Photoshop CS2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies- P18

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Photoshop CS2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies- P18:Barbara Obermeier is principal of Obermeier Design, a graphic design studio in Ventura, California. She’s the author of Photoshop Album For Dummies, coauthor of Adobe Master Class: Illustrator Illuminated, Photoshop 7 For Dummies, and Illustrator 10 For Dummies. She has contributed as coauthor, technical editor, or layout designer for numerous books. Barb also teaches computer graphics at Brooks Institute; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Ventura College....

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488 Masking Hair, Fur, and Other Wispy Things continued It is best to start with the channel that contains the most contrast between what you want to select and what you don’t. If it’s a toss-up, go with the channel that makes selecting the difficult part of the image easiest (in my example, that’s the hair). In my example, I’m using the Blue channel. 3. Choose Duplicate Channel from the Channels palette pop-up menu. Name the channel mask and click OK. You’ve created an alpha channel for the mask, shown in the figure. Now you can edit the mask without harm- ing the original channel. 4. Choose Image➪Adjustments➪ Levels and boost the contrast in the image by adjusting the Input sliders for shadows, midtones, and highlights. If you need help using the Levels adjustment, see Book VIII, Chapter 1. 5. Select the person and his or her hair. You can do that one of two ways: By selecting the person. By selecting the background first and then inverting the selection. In a mask, traditionally white represents a selected area, black represents an unse- lected area, and gray represents a partially selected area. 6. Adjust the Levels settings by dragging your shadows, midtones, and highlights sliders so that the element you want to select is either all white or all black with a little gray in the wispy areas. In other words, you want to change most of the pixels in the image to either black or white. In my example, because my guy is darker than the background, I adjusted the con- trast to make the subject as black as I could while making the background lighter. You can see the result in the figure.
Masking Hair, Fur, and Other Wispy Things 489 Book VI Chapter 3 Advanced Masking Getting Exact with Techniques 7. If you think the edges of your image need to be accentuated, you can apply a High Pass filter (Filter➪Other➪High Pass) before you apply the Level adjustment. High Pass turns your overall image gray while leaving the edges white. Don’t use too low a radius value (start with a setting between 8 and 10) or complet- ing the mask can be too time-consuming. 8. Refine the mask by selecting the Eraser tool and choosing Block Mode from the Options bar. The Block Eraser is a great tool for cleaning up masks. It allows you to paint inside the mask without creating any feathered edges. 9. Press D for default colors. Remember the Eraser tool paints with the background color, so be sure you have the color you want before you drag. Press X to switch the foreground and background colors. 10. Clean up your mask by painting with black and white, as shown in the figure. continued
490 Masking Hair, Fur, and Other Wispy Things continued Make sure to use short strokes so you can undo any mistakes you make. 11. Use the Zoom tool if you need to touch up the details. The Block Eraser tool has only one size, so you have to zoom in to paint thinner strokes and zoom out to erase a larger area. Remember to leave some gray around the wispy areas, as seen in the figure; otherwise, they may look chopped off. Take your time and be as accurate as you can. Patience makes a big difference. If you’re not sure what you need to paint on the mask and you want to refer to the color image, simply click the composite channel (either RGB or CMYK depending on your image) at the top of the Channels palette. Then click the mask channel again to return to your mask. Or, you can view both the mask and the composite simultane- ously. Your mask appears as a red overlay. Your mask is refined and ready to go. 12. Click the first icon on the left at the bottom of the Channels palette to load the mask as a selection (or Ctrl+click [Ô+click on the Mac] the channel mask). A selection marquee appears around your mask. If you want to soften the edge a little, you can choose Select➪Feather and enter a value somewhere between 0.5 pixel (for a low-resolution image) to 2 pixels (for a high-resolution image). Feathering allows for a softer, natural- looking transition between your masked element and the background. I used a 1-pixel feather for my image. 13. Return to the composite image by clicking the RGB channel (or CMYK if warranted). The selection outline appears in your composite image, shown in the figure.
