How to Edit Photos in Photoshop

How to Edit An Image in Photoshop

Photography has been around since the 1800's.  It was a way for people to capture moments within history and has evolved from only black and white photos all the way to our newest digital technology

Once Photoshop came along, it changed the way we expressed our creativity.  We are now able to create truly spectacular images only limited by our imagination.  You can completely change the storyline of an image and create things that are completely out of this world.

Using the newest 2019 Photoshop version, I’m going to show you how to modify and edit an image to create something spectacular.  I will also include a quick overview of how to modify the curves and levels of an image as well as a demonstration of the content-aware fill tool.

First, lets start with our base image.  For this tutorial, I chose an image of a lightbulb with a sunset in the background.

I want to make this image truly unique and demonstrate the power of Photoshop, so I decided to put a galaxy within the lightbulb itself - creating a window into another world.

To start this edit, open Photoshop and select the lightbulb.  The best tool to use for this selection is the magnetic lasso.  Simply drag the lasso around the outside edge of the lightbulb.

If a part of the bulb that you want to be selected is not or if too much of the bulb is selected, use the lasso tool to add or subtract from the selection.  The one selected below is the subtraction option and the one to the left of that is the addition option.

Next, save the selection.  To save your selection, go to select and near the bottom of that dropdown list, you will find save selection and load selection.  Once you click on the save selection it will allow you to name the selection that you want to save.  I saved my selection as “light”.

Deselect what you made around the lightbulb and make a selection of what is inside the lightbulb.  Then go to the edit dropdown and select content aware fill to get rid of what is in the center.

Once you have gotten rid of everything on the inside, you can start looking for galaxy pictures to put inside the lightbulb.

For this tutorial, I will use 2 different images and composite them within the lightbulb using 2 different Photoshop layers to create a truly unique image.

Pick galaxy image that you want to use and lay it out the way you want it to be positioned within the lightbulb.  Once you are satisfied, load the selection that you saved earlier.

Next, go to select and find the inverse option.  Click on that to invert the selection - this will select everything on the outside of the original lightbulb selection.  Delete it to delete everything on the outside of that layer.  It should look like this:

For this image I wanted to make some adjustments to the levels and curves.  Starting with the levels, I moved the center triangle to the left in order to brighten the sky while maintaining the dark silhouette of the tree.

If I chose to move the left triangle that would make the sky incredibly dark, which would be too much for this project.  If I moved the right triangle that would make the image way too bright.  Moving the center one was just perfect.

Next, using a curves adjustment, I want to darken the sky just the tiniest bit, so I took the square along the line and moved it a little bit to the right.

I also want to improve the vibrancy of the colors.  To do that, go to adjustments>vibrance to make the colors pop a little more.  This is how the image should appear:

After these adjustments, I was happy with the vibrancy of the colors and the shading.

Now I want to insert the second image to create the mini story I want to tell with my image.  I chose a photo that includes a person's silhouette that I want to place next to the tree as if looking off into the distance at it.

You start off with the same process as the first galaxy photo.  Insert the image and place it how you want.  Then, load the selection (“light”).

Next, inverse the selection and delete the outside.  Once you’re done it should look like this.

Once you have the second picture like this you take the magnetic lasso tool to select the silhouette of the person and the ground below them.

Inverse the selection to delete the galaxy sky so you are left with the original galaxy sky picture with the tree, but will now also include the silhouette of the person next to it.

Finally, I turned the opacity of the tree layer down just a bit, so it looks like the tree is a bit further away than the person.  This is what the final image looks like.

Photoshop has opened many doors for artists.  It has truly changed the world for graphic designers and photographers by letting us use our imagination without limits as to what we can create.

Beautiful and complex narratives can be easily created out of something simple, like our lightbulb picture here.

Keep in mind, the Photoshop tools I demonstrated in this tutorial are only the tip of the iceberg.  There are many, many more tools you can use to create EVEN MORE amazing images!

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