..:::Adobe Photoshop Tutorials:::..

Sharpen Blurry Image

2009-10-02T17:46:00.000+05:00

How to make a colorful abstract background

2009-08-27T16:13:00.000+06:00

Golden Glow Effect

2009-07-28T13:36:00.009+06:00

This tutorial will teaches you how to create Golden Glow Effect.

Step 1: First open an image.

Step 2: Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl+J. Click add layer mask button from the bottom of the layer palette.

Step 3: Select the mask thumbnail if not selected. Go to Image> Apply Image and use these settings:

Step 4: Now go to Filter> Noise> Median and set the radius 7.

Step 5: Go to Filter> Stylize> Find Edges.

Step 6: Now go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and apply these settings:

Step 7: Change the layer blending mode to 'Linear Light' and Opacity to '70%'.

Step 8: Duplicate the only Image layer (not with mask layer, if mask layer duplicate with image layer, delete the mask layer).
Go to Filter> Render> Lighting and apply these settings:

Step 8: Set the new duplicated layer blending mode to 'Overlay' and Opacity to '70%'.

Make Gothic Picture [Best Photo Effect]

2009-07-08T11:34:00.011+06:00

To get started, pick a picture you want to manipulate, or use this same one.

1. Use the tool named Dodge Tool to get a whiter effect over the skin. You can find it in the left tool bar.

I usually use that tool in a %45 exposure.

2. Now we will desaturate the skin color with the Sponge Tool also in the left tool bar. %100 flow.

Look for it in the same place where the Dodge Tool is, you just have to click over it, and you will see another two options hidden in the same place. (my english sucks, I know it, but try to follow…)

Now that the skin looks dead enough, will work on the eyes.

3. Now pick the Dodge Tool again, and apply it over the eyes.

4. Pick a color you like for the eyes. I like light blue…

Use the color with an opacity of %18, we don't want to lose all the little details of the eye.

5. If you want to add more light to the eye, use a regular brush, white color, and select Mode: Color Dodge %35 opacity.

Like this…

6. Now the make up…

Black color, opacity %18, and apply it around the eye a few times. Darker in the center, and softer on the edges.

7. You can also work on the mouth with the Burn Tool also placed below the Dodge Tool.
This tool is very good when you need to add shadows or you want something to look darker. Also, don't forget to use the Blur Tool to correct the skin, and make it look softer and silky.

Color Correction with Levels

2009-06-29T12:53:00.004+06:00

Here is this video tutorial you learn how you can fix the color of your Picture using Level's Adjustment Layer..

Bring Colour and Light out of Ordinary Image

2009-05-22T13:24:00.017+06:00

Step 1
Load a photo of your choice into Photoshop. Here is mine..

After loading your photo, duplicate the background layer five times:

Then hide the top 4 layers and leave just the “Background copy” layer visible.

Step 2

On the “Background copy” layer, hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Tool and apply the following settings:

Then change the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” with an opacity of 60%, and you will have the following image:

Step 3

Un-hide the “Background copy 2″ layer and select it, hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift key to bring up the Black and White image adjustment tool and apply the following settings:

(Please note the settings may be different if you use your own photo, but the idea is to put more emphasis toward certain colours in the image and bring them out a bit more)

Change the layer blending mode to “Soft Light” with an opacity of 70%.

The effect so far will look like this:

Step 4

Now we can some more exposure to the image. Un-hide the “Background Copy 3″ layer and select it, go to Image > Adjustments > Exposure and apply the following settings:

Then change the layer blending mode to “Color” and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Un-hide the “Background copy 4″ layer and select it, go to Image > Mode > Lab Color and change the image mode to LAB.

The go the Channel Palette and select the “lightness” channel:

Then hit Ctrl + L to bring up the level adjustment tool, apply the following settings:

Change the image mode back to RGB mode. When you’re prompted to flatten the image, choose “Don’t Flatten”.

Change to layer blending option to “Soft Light” with an opacity of 50% and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we can add some extra soft light onto the image.

Un-hide “Background layer 5″ and select it, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode to “Screen” with an opacity of 60% and you will have the following image:

Step 7

This is an optional step. As you can see after several layer blendings, the mountain on the right has become a black spot without any tree to be seen. We can bring the trees back by using the dodge tool.

Duplicate the background layer once more and put the duplicated layer just above the background layer, but beneath any other layer.

Hit “o” key to select the dodge tool, apply the following settings:

Brush over the mountain until the trees are back.

You can reduce the layer opacity a bit to get a better result, also adjust the brush size for the dodge tool if necessary.

