HARLI'S SCAN HOW-TO:
A quick primer on scanning technique
PREFACE
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5
PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8 | PART 9 | PART 10
PREFACE:
Harli is among today's top five active scanners. Her work represented in
the HARLI, HARLI98, HARLIS2 and HARLISWA collections has done well to prove this.
Harli has authored a scanning how-to guide to help beginning scanners
get started. All you need is this guide, a scanner, Adobe PhotoShop, a magazine and some
patience to begin producing your own work.
This content was taken from Harli's web site and formatted to fit
the conventions of this site. The content has not been altered in any way.
PART 1:
To start with when the picture comes off your scanner, I personally
always save my file as <filename>.PSD. As psd is the native Photoshop file and it
does not contain any data compression that is harmful to the quality of the graphic.
1. In the floating palette you should see a tab called
layers. The default name for the 1st layer (your original scan) is called background. I
want you to change the name of this to "Original" to do this double click on the
layer (I have highlighted the default "background" and renamed it already) a
dialogue box will come up and you can rename this layer.. You will see why very soon.
 click here
for full size sample
Here I'm using a pic
from my Harli Hot & Heavy set, this is on the now named "original"
layer. Here I do all my color adjustments. Using option under Image -> adjust ->
Levels, curves, ect. Until I get colors that please my eyes.
Unfortunately I can't
show you the real original as this pic as I have already had the color adjustment done to
it.
This is one of the
Floating palettes. For this step you need to be looking at the "Layers" tab.
PART 2:
2. From the (now named "Original")
Layer Duplicate this layer, by right clicking on the layer itself. A dialogue box
will come up I want you to name this new layer as "Background"
3. Duplicated the "Background" Layer but call
it "Whole Girl". Now you should have 3 copies of your original picture on 3
layers. This is in the Layer's tab on the Floating palette.
PART 3:
4. Highlight the "Background" layer, turning
off the Original & Whole girl Layers by clicking on the little eye icon in the layers
tab. Using the Freehand Lasso from the tool bar Trace around the whole girl. It is best to
do this zoomed up about 300 %.
When you have selected out the whole girl go to Select -> Save
selection.
Your Selection will be saved in the channels tab next to the layers tab.
5. go to the channels tab and you should see a black
& white shape that sort of looks like the silhoette of your whole girl that you
selected with the freehand lasso. Now same as the layers I want you to double click on the
channel that (by default is #4) and rename it to whole girl. Don't panic when you click on
this channel that your picture disappears and the black & white silhoette is
diplayed.
After you have renamed the channel click back on the one that say's
"RGB" .
6. Flick back to the layers tab, you should still be on
the "Background" Layer. Making sure that the whole girl is still selected on the
background layer, Press Ctrl X to cut out the whole girl from the back ground.
click here for full size sample
This is what you should now be viewing.
PART 4:
7. Now go to the "Whole Girl" layer that you
made at the start and highlight it. Turn off the background & original layers with the
eye icon.
Go to Select -> Load Selection. Use the little flick down arrow and
load your "Whole girl" selection (this is the one you renamed in the channels
tab in the previous step). Make sure you tick the invert option just below the slection
name in the same dialogue window.
This will make the selection change from whole girl to everything that
is in the background.
click ok.
Now do Ctrl X to cut away all of the background from the whole girl.
click here for full size sample
This is what you should be viewing on your screen.
It just the girl with nothing else. this will become your starting point
for the next few layers to come which I'll be explaining very soon.
8. At this point you may jump back to the
"Background" layer and do any touch ups you may feel necessary.
eg/ despeckle any grainy bits ect.
(for this picture I didn't do anything to the background but some
pic's may need some work)
PART 5:
9. Highlight the "Whole girl" layer and
dupicate it the same way do did before, but this time call it "Hair"
Now Highlight your new "Hair" layer and turn off the
"Whole girl" Layer. Using the freehand lasso tool that I showed you before
on the toolbar trace around the girl hair.
go to selection -> Save Selection click ok
jump to the channels tab slide down to the channel named #5 and double
click on it and rename it to hair. (this selection will be used again near the end)
slide back to "RGB" in the channels the flick the layers tab,
make sure that your hair layer is highlighted.
Do Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection now Crtl X to cut everything
away except the hair.
click here
ok Now on your screen this is what you should be seeing. Hair and
nothing else.
PART 6:
10. Rehighlight the "Whole girl" layer
Continued to duplicate this layer for Eyes, lips, jewlery, clothes, tatts.. Continued to
save the selections for all of these bits, and continued to name both layers and channels
Untill you have selected out everthing that is on the girl skin..
