Turning Your Image Into a Circle-- Photoshop/PSE Tutorial

I have had this question a  few times, and turning your photo into a circle in Photoshop is a skill that incorporates an important Photoshop skill-- clipping masks.
Skill: Turning a rectangular photo into a circular image
Technology Used: PSE 6 (I chose this because it is a program that you all are likely to have and this tutorial can be easily adapted to the full version of Photoshop)

Part A: Creating the Circle
Open PSE in Edit

File=> New=> Blank File   I created a 12 x 12 image but any larger size will work so that you don't have to do to much re-sizing.

Create a New Blank Layer

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool

Select from the options menu-- Fixed Aspect Ratio and the same numbers for width and height to make it a circle.  Here it is set as "Normal."

Click and Drag out your circle- resize and move with the Move tool so that it is the appropriate size.

You have two options to fill your circle

1: Select your Paint Bucket and fill your circle with a random color.

2: Select the New Adjustment Layer Icon-- The half black/half white circle in the Layers Pallette and select Solid Color.

You should now see your blank background layer and your circle on an independant layer

Part B: Adding the Photo Layer to Your Image

Open your photo.

Select=> All

Edit=>Copy

Now you can move back to your circle image and select Edit=>Paste and PSE will move this copied image to a new layer.

Part C: Clipping Your Photo Into Your Circle

Place your photo layer on top of your circle if it isn't already. 
Make sure your photo layer is selected. (The layer will be hightlighted in your Layer Pallette)
Hold the ALT key down on your computer and slowly hover your mouse down from your photo layer to your circle layer.  You will see your Mouse turn into a different icon, which basically means that it is it is time to Snip.

You can do this by simply left-clicking your mouse, and all of the areas of the photo which are outside of the circle have now dissappeared.  But don't worry-- you can still move your photo layer and resize it so that it fits your circle the best.

You will also see that the layer that is clipped is indented and that there is a small right angle arrow showing that it is clipped to the lower layer.


Part D: Flattening Your Image

Turn Off your Background Layer by clicking on the Eye next to the layer.

Now you can simply flatten your image using Merge Visible/Flatten Image=> Discard Hidden Layers or your favorite method. 

Save as a PSD or PNG to preserve the transparent background or simply move to your destination image. 
As you practice more, you can create clipping masks in the image you will ultimately be using, but when you are first starting out, it can be helpful to not have too many layers to work with-- have fun!

The Three Adjustments I Always Make

Positively the comment I get the most in my digital photography classes, online and in a Facebook group that I am involved in offering digital photography tips for mothers that love photography is:

I have just started editing photos and I have no idea what I am doing-- I have PSE, but have no idea of how to use it- help!

Not too long ago I was in your shoes.  I knew that I wanted to do more with my images, but it seemed like most of the tutorials and books out there were for the full version of Photoshop, or assumed a certain level of knowledge before you even got to the beginning of the tutorial. 

There are a couple of adjustments that I always find myself making, whether in PSE or Photoshop, and whatever the photo situation.  These adjustments can quickly take away annoyances that you didn't even know you had with your image, and can take an image that you are satisfied with, to one you are proud of showing off to anyone.

When you open your photo in PSE, you will see a series of drop-down menus along the top of the screen.  Amongst these is the Layer drop down menu. (There are other ways to create new layers, but for those of you that are just beginning, this is the easiest way and the method that changes least between different versions of Photoshop.)  You can access all of the following Adjustment Layer by Choosing the Layer drop down and then "New Adjustment Layer."  This will make the side-menu for Adjustment Layers pop out.  This is where you will find these Adjustment Layers as choices.

The three adjustments I always make in PSE:

Layer=> New Adjustment Layer=>

Levels.

                Underneath the histogram, (the thing that looks like a mountain) move the two sliders to toward the middle, and possibly move the middle slider to the right or the left.  As you adjust this subtly, you will see a change in your image. 

