Innehållsförteckning för September 2018 från Practical Photoshop

This is a fairly new feature that may have passed some of us by. But it’s very useful for designers, artworkers and anyone who’s ever seen a design and thought – “That’s a nice font, I wonder what it is?”. With the Match Font command (Type > Match Font), you simply draw a box over any text and Photoshop will attempt to identify and enable it for you – or at the very least list similar fonts. It works for any kind of image format – JPEG, TIFF, Many first-time users struggle with the Pen tool. It takes time to get to grips with the way it behaves, especially when it comes to plotting the Bézier curves that make the tool so useful. However, a setting in the tool options…

If you find the default 20 history states don’t get you back as far as you’d like then try changing the figure under Preferences (macOS: Photoshop > Preferences / Windows: File > Preferences). Go to Performance and alter the History States slider. You can set up to 1,000, but this may take its toll on your memory. In a similar vein, if you like to access recently opened files list via File > Open Recent, you can increase the number of files shown using Preferences > File Handling > Recent File List Contains……

Layer Masks are ideal for controlling what is visible or hidden on any given layer, but it’s not always clear exactly what they’re covering when seen normally. If you hold Alt as you click on a Layer Mask thumbnail in the Layers panel, you can toggle on a mask view that shows exactly how and where the mask is operating on the layer. This can be very useful for checking there are no missing patches or errant brush strokes in the mask. Just Alt-click again to turn the view off.…

Sunrise and sunset may be the best times of the day for landscape photography – but they’re both rather inconvenient, aren’t they? In this project, there’s no need to get up before the crack of dawn or wait all day for the setting sun. Instead, we’ll show you how you can fake it in Photoshop CC. Of course, there’s no real substitute for being there, taking the shot and experiencing the moment. But if that’s not possible, then there’s always the option to fake it later. Purists would call this cheating, but the only naughty act would be to pass it off as a genuine capture rather than a composite (as a winner of a landscape photography contest once found out when they were stripped of their title for digitally…

01 FLIGHT TIMES Most drones have a flight time of around 20-30 minutes before the battery runs out. (It’ll then return to home, not drop out of the sky.) So it’s a good idea to get a spare battery or two – you don’t want to run out of juice and miss out on shots at a crucial moment. 02 PULLING EXTRA WEIGHT The dedicated mount we used enabled us to fix two Lume Cubes to the drone. Whatever lights you use, consider the weight and centre of gravity of the drone. The extra weight will shorten the flight time – it reduced ours by about 10 minutes, giving us 17 minutes. 03 CLEVER LIGHTING The Lume Cubes can be connected to your phone via Bluetooth and then controlled with…

When you photograph a large scene like a landscape, it can be tricky to light everything you want to illuminate in a single frame, even if painting with light. The solution is to shoot several frames, then blend them together afterwards in Photoshop. This also gives you the option to pick and choose the frames you want to include in the finished composite. Blending the frames takes just a few moments. Load them all into layers, then perfect the alignment before applying the Lighten blending mode. 01 CHOOSE YOUR FRAMES Open all of your photos into Adobe Bridge and select the ones you want to use by holding Cmd/Ctrl and clicking to highlight the specific photos you want to use. 02 LOAD INTO LAYERS In Adobe Bridge, go to Tools…

Here’s a little-known but fun shortcut – Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T – that performs two functions at once. First it duplicates a layer, then it repeats the last-used Transform command. So it basically copies then moves, resizes or rotates a layer over and over again. When you use the shortcut with random shapes or effects, you can turn them into beautiful abstract spiral shapes. Here we begin with a shape downloaded via Photoshop’s New dialog (File > New), which is worth exploring for an array of interesting designs and assets. We can take an initial design and transform it to create an abstract octopus-like flower. Here’s how… 01 DOWNLOAD ABSTRACT SHAPES Go to File > New then search for and download the Vertigo Collection file. Once it’s downloaded, open it up and go…

If you can’t find the layer you’re after, grab the Move tool and right-click over a point in the image for a list of all the layers that occupy that point. Simply select the layer from the list (or keep trying until you find the one you want). It’s a super-quick trick, but if you want to be even quicker, you don’t even need to select the Move tool. Instead, hold Cmd/Ctrl – which is a shortcut that temporarily switches you to the Move tool – then right-click for the list.…

Photoshop offers precise control over fonts and type through the Character and Paragraph Panels. However, it can be fiddly to change the size and leading of a line while trying to fit it in with a design. A keyboard shortcut can help. If you want to try this out for yourself, grab the Type tool, drag out a text box and go to Type > Paste Lorem Ipsum. Hold Cmd/Ctrl+Shift then press the > and < keys to gradually change the font size. (Add Alt to change in larger increments.) Hold Alt and use the left or right arrow keys to change the tracking (the distance between letters). Hold Alt and press the up/down keys to change the leading (the vertical distance between lines). Hold Alt+Shift and use the up/down…

