How It Works
Star Effects™ program is designed to consider your existing light sources and then create and enhance effects based off of those source points. Unlike a basic brush tool, where you can go in and just click on any part of your image to add an effect, Star Effects™ actually takes your image’s light sources into consideration and applies the effects directly to those light source points.

This type of integration gives you the ability to create more natural-looking effects, since you are positioning your effect around a light source – where it would be more likely to occur. Because the effects are dependent on the light source points, this does not allow you to reposition the created effect in your image (away from the light source).

Take a look at the example below…

Image Details

• The stars in top (original) image are your light sources.
• Which/how many of the stars (or light source points) are affected is controlled by the Threshold slider – which is located in your Main Adjustments tab.
• The bottom image shows how the effect is created based off of those original light source points.

Handy Work Around
So, whats the neat workaround for creating effects anywhere you want? Creating your own light sources. This is actually really quick. All you need is your Photoshop brush tool! I suggest you start by creating a duplicate image layer. Then, here’s what you’ll do…

1. Select your Photoshop Brush Tool

2. Set the brush Size and Hardness – I prefer using a softer brush

3. Set the brush Color to white

4. Click on the area of your image that you want to add the effect to. This will create a new light source point.

5. Go to Filter -> Topaz Labs and select Star Effects.

When your light sources are detected, this new source point will also be detected. Please note that you may need to adjust your Threshold slider. From there you can go ahead and make your desired enhancements.

1. Before jumping into Adjust, one of the most important things you can do is to make sure that you have a clean image. This means eliminating noise or artifacts before making any kind of color or detail adjustments…just to make sure that the image is clean. Use your Topaz DeNoise plug-ins to do this. This is going to make your final results better. See workflow tip #11 (below) for more details.

2. Presets go a long way. You can significantly cut processing time and effort by starting out with presets. Scroll through the presets to preview the affect in the preview window and see what you’re getting before you select it. Customize your look. Use the sliders in the tool panel to individually adjust settings and customize the effect to fit your image. Create presets for your favorite looks. Be sure to save any settings that you create as a new preset in your My Collection preset category.

Adaptive Exposure is key.
The Adaptive Exposure tab allows you to add more localized contrast to your image, rescue detail from blown out highlights or blocked up shadows and adjust basic contrast and brightness. Adjustments made here enhance flat images and result in more texture detail and depth throughout your image.

3. Delicate balance of Adaptive Exposure and Regions is key to getting well-balanced color, detail and exposure. However, a significantly high value for both of these sliders (adaptive exposure and regions) can produce grungy and sometimes harsher-looking effects in image color and detail. Adjusting both of these sliders incrementally will produce the best results.

4. Regions. The Regions slider determines how your Adaptive Exposure selection is disbursed across your image.  The value of the Regions slider determines how many regions to divide your image to. Increase the regions in your image you will produce more variations of color, detail and the appearance of depth. What’s unique about Adjust’s Regions is that even as you increase the amount of Regions, Adjust blends the boundaries of those Regions so that you can not detect where one ends and the next begins. So let’s take a closer look at Regions in action so we can see just how they work.

Click here to learn more about Regions.

5. Reveal lost detail using the Highlights and Shadows sliders. Increasing Highlights slider will balance brightness and reveal previously obscured detail in highlight areas. Increasing the Shadow slider will balance shadowed areas and reveal previously obscured detail in shadow areas. These work in conjunction with the Adaptive Exposure slider. The higher the value of the Adaptive Exposure the wider range of control you will have with the Highlights and Shadows sliders.

6. Process Details Independently – Processes exposure and details adjustments separately. By default you may often see more crunchy, gritty, noise-like effects when working with the Adaptive Exposure sliders. Enabling the PDI will still give you that instant pop but it will also help eliminate these grungy effects and render smoother effects…especially in areas like sky and water.

Click here to learn more about processing details independently here.

7. Selective Adjustments.
Selective Adjustments allow you more control and flexibility over your image adjustments. Here are a few ways that you can achieve selective control over adjustments in your image.

