Photoshop Tutorials

2007-10-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

I created my first tutorial just for a friend request, but then i started enjoying it, so i continue doing it whenever i have a free time.

TO VIEW THE TUTORIAL CLICK ON THE IMAGE

Text on Path

2007-10-20T19:33:00.005-07:00

Learn how to make a text follow a path created with the pen tool and other tools.

Create a new file, size doesn’t matter

Select the Pen Tool

Make sure you select the PATHS option.

Draw a path, any shape you want.

Click the Horizontal Type Tool(T)

Then move over the path, click when the pointer change like big letter I with a slash. As you can see on the picture below.

You should have something like this, you can hide the path by pressing Ctrl+H

You can also use this with the tools shown below

Using the Ellipse Tool(U), draw a circle, press the SHIFT key to maintain the perfect circle.

Now using the Horizontal Type Tool, click over the path in circle

Write your text and you’re through

How to Crop Audio Files using Audio Editor

2007-10-20T19:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we want to cut some Audio file, more often because we want to use it as a ring tone on our cell phone and maybe use it as a background music on our video file or just to use in our school cheering squad. Luckily we can use the WavePad editor, a simple but powerful audio editor. To download it Click here

Open the WavePad by double clicking it on the desktop.

Then click the OPEN FILE on the top right corner of the screen.

At the OPEN AUDIO FILE dialog box select the DRIVE where the audio files to be edited.

Then select the FOLDER, and finally the Audio file and click OPEN.

Wait until the LOADING AUDIO FILE finishes.

At the wave form window, the yellow line is the marker.

Wait until you reach where you want your audio file start, then click STOP button on the lower left corner of the screen. You can click the back button if you gone to far where you want the audio to start.

If you finally satisfied with the selection, RIGHT click anywhere on the screen, then click TRIM START.

Select again where you want the audio to end, then RIGHT click and this time select TRIM END.

When you’re done, you can now save the file, but use the SAVE FILE AS on the FILE menu, just to be sure that our original Audio file will not be overwritten.

Then rename it with another name, or add some specific remarks to the file.

But wait don’t hit the SAVE button yet, we have to select the format for our audio file, the default format is WAVE, but we can choose on the drop down menu by clicking on the little arrow on the right side of the SAVE AS TYPE box.

After selecting the file format you chooses you can now click the SAVE button and you’re done.

Masking Hair

2007-10-20T19:31:00.005-07:00

When you are presented with a subject that contains a complex outline, such as the human hair, the question is: how do you go about separating the hair from the background? More to the point, how can you do this convincingly without it looking like an obvious retouch job?

You need knowledge in using the pen tool and combining it with the use of vector masks. You will find out that it is an effective way of isolating a subject.

The best way is to make use of the existing color channel contents and to copy the information which is already there in the image and modify it to produce a new mask channel.

Preparing the image

If you want these techniques to work well you need to shot your model with a white background, but in any case you don’t have that kind of image just make some techniques to overcome the situation.

Since the photograph I used in this tutorial has a complex background and not white as I said earlier, I decided to use the color replacement tool to replace the color of the background, just to make sure that when I use the channel technique my image has a good contrast. But if you have a white background or a lighter shade you can skip this procedure.

Brush it on the area, it only replace the color with similar color in the middle of the circle with a + sign. Increase the brush size by pressing CTRL + and decrease using CTRL -.

Here’s the finish image using color replacement tool. I was only interested in the area where the hair is, I leave the other part, and we can do that later.

Keeping the edges soft

Retouched photographs will not look right if they feature ‘pixel-sharp’ edges. Softer masks usually make for a more natural looking finish. A mask derived from a path conversion will be too crisp, even if it is anti-aliased. So, either feather your selections or if you have a layer mask, try applying a little Gaussian blur. You might find it helpful to use the blur tool to locally soften mask edges. Or you could apply a global gaussian blur filtration to the mask.

Look at the individual color channel and duplicated the one that contained the most contrast. Duplicate by dragging it to the New Channel button in the Channel palette.

Now we needed to increase the contrast in the alpha channel and make the hair darker making use of the pixel information already present in the photograph.

Go to IMAGE menu and choose APPLY IMAGE, the target channel was the Green copy, the source channel was also Green copy and the blending mode had been set to Overlay.