Masking Hair, Fur, and Other Wispy Things 491 14. If you need to invert your selection, choose Select➪Inverse. In my example, I just filled my background with a solid color, so I left the background selected. 15. Choose Window➪Color and mix a color of your choice. Choose Edit➪Fill, choose Foreground Color for your Contents, and click OK. Photoshop now replaces the background with a solid color. Check the edges to see how clean your mask is. 16. Make any final edits you need to make. My guy looked like he spent too much time at the local tanning booth, so I toned Book VI down the redness in his skin by using the Variation commands (see Book VIII, Chapter 3 Chapter 1), as seen in the figure. Advanced Masking Getting Exact with 17. When you’re happy with your channel mask, save and close the file. Techniques It takes practice to get masking down to a science, but believe me, it’s worth your time. Nine times out of ten, a channel mask lends a much better selection than any of the easier, quicker selection tools and techniques. Instead of filling the background with a color, you can also open a second image and, with the Move tool, drag and drop your masked element into the second image. A couple of things to keep in mind when compositing with two images: First try to use two images whose lighting isn’t so dissimilar that it looks artificial. Take into account the time of day, the angle of the light, and so on. Secondly, try to select two images whose levels of focus make sense. If you need to soften one of the images, apply the Gaussian Blur filter. If your mask is good, your person should look right at home in his or her new digs.
492 Book VI: Channels and Masks
Book VII Filters and Distortions
G ot an image that needs to be sharper or maybe less dusty? How about an image that needs to look like it was wrapped in plastic and then xeroxed on a circa-1970 photocopier? Either way, this is the book that describes the ﬁne-tuning and the folly of ﬁlters. Filters can do wonders in correcting your images, making them look better than the original. And if it’s special effects you’re interested in, look no further. Filters can make your image look ripped, sprayed, wet, hot — and just about any other adjective you’re interested in. If distortions are more your thing, you won’t be disappointed with the Liquify command, for which image warping, pushing, bloating, and puckering are daily activities. But whatever you do, don’t leave this book without checking out the new Vanishing Point command. This single command alone may be well worth the money you plunked down for Photoshop.
Chapter 1: Making Corrections with Daily Filters In This Chapter Understanding how filters work Sharpening soft areas Improving an image with blurring Smoothing defects with Median and Facet filters F ilters have a long and glorious history, ranging from performing essen- tial tasks (such as removing abrasive particles from the oil in your car’s crankcase) to even more important chores involving the pixels in your Photoshop images. In both cases, filters (also called plug-ins because they can be installed or removed from Photoshop independently) seize tiny, almost invisible bits of stuff and rearrange them in useful ways. The results are something you’d never want to do without. This chapter introduces you to the basics of Photoshop’s filter facilities and starts you on the road to plug-in proficiency. You Say You Want a Convolution? All filters do one simple thing in a seemingly compli- cated way: They make Photoshop do your bidding. Deep within a filter’s innards is a set of instructions that tells Photoshop what to do with a particular pixel in an image or selection. Photoshop applies these instructions to each and every pixel in the relevant area by using a process the techies call convolution (creating a form or shape that’s folded or curved in tortuous windings), but which we normal folk simply refer to as applying a filter.
496 You Say You Want a Convolution? Corrective and destructive filters Filters fall into two basic categories, corrective and destructive: Corrective filters fix problems in an image. They fine-tune color, add blur, improve sharpness, or remove such nastiness as dust and scratches. Although corrective plug-ins can be fairly destructive to cer- tain pixels, in general, they don’t change the basic look of an image. You might not even notice that a corrective filter has been applied unless you compare the new version of the image with the original. Destructive filters tend to obliterate at least some of an image’s original detail (some to a greater extent than others) as they add special effects. They may overlay an image with an interesting texture, move pixels around to create brush strokes, simulate light and shadow to create 3-D illusions, or distort an image with twists, waves, or zigzags. You can often tell at a glance that a destructive filter has been applied to an image: The special effect often looks like nothing that exists in real life. An unaltered image (such as the image on the left in Figure 1-1) can be improved by using a corrective filter such as Unsharp Mask (center) or changed dramatically with a destructive filter such as Find Edges (right). Corbis Digital Stock Figure 1-1: Filters range in variety from the corrective (center) to the destructive (right). Filter basics Whether a filter is corrective or destructive, it falls into one of two camps. Here’s the scoop: Single-step filters: The easiest filters to use, single-step filters have no options and use no dialog boxes. Just choose the filter from the menu and watch it do its stuff on your image or selection. The basic Blur and Sharpen filters are single-step filters.
