Filter Factory Taking The Soft Option - page 2

Tapp-Zucker

Here is a recipe for creating an action to produce the Tapp-Zucker method. This is attributed to the photographers, Monte Zucker and Eddie Tapp. Others like to pretend it is theirs and charge you for their action set accordingly, we prefer to attribute it correctly and simply pass the message on. Monte is, sadly, out of email reach in the big studio in the sky, but Eddie remains very active and has a new book and DVD out – see the listing at the end of the feature. We are grateful for his advice.

The basis of the method is to duplicate the background layer twice and blur both the duplicates to the same or differing amounts. One layer is then set to Lighten mode, the other to Darken mode. Other than that, most other settings are up for grabs!

Here is one method which makes an action to carry out the process in Photoshop CS 2:

1. Open the Actions Palette: Window>Actions.
2. Click New Action Set from the top right disclosure triangle and call it ‘Softening’.
3. Click New Action from the top right disclosure triangle and call it ‘Tapp-Zucker’. You are now recording.
4. Duplicate the Background Layer.
5. Duplicate the Background Layer again.
6. Rename the lower duplicate ‘Lighten’ then change its blending mode to Lighten, its opacity to 80% and Gaussian Blur it to a level of 4 pixels.
7. Set the upper duplicate (‘Darken’) to Darken mode, set the opacity to 40% and Gaussian Blur it 2 pixels.
8. Your Layers Palette should now look like that on the right.
9. Make a New Layer group, then ‘push’ the Lighten and Darken layers upwards into it in the layers palette, until they jump to the right a little. Set the ‘pass through’ mode to ‘normal’.
10. Add a layer mask to the Group 1 layer then click Edit>Fill>Black.
11. Click stop recording.

Paint with white in the areas you wish to soften.

There are at least five variants of setting that we have found in the literature to hand:

Guy Gowan

Guy Gowan teaches an additional step. After completing step 9 (opposite), follow this recipe:

10. Click on the Background, then the red channel in the channel palette.
11. Click Image>Calculations then set up the dialog box as below:
12. Click Ok to accept and marching ants should appear.
13. Activate Group 1 in the Layers Palette and click the New Layer Mask icon at the bottom. Your palette now looks like that on the right.
14. Make a new layer group (2 by default) then push Group 1 into it.
Activate group 2, change the mode from ‘pass through’ to ‘normal’. Now
click the New Layer Mask icon.
15. Stop recording.

Additional Notes

1. Painting on the layer mask of group 2 brings back the full sharpness where required. Adjust the opacity to suit the image.
2. The modified red channel, used as a mask substantially prevents the blurring affecting the eyes, eye lashes and eye detail. The composite contoured image shows the densities around the mask of the example image. Where the mask is at 255 the blurring takes place at full strength, progressively reducing as the mask becomes denser. In reality, of course, the mask is not in graded steps as shown, it is a continuous, smooth transition – this is the sophistication of the technique.
3. If using a simple overlay to strengthen the red channel mask is not sufficient, you may have to change the outcome from ‘selection’ to new Alpha Channel and then use the Levels on the mask to pinch the end points inwards by 10 RGB points or so.4. Guy Gowan recommends that the 2 and 4 pixel blur setting be used as starting guides (normal D-SLR resolution) but that the Darken layer should usually be blurred to half the value of the Lighten layer.
5. Eddie Tapp recommends that the blur level in pixels should be the equivalent of the file size, ie 30 pixels for a 30Mb file, and 15 pixels for a 154Mb file (RGB).
6. Katrin Eismann uses 20 pixel blur on both layers, Lighten at 35% opacity and darken at 20% opacity.
7. Julianne Kost raves about using Surface Blur instead of Gaussian Blur but we are unsure about other settings and modes.

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Photo Quote: Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.- Dorothea Lange