Photoshop Tutorial: Custom Brushes

Making custom brushes is one of the easiest things in the world. Seriously! I don't know why I've read some tutorials that make it out to be this multi-step, intimidating process. Creating your own brushes helps to customize both your artwork and the Photoshop work environment. The Hard Part "But ... you said this would be easy!!" Technically, yes, but I've found that some people actually reach a little stumbling block when trying to think of what would make a good brush. Well, the short answer is ANYTHING! I've made brushes out of fuzzy leopard slippers, bananas, old trash cans, fabric swatches, dirt ... hundreds of things. It helps to have a scanner and/or a digital camera ... that really opens up your possibilities. Just a quick walk around your house might yield dozens of fun textures you can make brushes out of. But, even if you don't have either of those, you can often snurch some good textures off the internet. Try a google search for marble tile and see what comes up. Sometimes you'll get a nice big image to work with. I'm not condoning stealing someone's art photos to rip a brush off with, but if it's just a sample photo of tile, or fabric, or screen, or whatever, I think it's perfectly fine ... you'll be drastically changing the image in the next steps anyway. The Next Steps Okay, so you've got some good textures then? Right, let's make a custom brush out of 'em! Open up your image in Photoshop. The first thing you'll want to do is desaturate the image (Shift+Ctrl+U in PS7). Then cut and paste what you've got into a new layer. Now delete the background layer. Once you're down to just the single layer, mess with the brightness/contrast until you get the desired effect (this will require you to think a little bit about how you might use the brush in the future - will you be wanting to use it as a 'grunge' effect ... something more technical ... etc. etc.) [http://www.jvmediadesign.com/blog/img/tutorials/brush_tut1.jpg] ( The starting image) [http://www.jvmediadesign.com/blog/img/tutorials/brush_tut2.jpg] (The desaturated image) [http://www.jvmediadesign.com/blog/img/tutorials/brush_tut2.jpg] (After messing with brightness/contrast) The Super Easy Part Now that you've got the image looking like you want, you'll need to create it as a Photoshop brush. Go to 'Edit' then choose 'Define Brush'. Give your new brush a name and that's it!! Easy, huh? Saving All Your Hard Work

There are few things worse than having hundreds of cool brushes gone in an instant. It's happened to me on one occasion where my hard drive fried out and I didn't save all my customized Photoshop stuff. So I'm going to help you avoid any tragedies and tell you how to save your brushes. Once you've got an amount of brushes made (I personally like to create 'sets' of brushes that all kind of work together, or just happened to fit my mood that day!), go to 'Edit' then choose 'Preset Manager'. A window with all your current brushes will pop up. You can click on each little square individually. What you're going to want to do is shift+right click on the series of brushes you want to save. Once you've done that, click on 'Save Set', give the set a name and save it to your computer (of course these brush files are what you're going to want to back up!). There, you're done! How To Get Other Custom Brushes Into Your Pallet If you've found a cool brush set on the web and you'd like to use them, after you download the file (usually a zip file), you'll want to extract them to your Photoshop/Brushes directory. To load a brush set in Photoshop, open the Brushes Palette ('Windows', 'Palettes', 'Show Brushes'). Select Load Brushes from the menu on the Brush Palette and choose your file. That's it! Sherry is the Senior Designer and Creative Director at Southern California studio, JV Media Design. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sherry_Holub Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/81558

Photoshop Tutorial: Removing Images

There are numerous strategies to eliminate images by using Adobe Photoshop, however in this Photoshop tutorial I want to show you the very best way to get rid of images. I have not really come across this technique elsewhere on the net, so I thought I might share the idea with you Photoshop newbies. The beauty of this method is that it utilizes a soft brush edge meaning the edges do not seem so jagged. Anyway, the initial step you have to do is to identify the image that you want to get rid of within a photo, and set the foreground color to black, while making the background coloring white-colored. Subsequently, find the brush tool and set your master diameter at 10px with your hardness at 0%. The next thing to do is to unlock your layer, and then add a layer mask on the photo.

