PHOTOSHOP

How to Draw a Photorealistic Coffee Cup

2010-05-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial we'll draw a very realistic cup of coffee. Underneath the cup we'll add some stain using custom brush. This tutorial may look advance but the techniques are simple.

Preview of Final Results

Step 1 - Drawing Coffee

Start by creating circle shape using ellipse tool. Set foreground color to #F2F2F2. Make sure you have selected shape icon from the option bar, then shift+drag to create a circle. From the Layers panel, double click circle shape layer and add layer style Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, and Bevel and Emboss.

Step 2

Create smaller circle inside the previous circle. Double click its thumbnail layer and in Layer Style dialog box make sure you activate Layer Mask Effects. Also, add layer style Inner Shadow and Outer Glow to the circle.

Step 3

In Layers panel, click Add Layer Mask icon, black square with circle inside it. Paint left bottom of the circle to hide some of the shadow.

Step 4

Our previous steps has add shadow to the cup but still not enough. So, we'll need to create darker shadow. (a) Start by creating a circle selection covering our previous circle and fill it with black. (b) While marquee tool still selected, hit left arrow three times and down arrow three times to nudge the selection 3 pixels down and 3 pixels left. (c) Hit Delete and remove selection (ctrl+D). (d) Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften the shadow (e). (f) Bring down the opacity to 5%.

Step 5

We're done with the shadow and now move on to the highlight. Highlight should be in opposite side of the highlight. Repeat same techniques in previous step, but this time fill with white and use up and right arrow key.

Step 6

We're done with the cup. Create a circle shape with color #1F120D. Add layer style Outer Glow with gradient white suddenly stop to black.

Step 7

Again, create smaller circle with same color. Double click layer and activate Layer Mask Hides Effects then add Gradient Overlay with black to white gradient at 52 degree. Paint bottom left of the circle to create highlight on the water.

Step 8

We'll also need to create some bubble floating above the water. To do this, select the coffee and subtract it using lasso tool. See image below for reference.

Step 9

Create new layer. Click Edit > Fill. Choose Use: Color and pick #765E36.

Step 10

Now select eraser tool and choose hard edge brush, harness: 95%. Use [ and ] to increase and decrease brush size. Paint on the brown color to draw holes for the bubble.

Step 11

To give a 3D look, we just need to paint white inside the holes for the highlights.

Step 12

Another highlight is needed near those bubbles. Create selection inside the coffee using lasso tool. Paint it with white using soft brush.

Step 13

We're done with the water. Using rounded rectangle tool draw the cup's handle. Make sure you put the layer under the cup. Add Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, and Bevel and Emboss to give it a three-dimensional look.

Step 14

Duplicate the cup's handle. Put it under the original handle. Use same layer style but for this one raise Inner shadow to make it darker. This will add a bit perspective to the cup.

Step 15

Now, select cup handle's tip and fill it with white. This small adjustment adds more curvature to it and make it more realistic.

Step 16

It's time to add shadow. Hold shift and Ctrl+click all coffee thumbnail layer to select it. Nudge the selection by pressing up and right arrow a few times. Fill it with black, add Gaussian Blur, then lower the opacity to 50%.

Step 17

We're done creating the coffee. Let's tidy up the layers. Select all the layers and hit ctrl+G. This will automatically put every layers in a group. Name this group coffee and click eye icon to hide it. Next, we'll focus on creating the paper napkin.

Step 18 - Creating Paper Napkin

(a) Using rectangular marquee tool, create a selection for the paper. (b) Press Q to enter quick mask mode. (c) Click Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize. (d) This filter will create torn edges effect to the selection. (e) Again, hit Q to return to normal mode.

Step 19

Click Filter > Texture > Texturizer. Use Texture: Canvas with Relief: 1 then click OK.

Step 20

The paper is too clean, not so realistic. We need to make it darker and a bit dirtier. To do this, paint it using burn tool. Make sure you use low exposure and paint repeatedly to have gradual and subtle effects.

Step 21

To make it even darker add Levels (ctrl+L) and move grey arrow a bit to the right.

Step 22

Download paper texture from this page. Paste wrinkled-paper.jpg on top of our paper.

Step 23

Hit ctrl+alt+G to put the texture inside our paper. Change blend mode to Multiply and lower its opacity to 20%.

Step 24

Double click paper's layer and add Drop Shadow. No need to worry about the setting, default setting is okay.

Step 25

Take a look at what we have now! Isn't that stupid. In real life, there's no shadow like this. Surely, we need to work on it.

Step 26

From Layers panel right click layer styles list and choose Create Layer. This step will separate layer styles to its own layer and gives us full control. You might get warning dialog box, if you do just click OK.

Step 27

Activate the new shadow layer. Hit ctrl+T, right click and choose Warp. Drag the handles until you have a realistic shadow. And that's it, we're done with the paper napkin!

Step 28

Time to bring back the coffee. From the Layers panel click eye icon in front of the coffee group to reveal it.

Step 29 - Adding Coffee Stain

I want you to download coffee stain brush set from this page. Change foreground color to #6D5631 and paint one or two stains under the cup. Make sure you use brush size smaller size smaller than the cup or it will looks weird.

Step 30

You can stop here but I want to add more realism to this image. Create new layer and draw one more stain out side the paper napkin. I want to make impression as if the owner forget to put the cup on the napkin.

Step 31

Coffee stain outside the paper has to be different from those inside. Ctrl+click paper to create selection based on the paper size.

Step 32

Make sure the coffee stain layer is still active. Open Levels (ctrl+L) and move black slider to 50 to make the selected stain lighter.

Final Result

We're done with this picture. Finally, you might want to add texture for the background. I hope you learn one or two techniques from this tutorial and have good time while doing it. Click on the image below or click here to see it in full size.

Painting on Wall Photo Manipulation

2010-05-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

Step 1 - Create a new image

To begin, let’s create a new file, go to the Menu bar and click on File > New and find the Preset drop-down menu and click on A4 on the contextual menu or you can input the A4 settings manually:

Width: 2480 pixels

Height: 3508 pixels

Resolution: 300 dpi

Color Mode: RGB Color; 8bit

Background Contents: White

We would need a landscape canvas so we would need to rotate the newly created layer; so as the layer opens, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90’ CW.

Step 2 - Correct the perspective of our background

In this step, we would be opening “Grotty street stock” to our canvas and we would be fixing its asymmetrical perspective. So open our street stock from the folder you’ve saved it into and drag that image using the Move tool (V) to our A4 canvas.

Take a look at our image you’d notice the lopsided angles on the window and on the street which are produced by the camera, these lopsided angles are often called Barrel Distortion. There are a lot of ways on how to correct barrel distortion on an image, like using the Lens Correction Filter of Photoshop to downloading software that could do that specific job, but on this tutorial we are going to use a simpler way and that is through the use of the Warp and Liquify tool.

Note that you may do as you please, but here we will be learning how to use the Warp transform tool and the Liquify tool in correcting distorted images.

To start duplicate “Grotty street stock” by pressing Ctrl/Cmd + J, this should create a backup when you make mistakes from the transformation. We would need to resize the image since we won’t need the extra window on the left. Activate the Transform tool by right clicking on the image.

Activate the Transform tool again and as the contextual menu pops up, click on Warp. Once you’ve clicked on it, a grid with 9 squares will form around the image.

For more precision and accuracy in the Warp process, we would need a measuring tool and that would be Photoshop’s Ruler. Activate the ruler by pressing Ctrl/Cmd + R. We would need to create guides from the ruler to make this process easier. See image below for further instructions:

We would be starting the Warp process, take a closer look at the images below:

After that, the image should be similar to the image below:

Note: You may remove the guides by clicking on View > Clear Guides.

Now, you’d notice that the distortion is partially repaired. For the next part, we would be utilizing the Liquify tool. Activate it by pressing Filter > Liquify from the Menu bar. When the box opens input these values on the Tool options bar.

Brush size: 270

Brush density: 50

Brush pressure: 100

Lastly, activate your Warp tool because we would need to fix some minor errors.

