Photoshop colours

Sharon · Photoshop colours

I take my pictures in RAW which means that the camera stores the picture as a file and you can go into it at a later date and change the exposure, balance, colours and other stuff. Photoshop is really cool for this. I thought I'd share a couple of pictures where I have played around with them.

luciesmommie

Those are gorgeous, Sharon. What I would love to be able to do would be able to lighten one object in a picture (a backlighted bird for example) without lightening everything else. Is there a program in Photoshop that can do this? I have a really old version, Photoshop Elements 2, which came bundled with a scanner I got for Christmas a few years ago. :lol

Here's an example of what I mean:

Click to see full size image

chatcat723

Lightened with more contrast:

I'm not sure about Elements but in Photoshop you use your magnetic lasso tool and trace around the edges of the object. Click image/adjustment/brightness-contrast and play around until you get what you want. Click enter. Elements works a lot like Photoshop but I don't know about the tools.

This one I left the bird dark and lightened everything else:

This one I sharpened the houses in the background:

chatcat723

Anne, if you can't do this with Elements, just send me your jpg and I can do it for you. It's bound to be better than the one I captured here.

luciesmommie

Thanks, Cat. It may be that I just need to upgrade, or most likely that I need to take some classes. The picture was just an example, not something I desperately needed fixing, just wondered if it could be done. :big grin

chatcat723

I'd get the full version of Photoshop; Elements is a real basic program. There are lots of books (Photoshop XX(version) Classroom in a Box) you can purchase from a bookstore..or Amazon.com. I'm self-taught but have 2 graphics people in my office who've been very useful to me.

My IT guy just dropped by and said his wife just upgraded her Elements for $45. This is considerably less than Photoshop and I'm not sure which tools are not included. Elements is just a scaled-down version and might have what you need.

Lync

Sharon, I love the pics you posted. Esp the 2nd one and the clouds. Looks very ominous.

luciesmommie

Thanks, Cat! Well, no matter what programs I get I probably won't become a photographer like Sharon or be able to make fancy projects like you, but I can always strive to be better. :big grin

Sharon

I use photoshop 6 at the moment because it lets you do special editing with RAW files. The church photo was done on photoshop by layering the same photo 3 times with different exposures. Professionals do this a lot for dramatic skies. If you see a picture with really dark ominous looking clouds, thats how its been done :big grin

I did some editing with the contrast and saturation and hues on the rainbow picture. A lot of that was done on my Olympus software with the RAW file. You can do a lot more with that than with photoshop, but I did use photoshop to deepen the blue of the sky.

Lucies Mum : If I was going to change just part of a picture in photoshop I would cut it out and create a new layer, change the photo and then put it back in again. If you were going to do lots of that kind of thing I would say to get an updated version of photoshop. I'm thinking of changing up to CS because you can do more with it.

luciesmommie

Thanks, Sharon! I hadn't thought about doing that, but it should work.

Celeste

I love the sky effects in both photos Sharon! The 2nd one is my favorite..

Here is an example of a photo taken by Kayla who was 10 years old at the time. She is going to make a wonderful photographer someday. :wink

I did edit using Photoshop 5.0. I can't even remember the steps now since a year has gone by, but I did invest the time and patience because I liked Allie's pose so much.

chatcat723