Carmen's guide to a 20 second photoshop of cars.

I am sick of reading the "pic is too blue, red, green, purple etc". Plus it just makes the car/cars look so much better.
Yes, I am aware you can read my msn convo but I cbf to edit it out, and I also am aware that there is other ways of doing this but for the people who are new to photoshop here is a quick guide.
Step 1; Auto levels, auto colour, auto contrast. [in that order preferably]



Step 2; If the colour and contrast still aren't right, go into Image-> Adjustments->Colour Balance or Brightness/contrast.

If the pic is too blue, slide the bar away from the blue and towards yellow.



Step 3; Open up Curves. It is under Auto colour so it is Image->Adjustment->Curves... and you will get this;



Step 4; Curves will do a lot but for the purpose of a 20 sec tutorial, draw an "S". A more severe "S" will give a more dynamic image. See pictures in relation to the S;




Step 5; If there is lighting that may be a little over powering, this is a cheating way of making it duller. First, create a new layer;



Step 6; Make sure the colour is on black [top] and white [bottom] (See "A"). Select the Gradient tool (see B), and make sure the gradient bar is from Black to clear (see "C"). Draw a line across the pic [always starting from an edge], going from the light to the center of the pic. The length of this line you draw and such will have to depend on the picture. I usually go from the edge to the center but brighter pics may require a greater Gradient. In this example, see "D".



Step 7; Change the layer's "blending mode" from Normal to "Overlay" (See "E"). Then, change the Opacity down (see"F") according to what you think works with the picture. In this pic I think I used about 50%.



Then you are done. Muck around with the setting to suit the picture but here is the final product of the pic that you all said was "too blue".

hehe u use mac~

Nice write up~

very nice write up..im gonna sticky this..=D

good work, credit to you!

I have one other suggestion, and that is sharpening. This is especially useful on point-and-shoot cameras, where the optics aren't as good as a SLR. What it does is focus the shot, and is good if you're slightly out of focus but has benefits even if your photo looks OK.

The thing about sharpening is that it should be done in stages. Never sharpen an image at your desired output resolution, as it makes the pic look weird. This is what an image that was sharpened only at 640x480 looks like:



After you do all of Carmen's suggestions and you're ready to re-size the image down to whatever you publish at, click Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen.

When its done, you'll notice that the image looks a bit more in focus. Then re-size (Image -> Image Size) and choose a resolution slightly smaller than what you have.

For my example, I will assume you have a 6 megapixel camera, with a resolution of 3072x2000, and you're looking at shrinking it down to 800x600.

Reduce your image width to 2700 pixels. Photoshop should maintain your aspect ratio, and adjust the height accordingly. Sharpen again. Repeat 1-2 more times.

Depending on your camera and the shot you took, 3 sharpens is enough.

When you've done all your sharpens, then re-size the image to 800x600.

What rate you should reduce by for each sharpen isn't a hard-and-fast rule. It'll depend on the camera, and your shots, so experiment.

One warning.

When you're learning how your camera's photos are best sharpened, just do a few, then size the image to your output size. Undo it, sharpen one more time, and resize the image to your output size again. You'll find that, at a certain number of sharpens, your output image looks bad.

For example, look at this pic:



See how it looks grainy? Too much sharpening. It's not as bad as the first shot, but its still pretty bad.

I should have undid my last sharpen (or maybe even last 2) and saved that image again. Back it off a bit, and it's not as bad:



To be honest, even this second pic is a touch too sharpened (there's a bit of graininess on the bodywork) but its a lot smoother than the first one.

Does this guide work on non-autofocus cameraphones? loljkjk

It does, actually. It work for any photo.

I've found a bit of colour balancing and sharpening has paid off dividends on press photos released by OEMs to news sites.