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Photo Softening Technique Using NEAT Image Pro
By Matt Hardy - Salt Lake City, Utah
A Technique using a digital filter designed to reduce visible noise in digital photographic images to soften images.
Original Image:
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Step
1.
- Open your original
image in Photoshop
- Perform a curve
adjustment to lighten up your image a bit. (adjustment levels will vary
depending on the photo's exposure) The settinges I used were as follows:
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Step
2.
- Perform an Unsharp
Mask (adjustment levels will vary depending on the photo's sharpness)
- Filter--->
Sharpen---> Unsharp Mask (in the menu)
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Amount:
195
Radius:
1.0
Threshold:
0 |
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- Brighness and
Contrast may need a slight adjustment I adjusted contrast +5
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Step
3.
- Make a snapshot of
your image (in the history menu. Right click--->Make new snapshot)
- Ctrl z to undo
your unsharp mask
- Select history
brush from the tool pallette
- Check brush to
snapshot and select the original layer
- Use the history
brush to go over the eyes and sharpen them
- After PS
adjustments
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Step
4.
- Open Neat Image
(if you do not have it a free trial can be downloaded at http://www.neatimage.com/
- Open you image
- Select the device
noise profile tab and drag a window in your image ( do not include eyes in the
window)
- Ctrl R ( this
builds the profile using the selected area, it can also be done from the profile
menu)
- After profile has
been built click on the noise filter settings tab
- Drag a window over
key elements of your photo for preview
- Adjust settings
until you get things the way you like ( I have included a picture of the
settings used for demonstration below.)
- Once you have it
set the way you would like it to be click on the Output Image tab and click the
apply button (for very large images this can take awhile)
- After filters have
been applied save as and you are done
- I sometimes pull
the image back into photoshop and readjust levels one more because Neat image
will sometimes change the effect
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After Filtering:
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And
here is a before and after of the shot.
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| All Images and Text
Copyright Matt Hardy. All rights reserved. |
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