Now we’ve finished correcting the distortion and the final result should be similar to the image below:

For organizational purposes, rename your layer to “background”. To rename, you just have to double click on the text that says “layer 1” and then a Type box would appear and you may now rename it

Alpha Channels: An Introduction

2009-03-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

If you have ever found your self selecting and then re-selecting the same portion of an image in Photoshop then you are in dire need of Alpha Masks.

Scenario: Imagine that you are working on a Photoshop project where you had to carefully select something. You took about 10 minutes to successfully select something. Then you worked in the selection for another 10 minutes and then you deselected only to realize that you forgot to apply a stroke (Edit > Stroke) to the image. What now? You’ll have to spend another 10 minutes re-selecting.

The whole re-selecting process could have been avoided if you had used Alpha Channels to save your selection.

Selecting an Alien Flower

1) Here I have selected what appears to be an alien flower. It took me about five minutes (I selected in Quick Mask mode). I wouldn’t want to spend another 5 minutes re-selecting it in the future.

Saving the Selection For Ever

2) So now I want to save this selection. With a stroke of genius, I glide my mouse pointer with extraordinary skill all the way to the Select menu. While in this menu I click on Save Selection. Tada! I have successfully saved the selection. I’ll never have to re-select that alien flower ever again.

If you did the same then you should see something like the following window appear:

Enter a name and click ok.

Wait? What Happened?

3) Nothing appeared to happen but if you go to your Channels Palette ( Window > Channels ) then you will see an Alpha Channel. This is the saved selection.

Moment of Truth.

4) De-select the current selection ( Press CTRL/CMD+D). Now if you want the selection to come back then just CTRL/CMD+ Click on the new Alpha Channel (called Alien Flower in this example) and your selection will return. Whew!

Not only will this selection re-use allow you to save time but now you have access to a whole new list of channel features.

Some Facts

5) If you click on the Alpha Channel, the entire image will turn black and white.

The areas that are not selected will be black

The areas that were with in the selection will be white.

The areas that are translucent or partially transparent will appear as shades of gray.

This view is helpful because you can check if you have errors in your selection. If your selection is fuzzy then you can adjust the levels ( Image > Adjustments > Levels ) or sharpen the selection ( Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen ).

You are allowed to use most of the filters and image adjustment tools in this view. You can use this for your advantage and create lots of fun and useful effects. I’ll try to cover some of these in the days ahead.

You can also use the paint brush, paint bucket, or pencil tool to reshape the selection. If you paint black then that area will get deselected. If you paint white then those areas will get selected. Gray areas will be semi-transparent.

Photoshop Christmas Ornament

2009-03-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

The holiday season is fast approaching and people will soon be using Photoshop to create Christmas greeting cards, banners, and flyers. Most of them will probably want to create some pictures of Christmas decorations on those cards. This is a quick and dirty tutorial to get started with creating ornaments

The Magical Color Changing Christmas Ornament

I don’t enjoy doing something over and over. Repetitive tasks get boring so most of the time we should be reusing our work. The following tutorial shows how to make a Christmas Ornament graphic that you can quickly modify in a few seconds.

This is what the end product will look like:

Best of all, if you want to change the color you will just edit one layer and you’ll end up with a brand new Christmas ornament with out losing any of the cool effects.

There.. that literally took 4 seconds.

Let’s Begin

1) Creating the base layer

Create a new image ( File > New ). Choose what ever settings you like. I chose the 1024×768 preset.

Create a New Layer. Rename this layer and call it “BASE”.

Choose the Layer called BASE by clicking on it in the Layers Palette.

Grab the Elliptical Marquee Selection Tool

If you hold down the SHIFT key and then drag then you will get a perfect circle. Do that now. Shift+click and then drag on your image. Make a nice round selection.

In your color picker, Choose WHITE as your foreground color. And choose RED as your background color.

Now grab the Gradient Tool ( G ) . When you choose the gradient tool you should notice that the top tool bar changes. You will see a Gradient Picker.

Click on that gradient picker area (in the screen shot above it’s the area with the red to black gradient. After you click on it you should see the Gradient Picker window. Choose Foreground to background. Then inside the circle selection make a diagonal line going from upper left to lower right. Keep trying until your circle looks like the following:

Next, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. I chose 6% noise, Uniform and Monochromatic.

2) Making it 3D-ish.

Create a new layer. Call it “3D effect”.

Choose the layer called “3D Effect”

CTRL+Click on the layer called “Base”. This will select the circle. Make sure that 3D effect layer is selected. Then go to Edit > Fill > Choose Color in the Use menu > and choose 100% Black as the color.

Now click on the Add Layer Mask button on the bottom of the Layers Palette.

Click on the black colored layer mask next to the 3d effect layer. Choose the gradient tool. Use a Foreground to Transparent gradient. Make another diagonal line inside the selected circle. Keep trying until you get something like this:

You may have to click on delete and try again until you get it looking like the image above.

3) Making the Ring

Create a new layer. Call it “Ring”.

Make a small narrow oval selection on top of the orb and fill it with a color. I chose yellow. It should look like this:

Choose the move tool.

Now press ALT and the up arrow. This will duplicate the selection and nudge it upwards.

Press up until the little ring is high enough.

And the end choose Select > Modify > Contract. Enter in a number like 3 pixels and then fill it with black.

You can also apply a reflected gradient on this ring.

You should end up with something that looks like the following:

4) Making the final Glow

Make a new layer. Call it “Glow”.

Control click on Base. This will select the circle.

Go to Select > Save selection. Name should be Circle 1.

Grab the marquee tool and click and drag the selection slightly to the left.

Now click on Select > Save Selection.

This time in the Channel drop down menu choose Circle 1.

Operation should be Subtract from selection.

Go to the channels palette and click on Circle 1.

You should see something like the following:

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I blurred mine 34 pixels. This may be different for you depending on what size you are working with.

Control Click on Circle 1 channel and then go back to the Glow Layer.

Click on Edit > Fill and fill it with WHITE. Finally change the blending mode for this layer to Overlay. Move this layer until it looks good.

5) Changing Colors.

If you want to change the colors of this ornament just click on the BASE layer. Then go to Image > Adjustment > Hue Saturation. Move the Hue slider and the color of the orb will change. All the glow effects will remain.

Creating Curves with the Pen Tool

2009-03-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

Learn how to create smooth curves using the Pen Tool. It is recommended that you follow along on Photoshop while reading this article. This will make the learning experience much more enjoyable

We will create a simple curved line using a pen path. I recommend that you follow along on Photoshop to learn about pen paths. Start by creating a new Photoshop Document (File > New).

Path Basics

. Choose the Pen Tool

Choose “Paths” from the tool options from the top.

Click and release your mouse multiple times, on random locations, on the new document.

The tiny squares at the corners are called Anchor Points. Anchor Points exist to connect different path segments and to modify the way they look.

Create another anchor point but instead of just clicking, press and then hold the button down and then drag your mouse cursor any way you want. Drag in multiple directions and you’ll notice that the path segment curves and bends depending on how you drag your mouse cursor. If you drag away from the anchor point then the line gets a greater curve. The curve travels with the straight line no matter which way you rotate it.

Creating Perfect Curves

We will now finally create an actually smooth curve using the pen tool.

Choose a brush setting. Set the size and color of the brush. I chose size 15 and color black (#000000).

Choose the pen tool.

Click once to create an Anchor Point. Next, Create another anchor point but instead

of just clicking, press and then hold the button down and then drag your mouse cursor until the curve looks the way you want it to look. Repeat at other locations for more curves until you are happy with your single smooth curve.

Right click on the curve and choose Stroke Path.

Choose Brush from the drop down

menu. If you want a constant straight line with constant opacity then uncheck “Simulate Pressure”. Otherwise, leave it checked.

Finally, you can right click and delete the path. If you wish to preserve the path, you can click on View > Uncheck Show Extras. This will preserve the path but you won’t see it on your image. You can bring it back by going to View >> Show Extras. You can access the Paths Palette by going to Windows > Paths.

