Recolouring Word Art with Gradient Maps

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3wGloE0

We’ve talked about recolouring embellishments, word art and brushes before and I’ve shown you a variety of ways to accomplish that goal. One that we haven’t ever looked at is using Gradient Maps. Today we’re only going to talk about recolouring word art, but they’re pretty powerful tools for photo effects too.

But first… what the heck is a Gradient Map? Here’s a direct quote from Essential Photoshop (it also applies to Elements): “Gradient Map is a tool in Adobe Photoshop that allows you to apply a gradient effect over an image. It works by mapping different shades of gray tones in your image to colors defined by a gradient bar. This creates an effect where the highlights and shadows are transformed into specific colors without affecting other details in the image.” Let’s see how it works. I’m going to use this title word art from Word Art World. I’ve made several copies of the word art and isolated the big words, afternoon and park, onto their own layers by Erasing everything else on that layer. I have one untouched original layer just in case I mess it up; it’s not visible. This will let me selectively recolour the words.

This is only a sample so my colour choices are arbitrary; if I was going to use this word art title on a layout, I could choose colours from my photos or from the kit I’d be using to create a cohesive look. When I think about “park”, I see grass, trees, water and light in my mind’s eye. So I think I should colour the word park green. As you can see, I’ve used the Paint Bucket Color Picker to set the foreground colour to a spring green.

Next, I toggled the Color Picker (click the X key to toggle between foreground and background) and chose a more yellow-y green. These two colours will form my Gradient.

Next I clicked on the icon that looks like a circle half blue and half gray, at the top of the Layers Panel, which is the Add Fill/Adjustment Layer button. From the drop down menu I chose Gradient Map…

See the new addition to the work space? That’s the Gradient Map adjustment panel. The colour bar shows the two shades of green I chose, gradually shifting from one value to the other. At this point the Gradient Map layer is affecting all the layers, but that’s easily fixed, so we can ignore it for now.

One easy way to adjust the Gradient Map is to simply Reverse it. Now the colour bar has the light and darker colours swapped. It’s easy to see the difference between the two screenshots. Remember that Elements has created a grayscale copy of the word and has applied the colour based on a mathematical algorithm. If you don’t love it Reversed, untick the box.

Another option is to change the Blend Mode. This will take a little experimentation to find the look I want, so I ran the list. I like the grungy look I get with Vivid Light, so that’s where I stopped.

I also tested adjusting the Opacity and decided I liked 100% best. Now I can Clip my Gradient Map to the PARK layer. Right-click on the Gradient layer then choose Create Clipping Mask. Or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>G for PSE14 and earlier versions, CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>G for PSE15 and more  recent.

Now I’ll do the AFTERNOON layer. Notice that the Adjustment panel is empty. It’ll populate again once I click on the Add Adjustment Layer button.

This tool is so much fun to play with! What do you think the Gradient Map will look like for this colour combo?

Well, it’s pretty orange. Clicking on the colour bar itself opens up this adjustment panel. The sliders start out at the ends of the adjustment bar, and as you move them, you can watch the effect they have on the image. I’ve got the Reverse box ticked, but I’d still like a bit more magenta to show.

It’s very hard to see the bits of magenta that show in this screenshot, but if you’re viewing in PDF, you can Zoom in and check it out.

Now I’ve got all the layers recoloured and the Gradient Maps are all Clipped to the appropriate layers. All that’s left is to Merge the layers and add the title to a layout!

As I mentioned above, this tool is FABULOUS for adding colour to Brushes. I have some grungy alpha brushes that I played with first and other than having to put each letter on a separate layer, I loved the effect. I can’t wait to try it with alphas and other embellishments. What do you think? Would you like to see how Gradient Maps work with photos, or is that not something you’d ever do?

Quick Trick: Level Your Horizons

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3y3EaWg

Have you ever had some stunning photos of a lake or the ocean except that something just looked wrong? It could be that your water is flowing out of the photo…  There’s one hard-and-fast rule about landscape photography where you have both a body of water and a visible horizon: the horizon and the surface of the water must be absolutely level (unless you’re composing your photo at an obvious angle for artistic purposes, of course). But often we’re not really seeing the slight off-kilter angle we’ve snapped, caught up in the magic of the scene in front of us. Today I’m going to show you a Quick Trick for straightening those photos, well, really, any photo that needs straightening. And there’s a keyboard shortcut for that! There are several ways to straighten photos, but this is about the easiest I’ve tried.

My sister took this shot last summer. It’s hard to see where the edge of the river is in the screenshot, so instead look at the reflections. Another object in the photo that can guide straightening this photo is the spruce tree.

With the turquoise Guide in place, the tilt is a bit more obvious. To create a Guide, click on the top or left edge of the workspace then drag your cursor to where you want the Guide to be.

Click on the P key to activate that bubble level. Then click and drag a line using something in the photo as a reference – I used that spruce tree – to tell Elements which direction to rotate the photo. You probably won’t need to go too far off perpendicular to get where you want to go. If it’s still not quite right, click and drag another line.

This is what happens on your workspace. Notice how my click-and-drag line is perfectly perpendicular to the Guide and the reflections on the river are level. I think the developers chose the letter P for “plumb”, and that’s how I’ll remember the shortcut going forward.

I’ve Zoomed in so you can see more easily how the reflections on the river have leveled out.

The only thing left to do is to Crop the photo inside the red border and Save it for later.

Thank you for giving me grace for taking last week off. Stuff just piled on me all at once. We bought a new car, my husband had a biopsy done, I had some medical testing done, we had company and a birthday to celebrate, AND I had to get some government paperwork squared away. It was exhausting! The good news is hubby’s biopsy was negative, all my tests are good, the wait at Service Canada for my documentation was about a quarter as long as I expected and we’re getting used to all the high-tech gear in the car. Back to normal!