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Photoshop tip #10: Image Size vs. Canvas Size

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One of the first things that new users of Photoshop get confused by is the distinction between the Image Size and Canvas Size features. Apparently, they mean the same thing, but as you will see in this blog post, the result is different depending on which one you use. 

Image Size in Photoshop
First of all, let's explain what Image Size means. As you can imagine, Image Size really means the size of an image, be it expressed in pixels or as a percentage. With that in mind let's look at a brief example to illustrate this concept. 
Let's open a picture and let's enlarge it by 20% on both the horizontal axis and the vertical axis. For this purpose I have used a picture that comes with the Windows 7 operating system, but you can use your own. 

Open Photoshop and then go to File and click Open to open an image that you want to enlarge (browse to the image location of the file on your hard drive, select the image and click open). Let's enlarge the photo by 20%. To do this, go to the Image menu and select Image Size. You should see this window: 

Photoshop10ImageSize.jpg
Figure 1 - Photoshop: Image Size window

To enlarge the picture by 20%, in the Pixel Dimensions subgroup, click on the Widths drop down menu that currently displays pixels and select percent. You should see something like this: 
Photoshop10ImageSize2.jpg
Figure 2 - Photoshop: Image Size window

You should notice that the original width and height of the picture in pixels is now expressed as a percentage denoted by 100% for both the width and the height, meaning the picture in its original size has a 100% width and 100% height. 
Simply type in 120 for the width and 120 for the height to enlarge the picture by 20%. Press OK once you are done. Now you should see that your original photo gets larger. 

In this example we chose to enlarge the picture based on a percentage. If you would like to change the picture to a given size in pixels simple select pixels from the drop down menu in the Pixel Dimensions like in Figure 1. 

Canvas Size in Photoshop
The Canvas Size option in Photoshop provides, on the other hand, different results than Image Size. Canvas Size refers to the width and the height of the layer on which your picture is sitting. So, if you were to change the Canvas Size you would basically enlarge the working space around the picture without enlarging the picture itself. Let's go through a simple example to see how canvas size works. 

Suppose we want to enlarge the canvas size by 20%. To do this, first open Photoshop, click File and then Open to open a picture (browse to the image location of the file on your hard drive, select the image and click open). Go to the Image menu and click Canvas Size. You should see something similar to this window: 

Photoshop10CanvasSize1.jpg
Figure 3 - Photoshop: Canvas Size Window

In the New Size subgroup, for the width and the height of the canvas, select percent from the drop down menu. See Figure 4: 

Photoshop10CanvasSize2.jpg
Figure 4 - Photoshop: Canvas Size Window

The Canvas Size height and width should now change from their initial values expressed in inches to 100 percent. To enlarge the canvas type in 120 for both the height and the width to enlarge the canvas by 20%. See Figure 5:

Photoshop10CanvasSize3.jpg
Figure 5 - Photoshop: Canvas Size Window

Additionally you could also change the Canvas Extension Color by clicking on the colored box next to the drop down menu corresponding to the Canvas extension color submenu. 

Click OK once you are done to close the Canvas Size window and to see the result. If everything went well, you should now see the original picture having the same size surrounded by an additional 20% of canvas space. See Figure 5: 

Photoshop10CanvasSize4.jpg
Figure 5: Before and After using the canvas size feature

As you can now see, there is a big difference between using Image Size and Canvas Size in Photoshop in that Image Size determines the actual size of a picture while the canvas size changes the size of the layer beneath the picture without affecting the picture itself. See Figure 6:

ImageSize-CanvasSize.jpg
Figure 6 - Photoshop: Image Size vs. Canvas Size (Before & After)

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the STA Office, by e-mail at sta-help@trincoll.edu or by telephone at x2589.

