Photoshop Basics

Summary:

In this Photoshop tutorial, Karsten Franke gives step-by-step instructions regarding image repair with the patch tool.

The patch tool is another Photoshop repair tool that combines the selection behavior of the Lasso tool with the color blending properties of the healing brush tool. In a previous Photoshop tutorial with the healing brush tool, Franke worked with empty layers for his adjustments, but here with the patch tool, empty adjustment layers are not possible, therefore a copy of the background layer must first be made.

Franke shows that repairing parts of an image takes only a few seconds by following two simple steps. First select an area that you want to use as the area to be fixed. Then, drag the patch tool selection to another part of the image that has about the same color and texture as the area you want to replace. Release the mouse button and the patch tool completes the job.

In conclusion, this tool is ideal if your image has cracks, or stains, or blemishes etc. It is very similar to the healing brush tool except with the patch tool you can define a selection where you want the effects applied.

Summary:

In this film Karsten Franke gives us a video tutorial for the most widely used blend mode in Photoshop, the multiply blend mode.

Franke demonstrates with practical step-by-step instructions how simple and quick it is to retouch photos. In particular, when you have an overexposed or old, washed out photo, you can duplicate the photo on a new layer and set it to multiply, then adjust the opacity level of the new layer until the darker values are visually what you are looking for— the result is a darker picture.

In multiply mode, the layer is multiplied against the lower layers and the result is composed onto those layers. White pixels will result in no change to the lower layers, a black pixel will change a lower layer to black, and a gray pixel will darken the color of the layers below. So anything other than white darkens the result. The multiply blend mode is probably one of the most important blend modes in Photoshop, for basic photo retouching or special effects.

Summary:

Often, converting color pictures to black and white leads to photos that are flat and boring.

Our expert, Karsten Franke, shows you how to do a gray scale conversion yielding high contrast pictures that look as spectacular as the original.

Summary:

In general, 'levels' are the first thing addressed when you edit an image in Adobe Photoshop. Levels refer to defining the darkest and brightest areas of a photo. This image analysis requires the use of a histogram, which is the graphic illustration of the frequency distribution of the brightness values in a photo. It illustrates the allocation of different tonal values. If they aren't distributed throughout the total spectrum of black to white, you have to manually adjust them with the help of the levels.

To further improve the appearance of the photo, you can then use 'curves' for further modification.

In this video, Karsten Franke guides you through the process.