Sharpening What’s Soft 497 Mini-application filters: Most filters come complete with at least one dialog box, along with (perhaps) a few lists, buttons, and check boxes. And almost every mini-app filter has slid- ers you can use to adjust the intensity of an effect or parameter (see Figure 1-2). These filters are marked in the menus with an ellipsis (series of dots) following their names; as with other menu commands that show those dots, it’s an indication that more options are lurking. The controls themselves are easy to master. The tricky part is learning what the various parameters you’re using actually do. How does changing brush size affect your image when you’re using Figure 1-2: Mini-application filters a brush-stroke filter? What happens when require you to specify various settings you select a particular pattern with a tex- before applying your filter. turizing filter? You can read descriptions of how various filter controls affect your image, but your best bet is to simply experiment until you discover the effects and parameters that work Book VII best for you. Just be sure that you save a copy of the original image; filters Chapter 1 do permanent damage to files — modifying, adding, and deleting pixels. Making Corrections with Daily Filters Sharpening What’s Soft Sometimes your images aren’t as sharp as you’d like. Sometimes your images have a tiny bit of softening caused by scanning an image or perhaps, by capturing a photo on your digital camera. Or, perhaps, you want only a particular part to be sharper so that it stands out from its surroundings. All sharpening tools operate by increasing the contrast between adjacent pixels. If you look at a sharpened image side by side with the original version (as shown in Figure 1-3), you see that no new information has been provided. Instead, the contrast is boosted so edges are more distinct. The dark parts of the edges are darker; the light parts at their boundaries are lighter. Photoshop has five main sharpening tools, only four of which are actually fil- ters, on the Filter➪Sharpen menu. The fifth, the Sharpen tool, isn’t a filter, strictly speaking. It’s more like a paintbrush that lets you sharpen areas selectively by using strokes.
498 Sharpening What’s Soft Figure 1-3: Sharpening an image boosts the contrast of neighboring pixels and gives the illusion of improved focus. Sharpen The Sharpen filter is best used for minimal touchups in small areas. This single-step filter increases the contrast between all the pixels in the image or selection. Although this makes the image look sharper, it can add a grainy look to solid areas that aren’t part of the edges. Sharpen More The Sharpen More filter, a single-step filter that increases the contrast between pixels even more than the regular Sharpen filter. Like the Sharpen filter, Sharpen More is best relegated to noncritical sharpening because it doesn’t do a very good job of sharpening large areas. Also, it doesn’t provide the control you need for more intense projects. Sharpen Edges The Sharpen Edges filter is a single-step filter that’s superior to the Sharpen and Sharpen More filters because it concentrates its efforts on the edges of images, adding sharpness without making the image grainy or noisy. It’s best used for quickie fixes. Smart Sharpen The newest member of the Sharpen team is definitely a keeper: Smart Sharpen does a great job of detecting edges and sharpening them less destructively. Like the veteran Unsharp Mask filter, this filter gives you a lot of control over the sharpening settings, as shown in Figure 1-4. Here’s the scoop on those settings:
Sharpening What’s Soft 499 Corbis Digital Stock Figure 1-4: The new Smart Sharpen filter gives the most control over your sharpening specifications. Preview: Obviously, keep this option checked so that you can take a gander at what’s happening as you sharpen. You’ll appreciate the new Book VII large Preview window as well. Chapter 1 Basic and Advanced: The only difference between the two views is that Making Corrections with the Advanced view, you are capable of controlling the amount of with Daily Filters sharpening in the Shadow and Highlight areas of your image. Use the fol- lowing controls to fine-tune the amount of sharpening in your light and dark areas: • Fade Amount: Determine the amount of sharpening. • Tonal Width: Specify the range of tones you wish to sharpen. Move your slider to the right to sharpen only the darker of the shadow areas and the lighter of the highlight areas. • Radius: Specify the amount of space around a pixel that is used to determine whether a pixel is in the shadow or the highlight area. Move your slider to the right to specify a greater area. Settings: You can save your sharpening settings so you can load them for later use without having to re-create them. Amount: Use this control to vary the amount of edge sharpening. A higher value increases the contrast between pixels around the edges. Your choices range from 1 percent to 500 percent. For subtle amounts of sharpening, anything around 100 percent or less provides the effect you’re looking for without making the image appear overly contrasty (yes, that is a technical term) or unrealistic.
