version of Nik Collection.

www.bdmpublications.com 65
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE COLLODION PORTRAITS

We start with the ‘scratches’ image. Press Cmd + A to select the With the new ‘scratches’ layer active, go to the Blend Mode button
17 18
image and then press Cmd + C to copy it to your clipboard. Click and set this layer’s blend to Multiply. The ’scratches’ layer will now
back on your document and press Cmd + V to paste it on a new layer blend into the layers below giving a much more authentic, analog and aged
which you can call ‘scratches’. feel to the image.

Go to the ’streaks’ image and copy and paste this one into your We are close to finishing the image now. Make the Opacity of both
19 20
wet plate portrait document. This time, set the ’streaks’ layer Blend the ‘scratches’ and ’streaks’ layers about 55 per cent. This will ensure
Mode to Darken to add more imperfections to the image and enhance the they don’t dominate the image too much but add to the overall effect of an
wet plate look. old style wet plate image.

66 www.bdmpublications.com
 COLLODION PORTRAITS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

If you feel it needs it, you can add another Levels Adjustment to
21
brighten the image. There is your final image. A classic photographic
process has been given a modern digital update.

Create eye-catching
portraits
A classic look achieved with digital techniques.

www.bdmpublications.com 67
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS

Cartoonize
Your Photos

AFTER

BEFORE

Turn a photo into a panel from a

cartoon or graphic novel
I t’s a popular trend at the moment to be able to turn a
picture of yourself, a friend, or loved one into a cartoon
that you can use as an avatar on social media sites
also a varied number of methods to
achieve a cartoon style. We have a
tutorial that can cartoonize a portrait,
etc. There are plenty of tutorials out there that cover producing a result that has a graphic
all aspects of the process, however, some can be very novel feel to it, without the need for
involved and require digital painting and illustration a lot of illustrative technique. Here’s
skills in both Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. There are how to do it.

68 www.bdmpublications.com
 CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

We have chosen an example portrait of a very fierce-looking tiger in a Our example image for this tutorial is 2667 pixels wide by 4000 pixels
01 02
snowy environment. The lighting in this shot is sufficiently bright and deep and our settings to achieve the cartoon effect are based on this
simple with plenty of contrast and texture and therefore should convert well image size. Be aware, if you’re using a different size image, your settings will
into our comic book style. need to account for this.

This technique is quite straightforward and only requires a couple of Make sure that the ‘outline’ layer is currently active then go to the
03 04
new layers. Start by pressing Cmd + J to duplicate the background File menu and choose Filter > Filter Gallery. You are looking for the
layer and create a new version that sits above the original background. Call Artistic section in the right hand panel and in this subfolder is an effect
this new layer ‘outline’. called Poster Edges.

Click on the Poster Edges icon and set Edge Thickness to 10, Edge Now we have to turn it into a more simplistic black outline image. To
05 06
Intensity to 4 and Posterization to 0. The image will update in real do this, go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold. The image will be
time to show you how it looks with those settings, it will now also have black converted into a bitmap comprised purely of black or white. Now it is starting
outlines. Click OK when ready. to look much more graphic.

www.bdmpublications.com 69
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS

Push the Threshold Level slider to the left. As you do, more and more If you wish, you can take a small white brush and paint out any area
07 08
of the image will be removed as it brightens to white, we opted for of black detail that you feel is too intrusive on your image. We painted
a Threshold Level setting of 56. Now our portrait is looking more like an ink out the background and some areas on the tiger’s chest and head to further
outline drawing. simplify it.

At this stage of the process, you may notice that the outline of the Settings are based on personal taste, but we settled with Stylization
09 10
subject is a little ragged from the bitmap conversion, that’s not a 10.0 and Cleanliness 4.0 while Shine needs to be 0.0. Scale and
problem, we can smooth it out by going to the File menu and choosing Filter Bristle Detail are both 10.0. As a result, the outlines are smoother, like brush
> Stylize > Oil Paint. or pen strokes. When you’re happy, click OK to apply the effect.

70 www.bdmpublications.com
 CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

Click back on the Background layer and press Cmd + J again, to Make sure that the ‘colour’ layer is active then go to the File menu and
11 12
create another duplicate that sits below the ‘outline’ layer then call this choose Filter > Filter Gallery once more before choosing the Poster
layer ‘colour’. For the moment, you can turn off the ‘outline’ layer’s visibility so Edges effect again. This time set Edge Thickness to 0, Edge Intensity to 0
we can work on the layer below. and Posterization to 0.

Now, the copy of the image on the ‘colour’ layer has had the number Next, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Cmd + L) and pull the
13 14
of colours that are used in the photo reduced to give a more toonish Shadows Output Levels slider slightly to the right to reduce the
quality. We can enhance that still further in the next step. Click OK to apply contrast and lighten the image a little. Click OK to continue when you are
the Poster Edges effect. happy with the adjustments.

www.bdmpublications.com 71
 PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS

Next, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Cmd +U) and Now we need to soften the colour image a little. Go to Filter > Stylize
15 16
push the Saturation slider right, to about +49 this will add a lot of > Oil Paint and this time make the Stylization, Cleanliness, Scale and
vibrancy to the image while making the colours purer and brighter. Click OK Bristle Detail all 10.0 and set Shine at 0.0. This creates a brushed feel to the
to apply the saturation. image while remaining quite graphic. Click OK when ready.

Back in the layers palette, turn on the visibility of your ‘outline’ layer The next step is purely optional, but if you want to you can adjust
17 18
and then set its blend Mode to Multiply. When you do, the black the brightness and contrast of the image a lot more to enhance the
outline blends with the colour image below, the white areas disappear and cartoon feel. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer button and choose
your cartoon character appears. Levels from the menu.

72 www.bdmpublications.com
 CARTOONIZE YOUR PHOTOS PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE

A new adjustment layer called ‘Levels 1’ will be added, make sure it After just a few simple steps, your cartoon image is completed. Your
19 20
is at the top of the layer stack. If you pull the Shadows and Highlights photo has been transformed and you now have a character that is
sliders towards the centre of the histogram, you will add contrast and a little ready to take its place in a graphic novel, cartoon strip, or just as a simple
more punch to the image. toon avatar.

Cartoon capers in
Photoshop
A great idea for graphic portraits and toon characters.

www.bdmpublications.com 73
 Exploring
Lightroom
We continue with our section covering more
about digital image processing using Lightroom.
When it comes to the processing of digital images
from your DSLR, Lightroom is unparalleled in term
of the tools available to you to get the very best
out of your images. Let’s kick of with what’s new
in Lightroom for 2022.

Contents
76 Color grading 81 Radial gradient
76 Customize metadata 82 Color range
77 Additional library filters / New Presets 82 Luminance range
78 Masking 83 Depth range
79 Select subject (simple) 83 Intersect
79 Select subject (complex) 84 Exploring the workspace
80 Select sky / Brush 86 Importing photos for the first time
81 Linear gradient 88 Fix photos with quick develop

74 www.bdmpublications.com
EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

www.bdmpublications.com 75
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM WHAT’S NEW?

