Lessons

Lesson Info

Adding Suggested Elements

Now that we've distracted ourselves away for a few moments, let's go back and look at this project and look at it differently. I'm not now. They revisited. I kind of this thought was in my head. I'm not 100% sure that the smoke is cool. Is it looked? I just don't know that I like it because it's lightened everything up a little bit too much. At least I don't think I like it the way it is right now. So I have to let me start again, so I have to find it. So when I look at it, where is it? Well, here's the smart Audrey made that was made up of all those ones. That's where I have to look, to go back and find all those elements. So let's see with without I'm not sure. Go back here and see what if we push the contrast up or down, make the blacks even more noticeable in the whites. Brighter? I don't know. I'm just trying some things OK. Changes a little bit. What if I try this? How about we add a layer mask on the layer mask? We do are clouds filter so we're randomize ing that little bit. I w...

ish I had a bigger monitor right now because it's hard to like Zoom out and drew back in to see, because at that level, I'm not sure if I like it, but closer. It actually doesn't look too bad. One others. One thing I was thinking of trying, and that's I like the look of that very light texture there. But it might be interesting if it was slightly darker in some areas. So we're gonna add levels adjustment layer and clip it with just that texture, so that now I can try toe dark and the texture a bit now when I do that I don't like, is much what it's doing on her arm. So maybe not quite so much so. Remember, I'm inside my smart object, and I'm trying to make adjustments. This is a camera smart object, so I could double click on it. But I'm just trying to do a quick overall that's darken, and so that's why throw in this levels adjustment layer. But I had to be certain to put this in a clipping areas. It was only affecting this texture, not the photograph below. I think I want to go back to this one and just bit more of the clarity and maybe just hair more like this. Okay, save that. Now, I have a habit when I'm working, not having a bunch of people watching me, just going close and save because I want to just get back to my main smart object document. I want to make sure. No, I'm not confusing me by saying what just happened there. So I'm hitting. Saved those. Now, this is updating my contents window. So now I can close my smart object to keep working on it. So what I would like to do at this point is see if anyone either here or watching has any suggestions based on what we've been doing throughout these days is what we might want to do to this photograph. Well, it seems to me that you can get confused when you start putting smart objects and smart objects. Do you have any helpful hands? If you don't see what you're doing, you discover that you have well, and that's unfortunately there's no simple answer that because there's no unless you labeled it some way to say level one, level two or something. I mean, I just Personally, when I look at something and that because this is my photograph, I know that the photograph never looked like this. So that has to have other stuff inside of it. And if I double click on that and still see icons, that's a smart objects. That must mean I can go another level in. And I know again, based on the fact that these air my image, that each one of these is a camera smart object. So there's not any further level of smart. It's just the camera raw portion of it. And that is a valid issue is that once you start getting putting smart, obviously inside smart objects, it is an obvious at first. So you just have to be prepared to do a little digging. Sometimes go. Where is that? Oh, there it is for you. Stick down. You always end up The last container is the raw right. Okay. Yeah. And because I use raw almost the time, this would be the final At some point. If I keep digging down, this would be the last thing I see is there's my camera raw, smart objects that I can always go back to and then update those and to get back to the other contenders, you save that even close. So here's what. Let's just make a change. So if I did this, for example, in said, I'm gonna change the contrast like this and put the exposure like that get updates and I go clothes safe. So now I know it's back to my main document now, some people what they do, and this is a personal preference, and it also depends on the size of your monitor Is that every time they double click open a smart object, they tile their windows, so then they can kind of go. This is my container. This is my contents. Some people that helps other people. It confuses them completely. So that's a personal preference. I've start off enough time just going back and forth that it works for me. But some people find doing this helps them see mawr immediately because the way this works is on the left hand side is my final quote unquote container. This is the contents. So now if I make a change on this side, I can kind of compare. And if I had saved ill update over here, I don't like that. So I on this document from this document, I want to put it back again and hit safe and then watch update over there. So some people find that very helpful. Other people find it just adds even more to the confusion. So the main thing to remember is it's always gonna be two documents, contents, container back and forth. However you do it and that the dot PSB file is always gonna be the contents. And the PSD file is going to be your container or the document you're actually working on. How many containers can you have? You said before you could have. I don't know. There's probably some technical limitation. I have not ever personally run into it where it stopped me, other than just getting really confusing. How long do you think it takes somebody to get used to this container? Well, everyone's a little different. I think the