To increase the contrast even more, we can use the paintbrush tool

Set it to Overlay mode and switch between using black and white as the foreground color. As you paint with black, paint is only applied to dark pixels, and with white, paint is only applied to the lighter pixels.

Be careful not to build up too much density on the outer hair strands. Use the opacity of the brush to control the density.

Using the pen tool trace the body to draw a path, then convert the pen path to a selection by dragging it to Make Selection button in the Path Palette, or just right click and choose Make Selection. Don't know how to use pen tool? Click here

Then fill the selection with black

Inverse the selection,

Then go to Layer palette and erase the background, just to be sure that the selection is clear, I do this using a large eraser brush. Leave the part that are near the hair

Return to the Mask selection, here’s what the selection looks like.

Load the Mask, click on the RGB of channel palette, then go to Layer channel, click the Add Layer mask

You can now copy the Mask image or you can inverse the selection and remove the background, either way you can use it to replace the background of the image.

Add the new layer and paste the new background, do some fine tuning if needed.

This is a very complex technique, it require some practice just to make it work perfect. You needed to develop your own technique to suites your need. You can even use the history brush to bring back some of the details that have been removed.

Finish layers

Whitening Teeth

2007-10-20T19:31:00.003-07:00

Here’s the perfect smile, but not so perfect image, as you can see that her teeth has a yellowish color, it’s now time to go to virtual dentist.

We need to select the part we want to whiten, let’s use the magic wand tool.

Zoom in a little so we can work better, you can do this by selecting the zoom tool in the tool box and drag the part you want to zoom in on, or you can press CTRL + to zoom in and CTRL – to zoom out.

Using the magic wand click on the area of the teeth.

Hold down the SHIFT key and click on to the other part of the teeth. As you can see on the image there are part of the teeth that wasn’t selected. We need some fine tuning to do.

We can use the quick mask to edit the selection.

In quick mask mode the black select the area, and white will deselect the area.

You can use the brush or eraser tool.

We can now draw on the area we want to select.

When you’re done, go back to the normal mode, click the icon on the left side of the quick mask.

Here is now the selection in normal mode.

On the layer tool click the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer.

Click the Hue/Saturation

In the Hue/Saturation box, move the slider of the Saturation in the middle, experiment on the value, too much will cause the image to darken.

Here’s now the finish image, that’s the painless tooth cleaning I’ve ever know.

Red eye removal

2007-10-20T19:31:00.001-07:00

Very common problems with flash photography is red eye, it happens when the flashes is too close to the camera. We are going to remove the red eye using two methods.

FIRST, we will use the so called Color Replacement Tool and is under the healing brush tool.

First we need to define which color we will use to replace. You can hold down the ALT key and click on the color you want to use.

Or you can set the foreground color in the Color Palette

Select the size of the brush to use, you can increase the brush size by pressing the right bracket ] key and decrease it by pressing left bracket [ key.

Or you can increase and decrease it by using the set diameter settings.

And that’s it, your image don’t have the red eye now.

SECOND method:

Let’s undo the all the previous changes we use.

Click on the CHANNEL tab, the select the RED channel.

Select the BURN tool, located under the dodge tool. Which going to darken everything.

Now change the brush size, then paint on the middle of the eye, what happen in the channel when we are in RGB mode, the lighter it is the more it applied, the darker the color is, the less it is applied.

Now click the RGB.

And the red eye is gone.

Change the Color of the Eye

2007-10-20T19:30:00.002-07:00

Sometime you may want to change the color of the eye.

1. Find or open your eye file.
2. Optimize levels and other settings.
3. Set Foreground Color to #0aa5ed and

Background Color to #42c502.

You can input the value on the color picker.

3. Make a new layer. Choose Eliptical Marquee Tool and select eye.

Hold down the SHIFT key to make a perfect circle, and SPACE BAR to move the selection.

4. Select Gradient Tool.

Set Gradient type to Radial Gradient,

Fill the selection with it from the center to outside.

5. Set layer’s mode to Overlay.

Remove unnecessary areas using Eraser

6. Finish, You can use other colors!

Add some effect to your image, you can even experiment on the Layers mode and see how it affects your image.

Vectoring Photo

2007-10-20T19:30:00.001-07:00

The most recent trends in the design industry today are Vector images. In this tutorial, we’ll create this effect in Adobe Photoshop.

