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How to Edit Photos in Photoshop
Janine van der Kooij - Vink
Editing Photos in Photoshop
Photoshop is used daily by many photographers and designers. It is an extensive program that allows you not only to edit photos but also to create remarkable designs from scratch. Because of all its possibilities, it can be quite an overwhelming program for beginners. So many functions and options—where do you start? In this tutorial, we will go through a few basic edits so that you can create a fun and creative photo yourself.
We will cover various elements that we will continuously apply to one example. Of course, you do not have to do exactly the same with your own photos, but with our examples we hope to provide a foundation that allows you to get started on your own.
Example
In this tutorial, we will combine two photos. We find the landscape with flowers and blue sky a bit boring and want to make it more impressive by adding a large mountain in the background. How? We will explain it to you!
Working with Layers in Photoshop
What makes Photoshop so great compared to other photo editing software is that you can easily work with multiple files in one document. Each photo or image in your document becomes a separate layer. These layers are stacked in the menu on the right-hand side. The top layer in this menu is also the top layer in your document. In our example, you can see that our landscape is visible in front of the mountain. Want to reverse this? Then you can simply drag the layers over each other.
Within the layers menu itself, there are a number of important symbols. A layer may have a padlock icon behind it. This means the layer is locked and cannot be edited. By clicking the padlock, you unlock the layer so that it can be moved. The eye symbol on a layer indicates whether it is visible. Want to edit one photo without the other getting in the way? Turn off the visibility of that photo by clicking the eye icon.
To get the two photos together in one document as shown above, follow these steps. From the Photoshop start screen, go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack. In the menu that appears, you can easily add multiple photos to a single document.
Resizing Images in Photoshop
Now we have two photos in the document that we will later combine into one image. First, we make the landscape photo larger so that it fills the entire document. Go to Image > Image Size to open a menu. Here, you can specify the size of the photo using pixels. If you know the exact dimensions of the document, simply enter them and you are done. You can make the photo smaller, but also larger.
Want more flexibility with the dimensions? Use the shortcut CTRL + T (CMD + T on Mac) to transform the image. Small handles will appear in the corners of the photo that you can drag. This allows you to make the photo larger or smaller, but the proportions can quickly change, resulting in an image that is too wide or too tall. Therefore, hold down the SHIFT key while dragging these handles. This keeps the proportions the same.
Making a Background Transparent in Photoshop
Making a background transparent is very easy in Photoshop. This works best when the background colour differs greatly from the foreground. In this case, the blue sky contrasts strongly with the green landscape below. However, there are many variations within the sky itself. The clouds mean it is not a uniform blue sky. To remove the sky, we have several tools at our disposal.
With the Magic Wand Tool, you can select a colour in the photo with a single click. If there are small colour differences in your background, as in our landscape, the Magic Wand may skip some areas. That is why we use the Quick Selection Tool instead. It works in much the same way, but allows us to select sections of the sky more precisely by clicking on them.
The background is now fully selected, and we click Select and Mask at the top of the screen. In this menu, we are going to remove the sky from our photo. Click Invert to select the grass and flowers. These are what we want to keep. The sky becomes visible again and the ground is highlighted in red. The red area indicates the selection. You can refine this selection further using the sliders so that the edges are more precise. Under Output To, select New Layer. The sky is now removed from the photo. You will immediately see in the document that the mountain behind the landscape becomes visible. The original landscape layer is still present in the document. You can delete it because we no longer need it.
Combining Two Photos in Photoshop
The mountain is now visible behind our landscape, but it does not look quite right yet. By selecting a layer, you can move the image around within the document. We drag the landscape slightly downwards and the mountain slightly upwards. This improves the transition somewhat, but we still need to match the colours between the two images. We want our landscape to adopt the colour tones of the mountain photo.
Select the landscape layer and go to Image > Adjustments > Match Color. In this menu, set the source to our landscape image and the layer to Layer 0, as this is the layer containing the mountain photo. The colours are adjusted automatically, but you can refine them further using the sliders. Once the colours and exposure match between the images, they quickly start to look like a single photograph.
Editing Colours in Photoshop
Even if you are not combining and modifying images, you can still edit photos in Photoshop. You can easily adjust the colours, exposure and contrast of your photos. Via the Adjustments option, you can open a small menu with various adjustment tools. These will then appear as layers in your layer overview. This gives you a clear overview of the edits you have made. For our photo, we only make minimal adjustments to the colours, contrast and exposure because we are already quite satisfied with the result.
If you select all layers by holding down the CTRL key, you can then right-click and merge the layers. After this, you will only have one layer containing the final image. Be aware that you will no longer be able to make separate adjustments to the two photos. They have now become one.
Placing an Image in a Shape in Photoshop
Although our image is essentially finished, we still want to do something creative with it. We are going to place the image inside a shape. Using the Shape Tool, we create a circle in the centre of the document. We then drag the layer containing the circle behind our photo.
Right-click on the photo layer and select Create Clipping Mask. Photoshop will automatically fit the photo into the shape on the layer below it. This shape does not have to be a circle; it can be anything you can draw in Photoshop.
Using the Crop Tool, we adjust the document so that it fits neatly around the edges of the circle. We now have a perfectly square document containing a circular image.
Reducing Photoshop File Size
Before saving the file, it is wise to change its size. The original photos were very large, and therefore our file is now very large as well. That is not necessary if we are going to use the images on our website. Just as in the resizing step, go to Image > Image Size. We change the dimensions from 3420x3420 pixels to 1000x1000. That is sufficient for the images we will place on the website.
Save your new photo via File > Save As.
