Adobe Photoshop Tips

Giant NES controller coffee table

2008-05-18T02:22:00.001-07:00

This is just great, very creative

Photoshop CS3 Tutorial: Creating A Blood Effect

2008-05-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

A fast, easy way to create a blood effect for your photos.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Video Tutorial How To Remove Red Eye

2008-05-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to remove red eye quick and easy in Adobe Photoshop CS3

Create A Cool Brushed Metal Texture in Photoshop CS3

2008-05-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to create a brushed metal texture in Adobe Adobe Photoshop CS3

Ultimate Artist Aggravator Plugin For Adobe Photoshop

2008-04-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ultimate Artist Aggravator Plugin

This plugin exists for the sole purpose of aggravating the artist.

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Smart De-Interlacer Free Photoshop CS3 Plug-in

2008-04-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Smart De-Interlacer Plug-in

This filter performs various de-interlacing procedures with fully customizable convolution controllers.

Download

Photoshop Free Plugin Solid Border

2008-04-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Solid Border

This filter will generate a solid border around an image (in percentage or pixels) with options to respect image aspect ratios.

Download

Evaluate: Free Plugin for Adobe Photoshop

2008-04-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

Evaluate

This filter performs various image processing operations through rule-based evaluations. 'Evaluate' can be an extremely powerful filter when used to its full potential. With it's sophisticated rule-based evaluations, it can perform more than 50 different image processing operations ranging from color replacement, color inversion, color swapping, greyscale conversion, color clamping, color multiplication and division, color trigonometrical mathematics, pixel blurring, pixel grain, and much, much more. Any of these effects can be applied to specific color ranges, specific luma ranges, specific color channels or any combination of any of these (and more). 'Evaluate' makes specific pixel targeting and isolation very easy to accomplish, providing the user with extremely precise image processing controls

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Create Advanced Glow Effects With Photoshop

2008-04-29T06:01:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial we're going to create some really sharp looking glow effects using a combination of layer styles, the pen tool and colour blending. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully you'll pick up some tips you didn't know before.

Step 1:

As with pretty much every tutorial I've ever written we begin with a radial gradient. This one is pretty harsh and goes from a reddish brown colour to black. Here are the exact colour codes:

Foreground colour - #922f00
Background colour - #000000

Step 2:

In this tutorial we actually need a pretty intense centre, so what we'll do is duplicate the layer we just made and set the one above to a blending mode of "Color Dodge" . There are a few types of blending modes, darkening ones, lightening ones, colourizing ones and inverting ones. Color Dodge is probably the stronges of the lightening ones. As you can see in the screenshot it produces a pretty full on centre.

Step 3:

Now in our glow effect it helps to have a nice textured background. So we are going to create a sort of smoky haze. To do this create a new layer, then make sure you have white - #ffffff and black - #000000 selected as your background and foreground colors.

Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. This will give you some random cloud pattern as above.

Step 4:

Now set the opacity of your layer to "Overlay" and 30% transparency. In some instances this would be enough, but for our needs we want it even smokier looking!

So go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and use default settings of 4 and 7 for detail and smoothness respectively. Actually you can probably mess around with those if you want, but the defaults seem to be fine.

When you're done you the result should look a lot smokier (once its overlayed at 30% transparency that is). You can see the result in the background of the next screenshot.

Step 5:

Now before we can start making glows, we need to have something TO glow. Here's where we break out the pen tool. If you have used the pen tool much I suggest playing around with it a little. There are some tricky things you can do with shortcuts but for this tutorial you don't need those.

In fact all we want to achieve is some nice curves. Fortunately this isn't too hard. I find the trick is not to use too many points. Instead rely on the pen tools natural curving and drag the mouse out for each point so you get a big angle. In this S curve shown above I've only used three points, the starting point, the end point and one in between to give it the bend.

Step 6:

Once you have a nice curve, create a new layer. Then click on the paintbrush tool (B) and choose a very thin, hard brush. As you know soft brushes are the blurry ones and hard brushes are more solid. In this case I suggest using a thickness of 3.

Note that you can have any colour selected as your brush colour because we'll go over it with a layer style shortly.

