Photoshop Tips and Tricks
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In 1990, I had the great pleasure of introducing Russell Brown and a new software package from Adobe to several hundred attendees of my Great Graphics Tips session at Macworld. Photoshop Tips & Tricks has been part of DT&G ever since.

 

NEW PHOTOSHOP CONTENT You have arrived at the Photoshop Archives page NEW PHOTOSHOP CONTENT

This page begins the content ending at May, 2009, and goes backwards in time. To see the NEW PHOTOSHOP CONTENT, move to our updated Photoshop Tips & Tricks site

 

 

Highlight the Subject, Make patterned backgrouns

Patterned backgrounds, monochromatic, highlight the subject When a reader posted this sample to the Photoshop 911 forum, we decided to help out with a tutorial. Here we'll walk you through the steps required to simulate the art for this hockey team. It's easy and works in all versions of Photoshop and Elements -- utilizing a patterned, monochromatic background with the subject highlighted with a glow.

July Photoshop Madness... more photo help, freebies and more

Photoshop Madness In this issue you get * Cropping and Scaling like a pro * Bert Monroy... undisputed master of Photoshop * Correcting Lens Distortion with Photoshop * Creative Doodles Photoshop Brushes * Free Stock Textures * Double Processing in Camera Raw * Color Correction for Photographers * and... Just for Laughs: Free Twitter icons! We'll also show you how to Get a FREE PHOTOSHOP BOOK just for sharing your own Photoshop Madness discoveries... join us for Photoshop Madness

Photoshop tutorial: Crop to Size

Photoshop tutorial: Crop to Size A very frequent querry from Photoshop Madness and Photoshop 911 readers concerns resizing photos, and getting them to fit a standard frame size like 5x7", 8x10" or 11x14". It's up to you to do the brain work, but here's the tip for Cropping Photos To Specific Frame Sizes.

Photoshop tutorial: Crop while maintaining aspect ratio

Photoshop tutorial: Crop to Size Part two of our cropping tutorials -- when you need to crop a photo, but keep the aspect ratio the same. You may even want to scale the photo, right? Well, without looking, here's how to Keep Aspect Ratio while Croppping

Design Projects: Easier? Profitable?ideas plus free book

Chuck Green The idea is simple. Modifying a well-designed template is far easier and more profitable than starting from scratch. With the professionally designed templates, you tap the talents of designer and author Chuck Green. He has researched, designed, and meticulously formatted over 300 extraordinary layouts in a clean, simple style that it easy to build on. Instead of spending 15 minutes to create a simple layout, you'll spend 15 seconds. For complex projects -- books, newsletters, catalogs, reports -- you'll save HOURS.

June Photoshop Madness... Common Problems, Skin retouching and more

Photoshop Madness In this issue we open the Photoshop 911 mail bag to answer some reader's questions, solving problems like ... high-tone photography * sepia toning * fixing some common digital photography problems * retouching and smoothing skin. We'll also show you how to Get a FREE PHOTOSHOP BOOK just for sharing your own Photoshop Madness discoveries... join us for Photoshop Madness

Photoshop Field Guide

Stephen Laskevitch Photoshop CS4 Photographer's Handbook a clear and effective workflow for editing photographs in Photoshop CS4. You'll get the help of Stephen Laskevitch, an expert on Photoshop and Adobe Certified Instructor ... Photoshop CS4 Photographer's Handbook

Add Depth of Field

Add Depth of Field The designer is often faced with customer-supplied photos. Many times there's little you can do to save them. One rule you can always count on is Isolation. Add drama and focus the readers' attention by isolating the subject of an image. While there are many ways to do this, here's my favorite way to add depth of field to perk up those dull photos

May Photoshop Madness... free plug-ins to collages

everyone LOVES Photoshop Madness In this issue we discover The Princess of Shadows and her remarkably free Photoshop Actions * a good pair of wings * and some * Masterful Manipulations! You'll also learn about * Saving for the Web * light your girl on FIRE * Misprinted Type from Assemblage to Collage. We'll also show you how to Get a FREE PHOTOSHOP BOOK ... and it's all in the MAY edition of Photoshop Madness... What's in your Photoshop wallet?

