Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1 från Photoshop User

Landscape Mixer

Landscape Mixer Another new filter currently in Beta added to the list is the Landscape Mixer. It seems to promise an almost magical ability to transform one landscape image into something else entirely. Imagine a green valley with a river running through it, converted into a harsh tundra wasteland with the click of a button. Well, that’s what the Landscape Mixer says it can do. In our example its claims can be put the test with an image of a lush river valley. When you fire up the Neural Filters, click the Landscape Mixer button to view the options available. There are a few presets that range from sunny meadows to wintery mountain scenes. Below are a number of sliders that control the strength of effect applied and seasonal effects…

Super Zoom

Super Zoom This is designed to enable you to enlarge a photo by zooming in, cropping and letting Photoshop add additional pixel data to mitigate the loss of detail and resolution. If you have an original photo and you want to enlarge a portion of it to fit within your original picture dimensions, you can use the Super Zoom feature. Choose the amount of magnification by clicking the plus (+) or minus (-) magnifying glass icons. In our example, we enlarged the image by 3x. The resulting image can be moved around in the small preview window so you can compose it how you want and then, when ready, click the OK button to create a new layer with the magnified section of your image in it. As with all…

Skin Smoothing

Skin Smoothing This is a Featured Neural Filter that makes quick work of skin retouching. It requires an image with an obvious face in it, otherwise the filter is not active. When you activate the filter it scans the image and places a blue bounding box around the subject’s face to show the area that will be affected. Note that partial portraits due to cropping may not work. A full face works best. You have two control sliders. One is for Blur and one for Smoothness. You can experiment with how much of each adjustment is needed and the large preview image will update accordingly. Our example used the full amounts of both options and actually didn’t look bad. Enough detail was kept in the portrait to avoid it looking…

Smart Portrait

NEW AND IMPROVED Smart Portrait Next is the Smart Portrait filter. This one has been around since the 2021 update and is currently still in Beta. Your image needs to contain a face which the software can detect and surround with a blue outline. Then you can start making some eye opening alterations. For example, if you move the Be Happy! slider to the far right, after giving the filter some time to think about it, up pops a result that has transformed a neutral, unsmiling subject into one with a toothy grin! Trying a couple of different images shows that it either works well or fails hilariously. Various other emotions are available and so is the ability to change the direction your subject is looking (up to a point).…

Makeup Transfer

Makeup Transfer This is a Beta filter with quite a specific function. As the name no doubt suggests, it will attempt to apply any makeup effects found in one image, to the eyes and lips of the subject in another image. To that end, our example is a shot of a fashion model with bright purple eyeshadow and bright pink lip gloss. Our second image is another model with makeup applied. Make sure the model with no makeup is the active image and then fire up the Neural Filters and activate the Makeup Transfer tool. It shows you the current face you have selected and then you can choose the reference Image by clicking on the dropdown list and choosing the second image of the model with all the makeup…

JPEG Artefacts Removal

NEW AND IMPROVED JPEG Artefacts Removal Jpeg compression is a marvellous thing. It can reduce the file size of an image by a huge amount. It is however a lossy format. This means that the image can be degraded if too much compression is used or if an image is re-saved a number of times. As this happens, so-called artefacts appear. Parts of the image start to show areas of heavy pixelation and there can be a large amount of detail lost too. If you have any original images that have been degraded in this way and you do not have access to an original file, you can try to save the image by running it through an artefact remover. Photoshop has added such a tool to the Neural Filters…

Lens Blur

Lens Blur This is a useful little option if you like working with depth maps to achieve selective focus effects. We haveanaerialimageofabridge and formal garden area in the foreground on a layer. We’ve gone to the Channels layer and added a new Alpha 1 channel with a black grad fading up to about halfway into the frame. With your image active, if you go up to the File Menu and choose Filter > Blur > Lens Blur, it will take you to the Lens Blur Tools. Under Depth Map, select Alpha 1 as your Source and then click the Set Focal Point button. Now you can define where the Depth Map appears by just clicking anywhere on the image. If you click over the head of the lions on the…