• a. Adjust’s Selective Brush. The 4-in-one tool allows you to selectively Dodge, Burn, Smooth and Brush Out (remove) adjustments. The Brush Out tool is great for eliminating harsh effects on skin, in skies or anywhere else that the applied effect is harshly affecting your image. When it comes to using the Brush Out option, you won’t always want to brush out all of the effect – the key is to just tone it down. So be sure to use the Opacity slider to control how much of the effect is applied or brushed out. The Opacity slider controls how opaque your adjustments become. The higher the value the more effect that will be removed.
• b. Make a selection in your image using Photoshop’s Quick Selection or Marquee tools before opening Adjust. Then the adjustments that you make in Adjust will be applied to the selected area only.
• c. Layers + Layer Masks. You can create two layers in Photoshop and apply two different effects to each layer. Then simply add a layer mask to the top layer, select a black brush (be sure to adjust your brush characteristics) then brush in/out the areas that you want to blend.

8. Transparency Control. Sometimes you may find that the overall effect is too strong or overpowers your image. The Transparency slider, similar to Photoshop’s Opactiy slider, controls the effect strength. You can add as much or as little effect as you’d like to your image.

9. Sky Enhancement. Often the effects applied to your main image subject and structures can be too harsh for the sky (and often water). So when adjusting the sky it is often best to process it separately from the rest of your image. The best way to do this is:

• a. Duplicate your original image layer in Photoshop.
• b. Select the bottom layer and invoke Adjust.
• c. Make your adjustments – focusing on the field and then click OK to process.

• d. Select the duplicated layer and invoke Adjust again. Make your adjustments, but this time focus on the sky.
• e. Once your adjustments are made to your second layer, click OK to process and save back to Photoshop.

• f. Back in Photoshop you will click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of your Layers palette (it is the icon with the circle inside of the rectangle). This will add a Layer Mask to your sky layer.

• g. Select a brush tool and set the brush color to black and then begin to brush through the field. This will bring in the field area from the bottom layer blending the two images.

Click here to learn more about sky enhancement techniques.

10. Detail. The Detail Boost slider can be a great way to enhance fine/small details in your image, but be sure not to over-apply it. Doing so can lead to unwanted, noise-like enhancements.

11. Noise. The noise tab is not a substitute for noise reduction software, however it is a great way to clean up any noise or artifacts that are introduced into your image from the other adjustments made within Adjust. If you do find the need to use the tools in Adjust’s Noise tab then be sure to do this as the last step in your workflow before processing your image. This is also great for cleaning up areas of skin and sky in your image. Also, over applying the noise reduction can smooth your image too much and result in a loss of detail, so be sure not to over-apply it.

Click here to learn more about the Adjust noise tool vs. the Topaz DeNoise program.

12. Snap Shots. Snap allows you to take a “snapshot” of a group of settings….like a temporary preset. And then you can use the Prev/Next button to scroll through the snapshots you’ve taken. You can take up to 99 snap shots. This allows you to compare the way various combination settings will impact your image without losing them.

13. Apply Button. The Apply button allows you to stack multiple effects/presets during the same workflow. This can significantly increase your productivity while using Adjust, as well as speed up your workflow. Keep in mind that the Apply button is permanent. Once you click it, your changes up to that point are applied and can not be undone. You would need to Cancel (exit) the program and open it back up. Clicking Apply will also eliminate previous snapshots.

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Written by guest blogger: Joel Wolfson

I built my first darkroom when I was 13. For my first several years of photography I shot, processed and printed almost all black and white. When photography became my full time profession in 1985 I shot more color than black and white. I started using digital cameras in 1987. However, now more than 30 years after my start in photography, black and white remains a passion. It’s impossible to impart all the techniques and tips I’ve learned but here are a few favorite and important ones for black and white photography. Some apply only to digital capture but most apply to film too.