And here is the final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Remember you can always use the layer blending modes, curve/level tools and blur filter to bring out light and contrast for your image.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Many Thanks to www.psdvault.com

Photo To Line Drawing

2009-05-15T14:45:00.002+06:00

This Video will show how to turn a photo into a drawing and adding a lil jazz to the image.

Photoshop professional retouching techniques

2009-05-04T09:43:00.017+06:00

Today I will walk you through some easy techniques that will help you bring a photo to life. We will perform some basic and natural retouching and learn some new techniques along the way. In this tutorial I am using Photoshop CS 3 (for PC).

Step 1
Open up the photo and use the crop tool to leave out the free space from the left that we don’t need.

Step 2
Now we are ready to start retouching the photo .We always start with the skin. So let’s smooth out the little imperfections. The Spot Healing Brush is perfect for that. Just select it and click on the problem areas.

Step 3
Use the the Clone Stamp tool for the wrinkles located under the eyes. Hit 3 on the keyboard so that you are using a 30% opacity and make sure the effect is subtle. We don’t want to go to far.

Step 4
And now for the smoothing of the skin we will use Color Range. Go to Select/Color Range and click on any area of the skin , keep the Shift key pressed to continue adding tones until you have something similar to this. A fuzziness of 85 is OK for this case.

Step 5
With the skin selected click Ctrl + J to copy the selection on its own new layer. Go to Filters/Blur/Gaussian Blur and give it a 2.0 Radius. Click OK.

So we’re done with the skin. And that was the trickiest part because it requires a lot of attention. Good job!

Step 6
Create a new layer and set the mode to Overlay and zoom in on the eyes. Using white as your foreground color, choose a soft brush with an 8 px size and brush on the light areas of the eyes. Reduce the opacity of the Layer to about 20 %.

Step 7
Let’s bring some color into the eyes. There are many ways to do that but today we will use color overlay . So make sure the overlay layer is selected go to layer styles and use the following settings:

Step 8
Create another layer. Change its mode to Soft Light choose Black as your color and brush again on the eyes , but this time focus on the darker areas.

Reduce the opacity of this layer to 20 %.
As you may have noticed the effects we used are very subtle . You always have to be careful when retouching a photo and make sure you use subtle effects to avoid an artificial look.

Step 9
Create a new layer on top of all the others. Change the mode to Soft Light. Choose a peach color for the lips (I’ve used # b35046) and paint on the lips with a soft brush. Reduce the opacity to 75 %.

Step 10
Use the same color but with a substantially larger brush to paint on the cheeks to give them a little color. Make sure you do this on a different layer with a Soft Light mode.

Lower the opacity to 15%.

Step 11
Before the final touches let’s make the shawl around the girl’s neck more appropriate with the whole picture. This is a good chance to learn a new and very useful technique. This will make your retouching job much easier. So just create a new hue and saturation adjustment layer.

From the Edit Menu choose Blues and push the saturation to 65. You see how the color just pops, and we are only affecting the blue tones in our photos, as simple as that.

Step 12
And now we are ready for the final touches.

Create a new adjustment layer on top of all the other… but this time choose Curves. We want to bring a little more red tones and yellows to the skin, to complete our natural look.

So on your Curves Menu first choose the red channel and bring the curve up a little perform the following settings.
Next, pick the blue channel and bring the curve down for some yellow tones. You can play around with the settings.

Search for the effect that better suites you. The Curves Adjustment Layer offers you infinite possibilities.
And you are about done! Hope you’ve find it useful and I’ll see you next time.

Many Thanks to designioustimes.com

Diffusion Glow Effect for your Pictures

2009-04-10T13:36:00.009+05:00

Here i will show you how you make Diffusion Glow Effect on your own Pictures and look beautifull.

Step 1: First open any image.

Step 2: Duplicate the layer, go to Layer> Duplicate or press Ctrl+J and change the blending mode of the new layer to Screen.

Step 3: Now add a layer mask to the top layer so go to Layer> Add Layer Mask> Reveal All.

Step 4: Make sure the layer mask is activated. The thumbnail of the layer mask in the layer window should have a white border around it. If it does not, click on the thumbnail to activate the layer mask.

Step 5: With the layer mask activated, go to Image> Apply Image and use these settings:

Your Image looks like:

Step 6: Click on the thumbnail of the top layer to deactivate the layer mask. With the top layer selected, go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur. Make sure that the preview checkbox is checked and increase the radius slider until the desired effect is achieved.

Step 7: We need to add another layer mask but Photoshop will only allow one raster layer mask per layer. To get around this, we will simply group the layer so go to Layer> Group Layers or press Ctrl+G and add a layer mask go to Layer> Layer Mask> Reveal All, to the new group created.