Reference Point

Reference Point In previous versions of Photoshop, each time you clicked on an image, or text item, to move or transform it, you would see a small crosshair appear in the centre of the image. This was the movable reference point that would serve as the centre of rotation, or scale, for the active item. In Photoshop CC 2019, Adobe decided that it is hidden by default. If you want the reference point to be visible on every active item, you can still go to the Tool Options menu and click the Toggle Reference Point button.…

Locking the Workspace

Locking the Workspace Found under Window > Workspace > Lock Workspace, this feature simply locks down all workspace panels so they can’t be dragged and moved by accident while you are working. This appears to be particularly useful if you are working with Photoshop via a tablet and stylus and are in danger of dragging items around by leaving the stylus too close to the tablet surface. One thing to note however, is that if, for example, you currently have any floating panels, they can still be dragged and docked with any locked panels and will be retained there until you turn the Lock Workspace option off.…

The History of Photoshop

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS THE HISTORY OF PHOTOSHOP The History of Photoshop Before we begin, here’s a little background information Thomas and John Knoll created Photoshop in 1988 with the release of Photoshop 1.0 following in February 1990. It is a raster graphics editor and has become the predominant industry standard for digital image editing. At its heart, it has a suite of tools that allow the user to edit, assemble and compose images using multiple layers and masks. It is this use of layers and masks that are the core features of Photoshop’s power. Such layer-based editing means you can build very complex images and create incredible works of art using this method. Photoshop’s Strengths Photoshop is a pixel-level editor. Where Lightroom allows you to adjust pixels in an image,…

Menus

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS MENUS Menus One look at the menus and you begin to understand Photoshop’s complexity and versatility The main interface of Photoshop has no fewer than twelve menus and a Help option, each with many options and with many additional nested sub-menus. It’s vital to become familiar with the contents of the most important ones, because once you know where to look for everything you’ll be able to work more quickly, efficiently and confidently. Let’s take a look at some of the key menu listings.…

The Photoshop Home Screen

FIRST THINGS FIRST THE PHOTOSHOP HOME SCREEN The Photoshop Home Screen We show you what the Photoshop user front end has on offer in the latest versions In the good old days of Photoshop CS, you had a product that you opened up and simply started using with nothing else getting in the way. These days that is no longer the case. The Adobe Creative Cloud series of apps now offer user interactive front-end environments that are more than just a list of recently opened files. Now you can browse and sort those files and display them in thumbnail or list form. That’s not all, you also have access to Adobe’s online web tutorials covering every topic you can think of. From basic videos on getting started with layers and…

Using Layers

FIRST THINGS FIRST USING LAYERS Using Layers Understanding layers is fundamental to Photoshop editing The concept of Layers was first introduced with Photoshop 3.0 in 1994 and has become the very core of Photoshop image editing, as well as being imitated by every other image editing program on the market. Layers are exactly what they sound like; the elements of the image are stacked up and displayed indescending order. Since layers can include transparency, lower layers can be visible through higher layers. Effects, adjustments and operations can be applied to individual layers, or to all the layers at once. You can move layers around relative to one another, change the order of layers in the stack, turn layers on or off and delete layers without affecting the others. Some people…

Black and White Colour Control

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS BLACK AND WHITE COLOUR CONTROL Black and White Colour Control Black and white colour control may sound somewhat counterintuitive, but in actual fact, with the adjustment layer and a particular blend mode, you actually have another quick, non-destructive method for controlling the colour in your photographs. 01 A colourful portrait image provides a perfect example for this case in point. There are a number of strong reds, blues, yellows and greens, with which we can work. As mentioned already, this is a useful non-destructive method, so your base image remains unaffected. 02 Go to the bottom of your layer palette and click on the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon. A dropdown menu will appear with a list of adjustment choices, click on Black & White.…

Combine Adjustment Layers

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS COMBINE ADJUSTMENT LAYERS Combine Adjustment Layers Here is how you can combine multiple adjustment layers and then combine them into one effect. That way, you can then use this combined adjustment on any other image, so it has the same look and feel as your original. 01 With your base image active, go to the bottom of the layers palette and. click on the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer button. From the dropdown menu that appears, you can start choosing various adjustments to alter the tone and colour of the original image. 02 This example used four adjustment layers to get the final look that we liked. Now, if you wanted to transfer that same look to a separate image, it would normally mean having to…

