DPI - WEEK 4

21/04/25 - 30/05/25 (Week 1 - Week 6)
Lim Jia Xuan (0371026)
Digital Photography & Imaging (GCD 61204)
Project 1

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1.0 Lecture

Introduction to Photoshop 3: Adjustment Layer & Filters

What is Adjustment Layer?

Adjustment Layer is a super useful, non-destructive image editing tool in Photoshop that lets you apply colour and tonal adjustments—like brightness, contrast, hue, and more—without permanently changing the image’s pixels. This means you can freely edit, fine-tune, or even discard the adjustment at any time, and always have the option to restore the original image without any loss in quality.

And here's some Popular Adjustment Layers in Photoshop :

Contrast / Brightness 

• The Brightness slider is for adjusting the highlight in the image
• The Contrast slider is for adjusting the shadow in the image

Level

• Modify the tonal values by adjusting the levels of shadows, midtones, and highlight

Curves

• You can adjust as many point as you want throughout the entire tonal range 
• Most powerful and precise tool for editing the tones

Exposure

• Exposure – Affects highlights (bright areas).

• Offset – Adjusts midtones.

• Gamma Correction – Controls the brightness of shadows.

Selective Colour

• Selective Color allows you to selectively modify the amount of a primary colour (CMYK) in specific colour ranges—such as reds, blues, or neutrals—without affecting the other primary colours.

What is Filter

Filters in Photoshop are effects you can apply to an image or layer to achieve specific visual changes or improvements. They can sharpen, blur, distort, stylize, or add texture to your image. Common filters include Gaussian Blur, Noise, Ripple, and Sharpen. Filters are great for creating visual effects, improving image quality, or blending elements more naturally into a composition.

2.0 TUTORIAL

WEEK 4: Vital Tools & Project 1 Demo

In Week 4's tutorial class, we were given a demo through tutorial videos for Project 1 focusing on how to remove background using Pen Tool, add adjustment layers, filters, and fix skin tones in Adobe Photoshop.

Vital tools tutorial videos provided: Remove background, Add adjustment layers, Fix skin tones

3.0 Practical

Exercise #1: Heart Mansion

Figure 3.0 Outcome of Heart Mansion by following the Tutorial Video

Figure 3.1 Outcome 2 by using own photo

The goal of this exercise was to insert Shazam’s figure into a background image and make the composition look realistic.
To achieve this, several techniques were used:

1. Image > Adjustments: Adjusted Hue/Saturation and used Match Color to correct luminance and color intensity.
2. Filter effects: Applied Add Noise, Gaussian Blur, and Ripple to blend the figure naturally with the background.

Exercise #2 Recoloring B&W Images

      

Figure 3.3 Recolouring Exercise Before(left)& After(Right)

Figure 3.4 Screenshot of Process in Photoshop

Figure 3.5 Recoloring Exercise #2 Before(Left)& After(Right) 

4.0 Reflection

The video tutorials were very helpful and served as useful references while completing this task. I learned how to seamlessly blend two images into one by removing the subject’s background and adjusting filters to create a more realistic look. I also learned how to apply colour to black-and-white images using the Select and Mask tool along with layer masks. Although the task was quite time-consuming due to all the small details, it was a fulfilling experience that helped me strengthen my editing skills.