Get Framed for iPhone and iPod Touch

Get Framed for iPhone and iPod Touch here comes another great app for iPhone and iPod Touch where you crop, scale, enhance, and frame any photo in your Photo Gallery. You get 96 themed frames in twelve categories designed specifically to spice up your iPhone experience -- so Get Framed

Digital Photo Depth of Field - Focus Fall-Off

In this free Photoshop tutorial we demonstrate the ease of gradient masks, layer masks and blurring to save a one-time-only photograph for a web page. We also utilize the cool photo filter to finish this shot with Depth of Field or Focus Fall-Off

Photoshop Extract Filter to improve color, add depth of field

Free tutorial from Photoshop 911 reader questions Many readers quite often write to ask about removing an image from a background. In this session we are called upon to clean up a client's digital photo, change colors of the subject, eliminate the "burn-in" of the flash, and lift the subject from the background for a depth of field effect. Depth of Field Using the Extract Filter

Photoshop: Deke McClelland Is Singing in the Droplets

Deke McClelland Is Singing in the Droplets Deke McClelland Is Singing in the Droplets -- The Droplet Song--The Next Hilarious Music Video is now on dekePod - Deke is the author of over 80 books and a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design ... The Droplet Song

PhotoFreebies plug-ins for Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Plug-in - PhotoFreebies for Windows. PhotoFreebies 2 The Plugin Site has upgraded to Version 2.0 of PhotoFreebies for Windows. PhotoFreebies 2 is a collection of 12 Photoshop-compatible plugins for performing simple but useful photo adjustments and effects. They can be used with more than 60 different image editing applications e.g. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint, PhotoImpact and many others. PhotoFreebies plug-ins for Photoshop

Color Efex Pro for Lightroom

Color Efex Pro for Lightroom Color Efex Pro is now compatible with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom -- photographic filters for retouching and creative enhancements. The update is free to current owners of Color Efex Pro 3.0. (Site features some really helpful video training!) Color Efex Pro for Lightroom

Field Trip: Photoshop Gurus of Alien Skin

Photoshop GurusFollow along as we visit some of the more accomplished graphic photographers in the world. Alien Skin's filters are used by even the top Photoshop gurus, and here we'll take a look at the works of Jim Zuckerman, Scott Stulberg, Jim White and pin-up photographer Robert Alvarado. All are masters in their own rights -- and all have something to share with you from the Alien Skin Case Studies library

Scanning Negatives and Slides

Scanning Negatives and Slides you will learn how to achieve the best possible digital image from a negative or slide, and how to build a workflow to make this process efficient, repeatable, and reliable Scanning Negatives and Slides

Screen captures in layers?

If you work much with screen captures or screen shots, you probably often wish they could already be in the format and layer you want. Layers 1.0 is a unique screen capturing utility for Mac OS X -- screenshots captured in Layers are Adobe PhotoShop compatible Layered Screen Captures

Photoshop Madness... free plug-ins to panoramas

Photoshop Madness This issue takes you from Stitching a Panorama in Adobe Photoshop CS4 to a wonderful series of Free Photoshop Plug-ins including * Free Plugins from the Ink Pot * Mehdi duz Fur ... and tutorials like * Improving your Waterfall Photos ... and then we take you straight to Photoshop Tutorial Hell
Enjoy this edition of Photoshop Madness

Hydra HDR Imaging

- Hydra HDR Imaging Hydra goes beyond the physical limitations of camera sensors. From a series of regular photographs of the same scene, Hydra creates an High Dynamic Range image which is much closer to what one can actually see. Hydra HDR Imaging