(Free) Photoshop Alternatives

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Free Downloadable Software
 
Adobe Photoshop is the best photo editing tool available. However, most users barely even scratch the surface as far as using the software to its full potential. Hence, it might be a bit of an overkill to spend hundreds of dollars on the software if all you are going to do is basic image editing like cropping images, creating panaromas, or touching up gamma and contrast levels. Here are a few photoshop alternatives that are perfect if you do not need advanced photoshop features and want to save some money in the process.

1) Paintshop Pro (Only for Windows)
Photoshoppro.jpg

Paintshop Pro offers a great array of features that might be overwhelming at first. This is due to the rather cluttered interface that is less than ideal in it's layout. As befitting a comprehensive photo editing software the program needs over 100Mb of installation space, so make sure you have enough space before you begin the installation process. One of the most helpful features in the program is the One Stop Photo-Fix option that automatically adjusts gamma, contrast and hue levels. A wide range of effects are also available to try out on your
photos.This program is perfect for professionals due to the highly detailed level of image editing possible. Casual photographers and image editors might find the learning curve steep but once they do, the program presents itself as an incredibly compelling alternative to Photoshop.

2) GIMP
Gimp.png

From the publisher:
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. 
GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Gimp is probably the oldest and most well known Photoshop alternative out there. Unless you are a heavy graphics designer who absolutely must have access to all Photoshop features, you will be hard pressed to find a better image editing tool for the price (which is free ofcourse!). The software is cross-plaltform, meaning you will find both Mac and Windows versions, and is supported by a group of volunteer developers (similar to Moodle) who add
timely updates and fixes which can be downloaded by the 'search for updates' feature. GIMP features include channels, layers and masks, filters and effects, tabbed palettes, editable text tools, perspective clone,improved printing, and color operations. A modified version of GIMP called GIMP Pro that mimics the Adobe Photshop layout is also available.

Online (Web-based) Image Editing Tools
Besides these downloadable Photo editing tools, a wide range of web based photo editing tools are also available.Even Photoshop has a web based photo editing program called Photoshop Express. We based tools offer many of the features present in the full downloadable program but obviously some features are absent. Case in point Photoshop
Express does not feature layers or channels. Web based photoeditors allow you to edit the images and then save the edited images on your computer. Be aware though that most web based editing tools feature some sort of restriction inorder to make you buy the full version.  

This application only works on windows, so no luck for mac users.
 
www.photoshop.com (Photoshop Express) 
This is the online version of photoshop. The web based application by adobe shares many of the features of Photoshop but lacks the ability to work with layers or form composite images amongst others. There is a 2GB file size limit.
 
A very popular image editing application that can count seamless integration with flickr (the online photo management and sharing tool) amongst it's most notable features.
 
An easy to use and easy to understand web based image editing application that allows you to conveniently crop, edit and add effects to images. 
 

Photoshop tip #9: Creating a panorama from multiple photos

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One of the most useful features provided by Photoshop is its feature called photomerge. This feature, which is available in all Photoshop distributions following its first Creative Suite (CS), enables the user to join multiple pictures to create a panorama. Normally, panoramas are created using digital cameras that have wide angle lenses, but since the release of Photoshop CS, the creation process of a panorama is reduced to selecting the photographs that compose the larger panorama and letting Photoshop compute how the pictures are joined together. 

The photomerge feature is also useful in the following scenario: suppose you have a scanner with a lens that fits pages up to 8.5 by 11 inches, but your document is wider than the scanner's lens. In this case you would have to scan multiple regions of your document in order not to miss any parts, but you would be left with more than one picture that represent regions of your entire document. Using Photoshop's photomerge function you can let the software join all the pictures together into one larger picture. Take a look at Figure 1 below to see a before and after scenario: 

Photoshop-panorama2.jpg
Figure 1: Multiple pictures combined together into a single picture

If you find yourself in the situation when you need to accomplish such a task, you can follow these steps to use Photoshop's photomerge feature:
1. Open Photoshop
2. Go to File->Automate->Photomerge
The Photomerge window will open. This is how the window looks (Figure 2): 

Photoshop-photomerge.png
3. Next you need to specify which photos you want to combine together. To do this you can either hit the Browse button and select your pictures individually or you can have the pictures open beforehand in Photoshop and click the button Add Open Files.
4. After selecting the photos in step 3 click OK. Now Photoshop will process the images and will try to combine them together. You will see Photoshop open the photos individually while trying to combine the pictures. A message will be displayed if Photoshop cannot combine the pictures: "Some images could not be automatically aligned". 