First: Prepare Your Image

Unless you're very artistic, you will need a help from a reference photograph. You’ll need to posterized the photo to break the illustration down to its basic colors. But don’t follow every line of a posterized image or else your vector graphics may become dull.

I always create a copy of any images of my project, just to make sure that I have a good one that I can work on again in case I mess up. This time I created a copy twice, one is for back up and another to posterized.

To posterized a photo, go to IMAGE, ADJUSTMENT then select POSTERIZE. On the Levels you can experiment on the value, but 8 or 9 is a good starting point.

Trace the image

You can start from any part of your image, you can begin from the point where you think you’re comfortable with. In this tutorial I started my tracing from the pupil of the eye. I create a Layer Set to make my layer organize so it’s easy for me to go back and change any part of the image just in case.

I position the Set Layer in between the Image copy and posterized copy.

Shape layer

Before you start, make sure that the Shape layer option is selected.

Now we are all set we can now start tracing part of the image. Along the way you need to use sharp curve, you can achieve this by holding down ALT key, then drag the tangent line to make a sharp curve.

Now we can close the path.

Because the Shape layer we created is in between the POSTERIZED layer and EYES copy layer, only the outline of the Shape is visible. If you want to view the Shape layer just click the eye icon on the left side of the layer, it indicates the visibility of a layer.

Trace again the next part of the image, the layer on top is always on top of the image, so you have to work the arrangement of the layer. I added the Set layer of the eyeball UNDER the pupil Set layer.

The shape layer we created is now UNDER the pupil shape layer.

I added another shape layer ON TOP of the Eyeball layer in Eyeball set.

To change the color of the Shape layer, double click on the Layer thumbnail.

A Color Picker dialog box will appear, you will notice that if you move the mouse pointer outside the dialog box the pointer will change to Eye dropper tool, you can click on the color you want to copy.

Abstraction for the photo when selecting a color or tone while creating a shape layers will make your vector photo an outstanding one.

You can now add the details of the eye accordingly. When done, you can work on other part of the eye. Next I started to trace the Eyelash, but before doing so, I created another Set Layer. Rename it Lashes and position it ON TOP of the pupil set layer.

As always I use the ALT and CTRL key to modify the anchor point of the shape. Use ALT to make a sharp curve and CTRL to move the position of the point. You can use the CRTL + to zoom in and CTRL – to zoom out.

You can copy the shape and use transform tool to change its appearance, but I prefer to draw each lash just to practice my Pen tool skill. When done, I created another Set layer for the Eyebrows. I also added another Set layer for the shading of the skin.

I created more than 400 layers to finish the vector image; obviously I cannot show you every step.

Adding Skin Effects

When you add effects to a vector image, it will decrease its artistic merit, but sometime people what to do this just to add life to a vector image.

To achieve the subtle changes of the skin tone, use the Blurring effect, FILTER, BLUR, then select GAUSSIAN BLUR, but before I do this I usually created a copy of the layer I want to blur. So when I needed to modify the part of the image I have a Vector mask copy that I can work on. In view of the fact that if you use this tool the layer is no longer vector shape.

A confirmation dialog box will appear.

You can experiment on the value of the radius of the blurring, the higher the value the lesser the sharpness of the image.

This is how my layers look; I copy and hide the original layer by turning off the eye icon on the left side of the layer.

You can also tweak the visibility of the layer to achieve the look that you want for your image. By adjusting the opacity of a layer, it will have a better complexity.

This is how my finish Set layer looks after completing all the layers.

Last step is to hide the reference photo layer.

If you want your output file from Photoshop to be a Vector file you will need Adobe Illustrator.

Rock Texture

2007-10-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

Create a new file of any size. Type the name, make sure that the Color Mode is set to RGB Color then click OK.

Go to the channels palette click on Create New Channel.

A new layer will be created and named with Alpha 1

Reset the foreground and background colors by clicking the Set Default or just press the “D” key. Then go to FILTER menu, RENDER Click CLOUDS.

In the Channels palette, click on the RGB layer. Switch to the layers palette.

Now Go to FILTER menu, RENDER and select LIGHTING EFFECTS

Set light type to directional. On the Texture Channel select Alpha 1. Click OK.

Now were done with the Rock Texture.

