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Tip of the Day | Page 4

 

Drag Layers Between Documents

I’m sure that you’re aware that you can drag Photoshop documents between windows to build up a multilayered document. Did you know you can also drag layers, including adjustment layers and layers with masks and effects applied to them? Just drag from the Layers panel and drop into the canvas of the new document. You can even drag multiple layers.
by Colin Smith

November 4th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Tone Down Whites

To tone down the whites in an image, select them with Color Range (Select>Color Range). Add any adjustment layer (such as Curves or Levels), and change the layer blend mode to either Multiply or the slightly stronger Linear Burn. Then, drop the layer Opacity to taste.
by John Shaw

November 3rd, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Changing Your Selection Backdrop

When you’re making a complex selection, seeing the selection on the right backdrop helps a lot. When you’re in the Refine Edge dialog (Select>Refine Edge), you can switch to different backdrops for viewing your selection. Just press B for black, W for white, and K for a black-and-white view. There are others, but those are the three you’ll use most.
by Matt Kloskowski

November 2nd, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (3)

What To Do With Moles?

If your subject has a mole and you’re not sure you should remove it, reduce its impact. Get the Healing Brush tool (nested under the Spot Healing Brush tool [J]); make your brush size a little bit larger than the mole itself; Option-click (PC: Alt-click) a clean area of skin nearby; and click once right over the mole to remove it fully. Before doing anything else, go to Edit>Fade Healing Brush. Lower the Fade Opacity to bring back some of the mole.
by Scott Kelby

November 1st, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Painting In Adobe Camera Raw

First, saturate and warm your image a bit beyond the norm. Then, navigate to the Detail tab, maximize Luminance under Noise Reduction, and pull down the Luminance Detail to get the level of surrealism you desire. This works really well for cell phone images as a way to disguise artifacts.
by Bryan O’Neil Hughes

October 31st, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Channel Mixer For Preview

Sometimes it’s very difficult to find all the spots on skin. Try creating a Channel Mixer adjustment layer to turn the image into a high-contrast black-and-white image. Turn on the Monochrome checkbox, and move the Red slider to -100, the Green slider to +50, and the Blue slider to +150. This adjustment layer is just for a preview, so don’t try to retouch on it. Create a blank layer, and retouch on it.
by Calvin Hollywood

October 21st, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Smart Object Instead Of Stamp Visible

For years I’ve been telling people to press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) to make a merged copy of all visible layers. The only problem with that method is it’s a snapshot, so if you change the underlying layers, the merged version will not change. Instead, select all the layers and convert them to a smart object (Layer>Smart Objects>Convert to Smart Object). Now you can work on that layer, but still have live access to all the original layers just by double-clicking on the smart object.
by Dave Cross

October 20th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Save A Selection In A Jpeg As A Path

The ability to save selections inside a file is something that you can only do inside of a PSD, PDF, or TIFF image. Sometimes, you want to take advantage of the JPEG format. If you turn your selection into a work path (choose Make Work Path from the Paths panel’s flyout menu), you’ll be able to save your JPEG with the path included. When you open the image again, load the path as a selection (click the path in the Paths panel to make it active, and click the Load Path As a Selection icon at the bottom of the Paths panel).
by Raphael “RC” Concepcion

October 19th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Turn Off Fractional Character Widths

By default, Photoshop uses fractional character widths, which helps the spacing between letters. However, when you’re using any font to be viewed online below 20 points in size, the type can run together or have too much space. You can turn this feature off, but it affects the entire text layer; you can’t apply it to just part of the text. To turn it off, choose System Layout from the Character panel’s flyout menu. To turn it back on, choose Fractional Widths.
by Pete Collins

October 18th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Cycle Through Fonts

Double-click on a text layer’s thumbnail to select the text, then in the Options Bar, highlight the font name. Press the Up and Down Arrow keys to cycle through your available fonts and see exactly what your text will look like.
by Corey Barker

October 17th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

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Photoshop Tutorials

  • Flare Effects

    Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.

  • Hollywood Touch-Ups

    See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.

  • 3D Christmas Ornaments

    Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.

  • 3D Distortions

    This week Corey has a cool new trick for using 3D reflections in a rather creative way!

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP


 

Create A Composite Layer

If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.

Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith

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