If everything went well, you should see the aligned pictures next to each other creating the panorama. 

There are cases when, depending on what pictures you are trying to combine, the resulting image processed by photomerge will be missing parts around the margins. This is due to the fact that each individual picture that comprises a small part of the large picture has to be rotated and slightly distorted by Photoshop in order to get it aligned with the other pictures in the photomerge. Here is a sample picture showing how such a picture might look like (Figure 3):
Photoshop-photomerge-picture1.jpg
Figure 3: Arrows indicated blank space due to the repositioning of the picture in photomerge

To eliminate the problem of having blank parts in your picture one can use the crop tool. To select the crop tool in Photoshop press "C" on your keyboard and select a region of your photo with the crop tool activated such that the region captures as much as possible of the picture without any blank regions. Here is what I'm referring to (Figure 4):  

Photoshop-photomerge-picture2.JPG
Figure 4: Using the crop tool in Photoshop to select a portion of the picture unaffected by blank regions

After selecting such a region as explained above, hit the Enter key to crop your image. You should now have a panorama that does not include any blank regions. 

If you have any questions regarding this tutorial you can send us an email at sta-help@trincoll.edu or contact us by phone, X2589. 

Resizing PDF files to printable dimensions

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There will be times when you have a document that you need to scan for your class or for your personal use. Once you have done this, you realize that there is a lot of unnecessary empty space on the document and you decide to crop it. Now, when you go to print it, you see wasted portions of a piece of paper.

The process of cropping a page in Acrobat Pro is a simple one. When you crop a page in Acrobat, it is similar to taking a pair of scissors and cutting off portions of the document. The effect is that you are left with a reduced size document. Instead of your document being a printable 8.5" X 11", it is now an awkward 6.48" X 7.15." Not only do you have an odd border to your printed page, but you are also wasting space. By resizing your pdf file in photoshop you will be resizing your document to a printable 8.5" X 11", and increasing the size of the document's contents.

First, open the document you intend to resize in Adobe Photoshop. You can do this by right clicking on the icon of your document, selecting Open With and selecting Adobe Photoshop.*

open with photoshop.png

Once Photoshop has opened your file, you will be met with a smaller window that was thumbnails of each page within your document (in this example-15). At the top of this window select Pages to view your document as pages.

import pdf.psd.jpg

Now you must highlight every thumbnail. To do this you can press the Command (if you are working on a Mac platform) or the Control (if you are working on a Windows platform) on your keyboard and click on each thumbnail until all of them are selected.

After doing this, you will have to deselect the option that says Constrain Proportions and then type in the desired image size (in this example 8.5" X 11" [the average page size]) that you would like. You can locate this by referring yourself to the red and blue arrows in the image below, respectively. Select Ok at the bottom right hand corner of that window.

import pdf.jpg

Photoshop will now be opening each individual page of your PDF document in a separate Photoshop window. At this point you have successfully resized your document pages to your desired size. However, you now need to reformat them into a single PDF file. To do this simply click File, Automate, & PDF Presentation.

A new window will open. Select the option to Add Open Files & Multi-Page Document. At this point make sure that the numbers at the end of the names are in order. If they are not, simply drag and drop the first page to the top of the list, and continue until they are in numeric order. Click Save. You can view this process in the following image by looking at the Red arrow and the Blue Arrow, respectively.

add open files.jpg

A new window will open asking you to name and indicate where you want this file to be saved. Choose your location and click save. After this a new window will open. If you would like to view the final resized document select the option to View PDF After Saving. You do not need to do anything else now but click Save PDF.