We can add some color to the Texture with the help of HUE/SATURATION in ADJUSTMENT under the IMAGE menu.

Under those settings above here’s the output.

Clone Stamp Tool

2007-10-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

If you want to replace any part of an image, you have to erase the area first so that the transition will be smooth. You can use Healing Brush Tool or the Patch tool, but in this tutorial we will use Clone tool.

Although we can create a new background to make it easy for us, but I just want to show how to use the Clone Stamp tool. Here’s how I do it!

From this…

To this…

Open the file, in this case the file Sitename.jpg, select the Clone Stamp Tool or Press S key.

Hold down ALT key and Click the part of the image you want to copy to the area you wanted to remove.

You can now Drag and draw with the selected part of the image to the Image you wanted to be remove. You can always ALT Click to select a new area to be copied again. But you will notice that the color you replace has a visible edges; we can fine tune that later but finish painting the whole area first.

When you’re done, you can now tweak the image with the help of OPACITY tool, just lower the percentage, and then do the Stamp Tool Procedure again until your image looks smooth or you are satisfied with the appearance.

Then, select the Horizontal Type Tool on the tool box or press the letter T.

You can change the Font Type and Size of the Text.

Type the Text you want to the image, don’t worry about the location of the text, we can move it to the right place later.

When you’re through typing the Text, you can transfer it to definitive spot with the help of MOVE tool.

When all is set, you can now add enhancement to the text layer.

To add Layer Style, go to Layer palette and Click the Add a layer style located at the lower right corner of the Screen.

Select Blending Options

Add what you imagine will look good on your image; I added Drop shadows and Bevel & Emboss to the Final Image and I also replace the text to White. But you can do more.

Quick Mask

2007-10-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how they do a colored portion in a black and white photo? In this tutorials using quick mask I’ll show you how. The trick is how to select the person or area of a photo to manipulate.

Quick Mask is easy to use but powerful tool for selecting an area of an image. I’ll explain briefly how quick mask work, it's like a masking tape in the real world, when you paint on your house you would cover the part you don’t want to be painted, by using used newspaper and some masking tape, and in Photoshop it work just like that, the area with a pink color will be mask, and the rest will be painted.

Open the file first, then to use the Quick Mask, click the box with a circle inside at the bottom of the Set Color tool. As shown in the image below.

Now select the brush tool.

We will use the brush to define the area we want to remove and the area we want to retain, when you paint with black, the area will be mask. And when you paint with white the area will be part of the selection. You can switch between the black and white by simple clicking the Switch Foreground and Background Color on Set Color tool or by pressing the X key.

Use a large size brush to mask the big area, as you seen on the image, you can press the right bracket ] to increase and left bracket [ to decrease brush size. Use smaller brush to fine tune the selection. Press Ctrl + to zoom in and Ctrl – to zoom out.

Don’t worry if you over draw the Mask, just switch the color of the brush to white and you can erase the mask. As you can see on the image below, I intentionally selected the part I want to retain,

Then I simple change to white brush and erase the masked area.

This is what it will look like when you finish masking the image.

To see the whole selection you can switch back to Standard Mode by clicking the box with circle on the left side or by pressing the Q key.

As you can see on the image below, the area without the mask is selected area.

I inverse the selection before I go to the next procedure. SELECT menu, INVERSE or press Shift + Ctrl + I.

To make the image black and white we need to remove all the colors, we can do that by selecting IMAGE menu, ADJUSTMENT then click DESATURATE or press Shift+Ctrl+U.

The final Image,

Out of bounds

2007-10-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

OOB refers to a photo which makes use of the image border to add 3D effect on the image.

This is the way I do it, one of the important aspect is choosing what kind of photo you are using, and in this tutorial I use a frog on top of the keyboard.

From this…

To this…

First, open the file and rename the layer name to Frog 1.

Then drag the layer to Create New Layer icon on the bottom, it’s always a good idea to create a duplicate copy of the original so that when you mess up with the image there is always a good copy you can work on again.

Then rename it Frog copy,

Create another layer, for the frame, its important that we have a separate layers for the frame, rename it Frame.

Click the selection tool, create a square area on the canvas, and fill it with white color. EDIT, FILL or Shift + F5.

Create another smaller square selection then press DELETE to clear the inside area, like the image below.