Photographic Multishot Techniques

- Photographic Multishot Techniques Photographic Multishot Techniques -- the potential of high dynamic range imaging (HDRI). Now, the newest techniques based on a bracketed series of exposures make it possible to go beyond HDRI: photographers can increase resolution for ultra-sharp, detailed images, and they can extend the depth of field Photographic Multishot Techniques

July Photoshop Madness... Archives

Photoshop Madness By popular reader demand, here's a collection of all the Photoshop Madness pages not listed in the indexes. (Originally, each new issue replaced the previous issue!) Photoshop Madness from the past

2008 BEST Photoshop Product

onOne Plug-In Suite 4 for Adobe Photoshop For Photoshop users weary of finding, downloading, installing and trying the myriad of plug-ins out there on the streets -- onOne has provided a solution. Now, one plug-in set does the professional job, and does it all: onOne Plug-in Suite 4

Photoshop CS4 Review

Adobe Photoshop CS4 George picks up the latest incarnation of Photoshop and shares some of its highs and lows. If you haven't upgraded yet, perhaps you should read this and see if it helps you make up your mind! George reviews Photoshop CS4

Deke is back... and even better

Deke McClelland goes One-on-One with InDesign CS4The One-To-One series is the best in the market for learning any of Adobe's Creative Suite. Read the lesson. Watch the video. Do the exercises, and you'll learn Adobe InDesign CS4 from expert and Adobe guru Deke McClelland. Deke McClelland goes One-on-One with InDesign CS4

Photographers using Photoshop

Derrick Story Photoshop CS4 Companion The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers, spotlights only the critical tools you'll need most often in one compact reference -- Derrick Story teaches you how to quickly and efficiently organize and edit your photos without compromising the originals. Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers

Artlandia Updates to Photoshop CS4

ArtlandiaThe new Adobe Creative Suite is out and Artlandia is not to be left behind: all currently shipping Artlandia plug-ins are compatible with Adobe's newest Creative Suite so you can upgrade to the new CS4 right away and get your creative juices flowing. You'll like what you see at Artlandia

Adobe Creative Suite 4: what will it cost?

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Okay, here you go! It's that time again, and it's going to cost $$$. Since most of our readers already one or another version of Adobe® Creative Suite® here's what it will cost you to upgrade to CS4. We're also showing Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac, and Adobe Elements 7 for Windows because they may be viable alternatives. You may as well go ahead and buy now. You know you won't have any money after the holidays! Read them and weep
Also see: Complete Adobe CS4 Products Overview

Adobe Photoshop CS4: New Features

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Time to learn new stuff... like the ll new: Masks panel; Content-Aware Scaling; Adjustments panel; Auto-blending of images; Smoother panning and zooming and fluid canvas rotation; Auto-alignment of layers; Extended depth of field; Lightroom workflow; Better raw image processing; and a lot more! Just a few of the new Adobe Photoshop CS4 features

Photoshop Madness... it's a jungle out there

Photoshop MadnessWhat? Sarah Palin Photoshop Jokes? C'mon, would anyone actually do that??? Also: * Sneak Photoshop CS4 * Color Photo Transitions * Perfect digital skin * Bert Monroy doing Shadows * visit a makeover site * Quantitative Research * Altering Color * color correction problems and * free Photo Frames you can download! . . . What Photoshop Madness have you encountered? Let us know about it ...
Enjoy this month's edition of Photoshop Madness

ImageFramer custom image framing

Image Framer This little gem can save hours and hours. Yes, we've known how to do this in Adobe Photoshop for years. But what ImageFramer does, are dozens of Photoshop steps instantly. Apply photo-realistic frames to digital images, drawings or any original artwork plus watermarks, batch processing with ImageFramer custom image framing

Live Typography in Illustrator Patterns?

