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Filters: Graduated, Radial, & Adjustment Brush

Lesson 6 from: Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Cloud Additions in 2015

Ben Willmore

Filters: Graduated, Radial, & Adjustment Brush

Lesson 6 from: Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Cloud Additions in 2015

Ben Willmore

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Lesson Info

6. Filters: Graduated, Radial, & Adjustment Brush

Next Lesson: Library Module: HDR

Lesson Info

Filters: Graduated, Radial, & Adjustment Brush

Are the things we've done in the developed module is we've had these other tools up here and here we have the graduated filter and here we have the radio filter there's some stuff we've added there with that you can click and drag on your picture like this and make a shape when the case of the radio filter you get an oval or a round shape and if you click and drag, you can then dragged these little edges out to control exactly the size is where you first click is the center and if you need to move it around his grabbed the little dot that's in the middle to reposition this and let's say I wanted to come in here in a just just this area in the middle I could find to in its shape then over here I can control what adjustment is going to be applied in there and it's going to remember the last adjustment that you applied using tools that are like this in the last time I use this tool where its companion tool, which is the graduated filter was to shift the color away from blue if you remembe...

r that we had an image with a water at the bottom in some mountain to the top, if you want to reset all these sliders to the default, just double click on the word effect and that will reset them on then let's say, want to apply something just in this area in the middle? First let's just see what's going to change if I move one of these sliders all move this saturation slider down and as I do, you notice that it's, not the area where I define that circle that's changing its everything outside of it. If you want to change the area inside that shape, then down near the bottom is a choice called invert mask. And if I turned that on now, we're thinking about the opposite areas, and now you see it's the interior part instead that we're changing. Then there is a soft transition, and there you see it fading out and that's just a slider called feather. I might bring that down in this particular case to try to get it. To concentrate more right on that area, I'll get just a slight transition. I was only lowering saturation to show you which area of the image was changing didn't actually want to make that change to this image, so double click on the slider for saturation double clicking on any of these sliders will reset it to their default settings, and now I could decide what kind of change I'd like to apply in there. What I'd like to do in this particular case is I'm going to bring my highlights up to brighten up karen shirt that's there that's this in case you don't know that's my wife karen uh and I might end up bringing up things like contrast make it pop in there a little bit or bring up clarity to have the highlights come out but the problem with that is I've applied this in a circular shape and the door that's there is not a perfect circle with the bottom, it deviates from circle and starts becoming squared off well before we had white room c c, we were stuck with just a round or oval shape, but in the new version we now have a choice right here called brush and if I use the choice called brush, I can then come in here in brushing what I would like so at the bottom I can tell it to either a race from the original area we were adjusting that might be a round or oval or if I use air b I can add to it and so I can come in here and paint this in so it also affects the bottom and since it's hard to see the exact adjustment I have let me just make things black and white and therefore to be easy to see where I'm making changes so instead of being stuck with that original shape now, I can paint in here to add to it or if there's some area where I don't wanna have it, I can also choose a race and maybe these little knockers on the the, uh, door that's there don't need the changes much actually, mom turned down my feather, and so I can come in there and remove it just off of that area, so we're no longer stuck with just doing a simple circle or oval, we can start with that and then add to or take away from it and to get that we just go up to this area called brush at the top on we can do it. Also, I switched between a racing and adding to this quite a bit, and they believe if I hold on the option key, you're going toggle temporarily between the two. So if you've already chosen the brush as your option, watch what happens over here between these two choices by just hold option you see it's switched over to a race on lee for the length of time that I hold down that key. When I let go, it goes back to the other choice, which would be adding, and if you've never used the brushing feature in light room before, you might be wondering, why do we have a and b what the heck is that? Well, that's, just so that if you end up using a hard ish brush and a soft edged brush in different areas, but you don't have to constantly come in here and change your settings. Instead, what I could do is dial in maybe a really small brush with a slightly softer edge to get into the detailed areas, and then I could go to be and have a big brush with a nice feathered edge on it. Instead of having to move these sliders back and forth every time to get between those two kinds of brushes. It's just kind of like a preset going from a, which is when I had my small brush to be, which is just different settings it's like a pre set of two different kinds of brushes you could use, so it might be that you load a with a soft edge brush and be with a hard edge brush, and then you can just switch between the two but tapping between the bees, that same feature of be ableto have your brush is also available when you go to the graduated filter and it works the same way. So after you've clicked and dragged to apply the graduated filter, you will then have the choice here of brush to add to the area that's being changed or to take away. Yes on the baby is there a short cut to go between the two really but if there is it's not something I don't use and b a lot so if there is that I'm not aware of it I'll excuse here let's find out you think air b but acts means rejected and I don't think he does it because he has had to acquit collection so yeah, there might be but I'm not aware of it all right then let's talk about the adjustment brush itself so if we're not doing graduated which is where it is in a straight line and we're not doing radio where it's a circle or oval instead we just want to paint let's see what's available there first time you know just this image make it a little