You then must focus in close up and make use of the brush tool to outline your picture. Hold down the shift key for the lengthy straight parts. I normally hold down shift nearly the full way through to acquire a natural smooth line. I should like to mention here that if you need to select the tinier bits of an image, then alter the dimensions of your brush to a size less than 10px. When you are done, hold down the ALT key and click on the layer mask simultaneously. Be sure you're clicking your mask on the layer and not simply the layer. Choose the Magic Wand application and be sure Contiguous is checked and that Anti-alias is unchecked. Then click on the external white-colored region which is the section you do not want to have within the snapshot. Go to the toolbar and head over to Select - Modify - Expand and adjust it to 5px. Next convert the background color to black and after that hit the delete key. It will probably still leave several very small areas which you don't want on the edges of the image, so you must go back and take the 5px brush and fill in those areas so they are black. Make sure the foreground is black whenever you are doing this. You can hold down Option and then click simultaneously on your layer mask itself to get back and fourth to view the actual image. Once you have eventually completed cutting it out, just hold down Option and click simultaneously on your layer mask and you will have finalized. You have just managed to eliminate a graphic applying adobe Photoshop, so I really hope that you found these Photoshop tips for beginners helpful. If you need any help about how to Learn Adobe Photoshop then why not get immediate access to these Beginners Photoshop Tips that show exactly how you can learn Photoshop in under 2 hours. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Feildman Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6609405

Photoshop Tutorial: Can you make money?

You most likely already know that Adobe Photoshop is great for making your digital and online pictures look more professional. But do you know how to make money with Photoshop? Learn how to use Photoshop to make a profit. With the growing prominence of digital photos, photo-editing software like Adobe Photoshop has grown in usage and popularity.

Learning Photoshop, however, is not easy. You really need to dedicate yourself to learning the ins and outs of the software. More than technical skill, you need to be creative if you want to excel with Photoshop. Any good Photoshop tutorial will inform how to edit your images, how to add attractive framing and borders, and the way you can work with different layers and masks to give your images that professional look. What standard tutorials don't tell you is that you can actually use Photoshop to make some money. Nonetheless, learning to harness the power of Photoshop can be very rewarding. Mastering the visual graphics realm of Photoshop can give you livable income. Strong editing and creative skills in Photoshop can open career possibilities for you, whether you want to do it on a full-time basis or as a part-time business. Here are some of the various ways you can use Photoshop to generate an income; 1. Start a photo editing service. One possible business you can start is to offer digital picture editing and image optimization services. You basically take the client's less than perfect digital photo and turn it into a masterpiece. As a "photo doctor," you can remove unwanted people and objects from a photograph, insert someone or something into a photograph, repair over- or under-exposed photos, convert colored photos to black and white (and vice versa), or do something as basic as removing red-eye from photos. You can also do color correction, background change, contrast adjustment, and size enlargement. The key is to offer high quality work at reasonable prices. 2. Write Photoshop tutorials. You can write and sell your tutorial to article sites or article directories, anywhere from $10 to $100 depending on the length and quality of your tutorial. Be ready to write at least a 1,000 words tutorial with detailed and step-by-step screenshots. Examples of tutorial topics could include photo effects/manipulation, contemporary web layout design, special effects or filter effects. You can use sites such as eHow.com, or find freelance job postings from sites needing content on Photoshop. 3. Create a tutorial site and earn through advertising. You can also create your own blog or website where you publish the tutorials you write and monetize the site through advertising. You can use contextual advertising links such as Google AdSense, use a banner-advertising network such as BurstMedia, or a combination of various advertising models and networks. 4. Create video tutorials. You can also earn by creating video versions of your Photoshop tutorials. You can monetize it via advertising, or by joining advertising programs such as the YouTube Partner Program. Are you can sell your tutorials from a website through popular third-party programs such as Clickbank or Plimus. If you are looking for some expert Photoshop Tutorials then visit http://www.photoshopwarrior.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rafin_O'Hara Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6357751

Photoshop Tutorial: Hidden Secrets!

