How to lighten a certain area of the face in Photoshop. How to darken corners in Photoshop
Excessively dark areas in the photo (faces, items of clothing, etc.) are a consequence of insufficient exposure of the image or insufficient lighting.
This happens quite often for inexperienced photographers. Let's figure out how to fix a bad photo.
It should be noted that it is not always possible to successfully lighten a face or another area of a photograph. If the darkening is too strong and details are lost in the shadows, then such a photo cannot be edited.
So, open the problematic image in Photoshop and create a copy of the layer with the background using a keyboard shortcut CTRL+J.
As you can see, our model's face is in shadow. At the same time, details are visible (eyes, lips, nose). This means that we will be able to “pull” them out of the shadows.
I'll show you several ways to do this. The results will be approximately the same, but there will be differences. Some tools are gentler; the impact of other techniques will be more pronounced.
Method one – “Curves”
This method involves using an adjustment layer with the appropriate name.
We apply:
Place a point on the curve approximately in the middle and bend the curve upward to the left. Make sure there are no overexposures.
Since the topic of the lesson is brightening the face, we go to the layers palette and perform the following actions:
First, you need to activate the layer mask with curves.
Then you need to set black as the main color in the color palette.
Now press the keyboard shortcut ALT+DEL, thereby filling the mask with black. In this case, the lightening effect will be completely hidden.
set the opacity at 20-30%,
and erase the black mask on the model’s face, that is, paint the mask with a white brush.
The result has been achieved...
The next method is very similar to the previous one, the only difference being that in this case an adjustment layer is used "Exposition". Approximate settings and results can be seen in the screenshots below:
Now fill the layer mask with black and erase the mask in the desired areas. As you can see, the effect is more gentle.
And the third way is to use a fill layer 50% gray.
So, create a new layer using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+N.
If you look closely at some photo albums, you'll see that many photographers use vignetting to darken the corners of their photos while leaving the center of the photo lighter. Why do they use this technique? The answer is quite simple. If you look at photographs, you will notice that the eye is first drawn to the lighter areas of the photo, and only then the eye moves to the darker elements. Vignetting helps direct the eye from the edge of the frame to the center of the composition and, thus, put a certain emphasis on the main thing in the photograph. This is the easiest way to draw the viewer's attention to the most important thing in the photo and make it expressive. In addition to vignetting, there are more effective ways to lighten and darken certain areas of your photos using Photoshop. Let's look at an example in which the photograph has already been processed.
The photo shows Punchbowl Falls located in the Portland, Oregon area. Here the first step is to lighten the majestic stream of water that roars into the stream and grows into light ripples in the foreground, and to darken the abundant vegetation around it. To draw the viewer's attention to this particular part of the photograph, a technique based on subtle calculations was used to lighten and darken.
The areas of the image highlighted in red were lightened, and the blue areas were darkened. The part of the image highlighted in yellow was not processed, since it was already quite light. significantly increased the visual impact of the photograph. This was done as follows. After uploading the photo, the first thing to do was add a new layer. To add a new layer, you need to hold down the Alt key and at the same time click on the create a new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. In the dialog box that opens, the function is selected Lightening and Darkening(dodge and burn) and the blending mode is changed to "soft light" ( Soft Light). Next, check the “fill” box and set the gray color to 50%.
Then take the Brush tool with soft edges. Set the opacity to 4-8%. If you set the brush to white, it will work in dodge mode. If you set the color to black, then it will work in dimming mode. Use a low opacity value to make it easier to control the process. Use the brush to work on selected areas of the photo, lightening or darkening them. Keep in mind what you want to highlight in the photo and apply your brush strokes accordingly.
Some Photoshop experts may ask, why make it so complicated? After all, you can lighten and darken the desired areas of the photo separately on different layers. It’s hard to argue with them here, but this technique involves working with just one layer and allows you to avoid overexerting the program. In addition, if it turns out that some areas of the photo are too dark or light, you can easily correct them on the same layer.