bit more colorful get some color coming out there and I want to work on this area that's surrounding this I'll do the basic adjustment first to get overall look that I like then I'll go to my adjustment brush and I'll double click on the word effect which resets all the sliders and the first thing that bugs me about this image is the bottom of the picture there's way too much blue so I could shift the image away from blue with my little temperature slider here towards yellow but moving the slider all by itself isn't going to do anything until I painted my image so let's, go over here and adjust my brush settings. If you want to adjust your settings, they're a couple keyboard shark it's you can use, you don't have to go down here in move these sliders if you want to change the size of your brush, then use the bracket keys square brackets. They're like half squares that will give you a larger or smaller brush. If you want to change the feather setting, hold down the shift key and use the same bracket keys and you could get a soft or hard edge brush. This image had already been adjusted with the brush, and I just deleted away the adjustment, which is what made the image change in appearance. But I'm gonna come in here, start painting at the bottom to try to shift it away from blue. Now I see kind of a straight line across the bottom here, and I don't wanna have to precisely paint across that. So in the new version, I can click in one spot like over here on the right side and then hold on the shift key and click on the left side. It will connect the dots in a straight line, and so any time you have a straight area that you want to adjust, its click on one end of it clicking, let go move to the opposite end, hold shift. And click and it'll connect the dots with a straight line, which could be rather helpful let's say one a dark in this area that's surrounding them? Well, what I'm going to do then is since I've already adjusted the bottom of the photograph, I'm gonna choose new here by choosing new it means I'm done with my first adjustment and I want to apply the new one only after tapping on new what I reset these sliders by double clicking on the word effect and now I'm going guesstimating it I'd like to apply to the area where this building is I'd like to darken it a bit I want the highlights to be a bit darker and just darker overall, suffering my exposure down then I'll come in here to paint it around where this guy is gonna have to be careful in my shape, but once I get to hear we have that straight edge the door saw hold shift, click up here it'll connect the dots click here hold shift other side of the doorway look at the top of this savage hold shift, get down to the bottom and then more quickly fill in the rest these areas I'll just keep shift held down and kind of connect the dots to paint around and fill in that's surrounding area to save a lot of time compared to sitting there in manually painting everywhere now after doing that I confined to my adjustment but moving these sliders and I noticed there's a little bit of blue in there in yellow that I don't like so bring them a saturation to make the area less colorful I could adjust my white balance a little to get it away from blue and just darken it up more barking up my highlights maybe darken it up overall trying to really make it so the two young monks that air their jump out from their background but being able to hold down shift in click in different areas to connect the dots can save a lot of time and also make it so you're more precise when going around rectangular areas there are a few other sliders that are available when you're in the adjustment brush that didn't used to be there in one of those or two of those actually are the blacks and whites sliders and I find that they could be useful because if I end up darkening this area and that surrounding I can end up with a large area of solid black they're like appeared the very top of my image that I might not want and I could come in here and adjust the blacks to back off on it so we're not going all the way to black we can lighten it up just remember that blacks is going to control the absolute darkest part of your picture in white's is going to control the absolute brightest part of your picture and you can dial in exactly how bright you'd like them, but we didn't used to have the capability of moving those to when we were in the adjustment brush, and so I'm very glad that they're there. I find them to be very useful when working on waterfalls, because oftentimes what happens with a waterfall? If the sky is included in the shot? I usually need to bring the highlight slider way down tio keep detail in the highlights, then I come into my adjustment brush, I paint just on the waterfall, and I bring the highlights up to say, brighten up the waterfall, make it pop out, and then I adjust my whites to control exactly how bright is the brightest part of the waterfall to see if I really want to pop out. So I'm very happy that they've added those there any questions about the graduated radio or adjustment brush that we've been talking about? And is the adjustment bush compared to using the basic is a cumulative or exclusive like if you do basic adjustments and do a couple of adjustment brushes, how do they work? It is adding to or taking away from what's being applied to the image of the whole what that means is if I get out of my adjustment brush and I do something like in this case I bring my shadows up to bring up shadow detail and I bring my chat is up two plus fifty ah and maybe I bring up clarity to plus twenty and that's being applied to the entire picture then I could go to my adjustment brush in clarity could work great on landscapes and other things where the textures and your image can come out, but it doesn't do great things too faces because it brings out all the texture and the face that means every little variation in the skin is suddenly suddenly exaggerated so I could come into my adjustment brush then I'm going to reset it by double clicking on the word effect and then I'm going to set it to negative twenty clarity and that when I painted into their faces is going to just get rid of the clarity that's being applied to the image as a whole you know that was applied in the basic slider I can push it beyond negative twenty and then I cancel out all of the clarity that's been applied to the entire image and I'm now going to put it into the quantum negative number but on lee after I've gone past whatever is being applied to the main image and so that's also what makes it useful with waterfalls if you have the sky in in order to maintain the detail in the sky you have your highlights pushed way to the left. You just go into your adjustment brush. Push it way to the right and painted in your waterfall in your waterfall, brightens back up. Well, you're still have. The, uh, settings applied to the image as a whole other than where you're painting.