Whether you're just starting out with Photoshop or you're a seasoned pro, it's likely you've experienced instances where you wished a certain action was easier to do. This article will provide you with a few tips to consider as you explore Photoshop. Keep an Eye Out for Tutorials: Is there a specific technique or command that's giving you a lot of trouble? In cases like this, sometimes it's simply not enough to consult the help file or ask questions online. Fortunately, you can find literally thousands of video tutorials that provide everything from shortcuts to the latest techniques on how to shade and texture.

Keep Keyboard Shortcuts Firmly in Mind: You would be surprised at just how many users waste significant amounts of time struggling with the mouse. There are thousands of keyboard commands that make copying, pasting, switching layers, undo an action, create a new file, and more. Using these commands may feel a bit strange at first, but over time they'll become as natural as any point, click, or drag command. Keep an Eye Out for Original Downloads: Are you sick of the default tools that Photoshop provides you with? Whether you want to learn how to use a new tool or you want to give your creations an original new twist, there are thousands of fonts, brushes, and more for prices that won't break your budget. Regardless of what you pick, you'll be able to enjoy the novelty of using brushes, fonts, and textures that other users may not necessarily have. Newer is Not Always Better: There are some users who simply must have the latest version of Photoshop. However, if you'd like to simplify your experience, there's no sin in using a version that's a year or two behind. Keeping up with all of the latest features, extras, and downloads can be an enormous pain, especially if you're just learning. While some of the newer features may not always be compatible with older versions of Photoshop, if you're the type of no nonsense user who simply wants quality photo editing software without the bells and whistles, feel free to check out an earlier version. Don't Be Afraid to Alter the Default Settings: There are many small things you can do that make Photoshop a bit more user friendly. For example, performing simple tasks such as color coding menu bars, changing the shape of the cursor, or creating options for showing and hiding menu boxes can do wonders for speeding up your work. Along with allowing you to access commands quickly, altering the default settings allows you to customize Photoshop in a way that suits you the best. If you find that your alterations don't suit, it's a simple matter to change the program so that it displays its factory settings once more. Photoshop can be one of your most valuable business tools. By following these tips and more, you will be able to do your best to take advantage of this amazing software program. Rick Valence is a digital camera repair specialist at C.R.I.S. Camera Services in Chandler, Arizona. Along with being a camera and photography enthusiast, Rick enjoys camera repair blogging in his spare time and traveling around the world to find exotic regions and experiences to photograph. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rick_Valence Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5192301

Photoshop Tutorial: White Teeth

Open the image in Photoshop, preferably in a JPEG format. The first step towards creating pearly white teeth is highlighting the area i.e. the teeth using the Lasso tool. Now go to the vertical menu bar, and choose the Dodge tool. This is used to brighten any part of a photograph or image. Using the dodge tool will brighten up the selected area (the teeth) in the image. The Dodge tool is an excellent option that can be used to whiten the eyes, teeth or other areas on your image that you want lightened. The next step involves brushing up the teeth, literally. Go to the brush drop down menu and choose a fuzzy brush. Ensure that the size is optimum as working with a brush that is too small or too large can impact the overall quality of your image. Try choosing a size as accurate as possible, to get a balanced and natural effect.

Select 50% exposure as it renders natural brightness that goes well with most images. Now move the Dodge tool evenly over the teeth to whiten them. You can reduce the exposure if you feel the teeth are looking 'unnaturally' white. Use the 'magnifying glass' icon in the toolbar to zoom in to the area you are working on. This allows you to take a closer look at the area and then run the brush accordingly over the teeth. Use slow movements without releasing your mouse, and run your brush as many times as you want till the desired whiteness is achieved. If you feel you have overdone the whitening, you can fix it easily. Click Edit >Step backwards and you will go one tone lighter, or you can use the 'Fade Dodge tool' in the Edit section to fade the entire whitening effect. You can set this up as per your needs and preferences. Ensure that there is no unevenness in the selected area, and you haven't left out any patches that might look odd in the final product. The teeth should look evenly brightened and any spots or unevenness must be corrected. Once the required brightness and whitening is achieved, you need to desaturate the picture. Select the 'Desaturate' tool to even out the entire area on which you have used the dodge tool. This is just one of the many ways to whiten teeth in a natural and simple way. To learn more of such techniques and methods, you will need to enroll for a Photoshop tutorial or course and gain complete understanding of the various facets of Photoshop. If you want to learn more Photoshop insider secrets then please visit http://www.photoshopwarrior.com and be sure to sign up for our mailing list. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rafin_O'Hara Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6501347

