In this tutorial we are going to show how Ai Remix can be used to bring subtle enhancements to your photos by using masks, opacity, blending modes, and we went ahead and added a few more adjustments along the way just to help this photo really POP!

Todays photo is of a woman with one blue eye, one green eye, and a flower crown. We are going to use the following adjustments to get this finished look:
(in order from first applied adjustment to last)

1. Precision contrast
2. Sharpen
3. AI Remix
4. HSL Color Tuning
5. AI Remix
6. Smudge

We will later move a few adjustments around to get the details in the places we really want it. Placement of stacked adjustments is important; because, unlike photoshop, Studio reads information from the top down. Meaning, whatever you have stacked first will be what the program processes first.

Lets get started, and I’ll show you what I mean.

1. Precision Contrast

The first adjustment that we will apply is Precision Contrast.
The photo seems a little monotone to me, and dull, so this adjustment will help liven it up a bit before we move on to some more important adjustments.

Set the Precision Contrast sliders to the following settings:

• Contrast Section:
  Micro – .37
  Low – .26
  Medium – .25
  High – -.38
• Lighting Section:
  Shadow – -.16
  Midtone – .19
  Highlight – .22
  Equalization choose high
• Color Section:
  Saturation – .24
  Vibrant – . 20
  Color Contrat – .44

If you notice it brings out a lot of color, contrast, and details that were lost in her flower crown and the photo as a whole.

As nice as this image is, I notice a lot of blur, or lack of focus, around her eyes which seems weird to me so we’re going to fix it by adding a little bit of sharpen for our next adjustment.

2. Sharpen

Go to adjustments and select sharpen and select “Unsharp Mask”

• Strength – .28
• Radius – 2.59
• Threshold – .06

This makes the entire photo a bit more crisp, and brings out details (especially in the eyes) that were lost before. For example, we notice that her eyes are actually two different colors now. One is blue and one is green, lets exaggerate that a bit by adding HSL Color Tuning.

 

3. HSL Color Tuning

Go to Adjustments and select HSL Color Tuning.
Upon opening this adjustment we need to immediately add a mask to make sure ONLY her eye are affected by this adjustment. Go to the mask thumbnail (white square) next to the adjustment name. We are going to invert the mask first, then select the white brush and mask in the eyes. Since the mask is all black and the eyes are white, we know only the eyes will get this adjustment applied.

After making sure the mask is applied (by clicking done)
First we are going to go into the green and blue color selection (next to the yellow) and adjust the settings, before going into the overall saturation, and then editing the details

• Green adjustments:
  Green Saturation – .29
• Blue Adjustments:
  Blue Hue – .19
  Blue Saturation – .71
  Blue Lightness – .30
• Overall Adjustments:
  Overall Hue – .42
  Overall Saturation – .15
  Overall Lightness – .06
• Bottom Section:
  Details – -.18
  Suppress artifacts – .15
  Color Sensitivity – .12

This adjustment really made the fact that her eyes are two different colors MUCH more noticeable. To me these little details are so important when it comes to expressing the personality of each photo!

Okay now that we have the foundation of this photo cleaned up lets step into some of the fun detailing with AI Remix.

4. Ai ReMix Adjustment 1

The first application of AI remix is the adjustment we will be moving to the top of the stack after we get done making the following adjustments:

Go to adjustments and select AI Remix, select the style thumbnail that looks like a bunch of docked boats (second row and second style), and select High for the style strength. Now this adjustment, when applied to the entire photo, comes off a bit strong for her skin so lets fix that. Open the adjustment and selected the masking thumbnail to activate the masking tool. Invert the mask (icon next to the eye in the masking menu) and select a white brush. We are going to mask in the flower crown is it is the object affected in this photo.

After applying the mask bring the opacity to .41. This makes the adjustment MUCH more subtle, but still keeps the adjustment painterly and noticeable while bringing out the detail and color of each flower.

 

Now move this adjustment to the top of the stack so it won’t be affected by the adjustments beneath it.