Photoshop Preferences

2009-03-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

In order to get the most performance out of photoshop, you should check out the photoshop preferences. Let’s go ahead and explore the most important settings in the preferences window of photoshop. If you are in a hurry then scroll down and do the stuff that is in Black font in order to increase the performance of Photoshop.

Go ahead and open the preferences window. Windows users should go to Edit > Preferences > General or use the keystroke CTRL+K. Mac users should go to Photoshop > Preferences > General or CMD+K.

I am using Photoshop CS3 so if you are using a different version of photoshop then your preferences window will probably look different. But don’t worry, most of the settings will be the same though they may exist on different tabs so click around and explore on your own until you get to the settings that this tutorial talks about. If you are using Photoshop CS and above then you should be okay. Just feel your way around.

The following is not a complete tour of the Photoshop Preferences. I have only covered what I believe to be the most important settings for the average Photoshop User.

General Tab.

Color picker: This setting chooses between which algorithm should be used by the color picker. The options that I have are Windows or Adobe. I set this as Adobe.

Image Interpolation: This option is used to decide which algorithm photoshop uses when resizing an image.

Nearest Neighbour makes the pixels larger or smaller. This usually makes jaggies more visible.
Bilinear Interpolation determines the averages of pixels and then creates a new pixel based on the results. This produces almost no jaggies but makes the image blurry.
Bicubic Interpolation is the default setting and should be a good setting for everyone. It creates sharp edges and not many jagged edges. Photoshop CS and above has two variants of Bicubic Interpolation, the Bicubic Smoother and Bicupid Sharper. Bicubic Smoother is optimum for enlarging images and Bicubic Sharper is optimum for reducing an image. None of these enlarge images very well. They will end up making your images blurry but that is where many current enlarging algorithms are currently. My advice would be to just keep Bicubic Interpolation. If you mainly do image size reductions then you can decide if you would like to set it to Bicubic Sharper.

General Options: Most of these are entirely upto you.

Automatically Launch Bridge: Check this option only if you use Bridge to manage your images and photographs. If not then launching Bridge automatically will just slow down Photoshop’s start time.

Auto Update Open Documents: If you use multiple image editing programs then turn this on. It is useful if you use Imageready or another image editor while using Photoshop. If not then never mind.
Automatically Beep: This is useful if you are using massive images and single photoshop commands take many minutes to complete. Then you can just give the command and do something else and photoshop will beep to let you know that the command is complete
Dymanic Color Sliders: I would recommend that you check this. When you move sliders, you’ll see the colors change in real time. Other wise they will only update once you change and release the mouse button.
Export Clipboard: I would recommend that you UNcheck this. This will free up your clipboard and leave more memory free. Only check this option if you copy and paste items from inside photoshop to other programs.
Use Shift Key For Tool Switch: This is entirely a personal preference. If you leave this CHECKED then you can press for example Shift L to select the lasso tool. While holding the shift button down you can press L agains and again to flip through all the other tools under the lasso tool (Polygonal Lasso and Magnetic Lasso). If you UNCHECK this then you just press L to select the lasso tool and then press L over and over to flip through the lasso tools. You’ll save a nano second if you uncheck this. I prefer unchecking it.
Resize Image During Paste/Place. I would recommend that you check this. This allows you to free transform an image as soon as you Paste or place an image.
Zoom resizes window. I leave this UNchecked. If checked then it resizes the window along with the image when zoomed.
Zoom with scroll wheel. I leave this UNchecked. This is personal preference. I usually resize images with the slider on my Wacom Intuos 3.

History Log: This is useful if you want to save all the steps that you made while creating your images. It will tell you exactly what tool you used and applied which filter and what order you made the changes. This is very useful you are writing tutorials or just want to remember exactly how you made what you made.

MetaData: This will save your history log in the image itself. This will make the image file size slightly bigger. This information can be viewed in the bridge or any other program capable of displayign image metadata (irfanview)
Text File. Saves the log into an external text file.
Both: Saves the log into both the image metadata as well as an external text file!

Interface Tab

Use Grayscale Toolbar icon: This turns the “PS” above the tools from Blue to Gray. If the color is distracting to you then go ahead and check this.

Show Channels in Color: Check this if you want to show individual color channels in color. The default is unchecked.

Show Menu Colors: Check this if you want to show background colors in menus

Show Tool Tips: These are the tips that appear if you hover your mouse pointer over something. If you are a beginner or intermediate Photoshop user then leave this checked. If you find them getting in the way then go ahead and uncheck this.

Auto Collapse Icon Palettes: This will hide your palettes if you click anywhere else. This is useful if you feel that the palettes get in your way. I recommend that you Uncheck this. You’ll save a lot of clicks if you keep this unchecked.

Remember Palette Locations: I recommend that you leave this checked. It will allow you to better personalize photoshop according to your needs. If unchecked then all palette locations will get moved back to default between photoshop runs. This is a useful setting to have for shared computers such as in lab environments.

File Handling

Image Previews: Saving an image preview will increase the file size slightly. This is the thumb nail that appears when you click on an image in File > Open. I recommend setting this to Always Save.

File Extension: I have this set to use lowercase. I am not sure why it would be important for anyone to use upper case. Please share in the comments if you know why saving in upper case would be important for someone other than just a personal preference.

Recent File List Contains: I have set this to 15. You can increase the number to 25. This is convenient if you open a lot of files and want easy access to them from File > Recent Files >

Performance

Memory Usage: If you have RAM to spare then increase this to 70%. This will greatly increase performance. This will reduce the performance of any other programs that you might you using. Your decision regarding this option greatly depends on how you use Photoshop. If you close all other programs and only work on Photoshop then increase this to 70% or 75%. If you use other programs while using Photoshop such as a web browser, Dreamweaver, or any resource hungry program then you’ll probably be better off setting this to 55% to 69%. You always want to give photoshop as much memory as you can for the best performance.

Scratch Disks: The best performance can be achieved if you have two internal hard disks in your computer. The second best performance can be achieved if you have one internal and one external harddisk connected by a fast connection such as USB2.0 or Firewire. The least would be to have one hard disk with free space. So if you have two internal physical harddisks in your computer then set the scratch disk to where photoshop is not installed. Example, If photoshop is on X:\ (or sda1) drive then make the scratch disk on Y:\ (sdb1) drive.

ABOUT TOOLS

2009-03-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Get Smart with Smart Objects

Photoshop has been moving towards letting users do everything non-destructively. The biggest advantage digital artists have over artists that use other mediums is the ability to go back and fix things with out having to start over. Smart Objects is the latest tool in our powerful arsenal that allows us to do a whole lot very quickly without any fear of doing any irreversible damage. As all other tutorials on this site, we’ll go ahead and learn about Smart Objects by jumping right into Photoshop to explore this topic.

Smart Objects are Links

Those who have some experience with creating web pages will be familiar with the image tag. When one wants to add an image into a website, they will use the tag and link to an image. Then they are free to change certain image properties such as the size or borders using CSS. They are also able to create multiple images by adding multiple tags on to a web page. This creates multiple instances of the same image on to one web page. If someone edits the actual image file that is being linked to using the tag, then that edit will be reflected on all the instances of that one file.

Step 1:Choose an image to work with.

Next, I opened a new blank image by going to File > New. Next, using the move tool, I clicked on the originalball.jpg layer and dragged it into the new image. This created the following:

Step 2: Here is a regular layer

After increasing the canvas size a bit, I added a Smart Object next to the regular layer. To do so, go to File > Place and choose the originalball.jpg image. This created the following:

Step 3: Add a smart object

They look identical at the moment. I can see the layers palette. The icon for the Smart Oject is different than a regular layer.

Next, let’s try resizing both the regular layer and Smart Object multiple times. Transform both objects to half their size, then resize both of them to three times their size, then resize them back to their original size. Now if we inspect the edges of the regular layer and the smart object, this is what we find:

The Smart Object retains its original sharpness and quality

You can clearly see, that the Smart Object edges are just as good as the original while the regular layer has degraded and blurred after just a few transformations. This is because a smart object resamples the original image during each transformation while a regular layer only transforms the current state of the layer and causes degradation.