Step 7:

Now switch back to the PEN tool. You must switch tools in order to do this next bit.

Then right click and select "Stroke Path". You will get a little dialog box appear as in the screenshot. Choose "Brush" and make sure there is a tick next to "Simulate Pressure". This is important as it will give your curve tapered ends which will make it rock!

Next right click again and select "Delete Path".

Step 8:

You should now have something like the above. Just a thin, cool swishy thing.

Step 9:

Now we add some glows. The easiest way to make our glows is to use layer styles. And the best way to tell you what layer styles to use is to tell you to download the sample Photoshop PSD from the bottom of this page and then open it up and look through them there.

In a nutshell I've added two sets of glows. To do this I first use Outer Glow and then because I want a second glow, I change the Drop Shadow settings so that it becomes a glow (you can do this by reducing the distance and changing the blend mode to something like Color Dodge)

Oh and also I've used a Color Overlay to make the item white so that its like the centre of an intense glow.

Step 10:

So now you have the same line but with a cool glow coming off it. The beauty of using a layer style is that you can copy and paste it to other layers. To do this you just right-click the layer and select "Copy Layer Style" then create a new layer and right-click and choose "Paste Layer Style".

Step 11:

So now repeat the same process a couple of times to make more squiggly lines.

In this instance I made one a little thicker by changing the paint brush size before I did the "Stroke Path" bit of hte process. I also made a third line and erased part of it and sorta made it join the other two to look like a cool triangular shape.

Step 12:

Here I've added some text in and applied the same layer style to the text layers.

It's important to pay lots of care and attention to your text. When you're first starting out use simple fonts and play with spacing between letters, words and sizes. You can achieve a lot with just some small tricks. Here I've contrasted the three words by making Glow a lot larger and in regular casing, then made Advanced and FX much smaller, with greater space between the letters and all Caps.

You can control spacing with text using the Character window. If it isn't already open go to Window > Character and it should appear. Mess about with the different settings until you learn what each controls.

Step 13:

Now we add some particles. To do this create a new layer then select a tiny paint brush - size 3 - and just paint some dots on. It helps if they are clustered towards the centre of the glow so that it looks like they are emanating from there.

You can make some of the central ones larger by doubling over on them with a second paint brush dab.

Then paste our Glow layer style on to that layer too!

Step 14:

Now that's looking pretty cool, but it will look even cooler if we give it some subtle colouring instead of this super gaudy red.

So create a new layer and using a radial gradient draw a blue to white gradient as shown.

Step 15:

Then set that layer to a blending mode of "Color" and change the opacity to 50%.

You'll see that it turns the image kind of bluish. I think that's looking much cooler already, but just to go that extra step I also created a couple of extra layers, one with some faint yellow and one with faint purple. You can see them in the screenshot above.

I set each layer to blending mode of "Color" and thin opacities so that they all fade together.

Step 16:

And there you have it, advanced glow effects with a cool colour blend and subtle smokey background combined make for a pretty great effect.

Just remember to experiment with settings and try appling the glow to different things to see how it turns out. And try different color combinations, some suprising combinations turn out really beautiful. Good luck!

Thanks to Marcus Maniel for this great tutorial

Scanlines Generator Free Adobe Photoshop Plugin

2008-04-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

Scanlines Generator
This filter will create those hard to produce scanlines on your image to simulate a monitor.
Current Version v2.2

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Adobe Photoshop Color Bar Generator Plugin

2008-04-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Color Bar Generator
This filter will create color bar templates for computer and television monitor calibration.
Current Version v1.5

Download

3D Sphere Generator Plugin

2008-04-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

3D Sphere Generator
This filter will generate a 3D sphere and allow you to configure many of its properties.
Current Version v1.6

Download

Video Tutorial Creating a WaterMark in Photoshop CS3

2008-04-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

Creating a watermark, a brush watermark, in Adobe Photoshop CS3. Although this was created in CS3, the basic steps can be duplicated using PSE, and previous versions of Photoshop.

