Learn Photo Editing

Create a beautiful Christmas tree

2010-12-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

Step 1 - branches

We start by opening up a new document. The first branch looks like this. I used a small brush (3 px) with color #808250.

Needles use color #7f9451. It’s going to be fast if you have tablet, if you don’t – see step 2.

And more needles with a lighter color, #aabc8a.

Step 2

If you don’t have tablet you can use the standard Photoshop brush 'Dune Grass', just modify brush tip shape.

Rotate the angle according to side which you draw with brush. But be careful. Use more spacing, otherwise it’s going to be branches with fur, not branches with needles.

So, the first branch is done, but we gotta do more. We need at least 4 in different variations (rotation, shape, size) on separate layers.

Step 3

Create new document with size of icon you want to do, I used 256 pixels by 256 pixels. Start creating the bottom of the Christmas tree with the branches we already did. Duplicate,rotate and resize so they will be different. Make about 10-12 branches.

We make small inner shadow for the branch, so it won't look so flat. Apply this style to all branches.

Step 4

Merge your branches into one layer, and duplicate it.

Flip horizontal.

And move the new layer a little above the existing branches, so it will look like solid bush.

Duplicate again and make background branches using Transform-> Distort.

Duplicate once again and make upper level.

We are in the middle of the Christmas tree, so next levels won't need as many branches. We use about half as much.
The last level of branches will need some work. For a better result, put together this level using the single branches we started out with. Just keep in mind to place them closer together.

I don’t like this empty spaces in bottom so I filled them with a small size copy of the lower level of branches.

Step 5

Now, that hardest part is done, we can start to decorate the Christmas tree and give it more of a 3D look. I want to do different colored balls. If you want a one-color Christmas tree, do one color round shapes between branches layers.

To get a 3D effect for use these options in Layer style:

Step 6

The Christmas tree still looks quite flat, so what we're going to do is make dark shadows with a big soft brush in new layer between the branch layers. Blending mode for all shadow layers must be “Multiply” mode and not full opacity.

Create a new layer and do some white spots with white 9-13 pixel brush. This is to add some contrast. We've already created the dark part, now it’s time for light.

Step 7 - add a little shadow

Create a new layer and send it to the back. Draw a little with a big black soft brush, scale it to fit and the move it under the Christmas tree.

Now we will make more contrast

After you save for web what you’ve done, you can open PNG and add some sharpness so it will look more detailed.

Create Your Own Christmas Balls

2010-12-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

First of all, you should create a new document about 500x500 pixels and fill it with white color. After that select the Elliptical Marquee Tool to create selection as on my picture below. Fill selected area with color of #580001 on the new layer.

Ok, use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to create another one selection and fill it with the same color.

Remove selection with Ctrl+D. Now, time to bring some ornament to the ball. I used this ornament or you can use another one which you want. Open up this file and copy ornament to the main canvas. After that apply the Color Overlay layer style to the layer with ornament.

You can mix current picture a couple of times. The result should be next:

Select the ball shape (Ctrl + left click the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers Palette) and press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert selection, after that press Delete to clear selected area.

Remove selection with Ctrl+D and continue to create ball's texture. Create a new layer and fill it with black color. After that apply Filter > Noise > Add Noise with following presets:

Change layer opacity to Screen now and use Ctr+T to reduce the noise texture.

Now, we need to clear area out the ball again. Select the ball shape one more time (Ctrl + left click the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers Palette) and press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert selection, after that press Delete to clear selected area.

Deselect area with Select > Deselect. After that use the Sharpen Tool to sharpen noise layer.

Now, merge all layers except background layer in one. After that use Select > Load Selection to select ball again and apply Filter > Distort > Spherize to make the ball volume:

Remove selection with Ctrl+D and use the Sharpen Tool again to sharpen centre of the ball a little bit more.

Time to add glares. Use the Dodge Tool (Brush: 100px, Range: Highlights: Exposure: 50%) to create bright spot on the ball as on my picture you can see below.

Create another one glare in the same way.

Then select the Burn Tool (Brush: 100px, Range: Shadows: Exposure: 20%) to add the dark glare.

Now, create a new layer and use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to create round selection. Fill it with white color.

Remove selection using Ctrl+D and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

See the result below.

Merge this layer with previous. Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to create selection like mine and use the Dodge Tool again to make little dodge-work.

Ok, remove selection with Select > Deselect. Time to add the top to our ball. How to do this? In the beginning create new layer above, then select Polygonal Lasso Tool to create selection as mine and fill it with color of #a09c95.

Deselect current layer (Ctrl+D). Now, use the Dodge Tool (Brush: 45px, Range: Highlights: Exposure: 50%) to add a little glare to the top.

Merge current layer with previous and use Ctrl+T to reduce the ball about 20%.

And the last one thing left. Select the Line Tool and set foreground color as #2f1e00. Draw two lines about 1 pixel as on my picture below.