1 Color Grading 2 Customize Metadata

Color Grading is one of the adjustment tools found in the In photography, metadata is a piece of information that is
Develop Module. It is a graphical user interface replacement generated by your camera and is appended to your image
of the Split Toning panel. It works in the same way by file. The data this information contains tells you everything
letting you adjust the hue and saturation in the highlights you need to know about that image. It tells you when it was
or shadows of your image, but the methods by which you shot, what camera took the image and what lens was used.
interact with it have been updated. Rather than using a series Important technical aspects such as ISO sensitivity, shutter
of sliders for highlights and shadows, you now click and speed, aperture and lens focal length are included. It goes
drag your cursor over a series of colour wheels. Now you are far beyond that too. It can contain keywords, copyright
able to alter not only highlights and shadows, but also the information and even GPS co-ordinates if your device is
mid-tones too. You just choose the corresponding colour suitably equipped. Until recently, when you processed your
wheel and drag your cursor over it. As you do, the colour images and saved them as other formats such as Jpeg or
selected will be injected into the image, creating a colour Tiff, you had just a few choices as to what aspects of the full
cast. Dragging the cursor towards the centre of the wheel range of original metadata could be saved to your resulting
decreases saturation, closer to the edge and the saturation photo. Now, however, you can click on the Customise button
increases. The slider below each wheel lets you control its for a single image or a whole batch and decide for yourself
luminance and the Blending and Balance sliders also control precisely what metadata is allowed to been seen and what
how dominant that colour is in relation to the others. When is not. There are a lot of tick boxes to choose, but you can
you click on the colour wheel, if you hold the Shift key, you tailor it exactly to how you want it. As an example here,
can constrain the choice to Saturation only, if you click on the we've simply added more camera settings data to what had
wheel and then hold the Cmd key, you can constrain it to Hue previously been set.
selection only.

76 www.bdmpublications.com
 WHAT’S NEW? EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

3 Additional Library Filters

When you are working in the Library

Module, you can go to the top right part of
the thumbnail grid and click on the Filters
Off button and choose what filters you
can employ to help you search for your
images. Until recently, the search by Date
filter only gave you the option to search
by year. That meant that if you have taken
many images in one particular year of your
search, you will still have a lot to go through to
find what you are looking for. Now though, you al so have
the newer filter options of both Month and Day. If you have
a set of images you know were taken on the 21st August in
2020, then your filtering options have become much more
focussed, letting you get to your photos just a bit quicker.

4 New Presets

Presets are a set of ready-made adjustments

that you can apply to your images with just
one click. Lightroom has a growing number
of presets available for free and the most
recent update to 2022 saw a few more
being added to the roster. Presets are
accessed from the left-hand panel when
in the Develop Module. Simply click on
the Presets tab to expand the list of current
choices. Most notable additions are: Futuristic,
Urban Architecture Cinematic II and Travel II. As you scroll
over each preset, you will see a real-time preview of each
one. When you are happy with your selection, click the
chosen preset to apply its adjustments to your image and
you are free to carry on with more edits.

www.bdmpublications.com 77
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM WHAT’S NEW?

5 Masking

The main update that sets this

most recent version of Lightroom
Classic and Lightroom is the Lightroom Classic previous version
Masking toolset. Previous
versions of Lightroom had a
set of editing tools that could The Graduated Filter, Radial Filter and Adjustment Brush are now
be found next to the histogram found under the Masking feature along with the other Masking tools.
in the top right corner of the Note their name changes. Other than that, they work the same.
Develop workspace. Those tools
are still in that location, but they
have altered slightly. Until the 2022 update, Lightroom Classic 2022
they were: Crop Overlay, Spot Removal, Red
Eye Correction, Graduated Filter, Radial Filter
and Adjustment Brush. Now, you'll find it runs:
Crop Overlay, Spot Removal, Red Eye Correction
and Masking. It is the Masking feature that is
the latest and greatest addition to Lightroom's
arsenal. Although the Graduated and Radial
filters appear to have gone, don't worry. They
are now located within the Masking tool. Any
images you edited using brush adjustments,
graduation and radial filters prior to the 2022
update are still intact. If you open the Masking
option and look at the small layer palette that
appears, all your edits will still be there. Masking
also contains a number of new and powerful
features that give you new and creative ways to
select and mask areas of your photos for much
greater adjustment control. Bear in mind that
although there may be some graphical user
interface design differences, the Masking tools
available in Lightroom Classic are the same as
can be found in the mobile version of Lightroom.
The mobile version of Lightroom has undergone the same update, but just like Lightroom Classic, the Graduated Filter, Radial
Filter and Adjustment Brush have been relocated and amalgamated under the new Masking tool.

Lightroom previous version Lightroom 2022

Images edited in older versions of Lightroom have all their masking data kept intact when opening them in the 2022 version.

78 www.bdmpublications.com
 WHAT’S NEW? EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

6 Select Subject (simple)

If you open an image with no

previous edits and click the Masking
button, a panel will appear
beneath it listing the Add New
Mask options. At the top of the list
is Select Subject. Click its button
and Lightroom will automatically
scan your image and apply a mask
to what it considers the main part of
the image. Obviously, how well it selects
its subject is going to based on the content of the
image. A very complex photo with an abundance
(or lack) of detail is going to confuse the AI when
making its choices. This example is of a portrait of
a woman against a plain background. Relatively
easy for the AI to mask. When the mask has been
created, a layer panel appears which lists the masks
currently active in your photo and what kind of
mask it is. A colour overlay is applied by default
to indicate it is ready for adjustments to be made,
you can change what kind of overlay you want if
required. If at this point, these features look familiar,
then you are correct. Lightroom's Masking feature
is derived from the Photoshop AI that does the
same tasks. If you click the Subject 1 menu button
(the three small dots), you have some options that
allow you to affect the mask in certain ways. In this
case, we simply clicked Invert. Now the background
of the image has been selected. With any active
mask, you can use its adjustments panel to alter its
temperature, exposure, contrast etc.

7 Select Subject (complex)

The previous example was quite

simple in terms of masking. This
next one is a little more complex.
We have a toucan on a brach
with a leafy background that
we want to adjust. We clicked
Select Subject and a mask was
created. It made quite a good job
of it. Various adjustments were made
to the bird's exposure to reveal a bit
more detail. What happens if you want to alter the
background? Since our bird already has a good
mask, we can actually click on its Mask 1 icon in the
layer panel and choose the Duplicate option. The
duplicate is renamed Background and is inverted.
Any adjustments made to this mask means that only
the background is affected. The green background is
adjusted to a new colour, but as you see, the branch
is also colour-shifted too. Below the mask layers are
two buttons. One is Add and the other is Subtract.
These two buttons let you add or subtract masking
information to the chosen layer using any of the
masking options such as the Linear Gradient, Radial
Gradient and Brush etc. In this case, we are going to
use the Brush tool to subtract some of the mask from
the Background layer. A New Brush layer is added
to the layer stack under Background. Now you can
use a brush to paint over the branch and erase any
mask data to reveal the original branch colour. All the
masking options can be used in conjunction with one
another for complex masking shapes.

www.bdmpublications.com 79
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM WHAT’S NEW?

