Digital Photography in Today’s Society part 2

Cloning is another manipulation tool, which was mentioned earlier to get rid of unsightly blemishes, scratches or anything unwanted. To be able to use the cloning tool in Photoshop Elements, There must be something to replace the piece that wants to be removed or added if there were scratches in photos.

Firstly open the image, then roughly in the minds eye work out what to take away and then work out what to be included, it can be something from another photo if need be. Select the area that wants to be removed, then use the eraser tool and trace along the object and erase the middle. Alternatively you can use the magic wand or the lasso to get the same effect. Make sure that you copy and, cut and paste it depending on what needs to be done.

I mentioned before about removing scratches from photos. The photo below is an old black and white photo about 1910 when it was taken.
In the left hand side above the bridesmaid to my Great Grandmother there is a large unsightly scratch. By using the zoom tool, enlarge the area in the crack. Then take the clone tool and start to clone in areas of surrounding edges of background colour.

Here you can see, the area has started to be filled in. Notice the area left to the scratch seems to be getting closer to the colour of the filled in area. With the clone tool, trace along the whole of the crack with the spot fill from the clone tool until the whole area is completed.

The final result the scratched area makes the photo now looked as good as new.

Moving on from these types of manipulation, the tools in Photoshop Elements are the basis for manipulation to take place.

Eye Dropper Tool

The eyedropper tool changes the foreground and background colour.

Select the eyedropper tool, and then change the sample size. 3 by 3 average or 5 by 5 average to read the average value of the specific number of pixels within the area click.

Then select the colour: To select a foreground colour from an image, click the colour you want.

To select a background colour from an image press Alt click the colour you want.

When the eyedropper tool is dragged, the foreground colour selection box changes. In the box above the white square is the foreground colour, whilst the blue is the background colour. Alt drag will activate the background colour (Blue) in the selection box. Release the mouse to pick the new colour.

Marquee

The marquee tool draws a rectangle boarder and can also draw elliptical selections by default.

To use the marquee tool, first select the tool, top left of the tool box then select either rectangle or elliptical.

In the options bar, specify whether to create a new selection, add to a selection or subtract a section.

Then specify if a feathering option is required. To determine proportions by dragging. Aspect ration to set height to width ratio. Enter values to decimal for width and height. A selection like this can be used in copy and pasting an element of your image to a new layer or other part of the image.

Layers

Layers make up the backbone of the photo image. In the above photo, the swans head has been duplicated with the use of the Marquee tool previously mention and then copied and pasted. Then dragged creating a new image, which appears in the layers box on the right hand side. The layer can be renamed by right clicking into the layer and renaming it.

Hue and Saturation

The Hue and Saturation command lets you adjust the hue and saturation and lightness of the entire image. Adjusting the hue, or colour represents a move around the colour wheel. Adjusting saturation represents a move across its radius.

Enhance → Colour → Hue/Saturation

The drop down menu gives options to adjust all the colours by master or individually. Hue is the colour adjustment tool allowing colours to be changed. Saturation levels can be adjusted to change the purity of the colour. A lightness slider gives the option of increasing or decreasing lightness.

Cropping Images

To crop, an image select the crop tool. If wanting a specific size or resolution of the crop, enter the values in the width, height or resolution text boxes in the options bar.

Drag over the part of the image to be kept. When releasing the mouse button, the crop marquee appears as a boundary box with handles at the corners and sides.

Double click inside the box and then the image will be cropped to the desired location of the crop handles.

The image above is before cropping took place. The image on the left is after cropping; note that the swan’s body no longer exists.

Lasso

The lasso tool lets you draw straight edged and freehand segments of the selection border. The tool is useful for quickly selecting objects with complex edges seen against high contrast backgrounds.

Select the lasso, drag to draw a freehand selection border like the one in the image to the left.

To draw a straight edged selection border, hold down Alt and click where segments should begin and end. Switching can take place between drawing free hand and straight edged segments.

Magic Wand

The magic wand tool lets you select a consistent coloured area without having to trace its outline, Specify the colour range or tolerance for the tools selection.

Select the magic wand tool, and then in the options bar, specify whether to create a new selection or add to existing selections. The magic wand changes depending on what option is selected?

For tolerance, enter a range of pixel values, ranging from 0 to 255. Enter a low value to select colour very similar to the pixel clicked, or enter a higher value to select a broader range of colours.

Here you can see the selected black and white lines are on the whiteness of the swan.

To define a smooth edge, select Anti aliased. To select only adjacent areas using the same colours, select contiguous, otherwise all pixels using the same colour will be selected.

Canvas Size

The Canvas Size command lets you add or remove work space around an existing image. Cropping an image by decreasing the canvas area. Added canvas appears in the currently selected background colour or transparent as the background.

To use the canvas command simple choose Image → Resize → Canvas Size. Then choose the units of measurement desired. The columns option measures width in terms of columns specified in the rulers and unit’s preferences. Then enter the dimensions in the width and height boxes.

Image on left is before the canvas was resized. The image on the right has to be enlarged by 2cm all round boarder which in this case it has been framed using the blue background colour of the toolbox.