Ok, we are done for now! I added two different colors balls more. Please don't be afraid to experiment with different colors and techniques.

Modern 3D Text Effect

2010-12-22T18:30:00.000-08:00

Step 1 – Setting Up The Photoshop File

Lets get started by opening a new Photoshop document by choosing File > New from the Main Menu or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N). I’m using my usual 540px by 300px size at 72 pixels/inch and a background color of White. When your new document opens, switch over to the Text tool by pressing the T key and type your text onto the canvas (this will create a new layer above the Background layer named after your text). I’m using the Ballpark font which can be downloaded from daFont.com for free. At this point color doesn’t make any difference, but font-size does… I’m using 90pt text.

Step 2 – Convert Text To Paths

With the Text tool still active, Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) on your text and choose Create Work Path. You may only notice a small change on the stage if you’re using black text, so lets switch over to the Path Selection tool by pressing the A key and then click and drag a selection around your text. This will select the paths we just created and make them much easier to see.

Step 3 – Hop Skip And Jump To Illustrator

With our paths selected, lets first make sure that our lettering all stays together as one single unit by going up to the options bar across the top of Photoshop and clicking the Combine button (if you don’t see a combine button, chances are good that you don’t have the Path Selection tool active). With the paths combined you can now copy the selected paths by pressing Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C). This will effectively copy the vector paths into your computer’s memory so that we can switch over to Illustrator and use them there. Now, I know some smart-ass is going to leave me a snooty note about how you could have created this text in Illustrator and saved some trouble, but then you wouldn’t have just learned how to convert your text to a path would you?… And this is after all primarily a Photoshop site, so just know that you could have typed your text in Illustrator too. Both ways are equally correct.

So now that we’ve nipped that in the bud, lets move on and open Adobe Illustrator.

With Illustrator open, lets use the same keyboard shortcut to create a new document over there: Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N). In this instance our canvas size doesn’t matter one bit, so I’ll just leave it at it’s default Letter size and click OK.

Step 4 – Paste The Paths Into Illustrator

Remember those paths we copied to our invisible Clipboard? Lets go ahead and paste those right into our Illustrator document by pressing Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V). If the Paste Options dialog appears, choose Compound Shape and click OK. We’re not worried about where they are on the document or anything but if you’re Obsessive Compulsive feel free to move them to wherever makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

By default your paths won’t be filled with any color, which isn’t good since we won’t be able to see them if they become deselected, so lets use the Color palette to change the fill color to a nice light gray (#E5E5E5). If you don’t see the Color palette, choose Window > Color from the Main Menu. Double-Click on the Foreground color swatch and enter the color code into the box as indicated below and click OK to set the color.

Step 5 – Making The Text 3D

Now comes the fun part! With the path still selected on the stage, choose Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel from the Main Menu to bring up the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options window. If the More Options button is visible in the right sidebar, click it to expand the dialog box completely and change your settings to match mine below. Notice that I’m using a zero (0) setting in the Y and Z Axis settings because I only want to push the lettering back a little while keeping all other aspects the same. It’s also important to notice that I’ve moved my light source to the lower left hand corner of the shading ball in the Surface Shading area. Make sure the Preview box is checked if you want to see what’s going on with your text as you work. Once all your settings are complete, click OK to commit your 3D transformation.

Our 3D edges are currently not in a form that Photoshop will understand, so lets quickly fix that before moving back to Photoshop to complete the process. From Illustrator’s Main Menu choose Object > Expand Appearance. This will convert the 3D edges into their own paths, making them Photoshop compatible.

Step 6 – Moving Back To Photoshop

(*note: We’ll be switching programs in a second, but don’t close this Illustrator file just yet, we’ll need it one more time)

With our object still selected in Illustrator, lets copy it back to the Clipboard by pressing Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C) to copy and then click over to your Photoshop document and press Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V) to paste it onto the canvas. You will now be asked how you want to Paste, and if you’re using Photoshop CS4 or higher, choose Smart Object so that we can retain the editing capabilities of our object should we need it later and then click Return (PC: Enter) to commit the paste to the canvas (DO NOT RESIZE WHEN YOU PASTE! If you wish to resize, I’ll let you know when to do it later). (*note: If you’re using a version of Photoshop older than CS4, select Pixels when you Paste)

You can no go ahead and delete your original text layer and paths if you’d like as well as rename your new 3D text layer.

Step 7 – Back To Illustrator One More Time

Ok, like I said, we’re going to make a quick run back to Illustrator to get another set of paths, but this time we only want to copy the original flat text on top of our 3D rendering because it’s perspective has changed since we originally brought it into Illustrator and we’re going to need it isolated for later.

Now, to isolate our top layer of text, we’re going to need to click down into the object, so I want you to double-click on the dark top text 3 times in a row, then click it once to select it. Confusing, I know, but if you followed my instructions right, your document should look like mine below. Notice that the 3D areas are now faded out because you’re deeper into the object.