8 Select Sky 9 Brush

As with Select Subject, Select Sky does As mentioned before, adjustments made
what it says on the tin. When you choose using the brush feature pre-2022 and
this option, the AI will scan your image now in the current version, remain the
for an obvious horizon line and attempt same basic procedure. You just need
to mask out the sky. As before, the to open the Masking tool in order to
complexity and detail present in the find the Adjustment Brush option. By
image will determine how good a mask default, when you apply an adjustment
you get. If there is plenty of blue sky in with the brush, there is no effect other
the shot, you should get a decent mask. If than activating the colour overlay so you
you have a busy horizon line with not much know where you're painting. You can begin
contrast, the AI will struggle, so be aware. In our example, to dial in your adjustments after. Note that as soon as you
after clicking the Select Sky button, it takes a moment add any adjustment, the colour overlay is turned off so
and then masks the image. The far horizon, which is misty, you can see the effect you're having on your image. When
gave it some work to do, but it feathered the mask and the Brush tool is active, note that you have Brush settings
decreased opacity there in order for it to blend a little available that govern the size, softness and density of the
better into the ground. Some colour adjustments to alter mask you're applying. These can be easily adjusted using
the sky to a warmer colour were added and the overall the sliders. You also have the option to use the Auto Mask
effect is quite pleasing. As with any masks created by the feature. When turned on, as you brush over the image, it will
Masking feature, you can go in and edit the masks to your look for obvious changes in contrast that might indicate an
heart's content. edge and attempt to mask up to the edge. Turn this off if
you don't need it to refine the brush strokes you're making.
Add adjustments to the brush mask as necessary. Remember
that this mask, like all the others can be edited, added to,
removed from, and intersected with, the other masking
options available.

80 www.bdmpublications.com
 WHAT’S NEW? EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

10 Linear Gradient 11 Radial Gradient

This masking option allows you to create Instead of a gradient that runs in a straight
a gradient on your image that runs from line, the Radial Gradient emanates
100% of its adjustment visible, down to 0% outward from a central point in a circular
of its effect. The effect runs in a straight or oval shape. The adjustments visible can
line. It can be vertical, horizontal, or at any be strongest at its centre and fade to zero
angle you choose. A Linear Gradient is most at its outside edge, or be inverted so all of
often used to simulate a graduated filter used the effect outside the outer edge of the radius
on a digital camera to help darken an overly bright sky in is seen at 100% and fades to zero at its centre. In the case of
comparison to the ground. Our example does such a thing our example, we dragged a Radial Gradient from the centre
with the gradient being dragged down from the top of the of the girl's face outwards past her hair. at its centre, the
image. The colour overlay shows you the extent of the grad effect was zero, but at the outer edge, the drop in Exposure
you've created. It can be tweaked any time. Then, you can of -3.33 was at 100% visibility. All the other masking types
make your adjustments as you see fit. Altering colour and can be brought to bear on the mask in the form of additions,
exposure are common adjustments to skies in photos. Again, subtractions and intersections. Also bear in mind that since
any of the other masking types can be used in conjunction the mask has control points, you are able to go back in at any
with this mask to finesse the gradient's effect. time and move the mask, scale it and alter the effect you've
created with ease.

www.bdmpublications.com 81
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM WHAT’S NEW?

12 Color Range 13 Luminance Range

This new feature is another interesting Broadly similar to methods used in the
method by which you can select and mask Color Range option, Luminance Range
areas of your photo. As the name would makes its decisions on what areas to
suggest, it makes its selection based on mask based on the brightness of the tones
colour values that are chosen by you. As selected in the image rather than its colour.
seen in our example, if you wanted to mask Choosing an area of bright sky in a landscape
the foreground sphinx and pyramid, you could photo creates a mask that falls within the tonal
decide to use Select Sky, invert the mask and alter it that values selected. All other tones are protected by the mask.
way. If you choose Color Range, you are given the option to However, you can use the Luminance Range panel to alter
select a range of colours using the color picker tool. You can how many brighter or darker tones are included in the mask.
pick a single colour, drag out a sample area box, or click and Think of this a bit like the Levels adjustment in Photoshop.
press Shift to add additional data points to your selection. You're simply telling the mask to include the darker tones
Because the orange tones all fall broadly within the same and lighter tones most directly similar to the ones already
range, selecting the sand colours only, is fairly easy to do. selected. When you are happy with the tonal range selected,
Then you are free to make your adjustments as required. you can make your adjustments to the image.

82 www.bdmpublications.com
 WHAT’S NEW? EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

14 Depth Range

You may notice that the

final option of Depth
Range is probably
greyed out. It only
becomes active when
using photos taken by
the most recent iPhones
that have taken photos
and used the Portrait
mode with depth information
contained within it and saved in the HEIC/
HEIF format. This is the High Efficiency
Image File Format. If you are able to
access a photo in this format, you can
activate the Depth Range feature. It
enables you to use a picker on your photo
and wherever you click, it will use the
depth information contained in the photo
and set the point you click as the sharpest
area. Areas in front of and behind that
chosen point will fade to an out of focus
state and the mask created will reflect
that. The depth Range sliders will let you
refine just how much is in, or out, of focus.
You can add adjustments just as you do
in the other masked options. The areas
that are darkest on the mask will remain
untouched. The lightest areas will have
the greatest effect visible on them.

15 Intersect

One feature in amongst all the new

Masking tools is the Intersect
function. It lets you combine
masks in interesting ways that
give you a lot of scope when
it comes to more precise
application of masks during
your workflow. We have a simple
example to show you where we
wish to create a bright halo behind
the lone tree atop a hill. Our first
step would be go to the Masking tool and choose
the Select Sky option. Lightroom will assess the
image and mask the sky out (Sky 1 under the
Mask 1 layer). Since the tree and the horizon
both provide strong outlines to work with, the
selection is quite refined. Now we want to remove
most of the mask apart from a halo around the
tree itself. You can click the Sky 1 menu tab and
then click Intersect Mask With to open a second
menu where you can choose which option you'll
intersect the current mask with. We opted for the
Brush tool. We set its size and positioned it over
the tree and clicked to apply it. What happens
next is that all of the Select Sky mask will be
removed apart from whatever area sits within the
Brush stroke you just used. You now have that
area of sky with the tree and ground still masked
out. You will see a Brush 1 layer added to your
Mask 1 layer set to indicate what you've done.
Adjusting the Exposure, Temperature and Color
Note: at the time of writing, the Intersect function
gives you the desired effect of the halo within that
is only available in Lightroom Classic.
very specific area.

www.bdmpublications.com 83
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM EXPLORING THE WORKSPACE

Exploring the
Workspace
The default workspace you view when launching Lightroom can look
a little confusing to begin with. However, with a little exploration the
many menus and options soon become second nature. Here, we show
you around all the basic areas before you get stuck into editing.