These tips and techniques are a combination of technical, compositional, and mental aspects of creating successful black and white images:

1. Shoot Raw (aka RAW) Except for compact point and shoot cameras, most digital cameras allow you to capture raw images. This gives you the widest range of tones and colors possible. It also requires some post processing but if you want the best image possible, use raw capture. When you shoot in raw you will also be shooting in color (see tip #3). This may not immediately make sense but most software uses the original color information while you’re optimizing your black and white image. For example, if I’m using Topaz B&W Effects, I can lower the blue values (Color Sensitivity sliders) in a black and white landscape which has the effect of darkening the grays of the sky. Likewise I can brighten the gray tone of leaves on a tree by increasing the green values.

• If your camera isn’t capable of being set for RAW, shoot in color for the reasons just cited.

2. Shoot with the intention of creating black and white images. The best black and white images are generally those intended to be that way from the beginning. If you’re not an old hand at black and white photography then it’s important to train yourself to think and visualize in black in white and shoot specifically with that in mind. Of course you can discover an image that looks great as a monochrome after the fact but your rate of successful black and white images will be much higher with that intention behind them.

3. Set the LCD screen on the back of your camera for Monochrome. Most cameras will allow you to shoot raw and also be able to view the images on the LCD in black and white/monochrome. This helps you to visualize in black and white as you’re shooting. Canon calls it “Picture Style” and Nikon calls it “Picture Control”. On some cameras you may have to set it to shoot RAW + JPEG- meaning it will shoot both of these at the same time and what you will be viewing on the LCD is the black and white JPEG.

• A word of caution here. The LCD on the back of your camera is NOT very accurate whether you view in color or black and white. If you treat it as a general guideline it can be helpful but don’t try to judge nuances from the LCD.

4. Compose without color. This is a mental challenge. When you’re looking at or thinking about a scene, subject, or moment to capture, ask yourself: Will this image tell the the story best in black and white? This means trying to think about the lighting, subject, and tonal values over any influence from color. Look for images you can create that are compelling without color.

5. Shoot on overcast or rainy days. For color photography many photographers will avoid shooting on overcast or rainy days. I think such weather is great for black and white (I could make the same argument for color but we’re talking monochrome here.) There are all kinds of subtle tones that might otherwise be lost on a sunny day with harsh shadows. It’s also great light for portraits and photos of people.

6. Think about the non-color visual design elements of your image. Without color the components of visual design become that much more important. Look at the lines in the image. Are they horizontal? Vertical? Diagonal? Do they form a pattern? Rhythm or repeating elements in a photo are interesting, with a break in the repetition being even more interesting. Also look at the texture, shapes, and forms in the image. Concentrating on these will take your mind off the color and enhance your ability to “see” and think in monochrome.

7. Use a calibrated monitor and neutral viewing environment. A properly profiled monitor is essential to making any judgements about, or adjustments to, your images. This may be even more important for black and white where the subtleties of tone are critical. Also best to keep your viewing environment as neutral as possible. White walls are better than bright red and even subdued neutral clothing helps because your clothing will be reflected back into the monitor. I usually wear a gray or black shirt or sweatshirt when I’m adjusting images.

8. Train your brain for black and white by comparing the same images in both black and white and color. Most photo software lets you go back and forth between images or look at them side-by-side. A good way to teach yourself how to visualize in black and white is to look at the same image both ways. Do this with as many images as you can. I would include images that you initially intended to be black and white as well as those that were not intended that way. Sometimes you will discover great black and white images that weren’t shot with that purpose. More importantly it will ultimately help you be able to look at a color scene in the world and visualize it as a black and white image.

9.Crop your image before doing adjustments to it. If you’re looking at a lot of extraneous information that will be cropped out eventually anyway, you don’t want it to influence your adjustments to the image (which it will if you leave it there). Our eyes and brains look at things relative to what’s around it- so don’t let irrelevant information get in the way of fine tuning your image.

