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What’s In A Name

 

So a lot of people see me doing crazy stuff with filters in Photoshop and I often ask people if they ever use filters. I was surprised to find out that very few actually do. The ones they do use are common ones like Blur or Sharpen, but there are dozens of other filters in Photoshop that no one ever really bothers with because they either didn’t know they were there or were put off by the name. Don’t let that throw you off. Just because a filters bears a certain name that doesn’t mean it cannot contribute to a really cool effect. A while back I did a tutorial on creating water droplets on a bottle. The effect was achieved by using the Stained Glass and the Plaster filters. Going strictly by the names I would never have considered they would create such an effect but they did. So my point here is to experiment. Don’t pay attention to what a filter is called. Try it out.! Play with the settings on different images. Try a filter you have never used before. You just might find that one effect you’ve been looking for. The gems are already there in Photoshop, you just have to dig them up. Enjoy!!!

3 Comments

  1. Celeste said on — September 26, 2008 @ 9:59 am

    Thanks Corey…I’ve been using Photoshop filters since the beginning when others were saying to me that a good Photoshop artist doesn’t use them! I like to use several filters together to make an otherwise boring photo look interesting in my designs. I used your water droplet tut on a recent design and my client loved it….thanks.

  2. Blake said on — September 26, 2008 @ 11:55 am

    Corey… I saw you at Photoshop World in Vegas. You did the water droplet effect, but then you animated it. What effect/filter did you use to make the running droplets attach to other droplets as they moved? I have been goofing around with it, and I haven’t figured it out.

  3. mitzs said on — September 30, 2008 @ 4:57 pm

    To be honest Corey, I wish you would write a book on all the filters. Everyone knows your the Photoshop Filter Guru. Write a book for us please!

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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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