PCPhoto
Photoshop FasterFollow these tips to finish your image enhancements in less time |
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To continue my example, I’d fill the layer mask with black to block all effects of that adjustment layer (Edit > Fill > Use Black). Next, I’d take a soft white brush (white would be the foreground color in the toolbox at the left of the screen) sized to fit the area that I need to work with (don’t forget to right-click) and brush in white over the areas that I want to darken. That would allow the darkening effect of the adjustment layer to appear. 
Very quickly I could “paint in” darkening effects wherever I want on the picture. This is so much faster than selections. And the cool thing is that I can change back and forth between white and black colors to make the effects go in and out of the picture as much as I want. Plus, you can make the effects of white or black less intense (a gray) by changing the opacity of the brush. You can do this with all sorts of adjustment layers from Levels to Curves to Hue/Saturation and so forth. Once you start using adjustment layers and layer masks together, you’ll find you can quickly make adjustments to specific areas throughout an image. This gives you a lot of opportunities for doing things like lightening shadows in a specific part of the picture, fixing a problem color that’s only in a small area of the picture or perhaps balancing brightness where a picture is too bright on one side compared to a darker opposite side.
Practice Makes Perfect If you want to reap the benefits of the time-saving Photoshop tools described in this article, you have to use them. Make a list of keyboard shortcuts and put it next to your keyboard if you like. Experiment with Actions. Experiment with adjustment layers and layer masks because these steps aren’t necessarily intuitive, but they do work and they will speed up your workflow. Initially, you’ll have to make a conscious effort to work with all of these tools or you won’t really use them. The more you work with them and the more you build them into your imaging workflow, the faster you’ll be working with Photoshop—and the faster you’ll be done with your photographs and ready to print them, share them and get back outside and start taking pictures again. Rob Sheppard would rather be outdoors photographing than wasting time in Photoshop. Visit his Website at www.robsheppardphoto.com.   |
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