10. Before converting your color image to black and white make it a bit gaudy. By this I mean make your image more contrasty and saturated than you would if the final image were to be in color. Monochrome images are about the contrasts of tones and I’ve found that by exaggerating the contrast in color you end up with a better starting point when you convert to black and white. This may mean using both contrast and saturation related controls in your software.

Successful black and white photography is a combination of both technical and artistic elements. Good camera equipment and software is only a starting point. I hope that these tips will help those starting out and serve as reminders for those that are more experienced. Most of all, have fun!

More from Joel Wolfson:
Pro Insights: Black & White Rediscovered
Joel Wolfson’s workshops, website, and blog
Preview of Topaz B&W Effects

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Ok, so Friday our friend and pro travel photographer Scott Stulberg did a webinar with us…and boy was it GREAT! Scott, who is well-known for his striking images, showed us how he uses Topaz to help create his images. He also offered some great insight on his go-to lens, loupes, model release forms and much more. If you missed the webinar you will be able to view the recording later this week at: www.topazlabs.com/webinars.

Surprisingly, though, it was what he had going on behind the scenes that caught many of your eyes. Two of the most asked questions were actually regarding his use of Photoshop Notes and Actions…both of which help him streamline not just his use of Topaz but his overall post processing workflow and productivity. (Sorry Elements users, Adobe has only incorporated these features into Photoshop)

So, I wanted to give you all some insight on these two very useful Photoshop features that you might not know about and show you how they can help you in your workflow.

Notes

Now, if you’re anything like me you will recognize the following (simplified) workflow:

1. Adjustments in Photoshop
2. Take image into Topaz and add a preset
3. Tweak the sliders in Topaz to perfect the look
4. Take your image back into Photoshop and make a few more adjustments
5. Save your image
6. Wonder later on: “what presets/adjustments did I apply to this image?”

So many times you may end up with a great final image but forget the exact combination of adjustments, plug-ins, presets and other enhancements used to create that look. This is where your Photoshop Note tool comes in! You can find this tool grouped with the Eyedropper Tool (I) in your Tool panel. Notes allow you to add written transcript to any part of your image. This is useful because you can keep track of your workflow, production notes, add comments or any other necessary and helpful information to your image. Notes are also handy if you need to leave yourself a message about where you left off in your workflow so that when you come back to that image you know where to pick up at or if you are passing the file off to a friend or colleague. You can hide/show your notes, you can use multiple notes, apply notes to a specific part or image subject and you can edit your notes.

Commands for Notes:

1. Add notes
- You can add notes anywhere on your Photoshop image canvas. When you create a note, an icon appears on the image. Select the Note tool in the toolbox. (If the tool isn’t visible, hold down the Eyedropper.)

- In the Options bar, enter or specify the following as needed:
- Author Specifies the note author’s name.
- Color Selects the color for the note icon. Clicking the color box opens the Adobe Color Picker so you can select a color.
- Click where you want to place the note.
- The cursor will automatically be active

2. To Open and edit notes:
- Using the Note tool, double-click the note icon in the image. The text editing area appears in the Notes panel.
- Choose Window -> Notes to display the Notes panel, and click the back and forward arrows to toggle through all notes in the active image.

3. To Show or hide notes:
- Go to View -> Show -> Notes

4. Delete notes:
Select the Note tool, and then do either of the following:
-To delete an individual note, click it in the image, and then click the Delete Note icon in the Notes panel.
-To delete all notes, click Clear All in the options bar.

Actions

Actions, which automate repetitive tasks, are a great way to speed up and simplify editing steps and tasks in Photoshop. Actions allow you to record your workflow. As you are recording, Photoshop is capturing a memory of your steps that it will be able to reapply on any image. Incorporating Actions into your workflow is one of the best ways to streamline your workflow by doing your most common tasks in 1-CLICK!

Maybe you have a group of noisy images that have the same amount of noise that you want to quickly eliminate, you want to quickly rotate an image instead of going to Edit -> Transform -> Rotate, merge down layers, add copyright, load or save a selection, save your image for web, print, resize, flatten, create a layer copy or any other number of tasks that you repeat often.

