January 1, 2010Edit of pelican shot
A really easy one this week! I just needed to crop and tone this image of a pelican.
EXIF Data:
1. Duplicate image (CTRL-J). 2. Using a Levels adjustment layer, (click on "Create new fill or adjustment layer" at bottom of layers palette, split black and white circle icon, choose Levels..), drag the white arrow in to the left and the black arrow in to the right. The image is lightened and brightened. 3. Merge the Levels layer down by going to Layer->Merge Down. 4. Go to Filter-Other-High Pass, set radius to about 10. Change layer Blending Mode (top of layers palette where it says "Normal") to Soft Light, then adjust the opacity of the layer to suit. 5. Add a new blank layer by going to "Create New Layer" icon at bottom of Layers Palette. Set the blending mode (Box at top of Layers Palette where it says "Normal") by clicking on the black "drop-down" arrow and choosing "Soft Light". This will be a "dodge and burn" layer.
6. I zoom in on the eye of the pelican and using a small, soft, white brush set to 30% opacity, I very slightly lighten the highlight in the eye. 7. I then zoom back out, and choose a fairly large, soft black brush set to 30% and I "paint" lightly over the pylon, ropes and chains to darken them a bit, then with a very small black brush at about 15% I very slightly "burn" the pelicans long "beak". 8. Select the top 3 layers and hold down SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-E to make a composite image at the top of the layer stack. 9. I use the "Sponge" Tool (under the Dodge and Burn Tool in the Tool Palette) set to about 20% and "paint" over the beak and the yellow on the bird to slightly boost the saturation of the colors. 10. Crop to size using the Crop Tool from the Tool Palette. 11. Put a black border on the image by clicking on the "fx" icon (bottom of layers palette), choose "Stroke", then in the dialog box I change the Position to Inside, then slide the Size slider to obtain the size of border needed. 12. Save file as a .psd in case you need to work on it again. 13. Flatten image (File->Layer->Flatten Image), and save as .jpg.
|