Making Reflections

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER MAKING REFLECTIONS Making Reflections We show you how to make your own reflections where none exist In this tutorial, we are going to take a look at a technique that allows you to create your own reflections in an image where none currently exist. It’s a great method to add a sense of depth to a photo or any piece of art you may have created. Anyone who loves creating fantasy-based images will no doubt have seen quite a few examples of this technique. The prerequisite for the image to work well is that the main subject in the composition needs to be in the close foreground and look as if the photographer were shooting them from the sameheight or a lower angle. A photo taken…

7 min

The History of Lightroom

THE DIGITAL DARKROOM THE HISTORY OF LIGHTROOM The History of Lightroom Let’s take a closer look at the development of Adobe’s specialist app for photographers, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Ever since digital cameras first became popular in the early 1990s, photographers have sought ways to adjust and improve digital images and replicate the darkroom tricks and techniques that film photographers have used for decades to get the most out of their pictures. There are dozens of digital image editing programs available and almost everyone who’s ever taken a digital photo, whether they use a top-end digital SLR or just the camera on their mobile phone, has used some sort of editing software to adjust and enhance the image. Most smartphones come with some sort of image editing app as a standard…

4 min

Lightroom Versus Photoshop

THE DIGITAL DARKROOM LIGHTROOM VERSUS PHOTOSHOP Lightroom Versus Photoshop At some point in your digital image editing life you’re going to face the question: Lightroom or Photoshop? It’s not always an easy answer though as it depends on what it is you want to achieve. Both are heavyweights in the photographer’s toolbox, but which is right for you? Lr or Ps? It’s not always an easy choice but there are vast differences between Lightroom and Photoshop that can help make your mind up. These differences depend on the situation and what you intend to do with the finished product. Let’s break down a few strengths of each. Lightroom Classic Strengths Lightroom can manipulate and edit Raw files directly from your camera, without the need to install or use another plugin.…

Check out these useful new features and tools

NEW AND IMPROVED Check out these useful new features and tools October 2021 saw the release of the latest version of Photoshop 2022 which at the time of writing is in release version 23.1.0. It has many new improvements over those tools first offered in the 2020 update. Certain additional new tools and updated features are still in beta but available forus to have a play with. So play we will. A number of the new beta filters have to be downloaded and there are also a number of tools that are as yet unavailable but Adobe ask you for input and submit reasons why a filter like this is useful to you. At first glance, some of the tools new to this version look a little gimmicky but others…

Style Transfer

Style Transfer If you fancy altering the visual style of an image by applying the colour, tone and artistic style of another very different image, then Style Transfer is for you. Take a normal image and open the Style Transfer filter. You will see a number of images under the Artist and Image Styles menu and the Custom menu where you can source your own examples. You can choose any of these and their particular visual appearance will be transferred to your target image. At its simplest, you could take an image and if you choose an image style where there is a very colourfully sketched styling, it will attempt to apply the style to your photo. We tried this with a simple landscape and chose a very colourful naive-style…

Colorize

NEW AND IMPROVED Colorize This is a Featured Neural Filter that has had a few tweaks since its initial release in the 2021 version of Photoshop. It is a tool designed to help you add colour to old black and white photographs. You have a few options to choose in order to colour your image. You can choose Auto Color and the filter will decide what colours to apply based on what it deems right after analysing the image. You can also use colour profiles such as Retro High Contrast and others. If you prefer, you can click on areas of the image in the preview window and apply local groups of colours to suit your tase. You can, for instance, make the background yellow and the suit blue. You…

Share for Commenting

NEW AND IMPROVED Share for Commenting As the name implies, this feature allows you to share your work on-line for others to comment on and interact with if preferred. First of all, your image needs to be saved to the cloud otherwise others will not be able to see it. This is easy to do. Open an image that you want to share and click on the Share for Commenting button in the top right of the menu bar. Hit the Continue button and you can save the document to the cloud. Our example was named ‘Girl and Robot’. Once it is saved to the cloud, note that the file format is now a. PSDC. When you click it and open it, note that the document tab shows a small…

Depth Blur

Depth Blur Another Neural Filter currently in Beta phase. This particular filter lets you take an original image with sharp focus throughout the scene and create custom blur to make the image look like it was shot with much shallower depth of field. The example image is very sharp, but with the filter applied, you can blur the foreground rock structures and the ones in the far distance. By clicking on the preview image and adding a focal point, the rocks in the middle ground remain sharp. You can put the focal point anywhere in your image and you can use the Focal Distance and Focal Range Sliders to alter the affect. The amount of blur can also be controlled by a slider and so too can the amount of…

