Archive for June, 2007
10 Monochrome Websites
June 30th, 2007 | 
Author: Monochrome websites can be very effective, especially when combined with a solid grid layout, continuing our color series today we take a look at 10 of the best …
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30 Great Website Designs (Part3)
Today we have a bit of mid-week inspiration, lets take a look at some great examples of standards-compliant web designs. If you missed them, have a look at part one and part two as well.
Create a Sunset in less than a minute with Photoshop
Open the image that you want to work with and also open any image of a sunset.
Choose Image>Adjustments>Match Color
The Match Color dialog box will open. We will only need to use 2 settings for the task at hand.
Under Source, click the drop down menu and select the image of the sunset. There will be a thumbnail for you to check that you have selected the correct image.
Turn on the preview option if it isn’t already. The working image will now take on the color attributes of the sunset image. Most probably the effect will be a bit too much.
Adjust the Fade slider until you are happy with the result. Move it to the left for more of the inherited color and to the right for the original color.
When you are satisfied, click the OK button to apply the changes. There are many things that can be done with this new Filter in Photoshop CS including using the match color to remove a color cast in a single click.
For more cool techniques like this on an easy to follow video format check out Photoshop Secrets For Digital Photographers photoshopCD.com
Produced by PhotoshopCAFE great place for more great tutorials
A tip for Photoshop Users
If your just starting with Photoshop many of the terms may seem a little foreign. The help files for photoshop are pretty good so just hit help and go to search and you will find pretty simple information where to find what ever function your looking for.
Photo to Sketch with Photoshop
Provided by Spoono
Here is the photo I am using for this tutorial. Feel free to use it, if you’d like.
Step1
Copy your photo into a new document and name ir ‘Original’. Duplicate the layer ‘Original’ and rename it ‘Desaturated’. Desaturate the layer ‘Desaturated’ so that it has no color by hitting Shift+Ctrl+U (Mac: Shift+Command+U). Duplicate the ‘Desaturated’ layer and name the new layer ’1′. Now go Filters>Blur>Smart Blur and use these settings:
Radius: 60
Threshold: 100
Best Quality and use Edge Only.
Click OK and invert the layer, now apply a Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur with a radius of 1, and set its Blending Mode to Hard Light (which can by done in the upper left corner of the Layers Palette).
Step 2
Step Duplicate the ‘Desaturated’ layer, rename it to ’2′, and move it over layer ’1′. Now go Stylize>Emboss and use these settings:
Height: 1
Amount: 119%
Click OK and set the Blending Mode to Hard Light. Duplicate the ‘Desaturated’ layer, rename it to ’3′, and move it above layer ’2′. Apply the Filters>Blur>Smart Blur filter once again but this time use:
Radius: 10
Threshold: 100
Best Quality and Edges Only.
Click OK. Invert the layer and set the Blending Mode to Multiply and Opacity to 40%.
Step 3
Step Once again, duplicate the ‘Desaturated’ layer, rename it to ’4′ and move it above layer ’3′. Apply the Filter>Styling>Glowing Edges filter with these settings:
Edge Width: 1
Edge Brightness: 7
Smoothness: 6
Click OK and invert the layer. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 40%. Duplicate the layer ’4′ and Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur it, use a radius of about 3 – 4 this will give us that shaded look. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and Opacity to 100%.
Step 5
Step Adding Color:
Duplicate the ‘Original’ layer and name it ‘Color’ and move it to the top of all the layers. Set its Blending Mode to Hard Light, duplicate the layer ‘Color’, and set its Blending Mode to Color. Here are the finished results.
Photo Inside Text Combination Technique with Photoshop
This tutorial is to help you learn how to combine text with a photo so you can actually put any image inside a word of text. There are many techniques to accomplishing this same effect but this one seems to be the easiest and most effective. Ok, once you have your picture open in photoshop:
1. Create a New Document (File>New), In order to achieve desired results you should probably make sure the new document has the same dimensions as the photo you are going to use to fill the text. Then use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to fill the background with the color Black.
2. Then use the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and create a word or words that you want that span the whole new document. Then make the letters the color white.