Step 8 – Copy And Paste Back Into Photoshop

Just like the title says, we’re going to repeat our Copy and Paste process by pressing Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C), switching back to Photoshop and Pasting just like we did before with Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V). And yes, again CS4 and newer will use Smart Object while older versions will use the Pixels option when pasting.

It’s going to be hard to see this new version pasted over the original, so lets change the color by using a Layer Style. In the Layers palette, Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the new layer which should appear at the top of the Layers palette and which I’ve conveniently named 2D Text #1 and choose Blending Options to bring up the Layer Styles dialog box. Click on the Color Overlay option in the left hand list and change the color (click on the swatch) to #323232 and click OK to add the style to the layer. And now that you can tell the 2D layer from the 3D layer, use the Move tool (or your arrow keys) to position the 2D layer over the top of the 3D layer where it belongs. It may help to zoom in to get it perfect by using the Command + and Command – (PC: Ctrl + and Ctrl -).

Step 9 – Making The Top Pop

In this step we’re going to do a few things to make the top layer stand off of the 3D sides a little bit. Lets start by duplicating the 2D Text #1 layer by selecting it in the Layers palette and then pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the layer. Rename this new top layer 2D Text #2. Press the V key to make sure that the Move tool is active and then using the arrow keys on your keyboard press Up and Left each one time to offset the layer slightly from the one below.

Now lets edit the Color Overlay layer style of the 2D Text #1 layer. To do this, simply double click on the little FX icon on that layer (alternately you can Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the layer and choose Blending Options) to bring back the Layer Styles dialog. Click on Color Overlay in the left hand column and change the color of the overlay to White and then click OK to commit the change.

Step 10 – Adding The First Shadow

If you’re using CS4 or newer with Smart Objects, this is the point where you’d want to resize your text if needed. Be sure to select all 3 text layers and transform them together

Next we’re going to add a tiny shadow immediately below our 3D Text layer to really make it pop off the background a little more. Command-Click (PC: Ctrl-Click) on the thumbnail of the 2D Text #2 (or #1) layer to load the layer as a selection. Press the D key to reset the foreground and background colors and return the foreground to black, then create a new layer below the 3D Text layer and fill the selection with foreground color by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace). You won’t be able to see anything yet, but that’s ok, rename this new layer Shadow #1 and continue to the next step

Step 11 – Blur And Move The Shadow Into Place

Now we’re going to dull the edges of our shadow just a little bit, so from the Main Menu choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and when the dialog pops up set the Radius to 0.5 pixels and click OK. And now press your Down Arrow key on your keyboard until the shadow becomes visible at the bottom of the 3D Text layer. We only want a pixel or two showing, just enough to give us a nice tight shadow below the text. (I only dropped it 1px below the 3D text)

Step 12 – Create The Final Shadow

With our first shadow in place, creating the 2nd will be easy. Duplicate the Shadow #1 layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) and call it Shadow #2. Go back to the Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and this time use a radius of 2px and click OK.

Because our light source for our 3D objects was coming from the lower left hand corner of the text, lets make a small modification here to make the effect a little more convincing. While still on the Shadow #2 layer, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to invoke the Free Transform tool, and pull out the left and top center points just slightly to pull the shadow away from the text in those directions as shown below. You don’t need to go too far, just enough to pull the shadow slightly. Click Return (PC: Enter) to commit your transformation when you’re done.

Conclusion

For my final image I pulled the Shadow #2 Layer’s Opacity down to around 60% just to soften up the effect a little bit and then added a slight gradient to the background. There are a lot of great instances where you’ll be able to use 3D text, you can use this same process with any object made from a path… logos, custom shapes and all kinds of stuff. So play around, and have a little fun with it.

Photoshop Magic

2010-12-22T17:50:00.000-08:00

Creative masking in Photoshop

2010-12-21T06:44:00.000-08:00

1. Load the photo
If you just want to practice, the photo's content doesn't really matter now. What we want to see is how to cut something from the picture using Clipping Mask, and what advantages this method offers.

2. A little transformation
We have a simple background layer—most probably with the name Background Layer—which is hard to edit in this form. You have to transform it into a floating layer. Double click the layer row to display the above dialog, then simply click OK on it. Photoshop automatically names this layer as Layer 0.

3. Duplicate
Click Layer/Duplicate Layer to create a new blank layer and drag it under the original one, Layer 0. It is on this new layer that you'll create the mask—the object whose area (shape) will be cut out from the above image.

Go back to Layer 0 and right-click its name. In the context menu, click Create Clipping Mask. The image layer will thus be assigned to the mask layer underneath.

4. The shape
Now click the mask layer, Layer 1, again. The mask (the shape you want to clip) can be anything. You can use a simple brush which will make the painted areas visible, choose a gradient fill to get a nice transition, or place a pre-defined Custom Shape on the mask layer to use it as a mask.