All pixels in your image are given a number from 0-255, ranging from completely black to completely white.  Say you move the slider to 3 (or manually change it in the field underneath this slider) Where only the pixels with a value of 0 were completely black before, then all of the pixels with a value of 0,1,2 and 3 will then be black. 

You can also use the eye-drops pictured here to adjust the levels.  Click on the black eye-dropper and move over to your image.  Click again, this time on something in your image that is supposed to be completely black.  I find that this works best with things like walls and furniture, and less well with black clothing, which may or may not be really black if it has been worn and washed multiple times.

Brightness/Contrast

                I tend to like more contrast in my images, so I would move the sliders up about 3-5.  Brightness is one adjustment where subtle is better, and this adjustment should only be done after the Levels Adjustment has been made. 

As your image gets brighter, you may notice a loss of the fine detail in your image, and this is where Contrast comes in to play.  Contrast makes the difference between the light pixels and dark pixels in your image more pronounces, and brings back a lot of the detail to your image.  However, once again- less is more as you can accidentally age someone and make the soft face of a young child look harsh. 

Hue/Saturation

                I try to leave the Hue slider alone and just adjust the saturation to my liking.  If you image has a proper White Balance (which we talk about elsewhere) then hue is not as vital. 

The Saturation slider is one of my favorites, because it allows you to adjust not only the overall saturation of the image, but also the saturation of each color component of the image.  By default, you will have Master selected in the drop down menu at the top of this palette.  You can select other colors to warm up a cool face, or make a background color pop. 

(Next-- changing an Adjustment Layer so that it affects only one area of your image.)

Digital Easter Eggs~Photoshop/PSE Freebie for Design and Scrapbooking

Free to my customers, students and fans, eight digital Ester Eggs- perfect for your photo creations, digital scrapbooking and design projects.

You can find the zipped file here to download the eight separate png images with transparent backgrounds.  Simply un-zip the file and Extract each of the eggs and use as you like. 

You can feel free to use these in your personal projects, as well as for commercial purposes, but please do not simply repackage the files and sell them as-is.  I would also love to see what you create with them, so feel free to tag Carrie Weston Photography on Facebook, email me and share with me the Flickr feed or other location of your creation.

Enjoy!

My First Free Photoshop Action-- {Sharp as a Tack}

My Photoshop students know-- Actions are just one of the many ways that Adobe Photoshop has worked to automate your workflow and make editing of photos easier. 

While I want you to know how to use Photoshop and understand the functions and processes involved in everything you do in Photoshop, I also love the ability to automate repetetive actions and to learn new things as you study and adjust Actions. 

My first Action that I have made for my student's usage is CWP-Sharp as a Tack.    This Action will sharpen your image using  a High Pass Filter, one of the best ways to sharpen your image, but one of the lesser known. 

I will be posting later the Action Recipe for how you can do this, or you can look at my Photoshop Extras page for this and future Actions for my students.

{Making the Most of Your Point and Shoot Camera}

Point and Shoot digital cameras have come a long way from the simple 2MP still image recorders of just a few years ago.  Today, a wide variety of creative styles and inexpensive editing software has changed the world of digital photography to the level of art, even for those who cannot afford expensive professional cameras. 

This series will cover basics of using your point and shoot digital camera beyond the automatic settings and quick fixes that you can do to when it seems like your camera just doesn’t “get” what you want it to do. 

One of the most popular features of point and shoot cameras is their numerous Creative Settings.  One of the most powerful is the Portrait setting.  This setting is most often symbolized as a woman's profile, sometimes in a hat.  This setting will do two things- it will make the point of focus crisp and clear while blurring out the background (commonly called bokeh) and will meter the exposure based upon the subject of the portrait rather than the surrounding background. 

This setting, naturally, is useful for portrait photography, but it can also be useful for still life photography where you would like to have a singular subject in focus and the surrounding area blurred.