Artlandia Live Patterns in Adobe Illustrator Picture this: you've built a great pattern using letters or typography in Illustrator, and the client calls to update the text! OH NO! You'll have to start over. Not if you get plug-in for simultaneous interactive editing of multiple objects in this fantastic new plug-in Artlandia LivePresets for Adobe Illustrator

101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes

Deke Pod Yes, Deke goes into show biz -- with his wacky Photoshop tips-fest portends more good times ahead -- this instructive series of video podcasts promises to be uncensored, unregulated, and frankly unlike any other videos on the topics of computer graphics -- Can he do it? 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes

Learning: 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3

George Engel is the Naked Serviceman George M Engel takes a look at Scott Kelby's 7-point system for working with digital photos. He says: "I would classify it in the Intermediate to Professional user level... a typical Scott Kelby Photoshop book: Great graphics; Extremely well put together; Comprehensive and well thought out. 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3

Digital Photo Depth of Field - Focus Fall-Off

In this free Photoshop tutorial we demonstrate the ease of gradient masks, layer masks and blurring to save a one-time-only photograph for a web page. We also utilize the cool photo filter to finish this shot with Depth of Field or Focus Fall-Off

Chrome : the Path Styler Pro way

Adobe Photoshop Plug-in - PathStyler Our quest for the perfect chrome never really went away. But we really came close here! You need to check out the WOW stuff you can do with Path Styler Pro -- the powerful styling plug-in for Photoshop makes stunning filter effects with a simple click or two... Check out this chrome

Digital Photo Fixes for Beginners

Photo editing for beginners This series looks at several areas where beginners really need quick and easy solutions... here we cover exposure, levels, cropping, sizing, scaling, flash corrections for fall-off, and we'll show you a digital step wedge that saves a bunch of paper and ink ... Easy Photo Tricks

Blow up those JPGs

one of those frequent questions we get all the time is "How can we enlarge our JPG images, or shots downloaded from the web?" Sooner or later, if you have a digital camera and a computer, you're going to want to enlarge an image. This time we're challenged with enlargements over 1000 percent... but we solved the problems with a good dose of Genuine Fractals

Balancing the light in Night Scenes

Balancing night lighting with PhotoshopWhile there are several dozen ways to adjust lighting, (from two to 300 minutes) if the scene is affected by a single overall condition, the solution could be more simple than you think. Here, we'll fix this photo spoiled by artificial outdoor lighting with a single-step lighting adjustment.

Add Drama to your Photos with Motion Blurs

Adobe Photoshop Motion Blur Follow along as we add drama to two photos using Adobe Photoshop motion blur filters. We explore the directional motion blur and the radial motion blur as taught by expert Barry Huggins, author of the Photoshop Retouching Cookbook for Digital Photographers. Photoshop and the Motion Blur

Photoshop: Creating Mirror Reflections...

realistic mirror surface reflections A frequent question is how to create the realistic mirror surface reflections of an isolated image -- as popularized by Web 2.0, and Apple iPhone marketing. This tutorial shows you the easy way, and the best way in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to make Photoshop Mirror Reflections...

Clip from one... add to the other

join two people into a single photoWhat happens when you have two photos of two people and you need to join them into a single photo? Here, we illustrate a quick and easy way to bring another person into your photo, and make them look naturally at homne... clipping from one, and adding to the other!

Creating a Custom Drop Shadow

produce realistic drop shadows by hand Photoshop's shadow layer effect does not always provide the correct shadow. The pros know you need to know how to produce realistic drop shadows by hand. Learn how to generate shadows for multiple surfaces, and projection distances by Creating your own Custom Drop Shadows

Creating Black & White from Color

Photoshop tutorials another of those frequent questions from the Photoshop 911 emergency room gets answered by expert Barry Huggins, author of the Photoshop Retouching Cookbook for Digital Photographers. Through four different techniques, we learn a different set of skills is required when Creating Black & White from Color

Saving Photos: Dark, Under Exposed

Low lighting, camera movement, and other woes spoil the photo. Sometimes a photo just looks too dark to save. Sometimes it just can't be saved. But before trashing the photo, here are a number of exercises that show some easy tricks you can employ to save underexposed photos

