Spice up your Images with Photoshop CS3

In this part, we show how you can apply modifiable filters to different layers, and how routine tasks such as correcting image patches and improving brightness/contrast have been simplified

Saturday, March 10, 2007

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The Photoshop CS3 beta is available as a Universal Binary for the Mac OS as well as for Windows XP and Vista based computers. We discussed the procedure to download it in the Feb issue (pg118). Meanwhile, Adobe has now made it possible for Windows users of Photoshop CS2 to get a Mac CS3 beta serial number and vice versa. Last month we reviewed some of the interesting new features in Tool bar and Palettes, Curves and how you can smartly convert your color images to black & white. Let's now look at the other new tools/enhancements that will make life easier for you.

Applying smart filters
This is one of the major attractions of this release. In previous versions, after applying a filter to an image, you couldn't go back and modify or edit the filter settings, or remove the filter effect completely. You couldn't even reduce or increase opacity or apply blending modes. Now, using a smart filter you can do all this and more, as many times as you want. To apply a smart filter, a layer must first be converted to a Smart Object. For creating Smart Objects, go to file menu and click on 'Open as Smart Object.'

In CS3, when we create a Smart Object, the pixels are always preserved in their original state and as a result, Smart Objects can now be used to apply filter effects that are fully editable. Smart filters appear as parameters under the layer to which they have been applied. To create a smart filter, select the layer and go to Filter menu.

Select 'Convert for Smart filters.' A smart filter will be applied to that layer. You can revert back to the original image later on, in case you are not satisfied with the changes done. Another new feature is the 'Smart filter mask.' Such a mask, when applied to filters, allows you to adjust the filter's effects on different areas of an image. It's also possible to rearrange the filter's positions by clicking and dragging on those.

You can see four different Smart Filters applied to Layer 1. These can be modified as many times as you want

Quick Selection tool
CS3 has also made selecting images a lot easier. Earlier, a magic wand tool was used for selecting areas with the same color (eg, a black hat or a green shirt) in an image. But this used to take a lot of time what with, say a black hat, having different shades in the same image. You required a shift key to add variant patches of the same color. This could also be done by changing the tolerance. In CS3, you just need to select the Quick Selection tool from the tools palette and click and drag slightly on the object. The software analyzes the image to complete the selection automatically. There is no need to press shift key for adding a new variant patch of the same color, as by default it adds this variant to the selection mode. If the selection goes beyond the specified color, it's easy to remove the selection.

CS3 provides you with the option of choosing either the Quick Selection or the Magic Wand Tool for selecting areas with the same color gradient. However, it's best done using the Quick Selection Tool

Refining edges
Another new feature-Refine Edge, offers a quick and easy way to modify edges of any selection. This is quite useful as in older versions, we had to go to Select menu and choose expand, contract or feather options for getting a clean edge. In CS3, just select the Refine Edge tool from the top side of the Main menu or from the Select menu. In this dialog box you can set options such as Standard looks, Quick mask, background (black or white) and mask. The Refine Edge dialog box allows you to set values for smooth, feather, contract options or expand the current selection using simple slider controls. You can also experiment with the Radius slider to select irregular or fuzzy edges. The preview shows you the changes before they are applied.

Using the 'Use Legacy' dialog, we can increase/decrease the brightness/contrast in even highlight and shadow areas

Enhancing brightness/contrast
For images that are a little bit washed out and look very flat in appearance, we can restore some of their natural contours by reducing the brightness of the image and spiking the contrast a little bit. For this, open the Brightness/Contrast menu and turn on the 'Use Legacy' box. Here, reduce the brightness and increase the contrast a little bit. This will show more details in highlight and shadow areas. This is in contrast to the older versions, which gave details of the mid-tones but not the highlight and shadow areas.

The feather option in the Refine Edge dialog box allows you to preview the modified area

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