Tip of the Day | Page 46

How To Correct One Problem Color

Let’s say you have an image, but the sky doesn’t look as vibrant as you’d like, and you want to increase the amount of blue without affecting the rest of the image. Try this on for size: Open an image that contains a daylight sky. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette. In the pop-up menu, choose Color Balance. In the Color Balance dialog, drag the Blue slider all the way to the right (it looks bad now, but trust me) and click OK. Now, press B to switch to the Brush tool. Press the letter X until your Foreground color is black, and with a large, soft brush, start painting over the areas you don’t want blue. As you paint, the blue Color Balance you added is painted away. The sky is much bluer, but you can paint away the added blue from the other areas. To really see the before/after difference, click the Eye icon next to the adjustment layer.

December 10th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Change Brush Softness On The Fly

You can increase or decrease the softness of a round brush in Photoshop without changing the size of the brush by pressing Shift-Left Bracket or Shift-Right Bracket. That’s almost too easy.

December 7th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Undo A Save? That’s Impossible, Isn’t It?

This is a great trick we learned from our buddy Mike Ninness, and the first time we saw it, we said, “Hey, wait a minute, that can’t be.” Oh, but it be. It’s how to undo a Save. This is especially helpful after you’ve flattened an image, saved the file, then realized that you needed to change something on a layer. This only happens to us about every other day, and here’s the keyboard shortcut to fix it: Command-Option-Z (PC: Control-Alt-Z). Press it a few times after you’ve flattened and saved, and look in your Layers palette to see all the layers come a-rumbling right back. Pretty slick stuff.

December 6th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Fall In Love With A Temporary Brush, Or Not

You can create a temporary brush anytime in Photoshop by playing with the options in the Brushes palette (which is nested in the Palette Well by default). After you make your choices, start painting. When you switch to another brush, the temporary brush you just created is gone. If you fall in love with your temporary brush (which is considered illegal in 48 states) and want to save it, before you change brush sizes, click on the Brush thumbnail in the Options Bar, and when the Brush Picker appears, click on the New Preset Brush icon in the upper right-hand corner, you sick pup.

December 5th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Top-Secret Photoshop Splash Screen Update!!!!!!!!!

If you want to see the secret Photoshop beta startup screen (the pre-release version of Photoshop CS2), just hold the Command key (PC: Control key) and choose About Photoshop from the Photoshop menu (or Help menu on a PC). It will show you the splash screen, displaying CS2’s secret pre-release code name. I’m telling you, those engineers know how to party.

December 4th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Feather A Selection Without The Guessing Game

Most of us try to guess how many pixels will give us the nice, soft selection we’re looking for when we use the Feather Selection dialog (under the Select menu). Sometimes we guess right, and other times we press Command-Z (PC: Control-Z) to undo the damage before trying again. Try this instead: Make your selection first, and then press Q to turn on the Quick Mask mode. Now make the edge fade out by going under Filter, under Blur, and choosing Gaussian Blur. You can see how much of a blur you’ll need to soften the edges as you adjust the Radius amount. When you’re done, press Q to get back to Standard mode with the selection already made with the exact amount of feathering that you want.

December 3rd, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Dragging-And-Dropping Where You Want

If you drag an image from one document to another, the dragged image appears right at the spot where you let go of the mouse button. You may know that if you hold the Shift key when you drag-and-drop the image, the dragged image will automatically be centered within the receiving image. But you can go one better—make a selection in the receiving document, then hold the Shift key before you drag. Your image will be centered within the selection, instead of within the entire document. Scary, isn’t it? You can also copy-and-paste the selection and Photoshop will center the pasted image in the selection.

November 30th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Want Arrowheads? Photoshop Can Add Them For You!

This one is pretty slick because it’s been a feature in Photoshop for a while, but eight out of ten Photoshop users will tell you Photoshop can’t create arrowheads on the ends of lines (if it makes you feel any better, nine out of 10 dentists didn’t think Photoshop could do it either). Here’s how: First, go under the Shape tools (in the Toolbox) and choose the Line tool. Then, up in the Options Bar, you’ll see icons for the shape tools. Directly to the right of these eight icons is a down-facing triangle. Click on that triangle and out pops a dialog where you can click a checkbox to add arrowheads to either the beginning or end of your line, and you can choose the Width, Length, and even the Concavity (there’s that dentist thing again).

November 29th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

The Multiple Undo Shortcut

Need to back up a few steps to re-adjust a setting? Piece of cake. Here’s a shortcut to do just that. You can step back through your History palette (found under the Window menu) by pressing Command-Option-Z (PC: Control-Alt-Z) a few times. This doesn’t delete the items, but takes you back a step in the History palette each time you apply the shortcut.

November 28th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Let Those Windows Breathe!

Since version 3.0, Photoshop has done something called “protecting the palettes” (I don’t know if that’s its official name, but we’ve always heard it called that). What it means is that as you increase the size of your image using the Zoom tool (Z), Photoshop stops increasing the size of the image window when it reaches the left edge of your open palettes (if you have turned on the Resize Windows To Fit checkbox in the Options Bar). When it reaches this safety zone, the window stops growing, and only the image within the window continues to zoom. The only way to get around this (in previous versions of Photoshop) was to close your palettes. Then you could zoom the window as large as you’d like. However, Adobe addressed this problem back in Photoshop 6, and now if you want to keep the window growing, choose Ignore Palettes in the Options Bar when using the Zoom tool.

November 27th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

2012 Text Effect

Recreate the text effect from the title to the new blockbuster movie.
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.

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP

Photo Retouch
Scott Kelby shows you how to take an overexposed photo into a great photo using Photoshop. Want Great Photoshop & Photography Skills?

Extended Definition Processing
Scott Kelby shares a technique he's been working on, which gives your final image an HDR look using just one photo.
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Smart Object Masking Trick
Dave Cross shares a trick he discovered that will help you remove white from around your subject when using smart objects.
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Light Painting
Dave Cross takes a popular trend - light painting - and shows you how you can paint text recreating this cool trend.
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Viewing and Basking in your Image

When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, then hit the F key three times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself surrounded by black. To get back to regular mode, press the F key and the Tab key one more time.