You can also add multiple copies of a Smart Object on to the canvas by right clicking on a Smart Object Layer in the layers palette and then clicking on “Duplicate Layer”. Next if you double click on one of the copied Smart Object Layers in the layers palette, it will open that layer in a new window and give you the following warning:

Double click on Smart Object layer to edit

Click on “OK” and the original image will open up in a new window. Edit that image and then click on File > Save. Next, return to your image with the smart object, and your change will be reflected in all the instances of the Smart Object. This is useful for example when you may be editing buttons for a navigation menu.

You can also convert any existing layer into a Smart Object by right clicking on the Layer in the Layers palette and clicking on “Convert to Smart Object”. The layer can then be used as a Smart Object.

Also, you can not use the paint brush directly on a Smart Object. You must either rasterize it or double click on Smart Object Layer in the Layers palette in order to directly edit it.

Smart Objects have further features as well and I’ll cover them in my next post about Smart Objects. I hope you found this introduction to Smart Objects helpful. Leave a comment if you wish!

Brush presets

2008-12-30T04:24:00.000-08:00

Brush presets

A preset brush is a saved brush tip with defined characteristics, such as size, shape, and hardness. You can save preset brushes with the characteristics you use often. You can also save tool presets for the Brush tool that you can select from the Tool Preset menu in the options bar.

When you change the size, shape, or hardness of a preset brush, the change is temporary. The next time you choose that preset, the brush uses its original settings. To make your changes permanent, you need to create a new preset. See Create a new preset brush.

Select a preset brush

Select a painting tool or editing tool, and click the Brush Preset pop‑up menu in the options bar.
Select a brush.
Note: You can also select a brush from the Brushes palette. Be sure that Brush Presets on the left side of the palette is selected to view the loaded presets.
Change options for the preset brush.

Diameter
Temporarily changes the brush size. Drag the slider or enter a value. If the brush has a dual tip, both the primary and dual brush tips are scaled.

Use Sample Size
Uses the original diameter of the brush tip if the brush tip shape is based on a sample. (Not available for round brushes.)

Hardness
Temporarily changes the amount of anti-aliasing for the brush tool. At 100%, the brush tool paints with the hardest brush tip, but is still anti-aliased. The Pencil always paints a hard edge that is not anti-aliased.

Change how preset brushes are displayed

Choose a display option from the Brush Preset picker menu or Brushes palette menu:

Text Only to view the brushes as a list.
Small or Large Thumbnail to view the brushes as thumbnails.
Small or Large List to view the brushes as a list with thumbnails.
Stroke Thumbnail to view a sample brush stroke with each brush thumbnail.

To dynamically preview brush strokes in the Brushes palette, make sure that Brush Preset is selected, and then position the pointer over a brush until the tool tip appears. Move the pointer over different brushes. The preview area at the bottom of the palette will display sample brush strokes.

Load, save, and manage brush presets

You can manage libraries of preset brushes to keep your brushes organized and to make available only the brushes you need for a project.

Change the preset brushes displayed in the palette

To load a library of preset brushes, choose one of the following from the Brush Preset picker menu or Brushes palette menu:

Load Brushes to add a library to the current list. Select the library file you want to use, and click Load.
Replace Brushes to replace the current list with a different library. Select the library file you want to use, and click Load.A library file (displayed at the bottom of the palette menu). Click OK to replace the current list, or click Append to append the current list.

To return to the default library of preset brushes, choose Reset Brushes from the Brush Preset picker menu or Brushes palette menu. You can either replace the current list or append the default library to the current list.

Note: You can also use the Preset Manager to load and reset brush libraries.

Save a set of preset brushes as a library

Choose Save Brushes from the Brush Preset picker menu or Brushes palette menu.
Choose a location for the brush library, enter a file name, and click Save. You can save the library anywhere. However, if you place the library file in the Presets/Brushes folder in the default preset location, the library name will appear at the bottom of the Brush Preset picker menu and Brushes palette menu after you restart Photoshop.You can also use the Preset Manager to rename, delete, and save libraries of preset brushes. For more information, see Work with the Preset Manager.

Rename a preset brush

Do one of the following:

Select a brush in the Brush Preset picker or Brushes palette, and choose Rename Brush from the palette menu. Enter a new name for the brush, and click OK.
If the Brushes palette is set to display brushes as thumbnails, double-click a brush, enter a new name, and click OK.
If the Brushes palette is set to display brushes as a list or text only, double-click a brush, enter a new name inline, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

Delete a preset brush

In the Brush Preset picker or Brushes palette, select a brush, and choose Delete Brush from the palette menu.
In the Brush Preset picker or Brushes palette, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the brush you want to delete.
In the Brushes palette, select a brush and click the Delete icon , or drag a brush to the Delete icon.

Create a new preset brush

You can save a customized brush as a preset brush that appears in the Brushes palette, Brush Preset picker, and Preset Manager.

Note: New preset brushes are saved in a Preferences file. If this file is deleted or damaged, or if you reset brushes to the default library, the new presets will be lost. To permanently save new preset brushes, save them in a library.

Customize a brush.
Do one of the following in the Brushes palette or Brush Preset picker:

Choose New Brush Preset from the palette menu, enter a name for the preset brush, and click OK.
Click the Create New Brush button

Painting tools

2008-12-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

About painting tools, options, and palettes

Adobe Photoshop CS3 provides several tools for painting and editing image color. The Brush tool and the Pencil tool work like traditional drawing tools by applying color with brush strokes. The Gradient tool, Fill command, and Paint Bucket tool apply color to large areas. Tools like the Eraser tool, Blur tool, and Smudge tool modify the existing colors in the image. See Painting tools gallery.

In the options bar for each tool, you can set how color is applied to an image and choose from preset brush tips.

Brush and tool presets

You can save a set of brush options as a preset so you can quickly access brush characteristics you use frequently. Photoshop includes several sample brush presets. You can start with these presets and modify them to produce new effects. Many original brush presets are available for download on the web.

You choose presets from the Brush Preset picker, which stores preset brushes and allows you to temporarily modify the diameter and hardness of a brush preset.

Learn the shortcuts for changing paint tool size and hardness. See Keys for painting objects.

You use tool presets when you want to save brush tip characteristics along with settings from the options bar, such as opacity, flow, and color. To learn more about tool presets, see Create and use tool presets.

Brush tip options

Along with settings in the options bar, brush tip options control how color is applied. You can apply color gradually, with soft edges, with large brush strokes, with various brush dynamics, with different blending properties, and with brushes of different shapes. You can apply a texture with your brush strokes to simulate painting on canvas or art papers. You can also simulate spraying paint with an airbrush. You use the Brushes palette to set brush tip options. See Brushes palette overview.

If you work with a drawing tablet, you can control how color is applied using pen pressure, angle, rotation, or a stylus wheel. You set options for drawing tablets in the Brushes palette.

Paint with the Brush tool or Pencil tool

The Brush tool and the Pencil tool paint the current foreground color on an image. The Brush tool creates soft strokes of color. The Pencil tool creates hard-edged lines.

Choose a foreground color. (See Choose colors in the toolbox.)
Select the Brush tool or Pencil tool .
Choose a brush from the Brush Presets picker. See Select a preset brush.
Set tool options for mode, opacity, and so on, in the options bar. See Paint tool options.
Do one or more of the following:

Drag in the image to paint.
To draw a straight line, click a starting point in the image. Then hold down Shift, and click an ending point.
When using the Brush tool as an airbrush, hold down the mouse button without dragging to build up color.

Paint tool options

Set the following options for painting tools in the options bar. Options available vary with each tool.

Mode Sets the method for blending the color you paint with the underlying existing pixels. Available modes change with the currently selected tool. Paint modes are similar to layer blending modes. See List of blending modes.

Opacity Sets the transparency of color you apply. As you paint over an area, the opacity will not exceed the set level no matter how many times you move the pointer over the area, until you release the mouse button. If you stroke over the area again, you will apply additional color, equivalent to the set opacity. Opacity of 100 percent is opaque.

