BlueTyke
January 6th, 2009, 11:24 AM
(Alex I am not sure where you would like to put this one feel free to move it to wherever.)
(Warning - I have never written a tutorial in my life. I am more of a hands on kind of person but can learn from tutorials... )
Not learned on my own. I did pick up the technique from DMc (on another board) all I did was adapt it to suit my version of Photoshop and switched two of the steps to make it easier.
One of the hardest part about ‘old schooling’ a picture is finding the right one. I prefer images where the subject, what I want to enhance, is prominent in the picture. Aside from that you will need a photo editor that lets you work in layers.
For this example we will use a picture of Tyke & her flower.
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r290/BlueLilTyke/08-09-20%20PA%20Fates/DSC01891.jpg
For this I think I want to just enhance the flower. So pull your image into your photo editor. Save it as a new image (I always do this so I don’t loose the original). For this I will be using Photoshop 5.0 LE.
1. Copy the image. I tend to do this into a new file/window so I still have the original. The copied image needs to be turned to grayscale. You can either do this by selecting your mode option and turning it to grayscale that way (just remember to put it back to RGB Color). Or you can use your Hue and Saturation option to take out the colors. I prefer the grayscale mode.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/OldSchool-BW.jpg
2. Copy the grayscale image into the color copy creating a new layer. (TIP: Keep your grayscale ‘original’ incase you delete/erase something that needed to be gray) What you are going to do now is take out what you don’t want affected. In this case, the flower. You can take this out of the grayscale by whatever means you feel comfortable with. Easier, magic wand, I prefer the Polygon Lasso tool . You are only going to delete from the grayscale image! It also does not have to be perfect but close is alright J (TIP: If you are having a hard time finding your lines change the Opacity levels of the grayscale image to help bring out the colors.) Should look something like this:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/FlowerOut.jpg
3. With your object now presented you want to bring it out more. So we are going to blur the grayscale layer. I prefer to use the Gaussian Blur. You can play around with this as it changes the ‘halo’ of the background. I usually go with 8 pixels. Remember you don’t want it to blurred to distort all of the background but enough to sharpen your object like this:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/Blur.jpg
4. With that done we can now play with the Opacity of the grayscale image. This varies depending on the brightness of the image. I suggest playing with it until it gives you the effect you want. Also this is a good step to play with the Hue and Saturation of your original image. This is if you want to give brighter colors. Optional I think as some of the images don’t seem to need the colors to pop more. For this image I left the color alone and moved the Opacity to 77%
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/Opacity.jpg
Remember the key to a great discovery is playing with what you have.
(Warning - I have never written a tutorial in my life. I am more of a hands on kind of person but can learn from tutorials... )
Not learned on my own. I did pick up the technique from DMc (on another board) all I did was adapt it to suit my version of Photoshop and switched two of the steps to make it easier.
One of the hardest part about ‘old schooling’ a picture is finding the right one. I prefer images where the subject, what I want to enhance, is prominent in the picture. Aside from that you will need a photo editor that lets you work in layers.
For this example we will use a picture of Tyke & her flower.
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r290/BlueLilTyke/08-09-20%20PA%20Fates/DSC01891.jpg
For this I think I want to just enhance the flower. So pull your image into your photo editor. Save it as a new image (I always do this so I don’t loose the original). For this I will be using Photoshop 5.0 LE.
1. Copy the image. I tend to do this into a new file/window so I still have the original. The copied image needs to be turned to grayscale. You can either do this by selecting your mode option and turning it to grayscale that way (just remember to put it back to RGB Color). Or you can use your Hue and Saturation option to take out the colors. I prefer the grayscale mode.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/OldSchool-BW.jpg
2. Copy the grayscale image into the color copy creating a new layer. (TIP: Keep your grayscale ‘original’ incase you delete/erase something that needed to be gray) What you are going to do now is take out what you don’t want affected. In this case, the flower. You can take this out of the grayscale by whatever means you feel comfortable with. Easier, magic wand, I prefer the Polygon Lasso tool . You are only going to delete from the grayscale image! It also does not have to be perfect but close is alright J (TIP: If you are having a hard time finding your lines change the Opacity levels of the grayscale image to help bring out the colors.) Should look something like this:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/FlowerOut.jpg
3. With your object now presented you want to bring it out more. So we are going to blur the grayscale layer. I prefer to use the Gaussian Blur. You can play around with this as it changes the ‘halo’ of the background. I usually go with 8 pixels. Remember you don’t want it to blurred to distort all of the background but enough to sharpen your object like this:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/Blur.jpg
4. With that done we can now play with the Opacity of the grayscale image. This varies depending on the brightness of the image. I suggest playing with it until it gives you the effect you want. Also this is a good step to play with the Hue and Saturation of your original image. This is if you want to give brighter colors. Optional I think as some of the images don’t seem to need the colors to pop more. For this image I left the color alone and moved the Opacity to 77%
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/S2_Rp/Photoshop/Opacity.jpg
Remember the key to a great discovery is playing with what you have.