1 Lr
1 8
This is the Identity Plate for Lightroom,
displaying the user’s logged in account
name, with further options available to be
expanded that connect to Adobe’s cloud
services. The Identity Plate can be further
personalised, using either set templates
or customising your own for branding
your own photos. These can be text-
based, or even a graphical Identity Plate
to add that little extra personal touch to
your Workspace view and image edits.

2 Presets: Catalog 2
The Catalog Preset is a database that
stores a record for each of your photos.
This record contains key pieces of 3
information regarding each of the photos
you import into Lightroom, such as a
reference to where the photo is stored
on your system, instructions for how to
process the photo and metadata relating 4
to the photo.

5
3 Presets: Folders
The Folders Preset displays where your
photos are stored in the system. These
reflect the folder structure on the drive
itself and appear in an alphanumeric
order for you to browse through. The
triangles can be expanded to display
sub-folders within each root folder level
and each folder will display the number
of images or videos you’ve imported into
Lightroom; there’s also information on
the amount of space on the hard drive
that the images have taken up, with the
total space displayed too.

84 www.bdmpublications.com
 EXPLORING THE WORKSPACE EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

4 Presets: Collections more services online via the available

button. It’s even possible to publish entire
Arrow keys or by choosing a different
source from the Filmstrip Source
Collections provide a way for Lightroom folders or collections of photos, reducing Indicator pop-up menu to the right of the
to group photos in one place for easy the process considerably compared to navigation buttons.
viewing, or for performing a variety of manual uploads. These can be used in
much the same way as the Collections,
tasks. For example, to assemble photos
into a slideshow collection, or a web with various options and custom defined 7 Histogram and
photo gallery. You can create as many rules if needed. Adjustment Panels
Collections as you need from Regular,
Smart and Quick Collection listings. The Histogram is an often overlooked
These can store custom defined rules, 6 Film Strip feature of Lightroom, which is a shame
temporary groups and various other as it’s an extraordinarily useful tool to
clever features. The Film Strip view bar is where you master. However, we have covered this
can quickly display and also access the and these areas will be looked at in
photos you are working on as you move further detail as we move through the
5 Presets: Publish Services between the modules. This scrolling bar
contains photos and all images from the
various Lightroom modules, such as the
Develop Module and other elements of
The Publish Services options menu currently selected Library folder, your the software in this book.
allows you to export collections of photo/image collection, or keyword set.
photos to your hard drive or a variety of By using this option you can quickly
defined online services, such as popular access your images without having to 8 Top Toolbar
social networks as Facebook and Flickr. open additional folders outside of the
Additional information can be added Lightroom software. You can quickly and The top toolbar contains the familiar
to the export process and you can find easily move between each of the photos aspects of a traditional program, with
in the Filmstrip using the Left and Right File, Edit, Library, Photo, Metadata, View,
Windows and Help. Most of these are
self-explanatory, and function in the
same was as any other program. Others
though, contain elements and options to
enhance each of the modules. You could
9 spend a lot of time trawling through
the many different menu options and
we cover many of them throughout this
7 book. For now though, take a moment to
explore what’s available and see just how
in-depth Lightroom can get with just a
few clicks of the Mouse button.

9 Modules
Lightroom has seven workspace modules
available: Library, Develop, Map, Book,
Slideshow, Print, and Web. Each module
offers a unique set of tools and features
tailored to your workflow: importing,
organising and publishing, adjusting
and enhancing and generating output
for screen, print or web detail. These
tools, within each Module, are startlingly
powerful in their use, whilst still being
relatively simple to use. We’ll look at
these Modules and the tools within, as we
progress through the book.

Show or Hide Panel Groups

• To show or hide a single panel group, click the triangular

Show/Hide Panel Group icon. A solid icon indicates the
panel group is showing.
• To show or hide both side panel groups, choose Window
> Panels > Toggle Side Panels, or press the Tab key.
• To hide all panels, including side panels, the Filmstrip
and Module Picker, choose Window > Panels > Toggle
All Panels, or press Shift-Tab.

www.bdmpublications.com 85
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM IMPORTING PHOTOS FOR THE FIRST TIME

Importing Photos
for the First Time
Before editing and improving your photos with Lightroom Classic,
you need to import them into the program’s database. Depending
on the size of your collection this could take a while, so it’s best to
set aside some time.

The first step after installing Lightroom Classic for the first On the next screen, you’ll see a message saying ‘Please
1 time is to import your photos into the program’s catalogue.
3 select a source’. In the upper left you’ll see a list of the
Lightroom uses this catalogue to organise your photo collection storage devices attached to your system. If you want to import
and to help you find them by applying keywords and other photos from some other source, such as a USB flash drive, you
search criteria. By keeping a separate database it means that the need to plug it in now. Lightroom will add it to the drive list as
files on your hard drive are not affected. soon as it’s detected.

When you open Lightroom for the first time, you’ll see a Click on the drive that contains the folder from which you
2 blank screen with the words ‘No photo source selected’ in
4 wish to import your images and you should see all the
the middle. To get started with importing your photos, take a folders on that drive displayed in the file-tree on the left of the
look in the bottom left corner. You should see a button labelled screen. Navigate to the correct folder and click on it. Lightroom
Import. Click on this and you’ll be taken to a new screen to begin will immediately begin searching that folder for image files,
the import process. including any sub-folders.

86 www.bdmpublications.com
 IMPORTING PHOTOS FOR THE FIRST TIME EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

The process of finding image files is fairly quick and even Once the import process has completed you’ll see a report
5 a large collection should only take a couple of minutes.
8 notifying you of any problems. Common errors include
Meanwhile there are a couple of settings we can look at. On damaged files, which will not be imported, and unsupported file
the right of the screen you’ll see a panel called File Handling. type or colour modes. Lightroom supports all common file types
Open it and if you want, un-check the option ‘Don’t import and most colour modes, so it’s unlikely that you’ll see either of
suspected duplicates’. these if you’re just importing digital photos.

Once the import system has located all the photos in your Click on the OK button to dismiss the report message and
6 selected folder you’ll see the total that it’s found and the
9 you’ll finally be able to interact with your new catalogue of
combined file size displayed in both the lower left and upper images. We’ll take a closer look at the layout of the workspace in
right corners of the screen. All the files will be checked by default the next tutorial but for now just explore and check that all your
but if there are any that you don’t want to import, you can pictures are present and correct. You can scroll up and down by
uncheck them. using the mouse wheel.

