Tutorial

Since someone on the bloodfer forums asked about it, and I was thinking about doing this anyway, here's a little tutorial of how I work on an image.

Things kind of vary for every picture but a general approach I take for each picture is: outline the censored area with the lasso tool, make the censored area white if it is not already, make a layer, draw any lines I need in the censored area, & fill in the rest of the censored area with color or tones depending if the image is color or black and white. For colors images I use the eyedrop tool to grab the color I want from nearby and simply paintbrush it in. For black and white images I use the stamp tool and have to line up the pattern of the tones so it blends in. For that I focus on getting the pattern right since I can always lighten or darken the area with the dodge and burn tools respectively. Finally, I add any touch ups I like to make the area blend in or just look nicer. I use a tablet for practically everything I do nowadays in photoshop.

I may adjust the image size, levels, vibrancy, etc as needed, and clean up any dust with paintbrush or smudge tools. Most images need a level adjustment of some kind. Black and white is pretty easy but color can be a pain when it comes to leveling. After playing with the different adjustments as much as I have you can simply look at an image and know what kind of adjustment it needs (contrast, level adjust red, blue, green channel, vibrance, etc.) Usually though, leveling is all it needs. Auto leveling is pretty good for a quick, decent fix though I prefer to adjust manually since auto leveling maybe too strong or not enough. Another thing I commonly do for color images is use a very soft smart blur which removes the grain from file compression, sharpen filters, and/or scanning and gives the images a smoother appearance without losing any fine lines details like blush lines around the cheeks.

I did record a video from when I was decensoring [Fukudahda (Kensoh Ogawa)] Love Me Do. Here's a download link to the video to give a visual. For those who are interested.

Mediafire