Spot Application of Photoshop / Elements Filters
Question:
Is there a way to spot apply filters?
Answer:
Short Answer: Certainly, several ways -- and the best one.
There are many reasons that you might want to apply spot filtering. For example you might want to sharpen only a portion of your image, or add special effects (glows or color enhancement) in spots to more creative ends. You can apply filters as spot correction just by making a selection and applying the filter, but almost always I want a little more control, and the ability to adjust the changes I made later in the image editing process. As long as you use the right techniques, any filter or filter combination can be applied to spots in the image rather than the entire thing, and you can make adjustments whenever you want.
Filters are mostly mathematical calculations that have to be applied to content in the image. They look at content, and make a change based on how the calculations are set up behind the scenes, sometimes dependent on user input (the filter controls). When you apply filters, you have to apply them directly to content, or nothing will happen. That is, if you just create a layer and apply the filter, the layer is blank, so the filter has nothing to calculate. In that case you won't see any change. On the other hand if you have an image with a lot of layers, you can't apply the filter to one layer and have it necessarily effect every part of the image.
What you have to do to apply the filter correctly is create what I call a layer snapshot...collect all the image information you see in a layer and then apply the filter to that. Once the filter application is in its own layer, you can mask it however you want to spot apply the filter changes.
To use filters on a layer you have to do something like the following:
1. create a new layer, and name it Layer Snapshot 1
2. stamp visible to the new layer (ctrl+shift+alt+E)
3. apply the filter and re-name the layer as appropriate
Step 3, stamping visible, collects all the currently visible parts of the image into the target layer. You need to do this type of collection every time you have several layers producing a result and you need to work on ALL of the content of the image. While the visible image does not change, the change in the image is an important one: everything you saw in the image is collected into one source layer. Once the content is collected, you can apply a filter directly to all of it -- even if before it was scattered on different layers (with different modes, styles etc.).
You can use these layers to spot apply filters if you combine them with masking. For example, after the filter is applied to all of the content, you can mask the layer (either using layer clipping or Hidden Power tools for those with Elements [ http://hiddenelements.com ], or layer masks for those with Photoshop) to limit where the filter is applied.
I would apply different filters to different snapshot layers so that you have separate control over each. Using the layer snapshot and masking techniques should give you ultimate control over the result.
PS - My Photoshop 101 course on betterphoto.com is starting in a few days:
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC03.asp
Al Ward, master of the special effect in Photoshop, will be starting a brand-new course on betterphoto: Right-Brain Photoshop. It starts in just a few days!
http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=155
Is there a way to spot apply filters?
Answer:
Short Answer: Certainly, several ways -- and the best one.
There are many reasons that you might want to apply spot filtering. For example you might want to sharpen only a portion of your image, or add special effects (glows or color enhancement) in spots to more creative ends. You can apply filters as spot correction just by making a selection and applying the filter, but almost always I want a little more control, and the ability to adjust the changes I made later in the image editing process. As long as you use the right techniques, any filter or filter combination can be applied to spots in the image rather than the entire thing, and you can make adjustments whenever you want.
Filters are mostly mathematical calculations that have to be applied to content in the image. They look at content, and make a change based on how the calculations are set up behind the scenes, sometimes dependent on user input (the filter controls). When you apply filters, you have to apply them directly to content, or nothing will happen. That is, if you just create a layer and apply the filter, the layer is blank, so the filter has nothing to calculate. In that case you won't see any change. On the other hand if you have an image with a lot of layers, you can't apply the filter to one layer and have it necessarily effect every part of the image.
What you have to do to apply the filter correctly is create what I call a layer snapshot...collect all the image information you see in a layer and then apply the filter to that. Once the filter application is in its own layer, you can mask it however you want to spot apply the filter changes.
To use filters on a layer you have to do something like the following:
1. create a new layer, and name it Layer Snapshot 1
2. stamp visible to the new layer (ctrl+shift+alt+E)
3. apply the filter and re-name the layer as appropriate
Step 3, stamping visible, collects all the currently visible parts of the image into the target layer. You need to do this type of collection every time you have several layers producing a result and you need to work on ALL of the content of the image. While the visible image does not change, the change in the image is an important one: everything you saw in the image is collected into one source layer. Once the content is collected, you can apply a filter directly to all of it -- even if before it was scattered on different layers (with different modes, styles etc.).
You can use these layers to spot apply filters if you combine them with masking. For example, after the filter is applied to all of the content, you can mask the layer (either using layer clipping or Hidden Power tools for those with Elements [ http://hiddenelements.com ], or layer masks for those with Photoshop) to limit where the filter is applied.
I would apply different filters to different snapshot layers so that you have separate control over each. Using the layer snapshot and masking techniques should give you ultimate control over the result.
PS - My Photoshop 101 course on betterphoto.com is starting in a few days:
http://www.betterphoto.com/photocourses/RIC03.asp
Al Ward, master of the special effect in Photoshop, will be starting a brand-new course on betterphoto: Right-Brain Photoshop. It starts in just a few days!
http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=155
posted by Richard Lynch at 1:13 PM
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