If you were to take a raw photo using two different branded cameras side by side, chances are there will be slight differences to the way the photos look when opened in Camera Raw or Lightroom. This is because the colors are rendered slightly differently depending on how the raw data is converted to RGB data. So a Canon raw file can look markedly different to a Nikon raw file, even when all the settings are identical. If you’re not happy with the look of the colors in your photos, the Camera Calibration panel can help. Found both in Adobe Camera Raw and in Lightroom’s Develop module, these controls might seem superfluous in comparison with the other color controls in the program, but they offer a fine degree of control…

In just a few short years, drone technology has progressed at such a rate that we’re all now very used to seeing stills and footage captured by these clever buzzing ’copters. But there’s another use that many might not have considered: what about using a drone as a light source? By strapping a couple of high-powered LEDs to a drone, you can transform it into a highly mobile lighting rig, capable of spotlighting outdoor scenes and subjects from airborne angles. Not only does this open up all kinds of interesting photo opportunities – from long-exposure ‘drone trails’ to otherworldly ‘flying saucer’ lighting – it also means you can pair the aerial prowess of a drone with the (vastly superior) capture quality of your DSLRs. In this project, we’ll explain how…

01 FLYING THE DRONE With an exposure time of 10 seconds we can ‘paint with light’ by moving the drone around the scene. It doesn’t matter if the drone enters the frame during the shot, though, as it’s easily removed by replacing it with a clean area from another frame. 02 CAMERA SETTINGS The ideal settings for your camera will depend on the brightness of your LEDs and the strength of the daylight. Shooting at dusk here, we’re in Manual mode at 10 seconds, f/11 and ISO 250. Manual mode enables us to keep our exposure consistent as we fire off frames.…

This is a fairly new feature that may have passed some of us by. But it’s very useful for designers, artworkers and anyone who’s ever seen a design and thought – “That’s a nice font, I wonder what it is?”. With the Match Font command (Type > Match Font), you simply draw a box over any text and Photoshop will attempt to identify and enable it for you – or at the very least list similar fonts. It works for any kind of image format – JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PSD – so the next time you seen a font you like and want to use it yourself, take a shot of it, open it in Photoshop and use the Match Font command.…

Here’s a neat trick that allows you to summon an HUD color picker, for quick access to any color you want. First, enable the color wheel. Go to Preferences (macOS: Photoshop > Preferences; or in Windows: File > Preferences). Under General, choose HUD Color Picker and select the wheel option. Now you can summon the wheel – on a Mac hold Cmd+Alt +Cmd, on Windows it’s Shift+Alt+ right-click – then click and drag to open the wheel. Use the outer circle to select a hue, and the inner square to fine-tune the luminosity and saturation. You can hold Space to freeze one or the other area, enabling you to jump between them without accidentally shifting the position of the selector.…

When you make a selection – particularly if you’re using the rectangular or elliptical selection tools – it can be tricky to anticipate the positioning before you begin dragging. While still holding the mouse button down, you can hold Space to temporarily change the position of the selection, making it easier to fine-tune exactly where it sits in your document. While using either of these tools, you can also hold Shift to constrain the proportions as you drag (for a perfect square or circle), or hold Alt to begin the selection from the center point rather than the corner.…

1 CHOOSE A LOCATION A lone tree makes for a strong, stark shape against a twilight sky. Flying a drone in low light means the obstacle avoidance capabilities are limited. So use an open spot where there’s less chance of clipping a tree branch or wires. 2 THE DRONE We’re using a DJI Mavic Pro quadcopter to light our scene; it’s one of the best consumer drones. Importantly, it’s capable of carrying two Lume Cube LEDs with ease – a task smaller, lighter drones would struggle with. 3 LIGHT SOURCES Our light source is two Lume Cube LEDs. You could use any LED (or even a lightweight flashgun), but the Lumes are a good choice as they’re very bright, they can be controlled via an app and there are dedicated…

01 LINE OF SIGHT You don’t need a licence to fly a drone unless you intend to use it commercially. However, there are a few restrictions to keep in mind. First, you’re required to keep it in line of sight at all times, so no flying it miles away, even if the drone is capable of it! 02 HEIGHT RESTRICTIONS As of 30 July 2018 it’s against the law in the UK to fly above 120m. Any higher and you may endanger larger aircraft. You shouldn’t fly within 150m (lengthways) from the edge of any built-up areas, or within 50m of any person, vehicle or property that isn’t yours. 03 RESTRICTED AIRSPACE Near-misses at Gatwick and breaches of prison security mean flying in some areas is prohibited. Many drones have…

Photoshop has many types of layers and adjustment layers available, but there are six that you’ll find you need to use again and again. Learning how they should be used may seem a little daunting for beginners, but once you’ve got to grips with them, you’ll find they play a part in the creative process of almost every image you make. 01 LEVELS This should be the first layer you add to an image, because it fundamentally alters the tonal range of the entire image. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer, drag the Black Point slider inwards until it touches the left-hand edge of the histogram, and drag the White Point slider inwards to the right-hand edge. This remaps the tones of the image to make more of the available tonal…