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Tracing Can Help

 

If you need a little help getting started with digital painting, try this: Open your photo (or a royalty-free stock image), then click the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a layer above the photo. Fill this new layer with a slightly off-white color (R:249, G:244, B:225), and then lower the layer’s Opacity to 50% to simulate tracing paper. Add one more layer above this and trace away.

1 Comment

  1. Chris Martin said on — April 24, 2009 @ 3:12 pm

    thanks for the tip. I’m still learning photoshop but curious why you wouldn’t just change the opacity of the original photo. Is the idea to preserve the integrity of the photo layer?

    Thanks again!

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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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