We chose the latter option. We found a butterfly shape and dragged it onto the image. This clipped (masked out) the original image according to its own shape.

5. Advantages
Until now, this was just usual layer masking. How does Clipping Mask offer more? For example, it uses a separate layer which can be managed on its own just like any other layer. You can apply blending modes and layer effects to it. The example above shows an inner shadow and an outer glow effect.

You can place not just one but any number of layers above the Clipping Mask layer, and you can assign them to the mask in any way you like. The assigned layers can be mixed. In this example, we placed a cloudy sky texture in a separate layer above the butterfly one, and used the Hard Light blending mode to mix them.

We also placed a third image layer with flowers below the mask.

Preparing the car

2010-12-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

Before we can start adding graphics, we need to prepare the car. Adjust the lighting and shadows, make reflections, and a layer for the graphics.

We will start out with this:

First select the body of the car - without the windows, headlamps, decals, etc. With the car selected create two new layers with the content of the selection. But, disable their visibility.

Tip: for convenience call these "Car", "Graphics", "Reflections"

Now we got our foundation and the only left is adjustments. We need make 2 major adjustments. The first one being that we make the car white, the second that we create a "reflections" layer.

To make the car white re-select the body of the car and adjust the brightness levels of the original layer. With white do not mean pure-white, but that the car appears to be painted white.

The power of light

Before we make the reflections layer, I want to show the importance of light - in this case the reflection layer. Many people do what we have done so far, and then just added colors or graphics using the "multiply" blending mode.

The result is this. The colors look uninteresting - there car does not seem to shine.

What is missing is light (or reflections of light) - the most important element when creating realism.

To add the reflections turn on the last layer. First change the blending mode to "Screen".

Then open "levels" and adjust the darkness of the layer until lightness of the body paint no longer shows. And voila we got realism.

The graphics

The last step is the graphics, which can be practically anything. Just change the middle layer (the one called "graphics" to whatever you want - or attach additional layers to it.

Tip: Enable "Lock transparent pixels" to lock the layer.
Tip: If you want, add two "lens flares" to turn on the headlights.

Examples

Abstract smoke art tutorial

2010-12-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

Step 1 - Setting up and taking the shot

Setup your shot as shown in the photo above. Make sure you have setup the shot in a dark room so that you don't get any light pollution. You need to be able to control the light that hits the smoke for the best detail.

Set your camera to 'Manual' on the dial and also "Manual" on the lens. You can experiment with settings but because of the low-light in the room and the movement of the smoke, the camera will have a job focusing and metering. The settings I have used are as follows:

Aperture: f11
Shutter speed: 1/250
Focal length: 50mm
ISO Speed: 100

Now you are ready to take the shot. Turn off the lights and light the incense stick. When its lit, blow out the flame and you will see the glowing end. Manually focus onto the glowing incense stick and then re-frame your shot so that you can only see the smoke. You may want to zoom in or out to get the best composition. This next bit is really important. You need to fold the flas gun so that the light hits the smoke but NOT the background and NOT the lens. The best way to do this is to hold the flash gun to the right, slightly behind the smoke pointing towards the smoke but not directly at the lens.

There is no definitive way to take the shot once its setup. The key is to practice and take a lot of shots. You will eventually get the hang of it and will know when to fire the remote trigger. You will see the shapes in the smoke begin to form. You may need to stop after a little while to clear the room of smoke and to refocus as the incense stick burns down. Review the shots you have taken in the camera and look for clear, bright smoke with little or no detail from the backdrop.

Step 2 - Post processing in photoshop

Here comes the fun and creative part. In the last step you only had control over the setup and not the photographs that you were producing. Now you need to look through the shots on your computer and choose your favourite. Look for clean, sharply focussed images and delete the rest. This review process witll really narrow down your options and you will be able to choose the perfect image. Open this image up in photoshop.

Firstly you will need to decide whether or not you want your image to be on a black or a white background. I have chosen a white background so the first thing I do is to Invert the image (Image > Adjustments > Invert). You can keep the image on a black background if you want.

Now you need to create and adjustment layer (Layer > New adjustment layer > Levels) to correct the contrast of the image as shown below.

TIP:

When you are making the layers adjustment you want to bring out the best contrast. You are aiming to see all of the detail in the smoke.
The three sliders you see are as follows. A black point slider on the left, a grey point slider in the middle and a white slider on the right. You will be able to see the histogram change as you make these adjustments.
Try to emulate the contrast in my picture (left).

OK, by now the picture is looking pretty good. Next, I like to sharpen the image a little to bring out the edges.

TIP:

Firstly make sure that the image is selected rather than the adjustment layer that you previously created.
I find the best way of making this adjustment is to go to (Filter > Sharpness > Unsharp mask). You will have a better level of control over your sharpness.
Remember not to go overboard with this or you will end up getting a halo effect around the smoke which will not look professional.