Bottom line: Actions SAVE TIME!

Button Mode. The screen shot above shows the Actions panel in default or “Edit” mode (on the left) and in button mode (on the right). When recording, modifying, organizing and deleting actions you MUST be in the default mode. However, if you are simply applying actions then you can do that from the button mode. Button mode allows you to easily apply an action in one-click (and is color coded) and then move on. Button mode is great for beginners or for those who prefer a cleaner more simplified display.

Commands for Actions:
1. Action Set: Store sets of actions. Actions must be saved in “sets.” A set can contain between one and 100 actions.
2. Action: This is the actual set of commands recorded in macro form.
3. Toggle Action (On/Off) command: use to enable or disable action (or an effect nested inside of an action)
4. Dialogue Control: Requires user input. When the action is running, the user may click this to modify the highlighted command. If it is turned off, Photoshop will execute the defaults for that command.
5. Play button: Begins playing an action (or set of actions).
6. Record button: Starts recording (or resumes) recording.
7. Stop recording button: When finished running an action, hit this button.
8. New set: Creates a new set in which to place your actions.
9. New action: Creates a new action within the selected set.
10. Delete action: Deletes the selected action (or steps within the action).
11. Action menu: Opens the action menu with additional menu options

And that’s it! So, now that you know about these two nifty features go ahead and open up Photoshop and try them out. Once you get the hang of them you will discover so many ways to incorporate them and streamline your workflow and increase overall productivity. Enjoy and thank you again to Scott Stulberg!!!

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If you’re avid Adjust user like me, you may sometimes notice that Adjust enhances any existing flaws or artifacts in the image and can also introduce new noise and unwanted artifacts. These side effects can include noise, halos, grain, grittiness, splotchiness and a grungy type of effect. Now, there may be occasions where a gritty, grungy look is what you are going for, but for the most part I think you’ll agree that well-balanced color, detail and exposure (with out the side effects) is most desired. So let’s take a look at a quick workflow so you learn how to take control over your Adjust workflow and get exactly the detail you want.

Now, before we jump into Adjust, keep in mind that one of the most important things you can do is to make sure that you have a clean image before using Adjust. I always use Topaz DeNoise (and DeJPEG when necessary) before making any kind of color or detail adjustments…just to make sure that the image is clean. This is going to make your final results better.

Now, some of you may be thinking: “does the noise tab in Adjust serve as a substitute for Topaz DeNoise?” No, Adjust’s noise tab is not the same as the DeNoise program and does not replace the actual DeNoise program. The noise tool in Adjust is included simply to help remove minor instances of noise caused by enhancements made while using Adjust. The Topaz DeNoise program is specifically designed to eliminate noise, color noise, banding noise, restore black levels and revive detail. So naturally DeNoise is more powerful and better suited for tougher noise jobs. If you do find the need to use the tools in Adjust’s Noise tab then be sure to do this as the last step in your workflow before processing your image. Also be sure that your image preview is 50% or higher.

So onto Adjust! So, one of the most common uses for Adjust is to take a somewhat flat image like below, and give it that WOW factor by making it POP with color and detail.

So, like many users, I am going to get my workflow started by applying a preset. For this example I used the Dramatic preset. And as you can see below, my image is instantly transformed with enhanced color, exposure and detail. It may be hard to notice right now (I’ll zoom closer in a bit), but there is also a harshness (noise and grittiness) in the image which…especially seen in the sky and water. You will also notice that shadow areas are intensified as well.

So there is actually a very quick and easy way to eliminate this harsh effect. Once you’ve finished your adjustments in the exposure tab, go to the detail tab and make any desired adjustments there. At the bottom of the Detail Tab you will notice a checkbox – Process Details Independent of Exposure. By checking this option, you can maintain the color and exposure enhancements in your image, but your image details will be processed separately and this will instantly cleanup harshly affected areas of your image. In addition to improving the appearance of water and skies, using this checkbox can also help minimize halos, grain or noise-like effects, grit and grunge. This is a great way to tone down the effects of stronger presets in the program.