thing that I would I suggest is that most people it's such a foreign concept. If you used a photo shop that it takes some getting used to, So here's I'm gonna come back this in a second. But I want to show you here when we talked before about practicing. Here's how to practice. If you're trying to go, let me understand this smart object thing. So this is how I would suggest you do it, and I'm gonna make it the simplest thing possible because that's what you need to do. So just do this. You just start with a new document. You add a layer and you put some shape on it and fill it with some color. Doesn't really matter. And then you convert that to a smart object. You attempt to take your paintbrush and go. I can't paint on that. That's because of the container. So you double click on this, you say. Oh, there it is. You add a layer. Take your paintbrush. Go. Uh, we're in. Um, that's weird. Okay, so we'll do it another way. Make some change to it. Whatever it is. Hit, save. Come back here. OK, it's updated. So do something really simple. They just kind of goes the basic of all shape on a layer, making a smart object open and the other document to some change to it. Whatever it might be, save it and watch it up it over here. Most people do that kind of thing a couple times at least. The relationship between the two of them. You kind of go. Okay, I gotta get that habit that if I want to move that little oval, it doesn't exist here. It exists over here in this contents window. So then I'd have to say, OK, move it down here, save. And then it updates over here said that really just takes That's the practice part of it. But as much as it's fun to jump in and say, Let me take a photo with a texture This is where I would start. If you're saying I want to really get a handle on this smart object thing, do something like this. Simplify layer, smart object, edit over there. Save it Updates here. Okay, Then you take this step further and say, Well, now what if I add a filter to this smart object over here like motion blur and do something obvious that you can really see who that's crazy? And then again saying, Well, now I've done that. Well, there's that thing again I want to put this up here and turn it this way. Whatever you know, just changing something. It's save and say OK, it's doing it, you know. So some people, I I taught a group Smart objects a year ago and there were 12 fish people and within two weeks, several of them emails that Oh my gosh, that's changed my life Undoing others later and three more like Can you go over this one part again? Because it was just they were longtime photo shop users, and that's the hardest part is people have been doing old habits die hard. So if you've been doing things a certain way and filters off for a long time, it's really tough to have someone come in and say, Just do this. It's completely different than you ever done before. I don't think is manageable. Have these matter of seeing things, thinking of it in a whole different step by step, kind of like we talked about the movie inception, right? It's like Whoa, really, But it's a very powerful thing. It really is. And and unfortunately, like a lot of the way Photoshopped has been built, they keep adding new things. And some of the most powerful new feature like this are not immediately obvious. For example, I've had so many people ask me now when I show this why isn't everything smart automatically? I'm like, Well, because if Adobe did that, a lot of population go. What just happened here? What's going on? So I I'd be just as happy if that was an option. Somewhere to say, Make everything smart by the fall. I'll be like, Who think this party could render the application useless? A lot of people, right? Yeah. So that's the thing. That's the other part of it. Why it's hard for some people to grasp new thing because it's not like you're forcing the issue. So I always tell people, if you're smart, objects are still that kind thing. We're like, I kind of see it, but I'm just whoa than, at the very least, smart filters because of nothing else. The ability edger filters. That's where you start with smart objects, because then it's just a better way to apply a filter than worrying about weight. The contents over here and so even just the smartness of a filter is a great place to start. Hey, that help. Thank you, Crystal. We get any suggestions on? Yeah, Yeah, we got a bunch of them came in. So Sam Cox said from the imaginary window in the upper left corner. How about a beam of light illuminating the dancer? Nice. Okay, Like it. So that's why we have people out there, cause I probably thought of that like, never. Because actually, the window was over there. Not know. All right, so new layer and take my lasso tool. Now, I could try using lighting effects, but first, all doesn't be working. And more importantly to the odds of me getting that exact kind of thing that I want is probably slim to none. So I'm going to just try and make my own. Let's start off. And this is one of things where it takes a few steps to get to this point. So basic shape on a layer fill it with the color that I want. I might actually pick a different color and go slightly as if there was a bit of sunlight in there. Maybe, and then convert to smart object. Most blur. Try to follow kind of the same angle and then overlay maybe soft light under there, I think I mentioned before. But the other advantage of using the blend if sliders is when you're in this blending options custom, you can also, as you're doing bland this life so that does you still have access to those other layer options, like soft light and opacity so I can start to do something like that. So now the Onley issue is now that we noticed that there actually is a bit of a shadow going that way. So I need to make another one to kind make that work otherwise, that which looks really odd. So let's see if we can't sample that shadow color and take my paintbrush at a couple of it'll. Shadowy things