Photoshop Tutorial: Fixing Skin Color

A lot of common issues that I see with photos are that the skin color always seems to be off a little. In the photos that I see, the reds seem to take over the skin color areas of the person that is being photographed. In this tutorial you are going to learn how to get the skin color back to normal without affecting the entire image. To begin with, you are going to need some basic Photoshop knowledge to accomplish this fix. The only things that we are going to be dealing with to fix the skin color in a picture are the new adjustment layers and layer masks. That is all that is needed to do this simple, yet effective fix. The first thing that you need to do is to choose a picture that you want to fix the skin color on and open in Photoshop. I do want to warn you that this will not totally fix photos that the skin color is off really bad. You only want to use the fix for photos that have a slight to moderate problem.

The next step is to make a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on top of your original picture. You can do this by clicking on the icon below the layers that looks like a half colored in circle, and clicking on Hue/Saturation. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation window and make it on its own new layer. Next, with the Hue/Saturation window still open, you want to determine which color is overriding your skin color. Like I said previously, I seem to have the problem with the reds, so I am going to choose the reds for my picture. You can choose the color that you need to in order to fix the skin color in your picture. You can choose the color using the drop down menu in the Hue/Saturation window. Next, take the Saturation slider and slide it to the left until the skin color looks pretty good, or the best that you can get it without looking fake. Don't worry about the other parts of the picture right now. Just concentrate on the skin color. We will fix the background colors next. Once you are satisfied with your skin color, click OK to close out of the Hue/Saturation window, and you will see your new layer above your original picture. If you notice though, the adjustment that you made affected the entire image. To get that back restored to normal, click on the layer mask part of the new layer, and grab your brush tool. Make sure that your foreground color is set to black, and you have a large enough brush so that you are not brushing the background back a long time. Now, using black, brush in the parts of the photo that you want to restore back to normal. I usually brush in the whole picture except the skin areas that I wanted to fix. This gives me the most realistic look. You are now done with the Photoshop tutorial on how to fix skin color in a picture. If you found this article helpful, be sure to check out other great tutorials at Tutorials4You [http://www.toponlineprograms.com/fixskincolor.html] Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Hillman Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/584652

Photoshop Tutorial : How to color black and white photos

Have you been scratching your head trying to figure out how to color old black and white or sepia tone photos? I found a couple of old black and white photos of my grandparents, and I decided to bring the photos to life with this neat Photoshop technique. My grandma was so psyched about it that she made some delicious cookies for me! Ok, without further ado, here's the step by step process for coloring black and white photos. Impress your grandma/mother/girlfriend/what have you, and who knows? They might reward you with some cookies too!

