11.2.11

Adobe Photoshop Tips For Newbies – How To Fix Your Old Pics Using Adobe Photoshop CS5

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Memories are generally precious and pics typically carry these moments of earlier times. Given that photographs typically end up being damaged with the passing of time, photograph repair is commonly wanted in order to preserve those memories. Photos could become blurred; the coloration may possibly fade as well as images might even end up having scratches and scrapes. Technological innovation has advanced a long way, currently giving you a remedy to such problems. Picture repair is now readily available to everyone having the desire of conserving and repairing their particular photographs with the solutions from Adobe Photoshop CS5.

The Components within Adobe Photoshop CS5, which will be the Dust and Scratch Filter can eliminate marks and also blotches on the image. Found on the Menu Bar, chose the Dust and Scratches Filtering system and click on the Filtration Tab. The drop down menu will appear itemizing the actual elements. Choose the Noise Tab and use Dust and Scratches.

After clicking your Dust and Scratches menu, a new window will pop up together with a couple of control sliders. The primary slider is ideal for the Radius and the next one is for your Threshold. You’ll also have another window if your preview box will be checked. These are generally your key choices which will be used for restoring the image.

Altering your Radius slider may possibly remove the marks. However, there exists a tendency in that overdoing it might make the perimeters blurry too. In the event that happens, the option is to adjust the Threshold slider and this will allow the details to go back to make the image clearer with the scratches disappearing. You should be watchful never to set them too much or it’s going to simply make smears in the photo.

In removing the markings, picking out the whole photograph will not diffuse these marks. The option would be to select just the section wherein the scratches are found, and you may make use of the Lasso tool to do this.

You may then feather the edges of this particular part to ensure the chosen section won’t be obvious within the photo. This can be achieved through clicking on your Feather option and click the Scratch and dust Filtration system once more. You are able to replicate the process of altering the Radius and Threshold sliders to obtain the desired structure and eradicate the scratches.

Repeat by simply selecting the spot you want to adjust when there are still detectable marks on the other parts of the picture. To end the task and making the image acceptable, it is possible to crop the photo just enough to get rid of any cracks and tattered edges of the image.

You can even add additional features such as a drop shadow for increased excitement in the photograph. It will increase sizing for the photo making it seem to lift off. The coloring can even be taken out simply by pressing Shift Key + Ctrl + U. Diverse coloring techniques might be added designed for eye-catching beauty.

These would be simple actions towards ones photograph repair treatments. Photoshop CS5 provides a user-friendly program that includes a whole arsenal to get rid of scratches and marks that might otherwise ruin your own cherished keepsakes. Now you possess the ways to bring back these pictures to show in photo albums or photograph frames for everybody to relish.

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10.30.11

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials – Painting Tools In Photoshop

Both painting and erasing are simple with Photoshop. The painting tools in Photoshop are a fundamental part of just about anything you can do with this program. Not only can you paint in color, you can also make selections, create transparency and much, much more. Let’s take a look at just a few of the more widely used tools in Photoshop such as the pencil, line, paintbrush, airbrush, eraser, paint bucket, and gradient tools, their functions, and their differences.

You can’t paint without a brush. Photoshop 5, finds brushes in a floating palette, while Photoshop 6, the brushes palette are attached to the option bar as a drop-down menu. Many brushes are available from the standard to additional ones from the Photoshop CD. The shape, hardness, and spacing of the round brushes can be tailored, and you can also create your own custom brushes from any option that allow you to adjust sizing. The brushes palette menu allows you to reset, save and load brushes. What are some basic brush palette functions? Photoshop 5: If you want to make a new brush without changing an existing brush, choose New Brush from the palette flyout menu. Double clicking on a brush permits you to modify the diameter, hardness, spacing, angle, and roundness while it changes that brush in your brushes palette. To rotate through the brushes in the palette while painting, use the bracket keys [ and ] to cycle through the brushes in your palette. Holding the shift key down while pressing the bracket keys will take you to the first or last brush in the palette. Photoshop 6: When you make adjustments to a brush you can click the preset button to add it to the brushes palette. You can also choose New Brush from the palette flyout menu to make a new custom brush. Clicking on the brush preview in the options bar allows you to change the diameter, hardness, spacing, angle, and roundness. To adjust the brush size on-the-fly while painting, use the bracket keys. Holding the shift key down while pressing the bracket keys will adjust the hardness of the brush. Try out the brush options and experiment with them for feel. You can return to the default brushes at any time by choosing reset brushes from the brush palette menu.