If you still go too far, you can always reduce the transparency of the layer itself and create a soft transition of colors between individual parts of the photo. To do this you need to select Filter->Blur-> (filter->blur->Gaussian blur) and set the blur radius somewhere around 10-30 pixels. This filter guarantees a soft and imperceptible transition of colors in the picture.
The above method can even be used to correct portrait photographs, in order, for example, to emphasize cheekbones, forehead line, emphasize hair, etc. When working with portraits, the radius of Gaussian blur settings should be significantly larger than in landscape photography, and can reach 30 pixels. Below are several photographs that were corrected in a similar way.
Now you know another method for correcting photographs. Use it to enhance drama, create mood, or simply de-emphasize some distracting elements in your photos.
by admin Last update on November 19, 2010 V
Let's continue with short lessons on using Photoshop. Last time we told you about “” to add brightness and saturation to photographs, and today we will tell you how to lighten or darken an area of a photograph.
There is a simple way to lighten or darken part of an image in Photoshop, without a visible border of the effect.
1. Open your image in Photoshop. In this example, we want to darken a section of the sky without affecting the rest of the photo. We also want to darken using a gradient from top to bottom.
2. Add a new layer on top of your main layer. This can be done by clicking on the “Create a New Layer” button in the layers palette.
3. Click on the "Gradient tool" in your Photoshop tools. Make sure you are using “linear gradient” (can be selected in the top left corner of the screen).
4. To the left of the gradient type selection icons, click on the pop-up menu and select “Foreground to Transparent” from the proposed set. Your foreground color is not important, so don't worry if you see a weird color. In this example we used yellow.
5. Hold down the Shift key, click the mouse at the top of the image and move the mouse down to the point where you want the effect to end. In this example, we want to darken the sky, not the entire image, so we start at the top of the image and work our way down to the treetops. Holding down the Shift key allows you to make the line perfectly vertical.
6. Click "Select" in the Photoshop menu, then "Load Selection". Next, make sure that “Layer 1 Transparency” is selected. Your image should look something like this
7. Go to the layers palette and select the layer where you just added the gradient. Drag the layer onto the “Delete Layer” icon (looks like a trash can). Your image will now look something like this:
8. At the bottom of the layers palette, click the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon (the circle is half white and half black). Select "Levels" or "Curves" (whichever you prefer) and move the sliders to lighten or darken the area you want.
Now our featureless, foggy sky has turned into an enchanting and threatening one, demonstrating the possible approach of a storm. Such a simple algorithm made it possible to significantly enliven the photo.
Peripheral dimming or "vignette" used by masters to concentrate the viewer’s attention on the central part of the image. It is worth noting that vignettes can be not only dark, but also light and blurry.
In this lesson we will talk specifically about dark vignettes and learn how to create them in different ways.
For the lesson, a photo of a birch grove was selected and a copy of the original layer was made ( CTRL+J).
Method 1: Manual creation
As the name suggests, this method involves manually creating a vignette using a fill and a mask.
Opacity is selected individually for each work.
Method 2: Feathering the Selection
This is a method using shading of an oval area followed by filling. Don't forget that we are drawing the vignette on a new empty layer.
1. Select a tool "Oval area".
2. Create a selection in the center of the image.
3. This selection must be inverted, since we will have to fill the edges, not the center of the picture, with black. This is done with a keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+I.
4. Now press the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+F6, calling up the shading settings window. The radius value is selected individually; we can only say that it should be large.
5. Fill the selection with black ( SHIFT+F5, black color).
6. Deselect ( CTRL+D) and reduce the opacity of the vignette layer.
Method 3: Gaussian Blur
First, let's repeat the starting points (new layer, oval selection, invert). Fill the selection with black without shading and deselect it ( CTRL+D).
1. Go to the menu “Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur”.
2. Use the slider to adjust the blur of the vignette. Note that too large a radius may darken the center of the image. Don't forget that after blurring we will lower the opacity of the layer, so don't go too hard.
3. Reduce the opacity of the layer.
Method 4: Distortion Correction filter
This method can be called the simplest of all the above. However, it is not always applicable.