Now we have to modify the frame so it will look laid flat, you can use the PERSPECTIVE tool under TRANSFORM on EDIT menu and SKEW or DISTORT tool to modify it, once you’re satisfied with the appearance you can now move on to the next step.

As you have notice the frame appear on top of the image, so we need to delete the part of the frame above the frog to make is appear under the image. Select the area of the frame on top of frogs head. You can use ERASER tool, but I prefer to use the PEN tool since I have more control on how I select the part I want to erase. You can zoom in (Ctrl +) to inlarge and zoom out (Ctrl -) to go back to it's size.

Do it again on frame that appears on top of frog hands.

Now that the frame above the head and hand of frog has been removed, we can now delete the outside part of the image. First we need to select the image. You will notice that the selection I make is in the middle of the frame, since the frame is on another layer it has no effect on it. I use PEN tool on selecting the image I want to retain, when you’re done the selection should look like the next image, but we can not use the delete key yet.

We need to inverse the selection so that when we hit the DELETE key the image outside is the one that will be removed. Under SELECT menu choose INVERSE or press Shift+Ctrl+I. We can now press the DELETE key.

Now that were done, we can add some enhancement to the image. I created another layer, fill it with gray color and added some drop shadows on the finish image. You need to merge the frame and the image first before you can add drop shadows. As you can see on the final layer I added gray layer and merged copy. You can do that by creating a selection on the whole canvass then under EDIT menu, select COPY MERGED (Shift+Ctrl+C) then PASTE, Photoshop automatically add another layer when you paste image.

The final image. You can see the frog appears embossed on top of the picture.

Put Image Inside the Text

2007-10-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Most of my friends wonder how to do my photo, in which I put my picture inside the text, well it take days to create. Ha ha ha, just kidding,

I do it by creating a clipping group, and it takes about a minute to complete the whole process. What you need is the word or name you want and the image where you want to put it down. By placement of the text and image layers and holding down of key.

First: Open the image, create a copy by dragging it to the new layer icon, rename it Island, and hide the other copy by clicking the eye icon on the layers palette. I use a photo shot when I was in an island.

2: Select the Type tool in the toolbar or you can press the letter T.

3: Type the word (ISLAND), Photoshop automatically creates a layer for a text. It doesn’t matter what color the text is, what important is the font you will use, I uses IMPACT at 280 point, and type it all caps.

4: Click and drag the text layer BELOW the image layer. For this technique to work, you have to make sure that the text is below the image.

5: Hold down the Alt key and click between the two layers, as shown in the image below. The cursor will morph into two over-lapping, black and white circles and that's when you click.

Your Layers Palette should now look like this:

6: Click your type layer, then click the move tool and arrange the text wherever you want, when you are satisfied with the placement of your text we can now add some enhancement.

You can still change the size, font type or you can even use the Transform tool to change its appearance.

To make it more vibrant we can add effects to the Type layer, add some drop shadow, bevel and emboss, and add some Stroke, you can experiment on the thickness of the shade. You can add new layer and fill it with the color you want or add a new background image.

Here’s the final image.

How to Open Image in Photoshop

2007-10-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

I created these tutorials from a friend request who wanted to learn more on Photoshop and do his own thing. It may look easy but for someone who just started it’s a little tough.

Anyway I’ll do it…

You start by opening the program from the start menu.

Start, Programs, Photoshop. Or if your Photoshop is located on other directory, you can open it from there.

After you load a program, you can now open the image.

Click File > Open

The Open dialog box will open,

You can click the Little arrow on the right side of the Look in box to browse folder to locate your image.

After locating the folder you can now click on the image you want to open. As you can see on the image below, the dimension and file size of your image is also displayed.

You can also change the file type on the File of type box.

The list of file format that Adobe Photoshop supported will be listed, but if your not sure what format your file is, leave the default settings to All Formats.

You can even click the View Menu to change the way your file are displayed, Thumbnail view will display a small image of your file.

After you select the file you wanted to open, click the OK button. And your image now is opened at Adobe Photoshop.

Colorizing

2007-10-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

Colorizing Black and White Photo

There are many ways in Photoshop to colorize a black and white photo; You can use Color Replacement tool or any other way. But in this tutorial I use the CMYK Curve Adjustment Layer I prefer to use this method because you have accurate control on the color you can use, and also you can edit it to change any color later, that you think inappropriate on your colorizing project.