Now let’s add that color. The most frequently used tools are the paintbrush and the airbrush. Paintbrush is most likely the tool you will be using for most projects. The shortcut key is B. The Paintbrush tool applies color to your project much in the way a conventional paintbrush would paint on paper or canvas. Other options in paintbrush include wet edges that applies paint more in the manner of watercolor paint or markers, a fade option in the options palette that can fade the opacity only in Photoshop 5.x, but can also fade the size and color of brush strokes in version 6 and a paintbrush options palette (Version 5.x) and brush dynamic menu (Version 6.0) are where you would go to make changes to the way Photoshop reacts to stylus pressure if you do not have a pressure sensitive tablet (if you do, you’ll want to use your tablet’s pressure sensitivity to achieve fading). The airbrush tool works more like a traditional airbrush or spray paint. Its shortcut key is J. The airbrush puts paint on a bit lighter than the paintbrush tool, but when you hold your mouse button down without moving the cursor, the paint builds up just like it would if you were to hold the nozzle down on a can of spray paint. Instead of adjusting the opacity for the airbrush tool, you set the pressure. The higher the pressure is set, the thicker your paint will go on. The airbrush is particularly useful for painting delicate shading and highlights.

There are tools offered more intended for drawing. The pencil tool allows you to apply paint color that always has a hard edge (like drawing in color). The shortcut key for the pencil tool is N in Photoshop 5.x. In Photoshop 6, the tool is shared with the Paintbrush and the shortcut key is B. Shift B toggles between the Paintbrush and Pencil tool. The line tool is used to create straight lines and arrows. In Photoshop 5, the line tool short cut is N and the toolbox location is shared with the Pencil tool. The line width and arrowhead locations can be adjusted through the options palette in Photoshop 5.x. In Photoshop 6, the line tool is shared with the Shapes tool. In the options bar, you can decide whether to create the line as a shape layer, a path, or a filled region.

You can cut corners and fill areas with color at a time. The Paint Bucket is the easiest of these painting tools, used to fill areas with solid color or patterns and works by filling with color based on color likeness chosen by the tolerance setting. The paint bucket has a blending mode menu and opacity control, just like the layers palette, allowing you to change the way the paint blends with the pixels you are painting on the same layer. The Gradient tool allows you to apply graduated color fills that blend from one color to another. Gradients are not just limited to two-colors. You can generate custom gradients using several colors and variable levels of transparency for unlimited effects. The Gradient tool shortcut is G. In Photoshop 5.x, Shift G toggles the five types of gradient fill types. In Photoshop 6, the gradient fill type is selected from the option bar and Shift G toggles between the gradient and paint bucket tools. There are five types of gradients: Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond. The transparency check box enables gradients with transparency; otherwise the transparent areas are filled with the neighboring color. Reverse flips the order of colors in the gradient. You can also use patterns as paint and fills in Photoshop. In version 5, you need to define a pattern every time you want to use a different one. Defining a pattern is simple, just make a choice and choose Edit – Define Pattern. Anytime a pattern is defined, the tools and commands that required a pattern fill will show that option. When you want to use a different pattern, just select it and choose the define pattern command again. In Photoshop 6, pattern fills are selected from a menu of patterns in the options bar. To add a new patterns you just open the image and choose Edit – Define Pattern. Patterns can be used as fills with the paint bucket and the Edit – Fill command. You can also paint with patterns using the Pattern Stamp tool. This tool shares the toolbox with the rubber stamp tool. The pattern stamp works like a paintbrush, but paints with the presently chosen pattern. The aligned check box causes your pattern to line up even if you end one brushstroke and start a new one. When aligned is unchecked, the beginning point of the pattern is reset each time you make a new stroke.