Flow Sets the rate at which color is applied as you move the pointer over an area. As you paint over an area, keeping the mouse button down, the amount of color will build up based on the flow rate, up to the opacity setting. For example, if you set the opacity to 33% and the flow to 33%, each time you move over an area, its color moves 33% towards the brush color. The total will not exceed 33% opacity unless you release the mouse button and stroke over the area again.

Press a number key to set a tool’s opacity in multiples of 10% (pressing 1 sets it to 10%; pressing 0 sets it to 100%). Use Shift and number key to set Flow.

Airbrush Simulates painting with an airbrush. As you move the pointer over an area, paint builds up as you hold down the mouse button. Brush hardness, opacity, and flow options control how fast and how much the paint is applied. Click the button to turn this option on or off.

Auto erase (Pencil tool only) Paints the background color over areas containing the foreground color. Select the foreground color you want to erase and the background color you want to change to. (See Auto Erase with the Pencil tool.)

Paint with a pattern

The Pattern Stamp tool paints with a pattern. You can select a pattern from the pattern libraries or create your own patterns.

Select the Pattern Stamp tool .
Choose a brush from the Brush Presets picker. See Select a preset brush.)
Set tool options for mode, opacity, etc. in the options bar. See Paint tool options.
Select Aligned in the options bar to maintain the pattern’s continuity with your original start point, even if you release the mouse button and then continue painting. Deselect Aligned to restart the pattern each time you stop and start painting.
Select a pattern from the Pattern pop‑up palette in the options bar.
If you’d like to apply the pattern with an impressionistic effect, select Impressionist.
Drag in the image to paint it with the pattern.

Paint with the Art History Brush

The Art History Brush tool paints with stylized strokes, using the source data from a specified history state or snapshot. By experimenting with different paint style, size, and tolerance options, you can simulate the texture of painting with different colors and artistic styles.

Like the History Brush tool, the Art History Brush tool uses a specified history state or snapshot as the source data. The History Brush tool, however, paints by recreating the specified source data, while the Art History Brush tool uses that data along with the options you set to create different colors and artistic styles

Erase with the Eraser tool

The Eraser tool changes pixels to either the background color or to transparent. If you’re working in the background or in a layer with transparency locked, the pixels change to the background color; otherwise, the pixels are erased to transparency.

You can also use the eraser to return the affected area to a state selected in the History palette.

Select the Eraser tool .
Set the background color you want to apply if you are erasing in the background or a layer with locked transparency.
Choose a mode for the eraser. Brush and Pencil set the eraser to act like those tools. Block is a hard-edged, fixed-sized square with no options for changing the opacity or flow.
For Brush and Pencil modes, choose a brush, and set Opacity and Flow in the options bar. An opacity of 100% erases pixels completely. A lower opacity erases pixels partially. See Paint tool options.
To erase to a saved state or snapshot of the image, click the left column of the state or snapshot in the History palette, and then select Erase To History in the options bar. (Photoshop) To temporarily use the Eraser tool in Erase to History mode, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you drag in the image.
Drag through the area you want to erase.

Change similar pixels with the Magic Eraser tool

When you click in a layer with the Magic Eraser tool, the tool changes all similar pixels to transparent. If you’re working in a layer with locked transparency, the pixels change to the background color. If you click in the background, it is converted to a layer and all similar pixels change to transparent.

You can choose to erase contiguous pixels only or all similar pixels on the current layer.

Select the Magic Eraser tool .
Do the following in the options bar:

Enter a tolerance value to define the range of colors that can be erased. A low tolerance erases pixels within a range of color values very similar to the pixel you click. A high tolerance erases pixels within a broader range.
Select Anti-aliased to smooth the edges of the area you erase.
Select Contiguous to erase only pixels contiguous to the one you click, or deselect to erase all similar pixels in the image.
Select Sample All Layers to sample the erased color using combined data from all visible layers.
Specify an opacity to define the strength of the erasure. An opacity of 100% erases pixels completely. A lower opacity erases pixels partially

Click in the part of the layer you want to erase.

Change pixels to transparent with the Background Eraser tool

The Background Eraser tool erases pixels on a layer to transparency as you drag; this allows you to erase the background while maintaining the edges of an object in the foreground. By specifying different sampling and tolerance options, you can control the range of the transparency and the sharpness of the boundaries.

If you want to erase the background of an object with intricate or wispy edges, use the Extract command.

The background eraser samples the color in the center of the brush, also called the hot spot, and deletes that color wherever it appears inside the brush. It also performs color extraction at the edges of any foreground objects, so that color halos are not visible if the foreground object is later pasted into another image.

Note: The background eraser overrides the lock transparency setting of a layer.

In the Layers palette, select the layer containing the areas you want to erase.
Select the Background Eraser tool .
Click the brush sample in the options bar, and set brush options in the pop‑up palette:

Choose settings for the Diameter, Hardness, Spacing, Angle, and Roundness options (see Brush tip shape options).
If you’re using a pressure-sensitive digitizing tablet, choose options from the Size and Tolerance menus to vary the size and tolerance of the background eraser over the course of a stroke. Choose Pen Pressure to base the variation on the pen pressure. Choose Stylus Wheel to base the variation on the position of the pen thumbwheel. Choose Off if you don’t want to vary the size or tolerance.

Do the following in the options bar:

Choose a Limits mode for erasing: Discontiguous to erase the sampled color wherever it occurs under the brush; Contiguous to erase areas that contain the sampled color and are connected to one another; and Find Edges to erase connected areas containing the sampled color while better preserving the sharpness of shape edges.
For Tolerance, enter a value or drag the slider. A low tolerance limits erasure to areas that are very similar to the sampled color. A high tolerance erases a broader range of colors.
Select Protect Foreground Color to prevent the erasure of areas that match the foreground color in the toolbox.
Choose a Sampling option: Continuous to sample colors continuously as you drag; Once to erase only areas containing the color you first click; and Background Swatch to erase only areas containing the current background color.

Drag through the area you want to erase. The Background Eraser tool pointer appears as a brush shape with a cross hair indicating the tool’s hot spot.

Auto Erase with the Pencil tool

The Auto Erase option for the Pencil tool lets you paint the background color over areas containing the foreground color.

Specify foreground and background colors.
Select the Pencil tool .
Select Auto Erase in the options bar.
Drag over the image.
If the center of the cursor is over the foreground color when you begin dragging, the area is erased to the background color. If the center of the cursor is over an area that doesn’t contain the foreground color when you begin dragging, the area is painted with the foreground color.

Changing the brush cursor

The painting tools have three possible cursors: the standard cursor (the icon from the toolbox), a cross hair , and a cursor that matches the size and shape of the currently selected brush tip. You change the brush tip cursor in the Cursors preferences dialog box.

Choose Edit > Preferences > Cursors (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > Cursors (Mac OS).
Select the desired cursors in both the Painting Cursors area and the Other Cursors area. The sample cursors change to reflect your choices. For a Brush Tip cursor, choose a size and whether to include a cross hair in the cursor.

Normal Brush Tip restricts the cursor size to areas of the brush stroke that have 50% or more opacity.
Full Size Brush Tip sizes the cursor to the entire area affected by the brush stroke. For soft brushes, this produces a larger cursor size than the Normal setting, to include the areas of the brush stroke with lighter opacity.

Click OK.

For the Pen and Brush tools, the Caps Lock key acts like a toggle for changing between the standard cursor and the cross hair.

Selecting

2008-12-30T03:43:00.000-08:00

About selecting pixels

A selection isolates one or more parts of your image. By selecting specific areas, you can edit and apply effects and filters to portions of your image while leaving the unselected areas untouched.

Photoshop provides separate sets of tools to make selections of raster and vector data. For example, to select pixels, you can use the marquee tools or the lasso tools. You can use commands in the Select menu to select all pixels, to deselect, or to reselect.

To select vector data, you can use the pen or shape tools, which produce precise outlines called paths. You can convert paths to selections or convert selections to paths.

