The original

As you can see above, the original photo is much too dark…

But even with some basic ‘Levels Adjustments’ to brighten up the original, even though the image is much improved, we can now see a red color cast in the people’s faces, in the lower part of the wedding dress and in the white shirt of the man in the background. If you don’t see it now, you sure will by the end of this tutorial.

Preparing Photoshop

Open the original photograph in Photoshop. Open your ‘Info’ palette (F8 on a Mac or Window > Info) and make sure your ‘Layers’ palette is showing, if it’s not already.

On the bottom of your ‘Layers’ palette you will notice a half black, half white circle, which is your ‘Create new fill or adjustments later’ button. Choose ‘Curves…’ from the pop-up menu.

You should now have your a ‘Curves’ window open like the one pictured below.

Let’s get into it…

First we need to find the “whitest” white in the photo. Within your ‘Curves’ window, check off ‘Show Clipping’ – This will make your photo look funky!

Now click on the highlight handle on the diagonal line (see below). This will change your image to all black.

Start by dragging the ‘highlight handle’ (circled above) to the to the middle of the histogram until you start to see your whitest whites appear on the image. You might start to see various colors of red, yellows and blues, but what we are looking for are the first whites to start to appear on the image.

Once you see the FIRST WHITE areas start to appear, stop dragging the handle. You should see something similar to below on your image. NOTE: The below image is zoomed in to demonstrate the white areas.

Locating the white points

Now it’s time to starting setting points. The first two points (point #1 and #2) we’ll be setting is to find the whitest whites in the image, without being blown out (or overexposed).

It is important to note that you should zoom way in when setting these points. It’s easy to mistake the white areas when your actually on a yellow. While holding the Shift key on your keyboard, click on two different white areas. They should create circles with tiny numbers next to them as seen below:

Locating accurate skin tones or neutrals

The next two points we will be setting are for evaluating unwanted color casts. For this tutorial we will be testing them through the skins tones, but the same can be done through neutral greys in any image.

First, bring your ‘highlight handle’ back to its starting point on the right hand side of the histogram AND uncheck ‘Show Clipping’ — This will make your photo look normal again.

Now locate 2 areas on the skin tones that are well lit and still have some detail (we don’t want areas that area over exposed and lacking detail). It helps if you squint when looking at the photo, but for this example I selected the bride’s well lit forehead and her right check (our left since we’re looking at her).

Using the same techniques as above select two more points (point 3 and 4). See below:

The Info palette

If you now look at the ‘Info’ palette you should see your four points you just set, with values next to R, G and B. We want to concern ourselves with the numbers to the right of the / symbol.

Setting a good white point

Paying close attention to points 1 and 2 on your ‘Info’ palette, change your ‘Curves’ window channel from RGB to Red:

Now move your ‘highlight handle’ around until you see both point 1 and 2 change on the ‘Info’ palette. Make this number 242!

Continue this for both the Green and Blue channels, until points 1 and 2 of your Info palette area 242 — If your having difficulties setting both points at 242, try to get them within 5 points of each other.

Why 242?
242 is a good white — it still has plenty of detail without being blown out/ overexposed and is not too dark where you don’t get “pop!” to your picture. Your photo should now have better whites, and in this particular photo, much improved lighting throughout. It also helps a bit in removing color casts. But continue reading below for more on that.

Getting rid of those unwanted color casts

Now it’s time to remove those unwanted color casts.

In the above photograph you might notice some red casts showing on the wedding dress or in the skins tones. If not, don’t worry… you will at the end.

Unlike the magical number of 242 being used for a good white point, there is no secret number for skin tones, BUT there is a method to the madness:

Red is greater than Green and Green is greater than Blue. The value (number) between Red and Green should be greater of that between Green and Blue. Little confused? Don’t worry we will do it together…

Adjusting RGB Channels for the skin tones

Using the same methods as above for ’Setting a good white point’ by dragging the ‘highlight handle’ of each channel, we are going to do something very similar similar.

This time before we start adjusting the highlight handle for each channel we need to analyze the ‘Info’ palette for points 3 and 4.

We need to adjust the points so that Red is greater than Green, greater than Blue and the number between Red and Green is double that between Green and Blue without changing the Info setting values for point 1 and 2 (our white points).

Here’s what my Info palette looked like before they were adjusted:

The numbers we’re concerned with is to the right of the / symbol. Although Red is greater than Green and Green is Greater than Blue in points 3 & 4 of the above image, the distance Red and Green is NOT greater that of Green and Blue — it’s actually opposite of what we want, so we must fix this WITHOUT changing the other channels for points 3 & 4 AND WITHOUT effecting points 1 & 2. Here’s the trick:

Find the channel that you want to adjust (in this example, it’s the Green channel).

First, make sure you’re on your Green channel in the ‘Curves’ window and while holding down your Command (Control on Windows) key click on point #3 on your photograph. This will create another point of your ‘Curves’ line. See below:

Drag this new point around and you will see your Green channels in your ‘Info’ palette changing.

Set them to meet the “Red is greater than Green…” requirements. You probably will have to make other adjustments to the other values, so repeat the process for each Channel (Red, Green and Blue).

Here’s what your Info palette should look like after you made the White Point and Skin tone adjustments:
NOTE: Each photograph is different so the numbers for skin tone will never look be the same values.

That’s it! We’re done! I hope you’re not too confused by this point. If so, go back and keep on trying… it will eventually make sense.