After making adjustments in the Detail tab, move onto the Color tab and make your desired enhancements here. If you still notice additional (smaller patterns) of grain or noise in your image, you can then go to the noise tab and use the sliders here to eliminate it.

Below you can see the final images. This first image is the more harsh one of the two.

This version made use of the Process Details Independent of Exposure checkbox and renders smoother, more appealing results.

So go ahead and give it a try in your Adjust workflow!

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As a digital artist, Bob Nolin says that he relies upon Topaz filters quite a bit. Below is an article he wrote showing how he used Adjust in his painting workflow. Enjoy!

In parts 1 and 2, we took a look at how to correct or change the lighting in a stock portrait photo, using non-destructive layer techniques. Now that we have balanced the lighting, we are ready to move forward. The goal, by the way, is to have a good image to work with in Painter.

(Three steps along the way: the original (upper left), lighting adjusted in Part 1 and 2 (upper right), and after applying Topaz Adjust filter (bottom)

I’ve found that the Topaz Adjust filter can do amazing things with portrait photos, so I often use it to enhance the image prior to painting it in Painter. There are a number of presets in Topaz Adjust. For this portrait, I used one called “Spicify,” which brings out incredible detail, enhances contrast, and adds some dramatic color to an image. You can see the results above.

I find that the Adjust filter works very well for portraits of men and elderly people. It really brings out the details. Sometimes the results are astounding, other times, not so hot. It really depends on the image. That’s why I hesitate to give you exact settings and step-by-step instructions from here out. I hope you’ll see my method and approach, and apply it to your own work. Every image calls for something new, it seems. It’s always a new adventure! In this case, the man’s eyes were squinting from the bright sunlight (which we removed in Steps 1 and 2). To open them up, I used the lasso selection tool to draw around the eyes, and then used the Liquify filter to nudge them open a tad.

After applying the Adjust filter, I opened the image in Painter, and cloned it. “Smearing pixels” in Painter works really well with an image with lots of detail like this. You can use other methods to add detail prior to going into Painter. Photoshop’s Grain filter can help (go Filter > Texture > Grain), though it applies the texture evenly. Sometimes over-sharpening a tad can help. And believe it or not, sometimes enlarging a file from really small to really big can give you lots of texture to smooth and manipulate with Painter. I found this out by accident, when a client gave me a photo that was only a few hundred pixels wide. Of course, they asked for a large painting! I enlarged it in Photoshop to 9000 pixels wide, and it looked awful! But it resulted in a very painterly look once I began painting it in Painter.

To finish up this series, I’ll leave you with this: a close-up of the image after Topaz Adjust (top), and then many hours later, after working on it in Painter. Painting begins by smearing the pixels, but lots of areas need to have fresh color brought in. Look at the eye, for instance. It’s mostly hand-painted by the time I’m done. There’s no easy way to show you how I got from A to B here, unfortunately. But I hope you find this helpful nonetheless. Next week, something new! Have a great New Year 2011!

About Bob
My passion is Realism, especially close up, with lots of detail. Each painting is a labor of love, and can take from 20 to 75 hours to complete. I’ve been working full time as an artist since 2004, and attended several art schools in the early 1980′s. My work has won awards at the local and national level, and has been published in ‘American Artist’ and ‘International Artist’ magazines.

I live near Pittsburgh, PA with my wife, two teenagers, and a small menagerie of animals.

See more of Bob’s work online at: www.bobnolin.com

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I have found that ReMask can be a more effective way to create clipping paths in Photoshop (versus dozens of clicks with the pen tool). After going through my normal masking workflow with ReMask then making a few additional clicks back in Photoshop, I can quickly and easily create a clipping path from my cutout.

Clipping paths are neat selections because they can be retained with your saved image file – which is great if you offer masking/clipping path services or if you need to share your image project with a colleague.