Object Selection

NEW AND IMPROVED Object Selection The methods by which you can select objects in your document has been updated with the inclusion of the improved Object Selection Tool. Found in the toolbar or by pressing W, this function analyses your image and makes note of how many distinct, separate objects there are in your photo. In order for this to work, you need to make sure you have the Object Finder button checked. You can find it up in the tool properties bar. In our example, after a few seconds of scanning, most of the obviously distant elements in the image were marked for selection. You can press and hold the N key to view which ones have been chosen or click the Show All Objects button in the tool…

Quick Actions

Quick Actions Quick Actions are very similar in feel to the automated effects available in Photoshop Elements. They are quick in the sense that you simply click once on each effect’s Apply button and the effect is added automatically. At the time of writing, there are twenty Quick Actions available. They are accessed via the Help > Photoshop Help menu option which opens the Discover panel. Here are a few notable examples to get you started.…

Select Subject

NEW AND IMPROVED Select Subject This is a new option available to you when you select the Quick Selection Tool or Magic Wand Tool. Before making any selections with those tools, click on the Select Subject button in the top options panel and then wait as Photoshop analyses the image. It will then automatically select what it thinks is the main subject. The accuracy of the selection may depend on how complex the image is and how prominent your main subjects are. You can still refine the selection afterwards, if necessary.…

Scale UI

Scale UI This is a chance to exercise some control over the Photoshop user interface and scale it independently of your other applications. If you go to Edit > Preferences > Interface, you will see the new option to Scale UI To Font. You have several font sizes from which to choose, these are: Tiny, Small, Medium and Large. When you choose a preferred font size, in order to see the changes you’ve made you will have to restart Photoshop. For example, if you have originally had the Tiny UI font chosen, when you select Large and restart, you will see how the UI has scaled to accommodate the larger font size. The toolbar and all the other panels will also be bigger to allow for the lager text sizes…

Go Home

Go Home While you are working in the Photoshop workspace, you will now see that there is a small Home icon in the top right of the Tools options menu. If you click this, you will be taken to Photoshop’s Home screen. You can access it at any time while working on a current document, or each time you start Photoshop. Using the Home screen, you can quickly access current working documents, Click on the Learn options and choose from an array of tutorials on the web or dig deeper via Adobe.com. Also, if you are a Lightroom user, you can view any LR photos you may have and import them.…

Keep Photoshop Up to Date

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS KEEP PHOTOSHOP UP TO DATE Keep Photoshop Up to Date Reap the benefits of the most current versions of Photoshop Now that Photoshop and a host of other Adobe products have moved to the subscription model, you have an application that can be continually updated, over time, without needing to buy a new version. This is in contrast to older versions of Photoshop where you bought a box containing a disk, installed it and called it done. If a new version was released, you had to purchase it or upgrade to the new version. That has been superseded; your computer now maintains an online link with Adobe so each program you have downloaded and installed can be incrementally updated. Photoshop is a good example, since you can…

Keyboard Shortcuts

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Keyboard Shortcuts There’s always a quicker way of doing almost everything in Photoshop One of Photoshop’s best features is its huge list of fully customisable keyboard shortcuts. Almost all of the program’s functions can be accessed quickly by pressing various combinations of keys and once you learn those shortcuts your workflow will speed up immensely. You can even make up your own for your most frequently-used operations.Customising Shortcuts You’ll find the Keyboard Shortcut preferences menu at the bottom of the Edit menu, although naturally it has its own keyboard shortcut, Alt+Shift+Ctrl+K. You’ll find an exhaustive list of all Photoshop functions, broken down into category headings matching the names of the main menus. You’ll find that many operations already have their own default shortcuts. You can…

Your First PSD Document

FIRST THINGS FIRST YOUR FIRST PSD DOCUMENT Your First PSD Document Let’s start at the very beginning and walk you through the process of making your very first document You might think that opening or creating a new Photoshop document is a very simple task to achieve. In the days of older versions of Photoshop that was certainly true with its original start up sequence. You either opened a photo, or you made a new document and started work. These days, with the advent of Photoshop CC, it’s a slightly more involved affair and goes way beyond anything that has been seen in Photoshop before. The newest version of the program has a Home screen and a more interactive front end, offering a lot more choice from the very moment…