Step 8: Click on the thumbnail of the new layer mask. With the layer mask selected, use the Apply Image so go to Image> Apply Image tool to apply the entire image to the layer mask and apply these settings:

Here's is the Final Result!:

Photo Negative Effect

2009-04-01T13:45:00.006+05:00

Here's a quick and easy way to convert your photographs in photo negative effect.

Step 1: First open any image in photoshop.

Step 2: Go to Image> Adjustment> Invert or press Ctrl + I.

Step 3: Go to Image> Adjustment> Desaturate or press Ctrl+Shift+U.

Step 4: Go to Image> Adjustment> Hue/Saturation or press Ctrl+U and apply these settings:

Step 5: In the final step go to Image> Adjustment> Shadows/Highlights and apply these settings:

Here's is the Final Result!:

Make a photo more contrastive

2009-03-17T11:09:00.009+05:00

Make a photo more contrastive

This tutorial will show you how to turn a normal image into a contrastive one!

Step 1: First download the original photo below:

Step 2: Next we use some popular tools to adjust its contrast and brightness like Curves tool (Image>Adjustments>Curves)

and Color Balance (Image>Adjustments>Color Balance) with these settings:

Our photo now looks like this:

Step 3:Duplicate your photo (Ctrl-J) and go to File>Blur>Gaussian Blur and choose a radius of 2 pixels to blur this layer a bit

Step 4: Then from the Layers tab, change the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light

And your photo will become more contrastive like the photo below:

This method is commonly used to emphasize something you want on a photo by making it more contrastive with the background. The model now looks lovely and lively!

Blue Glow Portrait Effect

2009-03-04T14:05:00.014+05:00

Before:

After:

The first, open an image file as below:

Duplicate it twice, set the new layer to screen 25% & set soflight 40% for the other.

Create a new layer and put it on top. Fill color #fff200 and set softlight 41%

Now duplicate the background image.
Select the new one and go to Image > Adjustment > Selective Color

Settings like this:
Red: -100. -4. +3. +100
Yellow: -81. +10. -18. 0
Neutrals: +40. -7.-36.-20

You've got this:

Selective color again with another option:

Red: -81.+29.+17.0
Yellow: +100.-55.0.0
Neutrals: +57.+9.-6.0

Your result:

Last selective Color settings:

Red: -15.0.0.0
Yellow: -39.+41.0.0
Neutrals: +20.0.+10.0

Now go to Images> Adjustment > Color Balance:

M: +35.+15.+32
S: +8.+4.+27
H: -8.+8.-7

This is what you'll get:

Now press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E. Put this new layer on top and set it Multiply, then reduce opacity to 26%

Choose Elliptical Marquee tool to make selection

Then fill color #FFFFFF for it.
Go to Select > Feather > Feather Radius: 20. Press Ok

Then press Del:

Now create more bubbles by duplicate layer & use free transform:

You can use original brushes to decorate your artwork.

This is the final result:

Blissful Glow

2009-02-13T11:17:00.012+05:00

Add a blissful glow to the highlights of a photo. This effect works well with portraits.

Bloom Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open an image to edit.

Step 2

Duplicate the layer (Layer> Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J) and change the blending mode of the new layer to Screen.

1. Add a layer mask to the top layer (Layer> Layer Mask> Reveal All). Make sure that the layer mask is selected.

Step 3

Use the Apply Image tool to apply the Background layer to the layer mask. To do this, open the Apply Image tool (Image> Apply Image) and change the Layer to Background and click OK.

Step 4

Hold the Alt key and click on the thumbnail of the layer mask.

Step 5

With the layer mask still activated, use the Threshold tool (Image> Adjustments> Threshold) and adjust the slider to define where the bloom Photoshop effect will be visible.

Adjusting the Effect
We're now ready to edit the effect. This section is where we'll see the bloom effect in action.

Step 6

Click on the thumbnail of the layer (not its layer mask) to deactivate the layer mask.

Step 7

Open the Gaussian Blur filter (Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur). Ensure that Preview is enabled and increase the radius to achieve your desired effect.

Step 8

Inside the Layers pallet, click on the thumbnail of the layer mask to activate. Use the eraser tool (E) to erase the bloom Photoshop effect wherever you do not want the effect to appear. Use the brush tool (B) to add areas where you would like the effect to appear. To start, use a brush or eraser with a low hardness and an opacity of around 50%.
{mostip image=tipon}Press the "[" and "]" keys to adjust the size of the brush quickly.{/mostip}

Final Results

Convert a Real Photograph into Comic Book Photograph

2009-01-20T12:40:00.011+05:00

Step 1: open any picture in Photoshop you feel right for this effect.