Follow along, and see how easy it is to incorporate this in your workflow.

1. Start with your normal ReMask workflow. Once you’ve finished masking your image click then it can be saved as a clipping path.

2. Back in Photoshop, go to your Layers Palette and locate the layer that has your new cutout.

If you are working with a layer that has your cutout saved to a layer mask then it will look like this:

3. Time to select your cutout. Make sure that the layer with your mask/cutout is selected. Then use CMD-Click (Mac users) or CTRL-Click (Windows users) on the image thumbnail to select it. If your image layer has a layer mask then be sure that the mask thumbnail is selected (has the black box around it) before making the selection.

You should see the marching ants appear around your selection.

4. Then go to your Paths Palette. If it’s not loaded then go to Window -> Paths to bring it up.

5. Go to the bottom of the Paths Palette and click on the Make work path from selection icon (it should look like a circle with two antennas sticking out).

6. This should create a new Path layer in the Paths Palette.

7. Double-click on the new Work Path layer and a box should pop up to save your Path. Give your path a name and then click OK

Tip: You can also reverse the path selection. To do this (go back to step 3) and once you have your selection go to Select -> Inverse.

This will select the area around your cutout. Then you can pick back up at step 4 to save the inverted selection.

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ReMask 3 Overview (video) – Greg gives a intro on how Topaz ReMask works 3 and demonstrates the new tools. He also shows the process for doing a basic mask and also a tree and a veil.

ReMask: The Basics (pdf) – The complete beginner’s guide to using ReMask. If you don’t know how to use layer masks in Photoshop, start here.

Topaz ReMask Workflow Tips (Blog Article) – Ashely explores Eric’s original best practices and adds some new tips to help you improve your masking technique and workflow.

ReMask 3 Overview (video) – Greg demonstrates how you can use ReMask to mask hair.

ReMask Quick Start Guide (pdf) – Already know the masking basics? Learn the essentials and jump right into the ReMask workflow.

ReMask: Tree Masking Tutorial (pdf) – A tutorial that demonstrates the best ways to mask trees.

Blending and Merging (pdf) – A tutorial that helps you beyond the mask. Learn more about the Photoshop tools that you can use to add in a new background and blend your image elements.

Using Layer Masks (Blog Article) – A tutorial that shows you how to mask your image without actually cutting your image (a non-destructive workflow).

Saving a Mask in Progress (Blog Article) – A tutorial that shows you how to save a mask that is in progress so that you can return to it later.

Speed Up the Masking Workflow (Blog Article) – A tutorial that shows you how to speed up your ReMask workflow.

Selective Adjustments with ReMask (pdf) – ReMask makes it easy to isolate elements in an image for selective adjustments. This tutorial quickly highlights some of the things that you can do.

Need more? Sign up for one of our upcoming ReMask webinars

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As you may have heard, June is Mastering Masks Month here at Topaz. Our goal is to help you learn more about the uses and benefits of integrating masks into your workflow, and to help you maximize your productivity with Topaz ReMask. Despite the challenges faced with most masks, having the right tools and a little masking education can help you easily tackle even the most difficult images.

Masks: The What and Why?
Now, part of being able to master the masking process is understanding masks and what they are used for. The easiest way to describe a mask (also referred to as cutouts / extractions) is that it’s essentially the isolation of an element (or area around an element) that you would like to enhance or protect.

Masks allow you to:

• Replace unwanted backgrounds
• Make selective adjustments (color, levels, detail, sharpness, adding blur…etc.)
• Create collages and compositions (photo merging)
• Design multi-layer graphics and layouts

A great mask will help you do these things easier and faster. So now that you have a little background, let’s explore the masking process and how ReMask can help.

Masking with Topaz ReMask
The problem with the masking process and the various masking tools that exist, is that they are hard to learn, heard to use and don’t always produce the results you need. Topaz ReMask, on the other hand, is designed to make masking easy. Even complex images like hair, veils and trees are simplified and more efficient with ReMask.