Class Materials

Bonus with Purchase

Ben Willmore - Class Handbook.pdf
Ben Willlmore - LayerComps Example.tif
Ben Willmore - Lightroon Dehaze Preset Pack.zip
Ben Willmore - DeHaze Preset Pack Quick Start Guide.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

TimK
 

Got to "know" Ben during Photoshop Week and a few other courses. He has consistently been one of my favorite Photoshop instructors. He is extremely easy to follow, stays on point without being cold or boring, and is immensely knowledgeable on just about everything Photoshop. He does not disappoint in this fantastic in-depth review of some great new features in PhotoShop and Lightroom CC 2015 ... there are some real hidden gems in there for you. Ben polishes them up and serves them to you with extra info, insight, and pertinent examples. He goes the extra mile to answer questions and delve into related subjects without going off the rails. GREAT, GREAT course. Thanks Ben, and Creative Live! -Tim K.

Jose A De Leon
 

I just purchased this course today and it's wonderful. Ben is one of the best Photoshop instructors I've encountered. I had purchased the complete Mastery course and this one is a welcome addition since it covers new features. Even though Photoshop and Lightroom will continue to evolve, the basic techniques and tools used are basically the same, so I find myself going back to the mastery course if I hit a bump along the way. Ben's knowledge is second to none, but his true gift is the ability to transmit all that knowledge in bite size and understandable portions that are never boring. Someday I will have the privilege to know him personally, in the meantime I will continue to buy his courses as they come out. Such a wealth of information. Thanks Ben and CreativeLive!

Larry
 

Ben is a wealth of knowledge and covers the material beautifully. Highly recommend his workshops to others!

Student Work

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