Tip of the Day | Page 34

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)

Exact Sizing For Your Text Columns

We already showed you how to create a column of type by clicking-and-dragging the Type tool to create your text box so your text will wrap within that column. But here’s a quick little tip that lets you tell Photoshop exactly the width and height you’d like your type column to be (rather than just clicking-and-dragging it out visually). With the Type tool, just hold the Option key (PC: Alt key) and click in your document and the Paragraph Text Size dialog will appear where you can enter the exact size you’d like for your column.

May 13th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Editing Type On A Path

If you’ve created some type on a path, highlighting that type to edit it (to change the font, color, spelling, etc.) can be kind of tricky. That’s why it’s quicker to go to the Layers palette and double-click directly on the “T” thumbnail icon. This will highlight all the type on this layer, making it easy to type in some new text, or change some of the attributes.

May 12th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

- Reverse Restoration
  Corey shows you how to make a new photo look damaged by blending in some unusual textures.
- Rain Drops
  In this tutorial, Corey not only creates the raindrops, but also the splashes that are formed with the raindrops hit the hands.
- G.I. Joe
  Corey's tutorial this week was inspired by a real American hero!

More Fun with 3D

Continue exploring the possibilities with Photoshop’s new 3D tools.
Reverse Restoration

Corey shows you how to make a new photo look damaged by blending in some unusual textures.
3D Background Effects

Use Photoshop’s new 3D tools to create some dazzling background effects.
Striking Match, Part 2

In the second part of this tutorial, Corey finishes creating this illustration of a striking match.

Layers TV: Episode 110
New episodes are coming soon. In this old episode, RC goes start to finish through a Flash CS4 project using the new 3D tools and importing an audio file. Corey talks about the distortion features inside of Adobe Illustrator. You can download each episode by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes. var so = new SWFObject('http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/players/player.swf','mpl','500','300','7'); so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true'); // so.addVariable('type','rtmp'); so.addVariable('file','http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/switch/video/layers-tv-episode-110.mp4'); so.addVariable('plugins','hd-1'); so.addVariable('hd.file','http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/switch/video/layers-tv-episode-110-hd.mp4'); so.addVariable('hd.state','false'); so.addVariable('image','http://www.layersmagazine.com/images/layerstv-logo.jpg'); so.addVariable('height','300'); so.addVariable('width','500'); so.addVariable('autostart','false'); so.addVariable("backcolor","0x000000"); so.addVariable("frontcolor","0xF1F1F1"); so.addVariable("lightcolor","0xF88E21"); so.addVariable("quality","100"); so.write('player'); [...]
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac
The new professional-level Quadro FX 4800 with 1.5 GB of memory brings a much-needed performance upgrade to the Mac Pro lineup.
Prezi
Prezi is a Flash-based visualization, storytelling, and presentation tool that allows you to create nonlinear presentations.
Terry White’s New App | Printing from Lightroom 2
Happy Thursday everyone! Just wanted to pop on in and share what’s new in the intranets: Terry White’s New Iphone App Terry white over at his techblog is usually covering all sorts of technology and letting us know what his favorite apps are for the iphone. He’s taken that love and mixed it with [...]

Adding Keywords to Multiple files

In Bridge, you can add keywords to images to make searching for pictures a little less cumbersome. You don’t, however, want the process to become tedious as well. By either Command-clicking (PC: Ctrl-clicking) or Shift-clicking on images, you can select multiple files inside Bridge. Once you have the files selected, you can go to the Keywords panel and turn on any keyword you like. This will apply the keyword to all of the files that you have selected. It takes away a little bit of the pain of categorization, but just a little.