Step 2: Duplicate copy of the Background by Selecting the Duplicate Layer Option from the Layer Menu. We do this just in case any mistake is done then we do not end up ruining the original Image.

Step 3: Now Increase the brightness of the photograph by select the option Shadow/Highlight from the image menu as shown in the screenshot below.

In the Shadow/Highlight Dialog box take the shadow slider to 100% to fully brighten up the image.

Step 4: Go to the Filter menu and select the Find Edges menu, this option will convert the Photograph into an image given below.

Step 5: Using the Fade Find Edges option in the Edit menu we will get the desired effect.

In the Fade Find Edges Dialog box change the Mode Menu to Luminosity from Normal and move the Opacity Slider till you get the desired effect.

The Final Image is given below.

How to create light beams with Photoshop

2008-12-24T18:12:00.016+05:00

Do you want to create some awesome light beams with ONLY Adobe Photoshop? It’s very easy to do with this tutorial. I’ll show you how to create a nice piece of art with any image you like. This is a “get started” tutorial, just for the basics. If you start experimenting, you get a lot of cool effects with this technique. Ok, let’s go!

Step 1: The beginning

Search on the Internet for a nice photo or use one of your own.
I used a photo of Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet from Heroes). I suggest to take a high-res image, because it’s much easier to erase the background. That said, open Photoshop and click on file -> open to open your image. To free the object from the background, I used the Polygonal lasso tool and the Eraser tool.

Use whatever suits you.

I suggest you know how to free an image from the background in Photoshop, if not, there are plenty tutorials out there to show you how to do that.

After you did this, go to file -> new and make a new document with the size you like.
I used a 1024 x 768 px with a resolution of 72 p/inch. Now copy and paste the image
(without background) in the new document and position and scale it to make it look right! I scaled it down and positioned it a little to the right. Now fill the background with a nice bright color, I used an orange tint (#ffb61a).

Step 2: Tune the image

The imported image doesn’t seem right and looks fake. That’s because the original picture doesn’t have a lot of orange color. We’re going to change that so it fits better. Duplicate your image by left click on the layer and move it to the “new” icon below it.

Now select the image above the original one and go to filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur.
Blur it as much as you don’t see any details anymore. I used 5 pixels.

Go to your layer blending mode and click on “Overlay”. Use an Opacity of about 50%.

Looks much better doesn’t it? Now right click on your original photo and to go
blending options. Click on drop shadow and use these settings:

Step 3: The light beams

Ok now get ready for the great light beams Create a new layer, move it behind the photo and use your Line Tool (U) to draw a line diagonal.

I used 18 px weight with a somewhat lighter color then the background.
Now go to Edit -> Transform -> Warp and start moving the verticies until you get a cool shape out of it.

Repeat this step 3 times. Color all the lines with the color you like.
I used some darker and brighter orange colors. Now you could duplicate those 3 layers and mirror it so it looks like you have 6 different lines.

Step 4: Polar Coordinates

For this step, you have to copy all the layers (so you keep the original ones) and merge the new layers together. Then go to filter -> distort -> polar coordinates.
Use Rectangular to Polar.

Now you have to position and rotate the layer so that it looks like
the beams come from your image.To make the effect looks more 3d, I duplicated
the original straight layers in Photoshop and place it above the image layer so you create a fake depth.

Step 5: Finishing

To make the final image, I created some smoke and warp effects with the brush tool and made some lightning effects. Of course there is a lot you can do to make this a lot better but I hope you get the idea of this tutorial. Click on the image below to view it full size. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment so I know all my work wasn’t for nothing. Thanks again!

Retouch A Girl with Lighting Focus

2008-12-17T17:43:00.012+05:00

This tutorial will show you how to use lighting effect to emphasize her face, skin and hair. Before that, some nice tips for retouching will be mentioned

Before we start, let's have a look at what we'll be retouching:

Before:

And after:

Download the original image and we are ready to go!

Step 1:

The original photo is a bit dark and her skin is not bright and lovely enough. In this case, we can use Channel Mixer tool to enhance the colors separately. You can find this tool at the bottom of Layers tab

If you are new to this tool, I wish to explain more about it. As you knew, a photo is based on three main colors (in RGB mode): red, green and blue. With the Channel Mixer tool, you can manipulate these raw channels separately. Notice that when choosing Channel Mixer tool, you will see there are 3 options in the Output Channel drop-down box corresponding to 3 main colors. And you can also notice that with each main color, the slider of that color will always be set to 100%, by default. For example, when you choose Red from Output Channel, you can see the Red slider are at 100% (while Blue and Green are at 0%). And by moving these sliders left or right, you can decrease or increase the amount of that color in the corresponding Output Channel.