Play around until you are happy with the image

If you want, you can stop here, you will have already achieved a great, sharp smoke art shot.

I normally like to select the burn tool and just gently brush around the darkest areas. I do the same on the highlights with the dodge tool to really make the image pop.

Step 3 - Further adjustments

I now want to crop the image to get the best viewpoint of it. Play around with the crop tool until you are happy with the composition. I have chosen to run my smoke diagonally so that it will look great on a canvas print.

TIP:

Crop the image to cut down on some of the whitespace.

Now we are going to add some wow factor to the image by adding subtle colours. This bit is so much fun, you can play around with this for hours.
Firstly, create a new blank layer above the main smoke image. Set the layer mode to Color and the Opacity to around 38%.

TIP:

Choose a large brush with a soft edge. Select a colour that you like and start to paint the colour onto the smoke. If you want a stronger colour just change the opacity of the colour layer.

You can also do this using a gradient layer but I prefer the control of being able to brush 2 or 3 colours on.

Play around until you are happy with the image

And thats it!

Example 1

Example 2

Flying Superman Cartoon In Your Town

2010-12-10T22:27:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Create a new 800x600 RGB file with white background and insert your picture of your flying character. Make sure it has transparent background as we will be adding your town picture in the background. You can do this by tracing the image with the pen tool, load the selection and deleting the background. Here is my picture of Superman and a Toronto Skyline.

Step 2
Now add the layers to one file. Label one Superman, label the other your town name.

Step 3

Create a duplicate layer of your town by selecting it and hitting "command J" on your keyboard.

Step 4

Now go to filter > Blur > Radial Blur with a Zoom amount of 70.

And your image should look something like this.

Step 5

Duplicate all the Town layers and merge the duplicated layers together.

Step 6

Take the merged layer - make sure it is above your original Town layers and go to Filter > Artistic > Poster Edges.

Step 7

After the Poster Edges effect, we will Adjust the Brightness & Contrast with the values: Brightness Value: 10 Contrast: 30.

Step 8

Now we will do an artistic cut out effect to give it that cartoon look. Go to Filter > Artistic > Cut Out. After you are done this make sure the Cartoon town layer is set to 90% opacity.

Step 9

This is what you get.

Final Result..

Using the techniques you just learned you can play with your image and using your imagination come up with your own creative ideas. Such as this ...

Photo Manipulation - Hair Color Tutorial

2010-12-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Open an image that you would like to manipulate. In this case we are going to use a photo of a girl with fine hair. Duplicate the layer, place it on the top and ensure you are working on the duplicated layer through the rest of this project.

Step 2

We will use the pen tool and create paths around the area we would like to manipulate.

Step 3

Lets work on one side of her hair. This way we can compare what we have done with the other side.

Step 4

We will now apply hue/saturation to our image. To show the a huge change, I will be using a very funky color.

Step 5

Make sure you click on colorize and use whatever color setting you like, below is an example of what I will be using.

Step 6

After you press 'OK' this is what we get with hue/saturation. Now its not that pretty but we will fix that to make it appear much more natural. But first lets add some more depth to the colour.

Step 7

Adjust the brightness and contrast with the settings below.

Step 8
Now adjust the color balance to your likings. I will be using these settings.

Step 9

Now that we are done with the adjustments of color with her hair. We would like this to look much more natural. Do this by selecting the eraser tool with a fat brush size and gently go around the highlighted color. Keep in mind that we still have the original layer below. Your results should look similar to my final piece.

Selection From Layer

2010-12-10T17:49:00.001-08:00

Selecting the opaque area of any particular layer is a useful thing to be able to do quickly. In the layers palate, hold CTRL (⌘) and click the thumbnail image of a layer. You should notice that this creates a selection around the edges of that layer, and also preserves the alpha channel of the original layer. The uses of this are too numerous to list, but I’m sure you’ll find many by yourself.

Quick (and result) Fills

2010-12-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

The 2 fills I use most often have slightly different behaviours.

The first is just a standard area fill. Pressing ALT+BACKSPACE will fill the whole of your layer with your foreground colour. If you have a text layer selected, it will change the text colour, and if you have a marquee selection of some form, it will fill the whole of the selected area (if the layer type allows this, does not work on vector shapes). This is again useful with the quick colour selection hotkeys above. (D), ALT+BACKSPACE will fill your layer with solid black.

The second, and slightly more useful fill type, fills the area while maintaining transparency. What this means is say you have a complex clearcut shape, and you wanted to make the whole shape black without messing around with selections or channels, you would press ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE, and you’d see the shape be completely filled with your foreground colour, while maintaining the transparency level of each pixel. An example is shown below:

This is an excellent way to retain nice antialiasing on your shapes. It also works with marquee selections, and will fill the non-transparent area within the selection.

To be honest I have no idea how to do this using Photoshop’s menus, as I’ve always used hotkeys, but I’m sure there is a way (maybe someone could let us know in the comments.

