Photoshop Tutorials

Archive for August, 2007

When you’re new to Adobe Photoshop software, learning the ropes can be daunting. It seems like there are so many new things to learn that you almost do not know where to begin. Masking is a good skill to learn as soon as you start learning how to operate Photoshop. It allows you to do something very important when you are new to the program, and that is make edits to your images without permanently changing them.

That way, if you make some changes that you don’t like, you can easily remove them. There are many masks within the Photoshop program, like fluid masks, quick masks, selection masks, and sharpening and unsharpening masks. The most common mask with the widest variety of uses, however, is the layering mask. It is relatively easy for new users to manage by following just a few steps.

A layering mask is exactly what the name sounds like – it is a mask that is only applied to one layer of an image. To put a mask on a layer, first, open your layer palette. Highlight the layer that includes the material that you want to put a mask over, and drag that layer onto the layer palette. Now, you will need to click on your ‘add vector mask’ button, which is at the bottom of the layer palette dialoge box. If you have correctly applied the mask to the right layer, a white icon will be next to that layer’s name in the list of layers in the palette.

If you want to take away part of the mask so part of the layer is visible, open up your ‘paint brush tool.’ With your paintbrush, ‘brush away’ the parts of the mask you don’t want, to revel the image underneath. If you want to do away with your mask entirely, use your mouse to click the white icon next to your layer, and simultaneously hold down the ‘shift’ key on your keyboard. A red ‘X’ will cross out your white mask icon, showing you that you have correctly disabled the mask.

If you need to select the image under the mask, without moving the mask, you can do this in the same way you would when you make any selection. With the appropriate layer open, hit your ‘control’ key, if you are using a PC, or your ‘command’ key, if you’re using a Mac. All the images on that layer that are masked will be selected.

Sometimes, you may want to be able to move the image and the mask independently of each other, or make edits to one without editing the other. To do this, you need disconnect them from each other. Simply click on ‘link’ in the palette menu, and they will be disconnected. To reconnect them, click ‘link’ again. To view the mask alone, click on ‘alt’ on a PC or ‘options’ on a Mac, and the mask will appear alone, so you can judge better the edits you are making to it.

These steps are the basic tools you will need to work with layer masks in Photoshop. Exactly how you use the masks, and how often, will depend on what kind of work you are using the program to do. The main benefit to these masks is in the fact that they allow you to make edits to your image without permanently applying them. Many Photoshop applications include so-called ‘destructive edits’, which means once you apply an edit, the image is forever altered. For a Photoshop newbie, layer masks are a great way to make edits while you’re still learning the program without damaging your source material.http://www.msiphotoshop.com

Copy your 5 bonus jpg buttons.

Enjoy

In this free video tutorial provided by http://www.Luv2Help.com we will show you how to create shadows for you images using Adobe Photoshop. Goto http://www.luv2help.com/ for high resolution viewing and more free video tutorials.

http://www.spike.com/video/2855484

Enjoy

Quentin

Many Thanks to Deziner Folio for creating such beautiful badges.
Here is a set of very cool Web 2.0 Badges for you in .PSD and .PNG formats.
Extremely customizable and very easily done!

Download PSD and PNG files

Enjoy!

I love crop circles and not sure about if they are real or not but this tutorial is not meant to deceive but just for FUN.

Provided by http://tutorialblog.org

Aliens from outer space or fakes created by people with far too much time on their hands ? Who knows, or indeed cares ? Here we present you with an easy way to create fake ones using photoshop.

First off, find an aerial view of a suitable field to create our crop circle, we used one from istock photo for the purpose of this tutorial, just search for “aerial field” if you want to find the one we used :

Next we need to create the crop circle pattern, this can be anything you like – get creative, you could also use a company logo etc, for this tutorial we used the custom shape tool and the elipse tool, make this to start with :

Then build up a bit more detail with more circles etc :

This shape will form the basis of our crop circle, save this psd file with all your circles on separate layers, then hide the background layer and on the menu go to Layer > Merge Visible. This puts the circle design all on one layer, now show the background (field photo) layer again. Now choose Edit > Transform > distort and move the handles in line with the stripes on the field to give the idea of perspective :

Now duplicate this layer, choose Edit > Free Transform, hold down shift and move the handle to make smaller versions of the pattern and position them like so :

Once again, hide the field photo and merge the 3 circles layers together. Hold down ctrl + click on the circles layer to make a selection, hide the circles layer and then create a new layer :

Fill this layer with black, and then right click on it in the layer window and choose “blending options”, set the blending mode to “overlay” and take the opacity down to 55% :

Then click on inner-shadow and use these settings :

Finally, go to Filter > Distort > Ripple and use these settings :

And thats it, your final image should look like this :

You can also download the psd for this tutorial.

Provided by Max Rylski

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