With this photo, we should mainly increase the amount of Green with the settings below:

Our photo now looks better

Step 2:

Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to create a flatten image which is the result of the under layers. In this step, we will smooth her skin a bit by going to Filter>Blur>Surface Blur, set the Radius of 2 pixels and Threshold of 4 pixels

Maybe you will not see any big changes but let's have a closer look...

Before:

After blurring:

By using this tool with a small Radius and Threshold, you can make subtle changes without making it look fake

Step 3:

Go to Image>Adjustments>Curves to brighten our photo a bit

We are almost done, the photo now looks much better:

Step 4:

The last thing we need to do is to add lighting focus to emphasize her beautiful face. Press Ctrl-J to duplicate the current layer and go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects and use these settings:

Then change the Blending mode of this layer to Soft Light to make the colors "softer". Let's have a look at the result again:

Retouching photo is fun! And with the Channel Mixer tool and Lighting Effects filter, we can greatly enhance the photo from its raw color channels and set focus on what we want without destroying the original image.

Adobe Photoshop Every Tool Explained

2008-11-25T16:12:00.004+05:00

Every Tool Explained. There are 130 pages which are full of projects and tips on how to use Photoshop easily and how to get the best out of one of the best photo imaging programs out there.

Subjects covered in the book include:
Selection Tools in Photoshop:
Navigating and Editing Your Images
Using the Brushes and Pencil Tools
Using the Cloning and Healing Tools
The Gradient, Eraser and Fill Tools
Getting to Know the Effects Tools
Working with the Type Tool
Working with Paths, Vectors and Masks
Annotations, Notes and the Measure Tool
Creating Top Quality Artwork

Download Code:
http://rapidshare.com/files/166590495/APSExplained-www.warezwitch.com-.rar

Password:
www.warezwitch.com

Portrait Retouching Techniques

2008-11-03T14:05:00.011+05:00

Before:

After:

The first, you open a picture that you want to retouch, in this tutorial I used this picture:

Zoom out the picture, select Healing brush tool (J)

Hold Alt and click on a smooth skin area. Then click on her moles

Now, go to Filter -> Distort -> Diffuse glow and apply these settings

Select Blur tool (R) and set properties as shown below:

Drag the blur tool over the face, leaving eyes and lips.

Select Burn tool (O), drag the tool over the eyebrow and eyelash

Select the eyes area and press Ctrl+B to open Color Balance, set properties like this:

Now, select soft feather brush. Set the foreground color to #7A2747. Set the opacity to 5% and drag the brush over the eyelid

Select Burn tool (O), drag the tool over the lips

And you will get the final result:

Easy Soft Focus Lens Effect

2008-10-07T10:31:00.018+06:00

Written By Steve Patterson

Here's the photo I'll be using in this tutorial:

And here's how it will look with the soft focus effect applied:

Let's get started!

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

With our image newly opened in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have one layer named Background. This layer contains our original image:

We need to make a copy of the Background layer. There's a few different ways to make a copy of a layer in Photoshop, but by far the fastest and easiest way is to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Photoshop creates a copy of the Background layer for us, names it "Layer 1", and places it directly above the original Background layer in the Layers palette:

Step 2: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter To The New Layer

To create the soft focus effect, we need to blur the new layer. For that, we can use one of the most popular filters in all of Photoshop, Gaussian Blur. Make sure you have "Layer 1" selected in the Layers palette (selected layers are highlighted in blue), then go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur:

This brings up the Gaussian Blur dialog box. To control the amount of blurring that's applied to the layer, drag the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box while keeping an eye on your image in the document window. Dragging the Radius slider to the right will increase the amount of blurring, and dragging to the left decreases the amount of blurring. What you're trying to do here is blur the entire photo without blurring it to the point where you can no longer make anything out in the image. I'm going to set my Radius value to around 12 pixels, which works well for the image I'm using. Of course, each image is unique, and the Radius value you end up using may be different:

Click OK when you're done to apply the blurring to the layer and exit out of the Gaussian Blur dialog box. Here's my image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter:

Step 3: Lower The Opacity Of The Blurred Layer

At the moment, the blurring is much too intense. Instead of a soft focus effect, we've recreated how the world might look to someone who needs glasses. We need to reduce the amount of blurring and bring back some of the original image. To do that, all we need to do is lower the opacity value of the blurred layer. You'll find the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette. With "Layer 1" still selected, lower the opacity value of the layer down to somewhere between 50-60%. I'm going to lower mine to 50%:

The blurring is now more subtle:

Step 4: Add A Layer Mask

At this point, the basic soft focus effect is complete, but let's fine-tune things by bringing back a little more of the original detail to certain parts of the photo, specifically the two people's faces and the flower bouquet. Photoshop makes this easy to do thanks to layer masks.