Quick Colour Selection

2010-12-10T17:46:00.001-08:00

The 2 keys that will help you manage your colours a bit faster, are (D) which resets the foreground and background colours to black and white respectively, and (X) which swaps the foreground and background colour positions. Say you wanted to quickly apply a white fill to something, you’d simply hit (D), (X) and then apply your fill.

Quick Duplication

2010-12-10T17:45:00.001-08:00

If you ever need to duplicate a layer (or multiple) to move somewhere else on the canvas, simply select the layer using the method described above (though any selection method will work), and hold ALT while clicking and dragging the layer. It will drag out a duplicate, leaving your original where it was. I use this all the time for creating multiple tabs or menu items, paragraphs of text, headings, boxes, pretty much everything.

Note: The duplicated layer will appear above the topmost selected layer in your layers palate, so if you like to keep your layers grouped and named nicely, you’ll have to move and name them manually to keep everything in order. (this is also one of the reasons I don’t bother in my initial designs).

Visual Layer Selection

2010-12-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

I’m terrible at naming and grouping my layers. It slows me down, and as quite a visual person, the layers palate with it’s tiny thumbnails often doesn’t help me find what I need, in order to select it. So to quickly select a layer, or select multiple layers to move or group, I use visual layer selection.

For this to work, you need to select the Move Tool (V), and then up the top, check the “Auto Select:” box, and then select “Layer” from the dropdown, and then uncheck the box again. If you don’t do this, the behaviour will select groups instead of layers inside groups, which can be frustrating. (you only need to do this step once)

With the Move tool selected (V), CTRL+CLICK (⌘+CLICK) on a layer on the stage to select it. Hold down SHIFT as well to select multiple layers, or click and drag to select all layers your drag selection touches.

This method does not work for layers with very low opacity. To select layers like this, RIGHT CLICK on them, and the list that appears will show all layers that your cursor is currently hovering over.

It’s also worth noting that when selecting tiny layers, the single white stroke around the edge of the move cursor is *not* the point that you should be aiming for, instead it’s the first black pixel on the tip of the arrow. If in doubt, zoom.

Moving around the canvas

2010-12-10T17:43:00.001-08:00

Getting to where you need to be is easier when you hold SPACE, and click and drag. Combined with the Zoom tool (Z) and the ability to zoom back to 100% size with CTRL+ALT+0 (⌘+ALT+0), you’ll rarely need to use anything else.

Apple magic mouse users can also scroll in all directions with a single finger, but if you own one you probably know, as it can be pretty sensitive to accidental touches also

Quick tool switching

2010-12-10T17:42:00.001-08:00

These are obvious, but the tool hotkeys I use all the time are:

(M) Marquee Selection
SHIFT+(M) to change marquee type
(V) Move tool
(T) Type tool
(G) Gradient/Bucket Fill tool
SHIFT+(G) to switch between Gradients and Bucket Fill
(B) Brush tool
SHIFT+(B) to change brush type
(E) for the Eraser tool.

If you use vector shapes a lot (which I don’t), then you probably want to memorise the vector tools hotkeys too.

Photoshop efficiency-tips

2010-12-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Photoshop is an immense application, packed full of so many features that almost no one will ever discover them all, or how to use them to their full potential. With so many features also comes a bunch of shortcuts and hotkeys, which are often hidden away in documentation, and in my experience, most people only use things recommended by other people, or things they find by accident.

So here are the shortcuts and various bits of trickery I use literally every single day in Photoshop, to make life just a little bit less painful. Some may seem so simple that ‘everyone should know THAT one’, but that’s not the case. If even 10 people find something new here that helps their workflow, then my mission has been accomplished.

Drawing with the pen tool

2010-12-10T02:47:00.000-08:00

When it comes to actually creating a path from scratch, the pen tool is the most common option. This tool may look familiar to you. That’s because its almost identical to the pen tool in other Adobe apps like Illustrator, Indesign and Flash.
It’s not, unfortunately, a very natural process, especially to anyone who grew up drawing with markers or crayons. This is because unlike the pencil tool, you are creating your shape with points and handles. You don’t just draw on the page, you have to add points and manipulate them to create your shapes. The pen tool is the way that you add these points and the way you drag the tool as you create the points determines how they will look.
Remember, the fewer points, the smoother a path will be. Imagine moving a pencil in a single motion to produce a smooth curve. If you attempt that same curve with many short strokes, you’ll wind up with not such a smooth curve—and that’s what you get if you add too many points do to path.

Step 2

Straight line paths

Drawing a straight line is easy, you could use the line tool or the pen tool.

Choose the Pen tool on the toolbox.

Select the drawing option from the options bar to draw either a path, Shape layer or fill pixels.

Click once to mark the starting point, then Ctrl-click Cmd-click) somewhere else (without dragging) to mark the ending point. A straight line connects the dots.

