Articles by Web Editor | Page 4

Say Goodbye To Gradient Banding

If you’ve printed an image with a gradient in it, you’re probably familiar with banding (a visible line where one color ends and the next starts, like bands of color, instead of a smooth transition from one color to the next). There’s a very popular tip for getting rid of banding that’s very effective for high-resolution imaging. Open the image in Photoshop and go under the Filter menu, under Noise, and choose Add Noise. When the Add Noise dialog appears, for Amount enter 2, for Distribution choose Gaussian, turn on the Monochromatic checkbox, and then click OK. You’ll see a little bit of this noise when viewing the image onscreen, but when printed at high resolution, the noise disappears and hides the banding. We add noise to every gradient we create for just that reason.

June 10th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Control The Opacity Of Your Healing Process

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Photoshop’s Healing Brush (Shift-J) doesn’t have an option for controlling its opacity (the way the Clone Stamp, Brush, Eraser, and other tools have). But there is a workaround if you want to use the brush and have some control over its opacity. Just go ahead and use the brush first; then to lower the opacity of your stroke, go under the Edit menu and choose Fade Healing Brush. When the Fade dialog appears, lower the Opacity slider to the desired amount. It’s a bit clunky, but it works.

June 9th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Healing With Pressure

If you’re using a Wacom tablet and wireless pen with Photoshop, you’ve probably already uncovered the secret hiding place where Adobe tucked the pressure sensitivity controls. (Hint: They’re in the Brushes palette.) But if you want to use pressure sensitivity with the Healing Brush, it’s in a totally different spot. To turn it on, press Shift-J until you have the Healing Brush tool, then in the Options Bar, click directly on the Brush thumbnail, and a menu will pop up (it’s not the standard Brush Picker). At the bottom of the menu, you’ll see a Size pop-up menu, where you can choose Pen Pressure.

June 6th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Getting Back Shadow/Highlight’s Factory Defaults

Don’t ever be concerned about experimenting in Photoshop CS2’s amazing Shadow/Highlight feature—mess with the sliders all you want, because you can always get back to the factory-default settings, even if you’ve overridden them by saving your own defaults. You do this within the Shadow/Highlight dialog (under Image, under Adjustments) by clicking on the Show More Options checkbox. Then, hold the Shift button, and you’ll see the Save As Defaults button at the bottom of the expanded dialog change to the Reset Defaults button. Click it, and the factory defaults are back, baby!

June 4th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Creating A Custom Shadow/Highlight Default

By default, the Shadow/Highlight adjustment command decreases the shadows by 50%, but if you’d prefer to have Shadow/Highlight open flat (with no automatic shadow adjustment), you can set your own defaults. That way, you decide how much, and when, the shadows get opened. You do this by going under the Image menu, under Adjustments, choosing Shadow/Highlight, and then dragging the Shadows slider to 0%. Click on the Show More Options checkbox, and at the bottom of the expanded dialog click on the Save As Defaults button. That’s it: Now you get to decide if the shadows get opened up, and how much, because everything’s set flat.

June 2nd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Better Healing With A Custom Brush

I have to give credit for this incredible tip to NAPP member Stephanie Cole, who showed it to me after the Midnight Madness session at the Photoshop World Conference & Expo in LA. She pointed out how you can get a real mottled-looking result sometimes when using the Healing Brush. However, she found that when you change the brush shape (by clicking on the Brush thumbnail in the Options Bar) to a tall thin brush, it heals using a star-shaped stroke. This greatly reduces the mottling often associated with the Healing Brush, creating a smoother-looking, more natural retouch. My thanks to Stephanie for allowing me to share her very slick trick.