First, let's add a layer mask. With "Layer 1" still selected, click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Nothing will appear to have happened yet in the document window, but a layer mask thumbnail has now been added to "Layer 1" in the Layers palette:

Step 5: Select The Brush Tool

Select Photoshop's Brush Tool from the Tools palette, or simply press the letter B to access it with the keyboard shortcut:

Step 6: Lower The Opacity Of The Brush To Around 25%

We're going to paint with black on the layer mask to reduce the amount of blurring in certain areas, but we don't want to remove the blurring completely. We just want to reduce it, which means we'll need to lower the opacity of our brush. With the Brush Tool selected, the Options Bar at the top of the screen changes to show options specifically for the Brush Tool. One of those options is Opacity, similar to the opacity option we just looked at in the Layers palette except that in this case, we're affecting the brush opacity, not the layer opacity. Lower the brush opacity down to around 25%:

Step 7: Set Your Foreground Color To Black

We want to paint with black, which means we need to set our Foreground color to black. By default, whenever you have a layer mask selected, Photoshop sets the Foreground color to white, with black as the Background color. To swap them so black becomes the Foreground color, simply press the letter X on your keyboard. If we look at the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette now, we can see that black is the Foreground color (the top left swatch):

Step 8: Paint Over The Areas Where You Want To Bring Back More Detail

With the Brush Tool selected, black as the Foreground color, and the brush opacity lowered to 25% or so, simply paint over any areas where you want to bring back more of the original image detail. You can change the size of your brush using the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard, which are located to the right of the letter P. The left bracket key makes the brush smaller, while the right bracket key makes it larger. You'll want to use a soft-edge brush, and you can control the edge hardness of the brush by holding down the Shift key and pressing the left and right bracket keys. Press Shift+left bracket a few times to make the edges softer, or Shift+right bracket a few times to make the edges harder.

I'm going to paint over the bride and groom's faces with my brush to bring back some detail. If, after painting over an area once, you find you could still bring back a bit more detail, simply release the mouse button, then click and paint over the same area again. You'll need to make sure you release your mouse button before you paint over the same area again, otherwise it won't work:

I'll paint a couple of times over the flower bouquet as well to bring back some detail, and I'll leave the rest of the image alone so that only the most important areas of the photo are in focus. Or at least, they're more in focus than anything else. If we look at the layer mask thumbnail again in the Layers palette, we can see the areas where I painted with black:

And with that, we're done! Here is my final "soft focus" effect result:

Why Colors are King | Color Theory

2008-09-19T11:48:00.003+06:00

Author: Brian McGregor

You may not realize it, but many of your website visitors form an immediate opinion about you and your website. The opinion that is formed in this instantaneous way is done so subconsciously. You might wonder why this happens. It has absolutely nothing to do with the text on your website. And yet your visitor will still form their instant opinion without even reading a single word of your costly copy.

It doesn't matter either, whether the quality of the images on your website are of the highest. Nor does your offer matter. You could be promoting a sensational deal, like selling dollars for dimes. But this too, will be overlooked by the site visitor. This is because the instant opinion is made when your web page is displayed to your visitor. You may have guessed there is something subliminal at work here. In a way, that is right. Immediate opinions are formed by visitors to every single website. This may surprise you, but the answer is colors. Your visitor's instant opinion of your website is primarily due to the color scheme which you have used.

This is because colors are psychological. They engender an intuitive reaction which we can't control. We can't help ourselves. Colors bring us these emotions and feelings whether we want them or not! As you will know, millions are spent by big companies in deciding the correct colors of new products and in their marketing campaigns. Big companies realize that colors are a psychological feature, and they can influence our reception of their marketing. In their business propositions, the big companies understand that the use of appropriate colors is a key element. What webmasters have to realize, and this can be very important, is that the same color psychology applies to our web pages.

By the psychological power you could encourage your website visitors to leave your page the instant they see it. No matter what your website is about, it may simply be unsuccessful due to the colors you're using. Forget the text, it might never be read! The good news, however, is that you can use colors to engender a really positive reaction. This color psychology is nothing new. In fact, it's been with us for years and years. Whatever our role in life, colors convey emotions to our subconscious mind.