You can also keep clicking to keep adding straight line segments—to create, for example, an irregular straight-line enclosed shape. Just remember to Ctrl-click) at the point where you want the line-adding to end.

Step 3

Curved Paths

Choosing the pen tool will enable you to draw paths easily. Choosing a different kind of pen tool will give you a different behavior.

Curves are more difficult than straight lines, but they come with practice.
The key is to drag after placing each point. That is, as you create a point, don’t just click; rather, click and drag in the direction that you want your curve to go. The further you drag, the larger the arc will be between the current point and the next one that you create.
Here are some basic curves. Once you master these, you will be all set to draw almost any shape.

Vectors Explained

2010-12-10T02:42:00.000-08:00

As you know, Photoshop is primarily known for its ability to manipulate pixels, those tiny building blocks that join together so tightly that they seem to form a smooth image, usually a digital photograph. But Photoshop is also handy with the other important family of computer-graphics building blocks: the little guys called vectors.

Vectors are lines, whose curvature, thickness, and length are determined by mathematical formulae. You don’t need to know any math; it’s all done for you. If you want a shape like a circle, your job is to simply draw the circle; Photoshop defines the center point and the radius to create a circle. At that point, you can specify the circle’s color, line thickness, and so on.

It might seem odd to find vector-drawing tools in a pixel-pushing program like Photoshop; vector drawing is usually associated with very different programs, like Illustrator and Freehand. Photoshop can’t create entire vector documents. It uses vector elements and stores them in layers and as paths. But be grateful that Photoshop offers this feature; it can come in handy in a number of situations. Most commonly vectors are used for cutting something out from its background in a photograph. Check out the car, vectors were used to cut it out.

The pen tool is great for these kinds of cutout tasks because of the clean, controllable, reusable nature of vectors.

Other times you might prefer to use Photoshop’s vector tools are for a large poster, because you can create it small and then scale it up huge without losing any quality. Vectors are great for when you have to change a design many times because you get no degradation each time you change something. Vectors also work great for text and box heavy designs such as postcards, because the edges will print nice and sharp.

In Photoshop (and other Adobe programs), the mathematical name for the lines that determine vectors is Bézier curves.

They’re named after their French creator, Pierre Bézier, who came up with a clever way to make computer-drawn lines bend to their will. A Bezier curve’s direction and angle is determined by the position of little anchor points that lie nearby

Here are all the different parts that make up a curve. A path is a series of curves joined together.
Notice as you click a point it changes color and becomes black. This is called “filled or selected” you can now modify this portion of the path.

Design Glowing Particle Text Effect with Liquify Filter in Photoshop

2010-12-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200px * 700px, fill the background layer with black. Create a new layer and use a soft white brush to do a single-click to position shown below:

Hit Ctrl + T and compress this layer down as show below:

Use a soft brush to erase the bottom part of the base:

Step 2

Use the font you downloaded, type some text onto the canvas:

Add a layer mask to the this text layer:

Here is the effect after you add the mask:

Duplicate this text layer once, apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Reduce the opacity of the blurred text layer to around 50%, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s make a particle brush. Create a new document (size doesn’t really matter), use pen tool to draw a shape and fill it with black colour:

After the fill, made the background layer “transparent”:

Go to Edit > Define Brushset and define a new brush:

Once you defined the brushset, press F5 and bring up the brush window, apply the following settings:
Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Make sure you tick the “Airbrush”, “Smoothing” and “Protect Texture” settings.

Step 4

Use the brush we just made, paint some random particles around the text, reduce the brush size where appropriate:

Optionally, once you finish the painting of the particles, duplicate the particle layer once and apply the following motion blur settings to it:

This will create a stripe effect on the text:

Also add a curves adjustment layer on top of all previous layers with following settings:
RGB

Red

Green

Blue

and here is the effect so far:

Broken Glass Text Effect

2010-12-09T02:45:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) with 1000 x 600 px, 72dpi, transparent background. Then select the Gradient Tool and use Spectrum gradient in reflected gradient mode.

Fill canvas with chosen gradient.

Step 2

Then reduce gradient saturation by using Image >Adjustments > Hue/Saturation with next presets:

Step 3

Time to add the text. Get out the Horizontal Type Tool and write out something like ‘Art Master’ on the middle of the canvas with black (#000000) color. I have used Cooper Std font (150px, Sharp).

Step 4

We are now going to use blending options for bringing effect of broken glass. With text layer selected, go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending options and apply Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Texture, Satin and Stroke.

After applying all of these layer styles the result should be similar to mine on the picture below:

Step 5

I would like to apply the same gradient on top of the text to get pseudotransparent effect. Go to gradient layer and press Crtl+J to make a copy of this layer, then move this layer above all the layers in layers palette.

Now apply Layer > Create Clipping Mask or press Alt+Ctrl+G to create vector mask for this layer.