The photo I use in this tutorial is the original one in which I learn this skill, the author is ELYSIUM.

Be sure that you set the photo to CMYK for this tutorial to work.

Image > Mode > CMYK color

Step 1

This is the original photo

Finish project

As ELYSIUM stated that the key to a good result is in a good clean source image. The cleaner and higher resolution photo will be easier to work and better result.

Good thing about Adjustment Layer is you can always go back and change them, you can tweak its settings as often as you like until you get it right. You can also use the quick mask method to clean and smooth your selection edges.

Its always good practice to save as often as you can, its time consuming and you don’t want to lose any of you work…

And also always create a layer copy of your photo, so when everything turn bad you still got original copy to work on again.

Step 2: Selection and Quick mask

First thing you do is to select an area to color, you can start from the bigger area and work you way down. But it doesn’t matter in what area you begin as long as you are comfortable in which you work. In this tutorial I start with skin.

You can use any selection tool you desire, I start my selection using Pen Tool then work my way on smallest area using the polygonal lasso, I use it on area like the eyes, eyebrows and mouth. Don’t worry if you don’t get your selection right, you can take care of it later using the Quick mask mode.

When you’re done, your selection will look like the image below

To smooth the edges of your selection, use the quick mask mode by clicking the circle-in-a-shade-square icon in the toolbox or by pressing Q on the keyboard. Quick mask allows you to edit a selection using the brush palette, the pink area will be the mask, and the clear area is the paint area in which your color will appear. You can use the opacity of the brush to set the transparency of the edges. You can even use quassian blur to areas mixes with other area.

Using white brush will reveal the area, and black will hide it. You can switch color by clicking on the bended double sided arrow on the set color area.

It should look like the image below.

Press Q again to bring the selection back again. Leave the selection.
Now to color it.

Step 3: Adjustment Layers and Curves
Since you’re selection is now ready, let's start.

Click Layer --> New Adjustment Layer --> Curves…

Name the new layer “Skin”

A Curves dialog box will open, and it will add a layer to your palette:

You can now change the curve on each Channel (CYMK) to achieve the color you desire. Since its adjustment layer you can always go back and edit it by simply double clicking on the icon of curves in the layer palette. You can individually adjust the channel to add the color on your selected area. You can even add points on the curve, and tweak the highlights and darks to different hues.

Here are the settings I use on the Skin layer of the photo; you can change it to achieve the color you desire.

If you want your shadows to be darker you can adjust the Black levels, to adjust the brightness and darkness of the entire range on CMYK curve.

The image should look like this:

Step 4: Background, Repeat

When you finish the skin, use the same technique on the other part (with different settings on the curves).

Next the background. Same technique, select, quick mask, blur, brush opacity, edit, reselect.

Layers -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves

The curve dialogue will come up again, to achieve the blue color you can raise the cyan up, the magenta little and dropped the yellow. You can tweak to achieve the color you want.

The settings I used on background.

Result:

Step 5: On the other part, Hair, Eyes, Eyebrows, Earring, Clothing, and Pin.

Next is hair. New Adjustment Layer, then do it again.

Eyes, New Adjustment Layer.

Eyebrows, New Adjustment Layer.

Earrings, New Adjustment Layer.

Clothing, New Adjustment Layer.

You can do it in any order you like. Just use the same technique and procedure we use on Skin and Background adjust and experiment on the curves to achieve the color you want. As always you can come back to each layer later to adjust the color.

Lips: you can add a regular layer if you want you can draw a lipstick and adjust brightness and contrast to add more glow to the lips.

The final images

You can leave it for a few minutes and come back later so your eyes is refresh, your perception can change dramatically if you don’t look at it for a while. And you can ask someones opinion to improve a little.

It’s always a good idea to rename layer accordingly, so when you come back to it, you know what layers are you working on. Here are my final layers.

It may be a little complicated as you think, but it’s not. Once you familiarize yourself on the technique, the other part may come naturally. As it is an Adjustment Layer you can always change the color. Layers in your PSD are always editable if you don’t like how it turned out.

It’s get really simple as you practice it.

Cutting Out an Image with the Pen Tool

2007-10-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

It’s annoying to cut an image using the lasso tool or magic wand. There are better way to do that in Photoshop.

The reason why Pen Tool is better.

