SGIA Journal Graphic November/December 2016 - 61
feature
Merge Modes - Making A Good Photo Great
A Corel Photo-Paint tutorial
I'll start by saying that I am not a good
photographer, so expectations I've placed
on myself for taking good photos are fairly
low. Primarily I use an iPhone 4s camera,
which is a bit underwhelming, especially
in low-light situations. Assuming that
the general population has a similar skill,
expect your customers to offer images for
projects that are also underwhelming.
There are techniques, however, that you
may not be aware of that you can use to
improve the quality of the image.
In the past, when I was presented
with a photo that was a bit lack-luster, I
would bring the image into Photoshop
or Corel Photo-Paint® and use the Image
Lab Adjustment, Color Balance or the
Tone Curve, among others, to modify
the image. While there are many options
for adjusting an image, most of these
adjustments influence all the color pixels
in the image in the same way. This is what
I call a flat adjustment. For example, by
increasing the Brightness settings in an
image to correct dark shadows, both the
lighter and darker areas of the images are
brightened together equally, and light areas
may look over exposed. An alternative to
a typical flat image adjustment is to use a
few different effects in combination with
Merge modes to produce dynamic images
that may not have seemed possible.
Merge modes (similar to Blend modes
in Photoshop) have been around since
Photo-Paint's inception, so if you are using
an older version than X8, the steps will be
very similar. All of the techniques used
in this tutorial are very similar to those
used in Photoshop. The subject of the
image used in this tutorial is that of an
old Ford truck near Livingston, Montana
(see Figure 1). The photo was taken using
an iphone4s on an overcast day in June
2016. If you would like to use the image
as you follow along with the tutorial, or
you can request a direct file by contacting
shonr@jdsindustries.com.
The beauty of Merge modes is their
ability to modify an image result based
on the base layer colors and the colors
of the layer above. Because each pixel
color has its own numeric value, a Merge
mode can perform a specific change to
each pixel independently, depending on
Figure 1
By Shon Roti, Sublimation Specialist, JDS Industries
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November/December 2016 | 59
SGIA Journal Graphic November/December 2016
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