Free Photoshop Secrets - Learning Photoshop Like A Pro

By David Peters

nt to get rid of that nasty shine that you get taking pictures? Well now you can, follow these easy steps: Let's start with a great, overlooked trick. After opening the image, open the same image again in a new window. In Photoshop, choose Window ->Arrange -> New Window. In Elements choose View->New Window. This allows you to view one window zoomed in for detail work and the other window at 100% so you can judge the effects. Using the magnifying glass tool draw a box around the area of shine. Make the box big enough to also show a fair amount of un-shiny skin. Select the Clone tool. At the top of the page select Mode: Darken and use the slider to set Opacity at 50%.Using the Clone Tool, select an area of un-shiny skin by putting the circle over the area and holding down the Alt button while left-clicking the mouse. To best match skin tone try to select the area of skin closest to the shine. Quick tip, to easily resize the Clone Tool circle simply use the bracket keys, [ and ] - much easier than moving your cursor back and forth between the photo and the Size slider. Now simply click on the shiny area and watch the magic happen. You'll have to experiment a little for best effect, and for larger areas be sure to resample the un-shiny skin frequently. In the zoomed-in image the effect might look too obvious, so you'll need to keep an eye on the 100% image to track your progress. Notice the difference on the tip of the nose, the cheek, and above his eye.

Photo retouching is sometimes quite important to your photo. You can change your photo to black and white, take out some unwanted acne, fix a blurry line. Well, here are some instructions on how to sharpen your image. Start by opening your image Duplicate the background layer by pressing control+j. Press shift+control+u to desaturate the layer. Go to filter>others>high pass and give these values, Radius of 0.4 pixels. Press control+l to open levels. Fianlly, change this layer's mode from normal to overlay. If you find excessive shaprening then reduce the opacity of this layer. You now have more sharpe image and it works on almost any image.

Photo manipulations are really fun ways to change photos around and make them different in exciting ways. Textures are a huge part of photo manipulations. They can completely change a picture. You can download textures from many different texture websites. Textures are very helpful when making a dark piece. I will demonstrate how to use these effectively. First get a picture of someones face. Now I want you to apply a texture of a bumpy/jagged rock or rocks. Set it on hard light or vivid light (whichever looks best for you). Add some color changes and a bit more. Now with some color changes and more contrast and more black, it could turn out to be a really nice photo manipulation.

There is only two things you have too know about the ExtendScript Toolkit program right now: Select target application, ExtendScript must know which application you are writing the script for. In the top left dropdown menu select Adobe Photoshop CS2 and if asked if you want top start it choose yes. Running script, to run a script you have written you press the button that looks like a play button. Reference documentsAll objects have different properties that can be set and methods that can be executed and right now you probably don't know any of these, this is where the reference documents come in. The reference document for JavaScript contains information about all objects available in your scripts.

Start with a blank photoshop document of size 1024*768 and white background. Choose the brush "rough round bristle" from the toolbar. Create a new layer and draw some lines. Right click on the new layer and choose "blending options". Choose the values. DROP SHADOW INNER GLOW BEVEL AND EMBOSS; For "texture", choose "satin" as the pattern. TEXTURE Now add some motion blur to this layer from filters > blur > motion blur. Similarly, add gaussian blur also to this layer with the radius around 72. Not so catchy yet. Well try this. Change the background color of the default layer as black by choosing Edit > Fill from menu. Now look at the output. Ahh, that looks much better, isn't it ? You can add some text to this texturized background if you wish.

Layers are an integral element of Photoshop. They allow you to edit images more easily, and use transparency to its full effect. By default the background layer (Locked and labelled "Background") is white, and any subsequently created layers are transparent by default. Layer Opacity: The opacity of the current layer, 0-100%. Blending Mode: The manner in which this layer interacts with layers below it. See below. Active/Linked Layers: A small paint brush icon appears in this space to indicate the active layer, and chain icons signify other layers that are linked with the active layer. Layer visibility: An eye in this area signifies that the layer is visible, and an empty box means it is hidden from view and exempt from formatting. Layers: Two example layers showing an example background layer and new (transparent) layer (Layer 1). New Fill/Adjustment Layer: Creates a layer that can add a gradient to or adjust the hue, etc. of the layer below. New Layer: Creates a new layer [ctrl/cmd + shift + N]. Delete Layer: Deletes the currently selected layer. New Layer Set: Creates a folder for layers to be put into for easy organisation of layers. New Layer Mask: Creates a sub-layer with which you can use all normal tools. Adding black to a layer mask, for example, means that that part of the layer is invisible. Layer Effects (Styles): Applies various effects to the current layer - can also be reached via.

For those interested in coloring graphically upon the computer, painting, pastels, colored pencils, markers, and any other coloring tool, skin tones are necessary part of human color. The worl is full of variety in color, including the human skin. I look around, and I see many people getting the skin colors wrong. It can be too yelow, too pink, or just not the right color. Getting a realistic skin tone can be a really tricky business, but, there is an easy solution to this delimma. I created this tutorial for Photoshop on Photoshop 7. I'm not sure what else will be compatible before Photoshop 7, or other products, but I would think that the steps would be similar. For some quick skin tones, you can grab a tones chart like the basic one I made on left, to use for coloring. Now, on the tones chart to my left, I have the tones for three nationalities- Caucasian, Asian, and African -- which I've personally seen the most often in the art that I see at various art sites. These are approximate, no set exact for what the colors are. Also take into regard that these are around the extremes. The lightest lights, the midtone, and the darkest dark.

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