Making the Background
more uniform, smoother, less mottled, in Photoshop
It’s
a bit of a cheat, as many processes may seem to be, but it consists of judging
your current background, assuming it to be heavily mottled, and choosing the
colour(?) you want, dark areas or lighter ones, and trying to get all the rest to
be the same, hence all of the same colour.
1.
Zoom in quite close, 300%-ish. move round to find the area you want and click
on it with the eyedropper tool. When you click on the chosen bit it will make
the foreground in the tools list on the left hand side near the bottom (two
squares), change to the same colour.
2.
Click Image/Image Size and record on paper, the image size in pixels.
3.
Click on File/New, and enter those sizes you recorded, and click OK. You now
have a white panel of the same sizes as your original picture.
4.
Click on Edit/Fill and a dialogue box shows foreground. Click OK, and the white
panel will fill with the foreground colour, which is the colour you first chose
by clicking on a bit of your original background. We now have to substitute
this background for the original, but it will be very smooth and look
artificial. So, add some noise.
5.
Click on Filter/Noise/Add noise and choose a level that suits you, I use 1,4%
or so. Click OK, and the whole panel changes to suit. Now you have the original
and beside it a same sized panel of the chosen background.
6.
You must now Select All (of the new background panel), Copy it, and Paste it
onto the original file – So it is Control A, control C, then make the original
picture the working layer and click Control V to load the new onto the
original. It will make the original change to the new background but it will
hide everything so only the new background is visible.
7.
To the Layers and you should see the two layers, the original and the new above
it. and just above it should be the Blending Mode button click that and choose
Lighten as your blending mode to blend both layers together. Click on the
picture to confirm it.
8.
Zoom in quite closely and Click on Image/Adjustments/Brightness and Contrast,
and move the Brightness slider till you feel comfortable with the result. Not
too smooth or it will look false.
9.
Flatten the result. And finally adjust the darkness to suit your requirements.
Mine background is about R22, G22, B24.
10.
Sometimes I don’t choose a part of the original background, but use my chosen
numbers directly, R22, G22 and B24, to make the new panel.
There
are other ways of course, but you need several to be able to choose one that
suits the situation in hand rather than use only one method all the time. That
will not always work.
Brian