Photoshop help needed

[*Floater*]

I have a copy of photoshop CS (and CS2, but haven't bothered to install it yet). I used it to blow up this shot:

into this this:

Question: How do I smooth over the white spots (noise) that appeared due to the resizing and cropping?

 

[*Floater*]

Also, in this night shot my flash wiped out the crab's claw:

I'd like to use photoshop to give the claw a more boneline look. Any suggestions? Also could someone id the crab?

This next shot provides a better view of the claw, the way I'd like it to look:

Further questions: How do I make the crab's eye's pop out more? How could I clear up some of the sand and dirt that's falling off the crab?

All suggestions are welcome.

 

[*Floater*]

Also, (and I feel bad asking such a newbie question), but I'd like to make these images only appear about half as big in these posts as they currently do, but I'm not sure how to limit the size of them.

 

[cap_bert]

Hi, I would suggest using the healing brush (band-aid looking icon) or the clone stamp (the stamp icon). the use of each is the same, but the results may vary. To use, you select either brush from the tool bar, make sure that cap lock is not on. zoom in a bit on the frist area you would like to work on. set the hardness of the bush to 50 or below so that you don't get hard edges on the final brush strokes. If on a mac hold down the option key (or use the alt key on a pc) you will see the brush change on the screen to a cross hairs, click on an area near the area you would like to fix, or an area that is sililar to the area you would like to fix (this is your sample area). Release the option key. move to the exact place you would like to fix, click the mouse over that area and you will see the results, you will notice that a cross appears over the area you chose to sample when you click. You can play with the size of the brush, the shape and type of the brush, the opacity of the brush, etc. These two tools work similarly. i would suggest the healing brush to start. the healing brush, uses the sample area to interpret the trouble spot then blends that with the surrounding area. It takes a little practice, but you will love what comes from the time. I hope that this isn't too confusing, it is a multistep process, but once you get the hang of it you will have not problems fixing issues quickly and easily. good luck.

 

[cap_bert]

sorry, forgot this in the last message. select image size from the image pull down menu and set the size there to the size you desire. try a few setting to see what is right for what you need. then use the save for web option in the file menu to save as a sure-fire web compatible image.

 

[*Floater*]

sorry, forgot this in the last message. select image size from the image pull down menu and set the size there to the size you desire. try a few setting to see what is right for what you need. then use the save for web option in the file menu to save as a sure-fire web compatible image.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try them out. For now I've just tried resizing my images, and while it works on my photoshop computer screen, the resizing is not binding when I take my images here to SB.

Here's what happens. I set this image size as a 3" by 4". I then saved it under the web option, and uploaded it into my gallery. I go to my gallery and click on the thumbnail (

) to enlarge it. I then look at the properties, and copy the location down. I choose Insert Image in my post and paste the location when prompted. The results are images in sizes that appear in this thread instead of 3" by 4" images.

I'd like the thumbnails to be smaller, and the resulting enlargments when I click on them to also be smaller, in the same way apparent in the gallery of this member (Crhis Bangs) for example: http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=20620

 

[cap_bert]

I hope that the photoshop stuff works for you. However, i don't know enough about the workings of the galleries here to be of much help... i was just trying to upload a pic of the file you posted earlier that i tweaked a bit using the method i described before. sorry for being lame.

 

[alcina]

The neatest tool I've found (and I am a pscs newb) is the patch tool. circle the little dots, drag them to what you want it to look like and viola! Fast and you don't get the problems you can get by using too big of a clone tool and no hard edges.

for resizing for posting I use Save for Web - you get a screen and can pop your pixels in and use the slider to control the file size. I keep my files under 100kb and the longest sides are 600 for vertical and 640 for horizontal so those with smaller monitors don't have to scroll so much.

 

[cap_bert]

Yes indeed. the patch tool is a great tool as well. i love it for some of the more tricky patches, but i find the brush tools quicker for fixing dust, dots, and that sort of thing. I think this is mostly that i am lazy and don't like drawing the circles around things with a mouse... sort of like drawing with a bar of soap. lol.

 

[*Floater*]

Agreed. All suggestions have been helpful. I used the clone stamp to remove the sand/dirt from the crab pic. (by the way, can anyone id the crab?) The patch will come in handy when I just need to fix just a few things - maybe for the first pic.

Also, I figured out how to edit post my photos so that the size is restricted (just needed to reduce the pixel dimensions in photoshop as alcina suggested), but I haven't gotten around to resizing my posted photos yet.