Create Specular Highlights

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS CREATE SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS Create Specular Highlights A specular highlight is the bright spot of light seen on a glossy or metallic surface when brightly illuminated. We look at a handy blending mode technique to create strong highlights where none exist. 01 We have a science fiction image of a sleek android in a futuristic setting. Although it has been well lit and rendered at high resolution, it could do with a few extra highlights to create some stronger visual cues and enhance the metallic look of the armour. 02 Create a new layer above your base image and name it ‘specular’. Choose a fairly soft white brush and place a brush mark where you would like a brighter specular highlight to appear. Choose a few to begin…

Advanced Clone Stamp Control

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS ADVANCED CLONE STAMP CONTROL Advanced Clone Stamp Control The Clone Stamp Tool is one of the most important tools available in Photoshop. With it, you can paint pixels from one part of an image onto another. Let’s look at some ways you can employ the cloning process with greater control. 01 We have an image of an aircraft at an airshow display. We can use the Clone Stamp Tool to create more versions of the aircraft and place them in the shot, but more than that, we can have a measure of control about how the cloned copy is placed when you stamp it onto a layer. 02 It is always a great idea to place any cloned samples onto a new layer. Create a new layer…

Precise Lens Flare Placement

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS PRECISE LENS FLARE PLACEMENT Precise Lens Flare Placement This is a handy tip for placing a lens flare effect exactly where you want it, on any photograph. The Lens Flare Tool can be a bit hit and miss, but this lets you work non-destructively and with pixel precision. 01 Normally, to add lens flare you would go up to the File menu and choose Filter > Render > Lens flare. This opens up the Lens Flare panel, from where you can choose the Brightness and Lens Type for your flare effect. The preview window allows you to drag the centre of the flare around. 02 Alternatively, create a new layer above your base image. In our example, we have named it ‘flare’. Go to Edit > Fill…

Shooting in Raw Mode

THE DIGITAL DARKROOM SHOOTING IN RAW MODE Shooting in Raw Mode To get the best out of your digital images with Adobe Lightroom, you should always shoot in Raw Mode. know something about digital photography, so you’re probably already aware that the vast majority of digital images are stored in a file format known as JPEG. Nearly all digital cameras and mobile phones record their images as JPEG files. You can spot a JPEG file because it will usually have the filename extension. jpg or. jpeg. The JPEG format has been around since 1992, when the standard was first specified by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (after which it takes its name), a standing committee of imaging and software industry experts. There have been various attempts to update or replace…

4 min

Color Transfer

Color Transfer This is a Neural Filter and is found under Filter > Neural Filters. This one is currently still in Beta so presumably it has some development and refinement to go before becoming a fully-fledged featured filter. Essentially, it is a means by which you can use the colour palette of an entirely different image and apply it to your own image in various creative ways. We have an image of a tiger and when you activate the Color Transfer filter, you are presented with a number of presets to get you started. The presets are a series of images that have various tonal and colour qualities that can be applied to your own image. We clicked on one of the more garish examples to see what it would…

Content Credentials

NEW AND IMPROVED Content Credentials This new feature is still in Beta phase and not active when you first update to Photoshop 2022. If you go to Photoshop > Preferences > Technology Previews, you can click the Enable Content Credentials (Beta) button to activate it. You will need to restart Photoshop to see it. Content Credentials is a means by which you can attach useful image information to the file such as assets use, edits made as well as attribution info. With Content Credentials now active, open a PSD document with various layers and adjustments and go to Window > Content Credentials (Beta). The Content Credentials panel will open showing a few options to determine what information is saved with your document, such as Edits and Activity and Producer. If…

Gradient Tool

Gradient Tool The Gradient Tool has been a staple of Photoshop pretty much for ever, but most recently it has had a small update in the 2022 release of Photoshop. The change may seem fairly bland compared to some of the other features available, but Adobe clearly decided it was required. Back in the days of Photoshop 2021 and older, when you chose the Gradient Tool, the method that was used to blend colours together was the so-called classic method. Now, though, when using the Gradient Tool, you have Classic, with Linear and Perceptual added to the list. What’s the difference you may ask? Our example uses a simple multi coloured grad, and the three different blend methods are displayed side-by-side for easy comparison. Apparently, the Linear method is more…