 

5. Ai Remix Adjustment 2

The next application is another AI remix to help bring some color to this monotone background.
Go to adjustments and select AI ReMix. The style we will be applying is located in the 6th row and is the 3rd image. Looks like a rainbow version of the grand canyon.

Make sure the style strength is set to low, the opacity is set to .46, and the blend mode is set to color.
This brings a pop of color to the entire photo, but plays off the colors of the crown and adapts well to the entire photo because we set the blend mode to color.

 

6. Smudge (last step)

The last adjustment we are applying is purely cosmetic. I really dislike how dry and cracked her lips looks, so we are going to grab the smudge adjustment and smooth them out a little.

Go to adjustments and select smudge. Select the mask tool, next to the adjustment name, invert it (just like the previous steps), and mask in her lips with a white brush on the black mask. This way we can make sure that ONLY her lips are affected by this adjustment.

After making sure the mask is applied (by clicking done with finished) go into the setting of this adjustment and set them as the following:

• Strength – .29
• Extent – .28
• Sharpness –.06

Thats it for this tutorial! Here is the finished product!

Here at Topaz we wanted to show you what we feel is one of the strongest reasons to use AI ReMix and to show you a trick or two to help get you close to the images you want; and help understand how to control the strong application of individual style.

In todays tutorial we’re going to apply 3 AI ReMix adjustments, each having different style applications, opacity, and masking to help control each feature and lessen the intensity of each effect to bring more of a “natural edit” instead of an extreme change.

We are going to apply all of the adjustments first then go back and edit the masks, this way we can make sure the applications are stacking correctly, the opacity is set where we want it, and the color are how we want before we decide what details we want to keep and what we want to take away.

I picked this image because I love the way ReMix styles look on hair like this, and I KNEW it was going to place some beautiful color if applied correctly. So, lets get started.

To start go to Adjustments, select AI Remix, and go to the style selection.
This style is found in the 3rd row from the top, the mardi gras dancer. I pick this style often because I LOVE how it is applied to images automatically, and a with a little bit of editing it can really bring new life to almost any photo.

Make sure the style strength is set to low. Set the Blend mode to Soft Light, that way the style isn’t too strong and is more adaptive to the lighting of the image, and bring the opacity to .59.

With the opacity settings, the application of this adjustment is subtle, but still extremely noticeable. This will help set the base for the other adjustment applications to build off of.

Second layer, again, go to adjustments and select AI ReMix and got to the style selection.
The style that we are going to apply to this adjustment is found in the 6th row and is the last style in that row It looks like a rainbow version of the grand canyon.

Make sure the style strength is set to low, blend mode is set to normal, and opacity need to be brought down to .33. Also, we are going to bring the hue to -.23, these sliders are located under the style section menu.

As you can see this brings a beautiful color pop to the image, adding pinks and aquas to a previously monotone image.

Repeat the same steps from above to bring up our last Ai ReMix adjustment.
This applied style is found in Row 11 and is the first style in that row. Its a color portrait of a woman with curled hair.

After selecting this bring the opacity to .80 and the blend mode needs to be set at Luminosity, this will help this adjustment plays off  the shadows and highlights and really bring them out.

The combination of these three styles is truly beautiful. Each adjustment plays off the one before. Placing artificial color in all the correct places, while not taking away from the original image but actually adding to its etherial mood; BUT some of the adjustments are a little strong for me, so we’re going to fix that by creating some masks.

Now we’re going to go back and create these masks that will help soften some of the detail from each adjustment and get a more polished look.

1st Adjustment
The mask for the first adjustment includes a lot push and pull on the hair to get the details the way we are going to want them. I played with different variations between white and black. Some places I chose a completely black brush, like her hair, to make her natural textures more visible, thats where most the concentration of this mask is. I also chose a grey brush and masked out some of the texture on her hand, and masked out her eyes completely in each layer so they wouldn’t be affected.

2nd Adjustment
The second mask, after masking out her eyes so this effect is not applied to them, I chose a light grey mask to mask out some of her forehead, jawline, and cheeks so this effect, also, was not so intense.

3rd Adjustment
The third mask I only masked out the eyes, because thats all I wanted to be unaffected by this adjustment.

Here is the finished look!