1. Accuracy – pen tool enables you to select partial pixels. It will always be smooth; it literally puts transparency on the bit of the pixel that exists outside of the selection.

2. Option – pen tool have numerous option available.

Open the image and using your pen tool trace around the outside.

Two ways to do it.

1. You can click around the image when doing so; you create a straight line, then go back and adjust the curves/anchor points later.

2. Or click and drag on each anchor point to get the right curves.

Note: Take it easy if you have difficulty where to put anchor points, pen tool will become easy as you practice, but initially it will be slow. Patience.

If you want to follow the tutorial, Click here to download the image.

Set you Pen tool to Path and path option is “add to path area”

I use Rose bud picture for this tutorial, if you want you can zoom in (Ctrl +) and Zoom out (Ctrl -) as you work

If you use the click and drag style on anchor point you can use the Ctrl to move the anchor point, here I intentionally place the anchor point outside of the selection, you will notice that if you hold down the mouse button, the cursor will change from arrow point to a triangular arrow as you can see on the image below.

You can also use the Alt key to move the sharpness of the curvature, as I use in the next image. Notice how the mouse pointer changes from arrow to boomerang like point.

You have to close the work path in order for it to work, this means that your last anchor point must meet up you first anchor point. Starting point are marked with a small circle

Now right click on the work path and select Make Selection.

When prompted on how much is the feather radius you can experiment on the value, 1 or 2 is good If your image is low resolution, and if your image is high res., you can try more than 3 pixels, feathering is use to soften the edges of image.

When you’re done, right click on the work path and select Make Selection
Copy the selection (Ctrl + C) and paste it on to another image (Ctrl + V).

You can now paste you selection to another background and start making additional enhancement. Here’s what I do to with my work.

Water Drops

2007-09-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

The tutorial on how to do that.

1. Image
Open the file that you want to add water drops to.

2. Select the Brush tool, change it to Hard-edged Brush.

Make a new layer, paint on where you want water drops to be. Don't know how to create a new layer? Click here

From the layers palette, select Blending Options ( ).

3. Fill Opacity

Adjust the Fill opacity at 0%. The picture should look just like how we started now.

Adjust Blending Option, use the settings provided below, keep it open until the last settings.

4. Drop Shadow

5. Inner Shadow

6. Inner Glow

7. Bevel and Emboss

Finally, click OK to apply Blending Options.

Note:
Make sure that you use a hard edges brush. The fill option makes the real paint transparent, while layer effects still show.

Photoshop Pen Tool Tutorial for Beginner

2007-09-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will tackle on the basic of pen tool.

Basic controls – creating paths, curvature modification and anchor point adjustment.

Pen tool is located at the tool box of the Photoshop.

Pen tool have two options, Shape Layer and Paths

The most commonly used, create a new work paths option located at the upper left hand corner of the Photoshop window.

It has several options for the path; the most commonly used is “Add to path area”.

Create a new blank document, and then click the middle canvas. Each time you click it Create an anchor point.

Hold down Shift, move the mouse and click again. Holding it make a straight line,

Click a new anchor point but these time hold down the mouse button, you will notice that the anchor point will display a line, it’s called tangent line, it define the curvature of a curve. Don’t release the mouse and move it, and see how the tangent line moves while the curve line is increasing.

Now to Add or Delete anchor points on the path we have created. Click and hold or right click on the pen toll icon and select the Convert Point Tool.

You can use the Delete Anchor Point Tool to remove any point on the path or point the pen toll to anchor point then right click. Then select Delete Anchor Point

Convert Point Toll, also modify the curvature or move any anchor points.

While the Convert Point Tool selected click and drag on a anchor point, while still pressing the mouse button, move the mouse and see how it affect the curve. A line will appear, it’s called Tangent Line, and it controls the curvature of the curve.

Hold the Alt key, click and the end of anchor point; it will allow you to move One Side of the anchor point. While still holding alt, drag one point of the tangent line.
It breaks the tangent line in half and creates a sharp path changes.

To move the entire path select the Move tool from the toolbar and drag the path anywhere on the canvas.

You can Delete path by right clicking on the path and select Delete Path.

Yuwie

2007-09-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

What is it?

Yuwie is the first social networking site that pay it's user.

How it works?

