Use Noise Reduction to soften skin

By now you know that Photoshop CS5 (Camera Raw 6) and Lightroom 3 have great Noise Reduction, but did you know that you could max Luminance and minimize Luminance Detail to make your image look like a painting and to soften skin?

Adobe Photoshop CS5
By Bryan O’Neil Hughes

October 19th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Get rid of that shapelayer outline

If you’ve worked with a shape layer, you’ve probably noticed the appearance of a thin outline around the shape. The outline you see around a shape layer really doesn’t mean anything. It won’t print or show up on a saved Web image; however, it does look flat-out distracting when you’re trying to work with your images. Just click the mask next to the shape layer it’s on, and that outline will disappear. Click on it again if you ever want to turn it back on.

October 18th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Cycling through layer blend modes part 2

If you’ve tried the previous tip but have a tool selected that also has blend modes associated with it (like any of the Brush tools), then you’ll find that the keyboard shortcut cycles through the blend modes for the brush in the Options Bar and not the layer. The workaround is this: First select a tool that doesn’t have blend modes (like the Move tool or one of the selection tools), and then use the shortcut from above and it’ll work just fine.

October 15th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Cycling through layer blend modes part 1

Sometimes it’s useful to quickly cycle through your blend modes to see which one works best. Manually clicking on each one just isn’t quick, so try this: Click on the Blend Mode list in the top left of the Layers panel to select a blend mode. Then press Shift-+ to cycle down the list and Shift-ñ to go back up.

October 14th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

The font-resizing shortcut

Want to make your font size larger or smaller without going to the Size setting in the Options Bar? This one is really easy. Double-click the Type layer thumbnail to select your type. Then press Command-Shift-> (PC: Ctrl-Shift->) to make your font larger or Press Command-Shift-< (PC: Ctrl-Shift-<) to make it smaller. Bonus tip: Add the Option (PC: Alt) key to the mix and the size will change in increments of 10.

October 13th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Unlink that mask for flexibility

If you want to move a layer around your image, but leave the layer mask exactly where it is, you need to unlink the two. Click the little chain link icon between the layer thumbnail and the layer mask to unlink them. Then you can move the layer around wherever you want to. Click between the layer thumbnail and layer mask again to re-link the two.

October 12th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Turn off or disable a layer mask

You can Shift-click on the Layer Mask thumbnail in the layers panel to turn off or disable the mask. You’ll see a red X appear over the mask icon in the Layers panel. The mask is actually still there but it’s disabled. Shift-click on it again to enable it.

October 11th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Convert a Background layer to a regular layer

Double-click on the name “Background” in the Layers panel, and then click OK, or press Return (PC: Enter) in the New Layer dialog to accept the new name. Or, even better, you can hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, double-click on the Background layer’s name in the Layers panel and that bypasses the New Layer dialog.

October 8th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Blend mode keyboard shortcuts

I never used to use keyboard shortcuts for blend modes. Then about a year or so ago, I realized that the keyboard shortcuts for blend modes are actually very easy. It always involves the Option-Shift (PC: Alt-Shift) keys and then one letter that’s usually the first letter of the blend mode. For example, Option-Shift-M (PC: Alt-Shift-M) is Multiply. The letter O is Overlay. The letter S gets you Screen and so on. It doesn’t work for all of them (F is actually Soft Light) but it’s pretty darn close and since I’ve started using them I work a lot faster.

October 7th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (3)

Deleting a layer

Instead of dragging a layer to the Trash icon to delete it, you can quickly delete a layer by pressing the Delete (PC: Backspace) key in Photoshop CS4. In CS3, using that key will only work if you have the Move tool (V) selected first, so you could quickly press V and then the Delete (PC: Backspace) key. Hey, it’s still faster then dragging.

October 6th, 2010 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)