May 30th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

How To Heal On A Blank Layer

One of the cornerstones of professional retouching is to always perform your retouches on their own separate layer. That way you never “bruise” (damage) the pixels of the original image. However, when using the Healing Brush in Photoshop 7, you really had no choice—you had to use it on the same layer. In Photoshop CS, you can heal to another layer. But first, there’s a little setting you have to change. Get the Healing Brush from the Toolbox, then up in the Options Bar, turn on the checkbox for Sample All Layers. Next, click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to create a new blank layer above your Background layer and do your “healing” there.

May 29th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Correcting Highlights? Watch Out For Open Shadows!

If you open the Shadow/Highlight command (found in the Image menu, under Adjustments) to open up the shadows in your photo, you’re in good shape from the get-go because it automatically increases the shadow area by 50%. That’s great, if that’s what you’re after. But what if you’re trying to pull back the highlights in a photo? Shadow/Highlight doesn’t know that and by default still opens up your shadows by 50%. The way to combat this is to immediately drag the Shadows slider all the way to the left when the dialog appears, so now you can adjust (pull back) the highlights by dragging the Highlights slider to the right, which now affects just the highlights and not the shadows.

May 28th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Getting More Accurate Color Using Replace Color

If you’re using Replace Color (under the Image menu, under Adjustments) to select an area within your photo and replace it with a different color, the new color is pretty much an approximation, because you’re dragging sliders, rather than inputting the exact RGB or CMYK build you’re looking for. In Photoshop CS2, there’s a way around this. Once you’ve selected the area of color you want to replace, click on the Color Swatch to the right of the sliders in the Replacement section (it wasn’t there in previous versions). This brings up the Color Picker, where you can enter the exact RGB or CMYK values for your new color.

May 27th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Determining The Motion Angle In Smart Sharpen

Here’s a tip I picked up from our buddy and NAPP Help Desk Director Peter Bauer. In Smart Sharpen (under Filter, choose Sharpen), there’s a special form of sharpening that removes visible motion blur. This sharpening is called (are you ready for this?) Motion Blur sharpening, and you choose it from the Remove pop-up menu in the Smart Sharpen dialog. But here’s the catch—you have to be able to determine the angle of the blur for Smart Sharpen to remove it. So, that’s where Pete’s tip comes in. You grab the Measure tool (nested under the Eyedropper tool in the Toolbox), and drag it along the angle of the blur. Then, look in the Options Bar and you’ll see the angle degree listed after the letter A. That’s the number you enter in the Motion Blur Angle field within Smart Sharpen. Very clever, Mr. Bauer.

May 23rd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Ditch The Annoying Lens Correction Grid

I love the Lens Correction filter in CS2, but I dearly hate the grid that appears over every image every time I open one, and it’s on by default, so you have to manually turn it off. However, if you’re like me (and you know you are), and you want that grid off fast, there is a workaround—you can save your own custom setting with the grid turned off. But to do that, you have to change something (or the Save Settings will be grayed out). I found a workaround that has virtually no effect on your image. Open the Lens Correction filter (found under the Filter menu, under Distort), and then increase the Vignette Midpoint to 51% (a 1% increase). Then, at the bottom of the dialog, turn off the checkbox for Show Grid. Now, in the Settings flyout menu, you’ll be able to choose Save Settings.

May 22nd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Getting Better Shadow/Highlight Results

The Shadow/Highlight feature in Photoshop is pretty amazing, but as amazing as it is, sometimes opening up the shadows can give your photo a “milky” look to it, making it obvious that you made adjustments using Shadow/Highlight. Well, here’s a tip for getting around that. First open Shadow/Highlight by going under the Image menu, under Adjustments, then choosing Shadow/Highlight. When the dialog opens, click on the Show More Options checkbox. Then, in the Shadows area up top, lower the Amount from the default setting of 50% to something more like 20%. Then increase the Tonal Width a bit and the Radius setting quite a bit, until the shadows are opened, but it doesn’t look “milky” or over-processed. Once you’ve done this, you can slowly increase the Amount slider, but stop if it starts to look milky.

May 21st, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

How Accurate Do You Need To Be When Removing Red Eye?

