Recently I finished a retouching project called the Dark Knight with photographer Brian Bailey and I wanted to share a bit about the making of the series.
The theme for this endeavor was Parkour meets Gotham City. We wanted to showcase the fluid movement of Parkour with a backdrop of gothic cityscapes. Our goal was to transform common Denver landmarks into a dark and sinister world. I loved the idea of taking Denver and turning it into a dark cinematic backdrop for the renegade sport of Parkour so this was an exciting project.
With the new version of any software there's always changes that leave us asking, "Where did that go?". With the introduction of the new Photoshop CS6, it was no different. With CS6 having more changes than any release of Photoshop in a very long time, you can be certain you will be wondering where some of your favorite tools went. Some were moved, changed or renamed but most of them still exist. It's just a matter of finding them. Lets take a look at where the Mask panel went and what happened to the Adjustments panel.
A new Action has been added to the Downloads page called the High Pass Overlay for creating micro contrast or structure to your photo. You can take this action way up and create a grungy look to your image. Its a great way to increase the local contrast and add a little punch to your photo. It also allows you to try different values and see it in action on your photo before you hit OK.
To load the action, download the action from the link above then go to the Actions panel menu and select Load Actions... Select the saved action on your hard drive and hit Load. It should now be in your Actions panel. Open an image, select the action and hit Play.
I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know how it works.
Below is the step-by-step procedure for adding two images to another document as layers and adding masks. You will need at least two images to work on for this exercise.
(Note: all screen captures are for CS3 but can be done in any version. PC users, substitute the Command key with Control)
Step 1
The first thing is we need to do is get all three images open at once. We'll call them Image 1, Image 2 and Final Image. If you can see all three images at once in Bridge, select each image while holding down the Command key to select all three images at once. When all three are selected, press Command-O (the letter O) or go to the File menu and select Open. If you cannot see all three at the same time in Bridge you can open each image in Photoshop by going to the menu File > Open....
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