Once you’re happy with your selection of photos to be If you subsequently want to remove any imported images
7 imported, click on the Import button in the bottom right
10 from your catalogue you may do so by right-clicking on the
corner of the screen and Lightroom will begin adding photos to image and selecting Remove Photo from the context menu. Note
your catalogue. If you’re importing a large collection of images that this doesn’t delete the photo from your hard drive, it just
for the first time this process can take an hour or more, so go stops Lightroom from seeing it. You can reimport it later if you
and do something else for a while. change your mind.

www.bdmpublications.com 87
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM FIX PHOTOS WITH QUICK DEVELOP

Fix Photos with

Quick Develop
Lightroom offers two ways to get the best out of your images. We’ll
take a closer look at the power of the Develop module in the next
section but the Library module Quick Develop tab features a range of
tools that can apply quick fixes to improve your photos.

You can find the Quick Develop tab in the right-hand The next feature is the white balance control. This lets you
1 sidebar of the Library module. To get the best use out of it,
3 change the white balance from the setting used on the
it’s a good idea to make sure you have the Histogram tab open at camera when you took the photo. It works best if you’re editing
the same time, to help get the exposure right, and use the Loupe a Raw file, since it can correct the white balance without losing
view in zoomed-out mode so you can see the whole picture quality. If you’re not sure what the correct white balance should
much more clearly. be, use the Auto option.

At the top of the Quick Develop panel you’ll see a drop- The Auto Tone button is something of a last-resort option.
2 down menu offering a wide range of preset developing
4 It will attempt to optimise the exposure, contrast and tone
settings. These are great for experimenting with different looks settings to produce a good result but it will only ever be an
and styles and include a range of monochrome filter and toning average approximation. All photos vary in their requirements,
effects, various colour processing styles, sharpening, contrast so it’s best to avoid it and adjust tone and exposure manually,
enhancement and more. There are also video effects available. keeping an eye on the histogram.

88 www.bdmpublications.com
 FIX PHOTOS WITH QUICK DEVELOP EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

The Exposure adjustment control has four buttons. The The Whites and Blacks adjustments are basically more
5 ones with the single chevron adjust the exposure up or
8 extreme variations on the Highlights and Shadows
down by one third of a stop, while the buttons with two chevrons adjustments. They are used to correct excessive clipping in deep
adjust it by a full stop. Unless your image is dramatically under or shadows and bright highlights and take advantage of the expanded
over-exposed it’s best to use the 1/3rd-stop buttons, keeping an dynamic range available in Raw file images, as we discussed on
eye on the histogram and the Loupe view. page 15. Use in conjunction with the histogram for best results.

Contrast is a harder thing to quantify than exposure but Clarity and Vibrance have replaced the old Saturation
6 generally it makes the light tones lighter and the dark
9 adjustment and offer much more precise control over tone.
tones darker. Again, the singe chevron buttons make a slight Basically, Clarity improves the contrast in the mid-tones of the
adjustment, while the double chevron buttons make a larger image by sharpening the edge detail, while Vibrance increases
adjustment. Most correctly exposed images won’t need much the saturation of only the least saturated colours, so you can
adjustment, so use it sparingly for best effect. improve overall saturation without blowing out bright colours.

The Highlights and Shadows adjustments affect the higher One advantage of using the Library module quick develop
7 and lower ends of the histogram respectively. They are
10 is that you can adjust a whole batch of photos at once.
used to improve detail in shadow and highlight areas and are Simply select all the photos that you want to adjust and
particularly useful in difficult lighting conditions, such as heavily whatever adjustments are needed will be applied to all of them.
backlit scenes, where they can brighten up shadowed faces. They This is particularly useful if you discover that you’ve used the
are best used in combination to avoid unbalancing the shot. wrong white balance setting on a whole shoot!

www.bdmpublications.com 89
 Lightroom
Tips & Tricks
We have a few tricks we can share with you to
help you on your way to smarter workflow. They
are very simple, but as you may have already
surmised when using Lightroom, the simple ones
are often the most useful and the most powerful.

Contents
92 Before and after: using filters 96 Visualise highlights and shadows
94 Quick develop additions 96 Grad filter control
94 Solo mode 96 Apply on import / Visualise fringing
94 Quick keywords / Panel reset 97 Graduated filter intensity
94 Tone curve finesse 97 Smart preview edits
95 Black and white preview 97 Switch brush with eraser
95 Set default / Split toning display 97 Use luminance
95 Lights out 97 Visualise sharpness and noise
96 Spot removal delete / Cropping

90 www.bdmpublications.com
LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS

www.bdmpublications.com 91
 LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS USING FILTERS

Using Filters
Filters play a huge role in getting a photo
BEFORE
just the way you want. With some clever
tweaks, Lightroom is capable of delivering
spectacular results, such as the before and
after images you see on these pages. We will
delve into elements like this in later issues.
Shots like this, that combine foreground with skyscape, are prime candidates for a
graduated filter. In this case, we’ve increased the overall exposure slightly, pulled back
the highlights to bring detail into the clouds, and reduced the shadows to bring out
texture in the boat and houses. We then applied a coloured graduated filter from top to
middle, reducing exposure by one stop and increasing colour saturation. The result is a
bright and colourful shot worthy of any picture postcard.

AFTER

92 www.bdmpublications.com
USING FILTERS LIGHTROOM TIPS & TRICKS

Turn the page for

some very useful
and simple top
tips to improve
your Lightroom
photo processing
workflow.

www.bdmpublications.com 93
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM TOP LIGHTROOM TIPS

1 Quick Develop Additions 2 Solo Mode

This is a very simple, but effective trick when working in the

Develop module. It won't have escaped your attention that
there are an awful lot of sidebar options and tools available.
Sometimes, you may find yourself having to scroll up and down
the open tool panels, because, when a few of them are open at
any one time, they do take up a lot of vertical real estate on your
screen and cycling between them not only takes time but also
gets a bit frustrating. This trick applies to both the tools in the
right sidebar of the Develop module as well as the ones on the
left. Hold the Alt key on your keyboard and click on one of the
small triangles to the right of each tool header bar. You should
notice that the triangle is now greyed out rather than solid. Now,
Lightroom will only expand the tool you choose. All others will
remain closed until you click on a new one to open, which also
closes the currently active one.
The Quick Develop panel is found in the Library module.
Your Library module allows you to view the Metadata of your
images, add comments, and set up the keywords for your
selected photos. Over and above that, is the Quick Develop
panel. This lets you do some fairly simple, but powerful,
batch editing to your photo library. You have control over
White Balance and the various aspects of Tone Control. At
the bottom of the list, you will see the Clarity and Vibrance
controls. Now, if you hold the Alt key on your keyboard, those
options will change to Sharpening and Saturation. This extra
little addition, means you are less likely to have to head over
to the Develop module to make any additional edits.

