Photoshop Tutorials
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Photoshop Quick Tips
Feathering a Selection
This trick makes edges of a selection slightly blurred, which gives a much more natural appearance when cutting out part of an image to put into a second image. To do this:
- Make a selection
- Hit "Q" to do a quick mask.
- Apply Filter...Blur..Gaussian Blur
- Choose radius based on how blurry you want the edges. Typically a radius of 1-3 gives enough blur.
Finding Pure White and Pure Black in the Levels Adjustment
When working in the Levels dialog box, hold down ALT while adjusting the sliders to only see the pure white (right slider) or pure black (left slider) pixels in your image. This lets you know exactly how far you can move the sliders without losing shadow detail or causing blown highlights.
Use Adjustment Layers!!!
When applying adjustments to an image, use Layer....New Adjustment Layer instead of Image...Adjustments. Adding adjustments with layers is NON-destructive to your image, and you can go back and tweak them later if you have to. You can't do that if you adjust the image directly. You can also apply opacity settings to the Adjustment Layers to reduce the amount of impact they have. Get in the habit of using Adjustment Layers.
Sharpening Canon Digital Rebel Pictures
Recommended starting point for offsetting the effects of the Canon anti-aliasing filter is:
Filter....Sharpen.....Unsharp Mask
Amount: 300
Radius : 0.3
Threshold : 0
Source: Photoworkshop : Getting the most from your EOS-1 Class Digital SLR Quick Reference Guide
Non-Destructive Patching,Healing, and Cloning
Before you begin cloning or patching an area, do New...Layer.Select the new blank later, then when you use the Clone or Healing tools, choose "Sample All Layers" to clone to the new, blank layer using layers below. This makes it easy to turn off cloning later, or edit parts of it out, while still retaining your original image.
Adding a Darkened Border around a Portrait
Using an eliptical marquee, make a selection around the part of the picture you want unaffected. Invert the selection. Add a Levels Adjustment Layer and darken the inverted selection. Now add a Gaussian Blur to the Levels layer and adjust until you are happy with the results.
Black and White Picture with some Colored Areas
Use Select...Color Range and adjust the "Fuzziness" to get a selection of the colors you wan to preserve. This does not have to be exact.....as a matter of fact, you should select a little more than you really want. Then turn this selection into a mask and edit out the parts of the selection you don't want. Turn it back to a selection, then CTRL-J to put the selected areas on a new layer. Now, desaturate your original image (or use whatever technique you want to turn it black and white). You can increase the saturation of the colored layer if you want to enhance the colors a bit.
Digital Water
- Hit D to get default colors (black and white)
- Filter....Render...Clouds
- Filter....Blur....Radial
- Filter..Sketch...Bas Relief
- Filter....Sketch...Chrome
- Hue/Saturation....Colorize to turn the water blue.
Preventing Rounded Corners when Expanding Selections
With the selection active, enter Quick Mask mode. Choose Filter > Other > Maximum and enter the number of pixels by which you want to expand the selection. Exit Quick Mask mode and then stroke inside.
Useful Keyboard Shortcuts
I have found the following keyboard shortcuts to be useful.
- While dragging a marquee or custom shape, holding down the spacebar will move the selection, rather than resize it. This allows you to size shapes and marquees, AND position them in place before releasing the mouse button.
- CTRL-SPACEBAR lets you zoom in while dialog boxes are open, and CTRL-ALT-SPACEBAR lets you zoom out.
- CTRL-D = Deselect
- D = Set foreground/background colors to defaults (black and white)
- F = Toggles fullscreen mode
- Q = Toggles quickmask mode
- TAB = Hides or shows toolbars and palletes
- SHIFT-TAB = Hides or shows palletes only, leaves tools visible
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