Adriana Bella asked:


A collage is a form of art that primarily consists of putting together different forms to create another whole new work of art. Traditionally this type of art assembled different textures, colors and many other types of items in making the new work of art. It is the same principle that is applied to photographs that make digital collages. Other uses of digital collages are to enhance photographs and bring out true character of a photograph. This is a lot of fun and simple once you know the method. All you will need are the tools for the process.

A computer, a digital camera and Adobe Photoshop software is all you need. Adobe Photoshop software will allow you to manipulate the images and present them in a different light. It is up to the artist to decide exactly what he needs and though there is no set way to do this, basic methods have to be adhered to.

To start with you can take a ton of photographs. It is always better to have more than less of these. Then you can choose the best out of the lot keeping in mind the theme of your collage. The pictures you choose should be related to the theme that you have in mind. Then it is time to build up the collage using as many methods as needed such as cutting out the background, adding new backgrounds and positioning photographs to create an aesthetically pleasing visual. This is a lot of fun as you are able to experiment with different settings and backgrounds to suit the collage.

The layout and all the visual effects that are used to make the collage will give you a chance to be creative and will help to bring out the essence of the new collage. Try out different options till you are perfectly satisfied. If a date is important to the collage you can insert it at this point. The pictures that will grace the final collage can be kept on hand to be used as needed. Each picture can be cropped or have the background cut out of it in order to make it more dramatic, action packed and visually interesting. The best thing with a collage is that it does not have to use pictures which are perfect in order to convey a certain feeling or event that the collage is trying to convey. Very often these imperfect pictures will add character to the collage.

The secret of a good digital collage is the way it is merged and the way different aspects of the theme are brought together. Adobe Photoshop allows us to use many different methods with a variety of tools to do this. By layering, merging, coloring, blurring, feathering and highlighting edges or softening them a wide range of visual effects can be produced. The visual impact that we can create is one of the most powerful communication methods known to man. Digital collages use this to communicate so much more than just an image for the onlooker. As an art in itself and as a way of communicating feelings and moods there is no better way than digital collages.



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pkeck asked:


When I open a photo in Photoshop Elements or Photoshop and zoom in on it so much that some or all of the image goes off the screen, I can’t crop the image anywhere near the corners without the image rapidly moving once I drag the crop mark. How do I “freeze” the image so it doesn’t start scrolling around, so I can then start my crop from any of the corners of image?

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shamelessgrin asked:


I like to edit images in photoshop by floating all the windows in the interface. But it gets incredibly annoying when the windows overlap the tools. Is there anyway I can make sure the tools are always in the foreground? Or at least make them jump to the foreground when I click on “layers” for instance?

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Gordon Ball asked:


Are you a so called Photoshop specialist photographer who can correct an image that was destined for the ‘Recycle Bin’ and produced an image that can be uploaded and sold through Microstock?

Do you justify your Photoshop expertise by explaining that the landscape shot was ruined because it had an overflowing litter bin in the foreground? Or are you the portrait photographer telling me how you had saved your embarrassment of a reshoot because they had cloned in a corner section where the background was missing?

It’s absolutely fantastic that we can all use Photoshop to correct our mistakes. But my question is – Should we make the mistakes in the first place? I come from the days of film and one of the first things that you were instilled to do was let your eye roam around the viewfinder. Then when you were happy with what you saw, you took the picture. Notice I did use the term we. I admit on a bad day I am just as guilty as anyone else.

What we need to do is to pay more attention to the shooting of the image and less to the post shoot correction techniques. In other word stick your camera on a tripod if possible and let your eye roam around the viewfinder looking for anything that you can see that shouldn’t be there. It’s so easy to simply shoot what you think that you see only to find that object that has crept into the picture that is clearly visible on the monitor. How did I miss that when I took the picture? I ask myself. That’s when I also think, thank goodness for Photoshop.

A very experienced photographer once explained to me that when he ‘went digital’ he got lazy when taking the shots. He had heard before going digital Photoshop solved all your picture taking problems. Like a lot of photographers he began to rely on the qualities of such a superb piece of software. He ended up spending more time working on the images in Photoshop than he did actually taking the shots. He simply had taken for granted the fact that simple mistakes could be easily rectified. But he also realised that every minute spent checking the picture at the time of shooting saved him ten minutes work in Photoshop. He began to wish that he had stuck with film and thought about returning to his old ways.

But after analysing his situation and evaluating his photographs he realised it wasn’t the digital image that was the problem. It was his technique; he had assumed that this was how you approached digital photography. So now he has reverted back to his old style of shooting by taking more care when taking the picture. Not only has his picture taking improved but he has a lot more spare time.

Let’s suppose that you had decided to shoot a still life set up comprising a bottle of wine, a glass of wine and a few grapes. You spent your time getting the composition looking just right and started to shoot away, changing the viewpoint and moving in closer. You must have at least ten saleable images. You transfer the files to a folder on your computer and open each file.

But your excitement turns to horror as the first image has a dirty great thumbprint on the glass slap bang in the middle of your picture. So you decide to rectify the mistake in Photoshop. It’ll only take ten minutes or so. That’s ten minute per image time ten of course. So in fact it will take you the best part of two hours to correct something that should have been spotted at the shooting stage. Incidentally, when I shoot any shiny objects I always move the objects wearing white cotton gloves.

What you should be doing is simply tweaking the image. Maybe giving is a slight increase in contrast or burning in, very slightly, the label on the bottle. Just the odd corrections that make a good image become excellent. Remember that you can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear. The same goes for Photoshop

So maybe you can save the once in a lifetime picture by adjusting it in Photoshop, sometimes mistakes can’t be helped. Think of the potential market for a portrait photographer that can make the model look thinner and younger. Photoshop has set the Industry Standard and is a superb tool in the Photographers Arsenal – Providing that the Photographer has the knowledge to use it and realise its limitations. If you really want to be an expert in ‘Post Image Manipulation’ or to simply correct your images in Photoshop take a look at my website www.gbphotostock.com and go to the Photoshop page.



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