Degrading Color for Hand Tint Look

A Photoshop 911 reader asks how a certain 'tinted' look was achieved in some sample photos... these are near grayscale with muted color. We knew we could accomplish the look by pulling an adjustment layer called the Gradient Map

Photoshop's "Match Color"

A Photoshop 911 reader asks how the "Match Color" function works to save two of his photos. Match Color uses the color map from one photo to change another -- and it works great -- sometimes. But when it doesn't, you have to look for other solutions. Matching Color

Painter: Photo to Woodcut

Cher Corel PainterPainter is one of the premier natural medial programs, and ideal for converting that coveted vacation shot to a graphic work of art -- follow along as award-winning fine artist, designer and educator Cher Threinen-Pendarvis shows you how noted artist John Derry created his Pagoda Woodcut

One Photo to Many: Collage Mosaic

Several readers have asked about breaking apart a single photo so it looks like a collection of snap shots. There are actually a number of ways to do this from the quick and easy "SLICE" method, to the more difficult and time consuming "random" method - we think makes a much better looking Photo Collage Mosaic

Photographically Correct Film Simulator Effects for Photoshop

Alien SkinAlien Skin is back with an all new features list for Exposure 2 Film Stock Simulator! This new effects package plug-in features more than 300 presets for film simulation and a full range of photo lab and darkroom effects... Exposure 2 for Photoshop and compatibles

Photoshop To Painter & Back Again

Cher Corel PainterMany Photoshop users think the word "Corel" is a thing of the past. However, those truly in the know will say Painter does it all. We do get a lot of questions about using the two together -- so we turned to the award-winning fine artist, designer and educator Cher Threinen-Pendarvis with her excellent tips for Using Photoshop with Painter

Photoshop Madness: Type & Lettering Tutorial Hell

Fonts Fest It's a jungle out there... For this years Fall Fonts Festival we intended to send you some good tutorials on working with type in Photoshop. There are thousands of them, but unfortunately we began turning up some rather disturbing results for this month's Photoshop Madness

Outlining Type: Right or Wrong:

Photoshop Tutorial If you read the Photoshop Madness listed above, then you'll understand what we're doing here. This tutorial points out the wrong and right ways to outline shapes, like typography, in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Outlining Type: What's Right or Wrong

Photoshop's Photo Filter Adjustment Layer

Making separations for screen printing This is one of the little known gems you'll find in Adobe's Photoshop and Photoshop Elements because it's a filter, but it's not in the filters menu. Use it when you want to change the color temperature of a photo... here's the value of Photoshop's Photo Filter Adjustment Layer

Photoshop 911: Spot Adjustments using a Mask

Someone asked how to make slight spot adjustments in just the dark areas of an image. Levels, or any other adjustment are easily fine-tuned by painting black and white into the mask area an Adjustment Layer Spot Adjustments using a Mask

Photoshop 911: Pop an image out of the border

Cut out pop out of a photo A Photoshop 911 forum question was how to make a photo break out of the frame. Even though this has been around longer than Photoshop has, it can be daunting to a new user. But it's simple to Pop an image out of the border

Harrys Filters are back

... along with PhotoFreebies for Windows - Harry's Filters is a free Photoshop-compatible plugin containing dozens of useful image effects. The PhotoFreebies are a collection of 11 freeware plugins with various effects for digital photos. Harrys Filters

Photo Vector for Windows

Vectorizer and image cleaner: a proven handy tool for designers and CAD/CAM professionals to cleanup, reduce number of colors and vectorize images. AlgoLab Photo Vector for Windows

Learning: Separations for Screen Printing

Making separations for screen printing One of the frequent questions we get is how to separate flat art for making silkscreen stencils. Rather than flood you with a lot of geek gibberish, we present the easiest, most direct method in Photoshop and Illustrator for making flat color separations for screen printing.

