The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

[Hot Sauce 1]

It occured to me that I haven't posted any World of Color shots in a while, so here's a wee bit o' pretty for today.

My Heart Will Go On... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Hot Sauce 1]

7-6-12
Today's "Disneyland Photo Tip of the Day" follows up on the previous post on replacing a sky with a technique for Applying a Noise Reduction Layer to a Photo.

For most photo viewing, either on your computer screen or when printed at a normal 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 size, a noisy sky is barely noticeable. However when you blow an image up to say a 20 x 30 or larger, those little pixels of digital artifacts will become very visible and can ruin your expensive print job. I have a friend in the hospital who is a huge Disneyland fan so I wanted to brighten up his room a bit with some blow ups of some of my Disneyland photos. Before I sent them to the printer, I wanted to make sure the pretty blue skies wouldn't be filled with tiny dots of noise. To do this I applied a Noise Reduction Layer to them and made my skies and puffy white clouds as smooth as butter.

For demonstration purposes, I intentionally edited this photo so the sky would have a lot of noise. There is so much detail and texture in the rock work that I'm not worried about it in that area. The sky is what I want to clean up.
Here is our original image.


If we zoom in on the sky, you can see all the little dots of noise.


To start, we'll open it up in Photoshop Elements.


The first step is to Duplicate the layer. In the Layers Palette, set your mouse on the layer and Right Click, then click on Duplicate Layer.


Once you click OK on the dialog box that appears, your Layers Palette should look like this.


With the new Background Copy layer selected, go to Filter - Noise - Reduce Noise.


This dialog box will appear. Notice how I have the strength as high as they will go and Preserve Details on 0. This gives it the maximum noise reduction. For this image, I am going to repeat this step 3 times. You can repeat it as many times as necessary depending upon the amount of noise reduction your photo may need. Usually 2 or 3 times is plenty.


Here is a close up of one of the clouds before the noise reduction.


Here is the same spot after the 3 rounds of noise reduction.


However, this applies the Noise Reduction to the entire photo making all the detail and texture in the rocks blurry and soft.


Now we need to Add A Layer Mask to this layer. Do it just like we've done before, by clicking on the little white square with a circle in it at the bottom of the page. Notice the Layer Mask is White!


There are a couple ways you can apply the Noise Reduction to the parts of the image you want to. You can choose a paint brush and paint with Black over the parts you don't want to have the noise reduction, or we can take a kind of reverse approach and do it a little easier since the sky is a simple shape and is easy to select and fill.

My preference (and this is only my preference, you can do it however you find easier) is to select the Paint Can tool, change the Foreground Color to Black and fill the entire Layer Mask with Black so my noise reduction is no longer visible. All you have to do is set the tool anywhere on the image and click it to fill the Layer Mask with black. Now all the noise will be visible again.


Just like we did in the Sky Replacement tutorial, I chose the Selection Tool and selected the Sky. In this close up, you can see how it also grabbed some of the plants.


Still using the Selection Tool, I clicked on the Subtract from Selection button and pulled the line back away from the plants. I'm not worried about the part of the sky that I'll be missing. That will be taken care of in a moment.


Going back to the Paint Can Tool, change the Foreground Color back to White. Then simply click on the sky and it will fill that selected area with the sky that has the Noise Reduction applied to it.


At this point your Layers Palette should look like this.


Now we have to clean up the areas of the sky that the Selection Tool missed. At the top of the page, click on Select - Deselect to remove the selection lines. Then we will choose the Paint Brush Tool to paint (still with the foreground color on White) the areas we missed.


I painted in the areas around the trees. However, it's very difficult to tell if there are areas I missed. I can zoom in but it is still very difficult to tell if I got it all or not. Here's the trick to finding the little areas you may have missed. If you Right Click on the Layer Mask, this drop down appears. Click on "Add Mask To Selection."


Doing this will put the little lines around any area that you haven't painted and you'll be able to see the spots you missed.


Before you can paint those spots, you must click UNDO to remove the lines or it won't allow you to paint those areas. Once you remove the lines, paint those areas and repeat the last step as many times as you need to make sure you got them all. I shrank the size of my brush down a bit and got in closer to the edges of my plants to give them a clean edge. I clicked the Add Mask to Selection to show you how close I got.


Once you have it cleaned up and the sky is all smooth, simply go to Layer - Flatten Image and then save your image as a jpeg. (assuming you are completely finished with your post processing)


Here is the final image.


I hope this tutorial shows you some new tricks and helps you feel more comfortable working in Photoshop Elements. The total time it took for me to Apply the Noise Reduction Layer from start to finish was about 5 minutes. As you become more comfortable with these tools and how to make them do what you want, your speed will increase dramatically.

Happy Snapping!
Michael Greening 2012

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's the little bit o' pretty for today. I'm not sure why Cars Land inspires me to take so many panoramic shots. Maybe it's the only good subject matter in Disneyland for it or maybe it's just because I've never done that many. Either way, I am addicted to the challenge of shooting this area and capturing every inch of it that I can.

A Stretch of the Imagination... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Hot Sauce 1]

It's time for another little bit o' pretty for today.

The Way You Make Me Feel... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[kayleigh83]

That's got to be one of the most uniquely gorgeous shots of the Partners statue I've ever seen. Bravo!

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's another test of the Smart Photo Editor program. What can I say, I was bored.

Painting the Future.. by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Hot Sauce 1]

Instead of a "Pretty" for today, how about a little bit o' dark and gritty...

It's a Mystery... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's the big bit o' pretty for today. Sorry I haven't had any new tutorials up lately. I am having a hard time even fathoming how darn busy we are getting at work. It's just getting silly now.
As for this shot, I replaced a boring, plain blue sky with one with more dramatic clouds in it. It was much more interesting this way. This is another reason why I recommend taking pictures of the sky whenever you see an interesting one with pretty clouds or a colorful sunset. I keep a large file of sky photos just for occasions like this one.

The Sky's the Limit... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Hot Sauce 1]

So sorry I'm so behind on any new tutorials. Still CRAZY busy at work and haven't had a chance to even think about them. Here's a few new pretties in the mean time. I was going for some different looks for the Red Car Trolley.

What Was Old is New Again... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

Yes, this was a photograph. I ran it through the Smart Photo Editor and thought it was pretty cool having the look of the Concept Art that Disney does before any attraction.

Conceptual Red... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[chris001]

Great stuff as always.

[smallworld]

Could you talk about how to shoot things when you are forced to be lower? I'm thinking about the animal shrubbery around It's A Small World when you are on the boats. It can be difficult to get the whole animal or be able to see how awesome it is while sitting in the boat.

[Hot Sauce 1]

Could you talk about how to shoot things when you are forced to be lower? I'm thinking about the animal shrubbery around It's A Small World when you are on the boats. It can be difficult to get the whole animal or be able to see how awesome it is while sitting in the boat.

I like it! Sounds like a fun post to do. Of course it will require a few different trips on IASW but that can easily be arranged. I'm "HOPING" to get to Disneyland in the next few weeks, so I will try to get that one done when and if I do. THANKS!

In the mean time, here's a few pretties for today.

Points of Interest... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr


There's a Great Big Bluetiful Tomorrow... by Ring of Fire Hot Sauce 1, on Flickr

[Kangel]

The Tomorrowland pic is awesome!

And the sepia version of the trolly insides is truly inspiring!

[doppio]

Yummy eye candy. Awesome, as always Hot Sauce 1.

[CupcakeTerror]

Really enjoying all your pictures! It's a great way to get a Disneyland fix.