Like this:
In the diagram on the far left (the layers) you may notice 3 skin layers
These will be explain in the next steps coming up so just ignore them for now :)
this is what I put in the eyes ect layer.
click here for
full sized scan
click here for
full sized scan
This is th clothes layer, usually the girl wears more :)
click here for
full sized scan
Also if the girl has tattoo's I'll put it on a seperate
layer.
PART 7:
11. Now you should have all your different selections
saved in the channels tab for hair, eyes clothes ect.
Duplicate the "Whole girl" layer one more time! and call it
"Skin"
Highlight this new "Skin" layer and make sure all the other
layers are turned off (eye icon)
This is going to be you main foundation layer for the skin smoothing
process.
With "Skin" layer highlighted go to Select -> Load
Selection, flick down the arrow thingy & load up your Hair selection click ok.
Note*** do not invert sellection from now on except one which I will
tell you about soon.
After clicking ok, do Ctrl X to cut away the hair
Repeat this loading of selections and cutting away for eyes clothes ect.
click here
for full size sample
Now you should be viewing a yucky picture like this, nothing but skin
should remain.
This is step one of a 4 step skin preperation process.
PART 8:
Skin prep 2
Still on the skin layer if there is nipples and/or muff showing
duplicate the skin layer (naming it nipples & muff) Now highlight that layer select
out the nipples and muff invert your selection (no need to save this selection) and cut
away the rest of the skin just leaving the nipples and muff.
Skin prep 3
Now turn off the nipples and muff layer highlight the skin
layer. Duplicate the skin layer so that you have 2 skin layers this new skin layer I
always call "skin blurred"
Now on this "Skin blurred" layer, You need to erase all the
delicate details in the skin with the eraser tool on the tool bar. Things like around the
nose and arm lines ect.
A big thank you to Kandor for the help on this one :)
Just like this:
click here
PART 9:
Skin Prep 4
Phew we are just about near the end :)
After you have finished erasing out all the different details on the
skin It's now time to smooth it out.
No need to duplicate this layer I only did it to show you the blurring
step but you do it all on the "Blurred skin" layer which you have just finished
erasing out the detial on.
click here for full size sample
Go to Filters -> Blur -> Guassian blur
(I use a radius of 3.0) and click ok.
Now it looks like a great big mess Don't panic!
You must fade down the filter, to do this:
Ctrl + Shift + F and fade it down until it is just before the grainyness
comes back.
For this pic it was about 52% but on some of my other pics I've used 62%
and even 48% all depends on your own taste here.
Trex & coolhand were my main helpers in this section, Thanks guy's
:)
Now you need to get rid of what they call "Haloing"
To do this use the "Wand" tool from the tool bar and click it
in the blank area around the skin. You will see that the selection is a fair distance from
the edge of the skin. You need to go to Select -> Modify -> Expand
I mostly expand it by about 5 or 6 pixels. So that it just touches the
edge of the skin. Now Ctrl X this will cut away any excess burring.
Wow I know it still looks strange, but the next bit will show you
exactly why the hell we have done all this preperation.
PART 10:
Putting it back together & Finishing Touches.
Starting from the "Hair" layer down to the "Whole
girl" layer Click the eye icon in the layers tab to display all of the layers I just
said.
You will see that all the hair and eyes ect are now clearly above the
blurred skin and under the blurred skin the original skin layer has fill back in the bits
that you have rubbed out.
Now flick & highlight to each layer at a time to touch up the
eyes, clothes ect.
Lots of thanks to TF for this tip :)
To fix up any harsh ugly selection line use the blur tool & a small
brush to smooth out the edges.
When you have done all that turn on your "Background" Layer
& "original" layer.
click here
I always put my signature on a seperate layer and to put in the border
if you look up at the floating pallete pic there you will see the icon next to the bin on
the bottom it looks like a square with a page curl this will add a blank transparent
layer, Select all go to Select -> Modify -> Border
I do 2 pixels but you might like something more. Then just fill in this
selection with you favorite fill.
To finish Do File -> Save copy
Change the file extentsion to *.jpg Give it a name Change the Directory
to where you want your new *.jpg file save to.
Now my personal tip here: Take the ticks off save thumbnail & in the
next dialogue box take the tick off save paths as this is extra data that is not used in
*.jpg file but do cause the file size to increase so turning them off reduces byte size :)
I also save mine as Quality 6 - High and base line optimized. I have
found that it gives me a good result with a smallish byte size.
WOW FINISHED :)
click here for full size scan
in only 2 hours this is the result I got.
Admittedly if there was more to do in the background
layer it may take more time.
|