Of course we make mistakes, so let’s know how to fix them. The eraser tool shortcut is E. The standard eraser tool has four painting modes to choose from: paintbrush, airbrush, pencil, and block. The eraser tool paints in transparency, unless your layer is a background, in which case, the eraser tool paints with the current background color. The eraser tool options are basically the same as the painting tools, with the addition of one new option: Erase to history. When you erase to history, it works just like the history brush. The Magic Eraser works just like the magic wand, but instead of making a selection, it immediately converts the pixels to transparent. The areas to be erased are controlled by adjusting the tolerance and contiguous options. Clicking once erases all the pixels that fall within the tolerance range. If the magic eraser is used on a background layer, the background is involuntarily promoted to a layer. This tool is best for when you have a background that is fairly solid in color. It just takes one click with the magic eraser and your background is gone. The background eraser also erases to transparency, but instead of using only the tolerance range, it continuously samples the background colors in your document as you erase. It’s useful for backgrounds that have a range of colors in the background, but where the background colors are still different from the foreground object you want to isolate. It works best with a moderately large brush. The most important thing to remember with this tool is to be very careful to keep the cross-hairs away from the object you want to keep. When using this tool, you may notice some bits of the foreground object becoming slightly transparent along the edges. You needn’t be terribly concerned with this, because you can always paint those bits back in using the Erase to History option or the History Brush.

There are a few tricks of the trade in Photoshop. Photoshop is programmed to show the painting cursors at the actual brush size. This setting can be changed through your Preferences (under the Edit menu in Photoshop 6; the File menu in Photoshop 5 and earlier.) In most cases you’ll want to leave it set to brush size. You can switch to cursors without going through the preferences dialog by locking the caps lock key. Anytime you have a painting tool active, you can press the Alt/Option key to temporarily switch to the Eyedropper and pick up a new foreground color from anywhere in the document. You can alter the pressure of the airbrush tool or the opacity of the other painting tools by pressing the numeric keys on your keyboard instead of going to options. While a painting tool is active you can cycle through the blend modes using Shift -(minus) and Shift (plus). These shortcut keys also rotate through the layer blend modes when non-painting tools are active All the painting tools have the capacity to be faded using the Fade command. In Photoshop 5.x, this command is under the Filter menu. In Photoshop 6.x, it was moved to the Edit menu. After using any paint stroke, fill, or filter, you can select this command to fade it back so it blends with the original pixels. You can also use it to apply a blend mode if you forgot to set the blend mode before applying paint. Now with a little practice, you’ll be an expert in no time.

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10.30.11

How To Use Photoshop – Maintaining Sharpness When Resizing Images

If you want to re-size a large photo you have to take the correct precautions to prevent losing too much resolution. Making an image smaller can make it appear blurry if you don’t do it right. This can make the picture less clear than it should be.

This is a problem in many editing programs, but Adobe Photoshop has the tools to fix this.

This method will only work in Photoshop CS and CS2. These versions are more powerful in a lot of ways, so if you don’t have them I’d recommend that you invest in a copy as you may find that you will need the more advanced features.

To reduce the size of a picture without losing too much resolution go to Image – Image Size. Click on Re-sample Image and then pick Bi-cubic Sharper from the options. This will produce the best results when resizing an image as it significantly reduces the blurring of the image when you change its size.

If you want to enlarge a photograph without losing too much resolution select the Bi-cubic Smoother.

This method is extremely effective in keeping the sharpness of the image. You can set this as the default to make things easy for you by going to Preferences – General where you will see Image Interpolation. Select Bi-cubic Sharper as the default choice and it will be set as the default from now on.

Repeating the resizing process too many times will increase the resolution loss giving a blurry appearance. To avoid this only re-size the image once. If you want try out different sizes, use a copy of the original image and when you find the right measurements, simply apply them to the original image once you’re done.

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10.29.11

Adobe Photoshop Training – Become Adobe Certified

Getting ahead in today’s market can be difficult. To stand out of the crowd and be noticed is more difficult than ever. One way to do this is to become Adobe Certified. Worldwide Adobe certification is an industry standard of excellence, and it is the definitive way to communicate your expertise in the leading products from Adobe.

As an individual, an Adobe Certified credential allows you to:Differentiate yourself from competitors,Get your resume noticed, Attract and win new business, Gain recognition from your employer, Leverage the power of the Adobe brand

As a business, use the Adobe Certified credential as a benchmark so you can:Find the right person for the job,Quickly assess candidate skill level Invest in, and promote, your most promising employees,In an increasingly competitive world, students and instructors need to be more than familiar users of digital communications technology to be successful.

Certification can help provide the added credential for instructors as well as open new opportunities for students in the 21st century. Adobe offers multiple options for students and instructors to validate their digital media skills. Now educators and students can get certified for both beginner-level (Adobe Certified Associate) and advanced-level (Adobe Certified Expert) skills.