3 Quick Keywords
Another little trick that will aid your workflow in the Library
module is the ability to assign quick keywords. Rather than
typing in the Keyword Tags field, there is a panel below called
Keyword Set. You can choose from a number of options such
as Outdoor Photography, Recent Keywords, and Portrait
Photography. You can also edit your own set for a more
specific approach to keyword usage. Each one will present
4 Panel Reset
you with a number of generic options in the panel below. For This is another example of a superbly simple trick to aid you
instance, Outdoor Photography will present options such as when editing in the Develop module. We're sure there any
Landscape, Macro, or Flowers & Plants, which you can use to many artists and photographers who have been working on
add tags to a batch selection of relevant images. However, if an image and decide that they need to reset a panel to its
you press the Alt key, a series of numbers will appear next to default zeroed-out state. Each slider can be reset manually
the keywords on offer. Now you can simply press a number to by double-clicking it, but what happens if you have made
substantial edits, using the HSL panel, in each of the Hue,
apply that keyword to your group of images.
Saturation, Luminance, and Colour sections? That's a lot
of sliders to double-click to reset to default. Then there
are all the other panels as well, so you would be forgiven
for planting you face in your palm at the prospect. Luckily,
there is a super-simple solution. Simply hold down the Alt
key again and you will see a Reset option appear for each
setting. Click once to reset each setting.

94 www.bdmpublications.com
 TOP LIGHTROOM TIPS EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

5 Tone Curve Finesse 6 Black and White Preview

The Tone Curve in Lightroom is a powerful This is probably one of the simplest tricks
method for adjusting the tones in your image. out there. While you are working on an
You have control over the brightness of the image in the Develop mode, if you want
entire tonal range, from the darkest shadows to see what it would look like in black and
to the brightest highlights and everything in white, just press the V key on your keyboard
between. You can add control points to the curve to view in mono. Then tap V again to go
and modify it to suit your requirements. It is a back to your colour original. Simple.
relatively small box to work within, especially
on a smaller screen, or with a mouse set to
higher tracking speeds and movement. Now and
again, you may find that precise positioning of
the control points may elude you. Not to worry,
Lightroom and the trusty Alt key has you
covered once more. By pressing the Alt key, you
alter the sensitivity of the cursor. The upshot
being that if you move your cursor now, the
control points will move a much shorter distance.
This gives you much greater fine-tuning of the
position of each point.

7 Set Default

This is quite a useful function if you shoot

with more than one camera from different
manufacturers. Although Canon and Nikon
cameras, for instance, can shoot amazing
images, they do both employ different in-
camera colour technology that may require 8 Split Toning Display
slightly different editing strategies and certain
tweaks to the baseline settings in Lightroom in Split Toning has recently been updated to
order to get them to match at the point of final Color Grading but if you are using Lightroom
output. With one sample image open, if you pre 2022, Split Toning is a cool creative tool
press the Alt key and click on the Set Default that lets you add a certain colour feel to your
button in the lower right of the screen, you can images by altering the Hue and Saturation of
save your baseline edits and automatically apply the Highlights and Shadows in your photos.
them only to any subsequently imported Raw Whether you are trying to subtly alter a
files that were taken with that particular camera. colour cast, or radically adjust the colours
You can set up Default edits for each camera present in your photo, it is a great little tool
that you use, knowing that you have been saved used by many photographers. Altering the
a number of editing clicks already. Now you have colours of your Highlights and Shadows is
your photos from different cameras all starting a bit tedious as you have to jockey the Hue
exactly where you want them. and Saturation sliders to see the effect you’re
having. If you hold the Alt key, you can select
the Hue for Highlights and the Saturation is
automatically set at 100%, so you can see
that colour at full strength. Then you can dial
in the amount of Saturation you want to use
for the Highlights. You can do exactly the
same for the Shadows too.

9 Lights Out

This one could not be simpler, yet it is still something

that you may find to be of great use when editing
your photos. Lights Out mode lets you focus more
on your image, rather than on the interface that
surrounds it. While you are working on an image,
if you press the L key once, it will dim the interface
around your image while leaving the photo at full
brightness. Press L once more and the interface will
disappear completely leaving a black background
behind your photos. Pressing L one more time will
reset the interface to full brightness again.

www.bdmpublications.com 95
 EXPLORING LIGHTROOM TOP LIGHTROOM TIPS

10 Spot Removal Delete 11 Cropping

This is a very simple Cropping an image is an essential part of any photographer's creative
trick that can make arsenal. A simple crop can often turn a mediocre image into a sensational
the deletion of many one. Cropping in Lightroom is normally a case of dragging control points
Spot Removal edits to get the rough shape of the crop you want, then you have to drag your
a slightly simpler cursor around with the crop to move your image so it can be placed in the
task than right- correct position. Then, if its not perfectly scaled to your requirements, you
clicking each one have to tweak the size of the crop box. Sometimes, you just literally want to
and selecting Delete crop the edge of the frame by the same amount. If you hit the Crop tool and
from the dropdown hold the Alt key, you can crop from the centre of your image. If you have a
menu that appears. horizontal crop and you want to flip it so it is a vertical crop, simply press the
You can hit Reset, X key to change the orientation. Handily, it will keep the same aspect ratio for
of course, but that consistent cropping. The default crop overlay is the classic Rule of Thirds, but
removes all the there are a number of options. Press the O key to toggle through them.
Spot Removal edits
and you may not
want that. To target
specific ones, you
can easily press the
Alt key. This results
in a small Scissors
icon appearing in
place of your cursor.
Now you can simply
click once on each of the Spot Removal
edits you want to remove and they are gone.

12 Visualise Highlights and Shadows

Your Histogram in the top right corner of your workspace can show you the
spread of tones in your image from darkest shadow to brightest highlight. It
also has the Highlights and Shadows Clipping options to show you if detail
areas are being lost to solid black or solid white. You also have another option
to help you see the spread of shadows and highlights, along with those nearing
the clipping threshold. By holding the Alt key as you move the Exposure,
Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks and Dehaze sliders, you can see a realtime
representation of which tones are nearing their clipping threshold, or have
already been clipped. For highlights, the screen will be mostly black with
highlights shown as white and coloured areas. For shadows, the screen will be
mostly white with shadows shown as black and coloured areas.
15 Visualise Fringing

Another quick method to help you

13 Grad Filter Control 14 Apply on Import see what effect your adjustments
are having on the image; under Lens
Corrections, in the Manual tab, you can
Both the Graduated and Radial filter This is very handy use the Defringe tools to remove the
options have a couple of extra options one for those purple and green tones present as a
available if you employ the use of the photographers who result of chromatic aberrations caused
Alt key as you work. One very simple may be dealing with by the lens used to take the shot. Hold
one is to click on your image with many dozens, or the Alt key as you try each Defringe
the Graduated Filter even hundreds, of option and you will see that white
active and begin photos from a shoot areas are not affected at all whilst any
to drag the grad and want to apply a coloured areas are affected by fringing.
down the image. set of baseline edits
If you hold the to them all in one
Alt key, the point go at the time of import. With your
where you initially preferred preset ready to go in the
clicked becomes Presets pane, right-click it and choose
the centre of the Apply On Import. A small + (plus)
grad. With the symbol will appear next to that preset.
Radial grad, the Now, any pictures imported from
point you click then on will have that preset applied
initially is the centre to them automatically with no input
point of your ellipse, but if you hold required by you. You can deselect your
the Alt key, it becomes the top corner preset at any time so as not to apply it
control point. to any further imports.