For example, a particular color scheme could convey a good feeling in each of us. However, a different color scheme might convey not so good feelings. In essence, you might send a sense trust, warmth and belonging. Conversely, the feeling sent may be one of distrust, coolness and rejection. The following list gives an idea of the emotions associated with their respective colors:

Red Excitement, energy, danger, love, leadership, sense of power, strength etc

Orange Comfort, steadfastness, cheerfulness, courage, confidence, playfulness, friendliness etc

Yellow Curiosity, brightness, organization, intelligence, joy, amusement, caution etc

Green Harmony, nature, money, healing, health, life, food etc

Blue Trustworthiness, stability, peace, tranquility, love, acceptance, patience etc

Purple Nobility, dignity, independence, royalty, luxury, ambition, wisdom etc

Brown Reliability, nature, comfort, tribal, earthiness, durability, primitive etc

Black Sophistication, dramatic, power, formality, style, health, elegance etc

White Innocence, cleanliness, fresh, goodness, easy, simplicity, purity etc

When designing your web pages, you ideally need to ensure that the color scheme you use is consistent with your offering. The reason is that your visitors' subconscious minds will look to reconcile the color with the message. If they are irreconcilable, you will find your visitors click away from your page very quickly. Which means, your visitor will be lost. The important issue therefore is that it is essential the right color scheme is used on your website. If you do this, your website will produce the results you're looking for. In summary, the difference between the right and wrong color scheme on your website can be the difference between profit and loss.

Change Color with Hue/Saturation

2008-08-30T11:40:00.006+06:00

1. Open your image and duplicate its background layer.

2. Staying in the layer copy go to Image > Adjustment > Hue/Saturation

3. Check Colorize in the Hue/Saturation panel and adjust Hue and Saturation until you have the color you want in the desired place of the image (Hue will change color, Saturation - its intensity). Don't bother about the rest of the image, we will deal with it in the next step.

4. Add a layer mask to the layer with modified color and choose a round soft brush. With the foreground color set to black start masking the parts of the image you don't want to be colorized.

5. You can correct what you are doing at any time by changing the foreground color to white and revealing the masked part.

6. After masking is done you can regulate the intensity of the color by changing the layer opacity. I set it to 66%.

If the layer is retained for further use in a .psd file you can change the color of your object to any other at any moment.

Photo to Illustration (Quick Vector Art)

2008-08-04T11:46:00.004+06:00

I am going to show you that is quick and easy way to convert a picture in illustration vector effect. Here we go!

Step 1: First I will start with an image.

Step 2: Duplicate the Background layer.

Step 3: Now apply the Cutout filter (Filter => Artistic => Cutout). On the left side the amount of detail in the vector can be controlled by adjusting the Number of Levels, Edge Simplicity and Edge Fidelity sliders. For this example I am using 5 levels, with the Edge Simplicity set to 3 and Edge Fidelity set to 3. Click OK.

Step 4: You can trace the areas of color divided by the Cutout filter with the Poster Edges Filter. For this example the Edge Thickness is set to 2, Edge Intensity to 1 and Posterization to 4. Click OK.

Step 5: The color can be changed subtly with a Photo Filter adjustment layer.

Step 6: And finally, to add to the 'colored' effect, a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer will help take away the natural highlights/shadows even more.

Step 7: Here is my final vector image:

Fashion Retouching: Advanced Soft Focus

2008-07-26T11:03:00.003+06:00

In this tutorial I will showyou an old technique done in the digital age with much more precision and control. We will look at two techniques used in fasion retouching for a face and you will see on my example how each one looks. So let's get started!

I'm going to use an image I shot recently of Stasha. In case you are interested - this was shot with two flashes bounced off nearby walls and a soft gold reflector which you can see in the background. It was done for a group photography exhibition which opened recently in Slovenia.

Duplicate the existing layer (Ctrl+J) and go to filter/blur/gaussian blur. Don't copy the settings I have but try to mimic the relative effect (amount of blur) I got. Since the radius number relies on how big the image is you can't really use it as a always-works setting. Hit OK.

The next step is to set the opacity value to 50%. You can go lower (I usually go as low as 20%) but to make the effect apparent I am going to use this value. Leave the blending mode to normal at this point or try soft light.

Soft focusing makes the eyes lack detail and this might be a problem for a lot of photographers using film. With digital we can get over this problem by selectively masking out areas we want to attract more attention. In my case this was the lips and both eyes. I created a show-all layer mask and with a big soft brush clicked on the parts where I wanted focus to have a bit less effect.

This image has the same blur layer but this time the blending mode is set to screen and the layer mask is turned off (if it wasn't it would create a skull-like effect with dark outlines around the eyes). Personally I like this effect the most so I'm keeping it.

To add some extra spark to the image I have added a curves adjustment layer to brighten up her eyes a bit. And that's it, this concludes the fashion retouching tutorial, I hope you had a nice time. If you have any comments about it I would like to hear them either here as comments. Have a nice one!

Do you Know About RSS Feed?