What is an ACE? To become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) an individual must demonstrate proficiency with one or more Adobe software products by passing one or more product-specific proficiency exams and agree to the ACE terms and conditions.

What is an ACP? By consistently demonstrating expertise with Adobe products and platforms Adobe Certified Professionals (ACPs) set themselves apart from other IT professionals; as a result they add value to colleagues, managers, and their own career.

What is an ACA? An Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) credential certifies individuals have the entry-level skills to plan, design, build, and maintain effective communications using different forms of digital media.

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10.28.11

Adobe Photoshop Tips – Newbies Tools To Master What’s In Adobe Photoshop

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Okay, I confess that I have been seen falling asleep whilst viewing my close friends holiday pictures; though I could tell she had a wonderful time, the photos simply were not catching my attention. If she’d only undertaken time to find out the way you use Adobe Photoshop, she could have taken her mediocre photographs and converted them into something which would have certainly maintained my attention. She could quite possibly have taken those ordinary photos and transformed them into something extraordinary making use of the tools available within Photoshop.

While Photoshop can be difficult to perfect particularly if you aren’t well-versed in picture modifying software program, you will appreciate that with time, you’ll be able to get confident using it. Meanwhile, you can find interesting tools in Photoshop which will be in a position to enable you to discover the fundamentals to edit your pictures.

Photoshop comes incorporated with a huge selection of resources that permit you to edit and adjust your photos,and below are just a few of the items you can anticipate to discover.

You will find warping resources within Adobe Photoshop which will let you manipulate the subject matter in a specific photograph. For example, in the event that you don’t like the way a person looks in a specific picture as a result of a huge stomach, then you can make use of the warping tool in order to make yourself seem slimmer. In truth, should you grasp this tool, you can certainly make that particular image seem as if you frequent the gymnasium every day.

Another great tool that can make your friends happy will be the smudge tool. Close up pictures are usually a major problem as each and every facial flaw is increased however by using the smudge tool every flaw will be effortlessly airbrushed away.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to own a snapshot of you looking at the London Eye? Just use The Photoshop lasso tool, that lets you pick out a particular element of the photo, and then get rid of it. After that you just paste the item, for example behind the London Eye in England.

You’ll find even excellent effects which you can use on your images. Just move to the filter menu and you will find different effects you could place into your picture. For instance, should you wish your picture to appear as if it had been painted with watercolor, you may easily do this by choosing the water color effect found on the filter menu inside the artistic sub menu.

You may also place text in your images if you’d like along with the text tool. Through this, you are able to place various captions inside your photograph. Furthermore, you can find tools that you are able to use that will be able to eliminate the things that you don’t like to be included in your photograph.

However these are just a tiny part of the astounding things which you are able to do using Adobe Photoshop. When you learn the basics and go deeper into the application you’ll see that I only have scratched the surface of this highly effective application. Take the time and discover how you can learn how to use Photoshop to convert your own ordinary photos directly into extraordinary artwork.

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10.25.11

Photoshop Tutorials – The Save To Web Feature

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As of version 5 and greater, Photoshop includes a very handy “Save for Web” command. This feature allows you to produce a copy of your image that is optimized for Web use. This means that the image file will be as small as possible, and that the image will use only Web-safe colors (if desired). Save for Web can produce GIF, JPEG, or PNG format images.

Using Save for Web When you’re ready to put your image in your web page, from the File menu select “Save for Web”. The “Save for Web” dialog appears:

This dialog box allows you to tell Photoshop how you’d like to optimize your graphic for the internet. You have the ability to select the file format to produce (GIF, JPEG or PNG), what size palette you’d like to use, how to cut down the colors to fit the chosen palette size, how much to dither the optimized image (if at all) and how much image quality to sacrifice in order to produce a smaller file size.

Image views The four tabs above the image view pane on the left allow you to view the original image, the optimized version (this is the default), the original and optimized versions side-by-side (“2-Up”) and the original, optimized and two variations on the optimization all together (“4-Up”). You can also use the Hand tool top-left to move the view around (if the image is bigger than the view), the Zoom tool to zoom in and out of the image, and the Eyedropper tool to select a color from the image, to be used by various color options on the right of the dialog.

Presets There are a lot of options in the Save for Web dialog, and the choice can be quite bewildering! Luckily, there are a list of presets you can choose from to make it easier. Click the Settings: drop-down list (just below the Cancel button) to bring up the list of presets:

There are three basic image formats in the presets – GIF, JPEG and PNG. As a basic rule, use JPEG’s for photos and GIF’s for everything else. For a full tutorial on choosing the right image format, see Understanding image formats.