500 Sharpening What’s Soft Radius: This slider controls the width (in pixels) of the edges that the filter will modify. The higher the value, the wider the edge that is affected. Your range varies from 0.1 pixel (for fine control) to 64 pixels (for broader sharpening effects). Your use of this control will vary chiefly on the resolution of your original image. Low-resolution images (100 pixels per inch and lower) look best when you use only a small radius value, from a fraction of a pixel up to three or four pixels. A small amount of sharpening may produce no visible effect on high- resolution images, especially those with 300 ppi resolution or more. You may need to move the slider to the 5-pixel range before you see any effects. Regardless of the resolution of your image, setting the radius too high may emphasize the edges of your image unrealistically — and it boosts the contrast too much. A good rule to consider when you select a radius is to divide your image’s ppi resolution by 150 and then adjust from there. For example, if you have a 150 ppi image, set the radius at 1 and then tweak from there. Remove: Specify the algorithm to be used to remove the blurriness in the image. Gaussian Blur is the method used by Unsharp Mask and is good for removing that hazy type of blurriness. Lens Blur detects and sharpens the edges and detail in the image and does a good job of reducing those nasty halos that can occur from sharpening. Motion Blur reduces the blurriness that can occur when you move your camera (or your subject moves). Angle: Specify the direction of motion if you choose Motion Blur as your algorithm. More Accurate: Check this option, and Photoshop provides a more accurate removal of blurriness. Takes longer, but worth the wait, as shown in Figure 1-5. Figure 1-5: Smart Sharpen can take your soft, mushy photo and make it come to life. Unsharp Mask Don’t feel bad: Everyone is confused by the name Unsharp Mask the first time they encounter it. This filter provides a sophisticated attempt to dupli- cate a sophisticated photographic effect called (you guessed it) unsharp
Blurring What’s Sharp 501 masking, in which two sheets of film are sandwiched together to create a final image. One sheet is the original film negative (or a duplicate), and the second is a positive image (the “normal” photograph) that’s blurred slightly. When the two are mated together, the light and dark areas cancel each other out, except at the edges — because of the blurring of the positive mask, which causes the edges to spread at those points. Unsharp masking is a tricky procedure in the darkroom. It’s much more pre- cise in the digital realm because Photoshop can easily control the width of the areas to be masked, as well as a relative brightness level to use before beginning to apply the masking effect. In the Unsharp Mask dialog box, you find two of the same controls that you have with Smart Sharpen — Amount and Radius. You also have another option called Threshold. Threshold controls the difference in brightness that must be present between adjacent pixels before the edge is sharpened. That is, you need to have a distinct contrast between adjacent pixels along an edge in order to sharpen the edge. Your choices range from brightness values of 0 to 255. Selecting a low value emphasizes edges with very little contrast difference (which is usually what you want). You’re generally better off leaving this control at 0 unless your image has a lot of noise. Higher values force Photoshop to provide edge sharpening only when adjacent pixels are dramatically different in brightness. Increasing the threshold too much can cause some harsh transitions between sharpened and unsharp- Book VII ened pixels. Chapter 1 Making Corrections with Daily Filters In most cases, the Amount and Radius sliders are the only controls you need to use. Threshold is most useful when the first two controls create excessive noise in the image. You can sometimes reduce this noise by increasing the Threshold level a little. Sharpening always increases contrast, so you should use any of the Sharpening tools before trying other contrast-adjusting tools. When you’ve sharpened your image to your satisfaction, you can then use the other contrast controls to fine-tune the image with additional contrast (if it’s still required). Blurring What’s Sharp What, me blurry? The answer is yes, if you have an image that contains unwanted grain (the roughness or noise added by the photographic film) or, perhaps, an ugly pattern of halftone dots used in a printed image. You might need to blur a background to make the foreground seem sharper, or blur a portion of an image to create an angelic glow. Here are your blur- ring options (all on the Filter➪Blur menu):
502 Blurring What’s Sharp Average: This single-step filter calculates the average value (or color) of the image or selection and fills the area with that average value. This can be useful for smoothing the values of areas containing a lot of noise. Blur: Also a single-step filter, Blur provides overall blurring of an image. Blur More: This filter provides a significantly increased amount of blur- ring than the regular, old-fashioned Blur filter. Box Blur: This new Blur filter blurs your image in the shape of, well, a box or square. Gaussian Blur: This filter offers a radius control to let you adjust the amount of blurring more precisely. It’s also got a really cool name. The Gaussian Blur filter is an excellent tool because it gives you a great deal of control over the amount and type of blurring you get. That’s especially true when compared to the single-step Blur and Blur More filters, which apply a fixed amount of blur. Use these latter two filters when you simply want to de-sharpen an image a tad, and turn to Gaussian Blur when you’re looking for a specific effect. Lens Blur: This filter simulates the blurring that can occur when you capture an image with a camera. For details, see the sidebar “Applying the Lens Blur filter.” Motion Blur: This filter simulates the blur you see in objects that are moving. Radial Blur: This filter produces the kind of blur you might get when photographing a revolving automobile tire. Shape Blur: The new Shape blur basically blurs your image according to the shape you choose from the palette. The shape choices you find are the same as those with the Custom Shape tool. Move the Radius slider to the right for a larger blur. You can see an example of different shape blurs in Figure 1-6. Figure 1-6: The Shape Blur blurs your image in a variety of shapes.