How does it work?
One important thing to understand about Topaz ReMask is the purpose and importance of the user-created tri-map. The tri-map is important because essentially it a blueprint that ReMask mask will follow when creating your mask.

The purpose of the tri-map is to sample the colors in your image. This means that wherever you paint green, Topaz ReMask will look at that section and determine that those colors are meant to be kept. Wherever you paint red, ReMask looks at it and determines that those colors are meant to be removed. Wherever you paint blue, will be computed. When computing, ReMask will take the samples gathered in the green and and areas to figure out what the blue areas should be.

Once the tri-map has been created, clicking the Compute button in ReMask will analyze and process that tri-map to create the actual mask.

Now, just like any other method, it is highly likely that the generated mask is not perfect at first. That’s why ReMask includes the Magic brush and the refining toolset, which make it easy to refine the generated mask.

Magic Brush
The Magic brush tool is integrated into your regular brush tools. Check the box next to Magic Brush text to enable it. Once the Magic Brush is activated you can use it to clean up your mask. The Magic Brush tool is pretty intuitive so just a click or a small stroke will actually clean up similar problem areas that are in close proximity to where you click. You will want to repeat this process as necessary throughout your image until you are satisfied with the results.

• When you have a Red brush selected you can click in areas of your image that has leftover color or detail that you want to remove.
• When the green brush is selected, you can click in areas of your image that have been removed or are semi-transparent in order to bring back in that color/detail.
• If you select the blue brush and brush over an area it will clean it up for you.

Refining Toolset
The refining toolset allows you to make adjustments to your mask and to your foreground. Your settings here will differ from image to image.

When using the Mask Hardness and Mask Strength sliders it is best to be viewing your image in the Mask preview. Also, most of the time a low to mid value works best for these sliders.

• Mask Hardness
  Determines how hard your mask is applied to subject edges in your image. The higher the parameter the harder your edges will be. The lower the parameter, the softer (more feathered) your edges will be.

• Mask Strength
  Determines the brightness of the mask. Increasing this parameter will give you more detail by making the weaker mask details stronger.

You will need to be in the Keep view for the Recovery and Desaturation sliders to work.

• Recovery (Foreground Color)
  Revives the color of your foreground – in weaker / more transparent areas. Typically you will find that setting this slider to a high value or at max will produce the best results.
• Desaturation (Foreground Color)
  Desaturates the edges of your mask (in weaker / more transparent areas) to help with color contamination and blending.

Other Brushes…which to use and when?

• Single Color Selection Brushes
  These brushes allow you to brush out the foreground or background area in your image, based on the color selected and the setting of the Color Range slider. Focus in on an area and use this brush to select a specific color within that are to clean up.
• Color Range
  The Color Range slider allows you to determine the spectrum of shades affected within the image based on the main color selection.
• Dual Color Selection Brushes (for transparency)
  This brush allows you to define two colors (keep and remove) to target at once. The Dual Color brush is key for images where transparency is a factor because it will allow users to select a foreground color, such as the white of a wedding veil, and a background color to be removed from behind the veil.
  
  (The gray & white checkerboard in the background represents transparency – as seen in Photoshop)
  This brush can save time, because it allows you to remove unwanted colors and revive desired colors at once. Selecting this brush will automatically activate the color selector so that can select your colors. The Green (keep) color selector comes up first, just click on a color within the image that you want to keep, then it will switch to the red (remove) color selector, just click on a color within your image that you want to remove. After both color selections are made the tool will automatically change to a brush. Set your brush size and then brush over any area of your image that contains the colors you selected.
See the step-by-step veil masking tutorial here.
More tutorials available on the ReMask tutorials page.
Sign up for Free masking webinars.

Up Next: ReMask Workflow tips explored. So stay tuned! If you found this post helpful or if there is something that you want me to elaborate more on something then just let me know by dropping me a line below.

By the way, yesterday (06.09.11) the new ReMask 3.2 was released. See the announcement and get the FREE upgrade here.

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