Optimizing GIFs If you’re making a GIF, start off with a preset such as GIF 32 Dithered, which should work well for most GIFs. You can then fine-tune the optimization to suit your needs. Some of the important optimization options are discussed below.

Color reduction method This is the drop-down box below the Image Format box. The commonly used options here are:

Perceptual: Creates the reduced color palette which favors colors that the human eye is more sensitive to. Selective: Like Perceptual, however better for Web work. Selective is the favored (and default) option. Adaptive: Creates the palette by taking an even sampling of colors from the image’s color spectrum. This is generally not as good a choice as Selective. Web: Use this if you need a complete Web-safe color palette (Netscape 216-color palette). These days, this method usually isn’t that important as most computer displays support at least 16 million colors. Dithering method This is located below the “color reduction method” box. Dithering involves adding patterned or random dots to the image to make it appear to contain more colors than are actually in the palette, allowing you to use a smaller palette size. The options are:

No Dither: No dithering is applied to the image. Good if the dithering effect looks bad, but can produce severe “banding” of colors. Diffusion: Uses error diffusion dithering, which looks similar to Noise dithering, producing a random-looking pattern of dots. Can produce seams when using ImageReady slices. Pattern: Uses a pattern for dithering, rather than random dots. Can work well for some images, but often produces a rather artificial look to the image. Noise: Similar to Diffusion, but does not produce seams at the edges of slices in ImageReady. Transparency This check-box is only available if your image does not have its Background layer turned on. It specifies that you want parts of the saved GIF to be transparent. If you deselect this check-box, the transparent areas will instead be filled with the Matte color (or white if no matte is selected).

Interlaced This check-box controls GIF Interlacing. If enabled, the GIF will appear gradually as interlaced horizontal lines as it is loaded on the Web page, which gives viewers something to look at while the full image appears. It does increase the file size, however.

Lossy – This slider allows you to remove some detail from the image, in order to reduce the file size further. Use only if you don’t mind reducing the image quality quite severely! A value of 0 will not remove any detail; a value of 100 will remove the maximum amount of detail.

Colors – This is where you choose the size of your GIF palette. A palette of 32 colors is often sufficient for web images, but if your image has a lot of detail and looks too fuzzy/blurry/banded with 32, up it to 64, 128 or 256. If your image has very few colours in to start with, or doesn’t look too bad with fewer colors, select 16, 8, 4 or even 2! This will make the GIF file size smaller.

Dither If you have chosen a dithering method (see above), this option will allow you control over how much the image is dithered – 0 means no dithering, 100 means lots of dithering.

Matte – The matte is the background color you want to use for your image. If you’ve enabled Transparency (see above), then the foreground image will be faded at the edges to blend in with the matte color. If you choose the Matte setting of None, the GIF will have a “hard transparency” with no fading; this is great if you want to be able to use the image on any color background.

If you’ve disabled Transparency, the transparent areas of your image will be filled in with the matte color.

Web Snap – If you want to use web-safe colors, increase the Web Snap slider. Photoshop will bias your color palette more and more towards web-safe colors the higher the value of Web Snap.

Optimizing JPEGs – If you’re making a JPEG, start off with a preset such as JPEG Medium, which should work well for most JPEGs. You can then fine-tune the optimization to suit your needs. Some of the important optimization options are discussed below.

Quality – There are two ways to alter the compression quality: the Low/Medium/High/Maximum list (for quick access), and the Quality slider (for fine control). The lower the quality setting, the more blurry and bitty the JPEG will appear, but the smaller the resulting file size.

Progressive A progressive JPEG is analogous to an interlaced GIF (see above). The image will load step by step on the Web page – a low resolution image first, then eventually the full, high-resolution image. Again this is great for stopping your viewers on slow modems from getting bored, but it does mean a slightly larger file size, and older browsers don’t support progressive JPEGs.

Matte – If your Photoshop image has transparent areas, you can fill them with a specified matte color with this drop-down box.

Optimizing PNGs Your options for optimizing a PNG-24 are much the same as those for optimizing a JPEG. Similarly, the options for optimizing a PNG-8 are very similar to those for optimizing a GIF. See the GIF and JPEG sections above for details.

