Retouch a photo to correct defects and stains in photos on mac

The tones curve allows you to refine the contrast of your image. It gives you a very fine control on the brightness and the shadows of each part of the image. The goal is to create a S -shaped curve. I used to reduce the ends of the curve in the corners, as in the screenshot below, to reduce the clipping of blacks and highlights.

Photo retouching on Photoshop: everything you need to know

A large part of the profession of photographer requires image retouch. This cannot be done without mastery of Photoshop. Let’s discover together how to touch up a photo like a professional !

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Retouch a photo with Photoshop

Photoshop is photo editing software that is used on Windows or MacOS. It allows you to improve, modify or even create images, photos or illustrations.

To download Photoshop, see the Adobe platform.

Photoshop: essential concepts

Once Photoshop is properly installed, let’s start by mentioning the essential concepts of the software.

Bitmap and vector

THE Bitmap images are made up of pixels. The majority of images on the web are made up of a pixel grid; This is therefore the case for digital photos. Photoshop is a bitmap photo editing software.

THE vector images consist of mathematical curves, segments or straight lines with a color and size. These geometric formulas generate the rendering of the elements of the image. Vector is mainly used for graphic design and illustration.

Colors and resolution

The resolution, which is measured in pixels per inch (PPP), corresponds to the finesse of the details of a bitmap image. The larger the number of pixels, the higher the resolution.

For printing, it is advisable to Retouch a high resolution photo, Between 150 and 300 ppi.

Regarding colors, these vary depending on whether the image is intended for the impression (Cmjn) or to web (RGB)). The choice of colors during the retouching of the photos could be huge.

To find out more about photo editing, you can have our online photography training, which addresses Photoshop features dedicated to photo editing.

Advanced camera functions, composition, image processing and advice to become professional (the).

Modify the size of an image on Photoshop

When you learn to touch up a photo, you start by checking and changing its size. To do this, you must go to image then click on image size. The shortcut image size is Ctrl+Alt+I.

A tab, containing different information, appears:

• Image size : The Photoshop disc does not use its actual size to treat it.
• Pixel dimensions : the size of an image measures the number of pixels on the width and height of the image.
• The length and width of the image as well as its resolution : these three elements are linked. Depending on if we change the resolution, the length and width will change. On the other hand, the dimensions in pixels will not move.
• Reorganization : it allows Photoshop to enlarge or reduce the image without changing the resolution. If you want to print an image with a specific resolution, you can re-enchanting it. However, this can reduce image quality.

For an image printing, you must favor very large images and reduce them if necessary. For images intended for the web, it is important to pay attention to the size in pixels as well as the resolution. The latter makes it possible to obtain, on equivalent size, an image that will not be too heavy.

Photoshop and photography training of Walter Learning are intended for people wishing to strengthen their skills as well as those with a professional retraining project in graphics.

Rogen an image on Photoshop

When we do it Photo editing, There are several ways of crop or cut an image.

On the tool palette, thereframe. When you click on it, hooks appear on each corner of your image. You can then catch one of these hooks and, by holding up the entry, moving with. When you release, the image is cropped to the desired location. The cropped area is the one in the middle of the frame, while the gray area is that which is deleted. By clicking on the selected area, you can move it and refine the cropping. To validate, press the Enter key.

The second way to crop an image is to mouse, that you hold supported, the area to be cropped. Once the mouse is released, you can move the area to perfect the cropping. Press the Enter key to validate.

Finally, when you click on the cropping tool, you find in the toolbar, at the top left, predefined dimensions. When you click on one of these dimensions, the image is cropped according to it, even if you move the area. To modify the predefined dimensions ratio, you have to change the coast.

If you want change the orientation of an image, Select the area you want to modify. When you keep the cursor from the corner of the frame, it becomes a curved flashy that allows you to change the inclination of your image. Press the Enter key to validate.

Master Photoshop from A to Z

Management of colorimetric spaces, layers, cutting, fusion masks, brushes, advanced features.