Create Metal Text in Photoshop CS3 Video Tutorial

2008-04-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to create metal text in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Photoshop CS3: Creating cool text effects Video Tutorial

2008-04-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Learn how to create a cool text effect in photoshop. watch this video tutorial

Photoshop Tutorial: Remove An Image From Its Background

2008-04-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Learn how to remove an image from its background.

Create a Gold Text Effect In Photoshop CS3

2008-04-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Watch this video tutorial to find out how you can create a gold text effect in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Realistic Hair Color Changing With Adobe Photoshop

2008-04-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

An easy way to change hair color using Photoshop Use this method to realistically change the hair color in your photos

Photoshop CS3 Create Flaming Text video Tricks

2008-04-28T08:34:00.001-07:00

Create nice looking Flaming Text with a easy step by step tutorial

Tutorial: Camera RAW How To Get Great Photos Using Photoshop CS3

2008-04-28T08:26:00.001-07:00

Use Camera RAW to create nice photos
this tutorial will show you how.

Drawing Attention to Your Subject's Eyes in Photoshop CS3

2008-04-28T08:09:00.001-07:00

A Tutorial showing you how to draw attention to the eyes in a photo.

Teeth Whitening Tutorial WITH Photoshop CS3

2008-04-28T08:06:00.001-07:00

Learn how to create whiter teeth using this easy method in Photoshop CS3

Photoshop CS3 Creating Actions Video Tutorial

2008-04-27T02:37:00.001-07:00

Save Hours of time use "ACTIONS"
Automate Photoshop CS3 workflow by creating Actions. When you create an Action, you record steps, which can be played back later. Learn to stop wasting time by doing repetitive tasks.

Animating Layers in Photoshop CS3 Extended

2008-04-27T02:26:00.001-07:00

Join Adobe Certified Instructor Chad Perkins as he guides you through the new world of animation inside Photoshop CS3 Extended

Easy Tips for Adobe Photoshop CS3

2008-04-27T01:12:00.001-07:00

Shadow Highlight Adjustment layer
Shadow Highlight is a great adjustment for bringing back some of the areas that have become plugged up in our photos. The good thing about this adjustment is that we don’t lose any of the detail in the midtones. Perhaps your disappointed because its still not an adjustment layer. Don’t worry because if has that exact functionality with a little workaround. Make your layer a smear object and now apply Shadow Highlight as a Smart Filter. You now have a re-editable Shadow Highlight. This also works for the Variations Adjustment

Hide and seek
Have you gotten used to the new interface yet? Heres’s a tip that will make you love it. As you probably already know, pressing the Tab key will hide all the palettes. Ok you knew that, so it’s not the tip, here’s the tip. If you roll your mouse to the left or right edge of the screen, the palettes will pop out for your use. Make your selection and then roll back to your image and the palettes will disappear again.

Auto Collapse
Here’s another tip to help you love the new interface. Have you noticed that when your in icon mode (everything is minimized) and you expand a palette to choose it’s option, it stays open and now you have to make an extra step to close it? Right click anywhere in the palettes and choose Auto Collapse Icon Palettes. Now when you choose an option and then click in your document, the palette will automatically collapse closed again.

B&W drag to change color
The best way to convert a color photo to Black and White is to use the new Black and White Adjustment. While using this adjustment, you don't need to quess which colors belong to which tones. Drag your mouse over the image and the underlying tone will adjust.

Open JPG in RAW
I’m sure that all the cool new options in Camera Raw haven’t gone unnoticed to you. Don’t you wish that these options were available to all images? Good news, they are. You can now open Jpg and Tiff formats inside Camera Raw and make use of the tools. Right Click on the Image in Bridge and choose: Open In Camera Raw. The jpg or tiff is now open in Camera Raw ready for all the cool tools. Remember though, if you want to take full advantage of the Raw tools, you should shoot in Raw on your camera.

Flashy Bridge
Have you noticed how nice and cool Bridge is now? I know this is a Photoshop Magazine, but as I’m also a Flash Fanatic and Flash is now an Adobe app, I have to say it! The coolest thing in Bridge is that you can now preview swf files. Ok here’s a killer tip. The swfs actually work! You can run them inside Bridge and not have to guess what file does what anymore.