Blurring What’s Sharp 503 Surface Blur: This new filter blurs the surface, or interior, of the image rather than the edges. If you want to preserve your edge details yet blur everything else, this is your filter. Smart Blur: This filter lets you control how Photoshop applies the blur to edges and other details of the image. Applying the Lens Blur filter If you’ve ever played with the aperture settings for more on layer masks). If your image con- on a camera, you’re probably well aware that you tains none of these options, choose None. can determine how shallow or deep your depth Photoshop applies the blur on the image. of field is. Depth of field relates to the plane of Blur Focal Distance: Specifies how blurry or focus (the areas in a photo that are in front of in focus an area of the image is. Photoshop or behind the focal point that remain in focus) or places the grayscale values less than the how in-focus the foreground elements are when value specified in front of the plane of focus, you compare them to the background elements. and those greater than the value specified If you use a Lens Blur filter on an alpha channel in back. Drag the slider to specify the value (see Book VI, Chapter 1 for more on alpha chan- or click the crosshair cursor on the part of nels), the alpha channel acts as a depth map. This the image you want to be in full focus. is great for taking a fully focused image and cre- ating a shallow depth of field where the foremost Iris: The Iris settings are meant to simulate Book VII object is in focus and the background elements a camera lens. Specify the shape of the Chapter 1 get blurrier the farther they are from the focal lens, as well as the radius (size of the iris), Making Corrections with Daily Filters point. You can achieve this by creating an alpha curvature, and rotation of that shape. channel filled with a white-to-black gradient — Specular Highlights: The Lens Blur filter white where you want the most focus, black averages the highlights of an image, which, where you want the least focus or most blur. left uncorrected, cause some highlights to Here is a brief description on setting the Lens appear grayish. These controls help to Blur filter options: retain specular highlights, or those high- lights, which should appear very white. Set Source: If you have an alpha channel, the Threshold value to specify which high- select it from this pop-up menu. The Lens lights should be specular, or remain white. Blur option interprets the various grayscale Set a Brightness value to specify how much values of the alpha channel and applies the to re-lighten any blurred areas. blur according to the value set in the Blur Focus Distance. Choose Transparency to Noise: Blurring of course obliterates any make an image get blurrier as it gets more noise, or film grain, an image may have. This transparent. Choose Layer Mask to apply can cause the image to appear inconsistent the blur according to the grayscale values or unrealistic in many cases. Drag the slider on the layer mask (see Book VI, Chapter 3 to add noise back into your image.
504 Smoothing with the Facet and Median Filters Smoothing with the Facet and Median Filters One application for blurring an image is to reduce dust and scratches, or to smooth away sharp edges. Here, I show you how to use the versatile Facet and Median filters to soften an image. Although the Facet and Median filters smooth images by eliminating some detail, you can compensate for the blurring effect by applying the Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask with a low radius setting to sharpen things up a little. The Facet filter Facet breaks up an image using a posterizing effect. It gathers up blocks of pixels that are similar in brightness and converts them to a single value, using geometric shapes. (When you posterize an image, you reduce it to a very small number of tones.) The geometric shapes make the image look more randomly produced, while eliminating much of the banding effect you get with conventional posterizing filters. The effects of the Facet filter are subtle, and best viewed at close range. The original image in Figure 1-7 contains some dust, scratches, and a few other defects. Instead of retouching them one by one, I used Facet. Facet is a single-step filter, so you don’t need to adjust any controls. Just choose Filter➪Pixelate➪Facet and evaluate your results. You can apply the filter multiple times. However, even one application smooths out the picture and eliminates the worst of the artifacts. If you apply the Facet filter multiple times, your image takes on a kind of pointillist, stroked look that becomes obvious. Using the filter over and over on the same image can yield quite interesting special effects. The Median filter The Median filter (look for it on the Filter➪Noise menu) operates similarly to the Facet filter in that it reduces the difference between adjacent pixels by changing the values of some of them. In this case, it assigns the median values of a group of pixels to the center pixel in the group.