2008-07-16T09:47:00.003+06:00

Author: Subhash Kumar

RSS is a format for syndicating content and metadata over the Internet. It is commonly used to share headlines and links to news articles. With news articles, the actual article isn't usually shared, but metadata about the article is; this metadata can include a headline, a URL, or a summary. RSS is an important tool for publishers because feeds can be used to syndicate content, and to integrate third-party content into your site.

Article about RSS Feeds; RSS is a form of eXtensible Markup Language or XML. Viewing an RSS feed in a web browser generally produces code that is not easy for website visitors to decipher. As a result, webmasters use tools to display the content contained in an RSS feed.

Benefit to the Webmaster:

As the web has become more crowded webmasters have been striving to provide fresh and up to date content for their website visitors. Many webmasters have discovered they can easily utilize the information in RSS feeds to provide fresh web content.

RSS Allows Webmasters:

Provide fresh and relevant content on their website, which encourages users to return.

Constantly changing content means that search engine spiders will visit more frequently.

Automate content delivery.

Benefit to Web Surfers:

The beauty of RSS is that readers can quickly scan headlines (titles) and read articles of interest. Because the information is condensed and provided in a single location users can generally review more information in a shorter time frame. Additional information is only a click away. Best of all readers choose the feeds they wish to see, there is no spam with RSS. If you are not completely thrilled with the content appearing in a feed simply remove it from the newsreader.

RSS Allows for Users:

Easily locate information.

Read condensced information or 'soundbytes' with clearly marked and dated topic material.

Classify and categorize information in an easy to navigate manner.

Maximize their time without having to deal with spam.

RSS feeds can be viewed in a news aggregator or reader, which constantly updates and shows unread feeds. I found the functionality of the newsreaders to be similar to a simple email client. Consumers generally enter the URL of any RSS feeds that interest them.

RSS Allows for Content Developer:

Increase exposure in niche markets.

Communicate with user bases and reach potential customers via an alternate communication method.

Disseminate relevant information.

Define themselves as an industry expert.

Automate content delivery.

RSS has effectively standardized the format for content delivery and has effectively defined the accepted standard for content distribution and syndication. RSS will likely rival email as a means of content distribution in another few years. The shear simplicity makes the technology very appealing.

How RSS is used:

A publisher has some content that they want to publicize.

They create an RSS channel for their content.

In this channel, they include items for Web pages they want to promote.

This channel can be read by remote applications, and converted to headlines and links. These links can be incorporated into new Web pages, or read in dedicated readers.

People see the links on various sites, click on them, and go to the original publisher's site.

While headline syndication is the most common use for RSS, it is also used for many other purposes. RSS is a very popular format in the weblog community. It's also used for photo diaries, classified ad listings, recipes, reviews, and for tracking the status of software packages.

Benefit of Using RSS:

RSS is an easy way for you to be alerted when content that interests you appears on your favorite Web sites. Instead of visiting a particular Web site to browse for new articles and features, RSS automatically tells you when something new is posted online. Click on the section title link to obtain the RSS URL, which you will see in the "Address" field of your browser. Simply copy this URL and follow the instructions for your particular news reader to subscribe.

Magnifying Glass

2008-07-07T13:25:00.007+06:00

1. In this tutorial I'll explain how you can create an image zoom effect using the magnifying glass. First of all you'll need a screenshot of something you want to magnify, in my case I searched for the word magnify on wikipedia and took a screenshot of it. Then I openened photoshop (edit - paste) on a new document (800*600).

2. Now you'll need a picture of a magnifying glass, below this second step you can download one or drag it on your document, it should already be transparent. Everything should look like the second picture for now…

3. Now select the inside area of the magnifying glass using your magic wand tool, that will become the part of the screenshot that we will magnify.

4. Now go to (edit - cut) and make sure you've selected the layer with your screenshot. After that just go to (edit - paste) to paste the selection which will be magnified! Everything should look like the previous step but now the magnified part will be on another layer.

5. After that it's time to shrink our screenshot layer. So select it and go to (edit - transform - scale). In the screenshot below you can see that I changed it with 25% to 75% instead of 100%. Please make sure you move the layer with the screenshot so that you can't see the part where we cut out the magnified piece.

6. This time we'll add a gaussian blur to the layer with the screenshot. Select it and go to (filter - blur - gaussian blur) with a radius of about 2px.

7. In this step we'll add some depth to our magnifying glass, so go ahead and select the right layer and add a drop shadow (layer - layer style - drop shadow). The settings I've used are shown in the image below.

8. Now select the layer you've cut out in step 4 and add an inner shadow (layer - layer style - inner shadow) with the following settings.

9. That's it, you've just created an image zoom effect using a magnifying glass! Here is my final result! You can download the .psd file if you have a problem or contact me!