Selections can be copied, moved, and pasted, or saved and stored in an alpha channel. Alpha channels store selections as grayscale images called masks. A mask is like the inverse of a selection: it covers the unselected part of the image and protects it from any editing or manipulations you apply. You can convert a stored mask back into a selection by loading the alpha channel into an image.

Select, deselect, and reselect pixels

You can select all visible pixels on a layer or deselect any selected pixels.

If a tool is not working as expected, you may have a hidden selection. Use the Deselect command and try the tool again.

Select all pixels on a layer within the canvas boundaries

Select the layer in the Layers palette.
Choose Select > All.

Deselect selections

Do one of the following:

Choose Select > Deselect.

If you are using the Rectangle Marquee tool, the Elliptical Marquee tool, or the Lasso tool, click anywhere in the image outside the selected area

Select with the Lasso tool

The Lasso tool is useful for drawing freeform segments of a selection border.

Select the Lasso tool , and select options.
Drag to draw a freehand selection border.
Specify one of the selection options in the options bar.
(Optional) set feathering and anti-aliasing in the options bar. See Soften the edges of selections.
To draw a straight-edged selection border when no other pixels are selected, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS), and click where segments should begin and end. You can switch between drawing freehand and straight-edged segments.
To erase recently drawn segments, hold down the Delete key until you’ve erased the fastening points for the desired segment.
To close the selection border, release the mouse without holding down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS).
(Optional) Click Refine Edge to further adjust the selection boundary or view the selection against different backgrounds or as a mask. See Refine selection edges.

Layer Basics

2008-12-29T21:59:00.000-08:00

About layers

Photoshop layers are like sheets of stacked acetate. You can see through transparent areas of a layer to the layers below. You move a layer to position the content on the layer, like sliding a sheet of acetate in a stack. You can also change the opacity of a layer to make content partially transparent.

Transparent areas on a layer let you see layers below.

You use layers to perform tasks such as compositing multiple images, adding text to an image, or adding vector graphic shapes. You can apply a layer style to add a special effect such as a drop shadow or a glow.

Work nondestructively

Sometimes layers don’t contain any apparent content. For example, an adjustment layer holds color or tonal adjustments that affect the layers below it. Rather than edit image pixels directly, you can edit an adjustment layer and leave the underlying pixels unchanged.

A special type of layer, called a Smart Object, contains one or more layers of content. You can transform (scale, skew, or reshape) a Smart Object without directly editing image pixels. Or, you can edit the Smart Object as a separate image even after placing it in a Photoshop image. Smart Objects can also contain smart filter effects, which allow you to apply filters nondestructively to images so that you can later tweak or remove the filter effect. See Nondestructive editing.

Organize layers

A new image has a single layer. The number of additional layers, layer effects, and layer sets you can add to an image is limited only by your computer’s memory.

You work with layers in the Layers palette. Layer groups help you organize and manage layers. You can use groups to arrange your layers in a logical order and to reduce clutter in the Layers palette. You can nest groups within other groups. You can also use groups to apply attributes and masks to multiple layers simultaneously.

Video layers

You can use video layers to add video to an image. After importing a video clip into an image as a video layer or a smart object, you can mask the layer, transform it, apply layer effects, paint on individual frames, or rasterize an individual frame and convert it to a standard layer. Use the Timeline palette to play the video within the image or to access individual frames. See Supported video and image sequence formats (Photoshop Extended).

Layers palette overview

The Layers palette lists all layers, layer groups, and layer effects in an image. You can use the Layers palette to show and hide layers, create new layers, and work with groups of layers. You can access additional commands and options in the Layers palette menu.

Photoshop Layers palette

A. Layers palette menu

B. Layer Group

C. Layer

D. Expand/Collapse Layer effects

E. Layer effect

F. Layer thumbnail

Display the Layers palette

Choose Window > Layers.

Choose a command from the Layers palette menu

Click the triangle in the upper right corner of the palette.

Change the size of layer thumbnails

Choose Palette Options from the Layers palette menu, and select a thumbnail size.

Change thumbnail contents

Choose Palette Options from the Layers palette menu, and select Entire Document to display the contents of the entire document. Select Layer Bounds to restrict the thumbnail to the object’s pixels on the layer. Turn off thumbnails to improve performance and save monitor space.

Expand and collapse groups

Click the triangle to the left of a group folder. See View layers and groups within a group.

BASICS

2008-12-29T21:15:00.000-08:00

Lightening Underexposed Images

This isn't a trick; it's the most common adjustment I do. This works in every version of Photoshop and with every kind of file: RAW, JPG and everything.

If you're unsure of an exposure it's better to underexpose a digital camera and correct it later. This is perfect for shooting JPGs. This process is much easier and gives the same results as shooting RAW.

We do this in a few different ways.

LEVELS COMMAND

Go to the LEVELS adjustment either by IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS or simply command + L.

You'll see a histogram; which is a graph charting the relative amounts of light and dark in your image. You'll see that it doesn't make it all the way to the right of the space in which it sits. Click and drag the little white slider on the far right of the histogram to the left, just enough to meet the rightmost edge of the histogram. As you drag it make sure PREVIEW is checked and you can see what you're doing. Hit OK and you're DONE!

Hold the OPTION key on Mac while doing this and the image will go to super-high contrast. Drag the white slider left until some points just start to sparkle out of the black background. Take your finger off the Option key to see how the image really looks.

CURVES COMMAND

This is a little more complex. This is better if you have an image with bright highlights and want to bring up the shadows in exchange for flattening the highlights a little. (see also Brightening Dark Shadows.) Deliberately underexposing a digital camera in contrasty light and then doing this actually improves the image over a conventional exposure, because it gives you the ability to create a shoulder for the highlights that's missing in digital cameras.

Call up curves by IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > CURVES or simply command + M.

Put the cursor on the lower middle of the diagonal line. Click and hold it and drag it up. Have fun, you can do an awful lot here.

Lighten and Darken

DON'T use the Lighten and Darken commands.

Instead, use the Levels command, IMAGE > ADJUST > LEVELS (or use Command + L on the Mac).

To lighten and darken areas that are well exposed but just don't look right yet, first try dragging the middle gray triangle back and forth. Just do it till it looks right: this is art and not science.

You also can use the Curves command (IMAGE > ADJUST > CURVES or Command + M on Mac), which is more complex. See any Photoshop book for this.

Ignore the "Auto Levels" command, it rarely give good results.

Burning and Dodging

DON'T use the burn and dodge tools!

Instead, use any of the selection tools to select the area you want to burn or dodge and then do as above to lighten or darken that area.

You can learn how to make a selection at your community college, the online help, the internet or a book. You learn what to select and what to do with that selection from art class and following your soul.

Feather the selection (SELECT > FEATHER) so that you don't have obvious hard edges to the altered area. Try a feather value of 2 to 10 pixels for the manipulation of a precisely defined area and try 100 to 250 pixels for a general adjustment to a non-specific broad area. Of course these values depend on the pixel size of your image and art. I always have my rulers set to read in pixels and I eyeball what the feather should be.

Correcting Color Casts and White Balance Problems

This works in every version of Photoshop. It works with every kind of image, RAW, JPG or whatever. I'll cover three different tools, all of which do the same thing differently. These tools are the Color Match tool, the Levels tool and the Color Balance tool. All these tools are in every Photoshop version made in the past 10 years or so, but the Color Match tool has only been around a few years.

COLOR BALANCE TOOL

Go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > COLOR BALANCE or simply command + B.

Move the sliders.

I usually like things warmer than most people shoot them, so I tent to slide them towards Red and Yellow. This is how you change the color temperature or white balance setting of any image, even JPGs. Also wiggle the Magenta/Green slider to correct for fluorescent lights.

LEVELS TOOL

White Point Dropper

This lets you make anything a pure white. It's also is used to correct underexposure.

Go to the LEVELS adjustment either by IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS or simply command + L. Look for a white eyedropper on the lower right of the adjustment panel. Click it. Now hover over your image and click on whatever part is supposed to be white. Voila! Photoshop makes it white.