Major Event: Removing Backgrounds with Katrin Eismann

Katrin Eismann This is the ultimate tutorial for selecting fine images, delicate objects, wispy hair, and removing the background to replace it with a totally different image. This is the absolute best, anywhere when you have questions about Selecting hair and fine details in Photoshop

Photoshop Elements QuickFix & Color Corrections

Photoshop Elements You can dramatically improve the appearance of all your summer photos with just a click or two -- even if you have no idea of what you're doing. Let image specialist Barbara Brundage show you how in this 7-page chapter on QuickFix & Color Corrections using Photoshop Elements

Photoshop blending Photos to Sketches

Photoshop Blending Modes Photos to SketchesTurn your summer photos into works of art by combining the Find Edges filter and the Overlay blending mode in Photoshop. Noted Photoshop guru John Beardsworth shows you how with these recipes for Blending Photos to Sketches

Photoshop Watercolor Filter

Photoshop watercolor filter Sooner or later, you're going to have a photograph that suggests an artistic treatment. Photoshop expert Roger Pring joins us to give you some starter points on... Photoshop's Artistic Watercolor Filter

Photoshop: Carved in Wood

Photoshop carving woodA reader wrote in with a client who wants his web site menu buttons to be on a tree -- looking hand-carved. So, this tutorial gives you nice sign boards with the type routed in to nail to the tree. Carved in Wood

Photoshop: Changing Colors

Photoshop replacing colorWe get quite a few requests for this kind of technique for people colorizing houses, cars, people's clothing, and from time to time a boat or two. In this tutorial, we must change the color of a boat, then apply lettering to the side to show the client the finished lettering job.

Photoshop: Clipping Path makes a Hole in the Doughnut

Photoshop Clipping PathMore frequently asked questions: "...if I were creating a clipping path of a donut, how would I put a path around the outside and the inside of a donut?" In this tutorial, we using image clipping paths to create a hole where the background shows through!

Photoshop: Saving an old, faded photo

Photoshop restores colorPhotoshop 911 question: "... I've read plenty of tutorials on how to repair dents and scratches with the clone/stamp tool, but haven't found anything to help with the color problems" In this tutorial, we bring this old photo back to life with a lot of adjustment layers

Removing Backgrounds 2: Save Shadows

Removing Backgrounds From Photoshop 911 Forums: "I want to replace white backgound with another color but to save shadows on image. With "replace color" is inposible to replace white. So here's what the 911 Dream Team sez: Load a little luminosity!

Layer Mask: merging photos

Layer MasksThis is one of the most frequent questions we get in the Photoshop Forums and Photoshop 911. So here the Photoshop 911 dream team provides a fairly simple solution that will work in almost all versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements... Montage Making Masks

Setting a HEX color for GIF format graphics

Removing Backgrounds Optimizing color fields for the Web can be daunting -- but when you need a specific range of HEX colors, it can be downright frustrating. Question was: "How can I change this HEX color in a gradient?"; Photoshop 911 sez: Put the HEX on a GIF

Photoshop question of the year: Removing Backgrounds

Photoshop Madness This is the most frequently asked question of them all: "How can I remove the white background around my logo?" We've talked about clipping paths and layer masks many, many times... just this once we wish everyone would listen and learn how to Remove the White Background from Graphics

Photoshop: Text Mask to Embossed Watermark for Photos

Photoshop MadnessA reader in the Photoshop 911 Emergency Forum wanted help making a watermark. This tutorial shows you how; plus shows you how to make a custom shape, and put it to work as a powerful custom shape tool to watermark all your photos

Photoshop: Place a picture into text

Put a picture into type A reader in the Photoshop 911 forum asks "how can i turn a picture of a dog into text" ... and since we all love dogs, we decided to demonstrate the easy way to use all versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to Put an image into type

Painting into a Layer Mask to Reveal Image

convert to grayscale then paint the color back in Photoshop 911 reader L.W. restoring color to a black and white image. This basic tutorial shows you how in all image editors that use layers and layer masks for Painting into a Layer Mask to Reveal Image.

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