Select and Mask

Select and Mask The Select and Mask tool (originally called Refine Edge) has been with us for a while but there have been a couple of tweaks made worth mentioning. When you access the Select and Mask toolset, you will notice that on the top menu bar are two buttons. One is Select Subject (which can also be found on the main Select menu options) and also a Refine Hair button. The Select Subject button will analyse your image and make a determination as to what your main subject is and put a selection around it. With the new Photoshop update, the improved Object Selection Tool found out on the toolbar is also available within the Select and Mask panel. It behaves just as it does out in the main…

Harmonization

NEW AND IMPROVED Harmonization This is a new Neural Filter. Currently in Beta, this one should be of great interest to those Photoshop artists who like doing composite images. Composites are created by taking multiple images from various sources and cutting bits out from each and assembling those elements into a new artwork. The problem faced by the composite artist is how to seamlessly blend one image into another so its colour and lighting matches the rest of the scene. This is where Harmonization steps in. Our example is a very simple composite image of a girl sitting on the edge of a cliff. The lighting on the girl is not quite right based on the background landscape she’s meant to be inhabiting, so a little help is required. Make…

Illustrator Integration

Illustrator Integration If you use Adobe Illustrator a lot in combination with Photoshop, this could be a very handy update for you. In past versions, if you had created a layered Illustrator file and wanted to open it Photoshop, you had to make do with some limited Copy and Past options. Thankfully, Adobe have come up with a very useful addition to the Copy/Paste function. In the previous versions, you would open your Illustrator file with its various groups and layers and chosen Select All and then Copy. You then opened Photoshop and created a new document that you could paste your Illustrator file into. At this point, you would have a few Paste options appear in a dialog box. Some of the choices seem somewhat odd, but they included…

Sky Replacement

NEW AND IMPROVED Sky Replacement If you have a photograph with a lacklustre sky or you simply want to change the mood of the image, then clicking on this option will bring up the Sky Replacement dialog panel. The image will be scanned to work out the best mask to use to accurately drop in your new sky. Firstly, you can choose from a number of preset skies from the Sky menu. You also have the option to set up named groups of skies or even use your own images by clicking the Create New Sky button and browsing to an image you want to use. That image will be added to your library ready to be used. The Sky Replacement panel has a number of useful options to help…

Distribution Spacing

Distribution Spacing Although Photoshop already has the available options to distribute objects on layers by spacing their centre points evenly, if objects were different sizes, the gaps between each item would vary. Now, if you have a number of different sized items on layers and you want to have them evenly spaced, you have two new options in the form of the Distribute Spacing buttons. Choose between Distribute Horizontally and Distribute Vertically. Select all the layers you want to distribute and then click on the distribution method of your choice. All the items, despite being different sizes, will be spaced with the same sized gap between them.…

Content-Aware Fill

NEW AND IMPROVED Content-Aware Fill Older versions of Photoshop’s Content-Aware fill option were originally accessed via the Shift + F5 Fill option and had few options for you to tweak. Now there is a brand new, dedicated Content-Aware workspace that you can access with more tools and functions available, as well as a live preview of the fill results before you have to commit to it. You can access the new fill tool by going to Edit > Content-Aware Fill. The screen you are presented with enables you to choose what areas of your image can be targeted, and used as sampling areas, for more accurate fill results. A mask overlay can be modified, with the tools provided, for the best seamless results. Each time you change the parameters, the…

Symmetry

Symmetry This feature has been implemented to work alongside your Paint Brush, Mixer Brush, Pencil, and Eraser Tools. Click any of these tools and in the top options menu bar, you will see a Butterfly icon. If you click and hold it, a small dropdown menu will appear and you can choose from a number of symmetry options including Diagonal, Wavy, Mandala, and Spiral. Certain options let you choose how many lines of symmetry are used and then, as you paint, the strokes are reflected in each line of symmetry, a bit like a kaleidoscope. Others, such as circle, create a circular path along which your brush strokes follow. You can make some very delicate and intricate patterns with these options.…