96 www.bdmpublications.com
 TOP LIGHTROOM TIPS EXPLORING LIGHTROOM

16 Graduated Filter Intensity 17 Smart Preview edits

This is another simple one that you will A Smart Preview is a great little trick for
either get into and find useful, or just keep increasing your image editing performance.
using the sliders in the right hand sidebar. Raw files are very large and if the computer you
If you drag out either a Graduated Filter or are using for editing is struggling with handling
a Radial Filter, you will see a small control the large amounts of data involved, you can
point at its centre. If you click and hold on choose to use this option for a performance
it, you can drag the grad around. However, boost. If you go to Lightroom preferences,
if you hold Alt and hover your cursor over under the Performance tab, you will find the
the same centre point, you can now drag Use Smart Previews option. When ticked, it will
your mouse back and forth and, as you do, let you use a smaller version of your original on
you can intensify all the settings currently to which you can apply all your edits. Although,
active on that grad. If you had adjusted at this stage there may be a visual decrease in
the Exposure, Contrast, Texture, Clarity, the image quality, at final output, it will be the
and Saturation for example, they will all be size and quality of the original.
adjusted together as you slide your mouse
back and forth.

18 Switch Brush with Eraser

Once more a very simple, but time-saving,

trick that can speed up the application and
refinement of your adjustment brushes. In
normal operation, applying an adjustment
brush is an easy enough process, right up
until you decide you want to edit the brush
strokes you've currently added. This would
normally mean moving your cursor off the
main image window and clicking on the
Erase button in the Brush parameters panel
beneath the main adjustments panel. Now, 19 Use Luminance
instead of doing that, you can just press
the Alt key and the cursor will change from
the adjustment brush, with a small + (plus)
symbol in the centre, to an Eraser with a
small - (minus) symbol. You can erase parts
of your current adjustment using whatever
current Eraser brush parameters have been
set, let go of the Alt key and continue adding
adjustments as you see fit.

20 Visualise Sharpness and Noise

Making sure your images are as free of

noise as possible, without degrading
the overall quality, is as important
a part of extracting as much detail
from your precious photos as any. By
the same token, also ensuring that
your work is as sharp and detailed as Most photographers are aware that shooting
possible is another key consideration. a landscape often means that you are trying
Everything you do in Lightroom to balance exposure between a bright sky
is a balancing act of settings to and a darker foreground. A sunny landscape
ultimately arrive at the best photo may mean that your blue sky looks bright
possible. Whilst working in the detail and a bit washed out. A lot of users may
panel, to add sharpness or combat be tempted to try and add saturation to
any image noise present, hold the Alt the blue sky, but you run the risk of over
key to help you see what is going on saturating the entire image. Rather than the
in the image as you alter the values Saturation tool, try using the Luminance tool
of the individual settings. It gives you in the HSL tab. To bring out a blue sky, drop
a useful representation of the effect the Luminance values of the blue channels to
you are having and just how much the make blues in the image darker rather than
image is being degraded. more saturated.

www.bdmpublications.com 97
 ঔফলষলশফল঳
On Sale
September 2022
via digital platforms

Get Inspired!
Next issue, get more hands-on with
Photoshop’s many tools and techniques,
as well as a deeper look at Lightroom’s
Develop Module. We also begin to
uncover some essential knowledge
about using Photoshop Elements too. All
this and more Photoshop mega tips to
sink your teeth into.
   

 


  -4<7?8@,<66@,=;(@=9@?*?;0@*?;8<=9@=1@>5?@;?4<;?7@5:;7,:;?+@#>@;?/:<98@>5?@ 8=1>,:;?)@:226<3:><=98@=;@2;=743>8@3=9>:<9?7@,<>5<9+@"5<8@24.6<3:><=9@<8@9=>

24;35:8?;8@8=6?@;?82=98<.<6<>0@>=@7?>?;/<9?@>5?@84<>:.<6<>0@=1@>5<8@/:-:<9?@:97 ?97=;8?7@=;@:88=3<:>?7@<9@:90@,:0@,<>5@'7=.?)@%5=>=85=2)@&<-5>;==/@=;@:90