3. Then copy and paste the photo you would like to use into the document with the text you just created. To select the photo (Select>All). To copy the photo (Edit>Copy). Then select the other document and paste the photo into it (Edit>Paste). Your layers menu should look like the example shown to the left.
4. Then change the top layer to be a clipping mask. With the top layer selected (Layer>Create Clipping Mask)
5. Now you should be pretty much done, but you may want to move the text or photo around to change whats showing through, to do this use the Move Tool (V).
This is a great technique for creating posters or brochures. It is also very commonly used to make certain kinds of advertisements.
Photoshop design Speech Bubble
This tutorial will teach you how to create a speech bubble which is resizable without getting jagged edges.
Creating a speech bubble shaped path in Photoshop
In this step we will create a path with the shape of a speech bubble, we will use the Ellipse tool and the Pen tool.
Start out by selecting the Ellipse tool in the tools menu. Now the options bar for the Ellipse tool should be visible above your work area.
The important settings here is to select paths mode, you can see my settings below.
Now you should draw an Ellipse that looks something like the one I have drawn bellow. Adjust the size of the Ellipse to match the content you want to have inside the speech bubble.
Now it’s time to add the part of the speech bubble that indicates the origin of the speech. For this task we will use the Pen tool, select the Pen tool in the tools menu and in the options bar set the mode to paths mode and set it to Add to path area.
Below are my settings for your comfort.
Draw a triangle like I have done in the image below and make sure to connect the third dot with the first by clicking in it.
Time to style our speech bubble
Now we need to fill the path with a white or whitish color.
First create a new layer, then go to the tools menu and select the Path selection tool. Click the ellipse path, hold down shift while clicking in the triangle path, now you have selected both paths. Right click anywhere in the work are and select Fill path in the menu.
The Fill path dialog in the image below will appear, in the drop down select color and the Color picker will appear, select the color you want.
Now we can start applying layer effects to style the speech bubble.
Right click the layer you just created and select Blending options, now apply all the settings that I have used in the images bellow.
And that how you use photoshop to make a speech bubble.Below is my final result, remember since we have used paths you can resize the path without getting jagged speech bubbles.
Free Photoshop Action for Red Eye Removal
Download a free red eye removal action for Adobe Photoshop. This action was created by site reader “Lonely Walker” and contributed for anyone to download and use. Here’s what “Lonely Walker” has to say about the action:
Red Eye Before & After Example (Right click and save for practicing this tutorial)
Download Red Eye Removal Action
Installing the Action
1. Open Photoshop.
2. In the Actions palette, choose command “Load Actions.”
3. Select file “Remove Red Eye.atn”
4. A new folder, “Remove Red Eye”, appears into the Actions palette.
5. Open two folders, “Default Actions” and “Remove Red Eye.”
6. Drag the acton file “Remove Red Eye” from the “Remove Red Eye” folder into the “Default Actions” folder
7. Delete the empty “Remove Red Eye” folder.
Notes:
* Shortcut for the Action is Ctrl-F5 (Command-F5 in Mac OS).
* Works with any version of Adobe Photoshop, either in Windows or in Mac OS.
To get rid of red eyes (time required – 20 seconds per eye)
1. Pick up a color from the eye’s iris edge, with the eyedropper tool. Be careful to choose an area without the red. (This color becomes the Foreground Color)
2. Select the whole area of the eye iris (avoid touching the white area of the eyeball and eyelids) either with the Magic Wand, Oval Marquee, Lasso or even with the rectangular Marquee tool.
3. Hit shortcut Ctrl-F5 (Command-F5 in Mac OS) and the red eye disappears.
4. If the eye’s pupil (or the whole eye) remains abnormally light, use the Burn Tool (twisted hand icon at the left side toolbar) with the appropriate brush size to cure the problem.
5. Eyes can be processed one by one, or you can make several selections before starting the Action (hitting the shortcut). One eye can be treated several times (if the area wasn’t accurately selected, etc).
6. Action is meant to work with RGB files (TIFF or JPG), but works with CMYK files, too, though some red color remains into eyes in the last case.
Workflow for the very lazy people (time required – 2 seconds per eye)
1. Open file (Foreground Color is the default black).
2. Make selection over the eye iris (try not to hit the white area) with the Rectangular Marquee tool.
3. Ctrl-F5.
