Quick Tips

[Echo]

Okay, so this a thread with the intention of allowing fakirs to share short nibbles of advice with one another, whether they are software-specific or general photo editing tips. To maintain clarity I suggest:

One tip per post.
If your tip is software specific (i.e. a tip for using Photoshop, GiMP, CorelDraw) start the post with something like "Photoshop Tip."
Apart from tips, please only posts questions regarding tips posted if you're unsure about something. You can just use the Thanks button if you found a particular piece of advice helpful. That's what it's there for.

Okay let's get the ball rolling.


Ever felt that you've been going blind to colour differences? It seems like it's okay, but when you look at later (e.g. after you've posted it) and think "that's not right?" When trying to match colours, look away from the screen every now and again for 15 seconds or so or even just shut your eyes. Now look back and see if colour differences show up more clearly. Chances are they will. I think that the reason for this is physiological. As you stare at the bright computer screen, the rods and cones in the back of your eye get fatigued and consequently make your eyes less sensitive to colour perception. Looking away gives them a chance to recover a bit.

[Echo]

Photoshop Tip

Go into Photoshop's preferences menu either by going through Edit>Preferences>General or just pressing Ctrl+K. In the box that appears choose Performance from the list on the left hand side. From here you can increase the number of History states that persist. I believe it defaults at 20, which is too low I think. By having a greater amount of History states available, you have greater flexibility in being able to return your image to a previous state, which can help avoid the need for reverting back to an earlier saved version or even having to start again. You might need to have an image open first or the changes may not take effect (happened to me).

Depending on the amount of RAM (memory) that your computer has, this may hamper its performance. If it becomes sluggish after increasing the History states, go back in and reduce them.

[Echo]

More a thought than a tip.

If you're doing a fake that involves extracting a whole head-shot rather than just part of it, have an empty or invisible background behind it and Save As a .png ("ping") file as .png files will preserve the transpareny:
Sorry this is a private forum and the links are hidden.
For quality fakes go to Jack's below.

By doing so you can then post the extracted headshot with your fake if you want, which I think could be helpful for less experienced fakirs.

For example, here's a Frankie Sandford headshot from a fake I tried a while back that didn't work out. It looks better against a light background:
Sorry this is a private forum and the links are hidden.
For quality fakes go to Jack's below.

Original pic Launch of Samsung Thingumy* Phone, 14/09/09
Sorry this is a private forum and the links are hidden.
For quality fakes go to Jack's below.

*Actual phone may differ

[Gun]

Nice tips, Echo...cheers

I especially like the history state tip. I did not realise you could increase it..although I need to sort my RAM out before I do increase it..still great to know, though.

It'll come in handy when I'm furiously tapping away at my clone stamp tool..or my blending brush. Twenty is usually enough..but it's always nice to have more. mate

[Lambda]

great post and tips here I complete agree with you when you talk about looking away from the screen, its so easy to get caught up that u don't realise how 'out' you are.

Only tip I can suggest to newer photo shop users, is to play around with the program a little there's always an undo button you never know you may find something that can benefit us all.

[Echo]

(10-12-2009 05:06 PM)Gun Wrote: Sorry this is a private forum and the links are hidden.
For quality fakes go to Jack's below.

It'll come in handy when I'm furiously tapping away at my clone stamp tool..or my blending brush. Twenty is usually enough..but it's always nice to have more. mate

Better to have an option and not need it than need it and not have it. Once you're familiar using layers, masks, adjustment layers and smart filters it isn't really needed much for error correction. BUT it is still useful for quickly jumping between different steps in your image's progress. This can help you assess whether or not finer tweaks are actually improving the image or not.

Real quick one here; an interesting little thought I read in a magazine recently:
"If the eyes in your image aren't sharp, it doesn't matter what else is. This is because we connect with other people through their eyes."

I've always liked to keep the eyes as sharp as possible. Now I know why

[Echo]

General tip for learners

Following on from the last post about sharpness. Be aware that sharpening tools and filters are NOT anti-blur tools - what they do is accentuate the contrast at edges. They can help improve "soft" images, but a pic that is blurry can't be made nice and crisp using them.

If you want a nice, sharp fake, you need nice and sharp HS and BS pics to make it from.

[Echo]

Kinda forgot about this


Ok, ever wondered why in Photoshop there are 2 transparency sliders for a layer, marked Opacity and Fill?

Well opacity controls the overall transparency of a layer including layer effects, while fill controls the opacity of a layer excluding effects. By effects I mean options from the blending options menu such as Gradient Overlay, Drop Shadow, Bevel and Emboss etc. If you don't know, to bring up the blending options layer, either double click on the layer in the layers pallette (but not on its name or you'll edit that text) or select the layer in the pallette and go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options.

If there's ever an occasion when all you want is a layer effect (such as a drop shadow) but not the layer that creates it, drop the Fill percentage, not the Opacity percentage. Note that if you're using this with Drop Shadow, the Drop Shadow menu has a checkbox option called Layer Knocks Out Drop Shadow which affects how the shadow is displayed.

[Echo]

Photoshop tip again.

Did you know that you can change the grey area around the canvas to a different colour? Hover over the grey area and Right Click to choose Grey, Black or Custom Colour. Alternatively, choose the Paint Bucket tool, hover over the grey area and Left Click while holding Shift to colour it using the current foreground colour.

It's a good idea to leave this at the default grey as its colour and luminosity are neutral so as not to affect your colour perception, which for us fakers isn't helpful.

So why mention this you may ask? Well if for example you are putting together a banner signature for a website, you can temporarily change this area to the same colour as that website's bg to see how it's going to look on it

[Chainsaw]

Very helpful tips Echo, a big thanks..

[templar]

Many thanks, mate, both for reminding me of some things I'd forgotten and simply for having the generosity to create such a good and helpful thread. I applaud your obvious interest and enthusiasm for the whole culture of faking.
Can I just add an extra tip related to the matter of increasing history states - Save your work frequently !!! If something causes your imaging program to freeze or close suddenly ( it can still happen), you've lost everything you've done to the project since your last save. Get into the habit of saving often !!

[Echo]

Doing work on a heavily zoomed in area of a pic (e.g. hair painting) and want to look at a zoomed out version quickly?

Go to Window>Arrange>New Window for "xxx.psd" where xxx.psd is the name of the file you are working on.

A second window will be created for the document which can be zoomed independently. Use Ctrl+Tab to quickly switch between the two.

[SummerMute]

Applicable to any program you use;
Make sure you check your work at a variety of monitor brightness/contrast settings, not only are some problems that are glaringly obvious at certain settings undetectable at others, different people have different surfing preferences -- and the idea is to make sure your work looks at least reasonable over the full range.

I generally surf at 30%/30%, but use 80%/80% to work on DMIs or critique them.

I usually check 30/30, 30/50, 30/80, 50/80, and 80/80. This takes ~5 seconds per adustment plus whatever time I spend panning my eyes around the image to spot things.

[Echo]

Cheers SummerMute for the add. Forgot about this thread again.


Adding to my tip above about creating two windows, you can view both simultaneously by going to Window>Arrange>Tile. You can also drag the border between the 2 windows to where you want it. I'm using CS5 now so I'm not sure which versions do and do not have this feature. Pretty sure it was in CS3 though I don't remember.

Now when working close up with details you can have the second window zoomed out so you can immediately see how changes you are making look when the pic is pulled back. If you colour match using channels you can also use this method to keep a full colour version of the image visible as well as the monochrome one you get when a channel is selected.

Example:

Sorry this is a private forum and the links are hidden.
For quality fakes go to Jack's below.