Color management on Photoshop

The colors of first and backgrounds

THE COLLOODS are used to paint, fill or bypass selected elements. The background colors are used to create degraded bottoms or fill the erased areas when retouching an image. Black and white are respectively the default colors of first and background.

In the tool palette, the leading color is displayed in the top color selection box and the background color is displayed in the bottom selection area.

For Change the color of the foreground, Click on the top color box, and select a color offered by Adobe.

For change the background color, reiterate the manipulation by clicking, this time, on the low color box. If you want to swap first and background colors, click on the Icon Lummer in the Tool Palette.

Finally to display the color selector, head in the colors window to activate it.

Color adjustment layer, united and gradient

Setting layers make it possible to make Color and tone adjustment tests, without permanently modifying the image pixels. It is generally compared to a sail coloring the underlying layers. A new adjustment layer is represented by a white frame in the layer panel.

Solid color : it fills the adjustment layer with the primary color selected.

Degraded : click on the gradient to display the degraded editor, or click the reverse arrow then choose a gradient in the drop panel. You just need to trace the trajectory of your gradient on the screen.

Colorimetric modes

To touch up an image, it is important to take into account the Colorimetric modes.

They make it possible to produce a file adapted to your final use. A CMJN is ideal for printing, while RGB is perfect for purely digital use. A gray level image will limit the size of the file if it is in black and white.

For Choose a colorimetric mode, Click on the Image tab, then Mode and select the one interested in you.

To learn how to perfectly retouch photos on Photoshop, it is advisable to follow a training in photography or a Photoshop training. Thanks to Walter Learning training, you will learn to take beautiful photos, to touch them up or to use Camera RAW on Photoshop.

Test your knowledge of Photoshop

What a group of colors is intended for the print ?

Retouch a photo to correct defects and stains in photos on mac

You can delete stains, dust grains and other small defects in a photo.

Noticed : You cannot touch up a video using photo editing tools. Consult the Modify and Improve a video section.

1. In the photo app On your Mac, twice click on the photo, then click Modify in the toolbar.
2. Click Adjust in the toolbar.
3. In the sub-fencing adjust, click on the arrow looking back.
4. Slide the size cursor to select a brush size. After dragging the cursor to select the size of the brush, you can modify it by pressing the left ([) and right (]) hooks) .
5. Place the brush above the defect, then click on it or drag the brush to erase it. If the defect is too small and does not fade from the first attempt, try to enlarge the photo to make more precise changes.

Trick : If you do not get the expected results, you can copy pixels in another part of the photo and apply them to the defect. Press the Option key while clicking on an area that has the desired texture, then apply the modification using the retouching tool. Click on the image while holding the control key, then choose “Erase the source of manual retouching” to stop copying the pixels in the area.

How to touch up the photos of Aurora Boreales

I have already taught you to photograph the northern lights. Taking the photos is just one of the steps to produce beautiful images from the dawn. You also need to know how to retouch the photos of Northern Boreales, so I prepared this guide showing my usual work stages.

First steps in the processing of your northern girls photos

Personally, I use Adobe Lightroom Classic to edit my photos of Auroras Boreales, and this tutorial is only based on this software. There are many other software, such as on1 photo raw or capture one. They all do more or less the same as Lightroom, but some parameters can have different names.

The first step before you even start retouching is to copy your photos of your memory card to your computer. Then you import them into Lightroom. Personally, I like to have total control of these actions, so I do not authorize anything in Lightroom, and I manually proceed to the following steps:

• Create a folder on my computer Named yyyymmdd_aurores-Lieu, and copy all the photos of a given night from the memory card in this file
• Import All images of this dossier in Lightroom

I also like to apply a development parameter when importing, like that I do not forget later. This preset (preset) only modifies an element, which is the profile, at the value “Standard camera”. It is in the Profiles of the Development Module option, under the Camera Matching section.