Let’s compare

Original, with only a basic Levels adjustment:

After the tutorial:

Notice the huge difference now? That nasty color cast is gone! Here’s a closer look of the dress:

Feel free to share your thoughts or methods of color correction. Also, let me know if you’ve had success with the tutorial.

The problem with creating forms and other documentation for a client to fill out is most are created in Microsoft Word, or other form of word processors, because we’re afraid the client won’t have the right software to open, add to it and return it.

In doing so, the design is compromised because of word processor’s inability to function like professional design software. While MS Word is typically found on most computers and regarded as the most compatible document to send someone to fill out and return, that doesn’t mean you can’t have your cake (aka “good design capabilities”) and eat it too (aka “compatibility).

Adobe Acrobat Professional to the rescue!

Adobe Acrobat Professional gives you the ability to turn your previously designed, standard PDF file into an interactive form that clients can download, easily fill out, print or effortlessly return to you by email. All they need is the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be download here. And most clients I’ve spoke with already have it installed. Here’s how you can create your own interactive PDF:

Create your document

First, design your documentation or form in the software of your choice. InDesign is my first choice of page layout programs, but feel free pick your own…

Once you’re completely satisfied with the design, save it as a PDF.

Open it in Acrobat Pro

From the top toolbar, choose File > Create PDF > From File… Then, choose the PDF file you created above and click Open.

You should now see your beautifully designed PDF open in Acrobat Pro with a toolbar that looks similar to the highlighted image above. This toolbar is where you provide interactivity to your static PDF.

Adding Interactivity

Select the Text Field Tool (pictured below):

Drag out boxed areas on your PDF where you would like the client to add their information. NOTE: Acrobat can also use its auto-detection feature to assign text box areas to predetermined underlined areas.

After each box you create, a dialog box will appear that allows you to customize the text field area. Below you can see my changes, but feel free to customize to your liking.

Adding the ‘Submit’ Button

Now that you have your text areas specified, it’s time to add a ‘submit’ button so your clients can easily email you back the completed form.

For this we need to select the Combo Box tool (highlighted below):

Once again, drag out an area where you would like your ‘submit’ button to appear.

Again, a dialog box will appear. While you can customize these settings as well, the steps (images) I have listed below are essential for making the form submittal by email.

Once you click ‘Add…’ a new dialog box will appear. Change these settings to:

Click ‘Ok’ and continue making changes to the other tabs:

Click ‘Close’. You should now have text areas and a submit button that looks similar to this:

Last Step… Customize the Form Preferences

This step is not necessary but handy!

From the menu bar choose Acrobat > Preferences… (or Edit > Preferences on a PC). From here you are able to change the default yellow highlighted text areas (seen above) to better fit the look of your form.

That’s it! You now have a PDF document that can be edited by your clients and quickly emailed back to you.

In my very first ‘Tiny Tutorial’, I will be discussing techniques and tips I’ve learned along the way to improve justified type, such as how to tweak the word spacing, letter spacing and glyph scaling in Adobe InDesign to improve appearance, consistency and readability.

While well set justified type can look extremely beautiful and classy, the complete opposite can be said for not treating it with the proper care. When type is justified, the word spacing, letter spacing and glyph scaling (see below for meaning) is adjusted to fit the type in its constrained area, usually resulting in large gaps, windowing (too much letter spacing) or inconsistency of each line of type. Continue reading on how to improve this.

Before we get started, let’s learn some terms:

1. Word Spacing is the space between words that results from pressing the spacebar. Word Spacing values can range from 0% to 1000%; at 100%, no additional space is added between words
2. Letter Spacing is the distance between letters, including kerning or tracking values. Letter Spacing values can range from 100% to 500%: at 0%, no space is added between letters; at 100%, an entire space width is added between letters.
3. Glyph Scaling is the width of characters (a glyph is any font character). Glyph Scaling values can range from 50% to 200%.

Changing the type to justify

After laying out your type in InDesign within it’s specified area, change the default left alignment to justified located on the top controls when the Type tool (V) is selected.

Change the Justification settings

With the text selected, open your ‘paragraph’ palette and click on the tiny downwards triangle in the top right of the palette (see image below). Select ‘Justification…’ from the list.

Change the settings in the Justification window to the following:

You should see an immediate improvement after making the changes and hitting ‘OK’.

Change the hyphenation settings

Located in the same drop-down menu as the ‘Justification…” settings, select ‘Hyphenation…’. While these settings are entirely subjective, adjust the Better Spacing/Fewer Hyphens bar based on your preference — Better spacing in return for more hyphens or vice versa. You might even want to try adjusting the other settings in this window as well.

Adding Flush Space

When you justify your type you will notice that it justifies every line of type, including the last. Using flush space for the last line can make a tremendous difference in the appearance of the formatted paragraphs by getting rid of the extra white space by flushing it to the left. This also readjusts the type before it it, thus improving the consistency.

To add flush space:

With the Type tool (V) selected and cursor placed to the right of the last character of the last line of type in a paragraph, choose Type > Insert White Space > Flush Space. This will left align your type.

Check those Violations!

You can also have InDesign check your letter spacing and word spacing for problems by selecting InDesign > Preferences > Composition on a Mac or Edit > Preferences > Composition on Windows. Put a check next to H&J Violations and press OK. The darker the shade of yellow the more serious the problem.

Bingo! — a much improved justified text block! While I’m sure there are various ways to improve justified type, the above method has seemed to work well for me over the years and produce recognizable differences.