GOAL: Get 3 people who join Yuwie who get 3 people for 10 levels with an average of 1,000 page views. Actually it's you who need around 1,000 hits to get 5 cents. If you have 20 referrals who have 1,000 hits per month at 5 cents each, you will actually have 1 dollar a month. It’s not much but, picture the big scenario.

PAYOFF: Your monthly check from Yuwie could be over $10,000! (only an estimate, there are no guarantees)

Click the banner or Click here to join

TakeTheInternetBack

2007-09-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

What is it?

TakeTheInternetBack is a pay-per-email service!

How it works?

OWNERSHIP FOREVER! - Internet giants get the majoriry of their revenues from advertising. Advertising pays their bills. Advertising generated the profits! in fact - there would be no internet, as we know it today, without advertising. Your read the ads - they make the profit - you make nothing at all.

LET’S CHANGE THE INTERNET NOW! - You register and became a member. the minimum requirements are that you receive just one email a day and refer just two persons - and that's all. and what do you get in return? Ownership of the company, a share of the profits and much, much more in the future. in fact, 90% of this entire company will be member owned.

Click the banner or Click here to join

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Websites

2007-09-23T18:34:00.005-07:00

What is Photoshop

A professional image-editing and graphics creation software from Adobe. It provides a large library of effects, filters and layers.

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most powerful image modification programs that are available for everyone. It is widely used throughout the world, it became the industry standard for graphics editing software.

Click on the name for the Tutorial Website.

PlanetPhotoshop.com

PhotoshopSupport.com

Tutorialized.com

Good-Tutorials.com

Grafx-Design.com

MelissaClifton.com

SofTutorials.com

PhotoshopTutorials.ws

AbsoluteCross.com

Vexels.net

ApSense

2007-09-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

What is it?

Apsense is a Free Business Social Network where people get paid to come together to share their business. Bring your online business to life by building your own business social network,

How it works?

When you are building your current business by meeting, exploring and creating you will also be earning money with Apsense. this unique and powerful concept the "World of Apsense". The concept is simple, the contents that you build at Apsense belongs to you, you will make money when your content pages display ads from advertisers. Your contents include things like your profile, network bulletin, blogs, groups, discussions, business centers and so on. There is No Limit to how much money you can make! The more quality contents you have... the more advertisements you can sell or display... the more money you will make!

agloco

2007-09-12T08:13:00.001-07:00

What is it?

AGLOCO™ is the first Internet based economic network, which enables you as a Member to Get your share of the Internet. Advertiser's, search companies, online merchants and other businesses currently pay lots of companies to deliver people like you to them for attention and commerce.

How it works?

Just sign up and use the web as usual and earn cash and shares - it really is that simple, once you intall the Viewbar™ software it automatically records the time you're actively online, and pay you for it.

If you want more cash and shares, you can refer your friends and family. AGLOCO™ pays you an hourly rate when the friends and family who you recruit use the web while using the Viewbar™ (they're called "direct referrals"), and for people your referrals recruit ('extended referrals'). Extended referrals continue for four levels past your original referral, and there is no limit to the number of referrals you can accumulate.

Agloco Banner by AglocoBanners.com

Click the banner or Click here to join

PayPal

2007-09-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

What is it?

PayPal is an account-based system that lets anyone with an email address securely send and receive online payments using their credit card or bank account

How it works?

As an online financial transaction broker, PayPal lets people send money to each other's email addresses. At no time will either party see the other's credit card or bank information.

PayPal acts as the middleman holder of money. Through its policies, practices, and business integrity, PayPal has earned the trust of both parties.

With multiple guarantees in place, buyers and sellers entrust PayPal with their credit card and bank information. PayPal keeps that private customer information secret. Then, while "blinded" from the other party's confidential information, strangers safely send money to each other through PayPal and email.

Click the banner or Click here to join

myLot

2007-09-12T08:11:00.001-07:00

What is it?

myLot is a unique and fun online community filled with members from all over the world discussing topics of everyday life.

How it Works?

Each time that you start a discussion or respond to a discussion, money is added to your account. Based upon the quality of your posts, in terms of responses or if someone marks your post as “best answer” you will receive more money. This is something totally new to the Web 2.0 world. Imagine having the ability to sit at your computer and discuss your favorite subject and have you earn money doing so! That is really impressive.

Click the banner or Click here to join