convert to smart object a little bit of a blur, even though it's already kind of blurry, and then add a layer mask, take my Grady in tool and do a slight radiant. So these kind of fade out little bit multiply. Maybe not sure. Now there's a good example where normally, if someone said, what could we add a beam of light? I wouldn't try and do it in 42 seconds But I mean, at least within a couple of minutes, you can get to that point of going evaluating. Is there some potential there like, Do I want to pursue that or not? In this case, maybe. I'm not sure. Maybe I wish I had stuck with white instead of yellow. I don't know, but that's kind of the approach I would take is even here, you can see everything about it is still it's a layer that's a smart object. That's gotta smart filter Now. I could also Google and go like theme from window and find the photo someone else made that looked just like that. It's also harder when there's the light, the window that you can't even see. If there was an actual window there, then you'll be a lot easier to kind of build on that and say, Bring more light in from that side if I was gonna pursue this. The other thing I probably do is see if it made any difference to darkened most of the photo so that the beam of light hopefully made things look a little different back here and then maybe light up her face a bit more on this side of her body. So it's a possibility. Um, what if you maybe use your painting action? You're on oil. Okay, so in this for this toe work, I want to preserve all these other things. So this would be a rare case, because the the way that painting filter works, it has to be a normal layer. Not all this kind of stuff. So this would be a case where, since I just want experiment that I would do this merge visible idea that says, take all these layers and put in there and then just to make life easier, cause gonna get so complicated, I'm gonna duplicate that layer into a new documents. All its in there is just that. And then try that. See what happens. So let's give it a shot. Now, I theoretically could have probably done it in the same document because gonna add, like, another five layers. We just make light. My layers panel looks so complicated this way. I'm going to still do it over here if it works. And I know I can always go back together one and tweak for the results, but I think the other thing is. If I read it in that other document, we'd probably take a 10 minute break. Wallet did all that calculating with all those layers on their as it is gonna take a moment. But you can see it's not too too fast or too slow, I should say, I wish there was that option with when you're running an action that would actually play music or something. So you're not just staring at nothing? Well, nothing is actually happening. That kind of cool since we have another time can ask you a question about the track. Uh, the way tablet. If you're only using this small part of the tablet, why do we need to get a larger medium? Why can't we just get It's my personal preference I just found when I tried both to me the largest too big. I don't need the large. I wouldn't. It takes up a lot of space. I don't need it. This tablet, even though it's this big, it's on Lee actually using this much of an active area. So you take the small it's that much smaller. So now it means if I want to do a dramatic stroke, I'm only moving this far, so I like the ability. I just got that little bit of extra room. So when you look at it and if you can see there's little lit up corners, that's where the actual areas, all that area, there is something behind the scenes Elektronik wise that it needs toe have Okay, so it's not really as big as it looks. It's physically that big to control its us up, but the active area is a little bit smaller. So for me personally, that's why the smaller one was just a little bit too small. I know some people who love it and who travel lots of like, yeah, I want to do that all the time So there's our painting kind of cool definitely cast some possibilities. I think it was gonna do that. I might go back and take out some of the texture on her arm, so it's not quite as obvious. But even there, you know. Yeah, definitely another possibility. I love what it's doing to this. That's what I think about school, about that actions for anything where there already is some interesting detail on texture. It really brings it out in a way that's interesting. So here's a thought. Now that I've done all that, I'm thinking that's kind of cool. Let's do this. Let's take all of these layers, Convert them to a smart object. Oh, no, Don't do it. It's thinking about that one for a second. Like Wait. You want me to do what? Convert that to a smart object. You crazy? I probably shouldn't have. Okay, so now the whole reason I'm doing this is now. I can take this during a BRAC into this other document like this. Take throw away that layer and I've got the painting layer on top of all the original. It's like What if I now lower the opacity? Or I could at layer mask and painting this area so it's not painted as much and maybe then lower that density. So it's just a little more subtle in her face than it was before. I don't know this plan. Maybe, and and again, I deliberately didn't come into this often. When people are teaching Photoshopped classes, they have all these notes that say duplicate this. Copy that because they want to make sure the end is like and look just like that. It's perfect, and I deliberately didn't come in with any plan other than I want to use that photo, because that's the one that was our course graphic and I want to end up with the thing that I created for that course graphic. But that's this is how I would often end up with something that has, Ah, lot of layers and smart filters with the ability. Edit just about everything so that, as we did before, I can leave it, be for a while and then come back and see if there's, you know, anything further I want to do with it.