This is a powerful tool so be careful. Click on something that is supposed to be blue and it turns everything red trying to make blue look white. Set your eyedropper sample size to 5 x 5 pixels to make this easier to use. You set this by clicking the eyedropper tin the tool pallet on the left first.

Gray Eyedropper

As above, Photoshop will adjust anything clicked with this dropper to be neutral gray. The gray dropper is between the white and black droppers. Be careful! Used properly it makes it easy to correct a discolored image. Used like a bonehead it makes things really nasty.

Everytime you click it you'll get a different result depending on where you clicked. Be careful to select something that really is supposed to be neutral, since a pixel of sky will turn everything red, for example. You can keep clicking the dropper around till you get the look you want. Also try to have the dropper sample size set under the eyedropper tool before you go into the levels tool to 5 x 5 pixels. Otherwise the adjustment is too sensitive and gets distracted by noise.

Black Dropper

Have hazy smoke or something you want to look black? Use the black dropper the same way. The black dropper is to the left of the other droppers.

How to Change the White Balance of an Existing Image (click)

Sharpening

Do this as the last step after you've sized your image for its final use. Look at your image at 100% on your monitor. Use FILTER > SHARPEN > UNSHARP MASK. Try a radius of 0.3 pixels. The default radius of 1.0 pixel tends to give sloppy results with amateur-looking halos around everything. Try setting the threshold to 3 if you have a film image or an image from a digital point and-shoot, and a threshold of 0 if the image is from a digital SLR camera. Try a percentage of sharpening that looks right. Usually around 150% looks good at a radius setting of 0.3 pixels.

Perfectly Level Horizons and Perfectly Vertical Verticals

I used to rotate the image by trial and error until I discovered how to get the exact rotation automatically.

Today the best way to fix this is with the lens correction tool in Photoshop CS2 just described above. You can do it for free along with correcting convergence. To correct rotation just select the angle tool on the upper left and drag it along something you need either vertical or horizontal. Easy!

In Photoshop CS and earlier use the "Measure" tool. Find it by clicking and holding the Eyedropper tool and dropping down to the Measure tool. I also get to this faster by pressing "I" three times which cycles through the Eyedropper, Color Sampler and Measure tools, presuming you've unchecked "use shift key for tool changes" in Photoshop's general preferences.

Click, drag and release the Measure tool from one side to the other of anything you want to be perfectly vertical or horizontal. For added precision do this at a large magnification and Photoshop will automatically scroll the image for you.

Now go to IMAGE > ROTATE CANVAS > ARBITRARY and, oh my golly, the exact image rotation is calculated and entered in the box for you! Just click OK or hit "Return" and you're done.

Well, not quite. Now that you have your image rotated a little bit you will want to use the Crop tool (just press "C" or select it from the tool palette on the upper left) to crop the image in enough to eliminate the crooked edges.

This does not correct everything if you have converging lines or lens distortions. That's why I love Photoshop CS2's Lens Correction tool.

Removing Dust and Scratches

Photoshop CS2 quietly added a "Spot Healing Brush Tool" which makes this really easy. Select it in the tools pallet on the left and click around on your image. It magically fixes most every single blemish you click.

Before this tool some tried to use the Dust and Scratches filter on the entire image. Others like me used the rubber stamp tool, which was primitive because we also always had to go select source sample areas manually.

The dust filter usually softens the whole image and still misses the biggest chunks of dirt. This trick below for earlier Photoshop versions solves both problems, and it's faster than using the rubber stamp tool. With this trick we apply a much heavier dirt filter to cover even the big chunks, but we only apply it to the dirty parts of the image so it doesn't affect the sharpness or small details.

1.) Make a duplicate layer of your original. (Drag the BACKGROUND layer over the new layer icon on the bottom of the layers pallet.)

2.) Unclick the eyeball next to the top layer and select the bottom layer. This way we can see what we're going to do to the bottom layer.

3.) Apply a heavy dust and scratch filter to the bottom layer. (FILTER > NOISE > DUST AND SCRATCHES.) Don't worry about losing detail, just make sure it's set strong enough to cover the biggest defects.

4.) Reclick the eyeball next to the top layer and select the top layer. Your image now looks like it did to start.

5.) Use the eraser tool to cut through the sharp top layer to expose the filtered layer below in the spots with dirt. A more advanced way to do the same thing is to use a layer mask.

This way you can spot out the dirt quickly and not affect anything else. The new Spot Healing Brush pretty much does this by magic, BRAVO!

Brightening Dark Shadows

As of Photoshop CS this is easy. In Photoshop 7 and before it was very difficult and required masking or advanced plugins from places like ASF.

Today all you do is go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT and move the top slider to the right.

Tip: reset the defaults to have the amount at 0 each time you call up this adjustment. I have Tonal Width set to 50% and Radius set to 30 pixels most of the time.

I rarely play with the highlights. On a digital capture if you blew out the highlights you're dead; trash the image for good.

Make a new Layer

LAYER > NEW > LAYER. In the box that pops up:

Name the layer something like GRAD and set MODE drop-down to SOFT LIGHT. Click OK.

Your new layer should be highlighted in the layers pallet on your lower right, and it should be transparent. Photoshop shows transparency as a gray checkerboard.

Create a black-to-transparent gradient from top to horizon in the new layer

Select GRADIENT TOOL from the tools palette on the upper left. The Grad tool is halfway down the right side of the tools pallet and is shared with the Paint Bucket Tool. You might have to click and hold the Paint Bucket to get the grad tool.

Be sure you have the default foreground and background colors, black and white, chosen. These colors are seen as the two overlapping color squares towards the bottom of the tools palette. You can reset them to default black and white by pressing the tiny little black-and-white pair of overlapping squares next to them, or just press "D" on your keyboard.

Make sure the "linear" option is selected as the first of five little icons on the top middle left of the gradient tool option bar across the top of your screen. Hover over it and you'll see it say "linear gradient."

Select the black-to-transparent grad. Do this by clicking the little arrow to the right of the grad seen at the top left of the top tool options bar. An illustrated menu of grads will drop down. Choose the one that goes from black to transparent (gray checkerboard).

Put your mouse at the top of the image. Click, hold and drag it straight down till you reach the horizon. Release it at the horizon. You can ensure that this is straight by also holding the Shift key while you do this.

You now should see a little dark-topped grad in the layers palette., and even better, the clouds should have gotten dark and scary looking at the top of your image. The brightest parts at the top should have stayed bright. This is a handy effect all by itself.

Create an Adjustment Layer between the two existing layers

Click on the Background layer in the layers palette. It will highlight in blue.

Click and hold the black/white circle at the bottom of the layers palette.

Choose Selective Color from the drop down menu. Release your mouse.

Choose Cyans at the top. Then set the Cyan slider to 100% and the Magenta slider to 100%. Don't click OK yet.

Choose Blues at the top. Then set the Cyan slider to 100%, the Magenta slider to 100%. Click OK.

You can fool around with the selective color settings to your heart's content. Just double click the black/white circle on the left of the middle blue highlighted layer in the layers palette. and choose different values for the sliders under Cyans and Blues. 60% are also good values. Leave the black sliders at zero. Also try about 25% for the yellow slider under Blues.

Feel free to make a layer mask to prevent the effect from working elsewhere in your image.

I'm sure you also can get the same effect with Nic Color EFX with a lot less effort. See my plug-ins info here.

Adding your Copyright Notice

Basics

1.) Use the TYPE tool. That's the big "T" in the tools pallet on the left. You get the © symbol by pressing OPTION + G on your Mac. I use 10, 11 or 12 pt type at 72DPI with a drop shadow to bring it forward against even light backgrounds. Use the MOVE tool to drag it where you want it.

