Improving Screencaps: Part Two
Part one covered lightening and smoothing screencaps. This tutorial continues the process with further smoothing, highlighting, and color improvement.
I'll be using another, similar screencap of Buffy from Graduation Day, Part One as an example. I've already improved it using the process described in part one.
The cap doesn't look too bad, but the colors are dull and it could use some additional smoothing.
Highlighting
Brightening selectively really makes an image pop. There are almost endless techniques, but I'm going to explain a few of my favorites.
One of the easiest ways uses screen. Copy your layer and set the top layer to screen. It will look quite bright, which is where the luminosity mask comes in handy. The luminosity mask is basically a selection of a grayscale version of the image - white areas are fully selected and gray areas are partially selected. The easiest way to select the luminosity mask is ctrl+alt+~, but it can also be selected by opening the channels palette and clicking the "load channel as selection" button at the bottom of the palette (the circle button).
This is an example with the screened layer on top and the luminosity mask selected:
Once the mask is selected, hit the "add layer mask" button. Now the screened layer effects only the brightest areas of Buffy's face, hair, and the background. Now, tweak the transparency of the masked layer to get the look you want. I've set the transparency to 50%.
Here's the result :
The colors are better, but still a little flat. To improve that, copy the screened layer and change the blend mode from screen to overlay. You may need to further adjust the transparency of the overlayed layer; for this image I'm changing it to 40%.
And here's the result:
Another method that provides similar results is to select the luminosity mask first, then apply effects to the selection. Adjustments such as brightness/contrast, levels, curves, and hue/saturation work very well to provide highlights when used with the luminosity mask. One of my favorites, though, is the diffuse glow filter. First, select the luminosity mask, then run the diffuse glow filter (filter > distort > diffuse glow). I usually like to take graininess down to 0, up glow amount to 15, and leave clear amount at 15.
Here's the result:
The effect as is can work in some situations, but I definitely want to tone it down a bit right now. To do this, choose fade diffuse glow (edit > fade diffuse glow). Keep in mind that the fade option is only available immediately after running the filter, so choose it before deselecting the mask or hitting any other buttons. I've faded it back to 60% and set it to overlay.
Hit OK and then deselect the mask (ctrl+d). Now it looks like this:
Improving Colors
This particular image doesn't have really bad color problems, but a little tweaking can make it look better. I'm going to do this with a selective color adjustment layer. Flatten your image so you have just one layer and click the "add new fill or adjustment layer" button at the bottom of the layers palette (the half black/half white circle). An option box will pop up.
I think the yellow tones in this image are just a little too strong, so I'm going to select yellow from the drop-down. Setting the yellow slider to -30 tones it down a bit. After that, select white from the drop-down, and take the black slider back to -30. Finally, I'm selecting black from the drop-down and setting the black slider to +5. Now my blacks and whites are a little stronger, giving the image more oomph.
Here's how mine looks:
Further Smoothing
The colors look good to me, but I want the image to be a little smoother. One way is to repeat the median techinque shown in part one of this tutorial. Make a copy of the layer and run the median filter on it (I used a setting of 4). I've set the layer to 60% opacity and partiallly masked out Buffy's features and most of her hair to bring back the details:
The same technique can be done using the smart blur filter (filter > blur > smart blur), but I find it harder to get a smooth look using smart blur.
Another way is to use the smudge tool (the pointing finger button in the left row of the toolbar - you may need to right click on the blur or sharpen button and then select smudge, as they are accessed by the same button.) It's trickier, but you have a bit more control and a look that's more shiny and less soft. You can smudge directy on the one layer, but I prefer to make a copy so I can adjust the opacity to tweak the results. So, copy the layer and using the smudge tool (I'm using 17px size at 35% strength), lightly smudge the skin areas of the face, leaving the features alone. Be careful near the hairline, lips, eyes, and nose because you don't want to smudge them (it will leave streaks). I've also smudged the background a bit where it was kind of grainy.
Now, set the smudged layer to 45% opacity. The softness is still there, but it helps fade the streakiness of smudging.
Here's the result:
There are a million plus more ways to enhance and play with images, but I just wanted to cover the basics of lightening and smoothing in this tutorial. Using these basic guidelines, you can correct just about any screencap or picture - just tweak the settings until it works for the image!
Final Comparison
This shows the original image, the image corrected using part one of the tutorial, and the final improved result.
Improving Screencaps: Part One
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