Photoshop Workshop
Lead by Alex Gillot
Personal Piece: Porsche Manipulation
5 min read 31.10.23
The first workshop we did with Alex was on photoshop skills. Personally this was the most beneficial of his 3 workshops. Photoshop is my weakest of the Adobe Suites, But this workshop helped me level up my photo manipulation skills. I discovered how to use the adjustment features to get desired outcomes as well as other tools to adjust lighting and shadows. Alex also showed us how to make clean cutouts using the object selection tool. The most powerful tool I didn’t know about was definitely the Spot Healing Brush. It is far superior to the Clone Stamp Tool I had used for so long delivering super accurate results. We also played around with Content Aware Fill to see what it was capable of.
I decided to use this exploration to refine and improve my photo manipulation skills. To start I gathered some source materials from different car photoshoots with the plan of using my skills to take a car from one image and implement it into another one, seamlessly.
I started by removing the red car from the image using the content aware fill tool, freeing up space for my manipulation while keeping the background seamless. Next I pasted in the cut out the car using the object selection tool, positioned it where the old car was and began matching it to the original image. I used soft brushes to create highlights around the car edges to mimic the lighting in the scene as well as the dodge and burn tools to lighten up the car tyres, darken the lower areas of the car and create reflective lines along the bodywork.
The hardest part about this manipulation experiment was replicating the shadows under the car. The rear quarter shadows have a seamless look but the front end of the car and the side do not create the seamless look I wanted to achieve. I found difficulty working out where the light should be coming from on that side which made it hard to match the shadows accordingly, apart from that I am happy with how it turned out.
Adjustment Layers
Using adjustment layers lets you completely change the environment in which an image is set adjusting factors like the highlights, shadows, temperature and colour strength. By combining these features together you can easily manipulate and touch up images to create something completely different or replicate a specific aesthetic in your design work.
Cut out/Subject Selection
The cutout tool is a very powerful tool, especially after Photoshops latest updates improving its accuracy significantly. Alex showed us the best way to cut out objects in order to create clean lines and remove semi-transparent backgrounds around objects like hair. This tool is perfect for combining images in a composition as it gives you accurate outlines to work with when adjusting lighting and blending layers.
Spot Healing Tool
The spot healing tool is an advanced and more accurate version of the clone stamp tool, using content aware features to create seemless adjustments to objects. It is perfect for touching up images with things like scratched surfaces, spots and other small imperfections you may have with your images. It is not as effective on bigger imperfections as it can't gather enough surrounding information to create a clean touch up, the content aware fill feature is best for this.
Burn and Dodge tools
This tool is great for adjusting the lighting on an image, increasing vibrance and intensity or taking it away. If you want to add depth and detail to darker areas of an image you can use the Burn brush or if you want to lighten and increase vibrance of an area you can use the Dodge brush. These tools are 10x more effective than using black and white brushes on adjustment layers and changing the blend mode and take up half of the time too.
Generative/ Content-Aware fill
The development of content aware and generative fill tools have been created a massive increase in efficiency for Photoshop users, making removing objects and people from images easier than ever. The tool can use the surrounding areas within an image to create a seemless edit, replacing whichever area you select with an edit that is almost invisible to the eye, depending on image size and complexity. The power of this tool will increase over time as the results become more accurate and the AI improves
Featured Artist: Cameron McPhee
Profession: Digital Artist & Photo Manipulation Specialist
Cameron is a Photoshop wizard who creates seemless compositions and images. I have been following his work for some time as I love how he can take multiple assets and combine them using different effects to create flawless results that look like a real image. His ability to create something from anything is the coolest part about his work I find, it gives him unlimited creative potential when making his compositions which is something all designers dream of having. I analysed some of his work before stepping into my own experiments, looking at how he creates consistent lighting and shadows within his work, as well as blending colour schemes together for seemless results.