1. Open an old black and white or sepia tone photo in Photoshop. Next, go over to tools and select Edit in Quick Mask Mode (alternately hit Q on the keyboard). 2. Select the Brush Tool (B) and start painting the photo. You will notice that the default color when painting in Quick mask mode is green, that is ok, just proceed with the painting process. Remember, don't go crazy by painting all over the photo! Just paint one particular area at a time. Let's say you want to color the eyes, simply paint the eyes only. Save the whole face, lips and clothing for later. 3. Once you have painted the area that you wish to color, hit Q on the keyboard again to select Edit in Standard Mode. You should see selection lines around the border of the photo as well as the area that you have painted. That's ok though, just go over Select > Inverse or ctrl + shift + I on the keyboard. This will make the selection around the photo go away, leaving only the selection around the area that you want to color intact. 4. Go to Select > Feather (alt + ctrl + D) and feather the selection to make it nice and smooth. Choose the feather radius between 3 to 5 pixels. 5. Go over to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or ctrl+ U. This will open up the Hue/Saturation menu. Be sure to tick on the Colorize check box on the lower right hand corner. 6. Now you can proceed to color the photo by adjusting the hue, saturation and lightness sliders. You can also get rid of the selection when coloring, by going over to View > Extras (ctrl + H). Remember its all about experimentation, so if you want get a skin tone color for example, all you need to do is tweak the hue and saturation sliders a little bit to get the desired color. 7. Repeat the steps on other areas of the photo. Alright so that is how you color a black and white or sepia tone photographs in Photoshop. Beginners might find this Photoshop tutorial a little complicated, but rest assured that after a few tries, it's a total breeze. Give it a go! Ghaazi Ismail is a Photoshop fanatic and has been a user of this amazingly fun application for over 7 years. Initially he had some problems understanding the basics of Photoshop. A visual learner by nature, he managed to massively improve his Photoshop skills after watching a collection of easy to follow video based tutorials. Visit http://easyphotoshopvids.blogspot.com to learn more. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ghaazi_Ismail

Great Tips for Photoshop Beginners

Photoshop tutorials is the introductory course on Photoshop . You'll learn the ins and outs of getting the most from the course and a general overview of the Photoshop for the Web product. You'll view and mimic the Photoshop tutorials for saving files, displaying them and using the cursors. You'll learn about Adobe Photoshop transparencies, gamuts, units, rulers, grids and guides. You'll learn to use plug ins and scratch Photoshop disks. You'll be taught the basics of Photoshop memory and image caches. You'll learn the basics. You'll become familiar with screen areas, layers and their styles, the management of Photoshop assets, actions, droplets, and the creation of new images. You'll learn how to open and grab images, how to blend modes and how to use and understand the differences between vector and bitmap graphics.

The techniques and tools that make Photoshop such a great product are part of the next set of tutorials. Now is when you'll learn navigation, beginning and intermediate painting, drawing, creating shapes, and beginning and advanced selections. You'll learn about filling, cropping and clone modifications, as well as modifying through sampling, annotation and retouching. Now is when you become proficient with Internet delivery and architecture and learn about the origins and behavior of the Internet and the World Wide Web. You learn the meaning and reasoning behind the structure of Internet pages, and how to manage and use graphic architecture and animation. Next on the Photoshop tutorials agenda are the lessons about optimization and download times, compatibility for browsers and platforms, browser offsets, JavaScript, table backgrounds, absolute positionings, resolution of monitors, interpolations and shapes of images. Web color is an important part of using Adobe Photoshop. You'll need to know about the mode of colors, how to pick them and specify them, how to choose color that is safe for the Web, what monitor bit depth is all about, the way the browser can compensate for colors that are missing and how to save it for the Internet. The use of type is also part of these Web Photoshop tutorials. You'll learn the various types of type, and take beginning and intermediate lessons in setting graphics type. An overview of image formatting will be part of the Photoshop tutorials, as well as several training CDS for Gif. Included in these are the table for color lookup, LZW compression, dithering, algorithms for reducing color, transparencies, matte and the avoidance of halos. JPEG is part of the tutorials, both the general overview and saving. As part of the Web Photoshop tutorials you'll learn to work with photos, create backgrounds and layer styles. Master The Basics Of Adobe Photoshop With My Easy To Use Photoshop Video Tutorial. For More Information Visit: http://www.forphotoshop.com David Peterson is a writer for http://www.forphotoshop.com which is an excellent place to find photoshop links, articles and Information. For more information go to: Photoshop Tutorials David Peterson is a writer for http://www.forphotoshop.com which is an excellent place to find photoshop links, articles and Information. For more information go to:Photoshop Tutorials Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Davidson Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/437217