If you really can’t be bothered… …you can always let Photoshop optimize your image for you! Select the little arrow just to the right of the Settings… box and select Optimize to File Size…:

In the dialog that pops up, select Auto Select GIF/JPEG then enter your desired file size. Click OK and Photoshop does the rest for you! If you’re not happy with the results, tweak the settings as described in the sections above, or just choose a slightly larger file size and try again.

Saving the image Once you’re happy with your optimized image, click OK to save it to disk. The file saved will be a copy of your original image, unless you specifically overwrite the original with the optimized file.

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10.24.11

Working With Photoshop Blending Modes

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In this tutorial, I’m taking a brief look at opacity and blending modes in Photoshop and how you can create different image effects by using them. I’m not going to look at each of the blending modes – there are 23 of them – but more an overview of how they work.

When you combine layers you are, in effect, changing the way pixels on the various layers unite with each other. This process usually gives us some cool, and often unusual, results. If you are looking to compose multiple-image artwork, blending modes can be a great way to accomplish that.

I’m using a Photoshop file that has two layers. One layer contains an image of an old building with an orange colored wall and the other layer contains a staircase on the outside of an apartment block. When you’re trying this out yourself, just use any Photoshop image with two different layers, with something on each layer.

Please note that it’s easier to work with layers if you give each layer a descriptive name. Don’t just leave each layer with its default of Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3, etc. When you’re dealing with an image with 20 layers this will become very tiresome when you’re trying to figure out what’s on each layer.

Step 1 To rename a layer, double-click the layer name in the Layers palette. A bounding box will appear around the words Layer 1 . Type a new name and Press Return or Enter .

Note: Make sure you click directly on the layer name, otherwise you will open the Layer Style dialog box and you won’t be able to rename the layer.

Step 2 To select your layer click on the eye icon on the newly-named Field layers and the image of the field appears in the image and the Farm House is hidden.

Step 3 – Change Opacity With the Stairs layer selected in the Layers palette, click on the arrow beside the opacity field and drag the slider to 40%. Notice that everything on this layer – the stairs and the wall they are attached to becomes less opaque (more see-through).

Step 4 Lowering the opacity of a layer makes the artwork on that layer more see-through, so that the layers beneath it show through.

Step 5 Drag the opacity slider back to 100% so that you can see the Field normally.

Step 6 On the layers palette, click on the down arrow beside the field that says ” Normal”. By default, layer appear with a blending mode of Normal.

Step 7 From the drop down menu that appears, choose Hard Mix.

The image changes quite dramatically.

Play for a few minutes and try out different blending modes to see how the image is affected with each one.

The Multiply mode is quite probably one of the most frequently used blending modes. It blends layers to create a darker color, except where there are white pixels. The white pixels will disappear.

When you have found a blending mode that produces an effect you like, click on the Field palette to select it. Click on the “Create a New Layer” button at the bottom of the Layers palette.

You now have a new empty layer which appears in the Layers palette just above the Stairs layer, but nothing should have changed on your image in the document window. When you add a new layer the layer is empty and transparent by default. We want to use this new layer to draw a border around the image you’ve been working on. The advantage to drawing on this new layer, as opposed to drawing on any of the other layers, is that it can be isolated on its own – turned on or off, transparency adjusted and other adjustments applied to the layer.

Please make sure that the new empty layer is selected and select the Brush tool from the Toolbox, or hit B on the keyboard. On the tool options bar, click on the Brush Preset Picker and select a rough looking brush. (I picked a Dry Brush Light Flow) and set the master diameter to about 100 pixels. On the toolbox, set the foreground color to black by hitting “D” on the keyboard – this sets the foreground and background colors to their default – black and white. Start drawing around the edge of the image to create a rough border.

Now rename the layer as “B order”. (Yes, I recognize that I’m nagging about the naming of layers but it’s good practice!)

The main benefit to drawing on this new empty layer is if you don’t like your work you can turn it off without having it affect your entire image. You can also play with the opacity to see how that looks.

Take some time to try adding more layers to your image and play with the drawing tools. Select different brushes and colors and choose different blending modes.

I hope you enjoyed our intro to blending modes and opacity. Obviously the best way to find out how they all work is, of course, to play and check out all the different effects you can achieve.

