Assignment: Given a photo of seagulls, work with Camera Raw and Photoshop to direct the focus to the more prominent bird, demonstrating the use of Camera Raw adjustment tools. (Scroll to the bottom to see the source image.)
Image 1, demonstrating Camera Raw adjustments, cropping, and a spotlight effect.
Processing on this first image was done completely in Camera Raw.
1. I started by making basic adjustments to the whole image: I increased the exposure and contrast sliders and added some sharpening.
2. Then, to bring the seagull out from the busy background, I used the adjustment brush to apply some adjustments to the seagull only: further increasing exposure and contrast, cranking clarity, bumping up saturation just a bit, and increasing sharpness. I added a second adjustment brush to dial the exposure back down on a couple of bright hot spots.
3. With the adjustments complete, I cropped the image to focus on the primary seagull.
4. Then I used the technique on pp. 113-114 to add a spotlight effect. Because this image had some details in the background instead of just a solid backdrop, I departed from the tutorial in a couple of ways to keep the spotlight transition from being too abrupt. First, I didn't darken the background quite as much. Also, I reduced the flow on the eraser a bit more so I could build up the spotlight gradually, allowing it to fade more gently away from the center.
Image 2, demonstrating some Photoshopping and a classic bridal bouquet effect.
Just for fun, I did this bouquet image in Photoshop. I used a photo of some wedding bouquets* and pulled out one bouquet and some stems with the Quick Selection tool. I pasted these into the seagull picture and adjusted the size and positioning so it would look like the seagull was holding the bouquet. I reduced the background saturation all the way down so everything except the bouquet would be black and white, and then I cropped the result to resemble a bridal ("birdal?") headshot.
* Wedding bouquet photo by and copyright 2007 Jina Lee. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The original image.