Zooming the Loupe in Bridge
Did you know that Bridge now has a loupe tool. This tool is suspiciously like a little brother to the loupe in Apples Aperture. (Alright then, a very little brother). Click on the thumbnail and you will see a zoomed in loupe. Drag across the thumbnail to change position. Click the plus and minus keys to zoom in or out.

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GENERAL PHOTOSHOP TIPS

Draw straight lines
There are other ways to draw a straight line than using the line tool. After this tip, you may find your need to reach for the line tool reduced, in fact this may even break your addiction. While using any of the drawing tools; Brushes, Pencil, Dodge and Burn, Eraser, Blur, Sharpen and Smudge holding down the shift key will cause you to draw in a perfectly straight line either vertical or horizontal. An added feature will let you create straight lines between points by clicking, Hold down shift and click again anywhere to join the 2 points.

Easy loading of Layer Styles
Start Photoshop> Open your email program if they were emailed to you or navigate to their files on the hard disk> right click/Option Click, then select open and the style set will be loaded automatically

Closing Multiple windows
How long would it take you to close all these documents in Photoshop? Just hold down the shift key when you go File>close and Photoshop will close all the open documents.

Want to use RGB Filters while working in CMYK?

As you know some filters like the render filters are disabled in CMYK. Here is a neat tip, work in RGB mode with CMYK preview turned on. CTRL/CMD+Y build your file as normal then when you are finised, convert it to CMYK. This will allow all the filters to work, give you a smaller file size to work on (used 1/4 less memory) and you won't "lose" your colors when you convert it. Only use CMYK for going to a commercial printing press.

Custom Gradients Made Easy
When you are making a new color gradient and you want to use the same color more than once, don't recreate it. Just hold down the option/Alt key and drag a copy of the slider.

Quick Color Change

To change the color of an image: press Cmd/Ctrl+U this will open the hue/saturation dialog box, slide the hue slider to change the color. Use the saturation to adjust color intensity. Brightness, to adjust... well the brightness. Click on colorize to add color to a grayscale image or to add a "duotone effect to a RGB/CMYK image. I also like to use the hue/saturation to restore some luster to an image after converting for RGB to CMYK

(L) Before and (R) after using the colorize box.

Selection Tips
To constrain a selection to a perfect circle or square hold down the shift key.
To start drawing from the center hold the Alt/Option key.
Ever find that you started drawing a selection and you need to move it while you are drawing? No problem, just hold the spacebar and drag.

Reset Preferences
A lot of Photoshop problems can be fixed by dumping the preferences file: While launching Photoshop, Hold down Alt+Ctrl+shift on the PC or Cmd+Option+Shift on the mac. When asked to reset the preferences say yes.
Before you do this, save your custom Patterns, actions, styles, brushes, gradients, shapes and color pallettes. These will also be reset. Tip: You can create an action to do this, so you have a one click backup! (Don't forget to save the backup action first)

Make a new Document from a layer
Under the layers pallete, when you hit duplicate layer, you can change the document setting to "New" to create a brand new picure from any layer.I wish I knew about this one a few years ago!

Reducing file sizes and speeding up large images,
Even what you can't see, is effecting your file sizes. If you have imported an image that is larger than your canvas size. Select all and crop. You will be surprised how much you can save. Also delete unwanted layers, they can add up a lot too.

Cloning Vat
Whenever you want to duplicate an image on a layer, (eg. you are putting star-bursts everywhere) Just hold the Alt/Option key and drag.. zap, a duplicate. To keep it aligned, also hold down the shift key as you drag.

Color Modes and formats
For the web use RGB and save as a jpeg if its a photo. If you want tranparency, use gif or png. If you need animation save as a gif. For print use CMYK and save as either a tiff or an eps. For most print purposes 300dpi. To print to an inkjet only, RGB and 300 dpi.

Straight Lines with brushes.
To draw a straight line with any of the brush tools just click, hold the shift key and click again anywhere. A straight line will be drawn between the 2 points! Also works with most tools including erasers and even the highlight tool in the Extract filter.

Quick Black and White
If you press Ctl/Cmd+Shift+U all the color will be removed from the selection. If no selection is made, then the entire layer will be turned into grayscale instantly.