Congratulations! You have now resized your PDF document into an appropriate dimension for printing. Remember you can save anything to a PDF format, and therefore resize almost anything to a printable size. For further information on saving your document in PDF format, please refer to my previous blog entry - PDF Files or Dobromir's - Save anything in PDF!

If you have any questions about this, or any other STA Blog Post, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment.

*note: If you do not have Adobe Photoshop installed on your computer, you can use this program in the Faculty Instructional Technology Center (FITC) in the library.

If you find yourself oftentimes repeating the same task of converting raw pictures or any other format to the jpeg format then you should consider this simple trick to make things easier for you. Suppose you have 100 pictures in raw format (or any other format for that matter) and you would like to convert all of them to the jpeg format. Doing this manually seems like a daunting task and it could take hours before one could finish converting the entire batch. There is no need to worry, though, because Adobe Photoshop has a built-in feature that enables the user to convert an entire batch of photographs in a matter of seconds.

Here is what you should do in order to convert a batch of pictures to the jpeg format:
1. Open Photoshop
2. Go to File -> Scripts -> Image Processor. You should see something similar to the window in Figure 1:

Photoshop 8-image processor.png3. Under the Select Images to process group, click Select Folder in order to select the batch of pictures that you want to convert. If you don't already have all the pictures in one folder, you should do so.
4. Under the Select location to save processed images group click the radio button next to the Select Folder button and then click on Select Folder to specify where you would like the jpeg pictures to be saved. Alternatively, you could skip this step, but keep in mind that the pictures will be saved in the same location as the source folder of your pictures and this might create confusion.
5. Under the File Type group there are three options. Saving as JPEG, as PSD (Photoshop Document) or TIFF. Checkmark the file type that you want to save to.
6. Optional step: You can also resize the pictures while they are converted. To do so, checkmark the option Resize to Fit and then enter a width and height in pixels in the W: and H: boxes. You can also constrain the resizing of your pictures by entering only one value for the height and leaving the width blank or vice versa.
7. Click Run. You should see Photoshop opening the pictures one by one, saving them and then closing them. Depending on the number of pictures you are converting, this process could vary between a few seconds and a couple of minutes.

That's it. If everything went well, you should see a new copy of your pictures converted to the desired format. To learn more about batch operations and more advanced tricks you can also take a look at Photoshop trick #6: Using Actions in Photoshop. It is very important to understand these features because they could potentially save the user a lot of time and effort by automating repetitive tasks.

If you have any questions feel free to call the STA Office, #2589, or to e-mail at sta-help@trincoll.edu. 

Photoshop CS3: Color a Black and White Photograph!

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Have you ever wanted to color a black and white photograph? Photoshop can help you do that in just a few simple steps!

Step 1: Select your photograph and open it in Photoshop.

bc.jpgStep 2: Choose the "Quick Selection Tool" from the Ps panel (usually located on the left side of the screen).

bc1.gif Step 3: Select the first area you want to give color to, by clicking on it with the Quick Selection Tool pointer.

bc2.jpgStep 4: After the area is outlined, go to Image>Adjustments>Variations. The "Image" menu is located in the top of the screen.

 

bc3.jpgStep 5: A new window prompts that allows you to choose between different colors. The more you click on the color of choice, the denser it becomes. You may combine several colors in order to create the color of choice. If you are not satisfied with the color you have created, you can always go back by pressing on the Original little screen, in the top left corner. To save the selection, click on "OK".

Step 6: You may repeat Step 5 with each different element. In the case of this image, the last elements are the leaves. I will use the "Inverse" function of the "Quick Selection Tool" to select them. To do that, make a right click with the mouse and click on "Select Inverse".

bc4.jpgStep 7: To select the color of the inverse area go again through Image>Adjustments>Variations.

bc5.jpgStep 8: Save the image from the "File" button in the upper left corner, whenever you are satisfied with the color selections.