Photoshop Preferences Guide

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS PHOTOSHOP PREFERENCES GUIDE Photoshop Preferences Guide Here are all the preferences and what they do Photoshop is nothing if not customisable. You can shape and adjust the user interface to suit your own needs and make it a very personalised, and customised, workspace. Not only can you choose what appears in the main toolbar, you can also arrange and group thevarious windows and features entirely to your preference. That accounts for the items you interact with on the screen, however there are also a number of options you can tweak to adjust various ‘under the hood’ settings, as it were, too. Photoshop has a listing of all its Preferences both general and specific, so we thought we’d share the salient points with you here. 01 Under Photoshop…

The Toolbar

PHOTOSHOP: THE BASICS THE TOOLBAR The Toolbar Let’s take a look at Photoshop’s main editing tools The main elements of the Photoshop Toolbar haven’t changed all that much since the introduction of Layers and the Move Tool with version 3.0, back in 1994. The shape has changed a bit, elongatinginto a single column to take advantage of today’s larger monitors and a few more tools have been added, but anyone who’s familiar with any previous version of Photoshop will soon feel right at home. USEFUL TIP Most of the tools in the toolbar have alternative options, denoted by the small arrow below and right of the icon. Click and hold on the icon to see thepop-up alternative menu. This diagram shows the alternative menus for each tool. You can move…

Open and Save Your First Image

FIRST THINGS FIRST OPEN AND SAVE YOUR FIRST IMAGE Open and Save Your First Image A quick guide on how to open new photos and images in Photoshop, and then save your edits true Photoshop masterpiece has to start A somewhere right? In order to create that masterpiece you have to be able to open and navigate to your various image assets, and then fire them up in Photoshop in order to begin working on them. Photoshop is no different to many other programs in that it allows you to bring up a browser window in order to find the files you require. It also has its own methods for both managing and locating your images in the form of Adobe Bridge, which lets you search for images as well…

Any Colour From Anywhere

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS ANY COLOUR FROM ANYWHERE Any Colour From Anywhere When creating a Photoshop document, you will sometimes need to be able to sample colours to use in your document. Do you know that you can sample any colour on your screen, whether it’s in Photoshop or not? We show you how. 01 Let us say, for the sake of argument, that we are preparing an image that requires a coloured background. The subject of the image has been removed from its original background and you need to place a colour behind it to complete the document. 02 If you go to the bottom of the Layer Palette and click on the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon, you can choose from a number of layer adjustments. In…

Colour Match Your Images

PHOTOSHOP MEGA TIPS COLOUR MATCHING Colour Match Your Images When you cut out one subject and combine it with another background, you may notice that the colours don’t appear to match. We have a great method for matching your image elements together. 01 We have here two example images. The first is of a forest scene comprised of warm colours, which give it an overall orange colour cast. The second image is of a young girl’s portrait taken in a studio. The tones in this image are much cooler with more of a blue cast by comparison. 02 The image of the girl has been cut out and placed on a layer above the forest scene. Now you can appreciate the difference in the two images and how much the…

Pixel Explosion

PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE ZONE PIXEL EXPLOSION Pixel Explosion Create an image that explodes off the screen in a thousand pieces The pixel explosion effect, or pixel dispersion effect as it is sometimes known, is a great little technique that can turn an image into a shattered explosion of shards. The pieces look like they are tumbling into the air and your subject appears to be eroding away as the pieces fly off. For anyone with a good grasp of Photoshop basics this is, at its heart, a relatively straightforward effect to achieve. It helps to have a photograph of a subject that can be easily removed from their background. If theyhave a well-defined outline and a simple background, then Photoshop has the tools you need to cut them out, put them…

9 min

Get More Out of Your Photos

THE DIGITAL DARKROOM GET MORE OUT OF YOUR PHOTOS Get More Out of Your Photos When processing an image in Lightroom, half the battle is knowing enough about the many tools on offer to help you extract as much detail from your photos as possible. In the following issues we show you those essential tools and techniques to help you along. The HSL panel in Lightroom is perhaps more powerful that you might at first think. It can enable you to take greater creative control over your images and allow you to selectively adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance of the unique colours in an image. Our example is a simple application of this. The sky is very bright and the blue sea is quite murky. By adjusting the Luminance…