What should the Portrait setting not be used for?  It functions poorly as a setting for landscape photography where you want a large area of your image in focus.  Some cameras also have issues in the portrait setting when they are trying to photograph larger groups of people.  The camera wants to have a smaller area in focus, and so people in the background or along the sides of the image may not be in focus. 

Up Next in Making the Most of Your Point and Shoot Camera: The Sports Creative Setting.

{Basic Digital Photography Tips} The Terrible Trio- ISO

This article is the first of a series of three articles of digital photography tips for beginning photographers looking learn the basics of how their digital camera works, and how to get a properly exposed image.  Perhaps the most easily understood of the three main components of a proper exposure in digital photography, ISO simply put, is your camera's "film's" sensitivity to light. 

Now, if only the name of ISO was as easy to understand.  ISO stands for "International Standards Organization," which really has no bearing on its function, so feel free to forget it now.  I know it is unusual for an instructor to tell you to forget something, but beginning in the world of digital photography can be a bit overwhelming, so one fewer thing to remember can be welcome.

Now, think way back to a time before the common nature of digital cameras and photography, to when you were taking a family vacation and needed to go buy film so that you could capture the memories of the museum, beach or Grandma's house.  One of the few things you probably considered besides the brand and price was the number prominently featured on the side of the box. 

I always felt safe buying a box labelled ISO 400, and the same is true today.  In your camera's setting is a setting for ISO, or you can leave this setting up to your camera.  If you have done so,  you can also look back through past images already on your camera and see that many of them in generally good light were probably shot around an ISO of 400. 

However, what do we do if we don't have the greatest light?  Say you are going to Grandma's house or a museum where the lighting might not be ideal.  What should you set your ISO at to avoid annoying blurs or too dark images, or the dreaded flashface? 

The important thing to remember is the higher the number you set your ISO at, the greater is your camera's sensitivity to light.  So Higher ISO=A Lighter Image with all of the same settings for everything else.  You're probably wondering then Carrie, why don't we want to use a high ISO all the time and never have a blur we don't want, never have an image that is too dark? 

We ideally would like to keep ISO at as small a number as possible because the easier it is for your sensor to absorb light, unfortunately it is also easier for your camera to have unwanted "noise" in the image.  This term is analogous to unwanted background sounds in audio recordings. 

A few of you may have seen this example in one of my Beginning Digital Photography classes; In the photo on the left, you can see my husband and son in the low-light environment of a museum back in our hometown in MI. You will notice that there is something about the image that looks a bit off, and when you come in closer in the crop on the right, you can see that both of their jackets appear to have small dots of color on them, as well as their faces.  This is noise. 

In horrible lighting conditions, you may have to raise your ISO up as high as it will go to have any chance of an okay photograph.  You have only a very few other options, which are to change one of the other three main aspects of exposure that we are discussing in this series:

{Basic Digital Photography Tips} The Terrible Trio- Aperture

{Basic Digital Photography Tips} The Terrible Trio- Shutter Speed

So get out there- practice, and be the boss of your camera!

Basics of Non-Auto Photography

Whether you are using one of the cheapest Point and Shoot cameras available, or you have sprung hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for an expensive SLR (we'll cover the difference later) the basic concepts of how your camera is working are still the same.

 Once you know these basics and have control over these three components of a properly exposed image, you can use this knowledge to create great images in a wide variety of lighting, and not just when your camera happens to guess correctly how you want your photo to work.

In photography, the three main technical components affecting image exposure, depth of field and a whole slew of other really important things are  Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.  We cover the Terrible Trio in class, but each of these three vital components to photography deserves more time and attention than we can give in class, and so this series, Basics of Non-Auto Photography, we will spend a little time exploring each of these, and hopefully remind you that you are smarter than your camera and you have to tell it what to do. 

So grab your camera and manual, get ready to spin some dials away from Auto, and learn to harness the technology at your fingertips.