Free Photoshop Secrets - Learning Photoshop Like A Pro
July 28, 2008
nt to get rid of that nasty shine that you get taking pictures? Well now you can, follow these easy steps: Let’s start with a great, overlooked trick. After opening the image, open the same image again in a new window. In Photoshop, choose Window ->Arrange -> New Window. In Elements choose View->New Window. This allows you to view one window zoomed in for detail work and the other window at 100% so you can judge the effects. Using the magnifying glass tool draw a box around the area of shine. Make the box big enough to also show a fair amount of un-shiny skin. Select the Clone tool. At the top of the page select Mode: Darken and use the slider to set Opacity at 50%.Using the Clone Tool, select an area of un-shiny skin by putting the circle over the area and holding down the Alt button while left-clicking the mouse. To best match skin tone try to select the area of skin closest to the shine. Quick tip, to easily resize the Clone Tool circle simply use the bracket keys, [ and ] - much easier than moving your cursor back and forth between the photo and the Size slider. Now simply click on the shiny area and watch the magic happen. You’ll have to experiment a little for best effect, and for larger areas be sure to resample the un-shiny skin frequently. In the zoomed-in image the effect might look too obvious, so you’ll need to keep an eye on the 100% image to track your progress. Notice the difference on the tip of the nose, the cheek, and above his eye.
Touching up photos is fun and easy, follow these simple steps to learn how to make a black and white photo. Start by choosing the photo you want to convert to Black and White, any size, background or quality is cool. Go to Image - Adjustments - Black and White. Ok, now this menu will show up, you’ll have to change all the values depending on your photo’s color. Take your time to make the best contrast possible. The following settings are just an example. Now that you have finished with the Black and White, we’re going to make some manual shadows and highlights to make the photo more stunning. Grab the Burn tool. Set the master Diameter Settings depending on your photo’s size. Now make some exaggerated shadows. We made this to make like a visual impact. Now, grab the Dodge Tool. (you can find the dodge tool making right click in the Burn Tool) Make some highlights (of course, in the parts you didn’t make shadows) Finally, the last touch.Go to Filter - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask. And put just a little bit of sharp, enough to make the image a little stronger. And its done! Your stunning Professional Black And White Photo in Photoshop CS3 is finished.
Gradient maps can help your coloring on Photo manipulations a lot. They can be used to help blend things in and to make the colors in things the same. So you should have the same picture from the section Textures open. Okay now looking at you textures picture. You might think. My textures dont really blend in well with my face. So I am going to show you how to blend those in better using gradient maps. So I want you to decide what you want your face to look like (mainly color wise). So to make my textures blend in more I start off by going to Image> Adjustments> Gradient Map. Since I want a green picture I am going to pick a green/yellow gradient map. Then I am going to set it on soft light. After I put the opacity down a bit. Then I added a black and white gradient map. I did this because I wanted to make the picture a bit darker. I left the black and white gradient map on normal and set it on around 50% opacity. It will get rid of a bit of the color but thats what the green and yellow gradient maps were for (they were to add color so it didnt look really bland when we added the black and white one). Here is my picture after adding gradient maps.
There is only two things you have too know about the ExtendScript Toolkit program right now: Select target application, ExtendScript must know which application you are writing the script for. In the top left dropdown menu select Adobe Photoshop CS2 and if asked if you want top start it choose yes. Running script, to run a script you have written you press the button that looks like a play button. Reference documentsAll objects have different properties that can be set and methods that can be executed and right now you probably don’t know any of these, this is where the reference documents come in. The reference document for JavaScript contains information about all objects available in your scripts.
Open up a new 5×5 pixel image with a transparent packground. Select your Pencil Tool and set it to 1 pixel. Set your foreground color to black. Now draw something like a plus sign on your image (You might have to zoom in on your image). Define the pattern by going to Edit > Define Pattern. Now open up the image you are going to be applying the grid to. Now grab your Paint Bucket Tool and in the options bar (Window > Options), change the Fill to Pattern. Next to Fill option you will see the Pattern Option. Find your pattern in there and then create a new layer. Use your Paint Bucket Tool on the layer you just created. In the Layers Palette, adjust the opacity to lighten or darken the grid.
As with many applications, working in Photoshop can be made far easier and more efficient by using keyboard shortcuts.Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N New layer Ctrl/Cmd + J Duplicate current layeR. Here are a few useful shortcuts: Ctrl/Cmd + [ Move layer downwards Ctrl/Cmd + ] Move layer upwards Ctrl/Cmd + E Merge linked layers Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + E Merge visible layers Ctrl/Cmd + A Select all Ctrl/Cmd + D Deselect Ctrl/Cmd + L Levels Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + L Auto levels Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Alt + L Auto contrast Ctrl/Cmd + M Curves Ctrl/Cmd + I Invert colours Ctrl/Cmd + Z Undo Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + Z Step back in history Ctrl/Cmd + F Apply last used filter Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + X Liquify tool Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + Shift + X Pattern tool
For those interested in coloring graphically upon the computer, painting, pastels, colored pencils, markers, and any other coloring tool, skin tones are necessary part of human color. The worl is full of variety in color, including the human skin. I look around, and I see many people getting the skin colors wrong. It can be too yelow, too pink, or just not the right color. Getting a realistic skin tone can be a really tricky business, but, there is an easy solution to this delimma. I created this tutorial for Photoshop on Photoshop 7. I’m not sure what else will be compatible before Photoshop 7, or other products, but I would think that the steps would be similar. For some quick skin tones, you can grab a tones chart like the basic one I made on left, to use for coloring. Now, on the tones chart to my left, I have the tones for three nationalities- Caucasian, Asian, and African — which I’ve personally seen the most often in the art that I see at various art sites. These are approximate, no set exact for what the colors are. Also take into regard that these are around the extremes. The lightest lights, the midtone, and the darkest dark.
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