Practical Photoshop December 2020

“Welcome to issue 117 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99?” Over the years, the range of filter effects on offer in Photoshop has started to look rather stale and generic. But now, with the new Neural Filters in Photoshop CC 2021, things have become a lot more interesting. These AI-powered effects mark a bold new direction for Photoshop filters. www.digitalcameraworld.com HIGHLIGHTS: WHAT’S INSIDE… EXPLORING NEURAL FILTERS ▪ Get to grips with these powerful new AI effects CREATE THE COVER IMAGE ▪ Learn how to use Style Transfer for painterly effects MASTER THE MAGIC WAND Make powerful and precise selections BLACK-ANDWHITE HDR ▪ A guide to crafting beautiful monochrome HDRs LIGHTROOM SKILLS ▪ Ways to sort and view your photos in the Library Module DOWNLOAD THE PROJECT FILES To download this issue's files,…

Released in October 2020, Photoshop CC 2021 brings a raft of new features and updates. One of the most interesting is Neural Filters, which employ artificial intelligence to apply an effect or carry out a task. Each filter can analyze an image and make changes based on the content in the frame, rather than simply applying a universal effect. It means, for example, that your subject can be recognized and worked over differently to the rest of the scene. This is just the beginning for Neural Filters: you can see from the list of planned filters in development (which includes things like ‘Face to Caricature’ and ‘Dust and Scratches’) that Adobe has big plans for the feature. This issue we’ll explore the new Neural Filters on offer, from Style Transfer to…

As the name suggests, Style Transfer lets you mimic the style of a piece of artwork. There are over 50 preset artworks to choose from, including famous works by Van Gogh, Degas and Gauguin. Choose a preset and the style of the art will be transferred to your own image. The colors will change, the surfaces will be textured and the details will mimic the brush strokes of the sampled work. Here’s how it works… 1 CHOOSE A PRESET Go to Filter > Neural Filters, then click the slider icon in the top-right and turn on Style Transfer. (You might need to download the filter at this point if it’s your first use of it.) Next, choose an artwork to sample from. Experiment with the different choices the filter offers to transfer…

1 HOKUSAI’S CLASSIC WAVE Katsushika Hokusai’s famous painting ‘Under the Wave off Kanagawa’ (sometimes known as ‘The Great Wave’) is a nice choice for landscapes and outdoor scenes like this. 2 WHITE AND RED FLOWER This white and red flower gives a pleasingly bold result. Note too how the car has been singled out and colored differently to the backdrop, which illustrates the power of machine learning and subject recognition. 3 TATTOO OUTLINE The Tattoo preset is one of the most consistently pleasing of the 50 on offer. Here we checked Focus Subject in the settings, which changes the contrast and detail over the face and hair for a better result. 4 MUTED FLOWERS Sometimes Style Transfer filters can work well in combination with other effects. Here we created a scatter effect using Photoshop’s Watercolor brush set,…

This set of sliders lets you make an array of face-altering edits. You can experiment with age changes, alter the expression to make a person look more happy, surprised or excited, and also – to an extent – change the angle of the head or the direction of the eyes. We’ve experimented with a variety of faces here. Some of the results are impressive, others less so. But keep in mind the filter is still in beta stage – and in some cases, these are groundbreaking edits. SPREAD THE HAPPINESS AGE A FACE SHIFT A GAZE CHANGE HAIR THICKNESS ALTER HEAD POSITION RE-LIGHT YOUR FACES…

WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/38SWlPt 1 USE THE COLORIZE FILTER The Colorize filter seems to work best on completely black-and-white images, so begin by desaturating your photo with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+U. Go to Filter > Neural Filters, then click the test tube to access the Beta filters and check Colorize. The black-and-white image will automatically be colored. 2 TWEAK THE SETTINGS The sliders on the right let you shift color one way or another. The Focus Color/Scene Color slider alters the way the subject is colored: adjusting the balance towards the Focus Color end adds more color to the people here. You can also click on the color box to choose a color, then click on the preview image to add that color to different parts of the scene. 3 PAINT YOUR OWN COLORS The automatic color might not…