In order to be less frustrated by the slowness of Lightroom during the edition, I willCreate glimpses 1: 1 For all photos of the file:

• Select all photos
• Go to the Library menu> Reviews> Create glimpses 1: 1
• Go have a coffee, answer a few emails, and when the glimpses are built, you can start editing.

How to touch up the photos of Aurora Boreales

Here are the steps I used to follow to edit my photos of northern lights. Unsurprisingly, it goes from top to bottom from the development menu in Lightroom.

Profile

If you have not applied a preset when importing, change the profile into a neutral camera. I find that it gives the most room for maneuver for all other parameters. It also gives a much more natural appearance to your images.

Left: Neutral camera | Right: Adobe Color (Lightroom default adjustment). You can see that with the default profile setting Adobe Color, the high lights are almost burnt, and the colors are too bright.

White balance

This is actually the most delicate part of your retouching, because it defines the entire style of your image. Unfortunately, there is not a universal value for the white balance, and you will use largely different values ​​in different conditions, whether under the full moon or moonless, or if you are in a snowy landscape or not. I can share the recommendationsNext, but it will be up to you to find what you like best:

• Under the full moon: temp 5700-5900 and shade 30-40
• No moon: temp 4200-4500 and tint 50-60

Even if I noticed that it has become a trend lately on Instagram, I don’t like these images with a very cold white balance, which are a sign that temperature adjustment has been pushed much lower than these values. On the other hand, too high a value will produce very green or even yellowish dawn, which is not very attractive either in my opinion.

However, setting the white balance that you use for your final images is purely to your taste, and the above figures are given as indicative values ​​to obtain the most natural look.

Tone and presence

An image is visually attractive when the light is well balanced. This is what I aim when I edit my photos of the northern lights. It is often difficult to make with the northern borealis, due to the dynamic range often limited of most digital cameras sensors. It often happens that if your sky and dawn are exposed, then your foreground would seem very dark.

I will usually adjust my settings so that the sliders look like this.

Tone curve

The tones curve allows you to refine the contrast of your image. It gives you a very fine control on the brightness and the shadows of each part of the image. The goal is to create a S -shaped curve. I used to reduce the ends of the curve in the corners, as in the screenshot below, to reduce the clipping of blacks and highlights.

Of course, a unique setting cannot correspond to all the images, and you will have to play with this again to adapt to your images and your tastes. Note that the curve is only subtly relegated.

TSL parameters (shade, saturation and luminance)

These sliders give you total control over the shade, saturation and luminance of each color of your image. I rarely have to change the color of colors. However, the saturation and luminance cursors are very useful, in particular on the green color. This reduces green saturation even further than when you have reduced overall saturation, without affecting the rest of the image.

The trick is to bring green saturation to a negative value, while slightly increasing the luminance of the same green.

As you can see above, on this particular image, I also played with blue. This is very useful especially on long evenings in spring or fall, when dawn appears during the blue hour after sunset. We see that the difference with and without the tsl settings is subtle, but I like the possibility of removing the “flashy” appearance of green and blue without touching the rest of the image.

Detail

The last section I use in the development module is detail. These settings increase the sharpness of the image, and to reduce the digital noise which is created by your high values ​​sensor ISO.

After years trying to try different parameters, I found that those in the screenshot below work best for me for the photography of the northern lights. Again, you must check that they work with your camera and sensor, but they are a good starting point.

Export your northern boreales images

That’s all, as you can see, it’s not that complicated to touch up photos of Aurores Boréales! When you are satisfied with your settings, it’s time to export your northern light images, to put them on social media, on your website, etc. You choose the folder in which you want the photo to be saved, its size, its quality, and off we go.

Finally, I show you a raw photo not published in comparison with the final photo.

If you want to know more, ask me in the comments!

And if you’ve failed, don’t forget to consult the tutorial on how to photograph the northern lights.

And for more inspiration on the photos of Northern Boreales in your retouching, why not consult my archive galleries?