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Photoshop Software...Quick and Easy techniques for Photoshop

by: DavidPeters
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1. First, create a new image 2x2px and using the Pencil Tool (set to 1px), draw image as you can see it below. Try to Zoom In ( View -> Zoom In ) to do it easier. Define your pattern ( Edit -> Define Pattern ) and close the image 2. Open two images. One you want to hide and the other you want to hide first in. In my example, I took to hide recycle logo in Leonardo da Vinci portrait. 3. Create a new image the same size as your other two images and paste both your images onto it. The two images should be on two separate layers. Move the cover image layer above the hidden image layer. Create a new layer and move it above the hidden image layer but below the cover image. Fill ( Edit -> Fill ) this layer with the pattern you made in Step 1. Change the Blending Mode of this layer to "Exclusion". 4. Change the Blending Mode of this layer to "Exclusion". 5. Click on the image you want to hide on the Layer palette, and invert the colors, by going "Image -> Adjustments -> Invert (or press Ctrl-I)" 6. Change to opacity of the cover image to change how well you can see the hidden image (Recycle logo), I used 70% opacity.First, create a new image, 200x200 pixels and fill the background with white. Create a new layer [Shft+Ctrl+N]. Then; use the Rectangular/Elliptical Marquee Tools [M] to create any shape you want. Now we need to select our shape. Do it by holding Ctrl and clicking on this layer with the left button of your mouse. The next step is to add layer mask to our shape. Click on button, this will add layer mask. Then, deselect the layer [Ctrl+D]. On the top toolbar, go to Filter Blur Gaussian Blur... The window with options will open; select the value of the Radius that will make your shape smooth. I used 4.0. To make our job easier, we need to make our layer mask visible. Do it by holding Alt and clicking on the layer mask with the left button of your mouse. Now, we need to adjust levels of our image. To do it go to Image Adjust Levels... The window with options will open and you will see 3 triangles. Use your mouse to drag all of them to the center and you will notice that your shape will start to look smooth. Play around with different triangle positions to get the result you want.

Photoshop CS2 is able to create an Automated Task. When you have a whole bunch of repeated tedious task to do on a whole sets of photos. Eg: resize a whole stack of photos to a specific resolution. It is easy enough to do: First, open up the desired photos with Photoshop or simply just drag and drop the photos onto the Photoshop main stage. This is the photo which I will be using. It is actually a 20001333 resolution photo and now the view is actually 25% of the actual size. Now is to open up the Action Window. Go to Window > Action or simply press the shortcut key Alt + F9. The Action window will looks like what it is in the above image. We have everything ready and now is to do the trick. Click on the "Create New Action" button as where is shown on the above image A New Action window will come out, the Name of course is the name of your this Automated Task, here as I am doing photo resizing so I will give it the name "Resize". Everything just remain as it is and click on Record Just for your information, the Function Key is actually for you to set the shortcut key to this Automated Task. Anyway, I will not set anything here. Now the Record button has turned active (red color), and from now on whatever action you do will be recorded. I will start doing the resizing now. Go to the Image > Image Size or with the shortcut key Ctrl+Atl+I. Here I will resize to the above figures. Click Ok. The image has now been resized. What I need to do has actually finish. In actual tedious task of course it won't be that short but here it will be enough as an example. Click on the Stop Recording button as where is shown on the image. Now you have your Automated Task set! .To show on how it works. Simply open another photo or drag other photo onto the Photoshop main stage. In the above image I am now using another image. Now on the Action window, select on the "Resize"(or the name you gave for this Automated Task), then click on the "Play Selection" button as where is shown on the image.