      
<>8@3=9>?9>@1=;@,5:>?*?;@24;2=8?+@'90@</:-?8@;?2;=743?7@=9@>5?@1;=9>@:97@.:3( :88=3<:>?@=;@:11<6<:>?@3=/2:90+@'66@3=20;<-5>8)@>;:7?/:;(8@:97@;?-<8>?;?7@
%4.6<85?7@.0! %:2?;34>@&</<>?7@@ 3=*?;@:;?@8=6?60@1=;@7?8<-9@24;2=8?8@:97@:;?@9=>@;?2;?8?9>:><*?@=1@3=9>?9>+@ >;:7?/:;(8@1=;@>5?@;?82?3><*?@3=/2:9<?8@:97@7?*?6=2?;8@:;?@:3(9=,6?7-?7+@
:9:-<9-@7<>=;! :/?8@:6? ?@:7*<8?@:66@2=>?9><:6@.40?;8@>=@35?3(@6<8><9-@2;<=;@>=@24;35:8?@1=;@3=91<;/:><=9 4<7?8@<9@>5<8@><>6?@:;?@.:8?7@=9@%5=>=85=2)@:/?;:@:,)@6?/?9>8)@&<-5>;==/
%;=743><=9@ <;?3>=;! :;(@'0851=;7@ =1@:3>4:6@3=9>?9>+@'66@?7<>=;<:6@=2<9<=9@5?;?<9@<8@>5:>@=1@>5?@,;<>?;@:8@:9@<97<*<74:6 :97@&<-5>;==/@6:88<3+@'7=.?@<8@:@;?-<8>?;?7@>;:7?/:;(@=1@'7=.?@ 08>?/8)@
7<>=;! :;(@;=8> :97@<8@9=>@;?2;?8?9>:><*?@=1@>5?@24.6<85?;@=;@:90@=1@<>8@:11<6<:>?8+@"5?;?1=;?@>5? ;?-<8>?;?7@<9@>5?@ @:97@=>5?;@3=49>;<?8+@'7=.?@©@'7=.?@ 08>?/8+@
%;=743><=9@:9:-?;! :;6@&<98>?:7 24.6<85?;@5=678@9=@;?82=98<.<6<>0@<9@;?-:;7@>=@?7<>=;<:6@=2<9<=9@:97@3=9>?9>+ '77<><=9:6@</:-?8@3=9>:<9?7@,<>5<9@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9@:;?@;?2;=743?7@497?;@
?8<-9! :;(@;=8>)@:;(@'0851=;7 %:2?;34>@&</<>?7@;?8?;*?8@>5?@;<-5>@9=>@>=@.?@5?67@;?82=98<.6?@1=;@:90@/<8>:(?8 6<3?98?@1;=/@854>>?;8>=3(+3=/@:97@%<:.:0+@=*?;@</:-?8@:;?@48?7@1=;@
7<>=;<:6)@';>,=;(@@#/:-?@7<><9-! :;(@;=8> =;@<9:334;:3<?8@1=497@,<>5<9@>5?@>?>@=1@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9+@"5?@24.6<85?;)@?7<>=;@:97 <6648>;:><*?@24;2=8?8@=960+
<-<>:6@7<8>;<.4><=9@.0! <9<=)@%=3(?>/:-8@@?:760 >5?<;@;?82?3><*?@?/26=0??8@=;@:11<6<:>?8@,<66@9=>@:33?2>@;?82=98<.<6<>0@1=;@6=88) '66@<91=;/:><=9@,:8@3=;;?3>@:>@></?@=1@2;<9>+@ =/?@3=9>?9>@/:0@5:*?@.??9@
7:/:-?)@<94;0@=33:8<=9?7@>=@:90@2?;8=98@:3><9-@=;@;?1;:<9<9-@1;=/@:3><=9@:8@: 2;?*<=4860@24.6<85?7@<9@=>5?;@*=64/?8@=;@><>6?8+@?@:7*<8?@2=>?9><:6@.40?;8@>=
 © =20;<-5>@%:2?;34>@&</<>?7+@'66@;<-5>8@;?8?;*?7+@$=><3?!@?1=;?@ ;?846>@=1@>5?@3=9>?9>@,<>5@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9@,5?>5?;@=;@9=>@:90@8435@:3><=9@<8@74? 35?3(@>5?@84<>:.<6<>0@=1@3=9>?9>8@2;<=;@>=@24;35:8?+
24;35:8<9-@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9@26?:8?@;?:7@:97@?984;?@>5:>@0=4@14660@497?;8>:97@>5? >=@:90@?;;=;)@9?-6<-?9>@=/<88<=9@=;@:3>@=9@>5?@2:;>@=1@>5?@24.6<85?;)@?7<>=;@:97
1=66=,<9-@-4<7?6<9?8)@<1@0=4@:;?@<9@:90@7=4.>@26?:8?@7=9>@.40+@$=@2:;>@=1@>5<8 >5?<;@;?82?3><*?@?/26=0??8@=;@:11<6<:>?8+@ 4;@:;><36?8@:;?@<9>?97?7@:8@:@-4<7?@=960+
 
24.6<3:><=9@/:0@.?@;?2;=743?7@<9@:90@1=;/)@8>=;?7@<9@:@;?>;<?*:6@808>?/@=;@ ?@:;?@9=>@:7*<8<9-@0=4@>=@35:9-?@0=4;@7?*<3?)@:97@,=467@:3>4:660@:7*<8?
?-<8>?;?7@<9@9-6:97@@:6?8@$=!@ 
<9>?-;:>?7@<9>=@:90@=>5?;@24.6<3:><=9)@7:>:.:8?@=;@3=//?;3<:6@2;=-;:/8@,<>5=4> :-:<98>@<>@<1@0=4@5:*?@?*?9@>5?@86<-5>?8>@7=4.>8+@"5?;?@:;?@2=>?9><:6@;<8(8@>=@>5?
>5?@?2;?88@,;<>>?9@2?;/<88<=9@=1@>5?@24.6<85?;+@ 97?;@9=@3<;34/8>:93?8@85=467 5:;7,:;?8=1>,:;?@<9*=6*?7)@:97@0=4@/48>@.?@:,:;?@=1@>5?8?@.?1=;?@0=4@7?3<7?
>5<8@24.6<3:><=9@:97@<>8@3=9>?9>8@.?@;?8=67)@6?9>)@6=:9?7@=4>@=;@48?7@<9@:90@1=;/ >=@:6>?;@:90>5<9-@=9@0=4;@7?*<3?+@?:7@:66@=1@>5?@<91=;/:><=9@5?;?@3:;?14660@:97 '
"# #$!@%6?:8?@3=9>:3>!@:/?82:2?;34>6>7+3=+4(+
.0@,:0@=1@>;:7?@,<>5=4>@>5?@24.6<85?;8@,;<>>?9@2?;/<88<=9+@5<6?@,?@2;<7?@ >5?9@/:(?@42@0=4;@=,9@/<97@,5?>5?;@0=4@,:9>@>=@1=66=,@=4;@-4<7?8+@?@>:(?
=4;8?6*?8@=9@>5?@4:6<>0@=1@>5?@<91=;/:><=9@,?@2;=*<7?)@%:2?;34>@&</<>?7 9=@;?82=98<.<6<>0@1=;@7:/:-?@>=@0=4;@3=/24>?;@=;@:90@=>5?;@7?*<3?@48?7@<9@>5?@ #$"$'"# $'&@&#$ #$!@
;?8?;*?8@>5?@;<-5>@9=>@>=@.?@5?67@;?82=98<.6?@1=;@:90@/<8>:(?8@=;@<9:334;:3<?8 2;=3?88+@#1@0=4@:;?@4984;?)@26?:8?@7=@9=>@.40@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9+ %:2?;34>@&</<>?7@5:8@/:90@-;?:>@3=984/?;@>?35@:97@25=>=-;:250@
1=497@,<>5<9@>5?@>?>@=1@>5<8@24.6<3:><=9+@ 4?@>=@>5?@9:>4;?@=1@>5?@8=1>,:;? "5<8@%:2?;34>@&</<>?7@24.6<3:><=9@<8@14660@<97?2?97?9>@:97@:8@8435@7=?8@9=>@ 24.6<3:><=98@:97@:66@:;?@:*:<6:.6?@1=;@6<3?98<9-@,=;67,<7?+@
<9748>;0)@>5?@24.6<85?;@3:99=>@-4:;:9>??@>5:>@:66@8=1>,:;?@:97=;@>4>=;<:68)@><28) 9?3?88:;<60@;?16?3>@>5?@*<?,8@=;@=2<9<=98@=1@>5?@/:941:3>4;?;8@=;@5:;7,:;?@:97 =;@/=;?@<91=;/:><=9@?/:<6@ :/?8@:6?!@:/?82:2?;34>6>7+3=+4(+