Photoshop tip#7: Extracting an object from an image

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If you find it difficult to manipulate images to extract certain objects from the background, then you should consider using Photoshop for this task. For example, extracting a tree, or a dog, or a textile from a background can prove to be extremely challenging if you don't make use of any automated feature for selection. There's no need to worry because Photoshop provides a myriad of ways for selecting a complicated object from its background.

In this blog entry we will only focus on one of these methods of selection, but one which gives amazing results with little effort. Let's assume we have an image with a tree and we would like to extract the tree from its background. This is an image from FreeFoto.com (here is the full link: http://www.freefoto.com/preview/15-19-1?ffid=15-19-1&k=Tree,+Sunrise,+Northumberland ). Note that virtually any version of Photoshop beyond version 6 can be used to go through this tutorial. Here is the image that we are going to work with in Photoshop and the final result:

The initial photograph:

Photoshop_tip7_tree.jpgThe final result:

Photoshop_tip7_tree_final.jpg

Follow these steps to copy the tree from its background:
1. Open Photoshop
2. Open the image in Photoshop. For the purpose of this tutorial you should use the same image that I used in this tutorial. Simply right click on the image in the blog entry and click Save as and save the image on your hard drive.
3. Click on the Channels palette from the Layers menu. The layers menu should be located by default somewhere towards the bottom right part of the Photoshop interface. If it is not present, press F7 on your keyboard to enable it.
4. In the Channels palette you should be able to see four layers entitled, RGB, Red, Green and Blue. Out of the four you should focus on the image that provides the most contrast between the object that you want to extract and the background (in this case the tree and the sky). You can probably see that the Red channel provides the most contrast, therefore, select the Red channel. See the image below for a visual guide:

photoshop7_channels_2.jpg5. Because we are going to work with the Red channel we should make a copy of it. Right click on this channel and select Duplicate Channel ...
6. Click Ok on the new window that shows up.
7. Now that we have a copy of the Red Channel, we can manipulate it to obtain the tree from the background. Make sure you have the Red Channel copy selected and go to Image->Adjustments->Curves (or Press Ctrl+M on your keyboard). See the image below:

photoshop7_channels_3.jpg8. Using Curves you should try to increase the contrast even more between the tree and the background. You should add two control points and move them around to match the image below:

photoshop7_curves1.jpgAfter you're done, click Ok in the Curves menu. Your copy of the Red Channel should look similar to this image:

photoshop7_redchannel1.jpg
9. Using the Lasso Tool (Press L on your keyboard to select it) drag a selection around the tree. Try to draw it fairly close to the tree to separate between the remaining clouds and the tree. See the image below:

photoshop7_redchannel_selection1.jpg10. Press CTRL+Shift+I to inverse the selection or go to the Select menu and select Inverse.
11. Press D on your keyboard and then Alt+Backspace to make the selection white. Your image should look like this:

photoshop7_redchannel_final.jpg
12. Now that we have a channel define for our tree we can easily separate the original color tree from the background. First of all, you have to CTRL+left click on the Red Channel copy to make a selection around the channel.
13. Go to the Layers menu and click on the original picture layer and press Delete.

Here is where you should find the layers:

photoshop7_picture_layer.jpg
And here is the final result:

photoshop7_tree_final.jpg
Now that you have completed this tutorial, you probably have a better understanding of how an object can be separated from its background. Please keep in mind that the picture in this blog is used only to demonstrate a technique. You would probably have to make minor adjustments to your photo in order to achieve similar results, but the overall workflow in Photoshop stays the same.

If you have any problems understanding this tutorial feel free to leave any comments or to contact us at the STA office.