What we want to do is create a fractal. I use Apophysis but you can use any fractal program. Once you have a fractal you like open it up in Photoshop. To start off what we want to do is duplicate our fractal layer. So take your fractal layer and drag onto the new layer button. Then go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and insert any settings between 4 - 9. Each fractal is different so it will take some experimentation find the right one for your fractal. Then set your blurred layer on Linear Light. This will make the colors more vibrant and will make it brighter and seem to glow. Your fractal should look something like this now. Now duplicate your blurred layer. And take the layer settings and put it on Soft Light. This should add to more of the glow feeling. Yours should look something like this: Now I wanted to make my fractal look even brighter because its an angel and angels are known to be very bright. So make a new layer. Fill it black. Now go to Filter> Render> Lens flare. Then blur your Lens Flare. Finally set your Lens Flare layer on Color Dodge and move it so the Lens Flare is in the middle of your fractal. Your fractal should look something like this: If you have ugly green heads take a white soft brush and brush over it. And you are done!

While you are running though photos you may find one that you absolutely hate because of the acne, well there is a way to cure that by touching up your photo. First open your photo which you want to cure the acne on. Next, click on your "Healing Brush Tool" and set your brush to the size of 5px for this tutorial. When selecting your brush size, set your "Hardness" to 100% and your "Spacing" to 25%. Now press Alt+Click The Mouse over a non-blemished area and then clicked over the blemished area to replace it. To clear up areas where two distinct colors of acne are near, set your "Hardness" to 66% so you can blend the areas more naturally. Next, click on Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation to balance the colors. I increased the Hue slider by 12 points to even out the reddish blemishes.

The photo retouching technique liquefying, can take a while especially if it is a image. It doesn't help your computer isn't powerful. I've found a great way to improve the operations. If we will work not with the whole image but with the part of it the processing can be done more quickly. 1. Select the area for further retouching but rectangle tool: 2. Copy the area: ctrl+c 3. Create a new document and paste the area with the combinations of hotkeys: ctrl+n, ctrl+v 4. Open 'Liquefy' filter menu: 5. Make the changes. Click 'Ok' 6. Select corrected area: ctrl+a 7. Copy corrected area: ctrl+c 8. Go back to the original document 9. Paste the corrected area into original document (you may wish to place it on a new layer):

A fun thing to do with patterns is to create rain. Learning how to add rain to any image is quite easy. Start by opening the image you would like to add the effect of rain to. Then create a new layer and fill it with white colour. Now go to Filter-> Noise -> Add noise. Then apply motion blur with the angle you would like to have your rain falling and change the blending option to screen. Now press ctrl + M and change the curve from the middle acc. to the intensity of the rain.

Images on layouts are just as important as the layout itself. A fun one to would be the Alert Icon: Project09 tutorials photoshop Alert Icon Step 1 Create a new layer, and select the polygonal lasso tool. Draw a triangle as shown on the left. When you have the selection, smooth it by 6. Step 2 Set the foreground color to #FFEB90 and the background to #FF7131. Select the gradient tool, then choose the radious mode. Click and drag from the top to bottom inside the selection, using the gradient tool. You should see something similar to mine on the left. Step 3 Open up the layer styles box for layer 1. Add an inner shadow with these settings... Blend Mode: Overlay Color: Black Angle: -90 Distance: 2 size: 1 Leave the rest of the settings as default. Step 4 Add an outer glow with these settings... blend mode: normal opacity: 33% size: 9px Spread: 0 Add an exclamation mark using the text tool. Set the color to black, the to size to 48, and set the font to Times New Roman. That will give us a nice thick character. Open the layer styles box for the text layer and add outer glow with these settings... Blend mode: normal opacity: 13% spread: 25 size: 8 Step 5 Create a new layer. Select the rectangular marquee tool and set it to subtract. Cut the previous selection in half, leaving the top half. Contract the selection by 2 then smooth it by 4. Fill it with (white) and set the opacity of the layer to 54%. Step 6 De select the selection by pressing ctrl+d. Create a new layer. Hold down your ctrl button and click the first layer we made, in the layer palette. This should create a selection around our triangle. Make sure your still on the top layer, which we just created. Set the foreground color to black and stroke the selection, this will create our border. Congratulations! Your finished!

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