Not very. That’s right, when you’re using the Red Eye tool (Shift-J until you have it), you can click directly on the red that appears in the pupil, but if you’re afraid that you won’t be able to click directly on the red area (which can happen due to squinting, eye lashes, etc.), don’t sweat it. Just click somewhere near where the red eye appears, and it will still remove the red eye. The tool is sensitive enough to search out any red that’s even near where you clicked, so that’s why the answer to the question “how accurate do you need to be when clicking?” is “not very.”

May 20th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Don’t Have Italic Or Bold? Don’t Sweat It

If you have a typeface that doesn’t have a bold or italic version available, don’t sweat it—Photoshop can make a fake bold or italic version for you. They’re called faux bold and faux italic (don’t pronounce them “fox bold” or the French will get really cranky about it. It’s pronounced “fo,” as in “Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum”). To apply a faux style to the type, highlight your type and choose Faux Bold or Faux Italic from the Character palette’s flyout menu. Here’s another tip: Don’t forget to turn off these faux styles when you’re done, because they don’t automatically turn themselves off. Vive le Français!

May 19th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Removing Those Typographically Incorrect Spaces

If you’re trying to set type that looks typographically correct in Photoshop, there’s an old habit you’ll have to break, and that’s the curse of putting two spaces at the end of every sentence. This is a holdover from people who at one time used traditional typewriters, where adding two spaces was necessary, but in typesetting that’s a huge no-no. About 70% of the text I copy-and-paste from text files that people give me has two spaces, but I use this Photoshop tip to fix the problem in just seconds. First, go under the Edit menu and choose Find and Replace Text. In the Find field, press the Spacebar twice (entering two spaces), then in Change To, press the Spacebar just once. Click Change All, and every time Photoshop finds two spaces at the end of a sentence, it will replace it with just one, making you typographically correct.

May 15th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

Lighting Effects

Corey jazzed up this photo by making a custom brush and applying an outer glow layer style to create the repeating patterns
Pin-up Effect

Using a mixture of filters and blending modes, Corey takes a stock photo and transforms it into an old, classic 1950’s pin-up poster.
Embossed Glass Logo

Instead of using a displacement map, here’s another method for taking a custom file and distorting it to match a background image.
Sci-Fi Text Effect

Corey stumbled upon this effect while experimenting with the smudge tool and its finger painting feature. Start off by

Text Shape Layers
Converting text into shapes allows you to distort the text as you like while retaining straight, clean edges.
Borders Under a Minute
Create really cool borders in under a minute to use on virtually any one of your photos or even video for that matter.
Design Effects
Corey shows how to use the luminosity of an image to create a cool design effect and spice up your simple photos.
Stylized Comic Book Effect
Using this effect, you can transform anyone into a comic book character with a halftone, saturated look.

Code-Free Flash Video
You can easily get your flash video up and running on your web page without having to write one bit of code.
Nesting Smart Objects for Multimask Effects in Photoshop
One of the biggest drawbacks to smart filters is that all filters applied to a single layer must share a common filter mask. Fortunately, there’s a workaround.
Troubleshooting CSS in Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver CS3 provides a great collection of tools for creating page designs with CSS, but when it comes to altering and troubleshooting CSS, things can get confusing in a hurry.
Working with Hair in Photoshop
Hair can be a difficult thing to work with in Photoshop. Here are some tips to help make it easier.

Stop The “Click-And-Jump-To-That-Layer” Blues

Problem: All of a sudden, every time you click on a layer with the Move tool, it jumps to that layer. Solution: Somehow you turned on a feature called Auto Select Layer, which lets you make a layer active by just clicking on it with the Move tool. To turn this feature off, press V to get the Move tool, and up in the Options Bar, turn off the checkbox for Auto Select Layer. Besides, you never really need to turn this feature on, because you can just hold the Command key (PC: Control key) and click on any layer in your image window.