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10.21.11

Adobe Photoshop Tips For Newbies – How To Get Rid Of Images Using Photoshop

[youtube:zs9y0NVmhEc?version=3;[link:Photoshop Tips For Beginners];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs9y0NVmhEc?version=3&feature=related] There are various strategies to eliminate images inside Photoshop, but in this particular Adobe Photoshop tutorial I want to explain to you the best way to remove images. I have not actually encountered this method anywhere else on the web, therefore I decided I might share it with you Photoshop rookies. The best thing about this method is the fact It makes use of a soft brush edge so the edges do not look quite so pointed.

Anyway, to begin with you want to do is to unearth an image you want to get rid of and specify the foreground color to ebony along with the background coloring to white. Subsequently, pick the brush tool and establish your master diameter at 10px and your hardness to 0%. The next phase is to unlock your layer,plus then add a layer mask to your photo.

After this you must zoom in close up and work with your brush tool to shape your image. Hold down your shift key for lengthy straight parts. I typically keep down shift practically the entire way to get a natural and also smooth line. I might equally have to mention that if you are looking to pick up the tiny sections, you are able to change the size of your brush to a size smaller than 10px.

When you’re done, keep down the ALT key and then click (as well the layer mask. Be certain you’re clicking on the mask within the layer and not the layer itself. Pick the Magic Wand tool and make sure Contiguous is definitely checked and that Anti-alias is not checked. Next click on the outside white region or the area you don’t want to have in the photo. Also be sure to include other areas of the picture that may get neglected in the selection.

Proceed to the your toolbar and go to Select – Modify – Expand and modify it to 5px. Then modify the background shade to black and after that click the actual delete key. There’ll still probably be a couple of very small spots which you don’t get, just like in the corners of the image. So in that case, you want to go back and get the 5px brush and fill out those sections so they are black.

Ensure the foreground is actually black while you are doing this. It is possible to hold down Option and click concurrently on the layer mask itself to return back and fourth to see your picture. Once you’re ultimately finished cutting it out, go on and hold down Option and click while doing so on your layer mask itself and you’ve finished. You have just managed to get rid of a picture applying Photoshop.

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10.11.11

Adobe Photoshop Lessons For Beginners – Photoshop Special Effects

Photographs can be enhanced in many ways with Photoshop. Many times the areas of the photo that are touched up can be differentiated from their surrounding areas. You have the tools to create a nice, soft fade from the effect and effect-free areas through masking and there are many ways to achieve this. Before you add an effect to any area of the photo it is useful to add this masking to the selected areas you want to adjust. One method most commonly used is the ‘quick mask mode’. It is quick and easy to use and normally produces acceptable results.

Quick masking: Find the button called ‘edit in quick mask mode’ in Adobe Photoshop. It looks like a circle in a rectangle located near the bottom of the main tool bar. There is also a short-cut key: Q. Once in quick mask mode, you can select and deselect areas by painting them with white and black respectively, using the standard brush tool. For best accuracy, zoom to 100 or 200 %. You can use a soft-edged brush to avoid hard edges. After you are done, exit the masking mode and go to ‘Select – Feather’ and set the feather radius to somewhere around 5-10 pixels. You can set the opacity to anywhere between 0 and 100%, allowing you to apply the effect stronger or weaker in one part of the image than in another.

Layer masking: Slightly more complicated, you can add a layer mask. This allows you to apply any effect gradually from any point in your photo. Follow these steps in Photoshop:

1. Select ‘Windows – Layers’.

2. Right click on your layer and select ‘Duplicate layer’.

3. Click on the little icon in the bottom of the layer box called ‘Add layer mask’.

4. Select the ‘Gradient tool’ on the main tool box.

5. Select a gradient style from the top ‘Options’ bar (linear, radial etc.).

6. Click on your image on the point you don’t want to change, and drag the mouse away to the point where you want the full effect to take place. The effect will be applied gradually more and more along this line you’ve now created.

7. Last, go back onto your original background layer and apply any effect you want. This will apply the effect in a soft, gradual way. Use opacity to turn the effect down to less than full strength if you want.

Lens-like effects: Using the layer masking described above, you can apply ‘Gaussian blur’ which will make the selected areas appear soft-focused, a bit like if you had used a large-aperture lens. With ‘Curves’ you can make your corners darker than the center, replicating the lens effect called vignetting. Technically, vignetting is considered a lens dysfunction, but subjectively it can add an extra feeling to your photo, a kind of frame that will have a ‘sucking’ effect, bringing more attention into the center of your photo. You can also just lower the contrast and/or color-saturation around your main subject, helping to separate it from the background clutter. There’s many other options, be creative!