1a.) Heaven help you if you're on windows, since it's a royal pain to get the © symbol on a windows computer, another reason professionals use Apple. On PC I usually just fudge with (c) instead of ©. To make the © symbol on a PC, hold down the ALT key and press 0169 on the numeric keypad on the right of the keyboard, NOT the numbers along the top of the keyboard. If you are on a laptop you are really in trouble since you have no separate numeric keypad and have to use the NUMLOCK command! You first

a.) need to put the laptop into NUMLOCK mode (another screwy two-finger function key) and then

b.) hold down ALT and

c.) type 0169, but you have to type 0169 NOT on the regular numeric keys along the top row, but the

d.) letter keys specially marked with teeny numbers that correspond to the numbers in NUMLOCK mode.

e.) After typing all that remember to take the laptop out of NUMLOCK mode or all your other typing will be messed up! Now do you see why we all use Apple computers?

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map.

(or)

Start > Run, type "Charmap" and hit enter. The next time, just hit Run > enter. You also could create a desktop shortcut to Charmap.

In Character Map select the character you need in the font of your choice. The copyright symbol is only one of thousands of potential characters.

One Click

Once you've learned the above, you'll want to be able to do this with a single click each time instead of typing. Especially for the PC, you can save having to do gymnastics to get the © symbol each time and set up the drop shadow and text properties. In PhotoShop we call these recordings "actions," thus

1.) First be sure your image is sized for final use. If not, the type will come out the wrong size. Set the resolution under IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE. For web and email set the resolution to 72DPI, otherwise, just be sure the image's resolution is set to whatever its final value will be.

2.) Find the ACTIONS palette.

3.) Click the right arrow to the right on the top of the actions palette which calls out a menu, on which you

4.) Click NEW ACTION, name it something, and hit RECORD. (You'll see a red light at the bottom of the actions palette light up to let you know you're recording.)

5.) Do all the typing and font selection and drop shadowing to your taste.

6.) Stop the recording by hitting the black square ("stop") button to the left of the red one at the bottom of the actions palette and you're done. Tip: even many experienced people get distracted in the middle of this and do a day's work without remembering to hit the "stop" button. This winds up recording everything you did that day as the action! In this case, hit stop, delete that recording by highlighting it in the actions palette and dragging it to the trash icon at the bottom of the actions palette. Another tip: when recording an action place the text in the middle of the image. Since images tend to be different sizes and shapes you usually will want to drag (use the MOVE tool) your text manually to the best location each time.

7.) To play this back next time, just select the action you recorded in the actions palette and click the triangular "play" button at the bottom of the actions palette. You'll get your © notice immediately. Now just use the MOVE tool to drag the text where it looks best.

Also see any book or class or help section of PhotoShop to learn how to do these actions.

Auto-Magic Positioning

Instead of moving the the copyright notice on every image, you can make the text automatically align to any specific spot (like the bottom-right corner) no matter the size or dimension of the image.

1. Once you've created the text and styles, choose Select -> All.

2. Make sure the text layer is active. Choose Layer -> Align Layers to Selection, then choose the appropriate location. Use combinations for corners, like Bottom Edges and Right Edges. Deselect the selection.

3. The text will usually will be too close to the edges at this point, so to move the text and maintain a universally applicable action, use the Transform tool to move the text. Make sure the text layer is active. Choose Select -> Transform Selection and use the directional arrows on the keyboard to nudge the text away from the edges. The action will remember how many spaces the text was move in the transformation. Click the check mark to set the transformation.

4. At this point one usually merges the layers together. If you want the ability to fine tune you can stop recording the action before merging.

You can make a couple actions for the different sides of the image like on for the bottom-right and one for the bottom-left.

how to use photo shop

2008-12-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION

Photoshop's Variations and Free Alternatives

I have a different page that explains what Photoshop is, what the versions are and less expensive, or free, alternatives, here. I also talk about all the other software I use and photoshop plug-ins there.

I've been using Photoshop every day for years so its cost is negligible for what I get out of it. If I was starting from scratch and didn't have $560 for Photoshop CS or didn't get Photoshop elements for free with a scanner I'd first try iPhoto that comes for free with every Apple Mac computer, or Google's free Picasa 2 for windows, and learn those. iPhoto and maybe the others even read RAW files, so don't ignore them.

How to Learn Photoshop

A huge advantage of Photoshop is you have more ways to learn it, like this page here, than any other program. So many people know it it's easy to learn just about anywhere.

The best way to learn Photoshop is to take a class at your local community college to learn the basics of Lightening Underexposed Images and Correcting Color Casts and White Balance Problems. These basic adjustments are covered in every introductory Photoshop class and book so I'll just cover them quickly below. You must be fluent in these to get anywhere with Photoshop for optimizing images.

Photoshop also has built-in help as well as free tutorial usually included in the box. All you need to do is choose how you learn best and go that way. Personally I learn best from an in-person class or having an expert show me in person. When I have a question about how to find some obscure tool or how to make a command work I just choose help from the HELP menu.

Basic Operation and Tricks of the Trade

All these adjustments work with every kind of image. That's why skilled photographers feel sorry for people who toil away with RAW files just so they can correct exposure and white balance later. You can do it all to any JPG image in Photoshop without all the hassle.

The tricks below presume you have at least a basic navigational familiarity with Photoshop. You can get that from any book or community college class, or even the built-in help!

Photoshop has been around since the 1980s when it was only used by professionals. It therefore uses terms from traditional professional photography and the commercial printing press trades. Often these terms are exactly the opposite of what you'd expect! The most obviously labeled tools are sometimes the worst way to do things, so read up below.

People spend entire careers learning Photoshop. There is more to learn than any single human will be able to master. Each of us learns what's relevant to our own work.

Workspace overview

2008-12-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

Workspace overview

You create and manipulate your documents and files using various elements such as panels, bars, and windows. Any arrangement of these elements is called a workspace. When you first start an Adobe Creative Suite component, you see the default workspace, which you can customize for the tasks you perform there. For instance, you can create one workspace for editing and another for viewing, save them, and switch between them as you work.

You can restore the default workspace at any time by choosing the default option on the Window > Workspace menu.

Although default workspaces vary across Flash, Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, and Photoshop, you manipulate the elements much the same way in all of them. The Photoshop default workspace is typical:

The menu bar across the top organizes commands under menus.

The Tools panel (called the Tools palette in Photoshop) contains tools for creating and editing images, artwork, page elements, and so on. Related tools are grouped together.

The Control panel (called the options bar in Photoshop) displays options for the currently selected tool. (Flash has no Control panel.)

The Document window (called the Stage in Flash) displays the file you’re working on.

Panels (called palettes in Photoshop) help you monitor and modify your work. Examples include the Timeline in Flash and the Layers palette in Photoshop. Certain panels are displayed by default, but you can add any panel by selecting it from the Window menu. Many panels have menus with panel-specific options. Panels can be grouped, stacked, or docked.

View full size graphic

Default Photoshop workspace

A. Document window

B. Dock of panels collapsed to icons

C. Panel title bar

D. Menu bar

E. Options bar

F. Tools palette

G. Collapse To Icons button

H. Three palette (panel) groups in vertical dock

View full size graphic

Default Photoshop workspace

A.: Document window
B.: Dock of panels collapsed to icons
C.: Panel title bar
D.: Menu bar
E.: Options bar
F.: Tools palette
G.: Collapse To Icons button
H.: Three palette (panel) groups in vertical dock

Hide or show all panels

(Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, Photoshop) To hide or show all panels, including the Tools panel and options bar or Control panel, press Tab.
(Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, Photoshop) To hide or show all panels except the Tools panel and options bar or Control panel, press Shift+Tab. You can temporarily display panels hidden by these techniques by moving the pointer to the edge of the application window (Windows) or to the edge of the monitor (Mac OS) and hovering over the strip that appears.
(Flash) To hide or show all panels, press F4.

Display panel menu options

Position the pointer on the panel menu icon in the upper-right corner of the panel, and press the mouse button.

(Illustrator) Adjust panel brightness

In User Interface preferences, move the Brightness slider. This control affects all panels, including the Control panel.

Reconfigure the Tools panel

You can display the tools in the Tools panel in a single column, or side by side in two columns.

In InDesign, you also can switch from single-column to double-column display by setting an option in Interface preferences.

Click the double arrow at the top of the Tools panel.