ADOBE Lessons

The ability to place your subject into any background frees your creativity and expands your options for clients.
Our goal is to make it simple. We show you how to match light, camera angles & color in camera, then finish the job in Photoshop.

Intro to Studio Compositing

How to Color Images for Web

In this episode we use a couple of different adjustment layers to color the image before saving it out to the web. We start with a Color Balance adjustment layer and add green and blue into the waves. Then we add another Color Balance layer to bring some red and yellow into our subject and the background, adding a nice contrast to the blue. After getting our color right, it is time to work on the exposure. We use a Curves Adjustment Layer to bring up the shadow level and keep the highlights where they are. then we mask that layer to only be visible over the subject.

How to Sharpen Images for Web

After getting our color perfect, it is time to sharpen your image. It is important to resize your image before you sharpen, so the image will be sharp at the display size. Avoid resizing your original image, it is much better to make a copy and resize the copy. To do this we create a new layer on the top of everything, and go to Image – Apply Image. Use the default settings in the dialog box and you will get an exact copy of your image on the new layer. From there, right click on the layer and select Duplicate Layer, and select a new document.

Once you have a new document, resize it to the output resolution, in this case we use 1200 px wide.

Now it is time to sharpen. Go to Filter – Sharpen – Unsharp Mask. Choose a radius that provides the optimum level of sharpening without going overboard. My recommendation is to go a little too far then back it off to get the right amount.

How to Save Images for Web

Once you have your image colored, resized and sharpened, it is time to Save for Web. Go to File – Export – Save for Web. You want to make sure you have “Convert to sRGB” checked, this is the color space that most internet browsers use, and converting to this color space will ensure your colors look great on the web.

If you want to see a preview of your image online, click on the Preview button on the bottom left of the dialog box, it will open your default internet browser and display your image. This is the best way to see how your image looks online!

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How to Reduce Noise in Photoshop

The best way to reduce noise in an image is to shoot with a low ISO in camera. The camera creates an exposure based on three values – ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed. ISO is the only variable that will result in noise. Ideally, one would adjust the shutter speed and aperture (to let in enough light to create an exposure) at a low ISO to prevent image noise.

The best ISO settings to use for lower noise levels are 100, 200, 400 and 800. Anything above that is likely to create noise on the image. Cameras are getting better all the time, and there will come a day when ISO 6400 looks perfectly clean, but until then, keep ISO as low as possible!

Reduce Noise Filter

The first step in removing noise in your image is to use the ‘Reduce Noise Filter’. In the ‘Reduce Noise Dialog’ one can control strength, preserve details, reduce color noise, and sharpen details. The strength of the filter determines how much it reduces noise – go as high as you need to remove noise, but don’t over-do it. Bringing the ‘Reduce Noise’ lower will make the filter more effective, but will also reduce detail in the image – find the balance that works best.

If there is a lot of color noise, use the ‘Reduce Color’ noise option to remove it. Also, there is an option in ‘Advanced Settings’ to reduce noise on each color channel individually. ‘Sharpen Details’ will add artificial sharpening to your image after the ‘Reduce Noise’ filter is added, so it’s best to keep this at zero.

Using the Surface Blur to Reduce Noise

If there is still noise after the ‘Reduce Noise’ filter is used, adding a Surface Blur may help. The key to using a Surface Blur to reduce noise in photos is to balance the radius and threshold. If the threshold is too low, the image will not be effected. Threshold controls where the blur will stop. It uses differences in tone to find edges, and tries to preserve those edges. The higher the threshold, the more separate elements in the image will blur into each other. The Blur radius determines the area that will be blurred – the larger the radius, the more blur.

It’s best to bring both of these values as high as possible without destroying image details.

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Input and Output Levels

When using ‘Levels’ adjustment layers it is important to note the differences between input and output levels. Input levels allow you to change black levels, white levels and mid-tones. This can be used to add contrast to an image and make the darks darker or lights lighter.

Output levels adjust how dark ‘black’ is in an image and how light ‘white’ is. Using the output levels, it is possible to change the ‘black’ point to grey, giving the image a less contrasted look.

Adjusting Colors using Levels

Levels adjustment layers can also be used to change color in an image. To change colors, click on the color channel drop down – by default it will be on RGB. From here the Red, Green and Blue channels can be adjusted individually.

For instance – to add blue into the shadows of and image, select the ‘Blue’ color channel and slide the dark point to the right on the output levels.

Finishing Touches

To finish the image and give it that ‘Film’ look, a slight gaussian blur was applied. This makes the image look like it was taken with a lower quality lens. Next noise was added to the image to simulate film grain.