Soft glow effect: Creates a ‘romantic’ look for portraits. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Duplicate layer.

2. Apply ‘Gaussian blur’ to the new (top) layer. Make it blurry, but leave a little detail.

3. Play around with the blend modes and opacity till reaching desired effect:

‘Darken’ or ‘Multiply’ blends: darkens image details while also softening features and adding a halo. Good for soft, expressive shadows.

‘Lighten’ or ‘Screen’ blends: lightens the image. Nice for adding high key or highlight glows.

‘Soft Light’ and ‘Overlay’ adds contrast and saturation. Particularly useful for landscapes and still life photos.

Black-and-white-ish: A cool metallic black-and-whitish look, in my opinion very suitable for documentary work and subdued portraits, is easily obtained by setting the contrast high (curves) and color saturation low. Do it with Photoshop’s ‘layers’ to be able to tweak your exact settings it in place.

Color grading: The same color washed effects found in some movies (golden brown, soft blue) can also be applied to your photos if desired. The easiest way is to go to ‘Image – Adjustments – Hue/Saturation’, click ‘Colorize’ and use the slide bars to choose your preferred grading. It’s better to use the ‘Edit – Fill’ function if you want a well-defined color. Simply select the color you want and set the ‘Blending mode’ to ‘Color’. Whichever method, it’s good first to duplicate your layer before you start. This will permit you to maintain some of the original colors by turning the color grading down. Use the ‘Opacity’ slider in the layer box to do this. If you want a duo-tone image, simply make 2 duplicate layers and give them different color gradings. Mix them together, again with the ‘Opacity’ slider and the different ‘Layer blending mode’ options in the layer box.

One example: To give your image a warm reddish-orange color tone make two duplicate layers first. Use ‘Edit – Fill’ to make the first one red and the second one orange. Set opacity to 30 and 60% respectively and select the ‘Multiply’ blending mode for the top (orange) layer. Tweak it in place to get it precisely as you want. Also try adding a soft glow, as explained above.

Micro contrast: This is a really neat trick to enhance your contrast and draw out texture details in your photos. You can even use it when your overall contrast is already maxed out, using all tonal ranges from pure black to pure white. The procedure is similar to the normal ‘Unsharpen Mask’, but with some special settings. Go to ‘Filter – Sharpen – Unsharpen Mask’ and set the ‘Amount’ to around 20-30%, the ‘Radius’ to 50-100 pixels and zero on the ‘Threshold’. You will get a subtle contrast enhancement that, for some pictures at least, works really well.

Remember however that just as important as learning how to apply these effects, is learning when to use them. You want to make sure to not lose the original qualities of the photo to the special effects. When to use these effects is ultimately up to you and your personal taste and opinion. Less can be more, so make sure not to overdo it.

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10.9.11

Photoshop Lessons For Beginners – Overexposed Images and Photoshop

The easiest way to fix an overexposed photo is to open it in Photoshop and choose Image- Adjustments- Shadow/Highlight (CS-only. For pre-CS look below). You’ll see an immediate change in your photo and it will probably be too extreme, but just use this setting as a starting point. Photoshop ships with defaults that are often way over the top. Just play with the Amount Slider and the Tonal Width Slider in both the Shadows and the Highlights until you find just the right balance. And that’s it!

Fixing Overexposed Photos, Pre-CS – The Layer Sandwich Trick If you don’t have CS, then this trick will help you accomplish similar results.

Step 1 – New Layer Open your photo and make a copy of the Background Layer by choosing Layer- Duplicate Layer, or by dragging it to the New Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Step 2 – Change The Blend Mode In the Layers palette change the Blend Mode of the new layer from Normal to Multiply. This will darken the photo uniformly.

Step 3 – Repeat Now repeat the entire process again. Create a new layer, change the blend mode to multiply, and watch the result. Continue doing this over and over until you go from “it’s almost just right” to “it’s awful!”

Step 4 – Lower the Opacity Now leave the last layer active even though it is much too extreme and lower the Opacity using the slider at the top right of the layers palette. This lowers the strength of the effect. Once you have found the right amount, you can flatten your image.

Step 5 – Flatten And Save Choose Layer- Flatten or use the palette’s flyout menu and choose Flatten Image. That’s it. Save your file (File- Save) and you’re done.

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