Introduction: Enhancing a Photograph

In this chapter we are going to learn how to enhance your photographs. In the next few steps you’ll see how to use the sharpen tool, smooth, and the use of adjustment layer.

1. Getting Started:

Take a picture with your digital camera and bring it into Photoshop. Look at the file, in our case the image looks good but it is a little dark, no need to worry, we are about to fix this.

Duplicate the original layer and name it sharp, then lock the original layer in case we make a mistake we’ll still have the original layer to go back.

2. Sharpening the Image

Go to the top menu and select filter/sharpen/unsharp mask filter.

Set Amount 20% and Radius 60.0 pixels and in Threshold leave it at 0.

Checkout the two pictures, you’ll see a difference from our original (A) file and the one we are working on (B).

(A)

(B)

3. Brightness and Contrast

Now we’re going to enhance our image a lot with a little more brightness. Make an adjustment layer, and create a brightness and contrast adjustment layer.

In my case I use these settings +20 for brightness and +15 for contrast (but try to experiment for this step, to achieve something you like).

Using adjustment layers is a great way to apply color or adjustments to your images without the need to apply it direct. By this I mean, since you’re modifications are not actually applied to the image you can easily delete the adjustment layer without affecting the image at all.

Now my friend Faridee looks much better, lets move to the next step.

4. Smoothing

Duplicate the sharp layer and name that layer smooth.

Go to the top menu and select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur, then set Radius to 3.5 pixels and go to the layer window, and set the Opacity to 40%.

Add a layer mask to the smooth layer, look in the layer window to be sure you got the foreground color set to black.

Select the brush and start painting the hair and eyes.

5. Adjusting the Color

The picture looks much better now. Lets move on and adjust some colors.

At this point of the chapter you know how to create a adjustment layer, less add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, be sure to have check the colorize option, and set the values for Hue 43/ Saturation 31/ Lightness 0.

Set the Opacity for the Hue/Saturation layer to 30%.

6. The Result

And we are done! This is my final result (seen in the first picture), but you can experiment more to add you’re personal touch to you’re own photographs.

I hope you learned a little more about how to use Photoshop with this chapter.