Smoothing with the Facet and Median Filters 505 Unlike the Facet filter, the Median filter gives you a bit of control. You can choose the radius of the group that Photoshop uses to calculate the median value. Median tends to make an image look a bit blurrier because it reduces the con- trast of adjacent pixels. However, it does a good job of smoothing the image and removing artifacts. Original Single Facet filter Book VII Chapter 1 Making Corrections with Daily Filters Multiple Facet filter PhotoSpin Figure 1-7: The Facet filter can simply eliminate annoying artifacts or convert your image into a “painted” piece.
506 Creating an Angelic Glow Putting It Together Creating an Angelic Glow Sometimes, a little blur can add a soft, romantic mood or angelic glow that can improve glamour photos, pictures of kids, or even something as mundane as a flower. The secret is to apply only enough blurring to provide the soft effect you want without completely obliterating your original subject. This assumes, of course, that your subject doesn’t deserve obliteration, that the kids are your own (or those of a close friend or relative), and are, in fact, of that rare angelic variety. You won’t want to use this effect on other subjects, such as men, who generally like a rugged, masculine appearance. Many senior citizens regard the age lines on their faces as badges of distinction earned over a long, rewarding life. Don’t try softening them up with glowing effects, either. To add an angelic glow to your little angel, just follow these steps: 1. Open the image in Photoshop. I used one of a cute little girl. 2. Choose Layer➪Duplicate Layer to create a copy of the image layer. 3. Select Image➪Filter➪Blur➪Gaussian Blur. Gaussian blur softens the upper layer, produc- ing an airy glow. 4. Move the Radius slider to the right to produce a moderate amount of blur, and then click OK to apply the blurring effect, as shown in the figure. I used a value of 7. 5. In the Layers palette, choose Lighten from the Modes pop-up menu. 6. Use the Opacity slider (click the right- pointing arrow to access the slider) to reduce the amount of glow (if it’s too much for your tastes). I reduced my Opacity to 65 percent.
Fading a Filter 507 7. Choose Layer➪Flatten Image to combine all the layers. Experiment with different amounts of Gaussian Blur until you find the perfect glowing effect, as I did in my figure. When Photoshop applies the Lighten mode as it merges two layers, it looks at each pixel in the top layer — and at each corresponding pixel in the layer below. In the final merged layer, that lower pixel is always the lighter of the two. The result is an image in which Photoshop replaces darker pixels with lighter ones, but doesn’t change the light pixels at all. Applying a Filter Again You can reapply the last filter you worked with — using the same settings — by pressing Ctrl+F (Ô+F on the Mac). (It’s also the first command on the Filter menu.) You might want to do this to strengthen the effect of a filter on a particular image, layer, or selection. Or you simply may want to apply the Book VII Chapter 1 same filter to a succession of images or selections. Making Corrections with Daily Filters To bring up the dialog box for the last filter you applied, press Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows) or Ô+Option+F (Mac). This shortcut can be very useful when you apply a filter and then decide you want to go back and use different settings. After applying the filter, press Ctrl+Z (Ô+Z on a Mac) to undo, and then press Ctrl+Alt+F (Ô+Option+F on a Mac) to bring up the filter’s dialog box. The dialog box opens with the settings you used last time, allowing you to make adjustments and then reapply the filter. Fading a Filter Some times you may not want the full effects of a filter applied to your image or selection. Often applying a filter full strength tends to give it that artificial “Photoshopped” look. Photoshop has a handy Fade Filter facility that lets you control the intensity of the filter’s effects. You can access this feature by choosing Edit➪Fade, or by pressing Shift+Ctrl+F (Shift+Ô+F on the Mac). The Fade Filter facility also has a Preview option so you can preview the changes you’re making to the original image.