Creating Focus on the Photo

2010-12-09T02:38:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Open japanese dish photo and let´s start our tutorial.

Step 2

Now we need to decide where we want to put the focus. Let it be dish area. Get out the Elliptical Marquee Tool and create selection similar to the selection on my picture below.

Step 3

Blur selection borders about 50 pixels with Select > Modify > Feather (or press Ctrl+Alt+D or Shift+F6 according to Photoshop version).

Then select the Sharpen Tool (Strength: 30%) and soft round brush about 400 pixels to restore the sharpness of the selected area a little bit. It will be center of focusing.

Step 4

Invert selection with Ctrl+Shift+I and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with similar settings to these:

Step 5

We know that the focus should be gradual, so we should slightly increase the area of selection and blur long field more. Apply Select > Inverse to invert selection back and increase selection about 100 pixels more with Select > Modify > Expand.

Step 6

Now invert selection again and apply Filter > Blur >Gaussian Blur with next presets:

Step 7

We are done with creating focus on the photo. And the last one effect that I want to add on my own is to add color to black and white gradient. Press Ctrl+J to duplicate selected area to the new layer and desaturate it with Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (or press Shift+Ctrl+U).

Step 8

Select the Eraser Tool and soft round brush about 300 pixels to remove inner part of upper layer with black and white photo fragment.

Final Image

Digital darkness

2010-12-08T05:15:00.000-08:00

Create a new document of any size, for this example l will create a document that is 1024x778 - for a standard desktop background. Fill the background with black (#000000).

Create a new layer. Get out the rectangular marquee tool, and make a selection like so near the bottom left corner (region) of the canvas:

Press CTRL + D on your keyboard to deselect the selection. And go to Filter->Distort->Wave and apply the following settings:

Go to Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontally

Press CTRL + E on your keyboard to merge these two layers together.

Press CTRL + J on your keyboard again to duplicate this layer.

Go to Edit->Transform->Rotate 90 Degrees CW

Press CTRL + E on your keyboard to merge these two layers.

Result:

You can repeat last step a few times if you wish, however at this point l simply used the crop tool, found a section of the design that l think looked nice, and cropped it out for a banner background. Here is my final result after adding a simple panel border:

Exploding planet

2010-12-08T05:05:00.000-08:00

With this tutorial, we will be working photos of dried cracked mud, so go to Google images and search for "dried mud" or "cracked mud". It works best on pictures with birds eye view (direct view from top) so we can see the cracks. Alternatively, you can use any of the images below. Please note that the steps may differ if your image is significantly different to the one im using in this tutorial, so experiment :)

I'll be working on the 2nd image. Base on that image, I start a new document 640x480.
Now open the mud image up, on the dirt image, do a CTRL+A to select all, then go to the new document you just created and press CTRL+V to paste the image.

Now, while you still got your selection, go to SELECT » INVERSE again to select the shape.
Now go to Filter » Distort » Spherize. Set amount to 100%. Then do it again, this time, 50%. You can now deselect.
Now, lets fill the background layer (the layer underneath the mud layer) with black.
Then go to Layer » Flatten Image
Now go to Filter » Sharpen » unsharp Mask.

Amount: 500%. Radius: 1.7px. Threshold: 122 levels

After:

YouTube Background Tutorial

2010-12-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

Step 1

Open the .PSD file I have included with this tutorial. In the "Layers" area near the bottom right you should have two folders and a layer. Click the Eye next to all the layers to hide them for now. Create a new layer by clicking the little paper looking icon and drag it to the Bottom of the layers list. This will be your background and be underneath all the other layers.

Step 2 Select the Gradients tool (normally in the sub menu to the Paint bucket tool, click and hold to reveal the sub menu). Click the thumbnail gradient at the top left to reveal the gradient settings window. Around the gradient preview you will see 4 small arrows, double click the bottom left and input the colour code (#0500d9), click OK. Same again with the bottom right arrow and input (#090040), click OK when finished.

Step 3
Hold shift and drag a line from top to bottom of your canvas. Release shift and your mouse button and you should be left with a Gradient effect across your canvas.

Step 4
From the main menu select, FILTER > DISTORT > WAVE. Now input all the settings from the image below.

Step 5
On the main menu again select, FILTER > DISTORT > POLAR COORDINATES. Follow the settings shown below in the image and press OK.
Step 6

Now you should have a sunburst effect on your canvas. On the layers area re-enable all the layers by clicking the small box next to them showing the eye. Click the folders to reveal the layers inside and change these layers to an opacity of 10% each. Opacity setting can be found just above the layers.

For the average user, most would see any content placed inside those 2 left and right sections down the sides. Any futher out than that and most would not see it unless they have a bigger monitor. My personal laptop is 15" screen and can only see content put inside of those sidebars otherwise its off the screen and not visible so please keep this in mind when adding content ontop.

You can now create more layers and add in the content you want to the sidebars because you've successfully completed this tutorial!