There is no need to create a new layer, since the actions are performed on a copy of the background.
1. Go to the menu “Filter – Distortion Correction”.
2. Go to the tab "Custom" and set up a vignette in the corresponding block.
This filter will only apply to the active layer.
Today you learned four ways to create dark edges (vignettes) in Photoshop. Choose the most convenient and suitable for a specific situation.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool), Born Tool And Sponge Tool refer to shading tools, as they serve to lighten or darken individual areas of the image. The purpose of these tools is similar to those from the arsenal of traditional photography, with the help of which exposure errors are corrected. Using them, you can achieve lightening or darkening, and also influence the color saturation of individual parts of the image.
Working with these tools is both simple and complex at the same time. On the one hand, in order to brighten any area, you need to use the Lighten tool on this area accordingly. At the same time, it is important not to overexpose the dimmer, otherwise the image will be spoiled, so to speak, underexposed, or in the case of working with the Burn tool, overexposed.
Toolbar.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool), Born Tool And Sponge Tool on the toolbar are combined into one group. In order to select the desired tool, you need to right-click on the tool icon and select the desired tool from the menu that opens. You can also activate the tool using a hotkey ABOUT(Latin).
Description of tools.
1. Tool Clarifier (Dodge Tool) designed to brighten individual areas of the image. The brightener is well suited for correcting photographs that have exposure defects. Its use gives good results, since the Brightener analyzes the entire set of image brightnesses and selects the most suitable correction option. In fact, the tool allows you to produce a local increase in brightness in the area to which it was applied.
2. Tool Born Tool The action is completely opposite to the Brightener and is intended to locally reduce the brightness in the area to which the tool was applied.
3. Tool Sponge Tool allows you to simultaneously change the saturation and contrast of an image with minimal effort.
Tool settings panel.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool) And Born Tool have similar settings. They have access to settings such as brush options, selection of tool areas, exposure options, and an airbrush selection button.
1 . Brush
2 . Range. This parameter is intended to set the tool mode. In mode Midtones dark and light pixels are processed with equal intensity. In mode Shadows Dark pixels of the image are processed more strongly. In mode Highlights Light pixels are processed more intensively.
3 . Exposure. This parameter determines the degree of influence of the tool on the selected area of the image. The higher the setting, the sharper and more noticeable the areas will be lightened and darkened. Changes from 0% to 100%.
It is very important to set the impact force correctly. Many people, when experimenting with Photoshop, try the Dodge and Burn tools at 100%. And by darkening the image, you get black “holes,” and by brightening it, you get complete overexposure. Of course, having received such a result, they no longer return to this tool. But the dodging and burning tools are subtle tools. If you are working on shadows or highlights, try a force of 7-10%, and if with neutral areas - 10-20%. For each case, the force of influence is selected separately, but after working a little with this tool, you will begin to feel what degree of influence is needed in each specific case.
4 . Airbrush. The last option allows you to enable or disable airbrush mode. When it is disabled, the tool acts like the Brush tool, that is, when the mouse cursor stops moving, the tool stops working, even if the mouse button is pressed. When you turn on the airbrush mode, the tool operates according to the principle of the Airbrush tool, that is, the tool has its effect as long as the left mouse button is pressed, regardless of whether the cursor is moving or not.
Tool settings panel Sponge Tool has the following form:
1 . Brush. This parameter determines the settings for the shape, size and hardness of the tool brush.
2 . Mode. This parameter allows you to switch between tool operating modes. When working with a tool Sponge Tool in mode Desaturate the saturation of the original colors of the image decreases, and when working in V mode increase saturation (Saturate)- increases.
3 . Pressure (Flow). The parameter is responsible for the force of influence of the tool. Changes from 0% to 100%.
4 . Airbrush. When the button is pressed, the tool starts working in spray mode.
So, we looked at three shading tools and got acquainted with their properties and settings. To summarize, it’s worth saying that toning tools are most suitable in cases where you need to make subtle corrections, depict shadows or enhance highlights. To improve the visual quality of graphical information, use these tools in small doses.