Photoshop tip #6: Using Actions in Photoshop

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If you find yourself in the situation where you would have to manually repeat the same actions on a bunch of photos (like cropping, resizing, rotating etc.) you might want to consider this useful feature in Photoshop called Actions. This basically let's you "record" the actions you are doing on a photo so that you can later automatically apply those particular actions to other photos.

 Suppose you have 100 pictures which are rotated 90 degrees clockwise and you would like to make a counterclockwise rotation by 90 for each picture to make them look right. Would you spend all your time trying to individually modify each one? wouldn't it be easier to rotate one and let the program do the same for the rest of your pictures?

Follow these steps in order to create a recordable action:

1. Open Photoshop.
2. Open an image inside Photoshop to record your action.
3. From Photoshop's menu go to Window and from the dropdown menu select Actions. The Actions menu is going to show up.
4. From the Actions menu click on "Create new action" button. See the image below for a visual aid:
Actions menu.jpg5. Name your action From the New Action menu and then hit Record. Note: After this point, any modification brought forth to the picture will be recorded, therefore, be careful when editing your picture.
6. Edit your picture in any way you need to. For example, you could go to the menu Image and select Rotate etc.
7. After you're done editing the picture, be sure to stop recording. Go to the Actions menu and click the "Stop playing/recording" button. See the image below for a visual aid:

Stop recording.jpgAt this point you've created your automated action and all you have to do is apply it to the rest of your pictures.
8. In Photoshop, go to File -> Scripts -> Image Processor ...
9. The Image Processor menu is simple. Choose the folder that contains your pictures you want to modify, choose a folder where you want the resulting images to copied to, select the quality and the file type.
10. Within the same menu, you have to go to the Preferences pane. Make sure Run Action is checked and that you select the name of your action from the dropdown list. In my case, the action I used was called rotate. See the image below for a visual aid:
 
Image Processor menu.jpg11. Click Run and if everything is working correctly you should see Photoshop opening up your images one by one, editing them and then saving to the folder you specified.
12. You're done!

I hope this will help you reduce the amount of time you spend on editing multiple pictures!    

Photoshop tip#5: Creating a pdf file from multiple images

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This blog entry explains the basic process of creating a pdf file from multiple images. This is an automated feature in Photoshop called PDF Presentation.

Here is a simple outline of what you should do in order to create a pdf file from images on your computer.

1. Open Photoshop.
2. Go to File->Automate->PDF Presentation. Here is a screenshot of the PDF Presentation menu:
pdf presentation.png3. Click Browse and select the pictures you want to use in your PDF Presentation.
4. An alternative to step 3 is to have the files already opened up in Photoshop and click on Add Open Files to indicate that you want to include those pictures.
5. The PDF Presentation menu offers the possibility of choosing some of the picture information to be included in the pdf file. For example, the filename, the title, the picture's description and so on,  can be included by clicking on the appropriate checkbox in the Output Options pane.
6. Click Save. Name your pdf file and choose a location on the hard drive where you would like the file to be saved.
7. You're done!

Photoshop tip#4: Creating a Web Photo Gallery

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Photoshop provides the user with a fast way of generating web photo galleries from a folder of pictures on the hard drive. Apart from the fact that the process is straightforward and requires a minimum amount of effort from the user, Photoshop also provides a myriad of templates for the gallery.

Follow these simple steps in order to create a photo gallery:
1. Open up Photoshop.
2. Go to File->Automate->Web Photo Gallery. The menu should look similar to the picture below:

web photo gallery.jpeg3. Choose the style of your web photo gallery from the dropdown list called Styles.
4. Choose Folder from the Source Images pane.
5. Click Browse to select the folder that contains the images that are going to be part of the web photo gallery.
6. Click on Destination to choose where the web photo gallery is going to be saved on the hard drive.
7. Optionally, you could change the default settings of the gallery by accessing the dropdown menu from the Options pane.
8. Click OK to create the web photo gallery.

That's it! Preview your web photo gallery in the browser to see how it looks.

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